Hot Take: The Porn Altering Sexuality Argument is Hurting the Growth of NoFap

I definitely agree with you Vagar. However, those who suffer from HOCD will tend to be overrepresented on a forum like NoFap. These are people who are doubting a fundamental aspect of themselves, so they're more likely to seek help for their compulsive use. I was somebody who suffered from HOCD and recovered.

Now the press will definitely take the HOCD recovery aspect of NoFap and label it as a sort of conversion therapy, but what separates it from that defunct methodology is that the opposite can happen - gay people can start to like straight porn too!

In fact in the book Your Brain on Porn, the author cites an account by a homosexual male who described starting to feel attraction to women's breasts after years of watching porn, which caused him excessive amounts of anxiety,

I think our terminology needs to change. We can address HOCD-related issues as an artificial change in sexuality or something of the ilk.

 

I agree with @Dr.J_76ers . I do not believe diminishing the very frequent cases of HOCD related to porn is going to solve the situation. I think every person should be taken at face value, to consider their preferences and tendencies before porn, after porn, and made a deeper study in order to say if it is porn induced or not. Just saying "is impractical and simply not the case most of the time" is invalidating with so many struggling with it, of any gender and sexuality.

But at the same time, just like J. said, I understand and I can see how it can be misused in order to serve a negative ideology. Changing the terminology and listening to everybody, step by step, rather than generalizing might be the best solution.

Edit: I'm sorry your situation was unfortunate and that people didn't listen to you. I understand that is upsetting.

 

It was not always like that, but NoFap has become slowly infiltrated by people / organisations pushing right wing agendas, and of course, these are the ones who make all the noise.
They target the insecurities of the weak, and fill their heads with blame and hatred.
The slow normalisation of these profiles is responsible for the perception that NoFap is homophobic.

The new way forward.
If you can't face your reflection, blame somebody else.

 

I feel you mate.

 

The issue is that this mental disorder is an obsession over a key element of one's identity.

However, I do like the term SOCD and I think it would do good for the community to use it instead of HOCD.

 

There is probably some truth in what you are saying but I read your previous threads and very few people suggested that your sexuality was porn induced, so either you must be referring to another community or you are amplifying the views of a minority. Everyone else was fully supportive of you so it's a bit of a slap in the face to accuse this forum of such things.

 

Yes, there are probably users promoting right wing (incel, red pill) content.

 

Matthew Plummer runs nofap.com, Alexander Rhodes runs r/nofap. Both of them are leftists. Most accounts banned by moderators on this forum were right wingers. NF the organization has a left wing bias if anything.

When it comes to self described fapstronauts, what do you expect? Leftists generally oppose any sort of restriction on sexual activity nowadays so it should not be a surprise that there's fewer of them among us than rightists. You can't derive from that fact alone that nofap has been co-opted.

But maybe you're right. Maybe it's really covert agents of Hitler connecting from secret Nazi bases deep under the ocean.

 

By the way I agree with OP that the label HOCD (the neutral term is SO-OCD) is not a good one but for a different reason.

Here we have people who started experiencing desires incongruent with their sexual preference long after it had stabilized (which is not your case OP since you're only 15).

Calling that "OCD" implies that the feelings you developed while using porn are fine, it's you worrying about them that's the problem.

Well, if that is the case, the individual in question should just accept this new state and I guess keep consuming pornography because it's his obsession about this issue and not the issue itself that needs to be mended.

 

I wouldn't exactly say that the NF organisation has a left-wing bias, since they let right-wingers spew their insane rethorics for quite some time. The bans the right-wingers receive is when they start going more and more unhinged, by promoting misogyny, condoning sexual violence, rape apologism, endless trolling...etc. Other than that, when right-wingers stay as vague as possible, or simply promote their ideologies without focusing on its most controversial aspects, they won't get banned for sure.

I don't think that the noticeable presence of right-wingers here is due to the fact that 'leftists oppose any sort of restriction on sexual activity', I'd say that the real reason leftists aren't as much present here is because of the general climate of this platform. This forum attracts a lot of unstable men who have trouble interacting with society, particularly women, due to the side-effects of their addiction and sustained isolation. These side-effects are usually characterized in the psychological damage caused by the pervasive misogyny, violence, degradation, racism, and even pedophilia present on the mainstream internet P.

As this platform is primarily populated by men who have been affected by this kind of damage, their views and attitudes are likely going to be molded through the recurring themes present in internet pornography, it's only natural to see those young men reinforcing and regurgitating the messages they internalised through years of P usage. Due to these factors, right-wingers are likely to feel more comfortable in this environment, as their beliefs and worldview align with these elements.

 

Yeah, I'll have to disagree. It might not be the case in your part of the world but in Europe/America unrestrained sexuality is almost a defining characteristic of the modern left-wing.

Sure, many people don't fit neatly in boxes (and some of those are here) but in most cases somebody of the progressive persuasion would never even consider limiting porn or masturbation.

I took this image on a stroll through town recently:


I'd also like to add that significant amount of people here are either motivated by religion directly (Christians, Muslims) or indirectly (young secular Indians influenced by Hinduism). That's another thing that many progressives will find unappealing or downright incriminating.

 

Don't forget that the left isn't a single unified force - the creators of NoFap and FightTheNewDrug have strong left-wing leanings, while radical feminists who have opposed pornography and the sex trade for over 50 years are also leftists. In recent times, the part of the left which advocates for an unrestrained sexual lifestyle is becoming increasingly scrutinized even by fellow leftists.

It's not simply about religion - it's true that religion can be a factor in why right-wingers are drawn to this platform, but it's more about the messages that are being spread irrespective of the package they come in. Right-wingers are more focused on the ideas vehiculated by religions rather than the religions themselves, which explains why right-wing groups may attract individuals from various faiths.

 

Yes, I have noticed that too. The mods are way too soft on those promoting alt-right content.

 

As an LGBT+ member of the mod team, and speaking only as myself here not for others, I am urging you to please report anything you deem homophobic. I again speak for myself but I can assure you it will be treated promptly and with the gravity it requires. This is a big forum and sometimes things pass through the cracks, unwillingly.

 

So, I take a different view on this. I don't necessarily think porn has turned anyone gay for instance. People are who they are. They are born with certain preferences to a large degree. However, I find a number of people feel troubled - LGBTQ+ as well, because they are in a sexual minority.

For me, I have a fetish that I was born with and as a result, I found that it has resulted in me being less attracted to normal women. So sometimes I wonder, is it my porn use or is it the fetish or life experiences or both? I don't really have a solid answer. There's a chance that my porn use could have escalated this because I never had an issue with ED until I started masturbating to porn. I also don't think a number of the sexual fantasies in porn were originally ever mine - I found them from someone else.