Tags
#Metoo, abuse, faith, insanitybytes22, men and women, opinion, porn, sexuality
I picked up a porn-bot the other day, that bit of spam that whispers sweet nothings into your ear, hoping to entice you into clicking on pictures or a website. I’m a girl, so not easily enticed by the thought of having a virtual sexual relationship with “Sally” or “Natasha.” Also, I’m not really visual in that way, beyond obsessing over pinterest pics of shoes, crafting, and home improvement projects. Pin-lust perhaps? So for me porn is simply a nuisance, an icky thing, a spam.
Something was different this time however, those sweet nothings “she” kept whispering in her tag lines, began to hurt on an emotional level, “Are you lonely? Does nobody appreciate you? Do you want to feel alive? I will love you.”
Somewhere in the process of trying to unsubscribe, trying to extricate myself from “her” affections, my abuse antenna were triggered, my awareness that this was actually psychological abuse, emotional abuse, a form of sexual assault really. I was prey and she was a predator, willing to tell me whatever I wanted to hear. Whatever I needed desperately to hear. Not because “she” loved me or even cared about me one bit, but because “she” wanted my time, my money, my attention.
Of course she doesn’t even know me, she can’t possibly love me, she is not even a “she,” but rather a bit of robotic advertising.
I am such a scientist, sometimes to my own detriment, but I wanted to sit in those feelings, to observe and to empathize with what it might be like to be preyed upon by online-porn. What hit me first was such a huge sense of betrayal, of having been deceived on a deeply spiritual level. We all need love, right? To have someone whispering to you the secret desires of your heart, and to realize it’s all fake, just hurts.
This is a form of brain-rape, emotional and psychological abuse. Messing with your head and heart, I call it. Flat out, it’s a form of sexual abuse. You are being victimized. Now of course with the power of one click you can end it all, but I became well aware of the seduction there, the temptation to just see what happens. If one is already down, bored, hungry, angry, tired, lonely, the temptation and vulnerability is much more powerful.
There’s a deep hunger within us all for relationship, connection, intimacy, the affections of other people, and to see that exploited, manipulated, really hit me in the gut. Add in some sexual desire, the pull of biology, and it is one toxic cocktail.
You need my love, don’t you? You’ve earned it.
I know what sexual abuse feels like in your spirit, I know that sense of betrayal, that longing for human contract, for the favor of another, and to suddenly realize that someone else doesn’t even perceive you as an actual human being, but rather a flat two-dimensional object, a clump of cells, a bit of prey they plan to harvest. It’s a bit like being really hungry, starved, famished, and somebody promises you food, but they just bring you a plate of sawdust. Sawdust with hefty price tag, a bill due.
Sawdust is a bitter, bitter, pill to choke down.
I’ve known a lot of men who were victims of sexual abuse as children, and a few actually exploited as grown men, but I never really saw the kind of exploitation that happens on a daily basis with on-line porn, with women always presented as enticing bits of supplemental advertising on TV. The way our modern society has weaponized covetness, envy, comparision, jealousy, lust. Resentment and entitlement.
Lust is actually a form of coveting, of desiring what does not belong to you, of believing the grass is always greener on some else’s side of the fence, of chasing the imaginary dragon that has you convinced that once you catch it, it will feed that deep longing in your soul.
No earthly thing can actually do that for us fully, we are just chasing sawdust. Chasing bitterness.
For all the guys who have been caught up in online porn, I’m so sorry you were deceived, betrayed, exploited. I can see things sometimes with fresh eyes, in ways I hadn’t seen them before, and I wonder how the story of men and their daily experiences in the world will play into the #MeToo campaign, the #churchtoo campaigns.
#Metoo is a story that must be told, it is an unstoppable tsunami, an infection breaking free, but in the back of my mind I can still hear the cries of so many men saying, I am not a monster. I am not Frankenstein or the elephant man or a leper on the streets. I am as lost and broken as you women are and I am trying to find my way in a dark world, a world all encased in moral ambiguity and sexual confusion.
bond0servant said:
To me it is God and only God, He did so much for me.
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insanitybytes22 said:
Amen. When God fills our soul, it is full indeed.
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bond0servant said:
And we dare not leave room for sin.
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patrickhawthorne01 said:
More than what you wrote, which was very good by the way, this is a tactic of satan to make the person believe that Jesus died for all their hang ups except for this one thing. He will then lower the condemnation boom by enticing the believer to pray more, read more, and fight more in order to overcome the temptation.
The reality is that Jesus paid it all and opened the cell door to our freedom. The problem is that we are often so blinded by our past that we fail to see that the door has been opened.
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insanitybytes22 said:
Amen, Patrick. There’s a tale in the bible, Peter has been arrested and so the church is frantically praying for him. So Peter is suddenly miraculously released and runs to tell them the good news, but he can’t get past the gate to the home where the church is. They’re all so busy praying, they can’t hear him! Rhoda, the servant girl finally comes to answer his knocking, but she’s so excited to see him, she forgets to open the gate, too. When she runs to tell the others they don’t believe her, they say, “You are out of your mind!”
It’s kind of a comical tale, but your prayers have been answered, the gates of the prison have been opened, and Peter is right outside knocking away frantically. If we are not actually believing however, we won’t even see it.
It kind of makes me laugh, God opened the door of the prison, sent an angel to lead him out, but left him stuck at the gate of a church trying to get in.
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ColorStorm said:
Just a nickel’s worth msb. I bet you will chuckle.
Atheism is far worse than any pornography you speak of. At least there is hope for they who so erred, and One who can make the most vilest clean. They caught in the porn trap know in their hearts ‘something is not quite right,’ whereas the godless say: ‘who me? I am blameless.’
Yeah ok, and whales build eagles nests high atop the mountains.
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insanitybytes22 said:
Good point, Colorstorm. There can be a kind of seductiveness to atheism,the power and pride of leaning into your own understanding, believing you are one of the few, the rational, not like all the other lemmings roaming this planet who are obviously all deceived and foolish. 🙂
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ColorStorm said:
With apologies of course to fine lemmings everywhere. lol
But sounds like a good post: the lemming apologist who is not frozen in the tundra, but has found the secret of the cold’ 😉
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The V Pub said:
Like religion by the Romans, #metoo is being co-opted. Abuse and rape are unacceptable and must be told. But I fear that it’s now a tool for taking down adversaries, too.
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insanitybytes22 said:
Indeed, Rob. Weaponized victimization is a real thing in the world, too, and then we get into false allegations. What a mess!
I put my faith in the Lord of course, but biology too, is not going to allow us to remain upside down for too long. You can’t repress human sexuality, but we sure can channel it into more positive directions.
LOL, call me crazy, but I like those positive directions, so I’m going to have to insist we get our act together. 🙂
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The V Pub said:
What I find amusing are these female celebrities, previously acolytes of Weinstein and Clinton, now championing the cause. Case in point, Oprah when she interviewed Bill Clinton. She questioned him about his infidelity, which infers to me that the concern was about his wife Hillary. No mention of Broderick, who alleged a rape. I guess politics and causes make strange bedfellows.
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oneta hayes said:
Intelligent and compassionate words. You gave us a chance to wear the shoe on the other foot. What about “our weaker brother?”
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Mel Wild said:
Amen, IB. Too many are enticed, trapped, and then shamed by porn. Not to mention, it devalues human life and real intimacy. If we weren’t such dupes for manipulation it wouldn’t work, but…
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catholiccooties said:
Insightful. I am of the opinion that we have been slowly inured to this phenomenon of sexually abusing/assaulting men and boys with media with more subtle forms over a long period of time.
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insanitybytes22 said:
That’s well said. I think we have normalized this kind of thing for so long,that we don’t really see it anymore or recognize the spiritual and emotional harm going on.
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Wallpaper HD said:
well said…nice blog
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