Are we ignorant of the root cause of PMO?

Nah, I do not see that at all.

First of all, the most common reason for relapses are nothing to do with sex. They mostly happen because of negative emotions and circumstances. It is a maladaptive coping mechanism.

Secondly, gay PMO addicts are not trying to access female energy.

 

The last sentence I do agree upon it. Also don't forget how pmo destroy our brain chemicals or pathways overtime. Back in the days when I was doing pmo heavily, I was a bit naive thinking it wasn't a big deal till I was trying to quit. Despite wanting to quit, the addiction was too deep n too far. So it still taking me a lot of time with severe and harsh withdrawals to return to normal.

 

To be honest, I have no clue how you even thought to theorize this.

 

The root cause of pmo is that we view woman as objects and not as people. I wrote a post about this issue if you'd like to read it: https://forum.nofap.com/index.php?threads/the-world-we-live-in.329407/

 

I've thought about this general idea before, but I think there needs to be some qualifications.

First of all, once you escalate into all kinds of genres of porn and so on you or your mind has strayed far away from the simple male/female balance dynamic, all kinds of weird associations, fetishes etc. enter into the picture. If nothing else this should tell us knowing the cause itself won't necessarily clean up our system on whatever level because the delusion becomes very complicated.

And your idea of going on retreat where you get massages and hugs and so forth has a couple of issues. One is it is very easy to conflate sensual with sexual, strictly speaking what is sensual is just "of the senses" and while that is closer to the nurturing aspect of the feminine, it is not sexual in and of itself. Another thing is you're getting this from outside yourself and from other people, if the goal is to balance the energy within oneself then it would be a matter of doing some kind of practice and working on yourself.

When people talk about the male/female energies it is rather vague, but it should be noted that it doesn't necessarily have to do with sex. Nurturing is a feminine quality but it may not involve any kind of sex at all. And it's tricky to talk about this in terms of sensual nurturing like massage because for many men it has probably been deeply ingrained that it is about sex and people who get a massage at a spa will ask for women, even though once they get to a point where they basically need corrective therapeutic care there is no guarantee someone without the training can resolve the issue they may still be biased towards going to a woman while in pain. But at a certain point of course people come to their senses, but in that case it is likely they shift gears and look at the body in terms of the mechanics and then it's looked at mechanistically and not in terms of nurturing in any way.

Finally "balance" is a very different idea than integration. The former has this implication like it's a 50/50 thing or something, whereas integration is more about working together as a coherent whole. So yes in a very general sense you can say it's a lack of one side, but then there's the more complicated and nuanced question of whether the two sides are communicating with each other. This is of course as much an intrapersonal issue as it is interpersonal, we just see it played out with relationships on a visible level whereas without really good psychological awareness one would probably not notice the details in themselves.

 

Men who watch porn are naturally objectifying the woman's body. In order to stop objectifying their body you need to start looking at them as a person with feelings and who also desires connection other than just sexual relations.

 

If you consider the idea of objectification itself, whether sexual or otherwise then a lot of our behavior and use of language reveals we objectify all sorts of things just because we relate to them as physical. This is interesting to contrast your original idea of looking at it in terms of energy. All porn involves media that depicts the object of the human body doing different things, whereas the energy involved starts way before that. Whether it's PMO or seeing someone on the street, or just thinking about sex in some way actually is probably the best example, the energetic movement has happened and there's just an inclination to act out on a physical level, but you already feel the way you do and the associated thinking is already in your mind.

In that sense it's more about the awareness of whatever pattern of energy is in your mind or what you come across. Basically the pattern is mind->energy->physical behavior right? So identification with physical nurturing reflects the awareness is focused on that level instead of from the beginning.

 

Who said sex was a bad thing? We were talking about pmo, which is an addiction to objectifying the female body.

 

I don't really like identifying with any belief actually. I guess you could say I'm an Universalist. Every faith has a bit of truth in it. Both Western and Eastern beliefs are meaningful to me. I can see why you viewed my post as such, but I understand where you are coming from.

 

I agree brother, most of us have PMO'ed in because we crave the feminine, and that's completely natural.

But my theory is that most people that really get hooked deep and "Nice guys with low self esteem" in my opinion this is the population that suffers more long term effects of porn that any other population. Porn because sort of an escape from the "Ugly reality, that girls are beyond their reach" so they go the easy way route, and how can you blame them.

Stress, negative thinking, low self esteem play a big part, and in my opinion are the core motivators behind PMO'ing.

There is also the lack of patience for a serious relationship and lust for instant gratification.