What is more important: quitting porn or masterbation?

I agree, and that's why I already mentioned that in case 2 below.

True, but if you believe certain actions are morally neutral, then you can do those actions without any disconnect required. And this leaves you with one less reason to quit PMO, so you better have some other good reasons to quit. Without reasons there is no motivation to change.

The overall message I wanted to convey was that, because I see a lot of people here asking for reasons to quit PMO, I want to make sure that they have very solid reasons. If you are strongly impacted by the moral consequences of PMO, then lucky you. Quitting PMO should be obvious at that point. But short of that, we ought to focus on the most harmful ways that PMO affects our lives. For a lot of people, the psychological, physiological, social, and emotional consequences of compulsive porn/masturbation are so great that the moral question becomes trivial.

 

I think this is a really great point. I honestly used to be able to go on long "white-knuckled" streaks due to moral beliefs. Now those moral beliefs are less strong and it has become harder to quit because I don't always feel like I have strong reasons to quit. And usually there don't seem to be significant life impacts, like I look at porn instead of watching netflix. Netflix isn't necessarily a good use of my time. I guess I'm more likely to engage with others about the show I watched so there is that I guess; I'm not going to start talking to friends about what porn I watched the night before lol

 

Yeah, I've had a similar experience, and I'm sure a lot of others have as well. When I learned to stop feeling ashamed and guilty for engaging in PMO, I was able to handle relapses a lot better and my mood and self-esteem improved. But I had to find better reasons to continue with NoFap than avoiding shame and guilt, since I no longer had these feelings. This ultimately led me to the conclusion that I should quit PMO in order to take care of my physical and mental health. Now my biggest struggle is learning to care about myself, which is probably even harder than NoFap. Once I learn to love myself (I'm working with a therapist to accomplish this) Nofap should theoretically be much easier.

 

Right on point. I still believe that in order to function as a proper human being able to make accurate moral judgements, it demands functioning well in all these areas that you mention.