Day 22, Tue 30/3/10
Doing this writing is a way for me to put into practice something I've wanted to do for a while, which is to watch my behaviour without stepping in to change it. Of course, I've kind of been doing that for ages but bringing my mind back to what I'm really doing each day makes it more meaningful because I'm watching my behaviour with a critical eye.
I know it may just be training me in how to carry on behaving this way in full awareness of the facts and I will need to address that. In fact, as I think now about it, it seems less useful to be observing this behaviour and not acting to change it.
I'm not sure. I was just thinking about how automatic it is for me to look carefully into my housemate's room as I go past in case there is a woman in his bed and she happens to have a nipple exposed or something. I don't have a pattern at all for walking past that room without looking in. Maybe a more important thing is to develop those patterns and rehearse them until they are my usual ways to behave.
But I think in a longer-term view, to watch myself doing what I really do (but usually I avoid consciously knowing) will make the reality of what I'm working to change away from far more concrete. I mean I will see how sexist and creepy my behaviour is and feel a strong internal drive to change it.
But that drive is not there now because in just about all situation where I see an opportunity to perve on a woman, my sympathy lies not with the woman but with my cock. There is a real danger that I will continue failing to really see my behaviour as unacceptable but just get into it in the moment.
So maybe a new dedication to starting the right habits of behaviour is what is needed. Perhaps then, when my behaviour is different, I will be in the habit of not indulging those urges and the indulgent behaviours will be pushed more and more into the realm of things I no longer do.
Monday 17 May 2010
Day 17
Day 17, Thu 25/3/10
I have moments where I catch myself perving on a woman and make myself look away. One time recently, I did that and thought: no, I shouldn't be stopping myself now, I should be just observing. But then I thought that there is no benefit in actively deciding not to follow up on a decision not to perve when it occurs to me to make that decision.
And that is one of the main points. I think I don't actually "catch myself" and "make myself" look away. I just do one thing, then reconsider and do another. At the moment, it takes conscious awareness of my behaviour and conscious thought about what the effects and implications are of that behaviour, for me to decide that it's a bad choice. But it's still the same person making both decisions.
And it's true that I am not trying to train my self by sheer strength of will and self-denial. But it is my behaviour that I am training at this stage. Underlying attitudes are being questioned and challenged, and the mental health level that are associated are being addressed but the outcome I'm looking for currently is a change in behaviour.
So it's not effective, as my experience confirms to me, to try to simply stop all my sexist behaviour following a single decision made here tonight. But it is missing the main point if I focus all my attention on looking after myself and nurturing my mental health so as to allow for better decisions. My current tactic is to actively and confrontationally expose the reality of my behaviour and its effects and consequences to my conscious mind and in that way - and perhaps others - to put as many barriers as possible in front of a decision to look at porn or perve on women again.
I have moments where I catch myself perving on a woman and make myself look away. One time recently, I did that and thought: no, I shouldn't be stopping myself now, I should be just observing. But then I thought that there is no benefit in actively deciding not to follow up on a decision not to perve when it occurs to me to make that decision.
And that is one of the main points. I think I don't actually "catch myself" and "make myself" look away. I just do one thing, then reconsider and do another. At the moment, it takes conscious awareness of my behaviour and conscious thought about what the effects and implications are of that behaviour, for me to decide that it's a bad choice. But it's still the same person making both decisions.
And it's true that I am not trying to train my self by sheer strength of will and self-denial. But it is my behaviour that I am training at this stage. Underlying attitudes are being questioned and challenged, and the mental health level that are associated are being addressed but the outcome I'm looking for currently is a change in behaviour.
So it's not effective, as my experience confirms to me, to try to simply stop all my sexist behaviour following a single decision made here tonight. But it is missing the main point if I focus all my attention on looking after myself and nurturing my mental health so as to allow for better decisions. My current tactic is to actively and confrontationally expose the reality of my behaviour and its effects and consequences to my conscious mind and in that way - and perhaps others - to put as many barriers as possible in front of a decision to look at porn or perve on women again.
Day 16
Day 16, Wed 24/3/10
[It's ages later that I'm typing this up - nearly two months - so I'm not sure if there are any days inbetween that are missing. Anyway, this is what I wrote.]
So this is not every day at all. But I have things I am itching to write now, anyway.
I noticed I have more than an ambition to get back to my habits of porn and perving. I actually have fantasies about the situations I'd like to create for myself that will make perving easier for me. They will never happen but that's not really the point.
One is to run a clothes shop or a gym or something where women get changed, and to set up one-way mirrors so I can watch them. Another is to run a night-club and to set up little mirrors and lights on the floor so that men can look up women's dresses. These fantasies will never be realised but they are part of a mindset where I plan my life around having opportunities to perve on women.
I just moved into a new share house recently and one of the first things I did was check out the opportunities for perving on women in the shower. Luckily, there isn't really a way but the thing is that I looked for one.
It's totally indulging my desires and being really inconsiderate of women's rights to privacy and security. After my recent writing, it has also been really obvious to me how my desire to perve on women and look at porn is a reflection of a very real domination and subjugation of women.
Back to what I was writing about last time, I think I have created an image in my mind of a generic sex object that is shaped like a woman's body. I don't see that object as a person. An image actually came up in my imagination just then. It was a cartoon drawing of a woman from neck to thighs, no head, knees or arms. She was lying back against something and naked. I think it is likely that something like that really is one of my mind's generic sex objects.
The caricature has all the characteristics of the female image that is promtoed in the media. It has no hair except pubic hair - and that is hort and contained - and its breasts are round and sit up as though they were held up by a bra. There is a verison of this caricature that has other body parts and clothes too, because the make-up and hair and girly clothes are definitely part of the image I store in my mind.
[It's ages later that I'm typing this up - nearly two months - so I'm not sure if there are any days inbetween that are missing. Anyway, this is what I wrote.]
So this is not every day at all. But I have things I am itching to write now, anyway.
I noticed I have more than an ambition to get back to my habits of porn and perving. I actually have fantasies about the situations I'd like to create for myself that will make perving easier for me. They will never happen but that's not really the point.
One is to run a clothes shop or a gym or something where women get changed, and to set up one-way mirrors so I can watch them. Another is to run a night-club and to set up little mirrors and lights on the floor so that men can look up women's dresses. These fantasies will never be realised but they are part of a mindset where I plan my life around having opportunities to perve on women.
I just moved into a new share house recently and one of the first things I did was check out the opportunities for perving on women in the shower. Luckily, there isn't really a way but the thing is that I looked for one.
It's totally indulging my desires and being really inconsiderate of women's rights to privacy and security. After my recent writing, it has also been really obvious to me how my desire to perve on women and look at porn is a reflection of a very real domination and subjugation of women.
Back to what I was writing about last time, I think I have created an image in my mind of a generic sex object that is shaped like a woman's body. I don't see that object as a person. An image actually came up in my imagination just then. It was a cartoon drawing of a woman from neck to thighs, no head, knees or arms. She was lying back against something and naked. I think it is likely that something like that really is one of my mind's generic sex objects.
The caricature has all the characteristics of the female image that is promtoed in the media. It has no hair except pubic hair - and that is hort and contained - and its breasts are round and sit up as though they were held up by a bra. There is a verison of this caricature that has other body parts and clothes too, because the make-up and hair and girly clothes are definitely part of the image I store in my mind.
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