Do you know someone who got addicted only to watching porn but not fapping with or without it? I know everybody says Porn is the real enemy and some people think MO without P is fine, but if the whole activity is P + MO , how do we know MO or P , which is the worse of the two? Personally, i've never known someone to get hooked only to Porn but not masturbation.
Porn viewing only doesn't hook you in addiction. Masturbation + porn, however, is a cocktail of potentially destructive addiction. Both are bad for your brain though.
I wouldn't say I was addicted to porn, at least not in the way lots of people in here are. But I used to watch porn just for the fun of it. Just as if anyone goes into youtube, instagram or netflix, I watched porn. I liked it and it entertained me. Sometimes it led me to masturbation, some others it didn't. My theory is that's the reason why it was so easy for me to stop P and M.
They virtually always come in a package. A classic way to bargain with addiction, an early stage of quitting that’s extremely common with new fapstronauts, is to try to cut out P, M, or O in various combinations while leaving the others in, and it never works over a reasonable amount of time. That’s why I don’t think it’s really P, M, or O that’s “worse,” it’s all about dopamine overdose on demand and PMO is just the means. I certainly know if I just fantasize about erotic situations long enough, my symptoms return. Some married guys get really bad chaser and a return of symptoms after S. Over the years I have been involved with NoFap, most of the guys with who successfully recover over the long term are the ones who disconnect S from the self-gratifying, transactional model supported by P and turn it into bonding behavior. So, none of this “I’m horny, I just need to get off” business, in all its permutations. Bonding S only, with side effects of recreation and potential reproduction.
I used to think it was only P that was wrong (as in Matthew's gospel 5. verses 27 and 28). But I just got an accountability partner on here who told me that M is wrong as well and I reckon that's true. Maybe they are wrong for different things.
In that passage, Jesus talks about the eye and the hand “causing you to sin” right next to one another. I’m definitely against reading too much into scripture and getting ultra-legalistic about stuff that isn’t explicitly forbidden, but contextually, it does seem to imply he’s talking about whackin’ the mole. And contrary to your assessment, I think he calls out both M and P, separately so you can’t be like “well what if I just look? What if I just touch?,” for the same reason. It’s about your lust, the way you are objectifying another human being, using them for your own gratification. The actual sin happens in the mind. That’s why this section is right next to the idea of the sin of murder beginning with hate, in the mind.
I didnt think about that I guess, thanks for this teaching I'll go and read it again. I wasn't really saying I ever thought both were right, just the teaching in the church I used to go to was against P, but about M it depended who you asked
Men and women both are waiting a lot longer to marry, and premarital S is so common that waiting makes you a total weirdo. Doctors are claiming regular M is healthy (probably because they want to justify their own P use), there’s no verse explicitly saying “thou shalt not beat thy meat, neither shalt thou wrestle the one-eyed money or stroke the trouser serpent,” so Christians are wondering if it’s reasonable or biblical to expect men to wait a decade after puberty to get their rocks off. There’s conflicting claims out there. Personally, I think the Church has done a great job of identifying P as a problem and convicting is of it, and a terrible job of understanding this particular sin and how to address it. P use is almost as high among pastors, according to some surveys, and virtually identical among congregants, as with the secular population.
I'm the example I did no masturbation for 13 months.... While I watched porn for 1-2 hours daily.... I got no benefits of Semen retention of 13 months.... Infact I got grey hair on my head and beard and chest. I'm 35!
@CoomSlayer The question is sort of loaded and needs to go further down the rabbit hole. No one has ever been addicted to P, M, or O. PMO for that matter. All three produce the thing some people can become "addicted" to, being the neurological reward and motivational event that is a dopamine high/rush. That dopamine high/rush exists in all things we deem "addictive." By the time a person comes to a place like this they recognize they have a problem, but because of the deep misunderstanding of the neurological aspect of this problem, they still see the problem as P, M, and or O. Those are really just a means to the end that is the problem, and that us use of super stimulation to achieve a dopamine high/rush. That is what is addictive. In quitting this problem you must avoid all of it; P, M, and O, because they all lead to the high that is actually addictive. Get the problem fixed first, then you can figure out what you want your life to look like. Much love. Will I AM.
Yes, that is true. However, you cannot apply this as a blanket statement on EVERYONE, perhaps a majority. I once went over to rebootnation.org and one of their pinned posts reads something like " Not everyone gets addicted because they have some deep unknown issues or unfulfilled psychological needs , some people get addicted because theyfound PMO pleasurable". Some really put together people get hooked and then their whole lives fall apart. What the intention of the question was this , if really dumbed down:- " Why blame only porn alone for all problems, when no one gets addicted to only watching porn but always to watching porn+ Masturbating to O?"
