Earlier this month I said I was making the cub stuff with Stray non-canon. An AU of the proper Eros universe. But I never really got into why. And frankly, I feel like I REALLY shouldn't now. But it's only right.
When I was very young, and very stupid (as you are when you're young), after the family moved from the deep city of Detroit into the little suburban cul-de-sacs of Jackson, we bonded with the neighborhood gang of kids. As we grew up, there were little... inquisitive moments, where all us boys and girls took turns doing a more.... invasive version, I guess you could say, of doctor. I was the oldest, but honestly the most clueless, and I got dragged along on these charades more often than not. We all eventually got in trouble, and punished, but it never really stopped being a thing we talked about.
Later on, in a moment that was sheer stupidity on my part and carelessness on my parents, I went to the only working VCR in our house, in our parent's room, to watch a Poke'mon tape. At the time, the last I knew it was in the VCR, so I hit play. Apparently, the parents had put in a porn tape sometime that night, and that's what played. I remember the scene being, what's obvious to me now, a 69, but as an 8 year old I didn't have a clue. It was after a minute and a half of the scene where my brain finally told me, "This is not my Poke'mon tape," and I shut it off and went downstairs. I never told my mother this, which I debate on whether it was a good idea if I had or not.
I didn't have another run in with sexuality like this until I was in early middle school (in a different town and school district by this point). We had a computer lab for science class, which was the new "in" thing since Google became a thing around that time, and we were learning about different kinds of cells. The teacher, for some reason, thought some of the class should learn about the sperm cell. I was not part of that section, but at this point I was bored after doing mine and was goofing off. And this was when I learned Google should have added a "safesearch" function earlier on, as I accidentally queried "where does the sperm come from" (when it was SUPPOSED to be typed "where does the sperm CELL come from", which is arguably more scientific). And it was thus that I found porn, at the tender age of 10. Fucking oops, right? I also found later that you could find fake porn pictures of celebrities just from searching their name alone. Yes, I was one of the kids that forced Google to make the safesearch function. You're welcome, I guess?
So at this point, I knew what sex was, what it was for, and what it looked like. And of course, at this point, my mind goes to girls in my own class (because at this point I hadn't ran into my own bisexuality yet), and, of course, puberty wreaks its mess it's designed to do.
But as I grew older, and was progressively more bullied for my mentally ill tendencies (was diagnosed ADD by a quack, and personally I'm more likely on the autistic spectrum, but that's another story), I noticed a trend that, as a teen, was not as immediately distressing to think. I was staying attracted to the girls of my class grade, but I was also attracted to the class under me. And it stayed that way. I eventually thought I'd grow out of this. But I never did. Arguably, media and attitudes of the time didn't help matters, but the older I became, the worse it got. And I wrote, that being my only outlet, of things at the time turned me on, but now I'm horrified at how non-chalantly I wrote of such things semi-openly, at school and the like.
Over the few years after graduating, I didn't think critically on these thoughts and feelings. I just rode their flow, thinking nothing about it. But in the last five, I grappled seriously with these thoughts, trying to figure them out on my own, and trying to find a way past them. And at long last, I think I have.
I hate myself for the thoughts, but they're there. I can't stop them. And there are others like that. Like me, hating it, but unable to truly stop them. But regular.... for lack of a better phrase, "bloodletting", feeding it without letting it control everything about you, helps keep it in check. And I guess, for me it's writing about it. And for some, it's consuming that content. Now, I'm not saying everyone who makes or consumes that content have those thoughts, but for the ones who do....
You're right. It's disgusting, sick, and bordering on inhuman, and if you can feel that way about it, YOU'RE IN CONTROL OF IT. Keep it that way. Because that means your humanity is winning, not it. And for fucks sake, if I find you gave in and did the unthinkable, if I find you used MY WORK to do it...
I WILL TAKE YOU OUT MYSELF.
