cinefile77
Member
So, in October of 2014, my longtime girlfriend found a receipt I had forgotten to throw away, which was for a bottle of tequila. I had purchased it while she was out of town and never intended to tell her. This triggered a nervous reaction in her and definitely the woman's intuition. It's out of character of me to do this, plus we already had tequila in the cabinet, so I had some explaining to do. I realized last year that I'm probably addicted to porn and my separate life would probably be exposed sooner than later. So, I sat her down and explained that despite the promise 10 years prior to stop masturbating to porn, I hadn't done it.
Now, obviously she wanted to kill me, but realized there had to be something else going on. She's amazing and I'm extremely lucky to have her. However, I wasn't off the hook. She wanted to know everything. I guess when this came up before, I felt like she was being controlling. It was my norm to look at porn and had been for a long time, so why was she being so prudish. This time, though, I realized that it had taken its toll on my relationship and an important thing, sleep. I worked a job that required insanely long hours for many years and I would often stay up even later looking at whatever new porn there was when my favorite sites would update. When my girlfriend was out of town, I would be watching morning, afternoon and night, often for hours at a time, not resting.
I've since started seeing a therapist because I was exposed really young. Thinking back, I had to be 7 or 8. I always knew there were magazines in my parents bedroom that were off limits. At some point, I told my cousin, who is 2 1/2 ys older, about them and we ended up looking at them. There was a lot there. I also ended up finding videos at some point after we had our first VCR. Unfortunately, I have a little extra kicker to my story. We got a video camera at some point after this and added to the stash of videos were homemade videos starring my parents. Who wants to see this? Well, my cousin sure did and as many times as he could. This isn't something I recommend. It's burned in my brain forever. But, the videos not starring my parents were really exciting. It was so taboo since I was barely allowed to see PG-13 movies, let alone R. So XXX definitely created a thrill.
As we got older, there always seemed to be access somewhere. Once my cousin was 18 he could just rent anything. Also, one of the video stores had an automatic rental machine (pre red-box) where you selected one of the videos in the system and then it spit the thing out at you and charged your account. Well, they had XXX right there in the list and no one was monitoring it. More thrills.
A few years later, as the internet started to happen, it was a big deal to trade jpegs and stuff through email. There were a lot of sites, but nothing like today. Dial up prevented the high res quality like we have now, but it worked just fine. My parents seemed aware, but weren't concerned because I think they were happy I was looking at women. At this point it seemed like something to do and I didn't feel like anything close to an addiction. I wasn't even aware that was possible. I thought guys just did that. I had rented videos with friends before as well and thought nothing of it.
The last couple years in college were great because I had an apartment and high speed internet. The video codecs weren't quite there yet, so a lot of clips were broken into shorter ones and were very compressed, but man, there were sure a lot of pictures available. For hours each night I could click through. Luckily my grades weren't ruined by it, but I know I wasn't getting enough sleep. Also, at this point I was also looking at guys. There was a whole other world now opened up, too. I have sexuality issues, but from what I'm reading about SOCD, that makes a little more sense of it all. Having the privacy of an apartment allowed for I guess, excessive masturbation. The previous dorm years made that nearly impossible.
So, as this isn't long enough already, I moved across the country and eventually met my awesome girlfriend. She just isn't into porn. So, what started to happen is excessive masturbation was messing up our sex and she asked me to stop doing it. So, it's been an issue. However, I wasn't aware until I started to read more about porn addiction that it can induce erectile dysfunction. This is what has been happening. I try to be with her and it won't work. In front of my computer screen several times a day, everything works perfectly and for a long time. Now that there is so much available and there are even search engines just for any kind of porn, it took me over the edge. I was at a job I didn't like and I think I was also looking for more dopamine. For many years because something with me felt off, my sex life has been poor. Basically my g/f hasn't felt totally safe the way women need. I used that as an excuse to just keep using porn.
I'm at a point in my life now where I just want any attraction to porn eviscerated. I don't like that it's hijacked my brain and I'm also angry I didn't know that was even a possibility. I'm in no way anti-porn. Like alcohol, there are people who can just be moderate with it and move on. I'm not that guy. So, the first month without it wasn't that bad because we were on a vacation and I was able to finally be intimate with a real live girl, for real! However, the times I'm away from her have been difficult. Lately not as much because of what I'm reading about the brain chemistry. However, there are triggers. Even phrases can trigger a memory of what I used to look at. It was such a habit to follow sites that updated several times per week to see who they had to offer. I know the people used are just models and most people don't look like that or have sex like that. Everything is edited and the guys have make up on, too. HD shows everything and has made it all that much more intense. So, in addition to searching the next thing, it's also searching the sharpest, closest angles. So I've had to just break my routine. This was the first time I didn't race home from the airport and fire up the computer to get started. It feels good not to give in, but there's still that part of me that wonders what I'm missing, almost like the next episode of a tv show.
So far, I've gone back to the gym on a more regular basis, done stuff in my apartment that needed to get done, slept more and stuff like that. I'm only afraid that I'll replace porn with other habits like too much sugar. I'm not cured of porn and that's why I've come to this forum, but I'm on the path to recovery I think.
Now, obviously she wanted to kill me, but realized there had to be something else going on. She's amazing and I'm extremely lucky to have her. However, I wasn't off the hook. She wanted to know everything. I guess when this came up before, I felt like she was being controlling. It was my norm to look at porn and had been for a long time, so why was she being so prudish. This time, though, I realized that it had taken its toll on my relationship and an important thing, sleep. I worked a job that required insanely long hours for many years and I would often stay up even later looking at whatever new porn there was when my favorite sites would update. When my girlfriend was out of town, I would be watching morning, afternoon and night, often for hours at a time, not resting.
I've since started seeing a therapist because I was exposed really young. Thinking back, I had to be 7 or 8. I always knew there were magazines in my parents bedroom that were off limits. At some point, I told my cousin, who is 2 1/2 ys older, about them and we ended up looking at them. There was a lot there. I also ended up finding videos at some point after we had our first VCR. Unfortunately, I have a little extra kicker to my story. We got a video camera at some point after this and added to the stash of videos were homemade videos starring my parents. Who wants to see this? Well, my cousin sure did and as many times as he could. This isn't something I recommend. It's burned in my brain forever. But, the videos not starring my parents were really exciting. It was so taboo since I was barely allowed to see PG-13 movies, let alone R. So XXX definitely created a thrill.
As we got older, there always seemed to be access somewhere. Once my cousin was 18 he could just rent anything. Also, one of the video stores had an automatic rental machine (pre red-box) where you selected one of the videos in the system and then it spit the thing out at you and charged your account. Well, they had XXX right there in the list and no one was monitoring it. More thrills.
A few years later, as the internet started to happen, it was a big deal to trade jpegs and stuff through email. There were a lot of sites, but nothing like today. Dial up prevented the high res quality like we have now, but it worked just fine. My parents seemed aware, but weren't concerned because I think they were happy I was looking at women. At this point it seemed like something to do and I didn't feel like anything close to an addiction. I wasn't even aware that was possible. I thought guys just did that. I had rented videos with friends before as well and thought nothing of it.
The last couple years in college were great because I had an apartment and high speed internet. The video codecs weren't quite there yet, so a lot of clips were broken into shorter ones and were very compressed, but man, there were sure a lot of pictures available. For hours each night I could click through. Luckily my grades weren't ruined by it, but I know I wasn't getting enough sleep. Also, at this point I was also looking at guys. There was a whole other world now opened up, too. I have sexuality issues, but from what I'm reading about SOCD, that makes a little more sense of it all. Having the privacy of an apartment allowed for I guess, excessive masturbation. The previous dorm years made that nearly impossible.
So, as this isn't long enough already, I moved across the country and eventually met my awesome girlfriend. She just isn't into porn. So, what started to happen is excessive masturbation was messing up our sex and she asked me to stop doing it. So, it's been an issue. However, I wasn't aware until I started to read more about porn addiction that it can induce erectile dysfunction. This is what has been happening. I try to be with her and it won't work. In front of my computer screen several times a day, everything works perfectly and for a long time. Now that there is so much available and there are even search engines just for any kind of porn, it took me over the edge. I was at a job I didn't like and I think I was also looking for more dopamine. For many years because something with me felt off, my sex life has been poor. Basically my g/f hasn't felt totally safe the way women need. I used that as an excuse to just keep using porn.
I'm at a point in my life now where I just want any attraction to porn eviscerated. I don't like that it's hijacked my brain and I'm also angry I didn't know that was even a possibility. I'm in no way anti-porn. Like alcohol, there are people who can just be moderate with it and move on. I'm not that guy. So, the first month without it wasn't that bad because we were on a vacation and I was able to finally be intimate with a real live girl, for real! However, the times I'm away from her have been difficult. Lately not as much because of what I'm reading about the brain chemistry. However, there are triggers. Even phrases can trigger a memory of what I used to look at. It was such a habit to follow sites that updated several times per week to see who they had to offer. I know the people used are just models and most people don't look like that or have sex like that. Everything is edited and the guys have make up on, too. HD shows everything and has made it all that much more intense. So, in addition to searching the next thing, it's also searching the sharpest, closest angles. So I've had to just break my routine. This was the first time I didn't race home from the airport and fire up the computer to get started. It feels good not to give in, but there's still that part of me that wonders what I'm missing, almost like the next episode of a tv show.
So far, I've gone back to the gym on a more regular basis, done stuff in my apartment that needed to get done, slept more and stuff like that. I'm only afraid that I'll replace porn with other habits like too much sugar. I'm not cured of porn and that's why I've come to this forum, but I'm on the path to recovery I think.
