Philsophical/Moral Dimensions

I wanted to make a thread where you could post philsophical or moral reasons to quit fapping, because in some situations that were the only reasons that could hold me back.
I was raised liberal and atheist, I was never restricted in my sexuality (first contact with porn at the age of 10, first masturbation to orgasm at the age of 16, which may be a bit late).

But I still have this strong feeling about PMO being a wrong thing, which, to me, says that the refusal of PMO is as much a natural drive for some of us as the thing itself. So, before finding this forum I found many answers like: Its a natural thing, everyone does it, you have to get rid of your bad feelings about it. But that argument "everyone does it" (90 percent or so) had a reversed effect on me: I was disgusted by this image. Imagine all the people fapping today. Politicians, professors, judges, policemen, actors, brothers, fathers... all the respectable persons in the world. And the moral now is: if youre digusted by the imagination of them fapping, make a start and quit yourself. You could say: I harm noone by fapping, but as shown, thats not true. All these people harm me, because they disgust me. And surely not only me. And if I fap, Im part of the problem. The only way to tackle the problem are individual decisions. Everytime you want to fap, ask yourself: Is that, what I want for me right now something I want for everybody, even my greatest idols? If no, you have the choice: Either be a morally consequent person, or not.

So, this was my first thought. If someone is interested, others will follow. Now Im interested in your thoughts. Post them.

 

Thank you all very much for answering.

@pursuitofchocolate: Im glad I could help you with this. Its very true what you say. And I think the prohibition of PMO isnt in religion for no reason, but because people in the past thought exactly what we are thinking today, its a totally natural thought. There are religious and unreligious people who dont fight bad habits, and there are religious and unreligious people who do fight their bad habits. The only thing that matters is wether youre willing to become a better person. Religion can help you for sure, just like this forum can help you very much, but more important is your own attitude.

@IamAddict: What you said about being a slave of your own mind is very interesting. And brings me to a new excursion. The question I asked myself several years ago was: Who is the slave? Because there are two ways of looking at the human drives. Human drives evolved over time and therefore are not perfectly fitting to their purpose (the sexuality drive doesn’t automatically lead to procreation).
You can now either say “oh great, sexuality doesn’t have to result in babies” so that you willingly lead your drive away from its purpose, or you say “oh no, im manipulated by a drive that doesn’t even has a purpose” so that you use your willpower and quit.
Now we have a dilemma, both positions seem to make sense, both are based on the same situation, both seem to be a victory of Will over nature… but they are complete contraries. In the first one, are you slave or master? Is the drive using you, or are you using the drive? In the second one, would it be willpower to quit, or would it be willpower to overcome your bad feelings about it and use the drive for YOURE purpose? Its really hard to tell and you might be a bit confused by now.
But there is an answer indeed. It has to do with craving and reward. It many cases, craving and reward are in a balance. Your demand for something is appropriate to the reward you expect, that’s reasonable and logical. In this cases its really hard to tell whether your the master or the slave of your mind. But there are also disbalanced cases. And for me, PMO is one: the craving for it is far bigger than the reward I expect and get. That’s irrational. But the disbalance can also be on the other side: Think about doing sports or something. You know that you will be happy having done it, but youre absolutely unmotivated nevertheless.
Now comes my conclusion. I tend to think: Whenever you do something where you know that the craving is bigger than the reward  youre a slave of your mind.
Whenever you do something because you know that the reward will outweigh your lacking motivation  youre the master of your mind.

Thank you for your applause in advance

 

@kosh: Its interesting what you write there. I checked out that comedian you mentioned and can just agree with you. People tend to find disgusting things funny, but why is this? Maybe just because they dont expect someone to talk about this openly? Or are they just released because there is somebody who gives the impression that they are not the only ones having these problems?
As you say, there just are some parts of our subconscious that we cant educate or rationalize away. Many people today think that the human brain is a blank sheet that can transform to anything through education. But I see on my example that this is not true. Many would call me a conservative because of the way I think about sexuality or other things. But I was never taught to think like this. It comes from my innate character. And I think its the same for many people, their education or their peer pressure may cover their innate way to think, but they wont erase it.

@IamAddict: Im happy that my post was interesting enough for you to read it three times

Another thing that comes to my mind has also to do with Evolution (i dont know wether everyone here accepts that theorie, but it very much affects the way I think). Evolution always tends to find the simplest way to make something function the way it should. Same goes for our drives. They are the simplest ways of nature to make us act how we should act. Nature could have given us the instruction: "make as many babies as possible and care for their survival". Well it didnt, it was complicated. It could also have said: "have sex with women and outpour your sperm in them" No, too complicated.
What it actually says is: "stimulate your penis" and "boobs are great". What has this to do with reproduction? Well, in many cases this drives lead to reproduction, and so they fulfil their function. But thinking humans have found ways to misuse these tribes. And because of that they seem to be rather pointless. But the big reward, the orgasm, still has the position of the highest of our feelings. Because naturally it comes along with the highest principle of nature: reproduction.
So, how on Earth would i deserve the highest of feelings by moving my forescin back and forth with my hand? How would I deserve a reward by staring at some boobs on a screen. These are absolutely senseless behaviors. And by performing them, we essentially mock our own innacurate nature and evolution. We say: "Hey, you didnt think about that, dummy, did you". And that is, in my opinion, a cruel thing to do. Because our human nature is wonderful, even though it may have some inaccuracies, it makes us to what we are. We really shouldnt make fun of it.

 

Thank you all very much for answering. It means a lot for me that my posts seem to make sense for some of you and are not just some crazy stuff I made up

@arsebiscuits: I know that you cant just bar someone from doing PMO. Its forbidden in some countries but thats absurd. It really is a private thing and I dont want to condemn anybody. What I wanted to say is, that IF you are disgusted by that image (and I think many people are, we cant really choose wether we are or not), you are morally obliged to quit YOURSELF. You could say: Noone knows that I do PMO, or quit, so whats the point? But if you prove to yourself, that it is indeed possible for a humen being to quit, than you can think of other people quitting too. You will never know wether the persons you respect do PMO, but the more people quit, the weaker will be the suspicion in general. And suspicion is what really can destroy human relationships.