Hello, literally half of my life has been weighted down with this horrible addiction. If I'd grown up in an age without the internet or somehow never made contact with porn etc, I truly believe I would be in a much more successful position in my life, and probably a far better, more honest, less twisted and guilty human being. Since making an account here, I'd been planning out what I would write in my first post, and imagined it being much lighter. However, writing these words, there is definitely something both painful and cathartic that I hadn't expected. This fucking thing has eaten a huge chunk of my soul, and I need to be rid of it. I want to keep a journal as well, and expect I'll copy what I'm writing here to some degree in the first post, but maybe tidy it up a bit when I feel calmer. To give my backstory, I had the kind of childhood and teenage years that some here might relate to, when it comes to men with severe self-esteem issues. I was a weird kid and essentially something like a preinternet internet lolcow in school and in my local community- a laughing stock, somewhat famous in the local area, guaranteed to provide an amusing reaction if poked and universally made fun of and abused by a large proportion of the kids around. Of course, I completely flunked puberty. Couldn't talk to a girl without turning red throughout my teenage years. And wouldn't lose my virginity until well into my twenties when, soon after my father died, I carefully selected a suitable escort online. I'd used various forms of erotic stimulants for as far back as I can remember: sex scenes in science fiction novels, vampire stories with sexual overtones, books of renaissance art with nude images, though I can't remember exactly when I started to masturbate with these. In my teens, I would videotape anything sexy that was on TV onto VHS and keep this videos as my private stash. However, moving out of the 90s and into the 00s, internet pornography more and more started creeping in, on my parents computer, then in university computer labs, then in the shared office for postgraduate students. At this point I would still periodically kick the habit, setting fire to my magazines, cutting up DVDs, deleting everything on my floppy disks. But once I had internet in the privacy of my own apartment, porn use became pretty much constant. There must have been years and years where I hardly spent a day without PMO, as they say here. I think my longest session (early twenties, parents computer) lasted more than 12 hours, right through the night with a lot of edging and the next time I woke up my dick was grotesquely misshaped and swollen- thankfully it recovered. Going back to the stories I’d read and fantasies I’d had, even before puberty, there had always been something kinky and, I dare say perverse about me. But of course tendencies which might have remained in the background or turned into something else were massively exaggerated by porn use. Previously I had always had a ‘submissive’ orientation in bdsm terms. But it is hard to be submissive to an image. More and more I started looking at women being hurt, humiliated and abused and preferring to look at the more extreme end of that. I feel so ashamed of it. Not only do I consider these desires to be at least dangerous, even in themselves, I also don’t think this kind of porn is something harmless and consensual. I’ve no idea about who the women were, but I’m sure for many, or even most of them, having these things done to them, and then the images circulated must have been very harmful. At some point I discovered fetish sites. I’ve been on all the major ones, but mostly the one which used to be a ‘me’ but is now a ‘space’ (for those who know what I’m talking about.) Over time my addiction shifted more to these sites and it is here where I would spend hours and hours of my time, year after year, pissing my life away. Porn became much less important, something I would go to as a kind of a dessert after the main course, find a video and have one last wank, after six or seven hours cruising through the dating site. I still remember the first time I wrote someone a message there. I was physically shaking and full of adrenaline the way I would be when returning to porn after a period of abstinence. But the periods of abstinence were more or less disappearing at this point, and soon I would be churning out reams and reams of smut as a matter of course. I’ve probably written the equivalent of many many many War and Peaces worth of one hand typed nonsense. On these sites I’ve had profiles listing myself as both ‘dominant’ and ‘submissive’ but, over time, the addiction metastasised back into taking a primarily submissive role. And in recent years, I’ve been talking as much, if not more to men rather than women. (Although in real life, I cannot imagine ever doing anything with a man.) For the most part, recently I’ve been using these sites purely for fantasy and rarely use the same profile for more than a few months, in the end, I’ll either ghost, or, more often, send long apologetic messages about how I don’t think I can become such and such a person’s ‘slave’ after all, and I’m so sorry for letting them down. Earlier on I would have an established profile for years and was sometimes seriously trying to enter this kind of relationship. I’ve actually met four women from these kind of sites in real life (and kept in touch with two) though only engaged in any kind of activity with one. Basically my MO would be this, (I’m using the past tense, but was doing this two days ago. If that was really the last time it would be an incredible and wonderful miracle) I would give my correct age but deliberately present myself as essentially an exaggerated version of myself in my late teens/ early twenties: cripplingly shy, isolated and, most crucially, vulnerable to the kind of person I want to attract. (I should say at this point that, these days, outside of the addiction I’m not actually so much of a sad sack. I’m well liked amongst those who know me, have a girlfriend and a lot of amazing things in my life.) The lowest tier of people (in terms of what I was after) I would talk to on these sites would be those looking for simplistic cybering. Above that, would be lonely women looking for a ‘femdom’ relationship where they take the leading role but will care for their submissive partner. These women mostly seem like good people, and perhaps this kind of relationship might even work for some. Leading them on and letting them down is just one more shitty thing I’ve done. However, what I am always searching for most of all is a true predator. Someone really looking to control and exploit another human being and psychologically astute enough to engage in relatively sophisticated mindgames directed at undermining ‘my’ self-esteem and sense of self. (Actually those of the character I am playing online- the real me would be hungrily lapping it all up, whacking away furiously, as I tell them how grateful I am for someone who can understand, and that, yes, I see that they are right that the reason I don't have friends is maybe that noone would ever be friends with a person like me. And yes I'm so unhappy living with my parents that perhaps it would be a good idea to move into their spare room and be used for sex by them and various acquaintances.) Someone like this, either a man or woman, and interested in me enough to take the conversation to skype, yahoo etc and engage with me regularly, was the holy grail for which I would trawl for hours and hours every night only to find one person like that every half a year or so. I could tell a million tales of dangerous, fucked up, self-destructive, pathetic, exploitative and selfish things I’ve done using these sites, quite apart from the having sunk so much of my limited time on earth into an addiction that gives nothing back, and takes so much. I want to be free. As I said, I have a girlfriend, who is wonderful, who I never ever want to hurt and who I desperately want to stop betraying. I guess I’ll stop writing hereabouts. One good thing about this site, is maybe that it can substitute for those fetish sites in a way, due to having some of the same social characteristics. If anyone read to the end of this lengthy epic of a post, I have to admit that I’ve written this mostly for my own benefit, as a form of catharsis and in order to try to solidify my intention to escape. However, I would be very glad if it can interest you, or even help you as a cautionary tale, or perhaps self-esteem booster, along the lines of ‘at least I’m not as bad as this guy!” (Though I am well aware that there will be many many here in a much worse position than me- to you I am so sorry and really hope you can make it in your recovery!) Having said all that, if anyone does have any comments at all to make, I would be very glad and grateful to get your feedback! As I said, I think it’s possible that this site might be able to substitute from some of the more harmful social sites I’ve been using. And I hope I will stay here and keep trying to recover rather than just disappearing and leaving this account dormant.
Welcome! I'm glad you're here. I can really identify with so much of what you are feeling, even though my experiences were different -- and yet, similar too. All I can say is that it can and will get better. Take it one day at a time. Keep coming back. Draw on the wisdom and example you find here.
Thanks very much! Unfortunately I just screwed up and went back yesterday evening. Watched porn and tried to set up a profile on one of the sites. Luckily it didn't get verified in time to start using it last night, and I deleted it this morning. Really not feeling good that I couldn't even last a few days, but gonna keep trying.
