porn trouble

[bec]

hello men:

just want to post this while i feel the courage. i shared before that i have used porn for some 20 years as my only sexual outlet. i have never been able to trust enough or feel safe enough to love another.

well, i have not rented any porn in 53 weeks and 4 days and i am grateful. i also did not masturbate for some time. weeks? yes. months? i think so. but early this morning i was unable to sleep and i became wrapped up in sexual fantasy.

i went ahead and masturbated for the first time in awhile. and i have fought the urge to do it again and again today. i told myself that binging would do us no good. and we prayed for the courage to control our desire to binge.

we also have a history of binging/self-medicating with food. well, so far we have not binged on either and we are very grateful.

and, something that bothers me is i have realized that my exact sexual fantasies are normally unhealthy, warped, dysfunctional.

like this morning i fantasized about sex between a mother and son. thank God the incest my birth mother forced upon me was only covert/emotional. i have no memory of any physical incest occurring.

i remember a man on this board speak of how we often go back and try to relive our past abuse histories as a way of trying to gain control over them, or create peace within us or empower us in some way. i believe i understood what he was saying. to go back and relive the abuse as a way of gaining control over it. perhaps this is why i chose the fantasy i used this morning. and my other fantasies.

well men, i feel i said/shared what i wanted to/am ready to. i am grateful i had the courage to share. i will visit the board now and read some posts. take care men and let's not be too hard on ourselves. God bless,

bec

 

[Les_Angry]

102 weeks for me without porn or masturbation, and I havent felt better since high school. Back then I went 3 years without masturbation, but not without porn. My perp taught me to do it when I was 11 and I did it 3 times a day for 4 years. I dont think I ever missed a day unfortunately.

 

[Les_Angry]

I was just remembering a day from work two years ago. A guy I worked with was talking about how earlier in the day he was watchting porn and they were doing it on a certain make and model of car. A friend of mine and myself looked at each other in disbelief when we realized it was about 9 am and it was obvious he had been watching porn for hours before coming to work that morning. Its definitely an addiction. Its a slippery slope.

 

[bec]

thanks for the reply les-angry.

more: today i ran an errand and it took me right by a porn shop/store. i had a strong desire to go in and "browse". not rent any porn mind you, just browse. it hurt as i drove by twice. i did not stop and go in but, a part of me truly wanted to. earlier in the day i told myself i would stop and go in the shop. but, it was too tough. i didn't think i could handle it.

also, i just visited a website, www.sexhelp.com, that has a sex addiction screening test online anyone can take. i think it was called the SAST. it consisted of 25 questions. i answered 16 of them with "true". so according to the test 94% of test takers who answer as i did are considered sex addicts. wow! a more accurate score for me may have been 15 or 14 or even 13 but, the score i received definitely concerns me. am i a sex addict? maybe so. maybe so. i need to go eat some dinner men. thanks for reading this.

bec

 

[Les_Angry]

Hey bec,

I stopped watching porn for religious reasons. The closest I ever got to going down that slippery slope again was that I decided that somebody needed to pray for all of those people who did porn. So I was going to go back to the place where I rented videos and look at all the covers and pray for each porn girl and even the people who made them, pretty stupid. I found myself thinking about it for hours before I realized what a bad idea that was. So I didn't do it. I try to not even think about porn anymore.

I know what porn does to my life and I know its not good, and now I also know its a sin. This topic reminds me of a story I heard about how they catch monkeys in Africa:

The bushmen take a rope and tie one end to a tree. The other end is attached to a jar. They put a piece of fruit with a circumference just smaller than the mouth of the jar into it. The mouth of the jar is big enough so the monkey can put his hand inside, but too small to pull out the piece of fruit in his fist. So how do they catch the monkey this way? The monkey wont let go of the fruit! It knows all it has to do to get away is let go of the fruit, but it cant do it. The bushmen can walk right up to the monkey and kill it because it wont let go of the fruit. I beleive this is how the devil catches us in our sins. Maybe somebody might think "big deal its just porn", but then again the monkey is probably thinking "big deal its just fruit".

The other extreme is the coyote approach. The coyote knows when it is being trapped. Unlike the monkey nobody gives it the choice to let go when it is caught in a trap. So the coyote gnaws off the leg that is caught in the trap and stumbles away on its three good legs. This reminds me of when Jesus says "And if your hand or your foot causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away; it is better for you to enter life maimed or lame than with two hands or two feet to be thrown into the eternal fire. And if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out and throw it away; it is better for you to enter life with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into the hell of fire."

So my goal is to be more like a coyote than a monkey when it comes to porn. Sorry about the fire and brimstone bec, but I thought it was worth mentioning.

Les_Angry

 

[Carl123]

Bec;

I can definitiely sympathize with you. I think we are all drawn in some very strong way to relive our abuse as a means to gain control over it.

The only new advice I can offer is this: don't be too hard on yourself. You are who you are and there's nothing wrong with that. If you beleive in a God, and he made you in his/her image, then how could you possibly find fault with who you are?

If you have controlled your actions so that you do not go out and hurt or absueothers, that's a big plus for you. Whe it comes to being good to yourself, I support you in your effort to stay away from porn. That's a great effort! Just don't beat yourself up if you slip up every now and then. It's OK to be a sexual human being. You have to decide who you are in that regard and what your level of comfort there is rather than running away from all of it. Denial is not a healthy road to choose. Enlightened acceptance is.

 

[bec]

fellow men:

thanks for the replies to my post. there are some things i wish to say. first, i respect everyone's beliefs and their place on their journey toward healing. do not misunderstand me. however, i do not believe in the concept of "sin". i believe in "humanness".

we are all humans and we all error. i believe sin is a concept/tool used by the few to control the masses through shame and fear; by those who hold too much power to maintain and gather more power from all the rest of us. i do not believe my God controls me through these means.

my God wants me to do my very best and know that i will struggle and at times fail. but, i will also move through this life with ease and succeed. i will know both. and, i believe I am my toughest critic. maybe even more so than my God.

i had to get this off my chest men. whether you agree or not is allright as long as we respect each other's views and beliefs. take care all

bec