I'm done with porn... but I am struggling with masturbation

Hi Pot3bic,

First, congratulations on eliminating what you're considering porn from your life. That is a seriously awesome accomplishment.

When you are going through erotic pages on Instagram, I would suggest though, this may be engaging the same addiction in your brain as using the porn itself. I can imagine a world in which you are using it "strictly professionally"--like looking at specimens in a lab, or like an internet moderator removing porn from a website. But, it may be really hard to separate these two "modes," if you have never experienced them separately.

If this is part of your career, this seems extremely challenging to handle. I saw on your profile that you are only 20 years old; if that is accurate, are you sure this needs to be part of your art? Are there other ways you can make money or exercise your creativity, which don't trigger you in this same way? The standard advice is to flee from anything like Instagram which leads you down this path, but without knowing the details of your situation, it may be hard to know what to recommend.

 

I'm just wondering, are you gay or str8 bc i am a str8 who eventually started masturbating to gay porn. I know that i'm not gay, it's just that i have literally seen every possible genre of str8 porn that i started watching gay videos even tho i am never turned on by other men in real life, it's just porn.

 

When was the last time you wacthed porn?

 

This is a porn substitute i.e. p/sub. I am not sure how erotic they are, but they may even be porn pages, idk. Either way, your brain is getting a dopamine hit from them. Then you are increasing it by masturbating to those arousing images.

So, this would be a good place to start. Either delete Instagram, or apply some very strict boundaries about how you use it. Without this stimulation, it will be easier to stop masturbating.

 

I've recently decided to focus on not watching porn exclusively but I allow myself to masturbate with limits. So far it has been working and I'm confident that I won't watch porn again anytime soon at least. I would first look at the fact that you not watching porn as a positive. Porn is much worse than masturbation in my opinion. Since you feel cured from porn addiction maybe take baby steps to cure masturbation. Like if you masturbate once a day go down to once every 2 days. Then 3. And keep going until you no longer have an interest. Good luck with everything!

 

I can't thank you enough, i read the whole thing and never felt more motivated to heal my addiction. I thought that i was the only one with HOCD and that was so f*cking confusing. I feel relieved now. Thank you so much again.