How would you answer rationalizations to look at cartoon(or video game) porn?

Hi everyone. I will give some details of my personal struggles and progress but you can just skip down to the big bold letters with the question if you want. I have been battling this with some degree of success or at least progress for a few years but my progress seems to have plateaued. A few years ago(4-5 years I think) when I finally started to make real progress, I was in the habit of looking at porn or playing pornographic video/flash games for hours a day(even all day or staying up at night and planning out my days to maximise the amount of porn). In those days, I was faced with strong temptations at least every hour and tons of intrusive sexual thoughts. Thankfully, things have gotten much easier so now most intrusive thoughts or temptations are shot down pretty easily and it is now mostly a spiritual problem for me rather than something that has any obvious impact on my life. I am not currently doing nearly as well as I could or even as well as I have done at some points in the last few years. I seem to be screwing up once or twice a month(which generally means things escalating from some curiosity to PMO or at least pornographic/sexualized stuff for 0.5-2 hours before I come to my senses)

One thing that I think I am missing is a strong defense or reason against looking at pornagraphic video game content(either sexual/skimpy/nude content in the games or looking at fan-made sexual content). My defense against looking at porn with real women(which includes actresses on HBO, etc) is very strong or at least it has been a long time since I have intentionally seen it. My conscience and inhibitions have been strengthened against ogling real women since the consequences seem more real, I see it as somehow wronging them(it basically feels sacrilegious or at least very serious at this point). I am still sometimes tempted by curiosity to look up pictures or videos with real female nudity but my consicence is strongly against it and I can resist(I do not want to wrong those women).

I am at a point where I will almost always resist a temptation that I know is harmful or dishonoring to others since I have regained my sense of integrity.

My weakness is female characters, drawings, or so on that do not involve real women. Let's just call it "cartoon nudity"(even though in my case it is mostly games are not really "cartoony"). When I am vulnerable and about to "relapse" or whatever we would call it, my mind tricks me with curistity or pushes me out of frustration to look up that kind of stuff and my defenses are weak in this area because I am ogling video game characters or "cartoons" and they don't have dignity like real women. It doesn't feel like I am wronging anyone but myself(and of course it feels like something in my own interests when I am under attack by temptation), and I can't even think of very strong theological reasons not to do so(other than the fact that it is an addiction to me and some ideas that I will share).

So I am here asking... How would you respond to the rationalization "It is not such a big deal to look at cartoon/video-game porn, since there are no real women involved and nobody is being objectified/exploited or so on." ?

I do have a few responses to this rationalization of mine to hopefully get things started.

1. In the past, giving myself permission to look at cartoon nudity has inevitably led me to seek pornographic pictures/video of real women or for my standards to be lowered, so that is a reason to avoid it even if it were harmless in itself.

2. It has the same consequences that porn has on a non-moral level at least(not that I am convinced it is permissible to look at cartoon porn).

3. I want to overcome this.


But I still don't have a strong enough foundation to refute those rationalizations.

 

I would love to hear some more philosophical or theological reasons for this. I have an idea or two of how it could be wrong to look at cartoon porn but I don't have time to write more right now.

 

Thank you for your replies, they got me thinking. Something that I have been thinking about is that it is wrong because it is basically like the same old fantasy of sexuality that is against God's will and our own highest good. Even though I don't fantasize about sex with those characters(I just look and don't consciously imagine sexual acts with them), it is still a sort of fantasizing. It is basically some part of me rejecting God's design for sexuality. This isn't a conscious thing because I like God's design for sexuality but that part of me isn't aligned with it yet. The frustrating thing is that I seem to "conveniently" forget all this philosophical stuff in those times that lead up to PMO. There is a disconnect between my beliefs and feelings about it. Like I think it is just as bad as stealing if not worse, but I am not tempted to steal. Or to use an extreme example, I am not tempted to grope women or to even fantasize about it because I know that would be harmful. Porn with real women has become pretty much the same way in my mind/heart(not that I am never tempted or that I never give into temptation to look at cleavage or so on). So empathy or compassion and respect for others are strong motivation to not look or to snap out of looking at real women in a sexual way.

One other thing I just thought of that may make me more averse to "cartoon" nudity/skimpiness would be the fact that much if not most of it is drawn(or modeled, in the case of 3D stuff in video games) by dudes. So basically, I am getting off on something from the imagination of some man, or a kid(boy or girl), that weirds me out if I think about it(even if the artist/3d-modeler presents themselves as a female, you never know)! Plus, even if the artist was a woman, that would be like the equivalent to "phone sex", "sexting", or so on. So there is still a human element to consider. I have also considered in the past that those video game artists are very possibly using real nude women(in pictures I assume) as inspiration or that a real nude picture is modified to fit on the video game 3d model. For those that don't understand, when making video games the designers "model" a polygon for a character or object (AKA a "mesh") and then wrap/fit a 2D picture(AKA a "texture") around it sort of like gift wrap, and those pictures are sometimes real photographs or photoshoped versions of real photographs rather than being drawn up from scratch. The question is how to remember this human element when I actually need to. Maybe I just need to remind myself.

 

Yes, and I know that when I am in a good state of mind but temptation makes it seem like it is in my own interest to pursue the curiosity/temptation. I generally have high self-regard and I wouldn't want to do it if I were realistic about the consequences when under temptation. The power of being motivated for the sake of others is that even when there is the illusion of it being self-serving, I don't want to do it at the expense of others.