Overcoming Porn Addiction: One Young Woman’s Story

Freelance writer Anne Jackson shared her struggle with porn addiction in a recent issue of Relevant, a magazine of spirituality and popular culture for Christians in their teens and twenties. In the article “Dirty Girls: The New Porn Addicts”, Jackson investigates her unexpected fascination with porn:

Growing up the daughter of a Baptist preacher-man, I was the 16-year-old poster child for naiveté. My family had just moved from a small, secluded west Texas town to Dallas, and within a matter of days in my new residence, I was bombarded by the prevalent sexual culture of a big city.

Strip clubs and billboards lined the highways. There was a giant sex store just a few miles from our house. Ignited teenage hormones and the temptation to give in to my curiosity proved to be a dangerous combination.

My parents and brother were fast asleep as I connected to the internet one night. I searched for the word “sex” and within seconds had access to a sea of well endowed platinum blondes doing things with guys (and girls) that I’d never seen before….

I graduated from high school my junior year and moved out when I was only 17 years old. I had my own space with my own computer, and all the free time in the world. I’d go to work (at a local Christian bookstore), come home, and look at porn almost every night.

I frequented erotic chat rooms, watched movies and browsed through hundreds and hundreds of pictures. Soon my porn binges started affecting my performance at work and my relationships.

Of course I never mentioned my struggle to anyone. Looking at porn was typical, even expected, for guys but a girl? A girl who likes porn? …

The cycle continued for years. Binging, feeling guilty and swearing I’d never do it again, only to give in a few days later. I prayed for God to take the desires away. That’s when I realized it was more than just looking at pictures.

I couldn’t stop thinking about it, and I had more than enough pictures saved in my memory to reflect back on, even if I was able to stay off the computer for a while.

So, why do women struggle with this? Although stereotypically we’re not as visually stimulated as our male counterparts, we’re not blind either. There is something about a woman’s body that is beautiful and mysterious and even forbidden, and that toys with our psyche and tempts us.

At least for me, viewing these outwardly flawless women fed a huge emotional need. I was able to put myself in the role of what I was seeing, and by doing that, it made me feel beautiful and accepted.

I was transformed into a perfect, sexy body, and I was desired and wanted. I was able to escape my own flawed physical appearance and be transformed, in my mind, to this perfect woman.

My online activities also played out in my daily life. I was engaged for about a year and cheated on my fiancée. After that, I “dated” several new guys a month, getting physically involved with them in some regard.

According to everything I had seen, to be accepted and loved meant a sexual relationship, and what girl doesn’t need to be accepted and loved? I gave so many pieces of my body and my heart away during those years.

When I was 21, I was in a serious car accident that caused me to reevaluate how I was living my life. At the time, I was pretending like there was no God, except for when I needed His forgiveness, and only then would I come running back to Him. After the wreck, something finally clicked, and I realized that love does not equal sex.

It was at that moment when I decided to turn around–to change my thinking–and then my actions would eventually (and hopefully) follow. I had to say goodbye to my online habits, and to my offline ones as well.

Read the whole article here.