Pornography Addiction...Continued...

Even before being exposed to pornographic magazines, an incident occurred that had a tremendous impact on what was once an innocent mind. At around the same time as my first exposure to men's (and women's) magazines, at a sleepover in a friend's basement I was put in a situation which would have a deep impact on the formation of my views about sexuality. I don't remember all the details nor do I remember what led up to it. It's possible I've blocked some of it out but I don't believe so as I've been quite open to receiving information from the recesses of my memory and I don't wish to invent something just to have a scar to talk about.

But it involved my friend, who was two years' younger and his older brother who was several years older than me. All I remember was the lights out in the basement and I was asked to drop my pants to expose myself while they shined the flashlight on me. I remember laughter but don't remember any comments. I don't remember them doing the same to one another. All I remember was the feeling that it wasn't right, the discomfort and, later, the shame. This would become my lifelong dirty little secret and thus my source of sexual identity.

Traumatic? Certainly. Abuse? Yes. Now this isn't as horrifying as stories of abuse we all know about. I wouldn't end up on Oprah from having survived this. I have friends who have suffered forms of abuse far, far worse and have noticed the scale of the effects on their lives. Yet an event as "small" as mine had a huge impact, like the proverbial "butterfly effect" of chaos theory. That small perturbation led to a hurricane in my life.

My innocence was lost and with my innocence I surrendered power, my addictions a struggle to get it back. In a purely innocent state, we have maximum power. Abuse ruptures this power and allows influences in, influences which, at a young age, we are not equipped to process. So pornographic images of sexuality became the norm, these tempered by a feeling of guilt and shame; sex would begin to hold a tremendous source of power over my life.

I don't remember whether or not I was shy prior to this but introversion and depression and mood swings became my life. It was after this I began getting into fights, becoming combative, withdrawn, angry, alone. One event followed by layer after layer of accretion to cover the shame and numb the agitation within would be the force driving me. Everything else was an attempt at running away from this vortex in my soul.