How can I break completely free of this porn habit? ZV's story

Submitted by a reader on Tue, 06/07/2010 - 22:57

a reader's picture

I am also hooked on this thing for a long time. My first sexual encounter as a child was unfortunately a pornographic calendar when I was 13. I was fascinated by it but didn't understand why. Then I discovered masturbation accidentally but was too ashamed to tell anyone about it. Slowly it got worse. My parents seemed to know about my habit but couldn't figure out how to intervene. So my habits of porn+masturbation deepened with time. I am now 28 and still not able to be free from it. Porn is definitely affecting my relationship because it gets me ejaculate prematurely and confuses me so that I have difficulty differentiating fantasy from reality.

I am now in a happy relationship with a woman whom I really love, which reduces my porn habit greatly, which also made me decide to quit it altogether. We are getting stable and planning our future together. The only problem is that she is at the moment living far away, so I have lots of time on my own. And yeah, all this time gives porn ample "entry points". I find the free time the most dangerous, because the temptation is irresistible when boredom sets in.

A few years ago I discovered buddhist meditation, which is helpful to get things under control. But it seems that I am now in a plateau. I don't do it that often: used to be everyday, now once a week on average, and i try to avoid hardcore stuff. but still this habit is still so damned sticky! How to be completely free?

Thank you in advance!

ZV

P.S. I have a PhD in science and am an amateur artist. But all these activities do not seem to be able to replace porn. Why?

Thank you ZV for sharing your experiences here.

Ah yes. That classic combination of being alone, having time on our hands and struggling to fend off boredom. The temptation to numb ourselves with porn beckons like a trusty old friend. It feels as if only pleasure and satisfaction are on the menu, and we don't pay much attention to the frustration and wasted time served up on the next page.

So when you feel as if you are entering that familiar funnel, what can you do to change the outcome? I often mention a technique called urge surfing - fully noticing the old urge and allowing it to float by, acknowledging that you don't need to act on it in order for it to go away. This can be accompanied by other mind tricks, such as counting to three and turning your attention to your environment, reconnecting with the here and now. As you say, meditation can definitely help us improve awareness and self control too.

Here's another suggestion that I sometimes throw in for guys who have had success in tapering off, and struggle with much more occasional slips. Over the years, your reward systems have become conditioned to make a strong connection between the visual stimulation of porn, masturbation and orgasm. When anticipation is triggered, the whole path lights up in the brain, and acting out feels inevitable. Now breaking unwanted habits means breaking up old, fixed associations, so masturbating and enjoying your body without any stimulus from porn can be a good way to go. It brings relief and pleasure without the follow-up guilt or shame. And if you relish the opportunity to relax, take your time and focus on your sensations, it can help with premature ejaculation issues too.

The old porn reward system also helps explain why other interests just don't seem as attractive as porn. Orgasm is, after all, the most pleasureable physical sensation. Add to that the fleeting sensations of transcending anxiety or worry, and you can see why the convenience of porn is such an enticing option. The more it is reenforced, the more that reward paths of hobbies and interests are neglected. But by deliberately breaking down the porn reflex and exploring new life options, our equilibrium really can be restored.

I hope this is helpful, and wish you every success. Please feel very welcome to stop by and let us know how things are going!

OK! to start with many many people discover & start using (get exposed to) porn around the start of puberty i.e. 12, 13 or 14 years old this is very common. Its also not surprising given that at the start of puberty our interest in sexual matters is ignited like never before, interested in our own body & especially curious about the female body,etc.

**There is a really important distinction that needs to be made between the need for sexual education i.e. facts about sexual matters & sexuality and the kinds of highly confusing messages that the porn industry gives out in porn films about how men & women should behave sexually. Many many of the messages from porn are just plain wrong or awful or distorted i.e. for example that ALL women love & want anal sex as much as possible. I think you'll find reality is rather different though.

**YES! Boredom, or loneliness, or difficult emotions are often the high risk factors for turning to the use of porn.

**Using porn is also a symptom that we DON'T love ourselves enough!! by contrast happy people in good loving intimate relationships rarely need to use porn.

**If you have done mindfulness concentration Buddhist mediation then you should also know that "ALL THINGS ARE IMPERMANENT" and all things pass if you sit with the experience. OK! for you I would say use your mediation-al experience & try to sit with the lust, the desire or the sexual arousal and just see if you can let it pass, let it go. That's the challenge I would give you, its a process of letting go internally. Just see if you can apply your mediation to these feelings they to will pass. These feelings are also empty & impermanent too.

NOTE: however, its vitally important to distinguish between the letting go internally to such feelings & the denial or pushing down these feelings. One is very free-ing & the other is down right bad for us.

Conclusion:- There is no such thing as GETTING 100% COMPLETELY FREE from porn. This is a very unhelpful way to think of this problem. You cannot BEAT!! porn either. The way I like to think of this problem with porn is that it is entirely possible to undo the pattern/s of behavior we have developed. Its possible to make different positive choices, choices NOT TO use porn, its possible to put boundaries around online porn via FREE content filtering as this helps remove further temptations.

SEE: OpenDNS for example.
Porn is also about attachment in the Buddhist sense, it is attachment that is part of why we end up suffering but we ourselves bring this suffering down upon ourselves. This NOT using porn is a process of becoming more detached or as I like to call it "dispassionate compassion" it means the porn doesn't hook you any more, you see through it for what it really is i.e. just pictures of naked bodies, & fake pictures often too.

**Deal with your own deeper root cause issues and the need for porn will just fall away by itself like an old snake skin that sluffs off in the end. But the release is a) through the letting go process and b) the letting go means allowing the feelings, liberation is through your own internal processes. letting go attachments,etc.

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Hello again,

QUOTE: I am now in a happy relationship with a woman whom I really love, which reduces my porn habit greatly, which also made me decide to quit it altogether. We are getting stable and planning our future together

ANS: This proves my point, when you feel LOVED & wanted by your girlfriend or wife (partner), and when you Love yourself enough. Porn is NOT required, in other words LOVE overcomes any need for reliance on porn full stop.

**Therefore I say happy contented people don't have any recourse to porn. Happy people have their deepest emotional needs met by their relationship. However, unhappy people with unmet or frustrated emotional needs often do turn to porn, and the problem then becomes a dependency on porn. Sadly this is definitely NOT the answer or a solution to fix the original problem/s.

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Sometimes people "do get quite attached" to their own suffering, this is very counter-intuitive & highly paradoxical. Why is this? a) because we get stuck in our own masochism b) if we truly allowed ourselves to feel difficult emotions & we didn't deny (repress) them we could be far more powerful, empowered, less dependent & so forth. c) Its also partly too do with how we see or respect others empowerment in our culture. We seem to have a very narrow acceptable notion of what empowerment or personal power means.

**Using porn is a VERY STRONG means to utterly dis-empower ourselves I would suggest!!?. We do this too ourselves by turning our emotions against ourselves, rather than turning such feelings outwards into the wider world in a healthy spontaneous way. Freely or cleanly expressing our emotions is a route to a balanced empowerment.

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To reduce it down to its simplest level, if you want to feel happy & good about yourself as a person then DON'T DO PORN!!.. AVOID PORN AS MUCH AS YOU CAN!!...

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Also, DON'T confuse the Erotic with the Pornographic these are NOT the same thing at all.

**The erotic is inclusive & encompasses the whole person & is generally not explicit, the purely pornographic is reductive & is object orientated & pertains to sexual objectification.

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Too NOT use or not indulge in porn is to let go one's attachment to your own suffering. To NOT use porn is to substantially let go of one's own masochistic tendencies. To NOT use porn is to fully allow yourself to feel your emotions (the full range of feelings) no matter what those may be!!.

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Porn is the opposite of sex!!

**Real sex is messy, complicated & done with the entire body mind & feelings (one's entire self at its best) however, porn is just sex in the head & it doesn't tend to integrate the rest of the self.

**Actual sex is a journey into the realms of intense pleasure. By contrast porn is journey into guilt, shame & pain.

**When it comes to porn, almost everything that you initially think porn is about. The opposite is true!!? Porn is highly paradoxical & confusing. Porn is mainly just about making money via emotional manipulation & by exploiting our emotional vulnerabilities & sexual vulnerabilities. Its a CON trick if you like!!

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If porn is about making money, what about all the free porn sites out there? What about all the amateur videos or people or couples that post their videos for free, and you can watch them for free???

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I think porn was created because men ( visual creatures) got tired of looking at naked women on magazines, they needed some actions. That's why they came up with porn.
And now even porn is not enough excitement for some people, so they join swinger clubs. I don't know if its a coincidence but I have three different friends ( who don't even know each other) that live a swinger lifestyle.

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Hello F,

I think your missing the essential point here!!, a VAST amount (in fact I'd go so far as to suggest that most free porn apart from the free amateur stuff) of free porn is definitely given away as a method to pull punters in, to hook them into using porn. Its a kind of softening them up process so that later on they will end up buying DVD's, website subscriptions. Believe me most free porn is NOT free in the end, its a sneaky tool of manipulation.

**YES! the free amateur porn is something else.

**Swinging, escort services, sex tourism, and so forth. These things are just an extension of the porn industry as is the porn movie making business, porn studios they all employ a vast number of people & generate vast incomes & taxes. Its a very large scale industry make no mistake about it, The Porn movie business alone IS much much bigger than Hollywood or Bollywood.

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Hello F,

The problem with so called "swinging" or the out dated notion of having so called "free love" is that YES! you can have sex with multiple partners (putting aside the moral arguments here for a moment) but nobody ever talks about how that affects peoples feelings. Actually if you have sex with multiple partners is very hard not to get hurt in the process. How many actual couples stay together long term & are into swinging? I do wonder!!.

**If you have sex with multiple partners you greatly increase your risk of catching some form of STI such as herpes, Aids or thrush,etc.

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Hi F,

The porn industry will try (attempt) almost any trick or game it can in order to create porn dependent internet users. The sole purpose of free porn, & high quality porn at that, is aimed at the creating a dependent paying customer base. People who will come back time & time again and spend their money. Preferably using credit cards over the web so payment is fast & the profits flow. The main x2 obvious products are DVD movies, porn movie downloads, subscription services to porn websites with exclusive content.

**The more you look carefully with a discriminating eye at internet based porn. You will start to see that a large number of quality images are produced bye the same production companies time & time again. Even the same porn models appear, it becomes clear that this is indeed a market and the free stuff is just a draw to pull people in.

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Hi Alex,

Thank you for your advices. Indeed I am still struggling with it. It is the most tenacious habit I have to tackle so far.

It seems that the biggest problem I got is to REALLY decide to quit. I guess that's what Mark Twain meant by "Quiting cigarette is the easiest thing in the wordl, I did it 250 times".

I am now trying to tackle it systematically. Your advices will be taken in and integrated into my daily practice. THANKS!

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