[TakingMeBack]

What would pornography be without masturbating? Actually my main battle is not with pornography but rather with masturbation. I would collect experiences from my day, and then eagerly pull from my memory as I fantasized about the "what ifs" with women of my daily grind.

With a particular woman in mind I would search the internet for a close substitute. Often times I didn't need the images at all, because my vivid imagination would do all of the work.

Ultimately I found myself disturbed by my lust. Masturbation wasn't healthy because it was deteriorating my real life relationships, at least in my own mind. As Paul warns in his letter to the Romans, "Because for the mind to be given up to earthly things means death; but for it to be given up to spiritual things means Life and peace." (Romans 8:6 - Weymouth New Testament) Planting those seeds of lust in my mind, and enforcing them with the hormonal rush of masturbation, conditioned my mind to see only those fantasies when I would meet a woman. I am sure that I have lost out on a great number of human relationships because I wasn't looking at a whole person when face to face with an attractive woman.

"To gain energy, we tend to manipulate or force others to give us attention and thus energy. When we successfully dominate others in this way, we feel more powerful, but they are left weakened and often fight back. Competition for scarce, human energy is the cause of all conflict between people." (The Fourth Insight , The Celestine Prophecy)