I posted this in my success story but it could be important here as well: Porn is neither good or bad. Of course it's causing a lot of pain and all but if you really confront yourself with the object porn it is not good and not bad. You have to look at it from a balanced perspective to find real peace, without relapses and all. Another person is an object at a present moment like porn too. (I know this sentence sounds wrong but it isn't for everyone ^^) But think about it: If you have unaware sex, not in the present moment you're basically creating a lot of attachment to the object person, you'll create the same attachment to the object porn when you have unaware sex (fapping) with it. This has to do with one fact: We love nothing more than ourselves. Look at it precisely: Do you think you love your mom, your wife or girl friend? No you don't, actually the persons are causing a wonderful warm feeling in your chest and you get close to those people to get the feeling, so pure self love, no love to another person The only difference between porn and a person is that you can please (having compassion) the person, but you can't please porn. So at the core level the only "right" way to have sex would be to do it only for pleasing the other person without having any benefit from it. I know this is very hard, maybe even impossible to do for almost every being on this planet ^^ So don't condemn porn because other people say so, just leave it as is, an object without judging it. Don't be sad for any relapse, just feel the sensations on your body without judging it, don't get a nice feeling after consuming porn but just feel the sensation on your body without judging it. Just be aware in the present moment, totally balanced and the problem porn, relapse and cravings will evaporate because they simply have no space to exist To describe it further: Even when you see yourself fapping/relapsing it's not a bad thing. Don't stop immediately and create aversion (sadness) towards it and don't punish yourself. The right way to stop fapping would be with awareness and if you can't stop tell yourself. Ok, I'm addicted which is totally fine, I'm a human being, I can allow myself to be addicted. And then just observe the sensations in the body during fapping (works best with closed eyes). Is your head warm, yes? Ok go on (without judging - it is not positive or negative, it's just there as it is), How about chest, penis, legs etc and so on. With every millisecond with which you remain totally balanced towards the sensation of the body you're making progress with your addiction and you're bound to come out of it This is basically the art of meditation during real life. I know this sounds awful and is hard to understand. But I already tried it, I watched and fapped in the present moment. And the things I wrote work for me, I don't have cravings for fapping or watching further and I don't even consider this as a relapse since I did it on purpose and with awareness, exactly knowing what happened with my body sensations. I don't feel that I'm addicted anymore. At some point, I rather feel like milking a cow without getting any milk and don't see any sense in doing that. I could even fap regularly now without getting addicted but I feel MYSELF that it cost's a lot of energy and drains me a bit so that I MYSELF decide to not do it at all. Nobody needs to tell me that, it comes from myself now. But most important: Don't belief or do anything because I say so. Do it/ Don't do it just because you really feel (having sensations) like doing it/not doing something YOURSELF and not because of any other reason. Everyone has to find his own solution to the problem. Else it'll never work. Hope I can help with my texts
I like your ideas. Body already has a solution for this. I remember myself being a wreck.. and my body knew it is a bad habit a pushed me into doing some research why am i feeling like this and like that... Whether I understand it right, you say that we all have our own way to overcome this and the answer is already within . Cool ideas, i like it! Good work.
I have to add that I've no idea if my tips are working for you guys. After my intense meditation course such things start to pop out of me ^^ So if it doesn't work you might try such a pure meditation course without any objects, without dogma and without any religion and see if it works for you.
Porn is bad. It ruins lives, it exploits women (and men) into displaying a very private part of their lives for cheap thrills. It wrecks your brain chemistry and warps your outlook on the world and other people. Yes, love can be felt as a warm feeling in your chest, but that's really just affection. Affection is closely associated with love, that doesn't mean it is love. Love is the desire for another person's happiness, whether you benefit from it or not. If I had to die a terrible slow death to save my loved ones, I believe I would. It wouldn't matter if I was left with nothing but an empty lonely feeling in my chest. I love them, and I wouldn't let my own self interest get in the way of protecting them and helping them to be happy. Porn is not an object, it's a product. The product of people's suffering, shame, exploitation, and greed. It is also the manufacturer of all those things.
Of course porn produces a lot of suffering. And please tell me, how do you want to fight a problem which obviously exists with saying that it shouldn't exist? If you're angry about porn it keeps on existing in YOUR very head my friend. The only way to make it not exist is to fully accept that it's there (you can never change that, it'll always be there in the world) That's why it's the only way to wipe out porn when you're fully aware of yourself without judging porn. If you don't see that, you don't get my point. Anger and aversion keeps porn existing in the heads of all people.
I have to say that I'm with Krishna on this, as the american prohibition showed that banning Alcohol didn't make it dissapear. It just criminalized it, as there was still consumers going above and beyond to access it. Alcoholics that are sober don't burn liquor stores to the ground. Junkies that are now sober don't beat up dealers or study to become policemen to eradicate all drug selling activity. Once you realized you are the problem and know what's bad for you, you know the steps you should avoid to at least not walk right into it... Porn is bad, just like alcohol & tobacco and painkillers are FOR THE ADDICTED. We are the portion of the people that might me prone to addictive behaviors. I agree that P leads to dark virtual alleys, exploits actors, caused suffering in my relationship, etc. But Porn, alcohol and tobacco don't jump at us. We jump on it, more that others. Can I safely view P a few times a year? NOT, I know that I might binge watch/PMO. Can my missus starts smoking a few cigarettes again (she quit 7 years ago)? Not, she would relapse. Can I go to the liquor store and buy only a "sample" sized bottle of liquor? NOT, I would buy a bigger bottle and some beer to wash it off.... P is like a bag of chips. When you buy a bag of chips, you know you are not buying health fruits and veggies. CHIPS! Also, once you start eating chips, many will eat way more than just a handful. When you "supersize" a combo at MickeyD, you know consciously that this is not healthy. The addicted have a little bit of a destructive reflex to do it even knowing that its bad and will get you stuck even deeper. You even create excuses for it... We have to love ourselves enough to make the right decision not to consume the "bad for you" stuff. SUPERKRISHNA, you seem to be talking about meditation, but you nickname sounds like you are wondering into the a branch of hinduism? I don't want to start a religion discussion, trust me. Some branches of hinduism and buddhism seem to focus on the abandon of self and the research of purity. Seems like good principles when peace of mind and refocusing the thoughts are covered.
I see it differently: The feeling of craving for watching porn and fapping are created within ourselves, nowhere else. If everyone wouldn't create that feeling, there would be no porn industry. There is no point of being angry that the bad porn producers make porn. They will keep on doing that. The only thing we can change is ourselves with fully accepting the porn and be fully aware of it, not consuming it and not fall into the trap of aversion and craving for it. Then porn doesn't exist anymore and the industry would make no money out of it.
You're right. It's very important to spread the word about what porn can do with us. That's good prevention. NoFap is awesome for that. Especially for kids it's important to know what porn does with them. But when it came to the point that you became addicted then there is no other way then to accept that porn is there and be fully aware of it. There is really no point of hating it to get out of your addiction. ITS MORE ABOUT THE FEELING, not about the fact that porn is bad - thats very clear actually. Maybe my title of the thread is not that optimal, I'm sorry for that.
I understand where you are coming from. I dated a girl back in the day that became a lap dance when she was with me for over 2 years. She wanted the money bad. Working 40 hours at the corner store was not enough for her, so she quit. Studying to get an education was too slow a process and unappealing to her. Make fast cash and living the big life was all she wanted. It made me real sad. I tried everything to make her stop. She first started to rationalize stuff, almost thinking she was a social worker or some sort of psychologist for the "customers"!!! Thinking that she was doing the society a favor. Some of these lap dancers feel guilt, feel the lust in the customer's eyes and end up in the end consuming alcohol or drugs or both (not everyone, but a fair share). She made good money in the first few months but she started making less and less money. I convinced her to quit. Lucky me, she stopped for a year. When she started going back at it, we broke up. These girls love to feel that they arouse people, are desirable and they seek that feeling like a drug or a way to cope with low-self esteem. If they don't please much, or younger dancers are stealing the show, they get deeper into the abyss of feeling bad and substance abuse creeps. At least it's what I think. Oh, before anyone say it, I realize at strippers do it only to pay for their university tuition and are clean of drugs lol sarcasm. Some of them are suffering, I know that.
I'm not religious at all, I created this account while being in India, that's why I gave the account that name long ago. Read my success thread, I write there that it's important to do a pure meditation technique which is free of dogma, religion or any other object relation apart from your body and breath during meditation practice. The other meditation practices are not bad and have it's place but they might be not as effective as the pure technique, at least they weren't for me.
I'm willing to get into meditation, that's for sure. The Chakra stuff interests me. I'll invest some time into it! I very well might PM you for tips & tricks!
After reading a little bit more, I think we may agree on more than I thought at first. I agree that anger is not the best way to go about solving a problem, that cravings do come from within us, and self control is the first step to making a change, but I disagree on a few other points. I don't see how tolerating porn in our culture can make it go away. Either it's good, neutral, or bad. I think that we agree porn is generated in a bad way and does bad things to people, and that if any good is ever accomplished from it, that good is so small that it's inconsequential, so that means that porn is bad. If something is bad, we should try to remove it from our lives and our culture. I also disagree with what you said about how we can only change ourselves. There is evidence all around us that shows people have influence over the world around them. The things you or I say influence how other people will act. The change starts with you, and extends to everyone who will let it.
Porn is bad. Yes. Sex ED classes should cover this topic with an up-to-date view on it. I remember the school nurse telling us to be careful with the perception of sexual performance shown in movies to be almost Sci-fi and to warn us to understand it. That was 25 years ago. Not all schools cover that topic. I also remember a briefing on "addiction awareness" at work, quickly touching the topic of some people being addicted to the internet, without being specific about what content was causing the addiction. It think that at the beginning of the internet age, peeps were simply addicted because of the curiosity of it all. Internet P is a low-risk, easy accessible way to get a P fix. Back in the day, people had to actually meet a "oldest-trade-on-earth" practitioner, or calling a hot-line and pay for the service. Now, Internet P is free and anonymous. I think people can be warned of the dangers of Internet P, but it won't be eradicated.
The problem is that you can't remove it from our lives and our culture, not even by law, since people always find ways around laws ... Take the extreme example: death penalty on porn production and consumption. You'll still find people who do it, even when they risk their lifes. Just make yourself clear, that there will always be women with low self esteem who like to be porn actresses and there will always be greedy business men who make the production of porn movies to make money. You can't change that. They can only make the change in themselves to not produce porn, it's simple as that. The last thing is true, you're right: aware people help to make other people aware. But there it's the same: Ultimately the people who are more aware just help so that other people become more aware too. But the aware people just help in a way so that an unaware person changes itself. An aware person can't force an unaware person to become aware, the unaware still has to change on it's own. You can't tell an unaware person: don't watch porn, don't be a porn actress, don't make money with porn when they're already doing it. They will be offended because it's part of their existence. Just think about it thoroughly. The aware can only help on a very subtle level, not solve or force anything.
Most people agree that it should be illegal to steal things, so laws have been made that punish people for stealing. It doesn't mean that nobody steals things, but it does limit how many people steal, how much they steal, and as a result, how many lives are damaged by theft. I think that the same would be true for porn if it were illegal, but ultimately, like you said, the choice to remove porn from our culture must happen at an individual level
At the core you're right but the problem is that more people will watch and produce porn illegally. You can't steal in a dark room with nobody in it except you and your computer
