Women and porn: pornography is not a guys’ problem only. It’s growing exponentially among women, including Christians. In fact, every week or two I counsel yet another woman who struggles with porn.
Skewed Statistics
Truth be told, the statistics on women and porn use fail to tell the full story. Click & Tweet! Conservatively, one in five women and girls consume porn. The problem with the numbers starts with defining pornography. Yes, porn includes explicit photos and video. This is hard-core pornography. But there’s other forms!
In the words of author-blogger Jessica Harris, a former porn addict:
Pornography isn’t just stored on a computer or found in the pages of a magazine. It buries itself in the mind as memories. In some ways, your own body can serve as a source of pornography.
You may find this blog post uncomfortable to read. Perhaps you’ve already clicked close (and aren’t reading this now). Maybe you even unsubscribed. 🙁 But this topic is essential to know: Your daughters and granddaughters run into pornographic enticements. Every. Single. Day.
Generation Gap!
When it comes to women and porn, there’s a huge difference in porn use and age. Blame the Internet and smart phones.
Says Harris:
Walk into a room with a multi-generational group of men, and you can pretty much assume that the stats on male porn use are going to hold true throughout the generations in the room. Sure, the Baby Boomers grew up on Playboy and the Millennials grew up on smart phones, but still there’s this idea that pornography has been an issue for men for generations.
That is not the case for women.
If I walk into a room with a multi-generational group of women, my first and foremost concern is always to bridge the gap. Because the Baby Boomer women grew up in a time when pornography wasn’t really accessible to them. Nor was it made with them in mind. Their husbands might have been slinking around with magazines stuffed in brown paper bags, but they were not.
Millennial women, on the other hand, came of age at the time of the internet. Not only could we stumble upon a man’s porn stash, now we could access new content all on our own. Click & Tweet! Videos even. Without having to subscribe to the adult channels on cable.
Here’s her full post on what the statistics are NOT telling you about women and porn.
Change Is Coming
If you hope to gather information about women and porn, you might Google “women and porn” or choose a variation: porn use among women, statistics on women addicted to porn, and so forth. And you’ll get very few hits.
But this is changing.
Among the few resoures is Heath Lambert’s podcast on “Women and Pornography.” You can hear the podcast or read the transcript. There have been a few chapters in biblical counseling books and a booklet or two. I hope to write a book on this subject, God willing. I have a heart for women hooked on porn. Even though it isn’t my story — anxiety and panic attack is part of mine — porn had its hooks in my brother and figures into his binge drinking and also his death. But that’s a story for another time.
Conference Talk on Women and Porn
At the end of June I have three talks at Briarwood Summer Counseling Conference: “Trending Issues in Biblical Counseling.” One talk is on self-injury (i.e., cutting and other forms of self-mutilation). And another is on freedom from panic attacks. The third is “Breaking the Bondage of Pornography” (a women only talk). There’s a similar talk for pornography and men.
I am so happy that I get to speak to female counselors on this topice. With the explosion of internet availability, an ever-increasing number of women are seeking help with porn/masturbation. They often see no way out and have deep guilt and shame. Click here to see the schedule.
Counseling Hearts to Hope,
Very helpful, thank you. In counseling with women, the rise of this kind of besetting sin for them has been shocking. Thank you for talking about this from a woman’s perspective.