This goes out to all the guys out there. I'm 22 and I've been watching video porn since I was about 13, consistently. Throughout middle school, high school, and college. Ever since I've been thinking of personal development and reading in the forum that taking action in the PMR is where you learn the most, I happened to fall upon yourbrainonporn.com. It's nothing wildly revolutionary in terms of scientific explanation... as a matter of fact, it's very obvious... but it made me realize that perhaps I am addicted to porn. Not in the sense that I shut myself from the world to watch porn but addicted in the sense that I'll turn to it when I need relief, when I'm stressed, when I'm lonely, when I feel irritated, etc. One thing I learned from the website was that it becomes a synthetic relationship to your brain... which causes you to be isolated from the world ever so slowly. Considering that I've watched porn for 11 years, that's a lot of dependency and patterns ingrained into my brain. So I decided that I will stop porn forever. It haunts me to say the word forever... seems awfully long... but I realized how f**** up it is in society that men have become complacent zombies through over-consumption of wrong food, hyperstimulating images, etc. I am a very ideal candidate of that culture.

It's been about a week and I feel very IRRITABLE right now. I feel a little depressed because every time I get bored I just watch porn and masturbate. But now, when I feel bored and I realize that I am not watching porn, I have to find something else to do... and I think of how many hours of my life has gone to porn, how I self-medicate with porn in many situations. When I think of being sick or my body being ill, I go straight to porn. When I feel like 'f***ing a b****', I go to porn. I say that term because that's what porn does... it makes sex a violent act of fantasy. honesty. When I feel like crap for not having a girlfriend, porn. Sometimes, when anything, porn. You get the gist.

This is an aspect that I think people don't even address in real life because it's a private activity and no one can find out if you are watching porn. You're safe with your own little fantasy in the comfort of your own home when in fact it's estimated that 90% of men in America watch porn. Why don't self-help industry just start with rule #1 for men: Don't Watch Porn! I think a little maturity caused to me even consider porn as a problem for me. I think of how my life will be like with porn when I'm 30 or 40.... considering how it's like now when I'm 22... and it's sad. That thought alone triggered me to consider stopping for good.

As a side note, I know there's a lot of literature out there but I haven't read... I have an inclination that sex and spirituality is very close... it's a little intuit within me. So this seemingly harmless act really messes with everythingggg.

I gotta quit this for reals. It's another aspect of my self development and reworking my brain to work naturally. I voiced this to all my roommates in the house just to share my belief about the situation... and they don't seem to care much. Except one or two.

Guys out there, what is your experience with porn? I would like to hear. Thanks.


dhan

More power to you man, treat it like a sugar addiction. Once you've stopped for long enough it will be easier and easier not to "relapse". It is definitely a wise and mature choice.

I'm just saying.

Good post dhan. I was exposed to porn at a young age (8 or 9) through my step brothers and then later with my dad's substantial porn stash. It all played a large role in how I viewed sex as a teenager and a young man. During my time in the navy and then later in a house full of guys in college, porn was of course easily accessible. When the internet became popular, it was just a click away. So, I can at least somewhat relate to your experiences. Through most of it, I always had that gut feeling that porn was "bad". I could never really pin point exactly why though. At some point, I stumbled onto a documentary about Jenna Jameson that provided some insight. The documentary, in short, presented how her childhood experiences led to her career in porn. If I remember correctly, she was raped.

Seeing the documentary shifted my perspective, but did not keep me away from porn completely. Eventually though, I just felt too guilty when I considered the potential backgrounds of the girls (and guys) making the porn. I do not think that guilt is necessarily a healthy thing to have, but at the time, that was my experience and is what instigated a change. I felt very selfish for putting myself before these other people.

Now a little bit older and a tiny bit wiser (in theory anyway), I look back at it all and see it from a little better perspective. Everybody is doing their best at evolving from their current level. That's just how it works. As our awareness and decision space increase, we have a greater responsibility toward others. Something that we got away with 20 years or 200 lifetimes ago might not be "okay" now if our experiences are such that we should now know better. Do you see what I mean?

Sexual drive is part of our PMR experience. IMO sex is not a spiritual act or even a profound way to express love. Selflessness is a spiritual act and a true expression of love. This should not be confused with "making love" or having sex. Sex is relative to PMR. Love (big L love) is universal.

In considering porn, we have to consider "other". By viewing porn we are essentially saying that we approve of its existence and all that its existence entails. Through easy access to porn via the internet, it is now a part of most every young boy's (and girls) experience. Oral sex in middle school and in some cases elementary school is no longer all that rare. There are many factors to consider, but clearly some of this stems from early exposure and easy access to porn. There are several cases of teenage girls being abducted, held captive, and then filmed and photographed for internet porn. To consider everything that is involved and that is in some way connected to porn (directly or indirectly) is pretty mind boggling. One could argue that things such as rape and child trafficking might exist even without porn. However, we must consider that there is a large potential that porn is related (in some way) and that it supports suffering and the devolution of others (ie: the child traffickers, rapists, and molesters).

Long story short, I made the choice to stop viewing porn out of guilt many years ago. Now with a little bit better understanding, the choice is very easy and not so much about guilt. Viewing porn supports porn and all that it involves, might involve, lead to, or stem from. To view porn is to put self before other in my opinion. This of course is based on my own experiences. I am in no way judging. This is just my honest perspective on the matter.

One thing I can say is that making any substantial change requires a great deal of effort and hard work, but the chances are very good that such experiences and changes are the very reasons that we are currently in this experience packet. It is all about making our way through the trenches of PMR and pulling ourselves up by the bootstraps.

In my experiences, honesty (toward self and other) is the key to understanding and forward progress. When we make a choice (whatever that choice may be) after looking at something and our own motivation with a great deal of honesty, then we can say that we have made a "good" choice relative to our current level of being. The effort to make these "good" choices is what it is all about.

Anyway, enough of my rambling. I hope that was in some way useful. Keep on keeping on my friend.

_________________
-"You can't always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, you might find... you get what you need"

My dad, and brothers I suppose kept Playboy magazines in the family bathroom. I used to read the heck out of them, and I'm sure that had something to do with how I am/was. :)
Love
Bette

_________________
All That Is
what is?
Consciousness.

What Justin said makes a lot of sense to me.
I had started viewing it as unproductive time spent.
Also creates expectations and frustration because it potrays that it is usual and typical behavior.
Also i find it puts to much value on sex appeal. cuse then when you at a spot and theres shorties with lots off it, it will increase the 'o gee wat does my hair look like.. o boy this shirt doesn't match my shoes.. type stuff

I think as a dude trying to be dude lyy its important to devalue sex appeal.
as a kid i never understood beauty is whats under the skin thing.
till my older brother started talking about (jokingly) haven sex with a dodge something truck
it made me imagine" like me rubbing up on a corvette then i thought that's weird shit then i made the analogy toward women and thought that's weird shit too.

When a d-bag pulls up next to you at a traffic light in a porsh don't give him any extra credit
Same goes for if a women pulls up to you at a bar with titties out with shinny shit all over her don't give her any extra credit.

Not giving a shit about the latest addition of auto trader or porn mag helps for the above scenarios.


But i am also thinking a certain amount of masturbation might be healthy. may be not not sure on this one. I feel like when my mind is wondering to much stemming from seeing tits out or something then doing so helps put it out of my awareness and ends possibly a days worth of judging the value of my life in contrast to sex steeming from seeing tits.

I kinda started viewing it like showering. eventually you get dirty and its profitable to take a shower. but its not so profitable to take showers all day and skip class. or go through day scorning your self till you can finally take a shower?? lol

/im stating al this in the pretense of me on same level of me starting to pondering these issues not above them/

_________________
All Praise to Dez Bryant "Feed tha Beast"

Hi Dhan,

The first thing to be said is that this topic is well off the main topic of MBT. However MBT claims to be a model that subsumes all other models ( it is a theory of everything ), and so if neither Tom nor Ted object, a good TOE should take on all comers.

The second preliminary thing to be said is that this thread should almost be a sub-thread of the "differences between the sexes" thread. Men consume the vast majority of porn, many gravitate to it like moths to flame; but women seldom are consumers of the stuff, and when they are, it is generally because a male companion wants them too.

So Okay, Porn.

There are several dynamics involved here.

From an MBT perspective, all structures can be modeled in terms of software. .... just like everything that happens on your computer reduces ultimately to ones and zeros. It has been found that it is easier to design software as a series of 'objects' that then get 'processed'. For instance, the letter "A" is a very simple object.. it has a specific code of ones and zeros that, when called upon, delivers the set of pixels that look to us like the letter "A". It's much easier to have these objects than to re-write all the stuff that it takes to make a letter "A" every time we need one.

Similarly, our individual bodies are complex constructions of individual objects: Eyes, livers, individual cells, etc, and each has their own level of operating consciousness and agenda... including the testicles, so to speak.

If you look at the back of a dollar bill, one of the symbols to be found there is a pyramid built of blocks, only the top one of which has an eye in it. One of the meanings of this symbol is that "only the top block sees clearly and should be the decision-maker". It is the same with software... there is a chunk of it that does the administrating and only that piece of software should be doing the directing; You wouldn't want your "letter 'A'" function to be running things on your computer because then all you would get is letter "A" all the time. Similarly, we humans are complex organizations made of sub-organizations each with their own operating systems and agenda... and when we allow those sub-processes to override the administrator at the top, we tend to run into trouble. The belly wants to eat, the drive to socialize gets channeled into TV watching, and testicles want to drill. If we let the sex function over ride the top administrator in our being, it is the same sort of process error that would occur if your computer kept spitting out "A".

One stage of evolution is learning to identify, then understand, then manage one's subsystems. So this is a great opportunity for you to do that.

Dynamic 2: Some guy somewhere, knows that there are lots of sex-drives out there that can get co-opted to his profit.... so he produces porn to do that... to co-opt your operating system to his benefit and your detriment. This is sort of like the British cultivating opium and delivering it to some third world country for big profits and draining that country of its resources and well being: Starkly predatory.

Dynamic 3: Due to technology, we have all these wonderful representational systems (spoken language, written language, pictures, audio-visual representations, TV, the internet) that, because primarily of their craftily contrived shiny features, seem "more real" than direct experience. Mostly unconsciously, we assign to them a reality more vigorous than the one we experience directly: "My spouse is not as fetching as the model on the screen". To learn more about this whole dynamic, search this site for a link to the book "Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television" by Jerry Mander.

Dynamic 4: We see the shiny pictures, but what the pictures don't convey is what happens off-camera. If you study up on how the porn industry operates, and how it profoundly degrades everyone involved with its production, you will never again be able to view those writhing bodies in any sort of desirable light. The New Yorker magazine seems, about once a year to do a devastating expose on this field... if you can find some of their articles (most good libraries have them a few years going back), that will help develop your awareness about this. The facts are ugly as ugly gets.

Dynamic 5: The sex drive is much like a horse: Lots of big energy that has to be properly trained. A badly trained horse is a wreck (and every interaction that a human has with a horse is an act of 'training'). The method for dealing with badly trained horses is to not try to crush out the old training (you can't) but to train them afresh with processes that are shinier, more rewarding, than the ones that they are already familiar with. Then the old undesirable patterns become inactive due to lack of interest. Here, for you, that may well mean something like daily masturbation while thinking of something along the lines of being the best man that you can be, or, if you are up to it, in service to 'God', or the highest principle you can imagine (Truth, Justice, etc.). I know that that sounds a bit weird, but being human at all is weird in the extreme.

There are probably additional dynamics that I am not presently picking up on.

You sound like someone who is ready to deal with things and take on whatever fights you need to; I am confident that once you understand the full reality behind Porn, you'll drop it as easily as you would spoiled food you come across at the back of the fridge.

-Montana

in my view this sort of thing principly follows the dynamic of smoking, over eating, over drinking, non recreational gambling (if you lose money), flirting (if you are paired) or over indulging in anything, where your primal impulse is not under the control of your rational left hemisphere, and you have made the internal self assessment that it is unprofitable.

my problem is over consumption of television at this particular stage. All of these things are principly part of your internal profit maximization loop, and are not directly linked to the intent->decision->action quality-of-consciousness loop, and therefore should not be taken overly seriously - this is just part of the temporal selfish (PMR-wise) algorithm. Worth doing, but not fundamental.

for example, having an uncontrollable impulse to cheat on a girlfriend or worse social (interactive) violations of physical or psychological coercion or deception or exploiting inexperienced female naivite, are an infinitely bigger deal, as these externally oriented actions feed into your consciousness loop.

Take my word for it, any violations in this regard stay with you till your death, and rather than fade over time, grow in significance as your personal conciousness self-referential microscope strengthens. Be mindful of the Jewish Talmud saying "Men should be careful lest they cause women to weep, for God counts their tears." But I digress.

back to the much lighter topic of porn....regarding overcoming vice (victimless inefficiencies) in all its forms, I draw on Antony Robbins for this, and his research indicates that vice primarily is an indicator of a void, and that it is more effective to fill the void with something with profitable intent, rather than directly suppressing the vice.

I would rather you focus your PMR energy on positive things like your education or career or money making at this point in order to expand your decision space in order to position yourself for the great mission of attracting a partner, and only seriously concern yourself with porn addiction if it seems to be a problem when you are in a relationship.

You may also wish to consider moving away from porn that has any element of behavior that disrespectful or violent to women (which may harm your mind) and try rather softer lesbian-oriented porn that does not have this potentially damaging element.

The other broader issue is my thought that life is greatly dependent on what you turn to when your emotional stress level crosses the tipping point, and precisely what you turn to. You have trained yourself to turn to this when you cross the tipping point, others have acquired to the habit of turning to much more damaging things.

For myself, partly, I acquired the idea of using stressfull periods to accomplish goals and work through "should lists", so that stress was converted to wind in my sails - never permitting depression or stress to cause stasis, which would feed the downward loop.

I also think youth is impossible without the opportunity to turn to a musical instrument. It takes very little effort to learn to strum a couple of tunes on a guitar, big payoff.

my other hint is "hunt where the prey feeds" - If I was half my age and single, I would become a yoga dude...seems to be what the higher consciousness/quality gals are into now. Focus on activities with favorable odds.

PS: there is a notorious surplus of females in the Spiritualism movement - this is important if you are seeking a female partner who will be open to NPMR activities.

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Does this PMR make my butt look big?

I'm 21 and also have been watching porn since about 13. I too have understood for a while that I should not be watching it, but then It's 1am and I'm kicking it alone at my house and what else is there to do right? I feel this also made me overly sex obsessed, I HAD to have it, If my ex girlfriend and I did not have sex during a week I'd be all fussy. Could it just be my testosterone right now?



hahaha Montana now that IS weird hahaha.

Now that I am recently single (about 4 days) I realize I can not keep turning to porn when I am bored or have that fire in the gut. More than anything now I would like to find a woman to grow with, and someone who doesn't smoke, drink, and watch a ton of tele, because I have grown past those things and my last partner was stuck, trying to appease her friends with bad habits. But also I realize i need to grow out of my own bad habit of being overly concerned with sex, and the feeling that i MUST have it or I am less of a man. Yoga classes seem like a nice place. But I find my mind wandering when we are in all these suggestive positions. it's hard to separate "she is a beautiful girl, I wonder if I can help her grow or have anything to share with her," from "Wow, look at how flexible SHE is!"

So Dhan, I am your age too buddy and struggling with the same things, also it's tough because everyone my age is so concerned with drinking and partying... and I'd be happy enough to never go to a bar again, unless it was for me to play the piano at it =)

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Are you sure it was Ahash31 really typing this? If it helps you out, does that even matter?

hashjazz.com

Lol @ this thread. There is alot of beliefs in this topic. :D

_________________
I eat ego's for breakfast!
Sincerely, Ego.

when your inner self starts to outgrow and get bored with childish things (excessive drinking, partying as you say), you need to find a new crowd.

here is a list of higher consciousness activities to think about

- Spiritualism, yoga, as discussed
- music learning, playing, composition, performing
- Buddhism
- politics
- Amnesty International
- Vegetarian cooking lessons and clubs
- Canoeing and hiking clubs
- Entrepreneurialism

_________________
Does this PMR make my butt look big?

You might want to take politics off that list lol :D

_________________
I eat ego's for breakfast!
Sincerely, Ego.

I'm quite interested in politics since it is one current model of doing things that needs change, and change is constant so it might as well be in a direction that will be most Loving. I don't think this interest has anything to do with QoC in any measure.
Love
Bette

_________________
All That Is
what is?
Consciousness.

as far as politics, you can interact with some very high quality FWAUs in that arena, especially as a lower level youth volunteer.

if you have ever tried to run anything or been close enough to watch someone else try, a school club, a student council, a neighbourhood organization, a small business, you develop more sympathy to those trying to get stuff done

"when the wise shirk from leadership, they are destined to be ruled by fools" - unknown

_________________
Does this PMR make my butt look big?

I ran for, and won the President of the Special Services students club position at my local college during my A.S. degree. I was known as the "delegating President." :) My campaign buttons said, "Knowledge is Power."
Love
Bette

_________________
All That Is
what is?
Consciousness.