Questions from Seeker (Moved from Recovery Journals)

[seeker]

FM,

Thank you for sharing your experiences and your innermost feelings on this forum. I am in Day 2 of my journey back towards full control of my emotional and physical powers and definitely feel stronger as a result. What drew me here specifically was a troubling belief that my sexual abilities with flesh and blood creatures were being severely stunted as a result of an online PA. After carefully eliminating any medical/physical reasons why my stamina has fallen off so dramatically I have concluded that psychological and emotional factors are clearly the root cause of my problem. If anything my sex drive has increased with the advent of my PA and it is my marriage itself, something that should have a positive influence on my life, that has driven me away from physical contacts with other women (mostly through prostitution where I feel most in control) and more completely to the online PA.

One thing that I want to point out to you however is that I don't think that P and certainly not MB, is harmful in moderation. Watching a porn film, particularly with a girlfriend or spouse, surfing the net occasionally, clicking on a link to a gross video forwarded by a friend, etc. are innocent and completely harmless activities provided they are done in moderation. Your boarder and your friend are entitled to access P because they don't have a problem with it- you do and I do and we have lost our entitlement to it. Remember that please. It is the absolute equivalent to an alcoholic not being able to drink- give me a drink and I have no urge to abuse alcohol and will consume it in total moderation- alcoholics do not and can destroy their lives through that abuse.

You and I and everyone here are tragically online porn-a-holics. We approach the subject from an entirely different perspective than most. We have lost our privilege to access this medium because we have abused it to our serious detriment.

One last question for you FM and others- do you have sexual relations with your wife? If so how would you describe the experience over time with respect to your PA?

I wish strength and courage to you all my sacred friends!

[Dominus]

Shakespeare wrote "Nothing is either good or bad, thinking just makes it so", We all have our perceptions and beliefs as to what is right or wrong. but I for one, for manifold reasons do not think Porn acceptable in any quantity.

[seeker]

Originally Posted by Dominus

Shakespeare wrote "Nothing is either good or bad, thinking just makes it so", We all have our perceptions and beliefs as to what is right or wrong. but I for one, for manifold reasons do not think Porn acceptable in any quantity.

I respect your opinions immensely and wish to learn more of them. Where do you see harm in mild/moderate amounts of P for a married and faithful adult male? Do you consider all erotic images to be P? SI Swimsuit issue? Glamour magazine? Hollywood Gossip magazines and blogs? Primetime TV programs? PG films?

Where and how do you demarcate the line in the sand?

Personally I will feel fully empowered when I can return my life back to the days before online P essentially robbed me of my natural predilections. Before that I always struggled with temptations while in a committed relationship but I never perceived myself to be so helplessly out of control of my actions and my erotic desires as I have become as a result of the proliferation of limitless video and images available 24/7 through broadband networks. If hypnosis could successfully expunge those memories from my conscious mind I can't fathom what I would pay for such an experience.

[Light]

Ultimately, everyone here will have their own opinions of what is acceptable for their own lives. Similarly, everyone has a uniqe moral code and sense of what is right and wrong. I respect your opionion, and respectfully disagree

Regarding porn, I would use the phrase "Pandora's Box" or "Slippery Slope" to help describe what I believe to be the main problem, which is once you get started, you never know where you will end up. When I was younger, I didn't have access to porn, so I was interested in the other things you described. I think it is fairly natural that a boy or man will have these interests, but what I learned the hard way is that "I can't get no satisfaction" from these pursuits.

On the most basic level, I find that constantly "checking out" and pursing and endless diet of different provocative imagery to be unfulfilling. It doesn't matter if it's a swimsuit picture or something much more crude, the bottom line is I have made a decision to not let my desires drag me around.

I also disagree with the idea that inviting your partner to watch porn is a healthy option, but that is just my point of view, and something that others may not agree with.

As I have gotten older, I hold myself to a very high moral standard that has nothing to do with religion or any kind of dogma, I just find that true hapiness and satisfaction is not derived from these kind of pursuits.

I wish you the best!

[Dominus]

Pornography is anything designed to incite sexual arousal, be it swimsuit pictures, erotic books, lads mags or whatever turns you on. The demarcation should come in your motive for considering the object in question, if it is for deliberate sexual stimulation then you have overstepped the line. A doctor for instance may view the same attractive womans body for an entirely different reason than a client in a peepshow but for one its porn, for the other not.

what would be the motive in watching porn with our partner? If you watch porn with your wife then make love, are you being turned on by her or by the porn? If by the porn, does she not then just become a vessel for satisfying ourself? Eventually we could find ourselves in a situation where we wouldnt be able to make love to her without the porn for assistance.

I agree with Light, it is a slippery slope, if I ponder over an image of an erotic girl posing in a swimsuit it soon becomes not enough, I want to look underneath so I think about it a lot, or possibly go searching for other photos of her maybe without her swimsuit this time, then thats not enough - I want to see her doing more and so on and so forth, even typing it out is testing my resolve! There is never an end to it, it just seems easier to banish anything (to the extent possible) that triggers off these types of thoughts or give myself over to never beating this thing.

If you were born and raised on a desert island and just met one girl and lived your life alone with her, she would be the most attractive and exciting thing that ever happened to you sexually all your life and you would presumably be happy with her. Unfortunately in this world we live in there can always be a better looking, more compatible or more exciting woman than the one with which we live and this can be difficult to deal with, I am sure that there are better looking more exciting guys out there than you and me, its just lucky our wifes arent out searching for Mr Perfect.

[Light]

Ah, Dominus I always appreciate reading your posts, so well put and structurally sound. Airtight and a pleasure to read

This clarifies a thought I have been thinking about lately.

If by the porn, does she not then just become a vessel for satisfying ourself?

I used to look at porn, and then hold those thoughts or images in my mind while I was having sex with my "real life" girlfriend (largely because I could never talk them into looking at porn together while we had sex. Actually, I achieved that once or twice but is was incredibly awkward and disappointing). But instead of being a mutual, personal experience, it became another form of masturbation. She was just another tool for me to get off with, while in my mind I was feeding off of the porn, and as Dominus puts it, just a "tool" for my use.

This is not a healthy way to live, and the opposite of the definition of "relationship" which is:

"a state of connectedness between people"

Porn encourages a state of connectedness with yourself and things that don't really exist, and reduces your connectedness with others.

The realization that is coming into view is I have spent a lot of time and energy trying to get satisfaction out of something that can never return even 1 percent of that investment.

[seeker]

On the topic of connectiveness and giving of pleasure, my thoughts are singularly dominated the desire to give pleasure to the other woman in my life but not to my wife. As a result of our deep, connection I strongly desire to please her sexually.

Is this not an indication that she and I are more suited for each other than my wife and I? Our connection goes beyond the physical. If it were merely about just having sex with her I doubt I would feel such a powerful urge to please her. I would be more focued on my own pleasure. Instead, my feelings for her lead me to want to make her happy.

Am I being at all naïve?

[FoolishMind]

Thanks Seeker for your comments. Hope you dont mind that I moved it to General Discussion so as not to lose deviate too much off the recovery journal. Keeping the flow is good for new members who join, to follow threads in logical order.

Thank you again though for your comments and will answer some of your questions shortly.

[Dominus]

I was thinking only yesterday how we had hijacked your thread, sorry about that!

[FoolishMind]

no apologies required, it was a great discussion, just thinking about newbies, and making threads easy to read from begining to end.