I am a woman addicted to porn – J’s story
I have always thought that men would be the ones addicted to porn. Well, it has happened to me, a woman. No one knows about my ’secret’. I am too ashamed and embarrassed to talk to anyone about this.
I found this website as my porn use has escalated beyond all control, and I need to share my burden.
It all started with chatrooms (I have a very stressful job, and I thought this was a harmless and perfect release). I then started being sent pictures, before I knew it, I was using porn daily.
In a typical week, I plan my whole time around watching/masturbating to porn. I spend 2-3 hours every evening after work, than at the weekend, I have huge binge sessions, lasting many hours.
I kept a record of last weekend. Saturday up at 8am, straight onto porn, this lasted til 2pm. Had a shower, food then more porn from 4pm until midnight. 14 Hours ! Sunday up at 9am, same again, porn until 3pm. Then had to go out shopping, back @ 6pm, food then porn from 7pm. As I had Monday off, stayed up till 2am ! Another 13 hours ! That is longer than I work during the day.
I feel so hopeless, that I can’t control this (this has been going on for 5 years now). I have spent tens of thousands of dollars on toys, dvds (I have hundreds), websites etc. All to satisfy my craving.
All my friends think that I have a nice lifestyle, good job, nice flat, car etc. If only they knew how empty I felt inside.
I understand the emotions that are shown here, as I have experienced them all. I have tried to stop, but all to no avail, it has me in a vice like grip and refuses to let go.
Thanks for letting me share this with you, even though I cannot kick this addiction, I hope this will help me understand what I am….. a porn addict.
Thank you J for sharing your experience with such frank honesty. It’s common to think that only guys struggle with pornography. We might assume that only men can be sufficiently turned on by internet images, become obsessed with collecting porn DVDs, or fall into the trap of depending upon porn to pass the time. These are all myths, of course; absolutely anyone can find themselves in the trap.
Many readers here will be able to relate to the ‘vice like grip’ of a porn habit. We condition ourselves into pattern matching, over and over again: stressful day at work – check, feeling lonely – check, time on our hands at the weekend – check.
The habit exists through our expectations too. We know that porn will distract us and pass the time. We know that we won’t just watch it for 10 minutes. We know that we’ll feel numb and empty during and afterwards. We fully expect the little reward and the miserable comedown that leads us to do it all over again. We even know that we are wasting our lives.
So addiction results from this combination of pattern matching and expectation. That’s the vice like grip.
But let’s touch on some more myths about porn addiction:
- Hopeless, weak or just plan bad people get hooked on porn
- If you don’t have enough willpower, you will never be able to stop
- Escaping from porn is impossibly difficult
- If you tried to stop and failed, that proves you can’t do it
- Porn addiction is a disease or an illness. You are stuck with it
For most of these damaging, suffocating myths, the reverse is true.
- Quitting isn’t about sheer willpower
- Cutting out porn doesn’t have to be difficult at all. In fact, nature ensures that ‘withdrawal symptoms’ become milder
- The vast majority of people who busted their unwanted habits made many attempts first
- The addiction or habit is external to you; it does not define you
If you would like me to elaborate or expand on any of the above, I’d be very happy to. Absolutely anyone can kick this addiction, and that includes you J. Help and resources are out there, and you will build motivation and confidence.
ps. You may also be interested in anonymously sharing your story with the BBC Sunday Surgery – the producers would be escpecially interested in hearing from a woman’s perspective.
Hi J,
Gosh, I can really relate to your story a great deal. I too used to have a porn dependency almost matching your’s and I used to feel terrible about myself too. I had a non existent self esteem due to my use of porn & I used to suffer the most terrible migraine headaches for days afterwards as a consequence. First of all I would suggest what you have ISNT a porn addiction but what you have is a porn habit, a porn compulsion. My views & Jason’s are slightly different but we do agree on many of the same things when it comes to the problem of porn.
J, I had a porn dependency from about 14 years old to recently (now I am 50) I finally was able to no longer feel obsessed or driven to use porn after I worked on it with a therapist over time. What changed everything for me was that I uncovered the deeper reasons I used porn, and as a consequence of several extremely powerful insights gained through the therapy I saw that what had happened to me many years ago in my childhood was not my fault. I had been blaming myself & hated myself, I had an enormous amount of unexpressed anger, rage and finally grief. After these insights & after letting out some of my pain I no longer felt the need for porn. I have truly lost interest in porn but I also still feel quite vulnerable to its potential pull, so now I have a safety net & I use an Internet filtering system to keep me away from porn sites on the Internet. I used the free service offered by OpenDNS based in the USA I find it a really good comfort to know I can still use the WWW without the worry that I might be exposed to porn that I don’t want.
**J, perhaps you are using porn to numb out something else in your life, something deep down that you yourself haven’t been ready to face. It could be something deep down inside you from your past (personal history), an event that you haven’t come to terms with, it could even just be as simple as you not being able to face the sheer loneliness or emptiness & pain of your current life circumstances. Either way J my guess is that you are using porn as a pain killer a way to stop yourself facing that which you cannot face or feel. Actually J my heart really really goes out to you because I know how lonely & isolating just using porn so much can be.
J, what helped me was one to one therapy or counseling, Go and get something nurturing for yourself J it could be something very simple like having somebody give you a haircut, go & get yourself a body massage I used to find that this really put me back intouch with myself more than anything else. J, just go and try too do activities that take you away from your computer & the screen. go for a walk in the sunshine, go see a friend (NOT virtual friends) talk face to face. Make a nice meal, anything that takes your energy away from porn or even thinking about porn. The key to letting go of porn is getting re-connected with your real self and your real emotions & eventually re-connected with your real healthy positive sexual energy too (not compulsive jacking off).
J, if I can let go of porn (I’m nobody special ) then you can too, there is hope J I’m sure you can. You just need to find a way to make that start.
Best Regards Alex
I think it is quite helpful if using porn is seen in a wider context. If you remove most of the moralizing views about porn out of the picture for a minute. Then porn is no better & no worse than many other problematic things used in our culture (society), porn is no better & no worse than Alcohol (drink), Illegal drugs such as Cannabis, Cocaine,etc. No better or worse than the compulsive use of eating too much food (food-aholic’s ) or compulsive shopping (shopa-holic) or compulsive spending (spenda-holic) or compulsive gambler (gambla-holic). All these things can be done at one level in moderation without them becoming dangerous or a problem but we also live in a culture were the emphasis is on instant fixes (like a kind of drug habit). The culture we live in almost encourages us to become dependent on these fixes. I asked myself why this was the case & the answer is that materialism is shallow & does NOT have the means to truly for-fill us deep down. It is our lack of emotionally enriching relationships with others, it is the lack of time to connect substantially with another person or with family or friends that leaves us impoverished. Whilst most modern western people have more material wealthy than ever before I would suggest they have never felt so disconnected & distant from each other than ever before. The Internet only gives the illusion of intimacy it does not give you actual intimacy, it is intimacy that is lacking in many peoples lives, & thats a very sad conclusion to reach frankly but I really believe this is the case. We are all losers for this.
omg im a 19yr girl and have had many weekends like that, hate it every time. porn turns me on and makes me feel sick at the same time. i dont have a boyfriend but none of my friends would believe that i cant stop watching porn. when i m on the internet, nothing else interests me like porn does. facebook and movies and gossip sites for a bit but i always go to porn sites and thats where i stay. dont know why im like this.
Hi Helen,
I think deep down you do know why you use porn. I think we use porn as escapism from the boring mundane realities of our lives. And because our lives don’t match up with the so called celebrities we see in the media & on TV. Our lives are not perfect or jet-setting, our bodies are far from being like those that movie stars have or sports personalities have. We constantly try to compare & match ourselves with such figures but we always end up feeling that we don’t match up.
May be we use porn because we are bored with the way our life style has turned out, maybe we use porn to avoid seeing & feeling how empty we feel inside, may be we use porn because we dont feel loved or wanted or desired by another person, perhaps we use porn to try and fill the void due to a lack of intimacy or a sense of emotional connection with someone else.
My guess is that porn or using porn is NOT the real problem here, the porn compulsion is just a symptom of something else. Using porn is a only a sign that we are out of balance with ourselves. Sadly, the more we use porn the more we stay in that imbalanced condition. However, the opposite is also true though. By avoid porn or trying as much as possible to avoid using porn you give yourself a chance to re-connect with your inner self & your emotions too. Given half a chance the body & mind will re-balance itself, we can heal our self esteem too in the same process. It just takes willingness to at least try.
There is help for women who struggle with sex addictions – I went to the Bethesda Workshop in Nashville, TN and got great help in overcoming my porn addiction as a female!
http://bethesdaworkshops.org/
How to solve or heal a pattern of porn use that has become unhealthy, obsessive, compulsive depends upon what you perceive (understand) the nature of the problem to be. Personally I DON’T think using pornography is an addiction. In fact calling something an addiction can be entirely counter productive, how can you treat something which isn’t an addiction to start with. What is commonly termed porn addiction ISN’T porn addiction in my humble opinion, porn use more accurately falls into the correct diagnosis of “Obsession”, & or “Compulsion” & or “Porn Dependency” these are all VERY different classifications and therefore the approach & methods used to healing or solving patterns of unhealthy behavior would be completely different from that of addictions. Addictions have spawned an entire industry of addiction professionals, addictive thinking & even people who have come to build there entire ego self belief around being an addict which is sad because they may well not be addict at all. In my opinion someone who has a problematic pattern of using porn would benefit more from counseling or therapy on a one on one basis than being treated by an addiction specialist.
To call something a porn addiction is just the wrong diagnosis, & it is based on wrong thinking about the nature of porn use in my opinion. And the true nature of the effects porn use has on a person at all levels.
i can relate to everything that julie says. i too have succumbed, but far far worse. again chatrooms was where it started, though it was a bit of fun at first, but over time i was on it everday, then pictures started being sent. having not been exposed to this before i found this strangely arousing. then the downward spiral started….i was drawn to more explicit chatrooms… i bought a second mobile… i gave the number out freely, so i can talk and masturbate with other men, this was a new level, but it still wasn’t enough…..i bought a webcam.. i now masturbate with complete strangers exposing myself fully. its like a drug…. while i am doing this it is so exciting.. but afterwards i cant look at myself.. i feel sick and ashamed. but i want that feeling of excitment again.. so i am drawn back like a moth to a flame.
again the time and money u waste u don’t realise… in one month alone i spent over 5000 dollars on websites,,, more and more exotic toys… and don’t even mention the dvds.. i use those to ‘relax’ when i am not online. holidays don’t even happen anymore.. i had 2 weeks in the summer off.. and all i did was stay in and masturbate in chatrooms and to porn.
where am i now…. a broken woman with no purpose in life but porn and chatrooms.. friends wonder where the bubbly outgoing linda has gone.. i blame stress at work,, but i know the real reason … i have become a slave to sex and porn.. all it took was 12 months.
Hi Linda,
The kind of behavior you are describing seems fueled mainly by a pattern of adrenaline rush (moth to the flame excitement) which is felt in the actual body & post orgasm is experienced as that inner emptiness, self recrimination, self hatred ,etc. The desire to re-experience that adrenaline rush once again ( the high) is a VERY strong pull indeed but also its so powerful that we equally totally forget just how horrible crash & down come after the event. I know how that feels I used to get the most terrible migraine headaches after viewing porn & these often lasted 3 or 4 days & no conventional pain killers would touch them (talk about self inflicted pain !!). Thus using explicit images as you describe Linda is more of a porn dependency (porn has replaced something else in your life) I would suggest, & the compulsion or obsession is also too do with the adrenaline rush, the excitement that you get.
I know this may seem a rather unconventional opinion but sometimes I think using porn is the closest thing to taking a big stick & beating ourselves up with it. In doing so we are blocking our real feelings, numbing ourselves out against our better rational judgment, we push down feelings we cannot or don’t want to face up to, we turn in on or against ourselves. In my opinion many of us use porn because we don’t love ourselves enough, if you use porn the main person that gets hurt is yourself (others get hurt indirectly perhaps).
Using porn creates many losses, lost time which you can never get back, wasted money of sites, services & DVD’s etc, terrible loss of self esteem for which there is no measure, loss of self love & self worth. Thus using porn is a means of self humiliation, it is a form of self flagellation. To put it another way happy, contented balanced people don’t need to use porn, people in happy loving relationships are not porn dependent.
just found this website and felt i had to post a comment. i’m a 31 y.o. woman and am divorced so i live on my own. i started using porn sites about 4 years ago and gradually it got worse, i needed to spend more and more time watching porn and of course the amount of time i was masturbating just kept increasing. i lost my job a year ago and that was the trigger that turned me into what i am now. i need porn the minute i wake up, sometimes i’ll wake up at 5 or 6am and i’m straight to my computer to turn the porn on, slide my dildo in and have my first orgasm of the day. i’ve got to have that first orgasm within 10-15 minutes of waking up and i’ll use two dildos and a vibrator. i spend pretty much all day watching porn and masturbating, i watch other guys and women masturbating on their cams and have a cam of my own as i love others watching me. apart from going to the shop (for batteries and to feed my 80-a day cigarette addiction!)i don’t do anything else except masturbate to porn. if i do go out of the house somewhere for a few hours i still find time to masturbate in toilets or anywhere to be honest and i take porn with me on my mobile. do i feel guilty? no, not really, even if i do spend probably 12-15 hours a day watching porn and masturbating. i couldn’t work again because there’s no way i could do a job now. that’s my story.
Hi Kerry,
Thanks for adding your comment. I just wanted to make it clear that this website isn’t about making anyone feel guilty for masturbating or watching porn. Unlike some porn addiction websites or forums, I’m not pushing any kind of moral agenda
One simple rule for defining whether someone is an ‘addict’ is no impairment, no addiction. My mission statement would be to help people who are unhappy with their porn habit and want to make some changes. For them, it feels like an impairment to enjoying their lives.
Maybe your arrival on this site suggests that this applies to you, or perhaps you are simply interested in finding out more. Either way, your account certainly highlights just how intensely compulsive this habit can be, for both men and women.
Jason
Hi Jason, i’m just interested to see how many other people are in the same situation as me. from all the camming i do and chatrooms i spend all day in i know how much porn and masturbation has taken over in alot of people’s lives. i know most people would say i need help but i don’t want to stop, all i can think about is my next orgasm, and finding other people who are as addicted as me makes me feel better, it sort of justifies it. just to give you an idea of what it’s like, my neighbour’s just been round for about an hour and i had to make an excuse for her to go because i was desperate to watch porn and masturbate again, even though i’d just had an orgasm before she came round. within seconds of the door closing i was sitting in front of my computer again, switching on the porn. so no way do i want to give it up!
hi kerry, just had to comment on your thoughts… i totally agree with what u say.. i am like u now… have to watch porn.. be in chatrooms everyday…. im fully committed to my addiction now, i see no other life for me apart from this.
hi i just wanted to say that i feel a lot better after reading what that woman had to say. i have been watching porn for about 5 years now and 3 years ago it became really bad to a point where i was missing school and because i would stay home jus to watch porn. i am a woman and 18 and still a virgin and watching porn has affected me with meeting boys to a point where i am no longer happy with any guy because i have made up a fairytale prince from watching so much porn. i never realized how badly this had affected me until now. in reading this blog i am happy to hear that stopping is very possible. i want to move on with my life