POSA™ Blog
“I Clean Up the Messes of the Pornography Industry”
Note that the article in link below contains sexual descriptions that may be triggering. If this is an issue for you, you may want to avoid the article.
"I have had a number of divorce cases where pornography has been at the centre. The couples still want to be together, but their sex lives have been distorted and destroyed." - Dr. Ann Olivarius
For many of us counselors, coaches, pastoral care providers, psychologists, and other treatment providers who work with men and women in relationships broken by chronic infidelity, our work requires us to learn how to help our clients navigate through the litter field of infidelity and sexual compulsion, back towards health and integrity.
As part of that, our training and on-the-job experience usually entails a peripheral learning about the netherworld of the sexual exploitation industries: pornography, stripping, prostitution, etc., since our clients have usually habituated themselves to this realm of commodified sexuality.
How do we ensure that our learning as professionals doesn't fixate narrowly on only the problematic sexual behaviors of our clients, but also encompasses the broader cultural contexts within which their behaviors occur?
One effective way to expand our understanding is to widen the lens through which we view the sexually exploitative industries by including the perspectives of professionals outside the treatment field: sociologists, attorneys, media specialists and journalists, ethicists, feminist academics and activists, plus others with experience in how the sexual exploitation industries affect not just our own relationships, but entire societies...and how that happens.
Towards that end, we are excited to introduce a woman who also works with the effects of the pornographic culture. Her work focuses on legally defending partners, couples, pornography addicts, women attempting to exit the pornography field, revenge porn victims, child sexual abuse victims, sexual harrassment victims and more..
Meet Dr. Ann Olivarius, an internationally practicing attorney that the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) lists as one of the most influential people in the history of U.S. anti-discrimination law.
Dr. Olivarius, who was a Rhodes scholar at Yale and earned her doctorate at Oxford University, is responsible for coining the term "date rape" 36 years ago as she brought an unprecedented lawsuit against Yale University in defense of many students there who claimed sexual assault on campus. She continues to inspire with her bold legal defense initiatives across the globe.
After reading Dr. Olivarius' incisive post on why anyone still questions whether the pornography industry is oppressive, we think you'll agree her outspoken and courageous views are a welcome addition to the growing body of voices speaking out against this usurious industry. And we at PoSARC were galvanized by what she had to teach us about the sexual exploitation field she encounters in her professional life.
Read Dr. Olivarius' insightful post here: I clean up the messes of the porn industry. Why are we still questioning whether pornography is oppressive?
Then let us know what you think about Dr. Olivarius' question, "Is pornography inherently oppressive?". Do you think there is a push back against the pornography industry by young people? How has pornography affected you?
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Comments 5
It is a very lonely existence when you discover that your entire marriage has been a sham. A lie. My story is too long and depressing (not to mention me breaking down into tears), to relate everything here but suffice it to say that after 28 years together I found out why my husband who is 12 years older than me...now 64, could never be emotionally available with me, why he never wanted to have any conversations with me in general or make even the the most basic of future life plans together, his only interest as I reflect now were and remain sexual. To exacerbate the entire illness is that he is an alcholic and has been his entire life (which he hid from me in the beginning.) Anyway, he has no idea what emotional intimacy is; his only understanding of intimacy is sex and now that is even questionable because you see, it was NEVER ME he was having sex with. It was all the fantasy women in his head. I am so profoundly sick to my stomach that I don't think I will EVER RECOVER. I don't have ANY FAMILY or financial resources to leave. I can not live on my own financially. We don't have any assets...he never had any interest in buying a home and while raising two sons and busy working full time, battling clinical depression and the emotional scars from my own traumatic childhood (daily physical and sexual abuse, [including by my mother from the age of 3) I was not in tune with what he was doing. He has always lived a double life. He has always traveled in his job.
I have been through so many therapists and doctors and anti-depressants that I am just numb. I can't even get my thoughts stright anymore. Nothing helps. I live in a San Bernardino county in Califonria where there is absolutely no support groups for partners of sex addicts sans a group that believes that we, as partners are enablers and that we are co-addicts. I do not subscribe to this. I tried to get him to address his addiction to porn (and God only knows what else he has done...something else my mind torrments me with often...I know he visits strip clubs and porn video shops) but he went a couple of times took an assessment test that practically was off the charts - although he would never share it with me. We went to couples therapy but the therapist told us not to come back until he stopped drinking because unless he did that he was never going to give up the porn because they allowed each of the addictions to continue. He is a complete stranger to me. He is a master manipulator. I feel so very trapped. I feel defeated. I am so angry that I do sometime find myself wanting the worst of fates to find him. For now, we are living as roomates because that is all I can do for the moment as I am trying to save up enough $$ in my own name to be able to move out on my own. He is still working and will retire soon and will only have Social Security as his income. He has no pension or retirement for any job since he has had at least 16 different jobs during our marriage. I just need to find a support group but the closest one to me is in LA which is about 2 hours drive or 65 miles. I would relocated but cannot afford to live in LA. I just want to feel happy and alive again.
I am totally on board with shutting down this industry and any and all that go along with it. How and where can I help?
My personal story is that my soon-to-be ex husband (age 62) was sharing porn with his FATHER in his young adulthood during the VHS days (and assuredly before that via magazines). They would exchange VHS tapes. I found this out years into our marriage.
What ultimately happened, and this I just found out this year, is that it escalated to massive online porn use, then escort and dating services online, then, during the 27 years of our marriage, he was videotaping ME in private places. I filed for divorce in September. My sons are devastated.
There is so much more that I probably don't know, including if the recordings of me were uploaded, shared, etc.
The real kicker is, he doesn't think he has a problem. And I feel this all started with pornography.
Thanks for sharing your experience with us here, Katherine- That sounds truly hellish.
We see pornography as the "gateway drug" which is where boys get their first exposure to the exploitation of women, the objectification mindset.
As that eats away at a boy's (or man's) values over time, they often allow themselves permission to go further and further into these problematic behaviors...
I was shocked when I did my research on contemporary pornography sites, how many pop-up ads there were, how in-your-face they were, how downright aggressive, all of them urging viewers to spend money on escort sites, adult hook-up sites, and more.
So I'm not surprised to see men allow their own bottom-line values get watered down more and more as they allow themselves to transgress in these sexually exploitative ways. Tragic.
Congratulations on your soon-to-be-changed marital status....
I see women all the time (who are filing for divorce) breathe a huge sigh of relief at the disappearance of anticipatory anxiety they had learned to live with (and just didn't even realize was there, till it wasn't)...
Life does get better...We just have to learn that painful lesson, that everyone has the right to mess up their life royally. The best we can do, (unless they choose recovery for themselves) is to get away from the disaster so our nervous systems can do the deep healing necessary without further traumatization.
God's speed on your journey to a more peaceful life, Katherine-- Thanks again for your generous input here!
Thanks. My husband had a secret life for 12 years with prostitutes. I am destroyed. When I tell people they say get over it all man do it. And yes almost all of them do. And I am about to give up fighting against porn because I feel alone. It would be do great if this doctor could get this information out more much more. We woman are drowning. Sex exploration is every where. My daughter in law knows my husband is on rape porn. And stills allows him to watch her two year old. I wish I could find a lawyer that you help me with my divorce and make his sex addiction the only reason our marriage is destroyed help help help
Thanks for writing in, Trish--
I know how isolating it can be to feel like you're the only one fighting: I just waited three hours in line to vote, and the woman behind me on line started chatting with me. and telling me she hopes whoever wins our Presidential election finally legalizes prostitution so our government can make money through taxing that industry.
Wow. Profoundly disturbing, to say the least. You can imagine that I "treated" her to three hours of everything I know on the topic. But I digress.....
It's easy to feel alone but I remind myself of something Dr. Gail Dines (a personal mentor of mine) said about taking down this industry: We must be like the Lilliputians in Gulliver's Travels who were each only six inches tall, but in determination to capture the sleeping giant that threatened them, they each took an end of rope and en force, bound him down, rendering him immobilized.
We can each do our part, there's so much work to do here.
Seems to me your daughter-in-law may need some encouragement to put her children first, and not to take chances here.
As for your own situation, if you are in a no-fault state, you can get divorced without evidence...If not, do you have any evidence of his prostitution use that an attorney can use to substantiate your divorce claim? I don't know what country you live in, but there's a good chance you have more power than you think here.....
Thanks for being part of our community and we look forward to hearing you share more in future blog posts...
Please take extra measures to care for your self so your healing can get underway, no matter what else anyone in your family is doing-- Your sanity is worth saving, even if others are being reckless!