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Have you looked at sick porn and think it defines who you are? It may not!

Discussion in 'Porn Addiction' started by MasterRoshi, Jun 29, 2018.

  1. MasterRoshi

    MasterRoshi Fapstronaut

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    I’ll start by saying, I have looked at all “31 flavors” of porn over the years and some of them (such as jailbait and other underage fantasy) have really messed me up mentally and emotionally. This caused me to think I am a certain type of person just because I viewed certain porn genres, which I found out isn’t true for me!

    This identity crisis is often experienced with homosexual tendencies (HOCD or questioning ones sexuality), femdom and cross dressing, gender identity, and pedophilia. This can also happen with most any type of fetish such as jailbait, incest or voyerism. Let me quickly say that some people are born with these tendencies, but the percentage who look at this type of porn for arrousal is far greater than the percentage of people who actually are wired this way. In this post I’m talking about the people who learned the behavior not ones who are born that way.

    These learned behaviors overtime create connections in the brain. When chemicals are released due to orgasm, we feel pleasure and our brain creates an association between the action (MO) and the thing we were looking at (or smelling or tasting etc...), and it starts to cement the connection. The brain decides “X + Y = pleasure...yay!!! More of those please!”

    An example of this outside of the porn world is smell, which is common when explaining this. I had a girlfriend in 8th grade (I’m 32 yo now) who wore cucumber melon lotion. To this day when I smell that lotion it reminds me of a day at recess on the grass in the sun with bees landing on clover flowers, laughing with her. The smell is directly acciciated with a feeling and it instantly recalls a memory that I haven’t thought of in years. Even the reverse happens when I think of the memory I can almost smell that lotion too. Overtime this connection can be disassociated and paired with something else and/or become less intense (more on this below).

    This also happens with thoughts too, not just external things like lotion scent. For example, in sexual fantasy we can be thinking of having gay sex (if we’re straight) and when we orgasm our mind makes a connection between a gay fantasy and the chemical release of an orgasm. Over time, if we do this fantasy over and over again, we start to further cement that connection and then over time, men can start to look attractive. Another example would be masturbating to jailbait websites over and over again, then when out in public we see a cute 13yo and all of a sudden we are aroused beyond a normal level. It’s because we’ve spent time there already and our brain has been wired by our actions to perceive something as pleasurable because orgasm happened the last time we looked at someone like that.

    This type of brain behavior is “an association between two stimuli and what [therapists] refer to in learning theory as a conditioned response” (quote from my therapist)

    Here’s an article explaining the conditioning theory.
    https://www.simplypsychology.org/classical-conditioning.html

    So is there hope for people who have conditioned themselves with stimulation???? YES!!! Going back to the lotion smell form 8th grade example...so many years later it does still cause a
    Memory recall, but I remember about 10 years ago, when I was 22, it was way more intense! So the longer we are away from the stimuli (in our case porn and in this example 8th grade recess) the less intense the recall is.

    Also, The meaning behind the stimuli can change too!! So over the years I have smelled the same lotion scent worn by other people even my wife at times. So the first time it recalled the 8th grade memory, but every time I smelled it in a new situation, my brain started associating it with new memories. This further disrupts the original stimuli connection and starts to rewire the association.

    So how does this relate to a solution for PMO addicts?? Well, if you don’t touch yourself and experience orgasm AT ANY TIME outside of your sexual “ideal,” then your brain will start to disassociate these unhealthy PMO connections. In other words, the longer we avoid looking at certain fetishes and taboos, the less our brain will have a sexual connection to them.

    Furthermore!!! This is the reson why fantasizing to memories of porn we’ve watched or taboo/fetish scenarios while masturbating can continue to strengthen this conditioned response between two stimuli. For example, Fantasizing about being a femdom slave while masturbating EVEN while sober from porn, will continue to associate orgasm to that scenario and those fetishes.

    Lastly, let’s talk about what I mean by a “sexual ideal.” A sexual ideal is your perfect sexual experience that’s healthy and 100% in-line with your honest morals. If we engage in this type of sexuality with others or with ourself (depending on what you're ok with), we start to make new associations to healthy sexual stimuli and over time these unhealthy connections will drift further away. Cuz let’s face it we’re humans. We can’t stop fucking just like we can’t stop eating (overeater addiction). We need to create a new relationship with orgasms.

    This is what I learned in my therapy sessions this week and it is incredibly freeing, because I’m no longer burdened with the thought that “my thoughts make me who I am, and under that’s premise I’m a sick fuck.” This isn’t true, Luckily! It’s just associations I’ve made by repeatedly orgasming while looking at certain images.

    Remember orgasms are the most powerful natural drug we have!!!! And I now understand I need to treat orgams with respect otherwise I’ll be back where I was. I’m not clever enough to outsmart a chemical reaction in my brain. But what I can do is rewire it by avoiding all Porn and saving my orgasms for times when it is truly inline with my moral compass.

    Hope this helps the ones like me who suffer from this!
     
    Last edited: Sep 15, 2018
  2. Tiburon727

    Tiburon727 Fapstronaut

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    This is a great post with a lot of useful information. Thanks for sharing it.

    I am starting to see the desires I used to feel with P go away and look forward to everyday that I become more and more distant from it.

    Hope a lot more people read this. A lot of posts out there with the influence P has in changing our desires. Thanks again!
     
    MasterRoshi likes this.
  3. helpfuldude

    helpfuldude Fapstronaut

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    Great post, my experience is similar.
     
    MasterRoshi likes this.
  4. MasterRoshi

    MasterRoshi Fapstronaut

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    Thanks! Yea it’s stsblizing even more the longer I’m sober.

    My age spectrum is shrinking to the appropriate biologically normal range.

    When I have bouts of huge anxiety, however, my brain wants pleasurable things to calm the discomfort. So in those moments the mental fantasy heightens. But that I hope will get better as well the longer I stay sober and the more work I do on myself.

    Luckily the depression is still very low. And I still believe I’m not who I thought I was. As long as I continue in the path of recovery and do zero PMO, I think it will continue to improve.

    We’re not alone!
     
    JayJmoose and flor3334 like this.

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