Columns
| Why women watch |
| Written by Jessica Harris |
| Friday, 26 February 2010 |
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Admittedly, men have the corner market on pornography ministries. It seems a sad fact that you cannot have a men’s conference without a session addressing pornography and that when pornography is mentioned, people are usually talking about men. It puts a ministry like Beggar’s Daughter in this type of sci-fi realm of reality. A spiritual twilight zone that confuses men and women alike. Often I get phone calls or e-mails that say, “Why on earth do women do this? Do they do it for the same reasons as men?” I cannot really speak for why men get into pornography. Conversational experience tells me it is because they are more visually-wired. That seems to be the common explanation (or excuse, depending on how you view it) for why men are so much more ‘lustful’ and likely to get into porn. Sadly, it has also become a twisted norm for men to struggle with pornography. It seems that if a man does not struggle with pornography, then he is not really a man. Nothing like holding ourselves to a high standard. Moments like these make me glad I am not male. As for women, though, I think it is safe to say our reasons are not visual. Believe it or not, for a majority of women involved in pornography the visual stimulation addiction to pornography came long after they were really addicted. For many women, pornography satisfies the desire to be accepted, to be cherished, long before it ever satisfies a physical sexual desire. If you walked into a classroom tomorrow and plopped an X-rated magazine on the desk, I cannot speak for the reaction of the men, but I can tell you that a majority of the women- followers of Christ or not- would not spend long looking at it. For your average everyday woman the idea of pornography is repulsive. In high school, a classmate of mine was taking classes at a local college. In her English class the professor forced the class to watch a porn video in order to ‘expand their artistic sense.’ At the end, they had to write a report. I will never forget how shocked and mortified my friend was that she had been forced to watch that video. The idea of women being treated as objects, brutalized, and humiliated does not sit well with us at all. However, the idea of being loved does. When I first saw pornography, I was confused. I was thirteen and had happened upon it completely by accident. There was a video with a neat title and I clicked on it, and nearly threw up. There was a physical charge, but that did not cause my addiction. I was curious, so I kept looking, but the pornography just made me sick, so I ventured into the realm of cyber sex and erotica. That is how I got addicted. Those men made me feel loved and accepted, even though I was adjusting myself to be whomever they wanted. They desired me, and that feeling was my addiction. I got into pornography to figure out how to make them happy. When I tried to back out, that is when my body stepped in and said, “No, you have to have this. You have to have this rush.” Over the months of cyber sex and romantic stories, I had become a sex object to those men. I had numbed myself to what was once so repulsive. Now, it no longer mattered if those women were being beat up and mistreated because at least they were being loved, right? They are really just like me, aren’t they? Isn’t this love? That is how many women progress. We do not tend to jump right into the hardcore world of debauchery, but we can get there. Believe me; it is as confusing for the addicts as it is for those who know them. The church is still overcoming a gender stigma when it comes to pornography. In the mind of the church pornography is a ‘man only’ sin. Period. Women just do not struggle with pornography. The women hear that and feel there is no grace waiting for them in the body of Christ. The only place they have left to run is back into the arms of pornography. The ‘industry’ knows that and makes pornography specifically designed to entice women. The ‘industry’ has caught on and is preying on the hearts of those that the church denies exists. When women become addicted to pornography, it is really, in my opinion, out of a desperate search for love. Many women found trapped in pornography are struggling with low self-esteem or have rough family lives. Quite a few, like myself, have no relationship with an earthly father and therefore never learned as a young child, what a healthy relationship with a man looked like. Men were there to boss you around, beat you up and leave you behind… just like they do in pornography. That is the new love. The fairy tale happy ever after dream is dead, replaced by ‘settle for whoever can pay your bills.’ Contrary to popular belief, and I believe this is true in the cases of both men and women, this problem is something deeper than a problem with lust. This is a problem with life, and the life Christ promises to us. Porn addicts are not some vile, coldhearted maniacs. If experience proves true, porn addicts, at the deepest part of who they are, are searching, broken hearts in dire need of life. For women, that is our cause, for men, that is the effect. The way I see it, the physical pull leads men to porn; the longing for love keeps them there. The longing for love leads women to porn; the physical pull keeps them there.
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