Doh!

Hey Everyone,

I came across this website after seeing CNN's "This is Life". At that time, I had come to accept I had a porn addiction. In May of this year, I placed a camera under a coworkers desk to try to get upskirt video that I could use to masturbate to at home. She found that camera and I lost my job and now I am being investigated by my profession. Also, I am currently charged with voyeurism and in the court system. I believe my past porn use has a direct connection to my current situation. I plan to use this website to read other peoples' experiences and hopefully get support from other users.

I was born in the 1960's. At an early age, I remember having a strong fear of rejection with peer age girls. I also had low self esteem related to my own body image. I had a benign cyst on my penis that had a huge impact on my self esteem. I also had a lot of pre-ejaculate fluid seep out of my penis whenever I would "make-out" with girls. It would always stain my underwear and pants causing much embarrassment. I found myself avoiding make-out sessions because of this, and essentially avoiding initiating relationships all together.

I saw my first Playboy at about the age of 11. My best friend's old brother had a stack of them plus Penthouse and some hard-core magazines. At home, I remember getting aroused by the underwear section of sears catalogues. Later during high school age, cable TV was starting and late night programming featured a lot of soft porn and nudity from mainstream movies. At my home, HBO was scrambled. I would stay up late to watch these scrambled signals of Playboy with the hope I could catch a glimpse of full frontal nudity. Video rental started and I would rent videos where there was a chance to have nudity. Lots of soft porn but occasionally I would rent out hard core. I also made my own VHS videos I would tape off TV or pirate off of rented porn. I was masturbating to this media once a day by now. Online pornography began in my mid 20's. It became my sole source of pornography. I started harvesting the internet daily for something to do. It quickly became a habit. My real life sexuality was non existent. I feared that women would reject me. Satisfying my sexual urges via porn use was much easier on my psyche, I felt during this time.

Has anyone seen the movie, 40 year virgin? Well, at 40, I was that guy. However, a beautiful woman came into my life. She took charge of our courtship, and as a result we got married. All of a sudden, real sex became plentiful and I was happy. Not surprising, my porn use dropped. It didn't disappear altogether, though. After about two years, my attraction to having sex with my wife started to wane. I reverted back to pornography. This is when I developed pornography induced erectile dysfunction. I was put on ED medication. Before real sex with my wife, I would have to use pornography to become erect. During sex, I would have to fantasize to the porn I just watched in order to maintain the erection and orgasm.

Also at the age of 40, I started a new job working with a highly attractive coworker. She wore seductive clothing daily. For over 10 years, I was enjoying the views of her cleavage and thighs and in full denial about my porn addiction. One day, she knelt down and accidently exposed her panties for me to view. When I got home from work that day, I immediately started using porn and fantasizing about what I saw earlier in the day. The erection was hard and the orgasm was highly satisfying. I started to rationalize that it is okay to attempt to get upskirt video of my coworker.

Voyeurism is a popular theme in porno movies. It is a popular theme in more mainstream media as well. Online, you can find direct voyeurism video for example nude beach and change rooms. My recent favourite is a website, Chaturbate, which has a voyeuristic theme baked into it. Now that I have come to accept that I have an addiction to porn, in particular voyeuristic porn, I believe it played a huge factor in me acting it out for real.

The financial loss I have experienced as a result of acting out has been huge. My salary was $100,000/year. At 53, my career is in possible in jeopardy causing me to loose several $100,000's in the future. The one good thing is I was honest with my wife after I lost my job. Surprisingly, she chose to support me through this loss. I guess another good thing is that I chose to undergo psychological counselling. Through counselling, we discovered I have fear of rejection, loneliness, boredom, stuffing and stewing, using sex to cope, fantasy, pornography urges and voyeuristic urges. Our treatment plan includes using cognitive behaviour therapy. My counsellor has suggested I go to a Sex Addict Anonymous meeting. I have been procrastinating attending these meetings.

Instead I want to give NoFap a try. Immediately after losing my job, and before discovering NoFap, I abstained from using pornography and masturbation for about a month. I saw dramatic improvements to my ED during real intercourse with my wife. I did relapse until the start of November. My goal in NoFap is to abstain from using pornography and masturbation for at least the month of November. I think I can abstain for 3 months but did not want to make that commitment just yet. Also, I am allowing myself to have an orgasm with real sex with my wife. (Why should I punish her, as well?)

So far so good but yesterday I had several urges to use porn. Hopefully, I can use this community to assist me in my recovery. Kudos to those who read this rather lengthy introduction. Doh!