Urges- where they come from

Hello everyone. I have had some questions and thoughts about urges. I wanted to share them here and get your feedback. My thoughts come from my experience and the guys I have worked with over the years. Obviously, your experiences and opinions may differ. I welcome any comments.

2 questions I have considered:
1. Sexual urges are natural and healthy. Are sexual urges different from urges to engage in pornography, masturbate, or pursue unhealthy sexual encounter with real people?
2. If different, where do urges to act out come from?

The reason I feel that these questions are important is because if we can understand the origin we can take control. I do not have urges to act out any more. I have been thinking lately, how that came to be. I did work with a sex addiction coach but we didn't work on this specifically, I just realized one day, "I don't have urges anymore". I believe I did something to make that happen, even if it wasn't intentional.

Question 1. I believe that our urges to act out are DISTINCT from our healthy sexual urges.
The reason I believe that are for the following reasons:
1. When we have a urge to drink, and then we drink, we feel satisfied. Our healthy sexual urges are not satisfied when we act out.
2. What my urges are looking for are far more than orgasm when I have healthy sexual urges. It is about physical AND emotional connection. Acting out does not provide emotional connection, its destroys emotional connection.

Question 2. I believe our urges to act out are manufactured.
How do we manufacture them. We manufacture these urges in 2 steps.
Step 1: Accept male entitlement and the objectification of women. We do this when we are very young. Society teaches us that this is okay. I am not saying that we ALWAYS objectify others. I am saying we accept the truth that under certain circumstances it is okay to do this.
Step 2: We act out in our minds, reinforcing entitlement and objectification, and feeding the desire to act out physically. When I say in our minds I mean fantasizing, checking out women, thinking about acting out, etc. I work with a lot of guys that talk about how they go all day basically feeding on pornography in their minds, then they go home and try to fight the urges.

The urges are coming because of what we choose to bring into our minds. The reason our minds automatically have those sometimes unwelcomed thoughts is because of an unconscious belief that we are entitled to sex and it is okay to objectify others.

We can come to control our urges by reframing the entitlement, eliminating the objectification, and taking control of our thinking.

These urges do not have to be a part of our lives. This will leave greater room for healthy urges.

A note about the chaser effect: I believe that this is manufactured. It is my opinion that once we can realize that urges to act out and healthy sexual urges are completely different, and do the work it takes to separate those permanently, the chase effect will go away.

 

I agree that we see things that trigger us and because of how we think about those things we feel urges. The challenge is that we cannot control our triggers. So to believe that triggers are the root cause is to give the power of our urges to external forces. It is that kind of thinking that causes anxiety and makes some men want to hide out from the world.

I go to the beach and don't feel urges any more. There was a time when I thought I would never be able to go to the beach again... ever.

Triggers play a role for sure, but I do not think they are the cause.

 

@Psalm27:1my light I really like what you said about urges for PMO and the urges for healthy connection. I spoke about healthy sexual thinking but it makes sense that it could apply to any kind of connection a man is seeking. Thanks for sharing.