Lacy A. Bentley is the Founder and CEO of Women United Recovery Coalition, an organization dedicated to raising awareness of female pornography addiction. She is the author of Addicted to Love, an international bestseller, and is currently collaborating with Dr. Rob on a book about sex addiction. Lacy shares some of her thoughts on why so many women feel like they have to hide in shame because of this addiction and how this addiction gets developed in the first place.  

TAKEAWAYS:

[2:25] How did Lacy get into this line of work?

[4:05] What does it mean that women ‘don’t have’ porn issues? We are ignoring a huge population here! 

[5:15] Female security is changing. Women are becoming much more visual. The porn industry has been marketing to women since at least the early 90s. 

[7:45] For some women, porn addiction is very real. They become compulsive with it. 

[13:00] Women suffering from porn addiction experience a deeper level of shame compared to their male counterparts. 

[14:15] When you say addiction doesn’t exist, you make people who are experiencing very real feelings feel invalided and shamed. It takes away their hope. 

[15:45] Every woman is different. Why they get addicted to porn it is often for very different and varied circumstances. 

[22:00] There is an important distinction between determining whether porn addiction is real or whether the person just has some guilty feelings come up from watching porn. How does Lacy help her clients realize it’s an addiction vs. not? 

[25:25] Why do some women struggle with porn and others don’t?

[28:15] Feel free to reach out to Lacy if you have any questions!  

RESOURCES: 

The Porn Panic: Is Porn a ‘Public Health Crisis’?

Sex and Relationship Healing

@RobWeissMSW

Sex Addiction 101 

Seeking Integrity

Cruise Control: Understanding Sex Addiction in Gay Men 

Prodependence: Moving Beyond Codependency

Email Lacy: [email protected]

Addicted to Love: Recovery, Empowerment and Finding Your True Self by Lacy Alajna Bentley

Lacy on LinkedIn

Women United Recovery Coalition on Facebook

Women, Sex, and Addiction: A Search for Love and Power by Charlotte S. Kasl 

QUOTES:

• “I go up and talk to a Ph.D., who is the head of a big recovery program, and I say to him, ‘Why do you not address female porn?’ and he says to me, ‘Women don’t have those problems.’ You just double shamed and invalided many women.”