The difficult second post
Difficult, because I need to expand on the events immediately leading to the step of baring my soul on the internet…
Well this time last week, my wife (oh yes, did I mention I’m happily married too?) went away for a couple of days. Boredom, loneliness and plain honest curiosity got the better of me, and I signed myself up for some top quality internet porn, which, in a nutshell, devoured pretty much the whole of the next two days.
This was a new low for me.
For one thing, what I was looking at was harder stuff than I’d been into recently.
For another, previously I would just randomly surf through free, anonymous sites, telling myself it was just harmless curiosity. This time, credit cards were involved. For the first time in my life, I was a paying customer for porn.
As much as curiosity was a part of it, there was no kidding myself this was nothing more than idle curiosity. It was a deliberate, calculated and conscious act of disobedience. There’s no way to dress this up: I had intentionally sinned, and did so for a large part of that 48 hour period.
Although I knew all this as I started out, it was soon forgotten. Until the Friday morning, when the realisation of what I'd been doing hit me afresh. Before I had time to change my mind, I shredded everything I'd downloaded over the previous two days, and during other, lesser porn binges, cancelled my subscription, and left the house.
I tried to pray about it repeatedly during that Friday, but the very deliberateness of my action left me feeling unworthy. I had hit rock bottom, and was desperately grasping for the way out.
Well this time last week, my wife (oh yes, did I mention I’m happily married too?) went away for a couple of days. Boredom, loneliness and plain honest curiosity got the better of me, and I signed myself up for some top quality internet porn, which, in a nutshell, devoured pretty much the whole of the next two days.
This was a new low for me.
For one thing, what I was looking at was harder stuff than I’d been into recently.
For another, previously I would just randomly surf through free, anonymous sites, telling myself it was just harmless curiosity. This time, credit cards were involved. For the first time in my life, I was a paying customer for porn.
As much as curiosity was a part of it, there was no kidding myself this was nothing more than idle curiosity. It was a deliberate, calculated and conscious act of disobedience. There’s no way to dress this up: I had intentionally sinned, and did so for a large part of that 48 hour period.
Although I knew all this as I started out, it was soon forgotten. Until the Friday morning, when the realisation of what I'd been doing hit me afresh. Before I had time to change my mind, I shredded everything I'd downloaded over the previous two days, and during other, lesser porn binges, cancelled my subscription, and left the house.
I tried to pray about it repeatedly during that Friday, but the very deliberateness of my action left me feeling unworthy. I had hit rock bottom, and was desperately grasping for the way out.
posted by M386 at 9:19 am
4 Comments:
My friend,
Fear not. The fact that you are an Xtian is explanation enough for your feelings of inadequacy etc. The fact that you have, as you say, sinned isn't.
I am lucky, in that I am not burdened by religious guilt about porn, also my wife is a psychologist and therefore fully aware that any war on porn that she might like to rage would be pointless. But for you too, there is an answer.
It is a fact that largely women have no need for porn and largely men do. This is no accident, and a few thousand years of "civilisation" will not banish the primal urge we all have to "hunt" as it were.
There really is nothing wrong with it, and as soon as this is your view the guilt will disappear. I am cultured and worldly, and sensitive to womens issues and needs etc. But still sometimes I desire to see pictures of absolute filth, and find it hugely exciting. I know that my wife would never be like that, I wouldn't have married her otherwise. That's the point.
Porn is a good thing. Repression is where all the problems start.
I say embrace your addiction, because judging from my grandfathers collection, it'll never leave you. If you try to stifle it, it will come back and bite you.
It is after all a serpent, is it not?
Better to respectfully hold it at arms length and tolerate it that to hit it with sticks in an attempt to scare it off. It will surely hold a grudge.
Trust yourself, are you evil?
Also, I just thought of something else.
Why is paying such a low point? Look at it like this...
For the first time you have actually helped some of the women actors whom you have been observing for so long. They are obviously not in a good place, as only the most open minded and well balanced women do it because they actually just want to, most have to.
They have kids, bills and lives that need to be paid for. They also have very few options. So you should give yourself a slap on the back, you've finally paid your fare. Now they are a little better off.
That is nothing to be ashamed of, and is certainly not a low point.
It's all about perspective. And prespectives can and should change.
There is no shame in pornography. None. At the risk of being utterly offensive to you, I find religion far more offensive. But that is just me. I appreciate the fact that you obviously take comfort from Religion, otherwise you wouldn't allow it to rule your life so much, and I respect your point of view and beliefs as I would expect you to respect mine.
As long as you aren't looking at kiddie porn or something equally as disturbing, then I say that you should learn to live with the guilt. Be honest with yourself and give in to your desires. Life is about living and seeking pleasure. Live.
What if you live your life in fear of the reprecussions your God has to offer when it's all over, only to find out it was all a load of nonsense and you've been conned your whole life? What if none of it is true?
Evan,
If none of it is true, I'll have lived (mostly) following a good moral code, and be dead at the end of it so I won't care a lot what happens next.
But what if you live your life in taking offence at God, in complete apathy towards the repercussions he promises when it's all over, only to find out it was all true, and you could have changed the way things ended up? What if all of it is true?
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