Lord Jesus Christ, I offer you this post to your glory.
Humble me and help me offer myself completely to you.
I ask you to bless those who read this that they may come to know you better.
I ask this through the intercession of Mary, your Mother.
Amen.
Before I can start truly journaling my current recovery, I have to get you up to speed with how I got myself in this whole mess in the first place. I mean, I've been working on this for over twenty years. (Wow, it's scary to write that and realize what it means!) I was always a curious young lad and had to experience things for myself. It wasn't enough to be told not to do something. I had to go and figure out exactly why. When I was in sixth grade, I had a friend who was quite a good artist. One day, he brought in some pictures he had copied out of his dad's Playboy. Let me tell you, they were quite good. I was absolutely enthralled. Wow, naked women! I even got to keep a couple of 'em. I remember the strange feeling I got when I looked at them. My whole body tingled and I felt excited both by what I was looking at, and the secrecy needed to look at them. If I got caught, I'd be dead meat.
I then went on a quest to find more pictures of naked women. Keep in mind, this was the early nineties, so Internet porn wasn't there yet. I went into the library and book stores and looked in the photography section, or the sex section. It was quite a thrill to be in a public place looking for pictures of naked women. At this point, I hadn't quite discovered masturbation yet, but my body was definitely reacting to it. I also had another friend who happened to have cable TV. Again, this was before satellites and DirecTV and all that. He had a cable box. It was possible however, to watch cable on other TVs in the house without a cable box being attached to it. When you did this, the subscription channels weren't completely blocked out, so things like Spice, Adam & Eve, and the Playboy Channel came in fuzzily. I would spend hours at his house trying to get a glimpse of something.
This took place during middle school and all that sexual awakening and stuff. I was quite intense about it. When I got in "the zone", I would go at it for hours on end if I had the opportunity. My friend with the scrambled channels would get quite frustrated with me, because that's all I wanted to do. When I actually discovered masturbation and the intense release that came with it, it became something that happened several times a day. I know, sounds like a "normal" pre-teenage boy, doesn't it? Perhaps. During this time, I was also going to church regularly. I started to feel the conflict between what the Church teaches about sex, masturbation, and pornography, and what I was actually doing, but I was unable to stop. I was enthralled with the tease, the forbidden, the excitement.
We got a computer and AOL, and that was a HUGE thing. I loved chatting. Unfortunately, I ran the phone bill up so high with that dial-up modem, that we had to get rid of it. I remember we disconnected right when I saw advertisements saying, "Coming soon, the World Wide Web!" Seems like another century, doesn't it? I kept on with the materials I had already. Eventually my elementary school became an Internet host site, so there was a local number. Oh, it's on now....
I was the only one in the family that actually knew how to work the darn computer. My parents were clueless. I was excited to be able to go to different web pages and see what was on them. I also quickly discovered how to find LOTS of pictures of naked women. I could also find more hardcore stuff. At the time, I thought I was in heaven. I created a folder within many other folders on the computer in which I could store pictures, and the collection quickly grew. I figured out how to create another window and place it over my porn window if someone came downstairs. Once I got on the Internet, things started to go way more quickly. I was getting OBSESSED with sex. I wanted to try it, I wanted to see naked girls live, I wanted to do everything I saw in the pictures.
In today's day and age, this sounds like a "normal" boy who is started puberty. The hormones start to rage, masturbation kicks in, and curiosity about sex grows intensely. I know this is what the majority of pre-teen boys do, but is it really normal and healthy? Is it in God's plan for boys to do this? From my experience, I say.....NO! I'll get into this issue in a later post. I just want to tell my story as it happened. There's plenty of time to get into all these things. In the next post, I will talk about my high school years and how sexually active I was by the end of them. Thanks for reading!
Author's Note: I realize that some of this may seem somewhat graphic to you. My intent is not to describe graphic sexual situations to you, but rather be honest. Porn addiction is ugly stuff, and sometimes I'll have to use ugly terms to describe it. I will try my best not to be blatant or offensive, but sometimes you just have to call a spade a spade.
The thing that stands out to me in your story is how long it took you to get there. As for me, I was pretty messed up by 7. Yes, you read that right. All it took was a little "pervert" in my grade on the schoolbus--who no doubt was exposed to WAY more than he should have been by his dad. He talked about it all the time, and was the one who informed me of the nuts and bolts of sex. I assumed that all boys that young wanted to see naked ladies and playtime--while not with this kid, who I really did not like--many times had nothing to do with climbing trees and riding bikes, but had a much more sexual nature, even with rape entering as a theme. Yes, at 7. Girls, boys, made no difference to me. They were all fun to be physical with. Sure Imcould do it alone, but it was much more fun with others. My uncle had playboys, so that reinforced the idea that I had to be sexy and show it off explicitly. I even came upon a porn movie in my parents' vcr somewhere around 11 or 12. I watched it wildeyed. Then I "developed" and tried to show off as much as I could get away with. I just sent off "the vibe" and even a certain family member would fool around with me when the door was shut. High school came, and with it a boyfriend, and my virginity was gone within months of turning 15 to someone I planned on marrying, and with whom I am in slight contact to this day. Yup, a very twisted youth indeed. And I have left things out even here. You are so not alone.
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