Your mom is not the only one who wants you to kick your porn habit.
Matthew Nolan '07 and Marshall Smith '07 have joined her and recently begun a project that hopes to help Dartmouth pornography addicts quit cold turkey.
The focus of the project, entitled Endporn, is "to make the Dartmouth campus more aware about the issue of pornography," Nolan said, and to offer a support network for pornography addicts -- not to eliminate the dissemination of pornography on campus, as its name suggests.
"We are trying to develop a help group for people who are addicted to pornography and would like to stop," Nolan said.
Although Nolan and Smith began advertising Endporn over two weeks ago, only a few students have expressed interest in participating in the support group so far. Consequently, the format and the meeting times for the group have yet to be determined.
Smith said, however, that he still has a preliminary vision of the meeting group in mind.
"We'd like to keep it to a group small enough where everyone feels comfortable to open up -- 10 to 15 would be optimal," Smith said.
Only in its third week of existence, the Endporn project has already dealt with a bout of controversy.
Nolan and Smith said that they have received a handful of negative feedback regarding the posters that they distributed around campus to spark student interest on the issue.
One Endporn poster featured two females and a message that read: "We Want Boyfriends Who Are Into Hardcore Porn." Another wallpaper showed a female leaning next to a wall and the headline, "I'm Looking For A Guy Who Is Going To View Me As A Piece Of Meat."
"Our posters were meant to be eye-catching and thought provoking," Nolan said.
However, some students were critical of the posters because they perceived them as being obscene, Nolan and Smith said.
The posters have also created some confusion around campus, Nolan said, because they contain links to xxxchurch.com -- a Christian anti-porn site.
Nolan and Smith are not affiliated with the Internet site.
Nolan said that they decided to link to xxxchurch.com simply because they approve of its similar message.
Despite their involvement in Navigators and their approval of the xxxchurch.com site, Nolan and Smith downplayed the importance of Christianity in their message.
"We don't want to convert anybody or change anybody's mind, in fact we wouldn't even call the group 'Christian,'" Nolan said. "From any perspective, pornography is not a wholesome thing. Would you tell your mom about watching it? The answer is no because it's a shameful thing."
Although many disagreed with Nolan's assessment that pornography is a moral dilemma, various students still supported the notion of pornography addict support group.
Alisha Levine '07 applauded the concept of a group dedicated towards curbing pornography viewer-ship because of her personal distaste for pornography.
"I find it kind of disgusting," Levine said.
Other students say that Endporn's aim was overly ambitious and did not support the project.
"I don't think porn watching is something that someone really needs to be addressed unless they're watching it 24 hours a day," Nan Wang '06 said. "I think [Nolan and Smith] should just let people be."
Despite similar religious backgrounds, Nolan and Smith said that they were ultimately drawn into the project along different paths.
Nolan said he became interested in the project when he recognized a high frequency of Internet pornography queries among college students.
"The number one college search query is always porn," Nolan said.
Smith, on the other hand, said that he had considered such a project since he was in high school.
"Through high school, I just like any other guy had problems growing up with porn," Smith said
Prior to enrolling at Dartmouth, Smith was involved with Student Ministries at his local church in Texas. As a high school student, Smith also led Bible studies at his high school and church and participated in church missions in Guatemala and Belize.
Nolan was raised in a Christian household outside of Philadelphia. " I had always been involved with my church youth group," Nolan said.
