Murgatroyd
Member
Greetings to all. I?m following Gabe Deem?s instructions, making a journal, and telling my story. Oddly, I?m not here because I believe I am addicted to porn. I?m here because I think it is possible I may be addicted, but I don?t know and am trying to figure it out. Bear with me!
I?m a straight guy, 62 years old, and married for 30 years. She is my second wife. I am her third husband.
First, a little housekeeping. It has been brought to my attention that some Fellow Nationalists here think I am acting like an arrogant prick. Of course, they have all been quick to say they can tell I am not actually an arrogant prick. Nevertheless, I have been writing various things in various Reboot Nation Forums which, if readers didn?t know better, they might mistake my writing for the work of an arrogant prick.
I am rebooting since December 6, 2020. Today is February 1, 2021. Today is Day 58. It is not a hard reboot. I am abstaining from viewing porn and abstaining from masturbation. I have sex ending in orgasm with my wife frequently.
Glad that?s settled. My story:
I have wanked since 1972, starting at age 14. At times over the past 49 years, I have sometimes wanked more, and sometimes less. Over those 49 years, I can still count on my hands the number of times I have ejaculated twice in one day (i.e. less than 11 times in 49 years). Occasionally I thought I might try to swear off wanking, and I succeeded, but then I started up again some years after. That happened a couple times ? once for 2 years in 1978, and once for 5 years in 1991. Since 1996, I have felt no reason to stop.
I can say with certainty that the trigger to restarting in both cases was multiple months of being sexually unhappy, coupled with a sense that nobody else was going to fix it for me, so it was up to me. My solution was to masturbate. It was successful in that it reduced my degree of sexual unhappiness.
Despite a little unfounded guilt as a youngster, I have never considered this a problem, on the contrary, having learned to read in 1963, I have read a lot of stuff that described masturbation as ?normal.? Come to think of it, the only stuff I ever read prior to finding YBOP that said anything like ?masturbation is bad? also included stuff like ??and you will go straight to hell with hair on your palms.? After I developed a sense of reason, I dismissed these as most likely being not credible.
For the record, as a published scientist, I feel YBOP?s credibility is as solid as it gets (clearly Gary Wilson?s opponents in this are driven by pop-psychology and, how shall we say, ?Big Porn?. Plenty of conflict-of-interest, no disclosure, and little if any peer-review. This equates to undermined credibility in the world of real science. Someone should explain this to those people).
Potentially notable, and I will write about this in another post: I stimulated myself using only a vibrator from 1972 to about 2010, preferring it to my own hand. Now, for the past 11 years I have done it by hand. I should clarify I also had partnered sex regularly starting in 1977 and continuing to the present.
Prior to 1996, all my wanking material (i.e. ?porn?) was printed matter (I put it in quotation marks only because in those days it included things like swimming pool ads with an early foray into drawing my own pictures of naked women in my youngest years, before getting my license to drive). Not surprising, when I re-grouped in 1996 (age 38), I began to dabble using the internet to find porn. No more swimming pool ads. I quickly learned it was no longer necessary to rely on printed material, and digital material had greater potential. Wanking had gone paperless! Save a tree.
The highest internet speed I have ever used for porn is what I have today: a whopping 4 MB/s. In 2015, Federal regulators in the USA defined ?high-speed internet? as a minimum of 25 MB/s. So my speed today is less than one-sixth as fast as the slowest ?high-speed? connection. That?s okay with me. I don?t stream, in fact I hate streaming because it is unreliable (hint: I live where everyone has at least one barn). I prefer downloading, collecting, and using offline. That probably makes me a Seriously Old Guy?.
So ? despite PMO, I have had a better life than I ever dreamed, with lots and lots of real-life sex with actual women, living in nice places, traveling 5 continents, holding excellent jobs, and retiring at age 59 in 2017. Executive Summary: I don?t fit the profile for a porn addict, and I don?t believe there is anything wrong with me.
There I go, coming across as an arrogant prick again.
My wife says I must be addicted to porn and that it hurts me. I?m here to find out if she?s right. Her complaint? I take too long to have an orgasm.
Now, any child of the 60s and 70s who has read Playboy (I?m that nerd who actually read the articles. If you don?t get that joke, you shouldn?t be reading this as you may go straight to hell with hair on your palms), knows that men of that era were raised to believe that lasting a long time in bed was considered the goal, that ?premature ejaculation? was BAD, and that the absolute gold standard was the ability to ?go all night.?
Oh wait. Men are still being taught that to this day. I don?t need to over-analyze this except to say that my wife disagrees. She has convinced me that prolonged intercourse hurts her.
Let me state clearly: I do not desire to hurt my wife.
Even more to the point: I sincerely hope I do not ever hurt my wife more than I already have.
That said, life is messy and imperfect. People hurt each other all the time, sometimes without realizing it. Hopefully with knowledge and experience, it?s possible to screw up less frequently.
But wait. I had an affair from 2009-2016. If you ask me, it?s because she allowed herself to become less sexually interesting to me. Of course there?s more to it than that. I realize I am setting myself up for a shitstorm, but please try to stay focused. I?m not here for relationship advice, or to have my goals criticized, especially with regard to things that happened in the past (See above, ?I sincerely hope I do not ever hurt my wife more than I already have?).
I am here to find out if I have an addiction.
In light of my extramarital activity, I wonder if my wife may have been affected in a way that might make ?YOU ARE ADDICTED TO PORN? a more comfortable explanation for what happened than some alternatives. Of course, she assures me that is not the case. Right. It?s messy.
Additional information:
I suspect that even if I rule out porn addiction, it will just get replaced by a new lightning rod. If that is the case, I am not convinced that ending my porn viewing will result in a better marriage. On the other hand, if I become convinced porn is hurting me, the path toward change, though not easy, has been well documented and tested, and I feel sure I can arrive at a good destination as thousands of others have.
With all due respect, I have done a lot of reading. I have spent many quality hours clicking through Your Brain On Porn?s lists of thousands of links. I?m not looking for more conversation about these things:
The Reboot Nation is a civil place. In exchange for civility in conversation I will not tell anyone here they should keep masturbating or watching porn, and I will refrain from talking about that kind of thing on other peoples' threads. If they ask, I will point them here.
Thanks for reading this far. Let the conversation commence?.
I?m a straight guy, 62 years old, and married for 30 years. She is my second wife. I am her third husband.
First, a little housekeeping. It has been brought to my attention that some Fellow Nationalists here think I am acting like an arrogant prick. Of course, they have all been quick to say they can tell I am not actually an arrogant prick. Nevertheless, I have been writing various things in various Reboot Nation Forums which, if readers didn?t know better, they might mistake my writing for the work of an arrogant prick.
I am rebooting since December 6, 2020. Today is February 1, 2021. Today is Day 58. It is not a hard reboot. I am abstaining from viewing porn and abstaining from masturbation. I have sex ending in orgasm with my wife frequently.
Glad that?s settled. My story:
I have wanked since 1972, starting at age 14. At times over the past 49 years, I have sometimes wanked more, and sometimes less. Over those 49 years, I can still count on my hands the number of times I have ejaculated twice in one day (i.e. less than 11 times in 49 years). Occasionally I thought I might try to swear off wanking, and I succeeded, but then I started up again some years after. That happened a couple times ? once for 2 years in 1978, and once for 5 years in 1991. Since 1996, I have felt no reason to stop.
I can say with certainty that the trigger to restarting in both cases was multiple months of being sexually unhappy, coupled with a sense that nobody else was going to fix it for me, so it was up to me. My solution was to masturbate. It was successful in that it reduced my degree of sexual unhappiness.
Despite a little unfounded guilt as a youngster, I have never considered this a problem, on the contrary, having learned to read in 1963, I have read a lot of stuff that described masturbation as ?normal.? Come to think of it, the only stuff I ever read prior to finding YBOP that said anything like ?masturbation is bad? also included stuff like ??and you will go straight to hell with hair on your palms.? After I developed a sense of reason, I dismissed these as most likely being not credible.
For the record, as a published scientist, I feel YBOP?s credibility is as solid as it gets (clearly Gary Wilson?s opponents in this are driven by pop-psychology and, how shall we say, ?Big Porn?. Plenty of conflict-of-interest, no disclosure, and little if any peer-review. This equates to undermined credibility in the world of real science. Someone should explain this to those people).
Potentially notable, and I will write about this in another post: I stimulated myself using only a vibrator from 1972 to about 2010, preferring it to my own hand. Now, for the past 11 years I have done it by hand. I should clarify I also had partnered sex regularly starting in 1977 and continuing to the present.
Prior to 1996, all my wanking material (i.e. ?porn?) was printed matter (I put it in quotation marks only because in those days it included things like swimming pool ads with an early foray into drawing my own pictures of naked women in my youngest years, before getting my license to drive). Not surprising, when I re-grouped in 1996 (age 38), I began to dabble using the internet to find porn. No more swimming pool ads. I quickly learned it was no longer necessary to rely on printed material, and digital material had greater potential. Wanking had gone paperless! Save a tree.
The highest internet speed I have ever used for porn is what I have today: a whopping 4 MB/s. In 2015, Federal regulators in the USA defined ?high-speed internet? as a minimum of 25 MB/s. So my speed today is less than one-sixth as fast as the slowest ?high-speed? connection. That?s okay with me. I don?t stream, in fact I hate streaming because it is unreliable (hint: I live where everyone has at least one barn). I prefer downloading, collecting, and using offline. That probably makes me a Seriously Old Guy?.
So ? despite PMO, I have had a better life than I ever dreamed, with lots and lots of real-life sex with actual women, living in nice places, traveling 5 continents, holding excellent jobs, and retiring at age 59 in 2017. Executive Summary: I don?t fit the profile for a porn addict, and I don?t believe there is anything wrong with me.
There I go, coming across as an arrogant prick again.
My wife says I must be addicted to porn and that it hurts me. I?m here to find out if she?s right. Her complaint? I take too long to have an orgasm.
Now, any child of the 60s and 70s who has read Playboy (I?m that nerd who actually read the articles. If you don?t get that joke, you shouldn?t be reading this as you may go straight to hell with hair on your palms), knows that men of that era were raised to believe that lasting a long time in bed was considered the goal, that ?premature ejaculation? was BAD, and that the absolute gold standard was the ability to ?go all night.?
Oh wait. Men are still being taught that to this day. I don?t need to over-analyze this except to say that my wife disagrees. She has convinced me that prolonged intercourse hurts her.
Let me state clearly: I do not desire to hurt my wife.
Even more to the point: I sincerely hope I do not ever hurt my wife more than I already have.
That said, life is messy and imperfect. People hurt each other all the time, sometimes without realizing it. Hopefully with knowledge and experience, it?s possible to screw up less frequently.
But wait. I had an affair from 2009-2016. If you ask me, it?s because she allowed herself to become less sexually interesting to me. Of course there?s more to it than that. I realize I am setting myself up for a shitstorm, but please try to stay focused. I?m not here for relationship advice, or to have my goals criticized, especially with regard to things that happened in the past (See above, ?I sincerely hope I do not ever hurt my wife more than I already have?).
I am here to find out if I have an addiction.
In light of my extramarital activity, I wonder if my wife may have been affected in a way that might make ?YOU ARE ADDICTED TO PORN? a more comfortable explanation for what happened than some alternatives. Of course, she assures me that is not the case. Right. It?s messy.
Additional information:
- When my wife and I started seeing each other, we would fuck all night and do it again the next day.
- At the time, we were both married to other people.
- At that time I took just as long to have an orgasm as I do today.
- After two years, we ended our existing marriages and married each other instead.
- I ended my extramarital activity in 2016 voluntarily and came clean with my wife, after 6 meetings with a therapist on the advice of a mentor in whom I had confided.
- The therapist commented she was surprised by my obvious and genuine tenacity to improve my marriage.
- I found YBOP myself as part of my own ongoing effort to do better. I shared the link with my wife.
I suspect that even if I rule out porn addiction, it will just get replaced by a new lightning rod. If that is the case, I am not convinced that ending my porn viewing will result in a better marriage. On the other hand, if I become convinced porn is hurting me, the path toward change, though not easy, has been well documented and tested, and I feel sure I can arrive at a good destination as thousands of others have.
With all due respect, I have done a lot of reading. I have spent many quality hours clicking through Your Brain On Porn?s lists of thousands of links. I?m not looking for more conversation about these things:
- how porn is bad
- the effects of porn on people who are young enough to be my sons or grandsons
- how porn use by a man has been found to be concurrent with low self-esteem in his partner (the authors of that study clearly stated that causality could not be established by their findings) - I already know her self-esteem takes a hit when she thinks she is not the only thing I want
- what I should want
- relationship advice or opinions about my choices or behavior
- how I come across as an arrogant prick
The Reboot Nation is a civil place. In exchange for civility in conversation I will not tell anyone here they should keep masturbating or watching porn, and I will refrain from talking about that kind of thing on other peoples' threads. If they ask, I will point them here.
Thanks for reading this far. Let the conversation commence?.