Abstain for the right reasons

Hi All,

I am a new member here and I am starting my first challenge: 21 days without porn.

But...why abstain from porn but not masturbation? Is there any plan beyond just willpower? Why specifically 21 days? And why post such sticky details here? Let's answer this one by one.

Why porn but not masturbation?
I think porn makes me look at women differently, including my long term girlfriend, with whom I am in a long distance relationship. At any time you can find the perfect video for your mood, the perfect woman with the perfect body type doing the perfect kind of thing on video. It makes me judge real women by these weird artificial standards. Somehow this blocks emotional connection, and connecting with a woman is the most beautiful thing there is.
There is also the more mundane aspect of time slipping away. I don't like porn for what it does to my evenings. I tend to come home after work, and almost daily watch porn to relax and masturbate (most days I don't make myself come to stay focused for work). I think if I stop with porn, I will be able to use my evenings more productively, freeing up head space to think about organisational tasks or take better care of my household.

What's the plan to abstain? Just willpower?
Hell no. As anyone who has tried to kick or establish a habit knows, willpower only helps a little bit. There must be a system in place for this to work. When the mood strikes me, my plan is to sketch something sexy from imagination. I've done it before with promising results. The idea is that this process of creating my own porn replacement art will heavily rely on my imagination. It will make me more observant, pay attention to details in beautiful women I happen to encounter in real life, remember the surrounding architecture, capture the mood of the sexy memory. It may sound creepy to draw sexy versions of women you meet in real life, but I think it's a lot more creative and healthy than porn - it's just not as easy as going to a website, you must think, remember, create an image on paper. If things go well maybe I'll feel comfortable enough to share some drawings here.

Why 21 days (13 August to 03 September)?
I have an important professional event and there is a lot of preparation and pressure coming along with that. I want to be looking forward to a reward after that.

Why post here?
My hope is that as I progress in this challenge, when weakness strikes me, I will go first on this forum and explain what I'm feeling. Hopefully this will refocus my mind, help me remember why I'm doing this in the first place, and provide the necessary motivation to go on without breaking the cycle.

 

Was on a streak of no PMO for almost a weak, but had a few moments of weakness last night. When you have stress at work and lack of sleep, willpower to stick to principles was much weaker. I didn't O, and watched some soft nude pictures, but no videos and no hardcore P. I wonder if I should reset my counter. My goal was for no P.

 

Fair point. OK, reset it is. I'll watch out for this and be smarter next time. 6 day streak broken, but it's a start, the next one will be longer.