Hey fapstronauts! Just another update of my non-PMO life. Haven't PMO-ed since July 27-28th!
Hey Faptain and Sunborn! Thanks for the comments!
Faptain- good to see you again! I'm excited to hear what you've been up to for the last two months! That fella you're talking about was called Siphus, and I haven't heard from him actually since he dropped off around mid June (I think it was around there). Wish he would drop by though! I hope that he's doing ok with his struggle, and I hope that maybe he's still coming on here every now and again to check up on us even if he's not posting
glad to see you're 'face' again.
Sunborn- thank you for that very beautiful comment! I came onto Reboot Nation last night, about to copy and paste my big post that I'd written up as a word doc, but after reading your comment, I just had to stop and let it sink in!
it's true: I DO also carry around a history of shame around sex, and that puts me in a place of fear when it comes to expressing myself intimately and sexually. I think it's gonna take some time to reform those attitudes and views around sex, around having possible multiple partners (like you said, it isn't inherently a bad thing), and about either being monogamous, polygamous or celibate. I have to reform where I'm coming from in my heart- like you said: is it fear based, or love based?
And on that note, here's my much longer original post
Well, like I said last week, I had sex with a lady, and that was awesome. But today I want to talk a little bit about that and how it doesn't necessarily "complete you". I think we fapstronauts (and I guess really I'm speaking about myself, but I think there's a good chance that others might feel the same way) may sometimes view sex as the "be all and end all" of life, and once we get back to normal, and our penises are "fixed" again and can get hard again, then everything in life will be alright. I feel that in my life anyway, I have this illusion that that is the case, but in reality it's more complicated than that. Life is still life. It still has its challenges. We will still get disappointed and let down by other things even months and years after our penis and neural pathways have done a lot of healing from porn addiction. For myself, I find probably the biggest challenge on this path, is my attempt to move away from having sex being almost this compulsive release in my life that I NEED to have. Like, basically still an addiction at its core, even if I'm not PMO-ing anymore. And the second massive challenge for me on this path is to try and redefine my views and relationships towards women, because during my entire "career" as a PMO-er, women have always been portrayed and displayed as sex objects solely for men's pleasure, as "sluts" (e.g. Humans who do not have validity in other avenues of life other than sex), and a bunch of other disrespectful roles. I feel that watching porn has implanted these images and values in my mind, but also the society I live in has reinforced these values. And I guess it makes sense that porn would take its cues from society in the first place, but I guess my point is that even if someone stops watching porn on the regular, you've still got your imprinted mental images to deal with all the time, as well as society's subtle reinforcement of these values, that make it very difficult to stop this habit, and attempt to reform new views and values towards women. Not saying it can't be done, it can just be very challenging, that's all
A side note that's sort of on topic: I feel that part of my (our) problem is that we 'put women on a pedestal', e.g. we have this illusion that women are these perfect, pure creatures that don't have any problems of their own, and that are just waiting for us to come along so that they can "complete us" and take care of all our emotional needs. I think those unconscious thoughts are rubbish, and that they only serve to reinforce those outmoded and ultimately illusory views of women as archetypes instead of as people just like us men, (whether it be the virgin archetype, the nurturer archetype, the slut archetype, the mother archetype, the saint archetype? any of those). It all serves to cloud the issue that women are real people just like us, who have their own set of problems and challenges, just like us, and that just because a person is a woman, doesn't mean that she is automatically perfect and chaste; we're all in the same boat when it comes to dealing with the "smoke and mirrors" of figuring out how to be in the world as a human being.
On another note, I personally find that I'm constantly being led around by my "little head" so to speak, as opposed to logic and rational thought. I see a pretty woman and she smiles at me, and then I'm instantly distracted and thinking about only that. It's a little annoying to be honest. Cuz I'm pretty sure that in those instances I'm pretty much only interested in having sex?? even though the mind might say "no, I don't want to JUST have sex with her! She might be 'the one'." So then me thinking that she's "the one" will allow that to occupy my thoughts aims and ambitions for the next day or two (even though the only thing I have to base that conviction on is a smile, and my own hopelessly romantic mind). I guess I find it very hard to let go of a potential romance once a lady has smiled at me and showed that she might like me. I think I have to become stronger in myself, and not "fall" for every woman who smiles at me. But it happens all the time!!! lol. I think I have to get better at letting go. I guess my worry in that case is that I might let go too much, and I won't know how to, or be able to open up to someone new if I'm trying to close myself off to every single temptation.
Hmmmm, just some thoughts fapstronauts! Please leave comments
I hope everyone is doing well in their struggle!
-Peace
