Pornography Addiction...

It's 1982. I'm in 8th grade. Fourteen years old. My pornography addiction has been growing for four years now. Of course I didn't know it then. I was just a kid who had suffered sexual trauma and with pubescent hormones was in free fall. I stumbled across this in my 8th grade yearbook, back when I actually took the time to get people to sign it.

There is a long, deeply personal story connected to the girl who signed this, the details of which are not necessary. Suffice it to say it is significant that she wrote this.

At the time, I and another guy were writing essays during study hall to submit to Penthouse magazine. I am astounded at the fact that she knew I did this. Apparently it wasn't that big of a secret. Now it may seem like teenage hormones and no big deal. Perhaps for some this is the case. Not in my case. No, there was something deeper growing, taking root, manifesting. In hindsight, this was a cry for attention, pretty obvious looking back.

Not only was sneaking into my father's stash a regular occurrence (the look of bewilderment on my brother's face when I showed him once still lingers) but I would sneak across the street and break into the garage of a neighbor who has a huge stash of Playboys and Oui magazines. I would sneak into the garage even when no one was there. I could sniff out a stash of men's magazines in any house I entered and have gone so far as to locate them while at various jobs I've held where the opportunity arose whether in an office or in the homes of clientele. Bookstores, cigar shops, didn't matter. I had to seek them out, I had to look.

Fourteen years old.

At ten (perhaps even younger) I was shown my first porno mags. It was at a friend's house where this occurred under the swimming pool deck. He had older brothers who passed this knowledge down. In retrospect, this was a home of abuse. I can't say there was physical violence but I do know for certain the verbal abuse was intense.

I was inundated not only with Playboy and Penthouse but was also exposed to Playgirl magazine. Long before I even knew what sex was, before I had any interest in females, let alone the female body, my young mind was being filled with images of naked women and men and I was introduced to sex.

In the yearbook I took the time to white out some faces (all girls) and scratch out their names. I can't remember why there was such venomous anger, though I do remember that one of the girls was the girlfriend of a friend of mine and when I called her told him she was a 'scum' he wanted to fight me after school. Though I do vaguely remember striking him in the face, all I really remember is a few headlocks and some noogies until my mom showed up and I had to go home.

We were no longer friends after that, even though I had spent the night at his house many times and, ironically perhaps, stayed up 'til the wee hours of the morning watching Cinemax soft porn on Friday nights (the film Malicious comes to mind immediately). Cinemax Friday night softcore films were also a regular staple.

Sadly, I found out many years later that he had committed suicide. Life is so precious and the connection so tenuous and fragile, it is often too much to really comprehend.

But the darkness that was to come and the consequences of these beginnings would not come to the healing light of God's grace for almost thirty years.