90-Day Fast Broken & Heterosexual Pornography

On Day 23 (April 28) of my 90-day fast, I succumbed to pornography and masturbation. It happened twice, once during the day, and once during the night.

Here's the post-mortem:

I had not had desire to look at porn since meeting Brother A seven weeks ago. I wanted the real-life intimacy Brother A gave me more than the sexual fantasy I conjured through looking at porn of men. And so, there was no desire to look at gay porn.

I allowed myself to have sex with my wife during this 90-day fast. But traveling away from her over these weeks has been tough (I feel for single men). It had been almost 20 days with no sexual release. Brother A suggested over-the-phone sexual intimacy with my wife. It worked out really well. It even made me call her more often, and it improved our relational intimacy.

But yesterday, while doing some analysis on my project, something happened on the internet that led me to wonder about sex. I kept surfing, looking at images. Before long, I was looking at video clips online. My accountability software has been disabled since it was giving me trouble. The fence was down, and after allowing myself to be sexualized through google images, I was numbed to the boundary and walked over it.

The sites I used to frequent no longer excited me. I found gay porn pretty repulsive. Thoughts that came included, "why would men do this to themselves?" I turned to other sites, and began to look at heterosexual porn. Before long, I found myself hooked.

The images, sounds, feelings were just like me being intimate with my wife. A man and a woman having sex together. I thought of me and my wife. I imagined the sexual energy and excitement the couple felt. I longed for it.

And now, I am afraid.

For the past 7 weeks, I did not look at porn because what I used to look at no longer interested me. Now, I have something that does, and I am afraid that I will become hooked to images of men and women having sex.

I was tempted to look at just women alone, but could not bring myself to do it because it felt like it would violate my loyalty to my wife (I know, it's messed-up reasoning, but that's the way it felt). The last thing I want is to allow myself to fully sexualize my feelings for other women -- already, I had a sexual dream about a woman a few nights ago (I've only had one other such dream in my entire life).

I confessed my sins to my wife and my new-found brothers. I confessed and asked for forgiveness from the Lord for my actions. I am seriously concerned now that I have a "heterosexual problem."

I have always used the argument that my SSsA problem is "no different" than a heterosexual man's problem. I need to work on my SS lust as they need to work on their OS lust. But I argued it based on head-knowledge. Now I know it experientially.

Any difference?

I don't know yet. But I feel like I can go to other Christian men and get support more easily. At least it helps me to feel like I can more easily bond with straight guys because we have the same temptations. There is still a sense of shame, but it feels different, a little more... normal?

Oh, I know what it is. The shame doesn't have that "double-whammy" component to it, i.e. the added shame of it being homosexual porn. (I know sin is sin, but it feels harder to confess to other men that the porn I struggle to overcome is homosexual.)

Anyway, this is all so raw, I am still feeling pretty down-in-the-dumps about it all. [And if someone leaves a discouraging comment, I will delete it.]

I will get back into my fast. No better time to repent (in heart and in action) than right away. And I'll decide by the end of the day what to do about internet accountability software.

Today, April 29, begins again Day 1 of my 90-day fast.

Like a dog that returns to its vomit...

I fell on Sunday night. The computer people took off my accountability software as it was giving me problems. So on Sunday night, when I had some time alone, I decided to "check out my healing" by looking at porn.

The first time I did it, I noticed that I no longer had a sexual attraction to my usual stuff. In fact, seeing a "straight guy seduced" felt completely wrong to me at a visceral level. I turned to look at the heterosexual porn and found myself identifying with the guy, and enjoying the beauty of the woman. It aroused me greatly.

After confessing to wife what I did and praying for forgiveness together, we were able to make passionate love. I was completely present.

I had trouble sleeping. So in the middle of the night, I got up, and went back to the porn.

I think deep down, I was grieving the change.  Masturbating to male porn had been my friend for so many years.  It had offered me safety, relieve, and comfort (not to mention all kinds of feel-good chemicals in my brain).  But now, the attraction was gone.  At some level, I was grieving the loss and wanted the attraction back.

Like a dog that returns to its vomit is a fool who repeats his folly. (Prov. 26:11)

The fool doesn't think he is being foolish; he repeats his folly because that's what he is used to doing.  He has not learned new, adaptive behavior.  Trouble is, there are snares and there is real Enemy.  So the fool, if he is not careful, may lose his life because of his folly.

(Okay, back to the porn.)

At first I could not find what used to be there for me.  No attraction to this.  No attraction to that.  But I would not stop.  I kept on looking.  Then all of a sudden, there it was: two men in a most intimate loving posture, and it was sexual.

WHAM!

I fell.

It wasn't just a behavioral fall, like a quickie to relieve tension.  I really, really wanted to be with those guys.  It was a deep emotional and sexual longing.  And the desire lingered even to the next morning.

I looked for my vomit, found it, and the Enemy made sure that it got shoved all the way back down my throat.

- - - 

Brother A came to the rescue today.  I told him everything.  

At first, I didn't want to tell him.  It was as if my sexualizing of male-intimacy was a most serious affront to the holy love that we have for each other.  

When Brother A embraced me and forgave me (in Jesus' name), and reassured his love for me, it was as if Jesus himself embraced and forgave me and reassured me of his love.  It took a while for me to be able to accept it.  I was feeling deeply ashamed.  After some time of talking, shame finally turned into humble acceptance of forgiveness.

I don't want to go back to my vomit, ever again.  I've learned my lesson.  May God, in His grace, not take away the change that He has allowed me to experience over the past three weeks.

Update

It had been almost a month since I last wrote. Where am I?

I had to make some changes to my computer more than week a ago and I discovered that I could look at porn without alerting my accountability partner. And so I have been doing that frequently, at first, as an experiment to figure out my software, and then because I wanted to engage in it.

Over the past month, I have been isolating myself emotionally from other men. I have not met up with my accountability partners, have not had open, connected conversations. I suppose this means that I am struggling. Yes, I am. Busyness is a convenient excuse, but the core of the issue is the will. Let me explain.

I am discovering the importance of "choice" in my growth into manhood. My decision to "let loose" on internet pornography (to test my change, so to speak) revealed to me that although I have started to change, the change will not proceed without further effort/will on my part. I need to choose to change.

So, more recently, I have found myself looking at porn of men having sex with each other--something that I had never really enjoyed looking at. With extra time on my hands to surf, I have been able to find ones where there is a semblance of emotional intimacy between the actors, not just the raw act of sex. One could say that I have "gotten worse," but I am not sure if that is the case.

The new feeling of "being one of the guys" has come in genuinely. This has not been fabricated, I am glad to discover. I miss talking with my straight friend. It feels so good to experience his openness and acceptance of me with holy love. Talking with him about sex stuff while having him know the details of my same-sex struggles is one of the most healing aspects of my journey thus far. He loves me where it matters to me most. I miss interacting with him so much more than I want to masturbate to pornography. With him, the longings in my boy-soul is met; porn does not meet the deeper needs of my boy-soul.

I have wanted to write this post for a couple of weeks now, but busyness--and shame of needing to confess my recent porn habit--had kept me from doing so. But I am glad to have forced myself to write this. It is healing. Stops the isolation, so that I can proceed in my journey into manhood.

Once I publish this post, I will go and take care of my software vulnerability. Put a fence around the porn so that I don't tempt myself with awful, unhealthy candy that will rot my boy-soul and stop him from growing.

Pubic Hair, Papa Charles, and a Big Fat Wedgie

The bottle on the bureau winked at me and whispered, "restore your hair and look great again!"

Making sure no one was around, I pulled down my pants, poured some of the lotion onto my palm, and rubbed it on my pubic area.

Then I waited. And waited. I checked everyday to see if any little hairs had sprouted.

Nothing.

I was 9.

-----

Fast forward a couple of years.

I noticed a little something on my pubic area one day. If I stood at just the right angle, it almost looked like hair.

Sidetrack: You know Charles Ingalls? Yeah, that incredibly loving and wonderful father on Little House on the Prairie? Well, I had a crush on him. Or so I thought. I don't think I ever masturbated to thoughts of him, but I know that I wanted to be near him and follow him wherever he went. He talked to his children, listened to them, he even hugged and cried with them.

Anyway, on one fateful fishing trip day, I thought that maybe if I tried, I could have my own Charles Ingalls in dad.

"Guess what, dad?"

"What?" he mumbled as we maneuvered across the rocks.

"I think my penis has hair on it."

"What?!" he said louder with an irritated face--the same scowl that I have inherited.

"I think my penis has hair on it," I repeated, a little embarrassed yet hopeful.

"Humph," he mumbled, then kept walking.

There! I did it. I connected with dad, I thought to myself and smiled a little on the inside.

I have pictures from that fishing trip. My older brothers and their friends were slim and handsome as can be. But there was a grotesque figure standing amongst them with his back to the camera. A fat, ugly kid with pork chop calves and a big ass with a perpetual wedgie. To this day, I cannot look at that picture without shame engulfing me.

I don't know what it was I did that day. I can't remember. Something an insecure and love-starved 11-year-old might do to get a little attention.

"STOP IT!" my father yelled publically. "You're already sprouting pubic hair! So stop being an annoying, immature brat!"

It was loud enough that I swore everyone heard it. Loud enough to resound through a lifetime of dread and self-hatred.

And so, I found comfort instead in my made-believe world with men like papa Charles Ingalls holding me, comforting me, speaking tenderly to me. I would masturbate, feeling warmed and loved.

-----

Fast forward three decades to today.

I went online and searched for a picture of "wedgie."  This is what I found.

I think they call this male-bonding. A bunch of guys reveling in their maleness, affirming each other that their muscles, their sweat, their stink, their wedgies, their sex are all good.

I've been in a couple of situations like this. I've even tried to be one of the guys. Some party where there was some drugs and sex going on. I danced with one girl and pretended to make out with her. I was not in the least bit interested. But I knew the guys were looking. I did it for them. 

As I held her close to me, the girl had a look in her eyes that said, "take me, I'm all yours." But I did nothing. I had nothing to give her. My wedgie, along with my immature penis and reprimanded pubic hair, had been gutted out and tossed on the rocks to rot forever on that fateful fishing trip day.

But...

things are changing.

Because of you, and you, and You, things are changing.

I want so badly to be accepted as a man--sweat, stink, wedgie and all. I want to masturbate with a bunch of guys together and have them say, "dude, you're gonna make some girl one happy bitch!" And then ejaculate and laugh together.

Yes, I know. Not very Christian. But I don't care. I want to experience having my man-sex affirmed with other guys. I will not edit out these words. 

Not yet.

Cracks in the Mannequin

Last Monday night, I spent about 3 hours on the internet looking at pornography.  I did not disable my accountability software.  And I knew I would be "caught" when the report came.  But I didn't care.  Then again, maybe I should say I did care because a part of me knew that the shame the report would bring on me would cause me to stop.

That shame came tonight.  My wound is now open for my accountability partner to see. The presentable mannequin that I pass off as me on the outside has cracks all over it.  And they have become gapingly visible.  Yet if one were to look closely, beneath the cracks, past the rotting blood and puss, there is a glimpse of flesh.  There is hope.

According to the recent post on Covenant Eyes' blog, Christian musicians are speaking out to those who are tempted by porn.  Rush of Fools, Casting Crowns, Kirk Franklin, and others are singing openly about their own failures.  And their songs minister to me: I am not alone.

Their message is clear.  We need to stop hiding.  We need to be open, real, vulnerable, as Rick below shares.

Can I be completely vulnerable, or will I let the cracks seal up and I retreat behind the flawless exterior of my mannequin self?

That depends on me for the most part.  But it also depends on you, my accountability brothers.

Do you have what it takes to reach in through the cracks of mannequin exterior, dirty your hands with the blood and puss in order to touch the flesh within?  

Can you handle the me that I hate so much?  Or will it ignite in you the painful hate that you have for yourself?

Will you keep the cracks in my mannequin open with your deliberate care?  Or would you prefer to relate to an intact mannequin--spotless, presentable, and not in the least bit burdensome?