This is one of the hardest things to admit to anyone — a scholar, a spouse, even yourself in a quiet moment. The shame around it tends to be louder than the habit itself, and that shame usually does the opposite of what it promises: instead of stopping the pattern, it drives it underground, where it's harder to interrupt.
Allah's instruction to lower the gaze isn't framed as an impossible standard reserved for the pure. It's framed as ordinary practice, for ordinary believers, precisely because He knew this would be a real struggle for real people. Struggling with this doesn't put you outside that guidance — it puts you exactly in the position it was revealed for.
What it can look like
Mental & emotional
A guilt-relief-guilt cycle that repeats faster than you can reason your way out of it
Using it to numb stress, loneliness, or boredom rather than out of genuine desire
Self-loathing afterward that somehow doesn't stop the pattern next time
Changes in behaviour
Needing more, or more extreme, content over time to get the same effect
Hiding it from a spouse, family, or anyone close to you
Repeated attempts to stop that don't hold
It affecting prayer, relationships, or how present you are with people
Why it happens
Easy, constant access online can turn an occasional curiosity into a compulsive loop far faster than it would have a generation ago — this isn't a uniquely modern moral failure, it's a modern accessibility problem meeting an old human vulnerability. It often has less to do with desire itself and more to do with what it's covering for: loneliness, anxiety, stress, or simply not having anywhere else the feeling can go.
From the Quran
قُل لِّلْمُؤْمِنِينَ يَغُضُّوا مِنْ أَبْصَارِهِمْ وَيَحْفَظُوا فُرُوجَهُمْ ۚ ذَٰلِكَ أَزْكَىٰ لَهُمْ
“Tell the believing men to lower their gaze and guard their private parts. That is purer for them.”
24:30
A dua for this
اللَّهُمَّ إِنِّي أَسْأَلُكَ الْهُدَى وَالتُّقَى وَالْعَفَافَ وَالْغِنَى
Allahumma inni as'aluka al-huda wat-tuqa wal-'afafa wal-ghina
“O Allah, I ask You for guidance, piety, chastity, and self-sufficiency.”
Sahih Muslim 2721
Things you can try
Do
Put website/app blocking in place at the router or device level — remove the access rather than relying only on willpower
Tell one person you trust who won't shame you — a friend, a counsellor, or an imam known for handling this kind of thing with compassion
Notice what you're actually feeling right before the urge hits — that feeling is usually the real thing to address
Build a specific replacement for the moment the urge shows up — a walk, a call, dhikr, anything that isn't just "resist harder"
Don't
Don't let shame push this into total secrecy — secrecy is what lets the pattern keep running unexamined
Don't rely on willpower alone against something designed to be accessible in seconds — change the access, not just the intention
Don't wait for marriage, or a milestone, to assume it'll resolve itself — patterns don't fix themselves with time alone
What does this bring up for you today?
If you need more support
If this is affecting your relationships, worship, or daily functioning, NHS talking therapies (self-referral, 18+) can help through CBT with the anxiety or compulsivity underneath it. A GP can also refer you to specialist support.
The Prophet ﷺ said: “Make use of medical treatment, for Allah has not made a disease without appointing a remedy for it.” (Abu Dawud)