My dad couldn’t work his way around a computer and honestly, I didn’t have the patience to teach him. So, I was surprised to open it up one day, only to find the remnants of images of naked women posing for the man behind the camera.
photo credit: shutterstock
My stomach dropped. My heart sank. Disgust overwhelmed me. Memories filled my mind, again. Memories I convinced myself I had blocked.
How could my father look at this trashy stuff? How could he use what belonged to me to entertain himself with such filth? In that moment, I so desperately wished I wasn’t related to him. There was an instant in my heart I desired to never know who my father was.
However, the truth, or what I saw as the truth, hit me like a ton of bricks.
I was just like my father.
His shameful secret had been mine, too. A secret I had only told to one other person, and I hadn’t revealed the complete truth to her thanks to the defeating lies of shame and condemnation. As years have passed, I have opened the door to those secrets with safe people in my life.
Those pictures were all too familiar. The images of strange faces doing things with their bodies that became ordinary to me. I remember shame hitting me again, as I judged him with every ounce of my being for being a disgusting pervert.
But I was no different. I just didn’t get caught.
Pornography had controlled my life since I was a little girl. I once thought it normal, until 2006, when I promised God I would never look at it again.
I ask myself why I’m writing this, but something in me says it needs to be done. I just sprung out of bed with this memory. Perhaps I’m writing for my own benefit, or God has plans to heal someone else with it. I fear being vulnerable with you about my past, but God is bigger.
I’m realizing as I write this, that this part of my past is still causing fear for my future, especially in the way I view marriage and sex.
My view of sex is skewed.
My mind convinces me it’s dirty and it will always be that way.
My fears remind me that I will never be a good wife, because I won’t be physically available to my husband the way a wife needs to be. I fear I won’t understand romance or safety with him.
I’m afraid of what those images that seem to be branded into my mind will cause my husband to think of me. I convince myself for this reason that I’m destined to be single. Unlovable. Untouchable.
I buy into the myth that I will never truly understand a healthy sexual relationship and no man deserves to enter into a marriage with me, because our lives will be filled with fear on my end and frustration on his.
I cringe at what Satan has tried to steal from me.
He used boys to steal my innocence as a child. He used a “friend” to put the word rape into action in my life. He used pornography at the age of six years old to distort my view of healthy sexual intimacy.
I want to fight. I do. I pray in this moment and ask God to show me. I thank Him for revealing this issue to me at a deeper level. I pray for a husband who will show me grace. I know I may need more of it than the average wife.
I want to believe. I do believe. I want to. I try. I will believe.
Will you join me?
You know what I find interesting? I understand your hesitance to share your weaknesses and struggles, fearing that someone might judge you or think less of you. It’s a frightening thing to make yourself vulnerable. But as I read through your descriptions of the struggles and challenges you have faced in your life, my response is not, “Wow, she is certainly messed up!” In fact, it’s just the opposite. I find myself admiring your courage and being thankful that you are willing to risk sharing your struggles in order to help someone else. I heard someone say one time, “Don’t judge me just because I sin differently than you do.” That’s powerful! God bless you, Sundi Jo.
Thank you, Paul for your kind words of encouragement. I really appreciate them.
As a woman who was the victim of molestation in my childhood and dealt with years of unhealthy views of sexuality and self-abuse of my body by having sex with multiple people (as long as I was in control of who, when, etc.) I want to encourage you that it’s very possible to have a healthy sexual relationship with your husband. Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t easy for me to get past the shameful, “dirty” feelings at first, but with the most loving, patient husband we’ve been able to develop a healthy relationship.
There have been many times that I’ve had to (and still do sometimes) pray and ask Jesus to give me the desire and be present with my husband during those intimate moments, but I can tell you that after, now, seven years of marriage we love, cherish and desire each other in the most beautiful ways — it will happen for you as well.
Thank you, Carol. I appreciate your vulnerability.
Coming from a broken family, whose father was a womanizer, and by which my mom gets more boyfriend than me, I have always thought of sex as a bad thing, thus the reason why I never had a boyfriend, and never thought of having sex.
Until I was sexually assaulted by someone I thought was a friend, I have always been defending myself even more from all the lures of the flesh ever since I was defiled.
I am going through similar dilemma right now, by which I find sex and romantic relationships disgusting. I told a friend about this and this friend of mine told me that I’m whacked in the head. I honestly haven’t thought about it until now.
Thank you so much, Sundi, for sharing your experiences and thoughts, as this have enlightened me. Thank you for reminding me of God’s unending grace and unconditional love! Let us let God heal us. Let’s keep believing and have faith!
Thank you for sharing your story, Marie.