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A review by maedo
Getting Off: One Woman's Journey Through Sex and Porn Addiction by Erica Garza
2.0
This book originally piqued my interest for two reasons: to try to understand the actions of men who'd hurt me in the past whose behaviors seemed to fall under the umbrella of sex addiction, and also to try to understand the masochism in me that led me to keep coming back to be hurt. Like Garza, I am now happily and healthily partnered, but it took work to overcome the soul void she describes, that feeling of one's entire value being found in others' desire. I have enough remove from that time now that I was ready to look it in the eye.
Unfortunately, I finished Getting Off feeling underwhelmed, like I had just read an explicit Eat, Pray, Love (which happens to be referenced in the book as an inspiration for Garza's travel to Bali to heal; if I had known that in advance, I would have known this book was not for me).
Let the subtitle be your guide on this one - it is truly one woman's journey through sex and porn addiction, in the sense that it is Erica Garza's memoir, which happens to be focused on sex and self-destructive behaviors and how she as an individual came to understand them. The best parts of the book for me were the footnotes giving information about sex addiction in general, and brief snippets about the experiences of people in her Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous meeting. I realized from this that what I wanted were case studies of several sex addicts and more broad strokes as a whole. This is not a subject for which a large body of work exists, but it should, because man is online dating crawling with sex/love addicted behavior patterns.
Unfortunately, I finished Getting Off feeling underwhelmed, like I had just read an explicit Eat, Pray, Love (which happens to be referenced in the book as an inspiration for Garza's travel to Bali to heal; if I had known that in advance, I would have known this book was not for me).
Let the subtitle be your guide on this one - it is truly one woman's journey through sex and porn addiction, in the sense that it is Erica Garza's memoir, which happens to be focused on sex and self-destructive behaviors and how she as an individual came to understand them. The best parts of the book for me were the footnotes giving information about sex addiction in general, and brief snippets about the experiences of people in her Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous meeting. I realized from this that what I wanted were case studies of several sex addicts and more broad strokes as a whole. This is not a subject for which a large body of work exists, but it should, because man is online dating crawling with sex/love addicted behavior patterns.