I want to talk to you a little bit this morning about the
response I have had from a few of my readers.
As of this writing we have had over 150 views this week and over 340
since I started this blog. While that
may be a small number to some, to me it is incredible.
I received an odd message the other day from an old
friend. It said, “We have lead parallel
lives.” I was a bit confused and I tried
to contract her for a few days. I was
finally able to get a hold of her and talk to her about her comment. We spent over an hour chatting online as she
poured out her story. How she has many
of the same health concerns that I have, and that her husband had been just
like Mike. We had both lived thru the
abuse and humiliation of a husband addicted to porn. She then told me that she watched her husband
turn into a predator, and begin to prey on her family members. I wept behind my keyboard as I read what she
wrote. In all most 15 years of telling
the story of my survival, I had never met another woman whose husband had been
a porn addict.
I was so angry over what I was reading. Angry that he had done this to my friend,
that he had hurt other members of her family, but I think I was most angry over
the fact that I was not alone. See when
you’ve never meet anyone who has been through what you have. You feel perhaps you are a fluke. That somehow you are at fault. That somehow
you caused this to happen, because surely no one else could have been through
what you’ve been through. You are bad
and evil, and mistaken. That somehow,
perhaps you made it all up and it didn’t really happen at all. And then you see it in someone else’s hand
and you are like, “OMG! Maybe I didn’t make it up!? Maybe I’m not alone.”
It made me very sad to think of what my friend had gone
through. It made me even sadder and
angrier to think that she and I must not be the only ones out there. I am beginning to think I might put a
Facebook group together for us survivors of this type of abuse, but as of yet I
have no title for said group or how to even define its parameters. What would we call ourselves? Porn Widows?
Survivors of porn addicted partners?
I will keep you a breast of this situation.
These conversations also made me very, very angry. We can have a national conversation about
Viagra and erectile dysfunction. We can
talk about people surviving physical abuse, but when it comes to the sexual
stuff, Oh NO! We shut down. On TV, other
than Law and Order: SVU I know of no other program that is currently discussing
this subject. Sex abuse gets so little
national coverage. We are such prudes
when it comes to sex that people like me end up being embarrassed and
humiliated over what happened to them.
We feel it is our fault. There is
also this prevailing standard that if your partner is using porn it must be
because you are too ugly to fuck or you are frigid. That needs to change. Those of us who have been abused have got to
come out of our hiding places and talk about this, if to no one else but each
other.
We teach kids about Stranger Danger, but what we should be
teaching them is that danger may be closer to home. A child is more likely to be abused by a
family member then by someone they don’t know.
We need to teach kids, in schools, that their bodies are their own. What is acceptable touching and what is
not. But if we can’t even teach sex education
in school. If we can’t even teach girls
about their own periods and how their bodies work, because the Christian Right
won’t let us, they will never let us teach this. People will continue to suffer because
somebody wants to take the moral high ground and say lets handle a subject at home,
which has no morals at all.
I have talked to many
women over the years. The national
average is that 1 in 4 women is sexual assaulted or molested at some point in
her life. Men are closer to 1 in 10. Now those are based on reported numbers. In my conversations with women the number is
closer to 1 in 2. I am to the point now
that I assume the women I meet have been abused, unless I am told
otherwise. I can still count on one hand
how many women I know that have never been sexual abused in any way shape or
form.
I want to say a little bit about porn here. I am not anti-porn. If couples want to get together and watch it,
to learn new techniques, or to express a fetish together I think it can be just
fine. Many people use it recreationally.
I think this may be fine too. But when
you get to the level of what we have been through. When you are denying your
partner sex to gratify yourself with porn all the time, if your partner has to
beg for sex or any kind of intimacy, you have a problem. It’s kind of like alcohol. You can use it responsibility to flavor cakes
or enjoy a good time with friends, but when you are using it to cope you have a
problem and need help.
I have often told people that Mike was a sex addict. They usually laugh and smile and say well
that must have been wonderful for you. I
have to then stop and explain to them what that really means. That porn addiction is classified under sex
addiction. I then explain that Mike was
addicted to porn and did not want to have sex with me. They then look embarrassed and say how horrible
that must have been. I think we either
need a better word or a better understanding of the word. Many people also believe that you can only be
sexual abused as a child, and not as an adult, much less a sexually active
adult. That is just not true.
I have tried to be brave in all I have told you. Apparently my attempt at bravery has inspired
others. My beloved friend Juno, has been
so inspired by what I am writing, that she has begun her own blog to tell the
truth of her abuse. I think that is just
wonderful. Writing can be very
cathartic. Writing your own truth, I think can be helpful to others. I am writing mine, you should consider
writing yours.
I have been telling Jay, that if I can help just one person,
by telling my story than I will have done my job. You know I have my bad days and I don’t
understand what my mission on this earth is.
That I don’t understand why I have been through all that I have been
through, and then these ladies talk to me.
And I think maybe I am alive, and been given the ability to write, so
that I can help others who have been thru what I have through. I am honored these ladies have come forward
to tell me their stories. I look forward
to hearing more from y’all.
Ilsa
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