Thread for people to work on a life free from Porn and Masturbation
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Peterson on Porn
Personally, I’ve found two motivations behind mine:
- Loneliness
- Conquest
The loneliness motivation seems to tie into the dopamine pathway hijacking. That when I feel lonely at times, exacerbated by my work at home international lifestyle, Porn becomes a second-nature solution to it. It releases the same hormones at the start of genuine bonding, with a large dopamine release to make you feel good. The problem comes afterwards, when there is no serotonin from the cuddling afterwards to cement the bond. So just prolactin without the serotonin and oxytocin, which exacerbates loneliness. Plus you never actually solved the cause, just a symptom.
The conquest motivation seems to be tied into the desire to experience a foreign lifestyle, that more or less if off limits to you. Primary examples are orgies, ethnicities (that is to say cultures), and body types. As someone high to openness of experience, I do desire to wish to experiment with everything. For someone in their early twenties, or a rockstar, genuine accomplishment of such conquests may be possible. But I think for most people, it must remain in fantasy. Plus, it is a maladaptive fantasy for the most part, as to accomplish it genuinely exposes you to a lot of undesirable consequences - hence perhaps why porn is desirable, as there is no accidental pregnancy, there is no STIs, there is no crazy ex that makes your life hell, etc.
For solving them through adaptive ways:
Solving loneliness is easy, dedicate time each week to developing friendships. If you are super high on extroversion and openness, you may need people around you 24/7 - perhaps move to an extroverted country/location like Bali will assist.
Solving the conquest is harder. It seems the only way to address it, is to not solve it, but to transmute it. Think and Grow Rich certainly that think this is so foundational, that it is compulsory for richness: http://www.sacred-texts.com/nth/tgr/tgr16.htm
I would also recommend the Fortify app for your phone. It explores the psychology of quitting and rewards you for days without and streaks without masturbating. Very in-depth and it has helped me a lot.
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