Help I saw some nudity and now I am worried that I might have messed up my progress because of it.

I am worried that I might have messed up my progress on my reboot by catching a few quick glimpse of a girl with her clothes off in a video. I would love some thoughts and advice from the community on this on whether or not I need to consider this a danger to my streak or just a close save.

So I was feeling urges and decided to watch my YouTube play list consisting of videos on porn addiction to re-inspire me to stay strong. On that list I also have a video from a former porn star relating how harmful porn really is both for the people who watch it and the people who are filmed for it. By listening to her dispelling the lies that the porn industry tries to sell us, it helped me use my empathy and compassion to motivate me to not want to watch videos or looks at image where the girl in the scene might be under great physical and emotional pain. This video did not ever cut away to show images of porn or go into erotic detail to describe any events.

So far so good but then on that YouTube video I saw a link to another video talking again about the "Truth Behind Porn" and the harm it inflicts on those who in front of the cameras. So I clicked on this video and saw that it had a "Warring Graphic Content" message at the beginning. Not wanting to get into trouble I scrolled down to the comments to see if anyone had talked about what the graphic content was. If it turned out to just be black boxed images then I might not worry as long as the anti porn message the video was boasting turned out to be worth while. However I found a few comments like "how did they manage to get this onto YouTube" So now feeling worried I did one last check and moved my mouse cursor over the progress bar so that I could look at the small scene preview window. Sure enough I saw a low quality image of a girls chest, moving my mouse further I saw similar images in the middle and end of the video. Now convinced that there was no part of the video that I could safely watch I got the heck out of there.

I know that this is small but I am just feeling bad because I am so close to 20 days clean and have been doing so well. And I was not consciously trying to look up things to give me a dopamine hit, but still I knew that videos like that existed and that it would be safer to just stick with Sacred sexuality project videos and Tedx talks. So I do not know if I fell pray to any subconscious trickery of my porn addiction trying to find a way to get one over on me.

So again would really love some peace of mind on this. Am I just overrating or should I view this as a set back? Thank you for your time and sorry for the long post about such a small thing but my streak is really important to me.

 

Very true Okay thanks that makes scene. I understand that nudity is not bad, just a possible trigger while one is recovering. I had made it a rule that if I was watching a movie or to TV show that ended up having a nude scene in it I would not be hard on my self as long as quickly looked away and further more had not gone into the movie in the first place with the intention of watching it solely because it had some erotic images in it. Happy to say that as far as movies go I have had to use that rule yet as I am paying close attention to the ratings of the content I watch. Still next time I see that Graphic Content warning on the internet I am going to set leave it alone for safety.

I am just a little sleep deprived tonight and so proud of being nearly at 20 days that I nervous about messing something up. I can not thank you all enough for the peace of mind you have given me, I know that this was really silly but you have made me feel so much better. Thank you so much for taking the time to help me out.

 

Warring. . . really me? Did you really type that? So yes the content was having a battle I guess that was very graphic, much blood, such wow, very gory. Either that or I am tried and misspelled "Warning"

 

Hard to say, the whole thing only lasted about 20 to 40 seconds but that was still 15 or 35 seconds too long for my conscience. And said time was split checking through the rest of the preview in about 20 places only a portion of which contained dangerous images. I felt a small rush but some of it was the "you are not supposed to be looking at this" kind, while the rest was mostly "Run dang it you do not want to be here!" So feeling worried again that I might have got a small hit of dopamine.

 

Yep thank you very much, I have taken steps to further guard my self by adding a second counter to my Signature that deals with using any form of Privet Browsing mode on the internet. Many of my slips and relapses have come from checking out anti porn articles and videos on the internet in Privet Browsing mode to bolster my resolve only to accidentally see too much of something erotic after which I tear my self down out of guilt. I use Privet Browsing because I do not want anything with the word Porn in the title showing up in my history, but from now on I will just take great care that any video or webpage I go about that subject it will be one that I am proud to see in my history.

Again thank you and the Wine analogy helped a lot actually to put things in perspective. Again thank you all I needed the peace of mind tonight, my blood sugar has been wearing me ragged lately and the stress is showing.

 

Thank you : ) And yes I have gotten pretty good and seeing a trigger and just looking away and letting the memory of it not hold my attention or induce me to fantasize. The only times that I worry is when I wonder if subconsciously I sought out out the trigger as a way to trick my self into seeing enough erotic imagery to constitute a major slip. As I said in a earlier post, as long as I can rationalize that I did not watch the movie or come to the web site looking for titillation then I will not worry about an accidental glimpse of sex or nudity so long as my motives were pure. I am just being super critical of my self right now to make sure that I get clean this time and do not lose my streak.

Again I can not thank you all enough for this great support : ) I am feeling much better today.

 

An excellent point, it is indeed something that should not be a problem as the reboot runs it course. For me the concern was the idea that I might seek out such images subconsciously or otherwise as a substitute for porn.