Everybody seems very excited by Steve McQueen‘s new movie Shame. Apparently about sex addiction. Let’s hope that he got it right. Strangely this was the theme and title of my sex addiction memoir.
The one that JB and I were working on.
It got me to thinking about shame and how most people (some people) have done things that they are ashamed of, unwilling to admit to, unwilling to own. Even my Christian aunt admitted an unspeakable horror (to her mind) from which she still reels.
That’s how organizations like the Scientologists enslave their members…by getting them to admit their darkest secrets then threatening them with unsightly revelations unless the game is played their way.
I know a sex addiction ‘therapist’ like that. He knows a little bit too much about powerful people…and lives a good life on the back of their venal sin.
As I have mentioned before…gay people tend, once out, to jettison or rather speak more freely about subjects others may find taboo. We must have always been like this…hence shame based organizations like the church…out lawed us. If they can’t shame you into submission…well, what’s the point of your existence?
Gay people in the christian warrior church, the republican party and signing up for the super chic nazis. I am being ironic.
I never really understood the appeal.
Anyhow, lets hope that the film Shame is good…and not sensational or stupid. I think Steve is the kind of guy who can get this right. The trailer is very worthy….very serious.
The first time I qualified as a sex addict…I felt like shit. Attended by my ugly sisters: Shame and Fear, I sat miserably in my first SAA meeting waiting for the 60 minute nightmare to end.
Imagine what it must feel like to announce to the whole world that your sex conduct has gotten the better of you.
Today Anthony Weiner is shamefully headed for Lord knows where to get ‘treatment’. Will that ‘treatment’ be for depression, intriguing, internet pornography or compulsive/chronic masturbation?
My fellow sex addict friends think he is. I am not so sure. Not sure until he is sure.
It is not up to me or anyone else to diagnose his problem, it is up to him. We live in prescriptive times. It is certainly not up to my sex rehab therapist Drew Pinsky and ‘experts’ like him who will no doubt castigate poor Weiner dog for his unmanageable sexting/twittering if he hasn’t done so already.
If I were Anthony Weiner I would be feverishly trying to plug the broken sewer that is currently flushing away his political credibility, his relationship with his heavily pregnant wife and his healthy 61% majority. I too would be heading for a spell in a ‘therapeutic facility’. Treatment might just mean a little time away from the media incubus that presently seeks to impregnate Weiner with all the evil of the modern world.
What the fuck do we expect of our elected representatives? That they are no longer entitled to the shortcomings we all share?
Why should congressmen have such unrealistic expectations heaped upon them?
Anthony Weiner has not broken any law. Not yet. He allegedly chatted innocently with a 17 year old girl. What ever improper thoughts he may have had he did not act upon them. This isn’t, as the media are describing, a ‘SEX SCANDAL!’ because there isn’t any sex.
This might be a Jerk-Off Scandal! Ostensibly an Intrigue Scandal! Allegedly a Bare Chest Scandal! At the very worst a Picture of a Hard Penis on a Cell Phone Scandal!
Monday update: President Obama describes the Weiner sex scandal as a ‘distraction’. Frankly, I am more distracted by the dodgy shenanigans of the laconic Supreme Court JudgeClarence Thomas. The lies, ethical violations and conflicts of interest that, ironically, Weiner was hoping to expose.
Weiner, unlike Thomas, is no crook.
Nancy Pelosi is demanding Weiner’s resignation when others in Congress have done far worse with real people rather than fantasy folk on the internet.
Internet addiction in all its very many forms is a world-wide epidemic, it affects millions upon millions of men.
Ordinary men, who at this very moment, are ensconced in private places away from their friends and family compulsively exploring the darker side of the internet: in ‘the zone’ as we say in Sex Addicts Anonymous.
There may be minor consequences for those who get caught…unless, of course, their internet use is deemed illegal or so sustained that they have scabs on their penises or they get violent if taken away from the intensity of the screen. Most relevantly…if their careers are compromised…jeapodised…lost.
Men take risks that seem entirely manageable until they bust their nut…then they can slink away from their screen to clean themselves up and rejoin humanity. Real people versus the fantasy that takes them away from the stresses of an ordinary world.
A toxic, ritualized compulsion driving the hapless clicker further from wife and children to unimagined places that only the internet can reveal.
Let us not forget Voltaire’s observation that ‘Illusion is the first of all pleasures’.
I have a huge amount of compassion for Weiner. He has been caught sending lewd pictures of himself to strangers. His ‘perversion’ is undoubtedly a product of the modern age. An age where I too, posting this very blog, live in a world of imaginary readers, little consequence and sexual hopelessness.
Sometime in the near future a contrite Weiner will stand before the press like Tiger Woods before him and admit his powerlessness. He will, unwittingly, confess for us all. For the shared sins of viral infidelity, cheating on his wife with the faceless, nameless internet that seems so benign just before ejaculation.
If Elizabeth really had broken up with Arun a few months ago as she claims..why is she having clandestine meetings with Shane Warne in hotel rooms rather than in her Kensington house?
I wonder if Arun remembers my dire warning for him to run as fast as his little legs would carry him when Elizabeth introduced us. Much to his chagrain I sat him down like a good brother and told him that no good would come of knowing Elizabeth…only public shame.
That was when we were filming The Method in Romania when she was publicly toying with him to the amusement of her snotty friends and family.
I wanted to write a bunch of stuff about Elizabeth being a sex addict but I wrote a thousand words and then the computer crashed and it all vanished. I can’t be bothered to write it again.
I was reminiscing about the first time I met Elizabeth and she was laying on the floor of her sitting room…her legs apart, her lips pink and swollen.
I wonder if she remembers telling me about her whipping club in LA? How she loves to ‘take a man in hand’. I wonder if she dominates Shane? He looks like the sort of man who needs to be dominated, coerced, his power stripped from him by a woman, a good..strong woman like Elizabeth. And..of course, we never mention the lesbian interlude. Know about that? I do.
I hear that she was in San Lorenzo last week looking a bit worse for wear. Drunk.
I wonder who is looking after the kid?
The problem with Elizabeth is that she is a mere actress/celebrity when in fact she was born to be a high priestess or warrior princess, acolytes tugging at her skirt. Gladiators hand-picked from the forum to pleasure her.
Poor Elizabeth! She’s the straight equivalent of a gay ‘power bottom’.
Elizabeth! Go and sort yourself out at Sex Rehab. You are one of us! You control every straight man within sniffing distance with your pussy perfume, the intoxicating scent of your vagina.
Oh, I have seen it with my own eyes warrior princess!
Until you get yourself a kingdom I’m afraid it might be rehab for you dear.
On an entirely different note…do you like my new socks?
I shaved my beard. I am watching TV. I am going to bed early tonight. Clean white linen sheets.
A Beautiful Moment in Europe
It was a lovely day. Nice people came to see the house. Really nice. This afternoon I worked with JA on the film which just goes from strength to strength. It’s very reassuring to get ones writing mojo back. As I mentioned before, it just FLOWED. I have something to say and I know how to say it. During the past few years I have written a couple of scripts but I wasn’t motivated to direct or produce them. They were bad scripts. Today I am writing from my heart.
We mapped out all three acts and it works on so many different levels. I will really enjoy producing this new film.
It’s not usual for me to write two blogs in one day but as so many of my blogs recently have been hideously miserable I wanted you to know that I feel great this evening. Very peaceful.
JA is not only my friend and producing partner he is also a fellow addict who really gets me. So, after we had finished cooking lunch and writing he asked me why I was still so angry with Jake and I was forced to admit that even my anger is running out of fuel.
I cannot really remember all the resentments I constructed into my hateful narrative.
Yet, having said that, my anger has to be addressed. What I have not talked about is perhaps the most sensitive reason for why it all became so nasty.
As some of you know if you saw me on the TV show Sex Rehab my sex issues have always been a problem. For as long as I can remember I have never really enjoyed or felt connected sexually with anyone.
From erectile disfunction to an inability to be held Jake and I managed to overcome many of my problems.
Even though Jake and I had ‘issues’ what bound us when we were together was our physical connection. Well, for me it was pretty amazing. For him it was probably just routine. He once said that he was only good at skiing and sex and he really was very good in the bedroom. I never saw him on the piste.
He, like most of you, had no problem expressing himself sexually but I have never had the kind of wonderful sex that I had with him. So, when I finally understood that it was over I felt (and still feel) without self-pity that I will never ever again have the connection that I had with him. Now, you may say, Oh don’t be silly..you will. But, I know deep down in my soul that this gorgeous time with Jake may have been my last chance at connecting with someone I loved and had a stab at fulfilling sex.
Once you understand this missing part of the puzzle you may very well see the root of my frustration and sadness. I tried to do everything I could to keep hold of a man who was patently wrong for me but with whom I had a profound sexual connection.
I really do want my money back but ultimately does it really matter? What matters is that I must grieve for a life devoid of sexual connection. It just made me so angry that I go on paying the price for my childhood abuse. My distrust of men, my fear of expressing myself sexually.
My fury with him stems, almost certainly, from his understandable but insensitive desire to share stories of his sex life with others whilst we were together. It was horrific listening to someone I loved describe something I knew I could never give him. For me he was the only man I have ever made love to. Ever.
It was unthinkable to have sex with anyone else. It still is.
You may think me pathetic for trying to love him but I tried so hard to separate myself from him on many, many occasions as I documented in this blog.
He knew how addicted to him I was and he would play mercilessly with my emotions. Knowing that I would always pick up the phone. Knowing that I would always respond to his text because I knew that he was deeply sad after he left his girl friend. That he was lonely and despondent but I also knew that if I felt similarly I could not rely on him to be there for me.
As was proved that fateful day in August.
Every morning I pray that this obsession, this anger, this grief these resentments will end.
As I was reading part of the new script to JA I started, finally to cry and the pressure cooker of emotions began to express themselves. I began to express myself.
I tell you again for those of you who might not believe it: He made me very happy and I was prepared to overlook his flaws. There were moments of pure joy for me whilst we were away in Europe although nowadays I really have to work hard to sift those moments from the crushing disappointments.
Lastly, I don’t really want to write this blog. It had become, like most things I do, yet another symptom of my addiction. As I read the earlier entries, before he bust into my life and I let him in…I let him in…well I remembered what it was like to be happy and I have been so very far from happy these past few months.
Even though he has been cruel and insensitive he was also very vulnerable and turned to me for help when he needed it most. You know, I tried to help but I am not a therapist nor am I the most stable person in the world.
Addiction for me is a daily emergency.
What have I concluded? I need to be on my own. I cannot begin to have relationships.
He never gave me the opportunity to say a kind goodbye…ironically, the very thing he wanted from his ex-girlfriend, even though that seems unlikely. I really tried to say goodbye to him with dignity. To end it in a civil and kind way. To let him go. I really did. I was exhausted. To end with kindness was my plan. A plan he did not share.
So, JA unlocked the pain and by doing what I do best I can let go of my heavy heart. I don’t have anywhere else to go with this other than forgive and forget.
I hope I can. I really want to. This is making me really ill.
So, all packed and moved out. I left the apartment empty and covered in dust. I have to go back tomorrow to collect deposit and hand over the wi-fi thingy. I am pleased not to be going back there.
When Jennie and I moved into The Chateau de Fleur we did so to escape the lives we had and wanted to change when we went into rehab. For Jennie it was the beginning of a life away from being a porn performer. For me it was to escape the exquisite monotony of Malibu, the pornography, the internet hook up sites and the gruelling symptoms of sex addiction.
Amazingly, for the longest time, I steered clear of the worst of my sex addict tendencies. Until, of course, I met Jake and collapsed..once again..into active addiction. As much as I try..I cannot forgive him. I was doing so well.
I tell you, I hate him now more than anyone I have ever been wronged by. More than the vile people who ran over The Darling Big Dog and more than I ever harboured for my step-father.
Masquerading as an innocent, timid boy JB knows exactly what he is doing. I would urge anyone that gets involved with him never, ever believe a word that comes out of that mouth. His lies are not even very amusing. An amusing liar, like Leigh Bowery or Diana Vreeland can enhance a dull world but a tepid, self-serving liar like Jake can only make the mediocre a paler shade of taupe.
The only good thing that came out of his mouth was my cock.
I though I might write about the day my dog was killed in front of that building, in front of me and the little dog..but I can’t, not least because the memory of her written on the same page I write his name would sully the memory of her.
To think, he left his gf and flew to me. I tended him, looked after him, cooked for him, dabbed at his tears. I reassured him again and again that things would work out fine..and I am sure they will for the conniving little cunt.
Goodbye Hollywood. Hello New York City.
Letter from Susan:
I drove my father to the Stiperstones last Saturday – creamy golden late afternoon sunshine lighting all that hilly beauty – he was so happy. But all I could think of was the time we drove up there in his little Mini – I rammed the car off the road at a funny angle and we then draped ourselves around the seats and dashboard. Do you remember how much we laughed when people came to help and we woke up ? I still find it quite funny.
I used to compulsively look at porn. I have not done that for nearly two years.
I have looked at porn but I have not looked at porn compulsively.
I compulsively write this blog. I used to really enjoy it. The blog used to be lively and light-hearted. Of late it has become a tool for me to compulsively work out my problems, my resentments and my fears.
I get up in the morning and compulsively check the numbers of people who read these pages. My breath is shallow and I become pensive, my fingers ache and my mind races. The modern opera that plays almost constantly in my head is, as I check the blog, full volume.
That’s not all I do. I compulsively look at Huffington Post and the BBC then check the MLS and other regular sites. I use the internet as a distraction from living life. Instead of wasting my time I could be writing other stuff or doing more constructive things.
At therapy this morning I talked about being authentic as a way of dealing with my compulsivity but its going to take more than that. What is it to be authentic? For me it’s neither about being bigger or smaller than I am. I need to be the right size.
I ruthlessly seek authenticity in others as well as strive for it in myself. As a result of these unrealistic expectations I am disappointed by those I love then tend to isolate. Risking being seen is just too overwhelming. This accounts for why I felt so let down by him. When you reveal yourself absolutely to another and they have little or no respect or appreciation..well..out comes the great protector who forces me to sweat in the armour of distrust.
It’s bloody difficult when one has acted a convincing role all of ones adult life to be authentic. The role that was assigned to me by my family of origin.
For the time being I have to do the right thing. Be that right guy, avoid difficult or challenging people, strive for a peaceful head.
Peace of mind.
Of course the last few months acting out my love and sex addiction with him may one day be looked back upon as some of the most destructive time that I have ever spent with another being. It may not. I am tied in knots about it.
My part in everything, every situation I am in, it all has to be owned. Owned by me.
If I refuse to take action and stop this destructive behavior then the peace of mind that I crave, that when I first got sober used to be mine…will never, ever be achieved.
Picked four small peaches from the tree. Had date last night. Spent time packing art.
The Sex Rehab show effect has been cumulative. When it first aired I expected to be immediately recognized. As the weeks and months pass more and more people come up to me in the street and introduce themselves.
Shown daily on VH1, making it easier for old ‘friends’ and acquaintances to reach out to me. Long forgotten, now reminded by Sex Rehab re-acquainted on Facebook, twitter etc.
Reality TV is truly life changing. Opportunities include film projects, book deals, lovers-I am anywhere but where I thought I might be at my age.
Outside, this rainy afternoon, the gardeners are pulling out tons of weeds. It is good to hear them chattering away in Spanish. So, that’s what life will be, a life of chattering Mexican gardeners until Dorset Mary pitches up in her airstream and tends the goats and the chickens.
I have to call the bee man today about getting the bees up here. I know where I want them to go.
I wrote yesterday about crying, a commission for a new magazine. There’s been a great deal of crying during the past few months as my focus shifted from the big picture to just one man. Ones view narrows exponentially when one falls in love and at the same time balloons into something huge. My tears were not often for him but for past traumas and relationships and deaths. My focus became very shallow and as I retreat from love I seem to be more aware of the horizon.
I cried when my Darling Big Dog was killed. I sat in my bed for a week and sobbed like a child. I am still prone to sink into that deep, black well of sadness, tears flooding my eyes and my heart.
If I had not witnessed that terrible moment I would be a lesser man today. In many ways to have suffered like that unleashed all I had been denying myself throughout the years. So many times I should have, could have, would have cried but remained stoic and dry-eyed.
The architects have just been to the house to check out the layout. She was a rather wonderful, practical woman with a great attitude.
My film is taking shape, the garden continues to give pleasure and I am getting into my creative groove. Although I am still mourning the death of love I am looking forward to a brighter, leaner future.
Had a great night out with my friend Ryan. We headed over to Tod’s shoe store on Rodeo in Beverly Hills for a party that a bunch of worthy LAers were throwing to welcome Jeffrey Deitch the new MOCA director to a bunch of LA’s finest. Jessica Alba, Kate Beckinsale, Angelica Huston etc etc.
Met up with Miggy and her girlfriend and their charming journalist friend from the Sunday Times who had seen the sex rehab show. He seemed really impressed. It is so odd to have left something indelible in the life of another. It is even odder to have people come up to you who are well known (famous even) telling you how much you have helped them. Ended up chatting to Gavin Rossdale about our friend Sebastian Horsley who is best known for crucifying himself in the Philippines-with real nails in his palms. He then fell off the cross.
Leaving something indelible stayed with me throughout dinner at the 101-where we ate the Thursday Fried Chicken Special of course.
I was going onto another party but bailed after dinner, I need to be on my own. To get used to it once again.
Indelible, irrevocable-something irrevocable. Changing somebody irrevocably. I may have done that too often to count on the fingers of two hands.
This time I am changed irrevocably. Something has shifted in me. Most of the people I have gotten close to recently have in some way been associated with or saw the sex rehab show. My generous NYC friend, my recently ended relationship and Jennie, let’s not forget Jennie. I think it maybe time to reconnect to those I knew before.
I think that even though these new friends know my story they don’t really take how seriously I believe in the power of recovery. I really do believe in the tenets of AA. I really do.
I came so close during the past month to using alcohol and drugs because I so desperately wanted to fit in with my new friend. I told him that I would take drugs so our sex life would get better. I thought about taking a drink. I seriously considered it. But if I had what would I have been left with now? Nothing. No relationship, no sobriety, absolutely nothing. At the end of the day all I own is my sobriety and my name.
There are fire trucks outside the building.
So, I pass through to the other side. Where I am on my own again. With out recourse to long, late night conversations. I am on my own and happy to be so.
The other burgeoning relationship in my life is with a young man who came to me for help with his sex addiction. He came along at just the right moment. To help him recover from a masturbation addiction. He checks in every day and God, yet again, is doing for me what I refuse to do for myself. Rather than drowning in self-pity I am helping a man less fortunate than myself and so, yet again, I am changed, refocused.
I had a short text exchange with the other this evening and rather than making me hanker for him it just made things easier to deal with. My darling New York boy is on his true path and that, I suppose, is something to do with me. A helping hand out of the darkness and into the light. An irrevocable change.
How many people fall in love with the person who helps save their life? Not many. Who is falling in love with the firemen or the nurse or the doctor?
Very sleepy now. I need to sink under the sheets and tomorrow-well perhaps I will be able to write the other stuff I write. Maybe.
Golly Gosh. I was ready to write an obituary. Now there’s some hope in the air and it smells so sweet-like winter flowering Jasmine.
To my readers: I want you to understand something. You don’t know who I am writing about. You can guess but you’ll be wrong. Even if you are right-you’ll still be wrong.
Men together? I don’t understand how that works. Can it work out? Need I worry? Just go with God’s plan and see what he has in store for me. God’s plan never ever includes meeting a normal nice man with no issues who can be ready and willing to deal with mine. hahahahh. Fuck you God. Have I ever told you just how much I trust how God works in my life? That whatever happens everything is going to be ok? It’s all going to work out just the way it’s meant to be. God, can you PLEASE not torture me by making me learn how to be patient? By making me be the one who has to be selfless? Can you just give me a frigging break!
The problem with long distance relationships? There is no comfort what so ever in the time spent apart. The distance, the anticipation and the disappointment. It drives me BONKERS. In the Land of Needy I suddenly become King.
Wonderful times spent together are mirrored with miserable times spent apart.
Added to all of this it feels like I am being given the mighty heave ho. Why oh why are relationships so DIFFICULT. It’s not just me. I know it. Why can’t everyday be like getting up in the Jane Hotel feeling complete?
Now I understand why you don’t get involved with certain kinds of men. Well, we all have to make our own mistakes don’t we? One day you walk away and you don’t look back. But I can’t walk away from this one-there’s still fuel to burn. It’s not exhausted. Yet. As much as I want him to tell me that’s it’s over. There is something intoxicating about being loved.
It’s not who you think. It’s nobody you have ever met. Nobody I have ever introduced you to. He’s a different man.
I had a deliciously long cup of coffee with an occasionally tearful Jennie… tears of joy I hope. We looked each other in the eye. We talked recovery and lost love and new love and what it was to have sex whilst being present.
By the end we were hugging and smiling and everything was just how it was meant to be, you see… what ever real friends go through they remain real friends. The foundation of our friendship was constructed almost exactly a year ago when we entered Sex Rehab.
It is obviously unshakeable. The Lord and the Porn Star.
So, I arrived at Amanda’s for dinner, she was in a fractious mood but I think she may just have been hungry. She has lost a ton of weight.
Amanda and Lady Forte had spent the day with their grown up children looking at universities. There was some unexplained drama around how easy it was to buy yourself into UCLA. Anyway, had long chat with Charles about helping him make a film this summer, a short film to get into film school. I would rather like to do that. In lieu of teaching at UCLA this year which I really miss.
Dinner with Anna in Los Feliz. We discussed how focused one has to be to make a film… how determined. More importantly… we both really have to want to make film. Neither of us are motivated by studio films.
I am in perhaps the most ideal position ever to make another film yet without a script that I really believe in what’s the point?
The same goes for my book. I don’t want to write it. I was writing it with him and now he has gone so my interest has burned off like the marine layer over the Malibu Mountains. Oh fuck.
The problem with the last script? It is really two films crammed into one… like Siamese twins I have to very carefully separate them. This requires me being meticulous and I can’t summon the interest. Where did all the energy come from before? How did I muster the enthusiasm?
I have lost my enthusiasm for film, for love, for life.
I have been asking normal people about falling in love.
It seems that most people believe that they are worth loving. I have never felt like I was worth loving.
Tonight I saw a gay couple leaving the restaurant. One of them was much older than his boyfriend. My heart sank. They looked so happy. Both of them probably believed that they worth loving. They didn’t come from a damaged place, they hadn’t had their childhood ripped apart by shame, violence, lies, resentment. I hope not. I really do.
I wouldn’t wish my early years on my worst enemy.
I wanted to kill myself as soon as I understood that it was possible. I tried when I was 12, then again when I was 17 and finally gave into the interminably slow suicide that alcohol and drugs offer the committed self hater.
I have a few amends to make in NYC. To those I sidelined when I met him. I did a terrible thing. We both cheated… it wasn’t just him. I can make a thousand excuses but I am sick of making excuses.
At dinner (crispy crusted pizza) Anna and I discussed pornography.
In search of that authentic moment in the narrative. Isn’t that why so many people go to such dark places on the internet? Looking for a moment that is indisputably real?
How could any man ever measure up to what I see there? Whilst love makes a fool of me I seek solace in pornography. I prayed again tonight for some sort of deliverance from the obsession.
Send me somebody kind I say-but would I know how to let them love me?
Oh, I have been loved so much-so often. So many men. Yet, until recently, I thought that anyone who loved me was a fool. If I couldn’t love me how could anyone else? So I thought again about the long sleep-longer than the one I have been awake for.
