Sexuality pt 4: Am I a Body or a Spirit?

I've been reading a great memoir lately by Jacki Lyden,  an NPR anchor.  It's called "Daughter of the Queen of Sheba" and tells of the author's childhood with a mentally ill mother and physically/verbally abusive step-father.    It was published in 1997 when she was forty three years old.     One piece in the book I've been thinking about relates to the physical abuse she began to receive from the step-dad when she was seven years old.   He had been verbally abusing her and her sisters and one day he snuck up behind her,   punched her in the back of the head,  slamming her face on the sink and bloodying her teeth,  all for not putting the cap back on the toothpaste tube.   

Some sentences which I found fascinating:

"In this country there were fists.  Coming at me always from behind,  the fists,  like snowballs,  were random and impossible to predict,  hitting the base of my skull where a blow would leave no bruise...Try again,  I silently told him.  Go ahead and do it again.  He could not resist me,  I was certain of that.  We had formed a relationship at last.  A blow.  The absorption of a blow.  A symmetry,  he and I together....Only recently have I realized that not all men view pain as a part of love,  the hardest blows a kind of bond,  deeper and more intense than ordinary love."   (p79)

As I read her words I thought of how the abuse she suffered at the hands of her step-dad includes principles of abuse patterns.   These patterns translate to the molestation I endured at age seven.    And as she strongly  infers, childhood abuse often sends the victim into situations later in life which echo the initial trauma.    Through being abused sexually,  I too was in a "relationship" with the perpetrator long after the abuse occured.   The baby-sitter who abused me regularly over several months time still haunts me in different ways.   Her signature is a part of my sexuality.   It is part of who I am.   What she did to me when I was seven set me up to re-live the dynamic over and over until I could transform it.   Whether I will completely transform the abuse or not I cannot say at this point.     It could be that I will carry her signature with me in some way all the way through to the end of my life.

As I continue to read Jacki Lyden's memoir what I am fascinated to learn more about is what the author does to overcome the wounds she describes.   What resources does she find in herself  which show her the way through the pain and into a life which is not haunted by the painful experiences she describes?    Has she found her way into relationships which are loving,  satisfying and without any abusive edge?   These are questions I am asking myself as I read on.

I have friends in the town where I grew up who were still going to strip clubs on a regular basis well into their 30s.   They were on a first-name basis with several of the strippers when I went with them to their favorite club once about fifteen years ago.   My life even then had already diverged so much from where it was heading in high school that I felt very awkward and out of place.   

So what was in me that refused to go down the road of strip joints and porno flicks?   Why do I have friends from my childhood who (at least ten years ago) were going to strip bars every weekend when I recoil from the thought?    Why am I different?   Perhaps a better question is "Why was I hanging out with friends in high school who were so different from who I am inside?"   That's may be where my mom's mental illness plays in.   If she had never had a mental illness she might have helped me to clarify my values at an earlier time.   That may have led me to friendships with different kinds of people.   Don't get me wrong--my friends from high school are not bad people.   It's just that as time goes on the differences between us seem to be ever greater.   We don't  keep in touch.   

As I finished high school my values were pretty confused.  I didn't know what I stood for,  if anything.    By the time I was in my mid-twenties my values were beginning to become clearer to me.    I imagine that my particular time-line with that is not so unusual.

I've found over time that I value monogamy as one of the pillars of a healthy long-term relationship.   I have had to decide this, not as a given,  but as a real choice.   Our close family friend,  a man who was like an uncle to me,  very actively questioned the value of monogamy and,  I believe,  wanted to start a sexual relationship with me even though he was married and I was in a long-term relationship.     When I felt his interest and saw signs that he was actively grooming me for a partner I strongly distanced myself from him and have been out of contact for several years now.   

In my opinion,  a big problem with my "uncle's" approach is that people end up seeing each other as physical beings and lose sight of the spirit which animates our bodies.  My baby-sitter saw me as a "body",  a thing which she could use at her will without any thought to the spirit which was trying,  at age six,  to inhabit the body.   She just perceived me as physical matter,   putty to play with,   a dildo to pleasure herself with and then toss aside.

After she molested me she also did things to humiliate me or harm me.   One time she pinned me down and farted right in my face.   Another time I showed her a piece of art I had done and she responded,  "You didn't do that--you're not good enough to do that."   Now,  a kid who had a positive self image might have heard a person say such a mean thing and say to himself,  "Well,  as a matter of fact I did do it,  she clearly thinks it's well done,  and so clearly she's just an asshole for saying such a mean thing."   But my self image was so low at that time that I took what she in as "You're not good enough".   

"You're not good at art and you're probably a failure as a person"  is the message that slithered off of her tongue and crept into my psyche.   I still carry that message as a voice inside of me even though I have done a great deal to counter it over the years.   I still feel wounded by what she did to me and what she said to me.   If you've read previous posts,  you may remember that the molestation came at a time in my life with many other stressors.   A few months later I would see my dad for the last time.   And my mom,  with untreated bipolar,  was diving full-bore into a professional career and a workaholic lifestyle.   After having about four years of "good enough parenting",  ages five and six were telling me that I was,  in many ways,   on my own.  And that the world,  even inside my own home,   was a very dangerous and unpredictable  place.   

Now,  one might ask,  "what's wrong with your "uncle's" approach?  Why be such a prude and insist on monogamy?    My answer is that,  in my experience of observing such things,  that the approach my "uncle" has taken has the very real potential of wreaking devastation in human lives.    Treating others like they're only a body can easily have that outcome whether it is molestation or extra-marital affair.     Obviously having an affair is not a criminal act,  whereas molesting a child is.   Nevertheless,  tremendous damage can and does come out of both scenarios.

I see sexuality as a very powerful force.  It's really a shame that we don't take it more seriously than we do.   Honoring ourselves and our loved-ones by being monogamous allows us to build healthy families.   Not doing so puts the well-being of our families at risk.    When we see ourselves and  each other essentially as spiritual beings,  it seems to me that the conversation changes.   There is a higher voice which shows us that the path of sexual discretion and honoring our partners is of infinitely greater value than sexual release with a person outside the primary relationship.     If one has an intractable issue in the primary relationship,  it should be resolved or the relationship ended,  before taking up with a new partner.

A wonderful book my wife told me about many years ago is called "Embracing the Beloved:  Relationship as a Path of Awakening"  by Steven and Ondrea Levine.    The authors lay out a possible path of what relationship can be when it is deeply in tune with one's spiritual life.     Though I see myself as fairly challenged in the area of sexuality and relationships,  this book was a help to me to see what is possible when our higher Mind is sitting in the director's chair.    My hope is that as I continue to heal the wounds I still carry with me every day,  that my re-reading of this terrific book will help me to take further steps in deepening my relationship with my wife.

What I have learned is that by setting an intention,  an ideal,  as a goal to strive for can be very helpful.   I have only been able to achieve small elements of the path the Levines describe.  And yet,   taking small steps over a period of time can yield very real results.    Even though the road ahead of me has plenty of stuff for me to work out,   I can nevertheless be proud of the work I have done so far.   

A key aspect of my spiritual path is looking at process,   my own and that of others.   I believe we are all in a process which gradually unfolds over time and that each step is usually influenced by the voice of our higher nature as well as that of our lower nature.   Each choice we make can lead us a little toward one or the other.     I can safely say that my trend in choices over the past fifteen years is leading me to a much happier life today than had I listened to my "uncle" who was encouraging me to "play the field".   

For me, in my life,   it really couldn't be any clearer.

Your comments are welcome.

Warmly,  Ben

Sexuality pt 3: Overcoming Pornographic Thoughts

As I have written in the last few posts,  my relationship to my own sexuality got a pretty rough start when I was a child and teenager.    I am sure that a number of people have it a lot worse than me,  but mine was no cake-walk.   

Both of my parents were having affairs when I was a baby.   I was molested when I was six.   My mom had a fair amount of free-floating sexuality.    My dad did inappropriate things like mooning the camera when I was at his house at age five and six.    I also frequently saw my dad naked when I was at his house.    Now nakedness is probably fine in cases when the adults are clear about what they're doing.   My dad was pickled a lot of the time and was not exactly thinking through his parenting philosophy.    He took me to see "The Exorcist" when I was five.   He was not vying for any parenting awards.

As I grew older I had started having sex in junior high school and watched porno-flicks with my friends on a fairly regular basis from the time I was twelve years old.   We had access to print pornography as well.   My friend's older brother had essentially papered his bedroom's walls with Playboy centerfolds.    All of these inputs in my early life meant that by the time I graduated from high school I was very confused about sexuality.   I had a sense that I was a good person and had the potential to be a good partner to someone,   but my childhood experiences had led me to have some pretty serious issues regarding sex and relationships.

My saving grace was the year I spent overseas.   As I noted in a recent post,  my host-mother,  a high school teacher,  talked to me one time about "saving it for marriage" and the satisfaction and joy which can come from that choice.   Much more than that,  the example that her words were grounded in showed me another way.   Her words,  and her way of living moved me.   I did not decide then to "save it for marriage" (too late for that!)   but I did gain a strong sense of the value of monogamy,  commitment to family and how wonderful a stable and loving family can be.   When I returned home I was still mostly clueless but I had a new direction.   

Something that has dogged me since I was in high school is pornographic ideation.   I know that I am not alone in this.  This is not something that I want to have roosting in my sub-conscious and it has taken time to take hold of it.      Although I occasionally consumed pornography as a young adult I increasingly had the sense that my urge to do so was connected with a very confused and damaged part of me.

When I was in high school I had a friend who would freely peruse Hustler magazine while in a public place.   I saw him do that and thought it was very inappropriate,  though I couldn't explain why.   Now that I have some distance from that time I have come to some realizations about how I view pornography philosophically.

I believe that pornography,  prostitution,  exotic dancing and other related industries are basically about slavery.     I know this because my childhood experiences were setting me up to perhaps become a sexual slave myself.   

Because I was sexually dominated by a babysitter when I was six years old,   I have a very strong experience of what it means to be a sexual slave.   That experience of mine could have led me in a number of directions.    I might have developed a sex addiction.   I might have found myself in relationships where I was either the sex slave or the slave-master.    I could have found my way into prostitution.     

Luckily,  none of these possible outcomes became reality for me.     My urges would have loved to have dragged me into one of those above-named places.   But my intention for myself was looking for another way.    One huge help for me was that my grandparents were able to pay for my college.     For me,  college was a place where I could focus on my studies and be in a relatively healthy environment.    It was a free-space where I didn't have to worry about money or how to earn it.    It was probably about the safest place I could have been in.

I was in a long-term relationship during my first year of college as well as my junior year.   In my second year a friend took me to a strip club.   I was certainly aroused but I also had a strong feeling that it just wasn't right.   It wasn't healthy.  My mind gravitated to the young woman who was giving me a "lap-dance".   What kind of life was this for her?     I felt this empathy because I knew inside what it means to be a slave to my own sexual urges and those of others.    As far I am concerned,  making one's living in the sex trade is living in hell.   I don't believe in the old-fashioned fire-and-brimstone pictures of hell.   Human beings seem tragically capable of creating hell on earth,  and sex commerce is a clear example of that sad fact.

I don't believe the urges I've had to consume pornography are "wrong" or make me "bad".   I simply do not want them to be part of my regular thought diet.  Pornography enslaves my thoughts to a very base level of my physical body.   It encourages me to identify myself with my lower self, my most materialistic level.    "I don't give a shit about you--I just want a fuck"  is what my babysitter was doing to me when I was six.   Prostitution and pornography carry the same message to the person who is offering up her/his body in exchange for money.   Both the subject of the photo and the guy ogling it are debased,  in my opinion.

My higher nature tells me that I am essentially spirit;  that my body is a suit of clothing which I am wearing for a while,  and which will wear out after a certain amount of wearing it.   I have gradually and steadily been trying to identify with my spirit,  and not to think of myself essentially as "my body"  "my personality" "my issues".   There is a greater Self which is standing behind those parts of me.   That Self takes on the clothing of those worldly expressions but it knows that it is infinitely greater than any and all of them.

The thing is,  consuming pornography yanks me out of my connection with that higher part of myself.   It brings me into a place which is more animal in nature,  though without the nobility that most animals possess.    There is a sultry fog which comes over me and makes me feel degraded and weak.   I take in the images just at the physical level and do not try to imagine what life is like for the people who are displaying themselves.     I heard once that the majority of porn film stars are addicted to heroin.   Based on my own experience of sexual slavery and what I imagine the life of a porn star to be like,  that wouldn't surprise me at all.   Heroin removes one's ability to empathize or have any feelings at all.   Your loved one dies of overdose and all you can think of is how you're going to get your next hit.   The fog of sexual slavery has,  in my experience,  similar elements to that kind of thinking.  You lose yourself in the fog and nothing else matters other than giving that urge a hit.    One who lives their life that way truly is a slave,  in my opinion,  whether or not they are under the thumb of a pimp.

Over the past twenty years I have bought pornography on occasion.   It has been a few years since I did the last time.   Until recently,  I felt a compulsion to buy a magazine once a year or so and hold on to it for a few days.   In recent years I would buy the magazine while telling myself that it wasn't healthy for me,  but buy it nevertheless.   In a counseling session I told my therapist about consuming pornography on occasion and talked about it with him.   Since then I have lost the compulsion.    I think I was close enough to letting it go that just letting out "the secret" was the final straw that let me relinquish the urge.

Beyond the consumption of pornography is having pornographic thoughts.   Imagining people pornographically is a way of seeing them in the most material way.   We ignore their spirit and see only the body.   We forget their soul and focus on our own animal urges.   We remove their humanity and see them as a fuck-doll.   My own thinking could reach these unpleasant places because I had myself been treated like a fuck-doll when I was at a very formative age.   My wound was not healed and so my ideation swarmed around the wound,  lighting it up and pointing to it.    

Luckily,  we do not need to be slaves.   We can be free.   We have to see the direction where our freedom lies and do everything in our power to go that way.   Each step may not seem at all earth shattering.  But over time,  if we choose to gradually go towards our freedom,  we will come more and more into it.

My path of freedom has had several steps to it.   One was,  when I was eighteen,  deciding that I wasn't going to watch the horror movies I had found entertaining as a high schooler.   I decided that I wanted to "re-sensitize myself" (those were the words I used at the time)  I realized that I had become insensitive in many ways and that my habits were not helping.   I decided that I wanted to see movies which had some redeeming virtue to them;  that I would avoid the trashy ones and those with gratuitous violence.

Another step I took was to quit smoking.   When I was in high school I chewed tobacco.  By the time I reached college I realized that chewing was really pretty  gross so I took up smoking instead.   As a smoker in my early twenties I realized that the smoke was harmful to me but I did it anyway.   When I finally got up the will to quit I started to feel differently about myself.  In a subtle way  I began to respect myself more.

But far and away the best thing I did for my own freedom was to begin a spiritual path.   Studying spirituality has given me a completely different frame of reference than I had previously.     It is really clear to me that I have a "higher self" and a "lower self".   As I learned more and more about spirituality I began to identify myself with the former and to be aware that the latter is active in me but does not represent my essential nature.   My freedom lies in my taking this path up and continuing to take intentional steps to develop it.    My ability to write unflinchingly about myself,  and through that process grow and evolve,   is based on the fact that I see myself as a spiritual being.

I don't think that true freedom comes from anything else.

Your comments are welcome.

Warmly,  Ben

Sexuality pt 2: Are You Sure You're not Gay?

The issue of people wondering if I were gay has been with me for a while.   When I was nineteen the older brother of a friend of mine floated a rumor that I was gay.   I was mad, called him up and gave him a piece of my mind.   Within a few years of my being mad about such insinuation I began to wonder myself if I might be gay or bi.   In spite of being a very sexual person,  I had never fantasized about guys before.  But maybe other people were seeing something that I didn't.      

When I was a senior in high school there was that football coach I've spoken of in previous posts who was attracted to me and made passes at me.     I have since realized that I was extremely eager for the attention and care of a man (father figure) and he was masquerading as a healthy version of that,  when in fact he was more interested in having me as a sexual partner.    Because I was so wounded and needy I was a pretty easy mark.

My mom was really hoping that her husband would be like a father to me but that didn't work out.    A month after they were married she became psychotic,  spent two weeks in a mental hospital,  received her diagnosis,   and started taking lithium.   Pretty bumpy start to the marriage.   And it stayed bumpy all the way through the eight years they were married.   They yelled at each other so frequently that I would just expect it to be happening if they were both in the house.   And even if it hadn't been so bumpy I seriously doubt he and I would have been close.   We are very different people and have very different values.

By the time I was in my third year of college I had several friends who were were either gay or lesbian and being around them felt comfortable to me.    I didn't like other men making passes at me,   but I was perfectly happy to be friends with a number of gay men.    At the time I considered myself something of a "SNAG" (sensitive new age guy) and so hanging out with other guys like that seemed just normal.   Not that all gay men are SNAGS (by any means!).   I really liked hanging out with lesbians because I felt like I could be purely friends with them,  and not have any sexual tension between us.   

When I was a senior in college I kissed a man and soon after even went on a few dates with another man.   I didn't really think I was particularly attracted to either of them (way less compared to how I respond to women)  but I wanted to "just see,  dammit!"   What I learned from those two experiences,  and just thinking about whether I were gay or straight or bi,  (and any of the three options was going to be OK),    is that I really like women.   A lot.   In fact,  since that time in college it's not something that has even crossed my mind in twenty years.   Except that occasionally people still ask me,  "Are you sure you're not gay?"  

So why is that?   Am I deluded?   Have all these years of happy hetero life been a smokescreen?   As I have pondered this reaction other people have to me and have come to some insights about why they are wondering.   

In my previous post I talked about how there was a fair amount of sexuality in my life early on,  much of it either damaging to me (being molested) or at least not healthy (regularly watching porno flicks with my friends from age 13).   My mom's bipolar has a symptom of hyper-sexuality,  which she did display.   We also had a close family friend who thought nothing of undressing in front of a group of pubescent boys.   I had my first post-puberty sexual experience with an inebriated teenage girl I had met on a city bus when I was thirteen years old.   I never knew her name or saw her again after we had had sex.     In high school I fairly regularly had sex with girls in my own house for the simple reason that my mom and her husband weren't around.

By age sixteen I was a bit of a loose cannon as far as sexuality was concerned.   That was when I was treated for an STD.   I consider myself very, very lucky that I didn't get a girl pregnant.  Or that I had caught something that you can't clear up with a visit to the free clinic.

Going back to the initial question of the post,   why DO I come across to some people as perhaps being gay?

I think a lot of it goes back to three things:  being molested,   my mom's lack of boundaries in regards to her own sexuality,  and the simple fact of being raised by a woman.

I need to make very clear here that my mom never molested me or did anything overtly inappropriate towards me in a sexual way.   Nevertheless,   her own boundaries,  both generally and in relation to sexuality, have been quite permeable.   

I also need to make very clear that I do not believe that being gay is due to some kind of damage to a person in childhood.    I was damaged as a child in the area of sexuality.   And I'm not gay.    But seeming gay to some people is,  I believe,  due in part to my childhood traumas.

I believe the molestation opened me up to others' sexual advances in an unhealthy way.     It made my "field" of sexuality confused and  permeable,  and set me up in somewhat of a victim's stance.   I have been very fortunate that I have not been victimized sexually by others since the time I was molested (though the situation with the football coach was pretty close).     Nor have I become a perpetrator.   I think it's really good to acknowledge these things because they are places where I can express gratitude and pat myself on the back.    Things could have been a lot worse.   

As I grew up and became an adult someone could show me sexual attention and I would be essentially unable to resist mirroring it back.   Just as the babysitter forced me to her deviant will,  I would be compelled to return sexual attention whether I wanted to or not.    Someone who was not hurt in the way that I was could more easily have friends who were "just friends".   With me,  the wiring is a bit off and I can easily send messages that I do not wish to send.    This miscommunication has gotten better over time but is still active to some degree.   

The babysitter surrounded me with her energy and then assaulted me.   I have read about the difference between the male abuse pattern versus the female abuse pattern.   Due to the nature of the biology and soul differences between males and females,  there are real differences in what the victim experiences,  physically,  emotionally and mentally.   The male pattern is more about being invaded by a foreign body,  which punches through one's boundaries.   The way to heal this after the fact can be using anger to repel the feeling of the attack.  One can,  in one's imagination,  fight back against the assault and beat the shit out of him.

When it's by a female perpetrator,  the abuse pattern can be more of being encircled,  surrounded by a soft and enveloping presence.   Sounds nice,  right?  Except that you're being raped.   Being assaulted by a female can,  in some ways,  be more difficult to heal from,  because the abuse pattern is less clear and more diffuse.     "Didn't I kinda like it?"    "She was nice,  some of the time."    The violation of being raped by a man is likely to be much clearer than it is when being raped by a woman.   

And so it is pretty challenging for me to sort out what is my natural behavior and what is a pathology based on being molested.   A lot of times it feels much easier to isolate myself than to feel the jumble of issues under the surface of my consciousness when I am interacting with a friend.   If I keep people at a distance then I don't have to feel like I'm on that wobbly ground.   If I am more distant I feel like I am stronger.   But I also know that the feeling of strength is an illusion.   What will actually make me stronger is to deal with the issues and have friends I become  close to.

So,  friendships in general are pretty challenging for me.    And beyond the issues of sexual abuse,  there is also the issue of my dad abandoning me just a few months after the molestation had ceased.     So,  the sexual abuse plays in,  as does the lack of boundaries which comes from my mom.   And then the icing on the cake is that I have a deep and intense fear of being abandoned and so I will distance myself from another person rather than risk having that person "abandon" me.   Whoohoo--the lonely guy trifecta!

I don't really have many friends I spend much time with.    I am a likable person but I clearly have major roadblocks to anyone getting closer to me.    My wife is a very notable exception.    Having friends I am close to is something that I'll just have to work at over time.   

Now,   if I had had family members who carried clear boundaries themselves I might have gotten a head-start on healing the boundary issues that came with the molestation..   But my mom,  apparently as do many people with mental illness,   has poor boundaries.   When I was a kid I did not have any kind of direct model of a person who could hold their own sexual "field" back based on their intention.   Now that I am in my forties,  I've been working on creating a healthy boundary between mom and I.   This has been extremely helpful for me,  and for her as well.    It has also been very slow-going.   I believe that a part of my mom would very much like to feel as if she and I were one person.    Fortunately,  that part of her has been steadily decreasing its hold over her.

The other reason that sometimes people wonder if I'm gay is pretty simple,  really.   I was,  for the most part,  raised by my mom.    Dad was out of the picture pretty early and even though mom remarried,  it was when I was fifteen and I didn't really think much of her husband.   So basically my model of adult behavior was a woman.     And so,  some of my mannerisms are more feminine at times.   So sue me.

When you put that and the sexual boundary issues together it is pretty easy to see how someone might wonder about my sexual orientation.   When it comes to gay men telling me they think I'm gay,   I also, at times,   have to take it with a grain of salt.     I've had men (when I was in college)  tell me they thought I was gay and also tell me that they'd be happy to have sex with me to help me figure everything out.  Uh,  yeah.    Thanks.

I think that I am really the most objective person to make this determination,  even though my thoughts are by definition,  subjective.   And I am really quite clear on the matter.   But it's helpful to go over the issue and sort out the various pieces.   

Life is not simple.   But it is interesting.  No doubt.

Your comments are welcome.

Warmly,   Ben

Sexuality pt 1: Overview

In ancient times, near the temple of Apollo at Delphi a sign stated "Know Thyself". To me, the sign means, in part, that in order to ascend to higher levels of knowledge we must first unflinchingly look at our own "stuff". We must examine with a cold eye those parts of us which we share with other mammals: our drives, instincts and so on. Additionally, we must look at what has shaped our personality; the grist, good and bad, which we are trying to mill into fine flour.

We are each a puzzle even to ourselves, to say nothing of how others view us. This blog is about me gradually putting into place some of the pieces which make up who I am in this lifetime. I figure that if I am as clear and honest as I can be about each of the little pieces, that over time I will begin to see myself more clearly.

I will not be able to approach "knowing myself" without delving into the issue of sexuality. I think that the mental illness of my parents plays a part in both the context and the events of my childhood which relate to sexuality. One of the symptoms of bipolar is hyper-sexuality. Clearly the main model I had (mom) was capable of high charged sexuality and, at times, indiscretion. She never molested me or was blatantly inappropriate with me in a sexual way. Nevertheless, she had a strong sexual field and I was modeling it 24/7.

In addition to the modeling aspect, there is also the fact that mental illness made both of my parents less able to be good parents. They were not very tuned into me, what I was doing, what my feeling life was like. They both suffered from fairly acute narcissism.

As near as I can tell, both of my parents were sexually robust individuals. By the time I was born their marriage was on the rocks. In the first four years of my life both of my parents had affairs, according to my mom.

About a year after my parents divorced and soon before my dad moved away, I was regularly molested by a female babysitter over a period of several months. At the same time I had a "girlfriend" in my second grade class with whom I would walk around the school yard, my arm around her shoulders.

Later, after my folks were divorced and dad had left, we had a close family friend who would undress in front of me and other kids. His philosophy apparently was that our culture was too prudish and nakedness should be seen as normal and nothing to hide. He also had frequent relationships outside of his marriage, though I didn't know that until later. Years later, when I was a young adult, I started to get the picture that he wanted to have a sexual relationship with me. He was in a long term marriage then (as he is now) but frequently had sexual relationships outside the marriage. When I was in my early to mid-twenties and sensed he was trying to groom me as a sexual partner, I began steadily distancing myself from him.

But going back to when I was a kid....So, due to the molestation, by the time I was seven years old the door of sexuality had been opened wide to me. My introduction to sexuality was to be the sex toy of a messed up fifteen year-old girl who did not give a shit about me. She happily dominated me and didn't give my welfare the slightest thought.

For several years after that experience my sexuality was, for the most part, outwardly dormant. There just isn't the outlet for most elementary-age kids. At age nine I "touched tinkles" one day with a girl my age who lived across the street but it seems like a fairly typical childhood kind of thing.

Another experience I distinctly remember at about age nine is going to a man's house who was a friend of my mom. She introduced me to him and he directed me to a wood pile where there were tools for building (he was a carpenter) before they both went inside. I spent a half hour or so playing with the tools and wood and built something I thought was pretty cool (I forget now what it was, exactly). I went into the house to share my project with them and looked around for where they were. I finally found them on the back deck, having sex. I was shocked and backed away. Even though I was close to them they did not notice me. I went back to the woodpile feeling a bit odd. Mom came out a bit later and we left. I never said anything to her about what I saw. Nor did I ever see the guy again.

Though I remained fairly innocent in my behavior as a child, by the time I hit puberty things began to change in a hurry.

In middle school there was a girl whose butt my friends and I would regularly pinch. She told us to stop but we didn't. Today it would be clearly called sexual harassment or perhaps worse. The teacher either never saw what we were doing or overlooked it. Whenever I think of what we did to her I feel a huge sense of remorse.

When I was twelve I encountered a girl, a few years older than me, who was very drunk. We were riding the city bus and got off at the same stop. As we walked along the road she began strongly coming onto me and invited me into her home. We had sex and afterwards she passed out. I walked home. I never knew her name or saw her again.

My friends and I began also watching pornography on a fairly regular basis. There was a pay-tv station that most families had at the time which aired "porno flicks" every Saturday night after midnight. I could watch them at my house or at my friends' houses, either way. I don't remember parental oversight ever being much of a concern of ours. I am sure that at least some of the parents knew we were watching them, but just didn't say anything. I don't think my mom was aware that we were even watching them.

A man visited us one summer who was distantly related to us and a bit of a wild guy. In his mid-twenties, he drank heavily, had some wacky ideas about how to get rich quick, and would buy my friends and I both alcohol and expensive porn books. Mom apparently had no idea he was doing any of this. He was staying with us for a while and regularly would hang out with my friends and I away from parental oversight. He even took me, age thirteen, on a two-week trek into the woods to go gold dredging. He had worked as a diver before and one of his get-rich-quick schemes was to dredge gold in a place near where there were other mines. We hiked into the spot and he had the dredging equipment he had recently bought flown in. We worked at dredging for several days and only got a few, small flakes of gold worth maybe a dollar total. My mom was only too happy to let me go with him, a good example of mom's judgement being a bit lax. This relative is currently serving a fairly long prison sentence for assault and battery.

By age thirteen I was having sex occasionally with girls from school. We'd just come to my house after school and do whatever we wanted. My mom wouldn't be home for hours. By the time I was thirteen I was smoking pot, drinking, and having sex. Then I had pneumonia. I was sick in bed for two weeks and lost twenty pounds. Whereas before I had been a little chunky, now I was trim and good looking. I got a lot of attention from girls. I loved it.

Luckily, I also dated girls who were not ready to have sex and that was fine with me too. I suppose like a lot of males (especially of that age) I was ready to have sex at a moment's notice. But if a girl was not into it, that was ok with me too. Ironically, I could be somewhat of a moralizer at times as well. I had a friend who cheated on his girlfriend. I told her about it and wagged my finger at him. I guess I was lucky to keep him as a friend. Especially since a few years later I would be cheating on my girlfriend as well.

Part of me wanted to have a stable relationship with a girl and part of me was just interested in having sex. As a junior I dated a girl for almost a year, then had sex with her sister soon after we broke up. As a senior I had a steady girlfriend and another girl I was dating on the side.

I suppose I can understand my poor judgement, to some degree, in light of my dad's suicide and mom's psychotic episode and newly named mental illness: manic depression. I was very freaked out and confused and had no one to talk to about the cause of my upset. I had to play the role of "The Responsible One" and could not count on anyone from my family being tuned into what my life was like. I did not share the fact of my mom's mental issues or my dad's suicide with any of my friends or girlfriends. Or anyone. I was in denial and there was no one who could "ground" the issues with me in a healthy way. So I just dealt with it all myself, internally. The fact that I was not consciously processing any of these traumas meant that I was capable of unpredictable and self-defeating behavior.

Men were also attracted to me from the time I was a teenager. My high school's head football coach had guys come over to his house and made them coffee and irish cream. I went with a friend a few times and we both had our Tarot cards read by the bachelor coach. A few times I started going by myself and he began to come on to me. One time I let him kiss me though I never went back to his house after that.

By the time I was seventeen and graduating high school I was very, very confused.

The year after high school I lived overseas with a family and went to one more year of high school. The family was politically quite liberal but conservative in other ways. As I was dating during this year abroad my confusion no doubt showed itself. I wasn't sexually active for most of the year but I am sure confusion in the area of sexuality was written all over me. The mother of the family was a high school teacher and used to mentoring young people. She talked to me one time about how she and her husband had been married a long time and had a wonderful sexual relationship. She emphasized that the place for sex is rightly in a long-term committed relationship.

I remember her words clearly and that they had deep meaning for me at the time and in the years afterwards. She only said it once but I took her words seriously. No one had ever spoken to me about what a healthy, monogamous relationship was like. Certainly the movies and TV shows I was watching had few, if any, good examples. Perhaps her words rang in my ears all the more due to the paucity of such models in my life up to that point.

As I returned to the States I was in a different frame of mind. I could definitely feel the power of my sexual urges but I became more discerning. I had more sexual partners in four years of high school than I have in the twenty four years since high school.

Soon after I returned from being overseas, age eighteen, my new attitude was tested with an echo of my first post-puberty sexual experience. An attractive young woman, very drunk, approached me and asked me for a ride home. I let her in the car as I could see she could be getting in a lot of trouble if she didn't get to a safe place to sleep it off. When in the car she began strongly coming on to me. I rebuffed her and let her gently off where I found her, as she wouldn't tell me where she lived. It felt, even at the time, like I was being tested to see if I had grown since the previous experience at age twelve. I patted myself on the back, happy that I had passed that test.

I dated a few girls in college. I was still very confused about the relationship part of dating. I could feel my sex drive but had almost no idea of how to sustain a healthy relationship that had a sexual component. The molestation and the general context of sexuality in my childhood meant that my sexual boundaries were extremely permeable. If someone was attracted to me it was very difficult for me to contain mirroring back the vibe.

As I look back at the past fifteen years I feel tremendously fortunate to have come as far as I have in regards to my sexuality. I declared my intention to overcome my deep, deep confusion around sexuality when I was in my mid-twenties. I have taken steady steps to heal myself since then. And my wife has played a crucial role in helping me to develop myself in this area. Her love for me and background as a counselor was a great mix in her helping me to strengthen my sexual boundaries and clarify my thinking. I feel that I have come steadily towards achieving the intention that was born in me as I listened to my host-mom's words on the matter during my year abroad.

It seems likely I will always be swimming upstream in regards to the sexual boundaries which were breached when I was six years old. I can continue to make incremental progress with the wounds I carry from that experience, but I doubt I will ever be totally healed from it. As I move forward, the intention I carry in regards to my sexuality sets up and strengthens the boundaries which would be significantly more solid had I not been molested.

It has also become clear to me that I am a naturally monogamous person. Monogamy just makes sense to me based on honoring the person one is with. I would not feel safe if I were married to a person who was having sex with other people. It's just not something I could ever feel remotely comfortable with. Likewise, I honor my partner and myself through a strong commitment to monogamy. For me this is a core value.

More to come in subsequent posts.

Your comments are welcome.

Warmly, Ben