One of the first things I did when I left my parents’ house was get a shitload of porn. Man, I wanted it all. Back then I only had access to magazines and over priced videos from mail order companies but I just tore through it all. My parents viewed sex as a dirty thing and I was eager to see what all the dirt was about.
When I got married, my porn buying slowed down. Part of that was the Internet and it’s wonderful vast collection of free porn. I really liked the text stories and started writing my own. The more I wrote, the more I treated porn as research material. I got porn that excited me, but a lot of it was just that same insatiable curiosity I had as a young adult. Sex fascinates me. It’s something no two people can readily agree on. Well, they do if they want to have sex, but I almost consider that a statistical miracle. You can grab two people off the street and ask if they like a certain flavor of ice cream and you stand a good chance of these random two people saying yes. Grab two random people and ask how they feel about oral sex, you have no telling how they will react.
This is all my way of saying that my porn collecting didn’t bother me in the least.
But now that I am divorcing, and I am able to talk to my friends for the first time about the sheer lack of intimacy I have had in my marriage for the last 10 years, holy shit. I’ve moved in with a friend and as I unpack I am just stunned by how many breasts, asses and acts of submission I have visibly around me. It’s impossible for me not to see how dysfunctional it all looks.
Take my video games. My wife hated going anywhere. She much rather stay home and rest from throwing herself at work. So I bought a beach volleyball game for the XBox that has all bouncy half naked chicks who you buy swimsuits for. I got my summer vacation I didn’t want, a bunch of giggly video girls who lay in the sun and I got to dress them in the swimsuits my wife always rejected wearing.
I have a pillow with pinup girls dressed in Halloween costumes. I like it because it is done in a 50’s carefree style. My wife made it for me, after I found the fabric and asked her to do it. She made it for me, but it was what I wanted. You know what I mean? It wasn’t her desire to make it. It was me, surrounding myself with something sexy to remind myself that I like sex.
Fuck. That’s how I look at all my little sexy possessions. Art books, posters and figurines that evoked desire in me were precious things I bought and treasured because it was validation that I was a sexual being. For many reasons, my wife rarely had sex with me and damn it, I just couldn’t ever give up on sex. I surrounded myself in sex like I was living in a bachelor’s apartment. Maybe all that sex around us was too much pressure. Maybe it turned her off. Maybe because I wanted it so fucking bad and she realized my objects were my substitute for her. I don’t know.
I can’t throw them out though. I see them as reminders and maybe emotional crutches but I can’t let them go. Being sexually frustrated is a part of me I know so well that right now when my world is so upside down, I don’t want to let it go.
6 Responses to “My Porn”
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…or maybe it’s not dysfunctional at all and you just like porn and sex (they can go together you know). No matter how much sex my partner and I get we both still collect a lot of porn. If you are a sexually curious person it is natural (but then maybe you shouldn’t listen to me because most people say I am dysfunctional). So embrace the porn, it’s not a crutch it’s just part of you are. It may evolve or change during this transition but I don’t think you should add it to your worry list ;).
Wow, I had no idea this was going on… That means, in part, that I suck at reading here lately. :sigh: But I don’t think that porn or pinups or sexy bachelor stuff is necessarily a sign of horniness, emptiness, or some void. If there was a void, it’s because hell, there was a VOID.
If she felt pressure, it was likely a form of guilt. I’m sure she missed an intimacy — and from what I’ve read (now), she’s likely as sorry for it as you are. Not that she could (or should) have forced herself to do what she couldn’t either. As they say, “I’m just sayin’…”
From one collector to another, our dirty stuff is a hobby; an interest. Even when it is for masturbation it will never replace the need for connection. I’m going to send Rose here to talk to you. ;)
Shon, this sounds like another riff on the theme of “who the fuck am I?” youi’re no longer defined by what other people don’t like, by what makes them uncomfortable, by what image they have of you, by what you need to make a space in which you can breathe, in which you don’t have to deny your own interests and urges. Now your desires can find their own level, which might reduce a sort of deperate obssession, or might make it into a wonderfully soul-feeding shared thing. Which when you are talking about sex isn’t a bad thing.
For the first time in my life I’m in a relationship with someone who desires and appetite complement my own, who likes to talk about what we will do together, write about what we will do together, fantasize about things we won’t quite do together … or rather about what he will do to me… a sexually arid life when there is a body in bed next to you every night is devastating and deadening.
You don’t have to be apologetic about your collection – not to us, not to your friends, and most certainly not to yourself. Revel in your freedom. Sex is delicious, and anything that keeps our appetites alive is much more valuable than an emotional crutch. Now you are free. It’s Fucking Time!
I feel better. I really do. Thank you all for responding. I respect each of you so much that it means a lot to get your input.
I think part of my problem is I know so few people face to face who collects porn like I do. I always felt a little unique that way and it has left me uncertain about it now.
I especially love the phrase, “Now you are free. It’s Fucking Time!” damn right.
Shon- some people collect dolls, some people collect copper food molds (one of my growing collections), some people collect porn (I do that as well to some extent). Humanity tends to hoard things and that’s never going to change.
And if she wasn’t comfortable/felt pressure, it may not have had anything to do with *what* you collect. I’ve heard it many times from people who are hobby widows- that the hobby takes person x away from them, etc… it doesn’t matter what the hobby or collection is, what matters is that person x isn’t around for them 24/7 and wants to do the things that the widow wants to do.
So what if you collect porn and sexy stuff? If it is what you like to see around you, then don’t apologize for it. It is a part of you, just as much as a person who’s a race car fan loves going to a race or a person who collects tea cups loves going to antique shows/shops.
SPS sent me here, but honestly what can I add that hasn’t already been said?
We aren’t what we collect any more than we are what we eat (else, I’d be a cock lol). But we also are made up of that stuff. It’s who we are. Incompatibility, in collecting or fornicating, is as bad for the system as eating rotten food.
Why would you get rid of the stuff (i.e. the porn) while you’re getting rid of the main problem (the unhappy marriage)?
I’d say more, and be more cuddly too, but it seems you have lots of folks to do that…. I’ll be the tough love girl ;)