My Brand of Masturbation and Pornography Addiction Help

My story cannot be unique. I am convinced that I’ve discovered universal truths about human behavior. On the other hand, I find a lot of websites and materials that just don’t get me. They don’t really understand the masturbation, pornography, and sexual fantasy problem.  Their advice misses the mark. Furthermore, this seems to be one of those subjects that it’s tempting to talk around. Of course, sometimes that’s just a sales technique to get you to pay for a book or a series of videos. In this article, I draw the line between me and the others offering help.

First of all, you can’t buy anything from this website. I’m not selling anything but the information you are reading. So, instead of trying to convince you that I have the information you need, you can just read the information. This is my experience, testimony, insight, and stories. You can use it all or none of it. I truly hope it helps. (Now I do have some links to references that have been helpful to me, but they are certainly not affiliate links.)

There’s nothing to join here. You can subscribe, but that just gives you automatic e-mail notices of new posts. Everything I have to offer you is available with no more input than a click. The volume of information will grow and I intend to make it all available through menus, categories, tags, links, and search boxes.

Some people believe that you will go to hell if you do not give up pornography, lust, and masturbation. I don’t believe that, but more to the point, I don’t think that it is helpful to pressure people with a MPSF problem to change by telling them how bad they are. The root of the problem is often a low self-image, so beating someone down only exacerbates that issue and, frankly, masturbation, pornography, and sexual fantasy are most appealing when they are perceived as naughty.

Along the same line, some people with a pornography or masturbation habit feel a great sense of shame and guilt. I confess I never have. I also confess I don’t know why that is. I feel very close to God and want to please him. When I’ve confessed my habits to be a problem that needs to change and realize I’ve made the same confession way too many times, I guess my strongest feelings are fatigue, frustration, disappointment, and inadequacy. I believe in a God of grace and don’t think he abandons us if we haven’t achieved a certain grade by a certain calendar date.

Pornography is a growing industry. It’s a terrible thing for the models and actors involved and younger and younger children are being exposed to it. I lament all of that, but I don’t feel like I can do much about that. I hope other people can. I’m interested in helping pornography users who are ready to end their own use of pornography. That’s what I know about and that’s where I think I can offer help.

Some people suggest that health is adversely affected by frequent masturbation. I won’t argue that there are calories burned or sperm counts temporarily lowered, but I have no knowledge of or interest in exploring long term effects. Let’s put it this way: a penis was designed to repeatedly slide in and out of another person’s body—potentially often. I don’t think the use of the hand instead is a realistic threat.

People who don’t really understand masturbation and pornography use assume that it’s a substitute for a real relationship in the most obvious sense. While I do think that someone masturbating and viewing pornography is more likely to be lonely at times and more likely to have fewer or less satisfying relationships, the desire for MPSF is caused by issues beyond loneliness and boredom. Those issues must be ferreted out and dealt with. Telling someone struggling with MPSF to get out more, get a wife, or have sexual intercourse more just tells them that you are unaware of the real causes.

Some people’s idea of a cure for masturbation addiction is to think about something else—yes, literally distract yourself with happy thoughts. Uh, right. You do know that the urge to masturbate is persistent, right? Hours later, after you’ve watched Shirley Temple and strolled the mall, the urge is quite happy to return.

More seriously, some promote the use of internet filters and accountability partners. I’ll explore those ideas in the future, but I confess I don’t have much experience there. I do think that MPSF problems are ultimately dealt with in your thoughts, emotions, attitudes, and prayers. That’s where the real filters and accountability have to be placed.

I realized as I began to conquer my temptations and saw a future of freedom from MPSF that I really enjoyed the process and my new discoveries about how my brain and body had been working all these years. I frankly think  about masturbation, pornography, and sexual fantasy a lot now. I just think about them in a different way. I want to journal the knowledge and try to communicate it to others. I’m not indifferent to pornography and sex material, mind you, but I know to avoid it and I know what to do when I face a trigger. In short, the control is mine now. Because my vision is now clear, it’s much harder to dupe me into bad behavior with sex stuff.

<acronym title="Masturbation, Pornography &amp; Sexual Fantasy">MPSF</acronym>