Women and Porn

Six out of ten women view internet porn.

However you package it, that’s quite a stat, (Guardian, 7 April, 2011 ). It is not a minor issue and nor is it confined to men. I’ve rarely heard it addressed in the secular media, let alone in a Christian context. Yet it’s a huge problem – particularly for the 17 per cent of women who claim to be ‘addicted’ to porn. (Internet Filter survey, 2006 ). And not just outside the church.

A survey conducted in 2003 by ‘Today’s Christian Woman’  found that one out of every six women, admits to struggling with an addiction to pornography. In the US, the first support group run by women, for women was founded by a Christian, Crystal Renaud, who’s also written a book on the subject, (‘Dirty Girls Come Clean’).

Renaud first discovered porn aged 11, in a magazine belonging to her brother.  This marked the start of an eight-year pattern of compulsive use, before she woke up to the extent of the problem.  It came when she arranged to meet a guy for sex that she had met anonymously over the net. Renaud explains:

I had no friends. No passions. I had one mission and purpose in my life: pornography. Any way I could find it, I would. 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. Cybersex. Webcam sex. Phone sex. Anything you could think up, I watched, experienced and enjoyed. No matter how many times I said I would stop, I would just keep doing it.

Women become addicted to porn in the same way as men – a pattern of exposure, addiction and desensitisation to increasingly explicit images. Yet for women, the issue can be complicated by even greater feelings of guilt and shame – in part because they feel that they are on their own, but also because of the disjunction between enjoying it and hating the way that it objectifies and degrades women .As Renaud continues:

Porn and sexual addiction has always been referred to as a man’s problem. But for women it’s an unspoken struggle. We have to give them the opportunity to say: ‘Me too’.

As well as the sexual thrill provided by pornography, for some women it is a way of checking out the competition, researching what it is that men find attractive or gauging the standard for modern sexuality. In this sense, what starts as curiosity can in fact become a form of self-harm. Where some men may be able to switch off and become part of the fantasy, perhaps there’s a sense in which women are always outside the scene, watching and judging themselves against other women. Disturbingly however, women are much more likely than men to act out their fantasies in real life, such as having multiple partners, casual sex or affairs.

Pornography for women became more accepted from the 1950s onwards. In 1953 the Kinsey report focused attention on women’s sex drives and in the same year Marilyn Monroe appeared in a nude Playboy centrefold. Sex was increasingly seen as a healthy and natural pursuit for girls and guys. In 1957, the Supreme Court case United States vs Roth opened the door for constitutionally protected obscenity unless it was ‘utterly without redeeming social importance’. As the porn industry grew, so did its desire to appeal to women as consumers.

Like it or not, our bodies have become commercialised as a matter of course. Sex sells and ‘soft’ porn is a feature of everyday life, from perfume ads to TV shows. Even primary school children are being targeted – from ‘sexy’ underwear to T-shirts bearing slogans like ‘Barbie is a slut’. As churches this is an issue we need to address – both explicitly and by providing alternative models of womanhood and sexuality. The battle begins long before we log on – and it’s one facing us all.

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