Female Porn Addiction: My Story of How I Became Addicted to Porn As a Girl in Middle School and Chose to Overcome It as a 25 Year Old Ex-Porn Performer
- Anti-Porn and Anti-Prostitution Writer, Speaker and Activist
- AntiPornography.org Volunteer
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
WARNING! VERY GRAPHIC AND DISTURBING CONTENT BELOW!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I am a recovering porn addict. I am also a 25 year old woman. You might think that someone in my position would be uncommon, but with the pornography-saturated culture that kids are growing up in today, girls and young women becoming porn addicts is a more common phenomenon all the time. So in a few years this will likely (and sadly) not be unusual at all.
With the advent of the Internet, it's easier than ever for kids and teens to access extremely hardcore pornography. All it takes is a click of a mouse. So gone are the days of sneaking an older brother's or father's Playboy magazine. Now kids and teens can see almost any kind of extreme and abusive porn imaginable online for free -- any time they want and pretty much anywhere they want, including the classroom, the schoolyard and on the school bus, via their smart phones, game consoles, and portable DVD players.
My problem with pornography started innocently enough. (Doesn't all addiction start that way?) When I was about eleven years old my friend Alison* and I hung out at the home of two sisters almost every day after school. Their mom and step-dad didn't come home until the evening, and although these sisters weren't allowed to have other kids over at their house without supervision, that never stopped us from going over there.
These parents not only worked late, they also happened to have a huge (and not well-hidden) porn collection. They had magazines, DVDs, and even VHS tapes featuring all kinds of pornography. Being typically curious middle school kids, we watched a lot of it. We giggled through the movies, fast-forwarding and slowing down the sex scenes, and laughed at the silly story-lines. It all seemed like no big deal. It was "just sex," right?
Watching porn wasn't that big of a deal for my friends (although one of them did become somewhat promiscuous in high school), but for me it was very different; it deeply affected me. I thought that the women in those porn movies were so glamorous, that they had everything I didn't. Beauty, money, and major sex appeal. I wanted to be one of those women.
I also wanted my own porn so I could watch it privately and masturbate to it, instead of just laughing at it with my friends. So I stole one one of the Penthouse magazines of the step-dad of one of my friends, and I was instantly hooked. The images of hardcore sex and "sexy" naked women were irresistible to me, and I wanted more. I started going to the local liquor store and buying porn magazines. The store clerks never bothered to ask for I.D. They just seemed amused that a teenage girl was buying porn.
I masturbated to these magazines every chance I had, and pretty soon I was masturbating entirely too much. It seemed normal to me at the time, though. I didn't have many friends, and the boys at school ignored me, so porn filled that void. Porn became my dream, my hobby, and eventually a big part of my identity. My only real goal in life was to be one of the naked women on display in those magazines and movies. Sad, right?
At first I could easily get off by just looking at a picture of a naked woman. Soon that wasn't enough, and I needed to see hardcore sex to get any feelings of arousal. It went from hardcore sex to needing to see things like anal sex, orgies, or gang bangs. By the time I was in my 20's, I had started watching the most degrading and abusive pornography that I could find, such as bukkake scenes with fifty or more men ejaculating all over a (often unhappy-looking) woman.
I watched and masturbated to movies in the "Girlvert" and "Meatholes" series, where the obvious goal was to humiliate and degrade the women involved. The disturbing thing was that I had been performing in porn for a few years myself by then, and I knew exactly the sort of cruelty, abuse and exploitation that went on behind the scenes. Yet I still watched and got off to these horribly violent and misogynist forms of pornography. I even remember thinking many times (after I had gotten off), "I wouldn't want to work for this company. That's just too f**ked up!"
That's what makes me feel the worst now. That I myself didn't want to participate in extremely cruel and abusive porn movies like that, yet I had no problem masturbating to them. I justified this to myself the way that many porn addicts do: "Well she chose to do that bukkake scene," or "She should have just gotten up and quit."
I knew better. If the women in these scenes "just got up and quit," they would have lost out on future work. The directors and performers involved would have told their friends about her walking out, and other companies wouldn't have bothered to hire her. Her agent would have gotten angry at her and might have even dropped her from the agency. She couldn't "just quit." I had been in situations like that, so I knew from first-hand experience. But still I watched these movies and masturbated to them, because that was the only porn at that point that could sexually excite me. I didn't enjoy doing it, but I felt that I couldn't stop watching it.
I've seen the same thing happen to many people that watch porn. For instance, many of my webcam "clients" would get bored with the same old thing and would then start asking me to do more hardcore or degrading sex acts to "entertain" and arouse them. Watching me strip and talk dirty may have been enough for them at the beginning, but eventually they always needed something more hardcore or abusive in order to get off.
I complained about guys like this to my friends and co-workers, but in private the sad truth was that I was behaving a lot like these men! It took me years to finally see the hypocrisy of it, and it wasn't until I finally quit the sex industry that I realized the severe problem that I had with being addicted to porn.
How had I gone from looking at a simple naked pictures to watching the most degrading porn out there in order to get off? What was wrong with me? I was getting off on the sort of pornography that really hurt people, on the sort of pornography that had personally damaged me from performing in it for many years.
My sexuality was completely based on porn. No wonder I had intimacy issues and low self-esteem. For the first time I realized that I had a problem. I thought about all of the awful experiences that I had had on porn sets, in strip clubs, and on webcam, and I decided that I was not going to be a part of the problem anymore. No more porn. I wasn't just done working in the sex industry, I was done with porn completely.
It was a lot harder than it sounds. I slipped up a few times, looking at magazines when I knew it was wrong. But somehow it was never the same. I could no longer lie to myself and pretend that it was no big deal. After masturbating to porn I now felt bad, and I knew that the degrading, abusive and inauthentic sex that was portrayed in porn was not something that I should be masturbating to, and it wasn't something that I shouldn't be taking any sort of pleasure from at all.
I didn't want to quit masturbating completely, so I started trying to do it without porn. It was difficult, because images from porn often popped into my head while masturbating. I had to consciously stop myself from thinking about porn, and replace those images with fantasies about more healthy scenarios, such as sex with a future boyfriend or husband. Instead of thinking about manufactured "porn sex," I had to re-train myself to think about authentic and natural sex the way it should be, between two people that care for each other. I had to be honest with myself, and every time that I thought of porn I made myself remember the truth of how it really was; harmful and damaging to me and so many others.
The more that I consciously trained myself to think honestly about porn in that way, the less appeal it held for me. Now porn doesn't even turn me on. I tried masturbating to a porn magazine awhile ago, and all I could think of was how horrible my experience in porn had been, and how awful the women and the men in the pictures must have felt. I couldn't get aroused from it at all. That made me so happy. Maybe I did still have some empathy left!
That is one of the biggest dangers of watching porn; it often starts out with something simple, (like masturbating to a topless woman), but it then turns into needing extreme and often abusive hardcore porn to feel any arousal at all. Once you start watching that sort of content and justifying it to yourself, where do you go from there? How much more hardcore will the porn have to be to continue to arouse you? Will sex with a real person ever "measure up?" I know that my porn watching fueled my promiscuity and made me seek out degrading sex, both in my personal life and "professionally" in the porn industry.
These circumstances in my life, combined with pressure from agents and directors, the need to prove how "hardcore" I was, and the need to compete with other women in the industry, were the reasons why I did sex acts that were physically and emotionally damaging to me and others. It's been difficult to be honest with myself about this, and to admit how unhealthy my behavior was, but it's really been so worth it.
I'm taking a long break from sex now, and learning to interact with people in non-sexual ways. It's been amazing finding out that there's more to me than just the always "hot," "sexy," and eager for sex "porn star" persona, and that people respond more positively to the real authentic me. It's been even more amazing not having to look at degrading porn just to feel any arousal at all. I feel like I've been freed from a prison -- the prison of the sex industry; both from participating in it, and from consuming the "products" that it produces.
Ultimately that's all the sex industry is for the consumers and the participants; a prison. It's so hard to get out of that prison, but once you do everything in your life improves significantly. It truly is possible to recover and to re-learn how to have healthy sexual fantasies and relationships, and to become your best and most authentic self.
Please trust me when I say that doing the work to free yourself is so worth it! I should know. I learned the slow and painfully hard way -- from many sad and wasted years of experience that could been so much better spent doing so many other activities that would have been so much more fulfilling.
But I have now emerged from that sad and fake darkness of shame and regret into the bright shining light of reality -- with purpose and a fulfilling new life of helping others that I am proud of and excited about. You can do this too, if you are struggling like I was. So I hope you will do yourself (and your present and future loved ones) a huge favor by joining me and moving forward towards self-respect and integrity. There is a much healthier and happier life waiting for you -- as soon as you choose to make the effort to claim it.
*Name changed to protect privacy
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
For more information about women dealing with porn addiction, check out these articles and resources
For more information about the harms of pornography use and sex addiction in general, as well as resources to help those trying to quit using porn and those who are partners of porn and sex addicts, please see our page on pornography addiction and our PornAddictionHelp YouTube channel.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Please feel free to read more of my writing about my life and my seven years in the sex industry, as well my writing about the overall harms of pornography, prostitution, stripping, sexual abuse and related issues. Click HERE.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
FEEL FREE TO TWEET THIS PAGE, TWEET TO US, OR TWEET #ANTIPORN TWEETS OF ANY KIND!
Please do your part to help support the fight against the global epidemic of pornography, prostitution, sex trafficking and sex slavery by making a tax-deductible donation.
Feel free to also use our custom PayPal.me link at any time! :-)
Did you know that you can help our organization and cause FOR FREE? Yes! Every time you shop at Amazon via AmazonSmile, which is Amazon's charity program, Amazon will donate a percentage of your total order -- at NO EXTRA COST to you! All you need to do is click on our custom AmazonSmile link or the image below, and confirm your selection of our organization just once as your AmazonSmile charity. Then just shop via http://smile.amazon.com from here on out when you want to shop at Amazon, and the rest will happen automatically. If you have any questions or concerns about this program, Amazon provides full info here. ~~ Many thanks to all who help us out this way! We really appreciate it! :-)
PLEASE SUPPORT THIS CAUSE BY FOLLOWING *ALL* OF OUR TWITTER ACCOUNTS. THANKS!
Join the 28,000 people who are following us at all of our Twitter accounts combined!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
ALSO PLEASE SUPPORT THE CAUSE BY LIKING AND SHARING OUR FAN PAGE AT FACEBOOK BELOW, AND BY STOPPING BY OUR PAGE TO SHARE COMMENTS AND RESOURCES, ETC. THANKS!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
CHECK OUT OUR BOARDS AND PINS AT OUR PINTEREST SITES,
AND PLEASE FOLLOW US THERE TO STAY IN TOUCH AND TO SUPPORT THE CAUSE! THANKS!
Please watch, like and share our videos! Also please feel free to comment on them at YouTube! And don't forget to SUBSCRIBE! Many more videos are coming soon! :-)
PLEASE SUBSCRIBE TO OUR YOUTUBE CHANNELS! THANKS!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
FOLLOW US AT INSTAGRAM!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
PLEASE FOLLOW US AT OUR WORDPRESS AND TUMBLR BLOGS!
THANKS AGAIN! YOUR SUPPORT FOR THE CAUSE IS VERY MUCH APPRECIATED!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A URL shortcut for this website is AntiPorn.org or antiporn.org. Thank you!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Please feel free to add this button to your blog or website. It will bring people here to AntiPornography.org so that they will be able to learn exactly how pornography hurts people and what they can do to help. Get HTML code here.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
PLEASE NOTE THAT EVERY PAGE ON THIS WEBSITE IS A WORK IN PROGRESS AND WILL BE ADDED TO AND IMPROVED OVER TIME. IF YOU WOULD LIKE THIS SITE TO BE EXPANDED AND IMPROVED MORE QUICKLY, SO WE CAN DO MORE TO PREVENT AND COMBAT THE HARMS OF PORNOGRAPHY, PROSTITUTION AND SEX TRAFFICKING, PLEASE FEEL FREE TO DONATE MUCH NEEDED FUNDS OR VOLUNTEER YOUR TIME. THANKS! DONATE HERE - VOLUNTEER HERE
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
BELOW IS THE BEGINNING OF OUR WEBSITE FOOTER WITH OUR SOCIAL NETWORKING LINKS, NEWSLETTER FORM, DONATION BUTTON, AND COMPREHENSIVE ANTI-PORNOGRAPHY, ANTI-PROSTITUTION, ANTI-SEX TRAFFICKING AND RELATED RESOURCES. IF YOU FEEL SOMETHING IS MISSING AND SHOULD BE ADDED TO THESE RESOURCES, WHETHER IT IS YOUR OWN WEBSITE OR PROJECT, OR ANOTHER RESOURCE CREATED BY SOMEONE ELSE, PLEASE FEEL FREE TO SUBMIT IT HERE. THANKS!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Please submit events, action alerts and media alerts here.
Click picture above to order "PORNLAND" at Amazon.com now!
DESCRIPTION
Pornland: How Porn Has Hijacked Our Sexualitytakes an unflinching look at today’s porn industry: the stories woven into the images, the impact on our culture, the effects on us as men and women, the business machine that creates and markets porn, and the growing legitimacy of porn in mainstream media. Above all, PORNLAND examines the way porn shapes and limits sexual imaginations and behaviors.
Although we are surrounded by pornographic images, many people are not aware of just how cruel and violent the industry is today. PORNLANDshows how today’s porn is strikingly different from yesterday’s Playboy and Penthouse magazines — how competition in the industry and consumer desensitization have pushed porn toward hard core extremes. And, with the advent of the internet and other digital technologies, users don’t have to wander far to access porn; todaythe average age of first viewing is about 11 for boys, and studies reveal that young men, who consume more porn than ever before, have difficulty forming healthy relationships.
PORNLAND also looks at how our porn culture affects the way women and girls think about their bodies, their sexuality and their relationships. PORNLAND: How Porn has Hijacked our Sexuality argues that rather than sexually liberating or empowering us, porn offers us a plasticized, formulaic, generic version of sex that is boring, lacking in creativity and disconnected from emotion and intimacy.
CLICK PICTURES ABOVE TO ORDER "PORNLAND" AT AMAZON.COM NOW
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Please pardon any errors, omissions, or technical problems, etc., with this website, and please feel free to help us out by informing us about them here. Thanks. And if you would like to contribute to this website being developed more quickly, please feel free to donate here. Thank you! Your support is very much appreciated and will definitely make a difference.
For more information about the documented harms of pornography please visit the extremely informative websitePornography Harms at PornHarms.com.
"Dedicated to providing the most accurate peer-reviewed research on the harm from pornography, along with relevant news and opinion."
This outstanding website comprehensively addresses the harms of pornography in regards to all of the following categories: addiction, brain science, children, cybersex, family, Internet, Internet safety, marriage, men, psychological, prostitution, relationships, research, self image, sex trafficking, sexting, sexual violence, societal, STDs, teens, and women.
Have you taken the NO-PORN PLEDGE at NoPornPledge.com yet? If not, now would be a really great time to do so! Please click here or the banner below.
~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
See the list of many people from all around the world who have signed the No-Porn Pledge. Click here.
Read the reasons why they have signed in the No-PornPledge Guestbook. Click here. Don't forget to join them by signing the pledge and sharing your reasons why in the guestbook there as well!
From NoPornPledge.com:
"Join a growing number of people who have made a decision to eliminate porn from their lives. Sign your name, and publicly declare that you won't use porn, or have an intimate relationship with anyone who does."
At AntiPornography.orgwe are working to prevent and combat the devastating harms of pornography, prostitution, sex trafficking and sexual slavery, as well as all other forms of sexual exploitation, through public education and advocacy. We are:
Pro-Education, Pro Safe, Healthy, Respectful, Equality-Based Sexuality
Pro-reasonable regulation of the pornography industry for the health and safety of the performers.
*Please see FAQ for more information on all of the above. Thank you!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
RESOURCES, FRIENDS, SUPPORTERS AND ALLIES:
NOTE: All those marked with * are friends, subscribers or followers of AntiPornography.org at Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, or one of our other social networking websites, or have demonstrated support for our work otherwise, such as providing content for this website or linking to us or to one of our blogs and/or social networking projects. Also please note that the below list is a work in progress and that it is not complete. Please share any errors, omissions or suggestions here. Thank you!
WOMEN AND GIRLS FOCUSED RESOURCES:
(For family, children, men and addiction focused resources, please scroll down.)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
ANTI-PORNOGRAPHY ORGANIZATIONS GROUPS AND WEBSITES:
Saavi Accountability -- The only online accountability program that works with all online addictions. It is also the only program that sends notifications instantly via text message to an accountability partner so that they can be supportive when an individual needs it the most at the point of weakness, while they are accessing the online content. The software was created by a young man (26) who overcame his addiction and is trying to help others.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
ADDICTION MESSAGE BOARDS & DISCUSSION FORUMS FOR HELP & SUPPORT:
NOTE: There are MANY anti-porn and porn addiciton discussion groups and pages at Facebook.
Just search GROUPS and PAGES for "porn addiction", "pornography addiction", "sex addiction", "anti-porn," "antiporn," "anti-pornography" & "antipornography"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
For more than 50 personal stories documenting the harms of compulsive and/or excessive pornography use and/or pornography addiction please see our "Porn Harm Stories" page. Thank you.
(Note: The No Porn Northampton FAQ is in the bottom half of their sidebar. In addition to the usual questions about pornography it addresses questions and concerns about activism against sexually oriented businesses such as "adult bookstores.")
Shared Hope International specifically focuses on fighting the demand for commercial sexual exploitaiton, including addressing pornography as a very significant demand factor for sex trafficking.
"Pornography is a marketing device for sex trafficking: It normalizes degradation and violence as acceptable and even inevitable parts of sex, and uses the bodies of real women and children as objects. The difference between pornography and erotica is clear in the roots of the words themselves -- porne means females slaves, eros means love -- so pornography, like rape, is about violence and domination, not sex. Millions of lives depend on our ability to separate pornography from erotica, and to disentangle violence from sexuality."
Gloria Steinem, 2006
For information about Gloria Steinem's important work of fighting against the harms of pornography, sex trafficking and other forms of sexual exploitation and abuse, including videos and an audio interview, please see our page on Gloria Steinem. Click here.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
For more information on how pornography fuels prostitution and sex trafficking, please see our page on Pornography and Trafficking. Click here. Thank you!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
YOUR HELP IS NEEDED. PLEASE DONATE IF YOU ARE ABLE TO.
Please remember that it is not up to AntiPornography.org, the other organizations listed on this page, the government, or "someone else" to do the entire job of fighting against the devastating harms of pornography, prostitution, trafficking, and other forms of sexual exploitation or abuse. It is an enormous job and the responsibility lies with each and every one of us to do our part as part of the bigger team of those who are choosing to be part of the solution of creating a more just and humane world for everyone, rather than be part of the problem.
So thank you in advance for whatever you are able to contribute to the cause, whether in the form of a tax-deductible donation or your actions. What you do does matter, so for the sake of all those across the world who are being exploited and abused, and for the sake of the future of humanity, please do what you can to create a more compassionate and safer society for all.
Thank you for whatever you are able to give or do to help create a better world for everyone, especially for women, children and future generations.
YOUR SUPPORTIVE ACTIONS & YOUR DONATIONS ARE VERY MUCH APPRECIATED.
ALSO PLEASE LIKE OUR FAN PAGE AT FACEBOOK BELOW, AND PLEASE SUPPORT THE CAUSE BY SHARING ANTI-PORN AND RELATED ARTICLES, RESOURCES AND COMMENTS WITH US THERE. THANKS! WE LOOK FORWARD TO HEARING FROM YOU!
THANKS FOR YOUR SUPPORT! IT'S VERY MUCH APPRECIATED AND REALLY MAKES A DIFFERENCE!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
*DISCLAIMER: Inclusion of a resource above or anywhere on this website does not constitute endorsement of or agreement with all of the content of that resource, and does not constitute a claim that all content included in that resource is wholly accurate. Those who created the resource are solely accountable for the opinions and information in their own content that they have authored, as well as for their own personal, social and political opinions and positions in general, as well as being responsible for the ever-changing content of their own websites. If anyone has any concerns about any content on anyone else's website that is linked to from this website, please contact the other website in question, not AntiPornography.org. If anyone has any concerns about any content on this website that was authored or created by anyone other than AntiPornography.org, please contact those responsible for the creation of the content so that they can edit or amend their own original content as appropriate and then inform all others who have it posted elsewhere. If that is not possible and a fact correction or edit is necessary, please contact us with full references provided regarding why the information is inaccurate so that we can correct or edit the content as appropriate. Please also do the same regarding any original content posted on this website authored by AntiPornography.org. Thank you! Also please note that no materials are posted on this website with malicious intent and that documented fact corrections are always welcome. Finally, please only take what you find to be useful and informative from this website and/or any particular resource listed here and leave the rest behind. It is not expected that everyone will agree with or find useful the entire content of this website, only that some people will find some of the content useful or informative.
Re: Copyrighted documentaries and television shows on this website: None of them were uploaded to the Internet by AntiPornography.org or related websites. They were all uploaded by others to other websites and are merely embedded here for people to view them here as opposed to them viewing at the other websites where they are currently made available for viewing. If you are the copyright owner of any content on this website and you have an objection to it being available on the Internet, please contact the person who uploaded it and/or the website where is it is uploaded in order to get it removed from that website. When that occurs it will also automatically be removed from this website. Thank you. (Note: The exception to this is the Tyra Show episode "Teens in the Sex Trade," which was uploaded by our AntiPornographyBlog YouTube channel and has the permission of the copyright owner to be posted there.)
*** All original content on this web site is copyrighted by AntiPornography.org. Please do not repost any content except for small excerpts with a link provided acknowledging the source and directing people to this website to read the rest. Thank you.
AntiPornography.org is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com.
My sexuality was completely based on porn. No wonder I had intimacy issues and low self-esteem. For the first time I realized that I had a problem. I thought about all of the awful experiences that I had had on porn sets, in strip clubs, and on webcam, and I decided that I was not going to be a part of the problem anymore. No more porn. I wasn't just done working in the sex industry, I was done with porn completely.
I'm taking a long break from sex now, and learning to interact with people in non-sexual ways. It's been amazing finding out that there's more to me than just the always "hot," "sexy," and eager for sex "porn star" persona, and that people respond more positively to the real authentic me. It's been even more amazing not having to look at degrading porn just to feel any arousal at all. I feel like I've been freed from a prison -- the prison of the sex industry; both from participating in it, and from consuming the "products" that it produces. 
