Lie # 3 – I Can Keep This a Secret ~ blog

Another lie that we tell ourselves and we hear from our enemy is that this will just be my little secret. Nobody has to know about it and we all probably started looking at porn when we were still living at home and around the age of 12, give or take a few years.

It all starts to happen as our bodies enter the stage called puberty. Boys normally begin puberty around their 9th or 10th birthday with little outward indicators that things are changing. Around 11 pubic hair starts to form. Around 13 the voice begins to change, or “crack” and muscles begin to get larger. At 14 acne may being to appear and armpit hair grows and around the age of 15 facial hair begins to grow.

This can be an awkward time for boys many of whom feel unsure about what is happening and can begin to want to isolate either because of the changes causing embarrassment when their voice cracks and their acne begins to increase.

So, when an awkward young boy with their changing body finds some porn…the pleasure they begin to feel is a powerful escape from the life they have been living. For me, that was the age of 12 when I found my dad’s Playboy magazines. I sat on my dad’s bed and started looking through the magazine and was utterly amazed at what I was seeing. Powerful arousal was happening as my blood pressure increased as well as other parts of me.

It was at that time that I met someone whom I did not realize, but he wanted to be my life-long friend. His name was Master Bation. He started showing up every day asking me to come out and play. Sometimes he was there the first thing in the morning and other times the last one I would spend time with at night.

The strange thing about it all was that I felt embarrassed about spending time with him and so our meetings were secret and absolutely only when we were alone. My time with him often involved porn magazines and as time passed and puberty continued to develop, I found I wanted to act out with him and porn more than once a day.

I can imagine that your story would be like mine…more or less. And so, we learned early on in our life that sexual sin was something we would do when we are alone and isolated. I could not ever imagine telling my parents or brothers or even my friends about it. It was just going to be my little secret and so I learned how to hide it and never speak about it.

Now my use of porn and masturbation decreased once I accepted Christ as my Savior at the age of 19 and was drastically reduced as I entered seminary and was preparing to become a pastor. However, it was never eliminated completely. It always seemed to be lurking in the background and I would masturbate with some fantasy from my childhood or with women I was seeing in church. Always when I was alone and isolated.

Then in June of 1979, my fiancée and I were married, and I thought, at last, all my sexual problems will be gone. I will be able to have sex with my wife whenever I wanted it and it would be exactly what I wanted it to be. I was wrong on both counts.

Sexual intimacy is a dance that you do with your partner and both of you need to be on the same page. It is not like dancing with someone where your moves are one thing and hers are completely different. That dance is like just two people standing somewhat close to each other but each one doing their own dance moves.

However, sexual intimacy in a marriage relationship is a dance that is perfected with time as you both learn how to give yourself to one another. Sexual lust is the exact opposite where in your fantasy world everybody does exactly what you want them to think, do, and say. My experience was I learned about love-making from porn where the woman is my object to do with as I please…in my mind.

Therefore, somewhere in those early years of marriage, I would fill the gap between our love-making sessions with masturbation. And once again I had my little secret and if I was really careful, she would not know, and I could get released from my sexual desires. However, I knew this was wrong and so I tried to keep it to a minimum.

The problem with having sexual secrets in a marriage or even when you are single is this secret of sexual sin is highly addictive and you begin to experience the law of diminishing returns. That law is that after a while of using porn the thrill diminishes and you develop two things…

The need for more intensity.

The need for more frequency.

Once a week becomes once a day and even multiple times a day. Nude images become not enough and so you move to videos, live online sessions, and ultimately having sex with another person.

And with this increase of more frequency and more intensity you are becoming more and more exposed and more likely to be caught. Cleaning out your history on all devices continuously becomes a must. Getting a credit card your spouse does not know about to hide your expenses is needed. And perhaps even having a second phone is a temptation.

And during this time, you are becoming more and more isolated. An invisible wall is established between you and your wife or you and your friends and family. You cannot see the wall, but it is there, and you have limited your relationship with those who are there to love you to a false reality where they can see you only and how I am able to look on the outside but my inner self I must keep hidden.

And the more we hide our real self as a broken and shame-filled man behind the disguise that everything is just fine…the more we are driven to go deeper into sexual sin.

I have lived there, and I was miserable. I was trapped and chained in my sexual sin to afraid to tell anyone but desperate for help because I knew I could not get the help I needed without blowing up my life and career.

God gave me the chance, to tell the truth on September 9th, 2005. I confessed to my deacons and resigned from the ministry. I confessed everything to my wife and shared with our 4 adult children that I was addicted to porn and had been unfaithful to their mother.

It was all an extremely painful train wreck because I had kept it all a secret hoping to be able to stop without anyone knowing. That was another lie that I had to learn to deal with.

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