Hello! I'm Confused!

[hlpneedd]

I'm a new member of this forum. I am a christian man. Although the Bible teaches that P is wrong i'm still not sure i understand why exactly it is wrong. I have so many fears and such about stopping P but yet in the same way I'm concerned about keeping going with the P. I met a woman online who i like and i was honest with her about having and possessing P. After my admission she said that she was not interested in me cause of my lifestyle choices.. meaning P. That is part of why I'm here. I have so many questions to ask and so I'd like to ask them if i may here in this thread.
(1) Does MB really harm the male part? I wonder this cause the first time I had S with a woman I couldn't feel anything and I couldn't maintain an ER for very long.
(2) *more a comment than a question* I fear if I stop using P and MBing that I will become completely disinterested in S and women all together. I fear I'll become dead to S
(3) If MB does in fact harm the male part can it be healed so that it is back to normal? Or will it be harmed for life?
Ok that's all I'll ask for now...maybe these are dumb questions but I really would like to know
Thank You

[breakingfree]

Hlpneedd,

Welcome to the board. A few quick responses to your questions. You will find this is not a forum to discuss the moral implications or rightness or wrongness of P. If you are addicted to P, then it harmful to your mental health, emotional health, and ability to form lasting relationships the same way every addiction is.

RE your questions about sexual functioning and MB, let me answer by treating P/MB as a duality. P/MB can and does create sexual dysfunction in addition to many other psychosexual problems. Whether it gets better is a function of your ability to commit to recovery and develop REAL relationships with living, breathing beings rather than pictorial objectifications.

Please use this board to read, question, vent and share as needed.

Again, welcome

bf

[hlpneedd]

Thanks BF:)

[geoff]

You will find this is not a forum to discuss the moral implications or rightness or wrongness of P

I would beg to differ.... I think this is the perfect place to discuss how wrong porn is for us.

(1) Does MB really harm the male part? I wonder this cause the first time I had S with a woman I couldn't feel anything and I couldn't maintain an ER for very long.
(2) *more a comment than a question* I fear if I stop using P and MBing that I will become completely disinterested in S and women all together. I fear I'll become dead to S
(3) If MB does in fact harm the male part can it be healed so that it is back to normal? Or will it be harmed for life?

1) Does masturbation harm you? It can certainly cause a sore willy, and I've heard of guys getting blisters. Is it permanent? I've never heard it to be so.
2) If you stop eating junk food, and start eating healthy, will you lose your appetite for food? I seriously doubt it. Same with sexually oriented activities. Will you become dead to sex? It sounds like you already are to a certain extent given your question in #1. You can recover from that though. Believe me, losing the porn and masturbation will not kill your sex drive, it will make it normal and appropriate over time. You don't have to walk around all day so horned up that you could wank off at any moment to have an appropriate sex drive.... that's not sex drive, that's a drug addiction, period.
3) See my answer to #1. You can heal. But more important than healing your willy is healing your BRAIN. That's where the detrimental effects really are felt - in how you view women, how you think of them, how you are stimulated (or not), etc. Its the brain that's the hardest to heal by far. That's what recovery is about, and that's why its so hard.

Take care,

geoff

[breakingfree]

Not to nitpick but my point is

moral implications

of P

IMHO, Our operational paradigm is P is an ADDICTION with the implicit assumption that it is "bad". Discussion of the moral or theological "correctness" of P are counterproductive to sound recovery.

bf

[mo4wo1]

Hello & welcome.

Any answer I will ever give you is mine & usually my opinion. Take them as-is.

I will use the trigger feature due to my straight-forward terms.


[trigger]"Does MB really harm the male part? I wonder this cause the first time I had S with a woman I couldn't feel anything and I couldn't maintain an ER for very long."
From what I have read & experiences I have had with my H, compulsive MB can become a problem WRT how sensitive the skin is. Also, if one becomes accustomed to one particular form of stimulus on a regular basis, other stimuli are likely to not be as "exciting". This is also a psychologically based issue. Thankfully, that can be reversed.

"*more a comment than a question* I fear if I stop using P and MBing that I will become completely disinterested in S and women all together. I fear I'll become dead to S."
No. Lack of MB & P does not mean s** will not be enjoyable for you. You may need to do some serious recovery work, which can/will include retraining your brain to see actual intercourse as a proper & enjoyable experience, even a preferable one!

"If MB does in fact harm the male part can it be healed so that it is back to normal? Or will it be harmed for life?"
Yes, you can be retrained to enjoy intercourse with proper help & real desire to have this change.

"Ok that's all I'll ask for now...maybe these are dumb questions but I really would like to know."
I like the saying that no true question is a dumb question. If we all knew this stuff from the beginning & had the tools to answer our questions & make our changes, I doubt any of us would have been here in the first place.[/trigger]

Best wishes for healthy recovery,
Mo

[gimmeshelter]

I do not claim to be a preacher, nor do I claim to be able to make an absolute moral judgement about the "badness" of porn. However, you mentioned the Bible and that you don't understand why P is bad. From a biblical perspective it is bad because it interferes with your sanctification, as ideally from a Christian view you should be spending your life cleaning your messes up for your eventual "end of the game" evaluation. Take it for what it's worth.

[gracebyfaith]

I am a christian man. Although the Bible teaches that P is wrong i'm still not sure i understand why exactly it is wrong

If you are a bible believing Christian, which is implicit in *my* definition of Christian, I'm confused by the question.
Because the God of the Universe, who has created all, including us, says its wrong. ZT (a member here, since I see you are a new poster) often says "we don't get to decide what God already decided". It's not an issue of Christian Liberty, it's not a gray area. I don't need to understand in full (and am incapable of understanding while alive) the mysteries of the Trinity, but that doesn't make me incapable of accepting.

But, I would suggest you ask the Holy Spirit to begin to point out to you the MYRIAD reasons why pornography is damaging to the soul, and to humanity. There are SO many reasons it's wrong that I don't think anyone but the Spirit of God can ever lay them all out for you.

[hlpneedd]

Thank you all for your comments and thoughts and mostly for your uplifting encouragement:)
I mean what I say too. I really do appreciate it and it is definitely helpful. I can see now that my fears were unfounded and illogical. In fact I now believe that it's not abstaining from MBing and P that would make me disinterested but rather it HAS been the P and the MBing that has made me disinterested in S** in reality. I really do appreciate all of this...Thank you so much:)

[zerotolerance]

p/mb creates soul holes. And trains people to keep shoving stuff into the soul hole, rather than trying to fix it. It's like a placebo. The more you shove in, the more you want. You have a soul hole because you m/b, so you try to fix it with more p/mb. That doesn't work, it just gets bigger instead, and you have to shove more and more in to get the fako feeling of fullness temporarily.

We don't get to decide what God already decided, nor how our bodys are made and function. There are consequences to using other people, and sins of the flesh. We can THINK it don't matter, we can believe the p lies, but that doesn't make them true. You put garbage in and you get garbage out. You train you body to the wrong thing, through repetative conditioning, and it will ask for the wrong thing over and over. And it won't ever work right with the right person, nor any person, anymore.

P/mb is a seperate sexuality from hetrosexuality imo. It's pornosexuality. The effects are progressive and cummulative. There is no safe type, nor core, nor genre, nor no safe amount. Different people suffer from different variations of symptoms. You PART can definately get soo used to the hard pressure of your hand, that it doesn't anymore within the soft enviroment of a womans PART anymore. It's really common sense.

My h didn't think it would hurt him either, and he still doesn't think it has. He can't get up without p, though, so that should be a clue, and he can't get off without his hand, which should be another clue. But it's easier for him to sit back and p/mb while he stays in denial. It's easier for him to blame me than to dare look at the truth of the matter. You'd be very wise not to make that mistake.

Plus there are numerous other side effects besides the ones to the PART. It's your mind that gets most corrupted. You function sexually without your heart and souls input, too much, and it stops showing up during real sexual encounters. We can FEEL that, and we know it's not right. You may not be able to feel it though, so you think you're fully present. But we can't have one foot in fantasyland all the time, and still be present at all.

As women, and/or not users, we realize what it takes away, long before users do. We don't want to share our men with their p g/fs, nor their hands. That's not how healthy relationships work. Users can't give what they don't have, and users loose soo much of what they should have often without realizing it. Believing lies and using p and mb puts compartments, and blind spots in your mind. We see the blind spots even when their existence is being adamantly denied.

Your soul is telling you that p/mb is hurting you, but your head is repeating the lies of p that you put into it, back at you. Get the lies out, then your confusion will lift. Put truth in and you'll get truth out. The truth is that P hurts EVERYBODY. MB can and does break mens parts. We don't get to just decide otherwise. God already decided, and he told us, and we have to honor the truth, or we suffer the consequences. It's not a choice, it's a FACT. You have to get your mind and soul on the same page in order to reverse the damage.

P-culture teaches us everything WRONG. The Bible teaches us the Truth. Which one are you gonna believe? To a user p is the God they worship imo. P-ng is not just a sexual sin, it is idol worshipping of the worst kind imo. The women/actors in porn, are being used, and their souls are also being damaged as a result. And users who endorse that behavior contribute to a cycle of unloving abuse. If you loved women, you wouldn't want to see them used these ways, much less be using them yourself. There is nothing loving about it whatsoever. At best it is the love of practicing hate and celebrating hate to the point of solo sex and O. Nothing that hurts people is ever loving at all. Not to God, not to ones self, and not to others. It's easy to think your not participating, but rather just watching, but you are participating, and even celebrating the demise of countless people. How could that possibly be right?

That's not what God is all about. God is love. Love doesn't hurt anybody.

[everhopeful]

I can attest to effects of p/mb on a man's part.

[trigger]Since my PA SO stopped p/mbing a month and a half ago, his part is now "soft as a virgin's" as we jokingly say, and he swears that the sensations of sex are incredible now that he's stopped mbing. Sex and maintaining an erection were a struggle for him before, now it's no problem at all and we're both enjoying it as never before![/trigger]

He says that he was mentally and physically "blind" before and now that he "see's the light" he's never going back to that p/mb darkness!

[fragile]

geoffinnc2 said:

3) See my answer to #1. You can heal. But more important than healing your willy is healing your BRAIN. That's where the detrimental effects really are felt - in how you view women, how you think of them, how you are stimulated (or not), etc. Its the brain that's the hardest to heal by far. That's what recovery is about, and that's why its so hard.

Take care,

geoff

That's so true. I find it the one thing that can contribute to me as a stumbling block. I can chose not to view porn, and already have, and it worked for the last two weeks. But I can't choose to suddenly stop sexual images and thoughts from going through my head which get me sexually excited and make me WANT to go mb... My brain is still full of junk, but my life is definitely more free than before.
I don't know how long that phase will last, but I hope it's not long. Hopefully, now that I fell in love, my thoughts will be about her and not sex and not porn and not mb.

[TH]

hlpneedd,

My advice is to re-read Geoff's post. He has very sound advice and I agree with him.

Also we gain true knowledge through experience so why don't you stop MB and looking at P for an extended period of time like a month or so and then you can report back to us and let us know what you found out.

PEace

[hlpneedd]

Hi TH thanks to you and also thanks to all the others for your statements. I like your idea of stopping for a month or so and reporting back to you all to see what happens. However, I can't really do that as I would have to MB (I think) to be able to tell you what I found out. Also what I failed to mention is that I am also on Paxil and Xanax for depression and anxiety. I guess the Paxil can cause sexual difficulties with Er. Dys. and such. I am sure that tobacco chewing probably has something to do with it as well. Anyway..thanks TH...whatever the case I'll let you guys know what happens. I just pray that I will not be weak and fail before the month is out.

[zerotolerance]

You wouldn't have to mb to find out. Instead, we're hoping you'll find out that you don't really need to mb at all. And come back and tell us how much better you're be feeling, and how you're going to keep going way beyond your original goal of one month.