When I found out my husband had been using pornography and even had a history with prostitutes, I was devastated. I had no idea where to turn. I didn’t know who to trust, or how to seek help.
Now, 11 years later, we’ve done the difficult but irreplaceable work of healing some of our deepest emotional wounds. Along the way, we discovered we were far from alone.
Our experience—initially one of shame, grief and extreme isolation—has helped us understand just how widespread compulsive sexual behavior is among married Christian couples, and how to help recognize and heal from the betrayal trauma that so often comes along with it.
At Pure Desire, we partnered with Barna Group to produce new research on pornography use, both in our culture and our churches. The data clearly dispels two common misconceptions about porn use: that it’s just a “man’s problem” and that it’s solely a “secular problem.”
Over half of practicing Christians (54%) report viewing pornography at least occasionally. And while a gender disparity in porn consumption does exist, with three in four Christian men (75%) admitting to using pornography, there is a notable increase in the number of women accessing pornographic content today. Today, 40% of Christian women use porn.
But women also tend to feel the harms of porn use more sharply than men do, both when they’re the one using it and when their spouse or partner is.
Porn use and sexually compulsive behavior generally impact women in two distinct ways.
The first is a decline in mental health and well-being that’s linked to active, personal use. Those who use porn experience higher levels of self-criticism, the need to be perfect and a fear of failure. They also experience higher levels of anxiety about important decisions, tend to feel easily overwhelmed and commonly experience depression.
In addition, because of the common belief that it’s a “man’s issue,” many women carry an extra layer of shame when they struggle with pornography. I know this to be true because I wasn’t only the betrayed spouse, but I experienced my own struggles with love, sex and porn.
The second impact is the less-discussed “betrayal trauma” that affects women when or if they discover—as I did—that their spouse or partner struggles with or has a history of compulsive sexual behaviors.
U.S. adult women who’ve had a partner or spouse who regularly viewed porn identify their partner’s regular porn use as a “very or somewhat” negative experience 56% of the time. Nearly half, or 44%, of these women feel their partner wasn’t attracted to them.
That’s a really important statistic, largely because of its contrast with the male experience. Men—even Christian men—are much more likely to think that regular porn use is compatible with a healthy sex life within marriage, or even beneficial to it. They simply do not experience porn use the same way, themselves or in their relationships.
