Porn caused disassociation.

This will happen naturally if you stay away from P.
Then, when you become intimate with someone, you will have the opportunity to check if those fetishes were something you really had an affinity for, or if them were just a product of addiction.

For example, I realized that for me, loving someone is not compatible with putting into practice many of the things you can see in today's P scenes.
But each person is unique, and you don't have to forgive yourself for exploring different fetishes.

 

Sex can be wild and nasty, but also it can be the most tender, profound thing you can do with someone. They call it "making love" for a reason

May I ask if you kiss, hug or caress her sometimes?

 

@WillBear , sounds like you have a problem that’s frustrating you and your partner. On the bright side, you do have a partner, they are apparently patient, and you don’t have a porn addiction any more. You’re just dealing with the wreckage it left behind.

I think a good place to start is understanding what S is for, on an intellectual level. After, it can sink down into belief and action, but first it helps to know what is going on. P claims sex is just for pleasure, because that’s all P can give. Thinking about what real world sex does can provide a more comprehensive understanding of what it is for.

Sex inarguably leads to reproduction. There’s no getting around it. Gametes, cycles, libido, it’s all hooked into reproduction. Those who have sex pass along their DNA, those that don’t, don’t. You exist because two people had sex, or I guess these days it could have been a lab-based recreation of the sexual process but whatever. You are wired to do it, and to like it.
But that’s not all sex is for.

People have non-reproductive sex all the time. Same-sex partnering happen, and that seems to scratch the itch. We still want to have sex when we discover we can’t reproduce, or when a partner can’t reproduce. Heck, we spend inordinate time and money trying to keep the sex without the reproduction. The Jewish Tanakh/Christian Old Testament talks positively about sex without that reproductive component. Even if you don’t ascribe to those belief systems, you can see an ancient people observed, sex fills a need apart from reproduction. Those texts usually associate sex with pleasure, easily waved off as an evolutionary trick to get us to procreate, but they always talk about it as a bonding activity. “A man will leave his father and his mother, and join his wife (euphemism, “with genitals” is heavily implied), and the two will become one flesh. There are multiple warnings about not bonding with prostitutes, and not prioritizing pleasure through novelty over bonding practices. The Bible makes it clear; non-reproductive sex is not only acceptable, it’s encouraged, and it’s for uniting with the person you trust, not a “nasty,” deviant form of pleasure.
If you’re going to ignore ancient wisdom (they believed in a geocentric solar system, after all), then turn to science. There is a hormone called “oxytocin,” and it is what makes you feel you have a connection and can trust a person. The greatest concentration of natural oxytocin we have observed is in mothers and newborns. It’s what makes them imprint on one another, is partially responsible for making a mother forget the pain of childbirth, or barring that, helps her believe it was worth it, it’s what makes her go absolutely insane when they take her baby away. Seriously nursing staff, stop doing that, there’s no reason you can’t do your blood draws and whatever while baby is in mom’s arms. Oxytocin is powerful stuff. You get it in smaller doses through eye contact, and skin-to-skin contact. That’s why handshakes are better than fist bumps, and hugs are better than handshakes. With sex, you should be getting a lot of eye contact, and a lot of skin-to-skin. You definitely get an extra dose with O.

My hypothesis about sex in terms of reproduction, pleasure, and bonding is pretty simple. People have an impulsive, irrational desire for sex. It feels good, they’re teenagers, their brains haven’t finished wiring to handle a deep appreciation for long-term consequences anyway. She’s ovulating, so she’s not exactly in the mood to practice self-control despite all the cultural programming her mom and sisters and aunts tried to drill into her, and her boyfriend, well, he just wants to drill into her. So he does & she’s cool with it and now she’s preggers. Welp, she can’t get any more pregnant now, so they keep having a lot of skin to skin contact, which helps them bond which is going to be necessary because he’s a young, demanding, impulsive, selfish idiot, and she might not be the prettiest thing in the world and they both definitely have a lot of growing up to do, but that baby needs the parents to stay together in order for them to combine resources long enough to successfully raise it to independence. Objectively speaking, he’s an absolute moron and being with him is the stupidest move in the world. “But daddy, I love him!”
Go through a nine month span where you are nauseous, miserable, and have to urinate every fifteen minutes, your mobility and consequently resource procurement capability is significantly reduced, followed by a long and extremely painful birthing process, followed by at least twelve years (let alone what is it these days, eighteen? Twenty-one? Thirty-effing-two?) where you have to waste those resources on a whining, crying poop monster who does nothing but make noise, interrupt sleep, and cause headaches… That’s the magic of oxytocin, baby. Makes reproductive fools of us all.

I apologize for the rant. I’ve made this “mistake” five times myself, I never cease to wonder at how, objectively, it’s the worst idea in the world but we/I keep doing it. It has to be insanity. Or logic-defying hormones.

Whatever. I believe every feature of sex is an elaborate reproductive trick, but you don’t have to reproduce to enjoy it as partially, naturally intended. It’s not about dirty, selfish pleasure, and it definitely was never supposed to be a solo thing. It was always supposed to be a paired activity. Just because we can masturbate doesn’t mean we should, or we were ever meant to.

Next step, beyond the intellectual; take it slow. Just cuddle. Don’t do it with the hope or anxiety of escalating to more intense expressions of cuddling. If that’s okay, try taking shirts off and cuddling. Skin-to-skin. No demands, again, no anxiety or hopes or expectations. Just enjoy being with your partner. Check in, talk about how you’re feeling and if it’s okay. Talk about other things, too. Set a timer and do it for an hour, or not. No pressure. And if that is okay, you can keep doing it or discuss escalating it, again, taking it slow and going step by step.
I was raised in Christian purity culture and I knew a lot of couples, I mean a lot, with one or more parties having deep shame associated with all sexual feelings. Most couples could barely wait to tear clothes off and go at it like a pair of rabbits*, but many were intimidated, especially the ladies concerning how eager their soon-to-be husbands were and it was a legitimate concern. The solution is low pressure, lots of communication, and prioritizing love and relationship over fantasy and pleasure.

Hope this helps, hope you can reform your associations, and hope you have fun with all that.

*if you’ve never seen rabbits mate, just know the process is inhumanly intense and over within seconds

 

Give It time, Will. Patience, therapy and gradual practice will restore your previous view on sex.

 

Lol, awesome post.

 

I would only explicit that he needs to talk to his partner, let them know your concerns, that you love and don´t want to hurt them. They seem comprehensive so I´m sure you will figure it out communicating.

 

Will, I assume you've already tried, but I recommend that you talk to her about what her view of sex is. If there is no problem on that side, you need to understand that you are not doing her any harm, quite the opposite.