I don't relate to my sexual desires as being healthy or normal

Hi There. It's difficult to comment without you being a little more specific, you can mention names of things without it being triggering, or add a "spoiler".

Everyone's tastes as different, and not everyone's tastes are influence by porn, however as you acknowledge you have a porn issue then it's fair to say that yours possibly are. However there is no right and wrong way to have and to enjoy sex. A missionary only view of sex I think is a very outdated, church mandated kind of view, and something that I consider to be detrimental to a positive view of sex and relationships.

Don't kid yourself that porn stars want to do these things either, remember they only do these things because someone is paying them to do it!

Good luck.

 

Yeah man gotta give an idea of what we're dealing with. If it's not graphic I don't think that's considered a trigger

 

*trigger warning, not graphic here but I do have some details*

I find it more likely that your attitude about fetishes is being sub-communicated when you bring it up, and likely makes them feel like they have to answer the way you want them to answer. You could easily turn your attitude around and perceive that missionary-only sex is really jacked up/perverted attitude about sex.

I'm no PUA but have had more than average number of partners, and only ONE of them was not kinky. Nearly all of them like at least some degree of BDSM, roleplaying, foot stuff, etc...

But, maybe the type of fetish you're into is simply one that is generally unattractive to women. Pegging is one that seems to be a turn-off for tne average woman, but if you're really into it and are a good lover otherwise, you could probably present it in a way that won't make her hamster wheel spin like crazy when you tell her.

Without more info that's all I can say.

 

Wow Joe I so relate on so many points and levels. Thanks so much for your post. I have the same issues with lust, by the way I also related a lot to your other post, "but this is the problem, how do I stop being a pervert!?" I don't know if I have fetishes oh yeah I guess you could say I do, I just remembered lol. And one of them is one that it's almost impossible for another person to want to do, it wouldn't make any sense it wouldn't work that way. On the one hand I'm very thankful that it was just fantasy, I was terrified that I would start acting on my lusts. The idea that it's not normal resonates particularly with me. I was told that my behavior was normal but when I got more honest the same people said "oh, well THAT way of doing that is not at all normal." I didn't see or encounter anybody doing the same as me, if it was so normal why was I alone? And my thoughts were very abnormal. It got more uncomfortable, and then years of trying to keep things down and fight my thoughts and try all kinds of interventions like therapy religion marriage hurting myself to make myself stop, etc. None worked at all.
Like you I started with fantasy long before any behaviors like pm+ I think even before I could orgasm, yeah fantasy started at 6 so there was a long way to go from there. I used porn opportunistically when young but similar to your story it really started up big when I was about 18 and got the internet at college. I love the idea , which is also very true for me, that I started out with something unhelpful, porn can exacerbate a problem I already had but it's interrelated and I know which side started it. I was crazy long before I ever saw any porn. And I didn't have any excuse, nothing bad about my childhood no trauma just wired differently it seems. I couldn't find a reason, in years of searching including therapy for an explanation of why I am the way I seem to be. I have found something that works and some ideas that have a lot of explanatory power, so I bet my life on them every day. Can't know for sure that they're true much less "right" but that doesn't matter it isn't about that at all one way or the other, that's not even the question to ask or pay attention to. I just need something that works is all. Like you I engaged with it, I like to say "I am my problem and lust makes my problem worse." Not from the same self-hating place I was in before, not "I am a problem" but "self and my identity as 'the guy who thinks about x y and z' are my problem." Very different, perhaps a subtle difference, basically I love myself on purpose without needing pride nor needing my brain to change nor needing to do anything as far as acting on the thoughts not even suggesting them to people. For instance there are some milder obsessions I had and they still come up strong sometimes that I know for a fact are normal. One (I'll call it a fetish I think it fits the definition) in particular I have a lot of friends who routinely have sex that way. My partner has considered it but has landed on a very firm no, the same with any number of other ones that I have given up my right to even talk to my partner about. It's so easy to get stuck on the details, they say "the devil is in the details" and I find that any time I'm thinking back and forth about surface level content I am missing a deeper process at work. I bet another way we are the same is the source of our feeling uncomfortable, confused and confident that something is "wrong" with these lusts. Not wrong morally, and it's a good place to interject that part of the solution for me today is to drop even the idea of wrong in favor of ideas like 'hurtful' or 'unhelpful.' But that nagging sense I had that probably you did too of "something is off, this doesn't feel good." It's like the cabinets in my kitchen, done by an amateur carpenter and they don't square so they always squeak and often don't close all the way, it just feels like it could be better. I know I keep using moral sounding words, it's hard to remember that this is about what makes me truly happy and doesn't cause any hurt for myself or anyone else, inside or outside. Part of the fix that has worked for me for a few years is acceptance and love of all things, as a practice not a magic state. One way to toe the line and navigate these thoughts and feelings without getting into moralism (I think shame, thinking I am bad or these thoughts are bad, is at the core of why I am obsessed with them and tried so many times things I didn't really want to do! I got high off the shame, it's the forbidden fruit thing) is to focus on how I don't want to want things. Wanting is naturally uncomfortable. Take a sex addict called X, and say at any given moment Andrew thinks and believes "I want X". That is naturally not happy or fun: it means I don't have X! If I was doing X would I feel like "I want X"? If I had always wanted a pet snake and I got one would I think "I want a snake, I'd be happy if only I had a pet snake?" Hopefully not, that would be out of touch with reality. But strangely there were things I watched in porn that before clicking I thought and believed "I want to see X" but then within seconds of finishing watching and masturbating I had the thought and believed that thought "I didn't like that, I don't want to see X ever again." It's similar to how wanting money is even more uncomfortable than other forms of wanting. Because it has two problems 1) by definition I don't have the thing I want and 2) if I ever get it I will want it again. It's like this, put "$1 million" in place of X. Someone, call her Donna, has the feeling of desiring $1 million. She is unhappy because she does not have that million dollars. Then she gets $1M, and the natural effect is wanting another (or 2 or 30 or so on). That is how my lust is. And it doesn't feel good.
Let's talk,
Andrew
Happily kept free from having to pm+ since 3/12/13