So porn and masturbation can they be separated?
Yes I believe so but for the long term porn addict they are closely linked in my experience. If I intend to masturbate then I want to heighten the pleasure with visual stimulation why have only half the pleasure or much less when it can be prolonged with hours of watching (pointless crap) aka porn. Yet for someone wanting to quit porn as the real danger to intimacy, sanity, happiness etc it would seem to make sense to try a graded programme of limited masturbation as a release valve without pornography as stimulation. Then after a masturbation fail the counter doesn’t need to be reset because porn wasn’t viewed and that person doesn’t feel completely discouraged and think what’s the point? this is impossible.
A separate personal counter can measure progress with ultimately quitting masturbation as well or at least managing the masturbation so its not more often than once a week say and gradually work on weaning off that too. Now this sounds great in theory but does it work in practice? I know someone (who shall not be named of course ) who has probably not viewed porn for over a year but only more recently has started tackling his issue with masturbation with some success it appears ( will check with him at some point.)
So it is possible however in my personal experience masturbation without porn quickly leads to viewing porn which then leads to more masturbation and the whole cycle starts again with a true zero on the counter due to a pmo fail.
That is discouraging and as we know the battle is a mental battle control the thoughts and control the behaviour like anything right?
So my faith is helping me with that right now.
So this is a very long winded way of presenting the two options in my mind;
2 counters with the attempt to separate p and m as a stepping stone to complete abstinence
Or
1 counter which is simpler and more likely to enable a clean reboot but because its that much more difficult and could be more discouraging may not prove more effective than having 2 counters
So what to do? Im still not sure but im trying to apply as much common sense as possible and see what works in actual practice
haven’t replied to a topic in a long time but i feel like my experience could help here. Especially since I have the feeling that no one is really reading the question.
Is both bad and should you stop both? yes of course. but that wasn’t the question.
I tried what you said multiple times and with different methods:
In a very early stage where I relapsed to porn almost daily. I said masturbation is no relapse, porn is.
It didn’t work. I fapped daily multiple times.
In a later stage where i relapsed about once a week I tried it again the same way. Was good for some time and i reduced my porn consumption but the masturbation got more and more frequent.
A few months ago, I said, porn is a relapse, masturbation is bad. But if you really have to relapse do it quick without porn. This was a pretty good thing. Urges where very low, i masturbated maybe once every 10 days and didn’t watch porn. I really only masturbated in the very moment where I realized that I will relapse.
My opinion: It doesn’t work if you relapse daily. Masturbating daily is just as bad as watching porn daily. it really won’t help you.
It can help you once you mastered the initial stage. But never try to say: “Masturbation is no relapse since it is not porn.” or “masturbation is okay”. I personally placed my phone next to the toilet. So, when I typically would have relapsed every 10 days or so I had to fetch my phone. On my way to the toilet, where my phone was, I got sane enough to, instead, just quickly do it on the toilet without porn.
I traded 2hrs of porn/edging vs 1min of masturbation
You can try it but only if you really can limit yourself to the very moment where you would relapse to porn instead. That’s the only trade-off which is worth. It doesn’t make sense to say you masturbate once a week or so
Firstly thanks for reading the question.
Yeah I suppose my question was:
Can I use masturbation without porn as a stepping stone to ultimately giving up both completely?
I think you are suggesting this will not work if the aim is to masturbate every week but rather only masturbate if and when you think you are about to relapse to both porn and mast. because the pressure feels unbearable.
I think I agree; masturbation can quickly become uncontrolled and of course often we are thinking of porn when we masturbate so it does reinforce the behaviour likely leading to an actual full relapse with porn and mast.
5 mins in the toilet is so much better than 2 to 3 hours in front of the computer but of course it wont feel as good but long term this is far better.
I think for me probably like all of us the thrill is in the pursuit of porn the actual act is more a byproduct but if I intend to conquer this then I will try as you suggest. I suppose its getting to the root of this behaviour as well
What emotional triggers are making this so appealing right now and what can I do instead? How can I escape out of this situation quickly?
And get on with my damn life! Thankz