Sigh...more "sex addict" stuff
There are times when I don't want to say anything about certain subjects, because I don't want to deal with how I think other people are going to react.
Yesterday I went to an SCA meeting for the first time in...maybe a month. It felt really good. I was suprised how much I relaxed there, how much tension just melted away from my shoulders. Last quarter, when I first started going there, I was very happy. This quarter, when I have not been going there so much, I have been quite down-hearted. I believe that this is because I was no longer dealing with this thing in the same productive, healthy way as before. I was trying to deal with it on my own, which sucked, though I did not realize it at the time.
The thing is, is that the people at these groups just get it. They just understand what I'm going through, in a way nobody else does. To them, I'm just another sex addict, trying to deal with this thing that were all trying to deal with. It's like we all have diabetes, but we're total junk food addicts, so we're all getting together once or twice a week to talk about how difficult it is to stop eating those hazardous foods; or we're just all major slobs, who really need to start getting our asses in gear and clean up once in awhile, so we don't get citations from the health department for creating an unhealthy environment, or some such thing. It's like...there's something that we're doing that's having some negative effect on our lives, and it's time to change. Change is difficult, so we get together every few days to talk about. This helps to relieve the tension.
It's just...I feel like eveyone who could possibly be reading this is just not going to get it. I imagine the thoughts of readers to be ranging from "what a sex-negative, homophobic, heterosexist, fanatic," to "I'm happy that poor, poor, dyfunctional, pitiable ADDICT is finnally getting the help he so desperately need, both for his sake and for the safety of society." Even more annoyingly, I feel as though some people out there are thinking "I see my exhortations to succeed have had their effect. I'm so thankful I could help this guy." Which is really just laughable. Everyone who's not inside this world of sex addicts is, in my mind, just totally outside of it and irrelevent to it. I should really just not talk about it with non sex addicts, because dealing with the extreme and irrational reactions of non-addicts is really just tiresome.
I went to a rainbow gathering once --in fact, I used to go them all the time, and occasionally considered myself a "rainbow"--and at one of them I decided that I would like to follow the hare krsnas, and see what they were all about. Well, I ended up agreeing with their version of reality for several years (I don't anymore...though I was thinking about them nostalgicly last night...), and, in fact, I first moved to Columbus to be closer to them. When I was still in Minneapolis, and I was in the final stages of preparing to move to Columbus, I ran into this guy that I hadn't seen in years, who had been at that fateful gathering with me. I told him what I was all about, and what I was planning to do, and he was like "Oh! I'm so happy. I knew I told you do the right thing!" And I was all like, "huh?" and he was all like "It was me, me who told you to go off with them. You asked me, and I said it would be a great idea, and then you ran off with them, and it was because of ME." I was amused, but I was also really annoyed: I had made this major decision in my life, which took alot of careful thinking and risk taking, and all of a sudden this controling egomaniac with delusions of influence is reducing that important step to be somehow connected to him and his little world, which, while I'm sure is very important to him, is totaly irrelevent to me. I mean, I don't even let people that I've known and loved for years have influence over me in that way, let alone some guy who, while kinda cute, was actually someone who really annoyed me.
So that's one reason why it can be difficult to talk to non-sex addicts about my addiction, because, if they react at all, I allways get some kind of weird control-freak reaction. Like, sex is one of those things that people have got alot of hang-ups about, and the idea of me restricting my sexuality always seems to strike people in some kind of overly extreme way. Like somehow sex is this dramatically important thing, and its SO important that I have sex RIGHT, i.e. according to their beliefs about sex. How about this: sex is NOT important; I can do what I want with it, and as long as I'm not coupling it with violence or manipulation, it really doesn't effect anyone but me and the people I have sex with. Am I saying "if you don't think about my sexual behavior, then you can keep your head in sand and it won't effect you?" NO. I'm saying that it actually does not have an effect on you. That is actually isn't important. That it's totally NOT A BIG DEAL. My descion to limit my sexual behavior in certain ways is actually NOT A BIG DEAL. It's not some non-PC rejection of the body, and it's not my immanent salvation. It's just something that I think will make my life a little bit better, which I think is worth the time, and so I'm doing it.
Yesterday I went to an SCA meeting for the first time in...maybe a month. It felt really good. I was suprised how much I relaxed there, how much tension just melted away from my shoulders. Last quarter, when I first started going there, I was very happy. This quarter, when I have not been going there so much, I have been quite down-hearted. I believe that this is because I was no longer dealing with this thing in the same productive, healthy way as before. I was trying to deal with it on my own, which sucked, though I did not realize it at the time.
The thing is, is that the people at these groups just get it. They just understand what I'm going through, in a way nobody else does. To them, I'm just another sex addict, trying to deal with this thing that were all trying to deal with. It's like we all have diabetes, but we're total junk food addicts, so we're all getting together once or twice a week to talk about how difficult it is to stop eating those hazardous foods; or we're just all major slobs, who really need to start getting our asses in gear and clean up once in awhile, so we don't get citations from the health department for creating an unhealthy environment, or some such thing. It's like...there's something that we're doing that's having some negative effect on our lives, and it's time to change. Change is difficult, so we get together every few days to talk about. This helps to relieve the tension.
It's just...I feel like eveyone who could possibly be reading this is just not going to get it. I imagine the thoughts of readers to be ranging from "what a sex-negative, homophobic, heterosexist, fanatic," to "I'm happy that poor, poor, dyfunctional, pitiable ADDICT is finnally getting the help he so desperately need, both for his sake and for the safety of society." Even more annoyingly, I feel as though some people out there are thinking "I see my exhortations to succeed have had their effect. I'm so thankful I could help this guy." Which is really just laughable. Everyone who's not inside this world of sex addicts is, in my mind, just totally outside of it and irrelevent to it. I should really just not talk about it with non sex addicts, because dealing with the extreme and irrational reactions of non-addicts is really just tiresome.
I went to a rainbow gathering once --in fact, I used to go them all the time, and occasionally considered myself a "rainbow"--and at one of them I decided that I would like to follow the hare krsnas, and see what they were all about. Well, I ended up agreeing with their version of reality for several years (I don't anymore...though I was thinking about them nostalgicly last night...), and, in fact, I first moved to Columbus to be closer to them. When I was still in Minneapolis, and I was in the final stages of preparing to move to Columbus, I ran into this guy that I hadn't seen in years, who had been at that fateful gathering with me. I told him what I was all about, and what I was planning to do, and he was like "Oh! I'm so happy. I knew I told you do the right thing!" And I was all like, "huh?" and he was all like "It was me, me who told you to go off with them. You asked me, and I said it would be a great idea, and then you ran off with them, and it was because of ME." I was amused, but I was also really annoyed: I had made this major decision in my life, which took alot of careful thinking and risk taking, and all of a sudden this controling egomaniac with delusions of influence is reducing that important step to be somehow connected to him and his little world, which, while I'm sure is very important to him, is totaly irrelevent to me. I mean, I don't even let people that I've known and loved for years have influence over me in that way, let alone some guy who, while kinda cute, was actually someone who really annoyed me.
So that's one reason why it can be difficult to talk to non-sex addicts about my addiction, because, if they react at all, I allways get some kind of weird control-freak reaction. Like, sex is one of those things that people have got alot of hang-ups about, and the idea of me restricting my sexuality always seems to strike people in some kind of overly extreme way. Like somehow sex is this dramatically important thing, and its SO important that I have sex RIGHT, i.e. according to their beliefs about sex. How about this: sex is NOT important; I can do what I want with it, and as long as I'm not coupling it with violence or manipulation, it really doesn't effect anyone but me and the people I have sex with. Am I saying "if you don't think about my sexual behavior, then you can keep your head in sand and it won't effect you?" NO. I'm saying that it actually does not have an effect on you. That is actually isn't important. That it's totally NOT A BIG DEAL. My descion to limit my sexual behavior in certain ways is actually NOT A BIG DEAL. It's not some non-PC rejection of the body, and it's not my immanent salvation. It's just something that I think will make my life a little bit better, which I think is worth the time, and so I'm doing it.
posted by nearfalse | 8:26 AM
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