First of all, I am not saying that porn addiction isn't a real thing. What I am saying is that there is huge difference between addiction and self loathing.
Dirty Girls Ministry is an organization founded by 26 year old Crystal Renaud. Renaud claims that she went though her own "porn addiction" and wanted to help other women with similar issues by holding meetings at her local church and on the internet. Renaud also offers treatment for masturbation and lustful thinking. Some members of the discussion forums admit that they view porn or masturbate twice a week or less. They also include romance novels and erotica in this definition of porn addiction.
Bust Magazine reports on the ministry in the Feb/Mar. issue and author Blaire Briody says of DGM founder; "Her ministry is labeled anti-pornography, but it also aims to treat masturbation without porn when it involves lustful thinking".
Renaud uses all the terms that come along with addiction lingo. Terms like "staying clean" for instance or being "sober" is the only way to completely break free from the horrors of this addiction. Her approach includes a 12-week recovery program called No Stones. Renaud starts the recovery off by banning any sort of material that can be determined as pornographic for one week. Then begins 90 days with no sex, no masturbation, no pornography or any TV shows about sex.
"When you stop masturbating, says Renaud, or stop looking at porn, your body actually goes through withdrawal. It's intense."
So, how did Renaud come to be the messiah for women who can't stop masturbating and checking out porn?
First let's back up a bit. The abstinence movement has long been a tool of the religious to deter young people from engaging in sexual intercourse period and we all know how well that works.
If these young people don't have sex until marriage, their purity is intact and their physical chastity has brought them to whatever prize it is that you get when you don't fuck until marriage. If they don't wait until the blissful marriage bedroom...well in that case, they won't use a condom because as the abstinence teacher said condoms don't work and a girl shouldn't ask a guy to wear one unless she's a slut. So the guy does alright in the end and the girl ends up getting pregnant, labeled a whore or a slut and suddenly wonders why her abstinence only sex education didn't include putting a condom on a banana like all the other kids in the school downtown got in there sexual education class. I bring abstinence only education (if you can call that being educated)up because it provides us a look at the mentality of people who seek to erase human sexuality in any context other than procreating. Now, not only are you not suppose to have sex, you aren't suppose to think about it nor simulate it in any manner until you are legally married and in the bed you your husband/wife picked out together and ran by the comforter set with your priest.
Renaud says that she found a dirty magazine of her brothers when she was 10 years old and the male genitalia was so fascinating to her that she began searching for it. Upon hitting puberty she admits that masturbation was added into her porn seeking behavior. Fast forward to age 15 and we find Renaud at a Christian summer camp. She heard a pastor talking about god loving everyone unconditionally regardless of what you do (unless you have an abortion or are gay, I digress). Renaud pledged then and there to end her masturbation and porn habits.
Putting women and pornography together is already a touchy subject as Men are supposed to hide the fact that they view/enjoy pornography and women are supposed to be open and loud about the fact that they don't view and are offended by pornography in all of its icky porn ways. Obviously parts of the above are true, on the whole I think the whole thing is crap. Women are made to feel awful about having any sort of sexual desires or wants to begin with. Now your telling me that women look at and actually masturbate to pornography and it is a viscous addiction that needs to be stopped?
Masturbation is wrong because....wait why???? Christian porn addicts are told that God intended sex to between a man and a women, not a man and himself. Okay....and why is masturbation wrong again? Because of the Porn thing? Well, as Christine O'Donnell stated in that oh so fascinating 1990's MTV video, it is wrong because having lust in your heart is committing adultery and you can't masturbate without lust. Uh. huh. She goes on, "If he already knows what pleases him and he can please himself, then why am I in the picture?"
AH HAH!!!! There it is. Renaud's crusade is against all sexual thought unless they are about your husband. O'Donnell is another women who is against all sexual thought unless it is about your husband (though she's worried more about him not thinking about her apparently).
So let us put a few things into context. The Dirty Girls Ministries is an organization where women who to one extreme are masturbating and watching porn all the time and to the other extreme having (gasp!) dreams about masturbation. So, what is the common thread between the two? GUILT. They all feel guilty. One member of DGM reports "Once, I've actually committed the sin (of porn and masturbation), I find myself feeling such sadness, frustration, disappointment anger and shame." Another states that it makes her feel "sick and unworthy" and another feels isolated and disgusted with herself.
While Renaud is running her DGM, some parts of society are starting to embrace the idea of masturbation, especially when it comes to women. It's a fact that millions of women struggle to reach orgasm during traditional penis/vaginal penetration. Countries like Spain and Britain have launched masturbation positive campaigns or pamphlets. Last year the UN released a report saying that children should learn about masturbation around age 5. Even Oprah, OPRAH has talked about the benefit of female masturbation. Some Doctors have pointed out that masturbation allows women and young girls to take the reins of their own sexuality. No way says Renaud, you can teach children that porn and masturbation exist as long as they don't try it. "It's a very dangerous society that we live in when we're telling women that it is OK to look at porn."
Christine O'Donnell agrees. What if women figure how to pleasure themselves without men?
What if getting married doesn't do anything to curb sexual desires felt by good Christian women who still feel guilty about their sexual fantasies? The women in DGM have the assumption that once a man is involved and they are married, the guilt or temptation to do taboo things will go away, allowing them to have appropriate good Christian women sexual thoughts, as if such a thing exists. If someone is taught that porn and masturbation is a bad thing, it is going to intrigue them more than if they came to the decision on there own and through there own experiences.
Mostly, I think Renaud and the other members of the DGM are lonely. Besides living in a society that tells them good girls don't like anything to do with sex, a lot of them are single and Renaud herself admits that she herself has never had a boyfriend. Maybe it is her lack of real life sexuality that drives her to call reading a romance novel and getting a tingly sensation during a particularly licentious scene "pornography addiction". Her preaching of the so-called 12-step path to salvation may be her way of normalizing the sexual repression that manifests as obsessions to other women who like to pleasure themselves if there isn't anyone else who will do it for them.
For more information on the Dirty Girls Ministry visit there web site here
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