Why am I turned on by scenarios that make me sad?

Sounds like you're processing past trauma. While it can appear illogical, it is a way for our subconscious to reconcile with our past trauma, usually from childhood, with arousal or toxic relationship habits.

There's a good book 'Reinventing Your Life' which talks about this. They call these traits "life traps", and there's a number of them. My main one for example is emotional deprivation. I felt I wasn't good enough as a child, ergo women who treat me bad I am attracted to. This takes conscious effort on my part to turn it around. You may find insight into your patterns in this book that at the very least makes more sense of it.

There's also some very good work from Gabe Mate on childhood trauma and how it manifests (and can be processed) in adulthood. Lots of videos with him on YouTube, and he has a few books also.

I have to say it doesn't matter what type of porn I watch or read, my 'fantasy' is always "I'm not good enough" and therefore I think it's a tool to process trauma, albeit a really bad one.

It's arousal feels "safe" because we know it's a reliable way to process things.

Hope this helps in some way and you find the pieces to your puzzle man!

 

its good that youre starting to question the addiction. Society gives far too much justication and normalization to this stuff. I recommend checking out ftnd.org as well.

ive read stories too, so i know a little bit about what you mean. This is the coolidge effect at work, your brain hunting for new "mates" on the screen for a different dopamine rush:
https://www.yourbrainonporn.com/ybo...rn/porn-novelty-and-the-coolidge-effect-2011/

if you continue on this path of addiction, your brain will become less and less satisfied with "normal" P, and you will get to experience new types of hell and horrible sadness than you ever thought possible. Youll long for the days when crying was possible. escape now, and dont look back.

awesome post, thank you!!

 

@Reborn16 has an excellent point here. Many times, with whatever "flavor" of porn we addicts are drawn to, it's is because of past trauma, whether it's violent and forceful, submissive, older, younger, or even sad stories.

CSAT therapy would definitely help sort all that stuff out and deal with it in my opinion.

 

Looks like you answered your own question somewhat. You're reliving a trauma that you relate to. While I despise porn as much as any other guy here, I can honestly say that it has one small advantage: it shows the user who they really are, in ways we may not always like.

I've developed weird fetishes over the years, and virtually all of them are a reflection of personal hurts I've experienced in the past. Cheating on one's spouse is a big one for me; while I've never been married myself, I've harboured deep reservations about women's innate lack of loyalty, and learned that this fetish was just me processing the belief that virtue goes unrewarded, and it often tends to attract betrayal.

Over the years, I've developed others. The personal hurts caused by racism (living amongst people who see me as an outsider) developed into raceplay (that is, racial humiliation) fetishes. I'll spare the details, but we are all dealing with hurts that we relieve through our addiction, while ironically using said addiction to numb that very pain.

 

Thats the viciousness of this thing, it directly attacks you in the way you feel you "should" be attacked. Making your opinion of yourself even worse as a result.

All this horrendous stuff themed about not being enough of a man. I wont divulge because we all know what it is. Is a form of digital self harm for straight men, someone who was never exposed to these ideas will not have their self esteem throttled as much as someone who has.

 

This is impure pleasure, that substitutes for the shortcomings of porn. Pleasure is a product of "goodness" and intensivity. In porn many parts of full sexual pleasure are missing, so the brain seeks to increase the second element.

So impure pleasure spices up the experience with a small amount of something bad but very intense. A trauma trigger, moral disgust, a hint of danger, a bit of pain. Many mitakenly think that these are true preferences, but they are not - it is the intensity of negative feeling that attracts people in truly perverse way, opposing their true preferences.

Our brains can differenciate between pure pleasure and this mixed crap - but that needs to be learned. And porn easily builds taste for overall moral corruption if one is not aware of this. Swearing, comfortable lies, abuses of power, evil for greater good... many good things get corrupted if we build taste for it. So grow up and learn to separate good from bad.