Including especially the videos where violence towards women was displayed, or objectification, dehumanisation... As a woman myself I wish these never existed and I wish I could erase my memory of all the porn I watched. Wish there was some hypno or something to allow that :,)

Hi everyone.
I’m a 25 year oldChristian woman, and I’m hoping for some honest advice because I don’t really have anyone I feel safe talking to about this.
I’ve been saved for a while, and I’m currently in a relationship where we’re both committed to waiting until marriage. I genuinely want to honor God in this area, but I’m struggling.
I lost my dad when I was young, and although I don’t want to blame everything on that, my struggle with pornography started around that time and continued into adulthood. I’ve had previous sexual experiences before this relationship, and recently I felt convicted to throw away my sex toy, which I did. The urges are still there though no matter how much I try to ignore them..

The thing is, this doesn’t feel like it’s only about sex anymore. I’m wondering if it’s connected to loneliness, grief, anxiety, trauma, or just wanting comfort.
I was diagnosed with anxiety, depression, and ADHD a few years ago. I haven’t been on medication for about three years. The past few years have been super rough on my mental health. Suicidal type of rough. I’m also still studying and living at home, and financially I’m not in a position to afford therapy or counseling. I also have a complicated relationship with my mom, she provides the necessities, but I don’t have the means to get professional help right now.

Another part of this is that I often feel incredibly touch-starved.
My boyfriend is a good man who loves God, and I know his intentions are good. Recently he felt convicted that we shouldn’t even sleep in the same bed when I visit him, and I respect that conviction.
He’s also just not naturally a very physically affectionate person. And we don’t see each other very often too.
One day I was having a really difficult time emotionally. He was sleepy, but not fully asleep, and I went to him crying and I just wanted to be held. I even asked him to hold me tightly, but the hug still felt very reserved. I don’t think he was trying to be uncaring, and I’m not trying to criticize him or make him out to be a bad boyfriend.
I also, I don’t only want to be hugged tightly when I’m breaking down. I wish he naturally held me that way in everyday moments too. Sometimes I wonder whether I’m craving physical comfort in a healthy way, or whether because of my past and my loneliness I’ve attached too much emotional weight to it.

I’ve also experienced church hurt, so I’m honestly scared to open up to leaders at my current church. I know people often recommend accountability, but I don’t currently have someone I feel safe enough to trust with something this personal.
One thing that confuses me is that I have actually made progress. The pornography and masturbation aren’t nearly as frequent as they used to be. There have been times when I’ve gone one or even two months without it. The urges also tend to be strongest around my period. But recently I’ve slipped twice, and even though that’s objectively less than where I used to be, I still end up feeling completely defeated afterward. It feels like all my progress disappears, even though I know that’s probably not true. I feel like I have issues but I don’t know what the issues are and I’m just trying to treat a symptom. I’ve tried reminding myself that this is the work of the enemy but that doesn’t make me stop too…

So I guess my question is:
Am I missing something? Am I looking at this the wrong way? Has anyone else discovered that their struggle with porn was connected to deeper emotional needs like grief, loneliness, trauma, or touch starvation? If so, what actually helped you heal especially if therapy wasn’t financially possible?
I genuinely want healing, freedom, and a closer walk with God. I just feel very alone and don’t know what the next step is.

I had no idea there are women out there struggling like me. I started watching porn at a very young age. About 7/8. I would be home alone and the tv channels would have adult movies and I would watch them when I was looking for kid movies. Pretty soon it ended up being the first way I would watch porn. Then through the years it spiraled.

I got into middle school and was touched by boys in school (type of assault but that’s another story). And I didn’t know how to handle that. So I tried to justify the situation by watching porn and exploring that. Then it got worse because I discovered incognito and found hardcore porn and hentai. Which I’m more than positive destroyed my relationship with how love and intimacy works.

And this just went on and on. Now I’m 26 and I am still struggling with it. The longest I have lasted is a month and then I get lost in it again. Isn’t it ridiculous? And it’s always the darker stuff. I just want it to stop. I don’t even enjoy the act. It genuinely makes me feel sick when I finish. I feel so alone in this. I feel like I’m not normal. How did you ladies stop this? It’s a stupid evil addiction and I don’t know how to even begin to stop it.

So, Ive currently been porn-free for nearly 7 months now after an 8 year long battle which contains thousands of relapses.

During my 7 months, I have never felt the urge to view porn because I knew that that would be the final time I’d stop fighting. Its not the same for everyone but that’s how it was for me.

Today, idk if it counts as a relapse bc I read smut which I typically don’t do. I was just having solo time with myself because that’s 100% normal and hello Im human??? When reading it I did read it generally but then in another one I just skipped to the scene

Idk if it counts as a relapse, gray area, or red flag I should watch out for. I know that relapses entirely depend on an individual because at the end kf the day you know urself and how your addiction is, but Im just conflicted on this because before it I didn’t think of relapsing but then afterwards I was like “idk” (◞‸◟,)

Update followed up with a rant:

Okay, so I will be counting this as a slip because in the last 30-40 or so days this is the 2nd time this has happened.

Since this app is typically a trigger for me Ill be deleting this account shortly, and focus on true recovery. This happened because I typically masturbate (will not classify this as an addiction bc it doesn’t interfere with daily life and relationships as my porn addiction did), and I did not truly find ways to filter the 8 year damaging content. This should never happen again, and I just saw a glimpse of my future and it’s awful if I keep reading this stuff, then Ill be in that cycle again.

If I was still in the pits of my porn addicition I would 100% couldve counted it as a relapse because that’s when I wasn’t ready to make the changes. After a 7 month long journey, I know the route I want to make

I’m feeling so defeated. I’ve tried virtually everything I can. Therapy, treatment, books, courses, everything. I was in 12 step for years and just don’t want to go back. I had mixed experiences but feel really burnt out of 12 step and never found the right group for me.

I’m in a healthy relationship now and it’s coming up SO MUCH. I spiral and have so much anxiety that he’s watching porn or thoughts about when he did that it triggers me into watching it. When I’m the one that really has the problem. It’s crazy.

This addiction feels so convoluted as a woman. My kinks are tied to my biggest fears and insecurities. Which makes it so confusing and not believe it’s really what I want.

I just want it to be gone forever. I want to be free of it. When I’m in it, I love it. When I’m done, I hate myself. It feels like I’m self harming everytime I go back.

Hi, I'm 27F. Looking for female accountability partners if there are any. I know it's not common as most of these spaces tend to be catered to men. I' ve suffered from significant past trauma which has led to compulsive PMO, there are days when it's all I do and it's affecting my work. This has led to some dark additions and fantasies. I have been told to seek professional therapy but I feel I'd rather try and deal with it myself before resorting to that. If there are any other females struggling with this, I'd appreciate it. I prefer not to have male partners as in the past it tended to make my struggles worse. Thank you for listening and for any support.

It's eating out every part of my life. I hate myself, I hate porn. I just want to be free and not spend every waking moment a fucking slave

For me sex was really painful at first, which is one of the reasons why I started overindulging in masturbation and porn which later spiralled horribly into a really bad addiction and content I'd rather erase from my head.

Now that I'm done, I sometimes wonder if I'm permanently broken. I wonder if in a future relationship I will be able to feel comfortable experiencing intimacy, without my head reminding me of the problem I had.

I tell myself that if I ever fall in love again, my head will be so clouded with positive emotions that I won't even have space to think about anything negative, traumatic, bad, but I don't know...

I’ve been struggling with porn for as long as I can remember, first discovering it on a shared kindle between me and my father when I was 4. Since then for as long as I can remember I’ve been watching porn. Reading porn whether that be hentai or erotic novels, or just straight up watching it. I’ve been doing that for years, and it completely ruined my mindset. It got really bad my junior into the start of my senior year of high school, where the videos I was consuming went from regular vanilla to fucked up captions and eventually led me to delete anything and everything that could somehow lead me back to porn and reporting and blocking every post I’ve seen about it. I recently had gotten into a relationship (about to be 6 months) and I can’t even bring myself to watch porn, as that would be such a big disrespect to my boyfriend, and he doesn’t even watch porn either and stopped doing so when he was 14 ( almost 6 yrs ago). But even though I stopped I feel so helpless, we’re long distance and I still live in my mothers house and hadn’t moved in with him yet so when I get sexual urges and he’s not here it takes so much self control to not do anything. And being on my period makes it so much worse, as I can’t even have sex and I get the most urges during that time and it makes me go insane. It’s been almost a year since I stopped watching porn, a few months since I read it as my urges got the best of me but I only felt disgusting reading so I had immediately exited it out, and I just feel so hopeless that I’ll never be able to get rid of porn from my life, especially since I’ve been watching it for as long as I can remember.

Any books that help you in your freeporn journey?

This is my story that I wrote about myself, and why becoming porn-free women matters to me.

When I was little, I learned to feel bad about my pelvis, and the feelings that originated there. I probably touched myself and was scolded. I’ll never know.

I suffered lots of homophobic comments at school.

Then, after I realized I could go on the computer and type things into a search engine, shame deepened.

As a teen, I thought that I would rather die than have anyone know. It wasn’t even just about which gender(s) I liked. I had to pretend that I didn’t feel thirst at all, towards anyone.

Another thing to explain: I'm trans. The gender that I liked was guys. I was very feminine and I hated that I was not going through the kind of puberty that I wanted to be going through. Even if it would undoubtedly be harder in some ways, and subject to the marginalization of menstruation and female health in this male-dominated world, I wanted to be magically reassigned female so badly. I wanted to be a part of sisterhood.

And so, the fact that my sexuality was coming from uncomfortable male parts of me just made it feel even more embarrassing, shameful, and "unfeminine."

Even though I have now been open about being allosexual (non-asexual) for over 15 years, and have been on plenty of dating apps as an out trans woman, I continue to struggle with unhappiness in how I habitually engage with my sexuality.

The reality is that I’ve just been very fixated on specific triggers. I do not normally consume "conventional" porn on adult-designated websites, but I have had my own ways of spending hours chasing highs through things I find on the internet... and I can get insatiable. I continue to search for novelty even after I've exhausted so many options of ways to entertain my fetishes that can seem silly, picky, or demanding.

And I think I can see how I became this way. I was a neurodivergent child who noticed things. It’s okay to zoom in on the unique details that interest you or that spark fascination or a shiver. But because I felt blocked from expressing it, talking about it… it became this congestion inside of me. To where I didn’t want to focus on anything else.

And I guess details became a replacement for intimacy. Intimacy is more about connecting with the whole of a person, right? Or getting immersed in a relationship? Rather than being distracted by what clothes they’re wearing or by the pursuit of a particular kinky scenario.

What would true intimacy feel like?

Recently I was enjoying Shailene Woodley’s interview on the SHE MD Podcast. Part of the discussion was saying something about porn being like fast food, and how real relationship can be more driven by emotional connection rather than some actual perfection of looks… I can’t recall exactly, but I listened to that and I felt happy but also sad, knowing that it’s true, yet regretting how much time I've spent feeling incapable of living up to that wisdom.

Since then, what’s been helping the most has been exploring porn-free subreddits. Hearing people’s stories from every stage of their journeys - from the throes of post-pornographic relapse regret, to snapshots of incredible victories after months or years of freedom - I am immediately less alone. Through the magic of peer contact, visibility of others' versions of a struggle can instantly make my problems much easier to step away from. I've had less appetite for deriving arousal from a screen. I have felt more of an attentiveness towards emotional connection. That's great!

Currently, it has been 7 days that I have done all of my self-pleasure with only the darkness of my own mind for company. That has been nice. I shall see how long I continue that.

Above all, I want to be a porn-free woman to be a better example for others. I want to become porn-free women together.

I want to discover what's possible in life. I don't want to die never knowing whether I could have unlocked some higher dimension of real human contact that was hiding under a cloak of sexual fixatedness that I continued to wear for no reason...

As an advocate for animal and human justice in my spare time, I am all about facing hard truths, and making hard changes to be more in alignment with a more compassionate world. I feel that I need to walk the walk, by facing my problematic sexual browsing of the internet, which has at times blurred ethical boundaries and weighed upon my soul. Unhealthy sexuality is a huge blight upon this planet, with so much suffering that it causes. I want to be one more being who is living in the light of sexuality that feels kind, harmless, soft, sweet, and true. Not that everyone's sexuality needs to feel like how I just described that, but that's how I want mine to feel.

I am excited to be here and to become porn-free women together. Thank you for welcoming me in the group as a transfeminine being, and thank you for providing this healing space that we can all share. Love, Phoenix

I feel guilt about having this addiction from the stuff I consumed to how I consumed porn. I don’t wanna share too many details but I would like to dm someone about this

In some ways, it seems impossible to form new habits. Then we see someone even more hopeless than we are, and 25 days later, they are free. Why?

They worked on quitting all the time. They worked on new habits all the time. They determined to pray quitting prayers all the time.

Second, you will come up with excuses for working on quitting part-time. You are tired, you are busy, you are interested in doing something else.

Third, some people would be shocked to hear that after a long time free, I still work on quitting full time during tempting situations.

My tempting situations are way down because... I have no interest in the problems that my old life had. I have no interest in giving up my joy. But temptations do happen, and when they do, I completely go to war. I go back to working on quitting full time. I work on running from temptation instantly. I work on thinking new thoughts instantly.

Before I quit, I had zero joy. I was empty, I was dark, I was often depressed.

Now I have joy and purpose.

Fifth, to work on quitting all the time, review old articles. Write down the things recommended to do to quit in a quitting notebook. Then, whenever you have time. Flip open that notebook, and work on something.

Finally, many people spend some time working on quitting. Some of them quit. A few people work on quitting all of the time. Many of them quit. Honestly, you will quit if you keep doing that, unless you give up the new habit of working on quitting all the time.

200+ days ago i made a post asking if i should just get a vibrator and use that because it was a struggle to get turned on and find my clit. 99% of the time i had to use porn.

well i got my hands on a toy. it can… do many things, but i just use it as a vibrator for now.

if i’m on a call with someone it’s really hard for me to actually find my clit and get off without the use of porn even if i am super turned on. i was ashamed about this so i never told the person on the other line

but guys yesterday i didn’t need it. i was just talking to him and got progressively more turned on as i used the toy. he told me to spread pussy with the other hand so the vibrator hits my clit better and… it worked. didn’t need porn. didn’t even lowkey need any visuals. i just felt the sensation and came harder than i ever have. i can’t remember the last time i came without watching porn.

i really hope that this is the end to my porn use/addiction. i feel kind of sick knowing i get off on content like that. i also feel like because of porn i got more interested in darker kinks and things…. but that’s a topic for another day

I decided I'm going to be better and break the cycle of abuse that has haunted me for years and years. Yesterday was my first day in years of being completely pornfree, hopefully I manage to keep it like that

I keep trying and trying to quit but no matter how hard I try, I always end up relapsing and making myself worse. I always hate myself so much whenever I look at the stuff, I don't even enjoy looking at it yet I can never stop myself. I wish I wasn't so broken

Okay title sounds messed up but I don't hate these women, but I do feel a jealous resentment towards them. I feel so insanely jealous of women who almost seem asexual and adverse to all things sex, especially porn. Like I feel they have a specific freedom I'll never understand even if I do manage to quit. People always say an ex-alcoholic is always just one drink away from becoming an alcoholic again and I feel the same about porn. I feel like less of a woman for watching it and thinking of it so much too. I feel guilty for even thinking about those sorts of things because none of that is the sort of person I want to be. When I look at other women they don't seem like they can relate at all and it makes me feel sad because I feel like a gross weirdo. I'm sure more women struggle with it than I think and are probably more private about it than men, but still. I just wish I could be the kind of woman who found it completely and utterly repulsive, but instead I'm a gross weirdo. I know it won't be like this forever but it sure feels like it. I hope you ladies are having a good evening/day though.

It’s been about two months since I stopped watching, and I felt great I noticed my ability to aroused naturally increased and it felt great especially since I just started seeing a guy and I didn’t want it to be an obstacle in our intimacy.

But two nights ago I got really high and I watched sumn on Twitter. I’m beyond disappointed in myself. I thought I could handle the impulsive thoughts but I fell short. Now I’m a bit worried about getting high again,

I hate that all the porn and masterbation has warped my mind and centred my whole life round it. I can't even wake up normally without having to fight the urge because the habit is so ingrained in me. Why is it so hard to quit such a vile habit

Hi, I’m 24/f. I’ve always tried to give up porn, white knuckle through it, but I’ve always given up eventually.

It’s became very hard. I’ve never gone this long (30 days). I looked at pictures of myself from a few years ago and I’ve also listened to audio porn once. Is this considered relapsing?

I set up blockers on my phone so I couldn’t go to websites I normally do. I’ve stopped going on almost all social media so there is no chance I’d get a hit from seeing anything in a similar way you do with porn. I’ve had nightmares about watching it. It’s very hard for me to orgasm now. It’s like I can’t feel pleasure at all. I’ve thought about doing a 90 day reset including no sex but the thought feels torturous. I feel more irritable, my mood is low. I just feel anxious. I’ve started seeing a counsellor and I’m working through it with them. But does it get easier? I’m scared I’ll slip back into the same habits, but I really don’t want to, because I’ve been struggling with this for years despite strongly being against porn.

This addiction has eaten my life away but today I'm finally claiming my life back!