First Step of C.

My name is C., and I’m a sex addict. I can trace the beginnings of my addiction to about the age of 7. This age seems to be the starting point for a lot of things which have significance later on in my life.

My first sexual fantasy, at age 7, was a rape fantasy. The TV show Mr. Roger's Neighborhood had a puppet world. I fantasized that the male members of the cast tied down the female member, naked and spread-eagled, and molested her sexually.

I had problems getting to sleep at night. I would lie awake in bed for hours before finally falling asleep. I never got enough sleep.

My sister and I had two very good friends – M. and A. The four of us used to have "bare parties" We would all get undressed in the playroom at their house and would crawl under their large throw rug. We didn't touch each other.

My Dad would normally come home at night and spend most of the evening in the bathroom -- either on the toilet on in the bathtub, reading books. Every so often he would bellow for one of us to bring him something, usually a beer. If we wanted to use the bathroom (we only had one), we did it in his presence. I remember once when he had dropped a coin into the toilet. He told me to get it out, despite the fact that the bowl was filled with floating feces.

Once, I was with another group of boys in the basement of a house. For some reason, we all decided to strip. I stripped completely, but everyone else stripped to their underwear. The father who owned the house chose that moment to check on us. I was very embarrassed and remember hiding behind a furnace or boiler of some sort.

At school one day, I got angry for some reason. The end result was that I caught a girl, knocked here down, kneeled on top of her, and shook her head.

My sister and I had something we called the "vagina wash," where she would be in the bathtub, on all fours, with the front of her pelvic area under the running water. One particular day, while she was doing this, I began to turn up the temperature of the water. I did this until it was very hot. I do not know how badly I burned her, but I remember my Mom asking me why I had done it -- so it must have been bad enough that she told my Mom.

All of these events happened when I was 7 or 8.

At age 9, in 4^th grade. I was known as a boy who was willing to kiss girls, although I hadn’t actually done it. One day, a group of us boys chased down a girl at school. We caught her. The other boys held her down while I kneeled over her, to kiss her. I moved my face over hers, very close, without touching her. I’ve just recently realized how closely that activity resembled a forcible rape.

As a child, I was terribly lonely. I desperately wanted love, nurturing, and affection. I was constantly being told to go away and that if I wanted to be accepted then I needed to become someone that I was not. My needs and wants were not important. So I decided, at the age of 9, to kill myself.

There was no doubt that I would do it. I had it planned out. I even wrote a will. I told a group of kids at school, and they laughed. Apparently they found the statement, "I have a .22 and a pack of bullets, and I'm going to kill myself," extremely funny. Their reaction just enraged me, and made me more determined to do it. I don’t know why I didn’t kill myself. I don’t remember making the decision to not do it. I just never got around to it and eventually forgot about it. I did, however, begin to change. I found a way to relate to the world around me without being vulnerable and without feeling the pain. In later years, I would jokingly call this my "mask." Very few people ever got to see what was behind it. At first, the mask was unrefined, and over the years, I made improvements to it.

The mask was confident and at times arrogant. The mask was always the center of attention, and it was loud, aggressive, and forceful, as required, in order to accomplish this. The mask excelled at school, as a way of achieving approval. And the mask maintained very superficial relationships with just about everyone, except romantic partners. The mask insulted others through the use of "jokes." This kept them at a comfortable distance. The mask was a perfectionist that followed the rules to the letter. The mask needed constant approval and affirmation from others in order to function well, and it created an atmosphere where approval would occur. This led the mask to try to control events and people. The young boy behind that mask was very lonely and miserable, but the mask was better than what he'd had previously.

With the mask, I was doing fairly well, until I hit puberty. I don't remember this transition very well, but I do remember that I suppressed my sexuality quite brutally. Puberty was a very shameful process for me. I took the song "Fame" and made a parody of it called "Shame." It went something like, "Shame. Hair will always be a shame." I understood the mechanics and purpose of sex, but I was not able to deal with sexuality.

I was effeminate. I have a 6th grade picture where I look more like a girl than a boy. I remember one time in a park where I was trying to convince another boy that I was not a girl. Truthfully, deep down, I wanted to be a girl. In 8th grade, one of my classmates joked about it (a punch here, a pull there...), but I was secretly intrigued. I’m quite surprised that I never engaged in homosexual behavior, as I have a lot of the hallmarks.

I sucked my thumb until about the age of 11 or 12. I would use a pillow, and I'd suck my thumb as I stroked the pillow with my hand -- feeling the coolness and the softness. This was a way of nurturing myself.

For about a year and a half, when I was 11 and 12, I shared a room with my sister. When I was halfway through 7th grade, we moved a mile away into a double-wide mobile home. Not only did I have my own room, but we had **two** bathrooms. It took a few years, but my bathroom habits began to mimic those of my Dad.

When I was in junior high, I bought the cassette tape Dreamboat Annie by Heart. The cover showed the two band members, Ann and Nancy Wilson, from slightly above the breasts on up. They had no clothes covering the body parts shown in the picture. I was enraptured. I just stared, enthralled by the curves of their bodies.

My sexual fantasies began in earnest when I was in junior high, and they continued until I began recovery at the age of 27. They helped me fall asleep, which was a problem I’d been having for many years.

I became a Christian at the age of 12. Everyone at church thought I was so good, but I was sure that they could only see the "mask." I hid my true self. I felt GUILTY, GUILTY, GUILTY, and every time the church had an altar call, I went up. I was constantly praying for help and forgiveness, especially around sexual sin, but nothing changed. I felt like a fake, and I hated myself. I became quite legalistic, while simultaneously believing that I was not legalistic. I was very sincere in my faith, and it hurt me a lot that God appeared to be rejecting me as well. So I tried harder and harder.

Given my self-hatred and my perception of myself as being sexually "bad," I suppressed my sexuality. Hard. I did not date until I was 20. I did not masturbate until I was 20. I did not drink alcohol until I was 19. I was kissed once, on the cheek, by a girl, prior to the age of 20. I could not stop the fantasizing. Every night, for 30 minutes or an hour or 2 to 3 hours.

Most of the fantasies were just viewing the girls at school, naked. I think I pictured every one in my class, at least once. One girl, C.D., was an exception. With her, I imagined things like making her wear a dress to school without any underwear.

Some of my fantasies, however, got much more violent. These were not usually about women that I knew, and they usually involved torture. A specific one that recurred often involved a naked woman sliding down a steep, greased metal rail -- similar to how one would slide down a banister. Once she had gained enough speed, the rail changed from smooth metal to splintery wood -- the kind that you can't even run your hand over without getting a ton of splinters.

Somewhere between the ages of 10 and 13, I was with my uncle K. in Pennsylvania. He took me up to the mountains, along with his girlfriend/date. Sitting in the back seat, I could see down her shirt, and I realized she was not wearing a bra. I spent much of the trip gazing down her shirt. I couldn't see anything , but I was totally captivated. Towards the end of the trip, we stopped to eat at a takeout place. K. was gone, I was in the back seat, and this girl was leaning over. I got a full view of her naked breasts. The first time ever, outside of my direct family.

I don't really remember how I felt, but I do remember that I felt compelled to tell her what I had seen. She thought it was funny, and that helped me to accept it as well. So we were both laughing when K. returned and we told him about it. He did not think it was funny, and he seemed embarrassed about the incident and irritated that we found it funny.

I also had some activities with a girl named D., who was slightly younger than me. When I was about 12 or so, we were visiting D.'s house, and our parents were playing cards. D. and I were alone in one of the kids bedrooms, down in the basement. My sister and D.'s siblings were elsewhere. D. and I spent several hours together. She was very passive. I slipped my hand down the front of her jeans, but not so far as to touch any part of her genital area. I even unbuttoned her jeans, but did not unzip them.

That was it. We did that for a couple hours. We were on the bed together, but did nothing else. I remember asking why she wasn't trying to do the same to me. She was very quiet and almost shy.

Afterwards, I was GUILTY. For the next few weeks, I imagined her Dad finding out what I had done and confronting me with, "What have you done to my daughter!" And for years, I fantasized about what I really wanted to do with her, which at the very least, involved taking her pants off completely. I had these fantasies well into my twenties. This is indicative of a pattern in which I would only go so far in real life, but I would do everything in my fantasy life. As I told one girlfriend, "You do things in my fantasies that you would never do in real life."

A few years later, my sister and I were over at D.'s house, with her two younger sisters. We were swimming in the irrigation ditches. At one point, the girls started laughing at me. I looked down to find that my penis was hanging out of my swim shorts, unknown to me, in plain view. Later that day, when we went inside to change, I turned my back while the girls changed. When told that it was okay to look, I turned back around to find one of D.’s sisters standing totally naked in front of me. I gasped in horror, covered my eyes with my hands, and acted as if I had seen a horrible thing. They laughed -- my reaction was amusing to them. I was quite embarrassed.

Later on, I would periodically fantasize about what I "should" have done. In my fantasies, I reacted calmly and called them on their "joke." In some cases, I went as far as getting sexual. This was a contrast to the humiliation I felt at being made fun of, as well as the "badness" of seeing a naked girl.

My grandparents in Pennsylvania rented out a house to a single mother and her two daughters, P. and G.. Tenants were allowed to use the pool and they were about the same age as my sister and me, so we formed a fairly good relationship with them, prior to moving to Wyoming. In Wyoming, we spent about a month, each summer, visiting our grandparents in Pennsylvania.

Around the age of 8 to 10, I was over at their house. Their Mom was on the couch under a blanket, naked. She had slept on the couch. For some reason, I got it in my head to pull the blanket off of her. So here is a small boy tugging on this blanket with this grown woman trying to keep herself covered. She was very passive, almost as if I had the right or authority to do what I was doing. I didn’t manage to expose anything, nor did I ever hear about the episode again.

At a later date, I remember talking about sexual things with G., who was a few years younger than me. I piqued her interest, then I feigned sleep while she was still in the room. While I did this, she unbuttoned and unzipped my pants, and then pulled out my penis, played with it a bit, then returned it. I did nothing, and she left. I would periodically fantasize about "waking up" and making her expose herself.

P. and G. eventually moved away. In later years, probably around 16 or 17, we visited with them. I was playing a board game with P., and I spent the whole time trying to look down her shirt. I even made up an excuse to turn on the light so I'd have a better view. I saw nothing, but after an hour or so of doing this, I felt compelled to "confess" what I was doing. Her reaction wasn't positive or negative -- I remember her saying, in a fairly neutral voice, "So you've been looking down my shirt this whole time?" That was the last time I saw either one of them.

During junior high, I spent a lot of time looking down girls' shirts, and in some cases, peeking up their dresses to see their underwear. These girls were subsequently in my fantasies, totally undressed. When one of them, V., became a Christian at the age of 17, I felt compelled to confess my fantasies (i.e., sin) to her, and ask for forgiveness.

C.D., who I have known from 5th grade through now, was quite involved in my sex life. Starting at the age of 13, we rode the bus together. I would hold her and prick her with a pin, usually on her side or slightly on her breast. This stopped after a year or so, but we normally sat with or near each other on the bus. I could tell when she didn't wear her bra, because she jiggled differently. And I used to fantasize about "making" her wear a dress to school without any underwear. In junior high, one day, I kept falling off my chair, onto the floor under the table. Ostensibly it was a joke. In actuality, it was a way to look up her skirt. When I finally got a good look, I found out that she was wearing underwear.

In high school, we were up at a teacher's desk, leaning over and asking an involved question. This afforded me a view of her breasts, and I was captivated, unable to look away, until I realized she was wearing a bra. At a later date, I actually did get a view of her naked breast. She knew I was looking.

There is a pattern that I see emerging here. I suppressed my sexuality -- harshly. And whenever I did anything sexual, I immediately felt guilty about it and condemned myself for it. My fantasy life would go wild, showing me what I really wanted. I would also condemn myself over the fantasies and just try harder to control/suppress my sexuality. It didn’t work – I continued to fantasize an hour or so each day. I prayed and prayed. I begged God for help, and nothing came. I was miserable.

I went to college for my first year, and it was hard. Looking back, I believe I was battling depression the whole time. I cut the majority of my classes and basically just took the classes out of the textbooks. For my first year of Physics, I probably attended only 10 to 15 lectures. It was a tough engineering school, and I no longer had straight A's -- at the end of my first year, I had about a 3.0. This could have been significantly better if I'd been able to apply myself to my academics. I spent numerous "all-nighters", and caffeine became a regular part of my diet. It was not unusual for me to drink an entire 6-pack of Pepsi in one night of studying. I also discovered that birds in upstate New York wake up well before dawn -- at about 3AM. After one particularly bad test, I slammed my book bag against a telephone pole. Inside the bag was a 600+-page calculus book. I broke both covers and creased every page in the book which, when I consider it, is a fairly impressive feat.

Most of my first-year college memories are a haze of exhaustion. I did not have the escape valves of sex and alcohol like so many of my classmates, so I continued to use books and fantasies. Another escape was Air Force ROTC. I spent hours each week spit-shining my shoes and preparing my uniform. I joined the drill team. I fit into the military environment quite well.

At some point, either in late summer 1985, or very early into the school year, at the age of 19, I made the difficult decision to give up God and to try a new morality. As a serious Christian, I did not want to deal with hypocrisy, so I tearfully told God that I was parting ways with him. I could no longer stand the stress and conflict of being two different people. I could no longer stand my total self-hatred and lack of self-acceptance. I could no longer handle the tremendous energy output required to "keep the rules." I changed. My prayer went something like, "God, I believe in you, but I cannot continue like this any more. I know that what I'm doing is wrong, but I can't live like this anymore. I’ve prayed and prayed and nothing has changed. So I'm going to say goodbye." This was an extremely hard decision to make.

This was another turning point in my life. As with the creation of the "mask" at age 9, I moved into a new phase. This is where I started my active sex addiction. I went back to college and began a new freedom as my own person. Also, I was more honest with myself, sexually. As I look back on my high school years, however, I can see that God did not have much of me with which to work. During all those years, I never talked about my sexual fantasies with anyone at church. I never told anyone but God about my secrets and sins. I just followed the rules as best I could. Probably the most significant aspect of my decision to leave God was that I gave up trying to fight my addiction. I surrendered to it and let it lead my life.

I started masturbating at the age of 20, during the summer between my sophomore and junior years in college. It had been a year since I'd taken my leave of God. I was listening to a Dr. Ruth radio show at my uncle K.’s (I stayed with him for the summer and worked for him). I had no idea what "masturbation" was. So I experimented for a while and then, to my surprise, I ejaculated. It was not an amazing, wonderful experience -- I was more surprised than anything. It was a full month before I did it again.

When I re-started college, I began to masturbate more often. And I also discovered Playboy magazine. During my junior year, I got into the habit of masturbating almost daily. I began to feel that this was not normal and that something was wrong with me. Deep inside, I felt guilty and ashamed of my masturbating. I was open about it with girlfriends, but I didn't tell anyone else. I spent many years trying to accept it and to "come to terms with myself." I never really did manage to do that, but it was better than what I did in high school.

Several times I tried to quit masturbating. I would throw away all of my Playboy collection, only to start up again. Replacing some of those lost issues was expensive. And eventually, I would throw "most" of them away, keeping my favorites in case I changed my mind. Early on, I subscribed to Playboy because it was so much cheaper.

Over time, masturbation got me up and running in the morning and helped me fall asleep at night. Now that I am sober, I’ve had some of the most difficult times getting out of bed in the morning. I never realized how much I utilized masturbation to get me started. In addition, I’ve always had problems getting to sleep, and over the period of my active addiction, I utilized exhaustion combined with masturbation and fantasies. The sexual stuff would relax my mind, helping me to doze off.

There were two times that I can remember, when masturbation gave me a "glow." It was a warm, satisfied feeling. Two out of several thousand.

As I progressed over the next 7½ years, I added pornographic comics, nude photographs of an ex-girlfriend, porno movies, Heavy Metal magazine, swimsuit issues, and Penthouse. They became so inundated into my household, that when I started recovery, it took about 3 months for me to find it all. Some of it I threw away, and some of it I burned because I didn't want kids to find it in the trash.

Every so often, a friend or acquaintance would help me to move or would visit. They would occasionally comment on my Playboys. Things like, "It's too bad you need those" or other such comments. One day in a WaldenBooks store, I was buying some pornography when an older couple made a similar comment. I was indignant, and my response of, "I do not!" just made me feel like a pitiful worm.

Once I was more honest sexually, my friendship with C.D. became much more honest and real. I visited her (and her husband and children) in California several times. C.D. accepted my need to masturbate, even though she didn't seem to understand it. I remember one time when she showed me a box of her husband's pornography then left me alone to "do my thing." After one such trip, I didn't masturbate for a month -- because I just didn't feel the need. This may have been because I relaxed enough during the vacation that I no longer needed to masturbate in order to deal with stress.

During one of my stays at C.D.'s, I came on to her. She was not having a very good sexual relationship with her husband and was quite tempted. But she resisted and told me to stop. The matter was dropped and we had no further problems around the subject. I was certainly open to having sex with her, but I wasn't obsessed with it.

I began dating S. early on in my junior year of college. She was a freshman. When I told her about my masturbating, she admitted that she did it as well. Once she began to realize the extent of what I did, however, I think she was worried. I didn't masturbate in front of her, but many times she would know when I was doing it. There were some times when she did it for me, and there was one time when she asked to watch. I was not able to ejaculate at that time.

One time, she decided to try to satisfy me sexually. We had sex three days straight. On the third day, I masturbated, and she was hurt. She felt inadequate sexually. She could not satisfy me. So she gave up trying.

When we finally broke up, we had a last fling. The morning after our last night together, I woke up, went to the bathroom, and masturbated. When I came back to bed, she offered me sex. Having done it the previous night as well as masturbating minutes before, I wasn't capable, physically, of performing. So I declined. She was thrilled! That made her whole day. I had refused sex. I never told her the truth.

I tried masturbating with a soapy wash rag. I succeeded in scraping myself raw. My penis was oozing fluids, and it hurt. I showed it to S. and explained what had happened. At first, she thought I had an STD. Then, when she found out the truth, she laughed then sympathized (because I was obviously in pain).

Just prior to when I stopped masturbating, I was doing it daily. Usually one to three times. Periodically, I would take a day or an evening and use about 4 hours for masturbating. I’d rent movies, buy new pornography, etc. And I’d just masturbate until I couldn’t do it anymore.

Early on, while still in college, I began masturbating in public places. I did it discretely and was never caught. I’ve done it at public restrooms as well as friends’ houses. Once I even did it in a room where four other people were sleeping. I don’t know if they knew what I was doing.

Many times I had tried to perform oral masturbation. It was pointless, as I couldn’t stretch far enough in the right directions, but I would try anyway. What I did was scrunch upside-down against a bed or wall and then masturbate into my mouth. This didn’t work either, as I would usually spray sperm every which way, and very little of it would get into my mouth. This is, without a doubt, one of the most ridiculous things I tried to accomplish. Male oral sex fascinates me, and I very much like receiving it – sometimes even more than actual intercourse. I was so intrigued by it that I wanted to see what it was like to be on the other end. I never seriously considered doing it with another man, so I kept trying to do it myself. Afterwards, I would be disappointed because I’d failed to gain the ‘experience’ of providing oral sex. I’d also feel really stupid, because my actions were ludicrous. Additionally, I felt some shame and guilt, as it didn’t seem normal to try to ejaculate into my own mouth with so much desperation and so little chance of fulfillment.

Over the last 6 months of sobriety, I’ve been able to explore my masturbation somewhat. I used it to deal with an incredibly stressful lifestyle. Early in the morning, masturbation would get me up when leaving a warm and comfortable bed was the last thing I wanted to do. After work, masturbation would help me relax from a stressful day. Late at night, masturbation would help numb me out so I could sleep. Now that I’m not masturbating, I’m having to deal with what’s happening inside of me during these times. A sexual, relational, or work issue will come up into my head, and instead of sexualizing it away, I run through the scenario, mentally and emotionally, until it’s been processed. This takes time, and I’m usually late to work, but the positive benefit of not stuffing or sexualizing it has been significant.

In addition, I recently went through a period where I was feeling the need to masturbate, quite heavily. After calling a program friend, I identified the problem as stress. My normal lifestyle is incredibly stressful. With this in mind, I’ve taken steps to specifically reduce the amount of stress in my life. I make myself take breaks at work, especially when I begin to panic or get overwhelmed. A lunch break is mandatory. I work out 6 days a week. I use my day planner to specify the most important tasks, and if I don’t get everything done – well, at least the things that I did do were significant. I have to remind myself that it’s okay to be imperfect and that I’m not being judged on my performance and that I’m only human.

My relationship with S. lasted 2 1/2 years, from September 1986 until January 1989. She was a freshman ROTC cadet, and I was a junior. We were mutually attracted to each other and started dating, even though she was already dating a guy at another college. We did not have sexual intercourse for a year and a half, but we got very sexual in a short period.

We visited my parents in Florida several times, and we had some of our best times ever. We had a week where we saw a shooting star on the first night, and it was without a doubt the most romantic and wonderful week of my life. Also during a Florida trip, S. had what she described as her best sexual experience.

During one of our Florida trips, S. and I were doing sexual stuff. We were in a spare room, on a mattress, under the covers. My Mom walked in, got something out of the closet, then left. S. stiffened and was shocked. I was annoyed. When I talked about it with my Mom, she didn't see why we were upset. I include this as a reality check to show how my family treated sex.

Early in the relationship, we visited the woods near where she grew up. All I really remember is trying to get her clothes off. Later on, we had a formal military ball, with dancing and such. When we came back to her apartment, I remember her in her formal dress, standing on two chairs, with me inside her dress, giving her oral sex. Another time, when we were playing a sex board game, she was dismayed when I kept asking for fellatio. In each of these situations, I had a chance to augment our relationship in a romantic and positive manner. Instead of doing that, however, I turned it into an opportunity for sex. I helped destroy a potentially wonderful relationship by focusing so heavily on sex. I feel guilty and have a sense of loss over what things "could have been."

I believe she tried hard to take care of me sexually, and I think she had some ability to be honest about what was happening. She took the pill for 3 months, before telling me, because she knew I'd pressure her to have sex before she felt safe having it. We did get a bit "kinky." She would try to swallow during oral sex. Occasionally, I'd tie her to the bed. We took nude photographs of each other. And we played a variation of strip poker where we could have each other do things. When I asked to watch her urinate, however, she said, "No." At one point, she even said she would be willing to have sex with another couple that we knew. She knew that I wanted to do it, and after some lovemaking, she told me it would be okay. I never set it up, and we dropped it after awhile.

Our whole relationship centered around sex. If it wasn’t for sexual stuff, I don’t know what we would have done together. It could have been so much more. I feel remorse over the loss of the non-sexual parts of the relationship and some guilt over my part in causing that loss.

There were times when S. did not want to get sexual, and I insisted upon it. Early on in the relationship, she wanted to study, and I wanted to get sexual. I persisted until she gave in. At the time, I was convinced that she could not resist the sexual stimulation, once it began. And I still believe that to be true. Over time, however, she began to build resistance. Then it became a matter of my persistence. About halfway through our relationship, she had moved in with two roommates, and I persisted on having sex. Her bed was on a loft, and it banged against the wall. Afterwards, she was totally embarrassed, because she knew that her roommates knew we were having sex. She loved to receive backrubs. Eventually, I began to use that to my advantage. I would not give her a backrub unless she stripped naked. And I would get sexual with her. I remember one time when I was groping around to get her stimulated. She tried to keep me from it by assuming various protective positions. I told her that I could reach it no matter what -- and that was true. Finally, towards the end of the relationship, she avoided me. One time, when she was studying, I called to talk. She had her roommate tell me that she wasn't home. I was pretty hurt and upset when I learned the truth.

With S., other women weren't much of a factor, aside from Playboy playmates, with a couple exceptions. During one of our military balls, I practically began drooling over one of the other women at our table. I'm sure S. noticed, but we never talked about it. One of S.'s freshman-year roommates, L., was also an object of sex for me. L. was the one that S. consented to have couples sex with. Once again, S. knew, but we never talked about it. Another time, we were in Washington D.C., and we were with L. and L.'s sister. I had big-time sex on the brain. I actually suggested some type of sexual activity for the four of us. It didn't happen. They laughed it off, and S. said something like, "That's all they think about." I felt it wasn’t healthy or normal to be like this, and my sense of shame always lurked beneath the surface. Yet I was honest enough with myself to try to accommodate the wants and desires within me.

S. was in ROTC. If she got pregnant, then her military career would be over, no matter what she did. And she was the type who would keep the baby. And she did not want to get married. So we had sexual intercourse under specific conditions -- while she was on the pill, with a condom, during the first few days of her period. There were a few times when we skipped the period part. We used to joke that she was perfectly fine with sex a few times per month while I was fine a few times per week. We had a lot of tension and manipulation/control around sex and sexual things. I was never happy because I didn’t' get enough, and she was never happy because she was giving too much. And when she tried to fully satisfy me, I still wanted more. I just got frustrated over it all. The relationship wasn’t providing the answers to all of my sexual problems; rather, it was making things worse.

Well into our relationship, S. and I went camping in New Jersey. One night, I went to the bathroom and read a book for several hours. (Reading fiction was another of my obsessive behaviors.) When I got back, S. was asleep. She told me that she had waited up for me to come back, in order to make love with me. I had taken so long that she had given up. I could tell that she was hurt. Of course, if I had known, or even suspected that she was going to do that, I would never have gone to the bathroom at all. I was so unused to her initiating sex that I just never expected it. I had ruined a potential romantic moment with S.. I could feel her pain, and I felt guilty.

After more than 2 years, we decided to break up. S., somewhat tentatively, told me that she didn't think she loved me anymore. I was pretty cool about it, which really surprised her. This was around mid-November, and we decided to "officially" break up after a trip we had planned during Christmas. I was fairly neutral, emotionally and mentally. The relationship was beginning to be a burden, and I was actually relieved to be breaking up.

All of the events concerning S., most of which are related to my addictive behaviors, chipped away at our relationship until it collapsed. We spent so much energy focusing on sexual dynamics that other areas of our relationship suffered severely or were ignored entirely. I yearned to have a close relationship with S., but over time, my addiction destroyed it. I had given up trying to fight my addictive behaviors, so I just watched helplessly as our relationship died a slow death. That hurt. I had accepted, as best I could, the destructive aspects of my addiction as an inevitable part of life. So when the pain came, I stuffed it and tried to move on with life.

D. and I started dating in October of 1992, when I was 26. We began to have sex the following February. Sex with D. was wonderful. She loved it and would find out what pleased me the most and give it to me. She routinely gave me oral sex in which I would ejaculate inside her mouth. I remember how she would look up at me after we were done, with joy on her face because she had pleased me so well. With D., I found that I could have intercourse for up to 45 minutes straight. I liked it. A lot. We had no barriers. If we got the least bit sexual, we usually wound up in bed. During this time period, I was experiencing an extreme amount of stress in my life, and the sex helped immensely with the relief of physical stress.

The weird thing about this relationship was that we both had a good concept of what was really going on, but we didn’t do anything about it. On many occasions, she freely admitted that she was desperately looking for male approval, and that she got it from me by pleasing me sexually. I, in turn, would give her male approval when she gave me what I wanted sexually. Prior to having sex, we discussed how deadly sex can be to a relationship. I knew this from experience, and with D.’s Christian beliefs and close family ties, premarital sex was even more destructive. Even when we were having sex, we would talk and determine that we had to stop. Yet we didn’t. When it came to sex, our boundaries had the effectiveness of the Maginot line.

One time, fairly far into our relationship, we went to a birthday party for a friend of hers. We had access to a pool and hot tub. We spent quite a bit of time in the hot tub, alone. I could tell she wanted to spend time socializing with her friends, but I wanted to monopolize on her and be sexual. So she stayed.

We would try to stop having sex. I didn’t even attempt to enforce this, as I expected D., as the Christian, to be the one who did the enforcing. When we got "too" sexual, I would blame her, and she would accept it. So we both had sex. Even though we both knew it would destroy the relationship. By June, sex was about all we did. This relationship had come to the same state as the one with S..

By August, we decided to break up. I suggested we set a date (October 1st). We both knew the relationship was dead. Somewhere about that same time, I don't remember if it was before or after the breakup decision, my condom broke. This had happened to me twice previously, once with S.. We were scared. D. is not one to abort or adopt. And we both knew that marriage would probably be a disaster as well. I would have offered marriage, but I'm fairly sure she would have declined. Fortunately, she did not get pregnant. I don’t remember how I felt about the whole thing.

About a month after D. and I broke up, I became a Christian and started recovery.

As with S., I desired to have a close, long-term relationship with D.. This time, I was more experienced, and I knew that our sexual activities were destroying the relationship. Our decision to break up was just a recognition of that fact. I was still completely and totally surrendered to my addiction, and as with S., I watched a potentially wonderful and permanent relationship slip through my hands while I did nothing. And that hurts. I love D., and the destruction of that relationship hurts. But I just stuffed the pain and moved on with life.

I met T. while visiting a friend in Oregon. We wrote a bit, but I wasn't really interested in her. T. came out to visit me the following May (1991) for a long week. She was to sleep on the couch, but I (half) jokingly said that if she got lonely, to come in and join me. She did. On the first night. We rapidly moved on to sex. We had sex as often as I was capable -- about three times every two days. We talked and agreed that we did not want to have a romantic relationship. But we had lots of sex. I would not even kiss her, but I would give her oral sex.

T. was the first woman with whom I had condom-less sex. She would suggest it during her period. I loved it.

T. and I also played two volleyball tournaments during her visit to Colorado. I treated her horribly. I degraded and criticized her playing abilities, and offered zero support. We had no fun.

The next August, I visited Oregon and stayed with T.. She took off work, we did tons of activities together, and we had lots of sex. She even let me ejaculate in her mouth. We played another horrible volleyball tournament. During this 10-day period, something very odd occurred within me: I panicked. I wanted the sex, but we were beginning to connect at a relational level. It’s hard to explain, and all I can say is that, against my will and as a direct result of our sexual relationship, I began to connect emotionally with her. In response, I tried to push her away emotionally. I began to get really nasty with her and treated her like trash. I degraded and demeaned her. I hurt her emotionally. I found myself entering into a romantic relationship, against my will, because I wanted sex and was powerless over it.

The strangest thing about my relationship with T. is that she gave me exactly what I wanted, sexually: unlimited sex with no commitment. I should have milked it for all I could get, but could not. I am incapable of having a sexual relationship with a women without getting emotionally connected. In this case, I got abusive in order to deal with it.

I met B. at volleyball during my first year in Colorado. We began to date. Early on, I discovered that she was enlisted in the Air Force. As an officer, my relationship with her could get me discharged or jailed for fraternizing. I still don’t know why I endangered myself this way. After about a month or two, we had sex. She was willing to give me a lot, sexually. That first night, however, my condom broke during intercourse, and she got pregnant. That ended the relationship quite abruptly.

When her pregnancy was confirmed, we had a serious talk. I told her that I would not marry her, but that I would support the child if she kept it or I would pay for an abortion. I told her that it was her choice, and I tried to not pressure her to make a specific decision. On an emotional level, I totally abandoned her.

B. didn’t really appeal to me. I wasn't all that attracted to her physically, and I didn't like her personality/character enough to marry her. She did, however, have some of the traits for which I was looking. I think I dated her out of desperation for a relationship and sex, but I’m not really sure.

She decided to have an abortion. I took her there, paid for it, and drove her home. That was about the extent of my involvement. What surprises me most about my relationship with B. is how calm I was during the end of it. I expected that a pregnancy and abortion would cause me emotional turmoil. I do not remember feeling any strong emotions.

I met A. on July 4th, 1991. After my last visit with T. in August, we got friendly and began to date. Circumstances in her life had put her in a very emotionally needy place.

We dated for a few months and did not get sexual, although I tried. A. did not really appeal to me in a romantic sense, but rather in a sexual and relational sense. After a while, I realized that she was not what I wanted -- our relationship reminded me of my parents' relationship. I was dominant and intelligent, while she was not very smart or athletic but was willing to caretake me. So I broke up with her. We still remained friends.

I remember once when I was approaching a question. I can’t recall the specifics, but her response was, "What, do you want to kiss me?" in a tone which clearly stated she thought that was an unreasonable request. My response was, "No. I want to play strip poker." I was already past the relationship and into sex-only mode.

I had sex with A. once. I cannot remember if it was before or after our breakup, but I believe it was after. I had given up on the relationship but still fought for the sex. During the foreplay and while we were having intercourse, I was so scared she would change her mind that I didn't dim the lights. She was staring straight up at the bright living-room light. I imagine that was quite unpleasant. For the same reason, I didn't go and get a second condom

Afterwards, I convinced her to sleep with me. She wore all of her clothes, except her shoes. I slept without any clothes. She left in the morning, before I woke up. Later, when the subject of our sex came up, she said that she wasn't going to do it again. I consider my actions that night to constitute date rape. Even though she never said "No," she expressed reservations, and I ignored them and pressed ahead with sexual foreplay until she gave in.

A. became a big-time fantasy object for me. I completely de-humanized her and objectified her as a sex object. I would imagine myself totally dominating her mentally, emotionally, and sexually. Basically being her slave master and forcing her to do humiliating sexual activities.

A., out of everyone that I've ever fantasized over, has the strongest grip on me. I fantasized about her for years, up until I gained my sobriety from fantasizing. Even today, when I'm writing about her, I can feel the tug of those fantasies.

As with T., I didn’t want a relationship with A.. It took me awhile to realize this, but it was true nonetheless. Despite this, I fought for sex with her and received the "inevitable" emotional connection associated with it. My fantasies concerning her have been the most violent, abusive, and long-lasting of any "real-life" woman (most of my violent fantasies are not about people that I know). I’m convinced that if I had not had sex with her, the fantasies would not have been as extreme. I don’t know why, but for me, sexual activity "connects" me to my partner. And if I’m connected to someone with whom I don’t want to be connected, I go crazy. For me, recreational sex is not an option.

I started recovery on October 25th, 1993. I was able to immediately stop masturbating and fantasizing, although the real turning points for those issues came in the subsequent months. I visited my parents around Christmas of 1993 and was forced to actively deal with the fantasizing. After that point, it was not a problem. My higher power was quite involved and gave me a significant change. Normally, I would just slip into the fantasies without any warning. During this period, I was given a gift. I was able to recognize when I was about to start fantasizing. It was then my choice to stop it. I found that I also had the ability to stop it, something which I’d never been able to do previously.

My whole life up to this point had been somewhat aimless. I’d gone to college because it was expected. I joined the military because they paid for my school. I never even defined my vision and goals, much less headed towards them. One thing that I did do was attend graduate school. Most of my time seemed to be spent in aimless wandering along the path of life. I spent a lot of time playing volleyball, reading books and comics, acting out sexually, and unsuccessfully searching for a wife. I was in debt, but I can’t say it was directly caused by my addiction. I was following my addiction, and it was leading me nowhere.

I was in recovery and was beginning to work on relationship issues. It was March of 1994, and I’d been sober from masturbating, pornography, and fantasizing for over 4 months. I started to relax more around women. I gave up my wife search, turning it over to God, and I began to work on my relationship issues. I was freed of the need to find a wife, and found that I could date women just for fun. I started meeting girls that I’d previously dismissed. Unfortunately, I got married in July (4 months later) to D.K.. Life quickly became completely and totally unmanageable, at a level that I’d never before experienced. It culminated when I went to jail for assault in late February 1996. We were divorced on June 24th, 1996, less than two years after our wedding. I was not ready to marry, and I knew this. Yet even the act of dating quickly got me in over my head and into 20 months of sheer and utter Hell. I know that dating is normal, even for sex addicts, but I was not ready for it after only 4 months of sobriety.

During my marriage with D.K., masturbating, pornography, and fantasizing were not problems. We were very dysfunctional, sexually, but I do not see a sex addiction. I am convinced this is because the relationship was addictive in a codependent manner, and that I switched one addiction for another.

The events which led to my arrest were related to my sexual addiction and were the last time I acted out sexually. We had just come out of a miserable weekend. I was frazzled. It was Monday morning, and when I woke up, I initiated sexual foreplay. I really wasn’t in touch with my feelings at the time, all I knew is that I wanted to have sex, and we hadn’t had it that weekend. I was really hurting underneath. I’d been killing myself trying to be what D.K. wanted me to be, and it required a lot of self-condemnation and behavior modification. D.K. woke up and, in an angry voice, accused me of being in my addiction. She was right. I got angry. Violent feelings began coming up inside of me, and I began explaining them to D.K.. I told her that I wanted to hurt her and kill her. I got frustrated that she wasn’t reacting the way I expected. Here I was, sharing my feelings, and she didn’t understand. She was just criticizing me even more adamantly. What I had neglected to do was provide a safe environment for sharing those feelings. She was actually scared for her life.

Suddenly I exploded. I pinned her down on the bed and began shouting my feelings at her. Her response was fear. She just kept repeating "Get off me! Get off me!" I came to my senses and realized what I was doing. I relented and stopped pinning her down. She called the police and I was arrested for assault and threatening. I spent a day and a half in jail. When I got out, I had a no-contact order against me. In the next day or two, she filed for divorce.

Even though I was trying to share my emotions, I was only sharing the anger – not the underlying pain and fear. Those were not acceptable emotions, as they would imply that D.K. was wrong. I was very scared of losing my relationship with D.K.. I saw it as my only chance to be "good." I tried extremely hard to make my marriage work. As a friend later said, "Nobody could have tried harder." Yet in order to make it work, I was convinced that I had to do what D.K.. told me to do. I rejected my own abilities and knowledge. I tried very hard to convince myself that I was a bad person. I forced myself to believe D.K.’s interpretation of events, even when that meant contradicting my own interpretation. I let myself be hurt, and I hurt myself as well. I was not being honest about my feelings. I sexualized them, and when that didn’t work, I "violenced" them. During the course of my marriage, I normally kept away from my sex addiction. I picked up violence to replace it.

By the end of the relationship, it was not unusual for me to beat myself in the face. The pain felt good. I rejected all of my pre-marriage relationships with friends and family. I dropped all of my outside activities, except those in which we both participated. I’d chosen the wrong Higher Power - D.K. - and was paying for it.

Once I left D.K., I was able to deal more effectively with my issues. A big step was to admit that I was doing bad things and that I was still an okay guy. Many people had been telling me that I was being too hard on myself, and they were right. Self-acceptance allowed me to begin to feel what was happening within me. Then I was able to be honest about my sexual activities and began to focus on what was happening inside of me. I slowly began to be able to discern what was addictive and what wasn’t. I was able to explore some of my sexuality. I recognized that I’m a sexual being and have sexual needs.

I began to experiment with masturbation, but in a totally different way. I had mental sex with my wife. My wife was not physically present, of course. In my mind, I would have sex with my wife, with one important difference – this time it was healthy, pleasurable sex for both of us. While doing this, I would touch myself in a nurturing manner and culminate by orgasm. It was a time of sexual exploration, and it helped me. I then moved on to masturbation without my wife. It was a physical act of nurturing from me to me. I did not use mental imagery at all. This too helped me to explore and accept myself as a sexual being.

I did all of this exploration over a 3 to 4 week period, then in April 1996 I decided to go totally abstinent from masturbation. I believe this will help my recovery. The crucial thing, however, is that I now know I can use masturbation in a non-addictive manner. There is a time and a place for it in my life. Because it’s one of my addictive behaviors, however, I remain abstinent for the foreseeable future. I want to turn to my higher power, not masturbation, to gain strength and to cope with the stress of life.

During this time of abstinence, I’ve learned just how much I relied upon masturbation to get me up in the morning and to deal with the stress of life. I was having major problems keeping my sobriety from fantasizing, and masturbation has been a constant temptation. The fantasies were particularly bad. They reached a new level. Most of them involved rape and violence, at a minimum. At times, the only way I could stop was to focus on my higher power or call a program person. The third step prayer has been particularly effective. About 3 weeks ago, I identified stress as a major problem in my life and embarked upon a program of stress relief. It has worked wonders. I feel so much better about life and myself as a person. I feel good. The temptation to fantasize and masturbate have stopped being so much of a problem. There was one night when I did not follow my program of stress relief. The next morning, I acted out sexually – the only time that has occurred since I was arrested.

One question that I still have concerns looking at or being unable to ignore the presence of a woman. There are times when this is definitely addictive, and there are times when it is not. When it happens, I deal with it by using a variety of methods, no one of which always works. I may just admit that she’s pretty and move on with life or look away. If that doesn’t work, I take control of the situation spiritually and turn to my higher power for help and change. I may also look inside of myself to see what I’m feeling. And sometimes I use positive affirmations. If none of these work, I may leave the area. In a few situations, where none of these options helped, I found something else: looking at the person in question and acknowledging my feelings as valid. In these cases, the inability to stop focusing on that person (or persons) goes away. I don’t use this last method very often, as it’s dangerous when misused. I’m still exploring this area of my life.

The integrity of my sobriety is a very important concept. For fantasizing and sexually looking at women, the integrity of my sobriety remains whole provided I stop looking/fantasizing and use the opportunity to deal with what’s happening inside and outside of me. With masturbation, my integrity is whole, provided I am gentle and nurturing to myself. This integrity requires honesty.

Today is September 1st, 1996. I have maintained my sobriety, integrity intact, since August 20th, 1996.

My bottom line behaviors are:

Use of pornography.

Masturbation, specifically as a way of coping with stress or in combination with sexual fantasies. Exception: when I use it to explore healthy sexuality.

Sexual fantasies. Exception: when I use them in a non-violent manner to explore healthy sexuality.

Violent fantasies.

Pre-marital sex.

Sex which harms a relationship.

For now: Dating