How Our Culture Sets Boys Up To Be Sex-Obsessed

[Deleted Account]

I apologize if this article has already been shared and/or discussed. It's a really good article I came across a little while ago. It really puts into light how our society treats boys in a way that sets them up for a lifetime of sex obsession. We are sensual beings, but from an early age we are discouraged from feeling anything, and from expressing our feelings for those around us. In turn, we internalize all of our passions and senses. I encourage everyone to read this:
http://www.interchangecounseling.com/blog/why-men-are-so-obsessed-with-sex/

 

[Ridley]

Boys are taught that they are different from, and better than, girls, even that they should shun or hate girls. If they are fortunate enough to escape this particular piece of the conditioning and continue to have equal relationships with girls, they are quickly marked as “sissies” and called “girls” themselves. Loving or tender relationships with other boys get them similarly marked as “faggots” and put them in danger of violence and being ostracized.

This hit me pretty hard. That's exactly how my experience was growing up. In primary school, I always wanted to hang out with girls during recess because I was more interested in making up stories and pretending to be in fantasy situations than I was in playing sports or doing other physical activities. Most of the boys liked playing tag, football, tetherball, baseball, or soccer during recess, but the girls liked to play house, pretend to be Pokemon, pretend to be animals, and make up names and stories for each other. That stuff seemed a lot more appealing to me. I got bullied pretty hard for it. I remember one time there was a group of boys that formed a circle around me at recess and told me it wasn't normal that I was playing with girls. Our teacher had to intervene, and I remember crying a lot about it. Still, it carried over into middle school and high school. I found that I wasn't really interested in competition or any of the activities that boys typically liked doing, but rather that I liked playing music, performing on stage, and doing more creative work. I was bullied for that, too. Other boys started to question my manhood, and some of them even started to question my sexual orientation simply because of the activities that I liked doing. At this point, I hadn't even hit puberty yet, so looking back it's totally ridiculous that other kids were calling me gay. When I was in high school, I had to walk home every day after classes. There was a group of kids that would drive past me every day and scream "FAGGOT" out the window. It hurt a lot, and it's taken me a long time to get over it.

My whole childhood, I felt like I wasn't manly enough to be considered a boy. I felt ostracized, and I felt like people were always waiting for me to prove my manhood. It wasn't until I grew out of the schoolyard environment that I realized there were a lot of people like me, and that you don't have to be competitive or think about the world in terms of "alphas" and "betas" to be a man. I'm male, I'm heterosexual, but I'm also a little more sensitive and emotional than the typical male. It's strange to think that these last two qualities have made people doubt who I really am.

Thanks for sharing this article. It was a really good read, and it kind of hurt to read it. I feel like a victim of much of the conditioning this article describes. I just have to remember that there's hope for reversing the effects of the conditioning.

 

[thorswrath32]

I think this is a really interesting article and the fact it's written at the start of the century makes it more intriguing because back then we didn't really have high speed internet porn.
The two lines that stood out for me were:

"Isolation is one of three primary factors in our early conditioning that later leaves us vulnerable to sexual obsession"
"Adolescent boys are exposed to a social imperative to get laid in order to prove their maleness, long before they even know what “getting laid” means"

As an only child and not having a very fruitful relationship with my father, i gravitated towards my mother for comfort and as someone to confide in. It meant spending a lot of time in my room on my own, although i did manage to make friends easily when i was younger so i was never short of pals to play with. I notice distinctly throughout my childhood and pretty much my entire life, female companionship was severely lacking, and as a 14 year old boy who had access to the internet from 1999, i got my cues about relationships from hardcore internet porn.

My parents never really showed much affection towards each other, at least not infront of me and i can relate to the expectation of having to be seen as 'the man' yet rather the competetive sports and violence, i gravitated more towards the arts in my late teens and early twenties and got involved in music production.

I think being an only child, having access to x rated material waaay too early and not having any real social experience with girls growing up played a big part in how my obsession developed.

 

[AtomicTango]

This article makes me remember my schooldays, and all the shit that happened during those years, in fact I think my repressed attitude towards sex and relationships stems from this era. Most people I knew would talk about sex and relationships as early as age 12, and while I was completely aware of what people were talking about, it made me feel so uncomfortable that I never spoke about it myself. In fact, I only started masturbating because I was teased by people because I wouldn't talk about my masturbatory habits (which at the time I didn't have), before that I knew what it was of course but had no interest in it.

Now I'm 21 and talking about it still makes me feel so uncomfortable that it makes me want to fall through an imaginary trapdoor to escape the scene when people around me talk about it. I had to outright as my parents to stop talking to me about relationships because it made me feel so uncomfortable and "weird". It seems obvious in hindsight that my sexual desire never developed naturally because of porn, and thats why I'm so repressed, but I think even if porn didn't exist I would still be like this to be honest.

 

[Deleted Account]

This was a good article. Especially now it is more relevant, since young men and boys are obsessed about sex so much, and so many of them get PIED. That probably feels like hell to them when they have to confront the fact that they are not able to have sex, the thing which they were so obsessed about. It's such a sad thing that young males view sex as something they need to do in order to validate themselves.

The text really hit me too. I was, and still am, more interested in women generally speaking, not only sexually. One reason i think is, because it is so damn hard to find men who can be open and vulnerable, and i really have a need to open up every now and then. Maybe for that reason as well i think that it's easier to talk to women. Or was at least before i wanked myself out of that. Then it became more awkward and harder, especially if i knew the woman was in relationship with someone. Also in my school years i found it hard to speak to girls, since all the boys who i then despised were buzzing around them like horny bees, and i didn't feel welcome around them, nor did i want anything to do with them.

During my late teen years, i lied about losing my virginity. And the woman i claimed i lost it to was a random junkie, so it wasn't really my proudest moment anyway. Carrying that lie was therefore about as painful as admitting my virginity, but i just wanted to stop hearing about my virginity every time i hanged around with my "friends".

It was really cathartic to read that article and write about my thoughts and feelings. A big heartfelt thanks to NoFAP- team and community. It's good to have some place to open up and talk.

 

[SoberSquirrel]

This hit me pretty hard. That's exactly how my experience was growing up. In primary school, I always wanted to hang out with girls during recess because I was more interested in making up stories and pretending to be in fantasy situations than I was in playing sports or doing other physical activities. Most of the boys liked playing tag, football, tetherball, baseball, or soccer during recess, but the girls liked to play house, pretend to be Pokemon, pretend to be animals, and make up names and stories for each other. That stuff seemed a lot more appealing to me. I got bullied pretty hard for it. I remember one time there was a group of boys that formed a circle around me at recess and told me it wasn't normal that I was playing with girls. Our teacher had to intervene, and I remember crying a lot about it. Still, it carried over into middle school and high school. I found that I wasn't really interested in competition or any of the activities that boys typically liked doing, but rather that I liked playing music, performing on stage, and doing more creative work. I was bullied for that, too. Other boys started to question my manhood, and some of them even started to question my sexual orientation simply because of the activities that I liked doing. At this point, I hadn't even hit puberty yet, so looking back it's totally ridiculous that other kids were calling me gay. When I was in high school, I had to walk home every day after classes. There was a group of kids that would drive past me every day and scream "FAGGOT" out the window. It hurt a lot, and it's taken me a long time to get over it.

My whole childhood, I felt like I wasn't manly enough to be considered a boy. I felt ostracized, and I felt like people were always waiting for me to prove my manhood. It wasn't until I grew out of the schoolyard environment that I realized there were a lot of people like me, and that you don't have to be competitive or think about the world in terms of "alphas" and "betas" to be a man. I'm male, I'm heterosexual, but I'm also a little more sensitive and emotional than the typical male. It's strange to think that these last two qualities have made people doubt who I really am.

Thanks for sharing this article. It was a really good read, and it kind of hurt to read it. I feel like a victim of much of the conditioning this article describes. I just have to remember that there's hope for reversing the effects of the conditioning.

Interesting, At home I would always hangout with the girls too when I was a boy.
I only hung out and played sports with boys at school.

 

[zoomysloppy]

That article is problably the first ever time i bookmarked someting. It was wierd reading how my life was until 2017 when i refused to get a haircut and that i was a human not a boy, but that article my friend, just made me fully realize my life, i relapsed like 10 mins ago but i dont think im relapsing again thanks to that article. You saved my life with that article.

 

[Deleted Account]

Thanks to everyone for responding to this very informative and eye-opening article. For myself, I can totally relate to the concept of being shut out by society, to being shut within myself and forced to bury my emotions and feelings deep within. There was a lot of psychological abuse in my family, and most of my siblings responded by becoming dead emotionally. When I did try to express my emotions/questionings/desires/needs/etc., I would either get ridiculed, put down, or hit. It taught me that I couldn't be vulnerable with anyone, that opening up only leads to pain. It caused me to internalize everything that happened to me and within me. And it taught me that the only way to outlet my passions was alone, in private, in shame and darkness. My family is still reeling from the vicious effects of our abuse (most of them still deny any abuse took place) and I think several of us are PMO addicted. Our parents were hurt people who suffered traumatic childhoods, so they hurt us too. In turn we all hurt each other. That's how the cycle keeps perpetuating itself. Hurt people hurt people. We need to be the safe, responsible adults that we needed in our childhoods. We need to be the safe, responsible adults we need right now. We need to allow ourselves to take in the whole world of sensations and delights, to feel and enjoy and to laugh and to cry, and to feel safe doing it. We need to be whole people again, not broken people with siege mentalities, withdrawn to the castles of our inner minds. We need to get out there into the world and drink it in to the fullest. That's the only way we're going to get through this.

 

[nef]

i was also at the same place until boys start teasing so i start abstaining from them not even talking and looking then porn come to me and i feel guilty now i don't even remember how i talked to girls , i don't even know how to begin a conversation . something happened to me i now i look like strong guy but inside i am not so tough people think and always have another opinion about me and i won't tell them

 

[SamFZ]

Awesome, awesome link. THANK you for this! What a great read.

Funny, really, as I used to be a lot more obsessed with sex when I was younger, like it was my one and only goal, and I got severely depressed when I couldn't get anybody to want me. The obsession sort of disappeared when I went to college, even though it had been a long time since I had had any (I went something like 3 years without sex after a long relationship breakup, where every time I dated it just did not last at all, for a long time), and I made a whole bunch of best friends who were women as I stopped seeing every woman I met as a potential, thanks to the obsession fading away and me becoming a bit more patient.

I never quite worked out why the obsession with getting laid faded but this article certainly helps clarify it. Because it was around the time I went to college where I started to make some real friendships, not broken by "toxic masculinity". I started to make friends who would hug, and call each other "bro", rely on each other, talk about personal problems and emotions, never feeling like it made us any less masculine. Like big, cuddly, burly bears. After college I continued to build my friendships in that fashion and I think it's a great thing to have.

The other thing was accepting that I'm a big nerd. I spent most of my childhood and teenage years fighting back against that, but once I embraced it as an adult, I realised that being a nerd (well, the good kind of nerd...) entails having real, emotional outbursts of passion and excitement for the things you enjoy. I used to feel so much excitement and passion on the inside for media like films, music and games, and I'd squash them down and compress them into a "Yeah that's pretty great." response that a 'normal' person would have. These days I love to just release all my emotions for something. A movie can make me just burst with excitement about how brilliant it was and why, my wife says sometimes I end up shaking and air-punching from how much I enjoyed a game or song or film. It's frowned on to have that kind of reaction to something because people are expected to be really passive or act like a critic about media. But I can't describe how much it's changed my general demeanour by just allowing myself to burst with excitement for how awesome that stunt I just saw Tom Cruise do was.

So maybe we all need to do more of this. Maybe I need to let more of this out without embarrassment and things. Less suppression. NoFap rebooting is allowing me to channel a lot of energy into other things.

 

[Ridley]

Awesome, awesome link. THANK you for this! What a great read.

Funny, really, as I used to be a lot more obsessed with sex when I was younger, like it was my one and only goal, and I got severely depressed when I couldn't get anybody to want me. The obsession sort of disappeared when I went to college, even though it had been a long time since I had had any (I went something like 3 years without sex after a long relationship breakup, where every time I dated it just did not last at all, for a long time), and I made a whole bunch of best friends who were women as I stopped seeing every woman I met as a potential, thanks to the obsession fading away and me becoming a bit more patient.

I never quite worked out why the obsession with getting laid faded but this article certainly helps clarify it. Because it was around the time I went to college where I started to make some real friendships, not broken by "toxic masculinity". I started to make friends who would hug, and call each other "bro", rely on each other, talk about personal problems and emotions, never feeling like it made us any less masculine. Like big, cuddly, burly bears. After college I continued to build my friendships in that fashion and I think it's a great thing to have.

The other thing was accepting that I'm a big nerd. I spent most of my childhood and teenage years fighting back against that, but once I embraced it as an adult, I realised that being a nerd (well, the good kind of nerd...) entails having real, emotional outbursts of passion and excitement for the things you enjoy. I used to feel so much excitement and passion on the inside for media like films, music and games, and I'd squash them down and compress them into a "Yeah that's pretty great." response that a 'normal' person would have. These days I love to just release all my emotions for something. A movie can make me just burst with excitement about how brilliant it was and why, my wife says sometimes I end up shaking and air-punching from how much I enjoyed a game or song or film. It's frowned on to have that kind of reaction to something because people are expected to be really passive or act like a critic about media. But I can't describe how much it's changed my general demeanour by just allowing myself to burst with excitement for how awesome that stunt I just saw Tom Cruise do was.

So maybe we all need to do more of this. Maybe I need to let more of this out without embarrassment and things. Less suppression. NoFap rebooting is allowing me to channel a lot of energy into other things.

"Mmm...mmm... Mm! Oh-hoh! Forgive me. I was absorbed in thought. I am Siegmeyer of Catarina. Quite honestly, I have run flat up against a wall. Or, a gate, I should say. The thing just won't budge. No matter how long I wait. And, oh, have I waited! So, here I sit, in quite a pickle. Weighing my options, so to speak! Hah hah hah hah!"

 

[Deleted Account]

Awesome, awesome link. THANK you for this! What a great read.

Funny, really, as I used to be a lot more obsessed with sex when I was younger, like it was my one and only goal, and I got severely depressed when I couldn't get anybody to want me. The obsession sort of disappeared when I went to college, even though it had been a long time since I had had any (I went something like 3 years without sex after a long relationship breakup, where every time I dated it just did not last at all, for a long time), and I made a whole bunch of best friends who were women as I stopped seeing every woman I met as a potential, thanks to the obsession fading away and me becoming a bit more patient.

I never quite worked out why the obsession with getting laid faded but this article certainly helps clarify it. Because it was around the time I went to college where I started to make some real friendships, not broken by "toxic masculinity". I started to make friends who would hug, and call each other "bro", rely on each other, talk about personal problems and emotions, never feeling like it made us any less masculine. Like big, cuddly, burly bears. After college I continued to build my friendships in that fashion and I think it's a great thing to have.

The other thing was accepting that I'm a big nerd. I spent most of my childhood and teenage years fighting back against that, but once I embraced it as an adult, I realised that being a nerd (well, the good kind of nerd...) entails having real, emotional outbursts of passion and excitement for the things you enjoy. I used to feel so much excitement and passion on the inside for media like films, music and games, and I'd squash them down and compress them into a "Yeah that's pretty great." response that a 'normal' person would have. These days I love to just release all my emotions for something. A movie can make me just burst with excitement about how brilliant it was and why, my wife says sometimes I end up shaking and air-punching from how much I enjoyed a game or song or film. It's frowned on to have that kind of reaction to something because people are expected to be really passive or act like a critic about media. But I can't describe how much it's changed my general demeanour by just allowing myself to burst with excitement for how awesome that stunt I just saw Tom Cruise do was.

So maybe we all need to do more of this. Maybe I need to let more of this out without embarrassment and things. Less suppression. NoFap rebooting is allowing me to channel a lot of energy into other things.

That thing about "nerds" is spot on. It's weird that today if someone is enthusiastic about something (else than sex), then they are despicably called nerds or autists and whatnot. Living a "nerd" life is more fulfilling and fun and usually since they are so enthusiastic, they're more interesting company as well.

 

[SamFZ]

That thing about "nerds" is spot on. It's weird that today if someone is enthusiastic about something (else than sex), then they are despicably called nerds or autists and whatnot. Living a "nerd" life is more fulfilling and fun and usually since they are so enthusiastic, they're more interesting company as well.

*(else than sex or sports)
Yeah, though I'm gonna say there are two camps of nerd... The ones who have real fun enthusiasm over media and stuff, and the ones who turn that enthusiasm into nitpicking, and later anger and hate. Better to stay away from the latter. They can be super toxic too.

"Mmm...mmm... Mm! Oh-hoh! Forgive me. I was absorbed in thought. I am Siegmeyer of Catarina. Quite honestly, I have run flat up against a wall. Or, a gate, I should say. The thing just won't budge. No matter how long I wait. And, oh, have I waited! So, here I sit, in quite a pickle. Weighing my options, so to speak! Hah hah hah hah!"

Still closed... Still closed. Mmm.