Pornotforme's Blog

So I haven’t written for a while.  I went to visit a sister in Philadelphia and it was at the very end of the trip that I fell again.  And the day that I flew out I actually went to the Temple.  Oh, how some monsters die harder than others.  The following is from a journal entry I wrote last night.  The title of this entry will be modified a bit later as I want to address a very real and unspoken topic.  But that is for next time. 

Journal Entry:

    I woke up this morning in the back seat of my car in the parking lot of a strip club.  I woke up in my car because I was too drunk to drive.  I used the sleeping bag I was carrying around and my leg hurts.  Right now I feel disappointment and shame in my heart and at times, in my belly.  This was one of those bikini strip clubs but the message and the intent are the same.  I knew what I was getting into when I went there.  I went there with the intent to get drunk and be close physically and sexually with women.  And if I had to do it over again I would.  However, what took place before the club, I would never repeat, therefore effectively stopping the chain of events that led me to the bar in the first place.

     Right now I can feel the residue of the alcohol in my blood and belly.  I hadn’t taken a drink in over two years.  I went to the gym and sat the steam room to sweat it out of me.  I’m fasting now and prayed for a while and have just begun The Miracle of Forgiveness.  I’ve read it twice before.  But even as I was reading the preface I found so much hope in Kimball’s words.  This is a hopeful book.  I don’t know if I’ve always viewed it as such.   

     I also learned some things about myself that I’m glad I learned; although I should have learned them in another way.  The Lord never wants me to sin this bad, nor at all.  I realized that I don’t stick up for myself and this has been a learned behavior.  I was just visiting my sister in Philadelphia and I think that one thing she has mastered (at the expense of other things) is the talent and skill of sticking up for herself.  I don’t know that I have practiced this many days in my life.  I’ve always been afraid of pride (in my immature understanding of it), among other reasons; never wanting to be that guy, that prideful prick.  That’s a long time to have not practiced sticking up for myself.  Of course, when push comes to shove I more often do than don’t but in the day to day necessity of life’s demands I am as rusty as a grandma on Google. 

     I started noticing this when I was getting a professional massage.  And this always seems to be the situation.  When someone is close to my body and manipulating it in any way (haircut, massage), or has a sort of hierarchical role over me (boss, beautiful people), I at times defer to them when I shouldn’t or don’t even want to.  Two examples, in order:  1) I was in a Philadelphia beauty salon of some sort.  My sister had set it up (first mistake: I should have set it up.  It’s my body.  She set up the level of the massage.  This was with a man.  I don’t feel comfortable with a man massaging me—which is ironic, as we shall see—and it took me a little bit to calm down.  Of course I didn’t know what she had done until a day later, but I knew in my heart that it was probably with a man and I prefer a woman 100% of the time.)  My second mistake was that this man applied intense and painful pressure on my back and shoulders.  I didn’t like it but I kept on telling myself that “I’m a man” and I allowed him to repeat the intense pressure which I didn’t want. 

     At this time I was in active addiction.  I had been looking at porn for a good part of two days by this time.  And because I had allowed him to violate my desires it put me in the uncomfortable realization, theoretically of course, that if he had wanted to make sexual advances, although I wouldn’t have allowed it, I would have considered it because my body and mind were full of lust.  And to understand why I would even admit to myself the awful realization that I would have allowed homosexual contact when I am not a homosexual, is best understood by looking at the vacuum cleaner incidents of my childhood. 

     As a child, like millions of kids before and since, I got my haircut at home.  My dad would do this.  It would always be in the living room so he or I could watch TV during.  Many times there was someone else in the room and many times it was mom.  Dad would cut my hair and I would be shirtless.  When he got done he would vacuum my hair up.  While he did this he would—and this causes anger and stress when I think of it, actually I feel a rage right now rising up.  I need to breathe deeply, so I am—spend extra time on my genitals often giggling with me, looking into my eyes, and somehow I would know that it was our little secret.  My mom was in the room.  I even remember feeling conflicted. 

     Of course this wasn’t a time when a kid would have a clue that something was wrong and if I am honest, with all the childlike love and trust in my heart I think I would kind of look forward to these “bonding” moments.  I don’t remember when he stopped cutting my hair. 

     So example 1 goes back to the vacuum and this infuriates me.  This is some sort of replaying of my childhood, a loop of sorts.  Manard from the band Tool explored this phenomenon in the powerful song, “Prison Sex”.  And although it is an ugly truth I’m glad I recognize it now.

     2) Hierarchy bow down: I worked for a bookseller and like most people all my life who are in direct charge of me I tiptoed around him, not wanting to offend his varying and sometimes radical moods.  I often defer thinking I am learning Christ-like attributes of patience and charity.  But I am not mature enough to be this good of a Saint yet.  Although there are bits of wisdom found my ways of being, I am often left wanting and I often seem lacking.  At the same time, internally, I’ll analyze them and the situation to no end.  This too was learned from early childhood.  This can also spawn passive aggressive thought and behavior, a very long way from Christ-like living.   

     What seems to happen is that in the end both parties are frustrated because I never get to show the real me and they never get to know me.  There is always a distance, a gap, between us.  I often do not act the same around those I am uncertain about.  I often bite my tongue when biting is unnecessary.  I have a right to be and to be about a certain way.  My way is valid as long as I am humble, approachable, honest, and teachable. 

      One of the byproducts of this behavior is that it makes me feel isolated.  I feel that people never understand me, because I never give them a chance.  I am an actor on an imaginary stage.  The illusion is the one I make outside and inside.  There is no reason for this.  My Mom’s way is a blend of the Japanese woman way and it is not my way.  Perhaps if she wasn’t so accommodating she would have discovered the abuse sooner.  But there is no room for finding fault or laying blame.  What happened is what happened.  The point is that I have my own way and I need to be true and respectful of it, because it is just as valid as another’s way.

     So a byproduct of this unfair[1] and inconsistent[2] behavior can be found in this scenario.  A while ago I made a decision I can live with.  I can watch sports on Sunday but not if it’s Fast Sunday.  Well I was all geared up for game 2 of the Celtics and Lakers but I realized that I had already made up my mind.  I felt good about this decision and I have stuck to it as far as I can remember.  If I hadn’t stopped to think I would have watched it, effectively making my voice null and void.  What happened to respecting myself?  So upon reflection I have decided to forgo the game yet have made a few concessions.  The only exceptions to my rule is if Tennessee is playing in a bowl game, if the Eagles are playing in the Super bowl, or if it’s the deciding Game of the NBA Finals.  I think I can live with those exceptions.  As it is I am honestly looking forward to missing game 2. 

     So looking at my life and standing by my decisions, promises, plans, and goals is a way I can start training myself to respect the larger covenants I make in the Temple.  As there is not a more relevant topic I will now discuss what caused me to break my Temple Covenants yesterday.

     It was in Philadelphia when I allowed myself to slip up and look at pornography.  I was nervous going on this trip to begin with because I knew it would throw off my routine and this seems to be a trigger for me.  I jumped up quickly, called the Bishop and confessed my sins.  He sent me on my way feeling much better about myself.  But I wasn’t strong enough to even be near a computer when I returned and soon I found myself right back in it.  I couldn’t face the Bishop again, nor did I want to.  I was demoralized. 

     Well when I flew back home I had no pornography access and I was in active addiction.  I didn’t want to go to adult bookstores where I am drooled over by perverts[3] and pay money I don’t have.  Since I had no line to the internet I listened to Hell and his minions and got creative like I had done in my distant past.  I knew if I put an ad out on Craigslist I could probably find someone who could lend me their computer for a few hours or just give me porn.  Soon thereafter I found someone who seemed respectful and even a peer. 

     I made it over to his house.  He was gay and I knew it wasn’t a good idea to go over there but I was in active addiction and this is worse than being drunk because you can drive places and show up anywhere without stumbling or slurring.  And although judgment is just as impaired the drive is more sustained.  This was an awful place to put myself but I told him that I was straight and he told me that was no problem, that he would respect my need to be left alone.

      Turns out that I learned something about humanity from this man.  Homosexuals aren’t the enemy anymore than alcoholics are.  Satan is the enemy and we all need help.  He was a good man who got infected with porn at an early age and had some unfortunate situations that weren’t in his complete control.  We even talked about the drug and addiction that pornography is and creates.  We talked about early childhood situations that have led to choices that we aren’t often happy we made.  By this time I had spent hours at his house, just saving pornography to a file while he sat and watched TV.  I hadn’t eaten much in two days and he was kind enough to feed me without my asking.  Truly I was in a hell house but wasn’t it Brigham Young who said that if we find truth in hell that it is ours for the taking.  He is a nice person who needs all the help in the world. 

      Yet the relevance of the last paragraph has to do with not standing up for myself.  This man was gay.  I could have looked at lots of different pornography and I did for a while but he was so accommodating that to a large extent I wanted to return the favor and allow him to watch what he liked as well.  I have been drawn to gay pornography since about the age of 20 (a year or two before I came back to Church), ten or so years after I discovered pornography in the first place.  Why would I be drawn to gay pornography?   

     I have no studies to back me up as of yet and this is purely my own opinion but I’ll stand by this idea, always.  Masturbation is a homosexual act.  Homo means same.  Masturbation is sexual.  Masturbation is same sex; sex with self (as Woody Allen put it).  And why do I have an addiction to homosexual pornography specifically?  I was sexually and physically abused by my father.  I was ignored and abandoned by my father.  The only touch that my father gave me, even in play, was 98% negative.  When I discovered pornography I was all but 10 or maybe younger.  I would look at it with another male.  When I started masturbating and looking at pornography as an addict I was practicing homosexual behavior.  The world would have us think otherwise but it is homosexual behavior, not as bad as behavior with another of the same sex, but nonetheless, the patters are set.  If a man is in constant contact with his penis for hours on end then the fact remains that he is in constant contact with a penis for hours on end.  Masturbation brings a knowledge and fascination with the male form that is gotten no other way.  It is narcissism at its most nihilistic. 

     Touching another penis is not that big of a leap.  What holds many pornography addicts at bay is simply proximity.  The truth is that pornography promotes homosexual behavior.  Even a Prophet in the 70s was aware of this[4].  

     Compounding all of this is the fact that perhaps there is nothing quite like pornography to isolate the offender.  Pornography cuts the viewer off from normal human contact.  Rightly so, it carries nothing but shame; any and all can apply: 1) the offender is offending the Spirit of Christ. 2) the user is offending the Holy Ghost. 3) The abuser is offending his/her own spirit. 4) the user is constantly comparing and contrasting bodies with his own and with others, making all but those in pornography pleasurable, measurable, and up to par.  Everyone else, especially the viewer, is sub par.  5) Pornography is vile, sickening, degrading, violent, anti-marriage, anti-family, anti-permanence, perverted, self serving, seductive, and truly made and lived in a vacuum.   

     The pornography addict is swirling in a cesspool of filth.  And if he wants to get out then the stream is eyebrow high, swift and deadly.  The current never ceases.  

      After we had watched a video together, and I had allowed the gay man to touch me and do what gay men like to do to a certain extent, and we had done some mutual masturbation we talked about the times we have tried to quit entertaining pornography and have failed.  Pornography is driven by lust and there is not a more deadly sin out there.  Lust drove me to put up the ad, to look for porn, and to drive to a gay man’s house.  Lust had put me in such a state that I needed an outlet.  Pornography had put me in a state of isolation, which compounded with my childhood loneliness, my underdeveloped sense of personal pride, my draught of female contact, my past mistakes and experiences, led me to homosexual acts. 

     I do not feel stranger for this.  I feel I have a sound understanding of what led me to this behavior.  It snuck up on me for sure but I know the steps I took to get there and now the steps are not so secret.  But I do know that I have gone places I should never have gone.  I know who I don’t want to be.  I know I am not gay.  This is a non-issue.  I have dealt with this before. 

     Pornography though, has a different mind, and will attempt to drive anyone caught up like me to that state of mind.  Although I do not struggle with most of the things in the following list I will list the mind of pornography: rape, incest, pedophilia, homosexuality, bestiality, and a countless array of others that will never be sated.  The sad truth is that if anyone allows themselves to get caught up for too long then their mind will no longer be their own and pornography will be glad to replace it with its newest and oldest models.

     Pornography promotes only itself, and that self cannot exist outside of the vacuum.  And this vacuum can only survive in two ways: 1) the vacuum is undisturbed or 2) the vacuum grows stronger and more powerful.  But like a twelve headed, ravenous dragon once fed it grows stronger and eventually sprouts new heads, which means that the vacuum is not satisfied to merely be powered on, but is clawing its way bigger, more vicious and insidious.  If I am to survive I need to fight like never before.  I need to step out of the vacuum and away from its pull.

      After I was done at the man’s house I talked for a while about what I needed to do if I wanted to be married and happy.  I told him that he was a good person but that pornography was making me become someone I didn’t want to become.  The last thing I expected to do was to be touching another man.  I knew I had exposed myself to the mind and will of pornography for too long.  I was in such a state of lust that I had let all my convictions fall away.  But then again, I haven’t really been that good at following them because I’ve never really practiced respecting myself on a day to day basis.  And the covenants in the Temple are day to day covenants.  I may know what I stand for but I don’t necessarily know how to stand.  I am grateful for at least this lesson.

     There is something that the Atonement offers—permanent relief.  But there is something else that every addict knows or at least practices—temporary relief.  I was so far gone that I knew I needed the only thing I was mature enough to handle at that point.  I bid the man farewell, wished him luck, and went where I knew there would be women and alcohol.  I found my temporary relief from the homosexual mind of pornography but the problem of lust still remains and could have even been compounded that night. 

     Before I got to the bar I was determined to sleep with a woman, maybe that night, but at least, soon.  As luck would have it the prettiest stripper decided to seek me out that night.  We sat down and talked about talents and dreams and goals.  I talked about addictions and how I wanted to be a good person.  She was what I was looking for: a beautiful woman that paid attention to me and that I was able to lust after.  As the night progressed she had got me so excited that for a moment I decided that I had found my girl.  And with a little bit of work over the next couple of weeks I could have her. 

     I am blessed that this idea was not with me this morning, nor is it with me now.  Two wrongs do not a right make.  The only right to be had is in choosing the right.  But being with females and remembering their beauty did help.  So yes, I would go in there again if I let a man touch me and in turn I touched him.  And this will happen again if I do not stop looking at pornography. 

     I could write for hours more but I will stop.  I’ve said enough at this time.

     This was written for my own peace of mind.  But I will also give this to the new Bishop.  I give my permission and suggestion to give this to the Stake President.  I should have known better.  I should have been a better man.  Anyone is subject to failure.  This is not my worry.  My worry and concern is how to never fall this steeply again.  I pray for a miracle. 

     I know that we do not recommend our fate but I just want you to know that I approve of any actions the Church takes.  The pervious Bishop knows me well and if you feel so inspired, you have my permission to share this letter with him.  He understands my history, my failings, and my character unlike any other Church leader. 

     I’m sorry to be one you can’t count on.  I am so sorry to give you such awful dealings.  It’s unfortunate about first impressions.  Because this is all I got.  I’m just trying to do better.  I know Jesus is the Christ.  I know the Church is true.  I know that Joseph Smith was a prophet of God.  I know that the Book of Mormon is true scripture.  I know that Thomas S. Monson is God’s Prophet on the earth today.  I know that the only way to return to heaven is to return with honor and with God’s help one day I may get there too. 

     God bless you in you new call. 

So to you, my brothers and sisters in this addiction, I hope this finds you well.  This is actually from my journal entry that I also gave to the new Bishop today.  I’ve changed names to protect the innocent but it’s all true.  And to tell you the truth, I feel good.  I went to Church today when all I wanted to do was to leave it.  I’ve been praying, fasting, and studying.  I know that the only freedom and peace is found in the good fight.  Good luck, until I write again. 

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[1] To me and to others

[2] I need to be an actor and not a reactor.  If I react to others in order for them to like me then I am inconsistent because no two people are alike

[3] The sad thing is this is one of the only times I feel desired. This does play on my narcissism a bit.  An old man said once that he talks to the trees because they’re there and when they aren’t he feels alone.  

[4] “Most youth come into contact early with masturbation…it induces feelings of guilt and shame…While we should not regard this weakness as the heinous sin which some other sexual practices are, it is of itself bad enough to require sincere repentance.  What is more, it too often leads to grievous sin, even to that sin against nature, homosexuality.  For, done in private, it evolves often into mutual masturbation…and thence into total homosexuality.”—Spencer W.Kimball, The Miracle of Forgiveness (77-78).