Not sure how detailed is helpful for me to be, but I'll try to give the highlights of my story that stand out to me.
Around age 7, my older brother shamed me for innocently touching myself through my pajamas one morning. I somehow took that to heart and almost completely put my private parts out of my mind. Around age 9, I got the number of a sex hotline from a friend, and called multiple times to listen to the pre-recorded scenarios. Scenarios which I really didn't understand, but found FASCINATING. I did not know anything about masturbation at this time. A few weeks later, my parents got the phone bill and my mom made gave me a serious dose of shame over listening to such things. I was very confused, as I really had no idea what I really had been listening to, and all I knew was that these new and powerful emotions I was experiencing were "wrong". Around age 11, in 7th grade (I started school a little early) I saw a boy (who was probably already 13 at the time) getting himself erect through his sweatpants and showing it off proudly to the girls. I was both scandalized and electrified. I went home, put on a pair of sweats, and spent the rest of the evening imitating in my bedroom mirror what he had done in class that day. My own genitals, which I had been ignoring for so long, seemed so alien (but also fascinating) to me. I discovered how to masturbate myself and instantly became hooked on lusting after other boys in my classes. A few weeks later, some 8th graders were talking about masturbation and asked me if I did it and how it felt. I naively admitted that I had and that it felt GOOD. They found this to be hilarious, and took great delight in teasing me about it the entire rest of the school year. They did not tell me they did the same thing and that it felt great for them too. On some level, I thought I must be the only person who had sexual feelings and who did something like that, and that horrible feeling stayed with me for a long time even after I knew for sure that pretty much everyone masturbated, etc.
Fast forward to high school, 10th/11th grade. I started becoming very interested in whether the God thing was just a story or something real. I decided to do a bunch of research and came to the conclusion that the Bible was God's Word and the resurrection of Christ was a historically legitimate event. I actually left my parent's church, which I felt was too watered down and went to a more engaging congregation with a friend from band who's family already attended there. Before long, I felt convicted that my constant lusting, daily masturbation, and my sexual attraction to other boys was not God's desire for me. I talked to the pastor about it and he basically affirmed me as a man and a new creation in Christ, prayed with me, and never asked me about it again. I think we both assumed my orientation would sort of naturally change on its own, but, as you can probably guess, nothing changed at all. I was actually really getting into studying and meditating on the Scriptures, and I imagined that the more time I spent doing that, the more self control I would develop over "the flesh", but both my sexual and my spiritual desires seemed to grow in tandem, rather than diminish one another, as I had been led to believe would be the case.
This internal struggle continued on into college and I eventually learned of Exodus ministries and through them, Regeneration Baltimore. I attended sexual addiction/recovery groups, emotional wholeness groups, and individual counseling off and on for a number of years, and certainly learned a lot about myself and some skills for relating better to others, but my mainly gay orientation, and my inability to get much distance from lust, masturbation, and now high speed internet porn, remained largely unchanged. On top of everything, I started hooking up with other men pretty regularly through various websites and apps.
In the past few years, I've accepted that I love both God and men, and have stopped tying how I feel about my relationship with God to how I am "doing" sexually. And I have opened up to a lot more friends and colleagues about the sort of complicated story of who I am. For the most part, I've met with a ton of love and support. And it sure feels good to be able to completely be myself without this sense that I am keeping important aspects of who I am hidden.
In general (partly due to the above paragraph, but also many other factors), I feel like I've really started getting to know myself better over the past several years, and have been able to live more out of that center. Essentially, a lot of emotions that I never learned from my family how to engage with and communicate about, I am doing a lot better job at, and that makes all the difference in the world. Regularly practicing Bikram hot yoga has helped tremendously with that. It's amazing how the more you get the tension worked out of your body, the easier it is to feel. And the easier to connect with other people. Which is such an amazing gift.
But porn and masturbation has still been a big thing in my life. I would consider myself to be a pro at edging. And it frightens me to think how many hours have been lost to that practice--and what else was lost with those hours.
For whatever reason, though, despite my many, many failures over the years when I've tried for "sexual sobriety", something feels different this time around. One thing might be that--with God's help--I have cultivated a decent network of friendships where I (and the other party) can be emotionally honest. Let our hair down, so to speak. I've also been seeing a new therapist and have been starting to get some perspective on my emotional history and on what it is that I am actually feeling during the course of a day/week, that I don't really think I ever had before. I do have this uncanny sense that the next 12 months are going to be a time of great change and growth for me. I would not be surprised if setting aside porn and masturbation play a big role in that.
One thing I am not concerning myself with setting aside at this time is actual in-person sexual interactions. I do have a few friends with whom that is an option, and where I am in my thinking right now, connecting sexually with a real person does not do the kind of damage that being sexual with myself and with images on the computer screen does. (And based on what I've read in other people's stories on here so far, having sex, so long as you are not masturbating yourself, does not seem to interfere with a reboot.) And I guess part of what I've grown concerned about in the past few years is the increasing difficulty I experience getting an erection when I'm with another person, versus surfing the net, despite the fact that I am in some of the best shape of my life.
Anyway, that's a lot. I'm starting to have conversations with a few friends about this, and seeing whether anyone is interested in being hardcore in the loop on it, sorry for the pun. Also looking into installing a filter, get the settings right and then having someone reset the password for me.
Please feel free to make any suggestions, ask any questions. I've watched some of the Reboot Nation youtube vids, which were very inspiring and informative. Going to try and do a little reading and posting daily as I'm able, in order to keep my motivation up.
In terms of a check-in, Tuesday was the last time I looked at porn, and Tuesday night/Wednesday morning was when I started firming up my decision to get into doing a reboot. Interestingly by Thursday, two friends of mine had reached out to me saying they were also considering something similar, and I had told neither of them I was also considering doing so. Today was a bit of a challenge, as a buddy that I sometimes am sexually intimate with was going to come by, but he ended up standing me up because he totally double booked himself with work somehow. He's a great guy, but pretty disorganized, and I had to find a way to express my frustration to him without being a complete ass, because this is not the first time he's "teased" me like this.
I'm a little concerned also if I don't put a filter on whether I will slip into looking at inappropriate youtube vids. But I'm also concerned with filters in general, because my experience in the past has always been that I start getting really creative about what might titillate me on the internet, and end up getting into things I might not otherwise have.
In closing, I guess another one of the big things that IS different for me this time around with attempting anything like a reboot, is that I am not doing it out of shame. I'm not doing it because I think God will be displeased with me otherwise. And it's amazing how much that kind of pressure sets you up for failure before you've even started. I'm doing it because I want to. I want to feel my masculinity energizing me at all times, and especially with the goals in life I am pursuing, and not just when I am touching my penis while frying my brain to sexual video after sexual video. Well, we'll see how far I get! If I mess up, I can always start again. And I don't think God is sitting up there judging me and shaking His head in disappointment. He loves me and is cheering me on nonstop.
I guess that's enough for one entry! Thanks for reading, and take care.
