“The demons know what happens outwardly among men…” ~ St. Thomas Aquinas
“Whatever exists and happens in the world can be observed by the Devil, although he may not pay attention to all of it. What he has observed, however, the Devil is able to impart without delay…The Devil can observe in greater depth. He knows mankind by long experience, can anticipate more easily how men and woman are likely to act under normal conditions, and how he may be able to influence them most effectively.” ~ Fr. Adolf Rodewyk
“…a demon can be at our side for a very long time, analyzing us and coming to know our particular weaknesses. He will then seek to tempt us at our weakest point.” ~ Fr. Jose Antonio Fortea
At age 19, when I walked for the first time through the Castro District of San Francisco, I had no idea what I was getting into. To that point, I had been a boy drunk on porn: it was my vice, my escape, my reward. I lived in a fantasy that I thought was about to become real. At first, nothing was as I imagined it would be: the X-rated video stores were dirty and stunk, the strip clubs were dark, and the bathhouses heavily populated with a mix of the diseased and the aged. But, I stuck with it and forged ahead. For, it was all I had to go on. After staring at pornography for ten odd years – I was a thoroughly confused man. Everything and nothing excited me. Women I found increasingly conventional. I actually no longer needed porn where they were concerned: I could simply watch MTV or open a “Sports Illustrated” Swimsuit Issue. Men, on the other hand, represented the sexual unknown; even the scourge of AIDS heightened the sense of danger and the forbidden.
In the late-1980s, gay porn was far from easily accessible. Convenience or liquor stores might sell Playboy and Penthouse, but certainly not anything explicitly for the homosexual taste. Therefore, to satisfy my wander lust for something unseen, I delved into the seamier world of adult theaters and bookstores. At one such place, I was quickly set upon by an older man who seemed to materialize out of the black emptiness. With porn playing on large screens in the background, I indecisively gave in. Afterwards, I was strangely resolute. I enjoyed it, but also felt like I had been finally initiated. An overwhelming impression of inescapable destiny came over me. I had discovered who I was. Yet, deep down, I still felt a little shame. Like I had weakly given in to something. Almost immediately, a conversation started inside my mind; with whom I had no idea. The voice was a command, marking a silent demarcation between what I had been and what I was now. I was gay! There was no escaping it. The questioning and searching was over.
Strangely enough, this realization of who I was turned out to be something like an enslavement to an invisible force. It felt neither free nor liberating. It was a strange sort of sensation: like being propelled constantly forward with no visible mechanism to stop. Perhaps, it was uncomfortable at first, later I got used to it. Afterwards, at a rapid pace, I was with one man after another; experienced one bizarre sex scene after another. Then, the once putrid smelling gay sex dungeons became my home. I thought I had found a refuge; a home. Because, always ringing through my brain was the voice which said: I belonged here. But did I?
Ever since I was a boy sneaking peeks at my brother’s porn magazines, or as a teenager steeling looks inside a Penthouse at the 7-11, I always had this peculiar sensation as if I were being watched. It was a horrible kind of hyper-paranoia: someone is going to catch me looking at this dirty magazine. Even at my friend’s house, when his mom was away on an errand, and I rejected the plentiful amounts of candy and reruns of “Batman” in favor of delving into the porn locker his dad kept in the spare room. It called me. The horde was massive, I quickly skimmed through them all to find the ones I liked. Little did I know, but I was being keenly observed. The forces of hell had been collecting and gathering information on me for years. By the time I was an adult, the devil’s dossier on Joseph Sciambra was pretty thick; he knew what turned me on, what I didn’t like, and what scared me. So, for a while, much of what I sexually desired was fulfilled in the gay lifestyle. Only, it was starting to take its toll on me. I was burned out: with one disease after another, one heart ache followed another; and friends began to drop away into pitiless death holes. Unconsciously, I wanted out. But, I had nowhere to go.
What the devil knew about me was a lot; and he kept me under his hoof because he used that knowledge against me: telling me the gay world was the only place on Earth were I would be welcomed and loved; that I could be happy nowhere else; that I had done too much to be accepted anywhere else; everyone outside would reject me; being gay was who I was. I believed him. And, I staid; even to the point of death.
When hell seemed a certainty, I was given another chance: the Lord Jesus Christ materialized in front of my emergency room bed and offered me His hand – and I took it. He gave me back my life; and He gave me back my identity: as a child of God.