Science and NoFap

Are you familiar with Gary Wilson, Your Brain On Porn? There's a website and a book.

 

Yeah from what I understand, and it is a lot of info in one place. 'Cause the standard docs on this site on What is Porn Addiction and Rebooting 101 seems to reflect the content in the book, which I read a long time ago and don't remember in detail but being book length of course there's a lot more there. And the website has a lot of info too.

 

I can DM you some studies when I get to my computer if you want them?

 

There is research about porn addiction and how it affects the brain, mainly neuroscience. I read some articles last year. You can look for new research in the NCBI website.


https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4600144/
This article is very ineteresting, and is easy to understand because is a review of several studies.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6352245/
This article highlights the problems of studying this addiction. And it help me to understand why it's difficult to reach scitntific conclusions for this addiction.
It is almost impossible to find a control group, because almost all men in our culture satarted watching porn since they were very young.

 

Keep in mind that nofap is politicized, so the Scientism Shamanists discredit it and want it canceled, discredited, not taken seriously.

 

There's not a lot, if any, peer-reviewed scientific research and the benefits of abstaining 100% from masturbation. As far as I can tell the whole 90-day idea is a great slogan, but there is no magic date where you are "cured" of whatever ailments you're connecting to porn and masturbation.

Porn addiction is debated as an official diagnosis - but generally accepted by most therapists who deal in addiction. There are plenty of studies and published research reports on how pornography affects the brain, escalation, how it affects self-views, partners, sexual performance, etc. Also plenty of research on the ability for the brain to "rewire" and learn new habits. Yourbrainonporn and fightthenewdrug both have links to those studies.

It's the masturbation and semen retention arguments that don't seem to have a lot of ooompf behind the claims. Some people here claim semen retention makes you taller, changes bone structure, makes you smarter, magically makes women become attracted to you, etc. That's the stuff I would say is BS.

 

Not really, no, most sexologists and even therapists will not believe it.

 

Thats a good one haha

 

If that's the case, then my hope won't die down...

 

I wonder how much they know about gambling addiction, for an interesting read check out Adddictive By Design by Natasha Dow-Schull. A 70-something grandmother wearing several layers of dark clothes so she doesn't have to get up from the slot machine to go to the bathroom that gambles like 3 days straight sounds pretty addictive to me.

 

Maybe I got lucky. Mine deals specifically with addiction and has a lot of experience dealing with sex addiction, including time working at in-patient facilities that offered 2/4/8 week programs. She's also a former alcoholic who understands the process having gone through it herself.

 

Think in terms of energy, if you want. It is the energy that makes you look taller to others (I stopped masturbating and I heard from other people that I look taller, and I got many surprised looks about my height). What could be another cause of this? I would say I am open to "out of this world things", and that is a factor in all of it. It is the energy that other people feel. It does change you, but only if you are open to other dimensions of life. If not, then you would definitely feel as you described you feel. Science can't touch it because the instruments of science aren't capable of measuring such things at this stage of its evolution.

Note: I am not saying I don't see science for what it has provided. I am not ignorant of that.

 

One anecdote I will share from my wife's search for research on P addiction, is that whenever a couple of scientists tried publishing a paper on "pornography addiction", using the word "pornography" in the title, it was denied publication. But, whenever that same paper was submitted using an "alias" to "pornography" it was accepted. So, there is a factor of personal interest whenever it comes to articles, and there is also a factor of funding.