The high school years of a sex addict.

My high school years were spent in Vicenza Italy. In a way high school was a great time in my life and in other ways it was horrible. I struggled with grades through out high school. I kidded people and said that I was on the five year plan. My parents separated when I was 16 and my mother moved away. To make matters worse, the physical and emotional abuse from my father returned. When I had difficulty with school, particularly if it was my own fault, he would tell me that I was going to be a bum or a hobo when I grew up. Sometimes I believed him, but some part of me inside never gave up.

Girls were a hit or miss situation with me. While I didn’t date until I was a junior, I did have the occasional erotic encounter. I was a decent looking boy and with wrestling I managed to make myself fairly attractive to girls. Italian girls liked me I think because I was blond and different from Italian boys. Italians are also a bit more sexually liberated. This surely added to my growing love of Italy.

As much shame and guilt as brings me, I must admit I took advantage of a lot of girls who developed a crush on me. Many times I had sex with these girls only to dump them if they wanted more of a relationship[1]. My heart was dead for a while and I just couldn’t allow myself to get involved emotionally with somebody. I was emotionally attached to sex but not my partners. I kept this habit through out the throws of my addiction.

I belonged to a circle of friends that comprised of a diverse group of kids. We were athletes, artists, musicians, pot heads and general misfits. We all had one thing in common, our home life sucked in one way or another. Many of us used each other for comfort or sex (between guys and girls in the circle) and we all self medicated with alcohol and drugs.

On a positive note, in my junior year I did get my act together somewhat. I focused on my academics and sports. I pulled my grades up to the A-B range and I had moments of glory in Athletics. My art, thanks to heavy mentoring from my art teacher, also developed nicely. I even managed to have a couple of healthy romantic relationships.

I left home and joined the Army right after graduation.

[1] My average relationship was less than two weeks. I don’t consider this dating.

Early teen life of a sex and porn addict.

I crawled back and under the waterbed1. In the beam from the flashlight, I could see something. I crawled closer and anticipated my find. Stacks and more stacks of girlie magazines awaited me.

After the losing of Becky, and major heartbreak2, I returned to my secret life. I began to experiment with masturbation. At first, I didn’t really know that it would be so pleasurable. I had a bad experience at Boy Scout camp one summer. I had to take showers in the open bay shower with all the males in the camp. I didn’t really know what “shrinkage” was about until then. When I went to go in the shower with a friend of mine, I noticed that my penis decided to shrink heavily because of the cold night air in the drafty out door shower hut. I was ridiculed for having a small penis, even though I knew it was actually bigger but was being shy for some reason.

I thought if I got more erections that, my penis would stretch out and relax. So, I started experimenting with lotion to stroke my penis into an erection. I quickly realized how good this felt but still didn’t ejaculate for the first weeks. This played into my insecurities that the other boys at camp helped develop, as well as the other kids at school who said I was a loser. I already felt broken because of Becky. So, feeling like something was wrong with me wasn’t a big stretch.

This is when for some reason I snooped around my parent’s room while they were out of town. I found many stacks of porn magazines, and videos in a tunnel under their waterbed. I just looked initially, amazed out how different each nude woman was. Then it occurred to me that combining masturbation with the porn would be fun. And it was fun and I was finally able to ejaculate. This was a relief at first. I was no longer defective, but that feeling didn’t last.

Soon my masturbation and porn habit grew and intensified. I began to feel different again. I suppose it was a form of shame, but I felt like it was wrong and I was gay or something (I obviously know now that masturbation isn’t exclusive any sexual preference). I definitely liked girls so I’m not sure why I felt gay.

I continued my masturbation to my dad’s ever growing porn collection. Oddly, during this time, the relationship with my father stabilized until my mid teens. I’m not sure, but I think sometimes that my outward behavior changed and he sensed that I shared some of his personality flaws.

I really wanted anther girlfriend at this time but just couldn’t find a girl that I liked enough to risk the rejection. Besides, I felt as if I would be inadequate anyway. My body was doing all these weird things, I was doing weird things and my voice would break because it would change every other week.

Reflecting on my early teens, I definitely see the development of my secret or double life.
I wish sometimes I can go back, slap the crap out of myself, and get my shit together. Anyway, that’s not helpful so I wont dwell on it.


1 My parents had a large oversized waterbed that had a support structure with drawers. There was a tunnel in the back behind the headboard, and another tunnel down the middle that you could get to from the back one.
2 You have to read the previous blog if you haven’t already.

Young love at it's best

We left Germany for a much different life in Natick Massachusetts. While I was in Germany, I longed to be a “normal American kid.” I’m not sure of all the underlying reasons why I felt the need for some normalcy in my life. I had a romanticized idea of what an American boy should be like. I thought at least I should have a bike, a tree house and a girlfriend1. I actually got just that when I was in Natick but that didn’t help me as much as I thought it would.

When we arrived in Natick, I was in the middle of my sixth grade year. In Germany I was attending an elementary school where sixth grade was the highest grade in the school, “big man on campus,” as my dad put it. In Natick sixth grade was in middle school all of a sudden, I was in a school situation that I was not prepared for. While I liked the different classes and electives that middle school offered, I was behind the power curve socially. I didn’t really fit in the cliques that existed. If I had been there during football season, I feel I would have made a name for myself but I felt like a fish out of water in a semi hostile area. Some of the cliques of kids were downright mean to me, calling me a Nazi because I had lived in Germany and once at recess I was beat up by a group of about six kids.

On the bright side, I loved my new neighborhood. I quickly made friends with several of the boys my age in the government housing area. The housing area looked like a regular neighborhood with single-family houses, all painted government brown or tan of course. The cool part was that somebody who lived there before had built a large tree house in the backyard that bordered the woods. I was living part of my dream already.

Another part of my fantasy of being a normal boy came true as well2. I became friends with an older boy who lived across the street from me. Jerry was a giant but he had downs syndrome. He was a tremendously loyal and sweet kid to have as a friend. While it’s great to have a good friend, Jerry’s sister Becky was an absolute beauty.

Becky was about a year younger than me, she had long dark curly hair and unbelievably pretty face. She was also a great person to talk with. Despite her beauty she was like me, she had problems growing up and other struggles, and best of all she liked me. It was immediate, as soon as I realized that she liked me I asked her to be my girlfriend and she agreed. I wanted my relationship with Becky to be different then my secret friends in the past. Fist of all it wasn’t secret. The boys at school couldn’t understand how the freak from Germany was dating the girl who had turned them down and didn’t seam to like boys. I didn’t really understand either but I didn’t care. We held and talked everyday, we shared our dreams and kissed gently. We were best friends and we were in love. Our relationship was everything I thought a romance was supposed to be. I still think back on it with amazement.

We never became inappropriate sexually. It’s not that I didn’t want Becky that way, I did. I believe she was somewhat molested by her father, and I was very gentle with here physically. I really wanted to keep our relationship appropriate for our age and I was committed to do so3. I had a great deal of respect for Becky and treated her as well I could. She was extremely loving toward me in return. It’s not to say we didn’t have a physical relationship because we did. It included, kissing deeply, touching, caressing, some petting, and cuddling but not sex. We even talked about it sometimes. Were available physically but we both felt that if we were ready we would be sexual. It just never happened. This surprisingly was OK with me. We even went skinny dipping at a near by river often. I loved seeing Becky naked and I loved embracing and kissing while we were nude but we never took it further. I feel that our relationship gave me the strength to keep my boundaries with her.

Sadly, as it goes in a military family, Becky’s family moved after a year of our relationship. We wrote for a few years and tried to remain true to each other from a distance but it was not meant to be. We never saw each other again.

To say I was devastated over the loss of my first love would be an understatement. Here I am 25 years later and I’m not sure that I don’t think about Becky at least once a day. I became depressed and broken. I didn’t date again until I was a junior in high school.

1 Clearly I watched too many movies.
2 The having a girlfriend part (I did get a bike too). Keep reading.
3 We met when I just turned twelve. She turned eleven a few months after we stated dating. When she moved away I was thirteen and she was twelve.