Mythbusting

[paul]

Yep. When I fall back into a binge, I think stuff like: "This is is so great, what was I thinking in trying to quit? It's only right and natural! Porn, please forgive me for trying to quit you."



Around 2004 I came to a point where the cycle of binging and then vowing to quit had become so frustrating that I decided to chose one or the other, and I chose porn.

I hated being a porn addict, but I hated the back-and-forth roller coaster ride of indulging and then vowing to quit even more.

I decided to really embrace it, and to stop trying to quit; and I stopped reading anti-porn articles, stopped going to church where I'd hear anti-porn sermons, and generally put my blinders on.

The results have been not good, which is why I'm here.

It's all down to if you feel that your addiction is giving you TRUE enjoyment of life or is a fleeting facade!
If you are REALLY honest with yourself you'll realise that it's an excuse that your PA has taught you.
We become a SLAVE to the constant cycle of gratification...looking for the ultimate hit..ultimate image.
There ISN'T one.
It's a fantasy world that leads NOWHERE.
Even if we take the moral/religious aspect away we find it's just a POINTLESS quest for pleasure and all the greatest philosophers and therapists over the yrs have declared that a life built on ceaseless pleasure DOES NOT bring TRUE happiness.
If it did then most rich Hollywood celebs should be the strongest, happiest people around...instead they are shallow & plastic! FAKES basically until they wake up and find their TRUE identities!
Once a great Jazz musician said that when he scored his first Heroin hit during an orgy;
"Wow, look what i've been missing..if this is what the Devil has to offer then i'm with HIM!"
Was he ever happy after that? No, sadly his life was a shambles until his early death in 1982.
It's OUR choice though as what truly makes us happy.

[apuleius]

There are a few myths on the opposite side of the ledger that cause sexual repression. Sexual repression, in turn, invariably results in aberrant sexual expression. We each need to discern where the balanced path exists. What is “healthy” sexuality? Ascetic perspectives of sex and the body can be as unhealthy as a hedonistic philosophy. What is the “middle way”, i.e. the way that best honors our natural constitution as essentially sexual creatures? What really works and is not mere sloppy idealism doomed to fail or result in unhappiness? Here are some “repressive” myths that I have identified:

1. Sexual fantasies are immoral. All healthy adults fantasize and have for the last 100,000 years. We cannot, indeed we should not, seek to curtail our sexual mind. Our duty is to direct those lower brain impulses and urges toward the more healthy end of the spectrum. Mother Nature gave us those drives; they are not essentially dirty or wrong in any way.
2. MB is spiritually/morally unhealthy behavior. Here again we need to consult the expert scholars on human sexuality. Nearly all sexually “healthy” adults MB, and have for millennia. My objective as a PA is to become sexually healthy, i.e. to move to the center of what is appropriate, normal sexual psychology and behavior.
3. Religious idealism will help free me from my addictive cycle. Strangely enough, a disproportionate number of PAs are deeply religious people. Religion, oddly enough, has proven to be a detrimental force for repressive sexuality, often resulting in some of the most aberrant, even criminal sexual expressions. All one must do is look at the number of devout religious leaders who have ended up on the headlines caught up in some of the most shameful acts. These were not “evil” people. They were deluded, repressed individuals who lost an unwinnable fight to achieve an ideal that mother nature never intended for us. Asceticism and renunciation are part of the addict’s cycle, not part of a true, working solution to PA.

[burnedout]

Hi Apuleius
I'm still looking for a middle way, too. Some people don't believe there is such a thing. I respect that. About all we can agree on is that this is probably going to be a long, long road. I think fantasies and MB are normal, too, but can probably be controlled and restrained. Robert Frost said, "Freedom is moving easily in the harness." We could both be wrong about that, too. I just keep going and keep finding out what works.

Some people find religion works for them. I tend to see some value in it myself. I prefer to pick and choose. I find truisms in the Bible and truisms in Plato, who wondered whether we'd act morally if we had a magic ring that made it so no one could see us. That's pretty much what it's like to view internet P. We're invisible. We think there are no consequences. But Plato said we would act morally if we understood the consequences of our actions on others. That's what we're all dealing with here. We've created an environment where people don't trust us anymore, and we're wondering whether we'll ever be able to get it back.

Anyway, it's good to see you thinking out loud. That's what I'm doing, and I'm grateful for the opportunity.
John

[apuleius]

Good to see you again, burnedout~!


I think you and I are kindred spirits. Again we fundamentally agree or are quite adjacent in our perspectives. It is good having someone like you to add your wisdom as we take this better path.


I agree about truism in the Bible and Plato. I practice Buddhism and teach/study/write on ancient religions here at the university. I also attend a local Unitarian Universalist Church here in my city. One of those wonderful, divine “winks” ... I just had read about Gyges and the Ring (Res Publica 2) this morning. I very much agree with Plato, Aristotle, and Jesus that the truth liberates us, just as you state. I just want to join the human race and live a full, meaningful life. PA sought to rob me of that, and, in my delusion, I nearly let it. Let’s take this better path together, friend.

[burnedout]

Good to see you again, burnedout~!


I think you and I are kindred spirits.

I think so, too, Apuleius.

I also attend a local Unitarian Universalist Church here in my city.

I'm a UU, too! Though I haven't been to church in a while. I think I had a lot of misperceptions about what the church was all about. And I was intimidated by some of the larger-than-life personalities there. Not long after I stopped going, I just kind of shut down in general. Slept until I couldn't sleep anymore. Got too depressed even to look at P. But like you, I'm trying to rejoin the human race now, even if I feel pretty shaky about it at first. I can't give up again.

One of those wonderful, divine “winks” ... I just had read about Gyges and the Ring (Res Publica 2) this morning. I very much agree with Plato, Aristotle, and Jesus that the truth liberates us, just as you state. I just want to join the human race and live a full, meaningful life. PA sought to rob me of that, and, in my delusion, I nearly let it. Let’s take this better path together, friend.

LOL! I had just read about Gyges the day before, so I'm definitely not an expert. But it was probably the first time I could really personally relate to something written by the Greeks.

Taking the path together is the only way, I'm convinced. I've tried going it alone and failed. Hang in there, friend.
John

[TYC113]

2. "I need P to 'educate' myself so that I'll know what to do when I need to become 'intimate' with a partner" (yes, I really did believe that for a long time). This too is clearly rubbish. P is fake and is a lie. Real people don't enjoy being degraded like that (just look at the number of P performers who commit suicide). Communication is the best way to learn what a partner wants to to do when it's time to get intimate.

I told myself this one too. I used to tell myself that I was only viewing P in order to learn about sex and how to do it. I thought that stuff was what the girls liked since the girls in the videos really liked it. I was and still am a virgin who is really inexperienced with women in general (never been on a date. Don't Laugh!), so I thought that whenever I would find a woman, this is what I needed to know. I thought that if I didn't know how to various positions and whatnot, that I would never be able to satisfy a woman and they would just laugh at me, thinking I was pathetic. That was what all the girls on TV and all the P stars said. I thought that no woman would ever want me if I was terrible in bed or didn't know what I was doing sexually, so I used P to "learn" how. Or so I thought. What a flat lie! I don't think women want the kind of stuff that P does to really happen to them at all. Some of it is sick.

That was my main myth. Another one that I have heard is the prostate gland myth. My prostate gland won't become enlarged if I continue to MB, so I am going to keep doing it. Now, I have not heard too much about this, but I do know that stress, diet, and exercise also affect the prostate gland. You could perhaps simply just lower your stress, eat a healthier diet, and go out and exercise more, and that could affect the Prostate gland too. In my opinion, I think it was a ton of stress just to look at P without having others find out. I always had to cover my tracks just to make sure no one found out my secret, and that I wouldn't be judged. Lots of fear when I look. I always am thinking "What if someone comes in my room and finds me looking at P?" That was stressful.

I definitely used a lot of these, but I definitely identified with those ones. I also liked Gnein's response. It's like what I used to say, I'm single and have no money. I have to get my needs met somehow.

[ocja0201]

I have nothing but time I'll quit tomorrow. Well 15 years later I still think I have nothing but time.

I need the catharsis to help me fall asleep. It actually increases your heart rate making it harder to sleep, I knew this and yet kept using this as an excuse none the less.