I hope I am welcome here, but my boyfriend needs help and I don’t know what to do.

Thank you, @Kenzi, for your trust to suggest I comment as well. You are, as always, just awesome.

Hi @Hannah12269 and welcome to NoFap. You absolutely came to the right place. This community is FILLED with really wonderful caring people (and on rare occasions some nutcases and trolls, but ignore them). You are here, and there is a community here that really cares AND has been through what you and your boyfriend are challenged with. So far, from what I can read, you are getting wonderful advice from some of the BEST people on NoFap, way better than I will be able to give you. So, take a deep breath and know -- know absolutely --- that you can begin a path to understand some of this.
To be upfront about this, I am a transgendered woman who, in her younger years thought that my exposure to this stuff influenced me in the directions and choices I took in life. Therapy has assisted me greatly to know that is not the case, and that I am right where I belong in my lifestyle choices. But, as I spent time on NoFap, I came to realize that so many --- and I mean SO MANY --- sweet straight nice guys are dealing with the issues you describe.

I had until recently a bunch of sissy-fetish advice posts that I was occasionally posting, and yet last week took them down as I was on the verge of leaving NoFap after 14 months or so. I decided to hang around and now, @Kenzi in her wonderful engaging way has drawn me back into constructive posting.

So, I will start by sharing a modified post from about a half-year ago I sent to a fellow who was deeply enmeshed and struggling with even the most basic questions of his own sissy-fetish and sissy-hypno attractions. He was lost.

I hope this is in some way a narrative to maybe help you create a constructive conversation with the man you love, in hopes that trying first to understand his underlying issues with his own masculinity and his confidence in using and projecting his masculinity. Not all guys come into manhood with all the tools necessary to "be a man", and frankly, porn provides the wrong sets of messages and imagery and expectations for performance, endowment, and skills for a nice, regular, wonderful sweet guy hit with facefulls of online porn daily at ever-younger ages. Women discuss this peer-pressure and image-conciousness so much more than men, but men are subject to TONS of it, too, it is they just do not discuss it: look like Brad Pitt, swagger like the Rock, have the humor of Jimmy Kimmel, the wealth of Kanye, the suave-lifestyle of Richard Branson, but also be sensitive like Oprah and attentive like Michele Obama. How the hell can he be all that, AND have the physical prowess in bed of the fake and phoney and genetic mutational porn-stars that crowd his screen every night?

Guys today are under HUGE pressure to arrive into early adulthood fully baked as manly-men immediately, and that is unrealistic. So much press is out there (rightly so) in support of womens issues, but men just get lost and glossed over with masculine issues because men just don't share concerns very much. In that regard it is nice that your man trusts you so deeply as to share what he has shared --- 99% of guys wouldn't.

I hope you don't mind me saying this: I hope his love for you and sincerity to understand and heal himself becomes as deep and convicted as yours --- if so, you guys can make it to the other side together.

---> TRIGGER WARNINGS AFTER THIS ---- JUST GO AWAY OF TRIGGERED EASY BY THIS SUBJECT <----

Anyway, what follows is a post, modified, from quite a while ago --- apologies and warnings for triggers but here it is in it's fullness uncompromised. I promise to add more specifics later but this should be a decent basis for attempting to have a constructive dialog, I hope.

You are awesome for loving your man so deeply as to plunge into this subject yourself --- I love your warrior-woman courage and the love you have for him --- he is lucky!! You go, Khaleesi!!

=========================================​

I see so many nice yet confused guys struggling mightily with this SISSY ADDICTION stuff, and I have tried to address SOME of the issues in a few posts and responses (which I had recently deleted) over time here on NoFap.
Below is a COMPOSITE post I sent to a nice guy about a half-year ago. Maybe it has something in here for you to gain insights into your own behavior or someone you love.
It is definitely NOT COMPREHENSIVE --- it was never meant to be. And APOLOGIES if I have offended anyone in any way --- this is just sharing my random thoughts and observations addressing specific commentary made by those I replied to-------> so, HERE IS THE POST------>​

Hi
I read your post w interest, and it reminded me of advice I shared with a fellow of similar challenges that you state. So I thought i'd repost a bit of it here. It may not apply 100% to your current issue, but I hope there is something useful in here for you.

First of all -----> YOU CAN DO THIS!!!!

A few comments, random mostly, and not intending to offend or bother anyone ---- just observations mostly of guys and sissy fetish attractions:

(1) Guys who get dragged into this fetish are almost always str8 or unsure, AND have low-self-esteem issues (often they are unaware of this) that is usually rising from early-years questions around their own masculinity and "manhood" stuff.

(2) The self-wrestling match that arises in one's sexuality for low-self-esteem guys (and low masculine-confidence guys) is around the question "Am I gay?" or "Am I effeminate?" or "Am I a sissy?" . This lack of confidence and questioning can initiate an emotional vortex that can negatively reinforce ones masculinity while driving a guy to sissy-attraction and humiliation-arousals. Most guys on here in NoFap fighting this addiction are NOT gay and almost-definitely they are not Transgender, they are very much straight guys but not masculine-confident, and they get sucked into the vortex that sissy-curious blogs (Tumblr and Pinterest are full of them) and sissy-hypnosis videos (every P site is full of them) promote ---- it is a dangerous slippery-slope to lead a fellow from the necessary development of masculine confidence (which takes intimacy, trust, humor, time, practice, mistakes, and conquests, and love.....few of which are intact and functioning at early developmental stages) and instead leads them down a quick-exit pathway to an immediate dopamine-laden alternative-option that avoids normal masculine challenges and provides the sense of an alternative reality --- which is a wrong place for an unsure guy.

(3) So, the dopamine-rush of curiosity-driven porn exploration provided by sissy-hypno and the sissy-lifestyle seemingly provides an "alternative" to curious yet unsure non-confident straight guys having to be a masculine man ---- effectively saying to them, in a seductive whisper, "Why compete with real virile masculine hunks? Instead, why not be a sissy?" It corrupts one as if there is an acceptable alternative (and assuming you are indeed a straight man, then there is no real alternative. I am M2F transgender woman --- seems odd that I would know so much about this sissy stuff even for me, but while I am and have always been attracted to guys, I am definitely NOT attracted to the sissy-lifestyles of submission, humiliation, verbal and physical abuse, and the overall emasculation of men. It is so wrong).

(4) I think the "self-critical / self-hating" thing one observes in most sissy-porn addicts is a present-day manifestation from (almost always unrecognized, or forgotten, yet critical) earlier life-experiences and negative-imprinting by parents or significant others that induced and/or caused self-doubt around a guys masculinity and/or performance-ability, machismo, and confidence in his own male prowess at a critical time in his development as a man ---- the transition from boy to man isn't always a straight unconfused path. This aspect seemingly consciously manifests itself NOT as a current-day self-aware push-back on the issue of masculine confidence but rather as an in-the-moment curiosity to be considering (and over time an ever-deepening acceptance) of an alternative to straight male lifestyles ---- so, rather than being a man's man and all that entails (which is a LOT of effort and burden), well, maybe being a sissy is possible alternative option?

(5) This is where the reinforcement of visual and aural repetition and voluminous porn-sources plays it's nasty trick on the less-than-confident straight guy considering a sissy-lifestyle as an option: the sissy-hypno's tend to use humiliation and demeaning language and rapid-fire imagery to suggest that "You are not a real man" and slowly (or quickly) degrade what little measure of masculine confidence (if any) a poor confused guy has remaining. The slick professional videos of skilled sissy hypnosis producers and purveyors drag the unsuspecting yet curious str8 guy into a hell they are absolutely not prepared for --- that a "sissy lifestyle" is a real option. Even for me, while I love my own choices, I find the humiliation and name-calling and abuse to be disgusting in those videos.

(6) Sadly, so much of this "sissy stuff" is found on transsexual and "transwoman" porn-sites, which unto themselves portray me and my own subgroup of sexual identity in a very horrific broad-brush portrait that we are all a certain way ---- as defined by "transwoman porn" --- which is so very untrue...a very VERY minor percentage of transgender people are engaged in the adult industry. So many MANY transgendered people are balanced and functional contributors to society in all aspects of professional life (Need proof? Google up the following sane, balanced, wonderful transgendered women: Laverne Cox, Janet Mock, Carmen Carrera, Andreja Pejic, Geena Rocero, Isis King, Gisele Alicea, Jenna Talackova, Leyna Ramous, Dina Marie, Nina Poon, Juliana Huxtable, Niki M’nray, Pêche Di, Carmen Xtravaganza and Yasmine Petty.) I can not stress this enough: The association of what drives straight guys to sissy-fetishes is absolutely and overwhelmingly unrelated to what drives a truly transgendered person to transition --- but this is a whole different subject I will not delve into here.

(7) Guys who have been successful in kicking this attraction to sissy-lifestyle and sissy-hypnosis go absolutely cold-turkey, do lots of guy-stuff (weights, fish, cars, hike, music, date girls, etc) again, and can indeed heal.
​

Anyway, thats my 5 cents worth of input ---- it is probably wrong or inaccurate BUT it is what I observe a lot in this community.
Good luck to you.​

Also, here is another post I made to the same person later in his thread --- again, I think it might assist for a guy's self-esteem challenges.

I think I might just have a different perspective than most (not all) people --- as a transgender woman I see gender and sexuality as a continuum rather than a binary boy / girl thing. I think many of our generation are coming to see it that way.

I also have listened to friends --- guys and girls--- and boyfriends and lovers (and searched my own soul and thoughts) about issues surrounding sexuality and questioning the standard binary-gender view of the world.

The guys I have dated (and those attracted to me, and me to them) over the years are singularly and unquestionably straight heterosexual males. Full stop. I really understand guys, at least those kind of guys. They are at the far-end spectrum of classic male behaviors ---- view them as the hunky man's man, and in many ways are hyper-males ---- but true hyper-males, not out-there overdoing it guys trying to hide a deeper conflicted self ---- they are just pure testosterone, muscle, and instinct.

I also have quite a few straight male friends that are and will remain as friends ---- and they are straight as can be and deeply curious around my choices, and ask a great deal about those choices.

Spoiler

The guys that end up into the "friend zone" with me are there mostly because they do not have that hyper-masculine drive that I observe in many of my lovers. It is not to say that all my lovers are all "alpha males" (a term I dislike, btw), but the "friend-zone" friends have less determination to score or bed me, and more curiosity to observe me.

They are more intellectual and less overtly animal. I am not hunted by them. It may be because they balk at my transgenderness, and yet are attracted to the femininity. They pause.

I have never ever dated anyone with a sissy urge --- it hasn't been discussed and it is definitely not suspected by me. But I have run into a few guys --- friends --- that seem curious about my choices and lifestyle. I suspect a few that are dealing with this issue.

For me, I process that kind of non-driven behavior in a straight guy --- probably erroneously --- as "less confident" and "less selfish" and "more caring and gentle". These are wonderful qualities, but it probably is why that, while I want to marry a "good guy", I am always attracted to the "bad boyz" all the time. It is probably (definitely?) the reason I am still single and searching ---- "bad boys" are almost always loutish knuckle-dragging Neanderthal-ish jerks that speak in mono-syllabic terms (apologies to any nice sweet Neanderthal guys out there ) and, while occasionally (but not always) great in bed, they lack all manner of other social graces and elegance for me.

I wonder --- and I am probably wrong here --- but is it possible that some element of the "less confident" guy can, on occasion, be rooted in a early-development pattern that made them question not their sexuality but rather their masculine confidence and performance abilities.

Yet, as time goes on, that lack of masculine confidence in the vast majority of guys (undermined subconsciously somewhere in the past) morphs into the overly-simple explanation that it is a sexual preference issue (I must be gay, or I must be a sissy, or I must be "not a real-man" or something) rather than it being what it truly is:

The root is likely a man's lack of masculine confidence with women.

It is NOT a "sissy thing" at all​

I think it is an important distinction here that is all-too-often confused as they get more active with women: lack of masculine confidence DOES NOT MEAN that a guy is less-than-a-man. Guys (and girls) don't have this all figured out from the start --- but the pressure to perform like a porn-star is huge on most guys.

So, rather than "asking her out" or asserting (sweetly) an acceptable level of healthy-male pursuit of a woman to seduce, the fear of performance anxiety associated with lack of masculine confidence gets translated from...
"I am scared to do this", into...

..."I can't do this!"...

....which gets further translated into...

..."I can't perform this so I am probably not true alpha-male"...​

...which, after a few iterations, translates into...

..."Then I must be a sissy".
​

Which is pure BS.

So, my observations are that the fellows that run headlong (and get trapped) into this sissy fetish and sissy porn stuff are, as well, almost exclusively in the "good guy" category of truly straight guys.... BUT.... there is a background echo inside them from early years that causes them to question their current masculine heterosexual capacity to some extent --- and that conscious and sub-concious echo of doubt, instilled by some one or some event(s) in the past --- allows the questioning phase of being trapped in the "possibility sissy-vortex lifestyle" to keep falsely reinforcing the dopamine-laden ever-deepening curiosity of the sissification and feminization trajectory as a possible path to happiness ----- which for some people may have some elements of attraction ...BUT for a "good guy, straight guy" there is no real path to happiness, no real option, as they are straight. Period.

I don't know --- I am just rambling at this point --- BUT there is, I think, an overwhelming component of early-development self-doubt instilled (and subconsciously installed) in sweet wonderful straight guys that deal with this.

I think the fundamental mix-up here is this:

Make the internal distinction between one's lack of masculine confidence, and confusing that very normal trait and very real emotion with questioning one's sexuality.
​

This boils down to distinguishing two things at the most elemental level. It is ones masculine confidence and one's developed and developing skills as a masculine man, versus one's own sexuality. They are two VERY different things.

Confidence vs Sexuality.

They are separate.

Distinct.

Different.​

Allow yourself the time to build-up and/or regain that masculine confidence ---- within yourself, and then with a woman you lust for and love.
Lust is good. Love with lust is heaven. Take the time to get to that point --- it takes tenacity and determination and a soul-mate.
So, everything I read in your post screams out at me that you are (1) lacking in confidence because of your self doubt, but also, I can tell by what you wrote, you are (2) definitely positively NOT transgender. You are just a little lost.

Your recent loss of a girl you like --- the rejection almost definitely triggered those self-doubts around masculinity and capability --- it happens----and so you fell back into the proverbial rabbit hole.

Just take a deep breath and stand back up. Girls leave guys. Guys leave girls. But it doesn't mean you're not a capable, masculine man.

Go get a cheeseburger, fries, and a beer. Watch NFL w your buddies. Scratch your nuts. Don't shave for a week. Hit the gym. Channel your inner Bubba and feel that man arise.​

Like I said----you are a little lost.
You can find yourself --and a new girl that makes you happy and frisky ---- and when you do you will find a more confident str8 guy. Truth.
I wish you peace ​

@Jamie_K_

SO, as I said @Hannah12269 I hope there is a little something for you to take away and discuss with your man. This will take time and patience and love, but you have all that to give him. I agree, do NOT go down the rabbit hole with him, but do try to understand the attraction and curiousity he feels that draws him there. It is only when you find a common root-cause you can BOTH address, BUT he MUST be willing to challenge and kill that DRAGON alone with courage and conviction --- after that you can both begin a journey to a healthy, loving, sensual relationship that will last a lifetime with the both of your commitment.

Lastly, he MUST for himself at some point soon be willing and wanting to exit this lifestyle choice --- not for you but for himself----and that is only for you to judge when --- or else you must save yourself and exit. I know that is not in your thinking right now, you have made that clear, but at some point you must realize that some people do not want to be saved from their own poor choices, but ....and I know you do not want to hear this, but....you shouldn't obligate yourself to sacrifice your all to enable his hell. It is not fair to either of you. At that point go read Mary Oliver's poem "The Journey" --- a most powerful call to march out into the future with courage. I hope you both go there together, as that is your wish.

Everything I read in prior posts from @Kenzi @GhostWriter @Jagliana and @GG2002 is spot-on.

He is lucky.
You are awesome.

I wish you the best. If I can assist further please reach out. Have a great weekend!!

 

--->how i knew you were perfect
The only person to be able to respond so eloquent and absolutely dyad.
What a great answer for anyone who needs advice on this!
Thank you so much!

 

you made my week @Kenzi , ThanQ . You are just so sweet....

Well, if I can assist in any other way @Hannah12269 I would be so happy to help, either here or in the "conversations" area one-on-one. As many guys can attest to on this site, this can be a very compulsive and addictive habit BUT it is totally repairable --- if desired

 

I can't even find the proper words to express this bit of information I want to give you.

The opposite of love isn't hate. Even if the person hates you she still directs some of her attention towards you. Someway you still matter, still has an impact on her life. Things get really dreadful when people become indifferent to you. Being disliked is a lot better than being ignored by those that matter or are constantly Around you. The most efficient way to make a person change her behaviour is to stop caring. That move triggers the primal instincts of the target, the brain considers isolation to be the ultimate danger.

The thing is: You are showing unconditional love and it's having no effect. If you show hate he will probably think to himself that the problem lies on the outside. Now leaving him be will make him hurt, but someday he will realize that if no one is influencing his actions, the source of his conflicts is no one to blame but himself.

We can't evade suffering in life. Sometimes suffering even more is what kickstarts overall improvement.

 

Ask him to read, or at least start, the book linked in my signature. It's free. It's designed for people who are still addicts, who don't like being addicts, but aren't quite ready to break free. It helps look at the compulsion from a different perspective.

It's modified from Allen Carr's books on tobacco and alcohol addiction, which have been very successful. The grammar is awful (English is his first language) but the author knows what he's talking about.

 

Hi @Hannah12269, just FYI, I left NoFap about a month ago due to an incident with bigotry and bullying, which sadly still is allowed to stand ---- but I have now returned anyway ( I missed my friends here) and my contact is @Jamie_K_ if you care to continue the conversation ---- I hope you and your boyfriend are doing well.