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Is it really Porn or Sex Addiction?!

Discussion in 'Porn Addiction' started by James8698, Dec 25, 2019.

  1. James8698

    James8698 Fapstronaut

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    I’m not trying to be an idiot on here but initially I liked NOFAP but it seems its always addressing porn addiction but not the sex itself like masturbation.

    By the way, I have been studying sex addiction for many many many years so Im not jumping into this blindly. I have watched many many NOFAP videos, Porn Free Radio, books on it, etc. I’m also in my 50s and yes I have had past relationships which don’t last cause of this problem including a marriage.

    Please don’t say it’s normal to masturbate; it’s NOT normal for anything that you can’t stop doing when you want to stop it. And no, I don’t masturbate every day maybe once a week but can’t always resist it. I have tried for YEARS!

    Even if I never had access to porn again I would still have a resistance problem of masturbating. Yes, I understand it’s built inside of us to be sexual but still we all make the choice to give in.

    I would love to know how many of you guys would continue to watch porn if you weren’t ever to have sex again. Porn to me is just a stimulant. No porn, well there is youtube which doesn’t have porn but you can find attractive women wearing tight clothes; we also have our own minds with fantasies.

    I’m just confused that everyone is talking about porn addiction and to me its actually the sex itself (ejaculation or orgasm) that we are addicted to cause obviously it feels good!!!!!!!

    Again, if porn was deleted forever in our world (wish that could happen) I would still have an addiction problem.

    Also, most fall into addictions cause they are running away from other issues which they don’t want to face; such as, broken relationships, jobs, loneliness, etc.

    Again, I do feel people are addicted to porn too but if it wasnt for the sex itself, would they still be watching it or addicted to it?

    I do wish PORN was outlawed, there is nothing good about porn! but are we really addressing the main problem here.

    Porn is like the bottle that holds the alcohol, which the alcohol is the ejaculation/orgasm that you experience from sex. I’m sure an alcoholic gets dopamine when they grab a bottle of alcohol knowing that the outcome of it is the alcohol they will be receiving from it. If they are holding an empty bottle of alcohol, would they continue to get the same excitement from it?

    Another way of looking at it; if a cigarette smoker has a cigarette in their hand, they will probably get some dopamine from it if they are addicted to smoking, but if they cant ever light one up, how long would that last? Just like PORN, watch all you want but if you never ejaculate over it, would you continue to watch it?

    Yes porn produces dopamine but if we never had sex again would we still be watching that crap?

    Thanks for any comments.
     
    Fenix Rising and Feelslikezoom23 like this.
  2. CodeTalker

    CodeTalker Fapstronaut

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    Maybe you have a different kind of sex addiction. I know that my problem is deeply linked to porn because if I can’t see porn there is almost no urges. And when there are urges I can’t act on it without porn.
    I’m not addicted to what I feel when masturbating but to what porn does to me. I tried few time the « ok I can masturbate but no porn » and always failed. Masturbation doesn’t exist without porn in my mind.
    I also watched porn without masturbation so I think even if I couldn’t have sex, I would still watch it.
     
  3. Awedouble

    Awedouble Fapstronaut

    There is never only a single cause, people just single out primary cause(s) and ignore the details.

    If you have no internet access, you are even unlikely to see much porn in the first place. I kind of wonder if most people would get excited enough by a print media anymore regardless of what is on it, just as some people may not even read erotic stories ... or read period.

    But the point is there are multiple factors. If porn is the bottle that holds the alcohol, what is the internet and the addictively designed algorithms in the software platforms? Most people don't trace it back even that one step in the causal chain let alone two or three.
     
    Brooklyn Jerry 70 likes this.
  4. Awedouble

    Awedouble Fapstronaut

    Or if you go the other way, what causes you to be horny in the first place? Can it happen in the absence of any kind of thoughts at all? Maybe it can, but even if you have an erection doesn't it require some level of mental activity to masturbate? In which case it brings us back to our mind. Porn in that sense is food for thought, or a certain kind of thought even if it can happen without it.
     
  5. James8698

    James8698 Fapstronaut

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    That’s a great point!
     
  6. angelpart

    angelpart Fapstronaut

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    Same here. The urges I get are not masturbation urges, they're porn urges. I have masturbated a lot without porn (on fantasies only) when I was a teenager, but I don't anymore. So for me the addiction is to porn for the most part.
     
    Brooklyn Jerry 70 likes this.
  7. James8698

    James8698 Fapstronaut

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    Ok, I think I’m understanding it a little bit more; I think my addiction is sex itself not PORN but there are a lot of people that PORN is deft. their addiction, and if there were no PORN they would not be addicted to sex. Similar to people that are addicted to having relationships but that doesn’t mean they are addicted to porn or sex.
     
    angelpart likes this.
  8. StonePlacidity

    StonePlacidity Fapstronaut

    both porn and masturbation are bad. They are related
     
  9. mutu

    mutu Fapstronaut

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    First of all, I cannot get erection without porn and that's because the *** 10 years of addiction to PMO. I can rarely get arousal from seeing Hot girls but I cannot just masturbate looking at them!. Back in the day in my teenage days I used to masturbate without porn because I did not have access to the internet like today.

    I have never had sex and I will quit porn forever no matter what, because it's terrible. It does not just destroy your sex life, it destroys everything in your life. And I think a human CAN live without having sex, It's difficult but possible.

    Lately I realized how dependent my brain has become to super amounts of dopamine which I can get from specific porn scene unfortunately!

    When it comes to real sex, I surely am "sexually paralyzed", so I cannot have sex even if I want, but I will stay away from it anyway because who know I might get addicted to real sex!!!!!! and lose another 10 years of my life. So no Thanks!
     
    angelpart likes this.
  10. World normal has an accepted definition, for activity to be normal is has to:
    be common
    be usual
    be typical
    be widely represented in the population

    Masturbation is common, typical, usual, widely exercised - so by all accounts it is normal.
    English is English, words have meaning.

    We generally do not consider activity an addiction just because it is repeated and can not be stopped. You cant stop sleeping, breathing, eating, moving etc.
    Activity becomes and addiction when it is given priority to everything else. When activity begins to rapidly push out, replace and suppress other activities from individuals life - it becomes and addiction.
     
  11. Feelslikezoom23

    Feelslikezoom23 Fapstronaut

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    There a lot of truth to what you’re say..... I have a string need to ejaculate, I don’t think it’s the porn
     
  12. Fenix Rising

    Fenix Rising Fapstronaut

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    Very good topic. I don't blame porn for my troubles. For me compulsive MO was a problem 7 years before I got first broadband internet connection. Access to high speed internet with it's access to limitless amount of explicit material, only made things worse as it enabled me to prolong my daily binges. If I lost an hour or two a day on MO before the internet, I started losing 3,4,5 or more hours when PMO became a thing. But yes, I agree, compulsive MO was definitely my main problem, that's why I've given up masturbation for good. I obviously can't control it so I choose not to use it. St Augustine wrote that "complete abstinence is easier than perfect moderation". I'd add that for a former addict perfect moderation is mission impossible.
     
    Last edited: Dec 30, 2019
    angelpart likes this.
  13. Invictvs

    Invictvs Fapstronaut

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    I think they are one in the same really. They are affecting the same areas of your brain. I do think it would be harder for many to develop a deep rooted sexual addiction (not that it doesn't happen, that's not what I'm saying) where real partners are involved. With porn there is nothing really laying between someone and their ability to act on an urge. With real people it's harder to get your fix....a bit like if someone was addicted to gambling at 17 but couldn't enter a casino because they ID. There are no roadblocks with porn. With masterbation without pornography there can absolutely be an addiction, but I don't see how someone could spend 4 or 5 hours engaging in it at a time. With porn people often like the prolonged period of searching and seeking while they 'edge' or remain in a milder state of arousal until they find the perfect material. I think that's the key subtle difference between a sexual addiction and pornography addiction....though I don't thing they are two completely different things.


    Sexual fantasies are normal, as is masterbation, but I think you're very right in stating that anything you can't stop yourself from doing...a compulsion...is not. I do think that the nature of pornography combined with our culture makes it perhaps the most insidious addiction someone can develop right now though, with the exception of opioids. It's rooted in something very private....with few outward symptoms, is usually free, and there's nothing stopping someone in the privacy of their home. It drives masterbation to the point that it becomes detrimental to health. I wish that I could say that I only had a problem with the MO part, but in reality it's the P that drives everything. I care far more for the period of time before getting off than I do the final act. I care about the build up and the search for the perfect scene and partner (for me its cybersex...which I classify as pornographic because most partners have some sort of very graphic profile attached to themselves). If I somehow developed the ability not be able to get to the 'O' that would make things even worse....because at least when I'm done I stop wanting to get my fix and my head gets screwed on a little bit straighter. It's gotten to the point that my online habits are far more appealing to me than a real partner...which I do have. The logical side of my brain is pushing me to quit though because it knows things aren't right, and because I do very much love my fiance. I definitely am devoted to stopping, BUT there are plenty of times when my mind tells me that I'd rather just be on my own when it comes to sex.

    I guess the short answer is that if I continued doing what I have been doing, then yes....I'd still seek out my usual drug even without the MO. I'd still want to view what I view and engage in cybersex....even if I couldn't get off again. I'd be like the smoker holding the cigarette or the alcoholic looking at the empty bottle....because it would be like if the smoker got more satisfaction from holding the cigarette or the alcoholic hugging the empty bottle. MO is just the end result of things, and not what gives me the 'rush' (for lack of a better word).
     
    Last edited: Dec 31, 2019
    angelpart and Gota like this.
  14. Gota

    Gota Fapstronaut

    I was never able to have sex, even if I tried with few women. I don't know if this was because of my PMO addiction or there are some other psychological issues behind this, anyway I'm unable to say if I could develope addiction to sex with real women or not.

    But when I discovered porn I instantly got addicted to it. The reason for this was that I could safely see lots of naked women without putting any efforts. I would call this 'the novelty effect'. So at first it was definitely porn addiction. I didn't care much about masturbation, I was addicted purely to porn. I was just watching it without masturbating. However with years I slowly moved from porn addiction to what I call 'dopamine addiction'. I started to lose interest to porn and it took me more and more time to find a perfect scene what could give me the real sexual thrill. Finally at some point I started to edge. I intuitively had a feeling what edging is much worse than just watching porn, but I was unable to stop and soon developed a bad habit of edging. I abstained from PMO more than 2 years ago (in summer 2017) and I can say that I don't care much about porn anymore because I realized that it will never fully satisfy my sexual needs. I also have a feeling that 'I saw it all'. But I still have stronge urges to edge, especially when I feel bad mentally, or even physically. This was one of the main reasons why I decided completely to quit masturbation too. So now I consider myself more 'dopamine addict' than 'porn addict'.
     
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  15. Fenix Rising

    Fenix Rising Fapstronaut

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    Hi Gota, how are you doing? I haven't seen your post for awhile.
     
    Gota likes this.
  16. Gota

    Gota Fapstronaut

    I think better than I was year ago and definitely better than 2 years ago. I slowly start to feel some interest and passion for life again.
     
  17. Fenix Rising

    Fenix Rising Fapstronaut

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    I'm glad to hear that. Have a great 2020.
     
    Gota likes this.

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