I’d appreciate some answers because I’ve been wondering about this.

There are two very important things to fix this problem, and to fix it you cannot have one and not the other.

First, you have to understand the problem, and that takes studying the problem.

Second, you have to quit, QUIT, as in completely, until your brain does not miss it anymore.

I can tell you have done a lot on the first point. This problem is about pre programmed, ancient, biological urges that naturally occur for the purpose of encouraging reproduction of the species, and something, naturally speaking, that humanity invented very recently: High Speed Internet Porn. HSIP is best thought of as a tool, as a means to an end, like drugs. Like drugs we can use it to trigger a reward event in that part of the brain that rewards sex, thinking of sex, having sex, orgasm, etc. MO without P accomplishes the same reward event, but once you have trained your brain to use P to get that reward, almost everything else becomes less efficient at it, including actual sex. Another phrase for the reward event "dopamine high", and it has been occurring naturally in mammals for millions of years. Yes, we are mammals.

About superpowers...hate to tell you, but they do not exist and NoFap is not going to give them to you. If you are here your first desire must be to quit your habit, not gain superpowers. Back when people first started noticing the problem, shortly after the widespread use of HSIP, there were a lot of myths and misperceptions. Obviously the chronology was 1) invention and widespread use of HSIP, 2) a lot of people realizing they had some unknown, unconceived, misunderstood problem with HSIP, because it was a toy once picked up, many had a severe problem in voluntarily putting down, then 3) neurological study of the problem resulting in scientists understanding that HSIP made the human brain of users look exactly like the brains of drug addicts. One of the myths we told ourselves when a lot of us first started quitting is: If I can quit porn my life will be so much better in so many ways. Quitting porn can make you more sexually healthy, which is another way of saying it can make you look and act sexually the way people did way before HSIP was invented.

The advantage of quitting is quitting the habit. Losing the habit means you are no longer a slave to it, and quitting slavery is, generally speaking, a good thing.

By the way you talk in terms of what our brains want. I think of it that way also, but I often replace the word brain with nature. What does nature want? Per evolution, the most successful survival trait in any species is the ability to successfully reproduce. More than anything else nature wants us making babies, and our brains have evolved to reward, to experience a brain reward event, in not only sex, but the things leading up to it, such as thinking about sex. We can think about sex without HSIP and still get the reward. However, using HSIP to think about it is like throwing gasoline on a flame. Nothing is as efficient at making us think of sex as HSIP. Translation: Nothing is as efficient as creating a dopamine high as HSIP, at least for people here with this problem. Drugs to the same thing for persons addicted to drugs. It is all a means to the end, and the end is a brain reward event.

So, will quitting HSIP help you get laid?

Drum roll....wait for it.....YES.

We crave that brain reward, and if you quit using sex-negative to get it, you will begin to seek sex-positive to get it. Nature reward those who try with success.

Remember, quitting porn is, like death, a process, not an event, so keep studying the problem, and fix it.

Much love.

Billy The Kid.

 

You are viewing hard-mode no PMO as submerged sexual impulse, as Matt Dobschuetz says, 'white knuckling it' in Episode 19 in his excellent podcast Porn Free Radio. Being porn-free is nothing like this, you will go back and forth between porn, masturbation and orgasm and abstaining from it, again and again and again.

In that episode linked to, he interviews Craig Perra of Mindful Habit who says to break a habit you must form a new habit to take it's place. Unlike alcohol, we're wired for sex, and it's a natural and powerful part of who we are as men. We can live without alcohol, it's a substance we simply do not buy (if we had become addicted to it for example). Sex though is a part of us - for us to become asexual is to become unnatural.

No, to become porn-free is to change those sexual impulses and transform them - in relationships with (GASP!) real live, human people, usually females but hey they can be males too. Porn and masturbation live in an isolated, lonely, frustrated emotional state, that affects your real life relationships (married or not). Everything from PE to PIED to DE (that's premature ejaculation, porn-induced erectile dysfunction, delayed ejaculation) is ascribed to porn and masturbation. Yup, I had it as well, and after 40+ years am finally ready to leave it all behind. (See my journal under my name / icon to the left for more details.)

Assuming you are younger, you have been associating your sexual desires with porn and masturbation and thus affecting how you view IRL women. By going porn-free for a stretch, by resetting your brain it will affect how you relate to women - they are become less objects on a screen, and become the real people they are.

I wonder what kind of dates I would have had in my uni days, and in my younger single days, if I had not spent all that time fapping away. I'd be a lot more confident for sure around women in general, putting that sexual energy towards real people instead of pixels on a screen (or in my case when I was younger images in a magazine).

 

It is not so straightforward. When your brain knows that it will get food then sex is it's main priority. When there is no food then the first priority is survival. Our brain is very dynamic and not hardwired.

 

Your brain is not "wired for sex". Your brain is your recorder. It helps you do what you want more efficiently, even if it is detrimental for you in terms of health. So, it is not necessarily that the brain "thinks you're killing it", it is that it is helping you do what you want to do via the dopamine reward system.

So, is that the whole goal of recovery? Just to get laid? Are you going to reduce women to penis holders? If that is the case, just stop. You are not fundamentally changing anything if that's your goal. You are just going to put women in some bad states.

But, you arguments about the I pacts of HSIP are quite sound. But, putting "sex" as number two in terms of a human life is quite a stretch. Really? Sex is number two? What about shelter? What about exploration? What about all other aspects of humanity? What about raising your offspring? I am trying to imagine this scenario. So, I am some primitive human being. I've just had a child and I've just got my food. Well, that means it's time to have sex. Oh the child is in danger, whatever. Since I just got ma food I need to have sex. The child needs to learn how to survive? Well, good luck to him or her, I need to have sex.

Does that mean that we just throw our seeds everywhere and dust our hands off and hope for the best? I am sure it not just about "getting laid". It is process to raise the next generation. It takes a certain about of care to procreate. You are making it seem like sex is all that humans care about. No, sex is just a biological function. Keeping the human mammals going is not just about sex. The entire movement of procreation is not just eat and have sex, eat and have sex... That is how your arguments sound by the way. Or you are just using enough of your prefrontal cortex to justify "going out and getting laid". Your brain is using you to haphazardly go around and have sex with any woman you want. Is that really an efficient way to procreate? Increases the chances of incest? Not doing your part to raise the child(ren).

This is not going from "objects on the screen to a real person". This is going from "objects on a screen to objects in real life."

Really? That is a stretch. Are people who have ED (I'm talking about older gentlemen) unnatural, then? Yes, sex has a function, not denying that, but asexual means your unnatural? What about the entire activity and life of the human being? All that is just wiped away if they don't have sex?

 

Hi @eagle rising

To be honest, other than being aware neurology existed, and being generally aware it was the study of the human brain, I never gave much thought to it until I realized I had a huge problem with porn and a huge problem controlling the use of porn in my life. That was back when I still conceived of porn as something in my life I could use recreationally and control it, before I realized that to fix this problem I had to quit it completely.

Is the goal of quitting porn to get laid? For me, no. I was getting laid before, during, and after what we call porn addiction.

However, for a lot of people here, getting laid is impossible due to porn, specifically PIED. I don't really want to define humanity as people "trying to get laid." That said, a lot of humanity is trying to get laid. Whether we want it or not on some level, on another level, we are preprogrammed to want it. We ARE in control of ourselves, but, even so, we are wired to get horny. That is an evolved neurological fact. Not just us, but all species. I am not suggesting that the purpose of life is to get laid; I am suggesting that without the underlying neurological reward and motivation brain functions that all of us have, whether we want it or not, our problem would not exist, and we as a species would, also, not exist.

Sex is not number one or two. Reproduction is no. 1. The ability of any species to make more of itself is the first and most successful survival trait. Period. This is an evolutionary truth. We can be great in other ways, but we can only be great in other ways if we make more of ourselves. We tend to view this fact in terms of "sex" because sex is interesting, i.e., it produces the brain reward event, aka, a dopamine high. Whether we want to love it or not, whether we hate it, we love a dopamine high. You and I are here, in this forum, because we love a dopamine high. We love it a little bit too much. We love it so much we have been willing to use artificial sexual stimulation to produce a profound and prolonged dopamine high we could not get naturally. Porn is our drug. For some of us, but, oddly, not for all of us, porn is VERY efficient at producing that high.

Yes, sex is a biological function. Sex is a means to the end that is the most successful survival trait that any species has. Does that mean sex is everything? No, absolutely not, but recognizing that having sex, thinking of sex, watching porn, which causes thoughts of sex, results in a neurological reward, is important to know when quitting porn. It is important to understand that IN THIS PLACE. It is important to know why we like watching porn, even if we come to hate liking porn. Porn is a tool, nothing more, nothing less, which we can use to achieve a neurological reward event. We use porn like others use drugs; it is a means to an end. That does not mean it controls us, but understanding why we like porn is important for anyone here, trying to quit.

This forum is best used as an aid in quitting porn addiction. Understanding that the problem is a relatively small neurological problem is helpful. Big problems require big solutions. Small problems require small solutions. This problem is fixed by weening off the habitual use of porn to achieve what anyone was ever addicted to: a neurological reward, in the brain. Understanding what that is, and why it is, is not merely helpful to overcoming the problem, but necessary to overcoming the problem.

No one has ever been addicted to porn. I am not for sure the word "addicted" really describes the problem, but it is the word we have. If there is an addiction it is to the neurological reward event we can use porn to produce. The neurological reward event is the thing that is addictive, not whatever else humans use to cause it. We have invented mediums of information communication that, even though not overtly sexual, but certainly when overtly sexual, can produce a neurological reward event. Congratulations humanity, we are good at a lot of things, but inventing our addictions? We are No. 1 at that.

(4) Robert Palmer - Addicted To Love (Official Music Video) - YouTube

Much love.

WilliamOneAndDone

 

I am not sure what to make of this. As humans the desire for sex is a primal urge. Obviously with >900 posts you have a lot of contributions here, but I disagree.

It may be the logical end of a mechanistic view of pornography, of addiction, of humanity. If all we are is a bunch of dopamine receptors and neurological circuits, then I understand what you said, but still disagree. I believe we are more, much more, than that.

 

Yes, sex was a primal urge, but there is much more to that and to the human. What does it mean that "sex is a primal urge"? How far are we willing to go with that statement? Does that mean we must have sex everyday, with whomever? I mean I am aware that there are cultures that still practice polygamy, but we still evolved, at least our brains did. Our prefrontal cortex has exploded in growth, and one aspect of that is that we can be aware of ourselves to a greater extent. The reason why I say that we can become aware of ourselves is because I am thinking about the women's perspective as well. They feel much more deeply these days (especially in terms of being in a relationship) , and this needs to be taken into consideration. When it comes to the men, as well, we should be able to, more or less, "handle" our primal urges. We have evolved to a place where we can do that, we just need to learn how. Does that mean take away sex? No, that means we should be able to use it whenever we deem it "necessary", for procreation for example. Or when we have that feeling of developing a family, or when we find someone who we are compatible with, etc. Instead men are just hopping woman to woman (and the same for women, man to man), but that isn't an act of procreation. That is living compulsively with the excuse "sex is a primal urge". As an have said procreation is not just sex and done, it is an entire movement of life.

Your second paragraph, to me, supports what I said. When it is simply that we are "wired for sex" doesn't that point to a mechanistic viewpoint of the human? I don't believe that we are just mechanistic beings, that is why I don't believe we should just - I don't know - let the sex flow, I guess. We are more than just the wiring in our brains, that is just one layer of the development of the human being. There are other facets, like our ability to move our energies by becoming conscious of them. This is happening for many people, monks and gurus and others. Am I suggesting that we all become monks? No, I am suggesting that we can handle ourselves in such a manner, for instance, that we don't continue overpopulating the earth.

Oh yes, "the brain as a recorder". Simply, we are not the brain. The brain is an organ, it doesn't embody our complete life. It is a tool, not saying we are just mechanistic, but it's function can be at our disposal. But, instead the brain uses us. One must learn to use the brain, instead of fighting it. Well, I don't know if that helps, but that is what I understand.

 

No arguments here with what you've said. Sexuality is a prime part of being male, reminds me of what Craig Perra wished he could tell his younger self (recounted in one of Matt Dobschuetz' excellent Porn Free Radio podcasts, I think it was this Episode 34). He would say to his younger self 'SEX IS POWERFUL' and that you need to know that this power has to be handled carefully, respectfully, not wasted in porn and masturbation as it will have a deleterious effect on you.

I myself am learning to talk with my own children about this. Am looking forward to the coming months (and years) being able to open up to them more about what healthy sexuality between men and women should look like, and how a young man ought to think about sex in general. Not something to be shunted, not something to be denied, not something to be short-circuited with pornography and masturbation, but rather something to be put to use.

As in, put to use in learning how to talk with women in general. Learning how to court them. Learning how to relate to them as people, not as pixels and fantasies in your mind. Learning how to use the sexual impulse to improve many areas of life in general. Learning how to use the principles of Sexual Transmutation per Napoleon Hill's Think and Grow Rich. I am reading right now an interesting book called Quit Porn and Get Rich: The Unspoken Rule of Successful People. I've had to put a book cover on it as I walk around the house reading it, plenty of material to consider in terms of aspects of our sexuality that are cut off thanks to pornography and masturbation addiction.

Our complete life can be so much more, when sexuality is recognized and purposed for what it was intended for.