The New Porn Addicts

10 posted on February 10, 2009

POSTED IN: Blog Posts, Culture

Crystal Renaud, a blogger friend of mine, is working on a new book that addresses the relatively un-talked about subject of women addicted to pornography. Her book site, TheNewPornAddicts.com launches today.

According to some surveys (which are always hard to verify on this subject) as many as 17% of women struggle with porn addiction. Here are some more statistics from Brigham Young University:

13% of Women admit to accessing pornography at work.
70% of women keep their cyber activities secret.
Women are far more likely than men to act out their behaviors in real life (such as having multiple partners, casual sex, or affairs)
Women favor chat rooms 2X more than men.
An estimated 9.4 million women access adult web sites each month.

So if this is such a big problem why aren’t more people talking about it? I’m sure this is due in part to the social stigma associated with women and pornography. For whatever reason, our culture has commonly accepted the behavior with men but label women who struggle with the same issue as freaks, sex-addicts or worse.

Thankfully there are more women like Crystal stepping up and talking honestly about their struggles. Here’s part of Crystal’s story from her site:

As a young girl (age 11 to about 17), I struggled deeply with a pornography and sexual addiction. One that I battled in silence and very much in shame.

My addiction started out as nothing more than the curiosity of a young girl when I found a porno magazine in my older brother’s bathroom. What started out as curiosity quickly escalated to something dark and out of my control. Sin had taken over and took me down a path of what seemed like no return.

I had no friends. No passions. I had one mission and purpose in my life: pornography and adhering to my addiction. Any way I could find it, I would. And it didn’t matter where I was or what I was doing. Home, school, my friend’s houses, summer camp and yes, even church: my addiction came too.

Porn. Masturbation. Cyber Sex. Webcam Sex. Phone Sex. Anything you could think up, I watched, experienced and enjoyed. Even to the point of questioning my own sexual orientation. No matter how many times I said I would stop – I would just keep doing it.

But why? Why did I enjoy something so much and hate myself so much for doing it all at the same time?

You can read the rest of her story at TheNewPornAddicts.com.

In the meantime Crystal is looking for some help in establishing how best to communicate the far-reaching damage of this growing problem for her book. Here’s how you can help. She currently has 3 surveys on her site for women only who either are currently addicted to porn, used to struggle with an addiction or knows someone who is.

If you’re a woman who fits into any of these 3 categories would you please consider taking a few minutes to click the link and take a brief survey?

The results of the survey will be compiled and used in Crystal’s upcoming book. I have a feeling that this is a much wider-reaching issue than many of us realize. Thanks in advance for helping spread the word about these surveys via Twitter, email and on your blog.

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 10th, 2009 at 9:24 am and is filed under Blog Posts, Culture. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

9 Comments

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February 10, 2009

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1 Crystal Renaud said:

thank you, brad. amazing.
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February 10, 2009

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2 Kevin Twombly said:

great post Brad. Love that women will be able to openly find help and healing in this.

Kevin Twombly’s last blog post..I Love Prayer
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February 10, 2009

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3 Jay Brock @ Sexrev.org said:

Brad, thanks for going here.

I have had MANY conversations about this…honestly 80% of (Christian) girls don’t think other women deal with porn addiction at ALL.

How can we help?

Jay Brock @ Sexrev.org’s last blog post..1 Corinthians Deux
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February 10, 2009

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4 Zach Younkin said:

I will be passing this along and post about this on my blog…

Zach Younkin’s last blog post..Cool Videos I’ve found + Other stuff
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February 11, 2009

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5 PinkHairedGirl.net » Blog Archive » What Others Are Saying… said:

[...] Hunt Anne Jackson Brad Ruggles Brice Bohrer Carole Turner CC Almon Christy McGraw Cindy Beall Jenni Clayville Jon Nelson Luke [...]
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February 13, 2009

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6 Mike Paschal said:

Brad, this is a great post. Perfect timing for our next series and brought up some great conversation with the wife.

I love coming to this blog every day by the way. i think the only one I visit not through an RSS Reader

Mike Paschal’s last blog post..Livin On a Prayer
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February 13, 2009

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7 Brad Ruggles said:

@Mike – Thanks man, I appreciate the compliment. It was great chatting with you last night. Enjoyed the conversation.
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February 24, 2009

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8 Links, Links and more Links « Life of Younkin said:

[...] The New Porn Addicts [...]
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July 14, 2009

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9 Melissa said:

Great post! Not too many post are out there that help and support females dealing with porn addiction. Thanks for the links as well.

I am not amazed at how many people (women included) are dealing with porn addiction issues. Porn is all over the place.

Understanding porn and it’s addiction is one of the first steps to having more control in your life. Both people in a relationship need to understand porn and its addiction together.

A great resource for this purpose is a highly recommended book titled “Love and Pornography,” by Victoria Prater and Garry Prater. Their honest approach to this issue is a breath of fresh air. This book is like a healing balm for the wound of porn.

Melissa’s last blog post..superfinebooks: @_relationships_ Great book to help Porn problemsin relationships. Love and Pornography http://loveandporn.com/