Emerald

All you have to do is actually explain your perspective in detail without engaging in dishonest debate tactics. So not pigeon-holing my perspectives with empty appeals to authority via the lens of Spiral Dynamics... and trying to frame things in such a way that puts my perspective underneath yourself using your understanding of the SD model. It's just intellectually lazy to debate like that as it puts your debate opponent in the box of inferior perspectives that need not be taken seriously. But with this case in particular, you're just incorrect about integration... and thinking about integration as meaning only freedom with no constraint. You seemed to be interpreting integration as analogous to being a libertine or something like that... which is not accurate. You can be just as repressed if you're a libertine with no constraint as you can be being an uptight teetotaler. So, this shows a clear lack of understanding about what repression is and what integration is. So, it's important to know when you don't know... instead of trying to grand-stand on topics you don't know that much about. If you'd like to learn more about the integration... and specifically integration of the Masculine and Feminine through a deeper lens, I recommend checking out the book Androgyny by June Singer. It's a dense read, but it was really helpful to me when I first started learning about Jungian Psychology and integration of the Masculine and Feminine... which helped me make sense of my experiences of the deep Feminine several years prior to that. https://a.co/d/fSkj60C

Honestly, you might just have a domination kink, which is fine. Most men actually have that to some degree or another. It's nothing to feel ashamed of... nor is it necessarily an indicator of your values in day-to-day life. And sex can be a great place to play with socially taboo things... if your partner is open to it. It can be excellent for self-exploration. So, as long as you see your partner as a whole human being in other contexts and she's open to exploring these roles sexually, it can be exciting and a lot of fun. For example, I tend to have a more submissive orientation to sexual encounters. And if I try to be dominant, I just don't enjoy it as much. So, in that context, I'm open to things that I'd never be okay with if somebody came up to me on the street and started treating me that way. So, context is key here... as it the level of trust you have with your partner. If some random guy runs up to me on the street and calls me his slut/bitch/whore, I'm going to want to throat punch him. But if I'm with my partner who I love and trust and we're in the throes of passion and he calls me his slut/bitch/whore, it will probably add to the excitement. It's like a play where you play the damsel in distress and he plays the villain that's going to tie you to the railroad tracks. And as long as it's just fun, it's perfectly fine. And as long as she's into it, it wouldn't mean you're a REAL villain. It seems that that's your fear.

That's also been my experience over the past 13 years of doing Shadow Work. Thank you for sharing.

Integration is largely about the integration of opposites along all spectrums. So... it is the integration of expansion and contraction... and freedom and temperance... and limitation and unlimitedness. In fact, things like expansion and freedom are Masculine principled values... while contraction and constraint are Feminine principled values. A great artist doesn't paint a painting with EVERY color on their palette. They exercise limitation and only choose 2 or 3, because it helps their creative work come to fruition (which is Masculine expansion). So, you have to contract to expand... constrain yourself to be free... and limit yourself to realize your infinite nature in a meaningful way. And you must integrate the Feminine to have positive Masculine expression.

But you clearly don't understand what repression is and what integration means, since you described integration as "the foolishness of liberalism and Stage Green" And I just get tired of the subtle tactic you use to invalidate my perspectives to frame my views as "Tier 1 thinking and liberal ideological tripe that's not to be taken seriously" while you imply that your views are more meta and Tier 2 and higher consciousness that I 'just don't get yet'. And you rely too much on the Spiral Dynamics model as an appeal to authority to pigeon-hole your debate opponent's perspectives as lower consciousness and frame your perspectives as Tier 2. Let's be real and honest. That's what you usually do when you argue with me on here. And it just comes across as smug and un-earned. But that also describes lots of guys on this forum. You didn't used to be like this as much as you are now, so I think you're picking up on bad debating habits and certain logical fallacies. You're honestly being a bit of Dunning-Kruger on these topics, where you don't realize that you're not aware of what Femininity really is (as you said yourself that you only see it from the narrow lens of "What I like sexually/romantically") and you're not aware of what integration really means because you're seeing integration as confined to a single Spiral Dynamics stage when the whole entire journey up the spiral is a process of integration. Now, there is more to knowing yourself than integration... but knowing yourself is definitionally not possible without integration. Repression is the lack of consciousness regarding parts of yourself that are in your blindspot. ( Side note: We also have a collective Shadow where certain people and perspectives are in that collective blindspot) So, you would need to focus on integration first, as you can't do anything to get to know these unconscious parts of yourself without integrating them first. And most people's Feminine side is deeply repressed. So, we need to start at square one with Feminine integration... which is dropping resistance and "making the unconscious conscious". But you would also need to go through the process of individuation to get more in touch with yourself as well relative to the Feminine side or any other part of yourself that you might hope to integrate. So, it's integration first... and then practical exercise of these qualities in external world contexts second. For example, let's say that I grew up in a society that saw creativity as evil and as a "work of the devil". And any sign of valuing creativity in any way would get you shunned from society. We, that would very likely lead me to create an identity that's in opposition to creativity. And I would find ways to make myself unconscious to any tendencies towards creativity. That's what repression is. But let's say that I cannot repress creativity because it's so innate to me. Then, I would have to suppress it actively because I am conscious of it. It's not in the Shadow but I have to keep it suppressed. In this case, the integration of my creative side is (at least partially) the status quo for me. But because there is no external outlet for expression and practice of this creativity... I never get to know this creative part of myself beyond what I can explore from the confines of my own imagination, which only stretches so far. But because my creativity is integrated and I wasn't raised in a society where I have to suppress that creative drive, I spent about 7 years of my life primarily focused on creating art. And I went to college for it... and I was a high school art teacher for a couple years, even. And the development of that creativity and my authentic creative voice would not have become as known to me as it currently is if I just had it integrated but didn't take any action on it. But... if I have it repressed I'm going to be TOTALLY unconscious to it and disconnected form it... and it will come out in toxic ways. But if I integrate it, I will become conscious of it... and it's less likely to express in toxic ways... even if I don't follow a path of individuation relative to creative expression. But I am also more likely to try to seek an outlet for deeper exploration.

You seem to not understand what repression means. You're thinking of libertine behaviors and expressing things a particular way. But working through repression is simply making the unconscious conscious and integrating it into your personality. Here's a video about what integration means...

Repression is the most important thing to focus on as it comes to revealing your authenticity to yourself. Consider a society that is highly shaming and repressive of sexuality. And a person goes unconscious to huge parts of themselves because of these societal standards. For them, focusing on ridding themselves of mindsets, beliefs, and aversions to sexuality will help them connect more deeply with those elements of themselves and to be more authentic. The same thing is true about the deep Feminine. Society hates it and lashes out at it every time it's seen. So, women and men have a very hard time integrating their Feminine side because it is so deeply resisted. And it cuts us all off from a major source of power and authenticity... and prevents us from maturing as a species.

100% In a nut-shell, the Deep Feminine is about sovereignty on the level of being itself. A lot of anti-Feminine patriarchal viewpoints are about convincing people that they are not sovereign beings and need to match up to some external authority's standards to be valid and worthy of existence. And when you live in world that only values and understands the Masculine and we feel like we must "do" to justify our "being", there are no empowered expressions of the Feminine to look to. So, most women look to male role models... or women who have sought their empowerment through the lens of the Masculine. I sense a change in this in recent years. I made a video about Feminine archetypes with the Feminine counterparts to "Kind, Warrior, Magician, Lover" (I also made a video about he Masculine archetypes), which are "Queen, Mother, Wise Woman, Beloved" to share more about the deep Feminine...

Even though both Blue and Orange squelch the Feminine, Blue is actually a lot more repressive to the Feminine than Orange is because of the narrow gender roles and lack of female individuation. And I've watched a lot of her videos. Her perspectives are interesting. I'm sure she would agree with me. I have a close friend who's ex-Mormon, and the way the Mormon society treats women just squelches expression and humanity altogether. It's more like I'd be blocked off from both my Feminine and Masculine side if I were raised Mormon... or in a traditional society, really. I'd have to become 10% of what I currently am. The more patriarchal an environment is, the more the Feminine is stripped from it... because the deep Feminine is a genuine threat to Patriarchy and the powers that be. That's why stage Blue societies draw a very tiny circle of acceptable traits for women, where the power of the Deep Feminine is stripped down to a very male-controlled version of motherhood. That's why we need to develop past all this hyper-Masculine polarization... so that society can integrate the Feminine as opposed to being hostile to it.

You don't understand it precisely because you haven't grown up as a female child in a society where Masculinity and manhood is seen as superior... and Femininity makes you a target for being disrespected and disempowered... and resented. You just think about liking Feminine women (sexually and romantically) because that's the extent of your perspective as a man. And you scratch your head because you prefer it when women are Feminine, 'so why wouldn't women just do that if they want respect?' But most girls and women have gone through a similar phase with internalized misogyny and a desire to shed the female identity for in-group belonging with boys/men (or simply to avoid in-group belonging with the majority of women)... it just takes slightly different forms for different girls/women. And for a few months, at the age of 11, it was intense levels of stoic masochism and training myself to be okay with feeling pain... to prove to myself that I was different from other girls, who I saw as weak, stupid, and contemptible because of all the misogynistic perspectives that I held at the time that I picked up from pop culture, school, and the people around me. And competing with boys by trying to be tougher was a way to prove to myself that I'm different from other girls. I had to find a way to make myself an exception to my own internalized misogyny that I had picked up from the world around me. That's usually the case for women in the throes of internalized misogyny where they have to find some way to differentiate themselves from other women in order to avoid the chopping block of their own hatred of the Feminine and femaleness. I did it through leaning heavily into my Masculine side... as did many other girls/women. While others found some other differentiation factor for creating a loophole for themselves to avoid their own internalized misogyny. Some girls who were more okay with coming across as Feminine would be mean girls who have several close-knit female friends... but decide that she and her female friends are the only loophole women and that all other women are bitches and lesser. These women tend to avoid their own internalized misogyny by scapegoating women who are not in their in-group. Either way, the desire is there to say, "I'm not in the same category as most other girls. So, even though those other girls deserve the misogyny and disempowerment, I do not because I'm different and better." And there are many expressions of this "not like other girls" phenomenon... which comes from living in a society that doesn't value femaleness or Femininity in a real human way. But mine in particular was about differentiating my identity through seeing myself as more Masculine and proving to myself and others that I'm more Masculine... in order to go into cognitive dissonance that my deep hatred of girls/women and Femininity didn't apply to me (when it very much did). And also to convince myself that society already sees me as different than other girls, so I won't be judged or disempowered as often (which was a huge cope, but I couldn't even bear to acknowledge this). Ultimately, the deep Feminine can't exist in a society that only values and understands the Masculine. That's why everyone in society (men and women) are heavily suppressing their Feminine sides... as society isn't developed enough for it. It's like trying to grow a plant that only thrives in acidic soil in basic soil.

As long as it's coming from that place, I see no issue in it. I just have experienced that sometimes the driver towards NoFap or anti-porn perspectives comes from shame in the sexual instinct.

Rites of passage are necessary in society. And these rites of passage do require struggle and the crossing of thresholds. And there are already plenty of them that most people experience (first kiss, driving, graduating, etc.) We just don't think of these are rites of passage because they're so mundane and baked into our society... as all rites of passage tend to be. But some are more specific. I'll share one that I've participated in personally that was a lot of fun. For example, there's a fun and common rite of passage in the South where the adults take the kids out in the woods to go "snipe hunting." And snipes aren't real. But the kids don't know that. And the adults tell you about how scary the snipes are and how they're attracted to the color red. And in the middle of the night (prime snipe hunting hours) they lead the kids out into the middle of the thick of the woods where there are no clear paths. And the adults tell the kids that they're going to go to another area of the woods and scare the snipes their way, leaving the kids totally alone in the middle of the dark woods. And they usually have the kid either having a red shirt in their hands or some other red sack to try to catch the snipes. Then, the adults start shouting and acting like the snipes have gotten to them... and that the snipes are coming. And my Uncle Joseph and my 2nd cousin Tim took me, my cousin Tyler (my uncle's son), and my 3rd cousin Colby (Tim's son) out deep into the woods to go camping and snipe hunting. Colby had already been snipe hunting, so he knew what was going on... and just kept his mouth shut. But my cousin Tyler and I were led out into the dark woods. And Tyler was made to take off his red shirt and use it as a snipe catching sack. And I was a bit older... like 12. And Tyler was 9. So, I was scared myself but Tyler totally freaked out because he was a little kid. But his fear put my mind more on consoling him than on the snipe attack (and I was just imagining them as little kiwi birds that live in the bushes anyway). My fear was more about being in the middle of the dark woods and not seeing the spiders that might be crawling on me... as I had already had to brush 3 off of me earlier that day. But it's little things like this... or even more universal rites of passage that help a kid face with the requisite hardship to strengthen themselves for adulthood.

I can understand and relate to wanting challenges and pressures to prove your toughness and increase your stress and pain tolerance. But putting it through the lens of this conformity to societally prescribed Masculine values seems to lead to less resilient, more socially stunted men who feel fragile in their Masculine identity because they are being expected to conform to a stereotype of Masculinity that's unrealistic and isn't even a communal pro-social stereotype... and often extracts value from community instead of adding to it. If you can show me any evidence that men trying to conform to the socially prescribed Masculine standards in modern day adds value to society more than it detracts, then I'll reconsider. But for now, I see this drive to create a Masculine hive mind as a net negative for community that prevents male individuation. Just look around you and you'll see the scourge of Masculine social conformity at play... squelching the real thing, which can only be found in true individuation from the herd. You can even find this on this forum, where the attachment to conforming to Masculine standards is preventing many of these guys from being authentic and developing themselves. But there are some values that guy friends hold each other to that are valuable. When I was an older child and younger teenager, I went through a 5-6 year phase where I would challenge myself to match up to many of the standards put on boys around tolerating pain and remaining stoic because I saw it as a necessary challenge if I wanted to be treated with respect. It was easier to be respected and valued back then if you had a Feminine appearance but had a Masculine personality... as women were seen as superior-looking and the male personality seen as the superior-personality type. So, there was a lot more social respect in coming across for a woman if you were a pretty girl with Masculine preferences. But despite the protective reasons why I was doing this, it strengthened my resolve in many ways in holding myself to these standards of stoicism. And when I was about 11 years old, I had this whole phase where (at summer camp) I would challenge other kids to scratch their nails down my arms as hard as they can in order to prove to them and to myself that I wouldn't flinch. And it was a matter of great pride to show that I could tolerate any amount of physical pain unflinchingly. And it was a very physical summer camp with lots of physical activity. So, I was getting hurt often (accidentally). But each wound gave me an opportunity to show my toughness and stoicism. Like once, this really mean kid named Calvin and I were playing indoor four square or something like that with other people in the summer camp group. And we both ended up jumping for the ball and we ended up colliding with each other and falling and sliding for many feet on a hard linoleum floor. And it hurt SO bad... worse than any of the other injuries that I ever sustained there. And Calvin was crying his mean little eyes out. And I wanted to also. But instead out of pure resolve, I swallowed the pain and pretended I was impervious to what happened... and took the opportunity to rub it in Calvin's face that he was "crying like a little girl when it didn't even hurt". Then, when I was about 13, my friend Cecilia and I invented this pain-tolerance game that we called "Buddy, Friend, Pal." And in the game, one person would start and say "Hey Buddy" and punch the other person on the upper arm (hard) but pretending like it's a light and playful punch that you'd give to a friend that you haven't seen in a while. Then, the other person would answer back and say, "Hey Friend" and punch back on the arm. Then, the original person would say "Hey Pal" and punch back. Then, we'd just go back and forth coming up with as many synonyms for friend as possible... like "Chum!" "Dude!" "Bro!" "Partner!"... landing a punch with each new synonym for friend until we ran out and started saying insults. And Cecilia and I would do this as a pain-tolerance competition... where we had to go along with the ruse that we're just old buddies lightly punching each other in the arm as a gesture of endearment. And the challenge was not to flinch or let on about pain. And whoever flinched first was the one to lose. Our upper arms were totally black and blue after a day or two of playing the game. And our parents got upset, so we had to stop playing. So, I can see the value of guy friends putting these types of pressures on each other... as it helps you push the boundaries of tolerance and face into pain and fear with the help of social pressure. And if all this Masculinity driver was only towards things like this, it would be fine. But all I see when I look around is a ton of insecure men who feel like they have to mold themselves into being someone else. So, I think it's time to evolve past the driver towards socially performing an external gender role for the sake of social conformity... and instead to tap into the real Masculinity and real Femininity underneath all these rules.

Now, I'm not trying to minimize your addiction at all, if that's the way you think about it. And of course, it's probably not healthy to consume pornography every single day... even if daily masturbation is perfectly fine. But based on my sexual relationships with men, it's quite normal for a man to ejaculate once a day or once every other day. That's probably about average for most men to ejaculate like 3-7 times per week. And if you don't have a partner, then it makes sense that you would find another outlet for sexual release because that instinct is still there. From the way you write about it, I have a sense that you believe you should just be able to fight these natural instincts... and that you feel shame when you give into them. But that would be akin to feeling shame in giving in to the drive to eat, sleep, or go to the bathroom... even if sexual release isn't seen in the same light as these other bodily instincts. I bring this up because, every now and again, I'll get on a discovery call with a young male prospective coaching client who wants to do NoFap. And 100% of the time so far, the guy is dealing with shame issues... about human sexuality, about how his body operates, and for very normal human urges. So, if you're sure that it's an addiction, then I respect that. But framing it this way could obscure a deeper issue about shame in the body... and getting into binge and restrict cycles with regard to sexual pleasure because of the resistance to the sexual instinct.

I have reasoned that it's a hold-over of an adaptation from an earlier phase in human history where these types of inter-male pressures to conform to certain standards of Masculinity served an important function within a small tribe or a village. Sort of like how there are certain rites of passage where men have to prove their manhood by going through some kind of trial. For example, there is a particular tribe where the rite of passage for a boy to become a man is to stick his arm in a sheath full of large ants. And the ant bites have a particular type of toxin that creates extreme pain and swelling. So, to become men, these boys must endure the intense pain of the ant bites. And this makes sense as an adaptive rite of passage within that context... because if someone's kid lands in a pile of those ants, you're going to need men who are willing stick their hand in the ant pile to fish out the child. These rites of passage also make sense in these small villages and tribes because the men there live with their mothers in the mother-land for their entire lives. So, they have to find a way to separate from the mother when they must live in proximity to their mother. And they do this through the rejection of the Feminine... since between their own mother, the mother-land, and Mother Nature... they must find some way to individuate from these layers of the mother. So, all sorts of social rituals were created to differentiate men from the Feminine. But with industrial and post-industrial society where danger is rarer and we are living separate from our mothers, the mother-land, and Mother Nature... these inter-Masculine pressures to conform to certain standards of Masculinity don't have much of a practical function anymore. But the desire for the respected identity of "the man who has stripped himself of Femininity and earned his manhood" is still romanticized and yearned for by many men who want to use it for the sake of securing social status... despite its limited usefulness in the context of the contemporary post-industrial world. But it's more of an ego/identity thing around proving one's self man enough in our current era... as opposed to something constructive and adaptive towards the outcomes of community building and maintenance like it used to be in more communal eras. It's kind of like if there was a rich tradition of ditch diggers who were really well-respected by society because ditch-digging was REALLY helpful for survival in tribal and agrarian times... such that the echoes of respect given to those ditch-digging identities echoed into modern-day pop culture. And men who have never HAD to dig a ditch in their lives would all start clamoring for the "good old days" before digging machines. They may even start the practice of vanity ditch-digging as a life-style choice and to try to be seen as higher status. And they'd have all sorts of special insults for men who failed to live up to ditch-digger status. And all these ditch-digger fetishists who treat ditch-digging as a religion would start pressuring each other about who would be the better ditch digger if they were in a past fantasy world where they needed to dig ditches. And they'd start trying to destroy society and progress so that the lost glory of ditch diggers could rise again. And they'd beat up other guys who didn't prefer ditch-digging... but instead preferred other activities.

I wasn't meaning you in particular want porn to be banned. I just notice that people who are heavier porn users tend to have very negative views on porn while other people feel more neutral about its existence. So, I was rebutting the claim that coke users would think coke is a net-positive to society... and that regular porn users would be more likely to think porn is a net-positive to society. With coke users, my impression is that they're under no illusion that coke is a societal net positive. And with heavy porn users, they tend to be the most anti-porn crusaders out there.

It's still going to be a turn-off because of the vibe of a man always trying to escalate things sexually. And that's true regardless of how much of a sex fiend the woman is. It's like the vibe of Quagmire from Family Guy when a guy is like this. And an unattractive vibe is just an unattractive vibe... and it will kill her libido dead. Men have a more attractive vibe when they are more in control of their sexual impulses and fairly detached from them. This communicates a sense of stability, maturity, and a lack of desperation. And it also communicates that a man has a higher degree of trustworthiness than a man who's all horn-balled up all the time. But to get even more specific, women don't like it when men are needy. And sex is... a need. So, a man who's always scrounging for sex every chance he gets comes across as a needy desperate man. It's much better to take a detached but willing frame and only escalate like once a week, and leave the rest to her. It's similar to how, if you ask someone if they want to get something to eat but they're not that hungry yet. And so they say, "Sure, I could eat." This would imply that they're well fed enough that they are not needy or desperate for food. To take this analogy into sex, take the detached frame of "Sure, I could fuck."

Thank you

But I do mean as a general trend... in the broadest strokes possible. I'm not talking about any particular person... nor exceptions to the rule that are really into truth seeking, inner work, or personal development. I'm just thinking about your average group of women versus your average group of men. (Of course, with both having major blindspots towards truth) And I just haven't observed any evidence that men are more geared towards truth than women are... nor are they more independent of social pressures towards conformity than women are. In fact, they usually seem more swayed by social pressures and seem more anxious about fitting a Masculine ideal because there's such a high degree of social punishment in many male circles for men who deviate from Masculine expectations... all the way to the extremes of violence in certain social circles. I think that the notion of "being the independent truth-seeking renegade" is a culturally Masculine aspiration that many men try to conform to. But the driver towards "being the brutal independent truth-teller" is usually just for the sake of conforming to Masculine social norms for the sake of social status. It's not real divergence and not real truth seeking... its just cosplaying as such for the sake of conforming. Real divergence and truth seeking are things that will make you unpopular in the eyes of 95% of people. And if one's truth seeking and personal development path is giving them more mass appeal, then chances are that it's just more conformity in disguise as divergence.

I can see why you would believe that at first blush, because women are more pro-social. But I actually haven't observed this to be true, at all. And that's because men seem to be more highly motivated by securing social status and social pressures than women are. If you look around in the world, you'll see that men tend to put a lot of social pressure on each other to perform Masculinity a specific way while women are less likely to police other women in the same way. Many women will shout you down or give you the bird if you try to tell them to conform to Feminine expectations (and rightly so), while most men are actively trying to conform to societal expectations of manliness. So, the pressure that men commonly feel to perform Masculinity for social purposes keeps them cosplaying as the 'strong independent men who doesn't give a hoot what anyone thinks'... because it's the cultural short-hand for what being an admirable man means. But it isn't a true divergence of perspective. Nor is it a reflection of actual truth-telling... as not all truths are blunt, straightforward, or brutal. For example, let's go to the extremes to explore what's common in men. Let's take an Andrew Tate type of guy who is seen by many as an "independent thinker" who is "escaping the matrix" by being a tough balls-to-the-wall Masculine guy. And he has "no tact" and has a "no bullshit" approach and he just tells the "brutal truth"... so just deal with it and stop being a pussy. And honestly, he is what many men aspire to be. It's a great many men's vision of what being a divergent thinking no-bullshit Masculine "truth-teller" is like. But even though our culture understands these types of Masculine behaviors as the short-hand for "brutal truth telling" and "independent thinking" it's just more social conformity in disguise. And it's just competition within a social hierarchy... which behooves all the men to compete in that hierarchy to conform and try to be the best at performing certain Masculinity rules. Or there are social consequences of being called mean Feminine names and losing the respect of other men. Ultimately, most men are too focused on inter-male competition and living up to standards of Masculinity to be truly autonomous with their mind or to be focused on truth in some kind of un-biased way. If you look with your eyes at how the world functions (or even just this forum), you will recognize that men are far more geared towards conforming to set social standards than women are. And most men will sacrifice divergence and truth to avoid looking like a pussy and to be respected by other men... like soldiers taking marching orders. Edit: Also, NO ONE is socially rewarded for breaking form the herd. True divergence ALWAYS comes with a social beat-down and rejection. And if you're getting socially rewarded for something for being divergent, it isn't actually divergent. It's just the cultural shorthand for divergence. It's just Andrew Tate "escaping the Matrix" by conforming to Masculine standards that society set for him the very best... and earning more social capital from within the social matrix.

It's possible that it could be just a correlation thing.... and not a causation thing. Or it could be a variety of factors. So, I don't think there's anything too conclusive to these findings as of yet in terms of the causal link between access to porn and lower risk of sexual assault. But it does make logical sense to me that that would be true. Like, if porn doesn't exist... a relatively small (but not insignificant) percentage of men might resort to being a peeping Tom or assaulting a woman to find a sexual release outlet.

I don't think that's true about most habitual coke users. Probably, most people who are addicted to cocaine or even engage in it recreationally here and there, recognize that it's a societal net negative. They either just feel powerless to it themselves if they're addicted... or for recreational users who only do it occasionally they might feel like, "Sure, it's a net negative. But I only do it once in a while. So, it's fine." But I don't believe that very many coke users would claim that it's a net positive for society, as it's just not the culture around that particular drug. (In contrast, weed culture and psychedelic culture does have this "net positive to society" idea baked into it.) But with cocaine users, the majority would probably recognize that coke use is a net negative but that they still want to do it or feel attached to it. And with porn, it seems to be the "Methinks the lady doth protest too much" kind of situation... where heavy porn users are more likely to think about porn very negatively. It feels like people who don't have a particular problem with porn or just don't watch it or watch it once every blue moon, are just like "Sure, whatever. Porn exists, and it's probably either a net neutral or a slight net positive. Either way, it exists... and that's fine." But people who have a big issue with porn and a huge attachment to it are like, "Porn is the devil!!! We need to ban it all!!! The fabric of civilization is degrading because of pornographic degeneracy!!!! We need to instate an absolute theocracy to eradicate all porn from the face of the Earth!!" As they say... a hit dog'll holler. So, I don't think it's true that regular porn users have a more positive view of porn's impact on society than people who are not regular porn users. If you look in the comment section of this video, you'll see lots of people who are extremely anti-porn. And most of them are likely to be heavy porn users themselves... or women who are married to a man with a porn addiction.

Not necessarily boredom as the primary motivator, per se. That didn't seem evident to me. But in my plant medicine experiences, it did show me that its nature is infinite omniscience... like an infinite mind and infinite heart in combination. So, its nature is to experience and know and be all things at every single level an infinite amount of times over... and to delight in all joys at the deepest level and suffer all sufferings at the deepest level. So, it must be every barnacle in the ocean... just as it must be every human... and must be every lifeform that exists... and every non-lifeform that exists.... just as an extension of its nature. That's at least what seemed evident to me in these experiences.

100% I thought I wanted Truth as well. And when I found it, I realized that I actually just wanted my ordinary life... plain and simple.

One of the realizations that I had was that it was wiser to choose the Emerald path than to choose the God path, BECAUSE of the limitation factor. Limitation is the necessary birthplace of meaning and beauty.... and it is also a conduit for mercy from the burdens of infinity. And one needs illusion to sink into the perspective of limitation. Truth removes all meaningful illusions of limitation and wakes you back up to the meaninglessness of the infinite. And in the experience of Truth, it's when "I" realized that "I" truly preferred to live the illusion of limitation for this lifetime... and chose to live the Emerald story because it was wiser for "me" to do so.