Pornography - UK - Legal Changes

[Atb210201]

16 minutes ago, Heaven said:

@Atb210201

Thanks for your perspective.
Are you coming from a religious background?
Can you see how denying your desires doesn’t work? 
Did you ever ask yourself why you failed quitting addictions?

I'm just newly into religion. I was mostly atheist then spiritual most of my life.

It does work. I'm just not there yet, maybe.

I know why I failed because I still hold the same view as everyone else here more strongly than the one I'm pushing here.

You see there are two personas inside of me, one who wants to quit and one who wants to keep doing it and they both have their valid reasons.

But I think it is true for all kinds of addictions in general.

I've successfully quit smoking cigarettes and weed and alcohol. Masturbation is my final boss and the one I've been doing the most.

Edited 5 hours ago by Atb210201

[trenton]

5 minutes ago, Atb210201 said:

Masturbation is my final boss and the one I've been doing the most.

I agree and this is where I noticed I get stuck a lot. On principle, it makes sense to think that if porn generally reinforces fantasies, both legal and otherwise, then perhaps masturbation in general does the same regardless of the content. I tried this idea but I was later discouraged.

There have been studies done on priests who tried repressing sex all their lives and some of them failed leading to moral outrage at child abuse and others admitted that the craving never fully went away, making it an ongoing discipline.

The reason I tried this is because I was trying to find a way to make the cravings stop, but I found that it most likely would never be enough. Additionally, I noticed I became much more irritable when I tried to stop masturbation. My body became more tense and anxious as well. I would continue to have sexual fantasies anyway.

This is a problem I encountered in childhood. I learned early on that my sexuality made me dangerous, so I reached for religion trying to make sense of it. I had childhood vows against lust as a result. The problem is that when I hit puberty I simply could not make it stop. I never wanted to be straight because I thought that wanting to have sex with women made me a bad person who sees them as objects.

I wanted to be asexual while finding something more purposeful or important than sex. Life purpose became a substitute for intimacy as well, hence I ended up on actualized.org. the problem is that the values I hold were imposed on a child in a dysfunctional family environment full of criminals. Given a different environment, I could have a totally different value system.

In any case, try if you might to overcome sexual cravings, but realistically most will fail. Additionally, if you try, then don't come at it from a moralizing angle. The angle I came at it from was that sex is not bad and lust does not make me bad. It makes me human. The reason I wanted to overcome it was because I thought I could become more conscious, peaceful, and free by not reinforcing this addiction or sexual craving. However, I ended up feeling even worse and I feel much better when I slid back to where I am masturbating but not using porn.

I felt discouraged when I considered the failures of catholic priests who end up preaching such a standard that they themselves can't meet.

[Atb210201]

12 minutes ago, trenton said:

I agree and this is where I noticed I get stuck a lot. On principle, it makes sense to think that if porn generally reinforces fantasies, both legal and otherwise, then perhaps masturbation in general does the same regardless of the content. I tried this idea but I was later discouraged.

There have been studies done on priests who tried repressing sex all their lives and some of them failed leading to moral outrage at child abuse and others admitted that the craving never fully went away, making it an ongoing discipline.

The reason I tried this is because I was trying to find a way to make the cravings stop, but I found that it most likely would never be enough. Additionally, I noticed I became much more irritable when I tried to stop masturbation. My body became more tense and anxious as well. I would continue to have sexual fantasies anyway.

This is a problem I encountered in childhood. I learned early on that my sexuality made me dangerous, so I reached for religion trying to make sense of it. I had childhood vows against lust as a result. The problem is that when I hit puberty I simply could not make it stop. I never wanted to be straight because I thought that wanting to have sex with women made me a bad person who sees them as objects.

I wanted to be asexual while finding something more purposeful or important than sex. Life purpose became a substitute for intimacy as well, hence I ended up on actualized.org. the problem is that the values I hold were imposed on a child in a dysfunctional family environment full of criminals. Given a different environment, I could have a totally different value system.

In any case, try if you might to overcome sexual cravings, but realistically most will fail. Additionally, if you try, then don't come at it from a moralizing angle. The angle I came at it from was that sex is not bad and lust does not make me bad. It makes me human. The reason I wanted to overcome it was because I thought I could become more conscious, peaceful, and free by not reinforcing this addiction or sexual craving. However, I ended up feeling even worse and I feel much better when I slid back to where I am masturbating but not using porn.

I felt discouraged when I considered the failures of catholic priests who end up preaching such a standard that they themselves can't meet.

Great story and thanks for the tips, but I think there are some people who actually overcame it all and are not like those priests.

Those were just some failed priests there may be successful ones as well.

Edited 4 hours ago by Atb210201

[Jannes]

2 hours ago, Atb210201 said:

That's what I mean by desensitisation of your conscience.

Thats like sying video games make you violent which is a plausible theory but in reality that doesnt seem to be the case. Seems like people can differentiate (this sort of) fantasy and the real world pretty well. 

[Jannes]

1 hour ago, trenton said:

This is a problem I encountered in childhood. I learned early on that my sexuality made me dangerous, so I reached for religion trying to make sense of it. I had childhood vows against lust as a result. The problem is that when I hit puberty I simply could not make it stop. I never wanted to be straight because I thought that wanting to have sex with women made me a bad person who sees them as objects.

I wanted to be asexual while finding something more purposeful or important than sex. Life purpose became a substitute for intimacy as well, hence I ended up on actualized.org. the problem is that the values I hold were imposed on a child in a dysfunctional family environment full of criminals. Given a different environment, I could have a totally different value system.

I think thats actually true. Lust is definitely a deadly sin without wanting to be all christian about it but men (and women) do a lot of shit to get sex. 

But the thing is, thats nothing new to society and women are somewhat prepared for that and they are also interested in sex. So there is a bit of mutual understanding going on. But most men should probably still be trying to look more for a personality match with a girl then just maximum sexual opportunism. 

[Jannes]

1 hour ago, Atb210201 said:

I've successfully quit smoking cigarettes and weed and alcohol. Masturbation is my final boss and the one I've been doing the most.

I think smoking cigarettes and weed and alcohol are a completly different category then masturbation. Like its a pretty basic need of your body. You can cut delicious cheeseburgers, but you cant cut eating at all. 

I figured out a more boring solution for myself. I learned to notice the difference between masturbation as a physiological need, like when my body just needed to get a load off and masturbation as a way to escape reality, like when I had a though task to do and all of the sudden feel the "need" to masturbate instead. The second one is where you get all the cons of masturbation from in my experience. I just try to be more and more mindful of my masturbation habit. 

[Ulax]

Pornography is a great litmus test for a government's respect for liberty.

I get the under 18s banning. But banning on grounds of performed incest and choking is too far.

 

[Ulax]

3 hours ago, Basman said:

The rationale is that kids are aping porn and sending their girlfriends to the ER. They want to reduce choking related injury.

In the UK this doesn't matter anymore because porn is already banned for under 18s

[Basman]

I think its just posturing to try to win some boomers over in reality. I believe Labour is trying to stave off Nigel Farage. Anyone knows that it's largely unenforceable. 

[Ulax]

7 minutes ago, Basman said:

I think its just posturing to try to win some boomers over in reality. I believe Labour is trying to stave off Nigel Farage.

Good point