PORN and ME

I have mixed feelings about pornography. There are sexual images, movies, and magazines that really turn me on. The provocative poses of the actors, along with their beautifully toned (or untoned), and muscular bodies are an alluring attraction. Pornography was my first introduction into the sexual act. Until that time, I had not ever seen a vagina, not to mention intercourse. Looking at a picture of a vagina in one of the porn magazines both fascinated and scared me at the same time. I believe my fascination lay more in the fact that it was so different than what was drawn in anatomy books. My first porn movie was of heterosexuals. I was so turned on by the figures of the men. I can only say this in hindsight. As a 15 year old, I told myself that it was the women that were turning me on, and that the men were merely being used as vehicles for my sexual feelings toward the women. The denial I imposed for any ounce of attraction for the men in the porn movies was quite intense and for that matter - necessary. Any admission to attraction would have sent me into an abyss of further self-destruction. I could not handle it at that time. I was already dealing with all of the verbal abuse both at school and home, and was eating an incredible amount of food to calm the pangs.

Porn was the small window I used to glimpse at my own budding (in retard) sexuality. It gave me the opportunity, albeit - very short, to know that there was some kind of sexualness inside me. Of course, at the time, I did not acknowledge the sexuality - I was barely able to purchase the porn without going into some dissociate state. Watching the movies excited me, but I could not acknowledge the excitement or relate to the sexuality. To do so would have placed my ego in peril and it would have put me in the same specie as my abusers. I wanted to separate myself from all that was masculine. It was men that tormented me in their bullying antics, and it was meant that I deeply desired. I could not reconcile the two opposing forces.

While watching the porn, I stepped out of my "self" and detached enough to be stimulated but not internalize the stimulation with any acknowledgment of my sexuality. The dissociation was one that made my mind temporarily leave my body and enter that of one of the actors. At the time, I had convinced myself that I was the man directing the moves but it wasn’t so. I was the "other" - an actor that was alone with the men or group of men and always safely cradled in the "heterosexual" dynamic. I could not internalize any idea that my attraction laid for the men in the movie. It was too frightening.

Porn was to be the tool I used to take steps into grappling with my sexuality. But that would take years.

Stay well,

MBI