my story in response to splash
Submitted by tigris on January 28 2002 22:24:35
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OK, I think that the best way to respond to your message would be to tell my story of who I am. Or at least what I consider to be the relevant information as it refers to my BL. Keep in mind that most of what I’m choosing to share is only what I feel is related to BL. I grew up in a Christian home. My family was very involved in the church. I don’t remember a time in my life when I wasn’t a Christian. For various reasons, I never got into sports. I wasn’t very athletic and have had asthma all my life. I was a loner growing up. I didn’t have that many friends. I wasn’t treated all that badly at school, but I wasn’t Mr. Popular either. I just kind of blended in to the background. There were times that I wished that I had some closer friends, but it never really happened. I remember one time when I was in fourth grade and my mom wanted me to invite some friends over for my birthday party. I couldn’t think of anyone to invite except for one person. I remember arguing with her, and she thought I was being difficult and refusing to cooperate with her. I honestly couldn’t think of anyone to invite though. I remember the embarrassment that I felt at that. I realized that day that I didn’t have any friends! My dad worked a lot when I was growing up. When he did have time for the kids, it was usually playing catch or baseball, football, wrestling, etc. He would play with my brothers, but he really didn’t play with me too much. He, to me, was a distant father, although he did try to be involved with his kids. We just never bonded like my siblings did with him. I was also very strong willed growing up. If my dad told me to do something, I would do the opposite, just to show him that I wasn’t going to take orders from him. I had a lot of anger in me as a child too, mostly directed at my father. I had my first girlfriend in third grade. We would walk around on the playground and play on the different stuff together. I think that I was just glad to have a friend, and it just happened to be a girl. My first memory of anything sexual was in first grade when a boy next to me would lift his shirt up in class for everyone to see. I remember being attracted to that kid from then on. I also remember thinking how weird that was that I was attracted to a boy when boys were supposed to be attracted to girls. It became my secret, and I think that I enjoyed having a secret that no one else knew about. I remember the power that I felt about that. Because I was so strong willed, I definitely had strong control issues. I had control over this, and I liked it. I actually remember thinking that through as a first grader. When I was around first grade, there were some neighborhood boys that used to come over to play. Most of them were two or three years older than me. We would go in our camper and they would play these weird games. I don’t remember why, but the boys would frequently take off their pants and let us look at their penises. I was totally into those games. I remember feeling so dirty for playing, but it was a thrill that I had never experienced before. There was one boy especially who seemed to take a liking to me. He was about 10 years old, and he took me aside one day and took off all of his clothes. He wanted to know if I wanted to touch his penis. I was thrilled but disgusted at the same time. I decided not to do it. We just sat there talking for a while-- him naked, and me there in disbelief that a boy would trust me so much that he would choose to be naked in front of me. Maybe I’m over-analyzing what happened there, but I believe that from that day on, my view of true friendship and trust was distorted. If you wanted to be a real friend, it involved nudity. My friends that I had, I would always try to get them to be naked somehow. I would start games like truth or dare and then always dare them to be naked. Some would do it, and some wouldn’t. (I was always too ashamed to do it myself, by the way.) My feelings weren’t so much sexual in nature, as much as it was a desire for true friendship and acceptance. I often wonder if those experiences messed up my mind. I think the events that happened there were a defining moment in my life. I have thought about those times with the older boys many times and wished they never would have happened. What would I be like now if that didn’t happen? As I got older, my age of attraction was always right around the age that I was at. Even in college, I was attracted to many of the guys there. I did like a couple of girls, though. One was in high school. I remember thinking about the one girl all the time and thinking that this must be what it’s like to be in love. I would smile when I would think about her and being around her. I dated a girl in college for five months too. I ended the relationship when I realized that I just wasn’t too attracted to her anymore. I thought I would be, but I wasn’t. I kept waiting for the feelings to come that everyone talks about, but my thoughts always involved the other guys around me, not girls. Growing up, I never masturbated. I didn’t do it in college either. My feelings of attraction weren’t that strong, I guess. I really didn’t even know such a thing as masturbation really existed. I had heard it mentioned, but I didn't think anyone actually did it. Like I said before, I don’t think that my feelings were all that sexual, just a desire for friendship and acceptance. Loneliness was a big part of my life in college. I definitely felt a distance between me and my friends that I did have because I couldn’t talk to them about girls. I was better friends with some of the girls because it wasn’t an issue if I didn’t talk about the girls with them. It wasn’t until I started working at camp that I realized how much I loved working with kids. My first week as a counselor, I remember almost crying because I was so overwhelmed with love for the kids in my cabin. I didn’t know I was capable of giving and receiving such love. The kids actually missed me when I would leave for our afternoon staff meetings. I had never been missed before. I had never been popular. When the kids starting treating me like a celebrity, it was definitely an ego boost for me. I thrived on that feeling. It was like a drug for me. I was addicted to being with the kids because of the love that they showed to me. There was one boy in particular that I really bonded with that summer. He was nine years old. He was my shadow all week. He and I were inseparable. His parents later told me that he cried the whole way home because he missed me. That first summer at camp changed my whole outlook on life. Here was an environment in which I could be loved and accepted and have fun doing it. My feelings toward the boys weren’t sexual either. There were times that I remember thinking about seeing them naked, but only because I wanted to truly bond with them and to prove to myself that they trusted me and liked me. There were several boys that I had the opportunity to lead to Jesus Christ. That was a thrill beyond words for me. There were parents who would thank me for being such a role model for their kids. That was a thrill too. I liken it to the high you get from taking certain drugs. I experienced this enjoyment of working with the boys just by experiencing the high that I got from knowing that I was impacting someone’s life. It impacted me in a deep and powerful way. It wasn’t until I was 25 that my life started spiraling downward. As I posted earlier, I found nude pictures of adult males and was really turned on by it. I started looking for more and stumbled across nude boys (not pornographic, more of the artistic type of pictures of boys). I became hooked on the pictures. That was when I accidentally discovered masturbation. I was quite surprised when it happened, actually, but it felt great. I was instantly hooked. It was then that my feelings toward boys changed. I started developing what you all might consider typical BL feelings. Except my feelings again are still not totally sexual in nature exactly. I have absolutely no desire to have sex with boys. I believe that God has given me a gift of celibacy. I don’t care to ever have sex. I do desire to see them naked though. And what all along was a feeling of acceptance somehow got all tied in with seeing them naked and being turned on sexually by it. This may not make total sense. I’ve never put all this in writing before, so it’s hard to put into words what I’m really trying to say. Some of this paragraph may have come across contradictory. To say that it’s not sexual in nature, but I get turned on by them certainly sounds contradictory. I get turned on when boys truly look up to me and truly like me. I get turned on when one calls me his friend. I get turned on when they choose to be with me instead of their other friends. That shouldn’t be sexual at all, but it is to me. And it didn’t used to be. Again, it all started when I started pornography. Somehow the wires got crossed. What started out as a good thing (working with kids) turned into a struggle for me. Loneliness is still an issue with me. I feel so empty inside sometimes, and I long for an intimate friendship. That is when I start being tempted to look at more pictures. It’s also when I turn to boys to spend time with (again, let me emphasize that I don’t look for them as a sexual predator would. I’m not a monster.). Both of those provide temporary relief to the demons of loneliness that plague me. I feel safer around boys. They provide unconditional love and they are much more open to receiving it. I’ve been more aware of this flaw in my relationship with God lately. I look to other things other than him to provide me with fulfillment. I have really been seeking God lately and want to put him first. That has been a help lately with the depression and obsessing that I have been feeling a couple of months ago. That’s my story so far. Feel free to ask questions or ask for clarification on any of this. It’s actually been helpful to put all of this in writing for me to see. Your insights may help me to process this even more. tigris |
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