I wish I never found that
folder, or never clicked on it.
It all happened years
ago. I was just a little kid. Back then, the computer in our house had a CRT
monitor—this alone, I believe, is enough to show how old the computer was. But
I loved that computer. I used to type different passages of my English textbook
in the computer, and that was how I learned the rudiments of typing.
It was in that computer
that I watched the first vulgar video
of my life.
I don’t remember the
details. I only remember clicking on a new folder that I had suddenly
discovered in the computer, and then double-clicking on a video file in that
folder. The video was basically a scene from the Hindi movie ‘Murder’ (2004).
As I watched the video, for the first time in my life, I felt a strange sort of
pleasure. I couldn’t understand why, but I just felt it.
Just like that, without
understanding how it started and why it felt so good, I had started
masturbating.
It took me five more
years to actually understand—from a
close friend, who taught me almost everything about human sexuality—what I was
doing and why.
My parents never allowed
me to have a phone, and back then—when I newly got into the habit—there was no Internet
connection in our house either. So, I had to discover newer tricks from time to
time to satisfy my wants.
My dad, a scientific
officer in Bangladesh Rice Research Institute, used to have a modem which he
would fill with monthly 1.5 or 2 GB Internet packages. When I would be alone in
the house just after coming from school in the afternoon, I’d finish the
modem’s monthly package within hours, watching obscene videos in YouTube one
after another. When dad, later at night, would ask me if I used up the modem’s
package, I’d deny it. I’d keep lying through my teeth until dad would just give
up.
I would often secretly
use my mom’s or dad’s phone. Because I would use the Internet on ‘pay as you go’,
the balance would soon run out. Then mom and dad would ask me how their phone’s
balance ran out so quickly, and I’d again just deny it.
Sometimes, I even took
the money that mom would keep under the mattress of the master bedroom—for
emergency situations—and used them to top the phones of mom and dad up so I
could buy Internet packages. Mom always found out that someone took the money
from under the mattress, but she thought it was our housemaid who did it and never
asked me anything about it; she simply didn’t expect that I, of all people,
could be stealing that money.
Dad had fixed broadband
connection in our house a year ago, and then bought a router eight months ago.
So we have Wi-Fi now and I don’t have to turn to those old tricks anymore. All
I need is dad’s laptop, or dad’s phone, or mom’s phone, and some privacy.
Little by little, the
habit has grown more consuming, ruthless, out-of-control.
In the past, watching
something vulgar in the Internet would turn me on. But now, even feeling the
slightest of random excitement can
turn me on. For instance: I’m struggling to write a short story in dad’s
laptop, and suddenly, a perfect sentence strikes my mind. As I start typing
that sentence, I feel exultant, newly energized. Even that spark of energy,
though it isn’t a sensual excitement, is enough to turn me on and make me do it.
There are times when I do
it out of physical urges. But there are other times too when I do it without
feeling any desperate need. When you are at leisure, you watch TV, read books,
or maybe listen to music. But when I find some free time, I start playing with myself. I do it just to
kill time, just to have some fun, almost like a pastime. It’s not that
something from the outside arouses me; it’s more like I force myself to be
aroused initially, and then just go with the flow.
Sometimes, when no one is
home and I’m alone, I lose myself in the habit helplessly. I keep doing it
persistently, tirelessly, hours after hours, with little intervals after each
climax. I forget about everything else in the world. I don’t even eat anything,
because I need to maximize the temporary privacy
I have and not eating obviously spares some time. In those days, even though I
have the sense that it’s getting too much, that I should stop, I simply don’t.
I stop only when the call bell of the house rings—that is, someone has come
home—and I realize I won’t be alone anymore.
I’m currently a student
of a residential school. All my peers in school know about my habit because
I’ve been caught doing it a number of times. Regardless, the habit has so
powerfully subjugated me that I don’t hesitate to do it in front of them. When
I’m in my room with my roommates, I just cover myself with a blanket and start
doing it. The blanket obviously doesn’t hide the convulsive movements of my
body, and my roommates can see them. Yet, I keep doing it. My peers used to be
really uncomfortable with this and they had rebuked me at first, but I guess they
have gotten used to it now. I guess they just don’t care anymore.
Other than my peers, members
of my family, on numerous occasions, have caught me in the middle of watching
porn videos and doing it. It was my sister, Raisa, who was the first ever to
expose this habit. I had downloaded a few porn videos in mom’s phone and
forgotten to delete them. Raisa found them in the download list and told mom
about it. When mom and Raisa started asking questions, I told them that I had downloaded things, but not those
videos. I told them that maybe those videos came up as advertisements along
with my downloaded videos. They didn’t believe it, of course, but they didn’t
force me too much then—probably out of embarrassment.
Every time I face these
hugely discomforting moments of exposure, guilt and shame overwhelm me. I stop
doing it, but only for a brief period of time. Very soon, I turn back to the
habit with the same desperation. The truth is: I only wait for the guilt and
shame to fade so I can start doing it again.
The habit has its
consequences.
I used to have this really
fair and cute face; but my face is now full of greasy, reddish pimples. Every
time I do it, I can feel the pimples swelling, and the oil that keeps seeping through
them. Besides, the pimples grow faint only when I refrain from the habit. So,
though I’ve read a number of articles which explain —scientifically—how masturbation
does not cause pimples, I don’t believe them. I am absolutely certain that the
habit is the reason behind the pimples.
When I look myself in the
mirror and stroke the pimples in my face, it feels as if the pimples are
speaking out, screaming the sins I commit every day.
Sometimes, especially
when I do it hours after hours, I feel several physical difficulties
altogether: My head spins, there’s a sort of queasiness in my abdomen, I don’t
feel like eating anything, and at times—when it gets the worst—my penis starts
stinging. If that happens, I feel like urinating will ease the pain a bit. But
when I go to the toilet and urinate, the pain doubles. In the end, I have to
just stomach the pain and resist the need to urinate at the same time.
This habit has, through years
of practice, become a part of my
life. Nowadays, hardly a single day passes by when I haven’t played with myself.
Sometimes I make promises to myself and start resisting it, but the promises
never last. Last year, among many of these brief promises, the most lasting one
lasted only three days.
As I mentioned earlier, I
understood after a long time what this habit actually was; it took even longer
to be aware of the fact that the habit was turning into an addiction. Then I realized what it was really doing to my life,
that I was just letting myself fall victim to it, that I needed to start facing
it.
So, I started looking for
tricks again, this time to suppress my needs.
Every time I would open
Google Chrome in dad’s laptop, I would sooner or later go into YouTube and
eventually start watching obscene videos. So, I knew I had to stop browsing the
Internet first to abstain away from the addiction.
When we had broadband
connection in the house, I would disconnect the broadband wire of the Internet
from the laptop and throw it away and out of sight, so that I could prevent
myself from browsing the Internet. Sometimes it worked; sometimes I just lost
the resolve and connected the wire.
It’s gotten even tougher
now, ever since dad bought the router. Unlike the broadband system, the Wi-Fi
connection is automatically on every time I turn on the laptop. Thus, if I want
to disable the Internet connection, I have to turn the Wi-Fi off by clicking on
the Wi-Fi icon in the network settings. But doing it takes immense
determination, because once I know the Internet connection is on, the urge to
watch something obscene is simply overwhelming. Even then, I try my best to
turn the Wi-Fi off every time I use the laptop.
I have decided that I am
not going to buy any Smartphone until I get rid of the addiction once and for
all. This could be considered as part of my strategy to encounter the addiction,
since having a Smartphone of my own would provide a lot of privacy, and
undoubtedly make it easier for me to keep perusing the addiction.
Even if I somehow manage
to stay away from the Internet, there is one other thing that gives the addiction
enough power to shatter all my resolution: privacy, or being alone. A highly
effective way to thwart this addiction, as I have learned, is being in other
people’s sight, being not alone.
That is why, every time I
use any ICT device to write, or research, or even just for entertainment, I try
to do it in someone else’s presence, like my mom, dad, sister—when I’m in my
house—or my roommates and teachers—when I’m in my school. Sometimes, even the
presence of a second person is not enough because I eventually end up turning the
screen of the device in such a position that the second person cannot see what
I am doing. So, recently I have started making sure that the screen remains open to everyone’s eyes and not just
mine, so that I am unable to hide anything from anyone.
Shamefully, even that
amount of transparence does not prove
sufficient to keep me from the addiction at times. As I mentioned before, I do
it in my room in school covering myself in a blanket right in front of my
roommates, knowing that the blanket doesn’t hide it, that my roommates can see
it. The awareness is there, but it does not cause enough regret and shame owing
to the captivating influence of the addiction. That is why, I keep doing it
relentlessly, even after being exposed and insulted awfully.
However, at the end of
the day, what weakens the influence of this addiction most is the exposure. Almost every time I have been
caught doing it and insulted heavily, I have kept myself away from the addiction
for the sake of redemption. Even though I have only waited for the guilt and
shame to fade, at least I have stopped submitting myself to the addiction for a
while. Those brief periods of abstinence are when my resolve is the strongest,
and the addiction the weakest.
So, exposure is what I
look for. Even when I surrender to the addiction, I try to keep it as exposed as possible so that someone sees
it and starts rebuking me. I wish to face the self-condemnation, the ineffable
embarrassment, the guilt, which come after the exposure. Because that, sadly,
is what helps me to fight this challenge best.
Points: 1152
Reviews: 62
Donate