You're going to find me weird, then.
And yeah, you guys know how I get all personal and TMI - here comes a hell of a lot of that. ALSO - TRIGGERING!!!! Scroll on by if you're triggered by talk of sexual abuse and cutting, PLEASE.
Actually - actually I'm going to put this in a spoiler. Because as I've written - I've gotten really personal and graphic. So yeah - WARNING WARNING TRIGGER DANGER WILL ROBINSON!!!
Porn was actually the worst problem I've ever had in my relationship.
I've dropped enough hints around - I was sexually abused when I was a kid. Not extremely. Not repeatedly. But enough to give me some issues.
I think I'd still feel the same basic way even without the abuse though - my sexual orientation is demisexual, which means I don't feel sexually attracted to anyone unless I'm in love with them.
It's not a moral choice. I wasn't taught to be all chaste and monogamous. My mother is very open and permissive and made it clear that she didn't care what I did as long as I used birth control. It's a genetic orientation.
Just wanted to point that out because I've seen flame wars about monogamy and I wanted to make it clear that I'm not a Puritan and I don't go around judging people - I don't care what other people do, as long as they're honest and open and consensual and no one is getting hurt.
But me, personally - I see a naked body, I feel absolutely nothing. It doesn't do anything for me. I can't make it do anything for me. And it's not a result of upbringing - I was not brought up hardcore Christian. I wasn't taught to be ashamed of my body or of sex. My mother gave me articles on birth control when I was 13 and when I was in college she joked about us reading Playgirl together. And when John and I were long distance and he'd come visit one weekend a month, she'd go to her boyfriend's for the weekend and give us the house to ourselves.
If any of you read Terry Pratchett's Discworld books - my mother is basically Nanny Ogg.
My inclination for monogamy and ability to only feel desire for someone I'm in love with is definitely more nature than nurture.
So without the abuse, I'd probably still have the same problems understanding porn. Just not as severe. But the abuse just makes it so that it triggers me and I end up sobbing on the floor and wanting to die and pulling out the razor blades.
I cannot handle being thought of as just a body, just a tool for someone else to use to get off, just a 10 year old girl without any control.
So...okay, I've found a barrier even I won't cross. I talk to you guys so much about my husband that I don't feel comfortable going into specifics here. So I'll just slide over that bit and generalize some.
Porn makes me feel...like other people don't see me or care about me or anything. Like I'm just a blow up doll, an automaton that only exists to serve their desires and their pleasures - to just stand there being abused and exploited and never react, never break down, never fight back. For the record - I did once make my abuser's nose bleed.
And yes, this is directly related to the aesthetics thread and my issues with people not
seeing my work. In this case, they're not
seeing me.
So I see porn, or even just walk through a display of cheap comedy DVDs with all the cleavage on the covers, and I hear "You are not real. You are not a person. You are tits and an ass, and I can do whatever the hell I want with your body and you have to take it. You exist only as a tool for me to use to get myself off."
And you know what?
I forbid John from looking at it. I installed a program on his computer so I could see what he was looking at.
I uninstalled it eventually. It took a while and a lot of work, but eventually I came to trust him again.
If you judge me for that - then I guess you've never been driven by the sight of porn to take a razor blade to yourself because that's the only way to relieve the swirling screaming chaos of terror and pain and hate. The swirling red maelstrom of Seth's consciousness, even.
Yeah.
You know - the last time I found it (I found it three times) the last time - I think it was the last time because the blood all over the bed covers finally got the message to him that I did not find it acceptable. That every time I found it my reaction got more severe, and if he didn't stop I was going to end up in the hospital.
I still have trouble with it sometimes. It flared up when I was stupid and decided to try to read some of his George R.R. Martin. I got triggered all to hell and spent the next three days wondering why I was married to someone who liked to read about 13 year old girls being sexually abused from the POV of the abuser. He tried to be all "No, it's not presented as a good thing! The dude gets horribly killed later and the girl becomes the most kick ass character, in part because she grew as a result of her suffering!"
Yeah. Okay. It was graphic, it was written from the POV of the abuser, and the girl hardly reacted. She doesn't get to, after all. She's only there for the abuser to fondle. She has no emotions or thoughts or life of her own, no value in and of herself.
And hey, it's cool that some slimy dude feels her up without her permission and we get to see it all from his viewpoint while she just stands there like a good little blow up doll - because she grows from it! Yay!
So yeah.
If you haven't gotten the general idea by now - we've been together over 11 years. The first few years were hell, with blood and tears and screams and insults and nights spent really and truly identifying with
this song.
Complete with the lying naked on the floor, curled up into a ball and screaming and crying and wanting to die. And haha - even the fortune teller line.
While we were long distance, I signed up for a free psychic reading online just for fun. She knew we were long distance without me telling her, and she said that it was an extremely strong bond that could last for life but that I should still be careful because he had an addiction that could destroy me.
But like John himself has said - he
is Jason. He put up with me, through all of it. He stayed. He held me while I cried. He cleaned up the blood. He let me install that program on his computer. He bought me books about cutting, about recovering from sexual abuse.
And for a while, I was Seth. For a while, I didn't see that he was almost always there. I only saw that he left.
But I made it. I made it through the fire and the shadow.
In the end, Lilith and Jason live happily forever after.