For years now, Covenant Eyes has been raising awareness—and providing support—for women who struggle with pornography. Pornography is not just a man’s issue, and many of the women who do struggle face greater challenges than men. One of the heroes who has pioneered support for women who struggle with porn is Crystal Renaud Day. Our podcast team sat down with Crystal to discuss her story, her ministry, and some misconceptions about women and porn.
Crystal’s Story
Crystal began by sharing her story of early exposure to pornography. Like so many other children, the porn that Crystal saw at a young age grabbed ahold of her and quickly became an addiction:
“I was ten years old when I was exposed to pornography for the first time. I was pretty clueless at that point, I hadn’t really had the sex talk. When I stumbled on that magazine in my brother’s bathroom I had to make a decision. Am I going to dig into this thing that I found, or am I going to tell on him? At ten years old you don’t make good judgment calls. So I decided to devour that magazine. It was questions, it was curiosity, it was intrigue. It was probably the first time I experienced shame. I didn’t even know why. That was the beginning of my story.”
From that early experience with a print magazine, Crystal soon discovered internet pornography:
“I was able to go online throughout my adolescence and look at pornography. I would look at pornography pretty much every day. At sixteen I got saved at a summer camp. Instead of being free of porn, it almost seemed like things got worse. Not only did I continue in this behavior that I thought would be broken by becoming a Christian, I had even more shame about it. There was this compounding shame.”
As a Christian, Crystal began hearing messages about pornography—but they were all directed towards men. She felt like she was the only woman who struggled.
“I was on the worship team, I did all the good Christian things. But nothing ever seemed to work. I finally got to the point where I wanted to tell someone. But I had nowhere to turn.”
Finally, what changed Crystal’s life was an older woman who shared her story with Crystal. She also had struggled with pornography. Crystal was able to finally open up and admit her own struggle:
“This was part of my story, but it wasn’t something I ever wanted to talk about again. But at 24 years old, on a church staff, it came out that the pastor was having an affair with another staff member. It showed me that we never know who might be struggling with sexual brokenness.”
Crystal’s Ministry
Crystal founded Dirty Girls Ministries in 2009, which is now SheRecovery.com. Since then, she’s been hard at work providing resources to women all around who face the same struggles she did.
“We have our Facebook community which is that safe first step into recovery. Then we have our virtual meetings which meet every day on Zoom. It’s the meetings that are bringing the most women into readiness for counseling or coaching.”
After women are in the community and have a safe place to interact with like-minded individuals and take further steps in their recovery journey. Crystal continued:
“We see our counseling as the top tier of the resources that we offer. It’s not just the behavior of addiction, it’s what’s under that behavior that needs to be healed: the emotional wounding, trauma, etc.”
Crystal explained the difference between coaching and counseling. Counseling is about digging into your past and finding out the underlying wounds and issues. Coaching is more forward-focused, bringing in accountability and encouragement to help achieve your goals once you’ve dealt with the underlying issues. SheRecovery.com offers both services.
Misconceptions About Women and Porn
Crystal also addressed some common misconceptions about women and porn. Most obviously is the myth that women simply don’t look at porn. But another popular idea is that women don’t like visual porn, or if they do watch porn it’s not for sexual stimulation.
“The misconception is that women aren’t visual, but we are. We like sex just as much if not more than men! The reason why you would go to pornography is always different. But what it gives you is always the same, it gives you visual stimulation. [And] women are watching porn to masturbate, just like men are. What women look at might be different. But the desire is the same.”
Crystal explained that some of the neurological differences of women bring unique challenges for overcoming porn:
“Women have the ability to fantasize more than men. But it’s a physical thing. It’s not just the physical release for women, it’s also an emotional thing. To take you from that place of loneliness, despair, or depression and filling them with loneliness—before leading back to despair.”
Check out the full podcast with Crystal and our other wonderful guests here!
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