A Morley woman has come out swinging against the best selling book Fifty Shades of Grey, saying erotic fiction is not the harmless fun it purports to be.
Consecrated virgin Maureen Togher shared her personal experience with hundreds of online friends last week, citing the book’s massive sales and her own desire to prevent harm to others.
Dubbed “mummy porn” by much of the mainstream media, the book tells the tale of a female university student who interviews a male billionaire entrepreneur for a campus magazine.
She quickly becomes ensconced in many sex acts with the character, including acts of sadomasochism.
Ms Togher said the sentence in the book’s blurb saying it was “a tale that will obsess you, possess you, and stay with you forever”, was accurate.
Prior to returning to the faith in 2003, and dedicating her life to God as a consecrated virgin in 2008, Ms Togher said her life had been plagued by sexualised media.
“Erotic fantasy is really just pornography, with detrimental effects on families and marriage. It does not discriminate when it comes to becoming addicted,” Ms Togher said.
She had her first encounter with erotic fantasy as a ten-year-old while playing in the school playground.
“There was a huge cement pipe we kids used to climb in and around and I came across a book, partially hidden, and I picked it up and started reading,” Ms Togher said.
The book was called The Happy Hooker, written by former prostitute and madam, Xaviera Hollander, which its author continues to tout as “one of the modern classics of the sexual revolution”.
“At the age of 10, I found myself feeling aroused and yet, I felt ashamed because of these sexual feelings. I lost my innocence the day I read the book, because I would go back and regularly find it still hidden in the same spot,” Ms Togher said.
She later found out the book belonged to one of her neighbour’s teenage sons.
“Their house was always full of playboy magazines. The book led me to believe that was a normal thing that adults did.
“To cut a long history short, I was later sexually abused by the same neighbour’s boarder and I blamed the feelings and abuse on myself,” Ms Togher said.
She kept what she described as “a dark secret” for many years because she thought God would send her to hell and her parents would feel ashamed and not believe her.
“I feared relationships with men and would use alcohol and pot to bury the pain of being treated as a sexual object.”
“I abstained from any relationship for ten years because whatever self-esteem I had left, didn’t want to be used and seen as an object of some man’s gratification,” she said.
While debate has raged over the past century as to whether or not pornography and erotica can be linked to sexual abuse, Ms Togher believes it is part and parcel of a culture that sees people as objects for gratification.
Erotic fiction, far from providing a means of fulfilment, drove her sexuality further inward, Ms Togher said.
“My ongoing saga from a so called harmless fantasy book left me scarred and took me into a dark world of self-pleasure,” she said.
“The good news is that my Lord God has healed me in all these areas of abuse and now I live my life for Him as a Consecrated Virgin.“My virginity was stolen from me in the natural world, but it has been restored to me in the supernatural love of God.”
In 2008, Ms Togher was consecrated as a Consecrated Virgin, before Bishop Don Sproxton at her local parish church, Infant Jesus, in Morley.
Consecrated virginity is a distinct form of consecrated life in the Church. Consecrated Virgins are irrevocably consecrated to God and commit themselves to perpetual virginity and a life dedicated to the service of the Church and of others.
She is also a member of the Holy Spirit of Freedom community, a charismatic group committed to ministry with the homeless.
More information on Consecrated Virginity can be found at www.consecratedvirgins.org.