Thursday, July 2, 2015

Out of the Darkness and Into the Light: My Sexual Journey and Struggles with Pornography

Introduction


This document is a record of my wrestlings with my sexuality (as a point of clarity, I mean who I am as a sexual being, not my sexual orientation). I am recording it here to bring it out into the light in the hopes that by so doing, it may benefit those who read it. I am tired of worrying about how I appear to others and desire honesty and to be known, as the saying goes, warts and all. I am going to therefore record what I see to be my sexual “journey” or “history,” whatever you want to term it. The term matters little. This is somewhat difficult for me to write and make public, because I have been taught that much of it conflicts with what it means to be a “good little Christian boy.” But hiding my experiences helps no one to learn from them and thus is a disservice. As for the structure of this document, I will first go over my experiences, and then I’ll recount some of the impacts of those experiences.


My History


I want to start this by first addressing the matter of sexual fantasies. I think that I am somewhat unusual--though if the Internet has taught me anything, it is that no one characteristic of someone is entirely unique--in that I do not self-insert. Rather, I construct characters, species, beings that I tell stories about, however brief. This approach of mine is a general one, not purely sexual in nature, and is a part of my psychology. I don’t look for stand-ins for myself. I share this to give some understanding and context as to where I come from. For me, sexual fantasies are not fantasies about me having sex, however much I may look forward to it.
Right, then, the beginning of things. I’m not quite sure how old I was, but I think I was in middle school, when I recall first having sexual fantasies. I remember riding on the bus on the way home, looking out at the snow, and imagining beings that lived in bubbles of perpetual sex. Not terribly exciting, in retrospect. Somewhere around this time, I don’t remember quite when in relation to things, I had what I would view as my first experience with masturbation, using part of one of those plastic lightsaber-type things as an aid. It felt inappropriate somehow, and I think I’ve had premature ejaculation when masturbating ever since, something which actually suits me fine. I don’t want masturbation to be able to be a substitute for proper sexual intercourse.
At any rate, some time passed, and I found myself increasingly curious to know what female genitals actually looked like. I had a vague notion that they looked something like a vertically aligned mouth, but that was it. I must have been around sixteen or seventeen when I decided I wanted to actually know--I do know I wasn’t eighteen yet, as I refused to enter beyond any age-gates. Regardless, the Internet provided the knowledge I sought and more, not all of which I found desirable. Yet, with this initial foray, I found the female body to be beautiful and the vulva to be fascinating, something that is still very true. Relatedly, though as something of an aside, it was during this time that I encountered various concepts of nudism/naturalism; a number of these concepts still stick with me--respect for the human body, acceptance of it, and a healthy body image. However, it wasn’t long before my dad saw me hue-shifting an image and told me, “Not in my house.” I think God may have orchestrated that event to stop me from potentially falling down a hole I might never have recovered from. And thus, my interest was suspended for several years. After all, I had found the knowledge I had wanted.
It wasn’t until I was closer to twenty or so that I particularly began seeking things again, as my memories of the images I’d seen were fading. This happened after I had temporarily moved out of the house while going to college. During this time, things spiraled, and after a while, God woke me up and showed me what I was doing. I had pirated a Japanese “girlfriend sim” program and was lusting after it and other images, not just of nudity but of sexual imagery. I realized that it wasn’t me: it wasn’t what I wanted to be doing or how I wanted to be behaving. This resulted in another cooldown period. I cleaned many things up and moved on.
However, my interest in both anatomy and the artistic aspect of nudity once again drove me to seek a refresher on this knowledge. By grace, I have not had a period again where I have fallen as far as that time in college, as I am not keen to repeat those mistakes. I am still learning things and have had struggles while trying to figure out how to handle my desires, but at this point, I’ve learned that I’m not particularly interested in pornography. You see, I had a night, back in January of 2015, that I spent on an easy-to-find pornography site. I just watched, choosing to engage it critically with my mind rather than in any other way, and I discovered several things from this experience.
So, where am I now? A good question, and I don’t know where things will be with me whenever it is you read this, but I can tell you where I am at the time of writing this (early July in 2015). I still find the vulva to be beautiful, a work of art. I find women to be beautiful, and I think clothing can mar that beauty. However, I have learned about lust and want to avoid it, to admire a woman’s beauty and God’s craftsmanship while seeking to not reduce her to an object.
Some of the discoveries I made along my journey, and consequences of it, are detailed below.


Consequences and Lessons


  • The way we handle nudity in the United States of America (and I imagine much of the world) is downright bonkers. As can be seen in my story, my journey into pornography and like materials started with a desire to dispel my ignorance. The way that we taboo nudity makes it hard to pursue one’s curiosity about the other sex’s physical form in a way that doesn’t lead down this path. Furthermore, this approach to nudity leads to many strange conundrums and paradoxes, such as our attitude towards breastfeeding. It’s something I want to talk about more at some point, but it deserves its own article. The basic end result, though, has led me to become something of a nudist, as well as an opponent of censorship.
  • I have come to realize that things can’t be what they aren’t. That may sound obvious, but images, video, etc., these things can’t be the sort of physically intimate relationship I desire and crave. Nothing will do except the real thing, and trying to force anything to do or be something it is not leaves one dissatisfied. It is like dying of thirst in the desert and chasing mirages. One gets excited over the prospect, “Maybe this one really will be water this time!” And then one gets there and realizes it was nothing but yet more sand, a crushing disappointment.
  • Watching people have sex is really rather boring. The only ways for it to be interesting are for it to be a taboo being broken or to somehow try to be involved in it. This fact is, I think, the leading contributor to the devastating Spiral of Looking-For-More-Shocking-Pornography. As the sought-after shock fades, more shocking material is required, not unlike how drug addicts need to increase their dose to continue receiving the same impact.
  • The heart and soul of sex is intimacy, and pornography often strips that out, leaving it empty and void of true substance.
  • I have gained a greater appreciation for women and find that I care deeply about women in the “adult entertainment” industry as people. I want them to be loved (not fanaticized, fantasized, or obsessed over) and respected, both by themselves and others. Based on stories I’ve heard from ex-porn stars (see ThePinkCross.org), respect--and self-respect--is in short supply for these women. I feel God has given me a heart for them. I don’t know what to do with that, but I hope this article can help in some small way.


Conclusion

I want to close by thanking you for reading this. If you have any questions for me, please feel free to ask. If you want to ask privately, you can email me at king.templar(at)gmail.com. And please, think about some of the stuff I’ve brought up. Make sure you aren’t being duped by mirages. And please, be wary of the dangers of trying to turn anything into something it isn’t. Doing so can be extremely destructive to you and to others. Take care, and if anything you’ve read here has left you feeling convicted, please, don’t ignore that feeling. May God grant healing, courage, and strength to those who so desperately need it.

No comments:

Post a Comment