Ben 10 Porn Story
Ermengardi Atkisson
Since I first wrote my story of being sexually assaulted by a trainer at a Muay Thai gym back in 2011, several organizations have approached me to share it on their platforms. Universities, journalists, documentary makers, The British Embassy and even the UN have invited me to retell it. They each used my story as a means to raise awareness of gender-based violence and rape culture and discuss potential solutions. When a well-known English language Bangkok news outlet approached me for the story recently, I thought it would be more of the same. Instead, it was a traumatic experience that serves as a valuable lesson in how not to treat survivors of sexual assault.
I called several friends that night and talked it through with them, and each one was more shocked than the next. They urged me not to take the interview, and raised concerns about how the video would be edited and how I would be represented. I felt a surge of rage that stayed with me for several days, and I was lucky to have empathetic people around me who helped me work through it. The producers seemed to have no compassion or respect for my boundaries or feelings. Thankfully, my friends have that in abundance. Other interviewees might not be so fortunate.
Then I started to watch a few more videos. The more I watched, the more I realized this guy is as far from a psychiatrist as can be. His awkward way of scrambling for questions shows unpreparedness, and then his very closed, leading questions that are almost accusatory in nature. You can hear his judgement of the individual in so many of the questions he asks.
Theres many point you get wrong and clearly even some of the comment here dont do. Id think in the modern day instead of watching something, you also take the time to research the people producing it and why they do it.
Maybe he should follow his own words of not having the proper knowledge and stay in his own lane of filmmaking. The other alternative is RECOGNIZING your shortcomings AND MAKE UP FOR IT by actually contact people who are TRAINED.
Hi, you know, first I will say that you are so incredibly brave to even consider doing the interview to begin with. And even braver for getting yourself out of it. For a minute there, I was scared that you actually proceeded with the interview, and it ended horribly. I was thankful to read that you had enough presence of mind to reject them beforehand.
I am a long time viewer of SWU and I must say Mark has shown no willingness to take criticisms to his exploitative approach. If anything he doubles down and is as judgemental as ever in the guide of a saviour of some sort.
I agree, the response is telling. You can have the purest of intentions and still unknowingly do harm. Plus, if you fail to listen when that harm is brought to your attention, your intentions might not be are pure as they seem.
But I know exactly what I'm doing. When my secretary leaves at two, I will be alone in the building. I will check my e-mail, and I may read an article or two. But as soon as the door closes behind her, I will do what I have done more times than I care to count: I'll type "sex" or "porn" or something worse in the search engine and spend the next three or four hours in the pigpen.
I will enter a trance that leads me to neglect important projects, ignore phone calls, and lose track of time. Eventually I will look at the clock and panic because my wife was expecting me home 15 minutes ago, and I have just started trashing files, clearing the search history, and doing what I can to put myself back together. I'll use every minute of my drive home to create an excuse for being late. I'll try to put on a good face even though I know pornography makes real connection impossible. Usually, I fail miserably and end up in a fight with my wife in my first 30 minutes at home.
On Wednesday, I'll go to the office committed to not answer the siren call of the porn sites. I'll start the morning in prayer, confessing my sin and begging God to give me a fresh start. I'll return the phone calls I ignored on Tuesday and work diligently on my midweek lesson. I'll do fine all morning, but when the secretary leaves, the battle will rage again. Most Wednesdays I'll win, though I'll still feel the shame of Tuesday when I stand before my evening Bible class.
Thursday is usually a nightmarish repeat of Tuesday; Friday is repentance day. Time and again Friday begins with tearful prayers, begging for God's mercy and promising next week will be different. I then scramble to write my sermon. Sunday mornings I arrive at the building early so I can beg God for a fresh start and finish my sermon. Standing in the pulpit Sunday after Sunday, I constantly hear the inner condemnation: Who are you to proclaim God's holy Word? and What would they think if they knew? One Sunday, Satan pounded me throughout the worship service so intensely that during the song before Communion, I seriously contemplated not partaking. Imagine what it would look like if the pastor on the second row refused the elements?
Thankfully, what I've described is now 12 years behind me. Its roots, however, go all the way back to my early childhood. I've heard alcoholics say they were addicted from the very first drink. I understand that feeling. When I was introduced to pornography at about 10 years of age, it was like throwing gasoline on a fire. The dysfunctions and neglect in my family left me hurting and looking for ways to numb the pain. I learned very quickly that sex is a powerful drug.
At first, I shared magazines with friends, caught R-rated movies on cable, and occasionally acquired harder materials. My struggle escalated my senior year in high school when I realized I looked old enough to purchase porn. That's when the binge/purge cycle escalated. I would buy a magazine, use it once or twice, and then (the first time I was home alone) take it to our burning barrel and set it ablaze in a ritual of repentance.
The epitome of this cycle was the day I lit a magazine on fire and dropped it into the empty barrel. As it fell, the flame went out. I stared down into the barrel knowing I couldn't just leave it there. I finally changed into an old shirt, climbed halfway into the barrel and retrieved it so I could light it again. Unfortunately, in the time it took me to rescue the magazine, my conviction faded, and instead of burning the magazine, I devoured it some more.
This binge/purge cycle led to an incredible sense of guilt and shame. I wanted to tell somebody, but the terror of sharing my shame kept me silent. The whole time, I honestly loved God and begged him to take away my struggle. But I couldn't find freedom.
Graduation posed an important decision. I had felt a call to ministry since junior high. Some days I felt that my struggle with sexual addiction disqualified me from ministry. Other times I felt that if I made the commitment to pursue God's plan for my life, he would take the struggle away. Ultimately I went to college and then graduate school to become a pastor. My addiction didn't disappear at school. But it did change shape. I rarely gave in to pornography, but masturbation became so ritualistic I couldn't go to sleep at night without it. The cycle was the same: guilt, shame, and repentance culminating with a promise to God to never do it again.
My junior year, I talked an incredible young woman into marrying me. I naively thought getting married and having marital sex would solve the problem. It actually made the problem worse, as the fear of being found out by the one I loved most drove me to deeper levels of hiding. Sex was good, but it was never good enough, because I was never really there. I was always hiding in my shame.
I kept the problem at a "maintenance level" for many years, only acting out with pornography when my wife was out of town. Even then, I didn't view what most would consider "porn," but R-rated movies with sexual themes or content. However, when I got my first laptop with Internet access, the problem exploded. Suddenly I didn't have to risk someone recognizing me. I could download anything I wanted in the safety and anonymity of my home or office.
I wanted desperately to share my struggle with someone else. But whom? By now, I was a solo pastor. If I confessed to one of my elders or congregants, I could lose my job. More important, I was supposed to be the spiritual guide for my community of faith. What does it say when the "spiritual guide" is consumed by sin and shame?
On two occasions I mustered the courage to confess my struggle to fellow pastors. One of them said, "You know it's wrong, so don't do it anymore." The other said, "I'm in it deeper than you. All we can do is depend on God to work in spite of our sin." Neither answer offered much hope.
In 1999, we moved to a different church. It was harder than I anticipated. We left a grace-oriented church for one that was struggling and had little understanding of real grace. External appearances were especially important there, so my wife and I both felt immense pressure to smile and project the "everything is wonderful" persona.
This heightened my insecurity. Worse yet, my marriage was in trouble. I had distanced myself so much from my wife and daughter that they chose to make life good without me. The way we ate our meals illustrated my isolation. We often sat at the breakfast bar with my daughter on one end, me on the other, and my wife in between, feeding our child with her back to me.
Despite all this, I felt I was gaining control of my struggle. I had vowed to go a year without viewing pornography. I figured that once I had a year behind me, I could safely speak of my addiction in the past tense and everything would be fine.
So I white-knuckled it. However, one way I "controlled" it was by using masturbation as my drug. If my wife and I did not have sex, I simply took care of myself. I had heard Christian "experts" say that there is nothing inherently wrong with masturbation because it doesn't hurt anyone else. I didn't find any direct condemnation of the practice in the Bible, so I thought I was on the right track. In my addictive fog, it made sense.
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