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To be free from porn you need to watch porn (in a different way)

Discussion in 'Porn Addiction' started by ultrafabber, Jun 7, 2019.

  1. SuperFan

    SuperFan Fapstronaut

    This is horrible advice. No one who's interested in actually rebooting their brain and breaking free from porn addiction should ever follow this plan.

    ^^^ absolute nonsense. We (I'm speaking of heterosexual males) are biologically wired to be aroused at the sight of a sexual woman, and it's been that way since the first man walked the earth. You're not going to simply undo thousands of generations of human conditioning by "associating porn with something else." I highly doubt you can even do that. It's probably more likely that you'd just develop a compulsive addiction to the "something else" as you link it to porn.

    This is a grossly unfair analogy. Pedophilia, necrophilia, and beastiality are perversions of the normal sexual instinct. But simply being aroused at the sight of a sexual woman is a normal sexual instinct. Normal instincts are hard-wired, genetically. Perverse instincts happen because something goes haywire--usually some kind of emotional trauma.

    I've been watching boy-girl hardcore porn since I was 17 (I'm currently 42) and I've never once felt same-sex attraction. I've been involved in numerous threesomes with married couples and never once felt same-sex attraction. What you're saying is akin to suggesting that horror movies make someone likely to become a homicidal maniac.
     
  2. Ok @ultrafabber I hope I don’t regret this , but I’m going to come to your aid unexpectedly here.

    I DO want to know if you have something that’s worthwhile exploring more here.

    Not in what you have proposed directly (to me in sounds like self-hypnosis) ... but i wonder if the amount of nudity one is exposed to can affect the arousal effect?

    Meaning in today’s culture, we are exposed to a variety of nudity.

    Consider this question:

    Does the prevention of viewing the female breast cause more arousal than the showing of it ?

    There are entire cultures completely not in the least disturbed by the female breasts and other cultures who go bezerk at the nip slip.

    My anecdote is I was working as a missionary in Peru ( 27 years old then). The Bible worker and I were visiting going door to door in the evangelistic campaign. At one house we held a brief prayer and study. The young girl was roughly 20 years old and had a baby with her. As normal as could be— she uncovered her breasts and fed the child. No cover. Nada!

    My eyes increased wide and my native bible worker didn’t even notice. I was blown away and told my wife as I felt guilty —- but I learned this sense of nudity is highly cultural.

    Here in the us we cover so much ; then reveal so much—- it would graph out like a pendulum of sexual momentum.

    As I grew up in Europe I was first desensitized (to nudity especially breasts) then resensitized when I came to Texas for high school.

    So I kinda feel there is something to be said but I think there’s more to it than simply creating a psychological re-branding for the addict.
     
    Last edited: Jun 7, 2019
  3. IR254

    IR254 Fapstronaut

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    Note: I only read the initial post and then just skimmed through the rest of the thread. So, let me share my opinion on such an approach.

    As a person, who tries to find a way out of this mess for roughly three years already with little to no success, I'm always interested in different approaches, which I never tried before. When I read @ultrafabber 's approach, I was not so surprised as most here though, because I already heard about such strategies by another forum member, who is also very sucessful with it. I discussed such attempts with him in greater detail already and I have to say: It makes sense to me. When I look at @ultrafabber 's and the other person's success rates, they exceed most other members on the forums without having any real struggle. That is very intersting to me. I think it is a mistake by a lot of people on the forum to demonize every approach, which doesn't follow a classical structure, without even considering anything else.

    That being said, this approach is not for me (yet) because I do not feel able to open porn, look at it for a minute and then close it without going back immediatly. I discussed this with the other forum member in the past and he also adviced me to not use this method until I feel strong enough to use it the way it was meant to be used. Maybe the other person will share their views on the matter here, too.
     
  4. ZenAF

    ZenAF Fapstronaut

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    Ever heard of the methadone program for heroin addicts? And no, it's not only administered for physiological but also psychological purposes.

    So, I'll have to chime in here because I get where @ultrafabber is coming from. Even though I personally can not endorse the method as he described it!

    As some of you might know, my counter refers to number of days without masturbating to porn. However I have looked at porn many times during this streak, because I've allowed myself to.
    After failing for two years to beat my addiction and being thoroughly disappointed by the monk-mode method, I had to try a different approach. My method is based on a simple wisdom: If you keep failing at your goal, aim lower!
    So instead of getting rid of porn all at once I've focused first on stopping to masturbate to it. But whenever I had the impulse to look up a pornsite I just did it. The impulses became less and less over the weeks and most times I wasn't even aroused anymore. Here's the difference to what @ultrafabber suggested tho: I didn't look up porn because I wanted to consciously change the way I see porn, there was no planning, it was always out of an impulse coming from my addiction. I simply told myself that I would deal with that part of my addiction later. Take it one step at a time.

    Aaaand it works. Once I was dead serious and started my streak and told myself that never again I would jerk my noodle to pornography, that was it. I had an easy time not to do it.

    Here's the problem: You don't heal your addiction during this stage. You do change your behavior to a significant degree and in important ways. But you keep feeding the addiction every time you look at it, so it doesn't die!!

    Now it turned out that to stop looking at it is, at least to me, harder than it was to simply stop pleasuring myself to it. I've had the plan to stop looking after 75 days into my streak. And I couldn't do it. After just a couple days I looked again. And again. And again. Not often like I used to back in the day, on average just once a week for around 5 minutes, since my brain knows there's no orgasm to get out of it I turn it off quickly. But because I kept looking at it my addicted part always stayed hopeful that there's going to be a day when I would get back to good ol' PMO.

    It took a while until I've acknowledged that. That I was still fantasizing about relapsing (just for fun.. of course! smh), that I didn't want to fully let go. It wasn't until 12 Days ago when I had a talk with myself and made myself realize that I can't get back to porn like I know it. Period. Not because it's not fun, but because it's never going to be as fun as it used to be back in the day! I realized that, because of my NoFap journey, for the rest of my life I wouldn't be able to enjoy porn in a guilt-free manner, like I did when I was teenager. It would never be that awesome again because I can't become ignorant of the downsides anymore. All I could go back to now would be a hasty orgasm with lots of guilt in the background and fucking hell-hole of depression for the days to follow. Every time. NoFap ruined porn for me. Which, of course, I'm very happy about. ;)

    So I'm going to conclude that, if you failed at hard-mode, monk-mode, quit-it-all-at-once for more than two times, you should definitely consider trying a step-by-step approach. Because it's really harmful to keep setting up a goal and betraying yourself, you can actually train yourself to relapse and that's the last thing you want.
     
    Last edited: Jun 9, 2019
  5. @ZenAF

    Died laughing at this... but to be honest I applied this principle because I didn’t want disappointment to complicate my reboot. And for the record I liked your analysis here and most places. I think you're fairly level; thanks.
     
    Last edited: Jun 10, 2019
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  6. Johnny_TightLips

    Johnny_TightLips Fapstronaut

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    Yes I've heard of the methadone program, and yet you're still wrong. Methadone's compound is chemically different from that of the drugs the addicts were originally using. Not to mention, Methadone is administered by health care professionals, in a controlled setting, and in controlled dosages. Unless the addict in question is mixing with other drugs or acting nefariously, it's impossible to relapse on methadone alone.

    None of the above factors are present here with the idea of watching P in a different way that'll properly allow you to quit P for good. There is no methadone version of P, it's P or nothing. P's usage is administered by the addict, in the addict's home most likely, in an uncontrolled setting where the addict can basically do whatever they want and with unlimited access to P usage with no stopping whatsoever.

    If you truly believe in your method of getting over P, then hey, all the power to you. But don't try and push this on others as if it's scientifically concluded. It's not, and most users on here will never follow it. Changing my life and following Hard mode has resulted in the current and ongoing success that I'm seeing, that's thanks to NoFap and other reliable professionals on P addiction I've learnt along the way.
     
  7. Cold Turkey is the only way to "cure" yourself from an addiction and it only works as long as you apply the fix. It's like letting an alcoholic drink one shot of vodka per day and call it a treatment. It's just dumb af, bro. Your brain tricked you, gave you some dumb idea as an excuse to watch P, end of story.
     
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  8. ultrafabber

    ultrafabber Fapstronaut

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    First of all, in most cases it's not single women, it's women getting f-ed. That should not be arousing and it is actually not arousing to many men- they find the sight of erect penises distracting and weird, as they should.

    Secondly, those are not women, those are pictures of women. You choose to give them meaning because it "benefits" you - you have a free, instant way to self gratification.

    If you think you have no control over the meaning of the content you're seeing, you should jump out of your chair and start running away in fear whenever you see a bear or an aggressive dog or someone wielding a gun charging at you on screen. You don't because you can and choose NOT to give meaning to the images.

    You won't be developing an addiction to something else as you can't develop an addiction to neutrality.

    Again, those are not women, those are pictures of women you give meaning to. There have been (highly realistic) nude statues/busts/paintings of nude women for millenia, yet people didn't randomly pop boners walking near them or having them in their homes.

    Masturbation is also a perversion of sexual instinct and so are many more things. The point was that sexual instinct can and has been known to completely misfire. As it happens to porn/masturbation.

    Gender issues or SSA depend on context, it's usually when a person doesn't have a normal, frequent sexual encounters when pmo will interfere on gender/attraction. As a sidenote-m you're destroying marriage and couples by engaging in that kind of behavior.

    It's not really about re-branding but just going back to basics. Like I already mentioned in the reply to SuperFan, what we're dealing with is all a perversion of sexual arousal and a misfire on the perception on what leads to sex and what doesn't.

    As you mentioned in your example, which is very good, sexual arousal is very much context dependent. A porn addict is in a state of hyper sexual stimulation, where he interprets everything as a potential sex/mating situation.

    The evident truth is that a picture of a woman, a clip of a woman, an erotic story about a woman does not lead you even 0.000001% closer to real sex, it's all an illusion because your brain wants and prefers to assume that it does - it will get massive amounts of "benefits" by doing so.

    I want to mention something i feel i should have in the OP. This is not a "trick to lose weight fast" or something similar. I never encourage shortcuts. I wrote this because i believe there is no other way to truly get over this addiction because as long as you don't break the association, in the back of your mind there will always be this option.

    I do wish people would be more open minded about this because frankly the rates of failure are extremely high, which should indicate that this is a very serious addiction and that the current paradigm does not work. In my case, i've tried the abstinence only for 6 years and each time, even after 1-2-3 months of complete abstinence, i had very bad relapses with massive binges, all of which being the same as the previous ones, there was no real progress even if, by the community standards, i had made "great progress". Progress which included both long periods of abstinence AND an overall decrease of pmo over a certain time frame (a year for example).

    Definitely do not start if you feel you're not ready yet. I forgot to mention a method which should be the first step and i think most people can do - in case you used to watch porn in incognito window, a very good exercise would be to simply open an incognito window and then close it. No searches, nothing. Just open and then close, repeat 20-50-100 times. Another exercise would be to simply "jerk-off" the air next to you (not watching porn or fantasizing, keep it neutral) and repeat that at random times/intervals. You can do this while watching a stream for example. This will train the mind to stop associating jerk-off motion with sex/pleasure.


    This is what i wish people would understand, if you keep failing and failing, it means something is really not working. Like i said in OP, and i understand most people would not agree, given the weight random rewards have on habit formation, actually failing and binging at random times could actually sink you further into the addiction as the brain learns that no matter how long it doesn't get the reward (pmo), it will eventually get it, therefore it will maintain the association and behavior.

    This shows you really don't understand how this works.
     
    Last edited: Jun 10, 2019
  9. SuperFan

    SuperFan Fapstronaut

    It makes no difference. The sight is a visual stimuli, whether it's in two dimensions or three. The logical "mammal" brain (prefrontal cortex) can discern that an image isn't the same as the real thing, but our primitive "reptilian" brain (the amygdala) cannot--and it's the amygdala that triggers sexual arousal. And the idea that it should feel different because "it's a woman getting f***ed" makes little sense to me. If she's engaged in sex, that implies to me that she's sexually voracious and open, which lights up my amygdala. The presence of a penis is just part and parcel of couples having sex. When I've looked at male-female porn (I refuse to say 'boy-girl' anymore because it sounds like I'm watching child porn), I'm never focused on what the guy is doing.

    Ridiculous comparison. Anyone with a brain can understand the difference between nudity depicted as art--expressing the beauty of the human form--and nudity used explicitly to titillate, arouse, and exploit. Just because they're both examples of "nudity" does not make them somehow relatable. You might as well say that a cow's milk is no different than a cow's urine simply because they're both bodily fluids. Some nudity and art is created for our nourishment and improvement, and some nudity and "art" (I use the term reluctantly) is created to exploit our appetites in hopes of addicting us and emptying our wallets.

    I didn't claim it was healthy behavior--and while I tend to agree with you, I'd prefer to let those couples speak for themselves. I've met couples who swore that swinging saved their marriages, and I've met some who saw their marriages destroyed by it. I couldn't do it with a partner I was in a relationship with, personally. But I've made enough bad decisions regarding sexuality that I'm in no position to point a finger at someone else and tell them they're wrong for doing something I personally consider unhealthy.

    I think that's been my biggest frustration with your comments. You're here with 48 days of sobriety talking as if everything you say about sexuality and psychology is gospel truth. It isn't. If you want to share what's worked for you, fantastic. But I think you're out of line when you make these broad conclusions about what men should or shouldn't be aroused by.
     
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  10. ultrafabber

    ultrafabber Fapstronaut

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    It doesn't matter if it makes sense to you personally. If the premise that the mind interprets everything at face value and there is no filter was correct (but it isn't), then you'd have to literally cower in fear when you saw a bear on your screen. You don't. Some do. The amygdalian response can happen, that doesn't mean it's necessary to happen. Like I said, many people are actually disturbed seeing another erect penis, let alone one entering a vagina. Some people get a response when they see a furry, some when they see an obese woman, some when they see a goat.

    No, your comparison with the cow urine and milk is ridiculous. I've explained everything I should have already so there's no point in repeating anything.

    You're complicit at destroying those marriages and there's no marriage truly "saved" by this, the husband just becomes a cuckold, which is hell on earth. You can't just throw away personal responsibility for your role in this by saying "they wanted it". What's even worse is that you know you would not accept something like this (as it's inherently humiliating) yet you do this to another man. There are a lot of situations where a person would cheat (and he/she decided it's good for himself/herself), the fact that you have sex with her/him doesn't take away your responsibility in the cheating scenario. I don't want to continue this discussion though as it's irrelevant to op, i just couldn't ignore the "sex with married couples" thing. It's a destruction of marriage and values.

    I already addressed this. I don't know at what point one is "allowed" to have an opinion on what recovery is. Like i said, the fact that i lost interest in seeing porn and in masturbation is a very strong indicator that i'm out of this mess. I had 90+ days streaks and i chose not to share any advice because i knew that i wasn't over this. The streaks by themselves are irrelevant.

    Discussing what men should or shouldn't be aroused is the very foundation or recovery from pmo. The same goes for the normality, or abnormality rather, of masturbation.
     

  11. It was hard to read to be honest, very long.

    I see your point but aside from multiple inaccurate assumptions about how addiction develops and works, you have fallen in to a common trap - The overthinking trap.

    This happens when person notices something interesting as he/she explores an issue and then does not apply any scientific tools like - research, to make judgements about optimal behavior strategy that comes about as a result of conclusions made on the basis of that often misunderstood but interesting observation.
    Worst part of this is that person is then eager to share his conclusions rather than foundation up on which they rest.

    It is very common for people with addiction to create elaborate mental models or rules as they struggle. Things like "I will do it today but will hold out for next 3 days", or I will only do it for one minute and then take break for an hour - I promise =). Overtime these get more and more complex, leading to "discoveries" and "insight" as well as internal dialog with your rational self, forming odd behavior patterns that may include punishments. People can develop extremely complex behaviors around trying to manage their addiction. But it is all a game of the mind and the sooner one admits that, the sooner he/she can move on to dealing with addiction.

    It is sad to see people bringing their mental modeled reality out like this trying to share it with others, I understand you and I do not judge, I just hope you see what is taking place.

    Success with tackling addictive behaviors is easy to see, behaviors and their negative impact disappears.

    Do not play mental games, do not make promises to yourself - actions is the only thing that matters - everything else is garbage
     
  12. @ Ronila--FYI--the OP says he's a clinical psychologist; and presumably a PA. I leave the rest to your analysis.
     
  13. We are very bad critics of ourselves, it takes allot of elaborate distancing to force ourselves to see things externally - straining mental exercise people do not particularly like.
    That is why in field of medicine ethical doctors do not diagnose themselves and avoid participating in operations on friends and family, under these circumstances, bias is too strong, judgement is impaired and mistakes are made.
    In other words even if what he says is true, all of this is completely understandable and only goes to show that medical professionals are - humans.
     
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  14. ZenAF

    ZenAF Fapstronaut

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    Wrong with what? My method? You tell me right after that if it works I should go for it, so it can't be wrong.

    The fact that it's chemically different doesn't mean that it doesn't get you high. It just doesn't get you high in the same amount and same way. But the principle is the same: The addiction is strong and instead of going full cold turkey you have an in between stage of quitting.
    I didn't say I'd watch porn in a different way. I said I broke my addiction into different parts in order to get rid of one after the other. Again, I don't recommend to consciously look up porn to rewire yourself.
    Yes, that's the reality here. We don't all have money and time and the balls to go to a retreat center. But that doesn't mean that we can't use the same methodology that they use in a controlled environment. And it especially doesn't mean that the cold turkey approach is more effective outside of a retreat center!
    I'm going to recommend whatever I think will be useful. I've never suggested to people to go watch porn to rewire themselves, I've merely described my way of quitting porn and I say that I have an easy time with it and that it works for me. That's it.
    When it comes to the science aspect of it: Just because there have been studies done on cold turkey methods of quitting doesn't mean that that's the best way of quitting. There are plenty people on this forum who relapse over and over again because they try cold turkey and just don't manage it. The fact that a scientific study or two backs up the method doesn't help them an inch. They still fail. And I say again: Relapsing over and over is way worse than simply being addict. And before you relapse for the 10th time with your scientifically proven cold turkey approach, you should consider doing it differently.

    This is just anecdotal but go show me the people who managed to quit porn only through cold turkey, I'm sure they get outnumbered by the ones who fail at it 10 to 1. Just look into the threads people write and observe their counters. This shit isn't as straight forward as you make it look like.
    I'm not bashing hard mode as an unsuccessful method, if you think I'm doing that read again. I'm saying if you fail at it for a longer period of time (like I have for 2yrs) you should consider a step by step approach.

    During the two years I've tried hardmode I've managed a whopping 17 days clean. 17 days! That's fucking nothing. Now i'm 158 days off masturbation to porn. I didn't become "more determined", I've changed my approach.
     
  15. SuperFan

    SuperFan Fapstronaut

    Not every swinging couple is into cuckold. Some men genuinely love watching their wives have sex with other men and feel like there's nothing degrading about the experience. In an odd way, part of me gets it--it's like their wife is their own personal porn star, and it's hot for them to watch her being a hungry, sexual being. I just know I couldn't personally do it. That doesn't mean I judge others for it, even though I can't imagine it's healthy. These are the kinds of comments from you that piss me off--you make a judgment call about a behavior you disagree with, and you treat it as the absolute truth that everyone else needs to acknowledge. Kindly take that attitude somewhere else. Frankly it terrifies me that you're a therapist.

    You're allowed to have an opinion. No one is denying you that. What's not cool is when you say "this is how it is, and if you don't agree, you're wrong and I'm going to judge you for it because I've found the promised land of recovery." So you had 90 days? Big f***ing deal. Come back and tell me how healed you are when you've been clean for several years.
     
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  16. The third component is the Reward... which makes the behavior is worth it and why the cue even exists.
     
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  17. jjames_jjefferson

    jjames_jjefferson Fapstronaut

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    So what you're saying is, someone with a sex addiction can still BANG WOORS for "research" purposes?
     
  18. IR254

    IR254 Fapstronaut

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    I find it ironic to read that from you, when your counter say "Day 1". So, if you apply your own logic, you should have nothing to share here. I'm glad, that recovery is not about counters or streaks. It says nothing about your progress.
     
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  19. Yeah... I don't mind anyone theorizing or making observations; but throwing credentials in here to substantiate "my theory is not affected by brain fog because I consciously look at porn like a movie critic" (my paraphrasing not his) um...does that not sound fishy?

    I DO believe he's not as depraved an addict like he indicates. But he's not totally cured either--or his tone would be one of Veni, vidi, Vici. Which is MUCH cooler, less agonized and antagonistic, and totally transparent. "I did it. I achieved it. It works."

    The way he's "self-experimenting" for me creates too much contradiction.
    Conversely, in order to believe him, I'd need to hear how he experimented with a 15-17 year old boys and documented the results. But I'm guessing MOST of us would think if any doctor, or psychologist were to systematically expose a teenager to the levels of porn he is advocating to dull the normal biological response of erection (which happens EVEN IN SEX ED) which would need to be massive amounts of porn exposure we would protest his "experimental procedure" as child abuse.

    So as they say in Shark tank, on the mad-scientist's theory, "I'm out."
     
    Last edited: Jun 19, 2019
  20. He's not using the OP's counter to invalidate his argument, or using his own to make a counter argument. He's saying the amount of porn-freedom he's sustained (at 90 days) is not an accurate measurement of being cured from PORN.

    Your counter argument IS VALID however.

    Counters (for those who use them) are a personal tracking device... kinda like facebook for our hearts. But they don't measure the quality of the time being spent. There is a guy with a much more "holistic" approach to beating this addiction who describes it as a 3-D
     

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