"Bless me Father, for I have sinned. It has been 15 days since my last confession."
I mentioned in my last post that I became quite the viewer of pornography. At times in my life I have spent 4-5 hours in front of a computer or tv screen, or reading a story or magazine that enticed my lust. I have questioned this desire many times, am I an addict?
By some definitions I could be:
Has it interfered with my relationships? Yes
Has it kept you from fulfilling other obligations? Yes
Has it made you tardy or absent from school/work? Yes
Has it changed the way you view the world and yourself? Yes
Has it kept you from meaningful relationships? No
Has it kept you from making new friends or interfered with family? Previous post excluded NO
Has it caused legal trouble? No
Has it caused the loss of a job or other similar punishment? No
Most importantly for many:
Does it make you see yourself or the opposite sex as an object? No, not in real life at least
I have a hard time taking these things seriously in that sense, am I voyeur by choice? Is it learned or genetic? Did it come from obsessive excitement seeking or was it already within me?
But could it affect my job, relationships with friends and family, future ability to pursue goals, Yes Yes Yes.
And is that worth it?
Well I would like to say no, I will stop this minute, its not worth the risk, but at the same time I am not sure I am A) capable B) want to C) have the support I would need D) have alternatives for my sex drive. I am not currently involved in a relationship. I am not currently interested in anyone in particular and I am not currently of the view that I should stop "using" porn and start "using" women I meet in person. (Does that make sense?)
It is easy to say, well then don't "use" them, get to know them etc, but we live in a society in which 25 % of the adult population lives alone, about 30 % of the population (in any age group) is single at any given moment, about 50 % of marriages end in divorce and about 40% of children are being raised by parents who are not together. One could say well that means there are lots of people out there right? But in actuality what these stats show is that people have a hard time meeting and an even harder time staying together in our society.
But here is the real problem, the addiction or whatever you want to call it is a self defeating cycle.
Like most addictions, the symptoms are temporarily relieved by the substance. I feel lonely, bored, ashamed etc, I jerk off (temporarily solving the problem) afterward I feel lonely, bored, ashamed again. The cycle repeats. Physical barriers do sometimes prohibit repeating, but that hasn't kept me from enjoying myself way too many times in a day. Also the physical release isn't even necessarily the point, but rather the excitement of the search, its not like I watch the same video over and over, it is a drive for something new, something fresh and has in the past lead to something more dangerous, something more taboo.
These dangerous taboos are what tend to cause the massive upheavals that get people in trouble. Whether its the politician or celebrity who suddenly gets caught being blown in a Men's Room, or the teacher, priest or doctor who is accused of molesting their students/parishioners/patients. Regardless of whether they did it or not, if there is "shady" porn on their computer they are going to jail. Shady in this case being anything but vanilla sex. Parents have even been accused of creating child porn when taking pictures of their children in non-sexual, normal-child living situations (if in the buff)... like eating, or playing with toys or whatever kids do.
So say I am a priest, I'm not because I am not catholic, but say I am really into Bondage and Sado-Masochism (its in the priestly tradition-both condoned and not), anyway one can argue that I might not be following the right religious path, but if it were to come out that I was into a fetish, should that mean I am expelled from my position? Should it mean I shouldn't have access to the parishioners?
Or regardless of the action... If I who had some non illegal, but certainly inappropriate actions with a younger family member of the opposite sex. If I state that publicly, should I not be able to work around children? Should I not be able to have children? What if I stopped, made effort to keep it from happening again, spent 10-20-30 years of my life trying to make up for it?
Well I have been on a tirade here... but regardless I was reading in a book about pornography addiction, that one of the proposed causes is that at a young age the fear and shame of acts becomes so intertwined with sexuality that the person seeks this form and feeling again (a mix of fear/shame/powerlessness/abuse of power/ excitement/lust).
So when I mention that I have a great deal of shame over my sexual desires, when I state that I feel a great amount of guilt and self loathing over my past actions, when I fear for my sanity, soul and moral self, when I struggle constantly with ideas of right/wrong it seems entirely plausible that both my source of mixed feelings towards my sexuality and my desire to temporarily numb myself/ excite myself from beyond those feelings through the use of porn, is indeed an addiction like state and probably caused by some mixture of these feelings at a younger age.
Now if that is the case, what do I do about it?
