Confession from a first generation Porn Addict

Dear fellow fapstronauts!

(This text was earlier also posted in the 30-39 Forum)

I’m a 34 year old Swedish man. Married and father of three (soon four) children.

I joined NoFap two days ago, after trying to free myself from PMO and porn addiction since last October (seven months ago). I have made some success and do not anymore watch porn and masturbate several times per week as I did before. Since October last year I have been PMO free for 1-2 Months in periods, but I always tend to relapse after about a month. So joining NoFap is a way trying to succeed in my struggle.

My story is quite much the same as many others. Born in the Mid-80’s I belong to the first generation who in our teens had free access to the Internet and online Porn. I first came in contact with man-women porn when I was about 12, maybe earlier. It was in a Hotel with cable TV, on a trip with my School Class. I also had a friend who bought a magazine which he showed me. From the start, it was hard core explicit stuff.

And then came the Internet, and my parents bought a computer. From the beginning I didn’t dare watching porn on the computer, but when I turned 14 I started watching porn online. In those days it was mostly pictures (this was long before Pornhub and all that). About the same time we also got cable TV and after midnight I could watch hard core movies when my parents were sleeping.

Then it accelerated quickly. From the beginning only man-woman, but soon I wanted to watch other men masturbating, and reading stories about that. If I can analyze in retrospect I think I wanted to identify with ripped muscular men, who looked like what I wanted to look like myself.

I then found a website with stories about masturbation, pictures of men masturbating. One story led to another, and after a time I found myself reading about gay sex and explicit gay erotic novels, eventhough I have always and still do consider myself straight (and married to a woman I love and have a great sex life with).

Then it went very fast: soon I started to watch gay porn, fantasize about it and it became my first choice category of porn. This accelerated during my late teens and my years at university. Now I had a computer of my own and could access it whenever I wanted. This was also the time when it was made possible to download movies. And of course it got even worse when I got my first smart phone.

I’ve never been a ”heavy porn addict”, i.e. watching every day, or several times a day. Normally I did PMO 2-3 times a week. Sometimes more, sometimes less.

As I mentioned I have always considered myself straight and I have always found homosexuality unapealing IRL. I could never see myself being romantic with a man in a same sex relationship, and the thought of walking hand in hand with and kissing a man, is not an alternative at all - not even if I wasn’t a married Catholic man.

(After what I have read here on NoFap before joining this community, I now understand that this can be HOCD and porn addiction. I have also learned that ones ”taste” in porn doesn’t necessarily say anything about reality.)

So, last October I just decided to make it stop. I read articles on NoFap and Porn On Your Brain, watched videos on the topic of PMO and HOCD, and it helped me for the first time since my early teens to be free from porn and PMO for more than one week. Since then I have been free from it in periods. But I keep relapsing, but also I keep on the struggle.

After my first longer period without porn (of any kind, I have all the time during my addiction also been watching straight scenes), for the first time I could control the urges for porn and especially gay porn. I also started to notice only women again for the first time since my teens. And my wife even became more beautiful and our marital (sex) life became better than ever before.

Then she got pregnant again, and we are now expecting our fourth child. That is of course wonderful. But as for many husbands you all know what that means...

I have noticed how this has made my urges for porn come back again, and every time I relapse (it has happened about five to six times since last October) it’s that old gay porn I’ve always used, that I return to. But a differance is that I’m more discusted by it now than ever before.

So. Now it’s time to end this pain after 20 years. As a Catholic it will be with the help of God and the Sacraments, but I’m sure NoFap will be a great help as well, and I’m looking forward to reading your thoughts and comments!

(And note, before some one suggest that I’m in denial, that isn’t my big concern. I could well be bi-sexual, but that’s not the issue. I just want to be free from porn and PMO of any kind).

 

Thank you. As I wrote at the end of my post, the sexual identity isn’t my biggest concern. I’m quite convinced I’m straight but if I have a tendency towards bisexuality, that wouldn’t be a problem, it wouldn’t change much (eventhough I have never had any romantic feelings towords a man). But it hasn’t always been like that. Before I read about porn addiction and HOCD I often doubted myself, though I could never make sence of that lack of romantic feelings toword men which I believe would be essential for a homosexual/bisexual person.

Also, as I wrote, during my longest period of no masturbation and porn watching (approximataly two months from November to January, I think it was) I noticed very clearly how I was more attracted to women again and also to my wife. Our sex life became really good, and I almost never even thought about watching porn. I also noticed that when gay porn pictures and memories popped up in my head, I could control it and just dismiss it: like telling my brain ”stop it, your just HOCD/porn addiction messing with me”.

But then I don’t know what happened. I think I just relapsed because of a boring January/February day, and then I had a period again between the last week of February and a week after Easter of reboot. After that my relapses come with two weeks in between... so now I’m trying to get back on track again. My last relapse was after a sex dream a week ago, which ”inspired me” taking up the phone in the bathroom and search for porn. So now I’m fighting this again and hoping that being on NoFap will make me succed.