Can Masturbation help YOU rewire? An insight into my plan.

First of all, I know that this subject will probably cause a lot of backlash, so I’m saying this now - i am not trying to encourage Masturbation and I am not trying to justify a relapse. I am trying to reach out to the people who realise that porn is the problem and that the WAY you masturbate is the problem, and teaching yourself to associate sexual pleasure in a normal, “vanilla” way can actually speed up the recovery process and prime you for real sexual experiences in the future. Quick history, I’ve been death gripping to extreme escalating porn over the last 10+ years (I’m 22) and have never really taught myself that pleasure is the goal.

I’ve conditioned myself to feel that pleasure will always be there (from death grip) so escalating in a porn addiction is the way to receive actual pleasure. I’ve basically taught myself that death grip is the way to go. And that porn is the real pleasure, and not sexual stimulation, since that’s always going to be there right? Now clearly, this is a very bad view on things. Recently during not using porn streaks (3 weeks no PMO, and then 1 MO per week) I have tried to masturbate without porn and teach myself that pleasure is the goal, not porn. Gentle touch, gentle stimulation, lube, and pleasure are the goal. And after doing this once per week for 3 weeks, I literally felt the most healed than I ever had in 3 years of nofap attempts.

The problem was when I eventually broke my promise and masturbated consecutive days, which eventually lead back to porn. So clearly, I have to keep a strict routine on my masturbation and show my brain that masturbation with porn is simply no longer an option. It will take manual willpower, but it can always be done. So my strategy now is this. 4 weeks+ NO PMO. I will then masturbate after that when I naturally receive an erection, either morning wood or spontaneous real fantasy. Nothing porn influenced. That should remind my brain just how euphoric sexual stimulation feels. Then I will wait a week and completely disregard all urges to masturbate back to back. After a week I’ll MO again. Wait another week, ect.

Now I believe that if I can do this consistently and teach myself delayed gratification by waiting that week, and not forcing it (since as a porn addict the goal wasn’t to masturbate, the goal was the watch porn, and you can’t do that without MO), I’m teaching my brain that this “vanilla” pleasure is amazing, self fulfilling, FIRST PERSON, and pleasurable. And then my dopamine receptors would be much more responsive to natural queues and natural thoughts that aim to provide ME with sexual pleasure that makes ME feel like a man. Eventually, when I have rewired myself back to where something as simple as sexual stimulation is what produces the most dopamine, I can replace those once per week MOs with real sex, which will then increase the dopamine ten fold. Now you’re probably thinking, “but this will always be a gateway back to porn”. Well, not if you hold yourself accountable and teach yourself that any urge to go back to porn should be chucked in the bin. Physiologically, it makes sense. Refuse those neurones, and they’ll die out. But you have to be careful to not break your promise, but by that point you’ll probably feel way too much like a real man to disrespect yourself like that.

This is the way I’m going to approach it, and I’ve had great results in the past, but the Coolidge effect always catches up to me. I plan to use that weekly sexual urges as aggression and fuel in my gym workouts since I’m competing soon. I need to hold myself accountable and understand that part of recovering is teaching myself to not always release whenever I’m aroused, cos that can lead me back down to a huge relapse (just fresh off a 3 week relapse after having a 5 week rewiring phase that showed me how incredible life without porn feels like) Any tips or comments or advice would be greatly appreciated!

I am not a nofap purist and I know that abstaining from masturbation doesn’t actually do anything if you end up relapsing with porn after 200 day. It’s much better to teach yourself to experience real sexual stimulation in a natural setting that eventually develops into real sex, then completely removing masturbation only to relapse and waste your streak. Mind you, this strategy doesn’t work if you end up binging or giving yourself a cheat day to use porn. This is probably a lot harder than actual nofap since at least on nofap your libido is just dead. But with this, you’re retraining your libido to be linked with real, natural and pleasurable feelings instead of loneliness, porn, anxiety, all the shit stuff.

Think about it… it might be time to rethink the whole “I haven’t masturbated in 300 days but I feel no benefits and my libido is dead” or “the flatline lasts 8 months”. No shit, cos you’ve told your body that it doesn’t need sexual stuff anymore, so it shuts down. Rewire, don’t shut down.

 

The whole point of this is to make sure that there aren't any slip ups. I've been there and about with the 90+ no MO streaks multiple times, and after a certain amount of time, abstaining from MO just seems pointless. The whole point for me is to relearn that sexual stimulation by itself actually feels great and should be encouraged.

But if its done with porn, it ruins the whole point of this recovery process. So actually, giving myself permission to M once a week is doing everything for my healing because realistically, I am teaching myself to rewire to actual pleasure that doesn't involve porn. I am aiming to disassociate sexual stimulation with porn. Saying willpower never works is implying that everyone is weak minded. Willpower definitely works once you've reached that point where you know that this process WILL work, all you gotta do is do it. I suffered from OCD for half my life, so maybe my willpower and mindset is much stronger than most, but personally, I believe willpower can do anything.

 

I appreciate the comment, but this all sounds like a bit of nofap propaganda to me. I think you've read into what I am saying a little too literally. I'm not teaching myself how to do what is biologically natural to me, I am basically rewiring my brain to be more than satisfied with natural stimulation, instead of jumping straight to the deathgrip/porn combo where pleasure through stimulation isn't the actual goal. And yes, it is well known that if you don't use your libido after a long time, it can essentially go into hibernation. Many porn recovery youtube coaches have brought this up aswell.

Why I believe constant hard mode is dangerous is because imagine going 200 days hardmode, and then you relapse to porn. And then again. And again. Thats 200 days gone down the drain. But what if you go 1-2 months hardmode, and then slowly teach reteach your brain that stimulation and pleasure can actually be received WITHOUT porn. And what if your brain quickly gets reminded just how amazing that stuff actually feels and makes you feel like a sexual being again, BUT instead of releasing every second, you wait a week or so and hold that energy in? And release it again under the same natural circumstances. After a while your brain won't associate porn with pleasure because it will be too busy enjoying the self fulfilling first person pleasure that you are receiving. You'll start to feel much better about yourself, fuelling with sexual desire, but holding it in and making yourself a much more sexually desirable being. Lift some weights with that added libido boost. You'll feel incredible about yourself, and your brain will realise how good you feel, and make note of it.

You are essentially positively reinforcing every self fulfilling feeling that porn has taken away from you. The more I write this, the more logical and real my plan actually sounds. If you take a second to remove the nofap biased for a minute and actually look at this logically, it makes complete sense. Now, obviously if nofap is the thing for you then go and do it! Maybe you feel that complete abstinence is the best thing for you, but at the end of the day we are sexual beings, and the hole point of nofap should be to rewire back to where we can experience sexual stimulation without porn hanging around, and I think my plan will prime anyone for that endgame goal.


(I'm not new to nofap at all, and I know all the recourses. Had multiple 90+ day streaks of no PMO, and I've concluded that adding masturbation as a way of positively reinforcing pleasure without porn is a no brainer)

EDIT - I saw you posted something similar a couple days ago so you've got a natural biased towards it. Everyone's situation is different. I understand the views of no MO, but I think people like you need to understand that MO isn't the problem. MO with P is the problem. And teaching yourself to experience MO and O without P and positively reinforcing that will only benefit someone. It is well known that Nofap takes no MO a little bit too religiously, so maybe try and see things with a bit of an open mind and realise that there are huge benefits from MO if its done in a strictly correct way. Willpower must be strong enough.

 

If you didn't read the plan then you don't realise how this is literally the opposite of the addiction talking.

 

See, I posted this exact post on r/pornfree and all I got was people telling me how logical and true this method of recovery is. So there are very clear difference of opinions with nofap and pornfree. I expected alot of backlash becausse I know alot of people think masturbation is the main problem, but if you look at it rationally you might actually realise that masturbation done right can be extrememly beneficial for someone when recovering from porn. IF it is done right. If it isnt done right, it wont work at all. This isn't for "nofap beginners". This is for people who have been around long enough through all the relapses you realise that porn is the true problem, and sexual stimulation is actually the true goal, in a proper and natural way that has no links to porn whatsoever.

 

Yeah I completely expected to have the majority of people disagree. It's only the people who have been through hard mode and realise that its not actually the one and only definitive answer that might actually appreciate this post. I know the nofappers are taking this to heart because theyve spent all this time convincing themselves that no PMO is the answer, that they don't realise that MO done in a proper way can speed up their recovery like crazy. To each their own.

 

"But you don't seem to go anywhere, you said it yourself. You still go back to using porn even with this masterplan."

I've done this "masterplan" about twice already, and both times have worked great, until I went back to porn. So, If i simply don't go back to porn, this masterplan simply succeeds flawlessly. To each their own I guess, I suffered from severe OCD for the last 4 years so my mind might be a bit more stronger and rational than most. I know what works, and I know how to get there, and I know my brain will show resistance because that is what I've conditioned it to do throughout my porn addiction. So simply put it, I manually override my brains desire for porn, and I manually override my conditioned perception that masturbation should be done in an aggressive, low self esteem. lonely death gripping way, and I essentially win. It's all about positive reinforcement. Positively reinforce the right neurological messages and you win. Not "abstain for X amount of days and all your problems magically appear"

At the end of the day, no one is the same and I know myself better than anyone. And I know that this will work for me. I'm way past the "your addiction is talking" bullshit. I understand what porn does to me, and why I let it go on this far, and i understand what my problem is. And masturbation will heal it it I do it right. Pure abstinence only does something because you've convinced your brain it does!! It is all a mental game, nothing more.

 

Nah see that is the nofap way, not the rational way. And no one is being a slave to anything, in fact my method is probably harder than nofap anyone because it teaches you delayed gratification and removes that instant gratification wiring. But too each their own. This method will heal me so I'm cheering regardless hahah

 

Most people really just want to quit porn so they can have real sex, and experience sexual stimulation in a non-porn way. Most people would have sex every day if they could. For some people, the goal is literally to quit porn. Not to become some semen retention monk. Semen retention doesn't actually do anything apart from what you mentally tell yourself it does, and thats okay!!!! If you mentally tell yourself something is good or bad for you, IT IS! It's all dependent on the person and their ultimate goal.