Three Lies Women Struggling with Porn Believe

The Lies of Pornography

Women face all kinds of deception in our society. The lies we believe are rampant. We believe we’re too fat, too thin, carbs are the enemy, money equals happiness, marriage will make life easier, that we really do need that ninth new mascara, that we are weak…the list goes on.

Women believe many lies that hold us back from true happiness and fulfillment. It seems our culture is built on them. The woman struggling with pornography or compulsive masturbation, however, faces a whole new world of lies.

Here are the three biggest culprits, and how to get free:

I am Alone

My heart breaks to hear this mantra over and over again! The biggest lie women face is that they struggle with a ‘guys issue’ or they’re the only woman dealing with pornography. Overwhelmed with shame, women reduce themselves to invisibility and truly believe they are alone.

This couldn’t be further from the truth, though! The stories and the statistics are in, women are using porn. Women are masturbating to porn, and women are struggling to find freedom from its enslavement. Female porn addicts are not a rarity. They just are.

Women believe many lies that hold us back from true happiness and fulfillment.

Did you know one in three visitors to adult websites are women? Or that at least seventeen percent of women consider themselves addicted? Research has shown seventy percent of women keep their cyber activity secret and, even within the Church, up to forty percent of women are concerned with their use of pornography and other sexual media*.

It’s clear why women genuinely believe they’re alone in this. Traditionally, within the Church, if it’s not complete silence from the pulpit on the topic, it’s a tsunami of masculine pronouns. Historically, when ‘The Porn Talk’ comes around, women are shushed away to talk about modesty or relationships, while the guys are given the chance to talk freely about lust, temptation and overcoming their struggle.

Thankfully this culture is changing as more and more women come out of the woodworks and bravely confess they struggle with pornography, too.

Women need to continue this trend of cultivating a culture of openness and freedom amongst themselves and boldly stand up against any false information that claims pornography is a male-only issue. It is important for men, particularly in leadership positions to also educate themselves on the topic and have empathy for the women under their care. Anyone speaking about pornography must change their language to include ‘her’.

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I Can’t Get Free

If a woman believes she is the only one struggling with pornography, she will feel trapped. If she can’t confess to anyone, how is she supposed to find help? The shame of her struggle eats her alive and tells her ‘you will never get free’.

Alone, she attempts countless crusades against her addiction. But it is too strong, she is lured back by the allure of faux intimacy and desire. Pain and discomfort demand a salve. Porn seems to have the answer, but never comes through. It is a seemingly endless cycle.

Anyone who struggles with habitual pornography use will feel helpless at some stage. Of course, this is because it is an addiction. It is more powerful than willpower, white-knuckling or moral determination. Getting free requires external support. It requires accountability, solidarity and often professional counseling or mentoring.

The male-dominated recovery world unintentionally bolsters the lie that women can’t get free. Women crave resources that use feminine pronouns to describe the struggle and healing process. When she walks into a bookstore or online library to only find resources for men, shame envelopes her like a thick, suffocating blanket. Any ounce of courage she felt stepping out, is quickly melted away. There is no help for her, no guidance. Her femininity feels drained, and she succumbs to the lie ‘I will never truly get free’.

The antidote to this is genuine hope.

Hope comes when women bravely share their journeys and experience the liberation of vulnerability and accountability. Resources that are written from a feminine perspective are also a powerful tool in cultivating hope in the hopeless. You can find some of these here.

Sharing your struggle with someone safe is the first step in liberation and cultivating hope. When you confess and are accepted and loved, it is a taste of the grace of God, and is your first step out of that dark web of lies.

God Couldn’t Forgive Me

It is impossible to overstate the spiritual gravity of the shame women feel over their sexual struggle.

They feel as if they’re living a double life. In public, they are the perfectly put together Christian woman. They volunteer at Church, help with the children’s programs and dutifully nod their heads during solemn sermons on sexual sin. However, in private they turn into a different person. Alone, they are consumed by pornography, lust and insatiable desires. The websites they visit, books they read or sexual encounters they have to push them further into this dual personality, and the dichotomy tears them apart.

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Women transpose their own unforgiveness of themselves upon Jesus. Not only can she not fathom forgiving herself, but there seems no way a husband or friend could, either. If humans are incapable of such forgiveness, how could the perfect Son of God accept her? Her logic is clouded by human experience and pain.

This leaves women feeling alone, unable to get free and genuinely believing God couldn’t forgive them for what they’ve done and who they’ve become.

Sister, your porn addiction may feel like the most powerful force on Earth right now, but truly, God is more powerful. He longs to hold you close and bring restoration to your soul.

God has dealt with sexually frustrated and immoral women before. In John 4:1-42 and 8:1-11, two women are in contact with Jesus. The first is a woman socially isolated from her community and relationally promiscuous. She has had five husbands and confesses to living with someone who she is not married to. The second is a woman caught in the act of adultery and facing execution by the religious leaders. They may not have been downloading porn on their phones, but I’m sure you can relate to their shame.

Jesus spoke gently and kindly to them. To both, he offered physical and spiritual life. He did not condemn but made a way forward. Both of these women became beacons of hope and light for those in their community, and also for contemporary readers of the Bible.

It’s time to step outside of yourself for a moment. Let God declare truth over your life, rather than listening to the lies inside your head. No matter the weight of your shame, God can forgive you. He wants to wipe the tears from your face, the shame from your heart and take your hand to lead you out of hiding. He is a good Father, he is unlike anything you have ever experienced on Earth.

Say Goodbye to Lies

As women, we live in a world of twisted truths and down-right lies. We may not escape this until we find ourselves in the new creation with Jesus, but until then, these are three lies we can remove from our lives. You are not alone, you can get free and God longs to forgive you.

 Statistics from xxxchurch.