Novelist Ben Obler was feeling secure in his recovery from porn addiction. Then along came Franny, to test it.
The Mask of Deception: The Ultimate Test to My Recovery From Porn Addiction
The Mask of Deception: The Ultimate Test to My Recovery From Porn Addiction

Benjamin Obler | Longreads | August 2016 | 24 minutes (5,908 words)
When we first talked, it was on tenuous terms. That is, both telling implicit lies.
My lie was wearing a leather jacket and smoking cigarettes that night, which cast me as carefree and rebellious. In reality, I was a bookish Senior Editor with an educational publisher, a teacher, and a writer with aspirations. I loved my tennis and workouts—usually kept fit.
Her lie was the exact opposite: she cast herself as more straight-laced and serious than she was, and literary, noting that she was reading a challenging novel in the literary realism vein. But she wasn’t really of a literary disposition. I would learn soon that she was much more visually oriented, a photographer. She liked to go dancing, and to shoot guns at a range just for the thrill.
On the surface, these lies were harmless, but they masked deeper deceptions. She had no idea I was a recovering porn addict. I had no idea she was into taking semi-nude photos of herself and posting them online.
Her name was Franny, and I fell madly in love with her.
Continue reading “The Mask of Deception: The Ultimate Test to My Recovery From Porn Addiction”