Son of the Seas: “Yes, seeing yourself on camera makes you look at yourself a little closer. When it comes to working with other models in the industry being safe is one of the most important aspects of making content. I looked to porn for knowledge about sex, and I know others are still doing so. Showing that sex is both steamy and safe is what we as porn actors need to be doing.”

Son of the Seas: “I’ve been in a polyamorous relationship with my two amazing boyfriends for three years now. Two of us work in the adult entertainment industry but we have never let this affect our relationship. We talk about everything that we are doing for work and decide things as a unit. Being 100% transparent with your partners is the only way to make a relationship work, whether or not you work in porn.”

Tatt Twink: “I’ve definitely had boyfriends that have had a hard time with the idea of ‘sharing me’ sexually with another person. I’ve always tried to be transparent around my partners when it comes to business, so they know there’s nothing to hide.”

"1. "'Sex addiction’ and compulsive sexual behaviors are the same thing." Wrong. Whilst the DSM-5 has rejected "sex addiction" as a diagnosis, the ICD-11 has endorsed the term "compulsive sexual behavior disorder" (CSBD). The World Health Organization (WHO) clearly states that CSBD is not, however, an addiction disorder and that those two terms should not be used interchangeably.

I also frequently hear, "It doesn’t matter what we call it. If the client calls it an addiction, it is an addiction." The word "addiction" has become part of the popular lexicon (sex addict, shopping addict, chocolate addict). And the public can describe their problems whichever way they want; it is not their job to be trained in clinical language. Psychotherapists, on the other hand, should stay on the side of science and not perpetuate anecdotal myths. The public may use the word "depression" to say that they feel low, but clinicians don’t take that term lightly and insist on a proper assessment to determine if clients are indeed clinically depressed. The same principle should apply to the assessment of sexual compulsivity.

2. "I’m sex-positive and I recommend 12-steps programs such as SAA or SLAA." This is quite an incongruence. SAA and SLAA programs are sex-negative spaces where there is no knowledge of sexology, and there may be pathologizing of many normative sexual behaviors, with little understanding of gender, sexuality and relationship diversity. In my opinion, you cannot be both "sex-positive" and recommend 12-step programs. These are incompatible. It is like saying "pork meat vegetarian sausage."

3. "Sex addiction is real." Well, no. There has now been a lot of research done in clinical sexology that confirms "sex addiction" is not a valid clinical diagnosis, yet many will still assess it and treat it with old-fashioned methodologies and addiction-oriented thinking. For example, some therapists may still think that one can become addicted to BDSM, which we know is not true. Or they may attempt an addiction treatment such as suggesting that clients avoid sexual stimuli like we would ask someone with substance use disorder to avoid going to the pub.

I also often hear, "The science is lacking, there will be proof of ‘sex addiction’ one day." There is actually plenty of science, including neuroscience, showing that sexual compulsivity is not an addiction. There is plenty of science confirming that pornography is not an addiction, either. In fact, among scientific communities such as the ESSM (European Society for Sexual Medicine), the term "sex addiction" is rapidly fading away.

4. "Porn addiction is real." This sounds more like a personal opinion than a clinical opinion. In the absence of endorsed diagnostic criteria for "sex addiction" or "porn addiction," it leaves the therapist’s assessment open to their own biases rather than informed clinical opinion. If they don’t like the idea of watching pornography, they can very quickly pathologize a client with "pornography addiction."

"First things first, the most basic questions there is: How do you define feminist pornography?"

"The great thing about this book is that that is one of the central questions it is both asking and answering. One of the things we felt really strongly about is that there is no single answer, which I think is appropriate because there is no single response to, "How do you define feminism?" But I will say generally that I consider feminist porn to be both a genre of pornography and a movement. There are some overlapping themes within people’s different definitions of feminist porn: One theme is exploring the idea of how to make the process of making porn more ethical and addressing the issue of labor, which has always been an issue within feminism. How we can make it fair and consensual and ethical, how we treat the people making it and really raising the standards for how we treat sex workers."

"Now on a crusade to shake up the pornography industry for good, Lust is in the process of gathering a global community of female adult filmmakers who are more concerned with cinematic value than gratuitous sex scenes—and who are interested in one simple idea: films driven by a female character. "These women want to make films where the woman's pleasure is important; they want to show diversity in casting, and they want to work for an ethical production process."

"It's heterosexual, middle-aged white men who have these fantasies with boobs and ass. You know the ones, they love their cars and their drinks." This, says Barcelona-based director Erika Lust, is who is behind the majority of today's mainstream porn. "They cast the same kind of very young women with very slim bodies and large breasts. They might have different hair colors, but more or less it's the same kind of women, over and over again."

"Lust, who debuted her first adult indie short film, The Good Girl, in 2004 while studying political sciences, feminism and gender studies, considers mass-produced porn to be boring at best, misogynistic at worst. "Ugly", "tacky", and "horrible" are just some of the adjectives she ascribes to the genre, which has long been a vehicle for, as Lust puts it, the gaze of narrow-minded men."

"But, certainly, besides the process of making it, feminist porn does have a mission behind it, to really address some of the repetitions, the stereotypes, the tropes of some of mainstream pornography and diversify the representation of desire, pleasure, body, race, class, identity, sexual agency. I mean, we are firing on all cylinders here! We are trying to address a lot of different issues all at once. A common misconception about feminist porn is that we are really concerned about women and women’s representations and women’s pleasure. I like to say that as a feminist pornographer, I priorities female desire, pleasure, orgasm, because all too often they aren’t prioritized in other porn -- but I also think that we've got to dismantle the images and stereotypes around male sexuality. I think that that’s also the work of feminism, to really expose these gender binaries and these stereotypes. It’s really about trying to challenge the whole system, not just one piece of it."

The Istanbul convention, the first legally binding instrument in Europe in the field of violence against women and domestic violence, prohibits forced sterilization and forced abortion:

"Reproductive rights are legal rights and freedoms relating to reproduction and reproductive health that vary amongst countries around the world. The World Health Organization defines reproductive rights as follows:

Women's reproductive rights may include some or all of the following: the abortion-rights movements; birth control; freedom from coerced sterilization and contraception; the right to access good-quality reproductive healthcare; and the right to education and access in order to make free and informed reproductive choices. Reproductive rights may also include the right to receive education about sexually transmitted infections and other aspects of sexuality, right to menstrual health and protection from practices such as female genital mutilation (FGM)."

"Buchs, Gallagher, and Pure Life Ministries believe that Evangelical churches are filled with “porn addicts.” What should we make of this assertion? Is “porn addiction” even a thing? Sure, people can become addicted to many things, but has Internet porn turned half of all teen and adult Evangelical church members into addicts? Imagine for a moment an Evangelical megachurch with 20,000 members. Does Buch expect anyone to believe that this church has thousands and thousands of porn addicts; men (and women) so obsessed with porn that they spend every waking moment on the Internet, fulfilling their lustful desires? This, on its face, is absurd. Do Evangelicals look at porn? Sure, many do, including pastors. Do Evangelicals masturbate after watching YouPorn and other sites? Sure, many do. However, is this a sign of “addiction”? Of course not. Why, then, do Evangelicals confess to porn addiction?"

"The publication on Nov. 12, 2014 of the book I co-wrote with Prof. Barrie Wilson, The Lost Gospel: Decoding the Ancient Text that Reveals Jesus' Marriage to Mary the Magdalene, has caused a worldwide theological firestorm, including demonstrations in India. I was even the butt of one of Bill O'Reilly's attacks and have challenged him to an on-air debate. So far, he's demurred.

I think the reason for all this negativity is that the proof for the historical marriage between Jesus of Nazareth and the woman known as Mary the Magdalene has become overwhelming. Even before our findings, everything -- everything -- pointed to a marriage, and nothing -- nothing -- argued for Jesus' celibacy. The only thing that continues to argue for Jesus' celibacy is 2000 years of theological bullying. This may come as a shock to most people, but the fact is that none of the four Gospels say that Jesus was celibate. The Gospels call Jesus "Rabbi" (Matthew 26:49, Mark 10:51, John 20:16). Rabbis, then as now, are married. If Jesus wasn't married, someone would have noticed."

"If one looks at the Gospels without Attis-colored Pauline glasses, there are many, many hints that Jesus was married. Specifically, after the Crucifixion, the Gospels agree that it was Mary the Magdalene who went early Sunday morning to wash and anoint Jesus' crucified body (Mark 16:1). People have the quaint idea that ancient Jews in Jerusalem went around "anointing" each other. They didn't. What the Gospels are telling us is that Mary the Magdalene went to Jesus' tomb to prepare his body for burial. That's the Gospels, not me. Then and now, no woman would touch the naked body of a dead Rabbi, unless she was family. Jesus was whipped, beat and crucified. No woman would wash the blood and sweat off his private parts unless she was his wife."

"1) "You just need to work through your bitterness." -Teryn

Bitterness. It's a good idea to pretty much never use that word in particular. Bitterness, in fundie-speak, is a tool to silence anyone who is being critical. If you're accused of "bitterness," it means that you are incapable of viewing any situation or person "correctly," that you lack the capacity for love and grace, and what you actually need to work on is yourself. You're imagining things, nothing bad is happening, and you have a screw loose. This is actually a form of gaslighting -- convincing the person who's being attacked that they're just crazy -- and we've been beaten over the head with it for years. Just because we're saying things about the church that aren't pleasant doesn't make us bitter. Just because we sound angry doesn't mean we're bitter.

2) "Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater." -Lydia

There are a lot of variations on this one, but it all boils down to this idea that Christianity is fine, it's really just our personal experiences that we have to get over. And, I get why this one comes up a lot. For Christians who haven't experienced either a) fundamentalism or b) spiritual abuse, their religion is one of the best, most wonderful, spectacular things in their life and they couldn't imagine living without it. For us, though? It's not even remotely the same feeling. When Christianity has been the weapon used to beat you, sometimes, throwing the whole thing out is the only healthy thing left to do.

3) "You were never really a Christian." -Libby Anne

It's the teachings of "eternal security" and "by their fruits you shall know them" taken one step too far. And, frankly, it's codswallop. By any measure, people who grew up in Christian fundamentalism, prayed the sinner's prayer, loved God, loved Jesus... they were Christians any way you look at it. Just because they're not Christians now has absolutely zero bearing on if they were Christians then. The same thing goes if they don't fit your particular criteria for what you think a "Christian" is.

4) "If you're not currently attending a church, you have walked away from God." -KR Taylor

People usually come to me armed with Hebrews 10:25 -- "forsake not the assembling of yourselves together," which is really just code for "real Christians go to church." Which, seriously, asking some of us to go back to church is like asking a soldier with severe PTSD to go back to the battlefield, or asking a battered wife to go back to her abusive husband. You're telling us that the only way we can be a "True Christian" is if we go to a building where all the other "True Christians" are once a week, and aside from sounding ridiculous, it's inconsiderate and displays an astounding lack of compassion. If you're telling someone who you know has been spiritually abused to get their ass back in church, all it means is that you haven't been actually listening to us. If you were listening, you'd know exactly how hurtful and dismissive you sound."

While RTS can be different depending on the religion, practices, or beliefs, it typically has a common component of fear and manipulation. Individuals may be told that they will be separated from God, face social ruin, or go to hell based on their adherence to a certain set of traditions or belief.

Slade adds, “While archetypal traumatic experiences exist, such as sexual assault, there are no predictable causes of overwhelming or disruptive adverse effects on individuals. For one person, trauma results from teachings about hellfire, damnation, original sin, or a belief in the rapture. For another person, it’s the act of public shaming or being ‘slain in the Spirit.’ For someone else, it’s the experience of repeated sexual, emotional, social, or physical stigmatization and isolation.”

Some examples of religious trauma syndrome include:

These experiences can wreak havoc on one’s sense of self and create a false narrative that absolute adherence to certain practices and traditions are necessary to make it to the afterlife. Because religious trauma can be prevalent in childhood, becoming more distant from religion can sometimes mean that individuals feel that they are abandoning everything that they’ve been taught.

An individual who decides that they will leave their religion or faith community may find themselves without a place to go. They may lose family, friends, or an extended network of individuals that they previously felt connected to. On a deeper level, it can be common to lose your sense of self and your identity as you learn that most of the things that you knew to be true as it pertains to religion and faith were untrue. You may feel lost and find yourself at a point where you must build a new support network based on who you are outside of the religion that you left.

Symptoms of religious trauma include:

“I am 30 years old and I am struggling to find sanity. Between the Christian schools, homeschooling, the Christian group home (indoctrinating work camp) and different churches in different cities, I am a psychological, emotional and spiritual mess.” --A former Evangelical

If a former believer says that Christianity made her depressed, obsessive, or post-traumatic, she is likely to be dismissed as an exaggerator. She might describe panic attacks about the rapture; moods that swung from ecstasy about God’s overwhelming love to suicidal self-loathing about repeated sins; or an obsession with sexual purity.

A symptom like one of these clearly has a religious component, yet many people instinctively blame the victim. They will say that the wounded former believer was prone to anxiety or depression or obsession in the first place—that his Christianity somehow got corrupted by his predisposition to psychological problems. Or they will say that he wasn’t a real Christian. If only he had prayed in faith believing or loved God with all his heart, soul and mind, if only he had really been saved—then he would have experienced the peace that passes all understanding.

But the reality is far more complex. It is true that symptoms like depression or panic attacks most often strike those of us who are vulnerable, perhaps because of genetics or perhaps because situational stressors have worn us down. But certain aspects of Christian beliefs and Christian living also can create those stressors, even setting up multigenerational patterns of abuse, trauma, and self-abuse. Also, over time some religious beliefs can create habitual thought patterns that actually alter brain function, making it difficult for people to heal or grow.

The purveyors of religion insist that their product is so powerful it can transform a life, but somehow, magically, it has no risks. In reality, when a medicine is powerful, it usually has the potential to be toxic, especially in the wrong combination or at the wrong dose. And religion is powerful medicine!

In this discussion, we focus on the variants of Christianity that are based on a literal interpretation of the Bible. These include Evangelical and fundamentalist churches, the Church of Latter Day Saints, and other conservative sects. These groups share the characteristics of requiring conformity for membership, a view that humans need salvation, and a focus on the spiritual world as superior to the natural world. These views are in contrast to liberal, progressive Christian churches with a humanistic viewpoint, a focus on the present, and social justice."