When I was a kid, like a lot of boys, I was fascinated with cliffs, edges, and all sorts of precipices. I would run to the wall or railing at the top of buildings or next to the canyon’s rim. Like the Victorian painting by Maxfield Parrish – there was a certain exhilaration in being so close to oblivion; grasping at it, you feel like you control your own destiny – as if we become almost one with the elements: the wind, the sky, the rocks. Yet, as children, we are reckless and disregard the danger. When I was older, I continued to push things towards the limit – as a former child porn addict, I was now a stunt-double in the sexual realm: first, getting into the sickest fringes of legal porn, and, then, reenacting what I saw in my own life. Pretty soon, I was approaching the jumping off point. But, like the cerebral thinker in Caspar David Friedrich’s masterpiece – “Wanderer above the sea of fog,” I clung to a rather romantic image of myself – as a rebellious artist breaking new ground in the form of erotic adventurism. It was all a lie – a notion not based on anything lofty, but merely upon Madonna’s porno-coffee table book “Sex.” Increasingly, I could only dance on that teetering line for so long – and then I went over. Taking pity upon me, the Lord scooped me up.
As a reformed porn addict, at times, I feel myself doing the same dance I did 20 years ago: how close can I get without falling; in other words – I can look at that, and it won’t affect me; the music video with the barley dressed singer, I can handle it; the TV commercial of the young woman with the jiggling breasts, I don’t need to turn away or switch the channel – I can put it out of my mind, or the shirtless beautiful man jogging down the street – I can do a double take. Suddenly, we are playing a balancing game; and, then, we fall. Experience has taught me: stand back, be safe, and never tempt the power of gravity – or the power of our own minds. Be wary, sometimes that fall you take – could be your last.