I recently had something happen that I'd like to share, even though I'm not sure exactly what happened or how to understand it. It's difficult to post about because it requires me to admit to some weaknesses and failings, and it in some ways conflicts with advice and opinions I have given on this board in the past. This might take a while, so if you're interested, you might want to get something cold to drink before proceeding.

Something I have always enjoyed doing is looking for pics of boys on the internet. Nothing illegal, just beach or naturism pics. I told myself, and believed that this was a harmless way to indulge in my attraction to boys. Harmless to the boy and harmless to me. During times I was without a computer, my lustful thoughts seemed to increase, so I reasoned that looking at the pics kept my lust at bay to some degree. From time to time I would start saving pics I especially liked. (Translation: pics that really turned me on) Deep down, I knew this was wrong in God's eyes. Saving pics made me focus way too much on these boys. So sooner or later, I would feel guilty enough to delete these pics. But also sooner or later, I would eventually start saving pics again. It was a neverending cycle. And in case you're wondering, yes I would also sometimes masturbate looking at the pics. I felt this was a harmless outlet for my desires, although I'm certainly not proud of it.

Well, for the past several months I have been having a real problem with lustful thoughts. I mean a REAL problem. This sort of problem seemed to run in phases for me. I would have a time of keeping a relatively clean mind (the key word here is "relatively"), but sooner or later the lust would take hold of me full force for a while. But it would eventually subside to a more reasonable level, so I learned to live with the ups and downs. But for the past several months things got really bad. No matter what I did or how much I prayed and tried to keep my mind out of the gutter, I was thinking about sexual stuff with boys more than ever. It was affecting other areas of my life too. Even my job suffered. I was feeling so guilty and dirty that I had no drive to do anything else. I was masturbating wayyyyy too much. I would get horny even though physically I had a hard time "getting off" because of my excessive maturbation. Although my actions were still well under control, and there was no chance that I would act out, my thoughts were on an express train into hell. I tried everything I could think of. Whenever I had a bad thought (which was often), I'd banish it in Jesus name. That didn't often work. I tried replacing those thoughts with thoughts about Godly things. I would start singing Christian songs if I was alone, or think the songs if I wasn't, trying to refocus my mind. I prayed, of course. Nothing helped much. My thoughts were as out of control as I can ever remember them being.

During this time, I was in one of my "pic saving" phases. I knew I should delete them, but they were my only source of comfort. I mean, everyone needs physical love, and since I couldn't have real physical love with boys, fantasy physical love was all I had. On one hand, I knew God didn't like it and I wanted to get rid of them. But on the other hand, I wanted the small comfort that they would give me. My reasoning was that I had deleted my pics before, and although I knew it was the right thing to do, it didn't give me any relief from lust that I could see. But I eventually got to feeling guilty enough and dirty enough that I decided to get rid of them. I felt bad about how I had used these boys' images in a dirty way, so before I deleted them, I opened the file and apologized to each boy, even though they, of course, had no idea how I had used the pics since they weren't being sexual in them and would never hear my apology. It's just something I felt I needed to do. As it turned out, this might not have been such a great idea. I had never counted them, but it turned out that I had collected over 300 pics. And as I went thru them one by one, I was getting hornier and hornier. I was beginning to think that maybe I shouldn't delete them. Or maybe I should at least have one more wank "for old times sake." But I figured that if I was really serious about this, it wouldn't be a good idea. So I restrained my horniness. I really didn't want to delete the pics, and I told God that. But I knew it was what He wanted me to do, so I told Him I'm just doing this on faith and hit the damn erase button. I use a program that overwrites erased data so it can't be retrieved. The pics weren't illegal, but that doesn't mean it couldn't cause me some hassle if an overzealous law officer found them on a pedophile's computer. But overwriting over 300 pics took some time, maybe 10-15 minutes. So I sat at my computer watching that damn status bar creep slowly from left to right, all the time staring at the cancel button wondering how many pics would be left if I cancelled.

I wish I could tell you that I was feeling victorious, or that I felt a burden lift. But all I was feeling was horny and a bit lonely. But as the status bar made it's way over to 100% something started to happen. I started to get "unhorny." Never before in my life have I ever gotten "unhorny." I've had my horniness satisfied, and I've gotten busy with other stuff and forgotten about my horniness till it eventually dissipated. But I have never before had my arousal (both physical and emotional) just go away in the span of several seconds, or a couple minutes at most. On a scale of 1-10 I was at about an 8. Then it went from an 8 to a 7 to 6....5...4....3...2....1...till I wasn't aroused at all. The closest thing I can compare it to is like water draining out of a sink. I mean I actually FELT it leaving me. Nothing like this has ever happened to me before. EVER. There have been many many times I could see God working in my life, but He has always been subtle. I may know that God was at work in something, but the casual observer would probably just think it was luck, or coincidence, or cause and effect. What happened so defies logic and reason that I'm having a hard time getting a handle on it. I was hoping that erasing the pics would help keep me from focusing on boys in a sexual way, but I was expecting it to happen over time. There is no way that just the act of erasing pics would immediately affect me this way. This happened a week ago. And since then, my mind has been cleaner than I ever remember it being since puberty. I haven't masturbated at all, and more importantly I haven't felt the need to. This is a huge change from doing it at least daily, sometimes more. I can't say that I don't "want" to, but I think that is more out of habit, because that burning "need" isn't there. I haven't gotten horny, either emotionally or physically all week. This is unheard of in my life. A random, thought does still creep into my mind now and then, but they have been easily banished if I put forth the effort, unlike before when nothing would keep them away. I'm not saying that I'm not a pedophile anymore, but I can't remember ever feeling this liberated.

I don't understand any of this. I've deleted pics before. What was different about it this time? I haven't a clue. I'm certainly not on any spiritual plain that I never attained before. I've been closer to God at other times in my past. So why now? I'm reminded of something I learned a long time ago about how God usually wants us to take the first step, and maybe that is what deleting the pics was. But like I said, I had done that before. Was my heart more in a right place? I don't know. Did I really not want to change my thoughts in the past? I don't know, but heck, I didn't even want to delete the pics. I just did it. Frankly, I'm baffled.

I am well aware that a week is waaayyyyy too soon to know if this will last. But I am going to pray every day that it does. And I hope I don't do anything to screw it up. All I can do is try to do my part by not focusing on sexual thoughts out of a desire for comfort. And I'll praise Him and thank Him for what He has done.

Dakota