On the face of it, bubbly law graduate Oghosa Ovienrioba is a 22-year-old with a bright future ahead of her.
But she used to hide a dark secret – an all-consuming addiction to online pornography.
It was a habit that first kicked in when she was just 14 and sneaked a look at online porn on her computer.
From the ages of 18 to 21, she would lock herself in a dark room and watch adult movies endlessly, masturbating up to six times a day at her worst point.
The popular vlogger is now trying to help others after bravely speaking out about her addiction on YouTube in a series that has amassed more than 800,000 hits.
In the video, uploaded a year ago, she described how the addiction stemmed from her being abused as a child.
“The beginning of this story starts when I was about six or seven,” she said. “I was abused… It went on for about three or four years.
“I was very used to the fact that it happened. Because of the nature of the abuse, after a while as a child you stop thinking it’s abuse and you start thinking that it’s normal.
“Or [you think] it’s some sort of connection that you and this other person have, when in reality this person is just using you for their own personal gain.
“I developed a normality to it and in some really messed-up way I actually missed it.”
Now, speaking about the reaction to the YouTube video, Oghosa has said she had found porn frighteningly easy to access as a child.
“I was 14 years old when I went to find porn on the internet,” she said. “It was out of curiosity and it was just a simple Google search for me to get hold of an adult movie.
“When I first watched it, my reaction was shock. But gradually over time, that shock becomes excitement and I would use any porn that I could get my hands on.”
Her habit started to become a worrying obsession by age 16, when she began watching adult movies as often as she could.
“I was watching it so much that I started to get bored by the ‘normal’ soft porn movies,” she said.
“I wasn’t getting the buzz that I felt when I first saw it – in fact I was almost desensitized to that content.
“I went from watching soft pornography to dodgier stuff to get the kick I needed.”
Oghosa’s addiction briefly stopped when she had a six-month relationship with a boy at age 18.
But when she started university and found herself single again, the downward spiral of her addiction recommenced.
“I was at a university and alone in a new city,” she said. “I guess it was a trigger and I just went downhill from there.
“For a period of two to three years, I was watching porn on a daily basis and sometimes masturbating over six times per day. It was all I could think about.
“I didn’t see people as people anymore – they were just sex objects to me.
“The simplest things could set me off such as a girl unbuttoning her blouse or a boy taking his top off. Everything made me want more.
“I would sit in my room alone for hours, with the lights off, watching porn. I felt lonely and ashamed of myself.”
When Oghosa turned 21, she found Christianity and knew it was time to confront her problem. She made several lifestyle changes so she would not return to old habits again.
She says: “I spoke to a friend about my addiction and that was a huge release for me. It was a first step.
“Talking about it made me realise how much of a problem it was – you’re only as sick as the secrets you keep.
“As a Christian, you have to be quite controlled about what you let into your heart, in terms of what you see and do.
“So now, I don’t read sex scenes in books and I don’t listen to oversexualised music. There are some artists that just sing about sex and it’s best to avoid that.
“I try to avoid inappropriate programmes on TV late at night.”
Oghosa, from London, said the response from viewers on her YouTube channel was overwhelmingly positive.
“When I uploaded that video in February, I had no idea how phenomenal the response would be,” she said.
“I received hundred of heartwarming comments from women who were going through the same thing for years.
“When I read some of the comments on that video, it brings a tear to my eye. People have told me how alone they felt with their addiction until they saw my video.
“Lots of people don’t think girls can suffer a porn addiction but it’s a problem for both sexes. I hope I can help others out there – talking about your problem is the first step.”
Oghosa believes there should be age restrictions on online pornography to make it less available to children.
“It’s heartbreaking to know that children can still access pornography so easily like I did,” she said.
“There are age restrictions on drinking and smoking – the same should go for porn.”
A spokeperson for The Marylebone Centre of Psychological Therapies said: “The internet is having a huge impact on human sexuality as an infinite variety of material is available through picture sites, chat rooms, live shows, bulletin boards and web-cams.
“Internet sexual addiction is a form of sexual addiction and it is important to have someone to talk to about your feelings in general.”
I was so addicted on porn aged 14 and masturbated six times daily: Brave confession of woman who says addiction began with childhood abuse
No comments:
Post a Comment