Bless me Father for I have sinned, it has been over a year since my last confession.

Well where am I at?
I spent a year in counseling to deal with the coprophilia issue, eventually I realized that wasn't the biggest thing in my life, but I still got issues.

I go in and out of worrying I am going to get caught for looking at the wrong photos, or reading the wrong stories online.  I don't think I seek things out, but I worry that in my haste I'm not always careful.

I noticed just a little bit ago that someone had commented on here once. I  have spent a few weeks thinking about this kid... and it makes me really sad to think that he believes he is somehow sinful just because of this issue.  To be clear, I don't think I am sinning by being into scat or anything else for that matter... I think I am "sinning" because it keeps me from believing in myself, from acting with integrity and honesty, it keeps me insecure and non-social, self centered (in my contempt) and bitter/resentful. It keeps me focused on parts of a person rather than the whole...    But those are the sins, not being into kinky sex.  They are societal sins, we are taught to hate the things that are different, we are taught to try to be something we are not, and to dislike ourselves for never achieving "perfection" and "normality"  which aren't real things.  So if you ever come back, please please please know that you are not bad or sinful because you like shit (or anything else).  People have liked shit since people existed.  Its what we make of ourselves that is the real test.   I blame myself for acting out of my insecurity.  You don't have to make the same choices I made...  be loving and kind.  Know that there are people out there with the same desires and that indulging in harmless fun is not something you should be ashamed of...   I wish I could be there.  I am determined to someday not be ashamed. 

I am also wondering a lot lately if my porn habits have lead to unrealistic expectations of a relationship.   They say common symptoms of porn are things like voyeurism, trophy-ism, objectification  and I don't think I do these things in public to a degree that is harmful... my female friends don't complain, in fact they find it odd when I do act like that.  But maybe part of my trouble with getting into relationships is that I have ideas of perfection from porn that can't be appeased in the 2 minutes that I am making snap judgments.  Maybe its not just that it satisfies sexual needs, maybe it also causes impatience in my seeking behaviors.

oh well... this is all lust and sloth

I hope you are well...

The storytelling

So I am in therapy, or pre-therapy really.
I hope to feel better about myself, more complete and have some control over myself from this exercise. Already I think just thinking about getting better has helped. At the same time, I feel like to some extent the therapy is only making me worse. Usually when I get stressed I resort to old tricks, but in this case its not the stress, its the ease with which my therapist handles these situations. If I were amongst normals I would feel guilty and embarrassed, they would make me feel that way -with looks and silence, disgust or genuine anger and inability to understand. My therapist however only wants to help me deal. Get me to stop feeling bad for the things that are part of me, and get me to feel good about stopping the things I claim to want to stop... but I never really know if I do or not.
I mean, I enjoy sniffing my roommates underwear. I love it! Its so exciting and so delicious. Yet I hate the idea that I would do that to her. Make her uncomfortable or betray her trust. Its got nothing to do with the underwear... and everything to do with my meeting my selfish desires while ignoring hers.

So my therapist asks me to write about one of these events to try to figure out what I am thinking and feeling at the time. I can't figure out when I am not thinking about it, which makes it hard to talk about... but when I just choose a moment to start writing about it I go on and on because my thoughts don't stop. They haven't ever stopped.
At any moment the desire is there.
Yet I understand the behavior is not impulsive... I am doing it after intentionally deciding to do it. When I retreat (as I did a minute ago before writing this) I do so intentionally feeling the situation is wrong.

The hardest thing though, is that I want to tell everyone. I want to tell my roommate, my friends my family my therapist. I sometimes even want to tell my coworkers things.
I get so excited both by the thing itself, and my feelings for people, and my desire to get rid of it all, and the process of letting it go that I want to rush through it.
I want to tell the world.


Probably because I am hoping they will react like my therapist.
But my therapist has been trained to pretend to not care... these people would all be hurt.

Sex Senses

Bless me Father for I have sinned, it has been almost two months since my last confession.

Like a predator I wait

for the smallest noise,

differentiating between the creaks of the floor boards and the seated weight.

Like a predator I stalk,

sniff the air for something vibrant

long to catch a whiff, the leavings of my prey. 

Like a predator I follow, 

steps behind my prey I watch and smell intently

catch moments of serenity in her absentmindedness

Unlike a predator of the animal kingdom in my kingdom I am detested

I am not watched on tv with so much excitement for the kill

but with animosity, the viewer self righteous and I the contemptible

I am feared

made a monster for the biological drives I give in to,

despised if I am open, humiliated if I am not

Readily identified as inhuman for following the scent, 

attuning the ears and enjoying the possibilities of my attraction to another.

When we are little we play games like hide and seek, wait and listen for the approaching footsteps, love the intensity of the silence, the nervousness and exhilaration of the anticipation. I still do, on the other side of the door the subject of my affection relieves herself. The simple process and each sound so distinct... but the door muffles it. So I wait and listen intently. I pretend as if I am not listening. I pretend as if I am not concerned or wondering. I pretend as if I don't wish I was along side her, or if not that then recording the process. I pretend as if I haven't fantasized about her in the act, or with me. Watching, touching, tasting. 

I pretend as if every part of my true self doesn't want to call out to her and say "I love you and everything you do, and want to experience it with you..."  but I am reluctant, I pretend, for I know she would be disgusted. Would never look at me the same. Would feel nervous and scared to do anything natural around me. Would feel objectified and used. So I pretend... as if I wasn't a predator or a passionate lover (though perverted), and pretend to be normal. "Ick, girls don't use the bathroom."

A second confession.

I have been sneaking into her room. Carefully pulling and pushing aside the wrong garments to find prizes in her dirty laundry basket. I learned to do this so long ago. I must have been 11 or 12. I thought I had moved on. 

I thought I had self control.  I know she would be freaked out and hurt if she found out. I continue to sneak, like a child, like I am ashamed, like the world has taught me I should be.

I seek out the most strongly odored items. The shorts and underwear. Sometimes I can't contain myself and my tongue reaches out for more. I am glad she sweats, I love her smell, I love the scent of the room when she sleeps, I love following her when we walk.

I think its funny how we cover up our smells. Deodorant, soap, shampoo, conditioner, lotion, body washes, cologne, perfume etc.  All masking the wonderful, enticing smells underneath. Perhaps its better, or we would all run around sniffing each-others crotches like dogs and panting the same way too.

Porn

 "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?

The Butt of Every Joke (Pun Intended)

 "Bless me Father, for I have sinned. It has been 6 days since my last confession."
The other day in a conversation between myself and a friend I was confronted on my vanity, my pursuit of wanting to be remembered, wanting to be written, wanting to be in history as more than a crowd member. To be remembered as special- for something good.

There is a piece of me that thinks every human has this desire to an extent and of course it waxes and wanes. At times I am just as happy to be remembered by friends and family, at other times even more extreme I curse myself and hope to be forgotten, and of course at other times I wish to give a good speech, write a good paper, create a good work, a good community, and be remembered as someone good. I do not desire celebrity as such, just to be remembered fondly.

Today I was thinking, yes but at what level would your good deed have to be in order to be remembered fondly, for you see I am the joke of every person, child and adult of every culture.

From a young age I remember thinking very positively of trips to the bathroom.

I suppose all children get a certain joy from going to the bathroom, after all Freud labeled it a stage in development, the anal stage, whether his theories have any relevance to my particular shame I have no idea.

What is coprophilia?

Exactly what I have been trying to understand about myself for years.

When I was young I was just interested, played like it was a toy, like it was mud, but later it became a sexual interest. When dreams became fantasies, became wet dreams. When ideas about diapers and forced feeding, punishments and presents all took the form of shit in my mind. That was when I knew I was different.

 Let me describe my earliest fantasy.

I am a small child (not the age I was when I had the fantasy). I am at the daycare I remember the most, a very clean place with many children that was part of a church center as well. I have done something wrong, I don't remember what, I may or may not have done it on purpose. The very large woman who is my daycare teacher (not a real person) says "You know what that means" I fake embarrassment and fear, and she forces me to jump into a giant dumpster of dirty diapers. She locks me in there for a long time, but rather than being disgusted I feel a strange dirty sexy feeling.

At this point I assume most people are grossed out. Being grossed out by shit is normal right?

This is why from around the age of 5 or 6 I realized I was "not normal."  This only became worse when it became sexualized and rather than thinking about girl's emerging breasts I thought about their trip to the bathroom, fantasized about being in there with them.

Its strange in writing this down I remember certain events that may or may not have contributed to this locked in shame:  A) I was going to the bathroom (an embarrassing thing for me since as far as I can remember) and my favorite girl at the before mentioned daycare walked in. She left immediately but not before seeing me on the toilet. B) When I was younger I remember showing my excrement to a group of older boys trying to impress them, rather than being impressed they teased me.

But both of these events took place after I had been playing with shit already (I showed the boys hoping I was not the only one). The desire itself has changed over time, at one point I was into spreading it all over my body, which would lead to a lot of explanation as to why the bathroom smelled so bad and why I showered so often, at other times I dabbled in self-coprophagia. These experiments also lead me to develop or notice my obsession with butts in general. In my fantasies it became not just the excrement (dirty diapers etc) but also the butts of the other kids and teachers. Eventually I started to play with my own butt, sticking fingers and small objects into it for sexual pleasure.

These experiments and thoughts had a particularly troubling affect on my social life and self esteem. During the age of puberty I not only had to recognize and consider the sexualization of this fetish, but also the normal  changes in my body and mind. Beyond that adolescence is a troubling time for any person, but throw in the idea that you are weird and alone into the mix and it becomes a very depressing and isolating experience. Luckily I had a great family and wonderful friends but I shared none of this with any of them for fear that they would not love me anymore. Instead I bottled it up, sought out information from others and eventually decided that because I would never be "normal," I shouldn't try. I sought out the weirdest and grossest things I could find. The disturbing, the haunting, the terrible things people do to each other and that happen in our world and I found them in abundance in books, movies and eventually the internet. I spent many nights trying to shock myself into feeling normal... after all if these things happen (dismemberment, abuse, torture, degradation) than what I am interested in must happen too right? I must be somewhere on the scale even if it is in the extreme.

This information though haunting also caused me to feel less isolated. I stopped thinking about killing myself and instead tried to imagine meeting people who were into what I found out was called "scat." 

For those of you very vanilla people out there, there are many people in the world who are into "weird" fetishes. These people sometimes go by the general term of being Queer, and I am starting to recognize the positive use of this term in my life, but in general the internet has opened up a world of connection where in the past people might have been totally isolated. The problem though is that this leads people to chat rooms, porn sites and risky encounters with other people who may or may not be shady. It also leads people into a world in which they continue to keep these feelings and thoughts fairly repressed and secret from the outside world. This has been my case.

With the exception of you, I have only confessed this to a few, they being my lovers it was inevitable that they found out.

There are many implications of this fetish, but one is that I always seem to have reason to doubt myself and the love of others. This brings me roundabout back to both the title and the first part of this post, the butt of every joke. How can I believe that anyone could love me, care for me, have respect for me when Mr. Hanky the Christmas Poo and every third grader are telling jokes about poop being the funniest thing on earth (and anyone who likes it being contemptible). The things that make people laugh in disgust, are the things I am turned on by...
Second, how could I ever be famous enough to live it down.

Person A: Did you hear? He created world peace and fed all the starving children.

Person B: Yeah probably just cuz he wanted to eat their shit.

(Which wouldn't be true by the way)

I included wrath and envy in this one because I am often disgusted with myself over this and wish to be like others. Sloth could also be included because being so ashamed of myself I have at times been unable to act for myself or others, and have been unwilling to judge those that hurt others because I am afraid of being judged myself.
There will be plenty more on this, but that is it for now.

7 Mortal Sins

Though I am not Catholic and rarely call myself Christian I find the mythology appealing (hence the title). I was raised a certain brand of Protestant Christian and often find that it affects my view on life, thought and action.

I am a religious and spiritual person. I attend a spiritual group regularly. I engage in religious and spiritual devotional activities. I pray, sing, dance, create and spread the love and joy of (God) whenever I can or remember to and this pursuit is not limited to external ambition but thoroughly internal as well. In this blog I hope to share what I often feel I cannot share with the outside world. I hope to do this because I want to be who I am and also happy, and also proud, and also good... and sometimes I allow these thoughts and feelings to keep me from being happy, proud or good.

Maybe at some point I will share this intentionally with loved ones... but for now a modern confessional.

7 Mortal Sins (they change over time but here is what I will write about)

Lust

Gluttony

Envy
Wrath *inward and outward

Pride/Vanity

Sloth

Greed

So lets begin awkwardly enough with tonight shall we?

You will have to indulge me I am not a Catholic, so I may ruin the ritual, but I haven't ever really confessed so in my mind I last confessed a day or two ago.

"Bless me Father, for I have sinned. It has been a day or two since my last confession."

I was at a restaurant tonight, on the way in I noticed several attractive people, mostly women, but also appreciated the marble streaks of white hair on the middle aged men's heads.  I stood in line thinking about how I would be dining alone and thought about how nice it would be to have a girlfriend. I scanned the room in search of someone delightful, I found many ladies, most of whom seemed engaged in pleasant conversation with friends and loved ones. In many ways I find this beautiful, but sometimes can't help but be jealous. Tonight however I was content to eat alone... and perhaps that is the sin of sloth poking its head in a small way... keeping me from pursuing what I could, or perhaps I am just satisfied with my own company. Regardless I noticed I was in line behind a tall man who seemed to be the father of a little girl. In front of him in line was a equally tall blond woman who I assumed (incorrectly) to be the mother.  The man was tickling his daughter in a playful way. Nothing wrong about that but things like that always stand out to me, because I know that is how some things start. Overly sensitive to the sins we commit ourselves I guess, I watched out of the corner of my eye, this young girl with tangled hair and big eyes, peering joyfully at her father whom she loves.

I remember that big eyed look. It wasn't my daughter, I was too young at the time. I was 6 years her senior though, 6 years is a world of difference at that age. I was a teen, I thought I knew everything, I thought if I could get away with things it was worth it. I was all black and white thinking (not that I have moved beyond that too much) and often times when she was around it was the one, and often times when I was alone in thought it was that one too, but all other times it was the other. I knew it was wrong, though no laws were broken, I knew I was betraying a young girl's trust and shaming her innocence though I didn't understand quite how... I hoped she would think it was all a game. I dreamed each night that she lusted after me like I did her.
But every time I saw her it was that same innocence... and then a growing and gradual... distrust, a growing yet gradual pushing away. It wasn't till I was 16 that I had the wake up call I needed to stop, but even then I didn't, not right away. I was addicted to this girl who followed me in my dreams and whom my body craved. She was a regular in my fantasies. She was a regular in my daily life routines.
I gradually broke away, by changing patterns. She did too, by growing into a person, a troubled teen and not some innocent plaything.

For the record, we were never nude together (except in my thoughts). But what I longed for was her smell.
I would position her in ways in which I could smell her, rub my face in her clothed private areas. In so many ways I am disgusted, I was then too, but I didn't stop. And still to this day I sometimes dream about her.

The less judgemental of you out there might say "Why didn't you pursue her when she was older?"
Because it wasn't just the sin of Lust, its the Pride and Wrath that comes along with it.
Its the million nights of fantasy, contrasted with the guilt and shame. The judgment and assumed judgment if anyone found out.  So whats to be ashamed about?  Well besides the age difference which I don't condone, though it may not be out of the ordinary (in our very strange world), we come to our second taboo... which is that she was related to me.
I hate to say it but I am excited by taboo and as a teenager I attempted to prove that everything that was extreme was my friend or at least my associate and even now some of those images and thoughts haunt me. So this was my relative, this child not yet a teen, this hurt and neglected girl, who I treated like a thing.
The assumed reasons fill pages, the rationale, the reasoning, the hypothetical responses to confrontation, but none has happened. It sort of haunts me still. The look in her eye that wonders if she can trust me. The inability to actually know or care or relate because of this secret perpetrated at her expense, and am I to bring it up? Perhaps throw her from her security in reminding her of things done, and even if I take all the blame she can never deny it away again.  Not to mention she tells our family, not to mention the social consequences of breaking taboos.

So this is my first sin of lust against another.  This repeated action hidden in shame. But shame makes you do terrible things to yourself and sometimes others. So I shall confess other sins, eventually to cleanse the soul, and then? Well if it doesn't become the mundane and daily sins, then surely the contemplation of what these concepts are... taboo, sin, good and evil, cruelty, vice and habit, fetish, soul and self, the role of the society and of the individual. Perhaps I will even throw God into the mix, to contemplate on just what type of person I am and  who I am called to be. Or who we are all called to be.