http://terpconnect.umd.edu/~mquillig/20050131mulvey.pdf

Elizabeth, your post reminded of me of something that has been on my mind a lot.

As a male survivor of childhood sexual abuse that was connected with pornography use by the abuser I think I have an insight that might have a parallel related to your reflections on women who deal with pornography abuse.

It was very difficult for me, especially a man of my generation, to admit to having been abused as a child. Even now, there is a lot of shame attached to it. I believe that the number of men who are survivors of child abuse is much greater than what has been reported. Even now, a lot of people have the attitude that boys don’t get abused. It’s something that happens to girls.

I wonder if the same kind of biases exist for women who abuse pornography. The ratio of women strugglers to men strugglers at LDSR has always been low. I’d guess over the years that one in fifty are women. I think that the real life numbers are far greater because of the notion that pornography addiction is a male problem and that women who deal with it are less likely, even in an anonymous forum, to admit to it.

Where I live, the Church is the second-largest denomination, but still a minority. We have a couple of pornography addiction groups for men and none for women that I know of. I think that if everyone who needed one came forward, there’d be many more for men than there are and some for women too.

And thanks for your kind words. This is clearly a very important issue for me.

Keepa — first!

I was on elists with Rex Goode for years and trust that anything he is heavily involved in will be done with regard both for adherence to the gospel as best as he understands it, and with sensitivity and good taste.

This is about where recovery was for alcoholism fifty years or so ago — AA was for alcoholic men, and Al-Anon was for their wives. There will be a bit of pedestal-lowering that’s going to have to happen to admit that good upstanding Mormon women could struggle with porn, lust and other addictive and compulsive sexual behaviors and issues. It takes some major paradigm shifting to see women who desire sex outside the bounds of propriety as anything but sluts.

Elder Scott has been amazing at consistently giving a message of hope to those who struggle for many years now. I have grown to love him deeply because of this. I think his words can be used well with minor adjustment to apply to female strugglers as well. It’s what women in AA had to do for a long time before the Big Book noticed them.

BTW, for people who struggle with this issue, Latter-day Sexual Recovery has a blog and support forums for people who struggle with a variety of addictive and compulsive sexual behaviors and issues, both men and women, and their spouses and parents. If you felt an urge to add that to your blog roll, that would be nice too — other blogs have voiced a willingness to do so, but none have that I’m aware of, so you could be the first in the bloggernacle to do so.

Sigh.