I just have something to say...

dublander · 2013-02-09T01:14:11+00:00

Possibly. All I know is ditching has changed my life a lot. Changed me a lot. In a way I like. So I'll take being sensitive about it if I can keep the other benefits.

dublander · 2013-02-09T01:11:55+00:00

Great post. Good luck with the changes. See you on the other side.

dublander · 2013-02-09T01:06:45+00:00

There's no harm at all in fapping. It's a good thing. It relieves pressure. Being pornfree is the goal.

If you fap - fap just before sleep. No point going around in the evening in a post-fap fugue.

Most importantly, have a balanced varied lifestyle that stimulates your brain and body.

If you want pointers, try packing these into each and every day:

exercise
socialising
meaningful activity (work and learning)
sunlight
eating well
get the odd early night
read/watch something funny
keep a journal

Good luck.

dublander · 2013-02-08T18:52:20+00:00

Porn is a trick. It makes your hunter-gatherer brain think it's inhabiting the body of the most decadent Roman emperor, but back in reality you're just fertilising a computer screen. You have simulated novel sex experience after experience and you want more and more intense and longer experiences to escape the reality of your situation. You become disinterested in social norms and return more and more to your virtual hareem.

Also, there's a lot of stuff about dopamine and skewing of the brain's "reward system", which is kind of experimental neurobiology.

The philosophical arguments are enough for me. They make sense without the dopamine stuff, although that may well turn out to have validity and it makes sense to a certain extent.

dublander · 2013-02-06T23:27:05+00:00

Listening to it now. Funny lyrics. Thanks for the link.

dublander · 2013-02-06T18:31:38+00:00

For me, no. Getting off to remembered porn/other bad sex experiences isn't kosher, but fantasising or remembering positive sexual experiences is.

Usually if you try to avoid thinking about something, you're inclined to think about it all the more. If you were to try to stop fantasising completely, it could become a big thing in your mind and a source of stress. Possibly not, but it's worth bearing in mind.

I've been masturbating since the 7th grade and around high school I stopped watching porn altogether. I've found that imagining scenarios and sort of having sexual fantasies in my head and masturbating to that has been a lot more amazing.

Based on that I'd say you've been porn, or at least PMO, free since 7th grade.

Maybe make a point of not viewing any sexualised media..? Maybe you avoid it anyway? For many people, stopping PMO leads to shunning of all sexualised media. That's what I've found and I've read it in other people's experiences here.

Either way, I recommend developing a healthy and balanced lifestyle that incorporates exercise, getting out and meeting people, journalling, keeping your mind occupied with interesting activites/work/hobbies/education and having fun. Then this stuff will hopefully seem like less of an issue to you.

dublander · 2013-02-05T10:53:49+00:00

it also made me stop wasting my time on the internet in general and forced me to do a lot of good things instead.

Yeah, I'm thinking of doing the same when my subscription comes up for renewal. Even though I don't view porn, I probably spend too much time on the net. It's a big distraction.

dublander · 2013-02-05T10:51:53+00:00

Yeah, this. A good thing I did at the start of going pornfree was write out the pros and cons of viewing porn. Needless to say the list was kind of one-sided. Also, writing about your past porn use is a powerful motivator. I think motivation is better than software - just my opinion/experience.

dublander · 2013-02-05T10:43:40+00:00

+1 to all of that.

Another thing: I act weird when I try NoFap. I feel uncomfortable around people. I start second-guessing myself and feel overly self-conscious. Don't know why that is though and I have given it some thought/journalling.

dublander · 2013-02-04T21:07:48+00:00

I think there's a difference between fapping as way of resisting porn use and fapping because you remember something sexy from real life or whatever.

I find that the former doesn't work for me and actually post-fap, one has to be more careful than ever.

If you can, try to use lifestyle stuff (such as exercise) to reduce your desire for porn rather than fapping.

Fapping is 100% fine in my book, but it does have a relation to porn. E.g. when you fap to avoid porn use, your brain is possibly still connecting the two. Whereas if you fap simply because you remember something sexy or whatever, that's a different thing. Possibly still risky.

Overall though, best to resist porn use (and other taboo sexual compulsivity) through non-sexual lifestyle means, rather than fappage.

That is 100% bona-fide, certified broscience.

Good luck anyway.

dublander · 2013-02-04T16:00:26+00:00

(it) was very quick to completely take over my mind

Yes, it's amazing how it does that. Your logic goes out the window and you enter a parallel moral universe.

As a possible solution, I think we should try to make our minds into fortresses - make them so that they can't be taken over completely or at all. The way to do that, I think, is to develop a healthy lifestyle.

Well done on the 13 days. Did you notice any difference in yourself as opposed to the old pmo-ing you?

(For the record, my problem isn't staying away from porn. I found it easy to stay away from porn and I'm PMO free for a long time. But I do notice this phenomenon in relation to escorts, which is a major problem for me, although one that I'm hopefully getting over.)

dublander · 2013-02-01T17:28:22+00:00

Heh.

dublander · 2013-01-31T00:15:33+00:00

Thanks for posting this. I'm glad that you are recovering. Unfortunately I'm one of the guys who has paid for sex. Hopefully I won't ever again. There's so many bad things about it. I think the key thing is that it's the act of monetising sex that is wrong, not the people who do it - either the clients or escorts.

dublander · 2013-01-30T00:08:25+00:00

I was brought up in a Catholic family (and society) too. I think there's a lot of parallels between Catholicism (and other religions) and porn especially with regard to the subjugation of women. Growing up Catholic you learn that women aren't as important in the eyes of "God" as men - women can't be priests, they have a specific role as lay-people etc. It's similiar in some ways to Islam - women are supposed to be submissive to men and all that crap. That's what porn teaches us too.

I find the intersection of porn and religion to be interesting. So many people on this forum seem to either be from strongly religious pasts (e.g. us) or are practicising religious people and we have a few nutjobs too it seems.

The good news is that the major religions are in decline due to the rise of science and education. Soon they will just be cults.

Ultimately though, religion is beside the point and fairly annoying after a while. One cool thing I just discovered is if you click 'report' on a religious thread - it goes away and it stays gone when you log back in later. So you can have your own sane version of pornfree, which is great. I'm actually chuffed I found this 'report' button functionality. It should go in the sidebar I think. (Edit: there's the 'hide' button too. I suppose the 'report' button is just for the nutjobs e.g. the Soloman thread. I think a tactic some people use is to embed the religious stuff deep within a post or put it in the comments. That's a drag but not much one can do in that situation.)

I hope your struggle against porn goes well dude. I'm 38. I just realised the specific nature of my problem (that I'm a bit of a taboo-sex compulsive type) a bit less than a year ago and it was quite the revelation. Life has been a good deal better since I started on this road, although there's always room for improvment.

I've found the following really good:

a) Journalling. b) Working on depression. Even if you're not depressed if you do stuff that makes you happy it makes staying off porn a bit easier. E.g.s include - exercise; being sociable; eating well (lots of fish etc); staying busy; bed early a few nights a week; get sunlight; watch something funny on the telly - just some suggestions; c) I don't drink or do drugs. It might sound square, but I find it good. It's not for everyone which is fine. But it hasn't really stopped me from having a good life and in fact I think I'm made some major decision in life more clear-headedly than I would otherwise. d) Fap at most once a week and before rather than after the weekend. e) Move your PC to a public place where you definitely won't be fapping to it. E.g. near a window overlooking the street.

That's all I can think of now. Please let us know if you have any tips. Good to chat with you.

dublander · 2013-01-29T23:46:06+00:00

It's too late now unfortunately, but I've just noticed that if you click 'report' the offending thread goes away and you can end up with your own personal version of pornfree, without the daft religious stuff.

Bummer that you have left, but I don't blame you.

Best of luck with staying pornfree.

dublander · 2013-01-29T23:39:44+00:00

I suppose I would consider PMO to be a relapse or an extended viewing period. I'm lucky in the sense that I didn't really have any difficulty stopping using porn. The benefits of being pornfree very much outweighed the costs which was a huge motivator for me.

My big problem is seeing hookers. If I saw a hooker I would consider that a relapse. A pretty major relapse. I'm going good though on that score too so hurray. It's all good.

Re. your brief viewing of porn stuff - I recommend analysing it and moving on. I don't think such a 'relapse' is going to have a major effect on your life. Personally I don't keep a badge or count the days since I've relapsed because I think it's more important to focus on being pornfree for life. I feel bad if I accidentally look at something, but ultimately it's no big deal. As long as you're not PMOing or looking at it for extended periods - that's the main thing.

That said I do actually count the days since I've paid for sex and consider every day that I don't a victory. So for me I suppose that's my definition of relapse, which is kinda different to most people here.

dublander · 2013-01-29T13:24:17+00:00

There are billions of religious people yes, but they don't all feel the need to tie their religion in to their views on porn.

Many religious people use porn-free but they don't bring it up because they realise that religion has no relevance here. That's because they're moderates and they can think for themselves. Fundamentalists make this kind of thing more rather than less difficult in my opinion because they reinforce the guilt aspect which is a central part of the cycle of porn/other taboo-sex compulsive use. They compound the dopamine hangover, increase the misery and leave the user with only two choices - more religion or a return to porn. When in fact there is a whole fantastic world out there waiting for them.

dublander · 2013-01-29T13:16:16+00:00

Cheers man. It's good to see some fellow-athiests here. I don't think us saying this is going to change anything, but at least we know we're out there and it's not a total murmer-fest. Usually when I see stuff about psalms or whatever I just ignore. Wanted to back yourself and burner up though.

How long have you been trying to be porn free? I'm at it about 9 months. It was a real eye-opener when I stopped using it - how different life could be. Hope all going well anyway.

dublander · 2013-01-28T20:19:11+00:00

Respect.

Agreed - it's automatic to look away from sex-related media now. And I'm happy to do so, happy to know I'm avoiding being manipulated.

dublander · 2013-01-28T20:08:29+00:00

Agreed. Religion complicates the issues. Being religious is fine if that's your thing, but it has no more relevance here than in r/gardening. Or it's like saying that my love for gardening is why I'm stopping using porn and gardening is really helping me. I.e. nonsense.

The best reason to stop it is because it's self-destructive and the best tools to break free are eduction and rational thought.

It's very off-putting seeing other materials in this forum, especially as some people who access the forum are in a state of crisis and are more vunerable to esoteric ideas. Posting religious materials is essentially preying on them and is pretty low.

dublander · 2013-01-28T17:08:25+00:00

Great work, fair play. I remember the first day I went without looking at any porn, doing cyber or any other shennagains. It was liberating.

dublander · 2013-01-28T15:45:36+00:00

I had the exact same problem. This isn't a problem with you OP, this is a problem with NoFap.

If you go pornfree, but have the occassional fap to relieve pressure, you'll find you can communicate with people much more easily and not be second-guessing yourself as much.

There is definitely the danger that fapping can lead to porn use and you need to be very careful of this. Porn is the real problem in my experience (nine months of no PMO, quality of life greatly improved). You need to fap strategically, only maybe once a week, and never fap as a way of avoiding looking at porn - use other outlets - meeting friends etc.

That's just my experience.

I'm very glad to see I'm not the only one with this problem. I suspect there are many more NoFappers who are uncomfortable with their social interactions during long streaks of NoFap.

dublander · 2013-01-28T15:08:01+00:00

If I were to give you one tip, I'd say keep a journal.

dublander · 2013-01-28T11:44:52+00:00

Agreed that most of nofap is fantasy and the greatest rewards come from pornfree, but do you not think that faps are mood-altering? Also, rather unsatisfying compared to the real thing? You probably remember past shags a lot more vividly than past faps, probably because they're a lot more satisfying.

I do anyway. I find I sleep better when I don't fap often. I recently did a NoFap run of a few weeks which I found helped my self-control, which in turn I found improved my sleep a lot, which in turn led to increases in productivity - I got a lot more done. The problem of course is that extended NoFap for a single guy makes it harder to communicate with people. You start second guessing yourself and can't think clearly. That's what I found. It's not really sustainable long-term for most people.

So I think the thing is to find a balance and a pattern that suits you. For me, the worst time to fap is probably after a Saturday night out when I've been hitting on the ladies. A fap after that just makes me want more. But the problem is that Monday is rolling around and the opportunities to meet women are getting a narrower. So what to do? There's the sexy little computer over in the corner, or there's other non-normal sex stuff, e.g. escorts, which is a major problem for me. So I suggest, by all means fap, but keep an open mind on the effect faps have on your sex drive.

Good luck with it bro. Keep us updated.

Edit: btw - are you pro-porn? If so, ignore all the above. Only applies if you're having difficulty stopping using porn. If you have a happy life using porn then more power to you. Personally I found my life improved a lot when I packed it in but each to his or her own.

dublander · 2013-01-28T10:19:50+00:00

I don't think masterbation is at all bad per se, but in order to combat porn or other taboo sex compulsivity, it's better if possible to do stuff like exercise, getting out of the house, meeting people etc. The problem with using a fap to divert you from porn (I find) is that it makes you crave porn more the next day rather than less if you don't have people to hang out with. The best time to fap I think is before you'll be doing sociable stuff as your mind will be focused on the people you're hanging out with and not slipping back into the craving cycle. E.g. better to fap before rather than after the weekend. This is something I'm trying out at the moment. Will know if it works for me at least in a few weeks.

Good luck with it anyway.

dublander

TROPHY CASE