I see too many people posting here in a crude and arrogant way, and honestly although even as someone who has been doing and experimenting with retention for at least 3 years - thus understanding where your fire comes from and your strong desire to share your views - I still find content in this section very off-putting due to the presentation and it makes me sad to see a practice that makes me more loving cause such suffering.
To be extremely honest with you, I've made a conscious choice to heavily reduce my engagement on this forum for the reason you just provided, preferring instead to speak to a small selection of people through the private messages. However, having used forums for a long time, I've come to accept this as the natural course of things: over time, the intellectual and/or more meaningful conversation gives way to sound bites, and then from there rather pointless discussion, repetition, and low-effort posting. There might be some interesting things said here and there, but it often gets lost in the ether over time, or receives rather minimal feedback altogether. Over at Rewire Companion, the engagement is even worse, largely due to the much smaller amount of users.
It is refreshing to see that people are addressing the problem, but in a way, I sometimes welcome this inevitability. It's a reminder to me not to live on this forum, and to spend my time engaged in far more productive activities (I just finished a book about one of my favourite historic figures, which was a long time coming)! This website, meanwhile, should serve as a convenient place for help and support, as opposed to a social media-esque hub for denizens to congregate. In fact, I've come to understand this time around that reduced screen time altogether (which implies less time on the internet) is necessary to hasten recovery time, since most porn addictions are subsidiary to internet addiction as well.
I believe that the negative effects of orgasm evolved through natural selection as essentially a big and complicated shake to our otherwise relatively stable nervous system to stop being satisfied to our pair-bonded partner and move on to the next partner (eventually) to propagate our genes more efficiently. This is essentially the theory as presented in Marnia Robinson’s book “Cupid’s poisoned arrow”. The symptoms seem to differ among individuals in severity and in kind, and some symptoms are very subtle, such as altered perception and moods. I believe this is why there is so much controversy and variety in beliefs regarding this issue.
I've pondered this concept myself, even though I never read the book you mentioned (I'll certainly add it to my reading list). After an orgasm has been achieved, the brain feels less and less sexual attraction to the subject of that arousal (at least in my case during PMO), forcing the addict to find more novel forms of sexual gratification. I think this helps to explain the aforementioned
novelty factor among the sex addicts of the world, including people with multiple partners.
Personally, I get a predictable pattern of mood swings that switch abruptly about every 24 hours for 3 weeks after orgasm. My outlook on life, how attractive/pleasant I view women (including my partner when I have one), my motivation levels, my discipline, and more change along with these mood swings. This mood switching always stops after 3 weeks and I become stable regarding this issue.
This particular paragraph was relatable. After certain orgasms, I myself would encounter something I now identify as an
orgasm hangover. When in this state, I would experience the following symptoms:
1. Pounding headache
2. Aching sides (near the kidneys)
3. Pain passing urine
4. Grogginess
5. Feel dizzy and fatigued
6. Mood swings
I suspect this was due to the intensity of the MO, or perhaps the frequency, but this feeling was quite pervasive and largely unpleasant to experience. A feeling of insatiability also followed, and on rarer occasions I would even get painful
friction burns, which could take two to three weeks to recover. Suffice to say, it's almost ironic that humans "have sex" because it feels good, when chronic masturbation led to these dreadful hangovers. Even worse yet, to add to your own experiences, many so-called "experts" swear that masturbation is completely normal, thus reinforcing my distrust of the scientific elite nowadays.
The nature of these symptoms depends on my environment (particularly my stress levels in that environment). For example, when I lived alone and was on a long streak and doing these practices, I would get significant delusions of grandeur and paranoia (it was extremely distressing and unpleasant). When I live with other people, feel secure, am at peace, am on a long streak and do these practices, I can get major blissful feelings, effectiveness in the world and great trust in myself and my future. This state feels beyond amazing to me and I feel it surpasses any other pleasure in life, but it makes me careless and more disorganized if I do nothing else but retain.
Do you mind explaining what you mean by
grandeur and paranoia? I'm sorry you experienced these symptoms, by the way. I do understand from my own experiences that being alone or lonely can be a significant trigger for a recovering addict; the lack of accountability can be a temptation in and of itself. I've found that one solution is to always have other people present, and make sure that I'm always in view. For example, in a place with surveillance, I always sit under the camera, so that people can see what I'm doing, and it's harder to hide things. Ironic, considering that I actually hate being filmed, though I accept it as the way of the world.
I need to focus my mind on correct actions, question my thoughts to weed out delusions, make actions more intentional and resist impulses. By doing these, I can keep the blissful and effective state up longer. I find that engaging in things that build my discipline, like cold showers, daily routines, exercise, contemplation, meditation, help me in my virtues and my virtues help me in supporting discipline, thus keeping me in the blissful state longer. But discipline (willpower) is not enough when in the higher state.
To be honest, I've seen some people post about the importance of willpower, and I just roll my eyes. We are all addicts: our brain is a state of
hypofrontality, which actually impedes our capacity for willpower. This is why I'm a huge advocate of porn blockers for those new to recovery, at least until we develop that sense of discipline on our own.
Recently, I've decided to spend more time contemplating my character, something that I've allowed to atrophy after years of neglect. In the black pill circles that I used to be part of before finding my way here, the attitude of most forum users stressed the importance of improving one's physical attractiveness and elevating status; character and virtue were seen as ineffective overcompansations. However, I've since come to reject that view, since I've come to realize how important character is in the long term. Besides, attraction is overrated and hyper-inflated in our modern world, and those who chase beauty are literally some of the ugliest people I've ever met (plastic surgery, anyone?)
Charity: Keeps my social needs fulfilled, gives a sense of security and peace. Prevents stress-induced psychotic symptoms like paranoia and delusions of persecution.
I donate to a hospital near the capital where I live; I've done so on and off again since 2016. It isn't much, but for now it's all I can afford to do. Meanwhile, I am interested in volunteer and outright activities; my parents used to participate in food drives, so I'll try to look around for more opportunities in my area. Makes me regret not accepting a Red Cross volunteer position that was offered to me two years ago, which would have helped flood victims.
Humility: A lack of importance of my own perceived superiority. Importance in my sense of superiority arouses wrath when perceiving inferiority and the display of this makes others like me less. Both the wrath itself and the disapproval of others lead to less feelings of social security and peace of mind.
Luckily, I've always had a low opinion of myself. However, an inferiority complex is a trap in and of itself, prompting inactive, procrastination and eventually relapse. I think everyone needs to find that happy balance, but all too often in our current world, we place so much of a premium on "self-image," to the point where it crosses the blurred line into straight up narcissism.
What I personally am aiming for is abstinence from sex, masturbation, nocturnal emissions, voluntary sexual thoughts, voluntary sexual speech (with the intent to arouse or disturb others). Being completely 100% abstinent from sexual thoughts and subtle sexual arousal may not always be possible because I choose to live in a very sexual society and have female friends, but the thoughts and arousal can at least be significantly reduced below a point where they don't bother me.
You know, when I was a boy (around eight years old), I imagined myself becoming a monk, disavowing the world and pursuing a solitary life. Too bad I discovered porn two years later, and then hit puberty a year or two after that. So much for that dream.
Anyways, there was a time when I thought that living the way you just described would be impossible. However, I sometimes imagine to myself that the trade off of a completely conquered sex drive would be freedom. With such freedom, I could pursue other goals, hopes and aspirations that my addiction prevented me from pursuing.
I too have mostly female friends, but they are all older than me and very conservative in their thinking. That said, I am in college, so you can imagine how women this time of year will be dressed. Oh well, I just have to learn to live with it, while pursuing this austere path (or something similar) you've set up for yourself. I'd love to see how it impacts my life.
-For nocturnal emissions I protect myself by applying a cold water treatment I designed for myself to desensitize my nerve-endings without the use of sexual pleasure. I do this almost every night (except when I'm not sleeping at home) to keep my nerve endings desensitized in the long run. I've been doing this for maybe 1.5 years and it has worked well for me. I have also trained myself to sleep on my side as I notice wet dreams always have occurred for me when sleeping on my back (or stomach but I don't really do that ever).
Do you mind going into detail about this process. I've never actually had an emission in my life, but it would serve as a great pre-emptive. Also, would you happen to know any erection suppression techniques? Sudden and persistent urges - especially under stress - can be a real issue for me before bed.
-I do my best to not look directly at the female body parts that I find arousing.
That's going to be a challenge for me; it might be a while before I get to that point. For now, I know that I'm going to have to work my way up to that point. One technique is to ruin my own leering by reminding myself that I have no chance with these women. What's the point in admiring something that you can never indulge in? That's a waste of time for me, personally.
-Cultivating discipline and virtue, and avoiding vices
I've deleted all of my video games, and I try my best to avoid "junk food." Being lactose intolerant, that's pretty easy (as most Western food contains dairy), but I also aim to avoid sugar, sodium, gluten, etc. My food is consequently bland, but I plan to take up intermittent fasting throughout the week.
As for virtue, my goal is to learn to be a better judge of character, while simultaneously developing my own.
My attitude towards my sexuality is ”I accept it is as it is as a set of biological processes” but I can control it, and by controlling it I gain way more than not controlling it, therefore I choose to control it.
Good attitude to have. I've never been in a committed relationship, and recently decided to supress my sex drive as much as possible. In fact, I heard of a gentleman who had his prostate removed due to it becoming cancerous, and he lost his sex drive completely. In a world where sex change operations are readily accessible, not to mention assisted suicide, perhaps I might be able to have my own prostate removed for similar effects. Naturally, I'll have to do extensive research, and only treat this as a last resort.
The reason is quite simple: I find that, in addition to only controlling acting out, reducing the thoughts and arousal make my life way more pleasant, beautiful and effective even further in magnitude. It is the memories of previous experiences of that life that call me back to it.
The level of how far I go with this is limited by security: I do not want to go to a monastery or any other institution - where I could hide from the world and be protected from lust while still avoiding loneliness - because I am non-religious and do not trust the power-structures there to have my best interests in mind.
This is ultimately my goal. I personally abhor religion, but I would love to enjoy freedom from addiction more than anything. When I'm on my death bed, I want to die knowing that I was addiction free in my final years, free to enjoy life without being a slave to annoying urges.
I truly appreciate the fact that you wrote this. It's so rare to stumble across such well-thought out material on this forum it seems.