New seeking advice

Hi there, I am not very successful in NoFap, but let me answer your questions according to what I've heard from those successful ones.

It's not too late, but you need to figure out a way to abstain from it and stop fantasizing it, and you need to do it for a long time, so your brain is no longer accustomed to overreacting (feeling super excited) when exposed to porn.

Yes, the best approach is abstaining from everything (PMO), i.e. hard mode. You may try it for 90 days first and see how it feels (but quitting any form of unnatural sex like porn and masturbation should be done forever, due to their highly-addictive natures).

The flatline will subside naturally as you go on with your journey, so don't worry. A good sign of recovery in libido is having "morning woods" (but don't try to test it when this happens, it may lead to a relapse). Another sign is that you feel you are more motivated in your daily activities.

No, the flatline is just temporary. Keep having sex during your reboot will delay your recovery (or no recovery at all).

It is up to you. Some find it useful, while some don't. So you may test it by yourself.


It is important to note that, NoFap is about living a better life, so I strongly suggest focusing on your life instead of sex. Focusing too much on your libido or sex-related stuff will only make you fall into the trap and getting addicted to sex again. On your journey, you may find some new hobbies, cultivating some healthy living habits, and try to show more love and care to people around you. Hope all these helps, and wish you good luck!

 

For most people, if they feel healthy (no bodily symptoms, and not tired) after the 90 days, they may try engaging in natural orgasms with their partners in moderation. As for porn, masturbation and any other unnatural form of stimulations, it is strongly suggested that one should quit forever.

To be honest, I am also gay, and to me, I am aiming at abstinence from any form of sexual activities forever, and I am not planning to get a partner. I know not everyone would agree, but to me, gay sex is also a form of unnatural sex (as it is not for reproduction), it is regarded as "sexual misconduct" in many religions, and I believe there is a good reason for the old sages discouraging people from doing that.

I am only stating my view on this issue, and everyone has the right to make his own decisions. Anyway, it won't hurt going on a 90-day reboot, I guess this is what everyone here agrees with, so you may try it first and see how it goes.

 

Welcome! Congrats on making this step!

Now let me first give you my opinion on a few questions I can answer

If I may add to @desmond318 answer that there is ALWAYS hope and there is NEVER too late to change, for sure it will take time and need effort from your side, but you will grow stronger and more disciplined, honestly all I can think about are benefits! Keep going and learn to believe in yourself again!

Yes, I think so too, I started abstaining just from p the first few days, but after a few days I realized that m also needs discipline, which I don't have so hard mode is the best for me. Regarding sex, I don't know personally but it is also addictive. Also, I believe is wrong to think with constants (1 month, 90 days etc.) I have read before that it is a different period for everyone and I believe you should concentrate more on yourself, use that opportunity to become a BETTER person overall and days will pass by!

Yeah, I also believe that right now you are still recovering and you should leave this for later.

I also believe it is up to you to decide that. In my opinion, an accountability partner is a last option thing and as I said above you should believe more in yourself and learning to take things serious when you need to!

Now I also have a few advices for you. First of all I recommend starting a journal (to do that from forums, find reboot logs, go to ages 30-39 and create a new thread there) because it will make you feel like you are not alone in this journey, making you more accountable of your decisions and you can help/inspire other nofap members too! Now in case you haven't, I also recommend finding out about the benefits of a pmo free life, learn those truths to remember them when you have an urge and to help you quit mentally, which I believe is the most important and difficult step! Also, it helped me understood WHY it was bad and afterwards I felt I had no excuses! Another important advice is to find your triggers and your reasons you started in the first place, so you can prevent it from happening again! Another advice that I can give you is to stay busy doing your everyday tasks as well as things you enjoy both mentally and physically, such as your hobbies (if you don't have any, find at least one that you can stick with), exercise etc. Focus on each day, use that opportunity to become a BETTER person overall and give time to what's going to be WORTH in the LONG RUN! Good luck on your new journey!

 

It sounds like you're really wanting to rid yourself completely of porn in your life forever, which would be a good thing. While you're doing this, it sounds like you do need that 90-day hard reboot (no P or M or O) or sometimes 100 days or more even, when it will not be about any sex with others or self during that entire time - so there's no worrying about flatlines or wood or possible arousal downstairs during this process - be glad if these things don't plague you while you're abstaining. Then, revisit your discernment again at that time.

I've found there eventually comes a lot of power, energy, and revitalization from semen retention, especially at 120 days and beyond. I'm not talking about all the myths about superpowers, which I never bought into, but I amazingly discovered that there was something to it - especially the physiological and psychological transformations that take place within oneself and a reclaimed masculinity, which for me then assists a stronger spiritual dimension and religious path, even if that's not for everyone.

By the way, the way you described your experience intrigued me. I wonder whether you are experiencing same-sex attraction more because your use (and overuse) and exposure to porn since even a young age? Or, would you have been so same-sex attracted had that never occurred? If there's anything that we are learning in this gender fluid world of ours today, is that sexuality and orientations are so fluid. Hence, maybe these labels of gay or straight are very erroneous. You could be just a guy who drifted over to same-sex attraction at a very young age, whether or not that is who you really are. I think a fuller reboot well beyond 90 or 100 days could even help you to explore that question, when a reclaimed masculinity and full freedom of yourself without addiction makes you see your life and soul more clearly. It has been my experience anyway, when it comes to my same-sex attraction. I discovered what I found lacking in me, especially in my own wounded masculinity, drove the need to get this "lack" from other men, almost as if by osmosis (or sex). Like highly evolved imagery when we dream, the "gay oral sex" image for me seems a way to imbibe or feed off another man what I really am needing within myself (a masculine warmth, love, and acceptance), especially as I'm not up to being that man to give this to myself. The "anal sex image," perhaps for some, is a more direct and even forcefully submitted injection of that same wish, almost like a direct inoculation of the medication one needs from another man. It's all symbolic in many ways, bespeaking to our needs, wants, desires, and imagination, but such symbolic activity, even when actualized, doesn't fill the real need. This may also be why your sexual experiences don't arouse you anymore, because you're realizing that what you're really hungering for in other men is not really about the genitals (theirs or yours), nor even the symbolic acts they present in sex activity. Neither fills the wound. So, how can this be arousing still after a while? Like porn, it needs stranger and newer twists on the same self-medicating need (always looking for a newer guy) - we add newer and sicker and darker fetishes to our overall baggage, perhaps now. Ultimately, we can never really discern these things more clearly than when we have removed ourselves from addictions to PMO and all other fetishes for a significant length of time. Maybe orientation can still be discerned then either way, but we will see and know it more clearly then, when we're not looking through the hazy eyeglasses of sex addictions.

Gay is just a label to me now, as I don't need to own all the other political and social baggage that comes with the label, which wasn't about me anyway. If others can be so fluid in their sexual identity nowadays, then likewise I am using that very system to be more liberating within myself - to ultimately embrace the truth of who I am. Not owning any label in particular, as my older generations dictated, but just finding out who I really am apart from any labels.

Of course, I may be projecting from my own personal experience in all of this. This may not be your situation, especially if you're not resonating with any of it. I went from being a straight woman in a man's body (in a decade when the vocabulary wasn't even there to describe this) to being just a gay male, having snapped out of that trans mindedness. And, even though I'm not really trying to go through any conversion as such, I'm discovering a reclaimed aspect of my masculinity that probably had the potential of being opposite-sex attracted at one time but pursued the same-sex attraction that initially beset me at age 4 or 5. Yet, more and more, I don't even claim the politically baggage label of "gay" anymore, but just that I happen to be same-sex attracted at this time still. I might not have ever come to fully discern this had it also not been for the fact that I have discovered many straight men on this site who are suffering from same-sex attractions for the first time in their lives, even though they neither identify being gay nor want to be in a gay relationship. The culprit for them is porn addiction, which has a powerful way of twisting anybody into any orientation or fetish, so long as they keep opening those darker doors of P exploration still.

Best wishes!

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