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Lucy J.'s Story
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It has taken me a lot of courage to write what you are about to read. The story is long, but I feel it is important to tell the whole story, so you can understand the impact porn has had on my life. And I must warn you, it contains graphic sexual violence.
It's hard to find the words to describe the psychological and physical pain I was put through by the man I had a three-year relationship with who was -- and probably still is -- a porn addict. I carry a life sentence, while he has never been punished, because -- like a lot of victims of rape and sexual abuse -- I have never reported it to the police.
I had an abusive childhood that led to abusive adult relationships, so when I met X I was already vulnerable and had been conditioned to please. Although all my past relationships had been abusive, as strange as it sounds I knew where I stood with them -- they never pretended to be anything else. This is my story.
Had you met me back then you would have seen a sexy, out-going woman that appeared to be full of confidence. But if you had just scratched the surface, beneath it you would have found a little girl longing to be loved -- a little girl that had never been valued and had her emotional needs met.
I had just left a very long-term relationship with a man that was mentally and financially abusive. I moved in with a friend and this is how I met X. All my life I had been around bikers -- I knew no different -- and X, like all the others, was a biker. I'm not saying all bikers are bad people, because they are not. A lot of them are good, decent family men. But like with anything, you always get a few rotten apples! And I found out to my cost that X was rotten to the core!
X lived a few hundred miles away from me, so a relationship was impractical, but we would spend hours on the phone talking. After a few months of talking on the phone, he came down to spend the weekend with me. Even at the beginning his behavior wasn't normal -- even by my standards!
On our first date, he constantly checked out other women, and over the weekend, he told me graphic sexual details about his past girlfriends that I never asked for. And although I told him I didn't want to hear it, he continued anyway!
We did have normal, vanilla sex, and even then I knew something was wrong. (I found out months later that he had taken Viagra to be able to perform.) By the end of the weekend, I thought the man was a total d#@k! I also wasn't physically attracted to him -- he was a strange-looking man and was very overweight.
I couldn't wait for him to leave, until he said just one thing, and that one thing triggered something inside me -- it found that lost little girl. He said, "You are stunning, but not my type." (I later found out that he very much had a type, and I couldn't have been more of his type!) He then said, "I want to see you again. Do you want to see me?" Although even then I knew there was something very wrong with this man, something inside me was so strong that pulled me towards him that I agreed to see him again.
After he left, I discovered that he had used my laptop to view porn and dating sites. So the next time I spoke to him I brought this up in conversation. He told me that he had felt nervous, so he needed a little 'extra' to help him, and that he had deleted the dating site because he only wanted to see me. (I later found out that this was totally untrue -- he was still checking and sending messages on that site.)
The second time he came down to see me I confronted him about his behavior. He was really being a lech towards other women -- so much so that I could see that they felt uncomfortable. He had never had a woman stand up to him, and although he clearly didn't like this, I am sure in his mind he thought I was going to be more fun to break! At the time I didn't know that this man had a history of treating his partners badly, although I never heard it was physically or sexually. But then, apart from his exes, who would know that?
I had been in a relationship with him for about three months when a number of things made me question his fidelity. Of course he denied it, but he did admit that he had never been faithful to any of his previous partners. And then he said that he had never felt this way about a woman before, so he wanted to be honest! A little bit of truth had made me feel special. Of course it did the trick!
It was at this time that I found out that he watched a lot of porn. He also started to be rougher during sex, and call me degrading names. But I had already been conditioned to please, so I allowed this. I would see him once a month, but he would never invite me to his house if he had something better to do. This would hurt me, but it was always the same reply. He would say, "When I see you, I want you to have my full attention. I don't want to share our time." This of course always worked.
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Even early on in the relationship he was experiencing erectile problems. He told me that he was on blood pressure medication, and that was the cause. I accepted that was the reason, and went out of my way to reassure him that it didn't matter. But things were starting to not add up. For instance, in only a very short period of time he was not sexually interested in me unless I dressed for him, and he could only reach orgasm by ejaculating on my face.
All of his social network sites were full of porn and porn-related people. His house was full of porn -- it was everywhere! This started to have an effect on my confidence, which was already nonexistent before I met him. But the one thing I knew that I good at was sex, and this man didn't even want me for that. So I tried to compete with porn, which was an impossible task! He said terribly cruel things to me, like how much better his ex-partners had been in bed, and he even showed me his favorite girl he likes to call on an adult TV channel. This hurt me deeply because he didn't want me.
I repeatedly asked him to not show or tell me things like that, but it made no difference. He couldn't see the problem, and because of this he thought that I had a jealously problem! But if I had done the same, it would have been a very different story -- he would have gone mad. But it isn't in my nature to be cruel. He even tried to give me his ex girlfriend's sex toy, and couldn't see the problem, as it hadn't been used!
This man was constantly picking me up to drop me. One minute he was the perfect boyfriend, then he would be the complete opposite. I never knew where I stood with him. He showed me no affection in private at all -- only in public. I believe this was only to show that I was his. Also, most abusers keep their abuse for indoors.
This next incident happened at his house after we had been together for about nine months. We had been out, and he had not leered at every woman in sight, which was very unusual. He was also being attentive. I had poured my heart out about how much his behavior hurt me, and how it had affected me. I told him that I didn't want or like the sexual things that he was doing to me. He listened, kissed my hand, and then said, "I'm sorry." I could have cried. It took just those few words for me to let my guard down, so what happened next completely threw me.
He was cuddling me on the sofa. For him to cuddle me in private was very unusual, and when he started to kiss me and it wasn't a porno kiss, I couldn't believe it. I was so happy that I willingly gave myself to him. I tried to ignore the degrading name-calling which had become normal, when suddenly he started to choke me. I instinctively started to fight him, but this seemed to excite him even more. Then it was over very quickly. This was odd, because normally he would have a problem reaching orgasm.
He is a huge man, and I am really tiny. I didn't stand a chance. I ran to the bathroom sobbing and shaking, not only because of what had happened, but because it brought back previous memories of a rape -- a rape he knew about -- a rape that he knew involved choking me.
It was quite a long time before he banged on the bathroom door. He couldn't understand what my problem was! He somehow managed to turn it all around. He made me feel stupid, like I was over-reacting, that it was a game that got a bit out of hand. (A so-called game that I didn't give consent to.) He said that he didn't know that I had been raped in the past, and that the man had choked me. This of course was a complete lie. He did know, because the one thing I told him never to do was choke me, and the reason why.
It was the early hours of the morning and I was hundreds of miles from home, so I had no choice but to stay. The following day he really worked on me, and by the time I left he had managed to trivialize the whole thing. When I returned home, my friend noticed I was withdrawn. But of course I had learned from an early age how to keep secrets.
I know you are thinking as you read this, "Well, if it was that bad why did you continue seeing him?" Abusers know exactly how to behave, and in the previous months he had already set his groundwork. It is very hard to leave an abusive relationship.
More and more evidence started to build up that he was being unfaithful with numerous women. You would think that given his treatment of me, that him being unfaithful would have been the least of my worries. But that was the one thing I really couldn't tolerate.
It all came to a head one weekend. Not only did I find out when I arrived on that Friday that he had forgotten to mention that he was going away for the weekend and wouldn't be back until Sunday, but he told me that I was welcome to stay at his place anyway. How kind, considering I had traveled hundreds of miles to see him! I asked why I couldn't go with him, and he told me it was a 'boys only' weekend.
As soon as I opened the door when he came home on Sunday my heart sank, because I knew instinctively that he had been unfaithful. I went to give him a kiss and he gave me his cheek, saying he hadn't brushed his teeth. He then went straight up to have a shower. I wouldn't back down, and he eventually told me it was a mutual friend of ours who had been unfaithful. That I know was true, however, he forgot to mention that he had also had sex with her friend. (I found this out years later.)
It was in this conversation that he let slip that he had recently seen a woman a number of times for a drink that he had had a year-long affair with, when he was with his previous long term partner. He said it was just as friends, but I didn't believe a word of it. When I mentioned that I wasn't allowed to have male friends, even though I had never had any sexual contact with them, I was told, "That's different!" I ended the relationship then and there, and was surprised when he started to cry, saying, "Sorry, I should have treated you better."
Over the coming weeks he pulled out every stop to get me back, everything I had ever wanted to hear from him. He sent flowers, cards, poems about how he felt about me, telling me he would change and admitting to some of the things he had done. He said that I made him a better man. He also invited me to a wedding, which was notable, considering we had been together for a year, I had never met his family or any of his friends, and he had kept me completely hidden.
I stupidly believed all of it, and for a very short period of time his behavior was different, although not sexually. He was becoming more and more spiteful during sex. Then my personal circumstances changed, and I had no choice but to move in with him. I really didn't want to live with him, because I knew it would put me totally at his mercy.
Although he obviously is an abusive man, I am 100% certain that porn was a direct cause of the escalating sexual abuse towards me. That I have no doubt about. I could even tell what kind of porn he had been watching by how he treated me. But, as the saying goes, you never really know someone until you live with them. Although I was already aware that he had a problem with porn, I had no idea on what a huge scale his problem was until I had lived with him for a few months. I found out that it had been a problem for thirty years!
He was getting more and more critical about my looks. He put me under a huge amount of pressure to look immaculate 24/7. He bought all of my clothes, or he would buy the clothes and tell me I owed him the money. He never called me by my name, only in front of his parents. Later on I realized that this was to dehumanize me.
Then one day while he was in the bath he had left the computer logged on, and what I found truly shocked me. Not only by the sheer volume of porn, but by what he had been watching and how much he was watching it. He was even getting out of bed in the middle of the night to watch it!
At that time he was watching between 4 to 8 hours of porn a day while I was at work. (Later it was more, sometimes 10 hours.) The log on details also showed that he was watching porn even while I was in the same room! Most of the porn involved girls over 18 who were dressed as school girls, but the girls could have easily passed for much younger. There was also a lot of porn that was degrading against women. As time went on, the harder the porn he watched the worst his treatment got for me.
When I questioned him about his porn use, he told me every man does it. "You already knew I watched it," he told me. He said that I was the sick one for even suggesting that he would masturbate to girls that look under-aged, or that he would get off on a woman being hurt. But the truth is that was exactly what was happening.
The abusive cycle had already started before I was even living with him, and by now it was firmly in place. I was still competing with porn no matter what I allowed him to do to me -- it was never enough. One woman or man can never compete with porn because you will never be enough. This is because repeated use of porn has accelerated tolerance for the chemical rushes experienced while using porn. Porn has trained their mind to only get turned on by variety, not a single person, and of course what they start off first liking soon stops working very quickly, so they view harder and harder porn. And the more you compete, the more you lose yourself as a person, until there is nothing left but a shell.
Over the next few years I found him viewing porn countless times, often totally denied by him, even with the evidence in front of him! I would also find it hidden all over the house, just like an alcoholic hides bottles. I felt totally worthless and like I was the ugliest woman in the world. He always chose porn over me. I was never his first choice, and I never had been. And if that wasn't enough, going out with him just broke me in two. He would leer at women and at times push me out the way to get a better view! Once to my horror he was watching two young women trying on shoes and he was stroking his penis!
He would also point out women that he found attractive, and tell me that looking at the woman had given him an erection -- something I couldn't make him do. He would constantly lie about his porn use. Porn addicts do not realize it's also the lies and deceit that cause damage. Once I smashed the modem -- I was so angry that he had just started viewing porn by using his PlayStation! He wouldn't let me put spyware on the computer because apparently I should trust him!!!
I found him on dating sites, sex contact sites, and porn sites where porn stars work as escorts. One time I found him on a sex contact site and it was his profile that he was logged onto! And he was clearly meeting women off the site. I could see who he had given his number out to, and I do not mean for this to sound cruel, but these women were very unattractive. But he was still choosing an unattractive stranger over me. I couldn't have felt any more worthless. The evidence was directly in front of him, but he still denied it!
He then put his hand on my shoulder, and in a soothing, concerned voice said, "That isn't a sex contact site, that's eBay. It's a dress I was going to buy for you. I think you need to go to the doctor. You aren't very well. You are hallucinating." And with that he picked me up and said, "Come on. Let's get you in the bath and tuck you up in bed. Don't worry, I will look after you."
I had lost trust in my own judgment by this point. He had completely worn me down and I was totally exhausted. I knew what I had seen because he always denied things. I had taken a photo of his sex contact profile with my phone. I had also started to write things down to try and keep my own sanity. If on the rare occasion we did have sex, it was always degrading and abusive. I was nothing more than meat to him. I was just an object for his sexual pleasure. I had no other purpose.
He didn't care if he hurt me. He wouldn't even notice if I was sobbing, or if he did, he didn't care enough to stop. He would spit in my face and call me degrading names, slap me around the face, pull my hair, punch me in the vagina, choke me, ram himself so hard inside of me that I would scream in pain, make me gag so I choked, and put anything he felt like into my vagina and rectum.
How can any man believe that any woman would enjoy this? A porn user, that's who! And if that wasn't enough, he always insisted on filming or taking photos of the whole degrading process.
I didn't want to do these things, and I wasn't broken until I did them. I would send him long emails. I found it easier than a face-to-face talk, because often he would walk away or just start shouting at me. I begged him to stop. I hated it and what it was doing to me. He of course never replied. He would have never let there be any evidence of his abuse or addiction.
In public you would never have believed that this man was treating me so badly in private. In public, he made it look like I was in charge, and I did go along with that because for that short period of time I felt like I had a little bit of control. I spent a lot of time on my own while he went out. He didn't want me with him, and I didn't want to be with him. I knew at any given opportunity that he could get, that he would do something to upset me without anyone else seeing. So I would react and it then to other people it looked like I was the one with the problem. He knew how to play that game well and he always won.
I had been to the doctor, who had put me on medication. The doctor was also aware that I was being abused, and she referred me to a counselor. But because I had nowhere else to live and no money, X had made me completely dependent on him in every way. I had no support at all. He would grill me about what I had told the doctor -- he didn't want anyone knowing about his secret habit. He didn't think he was doing anything wrong to me! I found thinking about my abuse to be too painful, and each counseling session all I did was sob. So I stopped going.
Then one morning I woke up full of rage, and I do mean rage. It just seemed to have come from nowhere! But for the first time I felt I had a little control. His face was a picture when I said, "Come and have a look at this." There on the computer screen was one of his favorite porn sites. I then threw him a box of tissues and said, "Knock yourself out." This was met with a raised fist by him. I just stared at him then walked away. When he insulted me, instead of just being hurt, I would reply, "Maybe, but I am still way out of your league."
I was sleeping in the spare room, as I refused to sleep in the same bed as him. A few weeks later he completely broke down in front of me. At the time I truly did believe he was being genuine and asking for help. He said, "I know I have a problem with porn, a big problem. I have tried to stop, but I can't. Please help me." We spoke for hours, and when it came time for bed, he asked me to share his bed. I agreed, but made it very clear that nothing sexual was going to happen. He agreed.
He did keep his word until the next morning, then he tried to touch me. I removed his hand and said "no." I repeated this a number of times and went to get out of bed. He pulled me back by my hair and raped me. I didn't fight him, I knew it would be pointless. Also, I knew fighting him would give him more pleasure. It was over in less than a minute. This man would normally not be able to get a full erection, and would have problems reaching orgasm. Both were not a problem while raping me.
His first words to me were: "I have just raped you." Then he just walked into the bathroom. I pulled my legs up to my chest and started to sob. Everything seemed to slow down, nothing seemed real. When he walked back into the bedroom he said, "You look beautiful." He disappeared again and come back with his camera. Then he started taking photos of me! He then said, "Sorry, I thought once I started you would get into it"!
This man's head is so messed up by porn that he really does believe that when women say "no," that we really love it! We really mean yes, and we love to be abused and raped! He also wanted consensual sex! This is a man that wouldn't touch me for months at a time, but got so aroused by raping me that he wanted sex twice in the space of ten minutes. So how can anyone say that porn doesn't cause rape?! He was acting out what he had seen countless times -- so much so that he couldn't see any wrong with it!
I walked into the bathroom and vomited. I had also wet myself, as if I didn't feel degraded enough! He came into the bathroom and said I was making a mountain out of a molehill, totally over-reacting, because it wasn't a real rape! He wasn't a monster! He could never do that to a woman! And I was sick for even thinking it!
This man has no idea of the difference between fantasy and reality. Years of porn use has seen to that! My mind went on auto-pilot. I felt nothing, not even anger. Just totally numb. I carried on as normal! It was the only way I think I could cope with what had happened. But I did refuse to sleep in his bed. And I was looking for somewhere else to live, but he didn't know that.
A few weeks later I found that yet again he had been looking at porn. And the porn I found was sick. It turned my stomach. The woman was being suffocated, and you could see she was clearly frightened. Three big men on one tiny woman. The other porn I found was equally worrying. He had met an old friend who was now a porn producer, and he had been viewing his porn. I have no doubt that he would have asked to watch his friend's porn films being made.
I started to pack my bags out of sheer desperation. He said he would go back to counseling. He had gone a few times over the years, but always refused to go back. He said that he would read the porn addict books if I agreed to stay for just two weeks. I said that I needed to see action, not words, and I told him that if he put one finger on me I would tell his mother about his addiction. I knew that this was better than saying I would tell the police. I had no intention of staying, I just needed time to make a plan and get out as quick as I could.
In the two weeks he did nothing about getting help. I knew he wouldn't, and he was absolutely vile to me. I just ignored him. I was well aware he was seeing someone else, and I didn't care. I felt sorry for her. He is the type of man that can never be on his own.
Before I left I found all the photos and videos he had made of me. I wanted to destroy them. Looking back, I wish I had made copies. They would have been used as evidence, because sexual crimes within a relationship are so hard to prove. What I saw made me physically sick, and the images stuck in my head for a very long time. You could clearly see that I was being abused in various different ways. They all have one thing in common: you can see by my face I am not present. I had moved my mind into another place. I never found the rape photos.
After I left him I thought that I would be fine, but I was wrong -- so so wrong! I didn't realize how much I had been traumatized. I had no words for what had happened to me, or how to really understand it. No matter how much I tried, I couldn't understand why and how another human being could inflict and enjoy watching someone in so much emotional and physical pain -- and especially someone you are supposed to love.
My behavior changed, and I would spend periods of time when I couldn't let a man anywhere near me. And then other times I would be overly sexual, and put myself in possibly dangerous situations. I now realize that this was my way of self-harming. I also had no idea how to behave sexually, and still struggle even five years on -- because I have been pornified.
Trust is a massive problem for me, and sadly, given that a large percentage of the male population watch porn, I can't risk forming a relationship -- because you never know where porn is going to lead that person. That is why porn is so dangerous.
So the next time someone says porn is harmless, show them my story.
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