Your Addiction: Porn or Orgasm?

It's not new. Pornography been around a long time, (I'm 40) but now it's free. Back a few years ago you had to pay money (or steal/hack) for porn videos online and off. Maybe you could borrow a video from a XXX store or get one from a pervy friend. Maybe swipe a DVD/VHS from your dad's hidden stash or get a peek of your older brothers magazine.

Nows it free unlimited on your smartphone. When you fap to that all the time it fucks up your brain. Even a porn addict in the 1980's who beat off to old VHS flicks everyday would be fuxked up.

 

I quit both masturbating and porn cold turkey and I just have sex. This journey would be a lot harder if I did hard mode for example where sex was removed from the equation as well.

 

To me P and M are the very similar only difference with me is that in order to M I have to fantasize. With P the fantasy is already there. When having sex my brain is so accustomed to fantasizing that is just makes harder to achieve O and when I do I'm not that satisfied. I beginning to learn how stop fantasizing by eliminating P and M. But I have a long way to go.

 

Well, when you beat your addiction to PMO, suddenly you feel addicted to MO, then you realize it's something else that you crave and endlessly keeps repeating a circle of craving, indulging, shame, rince and repeat. There are fundamental underlying issues, like many have said in this fascinating thread. Those can be reached way easier when you get a grip on your life again, by regaining control of your emotions, thoughts, and behaviors. So to me, it's not really a matter of P or M, but rather what leads us to use SO MUCH of it despite obvious negative consequences.

One main difference though, that might start answering the original question, in my own view : We grow fond of M over O the more we use P/fantasizing. I know I have. Anyone who has been edging for a while has felt this neverending stimulation, blissful in a way, which precisely we don't want to stop or end. In this regard, it is so much more powerful (regarding its effect on addictive patterns) than O itself, i think? P/Fantasizing are merely the support of minds that have gone wary of finding useful/efficient/powerful enough sources of stimulation in the real world?

This makes me think about a major difference between this addictive pattern (PMO) and others like say, alcohol or drugs. You can't keep up with drinking too long - it kills you at some point. Same for the drugs. Hell, I can't begin to imagine transfering my 25years of using P into using drugs - I'd be long gone I suppose?

 

For me it's neither. I'm addicted to the dopamine hits I get from lusting after women, in fantasy, reality, or porn. This perspective is key to sexaholics anonymous, a twelve step group. It is explored in more depth in their "white book", a great read.
Orgasm is good. But really that's not the addiction. This is clear when we spend hours and hours intentionally delaying the orgasm, watching more and more porn. It's the process that we are addicted to, the pursuit. Porn is all around bad, but that's more a symptom than the actual addiction. I can fantasize about women and get the same result, though diminished slightly. What does this tell is? The addiction lies somewhere else.

 

I try to analyze this over and over again .When I have SO there is still a feeling there is something missing. It's great, but for some reason I have urge to M the day after with or without porn. I guess I'm just missing that fantasizing or dopamine effect.

 

I struggle with the same question too all the time. I am fairly new into my journey (15 days no pm, no relapses yet), but I made the decision early on to continue having sex with my wife as normal and just cut out the PM. BUT WOW.... I've noticed continuing to have sex has actually made it more difficult in some cases to not want to achieve that "high" again with orgasming. Part of me has more urges for my wife, but honestly, it's not to connect with her - it's more to achieve that release that I want. Sex has replaced my daily masturbation, and I fear I'm making sex more about me than about "us". This is why I've decided to change my outlook on my goals. I need to wait until I have more control before I start having sex on a regular basis.

Someone recently suggested that my wife and I look into "karezza" which is basically sex without orgasm. We haven't not started yet but I'm really interested in it. I wholeheartedly agree with you that having a healthy sexual relationship is normal and can be beautiful but I'm not there yet - and I would venture a guess that most people who are here due to PMO addiction - probably cannot yet find a healthy sexual relationship until they retrain there brain on what "healthy" looks like.

I do also believe that masturbation CAN be healthy means of release, BUT I don't know if I can return to that for a while let alone ever. Thirteen years of porn addiction and daily PMO has ruined masturbation as a healthy means of release. I feel for me, masturbation will almost always have an element of lustful desire and rewatching the porn memories in my head. I owe my wife more. I owe myself more.

 

This is true! I never really thought about it before. During a long PMO cycle of edging I didn't really want to orgasm right away. I would edge for hours watching porn because I didn't want the fantasy to end. After the O it was back to reality, me and the tissue.