Pornography use is often discussed as if it belongs only to men. In clinical practice, that assumption can obscure the complexity of how compulsive sexual behaviours develop and function in people’s lives, including women’s.

Alina’s story is one route into that complexity.

Relational strain, isolation and the conditions for activation

When Alina first sought therapy, she and her partner Josh had been trying to conceive for some time. What began as a shared project had, over time, become something heavier. Cycles of hope and disappointment gave way to pressure, and then to a quieter kind of withdrawal. Sex became structured around timing and outcome rather than connection.

She describes feeling increasingly alone within the relationship. Around the same time, her workload reduced, leaving her with increased unstructured time. She began spending more of that time online and, eventually, found herself in conversation with someone on a forum. Alina found the person to be attentive, curious and responsive in ways that felt markedly different from her experience with Josh.

The interaction was both emotionally activating and sexually arousing. It also unsettled her. Alongside the sense of aliveness was confusion, discomfort and an emerging awareness of unmet needs. It brought into focus a tension between loyalty, desire and how she understood herself.

Alina chose not to continue the exchange. But the activation did not simply settle. In that heightened state, she turned to pornography.

From the outside, this might appear as a straightforward decision. Clinically, it tends to be something else. Moments like this often involve a shift in how behaviour functions for the person, from engagement to regulation. Pornography can begin to operate less as curiosity and more as a way of managing internal states – including arousal, loneliness and emotional disconnection.

Over time, a pattern took shape. Her use became more frequent and more closely tied to fluctuations in mood and tension. She noticed changes in what she found arousing, alongside a growing sense of secrecy and ambivalence. Material that had once felt unfamiliar became more normal through repetition. At the same time, she experienced a pull towards the behaviour and a desire to resist using it.

Meanwhile, her relationship with Josh continued to strain. Fertility difficulties, unspoken resentment and mutual withdrawal deepened the sense of disconnection. Although they attended couples therapy, Alina did not disclose her pornography use. She describes concerns about safety, female judgement and shame, alongside a reluctance to introduce further blame into an already fragile dynamic.

During this period, her behaviour escalated. She began using dating platforms and went on to engage in sexual encounters outside the relationship. Looking back, she says, “I understood this wasn’t a series of isolated choices but part of a much broader pattern, shaped by my emotional fragmentation.” It was also part of a loosening of boundaries and repeated attempts to regulate distress through sexual and relational means, alongside moments of agency that she later struggled to reconcile with her values.

Understanding function, regulation and growth

When Alina later sought individual therapy, she chose to work with me. She said this was because she felt there might be less judgement from a male therapist about the choices she had made as a woman. Rightly or wrongly, she felt she could hold her shame, secrecy and attachment patterns in a more constructive way with a male therapist than she had been able to risk in her couples therapy (with a female).

A significant shift came with a change in how her behaviour was understood. Rather than being framed solely as problematic or as a moral failing, attention turned to its function. The work explored how her behaviour related to emotional regulation, attachment injury, unmet needs and the absence of a sense of safety in her relationship at the time, while still holding awareness that she was an active participant in patterns that both soothed and undermined her longer-term wellbeing.

Alina described therapy as a “process of making sense of something that had felt both confusing and isolating”. The focus moved beyond stopping behaviour to recognising triggers, understanding emotional states, examining relational expectations and addressing the role of secrecy in maintaining the cycle.

Over time, she reported a marked reduction in compulsive sexual behaviours and an increased capacity to reflect before acting anything out. She also described greater clarity in her emerging relationship with a woman and what seems to have been best described in sessions as a more integrated sense of her sexuality.

Her experience points to a broader clinical truth. Compulsive sexual behaviours rarely exist in isolation. They are often embedded in relational dynamics, shaped by attachment histories and bound up with attempts to manage emotional distress. Understanding what they do, rather than only what they are, is often what makes change possible.

All character-based realisations contained in this post have been derived from disguised, consensually given information. 

All rights reserved © Copyright Duncan E. Stafford 2026. Unauthorised use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from the author of this post is strictly prohibited. Author contact via website Contact page. Website version and image © Copyright Therapy Place Bristol 2026. Article published May 2026