OK, this may not be the ideal place to ask this, given that many fellow travellers here are trying to kick the masturbating habit, and I apologise in advance if I'm about to cause any offence. First, a bit about where I'm coming from with this: my primary objective is to stop using porn, for good. I don't, however, expect or even want to stop masturbating completely. I've always masturbated, including throughout my stable relationships (to fill in the gaps in my and my partner's libidos; to get through long periods of separation; etc.), and I've no problem doing that after my reboot. Once I remove porn from the picture, my activity level will automatically reduce by at least 90%, from 20+ times per week to maybe couple of times a week or preferably less, and that I'm comfortable with. My question is: if it's not okay to masturbate to porn, what is it okay to masturbate to? If I fancy my neighbour's wife, is it okay to think of her? What if I have a bit of a cuckolding streak, and I get turned on by the thought of my wife being fucked by her boss, is it acceptable to use that as the mental image/scenario to jerk off to? Or if I was into something pretty extreme, like animals or dead people or whatever, would it be okay to go there, as long as it was just a mental exercise and would never lead to acting out my fantasies (and might even prevent me from actually doing anything like that)? Or is employing any sort of mental imagery just as wrong/harmful/unacceptable as an actual visual image? After all, the difference is mainly that of medium (computer screen vs. your imagination). Or is masturbating inherently not okay, no matter how, why, where and to what you do it? I would never before have said so, but if the matter was so straightforward and clear-cut, I guess there would be a lot fewer people on this site. I realise there are no right or wrong answers here, and everyone is no doubt different in this respect, but I'm genuinely interested in any input you may care to share. PS: I also want to just clarify that I'm not talking about masturbating during your reboot process, for those who have decided to forego that; I mean once things are back on even keel, whatever that means to each of us individually, and we hopefully carry on with the rest of our lives.
To the physical feeling itself or to the most boring vanilla mental image imaginable...................................................................................................................................after a very long period of abstinence.
Really? Someone does that? I didn't even know that was possible! I may need a crash course on some mind clearing techniques...
Usually after an incredibly long period of abstinence. It's unfortunately not possible at all in the short term, unless you're not an addict and you've never used porn.
Don't M at all. I have tested that M causes depression and it makes social anxiety worse (plus a lot of other things). If PMO is compared to hot furnace, then you could compare Ming to burning your fingers with fire.
It causes depression in addicts at any rate, usually because of what it's associated with and the addictive fantasizing. Demonizing occasional fapping in non-addicts is a no-go for me, though. I tried that route with quitting smoking and it didn't work, other than make me a very angry and overly frustrated individual, but I quit that 6 years ago. That being said, complete abstinence from fapping for a very long period (4 to 8 months at best, 1 to 3 years at worse)is proven to help porn/sex addicts recover.
Ming to psubs doesn't do you any good. The problem isn't completely porn, the problem is PLEASURING YOURSELF. That is what fucks us up so badly.
Dunno about that Nomar. Not disagreeing that complete abstinence is the only way to fully recover, but suggesting that porn isn't addictive in and of itself is kind of slippery. I know for me anyway, just looking at P or opening up a messenger gave me a dopamine rush and made me feel like I've had my soul sucked out. That's without MOing, too.
Masturbation as a whole is something I say should be stopped. What would you rather have? A really good erection and stamina when you're with a woman or by yourself? If you're saying you don't want to stop masturbating completely, consider the fact that you're probably addicted to it, even more than I ever was. The healthiest sex lives would belong to those that keep all sexual activities to real human interactions and that alone. People that go through entire reboots and at the end say: "I'll just masturbate once a week or so..." are playing with fire and screwing themselves again. Just because you swear to masturbate without porn doesn't mean you won't ever go back to porn. Sometimes your imagination just fails you and you want something to look at. Before you know it, you have multiple tabs of different porn videos open, planning an hour-long session of just PMOing. They never said porn isn't addictive.
I find that one thing leads to another. I can say that I'll only masturbate to vanilla mental images, but it soon turns to vanilla pictures, then non-vanilla pictures etc. and before I know it I'm fapping to multiple hardcore fetish videos in different tabs. It's best to cut out masturbation altogether.
I would refrain from masturbating in all cases, the exception being if you are physically with your partner and she wants you to. Pleasuring yourself to artificial stimuli is the issue.
Thanks for your remarks, much appreciated. I'm not sure I entirely agree with you, but that's beside the point - I don't come to places like this to have my views confirmed back to me, I want to see things from a different perspective, which you have given me. And in any case, I do agree with 99% of what you say, and will certainly heed it all.
Totally agree, this is the moral problem of Ming. People want to M, because they want pleasure. If you seek pleasure for yourself, you're not gonna love your wife 100%. You'll be seeking pleasure for yourself from her, and not for her. There is a really deep wisdom in these things. It applies to all things in our life. Are we seeking to please ourselves or are we someone that gives love to others. Actually, you get pleasure for loving others, that is much higher than when you receive pleasure directly.
To answer the poll: Masturbate to the sensation, nothing else. To answer this, why would you imagine that? No its not okay to use that mental image. To answer this, it is up to you. No one is forcing you to not masturbate, entirely your choice. I recommend doing 90 days before doing so.
I have been in recovery from sex addiction for eight years now. The vast bulk of this has been via in-person Twelve Step groups and now I come here also. Part of the reason I am here - in this place where some kind of abstinence from porn / porn substitutes and masturbation are the focus - is because of what I've observed in those groups. Put simply, the people I have seen hold the strongest and most inspiring sobriety from their particular manifestation of sex addiction, with very few exceptions, have all gone though periods of complete abstinence like those noted above. Whether this is true universally, I don't know. Whether this will be true for myself, I don't know. But again and again I have witnessed this: The most sober recovering porn / sex addicts tend to have considerable experience with abstinence. I asked one of these people about this observation not too long ago. He offered several comments: (1) Yes, abstinence was, in his experience, utterly necessary; (2) The period needed ended up being much longer than he initially imagined; and (3) In retrospect he felt it allowed his brain to do a 'complete reset' - something that had been missing from all his earlier (failed) attempts to get clean. As always, for what it's worth...
I also am trying to cut out masturbation and porn not just to improve my sex life and my relationship, but also to have a healthier relationship with women in general. I don't think that fantasizing about women in my life as sexual objects is a step in the right direction, so I think I plan to tend towards abstinence altogether, or possibly stimulation from my partner (phone/video sex). My weakness is past sexual experiences -- which are really easy material for M but really harmful to my psyche and counterproductive to my recovery. Those are so close and the next logical step if I'm not doing P or fantasizing about strangers/people in my life, so abstinence is likely the only thing to keep me on the straight and narrow.
The topic of this thread is so important. The mindset behind the action of M is getting pleasure in a controlled way (i.e. I want it now, I get it now). This is the major driver of addictive patterns, be it alcohol, substances, or behavioral. P is the strongest/latest shit we've found and created to drive this to the bottom end of our lives, and it has gained so much coverage and acceptance (never heard a friend tell you that they are about to get back home and PMO before they can sleep?) that we're forgetting what we use it for. But make no mistake, you can't rule P out of your life for good (or easily) without saying NO to self-instant-gratification of all kinds - or at least understand why you do it, and come clean with those reasons.
