Something perhaps a bit contrary

I see a lot of threads on here about P usage turning people on to all kinds of things that they later regard as abnormal. (Including, bafflingly, turning gay, although I can't understand why this would be a problem for that person). I don't advocate much of what happens in P, but this is not because I think it's strange or unusual, but because it is an industry rife with coercion and violence.

I feel like the biggest problem P caused for me was actually that it wasn't sexual or erotic enough. That is, it provides a dopamine high for perhaps a few moments, but after repeated usage you forget about the complexities or real excitingness of what you're watching, and just go straight for the parts that have the most immediate and intense effects.

If I use a musical analogy maybe it's clearer. You start listening to a wide range of music. Music does all kinds of stuff, and none of it is more real, or more properly musical than other bits, but when you're feeling tired, and if you use music as a mood booster, you go back to the bits that give you what you want reliably. Like always listening to contemporary club music: you'd just go for the loudest, most frenetic bangers, and everything else would seem tedious in comparison. EDM isn't worse than other types of music, and it would be silly to argue that it was in some way less 'natural'. But it only does one thing - it delivers that feeling of the drop, and that exact thrill, over and over again. The problem is that it's just one type of music, and there's a whole world of stuff out there, which can make you into a complex human being.

I feel like P, by providing a reliable outlet for my most basic of sexual desires, far from making me into an overly sexualised person, actually prevented me from exploring my sexuality enough, or from exploring it really at all. That's the problem I want to overcome - to become more complexly sexual, find out if I have any fetishes that people here might think of as strange, to get more interested in the variety of sex around, not less.

That was longer than I intended. Anyone feel similarly?

 

Ok, perhaps this was the wrong place to put this.

What I really mean is that I think the discussion of sexuality here should definitely attempt to go beyond just reestablishing a 'normal'. I appreciate that this is of course what a great number of addicts really do need. The things widely regarded (both here, and in the general world) as unusual sexual behaviour have indeed caused them great harm, but that seems unlikely to be because of their strangeness. To put it crudely, the solution to the analogous musical problem I outlined above is not to quit listening to music altogether.

I'm really just trying to get people to think about after recovery, what do you think are ideal sexual relations/habits/etc.?

 

For sure. Monster Carrot (unfortunately a fetish I haven't explored) what do you think are ideal sexual relations/habits/etc.?

 

Very interesting @flossie_raptor. I do agree that in a way, porn deadens us. It keeps us downbeat and mediocre.

Just be wary in this specific thread to not write anything that may be too triggering, and use spoilers if necessary