Surely masturbation will help me resist porn?

You are addicted to the dopamine rush from arousal and lust.

It doesn't matter if it's porn, or even just mental fantasy.

 

Feo is correct. The problem must be studied to be understood, and it can be confusing. Though this section is titled "porn addiction", no one in history has been addicted to porn. Porn, and MO, are buttons we push to get a dopamine rush, and we get that from a sexual thought. Just a sexual thought. So, one might ask, can sexual thoughts become addictive? The best answer is, probably not, maybe never, until we invented High Speed Internet Porn, which allows us to use porn to get a non stop dopamine rush, via non stop, never before thought, sexual thoughts, multiple times, every day, for years. Thus, the addiction. Before the invention of HSIP, we liked sexual thoughts, but there is little evidence sexual thoughts could become addictive. After HSIP, we can ride the dopamine high of sexual thoughts for years. So, take time to understand the mechanics of what is going on in your brain. It is important.

What does the dopamine rush do? Primarily, it feels good, thrilling, we like it; it is one of the best feelings we can feel.

The purpose of the reboot, aka the hard 90, is to quit having that feeling, quit wanting that feeling, quit missing that feeling, compulsively. It is not to quit liking it, or having it, forever, but to avoid artificial sexual stimulation to get it, and to rewire to getting the old fashioned way, with another living, breathing, present, person, you are actually touching.

MO is, by definition, artificial sexual stimulation, and is, therefore, to be avoided during the reboot. If it is not real, it is not real. MO is not real. Later, once you get rewired, you can explore who and what you are, sexually, and ask the question whether you want MO in your life. But, during the reboot, it has to go.

 

If you're in a constant try-fail cycle doing hard mode, then why not give easy mode a shot? If it leads to some little token of success, it just might be the boost someone needs to push on to bigger goals. If plain MO leads to using porn then at least you know that strategy doesn't work for you. For others it might.

 

"Is the idea to forgo all orgasm for the reboot, or just orgasm from maturbation?"

The simplest, easiest, most direct answer is: forgo everything during the hard 90. This means not only giving up artificial sexual stimulation, but any and all sexual stimulation. Any thing less is a slippery slope that usually ends up with addict right down at the bottom of the hill where they started. Many guys who ask the question are not being honest with themselves in the first place. Virgins and guys who cannot get it up, who have PIED, why would they ask the question? Having sex, actual sex, with a real, live, human being, is not possible anyway, so marking it as off limits is not really giving anything up. Usually, the one exception I have is for guys married, or in a long term relationship, for a few years, who has a partner who expects sex, who are still able to have sex. In that event, I say, go ahead and have sex, but make sure the porno is not playing in your head while you are doing it, and you are only thinking of your partner. Except for that group of guys, I recommend "hard mode" for 90 days. It is only 90 days, which is not that long to potentially fix this problem for life.

 

I don't know, but as I think about it, I doubt it. I don't mean because the evidence is against such an effect, but because I just doubt anyone has adequately researched it.

As I think about it, that might not be the easiest thing for someone to research accurately. I'm not an expert in how things are researched, but what I do know about such things makes me think it'd be really hard. How would you isolate the one variable of masturbation from all other possible influences, for example? Would you have to have subjects in isolation for 30 or 90 days? Constantly monitored? What about fantasy and the effect of dreams, for example -- how do you adjust for those?

And who pays for such research?

And then, you have to do it again, and again, in order to see if you can repeat your results.

Maybe I'm wrong about how this might work, but -- you can see why maybe something like this doesn't have research.

My own experience -- not scientific! -- is that masturbation leads to porn, for a similar reason that it leads to fantasy. I have avoided all of them for over a year. And I've had a few times I've given myself a little touch, only to stop myself. One thing I've noticed: masturbation isn't nearly as much fun, for me, without fantasy; and when I've started to give into temptation, the next temptation is, think about X -- i.e., fantasy.

Well, the other thing I've experienced over the years was to masturbate after abstaining, and that feels awesome! Then, a few days, I want that same awesome experience. Only it isn't so awesome the next time. And by the third time, it's more ordinary. Before long, I think about something to make it more awesome. And since I'm already fantasizing, porn becomes the next, logical step. That's not what I think would happen, it's what has happened in my life, over and over.

Now, I contrast that with where I am now. I have given up porn, masturbation and fantasy, and while I've had some bumps along the way, one time involving full-on porn, and others, porn "subs," and also involved some touching that went a little far (but not to orgasm), the overall thing I can report is that taking out both the imagery, and the fantasy, makes it a LOT easier to forgo masturbation. I cannot say whether I would have avoided porn had I been masturbating, and I'm not willing to test it. I can only tell you what I think would happen.

 

Masturbating makes you horny! Even if you don't fantasize your body will convert testosterone to DHT [ sex drive]. I had not masturbated for 90 days and then 22 days, and didn't feel like wanking and wanking was the farthest thing from my mind when I woke up, but after masturbating last night, despite the wanking being an unpleasant experiance it took some willpower to not wank this morning. I always find the first 3 days to 7 days to be the hardest after that I lose the desire to wank. What usually leads to my stumbling is depression, frustration, and anxiety.


There were people who were addicted to masturbation long before the internet came around, people were also addicted to porn before the internet. In a typical porn mag someone can flip through the pages and go from one woman to another and then look at another mag.