So first of all I'd like to say how amazing I think this place is. To think that one or maybe two people have spotted these problems and made a place of support for those suffering is incredible. I will make this page a part of my life forever!
So, my story. It begins, as so many do, with a horny teenager. A friend of mine had parents who were clearly extremely sexually liberated and were in possession of a large stack of pornography, including videos of themselves in the act. I remember sitting in his room, him on the bed, me on the floor, masturbating (for the first time ever, I might add) to the incredible images in front of us. For any child of 13/14, this was the jackpot. I borrowed a couple of his videos and he even gave me a magazine or two. This was how I would get myself off for the duration of my teenage years. Harmless right? Well perhaps in some circumstances it is. There was no violence in these videos, although they certainly projected the idea of women as objects rather than people.
In the following years, I became a man. I've been lucky to have attracted the interest of so many women and between the ages of 17-25 I had a lot of attractive partners. I enjoyed sex, but it always seemed like something was lacking. In a way, I suppose I always thought that the lack of 'pageantry' that one would normally associate with porn was down to a lack of skill/confidence on my part. Nonetheless, I ploughed ahead with my porn use throughout, often masturbating as soon as I could after sex.
My porn use grew and grew. As I grew older and into my mid-late twenties (I'm 29 now), I became more isolated. I put this down to my job, but recently I have realised that my sense of listlessness may well be down to my reliance on porn. It was my happy place, a place where I would go when I was feeling anxious and in need of comfort. After I climaxed, I would feel nothing, and that would be just fine.
However, things were changing. My 'outside' life was actually ok, or at least I justified my isolation in a way that left me satisfied with my circumstances. Back home, I was looking deeper into the world of porn. I was beginning to seriously separate identities. Outside, I was a man of the world, charming and open. I would get on well with women (although would lose interest quickly) and, on the occasions I went out, would revel in socialisation. Inside, I was looking for more and more ways to get myself off. My tastes were changing to. I dabbled in piss fetish, and even scat porn. I also began using cam-to-cam sites, starting with a gay site. I have NEVER been attracted to a man outside of the Internet. I am one of those guys who is quite happy to recognise when a guy is good looking, but the thought of being with another man is not my cup of tea. Still, I started out on these sites, butt-naked and displaying myself masturbating to all these horny men. I enjoyed being in front of older guys, for reasons I cannot even begin to comprehend. I would do anything they asked, wanting to be ‘used’ like so many of the women in the videos I had watched. This, sadly, was my idea of sex and experimentation. After each climax, I would feel disgusted with myself. So many guys wanted to meet me, but I never wanted to see them, ever again.
This went on for a while, until I found a site that could reliably produce female partners. By this point, I was living in a home with a porn blocker, so this was my only outlet. I had a successful few months, getting off with women of all shapes and sizes. I felt slightly more normal. This was simple, sexy stuff. Not like all that horrible porn I was watching, or the degrading nature of my cam sex with men. For a long time, I felt like this was my type of porn!
Of course, anyone who understands the nature of pornography and the effect it has on the mind, will know that such a view is unsustainable. Porn pushes you down. It gets you under its thumb and plunges you into the darkest places of your psyche, and if those dark places don’t exist, porn will create them. In the midst of this seemingly calm, pornographic ocean, I encountered a moment that will change my life.
For those who are unaware, the cam sites work like chatroulette. You can chat with another cam user and then ‘next’ them to move onto another. Mostly it’s just penises, but there are women on there for the more patient user. One day, as I was prowling (and that IS the best word for it), I came across a user who was showing porn, a girl giving a guy head. I hadn’t seen proper porn for a while, so I watched for a bit. As the video continued, I saw that this girl must have been about 8-9 years old. I had seen this on the site before and had reported each time. This time, to my own disgust, I kept going. I didn’t know why. This wasn’t hot, but it was dangerous and different. I kept it up for about two minutes, before slamming my laptop shut. I felt ill (I literally threw up). I paced around my room in a fit of anger and self-loathing. This was my rock bottom. My rage was such that I logged back on (fully clothed this time) and tried to find the guy showing the video again. I wanted to hurt him. I thought about getting him to add me on skype or something, so that I could report him, or even find him myself and deliver some justice. But all of this was fuelled by the sense of disgust I felt towards myself.
I made a vow that day. No more porn. No more disgusting, horrible degrading porn that serves only to corrupt minds and bury us whole in world of cheap thrills. This has gone beyond titillation people. This is dangerous stuff we play with.
Anyway, I’m out of the woods by all of three days. I guess I became scared by the places this horrible thing could take me to. I feel more normal now, though still utterly disgusted with myself. I hope to alleviate that feeling as time goes on. I have no interest in what that video had to show, in the same way that I had no interest in the men I would perform for, but porn has a way of doing that to you. Of telling you that no matter what you think, there’s always a new way of getting off.
I haven’t given up masturbation. I feel it is important in my efforts to normalise my sexual responses. Now, I masturbate using my good old imagination. I think about real sex, not that pantomime they show us in the hardcore industry. I imagine the feeling and the smells. That flicker of eye contact. The fumbling under the duvet. The warmth of another person. I imagine having sex in the dark, as so many of my REAL experiences have been. But most importantly, I imagine myself with real women, not the degraded husks that the porn industry owes a debt of life to.
3 days sober and I can’t say I feel great, but I’m optimistic.
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