By David Van Diest
The wipers make a chattering sound across the windshield as headlights point the way to the next possibility. It’s been an hour since his quest began. He pulls into the space closest to the door. This is the third… or fourth … maybe fifth attempt … who’s counting? There’s a bike leaning against the wall near the door and a car parked in the adjacent space. He scans the store to see if anyone is inside.
As he surveys the store, a customer appears from the third aisle and approaches the counter with a six pack of beer and some chips. He then notices another browsing the candy aisle. He watches the cashier ring up the sale, but loses his nerve and leaves… onto the next convenience store to see if the conditions will be better.
With a gray left front quarter panel, larger than stock wheels on the rear, and a missing tail gate, his pickup blends in well with the clientele frequenting these places at this time of night. For the next few hours his beat-up Datsun pickup carries him from one convenience store to the next in hopes of finding the right situation. It can’t be a female cashier – too embarrassing. What would she think? A store with customers mulling around is too risky – someone could recognize him. He can’t be found out. A student at a Christian college shouldn’t be struggling with this. He can’t tell anyone for fear he will be kicked out.
He hopes he will be able to stop by sheer will, or praying, or more bible reading. But the drive for what he’s really after is much stronger than his will. What’s wrong with him? God is surely angry with him.
* * *
This scenario played itself out dozens of times during my time at bible college and beyond: driving from one convenience store to the next with the goal of purchasing a Playboy or Penthouse magazine. That’s the way it was done in the dark ages of the porn industry. Someone actually had to go buy it from another human being. I referred to it as a “brown bag” purchase, because, like alcohol, there was a great deal of shame involved… at least in the Christian circles I was raised. Shortly after, the disdain and shame I felt would cause me to either burn or throw away the magazine I had purchased just hours prior.
“Son (or daughter), when I was young, we had to drive to buy our pornography. Oh, for the good ole’ days.”
Today is a different story! No one has to get in their vehicle to go purchase pornography. No one has to expose their addiction to pornography to anyone and in fact, much of it is free. Hidden away in the corner of the bedroom or den, it’s just a click away and voila, explicit content is available to them in the comfort of their home. This content isn’t just in static pictures but videos. And, it’s not just nudity, it’s includes every kind of sexual act one can imagine… even illegal content.
For the most part, pornography isn’t even regarded as a problem anymore, but a convenient way to satisfy sexual urges. It doesn’t hurt anyone, right?
As our society has moved more and more toward isolating type activities, the need for human contact hasn’t diminished. It is so much easier today to reduce human contact and most of us tend to gravitate toward the “easy” … the path of least resistance. As we move toward isolation, we are becoming less adept at social interaction and find it harder and harder to get along with other people. We no longer need each other for survival, nor do we need a village, because we now have Netflix, Uber Eats, and Amazon. We can go online and order our groceries and either have them delivered to our home or they’ll be brought to our car when we arrive at the store. We can binge eat, binge watch, and in Oregon where I live, legally binge on smoking weed. We hardly ever need to leave home.
But deep down inside it’s the need for relational connection that we are really seeking.
For me, and nearly every other guy I’ve spoken with that has struggled with compulsive unwanted sexual behavior, it can always be traced back to one or a combination of these things… connectedness (relationship), competency (insecurity), and worth/value. In fact, these things are often so interconnected that they are nearly impossible to separate.
Someone doesn’t feel valuable because those closest weren’t there for him when he needed them. He felt abandoned and not worthy of their time.
A man wants to be competent but feels he doesn’t measure up against others. He feels incompetent, and as a result he feels less valued.
A husband fears asking his wife for sex because he’s not secure enough to handle the potential rejection. He feels alone and insecure.
Competence, worth/value, and relationship… but the greatest of these is relationship.
I’m convinced people have an inborn need for relationship… our innate need for connection with other human beings. But an emotionally injured and hurt individual will tend to avoid human contact for fear of being hurt again. And, we have a lot of emotionally injured people. Why risk being injured again when we can get the sense of competency and relational connectedness (while very fleeting) by visiting a prostitute or viewing pornography? In both cases there is the illusion that the object of your affection thinks you’re wonderful. Or, we seek affairs because they stroke our need for importance (to be respected and valued) and for human contact.
Of the dozens and dozens of guys I’ve encountered who struggle with unwanted sexual behavior, the consistent theme is a lack of close relationships… especially with other men. Blogger Ethan Renoe is on to something when he theorizes this, “How many men feel this loneliness but feel weird about seeking out male friends, so they settle for the false intimacy of porn or the artificial ecstasy of substances?”[i]
Porn, and other relationship imposters, soothe the need for connectedness for a fleeting moment, but they don’t take away the desire for being known and cared about. For many, human contact becomes too risky or too hard. It exposes them to the possibility to be reinjured, retraumatized, or simply aggravated, so they default to dissociative activities … binge watching, eating, or soothing emotions through addictions … compulsive unwanted sexual behavior.
Because of the ultra-relational nature of sex, the nature and object of our lusts and desires (unwanted sexual behaviors) are the very window to identifying our need and our injury. Jay Stringer, in his book Unwanted: How Sexual Brokenness Reveals Our Way to Healing says, “Sexuality allows us to turn away from the constant demands of life and turn toward relationships in order to feel less severed, less amputated, and less disconnected in our fragmented world. But sexuality is never complete if it remains inward focused.”[ii]
Like many things, the path to our healing comes in heading in the direction of our woundedness. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not proposing someone go back to a toxic or dangerous relationship to heal, but when relationships have caused damage the answer isn’t isolation… it’s healthy relationship. Yes, relationships are unpredictable; yes, they are at times frustrating; yes, they can be maddening… and sometimes hurtful. For those stuck in compulsive unwanted sexual behavior (pornography, prostitution, affairs, or dangerous sexual behavior), from my experience the main reason is harmful relationships from their past. But often it takes a tremendous amount of soul searching to discover the source of the pain and this usually takes someone experienced in helping an individual discover those. Sure, there are behavioral therapies that can help curb the behavior, but those behaviors are symptoms of deeper issues.
If someone you know finds themselves on a never ending treadmill of success (abstaining) followed by succumbing (unwanted sexual behavior), seek help from a counselor who understands. It’s more than just a behavior, so healing is more than just behavior modification. Find someone who understands that unwanted sexual behavior reveals the pathway to true healing.
David Van Diest has his master's degree in counseling from Multnomah University and is an LPC (Licensed Professional Counselor) Intern in Gresham Oregon, a suburb of Portland. He focuses on counseling men through addictions, anxiety, life transitions, men's issues, parenting & family, etc. To contact David, email him at davidvandiest@gmail.com or visit www.davidvandiest.com.
[i] https://ethanrenoe.com/2018/02/26/the-epidemic-of-male-loneliness/?fbclid=IwAR0miNrJTM11pzdw5hU1ChHMuwzfn55syVP9_fI2aupb_hCdiFCZTMOnkwg
[ii] Stringer, J, (2018). Unwanted: How sexual brokenness reveals our way to healing. NavPress. Colorado Springs, CO.
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