a masturbator wrote:
I went up to an MDiv but I never entered ministry proper, just did the training. I learned I didn’t have the personality for ministry so I thought I might teach, but realized I don’t have the personality for that either, so I went on to do other things entirely. That was almost two decades ago. I remember through my schooling, there were campus meetups, casual bible studies and mutual young men’s support groups really, and some of those who attended called it [masturbation] guilt club. Something like that, the exact name eludes me now, but that was the tone of the title at the very least. Because much of the time, apparently, the discussion was on the topic of how to stop masturbating or looking at porn. There was a school network filter and monitor, and several students went down for breaching their signed covenant (when you signed up for Internet in your dorm, it was an EULA sort of document and also a solemn vow to God) to abstain from using said network for pornography. So yes, many do masturbate and/or view porn, and they were probably well into it before they ever led a congregation.
I was always guilty about it. Some very long nights wondering whether the sanctification thing was working or not, and what that could mean for my eternal soul. Matthew 5:27-30 appears to imply viewing porn is lusting, so the associated sexual arousal and masturbation was probably implicated as well. Believing that, yet continuing in my sin, so to speak, never failed to worry and shame me. Post-nut clarity was to feel the crushing weight of my years of addiction and unrepentant lust, to know I was possibly (depending on my varying theology) not of the Elect or simply one of those who withered on the vine but never knew well enough to quit. Every time I would succumb to the call of porn, in the back of my mind, I understood I was choosing masturbation and porn over my faithfulness.
I’m no longer religious, so that guilt is gone. Looking back, the guilt was part of the relapse cycle that made resisting even harder, even though it felt ever more necessary to stop as my addiction deepened. As the recognition of my addiction became more profound while it grew, my ability to resist was eroded by that awareness–odd as that may seem. The only guilt I feel now is that associated with shirking housework/life tasks and social obligations for endless hours of edging to porn. Aside from being naturally quite introverted, my porn addiction was part of what made the social aspect of ministry cognitively and logistically difficult for me to embrace or work out while I was still in school. How would I make the time; how much time would ministry eat out of my edging sessions (already double digit hours at times)? When I actually thought about how intrusive having people drop in all the time would be, or needing to go somewhere for ministerial duties and occasions, I realized I’d rarely be able to know I was free to masturbate for the next 24 hours if I so pleased. Not that I regularly do, but not having the option was a big part of why I never wanted to go into ministry full time. Then there’s the part about ministers needing a wife to be socially accepted–not realistic with my porn addiction and I knew it. I think I made the right choice, in retrospect. I think ministry would have burned me out, and I would have greatly missed the days when edging to porn was still my primary focus.
However, I do miss the guilt and religion for maintaining the forbidden fruit aspect of my addiction. Knowing I really should not made the partaking of it more arousing for some reason. Eroticization of shame, perhaps? I’m not sure, but I know it noticeably contributed.
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