September the 12th, I was lucky to recieve a newsletter from NoFap with the title above. I don´t know if there has already been started a thread on that newsletter. Anyway, I would like to share my thougths on some of the issues in the letter. My comments are based on the written summary of the interview, not the complete radio interview itself. Quotation from the newsletter: "Ran examines how pornography is usually made by men and focuses on a violent, male-dominated narrative that drowns out all alternative understandings of sex and alienates us from our own sexualities." This a kind of statement often heard from porn critics. Not at least on the exellent anti-porn website One Angry Girl: http://www.oneangrygirl.net/antiporn.html The heartbreaking stories about porn actresses misused by the industry on the latter page, tell a lot about that. Still, this is thruth about porn that is mostly about the most hard-core style of porn, maybe even the cheapest and most vulgar versions of it. Porn is, however, so much more, and includes also a lot of soft-core material, often somewhat more sofisticated in form, but no less addictive even though. I see that a number of persons at this forum refer to the magazine Playboy as one of their introductions to porn, and Playboy´s pictures can be an example of the latter type of porn. The type of criticism against porn refered above only indirectly applies to this soft-core type of porn. We therefore need a critical analyze of porn which also includes the soft-core issue. Otherwise people may get the impression that it is quite harmless, which it is of course not. One question is how porn influences masculinity, or men´s view on women. I think that as far as soft-core porn concerns, it could be explained in the following way: One starts to look at women as persons who carry a body which can be used as a source for dopamine. Remember, porn addiction is not very different from drug addiction, and the female body (or female will to show it off) is the very drug in question in softcore porn. But seen in the broader perspective, I tend to see the problem with porn´s influence on masculinity more the following way: Masculinity used to be a lot about self-control, while the logic of porn is the opposite, to give in for your urges, let them control you.
All right. What I suggest, is that we need a proper definition of the word "pornography", even if it is a big triggering to discuss this, I know I have to talk to somebody about it. And I do NOT like the idea of going out under full name telling the world that I know something about porn and porn sites on the Internet espessially. That is so totally againt every value I stand for. So I like to do it anonymously here, where it is a normal thing to have experience with porn. Some people say that porn normally shows sexual intercourse (even though in an unnatural way) between a man and a woman. Well, that is the thruth about normal HARDCORE porn. I have never felt attracted to that kind of porn, but still I have been/are certrainly addicted. And, well, yes, when you search for softcore stuff, the pages often do the best they can to push hardcore porn onto you. But that is another case. There are an enormous amount of softcore porn pages out there on the Internet. A number of them use the word "porn" to describe themselves, while other use other, but I would say related, words. Should we not talk about these pages as porn, just because there is no intercourse going on? Is my addidiction to such imagery not a true porn addiction? Well, I know all the things people tell about: Edging to the brink of orgasm, then stopping to calm down, and start again, to be able to keep going for hours. Staying up all night watching porn and mastrubating. Searching for always new models and new pictures to get the necessary variation. The strange fear of possibly loosing a good picture somewhere on some site. I know it all, but not connected to images containing men, only women. The feminist perspective on anti porn is also very much connected to the hardcore type of it. It is about porn presenting violence against women as something arousive. Porn as something that presents female sexuality as dirty etc. That is, in other words, as if not softcore porn without any of these existed. Still, I know that porn is "the industry that hijacked our sexuality". It influences anyway what I think is sexy or not. When first starting to get addicted, I specualeted what I would do if I got married to a real woman of flesh and blood. Would I wish to have sex with her, or would I rather wish her to strip before me and me lying on bed mastrubating to it? At that moment I could not imagine anything more satisfying than that, but I assumed no normal woman would feel the same. Later I have often thought about: If I had sex with a real woman, is there any reason I would do it any other way then when doing it for myself: Having sex for hours and hours and try not to ejaculate as long as possible? Is that how sex is in reality? Feminists use to say that "Porn is theory, rape is practice". Hardcore porn, yes, but as far as softcore porn goes, I would rather say: "Porn is theory, promiscuity is practice". Even though one of my excuses when first getting into the internet stuff was: OK, this is much better than real occational sex, though, since I don´t get sexually transmittable diseases and I don´t become the father of unwanted children and I don´t even break the heart of a woman by using her sexually. (The pictues on the Internet would certainly be there wheather I looked at them or not, and in any case they were made before I came and looked at them.) But when getting used to mastrubate to pictures of naked women, the thought sometimes might come up that it would be even better with a real naked woman. Softcore porn often tries to impose a connection to real life. That is certainly one of it´s ways to arouse its viewer and maybe somewhat unlike the logics of hardcore porn. Many softcore models are for example presented with their real name, or at least they want us to think that such is the case. In hardcore porn, a whole lot of actresses are even depersonalized to a level where they are presented without any name at all, just a description.
To me, the soft-core porn is just as destructive as any hard-core porn video I ever watched. So I agree with your point. There are certain ways, how "dose escalation" happens (for me that is): Either I increase the variety by looking for novel porn everytime I PMO, or I just extend the time PMOing/edging, or both of course. Now I after more than 30 days off, I could do the mistake and resort to something that is called P-sub here. There are plenty of sources for soft-core porn around me. I could try to fool myself by saying "it's not really porn, so I'm fine" but one of the most important takeaways of my challenge so far is that it's all about my internal state. If I play a computer game with a sexy character and I'm excited about and get lost in it, and it even shows up in my fantasy, I basically consumed porn. I wouldn't try to find clarity in any sort of objective definition. There might be some value in classifying porn, e.g. if that helps you structuring your recovery or identifying specific issues. Someone who gets hooked for hours on some soft-core anime themed stuff maybe has a slightly different issue than someone who watches the first video on pornhub and has an orgasm after 10 minutes and is done. However, to me it's not ultimately important what kind of fetish or what kind of "favorite material" I end up with. Instead of focussing on the substance (porn), I care for my mental state. I want to know what keeps me from being goal-directed, optimistic, self-confident. I want to lay bare the sources of shame, anxiety, inhibition. I guess there are people totally trapped in a porn addiction and the first thing they need to do is to stop. Just like an alcoholic needs to stop drinking before any other issue can be worked on. However, when I want to know what prevents me from quitting porn - even after 30 or 60 or 90 days of NoFap - when I want to fill the "void in my life", when I want to replace my bad habits (like PMO, Youtube, computer games) with actual interactions in real life, and when I want fullfillment instead of short-term satisfaction, then the answer does not lie in the different kinds of porn material.
If I understand correctly, this is a post that is making the case for soft core porn as being just as dangerous as any other. If I could make a few observations here: I think that softcore as defined as a milder version is appropriate. I also think that a photo of a high heeled shoe could in the correct light be seen as something that could start the mental avalanche that propels someone to a PMO. For me the classification is unimportant. I spent the day in a major airport hub yesterday observing the many variations of the female form and will be in a hotel (am in a hotel) for the next 4 days. I had a very difficult time last night and though I did not give in, was listening to the voice of justification try to lure me into an old pattern. We are meant to evolve. The patterns of thought that control us are many and they influence how we think, make decisions, find and make connections, how we eat etc, etc. It may be helpful to run an analysis on what a thing is but for me there is but one critical observation that needs to be made: Is it the cause of suffering in some way? I think that we all understand that porn is an industry just like any other and at its end is a product that for some can be very damaging. Over many years I have changed into a person who sees a woman as a source of pleasure rather than a human being capable of critical thought, compassion, complex behaviors and emotions. I can say unequivocally that though It is to a certain degree hardwired on a primal level, I think this is a direct result of pornography. So whats the take away here: Softcore porn is dangerous? Sure. You tube can be dangerous? Gaming can be dangerous? Sure. Its all tricky when you have this issue. For me the world is a p-sub. I have to see it for what it is and know that my mind will twist anything into a fixation that will lead to suffering on some level. Im still keeping my shit together out here but Im on a constant guard. Im worth more than porn leads me to believe. My strength is in my resolve. I gain strength as a man by being in control of my thoughts They precede action and whatever you call it softcore or hardcore its all the same: dangerous.
