Determined to put porn behind me for good

Hi, Fapstronauts and Femstronauts!

There's so much I could say about my long, soul-crushing struggle with porn, but I'll try to summarize. Suffice it to say, I have some very strong, personal feelings about porn and the way it's damaged me for the better part of my life, so I'd almost have to write a book to express all my thoughts and feelings about my personal experiences.

I'm a 27-year-old man. I've been using porn or similar sexual imagery since I was probably about 12. When I first started masturbating I didn't even know what it was or that it was even associated with sexuality, but it wasn't long before the association between masturbation and sexual imagery was cemented for me. I remember being so ashamed in the early years, not knowing what this thing I was doing was called and thinking it was some bizarre, unnatural thing that no one else did and that I was some sort of freak. Even after learning that it was a common behavior, it was still one of the major factors in low self-esteem and shame I felt throughout much of my teenage years. As soon as I understood what it was that I was doing, I knew it was wrong and opposed to my moral principles, which I still hold to this day. However, eventually I learned not to hate and condemn myself so much for it, and that it didn't define me as a disgusting, evil person.

Anyway, as time went on I kept trying to quit and utterly failing. I can't tell you how many times I've tried to quit. It's been a long, bitter, lonely battle. I did successfully quit for two whole years between the ages of 21 and 23. But then I was home from college for the summer, depressed about relationship issues with a girl, and I had just gotten a smartphone. I started "accidentally" letting myself see provocative images that came up on social media feeds, and from there it was a slippery slope to masturbating to porn again. I was devastated for having "ruined" a 2-year streak. Since I was already very depressed at the time, I made the mistake of despairing and falling fully back into regular porn use. After that, I would (mostly) quit whenever I went back to college, but fall into it again when I came home for break.

During my senior year in college, the girl who I had loved for so long and was finally in a serious relationship with suddenly left me, and I graduated with my heart in pieces. I quickly fell back into PMO, I was depressed, sometimes to the point of being almost catatonic, and I was at a low point in my life. I also started getting into erotic literature in more recent years, as contextless images became less exciting, and the literature engaged my emotions more and fueled arousing fantasies that I would use in tandem with visual porn. Eventually I managed to get a job and move to another state, and my condition gradually improved, but I stayed dependent on PMO.

Well, that was about three years ago. 2018 was a particularly rough year where I became more depressed again (partly due to having a new job that I hated), and my porn use became greater, until I hit a breaking point around the turn of the new year. By this point I was spending almost entire weekends browsing porn and staying up late into the night on some weeknights, making me tired and sleep-deprived the next day. There was one particularly bad weekend where I had wasted away the weekend and been particularly rough on my body in masturbation to the point where my testicles hurt a lot and I was afraid I might have damaged them (they did get better before long though). I guess I had a kind of wake-up-call moment of awareness, and I decided I was going to have to take some more committed steps to beating this addiction that I had been reluctant to take before. One of the main things I decided, was that, even though I had managed to quit porn basically on my own years ago, I was getting nowhere at this point and I was going to need to reach out for help. I had heard of NoFap years before when making one of my many (inadequate) attempts to quit porn before. So I decided that one of the bigger steps I was going to try now was to join NoFap.

I have at least all the reasons everyone else has to quit porn. I am a spiritual person, but since this is a secular community I don't feel the need to get much into that. Suffice it to say, sex is something I consider sacred, and masturbating to porn is basically as far removed as you can get from my beliefs about what sexuality is meant for. Furthermore, I've always felt strongly against the way women are mistreated and objectified by society, and I've always felt a responsibility to treat women with dignity, and when I use porn I'm actively becoming part of the problem that I hate and contradicting everything I stand for.

Another thing that horrifies me about my own porn use is the way it warps my perception of what is sexually attractive. I won't get into details about my fetishes. I can say that, thankfully, I never got into any of the really weird or deviant fetishes. Shocking, upsetting, or disgusting elements were always turn-offs for me, so I mostly shied away from that kind of porn (although I sometimes tolerated it to some extent when it was one element of porn/erotica that I was using for a different fetish). But, in a large part fueled by erotic literature, I did encourage fetishes that are fantastical and unrealistic in real-life sexuality. A big fear of mine is that I'll fail to be attracted to women who I would otherwise be attracted to if my sexuality were healthy and unmarred by porn. It's bad enough to think that that spark of attraction won't be there and I'll overlook an amazing girl I could have had an awesome relationship with, but what scares me more is how it could affect a relationship that I do end up having (I'm not in a relationship with anyone right now). It's always been a deep fear of mine that, due to my pornified concept of what's sexually attractive, I won't be physically attracted to the woman I love. If we're really in a deep, meaningful relationship (which is the kind I'm looking for) then she would be able to tell that I have little sexual attraction toward her and she could end up feeling hurt and inadequate. I would absolutely hate to make a woman feel that way! I would want my girl to feel like the most precious, amazing, beautiful women who ever lived! This fear of lack of attraction and its consequences, I think, are one of the strongest factors that kept me hooked on porn. It would make me despair and want to hide away in my fantasies where the imaginary woman I loved could be however I wanted. Anyway, I think this fear is an issue I still need to work on, but I guess right now I can only hope that these fetishized attractions will subside as I continue with NoFap, and that my love for, and natural, healthy attraction to a real person will eventually overcome and rewire the parts of my brain disordered by fetishes.

So, I guess that ended up being really long anyway. Props to anyone who actually read all that. I'm pretty much bearing my soul here, so I really appreciate anyone who read it all. My challenge parameters are PMO (hard mode FTW!). I like the idea of taking cold showers too, but for now I'm not going to overload myself, so I'll keep those optional for the time being. Duration? Forever! ... Okay, I should back up a little. I do want to orgasm again in the future, but my principles about sexuality being what they are, this would not be for a long time. Orgasm is something I want to reserve for a loving relationship with the mother of my future children. I'm not one for casual sex. Since I'm not even seeing anyone right now, I'm not planning on orgasming any time in the near future. Porn, I hate with the fire of a thousand suns, and I never want to involve myself with it again. Masturbation, even without porn, is also something I never want to do. Masturbation is a solitary act of self-gratification and contradicts my beliefs about sex as an act of love and self-giving in a committed relationship. These are my moral principles that I never intend to change, so masturbation is off the table. I know, "forever" is not the most attainable goal, and I know I'll most likely fail, but I'm not going to dilute or compromise my morals, so I'm not going to "try out" NoFap as a temporary experiment, because I'm never going to be okay with masturbation or pornography. But sure, I guess I'll start with a 90 days challenge; however, I intend to roll over directly into a new challenge once I reach ninety days, so it's really indefinite. That being said, I think there's real wisdom (and science!) in the NoFap program, so I think having 90 days as a positive, encouraging milestone is great!

As my counter will presumably show once I make my first post, I'm currently on day 8 of my current streak, which, to be quite honest, is farther than I usually get. Normally anything more than 3 days is not easy, and a week tends to be my upper limit. Over a week is extraordinary! I would like to take this opportunity to thank the whole NoFap community, as I believe the fact that I'm already on day 8 is thanks to you guys! I've been so extra-busy lately that even though I had already read-up on NoFap, started browsing the forums and Subreddit, and begun my streak, I didn't actually register as a user until yesterday or post until today. But just knowing about the community and passively reading has helped me to stay strong (although today has been harder because of an erotic dream I had), so I'm encouraged about how much better it will be to have the personal support of the community.

 

Thank you!