Some Insights at the Sting of Reversion

Some Insights

at the Sting of Reversion​

I'm just beginning to realize, fully, that watching porn has never been about women. Sure, it involved "women," in that there were "women" onscreen, writhing, gasping, moaning, kissing. I use quotations not to dehumanize these actors but to accentuate the notion that porn gives you an illusion of women through the lens of cheap, mythologized sex. It offers you a vision - a dream, really - of sex, and in the dream are sirens who lull you with cheap songs. You know you're dreaming, of course. Hell, so do the sirens - they're faking it, most of the time. But you buy into it anyway because, again, it's not about the women.

It's about you. Well, it's about ME.

It's about me, yeah. What is porn but some way to fill a void? Not just of sex, being a virgin, shy and of the perspective that most beautiful women - the ones on the street with the soft features, the skirts, the jeans, the dresses, the smiles - are remote in their beauty, inaccessible, like the far-off peaks of a mountain range (a dangerous deception) laid out on some unbelievable horizon. No, not just sex. Some other character deficiency. An urge, perhaps, to feel anything - preferably with pleasure - other than the pit at the bottom of my soul, the clear evidence of my failure to be, to exist as a self assured of its own ground.

I spend a lot of time feeling very shameful. Like recently, for instance. I've relapsed. 53 days or so of feeling a bit like a conqueror than wham. Back to square one. Back to the pit, where I lie down and convince myself that I'm only good for failure. That's a lie but it's also the truth. I have spent my life failing at things. It makes sense that this NoFap business gets added to the list.

Here's the thing, though. While I've screwed up disastrously, made so many mistakes, disrespected women, men, my loved ones with this gross addiction, what does this shame do other than bind me to its terms? I know I'm incredibly imperfect. I know that the shame I feel is warranted. I also know that if I am to ever become a man of some responsibility I need to GET UP AND TRY AGAIN because guess what, there's only two paths at the end of shame's road - absolution or annihilation. And as much as I've been tempted to end it all, I will only bring further shame on those I've left behind, on top of pain upon pain upon pain.

And it's not as if absolution is a likely thing. I can't forget all the images, the visuals, the sounds, the sheer lies. I can't forget the things I've done to drive this addiction into other areas of my life, on the pretense of glee. I can't and won't. My past is my cross to bear and now it's up to me to make up for everything. That begins with the fight against addiction. That's why I'm here and - despite my relapse - why I'll stay.

If you relate, talk to me. I want to talk. This site has been a good place for me. You folks are great, and NoFap is a community I need to dive deeper in. Sorry for the rant but I felt depressed. Hopefully this does something.

 

Right, but I guess to me, it kind of feels like cheating. Like, I gave myself a pass when the point is to STOP, you know? There's some benefit, sure, but to in my case, I feel like starting all over again will reinforce the situation's gravity.