.curiosity’s.[uprising].

::Before starting the intensities that lie in this post, I’d like to write a simple disclaimer. This post deals with addiction to porn, and the things that it has done to my life. I may be saying too much, but it seems relevant to my story for you to understand, as my reader, what I went through and the struggle this billion dollar industry puts into the lives of those of us with even a minute sense of curiosity::

After losing the opportunity of being with Jake, my addiction to porn grew more and more. I didn’t have a boy that I could explore more curiosity with, so I had to do it on my own. I spent more and more of my “alone” time on the computer, and more and more of my spirituality was sucked into the computer screen.

It’s sad that the industry is so successful at pulling those of us with curiosity in, and that it works. I wish I could explain to you the addiction. I’ve never been addicted to anything else, but I can tell you it is absolutely near impossible to quit porn. I started all of those years ago and am only now able to say that I know I don’t need it, and am able to control it.

Without being too graphic, I’d like to tell how it unfolded.

I started by searching for pictures using Google and limewire. I knew that there was more out there, but wasn’t ready to accept that I wanted to see more. I printed out several of the pictures and kept them in my room for when I didn’t have access to a computer. I needed to validate who I was without telling anyone, and to me porn was the way to make being gay seem normal.

Once I had seen what I thought was everything that pictures had to offer me, I started finding sites that updated weekly, if not daily and could keep me more interested. I would watch more and more videos and as I watched each one, inside of me it just became more and more real. I was and am gay. I hadn’t ever wanted to accept it. And wouldn’t publically accept it for almost 4 more years… I bought my first subscription to a website a week and a half after getting my debit card. I purchased a one month non-recurring subscription in hopes (complete stupidity) that I wouldn’t get even more addicted and spend more money on this than I wanted to.

The two sites I liked most were practically the same cost and I bought ‘non-recurring’ subscriptions what I would exaggerate as maybe half a dozen times. It may actually be more. I don’t want to remember… The last couple times I purchased subscriptions I started downloading the videos and keeping them on my laptop (recently acquired) so I didn’t have to purchase another subscription.

Watching videos, Looking at pictures, and doing it in secret had become such a BIG part of my life. I would spend hours at night, and even times when I knew no one could see my laptop screen, my phone, or my psp, I would be looking at it. I think it’s fairly safe to assume if someone is into porn they are also masturbating. I am no exception. Masturbation is Satan’s way of taking our bodies purity. As much as homosexuality has its differences from the LDS church’s view of what’s right and wrong, I personally have my boundaries, and know what I think is acceptable. Masturbation does NOT fall into that category. It’s extremely selfish, and is an “instant gratification” technique. Almost everything that falls into that category leads to a consequence of instant dissatisfaction. Every time I masturbated I felt like a failure. Like I’d given in to the carnal needs of my body…

One thing I have to say is I learned as much as any teenager could about avoiding having my parents find the porn I had, and was viewing. It took them finding porn on my PSP, the home computer, my brothers computer and my home computer a couple more times before I figured out every loop hole and had them covered. So to any parents out there, or spouses, if you find porn ONCE do what you can to get that person help. Not just ground them from the computer for a month or a week. Or ask them not to do it again… I love my parents, and they didn’t have someone telling them they needed to do more, but I AM! I’m telling you to get help. Do EVERYTHING you can to help those people. I can answer many questions if you have them. It needs to be known that if someone is looking for porn, and trying to do it secretly, they ARE going to find it, and get away with it.

I’ll leave the porn story there, because it truly ends with me coming out, but I do think it's appropriate to tell you, I have deleted all of the videos and pictures off of my laptop, and have seen a HUGE increase in the happiness with every aspect of my life. I never realized how it made me self-concious, made me feel inadequate, and made me truly un-happy. I ask anyone that is addicted to seek help. If I am the help you need, then please send me an email, and I will be more than willing to be your advocate for overcoming the issue.

.the.[beginning].

I had a very interesting day today, and in the spur of all of the destruction I’ve caused I realized the things I have to say, the things I say to myself and never to the world. I then remembered the impact the first blog I ever read had on me. I am here; who I am today because of what I learned, and the person that wrote the things I learned taught me. I need to express my feelings because if something I have to say has even a minute impact in someone’s life then I owe it to them to write.

I want to start at the very beginning. Or what I can remember of the beginning. Several names have been changed for the protection of myself, and the people involved in my story. I also have to paraphrase several conversations by what I remember of them, not exactly what the people said… if you were part of these conversations and I have faulted you, please let me know. I’m not perfect and definitely won’t be able to remember each conversation word for word.

For as long as I can remember I’ve never been the typical little boy. I never enjoyed sports and the lifestyles of the normal “straight” boy. I always knew that I was the definition of different; I used to spend hours after each day of school crying, because I knew that I wasn’t accepted. I was raised in Utah where the LDS Church is the dominant religion. School was like attending church in that the church had so many of the teachers under its belt... With separation of church and state being completely irrelevant in Utah, the teachers absolutely taught by the church, and although It’s unfortunate, I was raised with beliefs that I now value and love and shouldn’t complain. I remember having recess in 4th grade and being miserable because my friends, all being girls, had begun to grow apart from me. I attempted making friends with the boys of my grade, but lost all of my progress when I braided Megen’s hair at the end of class.

I spent all of my free time after school hanging out with my friends. Up to 5th grade I made really close friends with 3 guys. Taylor Nelson, Kendall Humes and Kaden Newbold. We did everything boys wanted to do… built club houses, played Nintendo (soon to be replaced by Xbox), and anything that involved having a blast. I had never had that much fun, and definitely not with boys. At the same time as hanging out with them, I hung out with Beau Carter, Tyler Christensen, and Jake Jerrison. As far as Beau and Tyler go, I was friends with them from church, and living so close together. Beau was and is a rebel. He loves girls more than any person I know and I enjoyed my friendship with him. He was awesome and we never really had many problems. Tyler on the other hand, had many issues, and in turn our friendship had issues. I never truly accepted him as my friend, and I think the feeling was mutual. I have several bad memories of him; choking me in the Chapel, Telling me he had sex with his male cousin, Writing a hit list in Jr. High, and many more. The three of us grew further apart as Tyler came closer to coming out of the closet. He grew up angry at his family and the world and his coming out brought a lot of his anger to the surface. For me I never got along with him, but I enjoyed hanging out with him at the same time.
Time went on and Tyler came out, moved away, moved back, and is currently the biggest PDA gay I’ve ever met, and it honestly makes me sick.

I haven’t talked to Beau in about a year. I will see him places I go and wave or talk to his mother and get updates from her. But in general I don’t know much about his life and what he’s doing.

The other three boys, Taylor, Kendall, and Kaden, were all fine. I hung out with them religiously the summer of fourth grade, and we spent literally every spare minute building, and playing Xbox. When school started for 5th grade, I went out for recess, and went to find my friends. Given my wondrous history with guy friends, I had seen this coming… I had to run after them and never really caught up with them. I cried that day after school. After a few hours of depression, my mom came into my room to tell me that the A.L.L. program (Accelerated Learning Labs) had called and I was the first alternate. We went down to the school, and talked to my teacher. She was overweight, clearly had never been pretty a day in her life, and loved to take it out on innocent little children. Hated that class and hated that teacher. Surprisingly I continued to be friends the three boys, because apparently me not being at the same school made it acceptable to be my friend.
Kaden’s parents got divorced, Taylor moved, and Kendall’s parents’ house was bought out by realtors and made into a lot of 5-6 houses. In the gist of it, we lost contact. Or at least I did with them.

In the A.L.L. program I learned… nothing. It was practically the same as normal school. The only difference I can remember is that I had another thing about me that was different and people used against me. I hated the names I was called and the experience altogether.

Upon starting Jr. High, I started dressing how I wanted to, and asking my parents to buy me preppier clothes. I loved knowing I was dressed better than people around me, and it gave me a confidence I hadn’t ever known. I’ll skip some of the pointless friendships I had, but I need to backtrack to Jake Jerrison. Throughout all of my experiences up to Jr. High, I always had this secret friendship/relationship with Jake. We were sneaking around either at his house or mine, being curious little boys, and we did many things that were “wrong” according to what we’d been taught. My curiosity pushed me into porn at the same time as all of this was happening. I would take what I would see in porn and put it to use with Jake. It was sad, but I completely enjoyed every minute of it. I was watching a movie in my Brother Dave’s room, when my dad came down.

“Chase, is there something you want to tell me?”

“No, not that I can think of” when really I knew what he was talking about… and I could tell he was disappointed that I didn’t want to be honest with him.

“Something that happened with Jake?” I didn’t respond. I sat there waiting for him, knowing he was going to yell at me either way, whether I said something or not. “You know what you’ve done wrong, and you will be calling the bishop and setting up an interview with him.”

“Ok.” The conversation was pretty vague, but this was the first time he had heard anything about me being gay, and it sucked that he was so disappointed.

::After reading through this, and scanning my terrible memory... the pieces didn’t fit exactly as told. It happened that Jake, or his parents, told the bishop and the bishop asked me to tell my dad, which I never did. When he came down, I knew he had been told by the bishop what had happened, and he then asked me to set up another interview with the bishop about what my consequence would be::


“Hello, Chase!” My enthusiastic bishop called from behind his desk.

“Hey.” I made my way to the chair closest to his desk, which he motioned to.

“Chase, I want to start by saying we love you.” He stopped and looked at me. I wasn’t looking at him, but I knew he was waiting for me to look up. After doing so, he continued, “We love you. We, being me, your parents, and your heavenly father. We all are here for you no matter what.” He continued and told me what I had done was wrong and that he wanted me to stop taking the sacrament for a month. I did so, and didn’t do it happily. I saw Jake the first Sunday and watched him take the sacrament. I knew he or his parents had told the bishop, and I hated the fact that I was revoked the privilege of sacrament and he wasn’t. I haven’t talked to Jake in person since then. His family moved, and I never learned who really told the bishop. I knew I had my problems, and would’ve liked to talk to Jake about them. But apparently he’s not gay.

.[introduction].

I am starting this blog for many reasons. The most prominent of these is that I am daring to be myself. The title, .i.[will].dare., means many things to me. I would hope that reading my posts would inspire you to dare.

.i.[will].dare.

Dare to be happy, honest, loving, complex, important...
Dare to be myself no matter what the world would like me to be...
Dare to love my heavenly father even when life is hard, and I feel alone...
Dare to be the person I WANT to be; One that people can rely on. One that people respect and love without the facade I have worn for so many years.
Dare to hate the bad in the world, and do everything I can to fight it.

I ask you, as my reader, to be open minded and dare to feel what I've felt in my life. Dare to be the kind of person we all aspire to be.