My therapist thinks sex is a need - valid?

Yes, sex is a need. Yes, masturbation is a substitute that helps me feel like that need is being met. But it's fake; it's like living in the Matrix. All you're doing is doing is tricking your brain but you can't fool mother nature and one day you will die lonely. Some of you will die kissless virgins.

 

Valid. Sex drives forces you into the outer world, leaving your parents and trying to find a potential mate. Just don´t waste this drive energy on porn.

 

You got one response that said biologically speaking, sex is only for procreation. That’s not strictly true. We’re more sophisticated than insects or fish. Some other creatures have very basic reproductive sex, and other creatures can survive without ever meeting their parents or another member of their species. It’s not hard to be a cow, for instance. It’s considerably more difficult to be a cat. It’s not enough to be born a cat, they have to learn how to be a cat from another cat. The more complex the animal, the longer their adolescence and the more instruction they require from others of their species. Humans require a massive amount of instruction from at least their parents in order to become successfully reproductive, this continues to be true even when little about the way we live is natural any more. Human males can impregnate the female and leave, but he’s more likely to secure his genetic lineage if he sticks around. Consequently, sex bonds partners together on a chemical level. It’s why people who insist they are just in a casual sexual relationship with this other person and whose rule is to not fall in love keep falling in love.

Since humans are complex, though, sex has become a proxy for a lot of different things. Oscar Wilde claimed everything, to include money, art, politics, was really about sex, except for sex, which is about power. Some people use it for self-esteem, as a marker for success. Some of those things really are deep psychological needs. We need to feel safe, need to feel loved, need to feel valued, and some people will use sex as evidence they have these things, then as a substitute for these things. This is, in part, where addiction comes from and why it’s so hard to stop. You need a sense of control, and porn is a way to exercise control over your life and other people. If you don’t have any other control in your life, you are not going to be able to quit porn. Ironically, one might find control over their own porn addiction is sufficient, but then they can’t ever quit quitting. They’ll always be an addict battling addiction, not a former addict who no longer has a problem, because if they no longer have a problem they don’t have anything left to control, so they revert back to porn.

You do not need sex or masturbation. But you knew that, or at the very least it’s what you wanted to hear, because you asked NoFap in the SR section. What you might be missing, what your therapist might have meant without knowing it, is you may have some legitimate needs that are not being met by anything but PMO right now. Obviously we don’t want to use PMO to meet those needs. What you have to do, though, is try to figure out what they are and meet them in a better way.

People often cite Christian or Buddhist monks as examples of how we don’t need sex, but those monks had some things we don’t. Isolation, for one. They weren’t bombarded by advertisements and continuous suggestions that they need to pursue sex. They also had a deep and profound satisfaction in a spiritual connection. I can definitively tell you, Buddhism and Christianity cannot simultaneously be true, the two belief systems are mutually exclusive. Practitioners of either were able to achieve sustained celibacy, so it doesn’t even matter if what they believed in was true; they felt like they had that connection, they felt secure. Their psychological needs were met. If you want the same results, you need the same prerequisites.

 

Sex is a psychological need not a physical one.
To compare it to food is absurd.

 

I quoted your post to give it more visibility.

The vast majority of psychologists (we can also add doctors, teachers, etc.) follow the popular positions of our time.

 

(1)

Obviously it's not a need like food or drink. You can go years without sex. I went 3 years straight without doing either with no bad effects.

Would I ever do that again? No. Because sex is a beautiful, healthy part of a complete life. It's worth putting in the effort to make commitments, and keep them, and put up with unpleasantness, to have it.

I don't think masturbation is normal or healthy but it's not something to worry about or beat yourself up about.

Porn is absolutely something that should be avoided at all costs.

(2)

People like us should be having a lot of sex in our relationships. If we're not having a lot of sex then we're going to be dissatisfied. Especially if we got addicted from young.

Because peoples' brains form permanent structure based on the thrills they find as teenagers. So if the thrill you found was from sex, then you're always going to be yearning for that.

There's plenty of women who like having lots of sex with their man. There's no reason to ever be wringing your hands over not having enough of it. Just find a woman like that, court her, marry her and be happy.

 

They teach that in the schools about sex being a physiological need. The therapist is brainwashed by sex just like most of humanity… it’s a very strong delusion… so it makes sense how so many people are tricked and become preoccupied with it

 

I'd say you should trust your therapist on this one. For most people, sexual pleasure is a psychological need, the same way as the ability to socialize with other people. Many religions deny their followers this need, which leads to serious mental health problems for a lot of religious folks (since they're either not getting their needs met, or feeling shame when they do get their needs met).

 

Tell me, which religion?

 

This is true for many religions but is especially evident in certain fundamentalist branches of Islam, Catholicism, Orthodox Judaism, and some Protestant denominations.

 

Just so you know, OP, this is really bad medical advice.

 

"a less black-or-white way" and "ultimately a physiological need comparable to food" is a bit contradictory.

When people speak of needs it tends to be in an absolute sense, but lets start by comparing it with food - people have dramatically different diets both in terms of what they consume and quantity. Clearly there are people who are not having sex but survive and not necessarily having a cow about it, although I would guess they are likely not caught in the mainstream cultures thinking around sex. It's a fact that you can have no sex and survive for years, some people having pretty good lives while they're at it, but starvation from lack of food obviously kicks in sooner.

So that I think addresses the OP's first question, but even that fairly obvious observation is incomplete. If there's an "ultimately" it's a matter of context. At what developmental stage are we talking about? Isn't it fairly well known that people who are younger might have higher sex drive, and older people may have less? Why would someone who is arguing for the perspective of a physiological need ignore this?

As for the second question, I think it can look differently for different people simply because they have different life contexts. If we have to compare it with food, again people eat differently in different quantities for different reasons. It's fairly obvious if someone does heavy physical labor they are going to need more calories for example. And rebooting is a particular phase/stage in a persons life journey, nobody has said it is done forever. I'm not for beating oneself up by not meeting an arbitrary thershold, but considering people DO not only survive but thrive in life and live well for much longer than the standard reboot period of 90 days, and others struggle with far shorter streaks, we have to ask why is that the case? Is there something signifiantly different about peoples physiology then, to use this therapists reasoning?

I don't think you'll see therapists consider life context very often or to a very significant extent simply because they are doing therapy with one individual, and even if they are up for the task of understanding all the people in that persons life equally as well, and therefore understand the individuals involved and the dynamics in a way beyond a generalization, it will simply take way too much information, (which/who they may not have access to) and take way too much time from talking even if money and cost of therapy is not an object. Also, I'm not sure if OP or anyone reading is aware but a lot of mental health professionals have what would be called magical thinking to some extent, in some way, and while they can be somewhat objective as a third party it doesn't mean they don't have biases, and they themselves may have unresolved psychological issues. I think the simple fact of the matter is psychotherapy is by its very nature a very tall order, to understand the human psyche that deeply and that insightfully takes an extraordinary mind that very few possess, and others will have the schooling and training but it crawls along at an incredibly slow pace frankly because they are not that intelligent. It's one thing to apply something learned from school or someone else, it's very different to actually develop a theory or therapy and very few has that level of understanding. It may be the best a given person can have access to but it doesn't change the nature of what they're trying to do, and I think when viewed in context the appropriate response to what the responsibility of a therapist is humility if anything, but I understand since there's such a high demand for therapists now some don't particularly care about being good at what they do because there's plenty of business waiting for them from people seeking therapy.

 

Indeed

 

From my personal perspective, existence is the greatest correctness. We want to complete our personal existence, so we have a thirst for food. We want to complete the continuation of the race, so we have a desire for sex. And people are smart enough to move these basic desires around, such as the desire for food, above the desire for hunting behavior. But have you seen the blue-seeking robot in Death Robot? He pursues bigger and bigger shades of blue, and finally discovers his own underlying needs. There is no need for us to escape from this. On the contrary, how to move these underlying desires to the direction and position we desire is the true meaning of free will. When I want to do something, my body immediately secretes dopamine, making me full of energy to charge towards that thing. Monkey brains are not adapted to modern life, but fortunately there are ways to control them. In fact, it is not very willing to be tamed by us.

 

From my personal perspective, existence is the greatest correctness. We want to complete our personal existence, so we have a thirst for food. We want to complete the continuation of the race, so we have a desire for sex. And people are smart enough to move these basic desires around, such as the desire for food, above the desire for hunting behavior. But have you seen the blue-seeking robot in Death Robot? He pursues bigger and bigger shades of blue, and finally discovers his own underlying needs. There is no need for us to escape from this. On the contrary, how to move these underlying desires to the direction and position we desire is the true meaning of free will. When I want to do something, my body immediately secretes dopamine, making me full of energy to charge towards that thing. Monkey brains are not adapted to modern life, but fortunately there are ways to control them. In fact, it is not very willing to be tamed by us.

 

Sex is definitely not as important as food, but it's a wonderful thing. We have been wired for 100,000 years to procreate (have sex.) It's pretty hard to stuff that emotion and sex drive when it's hard-wired into our brains. That being said, I love sex and therefore will always try to be in a loving relationship with regular sex as a bonus to the relationship.

 

On the contrary, the core of the problem is not whether you like sex, but that without sex, the human race cannot continue. Therefore, people must carry the gene called sexual desire. All we can do is to choose the appropriate sexual desire instead of rejecting it completely. Remember Freud once said, "The existence of any sexual preference is not strange, but the strangest thing is the absence of sex." So I don't agree with your point of view.

 

Please elaborate and give examples from the teachings of these religions on how they deny their adherents sex. I'm looking forward to seeing the evidence from your research.

 

I'm all for sex whether it's for joy or procreation and would not reject it. I'm not sure how that makes you not agree with my point of view?