B
BlueSun
Guest
I've been spending some time reading posts here and in other forums. The struggle is real. The addiction is real. And I've realized the struggle is real for me. The addiction is real for me.
Brief history. Standard stuff, not a lot different from others my age. Magazines as a teenager when I could get them, starting as early as possible. I realized (and hid - even from myself) that I was more attracted to the men in the magazines than the women. A couple of my buddies and I would 'experiment' with each other. By 'experiment' we really had an almost every weekend j/o session together, or more. Porn wasn't involved there, at least not always.
There are a couple of episodes of sexual abuse by older men. Lots of therapy in later life to make some peace with that. Contrary to some opinion, I don't think that this abuse contributed to my being gay. ( I'm pretty sure I was born that way. The signs are all there from a very very young age. )
Similar to some people's experience with nighttime Cinemax, we had a satellite dish which opened us to quite a few interesting possibilities. I still recall satellite S1, channel 18. No idea what that was, but I do know that when I was in the mood, S1-18 was the place to go.
Back when the internet was young and the Usenet wasn't ridden with spam, there were some pretty good sites with pictures to download. It took forever and it was a lot of work to get them all pieced back together. Erotic literature was out there, though. And I read it plenty. This must have been '94 or '95. There was also IRC chat rooms, where I experimented with my first one-on-one text-based chat session with guys from around the planet. I came out and got pretty sexually wild physically.
By '97 downloading pictures was a part of my routine. It was fairly standard for me to spend time pants down around my ankles with the latest crop of photos downloaded. Still no movies.
I think by 2000 or 2001 I had the internet access to start watching streaming movies. I can't remember how it worked then. I think real-player or something of the sort. It opened a whole new world for me. As my use increased, my ability to orgasm with another person decreased.
Coping with the abuse, however, later in life it helped me justify withdrawing into my own private world of auto-erotica. Porn seemed to be safe, controllable, didn't require any trust effort, boundaries. I could stop and start when i needed to and wanted to. I gave myself carte blanche with it. Then i'd try to stop. Then i'd go full force. You know the drill.
By '04 and '05 I had memberships to a variety of services. I remember watching the same videos over and over. That stopped working for me a few years later and I would need a constant stream of new stuff. Sometimes pictures fit the bill, sometimes video. But it eventually had to be new.
I had been in a relationship with my current partner starting in '01. as time progressed the sexual spark between us went out. Or more accurately, my ability to stay up to the occasion fizzled out. Around 4 or 5 years ago, we reached the point in our relationship where we had decided that we were going to open our relationship up. He had other sexual partners. I dated the internet.
We spent a year in separate places, not because of a fallout of any kind, but because we wanted to see what independence felt like. I continued my dedication to internet porn, and by this time any consideration of self-stimulation without porn was out of the question. Probably had been for years.
I first found your brain on porn about 4 years ago. Dedicated myself to quitting. And promptly forgot about the whole thing.
Found it again a year or two ago. Forgot all about it again.
Most recently my use had escalated to such a degree that I had been watching straight porn ( huh ? ) and some other kinda disturbing stuff. I didn't have erections at all but i managed to PMO anyhow. I would get sucked in and hours would go by. At the end I'd be a mess, my neck would be sore, my back would be stiff, and 3 or 4 hours would have passed.
I decided to quit. Joined the forums here and started reading. Went hardmode for 7 days. Then relapsed. Twice one day. Then the next. And the next and before I knew it I had a 5 day streak of relapses. I had dinner scheduled with a friend. I ended up being late to our dinner because i was looking for the right video to culminate to, while i PMO completely soft. I lost 5 days without even realizing it.
I quit again on Apr 2. I counted days for a bit. I think I got to 7 and realized the counting thing wasn't going to do it for me. I needed to just take Porn off the list. For good.
I've had some interesting realizations since then, but those are for another time.
At the moment, the only rule i'm following is no porn. Of any kind. That, unfortunately, includes science fiction novels starring sexy gay characters (which i decided was ok to read on day 3 of my recovery - ugh - and then realized i was *waiting* for the sex-scene. DELETE).
Brief history. Standard stuff, not a lot different from others my age. Magazines as a teenager when I could get them, starting as early as possible. I realized (and hid - even from myself) that I was more attracted to the men in the magazines than the women. A couple of my buddies and I would 'experiment' with each other. By 'experiment' we really had an almost every weekend j/o session together, or more. Porn wasn't involved there, at least not always.
There are a couple of episodes of sexual abuse by older men. Lots of therapy in later life to make some peace with that. Contrary to some opinion, I don't think that this abuse contributed to my being gay. ( I'm pretty sure I was born that way. The signs are all there from a very very young age. )
Similar to some people's experience with nighttime Cinemax, we had a satellite dish which opened us to quite a few interesting possibilities. I still recall satellite S1, channel 18. No idea what that was, but I do know that when I was in the mood, S1-18 was the place to go.
Back when the internet was young and the Usenet wasn't ridden with spam, there were some pretty good sites with pictures to download. It took forever and it was a lot of work to get them all pieced back together. Erotic literature was out there, though. And I read it plenty. This must have been '94 or '95. There was also IRC chat rooms, where I experimented with my first one-on-one text-based chat session with guys from around the planet. I came out and got pretty sexually wild physically.
By '97 downloading pictures was a part of my routine. It was fairly standard for me to spend time pants down around my ankles with the latest crop of photos downloaded. Still no movies.
I think by 2000 or 2001 I had the internet access to start watching streaming movies. I can't remember how it worked then. I think real-player or something of the sort. It opened a whole new world for me. As my use increased, my ability to orgasm with another person decreased.
Coping with the abuse, however, later in life it helped me justify withdrawing into my own private world of auto-erotica. Porn seemed to be safe, controllable, didn't require any trust effort, boundaries. I could stop and start when i needed to and wanted to. I gave myself carte blanche with it. Then i'd try to stop. Then i'd go full force. You know the drill.
By '04 and '05 I had memberships to a variety of services. I remember watching the same videos over and over. That stopped working for me a few years later and I would need a constant stream of new stuff. Sometimes pictures fit the bill, sometimes video. But it eventually had to be new.
I had been in a relationship with my current partner starting in '01. as time progressed the sexual spark between us went out. Or more accurately, my ability to stay up to the occasion fizzled out. Around 4 or 5 years ago, we reached the point in our relationship where we had decided that we were going to open our relationship up. He had other sexual partners. I dated the internet.
We spent a year in separate places, not because of a fallout of any kind, but because we wanted to see what independence felt like. I continued my dedication to internet porn, and by this time any consideration of self-stimulation without porn was out of the question. Probably had been for years.
I first found your brain on porn about 4 years ago. Dedicated myself to quitting. And promptly forgot about the whole thing.
Found it again a year or two ago. Forgot all about it again.
Most recently my use had escalated to such a degree that I had been watching straight porn ( huh ? ) and some other kinda disturbing stuff. I didn't have erections at all but i managed to PMO anyhow. I would get sucked in and hours would go by. At the end I'd be a mess, my neck would be sore, my back would be stiff, and 3 or 4 hours would have passed.
I decided to quit. Joined the forums here and started reading. Went hardmode for 7 days. Then relapsed. Twice one day. Then the next. And the next and before I knew it I had a 5 day streak of relapses. I had dinner scheduled with a friend. I ended up being late to our dinner because i was looking for the right video to culminate to, while i PMO completely soft. I lost 5 days without even realizing it.
I quit again on Apr 2. I counted days for a bit. I think I got to 7 and realized the counting thing wasn't going to do it for me. I needed to just take Porn off the list. For good.
I've had some interesting realizations since then, but those are for another time.
At the moment, the only rule i'm following is no porn. Of any kind. That, unfortunately, includes science fiction novels starring sexy gay characters (which i decided was ok to read on day 3 of my recovery - ugh - and then realized i was *waiting* for the sex-scene. DELETE).