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The Porn Goddess

Discussion in 'Porn Addiction' started by ZenAF, May 2, 2019.

  1. ZenAF

    ZenAF Fapstronaut

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    THE PORN GODDESS
    [​IMG]
    (Of course I wanted to make her very curvy and sexy, but I didn't want to unnecessarily trigger anybody. ;) )

    Dear Reader

    This is an attempt to describe our affliction as clear as I can on a psychological level. I hope that it will help some of you to heal.
    I am not a psychologist nor have I studied psychology at a university. However I've familiarized myself intensely with the work of Dr. J.B. Peterson, C.G. Jung, E. Neumann and others and with the field of psychology in general. The concepts I'm about to present to you is based on what I've learned.


    INTRO

    Porn was and to most of us still is a goddess. Her sacredness is the main reason why it's so hard for us to quit.

    Contrary to what you might think, I am not trying to sell you some woo-woo esotericism, but I'm using the term goddess in a technical sense. Let me explain.

    THE HUMAN PSYCHE IN SHORT

    To follow my reasoning it's important for you to understand some basics of the human psyche.
    The core you is what people recognize when they achieve deep meditation. You are the observer, detached from all emotion and suffering, you are pure free will. You are the instance that makes a choice. However the core you has no agenda. You use your personality or ego as an indicator for what you want so you can experience life to it's fullest.

    Your personality is split into many parts. That's true on a psycho-physiological level, meaning you experience it in that way psychologically but your brain is also observably structured in that manner.
    The Greeks and Romans and many other cultures identified those different parts as gods. Why? Because love, anger, ambition, jealousy, lust, etc. is found in everybody, hence those states of mind transcend the individual and become archetypal. They used to say that we're the "playthings of the gods", because once we're overtaken by one of these strong emotional states, we change into a different version of ourselves.
    Each version has it's own view of the world, it's own believes and it's own goals!

    These views and goals can conflict each other. That's why all of us are in the conundrum of wanting to quit porn but also not.

    YOUR LUST AND PORN

    The part of you that responds to porn is obviously your lust. However you shouldn't mistake your lust for being your addiction itself (which I've seen many do around here). Your lust simply wants sexual satisfaction, period. It doesn't care how, as long as it's the best thing it can get. Porn is clearly an incredibly efficient way to get off. But since you find yourself reading this post you know yourself that this way has downsides. Yet the simple recognition of the downsides doesn't seem to make it much easier to quit. How come?

    First of all because the part that recognizes the downsides of porn isn't your lust. It's a different part, I'll call it the conscientious you. The you that knows what you're supposed to do in life so that you ascend the ladder instead of falling down. If you remember the movie Pinocchio this part is visualized by Jimini Cricket. It's that nagging voice that tells you to get out of bed in the morning, or to apologize when you fucked up, or pushes you to exercise more.

    So while you embody the conscientious you and tell yourself that porn is bad and that you should change your life, your lust doesn't listen. In fact it doesn't give a damn, because it has a different view on porn. It believes in it.

    What does believing mean? It means your lust has a set of positive attributes that it ascribes to pornography. It's quick to access, it has a limitless content, it satisfies your curiosity, it reliably gets you hard and even when it doesn't anymore it will still get you off, even when it hurts.
    Your lust argues that you have a strong libido which needs to be taken care off, which is true, and that porn is an amazing way to do so. It doesn't reject the other ways, like masturbation to fantasy or real sex. But if those aren't as immediately available (unlike sex) or as novel (unlike masturbation to fantasy) as porn, it will chose porn every time.

    However once we've suffered enough, which most of us around here have, we've accumulated strong counter-arguments against all those positive beliefs: The disappointment when we destroyed a streak and relapsed, the feeling of being less than what we should be at this point in life, the feeling of being stuck at the same place and never entering a new period of life and in the worst cases destroyed relationships and PIED. Under those newly acquired negative beliefs about porn, the positive rational arguments your lust offers become meaningless.

    And still we relapse.

    PORN IS A GODDESS
    The only reason why we can't quit something that we rationally know is bad, is because there's an irrational link to it that we hold sacred.
    You may think at this point, "No no, there's nothing spiritual about this, your brain is simply addicted." And to that I say you underestimate the human mind. If you're deeply in love with a girl you're technically speaking addicted to her. You're addicted to the oxytocin and dopamine that gets released every time you are with her. But if that bitch betrays you in a major way, even tho you'll be hurt and will want to go back in time, you'll stop hanging out with her then and there, because you know she's bad for you. You won't have the same struggle of keep wanting to go back to her like you have with porn right now.
    You can argue that it's about varying degrees of addiction, but the argument of biological determinism starts to fall flat. Also, as this forum demonstrates, the only remedy this view offers, which is simple abstinence, is clearly not as helpful on it's own as it should be.

    To me it's obvious that there's more behind this addiction on a psychological level and the answer is found in our amazing ability to abstract.
    When we talk about our addiction notice how we pretty much always use the term porn. We almost never talk about specific videos. Our minds abstracted the thousands of porn videos we've watched over time into one thing.
    Through the same mechanism we've created religions. We've abstracted stories about ourselves over and over to get to the essence.
    We've done the same thing with porn. But we did more than summarizing it into one term, it became sacred to us.
    Our minds perceive and treat porn like it's a goddess.
    Why? Because it's a) like a being, b) it offers us unlimited benefits as long as we worship it and c) it controls us.

    The reason why it's like a being is found in our evolutionary history. For millions of years we always had sex with a person. And even though our newer more sophisticated instances in our brain understand that while we PMO we're not having sex with a person, our more primitive systems are fooled and we start to create an unconscious sexual relationship with porn, like we would with a person.

    With time porn became so powerful that it began to overrule all the other personalities within you on a consistent basis. Which means it started to control you. And you instinctively know, the only thing that can control your will is something that is higher than you, which makes it first commanding and over the years eventually divine.

    Whenever you saw a triggering image, it's like the call of the goddess and your lust answers. It learned to have a submissive worshipful attitude towards porn. That's why you can't just quit, even with all the rationals you come up with. You're tugging against an unconscious spiritual belief in pornography.

    The truth is we yearn for spirituality, magic and the like in our lives which are usually characterized by normality. Porn seems to fill that void because it demonstrates a power of attraction that is so strong that it feels like magic. And we're addicted to that feeling.

    BREAK THE CHAINS
    In the beginning I explained how the core you is free will. But you have no agenda, you usually side with that part of your ego which expresses the strongest need, because that's a good rule of thumb to figure out what you want in life. Even though you're not forced to side with the loudest voice inside you, you usually do. This is just to say that any time your lust expresses it's overwhelming need to worship you do have the power to chose to do something else.

    To get to the root of the problem means to understand your relationship with porn. Understand that you have a worshipful attitude towards it. Understand that this worshipful attitude is instinctive, unconscious, irrational. We are genetically designed to be able to submit to a higher order, it's natural to us, it's not something you need to learn. Understand that this mechanism has been wrongfully applied to porn.

    Obviously porn isn't a real goddess. It's just a couple videos that trigger our most primitive systems. And porn will turn back to that underwhelming form once you realize that all the power it has over you is given by you. You instinctively chose to fool yourself into believing that porn is a real being with real value which needs to be worshiped because it makes you feel good consistently in return.
    People who believe in a higher order fight pain, fight logic that conflicts their belief and stay true to their idol. Which is exactly what your lust does when it's confronted with the downsides of porn and all the reasons why you should quit.

    Of course we should know how to believe deeply in something. It's very useful in life to persist through pain and to not become unsure of ourselves every time someone doubts us. But when this mode of being is applied to the wrong cause we get into big trouble.
    The best advice I can give to you is to observe yourself. When you feel the urge to watch porn, don't just fight it or dismiss it like it's not worthy of you and then relapse anyway later. Instead ask yourself why. Over and over again. Ask your lust "why do you want this right now?" And you will answer yourself. Those answers will be rational in the beginning, but as you negate them one by one you'll get to the irrational core of your lusts motivation. The spiritual ties to your goddess. The fear and respect you have for her. You need to break this illusion. You need to able to look at porn and understand down to your bones that you're not forced to PMO. You do have free will. It is actually just videos of a couple people fucking and whatever it offers you as pleasure you'll pay back three times over in suffering. It's a stupid deal and you know it. And even if it hurts, your lust will learn to accept that reality too. And it will hurt. It's not a nice feeling to give up something that felt sacred to you. It leaves you with an empty feeling and a "what now, is it really worth it to give it up?" You know it is.
    WHY MAKE IT SO COMPLICATED?
    Reading through all this you might wonder why you should treat your lust like it's another person that you have to negotiate with (instead of fight) and why you should bother to dissect your addiction into it's parts and dynamic relationships, since this makes it kinda complicated.

    All I can tell you is that since I treat myself that way I don't struggle anymore. I don't have to fight my lust. It's easy for me not to PMO. Relapse stopped being an option. And that's after two years of relapse after relapse, the highest streak I've managed was 17 days, I was deep deep deep into that shit. What I've changed was the way I approach my addiction in the manner that I've described. I hope that some of you can do the same.

    It's time to wake up Neo...
     
    Last edited: May 17, 2019
  2. Rock Lee

    Rock Lee New Fapstronaut

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    Wow. This is very insightful. PMO is the worst con game ever, a few minutes or even seconds of fake pleasure and you are left to deal with some dire consequences. How does your mind fall for this?!?! It's such a clear cheat but still, we find ourselves here. I have always believed its psychological, this war is in the mind not on our phones or laptops. Thank you for the insights and explanations, feel thoroughly informed and invigorated to win this.
     
  3. Thank you for this meaningful and rich thread. I found this strategy useful especially when urges hit and I become lost in between my fantasies. Honestly it sometimes feels worse when doubts and fears play a role about "what should i do if nothing works. Or suddenly doubting what I am doing". But negotiating and discussing these fantasies in mind and declining them with the reality that I can obtain by nofap will help in this.
     
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  4. hd47

    hd47 Fapstronaut

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    very nice toipic.
     
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  5. TimeToQuitNow

    TimeToQuitNow Fapstronaut

    Thank you for the insight. The idea of porn being a goddess makes a lot of sense (well maybe more like a devil pretending to be a goddess). But I'm curious about your solution.

    You said you need cut ties with your "goddess" and ask yourself "why do I want this right now". Essentially using logic and strong will to overcome the might of this idol you worship. By asking these questions to get to the core of your lust so you can better control it. That makes sense but what would you say you replace it with? Do you go on to worship something else? Is it possible to not worship anything? You definition of the word worship is broad which honestly I agree with but it makes the idea that someone being godless as impossible. I'm not an atheist myself but if an atheist or anyone was "worshipping" the porn goddess and stopped would that void not be filled with a new god/goddess?

    Essential what this post says to me is that a god (lower case g) is is just what you hold sacred whether you like it or not. This could be anything from porn, a human being, an idea, a religion, a political ideology, an animal, a book, even a rock. If you truly had nothing you felt was sacred then you would essentially be worshipping your own ego and that's the definition of arrogance.

    Sorry if none of this makes sense. Your post was one of the most insightful I've seen in a while and you seem like a smart guy so I figured you could share some light on my questions.
     
  6. Thank you for an amazing, fresh insight into the struggle with porn. I am really impressed. You catched subtle difference between terminology of using porn and submitting to porn. This changes driving force and show who is in charge. When people say they watched explicit video or masturbated, they in fact say that they decided and they rule over the situation. Submitting to porn, means that man becomes powerless and accepts it. It is humilinating, but attractive as well in subconscious way. I am certain that rethinking this idea can be helpfull for people fighting with porn habit.

    Watching porn is giving up and hiding from real life and challenges. This is esentially about fear, lack of self-esteem and weakness. Porn not only induct these things in physical way - whole construct of porn is about it and consuming it always require admiting you are weak, afraid etc.

    Congratulations! Wish you next successes in the future!

     
  7. ZenAF

    ZenAF Fapstronaut

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    You basically answered your own question.

    Belief gets constructed in the following manner and I learned this from Dr. Petersons incredible work in Maps of Meaning (60hr lecture available for free on YT):
    One of our most basic realities is that we live inside social hierarchies. It is of utmost importance to climb those hierarchies in order to maximize our survival and prosperity (and increase our chances to procreate). That's why humans have told each other stories about people who climb hierarchies and people who fall since the beginning of our civilizations. Over hundred thousands, maybe even millions of years (depending on how old language is), we've abstracted those stories and boiled them down to their essence.

    So when you take a hundred good men and you take all their best attributes and combine them into one man, you get a hero.
    If you take a thousand heroes and abstract all their best attributes you get a deity. (Works with the worst attributes too of course.)

    So basically belief in a deity means you believe in a set of attributes as being the supreme thing in life. They take up the highest place in your personal belief hierarchy and you orient yourself towards them.
    It is inevitable that you have something on top of your belief hierarchy, whether you're conscious of it or not.

    As I said, there are many different sides inside you and they each have their own belief structure with something at the top! You should however consciously belief in a set of principles that overrule them all. This is the function of believing in God (capital G :)). True speech, taking responsibility for your suffering, protecting the weak, etc. That will help you to guide yourself and give your life consistency. That used to be the role of religions. Now that they're gone in many parts, other things take their place (like hedonism).

    However you can't avoid that your lust will have it's own ideals. And that ideal for a porn addict is porn. It's at the top of it's belief hierarchy. What you can do by asking over and over "Why? Why do you want this right now? What exactly do you want out of it?" will start to devalue porn and it will take a lower and lower place in your lusts hierarchy. Because the true nature of porn, if seen clearly, is not valuable compared to a real sexual relationship with another human being.

    There's a lot more to say about this but I want to keep it short. You can of course ask more questions if you like.

    The way forward is to devalue porn by understanding it's true nature (less awesome than it appears, more harmful than you think it is) and to, as you rightfully mentioned, replace it with something better. Ideally a real person. I managed to do that with my girlfriend. That doesn't mean she's a goddess to me, it just means to my lust she's become the main source of satisfaction.
     
  8. TimeToQuitNow

    TimeToQuitNow Fapstronaut

    Thank you for the response. I have read some of Jordan Peterson's book the 12 rules of life so I have some idea of his philosophy. I'm not sure it's fair to say religion is gone since most people in the world belong to a religion, including myself.

    You mentioning that you now attached your lust to your girlfriend reminded me of my mistake. Along with porn, I've been lusting/loving
    after a girl that I can't be with (for various reasons I won't get into). Maybe she's a "goddess" in my head :p. I realise I need to detach her, move on and take her off the pedestal I put her on. Same with pornography. And like you said it'll hurt but not doing it hurts even more in the long run.

    Anyways congratulations on overcoming your porn addiction. I will definitely be using this knowledge to help out with my journey. I actually took your advice in the middle of night and it worked :D.
     
  9. ZenAF

    ZenAF Fapstronaut

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    Yeah you're right. I sometimes tend to be pessimistic about the matter.
    I'm glad it worked.
    I did not overcome my addiction yet. I've made some big steps, but it's not out of my life. I've been using that shit for 14 years, it doesn't go away in just 4 month, especially since at times I've peeked at it. But I stayed off PMO and most of the time porn isn't in my thoughts. But I would be delusional to think it's gone completely.
     
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  10. Jonny1992

    Jonny1992 Fapstronaut

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    How long did this took you, to understand all this? I am very interested how long your streak will be, you said Relapse is not an option. I will try your way, made a screenshot. Took an hour to read and understand it. Will follow you.
     
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  11. ZenAF

    ZenAF Fapstronaut

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    Hard to say. I first started my journey to quit two years ago. The knowledge I use for this thread I starting learning three years ago.
    Doesn't mean it should take you the same amount of time. But you need to have your own epiphanies. Advice from others doesn't get us very far, we need to make our own experiences.
    Well I don't care how long it will be, because I won't relapse anymore. The idea of relapsing seems as stupid to me now as hitting my head against a wall when I have a headache.

    There is nothing special about porn. There is only something special about women. Porn makes us believe it gives us access to women but it doesn't. It's like you want to drink an orange juice but instead you're offered water with synthetic orange die in it that gives you cancer.
     
  12. Urges hold no power over the determined mind. This is 100% true. Urges won't even exist once an addict has made up his mind.

    I like your metaphorical description of porn as being a person, a bad friend. You could imagine porn had a name, let's say, Johny, who's a drug addict himself and gathers all of his sober friends on a Saturday night to go out with him and be introduced to whatever he's taking himself. Would you still want to hang around with such a bad influence? You wouldn't, unless you had no self-respect.
     
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  13. stoneyman22

    stoneyman22 Fapstronaut

    Maybe the absence of ego mixed with the absence of worship is the truth we all need.
     
    Last edited: May 17, 2019
  14. findinganewfrontier

    findinganewfrontier Fapstronaut

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    Really insightful!
     
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  15. Simply WOW
    YOU REALLY BLOW MY MIND
    This a very different yet insightful perspective. Thank you buddy

    Wish you all the best for the rest
     
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  16. ZenAF

    ZenAF Fapstronaut

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    Thanks, you too.
     
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  17. stoneyman22

    stoneyman22 Fapstronaut

    Good post man, makes a lot of logical sense for the brain.
     
  18. TimeToQuitNow

    TimeToQuitNow Fapstronaut

    I see why you would say that but from experience I disagree. I worship Allah and don't plan to stop. So far this month of fasting (Ramadan) has lead me to not want to masturbate. Through dedication to the God I believe in I've been noticing me not even craving porn, which I've been addicted to for years. It's only when I don't focus on prayer or worship when porn becomes a problem, a goddess. I also noticed religion helping a lot of people on this website, so I think it is important to have a replacement to our porn goddess.
     
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  19. llortaton

    llortaton Fapstronaut

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    My Journal
    Beautiful... Just... BEAUTIFUL.

    You...
    You my friend.
    Are the definition of a deep thinker.
    Maybe even a genius.

    See, all it takes is looking from a different perspective, to quit.
    I see.
    We do truly have different characters inside of us.
    We can choose which ones to feed... and which ones to starve.

    Perhaps, could we message? Could you teach me to think like you in regards to "negotiating with urges."?

    Thanks!
     
  20. llortaton

    llortaton Fapstronaut

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    Salam Alaikum!
    Could you pray out loud for me in real life to allah?
    Not only for my PMO addiction, and not only for allah to accept all my prayers, but could you also ask allah so that I can ace the finals?

    Thanks..
    I just prayed for you in real life... I said it out loud, for 30 secs. :D :D :D

    Do the same, pls!
     
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