I Know That Only Through Jesus I Am Saved

I'm currently 20 but my history with pornography is complicated. It began when I was 11 or 12, I was attending a relative's 21st party and a stripper had been hired to perform, of course all the children were put in a separate room but I sat behind a partition wall where I could watch without it being obvious that I could see. This is the first time I was exposed to sexual images and the first time I was interested in them. Although I had discovered sexual arousal I still did not fully understand how it worked, fortunately the sex education classes at primary school informed me in that regard.  It wasn't until the next year in high school when I first had access to sexually explicit images through the internet (during the time of dial-up), the site I most often frequented was all about women covered in mud (although not strictly pornographic) and I printed out a whole bunch of pictures from this site and left them in my bottom drawer (I still can't believe I was that stupid).

At this time I still hadn't ejaculated yet and I mostly just looked at the pictures out of interest. Of course my parents eventually found the ones in my drawer and warned me about pornography (my parents are christian so it is expected) and my dad mainly told me that he didn't want me to think of women as objects. I still continued to view pornography more stealthily and eventually discovered the "end result" while veiwing some relatively tame bikini-pictures. From then on I would often stay up late and download explicit pictures on Kazza when everyone had gone to bed (it was a family computer). I remember being quite addicted to self-satisfaction during these years and for a while I would do it once a day. However during the summer when Year 9 had just started I stopped for some reason.

But after a while I stumbled across some arousing images of comic book characters on a counter-strike website and I went back to viewing pornography. Although this time was different, first of all I began collecting images but I was also uninterested in anything explicit, most of my collection was erotic fantasy artwork.  That collection has been continued by until today and but for the hentai section, I would say it's largely not pornographic.  

I only really seem to find depictions of sex attractive in an illustrated form and even then I only view pictures that are not extremely explicit, which is rare in the hentai genre, I remember once sorting through and saving about 70mb of 2Gb of hentai images I had downloaded, because my taste is so particular. The problem I have with most hentai is that after a while it simply becomes a jumble of limbs and orifices and it realy dehumanizes (asthetically as well as morally) the women involved. Also it often verges on a medical diagram which just isn't attractive at all. This is the same problem I have with actual pornography, the explicitness seems more gross than anything and the pleasure felt by participants isn't really obvious, whereas because in hentai you have to create narrative of sexual arousal in one image, it is more evident and relies more on facial expression than genital contact.

In general like to view pictures of women who are happy in exposing themselves and I like the accentuation of the curved female form and the artistic merits of the setting, costume and makeup which pornography at large mostly destroys. Because of my particular taste, I don't see women as objects, rather I adore their physical beauty in a context that is natural. This mainly is how I reconcile my desire to view these images with my Christianity.

Everything else in my life is still exactly as it would be, I don't even drink or swear and I still wish to remain a virgin until marriage. I still believe that sex is the ultimate form of intimacy and should not be entered into without genuine love. I have never yet had a girlfriend mainly because I'm very shy and polite but I want nothing more than to hold hands with a girl and I intend to stop viewing my collection the minute I find a partner.

This is because I place love over lust and although my sexual urges are satisfied by the images I view I still feel a yearning to connect emotionally with a woman and I know that having sex with a woman I love will be infinitley more fulfilling then self-satisfaction. I see sex as a shared experience that benefits a loving relationship and I know that the way I satisfy my self now is only a shadow of that. After being satisfied sexually I often feel the strong urge to have someone beside me and I imagine cuddling up to a future wife in bed after-wards and that is the true pleasure of sex.

Also I keep my collection completely private and I find it acceptable to view alone but I still find fault with the increased amount of sexual images in the mainstream media. I sill believe sex is a private matter between two people (I fully accept homosexual relationships).

Mostly however I know that only through Jesus I am saved and that viewing erotic images and self-satisfaction are simply sins like any other, after all Jesus came to heal the sick not the healthy. For all these reasons I draw a line between myself and the majority of people who view pornography, however pretentious that may seem.