I have avoided a lot of this kind of thing. For some reason I was always comfortable with not doing right, trying always to get away with things, and revelling in getting away with it. I've looked at magazines. Oh yes. I didn't, however, feel bad about it. And I still don't.

You, Joel, have to me been always a man without guile, an admirable trait. While I have dearly paid (and will yet pay) for my rebellious nature and my careful nurturing of it, you suffer thorns and barbs in your soul and in your worldview, splinters that will take a measure of doing to extract. While my life is without doubt irrevokably changed because of my sinning (with flair, I might add), at least I know and have always known what it is that I do. Reading this post today, which of us, I wonder, should envy the other?

CJ, three hail mary's and a few hours helping out at the rec center.

John, I do not think it means what you think it means. The article was not really about feeling guilty for eating cheez whiz and bacon, but how, as Christians we shy away from touchy subjects as if they are magically taboo. Porn is the unspeakable sin in churches and youth groups, for some reason. I don't know how many chapel services I've sat through, yadda yadda, "don't have sex before marriage." (I wish they would have just let us sign a waiver.) Every sunday school lesson I had in South Carolina was sex sex sex; and I was just thirteen. But they don't pull the guys out and mentor them on the trickiness of being a man, controlling all that testosterone on such a low budget of impulse control and brains.

The grown men nurse their own shame and let the youngsters crash and burn. The after affects of which are sociopathic expectations of male/female relationships, masturbatory fantasies which disconnect the real man from a woman as a human with her OWN opinions on whether or not something is "sexy," and an addiction to increasingly scankier stuff to get the same high. (No guy sustains at Playboy.)

Porn destroys marriage because is isolates husbands in fiction, and imprisons wives in complex expectations. The addiction is the biggest insult a man can usher out of his self toward his wife: "you are not sexuality; I knew sexuality long before you started trying. You may now try to measure up."

I am saddened by the silence that "good, Christian" men are forced to maintain. Shiny faces every Sunday, whether or not you are silently revisiting websites in your mind during prayers. It should not be a "go it alone" sin, but for some reason it is. CJ writes as a man who wants more for his heart and in his relationships. You write as a man who wants eat chees' puffs and be affirmed in your stink bref' and back acne.

CJ, three hail mary's and a few hours helping out at the rec center.

John, I do not think it means what you think it means. The article was not really about feeling guilty for eating cheez whiz and bacon, but how, as Christians we shy away from touchy subjects as if they are magically taboo. Porn is the unspeakable sin in churches and youth groups, for some reason. I don't know how many chapel services I've sat through, yadda yadda, "don't have sex before marriage." (I wish they would have just let us sign a waiver.) Every sunday school lesson I had in South Carolina was sex sex sex; and I was just thirteen. But they don't pull the guys out and mentor them on the trickiness of being a man, controlling all that testosterone on such a low budget of impulse control and brains.

The grown men nurse their own shame and let the youngsters crash and burn. The after affects of which are sociopathic expectations of male/female relationships, masturbatory fantasies which disconnect the real man from a woman as a human with her OWN opinions on whether or not something is "sexy," and an addiction to increasingly scankier stuff to get the same high. (No guy sustains at Playboy.)

Porn destroys marriage because is isolates husbands in fiction, and imprisons wives in complex expectations. The addiction is the biggest insult a man can usher out of his self toward his wife: "you are not sexuality; I knew sexuality long before you started trying. You may now try to measure up."

I am saddened by the silence that "good, Christian" men are forced to maintain. Shiny faces every Sunday, whether or not you are silently revisiting websites in your mind during prayers. It should not be a "go it alone" sin, but for some reason it is. CJ writes as a man who wants more for his heart and in his relationships. You write as a man who wants to eat chees' puffs and be affirmed in his stink bref' and back acne.

I envy Joel.

Anonymous, you write as someone who doesn't have the stones to post your name. And, you're wrong. It's not about porn for me either. It's about the horrors of religion, and what people like you make of young lives, all with good intentions, of course, and with horrific results. And I'm not married, and will probably not ever be, so step off your holy-ish marriage-babble; I can fire it back at you without thought, it's no a part of me, like a tumor with tentrils.

And sadly I cannot edit my previous post, or I'd ask Anonymous to go have a wank. Though I doubt Playboy would do it for you, huh, Mr. Got-A-Lotta-Secrets-And-Reposts-To-Add-The-Word-"To"...

Hmmm, I'm mostly just mad at porn. It seems to be a mortal enemy. It's got a whole generation of men thinking the alphabet of woman-wooing consists of the letters A and Z. Open magazine. Grab dick. I swear, they have no skills other than buying drinks and praying to god I'll let them unzip me later that night. I hope I'm not being too harsh. But it's hard to be a girl in a one-night stand society.
But in terms of your own solo struggle, you are a good man and the title "good man" comes the pressure - as you have noted in your post - of always remaining so. Our elders didn't teach us what they knew because they were scared shitless and found a convenient religious cover for their inability to communicate what they'd learned. I'm still mad about that.
But here's the thing, you are no longer my role model. I don't actually look up to you. I have my own life, my own path, my own choices. And so do you. The best part of going it alone (IMHO) is that you ARE going it alone. Nobody else's opinion matters or counts. I find it liberating. Make a doo-doo pie, damnit! If the rest of us recoil in shock and horror, so be it.
You da man. Sometimes good, sometimes bad. Always my brother. And I love you.

My name is available anytime you want to know, boys. I told cj to tell you if he felt like it, but I did not really want to lecture anyone in particular. Just wanted to add my 2 cents from a woman's perspective - however, sounds like you boys wanted to feel personally smacked down. Not my problem.

No stones. No wanking, just my opinion, but then what would I know?

Oh, my. A free for all! (My favorite kind of all.) I shall join in just as soon as I have a free moment this weekend. Can't wait.

Thank you all for your support.

Anonymous, you have some excellent observations, and with most of them I agree. As the author of this post, I agree with your first point to John (although I'm not sure it pegs what John was saying): I did not write this post in a conflicted fit of guilt. Perhaps my personal revelation is the most striking aspect of the story to those who have known me for years, but most of you commentators seem to have understood my point; my anger is directed at religious people.

But I must take exception, Anonymous, with the way you have taken John to task in your final sentence. First, as a point of decorum, I don't understand the benifit in painting him in white-trash sluggard strokes. Anybody deserves better. Second, I must disagree with your point because it doesn't describe John.

The amount of vitriol from many of you here surprises me. The topic is sex; more accurately the earthier side of sex, the aspect that has been most profaned. Either anger or apathy toward the topic only underscores the fact that it is no longer a treasure to us. Some of us choose to exalt the metaphysical side of our sexuality, romanticizing the chivalrous poet. But this amazing poet does not exist in any pure form, nor should he. The ones who come closest to being pure poets are often fat, with greasy hair and dirty socks. Furthermore, they excell as poets because they are well practiced at living inside their minds; but they are not complete persons. Ironically, the habit of pornography is quite compatible with a poetic asthetic sense of sex.

When we cast aspersions upon the rougher, baser side of sexuality, have we not reinforced the message so prevelant in most churches? The church finds it more convenient to have libidoless Christians than to struggle into a doctrine which both encompasses all that we are made to be, and grasps the catastrophic reality of life in this Christian Society. The church finds this topic grotesque and icky, has turned away, and has lost its chance to say anything helpful in nearly every case.

Gotta throw in a few cents here.

I used to hate porn because of the way it trivialized women. I still hate the thought of what women in the porn industry must put up with (as my "poem" may have indicated), though one may assume they freely choose the life. However, I think it is an utterly personal choice to view, or not to view it. I do not presume to cast aspersions on the men in my life that find it appealing, and much prefer a pro-porn stance over stifling Victorian prudity; I've been known to tiptoe into its sordid realm myself, and consider myself educated.

Today, I believe the porn industry perpetuates unrealistic expectations, but only for the small minded. It is fantasy, and meant to stimulate the imagination (among other things), and allows the male to step back from the complicated and often manipulative mind of the average female and pretend, for a moment, that women are "easy". Let's face it, gals, we make the guys work pretty hard for our favors at times.

I compare visual porn (geared mostly toward men) to romance novels (geared entirely toward females), and find they are basically the same thing. Harlequins are porn for girls, and perpetuate plenty of myths of their own. We all pick our own fantasies, our escapes, and who is to say that one is more sordid or more harmful than the other? I know my heart, and I know the reasons why I do what I do. I am strong enough to imagine a world in which all the men have large johnsons and all the women have healthy breasts (that bounce on his Italian leather sofa). Just because I can imagine it, and can enjoy fantasizing about it, does not mean I (or any intelligent, thoughtful person) am evil. It shows me a different, simpler world, if only for a little while.

So, cj, I'm not sure I get you right. Which subscription do you want for your birthday?

I promised I'd post, and I'm a little late here, but I'm happy for you that you're unloading the unnecessarily confining "nice guy" persona. This has got to be a good and strange time in your life. (I can't relate very well to starting in late on the whole freedom of expression thing, but I affirm you, baby.) This whole topic is so damn fascinating and sprawling and some of the comments have me really riled up (which has me thinking- what exactly is MY problem?), so instead of clogging your blog with my thinking on impure thoughts, I'll probably carry the whole damn thing over to my place and ponder it one of these days. Oy.

Oh, and one more thing- Anonymous ElF really did think that was a more...ummmm, gentle or polite way to post a tough opinion. K-Sra had to explain blog etiquette on anonymous posts to both of us 'cuz we didn't know. I am both honest and (willing to be un)popular, so I'm not sure I would have ever been anonymous, but I still didn't KNOW, you know? Lots of feeling on this one, though. Yeesh. Porn is not a "play nice!" topic apparently.

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