touched Fire

So great is my lack of impulse control. (And not just in reading!)

I was also curious about a lot of things. (I once wished I was the wisest and most knowledgeable person on earth—after Jesus and Solomon, of course.) Anyway, I was so very curious, and so eager to know more but was often rather lazy. And some things I just felt were improper for me to even consider, so I had a lot of repressed thoughts.

But repression only went so far. So as time passed so grew the cracks on repression wall. And all those thoughts I’ve held back trickled out, especially those about sex and pornography. Now, on some level, I knew what they were about, and I knew that sex is for marriage, while pornography is for never. But I wanted to know more.

So I justified my inappropriate searches.

And I went on mature sites.

There I read countless erotica.

I said to myself, “‘Mature’ can’t be that bad.” Oh, it was. Only it shouldn’t have been. ‘MA’ (Mature Adult) was bad. ‘NC-17’ (No Children, 17 and Under Admitted) was bad. ‘E’ (Explicit) was bad. But a simple ‘M’ wasn’t supposed to be. ‘M’ should be appropriate for 16-year-olds. But people didn’t follow rules, so they weren’t.

I had had health class by then. I had also been given the sex talk. Still I took in all the gruesome details that smut fiction had for me, and I learned what people fantasized about and how some people did sex. That wasn’t—isn’t—good education, not for me or for anyone else. But I was curious, and I convinced myself it wasn’t wrong.

I even convinced myself I wasn’t in the wrong because I didn’t know what pornography was—because I didn’t know its dictionary definition. And while a simple gander at dictionary.com would have easily solved that, I chose to stick to that misguided thought.

Eventually, I could no longer fool myself. I knew and accepted I was wrong. I acknowledged that I had become addicted. I sought the pleasure. It wasn’t merely physical. It was emotional. I read the explicit sex as part of stories, and I longed for something like what the characters had, even though I knew that what they had wasn’t enough.

Funny thing, you know. The characters would have meaningful conversations before getting together. But afterwards? It was all kissing and cuddling and sex. I eventually gravitated toward those with more plot, but at the end of the day, I’d be drawn back to the sex.

It was a very difficult time for me, and it remains a very difficult issue to me—and one I have trouble admitting though I have told trusted friends and relatives.

It was very difficult to return to God. It took several months for me to be on my knees and actively do something about it. Then even after that, I struggled. It calls out to me. My body is slave to it.

I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. [Γ]

But God was gracious. Though I left Him, He never left me. He set me up on a Divine Appointment with first one group of Christians and then another. And I met with them and eventually became active at a youth group. The struggle did not leave, but I could face it.

These days, I have taken up smut again and nearly every day in the past two—three?—months I told myself I’d stop for good, that it would be the last time. Whenever I went to church, I prayed it would be the last. During communion, I’d say I’d be good. But I always slipped up right the next day.

It has been a very trying and very dark few months for me. Honestly, his whole year I have been drowning in this, and I’ve resisted correction. However, today, as I write this, I’m saying once again, “Never more!”

No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who love us. [Δ]

My next step? Living for Christ moment by moment. That isn’t as easy as it sounds. I have many faults that need correcting. But if I let go and let Him heal me, I’ll get better. 

Γ – Romans 7:15 NIV 1984 Δ – Romans 8:37 NIV 1984