A Christian Woman's Journey Out of Porn
It all began with a magazine at the tender age of 10. Since then Crystal Renaud found herself addicted to masturbation, phone sex and cybersex, she confessed in her new book.
The 26-year-old shared her intimate journey from addiction in her book Dirty Girls Come Clean. She wrote, “Pornography became my friend like none I had ever had before. Consistent. Reliable. And on some level, incredibly satisfying.”
Renaud’s escape from the addiction did not come from a church sermon or a pastor’s advice, given that the subject was never addressed for women in church. The church had only mentioned pornography as a sin but beyond that, nothing else was mentioned.
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In her book, she recounted the day she had hit bottom with her addiction when she solicited an anonymous sexual encounter as a teenager.
She told ABC, “I went there and met this person but I was in this room that day and I was waiting for this person to arrive and God met me there in a very dark place. This was my deepest darkest place that I have ever been.”
She asked herself then, “God how did I get here? All I really wanted to do was look at that magazine eight years ago and feel something but I’m here about to do something incredibly reckless, potentially dangerous.”
It was in that moment when she realized how dark her actions had become. But she also realized a way out of it through God.
“He was basically saying to me, Crystal, I have so much more for you, something so much greater for you if you’ll just give me this right now. And so I did,” she recalled to ABC. “And I just prayed ‘Lord, if you’re there, make this person go away.' All this while, the person’s knocking on the hotel room door … eventually the knocking stopped.”
She was able to get help two weeks later when she met a woman at a Christian concert who confided in her that she too had been a pornography addict. She wanted Renaud’s help to keep her accountable. In turn, Renaud was kept accountable and eventually her relationship with Jesus Christ changed “because I was fully surrendered to his healing power and his ability to take over my life and to free my life of these things that I was doing.”
In 2009, Renaud began “Dirty Girl Ministries” online where she received 300 responses in less than one week. Her ministry’s goal is to break through the barriers that keep women in bondage to pornography and sexual addiction.
Her concern is that the church tends to be silent about the subject, especially when it comes to women who are addicted. According to her, the number of women addicted to pornographic websites has escalated over the years. And it is more dangerous, she noted, because women eventually look for encounters due to their need for closeness.
Currently, about 25 percent of Christian women are addicted to pornography 70 percent which will never confess, according to Dirty Girls Come Clean.
Craig Gross, founder of XXX Church, told The Christian Post that porn for men is a “quick, easy and satisfying” venture while for women, it’s more of an escape. Also, men tend to be more visual while for women, emotional intimacy is involved. Thus, women tend to struggle on a different level and they later have conflicts when it comes to sex and relationships.
Speaking from experience, Renaud stated, "What's important to know about pornography and sexual addiction as a whole is that it's almost never about sex."
"It's a core intimacy disorder. Core wounds that have gone unhealed and are being medicated in the wrong way. We see women all the time addicted to pornography simply because they are using it as a way to cope with pain in their lives."
According to a study cited by ABC, about 78 percent of women porn addicts were sexually abused or neglected and experienced a lack of emotional support from their families.
Renaud suffered from neglect from both her father, who was often away on business trips, and her mother, who also worked. Her mother had also battled depression.
While struggling with porn, she looked for books on the subject for women but the lack of literature led her to write her book.
Encouraging women, she wrote, “If this sounds like you, then it is likely you have been living with an unawareness of just how big the God-shaped hole in your heart really is. But now that you are faced with an addiction that’s made you powerless, you’re left only to rely on God to help you overcome it.”
