Thursday 24 May 2007

Pic of the day: I wouldn't say legendary, but a weird fact is that during my childhood, seeing cartoon characters hanging upside down would arouse me greatly. (Screenshot: Sumomo mo momo mo.)

Indecent childhood memories

Indecent, not innocent. Although in a manner of speaking they were, then. As a child, I had a child's limited understanding of all things sexual. Which was not much, of course, and quite detached, without the emotional investment that adults put into this part of life. And yet...

I remember very little from my childhood. I used to say "almost nothing", but that is not quite true. Also, as I grow older it seems that more memories are popping up. Perhaps the brain cells that held them are placing them in the public domain before themselves expiring. I am led to believe that this is not uncommon in this life phase. Be that as it may, in that long darkness of my childhood in which each scattered memory is like a lonely campfire, a disturbing number of them are sexual or erotic in nature. It seems to me that while I forgot almost everything else, these were unfailingly recorded and indexed for easy retrieval. I doubt this is typical of human children.

The first of them, I believe, is from when I was just a toddler. I was sleeping in my mother's bed with her. I am not even sure I had my own bed by then. After I left the crib, I started sleeping on the sofa in the living room. My three older brothers slept upstairs, and when my oldest brother moved out at 15, I inherited his room. As I also left at fifteen, I must have had that room only for about 6 years, though it seems longer compared to my time in the living room. Enough of that, I was in my mother's bed and I was happily playing with my penis when my mother surprised me by saying that I should not do that. She did not give any reason for it that I can remember, nor was I yet at an age where reason would make sense. But I hid these words in my heart and never forgot them. (That is not to say that I never played with my genitals again, but I probably never did while my parents were around. And in fact, I never learned to masturbate the American way, by rubbing the penis with the hand, simulating the friction of a genital intercourse.)

During my early (and later) childhood I would avidly read comic books. And sometimes there were pictures in the children's comic books that made me sexually excited. These were pictures of "people" (usually anthropomorphic animals) that were being constrained, humiliated and particularly placed upside down. To this day I have no idea why this particular fetish would make my preschool penis rise up in excitement, but it did. I remember from the "Daffy Duck" comic (which had other comics from the same company) a picture of the small yellow canary being held upside down by the black and white cat. This excited me greatly, and I could not understand why. And Donald Duck, of course, was repeatedly victimized in similar ways throughout my childhood. The one episode that made the greatest impression on me was when bandits tricked him into looking in a large urn, and then promptly stuffed him into the urn, head first. Don't try this at home, kids, it is dangerous. I also remember Donald and his nephews being knocked out by red Indians and tied hands and feet to a pole and carried off. This also caused me to become overly excited, though I don't think anyone in my family ever guessed. They could not possibly have guessed that a born pervert had been incarnated in their happy family and secretly lived among them.

Well, they just might have guessed if they saw me holding dolls upside down and spanking their bare bottoms. I am not sure whether I hid that and exactly what age I was when I started. Pretty early, I think. Quite possibly too early to know to hide it. But my parents and older brothers never realized that I was a sick, perverted soul who needed psychiatric help. Not that they could have afforded that even if they thought that I would survive to adulthood, which was rather up in the air at the time due to my asthma.

Yes, all my childhood eroticism was watching people being constrained or humiliated. Just like some boys are supposedly Born to be Gay, it seemed inevitable in retrospect that I was born to be a sadist. Or at least a Dominator (I was never into physical pain on either side, still ain't.) Decades before I knew that BDSM existed, it was pretty much my only turn-on. I don't believe in earlier lives, but you have to wonder where such a specific fetish came from. I am not defending those who practice these things, please understand, I just state the fact that I was born like that.

In light of this you can understand the unquenchable hate for my oldest brother. When we played, he would often hold me fast (being 6 years older than me, this was very easy for him). For me, this amounted to sexual harassment. Yet it was as nothing compared to a friend of my second brother. This friend actually held me upside down by my feet. I am sure his own little brothers, like most kids, enjoyed this greatly, but for me it was practically rape. I don't think I have felt so violated in my life. He might as well have taken a ketchup bottle to my ass. (Don't try that at home either, kids. Actually, you kids should not be reading this at all! What are you thinking?) Let me state flat out, I would have felt no remorse, nothing but deep inner joy if I could have killed him and horribly desecrated his corpse. Unfortunately (as I saw it then) this was beyond my means, not just because he was five years older than me, but also because he had a twin brother and I could not tell them apart. To this day I don't know who of them it was, although I have my suspicions.

As a child, my sexuality was pretty much gender-neutral. But a bit into puberty, I started to develop a romantic interest in girls. And one girl in particular. Obviously I won't tell you who it was. What happened next was what probably happens in almost all boys, and some girls as well. At some point romance meets sexuality and they ignite into a feeling stronger than each on its own. Except in my case, what occurred in my mind was sexual fantasies that were just plain wrong. Even I must have recognized that at some level, even then. But then I died.

OK, that may be an exaggeration. But a very dramatic change in my life happened around the age of 15. I met God and decided to become one. Among other things, I started to banish sex from my life. It kept seeping back in, but shadily, and only in brief incursions. Some more things happened that I am not proud about. But I never lived out the sexuality I was born with and grew up with. It went entirely underground to the point where I no longer identified with it, and wouldn't dream of actually doing that kind of things. Even though I did dream about doing exactly that kind of things. But that was not me, just dreams, from The Flesh, the sworn enemy of the Spirit who I identified with.

So I never took advantage of those drunk college girls back when I had the chance. I did not even consider it. I still won't. (Drunk college girls are probably safer on my couch than that of the average preacher, mayor or respected family father, not to mention politician. Not that I'm sure this says much.) I am going to die – hopefully a long time from now – and I still won't have done any of those things. I was not born a saint, and probably won't die as one. But I can do this much, easily. Sex isn't a big deal, at least until you get used to it. I won't begin down that road. Actually, even nice sex is impossible for other reasons, but that's OK. If I don't even do that, I am certainly not going to seek out the local BDSM clubs (does Kristiansand even have those? Probably, and the people there are probably just as sick and twisted as I would have been if I let me. No, thanks.)

So that's it. Would my life have unfolded differently if I had grown up having nice, cuddly, warm, friendly sexual fantasies about kissing and fondling and necking? I don't think so, since there are three more hurdles I would have to jump to have sex. But it is all rendered theoretical. Sex does not apply to me any more than winged flight does. Perhaps that is why I remember each and every of those erotic childhood moments, which normal people forget ruthlessly.

Or do they?