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(I think that) NoFap is bollocks

Discussion in 'Porn Addiction' started by Deleted Account, Dec 27, 2019.

  1. requiem4thyme

    requiem4thyme Fapstronaut

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    Please explain... So are you saying porn was not creating problems in your life?
     
  2. pokershark

    pokershark Fapstronaut

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    Ok, so you do the marathons. That's really nice. Love it. But why is your opinion on alcohol addiction so naive and off-normal? Have you ever seen an alcohol addict, in real life?
     
    Last edited: Jan 3, 2020
    requiem4thyme likes this.
  3. AtomicTango

    AtomicTango Fapstronaut

    Oh god this thread is still going.

    [​IMG]
     
  4. TheSickBoy

    TheSickBoy Fapstronaut

    Yeah seems like he's struggling with porn to the extent that he became a retard. No offence but this seems true.
    Well I'm ready to help him if he takes us seriously and not beat around the bush..
     
    g2stop and requiem4thyme like this.
  5. Compulsive use of pornography is a habit developed as a response to some discomfort or pain.
    Widespread idea in this community is that pornography abuse comes purely from pleasure seeking behavior.
    In other words person discovers pleasure that pornography brings and becomes addicted to the pleasure.
    However compulsive behaviors are driven by feeling of discomfort not by expectation of pleasure.

    Feeling of discomfort is generalized, but you can relate to healthy feelings of discomfort for example when you are hungry you experience discomfort.
    When you are thirsty you feel discomfort. This feeling makes it difficult to focus on other tasks and you fairly "compulsively" go and get a drink.
    When you are thirsty drinking water is incredibly pleasurable, but you know it was not the pleasure of drinking you were after, you were trying to deal with discomfort of thirst.
    When you are not thirsty drinking water is not that pleasurable and may actually make you feel sick.

    We have a wide range of discomfort and pain we feel and we learn to address them, we rest when we are tired, we eat when we are hungry, we spend time with friends when we feel lonely.
    However we have to learn what solves specific type of discomfort before we associate it and figure out how to address it. Not all emotional and even physical discomfort is predefined and has clear solution.
    So people often feel emotional pain and do not know what to do to deal with it, and do not know why they feel it. So this pain begins to do emotional damage and because it remains unresolved for years, people suffer greatly.
    As this suffering continues, they may discover that porn, alcohol, drugs or skydiving makes the pain go away. They say I forget about everything when I am drunk or jump off a plane - I feel free,(of pain)
    Dealing with pain in this manner becomes habitual and develops in to strong habit. In a sense individual finds what they were looking for - a way to deal with pain they could not deal with before.
    However this approach masks the pain and does not fix the underlying cause and eventually that catches up to people.
    This is where people in a twist being to suspect that maybe pornography or alcohol is the cause of their pain. Which is in fact a coping mechanism they have been using to deal with it. So their attempts to stop produce pure misery, described so well.
    The massive urges they feel are in big part there to cope with discomfort that has been there for so long and is as strong as ever.

    I do not need to explain to you what happens next.
    If persons needs are not met, he/she suffers on multiple levels. We as society for the most part assume that financial stability takes care of individuals needs and all is good.
    But we have incredibly successful, highly educated people struggling with alcoholism, drugs and committing suicide. Is that not indication enough that they suffer?

    My message is the same, honestly look at your life and I mean honestly, and you will see what brings you pain, what you lack. It is difficult - it really is.
    This is where professional help can be incredibly useful in exploring where you have problems.
    Overall there is this idea about balanced and healthy lifestyle. It comes from doing activities that are rewarding and are likely to address vast majority human needs that cause pain.
    And in general best recommendation is to do as much as possible to live a balanced and healthy lifestyle, it will gradually fix problems and remove pain.

    Just remember you are driven to act by discomfort and pain - not pleasure.
     
  6. How would you help him - suggest he stops porn?

    And more importantly what will you help him with?
     
  7. TheSickBoy

    TheSickBoy Fapstronaut

    I haven't read all the posts so I'm not sure if porn is his problem so I cant really say what hes going through.
     
  8. requiem4thyme

    requiem4thyme Fapstronaut

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    I couldn't agree with you more. I know that porn is only a symptom of something deeper that I need to look at.

    I am a friend of Bill W. and have used a rigorous self examination to stay away from drinking for 9 years... That being said, the problem with porn is that it is everywhere. But coming here to talk about it and get a little support helps create victories every day and in time I pray I will discover the source of anxiety that pushes me towards porn for escape.
     
  9. Place to speak freely is great, but this has to be a forum to help people explore their issues. Not a forum with simple slogan "Say No"
    This is not a safe place to speak freely if people call you degrading names, demonize you and attempt to insult you openly because you say things that do not fit in the their world view, they claim is define by the name of the site "NoFap"
    This is a place to cheer up specific set of beliefs, I hope it can become more.

    This is not a safe place to get support, it bothers me because I see people coming here to get just that.
     
    JustADude and EdricKr like this.
  10. requiem4thyme

    requiem4thyme Fapstronaut

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    I don't believe I insulted anyone in this thread.
     
  11. pokershark

    pokershark Fapstronaut

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    Yeah but I think if we were "the hot guy" who sleeps with 10+ new attractive women a year, we'd not try to NoFAP. We'd just have a nice 80% sex 20% masturbation ratio. We're men and that's a very attractive lifestyle. At least me. Just the reality is, at least for me, I don't have getting girls on point, at all. It's more like, do I want to give up and accept I must jerk off. Or I can just NoFAP and grind it out and get to my 5 new girls a year and 4 of them are "meh" and then maybe assess from there can I improve or not. Dating is a skill, but if you're far behind, it's really annoying and you just get rejection rejection, etc. because you're not past the curve of what works in real life in dating.

    Btw if somebody wants, please harsh criticize my post here, but that's my opinion and I felt like writing it out.
     
  12. Again you make an assumption about what will make you happy, certain number of new females, resulting great ratio of sex to masturbation. etc. All this this nonsense.
    Mostly opposite is true, less intimate relationships you have - happier you feel. Having causal sex with multiple partners is bad physiologically, it is not a road to success.

    If you are unable to find a long-term partner - you have major issues. We humans need long-term, intimate partners - we fall apart when we are alone.
    Intimate partner helps fulfill many of the needs we have that go far beyond sexuality. Lack of that fulfillment brings only suffering.

    Feeling happy in life, truly happy and fulfilled only comes as a result many aspects of life properly done.
    If you have a relationship - it has to be built on honesty and trust or it will fail and you will suffer the consequences.
    If you lie and deceive - you pay an emotional price, this is how our brains work.
    All these ideas are described by religion, ideas about honesty, forgiveness, staying true to your partner - all stem from fundamental rules on which one can build stable and fulfilling life.
    Sadly people for some reason think religion is beneath them. Religion as an idea is timeless, rules it proposes have nothing to do with the supernatural or god - these rules reflect best practices in behavior nothing more.
    And the goal is to help people behave in the way that brings fulfillment and helps them tackle the endless pain of existence.
     
    requiem4thyme likes this.
  13. Loneliness is cured with intimacy. Not with sex with random chicks or socializing with a group of random people.
    Anyone who ever felt lonely and tried them all will tell you it's true.

    Dating ain't a skill. You either click with someone or you don't.
    It is a skill according to gurus selling video courses on "how to be good at dating."
    Which is basically mirroring the retarded behaviour of your date, therefore making them like you more, because birds of a feather flock together, therefore making them more likely to f you.
    This is called lack of self-respect.
    This is definitely bollocks.
    I have no shadow of doubt about that.
    If you think men are designed to sleep with X amount of women then this means you are f ing naive and bought into some bullshit designed to milk you dry.

    Humans fall for people similar to them. End of story.
    The only way to keep someone who's from another world is by pretending to be something you are not.
    Or rather, making them believe you are something you are not.
    It's called faking.
    It's called manipulating.
    It's called lying.
    And it only works for people with no critical thinking skills.
    It does not even matter how many different kinds of people you have met in your life.
    It is about not being able to see through the obvious.

    In case you didn't get that yet; you cannot build intimacy with someone as naive as this.
    Intimacy is not only sex btw.
    It is trust.
    It is friendship. (Beer buddies don't count. Sorry)
    It is touch. (Natural, not the one gurus say you should be pushing, or rather, 'building')
    It is hugging.
    It is kissing.
    It is love.
    It is also sex.
    And you don't even need all of them. Just some of them will do.
    Truth be told, you don't even need more than 1 person not to feel lonely anymore in your life.
    It could even be your parent for God's sake. As long as they f ing care.

    That is, unless you listen to some guru trying to sell you a course on "how to make more friends", because you know, if you don't have insert any number of friends then you're a loser and that's negative therefore you've got a problem, but fortunately it just so happens that this course is designed specifically to help you with your definitely (non)existing problem.

    I honestly fail to understand why so few people even try to analyze what is being told to them.
    It's not that people are stupid.
    Everyone knows how to make out 2+2. And that takes intelligence.
    Are they just lazy?
    Or what is the reason?
    I would love to find out one day.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Jan 5, 2020
    Enulv likes this.
  14. pokershark

    pokershark Fapstronaut

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    Thank you both very much for the engagement to my message! Appreciated!

    I'd put a text-based smiley here but the forum auto converts smileys w/o options to escape them, from what I can see
     
  15. Yeah, I like this one a lot ;)
     
  16. NoFap has been around for thousands of years (every important religion condemns masturbation), so there's probably wisdom in it, even if we don't have a satisfactory explanation yet.
    In the same way science told us that it was super important to eat 5 meals a day, but now that has been denied, and new scientific studies have found the great benefits of fasting, which is also a millerany religious practice.
     
    farmerjones likes this.
  17. farmerjones

    farmerjones Fapstronaut

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    First, Wilson doesn't make any money from YBOP or book. From the YBOP About Us page:

    Does anyone make money from YBOP? Nope. YBOP accepts no ads or donations, and the proceeds from Gary Wilson’s book go to charity. Gary Wilson has accepted no fees for speaking.
    As for science, the YBOP research page links to about 1,000 studies reporting myriad negative outcomes related to porn use. A summary:
    1. Porn/sex addiction? This page lists 45 neuroscience-based studies (MRI, fMRI, EEG, neuropsychological, hormonal). They provide strong support for the addiction model as their findings mirror the neurological findings reported in substance addiction studies.
    2. The real experts’ opinions on porn/sex addiction? This list contains 25 recent neuroscience-based literature reviews & commentaries by some of the top neuroscientists in the world. All support the addiction model.
    3. Signs of addiction and escalation to more extreme material? Over 45 studies reporting findings consistent with escalation of porn use (tolerance), habituation to porn, and even withdrawal symptoms (all signs and symptoms associated with addiction). Additional page with 10 studies reporting withdrawal symptoms in porn users.
    4. An official diagnosis? The world’s most widely used medical diagnostic manual, The International Classification of Diseases (ICD-11), contains a new diagnosis suitable for porn addiction: Compulsive Sexual Behavior Disorder.”
    5. Debunking the unsupported talking point that “high sexual desire” explains away porn or sex addiction: Over 25 studies falsify the claim that sex & porn addicts “just have high sexual desire”
    6. Porn and sexual problems? This list contains over 35 studies linking porn use/porn addiction to sexual problems and lower arousal to sexual stimuli. The first 7 studies in the list demonstrate causation, as participants eliminated porn use and healed chronic sexual dysfunctions.
    7. Porn’s effects on relationships? Over 75 studies link porn use to less sexual and relationship satisfaction. As far as we know all studies involving males have reported more porn use linked to poorer sexual or relationship satisfaction.
    8. Porn use affecting emotional and mental health? Over 75 studies link porn use to poorer mental-emotional health & poorer cognitive outcomes.
    9. Porn use affecting beliefs, attitudes and behaviors? Check out individual studies – over 35 studies link porn use to “un-egalitarian attitudes” toward women and sexist views – or the summary from this 2016 meta-analysis: Media and Sexualization: State of Empirical Research, 1995–2015. Excerpt:
    The goal of this review was to synthesize empirical investigations testing effects of media sexualization. The focus was on research published in peer-reviewed, English-language journals between 1995 and 2015. A total of 109 publications that contained 135 studies were reviewed. The findings provided consistent evidence that both laboratory exposure and regular, everyday exposure to this content are directly associated with a range of consequences, including higher levels of body dissatisfaction, greater self-objectification, greater support of sexist beliefs and of adversarial sexual beliefs, and greater tolerance of sexual violence toward women. Moreover, experimental exposure to this content leads both women and men to have a diminished view of women’s competence, morality, and humanity.
    22 studies from 7 different countries were analyzed. Consumption was associated with sexual aggression in the United States and internationally, among males and females, and in cross-sectional and longitudinal studies. Associations were stronger for verbal than physical sexual aggression, although both were significant. The general pattern of results suggested that violent content may be an exacerbating factor.

    “But hasn’t porn use reduced rape rates?” No, rape rates have been rising in recent years: “Rape rates are on the rise, so ignore the pro-porn propaganda.” For about 100 studies linking porn use to sexual aggression, coercion & violence, see this page for an extensive critique of the often-repeated assertion that an increased availability of porn has resulted in decreased rape rates.​
    Increased access to the Internet by adolescents has created unprecedented opportunities for sexual education, learning, and growth. Conversely, the risk of harm that is evident in the literature has led researchers to investigate adolescent exposure to online pornography in an effort to elucidate these relationships. Collectively, these studies suggest that youth who consume pornography may develop unrealistic sexual values and beliefs. Among the findings, higher levels of permissive sexual attitudes, sexual preoccupation, and earlier sexual experimentation have been correlated with more frequent consumption of pornography…. Nevertheless, consistent findings have emerged linking adolescent use of pornography that depicts violence with increased degrees of sexually aggressive behavior. The literature does indicate some correlation between adolescents’ use of pornography and self-concept. Girls report feeling physically inferior to the women they view in pornographic material, while boys fear they may not be as virile or able to perform as the men in these media. Adolescents also report that their use of pornography decreased as their self-confidence and social development increase. Additionally, research suggests that adolescents who use pornography, especially that found on the Internet, have lower degrees of social integration, increases in conduct problems, higher levels of delinquent behavior, higher incidence of depressive symptoms, and decreased emotional bonding with caregivers.
     
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  18. farmerjones

    farmerjones Fapstronaut

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    Taken From YBOP:

    +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
    The following 2 pages contain extensive support for “The Great Porn Experiment” (2012). The pages go slide by slide, providing the empirical support at the date of the talk, and the empirical support that has since been published.
    It’s important to note that The Great Porn Experiment was completed and sent to TEDx in December 2011, while the talk was given in March, 2012. This TEDx talk was a direct response to Philip Zimbardo’s “Demise of Guys” TED talk, which the Glasgow audience viewed just prior to the talk.

    Since December 2011, a large body of supporting research and clinical evidence has arrived to support The Great Porn Experiment’s three primary assertions, which were:
    1. Internet porn can cause sexual dysfunctions;
    2. Internet porn use can lead to the 3 major addiction-related brain changes identified in substance addictions; and
    3. Internet porn use may exacerbate certain mental and emotional conditions (concentration problems, social anxiety, depression, etc.).
    The following is a short summary of empirical and clinical evidence supporting claims made in The Great Porn Experiment (See the above 2 pages for slide-by-slide support).

    1) Internet porn use can cause sexual dysfunctions:
    2) Internet porn use can lead to the 3 major addiction-related brain changes identified in substance addictions:

    The Great Porn Experiment listed ten internet addiction “brain studies,” which supported my thesis that internet addiction (and internet addiction subtypes such as gaming and porn) exists and involves the same fundamental mechanisms and brain changes as other addictions. This field of study is growing exponentially. As of 2017, there are some 340 internet addiction “brain studies.” All of them report neurological findings and brain changes in internet addicts consistent with the addiction model (the list of Internet addiction “brain studies”). In addition, the design of several internet addiction studies supports the claim that internet use is causing (in some) symptoms such as depression, ADHD, anxiety, etc. The list of such studies: 90 studies demonstrating Internet use & porn use causing symptoms & brain changes.

    The Great Porn Experiment described three major brain changes that occur with porn addiction: (1) Sensitization, (2) Desensitization, and (3) Dysfunctional prefrontal circuits (hypofrontality). Since March, 2012, much neurological research on porn users and porn addicts has been published. All three of these brain changes have been identified among the 44 neuroscience-based studies on frequent porn users and sex addicts:
    • Studies reporting sensitization or cue-reactivity in porn users/sex addicts: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 22, 23, 24.
    • Studies reporting desensitization or habituation in porn users/sex addicts: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.
    • Studies reporting poorer executive functioning (hypofrontality) or altered prefrontal activity in porn users/sex addicts: : 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16.
    The 45 neuroscience-based studies (MRI, fMRI, EEG, neuropsychological, hormonal) provide strong support for the addiction model, as do the 25 recent literature reviews & commentaries by some of the top neuroscientists in the world.

    I also described escalation or habituation in my TEDx talk (which can be an indication of addiction). With porn users, tolerance/habituation leads to boredom with current genre or type of porn: greater stimulation is often achieved by escalating to new or more extreme genres of porn. While a tremendous amount of clinical and anecdotal evidence exists for tolerance leading to escalation in porn users, are there any studies? Employing various indirect methods, over 40 studies have reported findings consistent with habituation to “regular porn” or escalation into more extreme and unusual genres.

    Finally, it wasn’t until 2017 that research teams asked internet-porn users directly about withdrawal symptoms. All 4 studies reported withdrawal symptoms in “problematic porn users” 1, 2, 3. 4. See: Additional page with 10 studies reporting withdrawal symptoms in porn users.

    But ‘porn addiction’ isn’t in the APA’s DSM-5, right? When the APA last updated the manual in 2013 (DSM-5), it didn’t formally consider “internet porn addiction,” opting instead to debate “hypersexual disorder.” The latter umbrella term for problematic sexual behavior was recommended for inclusion by the DSM-5’s own Sexuality Work Group after years of review. However, in an eleventh-hour “star chamber” session (according to a Work Group member), other DSM-5 officials unilaterally rejected hypersexuality, citing reasons that have been described as illogical.

    Just prior to the DSM-5’s publication in 2013, Thomas Insel, then Director of the National Institute of Mental Health, warned that it was time for the mental health field to stop relying on the DSM. Its “weakness is its lack of validity,” he explained, and “we cannot succeed if we use DSM categories as the “gold standard.” He added, “That is why NIMH will be re-orienting its research away from DSM categories.” In other words, the NIMH planned to stop funding research based on DSM labels (and their absence).

    Major medical organizations are moving ahead of the APA. The American Society of Addiction Medicine (ASAM) hammered what should have been the final nail in the porn-addiction debate coffin in August, 2011, a few months before I prepared my TEDx talk. Top addiction experts at ASAM released their carefully crafted definition of addiction. The new definition makes some of the major points I made in my talk. Foremost, behavioral addictions affect the brain in the same fundamental ways as drugs do. In other words, addiction is essentially one disease (condition), not many. ASAM explicitly stated that sexual behavior addiction exists and must necessarily be caused by the same fundamental brain changes found in substance addictions.

    The World Health Organization appears poised to set right the APA’s excessive caution. The next edition of its diagnostic manual, the ICD-11, is due to receive final approval in 2019. The new ICD-11 includes a diagnosis for “Compulsive sexual behavior disorder,” which is suitable for diagnosing what most people think of as “porn addiction.” Hopefully the DSM will fall in line.

    3) Internet porn use may exacerbate certain mental and emotional conditions

    The Great Porn Experiment described “The Other Porn Experiment” in which young men who eliminated porn use reported remission of emotional and cognitive problems. TGPE also described “arousal addiction” (internet addiction and its subtypes) exacerbating or causing symptoms such as brain fog, concentration problem, generalized anxiety, depression and social anxiety. As of 2017 there exist hundreds of correlative studies and a few dozen causation studies supporting this assertion.
    In 2016 Gary Wilson published two peer-reviewed papers:
    ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
     
    Last edited: Feb 29, 2020
  19. Even if they were making money (which they really don't. On the contrary, they sacrificed their lives and reputation to defend what they believe is true and right), why demonize them for making a livelihood out of helping people stop addictive behaviors?

    As far as I know, no one blames the porn industry for making money, so why the doublr standard?
     
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  20. No one blam...? What?
    Get out of here.

    I will have a look.
    Though I am pretty sure it is just a revision of what I saw earlier in this thread.
     

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