Re: Hello
Submitted by GCFboi2 on June 26 2001 01:34:35
In reply to Hello submitted by Ben on June 23 2001 19:55:46
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Hi Ben, Some of the people here may recall that I am in recovery from sexual addiction myself. I'd like to share some of my thoughts and some Bible passages that have helped me. My main problem was an addiction to internet porn. Thank God I had the good sense not to get into the real "kiddie porn"--I stuck with the barely-legal gay stuff, and I only occasionally went out and actually had sex with strangers. Still, I think my situation is similar to yours in some ways. (I'd also like to say that I believe I have the spiritual gift of discernment which was mentioned by one of the other respondents. At least, one of the pastors of my church told me that I have that gift. I don't mean to presume to be any smarter because of it, since it is a gift from God, and only He can decide when to give me insight.) For me, the main issue with compulsive sexual behaviors is NOT the physical behavior itself, but rather the feelings that motivate it. In my case, the addiction was being fueled by self-hate and a fear of true intimacy. Because I could not accept myself as a gay boylover, I was afraid to let anyone get too close to me, for fear that they would find out about my feelings for boys. I believed that I would lose all my friends if they knew. And yet, I still had a deep desire to be loved, and my sexual feelings did not go away just because I was afraid of them. The result of all this was that my feelings were reduced from being about real love and intimacy with another person, to a mere desire for other guys' bodies. I wanted to be with them, to touch them and feel the pleasure of sex, but I did not want to have to open myself up emotionally or become vulnerable. I wanted to receive, but I did not want to give. It is when one has crossed over from feeling warmth, love, affection and caring concern for another person, into this state of just wanting them for the physical pleasure of it, when lust is occurring. I do not think that sexual desires that may be present in a truly loving and honest relationship, where both people love each other and are benefitting from the relationship, are the same thing as lust, EVEN IF it would be inappropriate to act out those feelings in real life. I have several close platonic friends whom I love dearly, who I also find sexually attractive, and yet I don't feel as though I am lusting after them. I don't fantasize about having sex with them, but I do like the way they look. As for the specific issues of sexual fantasy and masturbation, let me give you my personal opinions. I used to wonder if I would have to stop masturbating in order to get over my porn addiction. After trying to do that for a very long time, I finally realized that it was counterproductive. The less I masturbated, the more I wanted the porn. So I tried the opposite approach and found that it worked much better. For me, masturbation became a way to release my sexual energy before it got so strong that I couldn't stop myself from visiting those websites that I was trying to stay away from. I found that I had no desire to look at porn for hours after jerking off. "No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it." (1 Cor. 10:13) I believe that masturbation CAN BE a way out of lustful temptations, or it CAN BE a way to reinforce them. It depends on how you use it. I don't think that masturbation in and of itself is really the issue, to be honest with you. As a physical activity, masturbation has no more inherent moral value to it than eating or urinating. It is just one of the bodily functions that exists in nature. Now, everyone needs to eat just to stay alive. If you stop eating completely, you will die. However, if you have emotional problems that make you eat and eat and eat so much that you gain 500 pounds and can't even get out of the house to go to work anymore, and you clog your arteries and give yourself a heart attack, then you have a problem. But that doesn't make eating a sin. It makes gluttony a sin. In the same way, lust is a sin even though sexual desire in and of itself is not. The appetite for sex is a part of the human body just like appetite for food is. The key is to realize what the PURPOSE of the appetite is, so that you will be able to FULFILL it in a way that is constructive, rather than destructive. Appetites must be fulfilled somehow, because if they are denied and repressed, the body will rebel against it by making the appetite stronger. That is a biological process that cannot be stopped. So trying to repress sexual desires completely is impossible; they will always be there. The more I tried not to think about sex, the more I thought about it, because I was thinking so hard about trying to not think about it, that I couldn't stop thinking about it! Do you see my point? Trying to use sheer willpower to control your feelings will only INCREASE your lust, not decrease it. The purpose of eating is to keep your body alive and healthy, to give it the energy it needs to function. The purpose of sexual desire (in MY opinion) is to motivate you to form and maintain intimate, loving relationships with the people you are attracted to. That's it. The reason you have sexual feelings for boys, is because God wants you to love them and care for them, so He made it a part of your biological makeup to have these desires, to be extra certain that you would be aware of His desire for you to love boys. Boylovers are able to love boys in a special way that others cannot; it's hard for me to put into words, but God created this sexual orientation for a reason and He gave us these desires so we would be motivated to carry out His will in regards to boys. (Among other things, I think were here to catch those boys who fall through the cracks in the rest of society.) So if your sexual feelings are motivating you and helping you to do good things for boys, then they are fulfilling the purpose for which they were created. If they are alienating you from God and from others (especially boys) then they are not. "The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in him, and the evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in him." (Matt. 12:35) "By their fruit you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? Likewise every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit." (Matt. 7:16-18) "What do you think? There was a man who had two sons. He went to the first and said, `Son, go and work today in the vineyard.' `I will not,' he answered, but later he changed his mind and went. Then the father went to the other son and said the same thing. He answered, `I will, sir,' but he did not go. Which of the two did what his father wanted?" "The first," they answered. Jesus said to them, "I tell you the truth, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God ahead of you. For John came to you to show you the way of righteousness, and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes did. And even after you saw this, you did not repent and believe him." (Matt 21:28-32) I think that the issue of how you are relating to boys in real life is a valid way of discerning whether your sexual fantasies are a sin or not. If you were really, truly lusting in a serious way, you wouldn't be out helping boys. You'd be sitting in a dark room downloading kiddie porn for 10 hours a day, or you'd be out molesting. So, give yourself a break! All this is not to say that masturbation cannot be a form of sexual addiction. It is possible to get addicted to it in a way that is harmful. I know, because I used to be that way. Now that I am in recovery, however, I still do masturbate, but it is a very different experience for me now than it used to be, even though physically it is the same act. Yet it is no longer a controlling compulsion, and I don't have the same thoughts while I am doing it that I used to. As for the issue of sexual fantasies per se, I think it matters most what you are fantasizing about. Groping a boy's body and treating him like a piece of meat to be used for your own selfish pleasure? That's bad. Imagining a wonderful time chatting with a boy, admiring his beauty, dreaming about loving him and helping him to grow? That's good, and that can get me really excited sometimes, but I don't think it's lust. "Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable--if anything is excellent or praiseworthy--think about such things." (Phil. 4:8) Boys are beautiful. They are true, noble, right, pure, lovely, and admirable, and I feel no shame in admiring their beauty for it's own sake. I have been interested in photography since I was a child, long before I knew I was a boylover, and yes, I have collected beautiful pictures of boys for years, including the "shirtless" kind you described. I think of these as art, not porn. I don't think it's a sin to admire a boy that way, if you love him for what he is. It's all about what's going on inside you, not what you are doing on the outside. (See Mark 7:14-15) You described your feelings as an "impurity". Perhaps this is so in a technical sense, but it is an underappreciated matter in Christianity today that God is far less concerned with physical forms of purity, than he is with love and relationships. Whatever purity laws existed in the Old Testament are irrelevant in the new covenant of Christ. "To the pure, all things are pure, but to those who are corrupted and do not believe, nothing is pure. In fact, both their minds and consciences are corrupted" (Titus 1:15) "As one who is in the Lord Jesus, I am fully convinced that nothing in unclean in itself. But if anyone REGARDS something as unclean, then FOR HIM it is unclean" (Rom. 14:14 - emphasis mine) The issue is not what you are doing, it's why you are doing it. If your feelings and actions bother you, if they interfere with your relationship to God or to boys, then they are probably a sin. But if they do not, then they probably aren't. And you don't necessarily have to stop what you are doing in order to stop sinning (if you are); you may only have to work through the way you are feeling and thinking about it. The Bible by itself can't give you a simple, yes-or-no type answer to your situation. Please pray and ask God to guide you. That is what I had to do in order to overcome my problems. |
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