SOs, what are you most angry about?

Hi Mint, I’ll give my response as well as my husbands. I used porn very infrequently from about 17-30( maybe 3x from 25-30) I, better than most, absolutely know that girls, women, who get into sex work, are not there because they are greedy and lazy. I worked with hundreds over the course of 2 years when I was a decoy. The vast majority are coerced or forced, abused, and then can’t get out. That being said, I did not view the “ actors” in porn as anything other than characters playing a role. Honestly, I didn’t think about them at all. I just thought “ hey you know what feels good? Sex. Orgasm.” Porn gives one a euphoric feeling while using, it magnifies your sexual energy. Until you orgasm. Then you feel icky. I’m not an addict and I don’t have any shame attached to sex. However, because I was Christian, I felt it was wrong. But,until I married, I didn’t view it as THAT WRONG, lol. Then I saw it as taking away from my husband, so I stopped. I did not stop because of how the people involved with porn were used and abused. I stopped because I didn’t like how it made me feel after and because I saw it as taking away from my husband. I don’t think I would’ve stopped though if my husband had wanted to use it together, I would’ve viewed it as a “ marital, sex” aid much like toys. When I asked my husband, he said almost the exact same thing as I did. The difference is he is an addict, so he added that when using, you cannot feel empathy for the people and they are viewed as objects, and they are portrayed/acting as enjoying it. You cannot stop just because you feel bad ( like I did). You actually end up using more to get rid of the bad feelings. Hence why with a relapse they will binge. Logic will never help an addict because they do not operate from a place of logic. They don’t love themselves so they cannot love others. Until they get a lot of time in sobriety as well as recovery, they cannot see the truth. So, anonymous actors mean nothing to them. My views on porn are quite different today. But, I still remember how good it felt and I choose to not use it. Addicts must not only choose not to use it they must actively work to change their neuropathways to be able to resist the urge to use. I think many addicts will not answer this because of the shame they feel. I admit, I have a hard time understanding this aspect of addiction. I think it’s the shame that really makes them stuck.

 

I worked as an fake escort/call girl/Hooker/prostitute( decoy). I befriend the women ( girls) and then( without going into detail) accept clients( men, John’s) which we then arrested. So basically an undercover prostitute. Think -Street walker and high end escort depending on how I was approached or who we( the police) were targeting at the time. Guys on here like to believe there is a difference between the street walker and the high end, but there really isn’t any except that high end is usually more discreet, more expensive, sometimes better looking.

 

I held the actresses in porn films in complete contempt and would have derived sexual pleasure from the knowledge that they were being degraded. That is in part some of the sexual appeal of much pornography. Degradation of the subject is not an unfortunate byproduct but a core feature.

 

I was never sexually abused but as a young teen growing up, most girls my age dated "older guys". I think that curiosity you described is one that drives many to search how to be "good" at sex. when most girls I grew up with had "more experience" I had to look for ways to get "experienced" too. I guess that's kinda my anecdotal experience there, even though my High School gf and I were each other's firsts she was more experienced than me in sexual things. It's just unfortunate that it actually morphs sex into something else and can make it actually worse. Fear of being judged as bad in bed, by a woman more experienced than I was definitely an early driver of searching out P.

Felt similar as you here as well. I would look for a substitute for acceptance when I felt rejected. I wanted to feel desired by a woman.

I can of course only speak for me, and please be kind. Much of what I post is not how I feel now. I'm just trying to be open and honest as I can.

Early on, I would imagine that human was my future wife. I always had a deep desire to feel accepted by my partner and also feel desired by them. I looked for that in the P I watched.

As far as the dehumanizing etc. part. I always knew. But typically would compartmentalize that by keeping myself from looking at certain acts etc. My tastes were in "main stream" stuff I could sense for the most part what I thought was acceptable to me and not. Though it's also important to point out that it's obviously impossible to do that fully and this is the start of many slippery slopes where viewing things that challenge that compartmentalization definitely happened. But for the most part it was important that I kept some level of messed up morality to keep from seeing the truth in what you've said in your post. A lie I would convince myself of is that the stuff is already out there, so I'm not actually "doing" anything to further the harm. Being someone who does beleive in self responsibility I realize how wrong it was now.

What really was a turning point for me was women my generation who's lives had moved on, some have kids and families now. Some are still pro p, some are anti p, and both speak out publicly about their positive and negative experiences. But it hit me that p just doesn't actually do for me what I had always went to it for. It doesn't accept me or make me feel desired. It actually uses me too, and ultimately if I don't change would leave me a 65 year old man who's all alone. Unfortunately, it took most of the women of my generation to "retire" for me to really see that. Once I came to that realization it lost a lot of it's luster for me.

Looking back now too. In my last days in full addiction. I was running out of options to keep that compartmentalization. As "new" content wasn't out there without having to go looking for new people. And going outside my little box of lies meant objectifying new people. I definitely felt this, and many of the people were enough younger than me that it didn't take long for me to realize that I was doing what you have described.

 

Adding to what was mentioned above on the subject of P usage there is two factors that drive most P addicts even further down the hole. One is novelty and the other is desensitation. Porn addicts rarely use the same material, in fact there is a need of finding the perfect scenario, obviously this doesn't exist. Complementary to this there is also a compulsive behaviour where there many scenes are played at the same time, often a porn addict will open many tabs and even after will keep looking for this one perfect scenario which only exists in their head. there has to be always something new because what was played two minutes ago is already old and doesn't spike dopamine anymore. At the same time because the brain is wired to constantly look for a hit it gets desensitized to what normal people would consider arousing. This leads to porn addicts to seek more and more hardcore material leading in cases to some pretty messed up stuff.

At that point even if there was such a thing as not messed up p, probably porn addicts wouldn't go to it because it does not generate anything. Also as a by product of this cycle a lot of men think that they have x or y fetish, or even that they like other men because that's where they got seeking those dopamine spikes. As psalm described before this generates a lot of shame and sort of Kickstarts the vicious cycle driving them to watch more to supress those feelings. Some men have severe ED or doubt their sexuality and its simply because their brains went so far down In the addiction than normal p doesn't cut it anymore. I don't think anyone in that mindset could care for who is on the other side of the screen when they can't even care for themselves.

 

This is also tied to the way the brain works, it's not just about becoming desensitized to the amount of dopamine. The reward center is programmed to motivate us to seek out the pleasurable behavior again. The best way to do that is to push us into pain or upset so that we will strongly desire to seek the reward again. This is great when it comes to something like gathering food to live, not so great when it's pursuing a hit that is already way more dopamine than our brains were meant to have. So the brain has to really throw people through a downswing proportionate to the high.

My husband heard this in a podcast the other day. Dawned on him even more that all that misery he thought he was in, the misery that he thought justified him "deserving" to use porn like everyone else.....he realized he had been causing it all himself. His brain was warping it all just to get him to go back again.

 

Yeah. There are two episodes, The Paradox of Pleasure and The Path to Enough.

 

I agree. Certainly lends support on how important it is to break the dopamine/pain cycle in this particular fight. I was pleased to hear my husband really think back on how things really were, since he had really detached from how it was at the time. I mean we had talked about it a lot anyway, but these episodes certainly opened the door for further reflection.

 

Thank you to everyone who has replied to my question, I appreciate your comments.

When I first found out about my husband interest in p I had no experience of it, and had not been with a partner that used it. What I saw initially looked a bit sad and unappealing - to me at least. But as I discovered more and more of what he'd been looking at I was appalled. Instantly appalled. My first thought was 'those poor women'. I realize I'm projecting my feelings here, and perhaps some of the women, hopefully many of them, won't feel bad about what's happened to them.
I can't help thinking about the younger women in particular, making 'decisions' when they are so young, and then having to live with the memories for life. For anyone to choose to share themselves on the internet would point to some kind of issues around their self worth, or it's driven by other negative reasons as outlined by Psalm.

This view from @Thor God of Thunder seems to match most closely what my husband has told me, although not wanting to feel desire himself, he's always felt not deserving of intimacy.

This is also an area in common with my husband. His historic use went way out of what's 'acceptable', but more recently his use has been much more limited and as a result he's been using reasoning such as "they are exhibitionists". Part of his brain, the bit that doesn't seem to be kind, caring, loving or considerate, is desperately trying to justify his continuing use.

So perhaps he will also reach this point, and that may help him back away from it. I hope so. The thought of him sliding back down that slope to the murky stuff fills me with sadness, regardless of whether he's still in my life.

 

I always thought I could create a balance for pmo but each time I failed. So I must eradicate it out of my life.