I'm A Recovering Smut Addict And It Took Me Years To Admit It

For a long time, I didn’t have the language to explain my addiction. My version of porn was romantic, fantasy-centered, and distinctly feminine. And, because my porn didn’t look like a man’s porn, I suffered in silence. 

The first time I actively sought out sexual content, I was 12 years old. I didn’t go online and look at adult websites, and I didn’t find my dad’s dirty magazines hidden in a drawer. I simply picked up my mom’s romance novel featuring a shirtless hero and a scantily clad heroine on the cover. 

My mom read these books every summer when we went to the beach or the community pool. She called it her “mature” reading. At the time, I knew “mature” meant that somewhere within those pages, the hero and heroine would have sex. That’s what I wanted to know about.

Growing up in an evangelical Christian home, I knew sex was only for married couples. That said, no one had ever gotten around to telling me how sex actually worked. And that’s exactly what I was hoping to find out in my mom’s book. I wasn’t looking for scintillation and fantasy as much as a biological play-by-play.

My version of porn was romantic, fantasy-centered, and distinctly feminine.

After flipping through, I found myself disappointed. My mom’s taste was much more “R” than “NC-17.” Every time the narrator came close to detailing something, the metaphorical curtains were closed. I was left just as confused as before. 

When my mom found me rifling through her book one day, she laughed.

“You should save those types of books for when you turn 18,” she said. 

Given that my mother was scandalized by bathing suit advertisements and frequently lamented the amount of sexual content shown on television, her reaction surprised me. Though I suppose, looking back, it shouldn’t have. After all, my mom was far from unique in her “adult” reading tastes.

Almost every other mom I knew read “trashy romance novels” on their beach trips during the summer too. It was something that was accepted as a matter of course. Romance novels didn’t involve actually looking at naked strangers, just imagining them. It was harmless fantasy. 

While women at our church lamented their husbands' or older sons' pornography addictions, finding hidden magazines or videos in unmarked bags, I don’t remember anyone using the same shocked voices or hushed tones when talking about romance novels. 

When I heard about “pornography,” I always heard it described as images and videos that got men addicted. Porn was online. Porn was in magazines. Porn was male. 

Meanwhile, it didn’t seem to matter how graphic or erotic women’s beach reading became. It was still done out in the open, widely discussed at gatherings as fun and harmless, rather than something to be ashamed of or hidden. It wasn’t "porn" in my mind. And, because it wasn’t porn, it could never become a problem.

Down the Rabbit Hole

When I was about 14 and discovering certain urges, I felt more comfortable turning to stories. As a child of the internet age, my “trashy romance” novels were mostly online in the form of fan-fiction. 

I soon discovered that, in online forums, the age restrictions were sparsely enforced or non-existent. This allowed me to occasionally delve into the world of steamy, adult situations featuring characters I already knew and loved. 

I wasn’t that serious about fan-fiction at first. It was a silly game I played when I was bored. I wanted to see how many graphic stories I could look up on our family computer before my parents walked into the room. When they did, I would always close out of the screen, giggling.

When I was about 17, it stopped being a game and instead became a habit. Technically at that point, I was old enough to read romance. I was mature enough that I didn’t have to hide it, and I didn’t have to question it. 

Romance novels didn’t involve actually looking at naked strangers, just imagining them.

Unlike boys, who could legally watch porn at 18 but were still discouraged from doing so, girls were often gifted paperback romance novels for birthdays. Reading erotic stories was a rite of passage, not a shameful secret. 

Fan-fiction stories became things I turned to when I was stressed about school or my family life. Soon, they became things I turned to when I was stressed about anything. And the more I relied on internet stories, the less I reached for anything or anyone else.

In fantasy stories, I had found a world that I was in complete control of. I decided which stories about which characters to read. I decided who did what in my imagination. Soon, time spent on my computer, either writing or reading, became preferable to time spent with my family and friends.

At least once, my mom called fan-fiction an “obsession.” I rolled my eyes. She didn’t understand that reading about Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings characters was no different than her reading cheap paperbacks on the beach. 

Although, maybe she did feel the same way, because aside from occasionally nagging me about spending too much time in my room, she didn’t press me about my habit. After all, I was reading and writing. Not shooting up drugs or going out on drinking binges. 

A Problem With No Name

My addiction was private. As long as it stayed that way, everyone, even my family, seemed okay with it. 

The problem was that I, increasingly, wasn’t ok. 

When I entered college, the lack of control I’d started to feel in high school was magnified. I was living on a large college campus where I had very little privacy but still felt completely alone. I was taking school subjects that I had no interest in and found extremely difficult. Eventually, a sense of helplessness enveloped me. There was only one thing I knew to turn to when I felt that way.

It still wasn’t "porn" to me. But now, it was starting to feel like an addiction. 

Later in college, I started skipping classes in order to indulge my reading habit. I was late for social events because I felt as though I needed to read one more story. There were nights when I could not go to sleep unless I read one of my favorite pieces of erotica.

I started to wonder if what I was doing and whether the things I was looking up online could be considered pornography. I searched online and found nothing about erotica addictions. All the articles about pornography were, again, based on visuals and always directed towards men. 

Men, I was told, had a problem with porn. Women, it was often implied, were somehow more pure and virtuous when it came to sexual desires. Articles and addiction sites implied that women didn’t feel sexual compulsions in the same way men do. If we did think about sex, we always thought about it in a beautiful, spiritual, relational way. We didn’t do kinks. We didn’t do fetishes. We were safe from all that.

As a 19-year-old, I trusted these online articles more than I trusted my own experiences. Despite the fact that I knew lots of women who wrote and read kinky fan-fiction in the online forums I frequented, I started to think that the compulsive use of this reading material was a problem unique to me. 

My problem was only safe to talk about when it looked male.

I imagined the writers themselves treating the material as something of a joke. I imagined older, put-together women writing the steamy scenes and laughing about it with their girlfriends before going about their completely fulfilling and functional adult lives.

I was the only one who had a problem. And because the problem was unique to me, I would have to deal with it on my own. 

I tried limiting my computer time and sometimes restricting the ratings on my fan-fiction. It didn’t work.

When I would get overwhelmed, usually by unfinished schoolwork or an unrequited real-life flame, the sickening out-of-control feeling would return. Again, I’d turn on my computer and compulsively seek out the only thing that seemed to help. 

The Day I Could Call It Porn

The compulsion continued off and on throughout college. By the time I graduated, I’d recognized a pattern. I knew I was more prone to seek out explicit material when I was stressed or feeling lonely. Despite the fact that I saw the pattern and occasionally tried to remedy it, I still couldn’t bring myself to think of it as a real addiction. 

I didn’t call myself an addict until after I started watching pornographic video content online. The excitement I felt at reading even the kinkiest stories was starting to wear thin, and I decided I needed something different. 

I remember a strange sense of relief when I watched my first video on my computer, late at night. Now, at least, I felt like I was doing something I could name. When the compulsion moved from fantasy into visual reality, that’s when help became available. My problem was only safe to talk about when it looked male.

Once I admitted to having a pornography problem, I was able to get VPNs for my computer that didn’t allow me to access certain websites. I was able to tell my husband about what I was doing and ask him to hold me accountable without worrying that he would think I was a freak. 

Sure, most porn addiction sites assumed that their audience was entirely male. But, as statistics began to show women visiting adult sites at a higher rate, about 44% of users, the language in the industry began to change to include us.

Now, looking back, I wonder if the addiction language has changed enough. 

Every time I’ve told my story, inevitably, at least two or three women will shyly come out of the woodwork and relay very similar experiences, including the feelings of isolation and addiction that came with compulsive reading. 

The Truth About Women and Erotica

The fact is, over 80% of erotica readers are women. The demand for the genre on Kindle alone should finally put to bed the idea that women don’t have sexual fantasies or desires. We do. We just express them differently.

And, because we have fantasies and desires like men do, it stands to reason that some of us can have problematic relationships with sex and sexuality. Does that mean every woman who reads the occasional erotic paperback or spicy fan-fiction is a porn addict? Absolutely not. No more than an adult who has a few drinks at a bar is automatically an alcoholic. 

Over 80% of erotica readers are women.

But it does mean that certain women, like me, seem prone to using erotica in ways that are not healthy for our minds, bodies, or souls. Though numerous studies have been done on the effects of visual pornography on the male brain, to date, no research has been done examining how women interact with or could be affected by erotica.

It seems that, because erotica is about female sexuality, and we, as a society, seem distinctly uncomfortable talking about female sexuality in anything but glowing or romanticized terms, it stays hidden. I’m hoping that won’t be the case forever. 

I hope the next woman who feels herself mentally slipping into compulsion or losing pieces of herself to fantasy will finally have the language she needs to speak out.

If you’re out there, if you’re reading this, you’re not weird, and you’re definitely not alone. 

You deserve to tell your story. You deserve help and accountability if you want and need it. You deserve to be seen. And this time, you will be.