Getting Off: One Woman's Journey Through Sex and Porn Addiction

by Erica Garza

A fiercely courageous account of one woman's unflinching, raw, and ultimately hopeful journey through sex and porn addiction.

For almost two decades, Erica Garza was consumed by a singular, secret, shame-fueled pursuit that threw her life into chaos: orgasm. Back-braced, isolated, and teased in adolescence, and ambivalent about her Catholic upbringing, Garza found a secret solace in masturbation and porn--first by way of the limited softcore viewing offered by late-night cable, and, later, with the booming proliferation of online porn.

In this wrenching, vivid account, Garza explores her sexual fixations and relives the series of disastrous relationships and one-night stands that haunt her as she runs from one side of the world to the other in a futile attempt to break free of her habits―from East Los Angeles to Hawaii and Southeast Asia, through the brothels of Bangkok and the yoga studios of Bali to disappointing stabs at twelve-steps, therapy, and rehab back home.

Garza's terror at digging so deeply into her history to understand her anxieties is palpable, as is her exhilaration when she begins to believe she might just be free of them. And yet there is no false hope or prepackaged sense of redemption. Even her relationship to the man she will ultimately marry is credibly rocky as it finds its legs with several false starts, making her increasing sense of self-acceptance and peace by journey's end feel utterly earned.

In exploring the cultural taboos surrounding sex and porn from a female perspective, Garza offers a brave and necessary voice to our evolving conversations about addiction and the impact that Internet culture has had on young women.

Genres: Nonfiction, Memoir, Sexuality, Biography, Feminism, Addiction, Mental Health

192 pages, Hardcover

First published January 9, 2018

Reviews

[*TUDOR^QUEEN* · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a bravely honest memoir from writer Erica Garza about her personal struggle with Sex Addiction. It all began at the tender age of 12 while listening to Loveline, a popular LA radio program hosted by Dr. Drew Pinsky and Adam Corolla. A female caller boasted of a fetish for inducing mind-blowing orgasms, achieved by lying in the tub in a certain way under a steady stream from the water faucet. This propelled an obsession for warm baths as a teenager and a way to release pent-up sexual frustration. However, this was just the beginning and tip of the iceberg of Erica's sexual preoccupation through the years.

Erica carried emotional baggage from childhood experiences such as feeling different from having to wear a back brace due to scoliosis. She also felt distant from her father who worked many hours away from home as a mortgage broker. When her Mom announced she was having a baby girl (when Erica was 10), her interest was piqued at the mystery of sex, but she felt even more isolated from her parents' affections. A familiar theme running throughout the book is Erica feeling unworthy of being loved. Instead, she feels like she has to use sex as the primary force in her relationships. When men get close to her emotionally, she always manages to push them away. And when she's alone, she relies upon incessant masturbation inspired by porn from the internet. Following this transient satisfaction, she is disgusted by herself.

There are so many sexual partners...casual, random and serious...throughout the book. Erica desperately tries various therapies, retreats and workshops in search of a cure to her sex addiction. She just wants a healthy relationship with a man and most importantly, to feel good about herself.

Erica previously revealed some of her provocative experiences in magazine articles, but courageously broached the subject full-on in this memoir. While the salacious nature of the book is certainly attention getting, the constant recounting of her sexual escapades had a numbing effect as I was heading towards the end of the book.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for providing this advance reader copy in return for my honest review.

[Igrowastreesgrow · Rating 4 out of 5]

Review soon to come.

[Eric · Rating 5 out of 5]

Erica Garza's Getting Off is an autobiography of a Garza's experiences with sex and pornography addiction. The writing is raw and surprisingly graphic, but not so in an exploitive or titillating, immature way.

In interviews, writer Sherman Alexie has claimed for one to be a great writer, a writer must be able to write openly and fearlessly honest and it's hard to imagine Garza not doing that any better than in this book.

Some may find the content objectionable, however, if the writing had not been done as it is found in this book, the impact upon the readers' feelings toward Garza would be lessened.

Through the book, Garza reveals her self-discoveries of why she behaves the way she does. The origins of these discoveries add to the power of her writing, especially when one combines those with the knowledge of how accomplished she has become. Through these discoveries, the reader is faced with the knowledge that insecurity, habits and destructive behavior can strike anyone, even those that appear to have it all.

Highly recommended for those that like open and frank memoirs, but be forewarned, the book is sexually graphic, but for the book to have been effective, such writing was necessary.

[Brenda · Rating 2 out of 5]

Thanks to Netgalley and Simon and Schuster for an ARC copy of this book. This is an emotional story about addiction and the struggles that accompany that addiction.

When Erica is 12 years old she experiences porn clips and sex videos along with her first orgasm. From here at that tender young age it consumes her life and for the next two decades and we watch her make one bad choice after another. She is self destructive and hurts herself as well as many innocent people along her path.

I did not sympathize with Erica as many other reviewers did. She was privileged, over indulgent, and spoiled, wreaking havoc wherever she went. Erica was blessed to be able to travel to many wonderful countries and had extended stays in Bali, Hawaii and Bangkok as well as Southeast Asia where she studied yoga and visited brothels all to try to get to know who she was. (where did the funding for all this traveling come from?) Erica stayed in denial about her sex addiction even after so many people told her she had a problem and offered help.

Don't get me wrong, I feel for anyone with an addiction; sex addiction being no different than any other. Erica's excuse for becoming a sex addict was when she was 12 years old she had to wear a back brace that made her an outcast at school. Really???? How many kids are bullied, raped, molested by family members or suffer from severe, lifelong painful disabilities that struggle through their days with optimism?

Erica in my opinion was a confused, privileged, bisexual with a hefty appetite for sex and attention, now she is trying to capitalize on her escapades. If you want to read a book about someone that overcomes adversity, do yourself a favor and read about Jacee Dugard, now that is one amazingly strong person who deserves your time.

[Michelle · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sexual addiction is often misunderstood, and remains largely a taboo subject. Some psychiatrists and other mental-health professionals do not identify or diagnose this condition, which may co-occur with problematic obsessive compulsive symptoms and other disturbing behaviors. In “Getting Off: One Woman’s Journey Through Sex and Porn Addiction” writer Erica Garza shared her courageous and dynamic story of how her addiction to sex and pornography prevented her from having a normal life and healthy fulfilling relationships with others.

Garza was emotionally up front and graphic regarding her sexual encounters with men she barely knew. Clay, a huge beefy man with neck tattoos, might call or not. Usually drunk and/or high, he visited Garza for sex In the wee hours of the morning; she was sober. There was no need for condoms or conversation—what would they talk about, anyway? Real dates of dining, dancing or drinks were totally unnecessary. After Clay left, Garza would turn to computer porn and/or her favorite fantasies involving two sweaty women, a warehouse, fifty “horny” men, a harness, hairdryer and a taxicab. According to Garza, this was the disgusting “revolting” mix of shame and sexual excitement that seemed to fuel a bizarre ritualistic loop that brought a temporary gratification and relief that she craved for over two decades.

As a writer, Garza lived abroad often with accomplished professional men that genuinely loved her. After engagements and/or wedding planning, meeting parents— her deep insecurities, poor self-esteem, severe jealousy, led her to sexually act out and sabotage her love relationships. *Garza would break plans with the people who needed her—family members, friends—or not make plans at all, because she didn’t want to miss out on any potential opportunity to have sex.
There was no childhood trauma, neglect or abuse in her life history. In fact, she was raised in an ordinary and supportive Catholic home by her Mexican parents in Southeast Los Angeles in Montebello, CA. When she was 12 years old she started to masturbate-- seemingly to relieve stress and anxiety. On cable she discovered porn, her tastes for it only evolved when she began downloading it, which eventually led to compulsive viewing on her laptop. Online she could be anyone, and explore her perversions with other like-minded individuals.

It would be five years after Garza acknowledged her deep seated sexual problems when she began attending Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous (SLAA), and studied self-help books. Marriage to her husband River connected her to a deeper level of her own humanity. When she wrote an essay about sex addiction for Salon.com (2014) she heard from others with similar problems. These healthy connections with others were vital in a three stage recovery process; with the final stage leading Garza and her husband in an unexpected direction.
** With thanks and appreciation to Simon & Schuster via NetGalley for the DDC for the purpose of review.

[C.M. Arnold · Rating 3 out of 5]

First and foremost, I consider anyone who puts themselves out there like this in book form to be very brave. This memoir sheds light on an issue that, for the most part, is often perceived as something women are immune from. I’m sure there are many who have the misconception that sex addiction is just rich men’s scapegoat for their misdemeanors. Because, well, you usually only hear about sex addiction when some career creep/ serial rapist like Harvey Weinstein is checking himself in to treatment for it in an attempt to save face. Garza’s memoir dispels that notion and does a good job of displaying the complexities of this particular compulsion. This book spans quite a few years, as it is something she’s dealt with since a young age. This book is also very detailed and extremely honest. Are there some uncomfortable parts to read? Yes. But I think a book of this nature has to go there in order for you to get the full picture of what any given addiction is and does. For all the reasons above I would never want to denounce or discount this book. However, and this is just me personally, I didn’t really connect with the writing. I got a little bored midway through, put it down, and ended up forgetting about it for a few months.

[Critterbee❇ · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is very difficult to read. It is honest, true, harsh, heartbreaking and the author was very brave to share her story. It is a well-written book, But what I found uneasy or disturbing was that the content is very upsetting. She just keeps hurting herself. The pain is very devastating. Perhaps writing the book has helped her more than anything else.

*eARC Netgalley*

[muthuvel · Rating 3 out of 5]

I thank Netgalley and Simon & Schuster Publications for the opportunity to review this memoir in exchange for my review.

The Memoir is about a woman's obsession with Porn and Sexual fantasies, and her battle to confront the feeling of guilt every time she'd finished with her countless adventures around the world, and how she'd managed to recover being an addict (or at least obliterating that guilty feeling due self-destructive patterns). I felt the book is brutally honest with the way things are portrayed like Henry Miller's kind though I'm still yet to read his. To avoid misconceptions, it's nothing like an erotica (I can say this since I tried one by Sasha Grey) but the psychological battle amongst emotion, numbness, recognition and self-destructive habitual patterns. If she happens to write more, I'll make sure to read that one as well.

Erica Garza's essays have appeared in Salon, Narratively, BUST, Marie Claire, Good Housekeeping, Esquire, Refinery29, Bustle, Cosmopolitan, HelloGiggles, The Los Angeles Review and Australia's Mamamia and The Motherish. She has appeared as a guest on BBC Radio 4, Thom Hartmann's "The Big Picture" and August McLaughlin's Girl Boner Radio. In 2010, she earned her MFA in Creative Nonfiction at Columbia University. "GETTING OFF", her memoir on sex addiction, is forthcoming from Simon & Schuster in 2018.



Born in Los Angeles to Mexican parents, Erica has spent most of her adult life traveling and living abroad in such places as Florence, London, Berlin, Paris, Barcelona, Bogota, Bali, Bangkok, Koh Samui, Chennai, Melbourne and the island of Maui. She currently lives in Los Angeles with her husband and daughter. From www.ericagarza.com

The Book is available from January 09, 2018.

[Jason Pettus · Rating 3 out of 5]

Just once in my life, I would love to read a memoir about a person who engaged in interesting and unusual sexual activities, and have them gleefully admit that the sex was great, that they had a ton of fun, and that they don't regret a single thing. But unfortunately, as I discovered when writing a book on the subject myself about twenty years ago, although there are thousands of Americans on any given day who are happily engaging in orgies or sex with strangers with wide-open eyes and a guilt-free conscience, none of these people will ever get a publishing contract; because in this Puritan-created nation of ours, for the millions of people who don't engage in these activities, the only way they can stomach their tales of prurient sexuality is if the narrator either gets punished at the end of it all, or is miserable and guilty while it's going on.

And thus do we now have America's two millionth memoir about someone who hated having kinky sex, Erica Garza's Getting Off, in which this Los Angeles web journalist spends years having the kind of insane sexual experiences you will only be able to dream about, and complains the whole time about how sick and awful she felt about it all, and how glad she is that she's no longer doing so. The trouble starts right in chapter one, in which Garza admits that ever since puberty, she's intricately associated the concept of sexual pleasure with the concept of overwhelming shame, mostly because of being raised by conservative Mexican parents who would force her to cover her eyes during kissing scenes in movies, and whose entirety of sexual education to her as a teen consisted of a stern warning to never ever let anyone ever touch her "dirty parts." No wonder, then, that by the time Garza was in her twenties, and engaging in the kinds of bad relationships and one-night-stands that most people in their twenties experience, it triggered an all-consuming shame spiral that led her into a tail-eating snake of evermore risky behavior and evermore guilt, each feeding off the other until finally getting saved by the cult-like New Agey woo-woo of the '60s EST cousin known as the Hoffman Process. (Also, of course this book ends with Garza married and preparing to have a baby, because how could any self-respecting American memoir about interesting sex not end with the narrator married and preparing to have a baby? YAY PURITANS!!!)

I admit, I feel a bit guilty myself today for giving this book only three stars, because it's not like Garza is a particularly bad writer; but Christ, this is such an exact cookie-cutter version of every other American sex addiction memoir that it might as well not even exist, the lack of two stars less for anything bad and more for Garza not bringing a single new, unique or interesting thing to the table. (Also, I must pettily confess that the three stars is partly to punish publisher Simon & Schuster, for once again engaging in the most lazy and uninspired acquisition policy in human history. Jesus, no wonder your industry is almost dead.) If you're like most people and can't enjoy a naughty story without someone getting punished for the sin of enjoying themselves, by all means pick this up; but if you're someone who actually likes interesting sexual activities and was hoping for a joyful, wise look at the subject, I'm afraid you're going to have to keep on looking.

[Michelle · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sexual addiction is often misunderstood, and remains largely a taboo subject. Some psychiatrists and other mental-health professionals do not identify or diagnose this condition, which may co-occur with problematic obsessive compulsive symptoms and other disturbing behaviors. In “Getting Off: One Woman’s Journey Through Sex and Porn Addiction” writer Erica Garza shared her courageous and dynamic story of how her addiction to sex and pornography prevented her from having a normal life and healthy fulfilling relationships with others.

Garza was emotionally up front and graphic regarding her sexual encounters with men she barely knew. Clay, a huge beefy man with neck tattoos, might call or not. Usually drunk and/or high, he visited Garza for sex In the wee hours of the morning; she was sober. There was no need for condoms or conversation—what would they talk about, anyway? Real dates of dining, dancing or drinks were totally unnecessary. After Clay left, Garza would turn to computer porn and/or her favorite fantasies involving two sweaty women, a warehouse, fifty “horny” men, a harness, hairdryer and a taxicab. According to Garza, this was the disgusting “revolting” mix of shame and sexual excitement that seemed to fuel a bizarre ritualistic loop that brought a temporary gratification and relief that she craved for over two decades.

As a writer, Garza lived abroad often with accomplished professional men that genuinely loved her. After engagements and/or wedding planning, meeting parents— her deep insecurities, poor self-esteem, severe jealousy, led her to sexually act out and sabotage her love relationships. *Garza would break plans with the people who needed her—family members, friends—or not make plans at all, because she didn’t want to miss out on any potential opportunity to have sex.
There was no childhood trauma, neglect or abuse in her life history. In fact, she was raised in an ordinary and supportive Catholic home by her Mexican parents in Southeast Los Angeles in Montebello, CA. When she was 12 years old she started to masturbate-- seemingly to relieve stress and anxiety. On cable she discovered porn, her tastes for it only evolved when she began downloading it, which eventually led to compulsive viewing on her laptop. Online she could be anyone, and explore her perversions with other like-minded individuals.

It would be five years after Garza acknowledged her deep seated sexual problems when she began attending Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous (SLAA), and studied self-help books. Marriage to her husband River connected her to a deeper level of her own humanity. When she wrote an essay about sex addiction for Salon.com (2014) she heard from others with similar problems. These healthy connections with others were vital in a three stage recovery process; with the final stage leading Garza and her husband in an unexpected direction. ** With thanks and appreciation to Simon & Schuster via NetGalley for the DDC for the purpose of review.

[Ylenia · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was expecting something more from this memoir, especially because the topic is still so taboo everywhere around the world for both women & men.

Erica Garza is a sex addict & she's been addicted since the age of twelve. She also had (or has) what felt like social anxiety & often used drinking as a way of loosing that sense of inadequacy around other people. She often referred to her body as something that needed to be perfect. She often shut down relationships before getting too attached or suffering.

This was more of a memoir that an exploration of what it means to be a sex or porn addict. The way this book is told, you don't get the sense that having an addiction to porn is that big of a deal, when in fact it is. I also wan't a big fan of all the slut-shaming mentioned here.

[Dna · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this memoir by Erica Garza, but without significant trauma informing your sloppy decisions as an adult, you are on the hook. She complains that her main source of trauma was boredom. Boredom. I repeat: boredom. I'd venture to say that another source of dysfunction was her drunkard parents who let her have drunken-blackout house parties while in high school. How do you get blackout drunk and engage in group sex at your parents house while they're home and it's okay? My mind cannot wrap around the concept of parents who liberate their children to this degree so early in life.

The first half of the book felt like a meaningful examination of promiscuity and pornography and the intersection between the two. By the second half, I knew I was just reading the diary of a self-indulgent bimbo. Sorrynotsorry, but if Boredom-With-a-Capital-B is what drives you to engage in depravity at the risk of your own health, safety and general well-being, you are a bimbo. A bimbo that wrote a book. A good book though! Recommended! :)

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

'Getting Off' is Erica Garza's rather raw - and at times painfully honest - account of her years long battle with sex addiction. An affliction which is seldom spoken about, and more so associated with males, it's great to see such a taboo subject talked about with such overwhelming honesty.

Garza's writing takes you on the journey with her, her anecdotes and accounts of situations succinct and snappy and bereft of unnecessary detail, which some auto-biographical accounts can get caught up in. I whizzed through this book in no more than a couple of hours, so fascinated was I by the topic itself, complemented by Garza's brilliant writing style. As you might expect from the subject matter is is certainly x-rated in places and so not suited for the most prudish readers amongst us, but is an eye-opening and fascinating read.

[Eliza · Rating 3 out of 5]

(3.5) - I’m going to be selfish with this review by first explaining what drew me to this memoir in the first place. The male MC in my last two novels suffered from a sex addiction. I wish that I’d read this as I was writing him because there are some bold truths here that I could never have garnered via research. Garza takes us through her childhood, which was pretty uneventful (in a good way) all the way to her 2nd trip to Thailand in hopes of attracting a sex worker. Everything in between is raw and painful. I will say I felt more like a therapist instead of a reader as I read the book. Memoirs can take that turn and, as the reader, you should be prepared for that with this one. What I most appreciated was that Garza never calls herself ‘cured’; she acknowledges the true path of being an addict - the realization that you may never be completely healed. Good, insightful read.

[Siddharth Srivastava · Rating 5 out of 5]

We are fools to assume that kids don't understand much. They understand, feel, absorb, enact, and internalize everything inflicted on them, be it praise, pride, love, guilt, shame, or harm.

As Dada Dostoevsky rightfully said in 'The Brothers Karamazov': "Nothing is more profound and stronger and more powerful in life than the memory of childhood".

The book is one of shame, but also one of courage, one of guilt but also of acceptance, one of addiction but also of renunciation, of losing oneself but also of finding back, of sex being a stigma but also of it being a liberation, of porn being a dopamine stimulus but also of it being a stimulus to anti-social depression.

Raw. Clinching. Brave. Needed.

The book doesn't disappoint in conveying what it intends to convey.

[Réka Oroszi · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love memoirs, especially ones that deal with topics that I don't have any real life experience with. They give me insight into what other people struggle with and that is something I highly value in a world where empathy is not the default approach towards other human beings.

Getting Off is the story of the author's sex and porn addiction which is almost always considered to be a problem exclusive to men. This is due to the fact that women are conditioned to hide their sexuality and treat it as a taboo subject. Also, the collective obsession with women's 'purity' is another culprit here. It is still a widespread idea that talking about women's desires, their porn watching habits or about them having multiple sex partners is wrong and uncomfortable. For men, it is normal, or even required to express such thoughts as often as possible, to seem more masculine and to gain respect among peers.

This is why this memoir is so brave and unusual. Erica Garza has a tremendous amount of courage for having written and published this book. I'm certain she faced backlash and objectification after the book was released (I even saw a few articles using a sensational tone, calling her a 'nympho' and Goodreads reviews questioning if what she describes indeed happened). But her purpose with the book was to share her experiences with others like her who still suffer silently and feel that they should be ashamed. Writing it all down was also important for her from a therapeutic point of view.

I immensely enjoyed reading this book. The language is simple, straightforward and I found it impossible to put it down. I devoured it in a single day which doesn't happen very often! The only reason I gave it 4 stars instead of 5 was the 'traveling to Southeast Asia to find yourself' aspect of the story and the fact that she considers Elizabeth Gilbert's Eat Pray Love as a book of spiritual guidance.

[kelly · Rating 4 out of 5]

Often times when we hear about sex addiction, it is a taboo subject. It is also a narrative that is usually dominated by men. "Getting Off" is one of the few books about this topic that I've read that's written by a woman, and shows the wide range of emotions and dysfunctions that goes along with this affliction.

Garza's struggle with sex addiction begins when she is twelve and continues long into her adulthood. She has a brilliant writing style--raw, at times funny, and painfully honest in its detail. Once I started reading this book I didn't put it down and finished it in a manner of hours. As you can guess from the subject matter, it is quite x-rated in certain scenes, so it's not for the puritanical or faint of heart. If you can move beyond this, however, you will find this an enlightening and enjoyable read.

[A free digital copy of this book was provided by the publisher, Scribner, and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.]

[Ricardo Moreno Mauro · Rating 4 out of 5]

Un libro con un lenguaje muy ameno que que es una autobiografía. Creo que la autora ha sido estremadamente valiente al hablar de un tema que cuesta hablar 1) adicciones y 2) adiccón alsexo. El sexo siempre lleva consiguo remordimiento, verguenza y socialmente no es bien visto el que uno diga, "si me guta el sexo, me gusta estar en la cama todo el día con alguien", más aun para las mujeres.. Bueno ella lo hace y como esto la llevo a una addición, las causas, sobre todo hoy en día donde el sexo, o el lla mado cybersex es tan, pero tan disponible para todo el mundo, sobre todo para los niños y adolescentes.

Muy recomenbadle.

[rachel · Rating 2 out of 5]

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.

[Amy Morgan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thank you Edelweiss for my review copy of this book.

An incredibly brave and raw account of one woman and her journey through two decades of being addicted to sex and porn.

I was honestly not sure about this story before I began reading it. But Garza's account of her journey is well written and brutally honest taking you through her deepest moments of shame and despair and into her moments where she finally can see a life outside of her addiction.

There are several parts that may be a bit too graphic for some tastes but I applaud this author for sharing her story so that it may be able to reach others who may be alone and suffering. The only criticism I have is that there are facts included at the end of some chapters and by the time you get to the end of the chapter you have a hard time remembering what they were a reference to.

[Alicia · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book is courageous and reveals Garza's story of sex and porn addiction that she put together after multiple articles in magazines that applauded her confrontation with her issues. Garza covers a lot of her normal life, including her relationship with religion and family living in California and Catholic with Latin roots.

It's a balance of biography and the addiction that showcases how dangerous addiction can become regardless of the kind and her footnotes provide a validity and ability to discuss her issues so that others can explore their own. Nothing too titillating or provocative that wasn't what she was dealing with. She kept it from being sensational for the sake of selling books. It was real.

[Jaclyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’ve read many addiction memoirs and this is without a doubt one of the best of them. Garza’s blazing raw honesty about addiction, shame and self-destructive patterns is incredibly revealing. Her willingness to lay her demons bare for all to see is brave and humbling. Her descriptions of recovery are complex and layered. She offers no simple answers and damn can she write

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thank you to Simon & Schuster for providing me with an ARC review copy. All opinions expressed are my own.

To preface, I've never reviewed anything like this before. Normally, I review relatively clean books and I've never reviewed anything that directly confronts sex and porn like this book does. When a representative from Simon & Schuster approached me for a potential review, however, I felt that it was an important topic to take on. I'd also like to mention, that if you are someone who suffers from this same addiction, a trigger warning is in order. I would also suggest 18+.

1. The content (the journey itself). The first portion of the blurb is beyond true. This book offers a good long look through a window into the house of sex addiction and it's probably a house not many have seen unless they've become trapped into the house themselves. Quite honestly, I found myself crying at one point because what the author has chosen to reveal is heartbreaking. Personally, I don't know too much about addiction of any kind so the feelings the author expresses are all new to me. She walks you through her shame and guilt and feelings of worthlessness which is so hard to read. I think Garza did a fantastic job of illuminating her personal struggle through these feelings and her journey of coming to understand herself and accept herself.

2. The cultural implications. One aspect I'd like to mention before I get to far into this review are the cultural implications of a woman addressing her own sex addiction. As Garza states in the book (and backs up with evidence), sex addiction is often seen as a man's problem and one that isn't really taken too seriously (at least, not as seriously as drug or alcohol addiction) and it isn't as nearly widely publicized for many reasons. Our culture today is still struggling to break free of the idea that only a man's pleasure counts during sex and sex is predominantly a man's world. This novel addresses this in several scenes which I found to be particularly relevant.

3. The big picture. The only large issue I had with the book was, in fact, the big picture. The blurb promises a book that will link the struggles of one woman to the larger issue of sex addiction itself and how the Internet plays into this. While Garza does refer to several studies and mentions these big picture ideas once or twice, I found the supposed connection flimsy and inadequate. Her personal narrative is compelling, but her connection with the rest of the puzzle wasn't enough for me.

The Final Verdict:
Though this is different from anything else I've read, I'm glad to have experienced it. The narration is poignant and very near flawless though the focus seemed to be only on a single puzzle piece.
4 stars

[Pierre-Alexandre Buisson · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had expectations that this book would examine porn addiction, at least from a sociological or scientific point of view, but it mostly stays on the surface of the subject matter and is more of a memoir, in the end. It's interesting to know where the author's insecurities spring from, but the new age bullshit and self-help book quotes in the latter part of the book were way too much for me.

[André Mwansa · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is so sexually graphic that if you're dealing with such problems...then you might want to keep out. Or better yet. Skip the first few chapters and read the last two only 🤣 but in order for this book to be effective as it was. Such details had to be done.

It's really well written and quite entertaining for a memoir. Some yes, including me might find some contents objectionable but on the contrary quite necessary. I believe this book is not popular in the review area because most people find such books quite embarrassing to review. Otherwise. It's a great life changing book and I highly recommend if you're really curious about what goes on inside the mind of a sex addict.

Bravery written 🙌🏾

[Karen Patrick · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sometimes I wonder - if there had been more research and more discussion about sexual addiction in women, would I have changed my behaviour?

What I do know is that isolation is damaging. Silence is damaging.

This book is about sex addiction and how it has affected the author throughout her entire life. I recognize and acknowledge her bravery for writing about a topic that can cause her to be vilified or revered in equal measure. I applaud her bravery and I feel this book is important. The fact that it exists may help other women struggling with the same issues and they can see themselves in her, another flawed human being just like them.

The good stuff

This book was an exercise in empathy and walking in another person’s shoes.

I found myself judging her journey a lot at first...But then, I also took a step back. Who am I to judge someone’s journey of healing? If someone were to write down my journey battling with addiction, won’t they be frustrated with me too? “This bitch is watching porn again…going back to her exes or snapchat FWBs again…omigod, is she serious? Does she ever want to get better?” They’d probably shake their heads in disgust at me while whispering about me under their breath.

So no, I am not better than the author nor do I think I have it worse than her. We should not be judging each other on the basis of who is sicker or who has worst luck. Addiction in all forms and levels is damaging, heartbreaking and serious. Erica has documented all of her flaws and captured every moment she backslides back into her bad habits for the whole world to read and comment on. There will be people calling her a slut or dismissing her sexual addiction as less serious than it really is.

Her journey was relatable to me at some points.

I liked that she addressed herself with empathy and respect towards the end. Her messy journey towards loving her body and not harming it felt realistic. She emphasizes that it’s okay to acknowledge trauma in your childhood and make attempts to fix it.

I saw myself in many of her flaws and her mistakes. All the things that she does to harm herself and others stems from childhood trauma and bad body image. As a kid, she had scoliosis and had to wear a full body brace that made her feel ugly and undesirable. Thoughts of sex and masturbation were the few things that brought her comfort. Then after she got her brace off, she joined a beauty contest and reinforced further the obsession with her body. She is always highly aware of others’ opinions and competes with other women for men’s attention. Her exposure to hardcore pornography at a very young age when her brain was still developing also caused her fixation with the topic. It was really heartbreaking that her mother did not provide her with the comfort, reassurance and healthy body image or love she so desperately craved as a child. Instead, all she had were those celebrity and women’s magazines that are already so harmful to grown women’s mental health. I couldn’t help but wonder…if she had gotten help and support from a young age, could she have avoided all this suffering?

But when no such traumatic event could be found, the only thing left was that same unanswered emptiness and the conviction that I was inherently bad.

Trauma can be ordinary. And when you have a chronic fear of ordinariness, you can convince yourself that your trauma actually isn’t trauma at all.

I myself was exposed to a ton of bad stuff as a kid and I wish I could go back in time, wrench the computer, phones and magazines out of my hands and say, “Please go outside. Please don’t make these mistakes and alter your neural pathways forever because it will mess you up for a long time.” But I didn’t and Erica didn’t so I could understand all her actions. When she said her younger self was sexting with men twice her age and pretending to be various pretty, white teens online, I felt this dizzying sense of recognition. Oh god, hadn’t I done that too? Why did I do that?

The bad stuff

Orientalism, privilege and shitty behaviour

I felt a spectrum of negative emotions reading Erica’s healing journey: annoyance, envy, frustration, anger and disbelief. Erica did not seek any proper sex addiction therapy throughout the novel. Her attempts to join support groups were shortly abandoned because of her deep insecurity and comparison with other women in the group. She mostly tries to pull herself up using her bootstraps and embarks on a journey to the “mystical lands of the East” in search of healing, an ironically Caucasian rite of passage. The myth and stereotype of finding enlightenment in Asia is deeply entrenched in colonialism and orientalism, compressing rich cultures and people into caricatures, stereotypes or tropes seen in “Eat, Pray, Love”.

The novel was written from a position of financial and beauty privilege. The author becomes both unrelatable and almost hateful because of her seeming blindness to her privilege. Her father’s business as booming and they had a two-bedroom condo. At some point, she became a rich mistress for a wealthier old man. Even as an adult, Erica has had access to all of the best experiences the world had to offer. She works a writing job and has traveled the world. She has stayed in London during her university days and New York, both really expensive cities I will never be able to see in my lifetime. She is financially secure enough to even travel to Bali for a spiritual retreat, working from her laptop and enjoying all the spas and yoga classes Bali has to offer. Erica is also thin, able-bodied and pretty. She distances herself from her Mexican heritage and tries to pass as white most of the time so she enjoys light-skinned privilege too.

Not going to therapy despite having ample access to it

Frankly, I feel like a lot of her problems should be addressed with professional help instead of self-medication, self-actualization route by going to Bali for a spiritual retreat. I always cringe at privileged Western women traveling to the Exotic lands of the East for spiritual actualization instead of addressing their problems within themselves. That concept was proven as we see her go to Bali, have luxurious spa massages and eat near cafes overlooking rice fields, meeting her true love there…and then going back to her sex addiction. She had all the money and support from her parents to attend therapy but she did not.

Throughout the book, we would see her backslide time and time again back to her bad habits of sleeping with men who did not respect her or love her. We would cringe multiple times as she harms herself, using sex as a weapon against others and against herself. She tells herself that it makes her feel powerful and desirable or even better than other women but we see her slowly dismantling that myth when she catches STDs and the thought of lewd acts takes over her entire life.

Her sex addiction stemmed from shame, misogyny, poor body image, lack of self confidence and intense self hatred. The self hatred and shame within herself is the main reason for sex addiction. Couple that with her people-pleasing tendencies, her competition with other women, self comparison and childhood trauma + exposure to porn at a very young age…you’ve got a storm coming, honey. Why she did not address her misogyny towards other women in therapy or at least one chapter in the book made me feel endlessly frustrated. Her competition with other women and her need to seek male validation was definitely one of the main causes of her sex addiction and it boggles my mind why she did not seek help for this.

Conclusion

A book about a young woman explicitly talking about her sex addiction is necessary. Women have often been overlooked and dismissed by the medical community, particularly more so when it comes to sexual health. Men expect women to be submissive in the bedroom and their sexual libidos to be low or non-existent. The fact that this book exists shows that female sexuality is extremely nuanced and comes in a spectrum. Despite the author being annoyingly privileged at times, it’s an important book that can shed some light on this rare topic.

In the end, I realize that this book is a warning. In this culture and world where sex is becoming increasingly casual, impersonal and fraught with violence against women that is normalized, it is more important than ever to shield children from pornography and help them cultivate healthy body image.

[Marcella Wigg · Rating 3 out of 5]

Getting Off is an addiction memoir different from Sarah Hepola's Blackout in its focus: while Hepola focused on her unhealthy relationship with alcohol, porn, sex, and love addiction is Garza's emphasis here. In a way, because this type of addiction is a less conventional subject for the personal memoir than alcoholism, it is even more discomfiting to read about Garza's frequently tumultuous relationships with various partners, pornography, and her own self-perception. During an early adolescence in a stigmatizing brace, Garza began ashamedly experimenting with sexual conversations with strangers in anonymous chatrooms and watching porn. As she grew up, she used porn as a motivator in many aspects of her life: it told her what beauty standards were acceptable (specifically regarding hair and grooming), what sexual behaviors would make her desirable to partners, what her role as a woman in a relationship should be.

It's quite brave of Garza to write so candidly about her experiences with addiction the way she has here. If the content were treated differently, the book could be a recounting of salacious escapades, but ugly situations underlying many of Garza's encounters--from a situation in which she realized her landlady was essentially attempting to pimp her out, to several coercive and abusive partners, to her self-sabotaging of her healthier relationships by constantly demanding sex, cheating, and intense jealousy. However, at some point it became difficult to sympathize, because parts of the book did feel self-indulgent or self-justifying--e.g. her encounters with Thai sex workers near the end of the book, and the way that portion of the book was framed.

[Tina · Rating 4 out of 5]

My short review is: I LOVE THIS BOOK.

Memoirs on addictions are, in my opinion, very difficult to write. Imagine taking your biggest secrets and putting them all on paper for the world to see.

This is exactly what Garza did - in fact, she did it in a way that was different from many memoirs, while you can feel the dread, sadness, bewilderment Garza feels as she continues to indulge in her addiction, she does so in a way that sends the message "mea culpa, but I am human and this will never be perfect".

I found this refreshing and surprising. Yes, we get the feeling that Garza is completely lost and yes, while she describes her past (especially her younger years with candor and mercifully not too much detail) we also get the feeling that this person was born to be who she is with the good, the bad and the really bad.

I am not sure I understand some of the passages in her book, but I love that she is always honest, despite the fact that she basically tries everything to find "inner peace" - yoga, mediation, writing. While other memoirs would stop at "now that I have done all these things I have found inner peace" Garza doesn't find inner peace, but rather some kind of understanding of herself, if only a little.

I do admit that I questioned how she could travel so much, to such places without ever seeming to run of money. I also wonder how she managed to survive this behavior without STDs, but this is extremely well written. Thoughtful and deep and I love, love it.

[Kate · Rating 4 out of 5]

"When other addicts share about porn addiction, my ears always perked up. Porn kept us from engaging in the world. Porn disoriented our perception, not just for sex, but of everything. Something so simple, like standing in an elevator with other people, or brushing up against another body on the subway, or exchanging money with the supermarket clerk, anything --really could-- quickly be turned into a pornographic seen by our trained, over stimulated minds. We felt numb to touch and always craved more of it. We were impatient and disinterested with situation unless it was leading to sex. We were never really satisfied with the act of sex --it could always be better-- and when it was over, we quickly wanted to discard the person. Their use was diminished. Our use was diminished."
~pg.172
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"Here is what I have learned about trauma. Trauma can be ordinary. And when you have a chronic fear of ordinariness, you can convince yourself that your trauma actually isn't trauma at all."~pg.197
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Thoughts ~
A coming of age autobiographical account of one woman's desires.

I have read many books on addiction but this was my first on sex addiction and from a woman of colors perspective too. Vulnerable is the word I would use to describe GETTING OFF. Garza really bares her whole self in this book. She is unbelievable brave and honest. She opens up about how she was addicted to having sex but also masterbation and porn addiction as well. And how this kept her from having genuine connections with others in and out of the bedroom. I found her story interesting and wondered how many other women share her journey? I ended up reading this in one sitting. Garza shares of her insecurities that led to her downward spirales, of her shame and jealousy at times, and of depression. Her journey was not easily done but I found by the end that she really owned her shit and I loved how her story ended.

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[Chelsea · Rating 4 out of 5]

This wasn't a long book but it sure was a heavy one! Erica Garza gets painfully honest as she navigates her Latina and Catholic heritage and upbringing as well as how she discovered porn and masturbation and the delightful feelings that accompanied both. Within several footnotes she brings up studies that were conducted about children being exposed to sexuality and how it's managed in the home, sex addiction, and female sexuality studies in general; all giving fascinating data. It did feel like she added them for validation, however, and I don't think it was needed for that purpose. Erica didn't have an easy-breezy time though as there were also drugs and alcohol abuse along with the orgies and chase of the orgasmic thrills starting at the tender age 12.

Oof; I hesitantly recommend this one because Erica's story is so engaging but again, the subject matter is hefty and it weighed heavily on me long after finishing it.