I'm fairly certain I'm addicted to pornography. Sometimes I feel like I look forward to it too much and I try to cut back, try to keep myself busy with something else. It's most difficult when I have time alone. It seems like there's nothing more I'd rather do than look at pornography when I'm alone.
A short while ago I had a week off from work and I indulged quite a bit. I even tried something I'd never tried before -- voice chatting with a phone sex operator over Skype. I didn't enjoy it as much as I thought I would. As far as vices go, I think once you allow yourself to try something for the first time, it becomes a possible option from then on. Now, even though the whole experience made me feel lame, I still think about having more phone sex over Skype. I think it's likely that I will sometime.
Maybe I felt like I'd hit bottom when I did that, though, so I removed all of the pornography from my computer. I didn't delete it, of course, I just burned it to a DVD that now sits on a spool of other DVDs right in arm's reach of my computer. At one time I moved all of the DVDs up into the attic, which is significantly more difficult to get to. It requires moving a car out of the garage and unfolding a ladder. I thought that would help, but eventually I moved them back to a more convenient place.
I do have a wife to hide them from, but sometimes the best hiding place is in plain sight. But of course a part of me wouldn't mind her finding my stash of DVDs. I think the fact that she hasn't after all of this time makes it pretty clear that she doesn't pay enough attention to me. We do have sex, probably 4 or 5 times a month, not nearly as often as I would like. A lot of the time we're just not in sync. I love having sex with her, but I've really grown to resent the rejections and the lack of passion she expresses toward me. We've talked about it so many times, but she never really makes any effort to try and improve the situation. I really believe I could leave pornography behind if she tried a bit harder to meet my needs, and I'm certain that I'm attracted to pornography out of frustration and aggression toward her.
Sometimes its easy to take a break from pornography because I feel like I've seen all there is to see. It's not to say that it ceases to turn me on, but what I usually seek in pornography is a higher level of arousal. It's like searching for the hottest girl you can imagine, doing the sluttiest acts you can possibly conceive of. Nowadays I feel like I won't see or experience anything better than what I already have. There are no girls sexier than the ones I have seen, no positions I haven't watched before. And since phone sex made me feel more awkward than aroused, I don't believe escalating my vice by going to nude bars or getting lap dances would make me feel any different. Maybe it gets too human or too real to be a fantasy for me.
I don't have any real moral issue with looking at pornography. I don't feel like anyone involved in it is so much of a victim. It is clearly a very profitable industry for men and women alike. I only feel like I need to separate myself from it because it's such a waste of time. I see that I could accomplish a lot more in my life if I could give it up and ignore the desire. I don't like looking forward to the times when my wife won't be around so I'll stand a chance of feeling good, but there again, I don't think it's solely my fault that I sometimes feel that way.
I have tried turning the desire into something useful. I've actually tried making my own erotic animations. Although I never finished any to the degree that I could sell them, I did learn a lot more about drawing and animating in Adobe Flash. I have made money selling virtual sex and virtual lingerie in a game called Second Life, so much so that I was able to buy myself an iPod. I hate having that secret though and feeling like I'm leading a double life. As much as I might fantasize about sex with my wife of other beautiful women, I also fantacize about having the utmost self control, and never feeling like there is an aspect of my life I would be embarassed to talk about.
I am not trying to sound immodest, but I believe I have a lot of creative talent, and after so many years of not drawing or making artwork, I'm really trying to get back into it. I want to develop enough of a consistent style that I can sell illustrations. But to do that, I need to make better use of my time, and work harder to draw every single day of my life. Up until this last weekend I felt really proud of myself. I had produced a lot of new drawings and was doing something creative most every day. Even when I was alone, I wasn't resorting to looking at pornography on the Internet.
This weekend was all about my wife, though. We visited her parents in Tallahassee, and just ran from one boring event to the next. I hate when she complains about doing things with my family, so I didn't complain to her about it. Still, right or wrong, it made me angry. Her Mom is essentially crazy -- completely insecure and constantly bickering at high volume with everyone else in the family. I hate being around her, I hate that she is unhappy, I would prefer that she be happy with her life, but she, like my wife, is too self-righteous to change on her own, and too stubborn to change for anyone else, so no one even bothers to try to talk to her about it.
I did get to sketch in my sketchbook on one or two car rides, but that was it. We got home at midnight on Sunday and then it was back to work. I tried to get back into the swing of things Monday night. And after weeks and weeks of no sex, my wife and I finally fucked. But I was pretty sure that meant we wouldn't have sex Tuesday night. Her desire is just that low. So when she fell asleep on the couch early in the evening, I just let myself go. I paid for a subscription to an erotic cartoon website, looked at movie clips on the Internet, had virtual sex in SecondLife. Part of me felt fantastic and satiated, while the other felt frustrated, like the entire day had been wasted.
During the day I work in a cubicle, and just like at home, I find it very difficult to work up the motivation to be productive. It is hard to say how much of that is caused by a fear of failure and how much is just plain laziness. I probably really work a fraction of the time I should during the day. The rest of the time I am just passing the day, waiting for 4 o'clock so I can go home. I find I can accomplish a lot when I have the sense that people are thankful for my contribution, but lately it seems like I've been under fire by some other staff, and nothing activates my passive-aggressive bad work habits quite like that.
When I look back on when I was younger, in high school and in college, I would say that I was generally very depressed. These days I think I like myself a bit more. Although I don't think looking at pornography bears that out, I have been able to break free from it here and there, and I think having this desire to treat myself better is a good sign. I wish my wife would help me more and be more supportive, maybe stoke my ego instead of trampling on it.
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