Speaker 1: You're listening to a Mom and me a podcast.
Speaker 2: Mama Mea acknowledges the traditional owners of land and waters
Speaker 2: that this podcast is recorded on. Hey there, Before we
Speaker 2: start today's episode, I just want to say that you
Speaker 2: are going to be hearing from some wonderful Mma Mea
Speaker 2: voices over the next few weeks as I work on
Speaker 2: another project. Hollywayen Wright, Claire Stevens, a Nama Brown, who
Speaker 2: is the executive producer of this show, are all going
Speaker 2: to be sitting in my chair for a few weeks
Speaker 2: and doing the same wonderful interviews that you know and
Speaker 2: love from No Filter. There are some great conversations coming
Speaker 2: your way about red and green flags in relationships, sex
Speaker 2: and porn, addiction, escaping from a religious cult, narcissism, sobriety,
Speaker 2: and more. You'll be hearing from me soon. Enjoy.
Speaker 3: When I was single and trying to feed those addictions,
Speaker 3: it was incredibly isolating. I mean I spent a lot
Speaker 3: of time on people away so that I could spend
Speaker 3: more time at home feeding the addictions. I mean, watching
Speaker 3: porn can take up the whole day.
Speaker 1: For Mamma Mia, this is No Filter and I'm Naima Brown.
Speaker 1: Sitting in for mea and today we're going to be
Speaker 1: talking about sex and porn and shame and self discovery
Speaker 1: with a really incredible, very brave woman. Erica Garza was
Speaker 1: only a teenager in nineteen ninety five when the infamous
Speaker 1: pam and Tommy Lee's sex tape exploded into the world.
Speaker 1: For anyone who doesn't know, that's Pamela Anderson of Baywatch
Speaker 1: and Tommy Lee, the rock star drummer from Motley Crue.
Speaker 1: They were married at the time, and it's worth mentioning
Speaker 1: that they didn't release this tape themselves. It was stolen,
Speaker 1: there was a big lawsuit. It's a very interesting story
Speaker 1: in its own right, but nevertheless, it did leak and
Speaker 1: it was a massive cultural moment. I was sixteen and
Speaker 1: I remember it well. I never actually saw it, to
Speaker 1: be honest, but there was no escaping knowing about it
Speaker 1: because it was kind of the first sex tape that
Speaker 1: went viral when the Internet was still very young. For Erica,
Speaker 1: the tape became an obsession, one of many obsessions she
Speaker 1: had with various pornographic clips and videos and images. This
Speaker 1: obsession would become an addiction, as would sex and interestingly
Speaker 1: and importantly shame. Erica has written a memoir about her
Speaker 1: journey with sex and porn addiction called Fittingly Getting Off,
Speaker 1: and the conversation you're about to hear will definitely challenge
Speaker 1: not only what you think sex and porn addiction looks like,
Speaker 1: but also what recovery looks like. Spoiler alert. For Erica,
Speaker 1: it doesn't mean giving up sex or porn. I started
Speaker 1: this conversation by asking Erica about why we're so much
Speaker 1: more accepting as a culture of men who experience sex
Speaker 1: and porn addiction. We treat it just like its kind
Speaker 1: of normal boys will be boys' behavior, but we still
Speaker 1: attach so much taboo around the stories of women who
Speaker 1: experience the same thing. Why Here's Erica.
Speaker 3: After I started writing about this stuff and coming out
Speaker 3: into public and sharing it, I received so much email
Speaker 3: from men and women that were saying the same things.
Speaker 3: And I started going to like sex and love addicts,
Speaker 3: anonymous meetings and same thing men and women in the room.
Speaker 3: There was usually more men, but men and women were
Speaker 3: saying the same things as far as how the addiction began,
Speaker 3: how it progressed, so there were a lot of similarities.
Speaker 3: The only thing is that I think women aren't talking
Speaker 3: about it enough. And if you don't see or hear
Speaker 3: other people talking about these things, it's hard to be
Speaker 3: the first person to stand up. What is your family
Speaker 3: going to say? What are people going to think at work?
Speaker 3: What are people going to say in the comments? I mean,
Speaker 3: there's a lot of hate and jokes that would come
Speaker 3: up around women that I don't think would come up
Speaker 3: with men. Like you said, they would just say high five.
Speaker 3: You know, he's just this lithario whatever done wan doesn't
Speaker 3: work the same. And I think that even if we're
Speaker 3: just talking about sex, not even sex addiction, it's the
Speaker 3: same idea, this idea that women are somehow not as sexual.
Speaker 3: Men are always trying to get sex from women, and
Speaker 3: women are always trying to say, well, I have a
Speaker 3: headache or whatever, and it's just not the case. And
Speaker 3: I think that this idea that women are not sexual
Speaker 3: or women can't become sex addicts will change the more
Speaker 3: that we decide to talk about it. And I'm hoping
Speaker 3: that by sharing my story and making sure I'm not
Speaker 3: blurred and any kind of interviews that I do, whenever
Speaker 3: I talk about this stuff, I make sure that I
Speaker 3: say my name, I say I'm a normal person. I'm married,
Speaker 3: I have a child. You know, I try to break
Speaker 3: through these these ideas of what they think a sex
Speaker 3: addict is supposed to look like. I've gotten so many
Speaker 3: questions like, well, were you sexually abused as a child?
Speaker 3: Were you sexually assaulted? And men don't get the same question.
Speaker 3: And there's this idea that women something bad has to
Speaker 3: happen to them for them to go down this path,
Speaker 3: and it's just not the case.
Speaker 1: Which is exactly where I kind of want to go
Speaker 1: to next with you. That creates that shame, that embedded
Speaker 1: shame into women as sexual beings right from the beginning,
Speaker 1: And I want to read something that you wrote. What
Speaker 1: I got was an elaborate mix of shame and sexual
Speaker 1: excitement I had come to depend on since I was
Speaker 1: twelve years old, and my methods of getting this only
Speaker 1: became darker and more intense, so that it reached havoc
Speaker 1: on all aspects of my life until I became a
Speaker 1: shell of a person, isolated on a path to certain destruction.
Speaker 1: And I want to hone it on and start at
Speaker 1: that timeline now for you at twelve years old, because
Speaker 1: to read your memoir, it becomes very clear that shame
Speaker 1: came first. Shame came before the sex addiction, the love addiction,
Speaker 1: the porn addiction. Talk to me about twelve year old
Speaker 1: Erica and what you were exposed to and thinking about
Speaker 1: at that time.
Speaker 3: I grew up in a Catholic Latino household in I
Speaker 3: was born in eighty two from the nineties. I was twelve,
Speaker 3: and in that environment, nobody ever talked about sex. I
Speaker 3: also went to Catholic school, so at school and at home,
Speaker 3: nobody talked about sex, except to say that it was
Speaker 3: something bad, something dirty, or something that only happens between
Speaker 3: a man and a woman to make babies. It did
Speaker 3: not happen between a girl and her water faucet, as
Speaker 3: I discovered in the bathtub at twelve. And when I
Speaker 3: made that discovery, I remember thinking that it was like
Speaker 3: I found the secret that I wasn't supposed to find,
Speaker 3: and it was exciting and gratifying, and I wanted to
Speaker 3: do it more and more. And I don't think there's
Speaker 3: anything addictive about that or abnormal about that, totally normal stuff,
Speaker 3: sexual explorations. But after I would have the orgasm, there
Speaker 3: would be this overwhelming shame and guilt and fear that
Speaker 3: people would find out what I was doing. And I've
Speaker 3: always said that I think shame has driven my addiction,
Speaker 3: and I often wonder if I had just known about
Speaker 3: sex and known that what I was doing was totally
Speaker 3: normal and other kids were doing it, that I probably
Speaker 3: wouldn't have gone down that path. And around twelve years old,
Speaker 3: that same year that I started masturbating, I was also
Speaker 3: diagnosed with scoliosis, which is a curvature of the spine,
Speaker 3: and I had to wear this backbrace to school that
Speaker 3: I couldn't hide under my clothes. It was very obvious,
Speaker 3: and I turned inward became really shy, socially anxious, withdrawn
Speaker 3: and then I started getting bullied at school, which just
Speaker 3: made it all the more worse. And what I think
Speaker 3: shifted my normal sexual explorations into something problematic was that
Speaker 3: I found that masturbation was a nice escape from that.
Speaker 3: When I would masturbate, I would get a break from
Speaker 3: all that I could just tune into my body. It
Speaker 3: was almost like mindfulness, like meditation. I could just tune
Speaker 3: into my body and everything else shut off. But unlike mindfulness,
Speaker 3: where afterward you're calm and relaxed and you have more
Speaker 3: focus and clarity. I would be filmed with that shame again.
Speaker 3: I would feel so much guilt, and I didn't know
Speaker 3: how to separate those two feelings, and that would carry
Speaker 3: over into my sex life, into the kind of poor
Speaker 3: and I watched later. I didn't know how to feel
Speaker 3: sexual pleasure without feeling sexual shame. They were very much intertwined.
Speaker 1: And where do you think that knowledge that shame was?
Speaker 1: In that instance? The correct response came from you talk
Speaker 1: about growing up in a you know, a conservative Catholic
Speaker 1: family and environment, but you also talk about not having
Speaker 1: sex education and not knowing much about your body. And
Speaker 1: so where did the message come that this pleasure is
Speaker 1: inherently shameful, or that this feeling or this act is
Speaker 1: inherently shameful.
Speaker 3: I think I picked up on little clues along the way.
Speaker 3: Whenever somebody was being intimate on TV, it would be like, oh,
Speaker 3: shut your eyes, look the other way, no discussion about
Speaker 3: it afterwards. So of course that's like, what's going on?
Speaker 3: You know, I want to know? And becomes way more interesting.
Speaker 3: And then I remember this time. My mom hates when
Speaker 3: I tell this story, but I remember this time driving
Speaker 3: in our neighborhood and there was a lot of teenage
Speaker 3: pregnancy in my neighborhood and my mom pointing to one
Speaker 3: of these like sixteen year old pregnant girls in saying
Speaker 3: don't ever let that happen to you, and then pointing
Speaker 3: to my crotch and saying, don't let anybody ever touch
Speaker 3: you down there. And that just been so humiliating, so scary.
Speaker 3: And you know, my mom had she was a young mom.
Speaker 3: She had my brother when she was eighteen, and I
Speaker 3: think that she probably had those same messages from her parents.
Speaker 3: And if I wasn't getting those messages, then it was
Speaker 3: just silence. And so when something is not talked about,
Speaker 3: that also sends the message that it's too bad to
Speaker 3: talk about to dirty.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's not a big leap from those messages, those conversations,
Speaker 1: those moments to shame.
Speaker 3: Is it right?
Speaker 1: Yeah, As a fellow teenager of the nineties, I did
Speaker 1: have to laugh when I was reading your memoir about
Speaker 1: the softcore on cable TV at night. That was a
Speaker 1: real moment, you know, before the Internet, before all of
Speaker 1: the things that came footing into your life later. But
Speaker 1: you know, at twelve, where did you find I suppose
Speaker 1: what we would just generally refer to as porn. You know,
Speaker 1: where did you find these visual aids?
Speaker 3: Well, it's exactly that I found it on late night
Speaker 3: cable TV. First, Shannon Tweed was the actress from the
Speaker 3: nineties that I will never forget. And then the Internet
Speaker 3: started coming out. We got our computer, first computer in
Speaker 3: the living room. I think it was like ninety six
Speaker 3: or something like that. It was dial up internet, you know,
Speaker 3: so we have that whole like static sound. And it
Speaker 3: started off just with cybersex. So I moved from cable
Speaker 3: TV to cybersex. And then suddenly there were pictures that
Speaker 3: I could download, and those took forever to download, and
Speaker 3: that was kind of part of it, this like anticipation
Speaker 3: of what I was going to see, and because the
Speaker 3: computer was in the living room, also having like this
Speaker 3: fear that somebody would come and find me, so this
Speaker 3: like adrenaline rush was part of it. And then holding
Speaker 3: those images in my head until I was alone in
Speaker 3: the bathroom or in my room, so that just kind
Speaker 3: of furthered the anticipation. And then you know, as technology
Speaker 3: became more sophisticated and porn became more accessible, speeds were faster.
Speaker 3: I can suddenly have streaming videos. I had my own laptop.
Speaker 3: Now I could take it into my room. And just
Speaker 3: as you know, the Internet was becoming a more accessible,
Speaker 3: porn was becoming more accessible, my problems were also getting
Speaker 3: a little more complicated. And so I really trained my
Speaker 3: mind to look at porn as a crutch, as an
Speaker 3: escape route. And later, when I started getting attention from
Speaker 3: boys in high school, then that just kind of played
Speaker 3: into that I treated boys the same way that I
Speaker 3: would treat porn as just like an escape route, something
Speaker 3: that was going to take me away from these feelings.
Speaker 1: It's interesting you talk about that, you know, the waiting
Speaker 1: for an image to download, or the fear that someone
Speaker 1: might stumble in and catch you, and those kinds of things.
Speaker 1: And again going back to that feedback loop of pleasure, shame, pleasure, shame,
Speaker 1: because you're right about something I'd never thought about before,
Speaker 1: which is this idea of shame addiction as well, that
Speaker 1: that rush of shame, just like any other rush, became
Speaker 1: something that you were seeking out as well. Tell me
Speaker 1: a little bit about that feeling.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think a lot of it has to do
Speaker 3: with adrenaline, This feeling that I'm doing something wrong, this
Speaker 3: feeling that I might get caught and I whop. Sure
Speaker 3: we'll get into this later. But I still watch porn now.
Speaker 3: So I don't have any sort of ideas about porn
Speaker 3: being bad, and you know, I'm anti porn or whatever.
Speaker 3: I think that you can use it in a healthy way.
Speaker 3: But I can tell the difference between watching it from
Speaker 3: a place of shame, which is filled with this like dark,
Speaker 3: heavy adrenaline fuel feeling, and when I'm watching it for
Speaker 3: pleasure because I simply want to, not because I need to.
Speaker 3: And that's a really subtle difference, but something that I
Speaker 3: had to learn along the way. And another dealing with
Speaker 3: the shame is that I would start to look for
Speaker 3: clips that would give me that dose of shame and pleasure.
Speaker 3: So I would look for like clips that were degrading
Speaker 3: to women, clips where I felt like, yeah, like women
Speaker 3: were getting hurt or you know, slapped around, told terrible things.
Speaker 3: And then I would look for men who would treat
Speaker 3: me that same way. And it was all to get
Speaker 3: that same adrenaline rush that like I'm better than this,
Speaker 3: but this is all I deserve, you know, Like I shouldn't.
Speaker 3: I should be going for somebody who treats me, well,
Speaker 3: I shouldn't be watching this kind of porn, but I
Speaker 3: would do it, and it would give me that double
Speaker 3: dose that shame and pleasure at the same time, because
Speaker 3: I didn't know how to separate those two things.
Speaker 1: And so this process, this habit, this experience that began
Speaker 1: at twelve, it carries through, you know, through your your
Speaker 1: high school years, your teen years, and you're right about
Speaker 1: wondering whether or not your parents suspected anything, but you
Speaker 1: don't think that ultimately they did or what do you
Speaker 1: think that they knew about what was happening in your
Speaker 1: life at that time.
Speaker 3: I think they were too busy to even think about
Speaker 3: it and probably weren't as knowledgeable about how these things work,
Speaker 3: how addictions work, and sex addiction. I mean, nobody was
Speaker 3: even really talking about it then. Porn addiction that wasn't
Speaker 3: that wasn't really a thing because it was also new,
Speaker 3: so they wouldn't have known. I think what they know now,
Speaker 3: well now they know because of my book, But they
Speaker 3: like to make jokes now about like, oh, now we
Speaker 3: know what you were doing behind closed doors when we
Speaker 3: were having like family parties. It's like a big joke
Speaker 3: with my family and like whatever, I'll be light about
Speaker 3: it too because it makes it less awkward. But yeah,
Speaker 3: I really think that they just didn't know or they
Speaker 3: were just too busy.
Speaker 1: And it never occurred to you to kind of compare
Speaker 1: notes with your peers with friends. You know, you must
Speaker 1: have wondered whether the other kids your age had stumbled
Speaker 1: upon what you stumbled upon, whether it was the faucet
Speaker 1: in the bathtub or you know, the slowly downloading images
Speaker 1: in the early Internet, but you never you never asked
Speaker 1: why not.
Speaker 3: No, it was terrified of people finding that out, even
Speaker 3: like finding the right words to bring up that conversation
Speaker 3: just seemed like the furthest thing from normal, and everyone
Speaker 3: would label me as weird. I mean, I didn't want
Speaker 3: to be that person because I felt so ashamed of it,
Speaker 3: you know, Like I said, I was diagnosed with scoliosis,
Speaker 3: and I remember as part of like before I got
Speaker 3: my back brace, they had to do all these X
Speaker 3: rays and I remember the feeling of being in the
Speaker 3: hospital gown and the X ray technician being in the
Speaker 3: other room looking at my X ray sheets and thinking
Speaker 3: they were going to be able to tell that I'd
Speaker 3: masturbated just by looking at those pictures and also thinking
Speaker 3: that I got scoliosis because I masturbated in the bathtub.
Speaker 3: I thought like the way that I had my body
Speaker 3: in the bathtub, and I thought my parents were going
Speaker 3: to find out all their church friends, Like it was
Speaker 3: just this horrible thought. So yeah, the idea of bringing
Speaker 3: it up to anyone was mortified.
Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, that's beyond shame, that's terror. That's real,
Speaker 1: like existential fear. Tell me about those first chat rooms
Speaker 1: that you joined and how that changed and started to
Speaker 1: kind of guide you to the next level of this
Speaker 1: experience for you.
Speaker 3: So I was a really lonely kid, like I said,
Speaker 3: when I got my back brace, I started getting bullied,
Speaker 3: and so I was really introverted, socially anxious. And when
Speaker 3: I would go online, it was much easier to talk
Speaker 3: to people. I could think about what I was going
Speaker 3: to say, I could backspace edit, so all of that
Speaker 3: was really easy. And then when I started to find
Speaker 3: you know, people that would ask me, you know it
Speaker 3: was it would always start off like asl I'm sure
Speaker 3: you know that the age sex location. It would start
Speaker 3: off like that, And so I became really familiar with
Speaker 3: the lingo that was just some exciting way to connect
Speaker 3: with somebody, but also kind of feed into those sexual
Speaker 3: feelings and explore a little bit and learn something. I
Speaker 3: felt like I was actually learning something that was going
Speaker 3: to be valuable later on.
Speaker 1: Did you have a sense of how dangerous and manipulative
Speaker 1: those spaces could be at that time?
Speaker 3: Not? No. I would always say that I was sixteen,
Speaker 3: even though I was twelve and thirteen, and sixteen is
Speaker 3: still really young. But I would think, like that makes
Speaker 3: me seem older, and it didn't seem to matter to
Speaker 3: the people I was talking to. Who I mean they
Speaker 3: said they were They could have been kids too, who knows.
Speaker 3: I mean, they could have been like three teens, but
Speaker 3: they would sometimes say they're like forty or thirty or whatever,
Speaker 3: And it didn't matter to me. And I had no
Speaker 3: idea that it was something that was dangerous. We never
Speaker 3: exchanged any sort of like phone number or address or anything, thankfully,
Speaker 3: but now, like as a parent and knowing what I know,
Speaker 3: like watching enough like crime documentaries, like yeah, that's really
Speaker 3: scary stuff. But I wouldn't have known then. It was
Speaker 3: all just so new at the time, the Internet. We
Speaker 3: were just learning this stuff as we went.
Speaker 1: After this short break. What happens when the Pam and
Speaker 1: Tommy Lee sex tape drops like a grenade into Erica's world?
Speaker 1: And how did her porn addiction also turn into a
Speaker 1: sex addiction as she got older? And then fast forward,
Speaker 1: I think you're about fifteen sixteen, maybe around this time
Speaker 1: where the cultural phenomena that had a massive impact on
Speaker 1: all of us, that was the Pam and Tommy Lee
Speaker 1: sex tape drops explodes into the world, really explodes into
Speaker 1: your world. Tell me about how that the visuals and
Speaker 1: the experience of that sex tape impacted you.
Speaker 3: Well, I definitely got to see a lot more than
Speaker 3: I saw on Cinemax. Late at night, I found the
Speaker 3: tape in my brother's room, his girlfriend at the time.
Speaker 3: I would hate out with her. She would hang out
Speaker 3: with me more than she hung out with him. But
Speaker 3: so was she.
Speaker 1: Well, you and she had a really interesting experience together
Speaker 1: around that tape, didn't you.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yes, So, so he was somewhere and she decided
Speaker 3: to watch it with me in my room and then
Speaker 3: she decided to sleep, And so watching the tape, obviously
Speaker 3: it was like thrilling that remember, that adrenaline rush was there,
Speaker 3: but it also wasn't so I wasn't too ashamed because
Speaker 3: somebody was watching it with me, so it made it
Speaker 3: less bad, Like whoa, Okay, she's a girl, I'm a girl,
Speaker 3: Like we're sharing this, it's not so weird. But she
Speaker 3: was more like giggling about how like funny it was,
Speaker 3: and I was like getting turned on. I'm like, okay,
Speaker 3: keep it cool, you know, don't masturbate here, like save
Speaker 3: it for later. And then that night she decided to
Speaker 3: sleep over that night and my parents, me and the
Speaker 3: good Catholic parents they were, they wouldn't let my brother
Speaker 3: and her sleep in the same room, and so she
Speaker 3: would sleep in my bed. We'd slept together before like that,
Speaker 3: and it didn't seem like a big deal. But something
Speaker 3: about the tape being on my mind and obviously on
Speaker 3: her mind because she told me to kiss her or
Speaker 3: she she kissed me first, sorry, and then she told
Speaker 3: me to kiss her back, and I mean that was
Speaker 3: like my first kiss and it wasn't really like no
Speaker 3: tongue or anything. It was like a peck, but still
Speaker 3: like mouth to mouth kiss my brother's girlfriend. Sexy tape
Speaker 3: on my mind. It was it was exciting and I
Speaker 3: liked it, but but yeah, I think my reaction to
Speaker 3: it was just kind of weird, like I didn't know
Speaker 3: what to say. I said something really stupid. I forget
Speaker 3: what I just turned around and we never talked about
Speaker 3: it again or anything like that. But yeah, very much
Speaker 3: inspired by Pam and Tommy.
Speaker 1: Well and I do you know, fast forward to your acknowledgments.
Speaker 1: I loved that you thank them and your acknowledgments, you know,
Speaker 1: for what they brought, what they brought to your life.
Speaker 1: But so interesting because you know, those kind of early experiences,
Speaker 1: those experimenting that we do in our you know, in
Speaker 1: our teen years, very normal, but you know again, because
Speaker 1: you had this deep well of kind of hidden shame
Speaker 1: that started to intersect with a few other I would
Speaker 1: say kind of maybe obsessions correct me if I'm wrong.
Speaker 1: In your life at that time. One was discovering your sexuality,
Speaker 1: a kind of desire to really understand yourself better and
Speaker 1: where your desires were coming from and what they meaned,
Speaker 1: and to desire a real obsession to lose your virginity.
Speaker 1: That became almost a kind of quest the eer on,
Speaker 1: but so informed by the porn that you've been watching
Speaker 1: and the experiences you'd had up to that point, tell
Speaker 1: me about how you were kind of weaving together all
Speaker 1: of these different parts of your psyche at this time
Speaker 1: and such a young and so about sixteen seventeen.
Speaker 3: Now, yeah, I mean I didn't kiss a boy until
Speaker 3: I was sixteen, and then I lost my brisin after
Speaker 3: that happened. I remember feeling when that happened, like, oh,
Speaker 3: somebody finally likes me, because I had spent so many
Speaker 3: years feeling so disgusting and weird and deformed because of
Speaker 3: my back, and so anytime a boy gave me any
Speaker 3: sort of attention, I mean, it made me feel top
Speaker 3: of the world. I felt special, I felt pretty, And
Speaker 3: so when a boy kissed me finally, I was like, Okay,
Speaker 3: check that off my list. But now the next thing
Speaker 3: has to happen. And I had saved up so much knowledge.
Speaker 3: I felt like I was just going to be this, like,
Speaker 3: you know, this powerful woman in bed, like all the
Speaker 3: porn stars I'd seen. I'd learned so much, and so
Speaker 3: I feel like I was willing to give it to
Speaker 3: anybody who was going to give me that opportunity. And
Speaker 3: that happened. I got like a job and as a
Speaker 3: waitress in the local restaurant, and a guy who was
Speaker 3: twenty six. I think I was sixteen and he was
Speaker 3: twenty six. Yeah, Like he came around in his like
Speaker 3: fancy convertible BMW and took me out, and we took
Speaker 3: me to motels most of the time. I don't even
Speaker 3: really remember going on dates. Really was like go to
Speaker 3: the motel And yeah, I very much saw it as
Speaker 3: this check mark that I needed on a list of
Speaker 3: things to do that obviously I was curious about, but
Speaker 3: also I thought it would give me. It would it
Speaker 3: would make me into a different person, It would make
Speaker 3: me more valuable. Is being wanted like that, And of
Speaker 3: course that feeling doesn't last long.
Speaker 1: And it really seemed to mark a shift for you
Speaker 1: from you know, what had up to that point been
Speaker 1: this very cerebral kind of private shame and porn addiction
Speaker 1: loop into what would become sex and love addiction. Right
Speaker 1: when it when it left the virtual spaces and now
Speaker 1: it was in the real world. You were having sex,
Speaker 1: You were a sexual woman. How did that that kind
Speaker 1: of jump across to the other side of the road
Speaker 1: change you?
Speaker 3: So, I first want to say I never stopped watching porn,
Speaker 3: so that was always part of the experience, but boys
Speaker 3: and men being wanted like that, that just became another addiction.
Speaker 3: When you hate you as much as I hated myself,
Speaker 3: I felt like I needed that proof that somebody liked
Speaker 3: me and thought I was worthwhile. And a lot of
Speaker 3: times I would look for people after that relationship, and
Speaker 3: then I was in my twenties and steven, so I'd
Speaker 3: meet these guys and I would treat them the way
Speaker 3: that I looked at porn. I would try to find
Speaker 3: somebody who would, you know, say degrading things to me,
Speaker 3: and sometimes have to like urge them, like here's what
Speaker 3: I want you to say to me, so I can
Speaker 3: feel this. And it was always this feeling of like
Speaker 3: I'm just this slot, this trashy pore that they want
Speaker 3: to use. And I liked this feeling of being used.
Speaker 3: I don't know if I liked the feeling. I mean,
Speaker 3: it would give me that an adrenaline feeling, but it
Speaker 3: was also this like that's all I thought I really
Speaker 3: deserved was just to be used like that. So I would,
Speaker 3: you know, sleep with guys who I knew wouldn't take
Speaker 3: me out of dates. They would just come and have
Speaker 3: sex with me and then leave and probably go on
Speaker 3: dates with other girls, and that feeling of being used
Speaker 3: felt very much like the shame and pleasure that I
Speaker 3: would get out of the porn scenes that I watched.
Speaker 3: It was almost like I was trying to recreate what
Speaker 3: I had seen in my real life experiences to get
Speaker 3: that shame and pleasure all the time.
Speaker 1: And it's so interesting, Erica, because and I know that
Speaker 1: this is something that you discovered, you know, on the
Speaker 1: other side of this journey when you when you began
Speaker 1: to heal. But going back to that, that idea of
Speaker 1: the assumptions that people have around why women might find
Speaker 1: themselves addicted to sex, addicted to love, addicted to porn,
Speaker 1: and the assumption that the that there must be some
Speaker 1: kind of abuse or some kind of core trauma that
Speaker 1: sets you on this path. Because you you write about
Speaker 1: coming from a very loving family. You for a while
Speaker 1: interrogated whether or not there was something that might have
Speaker 1: happened to you that you had just kind of tucked away,
Speaker 1: you know, in the recesses of your mind. But that
Speaker 1: wasn't really your experience.
Speaker 3: Was it.
Speaker 1: So you know, where where did this idea that all
Speaker 1: you deserve was to be treated poorly come from?
Speaker 3: I think it all started with that back brace and
Speaker 3: getting bullied at school. It may seem like something so
Speaker 3: small and insignificant compared to things like sexual assault, sexual abuse,
Speaker 3: and I mean, so many people who have read my
Speaker 3: stuff and heard about my story will always come at
Speaker 3: me with like, oh, you're just a spoiled little brat.
Speaker 3: You had everything you ever wanted as a kid, nothing
Speaker 3: bad happened to you. All this kind of stuff. But
Speaker 3: trauma is not a competition. So I mean, if something
Speaker 3: hurt me and made me feel like I was less
Speaker 3: worthy as a human being, less valuable, that's valid. I
Speaker 3: can say that that is traumatic because it was. And
Speaker 3: it's really important for me to push that message because
Speaker 3: the messages I was getting was, like I said before,
Speaker 3: it was like something terrible must have happened. You must
Speaker 3: have had this abusive childhood, and it made me think
Speaker 3: that maybe I did, Maybe I had had these repressed
Speaker 3: memory because I wasn't seeing that story reflected back to me.
Speaker 3: So it was really important for me to communicate that
Speaker 3: addiction can come out of ordinary trauma. And my trauma
Speaker 3: was really ordinary. Yeah. I had a loving family who
Speaker 3: provided for me. We took vacations, I went to college,
Speaker 3: I got a job, like all the normal things you're
Speaker 3: supposed to do in your life. I mean I had that.
Speaker 3: From the outside. If you were to look at my life,
Speaker 3: it's like, well, well what happened, Like what's your problem?
Speaker 3: But that really hurt me as a child, and I
Speaker 3: never dealt with it at the time, and I never
Speaker 3: learned the coping skills to deal with it effectively. And
Speaker 3: so I carried that tool, the only thing I had,
Speaker 3: which was born and then sex with me as my
Speaker 3: escape route, as my tool, as my way to self soothe,
Speaker 3: because I didn't have another tool to use. And it
Speaker 3: would take many, many years until I was an adult
Speaker 3: and able to go to therapy and able to talk
Speaker 3: about what was going on and face myself and read
Speaker 3: self help books and all the stuff you have to do,
Speaker 3: all the work to say, okay, well that was real.
Speaker 1: And as you say, you carried it forward. You carried
Speaker 1: it forward into your twenties, your early adult life, and
Speaker 1: you go to unis or to have more experiences, and
Speaker 1: you write about the fact that drugs and alcohol intersected
Speaker 1: with your life at this time, and that you really
Speaker 1: had these deeply worn habitual grooves, you know, the poor
Speaker 1: and masturbation, drinking, casual sex. Was there a particular moment
Speaker 1: or encounter that made you stop and think, this is
Speaker 1: an addiction, this is a problem, or I don't have
Speaker 1: control of this.
Speaker 3: So with something like sex addiction, it's really hard to
Speaker 3: reach a bottom. A lot of people ask me like,
Speaker 3: what was the changing, Like what was the moment that
Speaker 3: you shifted and you know it started to change. I
Speaker 3: feel like it was more like a voice in my
Speaker 3: head that got louder and louder over time, instead of
Speaker 3: one specific moment. I could reach into my memories and
Speaker 3: think of several things that you know, would awaken that
Speaker 3: voice in my head. But then I would hush it
Speaker 3: and go and do something else destructive, like sleeping with
Speaker 3: my high school teachers. That was one thing that I
Speaker 3: put in the book. I mean I was graduated. It
Speaker 3: wasn't while I was in high school, but that was
Speaker 3: one thing that I did that I felt weird about
Speaker 3: after when I was looking in Hawaii, Like I said,
Speaker 3: these guys would come over and have sex with me
Speaker 3: and then leave. Another thing that made me feel like this,
Speaker 3: you know, something's wrong here, something's going on. And then
Speaker 3: I think it was more ending up at the same
Speaker 3: place in relationships over and over again, and making the
Speaker 3: same mistakes over and over again, and thinking okay, like
Speaker 3: feeling empty and wanting that emptiness to go away, and
Speaker 3: knowing that it wasn't serving me anymore. And so the
Speaker 3: shift for me happened when I was thirty. So I
Speaker 3: was like, I saw the decade ahead of me and thought, Okay,
Speaker 3: I'm going to make this decade better than the last.
Speaker 3: What needs to change? And I just feel like, sometimes
Speaker 3: you have to be at that point in your life
Speaker 3: where you're ready, And I was ready at that point,
Speaker 3: or I decided to be ready to like, Okay, let
Speaker 3: let's do some reflection and figure out what's going on.
Speaker 3: And in order to do that, it took you know,
Speaker 3: all the work, all the therapy and sex and love
Speaker 3: addicts anonymous meetings where I was able to finally face
Speaker 3: those things.
Speaker 1: Before you got there, you write really eloquently about this
Speaker 1: kind of being torn between these two realities, which is
Speaker 1: that sometimes your approach to sex and sexuality and porn,
Speaker 1: your relationship to those things, could feel very liberating. Whether
Speaker 1: there were moments that felt like you were in control
Speaker 1: or that you were making a choice and that kind
Speaker 1: of oscillating between that idea of this like currency as
Speaker 1: like I'm the cool girl, I'm cool with sex, I'm
Speaker 1: cool with porn, you know, to those moments of going, oh,
Speaker 1: actually this is harming me and just swinging between those
Speaker 1: two realities or those two experiences. Tell me how these
Speaker 1: addictions showed up in your life as something that you
Speaker 1: had to manage and integrate into your day to day.
Speaker 1: You were in UNI, as you say, you were working,
Speaker 1: you were studying. What did it feel like to have
Speaker 1: to kind of manage these addictions or to feed these
Speaker 1: addictions whilst you were also living your life and reaching
Speaker 1: other goals.
Speaker 3: Well, when I was in a relationship, it was very
Speaker 3: easy to feed those addictions because I had somebody who
Speaker 3: was there that I could have sex with all the time.
Speaker 3: And it was even better if it was somebody who
Speaker 3: wanted to watch porn with me, because we could do both.
Speaker 3: You two of my favorite things that would take me
Speaker 3: like put me back into my body and get me
Speaker 3: out of my head. When I was single and trying
Speaker 3: to feed those addictions, it was incredibly isolating. I mean
Speaker 3: I spent a lot of time pushing people away so
Speaker 3: that I could spend more time at home feeding the addictions.
Speaker 3: I mean, watching porn can take up the whole day
Speaker 3: if you're trying to find the perfect clip and then
Speaker 3: you found it and then you try to top it
Speaker 3: with another clip, or if you're pursuing somebody to have
Speaker 3: sex with, and you know, I would have this whole
Speaker 3: ritual of like grooming my body, going out, flirting with
Speaker 3: someone just the right way, and then you know, having
Speaker 3: sex with them. It was all part of this, Like, yeah,
Speaker 3: it was all just this way to try and escape,
Speaker 3: and I feel like I managed it by sort of
Speaker 3: pushing everything else away. I would often neglect schoolwork, I
Speaker 3: would neglect my job. I feel like I could have,
Speaker 3: you know, written a lot more than I did. And
Speaker 3: definitely friendships. I think friendships is what suffered the most.
Speaker 3: I had a lot of difficulty making platonic friends because
Speaker 3: it was much easier to flirt with somebody then I
Speaker 3: have a conversation, a friendly conversation, much easier to have
Speaker 3: sex with someone than actually become emotionally intimate. Those things
Speaker 3: were just so much easier. And then yeah, I would
Speaker 3: play it off like I'm just a cool girl. I'm
Speaker 3: a cool girl who watches porn. I'm a cool girl
Speaker 3: who lets you come and have sex with me and
Speaker 3: leave like I'm not going to make a big deal. Well,
Speaker 3: I liked that idea of not being this dramatic, clingy girl,
Speaker 3: and I would be kind of stuck between those feelings
Speaker 3: of like wanting them to stay so that I could feel,
Speaker 3: you know, wanted for a little bit longer, but then
Speaker 3: also wanting them to leave because if they stayed, then
Speaker 3: they were going to see that I was actually this disgusting,
Speaker 3: broken person and not knowing how to find that midpoint
Speaker 3: and be way too scared of any sort of intimacy.
Speaker 1: You talk about how you could lose a day looking
Speaker 1: for that perfect clip. You know, it's very interesting, isn't
Speaker 1: it How any addiction follows these patterns, right, It's like
Speaker 1: a drug addict could spend a day trying to get
Speaker 1: that hit or trying to find that their source. What
Speaker 1: was a perfect clip for you at that time?
Speaker 3: Oh god, it was changing all the time because mine
Speaker 3: is that part of it in a way, like yeah,
Speaker 3: only work once, you know, like.
Speaker 1: Is it that thing of like Okay, tell me how
Speaker 1: that really worked for you?
Speaker 3: I mean well sometimes, yeah, sometimes only work once sometimes
Speaker 3: I mean I really liked it, and we'll come back
Speaker 3: to it. But yeah, that's absolutely part of it. Is
Speaker 3: just like a you know, a drug addict will need
Speaker 3: a little bit more in order to you know, get
Speaker 3: that high, and an alcoholic and they start to hold
Speaker 3: her liquor and they need a little more to get
Speaker 3: the buzz. I mean, it's the same thing. So I
Speaker 3: would watch more and more, but then also, yeah, try
Speaker 3: to top whatever I had watched with something that was
Speaker 3: just a little more degrading, a little more sicker, And
Speaker 3: I really found those fetishes. I don't want to say
Speaker 3: the categories change from the very beginning when it was
Speaker 3: all just like, oh, cheerleaders with their teachers or something,
Speaker 3: which is like, oh, I was a teenager. So it
Speaker 3: was like, you know, relating cliche porn in a way. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: like vanilla porn. And then all of a sudden, it
Speaker 3: was like a hundred guys, you know, taking some woman
Speaker 3: into a warehouse and doing wells of degrading things to her.
Speaker 3: And it's scary because once you get to that point,
Speaker 3: I mean, it becomes very limited what you find like stimulating.
Speaker 3: After a while, I would just feel numb, numb, numb
Speaker 3: until I found that one that gave me that feeling,
Speaker 3: and then feel sickened with myself afterward, and then yeah,
Speaker 3: I have to find something sick aroun until I was
Speaker 3: exhausted or you know, had to be somewhere for work
Speaker 3: or something, or I was sore. I would often like
Speaker 3: end up physically sore because I had masturbated so much.
Speaker 1: So you're getting older, You're accumulating more of these traumatic
Speaker 1: experiences like you just described. It's getting harder and harder
Speaker 1: for you to, I suppose tell yourself that you have
Speaker 1: control over these elements of your life. Tell me about
Speaker 1: Elliott and that relationship.
Speaker 3: So Elliott was somebody I met when I was living
Speaker 3: in Hawaii. He lived in New York, and at that
Speaker 3: time in Hawaii, I was feeling I was just like
Speaker 3: seeing these guys like on a merry go round, Like
Speaker 3: I would just like have these guys on a rotation
Speaker 3: of like guys who would make me feel really used,
Speaker 3: and in a way I was using them as well,
Speaker 3: but I wouldn't have admitted it then. And then I
Speaker 3: saw Elliot as a ticket out of that. I thought, oh,
Speaker 3: this like in today. He was a lot older than me,
Speaker 3: as well, he's like thirteen years older, had this important job,
Speaker 3: lived in a really cool city very far away from
Speaker 3: where I was, so I saw him as a ticket
Speaker 3: out of that and thinking like a clean slate, I
Speaker 3: went to New York with him, and then I ended
Speaker 3: up feeling really intimidated and all those feelings of like
Speaker 3: insecurity and low self esteem just came rushing back. I
Speaker 3: didn't have a job because I moved, and yeah, just
Speaker 3: feeling really intimidated and threatened. And then he asked me
Speaker 3: to marry him, and I remember thinking like, oh god,
Speaker 3: why is he into me? Like I have no idea
Speaker 3: he's this important man, and thinking that the only thing
Speaker 3: I had to offer him was sex. So I better
Speaker 3: at least, you know, be awesome in bed. And he
Speaker 3: was recovering alcoholic and so he was able to see
Speaker 3: early on, I think, And it just got worse over
Speaker 3: time that I was using sex as a coping tool
Speaker 3: for all of those feelings of insecurity. I didn't know
Speaker 3: how else to connect with him.
Speaker 1: He was the first parson to suggest to you that
Speaker 1: you were a sex addict. To use that language.
Speaker 3: He did, Yes, he said it. He said it to me.
Speaker 3: But he also said it in not a very kind way.
Speaker 3: It was like, during a fight while he was out
Speaker 3: the door, you're a sex addict, you know, do something
Speaker 3: about it. So we broke up shortly after that because
Speaker 3: it was much easier to break up than to actually
Speaker 3: face the idea that I might be a sex addict.
Speaker 3: But that stuck with me for a long time. Was like,
Speaker 3: oh maybe I am. You know, I'd always felt like
Speaker 3: I had an issue, you know, with sex, and felt
Speaker 3: all that shame and felt bad about it. But to
Speaker 3: have an actual name for it and to have somebody
Speaker 3: who had his own addiction call it out and me,
Speaker 3: it was very confronting. But I wasn't ready to face
Speaker 3: it just then, so it was it was still be
Speaker 3: several years before I was ready to actually go into
Speaker 3: a meeting and say to other people, Hey, I think
Speaker 3: I might be a sex addict.
Speaker 1: When we come back the low point that finally drove
Speaker 1: Erica to get the help she needed, and what recovery
Speaker 1: looks like today, stay with us. Around this time. You
Speaker 1: write about, you know, exposing yourself to a lot of
Speaker 1: healing modalities, getting into yoga, getting into the teachings of
Speaker 1: certain people that offered you something to help you see
Speaker 1: yourself and see your life in a different way. But
Speaker 1: that didn't mean that that was that you stopped these
Speaker 1: behaviors that day, right, that you got better the first
Speaker 1: day you went to yoga.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: It was years of kind of integrating these things that
Speaker 1: you were. You know, you were still exposing yourself to
Speaker 1: these deeply worn kind of neural pathways that you'd created
Speaker 1: from twelve years old, whilst you know, exploring a healthier,
Speaker 1: newer way to live, different way to live. But it
Speaker 1: would take a long time for that new thing to
Speaker 1: be stronger than the old thing, didn't it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Well, I mean sex. When you were addicted to
Speaker 3: something like sex, it's not something that you could just stop.
Speaker 3: I mean, I guess some people will go abstinate, But
Speaker 3: it was something I still very much wanted to do
Speaker 3: and wanted to integrate into my life in a healthy way.
Speaker 3: So I had to find a way to you know,
Speaker 3: do both things. And it takes a lot of experimentation,
Speaker 3: exploration to find a way to have balance with both
Speaker 3: those things. And I often tell people who ask me, like,
Speaker 3: what should I do? I think I might be a
Speaker 3: sex addict. Is like, okay, meetings are a great place
Speaker 3: to start because you get to see other people who
Speaker 3: are like you and say those things allowed that you
Speaker 3: may not have said to anybody else. But you don't
Speaker 3: have to stop at meetings like if that's not your thing,
Speaker 3: like be willing to try lots of other things. And
Speaker 3: like the thing about yoga, it sounds very cheesy, I'm
Speaker 3: sure like a yoga sa me, Like I know a
Speaker 3: lot of maximums are like in my book that way,
Speaker 3: like e Price you ready pray love and moved to
Speaker 3: bali and did yoga, and it's just like it really
Speaker 3: minimizes the fact that doing something like yoga, I also
Speaker 3: did kickboxing, Like those things put me in my body
Speaker 3: and gave me something else to do with my body,
Speaker 3: gave me another outlet and that was a nice replacement
Speaker 3: for you know, instead of going to porn, I can
Speaker 3: go and stretch out in yoga, and that just that's
Speaker 3: how you know, a lot of times, how you can
Speaker 3: replace addictive behavior is our how to stop addictive behaviors
Speaker 3: by replacing it with something healthier. And so I think
Speaker 3: you have to try a lot of things to find
Speaker 3: what combination works for you. And obviously therapy and writing
Speaker 3: about it was a big thing for me, and then
Speaker 3: not just writing about it, but writing about it and
Speaker 3: then sending it out into the world, publishing it and
Speaker 3: exposing myself that way. Those were all like practices for
Speaker 3: me to just get real about what was going on,
Speaker 3: to say to other people, what's going on. And once
Speaker 3: you voice these things, and they have a little less
Speaker 3: power over you because now they're out in the open.
Speaker 3: And the worst thing for me seemed like being found out,
Speaker 3: like I didn't want anybody to find out was doing that.
Speaker 3: And then once I put it out there and made
Speaker 3: the choice, then you know that fear was gone. You
Speaker 3: know it.
Speaker 1: But there was a gap for you, wasn't there between
Speaker 1: kind of going right, Okay, I'm probably an addict. These
Speaker 1: things are a problem. They're not really serving me in
Speaker 1: my life. Before you were ready to go to meetings,
Speaker 1: tell me about the low point, the point where you said, okay,
Speaker 1: it's now or never.
Speaker 3: When I was living in New York, after it broke
Speaker 3: off with the guy I was engaged too, I got
Speaker 3: into another relationship right away, and that was also a
Speaker 3: pattern of mine. It was just like relationship to relationship,
Speaker 3: and then between those relationships lots of casual sex and
Speaker 3: then pouring that whole time. Those are my little patterns.
Speaker 3: And so I jumped into another relationship right away, and
Speaker 3: this person was very present, very loving, very kind, and
Speaker 3: I didn't know how to do with that kind of relationship.
Speaker 3: I really, I mean, we spent three years together and
Speaker 3: I felt like this might be the person I'm going
Speaker 3: to marry. But anytime I felt like we were getting
Speaker 3: a little bit too close or he'd find out something
Speaker 3: new about me, then I'd push him away. And so
Speaker 3: then I ended up destroying that relationship, as I had
Speaker 3: done so many times before with relationships. And my thirtieth
Speaker 3: birthday was coming up, and I remember being in this
Speaker 3: place of just feeling like, oh, here we are again,
Speaker 3: same place I ruined another relationship, and I could see
Speaker 3: how it was all going to play out. You know,
Speaker 3: I'm going to just go back to sleeping with guys
Speaker 3: who just make me feel used. I'll probably jump into
Speaker 3: another relationship and it just seems so exhausting and pointless
Speaker 3: that I knew something had to change. And I know
Speaker 3: that's not really like a low point, like I said,
Speaker 3: with sex addiction, it's hard to find a bottom. It
Speaker 3: was more like, Okay, enough's enough. I want something better
Speaker 3: for my life.
Speaker 1: I think that makes a lot of sense. You know,
Speaker 1: sometimes a low point really is tigue at the idea
Speaker 1: of knowing what's coming is just more of the same.
Speaker 3: Right, Yeah, And you know, I think it is possible
Speaker 3: to have people, you know, they spend a lot of
Speaker 3: money on prostitutes or you know, they can they can
Speaker 3: go into financial ruin. They could you know, cheat on
Speaker 3: their partner and ruin marriages and lose their job and
Speaker 3: they're you know, using corn it work. I mean, there's
Speaker 3: all sorts of really really huge things that can happen.
Speaker 3: But for me, yeah, I mean, it's that ordinary, going
Speaker 3: back to the ordinary trauma. It was pretty much a
Speaker 3: boring story of just being on this like hamster wheel
Speaker 3: and wanting to get off because that's not as dramatic,
Speaker 3: but it's still real and valid, Like my life is
Speaker 3: still a waste, like slipping through my fingers. I'm still
Speaker 3: not making real connections with people. I'm living this very dull, sad,
Speaker 3: lonely life. And I wanted something different, and so thirty
Speaker 3: just seemed like the great place to do it. And
Speaker 3: so I went to Bali. Yes, I did eat, pray, love.
Speaker 1: And so that you ate, prayed and loved.
Speaker 3: Yes, I did. Yeah, I read you pay love, and
Speaker 3: I said, I want to do that. And so I
Speaker 3: was working remotely at the time so I could take
Speaker 3: my job and went to bali and was committed to
Speaker 3: not being in a relationship. I'm just gonna do yoga
Speaker 3: like Elizabeth Gilbert and Rye and be healthy. And for
Speaker 3: about a month that is what I did. I was like,
Speaker 3: you know, did lots of meditation, reiki and all sorts
Speaker 3: of really cool New age things. But then I met
Speaker 3: I met a guy who was there who was also
Speaker 3: dealing with addiction, and there for the very same reasons.
Speaker 3: He was there trying to get clean, trying to change
Speaker 3: his life. So we were both sort of in this
Speaker 3: same sort of space of wanting to change and being
Speaker 3: ready for change. And that person is now my husband.
Speaker 3: So we connected right away, and I made the choice
Speaker 3: to just be honest and authentic from the start, and
Speaker 3: that took a lot lot of different things along the way,
Speaker 3: which one of them was admitting that I was a
Speaker 3: sex addict. And he's the first person that I told
Speaker 3: that I thought I might be a sex addict. Toe
Speaker 3: instead of running away, he wanted in and know more,
Speaker 3: and that just seems so shocking, like, oh, wait, you
Speaker 3: don't want to run away from me, I haven't scared you.
Speaker 3: I was like, no, it actually brought us closer together.
Speaker 3: And I loved the way that that felt, and it
Speaker 3: really felt like, Okay, this is something I need to
Speaker 3: be doing. This feels right. I feel this sense of relief.
Speaker 3: And so I kept finding different ways to expose myself
Speaker 3: and keep saying that aloud. And saying it aloud helped
Speaker 3: me get a grasp on how it started, how it
Speaker 3: got worse, just have that sort of reflection that I
Speaker 3: needed in order to know what to do next.
Speaker 1: In diluting that shame, right, Like, every time you tell
Speaker 1: your story, did it feel like shame and its ability
Speaker 1: to kind of sink its claws into you got a
Speaker 1: little less strong?
Speaker 3: Yeah, sharing my story and then also just researching it,
Speaker 3: just finding out and like going to meetings and hearing
Speaker 3: other people talk about it.
Speaker 1: And so what does sex and Love Addiction Anonymous teach
Speaker 1: as a recovery process and what does your recovery look like?
Speaker 3: So at the very beginning of my recovery, I thought
Speaker 3: it had to look a certain way. I thought that okay,
Speaker 3: recovery means monogamy. Recovery means like taking a really long break,
Speaker 3: if not monogamy, then taking a really long break from
Speaker 3: sex and spending time alone reflecting or monogamy. No porn ever, again,
Speaker 3: stay away from things that might trigger me. I had
Speaker 3: this really fixed idea of what recovery was supposed to
Speaker 3: look like, and the thing is, it looks different for everyone.
Speaker 3: And after a bit of time, I realized that that
Speaker 3: wasn't really serving me, that I didn't feel as authentic,
Speaker 3: and I started to ask those big questions of you know,
Speaker 3: had I felt okay with exploring my sexuality as that
Speaker 3: twelve year old girl. Had I not felt that shame?
Speaker 3: Would this all be different? Would I not have had
Speaker 3: an addiction? Would I've just been this sexually empowered person.
Speaker 3: And I don't think having a lot of sex makes
Speaker 3: you an addict. I don't even think watching porn every
Speaker 3: day makes you an addict. It's how you use those
Speaker 3: things and how you feel about those things when you
Speaker 3: use them. To me, that's what set me down the
Speaker 3: destructive path. And I feel like I still want to
Speaker 3: be a sexually empowered person. My husband and I watch
Speaker 3: porn sometimes. My husband and I we experiment with non
Speaker 3: monogamy sometimes, and those things I don't use them as
Speaker 3: escape routes anymore because I have healthier methods. You know.
Speaker 3: I realized that I could still be this sexually empowered
Speaker 3: person without blowing up my life, without line of people,
Speaker 3: without cheating. If I'm just honest, I'm and I say,
Speaker 3: what's really going on? I don't use an escape route.
Speaker 1: And it sounds it's so interesting to me. Tell me
Speaker 1: a little bit more about you know that it sounds
Speaker 1: like the missing ingredient from addiction to an empowered, deliberate
Speaker 1: life where you explore desire and sexuality and pleasure and
Speaker 1: a healthy way like you're describing now with you and
Speaker 1: your husband, is shame. The missing link? Is it that
Speaker 1: it was it shame that turned those behaviors into addiction?
Speaker 3: I think absolutely, yes, one hundred percent. I think my
Speaker 3: addiction was less about sex and much more about shame.
Speaker 3: I think if I had just felt okay with masturbating,
Speaker 3: knew that this is what people do with my body
Speaker 3: is mine, I could explore it however I want. You?
Speaker 3: Which are the messages I try to give my daughter?
Speaker 3: You know, like your body is yours, you know, take
Speaker 3: care of it, but nothing you can do is ever
Speaker 3: going to be bad about your body. And if I'd
Speaker 3: gotten those messages, those you know, sex positive messages, I
Speaker 3: don't think that I would have used sex that way. Yeah,
Speaker 3: it would have been this this you know thing that
Speaker 3: I might have done a long time of, like when
Speaker 3: I was like twelve, I'd wanted to do it all
Speaker 3: the time as a kid, just discovering it for the
Speaker 3: first time. But I don't think I would have used
Speaker 3: it as a crutch because so much of that was
Speaker 3: like trying to get away from that shame. And you know,
Speaker 3: like I said, I would have the orgasm and then
Speaker 3: I would fill all that rushing back again and the
Speaker 3: only way to escape it was to reach again for it.
Speaker 3: But if I didn't have that, I don't think I
Speaker 3: would have needed to so desperately cover it up again
Speaker 3: with another orgasm. I think it really set off the
Speaker 3: chain effect.
Speaker 1: When you're not coming from a place of shame and
Speaker 1: you're coming from a place of healed wholeness, which sounds
Speaker 1: like is really where you are?
Speaker 3: Now?
Speaker 1: What kind of porn do you like now?
Speaker 3: Well, it really depends what kind of mood I've been,
Speaker 3: and sometimes, I mean I find the whole thing really boring,
Speaker 3: which is a really weird place to be. Like, sometimes
Speaker 3: I'm really in the mood. Sometimes I'll watch it with
Speaker 3: my husband and yeah, I mean it changes all the time.
Speaker 3: But I don't go and like search for the perfect clip.
Speaker 3: I also just don't have time to like spend all
Speaker 3: day looking for the perfect clip.
Speaker 1: But motherhood makes you know, any addiction a little bit
Speaker 1: more complicated that you don't have all that time to
Speaker 1: to seek it out. But I suppose what I'm asking is,
Speaker 1: you know, whilst there was a time when you were
Speaker 1: in the in the kind of depths of your addiction
Speaker 1: where it was a form of self harm, you would
Speaker 1: look for those clips that validated that sense of unworthiness
Speaker 1: in you. You would look, as you say, for clips
Speaker 1: that kind of brutalized women to a certain degree. Yeah,
Speaker 1: do different things, to use the title of your memoir,
Speaker 1: get you off now in that sense?
Speaker 3: Well, I think that those clips that I would go
Speaker 3: for the reason that they became so extreme after a while,
Speaker 3: so dark, like they would be taken to weird places
Speaker 3: that don't really get me off now, is because I
Speaker 3: was just watching so much of it, and now because
Speaker 3: I don't watch so much of it stimulate, Like I'm
Speaker 3: more sensitive to stimulation, so I'm not always looking for
Speaker 3: this thing to top it and top it and give
Speaker 3: me that feeling. And also I'm not really searching for
Speaker 3: that adrenaline feeling anymore, this feeling of like, oh I'm bad,
Speaker 3: I'm going to be found out, like nobody's going to
Speaker 3: find me out, like I have a lock on my door,
Speaker 3: you know, Like I don't. I'm not after that feeling anymore.
Speaker 3: I'm more after just I don't know, like like it
Speaker 3: changes all the time. It's hard to describe.
Speaker 1: I understand there is Yeah, none of us have you know,
Speaker 1: none none of us want the same thing every day.
Speaker 1: That would be very boring, right, And none of us
Speaker 1: are stimulated by the same things every day. It sounds
Speaker 1: like your your brain's ability to have a stimulating experience
Speaker 1: has almost been recalibrated. Yeah, so that you don't have
Speaker 1: to keep seeking that next, bigger.
Speaker 3: Thing, right. And I also just want to make clear too,
Speaker 3: like those kind of like rough degradation that that isn't
Speaker 3: necessarily like I'm not trying to like label that is bad.
Speaker 3: I don't want to kink, shame anyone. Some people are
Speaker 3: really into like BDSM and that sort of thing, and
Speaker 3: that's perfectly fine if that's what you're into. Doesn't mean
Speaker 3: that you're an addict or something's wrong with you. But
Speaker 3: for me, I felt like it was always just trying
Speaker 3: to top things with more extreme, more extreme, more extreme.
Speaker 3: And now I just I don't really have that search anymore,
Speaker 3: or that desire to search like that.
Speaker 1: In your recovery with a husband who can relate because
Speaker 1: he's also experienced a similar addiction, have there been moments
Speaker 1: in times over the years where one or the other
Speaker 1: of you has fallen off that proverbial wagon.
Speaker 3: No, we are pretty good about recognizing when we're feeling triggered,
Speaker 3: and you know, we might make those decisions that could
Speaker 3: be destructive, and we've gotten really good at talking to
Speaker 3: each other. I mean, of course we feel we feel
Speaker 3: triggered sometimes part of you know, being an addict and
Speaker 3: having that sort of past. But I mean as far
Speaker 3: as falling off the wagon, I like, to me, that
Speaker 3: kind of suggests like like there's really destructive, like like
Speaker 3: falling out, like things blow up in your life.
Speaker 1: And I we have antiquated language even in and even
Speaker 1: like for me to afraid of the mission in that way,
Speaker 1: is that like did the nineties call and want my
Speaker 1: question back? Like, what's a better what's a better way
Speaker 1: to ask that question?
Speaker 3: I don't know, No, I think that's the best word
Speaker 3: for it. But I guess we all have different ideas
Speaker 3: of what falling off the wagon means. And you know,
Speaker 3: like with with sex addiction, like in a relationship where
Speaker 3: we have sex, it's it's hard to fall off the wagon.
Speaker 3: Like I haven't cheated, I don't cheat on my husband,
Speaker 3: I don't lie to my husband. I haven't like spent
Speaker 3: days in bed binging on poorn secretly. You know, those
Speaker 3: kind of things would would seem to me like maybe
Speaker 3: falling off the wagon. I haven't, but I have felt triggered,
Speaker 3: and when I do feel triggered, luckily, I have ways
Speaker 3: to deal with those triggers and healthier ways so that
Speaker 3: I don't blow up my life.
Speaker 1: So yeah, and I'm fairly curious to know, because I
Speaker 1: you know, we're living in a time where a lot
Speaker 1: of people, in a lot of different ways are rethinking
Speaker 1: what relationships look like, what families look like, what boundaries
Speaker 1: and parameters around marriage or commitment looks like. And you
Speaker 1: know what a few years ago would have been quite taboo.
Speaker 1: You know, these ideas of consensual non monogamy is now
Speaker 1: becoming a little bit more mainstream. We have better frameworks
Speaker 1: for understanding these things. I'm curious to know. You know,
Speaker 1: I'm not asking for you to tell me the personal
Speaker 1: details of your marriage, but I'm curious to know how
Speaker 1: non monogamy is another bead on the chain of your healing,
Speaker 1: and how opening up your marriage to non monogamy has
Speaker 1: helped you to stay in a place of sexual health
Speaker 1: and well being.
Speaker 3: I think it's reclaiming that empowerment that I wish I
Speaker 3: had felt way back when I first made these discoveries
Speaker 3: with my body. I think it's letting go of the shame.
Speaker 3: It's another step in that direction of saying this feels
Speaker 3: good to me, this feels healthy, This doesn't feel destructive.
Speaker 3: This is something I want to do, and I want
Speaker 3: to do it with my husband too. I mean that
Speaker 3: may evolve over time how we approach this thing, but
Speaker 3: for now, we only approach this together, and it takes
Speaker 3: a lot of conversation, a lot of boundary setting, and
Speaker 3: I think that's also really important when it comes to
Speaker 3: healing is being able to have these authentic and challenging conversations.
Speaker 3: But yeah, it's really just saying I want to continue
Speaker 3: being a sexually empowered person and experimental and it's okay
Speaker 3: to be that even if you had an addictive past.
Speaker 3: I get to define what this recovery looks like.
Speaker 1: Erica, you mentioned earlier the advice that you give when
Speaker 1: someone reaches out to you and says, I wonder if
Speaker 1: I have a sex addiction of porn addiction. What is
Speaker 1: the advice that you give if someone wonders if they're
Speaker 1: loved one, if their partner, if someone in their life
Speaker 1: is struggling with these addictions. Because sometimes people can make
Speaker 1: things worse even with the best of intentions, Right, how
Speaker 1: do you advise we approach someone in our life if
Speaker 1: we're worried that they're struggling with something like this.
Speaker 3: I think maybe talking to a therapist first before you
Speaker 3: even approach the person, because you don't know what everyone's
Speaker 3: dynamic is a little bit different. You don't know if
Speaker 3: that person is going to react in a defensive way,
Speaker 3: if they're not ready to face those problems. You don't
Speaker 3: know if they actually even have an addiction unless you
Speaker 3: have a thoroughly researched addiction. So I think the first
Speaker 3: step is for you yourself to go to a therapist
Speaker 3: and talk about your partner and what's been going on.
Speaker 3: And they should probably have a pretty good like based
Speaker 3: on what they know about your history and what you've
Speaker 3: told them about your relationship, they'll have a pretty good
Speaker 3: recommendation on where you go from there. I think bringing
Speaker 3: up those conversations with your partner can be really delicate,
Speaker 3: and there's a lot of ideas about you know, sex
Speaker 3: being these like cheating maniacs. There's a lot of you
Speaker 3: know it has been in the news, like the Harvey
Speaker 3: Weinsteins of the world. And I don't think that most
Speaker 3: sex addicts are out to hurt other people and cheat
Speaker 3: on their partners. I think they're more likely to hurt
Speaker 3: themselves than hurt the people around them, and so I
Speaker 3: think to be gentle with them and to find a
Speaker 3: way with your therapist to approach them with care and
Speaker 3: kindness and empathy is the best way forward. Not to
Speaker 3: go at them with any kind of accusation.
Speaker 1: I think that's really good advice before this conversation and
Speaker 1: before reading Erica's book. I had never actually heard of
Speaker 1: the concept of shame addiction, had you. I didn't actually
Speaker 1: know that shame is something that we could be addicted to,
Speaker 1: and now that I do, it kind of illuminates a
Speaker 1: lot of things for me. There's so many stories I've
Speaker 1: heard a lot of them here on this podcast, with
Speaker 1: people who have struggled with so many things, various addictions,
Speaker 1: various behaviors. To think that maybe they were seeking shame
Speaker 1: in some way brings a lot of things just into
Speaker 1: sharper focus for me. I also really love how sex
Speaker 1: positive and sexually adventurous Erica still is, and that she
Speaker 1: and her husband are exploring things like consensual non monogamy.
Speaker 1: I think it reminds us that recovery doesn't look the
Speaker 1: same for everyone, and it really comes down to how
Speaker 1: we feel about ourselves at the end of the day,
Speaker 1: whether we respect and value ourselves. So interesting to think
Speaker 1: that the same behavior could be bad for us if
Speaker 1: we were doing it from a place of shame and
Speaker 1: self loathing, and good for us if we're doing it
Speaker 1: from a place of you know, self love and care
Speaker 1: Erica is a busy mom, but she did tell me
Speaker 1: that she might write another book about non monogamy and
Speaker 1: what she's learning from opening her marriage, and if she does,
Speaker 1: I promise we'll bring her back onto No Filter or
Speaker 1: should that be an amazing story. As always, we've popped
Speaker 1: all the links that you need in our show notes,
Speaker 1: including how to get your hands on Erica's book and
Speaker 1: some resources that she's sent through in case this triggered
Speaker 1: anything for you, or you feel like you might need
Speaker 1: a little bit of guidance and support. Mia Friedman is
Speaker 1: a host and creator of No Filter. It was fun.
Speaker 1: It's not a little daunting to step into her very
Speaker 1: pool shoes today. The executive producer of No Filter is
Speaker 1: me Naima Brown, And like I said in the intro,
Speaker 1: if you don't know about the pam and Tommy Lee story,
Speaker 1: I really recommend you watch Netflix documentary Pamela.
Speaker 3: It tells the whole story. It's so great.
Speaker 1: Audio production and sound design is my Tom Lyon and
Speaker 1: he loves these taboo smashing stories as much as I do.
Speaker 1: More stories equals less shame, and less shame is good
Speaker 1: for all of us. Thanks for listening.