I am a Sex Addict

[varkam]

This is something I've almost posted several times. It's something I've almost noted. It's something that I've almost included in previous posts, but I've always been afraid to do so. It was no accident that I left it out in my previous posts, intending people to think that I was an alcoholic or a drug user. I've never really been a big drinker, and I've never really used drugs. But when it comes to sexual matters, I'm a wreck.

Sex addiction is a fairly broad term that can encompass a wide variety of sexually compulsive behaviors. For me, it was habitual and compulsive use of pornography, multiple physical and online relationships, and consequently, dishonesty when it came to sexual matters. Pornography was an every day thing for me. I could (and did) stay up all night, sacrificing sleep, work, and academics to download pictures, movies, and pursue sexual relationships in a realm completely devoid of any sort of spirituality. I would look at picture after picture, convinced that the next one I saw would be the best. It was never good enough. I hurt people who cared about me and wanted to be close to me because I could never really allow anyone to be that close with me, lest they discover my dark secret.

I spent so much time legitimizing the secrecy by convincing myself that no body would love me if they knew - so I should never ever tell anyone. I spent so much time rationalizing the exploitation being depicted on screen by telling myself that this is what they wanted to do. I would tell myself that they are just pictures and I'm not hurting anyone - that it's harmless. Worst of all, I would tell myself that I was not addicted to it. That I could stop if I wanted to.

Deep down, I always knew all that was bullshit. Occasionally, my better parts would win out and I'd be overcome with guilt and shame. Chasing the euphoria of climax only to come down lower than where I had started out. I remember one time particularly vividly. I was talking with a woman who I was particularly infatuated with on the computer. We had probably talked for three or four hours. Sarah, my girlfriend, had gone to bed sometime before. When I finished up, I stumbled into the darkness of the bedroom, dropping my clothes on the floor and sliding quietly into the bed next to Sarah - careful not to wake her. I started crying, trying so hard to be silent. I so desperately wanted to find a way out in that moment, but I didn't know how to do it. I felt like if I uncovered one lie that would mean my whole house of cards would tumble down. I was too damn scared.

So instead, I would just try to manage it on my own. I would delete everything, all the pictures and the movies. I would break off all the relationships besides the one that mattered, and swear that I would never go back to it again. I think the most I made it is three days. Three days of good solid sobriety out of ten years.

So the inevitable pattern of binging and purging reflected the intense pattern of my intimate relationships. I would get close with a woman, and then (not that I realized it at the time) become terrified of having to be open and honest so I'd do something really stupid to break up the relationship. I've hurt so many people, and they would never understand why.

I've had a few important physical relationships with women - all of whom I have hurt. I can't tell you how many online relationships I've had, but I'd guess it would number into the hundreds. I honestly cannot say how many pictures and movies I had on my computer...and I don't think I really want to know anyway. I've hurt my parents, because they have loved me more than anything and have always said I could talk to them about anything but I never trusted them enough to take them up on it. I know if I would have, they would have helped me and loved me - just like they do know that they know. I've hurt my friends, because they have all had to make sacrifices to support me through this. I've hurt Sarah in a way that I can't even begin to articulate - I just thank my lucky stars that she is still willing to work with me. I've hurt myself in an awesomely horrific way. Last, I've also hurt all the people in the pictures. Each and every single one of them. Thousands. Tens of thousands of human beings with hopes and dreams and fears and loves and I treated them like objects. They were someone's mother, someone's sister, someone's daughter, and I treated them like property. I know some make arguments that pornography is a legitimate choice for women, but I remember their faces and I just can't help but wonder, is that the life that they want or are they trying to pay the rent? Are they being empowered or is the degradation as obvious as it seems?

I don't know what the future holds for me. I have no idea where I'm going to be in a years time. I don't know if I'll ever get back into graduate school, or if I'll be able to fulfill my ambitions. I don't know if Sarah's patience with me is going to hold up. There are lots of things that I don't know. Among the things that I do know, which are precious few, is that I am a sex addict.

Crossposted to A/R

[mrgorth]

1. I'm here for you

I may not have gotten as bad as you but I do have a similar proclivity. It effected my marriage, now ended, to a phenomenally beautiful woman and an incredible lover. I didn't realize how good I had it and now it's gone. I have dated many women since moving out and think I will find someone to settle down with but I will always be disappointed in myself for not being able to stay married to the mother of my children. I find myself looking at it once or twice a day which I'm not sure is a problem. Lots of other men seem to do this. I spend no money on it and have no "online relationships". One thing, I don't think you should beat yourself up over the objectification. Is it expoitation? Absolutely, but most of these women are choosing freely to enter this market even if they are doing it to "pay the rent" as you say. I have trouble paying my bills too and I don't compromise my integrity. Get yourself help. Show Sarah how much you love her. But don't overdo the confessions. Very few people need to know about this. Just fix it. And if you view one video here or there don't kill yourself over it. You're still a man and this is a strong temptation. You can PM me if you feel the need to. Live in the world you want to, and it's not THAT one.

[DemExpat]

2. It sounds to me like you are on the road to recovery from this

awful addiction, varkam, as it does take guts to post this history - even here on a faceless forum.

:hug:

Perhaps you do need to look for some form of support for this addictive, impulsive behavior, which might give you a much better chance for long-term success with this.

I think there is nothing wrong with feeling bad about objectifying all of those women - this is a good thing to me to feel some empathy for these people and their real lives and any negativity you may have added to their lives.

From a female point of view I did have a few years of using sex as a substitute for all kinds of human feelings and intimacies that I needed or wanted. As you, I also ran from the real stuff so would go from relationship to relationship. I am not proud of these experiences, and for the manner in which I used men without real care for their being, but having learned from it all and having stopped the behavior has given me peace of mind. I did have several years of psychotherapy for other problems too during this time.

I wish you all the best with this, it is every bit as difficult to live with, manage, and heal as any other addiction!

Another :hug:

DemEx

[hedgehog]

3. Thank you for your testimony.

Whenever subjects such as pornography, fidelity, casual sex, virginity before marriage etc come up, those of us advocating monogamy are accused of being suppressed or suppressive, trying to make too big a deal out of sex, etc. I don't see how pornography can be legally stopped, but I can't help but feel in my gut that that it damages everyone who touches it. I think Kevin Smith's film, Chasing Amy, is the strongest argument against pre-marital sex that I've ever seen.

I don't know whom to send you to, but don't take this problem on alone. Get with a group, a counselor or both. This may more properly be a spiritual problem than a physical one. Maybe try a liberal Christian group or some sort of guided meditation. I'd stay away from Christian groups that have a distorted understanding of sex (Madonna/whore). I know in my own tradition that some Catholic priests are good with this, some are poison, so be careful.

Maybe some of the Marriage Encounter meeting would be helpful since they promote the bond of intimacy?

[varkam]

4. Thank you for the suggestions

I'm on the road to recovery. Right now I'm in SAA, individual psychotherapy, and couples therapy with Sarah. I'm not sure if my problem is spiritual so much as it is a mental illness. I don't believe in God (though I have tried very hard throughout this ordeal and wish I could), but spirituality plays it's part as well. Sex and spirituality are closely related, at least in my book. When one thrives, so does the other. When one suffers, so does the other. Pornography and cybersex are completely devoid of any sort of spirituality and, as such, are harmful to sexuality - at least from my limited perspective.

[DemExpat]

5. I think that spirituality plays in here too.....

with learning not to use others in overwhelmingly selfish ways, as well as by learning what the addiction is helping you to run from (Psycho-spiritual)....in my experience.

DemEx

[mrgorth]

6. Agreed.

[EFerrari]

7. Sometimes all we need to know is that one thing.

And sometimes all we need to do, really, is just now.

[undergroundpanther]

8. Varkham

You got some GUTS there. Thank you.

I was a kid when a pedophile took pictures of me in a porn way long ago.It has messed me up bad emotionally. I have been through 20 or more years of therapy and I still sometimes wake up with nightmares.Complex PSTD and dissociation is a scar that never stops tormenting me it seems.Most of the time I just don't sleep enough.You helped me with the sleep apnea issue and getting used to Cpap.and I still thank you for that even though the UPPP took care of the apnea,I still am left with the traumas...Traumas in part caused by porn and the people who consume it..I was not only photoed as a kid I was harmed as a teen.I was in a few bad relationships.Now I have learned what to avoid and what a healthy relationship looks like thanks to SARC.

Despite your addiction you have demonstrated you are compassionate even though you probably feel lower than whale shit right now. I think you have an addiction and addictions can be overcome once an addict decides they have had enough of it and choose to stop it..

I have a particular hatred of the porn business for alot of reasons besides my own traumas, I know it's all faked, it's all faked to hide pain of being exploited and vulnerable and feeling invisible like a nothing.Alot of girls in this culture are devalued and feel they can only be appreciated if they "put out". So much of our culture degrades women. It angers me.The porn industry sees people as product and so much of our culture is centered around making people into objects that consume objects, it is sickening.Porn industry basically"love bombs"women so they feel like they are not a nothing if they just do the pictures.And the porn industry seeks out women who were abused sexually as kids because abused kids who grow up in sick environments and think that it is how all relationships are lack the boundaries , self esteem and sometimes the self sufficiency to be able to understand why they need to run away from that crap.


Porn is corrosive, and for a person in a picture hiding the real emotions is what the job requires of the actor . A fake to hide what the camera does not see which is her soul being destroyed and her mind being re traumatized for profit& product. Most women I know who feel secure about themselves do not feel this 'desire 'to do exhibitionism and be photographed like an object for total strangers to ogle at or do other things like that like some men and some women like to say draws people to porn as if it is"liberating" there is no liberty in addiction.

Our entire culture is in denial about the hurt porn causes men and women both actors and consumers.The sick people who romanticize porn forget it is a BUSINESS and all businesses have bottom lines and profits to make and they 'cut corners'sometimes.And the corners they cut are not so 'tightly regulated' because it is nearly impossible to regulate porn,because of human trafficking is also a big industry too and pictures of slaves who may be dead, chained in some basement or worse ..often cannot be traced to the person who took them originally.
Photographic film does not have a signature of the photographer.

So when I read your situation and the insight you show here,I felt sad for you and sad for everyone hurt by your addiction too.I was touched that you even felt sad for all the pictures of the human beings you saw there. You did what so many men who are not porn addicts fear, you saw the pictures and you saw human beings there, not just an object or product.. I am sad also because of all the pain this type of addiction has caused you ,me and countless others and I am angry that the porn industry makes so much money off such a dehumanizing 'product' that scars human beings so badly and that the cultural denial is so deeply entrenched culturally and defended.So many males in this culture ,sex addicts or not still defend pornography and strip clubs and such as IF they do not cause harm , objectify people and as if the laws actually did really regulate these creeps making the big money.Some people even fall for the lie that men "need it".And that kind of self deception to me,is just pathological.

All I can say is thank you for having the courage and insight to feel the pain of all this from so many points of view in your own heart, instead of letting your eyes deceive you into another feel-good lie to avoid feeling the pain.
Please stay strong ,stay here in real life, because real love, the kind that is of the soul can only be found in real life,with a real live person you do not treat as disposable . This kind of love it can never be forced or imitated in a picture or fantasy it cannot be sold and it cannot be faked.

I have listened to the pain addicts go through when they hit bottom. Their descriptions are vivid I was told this by a recovering drug addict once, and it stuck with me He said.. Fantasy also can be made into an addiction, another escape . He said the thing about an addictive fantasy it is always a lie and it is always unattainable,insatiable, almost like a dream ghost that you pursue and can never touch,or feel, and to make up for the hollowness of these lies and it consumes you as you lie to yourself when you listen to the addiction and lies can and do harm..real people.


So I am so glad you have seen through your addiction.
Now you can Get help.Have courage.
This does not have to destroy you.You can recover.
There is SA sex addict recovery groups if you need the support.
Here's a link.
http://www.sarr.org/organizations.htm

I want to tell you again thank you.Thank you for being so courageous and...honest here.Thank you for giving up denial and looking at this without flinching.I am proud to know you.And sad too.
I wish you recovery and serenity.Insight and courage.

[varkam]

14. I'm moved by your words

I am so sorry for the things that you have gone through. I can't tell you how much I needed to read them. Whenever I find myself slipping back into addictive thinking, like that the people portrayed really were happy and were doing this freely, I try to tell myself that's just my bullshit way of justifying it to myself. Sometimes I'm too weak to tell myself and I have to start calling people. Well tonight is one of those nights - but not anymore after reading your post. Thank you.

[mopinko]

9. you sound like my husband

this is an issue that we struggled with for a long time. i had a struggle of my own with whether or not it was harming the people in those pictures. i finally decided that people who are well paid, fine. hot asian teens? by the time you see those pictures, those girls are dead. or wish they were. if he can't tell the difference, he can show them to me. i can see it in their eyes.
but 2 things have changed- one, he got some relief from his apnea, and we both sleep better. he was in a state for a couple of years of a downward spiral of irritability and mild paranoia that made him just want to hide. good place to hide, the internet.
but the second thing was- after some good sleep, a few months of talk therapy, and a week and a half on a friends couch, he came home and said- i'm not afraid of you any more. i'm not afraid of love any more.
different planet.

[varkam]

15. Fear plays a part.

Having a sexual relationship with pornography, for me, was always a lot safer than having it with another person. The idea of being intimate - physically and emotionally - with another person was at the same time the thing that I most wanted and most feared. With the pictures I had control, distance, and safety. At least that's what I thought.

I realize now that I'm never really going to be happy there. Life is scary, so is love. If I ever want to be happy then I have to be willing to open up to someone and run the risk of being hurt. Fear definitely played a part, for me. So did self-hatred, low self-esteem, shame, secrecy, and isolation.

I would like to think that my recovery could be simple. Unfortunately, I don't think it will be so. I have been an addict since my earlies memories. I'm probably going to be one for the rest of my life. I guess the trick is going to be acknowledging my addict without hanging around him.

[hunter]

10. I always wonder how shame and guilt and secrecy play into this...

...with all the people involved.

My wife and I will look at stuff on the internet, and she's always a lot more interesting than anything we might be looking at.

If you go spelunking for porn on the internet, mostly you see that everyone has those bits, and they use them in various ways.

Is it upbringing? I don't know. Does the shame and secrecy become merged with the sexual experience?

My parents are both artists-with-day-jobs (well, they are now retired from their day jobs... which must make them full time artists) and nudity was never a big deal in our house. My dad would draw nudes of my mom, and so what? It's still that way with them. My mom will cut out some picture of a naked woman and incorporate it into something she makes. She's not overt about it, it's just like anything else she might use in her art -- flowers, whatever.

When we were in our early teens my brothers and I found some Playboys, and my mom was pretty indifferent about us looking at them except for a few funny & wry comments she made about airbrushing and such. My mom was also a crisis counselor, so she dealt with some really scary stuff involving sexuality in the real world, and she was always straightforward with us about that.

My wife deals with crisis in a much more direct way than my mom did in her work, since my wife is is now one of the people my mom would've directed her clients to, but she's the same way. It's all out there in the open with her, no secrets.

I have an old friend who crashed and burned working as an escort, and a big part of how she ended up doing that had everything to do with her shame and guilt and secrecy. There were also drugs. She just kept digging the hole she was in deeper and deeper. She's lucky she survived. A high school classmate of mine went into the porn industry and died in a car wreck that was related to that, and she was the same way -- she did it because she was empty and unscrupulous people used this emptiness to manipulate her.

But I also have old friends who were just silly and playful and very much out in the open about sex, and they did not crash and burn, and now they are middle aged people who will see an old picture of themselves and laugh and say something like "I had really nice boobs" and then go on to mortally embarrass their own teenaged kids by talking about breastfeeding in front of them.

I'm not sure where I'm going with this, but I find Democratic Underground to be far more interesting -- addicting if I dare say it -- than internet porn, most of which I find boring and artless. (In case you are wondering, my standards for art are not all that high; I'd be more likely to watch Decisiones de Famosos on Telemundo than cruise the internet for porn with the family filter off because I don't think Decisiones is artless, whatever someone who hangs out at the Getty museum might think.)

Maybe I'm worried that it's not going to help you if you simply shift the focus of your shame and guilt around a bit, from objectifying women for sex to objectifying them as victims. The world is a lot more complicated than that. It seems to me in your post that you are thinking more about porn than you are thinking about what's going on inside your own head.

[Lilith Velkor]

11. Awesome post

I grew up in a city full of statues of nude women (they freaked out John Ashcroft, he could only have that one covered up and that's why he had to leave town) based on real models who have been dead for ages. Some of my neighbors or fellow posters on tha DU may very well be their descendents.

This is one issue that just kills me, because it's so hard to find anyone who is willing to be rational about it. On my right, I have these scary fascists and theocrats who think the nude female body (like the one I have) is icky and dirty and disgusting and wrong. They also think it was created by their God who they say they love and worship. They see no contradiction in this.

And on my left, I have all these nice "progressive feminists" who respect women as individuals, as long as said women are "normal" and "healthy" ones who totally freak out about porn.

edit: And another thing. Not only is one considered a self-hating woman if one exposes one's breasts, but also if one covers one's head and/or face with a veil. There's a uniform you have to wear to be considered a respectable woman. :eyes:

[undergroundpanther]

12. My anger at porn

Isn't over nude people playing around in pictures.It's not lovers taking nude pics of each other or home videos of each other or their friends if they are the orgy/swinger type..

I hate the industry. I hate the business.
I hate the exploitation and the profits made. I hate the social manipulation and abuse that go hand in hand to make this"demand" and the social isolation, inhibition and fear of intimacy that makes porn seem safer than a real relationship.

In other words innocent love has been stolen from us, made into a shameful thing that gets turned into fear and is replaced with addiction to fantasy and it is hurting humanity.
That is what I am furious about.

Those "hot asian women" are probably in an unmarked grave. That this happens that makes me angry at porn. Men jerking off over women the age of their own daughters, totally compartmentalizing what they are doing as if the women are objects to be used,being abused. I hate the denial of what they see in the women's eyes..and I hate it's cost.. of industrialized porn on users themselves and on the women being used up and discarded like that magazine will be when the women in it no longer thrill.

It all makes me so angry.

[mrgorth]

16. I agree

Let me ask you something. If you could would you make it illegal or put severe restrictions on it of some kind? I would but I consider myself more of a populist than a liberal. It's not like things were when I was growing up, a couple of magazines at the drug store that you'd have to be 18 to buy. Extremely hardcore smut is all over the web. I mean seriously degrading and easy to get to. I think it's gotten out of hand and I worry about what it's doing to modern families much less my kid's generation.

[mopinko]

17. stop the emptiness

my cure for all the ills of the world- make sure that pregnant women and little children are fed, clothed, protected and loved. all the things the children grow up to do are rooted in that period when the brian is formed. get ourselves down off this cross of iron on which we hang.
i know. that is a couple of generations down the road.
in the meantime, get this stuff out of the dark corners. unionize sex workers. give them good health insurance. stop the fucking stupid ass drug war. turn those prisons into rehab hospitals. this stuff would not take that long to accomplish.

[Lilith Velkor]

18. What is it that makes porn seem safer?

Is it a deep-seated assumption that all women want only "real relationships" and view casual sex as a fate worse than death?

What does "innocent love" even mean when your choice of a mate is limited to someone who will grant you a higher socioeconomic status, but you have to pretend it's true spontaneous altruistic love?

What makes me angry is that men are made to feel like criminals just for jerking off. Just like women are socialized to feel like criminals for wanting to eat enough to be a normal weight instead of a goddamn twig. Everybody has to feel guilt and shame for being a fleshly creature instead of a perfectly efficient robot or an unearthly angelic being, right?

No. Anyone who tries to tell you that is just trying to sell you a miserable lifetime pretending to be something you're not, in the hope that you will spend money whether you have it or not. Capitalism makes us all pimps n' hos.

[varkam]

13. Thank you for the post.

Objectification and shame and guilt are just a few of the many things that are going on inside my head right now. The situation is perhaps the most complex that I have ever been in, and I'm just trying to sort things out one day at a time. I wish that I found pornography boring - I really do. For me it really has become almost a high, and one of the tasks is trying to figure out why. I just hope I can find the answers I need.