Wow... someone comes with a provocative idea and no one likes it.... and soon something happens. i heard that before. stop the sarcasma , have respect for someone thinking outside the box. and in general have respect here. (i am guilty too.)
My comment wasn't meant to be sarcasm, if you were referring to me. Flaese is trying to teach us a new way of overcoming the porn addiction. His preferred method calls for regular consumption of porn for training purposes. All I am asking for is a little measurable proof on his side ...
I think this was a very mature response. I really appreciate your super-honest original post. But you have to acknowledge that there are people who successfully live without using any P or M. I have felt the same way, that a certain, well-controlled tolerance for M could actually be healthy. But after doing NoFap for a little longer, I become confident that I can do this 100% free of any attachments. That feeling is very liberating. I pray that you will feel that way soon. I believe that if you give yourself a chance, you can eventually feel perfectly fine without any P.
I agree that the enemy is the self and not porn. I totally agree.... with that. I also agree that a successful battle is won through understanding, and not through fear or hatred. But we do not need to mend our relationship with porn... ...We need to mend our relationship with the self. In my experience, forcing self- control is less effective than forgiveness, patience, and going through/being aware of the full process of your growth and your emotions- a journey. Mending your relationship with one facet seems that you would still remain quite open to self- abuse in other areas, stemming from the same place of the porn addiction. Just sharing my own perception, thanks for sharing yours, best of luck to everyone in their journeys.....
I am new here and I think flaese has an interesting view. Thanks for your words though, WilliamOneAndDone, I will try to remember them. While you can avoid looking for porn actively, you can't stop being confronted with bloated sexuality in today's everyday life. There are half-naked women on the street (at least here in Germany, but I guess in the US you can find them as well), in commercials, in music videos, there are sex scenes in movies and so on. The latter might not be as bad, as these people are at least personating characters. For me the problem exists with the girls you only relate to by objectifying them. I can easily handle female friends of mine showing some skin when they feel like doing so. I have some friends who live in happy, serious long-term relationships. When their girlfriends are not around they start staring at every other hot girl and give a corresponding comment (without the girls noticing, otherwise the wouldn't be my friends). They are able to let it out that way. It is their way of fighting the urge without looking away, and I think in this respect flaese is right. However I feel that going for it fully, with all your heart, is the best way to get rid of your addiction at first. Seven years ago I was feeling disgusted by myself and it took me only two days to decide that I will stop eating meat. I still don't eat any, and I will never again as long as I can't make sure the animals were treated as living beings. Also, I am planning to go to India for a few months and live there on the countryside abstaining from quite a few things I guess. I will have an internet connection, but I surely won't use it for porn. I really don't want to be the German porn-addict over there. Cold turkey is certainly the best way to go.
I'd be interested to know what their culture is like in how it presents women, gender roles, relationships in general. I think looking from a different cultural perspective would benefit many people in this group. Let us know what you discover, and best of luck to you!
I suppose it's worth considering that there is "Extinction Therapy", wherein an attempt is made to decondition some learned behaviour / response. This sounds much like what is being suggested (if we ignore for a moment the question of whether "porn or fap is the real problem"). Perhaps (the argument could be made), if a person were to look at porn until they starting feeling a compulsion to fap, and then they were to stop, turn off the technology, go outside for a walk, etc., they may be able to weaken the conditioned response to the old behaviour, while replacing it with healthy alternatives. In a way, this is what we're all hoping to do, it's just a question of how the goal is accomplished. We'd like to replace some behaviours (PMO) with healthier automatic responses, and alleviate compulsions. The problem here, I believe, is "extinction burst" phenomena, where the behaviour will increase dramatically in frequency before falling away. In my experience, any attempt to decondition oneself by using extinction techniques will fail, because the extinction burst response will be overpowering (you will fap, watch porn, or whatever behaviour it is that you are trying to decondition). If we already have a problem controlling ourselves with the behaviour in question, then it is very unlikely we will overcome the far more powerful urges associated with extinction burst. Additionally, a person may be successful at overcoming the urges in the initial attempts, only to fail later as the extinction burst period reaches its peak strength. In this case, having applied intermittent reinforcement, the person will be in an even worse situation than before the process began. My opinion is that a person may be able to utilize this technique, if they were to first develop some form of strong mental focus (most likely through extensive meditation training). They'd then meditate first, practice the extinction techniques, and hopefully they have the concentration and awareness to recognize (and abort the session) when the stimulus is becoming too overwhelming. This would probably only be possible if there were a carefully constructed plan and schedule to follow, prepared in advance. The pros: - A person might actually succeed in deconditioning their response, such that they were far more resilient to future exposure. - It could theoretically work much faster than a more passive (traditional abstinence) approach. - The person would need to develop strong mental skills, which could be useful in other dimensions of life (other compulsive non-constructive behaviours). The cons: - It is uncharted territory (at least relatively so, in the PMO world). - Failure is likely to result in a serious worsening of the compulsion. - Even if it were successful, the person would likely not benefit as much from the natural "psychic intergration" process that tends to come alongside a more organic approach to overcoming addiction. --- As for myself, I am regularly frustrated with the slow progress of the Jungian style analysis process that I've been following with my therapist, but I can see that it works. Over time I'm getting better, not just my addiction behaviours, but also the very core of my psyche. So for me, it's worth just being patient, reflective, and persevering - ymmv. I'd be curious if anyone has any success stories with proactive extinction deconditioning.
