(You will need to read yesterday's entry for today's to make sense; here it is. The same caveats mentioned yesterday, by the way, apply today as well.)

Okay, so today we finally get to the tricky subject of sexual addiction, as it relates to my own life. And I don't mean "tricky" as it relates to my particular behavior, because my experiences with this subject are about as stereotypical as it gets; I mean that the entire subject of sexual addiction is tricky unto itself, not only because so little is known about it at this point, but that those who do know something about it are sometimes in violent disagreement over what they believe. Just for starters, for example, there are lots of people who don't believe that something like sexual addiction even exists in the first place - that it's simply yet more new-age victim-mentality bullshit, cooked up expressly to let people blame their behavior on others and never take responsibility for it themselves. I, however, tend to believe in the classic definition of addiction - that it's anything you consciously try to stop doing, but find that you can't, no matter how badly you want to. And under this definition, it's hard to deny that sex can be an addictive thing, and dangerously addictive to some at that.

So, assuming for today that sexual addiction actually is real, there are still lots of complications involved with talking about it. There's this troubling fact, for example - that unlike alcohol or gambling, sex is something that should be a part of every human's everyday life, and that there's something actually unhealthy about a person who doesn't have sex on a regular basis. So that, for example, throws the 12-Step program out the window as far as possible recovery methods, because that program is fundamentally based on the idea of never touching your addictive substance again.

And then, of course, is the fact that "sex" is not just one simply defined thing, where all people who are addicted to it can go through the same recovery process. Some sexual addicts, for example, are addicted only to the act of having sex in public, while the rest of their sex life is completely normal (or in many cases actually quite boring); while other addicts might be addicted to having sex with strangers, or committing adultery, or hurting people while having sex, or getting hurt while having sex, or masturbating, or having sex with children, or having sex with animals. The list of sexual things that one can get addicted to just seemingly never ends - and just because you're addicted to one aspect of sex doesn't mean that you're addicted to any of the others, or even that you will particularly care to even try all the others.

My particular problem, for example, is with pornography; specifically, of the obsessive collection of visual pornography, and of masturbating to it while watching it. And I've been very public about this problem of mine in the past, which is why I don't mind talking about it in detail again; I mean, for fuck's sake, I published a book on the subject in 2001 that's freely available at this site, so it's not like I exactly hide this information about myself.

Many of you, of course, may now be asking yourself what the danger is in obsessively collecting pornography in the first place - because it seems pretty harmless at first, and certainly not something that is hurting anybody else. Ooh, but man, just even scratch the surface of what we're talking about, and you suddenly start seeing all kinds of problems regarding this subject. For example, one of the things I did when writing that 2001 book was tally a rough estimate of how much money I've spent as an adult on pornography; and the answer, unbelievably enough, was close to $20,000 over the course of 13 years (and this, mind you, was before the invention of DVDs). And this is bad enough on its own, of course - the thought that I could make ten trips to Europe with that kind of money, buy the most kickass computer system in existence, even place a down payment on a house, but blew it all instead on pictures of naked people having sex.

But then even more troubling (and this is one of the things that made me realize I had such a big problem) is that I would often defer purchasing more necessary things back then, in order to have the money for porn. There were lots of times back then, for example, that I would skip buying food so that I could afford a new porn tape; that I would skip going out with my friends, skip buying a present for a girlfriend, even sometimes come up short on rent, all to keep feeding this habit.

But there was a much bigger problem back then as well, which admittedly gets into one of those controversial things about sexual addiction I was mentioning, where a lot of people are in disagreement - that is, the idea that obsessive porn-watching will desensitize a person, and lead them to darker and darker places in order to keep getting their 'fix.' And in this respect, you can compare porn addiction to the diminishing returns a drug addict gets from a physical drug; how the more addicted you are, the more and more of your drug you have to do, just to maintain that same high you got when originally getting addicted to the substance.

In my life, for example, I very quickly got tired of so-called "professional" porn - you know, with the fake tits and the fake hair and the fake tan and all the rest of the bullshit you see in something like Playboy - and so switched exclusively to amateur porn by the age of 20 or so. And then I started getting tired of amateur porn, so suddenly had to switch to amateur group porn to get that same sense of ecstasy while masturbating that I did when I was a teen. And then of course I eventually got sick of amateur group porn as well, so suddenly found myself looking for weirder and weirder amateur group porn - where women are getting humiliated and verbally abused while being gangbanged, where people are peeing on each other, where pregnant women are getting fucked by a group of men, etc.

And this is so dangerous I don't even know where to begin - because what you're really doing in that situation is encouraging porn producers to keep making more of this stuff, and to just revel in the most inhumane ways that people can treat other people. And then where does it stop? If I hadn't recognized all this about myself back then, if I was still collecting porn now the way I used to, what kind of freaky shit would I be into by now? Sex with animals? Forced sex with animals? Women actually getting physically assaulted? Snuff films?

Much like a heroin addict doing more and more heroin to maintain their high, an addiction to sex (in whatever way that manifests itself) is the start of a downward spiral; after all, if there's one real truism about addiction that can be applied in all cases, it's that addiction is an all-consuming, always-hungry monster, amoral in nature and not caring a fuck about whatever damage is caused along the way. And then this of course leads us into what might be the most dangerous thing of all about porn addiction - of when the line starts to blur between what gets you off and how you act in real life, especially in nonsexual situations.

I got into this a little bit at the end of my 2002 book Slut Summer; about how four straight months of swinging had left me almost completely burned out by the end of writing that project, and with it definitely influencing how I viewed the nonsexual world around me. I mean, you hear horror stories about this all the time, from women who date men who are porn addicts; how suddenly they start getting a lot freakier both in and out of the bedroom, a lot more aggressive and a lot more insulting, insisting during sex on coming on their girlfriends' faces and calling them whores. And don't get me wrong - I'm not saying there's anything bad about coming on your girlfriend's face and calling her a whore. But for something like that to be truly healthy, the woman herself has to want that kind of experience as well; if you're just doing it on your own, without your partner agreeing to something like that or admitting that it turns them on too, that's just abuse plain and simple.

This wasn't my problem at the end of writing Slut Summer; my problem was that the "conquest mentality" was starting to invade the way I saw people in a nonsexual context. Because let's face it - if you spend an extended period of time thinking of people as objects, as "things" that you either have the chance to stick your dick into or don't, this attitude is going to start bleeding into all other facets of your life. And this is especially bad for a porn addict, because in the case of porn you actually are turning people into objects, literal commodities that you can buy and sell, that you can comparison-shop against each other while standing in an aisle at the porn store. And this of course is what freaked me out so badly when I visited Amsterdam's red-light district for the first time, back in October 2004, because that's pretty much the ultimate example of turning a human being into a commodity.

When you spend too much time swinging or looking at porn, you start looking at every person you meet as an object instead of a complex human creature; you size them up quickly, determine whether they have something you want, determine whether or not you can easily get that thing from them, and then simply blow them off if the answer is no. And it's hard to deny that this is an extremely fucked-up way of looking at the world, and is yet another thing that led me to realize I have a problem with pornography.

So luckily, like I said, I did eventually realize all these things about myself, thanks to the help of a female friend of mine from the poetry scene who has the same addiction (and no, I'm not telling you who it is - and no, Chicagoans, it's not someone you would expect). And this stuff really alarmed me, when I finally took an honest look at it all and realized just how deeply I had gotten into all of it, and I decided back then that I was going to put a stop to it before it truly grew beyond my control. So the first thing I did, for example, was get rid of the majority of the 150 porn tapes I had at that point (yeah, you heard me), by selling them and giving them away and even just tossing a lot of it into the trash. And as another example, I've had a policy in my life since then that helps quite a bit, that I only allow myself now to buy four pieces of porn a year, one every three months or so. And of course I don't have internet access at home, which severely cuts down on the amount of online porn I own and collect, which for obvious reasons is a pretty good thing indeed (in fact, the only good thing about not having home internet access).

But much more importantly than any of this is that I'm simply aware of my behavior now - which like I said last week, is what I believe is the first and most powerful step to combating an addiction and recovering from it. I haven't cut porn completely out of my life, but I'm now hyperaware of how it can affect me, of what a bad hold it can have over me. I know what the warning signs are now for truly obsessive behavior, and I know how to combat them when they occur; whenever I have a chance now, for example, to either go out with my friends or buy more porn but not both, I always choose to go out with my friends. And as a result, I now personally feel that I'm recovered from my porn addiction - even though I never went through a 12-Step program, even though I never surrendered my will to a higher power, even though porn is still a part of my life. And of course this is controversial as well, because most 12-Steppers will say that what I'm talking about is complete bullshit - that an addict is born an addict and will die an addict, that there's nothing to be done about it except simply avoiding all contact whatsoever with one's addictive substance, that anyone who does still partake in their addictive substance is simply in denial about their addiction. But like I said, I believe in the classic definition of addiction, where it's not a legitimate problem until you try to quit and find that you can't. And I'm at a point in my life now where I can quit a lot of the stuff from my past that was so destructive, and have quit it, which is why I consider myself as "recovered" even though I still occasionally collect, view, and masturbate to porn.

"Well, okay, Pettus," I hear all you doubters out there saying. "If this is true, then why did you have such a freaky relationship with your ex-girlfriend W. a year later, where you two were going to sex clubs and peeing on each other and making homemade porn and having these crazy-ass S&M sessions? Doesn't that prove that you're in denial about the whole thing? Doesn't that prove that the two of you had a sick co-dependent relationship, where you were using each other to help deny that you both had problems with sexual addiction?" And that, of course, is an entire 3,000-word entry on its own; so I guess that'll have to wait until Friday.

I thought I'd throw up some random notes as well from my week so far in St. Charles, as long as I'm here...

--Dude, I saw the new Harry Potter movie! And yes, I know that I rather famously declared a couple of years ago that I would never see another Harry Potter movie again, not after seeing the travesty which was the first film and almost flying out to LA just so I could kick the asses of all the people who were involved with it. But see, I made that declaration back when we all thought that Chris Columbus was going to direct all seven films; it's that asswipe in particular who I can't stand, not the mere idea of making movies out of the Harry Potter books.

Oh, and man, am I glad I went out and saw it! I won't go into much detail, because I know there's a bunch of you who haven't seen it yet but are planning to; I will say this, though, that just Mad-Eye Moody alone is worth the price of admission, because Mike Newell (this film's director) just got it so goddamn perfect. Plus, the Death Eaters' forearm tattoos look like HR Giger paintings, which was so unbelievable to see in a children's movie that I wanted to stand up and cheer, right there in the theatre. Okay, so enough of that - just take it from me that it's definitely worth seeing.

--A thought the other day, while running errands with my mom: Why do American post offices even bother constructing multiple teller windows? I mean, seriously, I haven't been in a single post office a single time in my entire goddamn life, where employees were staffing all the windows at once; inevitably, it seems, every single fucking time I walk in a post office, it's always six empty windows and one bored employee and a line literally snaking out the front door. Why not just save the money, then, and simply construct one window? And for added benefit, why not just be honest and put a big sign on the front of it that says, "Welcome to the US Postal System - FUCK YOU"?

--Oh, goddamnit - I've got a crush again on some geeky midwestern graphic designer slash typographer. Damn you to hell, Step magazine - you're always doing this shit to me!