Arousal Addiction

[Jin]

Why would you want ed? If you want to be celibate, wouldnt you want to refrain from masturbation as well? To each their own, but I certainly dont think that being addicted to masturbation and internet porn is going to benefit you in any way if you are trying to be celibate for spiritual or self growth purposes.

As for me, since stopping, I feel better, I have more energy, I feel more confident, I have been getting to much deeper levels in meditation much quicker etc. Plus, Im not wasting time everyday looking at porn.

isn't ED gonna make celibacy easier ? i dont masturbate or have sex regularly , i do these things like sometimes once in a fortnight , sometimes once a week , i am not addicted to porn ,

however when i do masturbate i like watchin porn , i find nothing wrong with it , if you're not into sick porn , watching something decent is not bad , especially if you're going sometimes only once a month , sometimes i go months without any sexual activity or masturbation , i just focus on work

i rarely engage in such activities and find them quite enjoyable also , whether sex , masturbation or porn ,

 

[Infundibulum]

Good topic! It seems many people tend to underplay the the addictiveness and consequently, the amount of energy that is potentially lost through casual sex and masturbation.

@spartan- I agree, focusing our energy is key to happiness. I believe we are each alloted a certain amount of energy to do with what we will. Sex is probably the most consuming of any activity i can think of. Even fantasies seem to drain me of my energy.

Damn, the Nexus does seem to hold quite a few anti-sexual people!

Whenever I see such discussions I cannot stop thinking that these guys are just not getting as much or as often as they want and they consequentially go on these crazy bereavement-induced rituals....

Sex is great, especially with partner if you do not agree then you're missing a huge part of what is part of Life. Calling it a drain of energy sounds BS if viewed in the grand scheme of things - i.e. Life itself is a process of accumulating and spending energy. If you are getting more sex-by-yourself and not sex-with-partner, then you obviously have some problems you need to resolve before jumping on such crazy rituals. Unless you're maybe hermits?

And if you're addicted to porn and you call it "desensitization" means simply that by eating Doritos daily you can never appreciate any good made salad of properly cooked meal, or saying that if you like video-games you cannot appreciate a good game of seek-and-hide or paintball. How true is that? Porn is porn, i.e. just visual and auditory stimulation; Sex is these plus all the rest, like the flesh grabbing, nail scratching, sweat smelling, breath taking, agonizing ecstasy between 2+ partners. You'll be hard pressed to convince me that these elusive porn-exposed teenagers of this generation that you talk about would appreciate porn MORE than the real thing.

Unless of course they are not getting any of the real thing, but that is not a problem of porn.

 

[jamie]

"breath taking, agonizing ecstasy between 2+ partners"

Only you would add that + there infund lol.

 

[Shadowman-x]

i love you you penguin suit wearing bastard. :thumb_up:

 

[emptymind]

Good topic! It seems many people tend to underplay the the addictiveness and consequently, the amount of energy that is potentially lost through casual sex and masturbation.

@spartan- I agree, focusing our energy is key to happiness. I believe we are each alloted a certain amount of energy to do with what we will. Sex is probably the most consuming of any activity i can think of. Even fantasies seem to drain me of my energy.

Damn, the Nexus does seem to hold quite a few anti-sexual people!

Whenever I see such discussions I cannot stop thinking that these guys are just not getting as much or as often as they want and they consequentially go on these crazy bereavement-induced rituals....

Sex is great, especially with partner if you do not agree then you're missing a huge part of what is part of Life. Calling it a drain of energy sounds BS if viewed in the grand scheme of things - i.e. Life itself is a process of accumulating and spending energy. If you are getting more sex-by-yourself and not sex-with-partner, then you obviously have some problems you need to resolve before jumping on such crazy rituals. Unless you're maybe hermits?

And if you're addicted to porn and you call it "desensitization" means simply that by eating Doritos daily you can never appreciate any good made salad of properly cooked meal, or saying that if you like video-games you cannot appreciate a good game of seek-and-hide or paintball. How true is that? Porn is porn, i.e. just visual and auditory stimulation; Sex is these plus all the rest, like the flesh grabbing, nail scratching, sweat smelling, breath taking, agonizing ecstasy between 2+ partners. You'll be hard pressed to convince me that these elusive porn-exposed teenagers of this generation that you talk about would appreciate porn MORE than the real thing.

Unless of course they are not getting any of the real thing, but that is not a problem of porn.

If someone doesnt like sex as much as you theyre missing a huge part of life? Not everyone has the same outlook as you, and there are plenty of people who view other things in life as being much more important than sex, and there is nothing wrong with that, and they arent missing out on anything. One could say you are missing out on the level of inner peace one can achieve when they overcome their bodies desires.

And your last paragraph shows that you know very little about porn addiction. It is absolutely nothing like the examples you gave.

 

[imPsimon]

Damn, the Nexus does seem to hold quite a few anti-sexual people!

Maybe anti-social is more like it?

They go kinda hand in hand for a lot of people.
For me meeting women is as easy as building a nuclear fusion reactor...with a spoon.
It's incredibly frustrating being "socially challenged" in a social world.

 

[RoGu3]

I stopped watching porn when my laptop broke lol I haven't seen porn in a couple months honestly. I prefer the real thing

 

[embracethevoid]

It's not strictly anti-sexual.

I am practicing Brahmacharya. Two weeks of retention will charge a person with obscene energy levels if they channel the energy correctly. The energy is sent through the microcosmic orbit, it goes up and down and up and down and up and down. I feel it as a heat current flowing from the pelvic floor to the crown and back with each breath in and out. The longer I maintain the energy, the stronger the current gets. I already had the orbit wide open so I saw very rapid results.



After a few weeks of practice you develop the ability to shut out all distractions and control your body in a geometric fashion. But this requires that you guard all the doors of the senses. If your eyes stray, you have lost. If your ears stray, you have lost. If your heart flutters, you have lost. You have to move with fine tuned precision. I started moving around like a Zen mime after a little while.

Then there is also tantra. Through tantric practice, which again requires semen retention, you can have multiple orgasms. Not merely multiple orgasms but full body orgasms that last for hours according to sources I have interacted with. Certainly a worthwhile avenue for exploration. This feels much more natural to myself than constant release and craving for more release. The sexual craving is insatiable for it is the craving by which life continues to propagate and it will only cease if/when all life simultaneously decides it has finished and it's time to die once and for all.


A few weeks of Brahmacharya and it feels like you are having sex with life itself. You ooze sensuality from every pore. Every movement of your hands and feet carries with it a fine touch that is missing from people that release, the same fine touch you would witness in music where a slight tension creates a glorious soul-resonating melody yet in its absence there is a cacophony. People begin to strike up conversations with you over mundane things. Females are drawn to you and they do not know why, it is their instincts propelling them. Yet you feel free of need of them as your mind is one point focused, not on transient fleeting shadows of beauty, but Beauty itself.

It also makes you trip balls, serious balls. It adds depth to the experience. Having no seminal energy is like experiencing reality in 4D. Add a charged energy to the foray and there is a 5th dimension to experience which seems to have been curled up all along - the retention literally unfolds it. Brahmacharya and Wu Wei (non-doing) go hand in hand. There's a good reason that Nikola Tesla was able to create magnificent works and that reason is the meticulous guarding of the self from illusions.

 

[SpartanII]

Damn, the Nexus does seem to hold quite a few anti-sexual people!

Whenever I see such discussions I cannot stop thinking that these guys are just not getting as much or as often as they want and they consequentially go on these crazy bereavement-induced rituals

Well, I'm not anti-sexual, and I'm married to a very sexual woman but we both practice "transmuting" sexual energy and re-channeling it. We don't feel deprived, plus it makes it more intense when we do have sex. :thumb_up:

Calling it a drain of energy sounds BS if viewed in the grand scheme of things - i.e. Life itself is a process of accumulating and spending energy.

Sex in itself is not energy-draining, it's when you have sex/masturbate compulsively or become addicted to it. That's what I meant by "casual". Maybe I should have worded it differently.

True, life is a process of accumulating and spending energy, but by becoming more aware of how we utilize it, we can spend it wisely.

 

[ntwhtyouknw]

Yea im totally not anti sex thats not my point at all.
I dont see anything wrong with porn inherently.
And as for gettin it, I assure you I dont need any help in that department.
Ive been in a steady relationship for about two years.
And definitely not a hermit.

The problem is sex can really consume peoples minds, when it gets to that point it is just a distraction.

Ive been hooked on most all commonly abused drugs you can think of in the past as and Id say sex and porn are just as addictive as anything else only it is entirely natural.

Ive known some people that are so addicted to sex it has caused them some serious problems. Some people cant have stable relationships what so ever because they sneak around. Masterbation can really hurt people as funny as it might sound. How is a guy to make proper love to his wife when he cant stop sneaking off to rub one out.

 

[obliguhl]

Yes that can be similar, but generally in that situation you arent going to be masturbating while looking at girls on the street.

Shows how much you know me :surprised

But seriously, it's about strengthening pathways of addiction. I someone were to hop trains for hours to stare at boobies and ass in yoga pants, how is that different from watching a ton of different porn? It might be less intense, but it's still the behaviour of a junkie.

The problem with sexless or lonely or "anti-social" people is, that arousal addiction becomes a real problem for the reason that they're desperately seeking sexual fulfillment. But does watching porn for hours on end really satisfy you both physically and emotionally?

Sex is great, especially with partner if you do not agree then you're missing a huge part of what is part of Life. Calling it a drain of energy sounds BS

Well, there is a difference between masturbation to Porn and Sex. With Sex, you are investing a lot of energy into your partner, but you're also getting a lot back i would assume. So it seems to me as if you're engaging in some sort of energy circuit with a constant flow of energy. I would assume, that this constant energy flow can be very healing.

With Porn, you are investing your energy in something that DOES NOT EXIST. Namely, a phantasy someone else has created and implanted into your mind. You're giving a certain thought, a certain culturally colored picture of sex your energy. I do believe that this drains you. This is why i now believe, that one should soley focus on oneself during masturbation, to channel the energy back into ones own body at least.

And if you're addicted to porn and you call it "desensitization" means simply that by eating Doritos daily you can never appreciate any good made salad of properly cooked meal, or saying that if you like video-games you cannot appreciate a good game of seek-and-hide or paintball. How true is that?

I believe that this is very true. I can't cite any definite sources, but to my knowledge, children who are used to eating flavoured and processed food lose all interest in stuff like vegetable because it tastes "bland". I also have noticed, that my eating habits have changed after cutting out sweets and sugary drinks - i enjoy the flavours of natural food much more.

 

[Infundibulum]

Argh, I feel I derailed the thread a wee bit with my ranting inanity - please receive my apologies.

And if you're addicted to porn and you call it "desensitization" means simply that by eating Doritos daily you can never appreciate any good made salad of properly cooked meal, or saying that if you like video-games you cannot appreciate a good game of seek-and-hide or paintball. How true is that?

I believe that this is very true. I can't cite any definite sources, but to my knowledge, children who are used to eating flavoured and processed food lose all interest in stuff like vegetable because it tastes "bland". I also have noticed, that my eating habits have changed after cutting out sweets and sugary drinks - i enjoy the flavours of natural food much more.

I agree in that my own intuition also says that if you eat artificially flavoured, processed foods and you switch to eating vegetables you will find the latter bland... But again how true is that? Or is it the right comparison to make? Are there real-life demonstrations of such assertions? I am saying that because example given you can always switch from artificially flavoured/processed diet to either a poorly or a masterly made salad and get 2 different outcomes. Do we have a good understanding of what happens in either scenario?

And your last paragraph shows that you know very little about porn addiction. It is absolutely nothing like the examples you gave.

I might, that is true; but then I guess if we talk about porn addiction we should start plugging in more data (epidemiology, prevalence, good and bad associations with said addiction etc) and less feelings so that we give an overall rigour to the discussion.

- - - - - - - -

There are quite a few different things going on in this thread, like porn (or arousal) addiction, porn and desensitisation and sexual energy...If I am reading Obli's first post correctly the theme is primarily porn addiction which, just like any other addiction, hinders personal growth. You have to get free off it so that you can develop deeper as a person. Now, OK how do we define this porn addiction? Where is the boundary between habitually watching and being addicted to it? And is there anything inherently bad about habitually watching porn? I would personally call watching porn on a daily basis NOT addiction; also, going to the loo while at work with your smartphone hand-in-hand to fap to some porn also not addiction (OK, I might be pushing it here... ). But to postpone things in your life because they interfere with your porn-watching schedule or to start having health problems because of it IS an addiction that undoubtedly holds you back.

 

[Orion]

Just admit it infund you're fapping away right this instant. I jest.

I feel like I had something of value to add to this thread but alas, all I have to offer is a crass comment. But hey it's something.

But hmmm...

I think procrastination leads to porn wherever a single male connected to the internet is concerned. All empty paths lead somewhere, and that somewhere is drugs and/or porn. Would one even bother if one had something better to do ? Much better to be constructive with ones time instead of splashing away all your energy. The same goes for facebook and junk like that.

Junk and procrastination = splooge away your chance to grow. Is that what you're getting at Obli ?

 

[Infundibulum]

Just admit it infund you're fapping away right this instant. I jest.

Truth to be told, I'd never miss a chance to bring forth my spermz. Should I had a smartphone I'd be down "working" right now!

 

[hug46]

Apart from the arousal/reward/porn scenario, i think you just get used to having sex with yourself and it becomes self perpetuating in that you are not used to being intimate with another person. You are literally naked with someone else, which can quite scary for a self conscious or shy person. I also think it can colour your expectations of what sex is really like if you are not used to doing it with a real person. I have watched a bit of porn in my time but my favourite masturbation thoughts are stored up in my memories/wankbank.

 

[ntwhtyouknw]

Is anxiety really the cause? Here's a simple test: Try to masturbate (alone) using no porn and no fantasy—only sensual touch. Use the same speed and pressure as you would during intercourse. How erect is your penis without porn? If your penis is not fully erect, or it takes effort to become erect, then the chances are that anxiety is not the source of your problems. Persistent performance problems can certainly lead to anxiety, however.

As one man said after he recovered following three months without masturbation or porn,It's hard to tell where addiction ends and anxiety begins.

I think a combination of the two is involved in a lot of situations.
Not long ago, Italian urologists confirmed an erectile dysfunction-porn use connection via a large survey.

When interviewed about the survey, urologist Carlo Foresta(head of the Italian Society of Andrology and Sexual Medicine and professor at the University of Padua) mentioned that 70 percent of the young men his clinic treated for sexual performance problems had been using Internet pornography heavily. (Foresta has now apparently conducted a study.)

Source porn induced ED

 

[embracethevoid]

I think if someone wanted to tame an arousal addiction then a rigorous lifestyle change involving at least 2hrs meditation/day with at least 1hr unbroken meditation + fasting would help. It seems that meditation is crucial to rewiring the brain away from insta-gratification.


Then another thing that I strongly believe would help is some kind of pain/torture stress testing of the body. Something like repeated near-scalding hot showers followed by equally freezing cold showers, punching gravel repeatedly, lifting weights >80% 1 rep max, ferocious cardio, etc. Literally squeeze the weakness out of the body.


The reason being that this arousal addiction is no doubt a symptom of weakness in the body. The body has lost touch with its grit and resilience so this opens the doorway to weakness. Weakness and sloth go hand in hand. The only way is exposure therapy/training, gently at first culminating in a brutal lifestyle.

I suggest these "extreme" forms of training because it will take years and years to undo the damage here. These are very intense stimuli and they may have been applied daily for a very long time. You cannot reverse their imprints by practicing X or Y 15 mins a day, what matters is the total energy input as a function of Intensity * Time applied. You can imagine that all the things that feed arousal addiction are both high intensity due to its own nature, and for long durations of time too. Neurally speaking this presents quite a challenge.


Microdose iboga would be of great help during this state. I notice iboga is the go-to for cultivating grit, resilience, steadfastness, perseverance, patience. These are the very traits most lacking in anyone with arousal addiction or for that matter, any kind of addiction.

 

[nicechrisman]

I find meditation helps me a lot with my impulse management. Once you start to see the subtle effects that different influences have on your body and energy body, it becomes easier and easier to keep the resolve of making positive changes. Seems to go in cycles for me where I will live more purely for a time, then venture towards less pure. Then understanding the negative effects of an impure lifestyle, my resolve is again strengthened.

I liken it to something descending to earth in an eliptical orbit. It will sometimes be moving closer, sometimes further, but even when it is in the phase where it is moving further away, it is still moving closer.

 

[jamie]

why not..just..make your own porno?

 

[jamie]

"Then another thing that I strongly believe would help is some kind of pain/torture stress testing of the body. Something like repeated near-scalding hot showers followed by equally freezing cold showers, punching gravel repeatedly, lifting weights >80% 1 rep max, ferocious cardio, etc. Literally squeeze the weakness out of the body."

Me thinks you guys take this stuff way to seriously and maybe just need to go outside and do something if your that addicted to sitting around masterbating to internet porn that you need to torture yourself to stop.