Positive Always Beats Negative

You’re disgusting! Quit it! There, does that help? No, probably not.

The particularly difficult thing about getting out of the rut of obsessive fantasy thoughts and compulsive sexual activity (like masturbation) is that feeling bad about it tends to fuel the whole thing. Masturbation, as pleasurable as it is, is a misuse of the body—or at least a less than optimum use. When you feel like crap, you accept that you should be treated like crap. I imagine that a lot of prostitution customers, men who crave the thrill of a professional orgasm, don’t see themselves as girlfriend-worthy at the moment.

So negativity helps speed up the cycle of temptation. But if unwanted thoughts and desires are what lead you into obsessive thoughts and compulsive behaviors, how do you stop them without just yelling “No!” to your inner self all the time. Well, here’s a thought. Make all those condemnations positive. Instead of “Man, that’s a hot chick. Stop it, you jerk! Don’t think about her body!” think, “Man, that’s a hot chick. Yes, but it’s a real person who owns that body and may God bless how she chooses to use it. I choose right now to protect her privacy and respect her in my head.” See what I did there? I focused on things that are true or should be, not on what shouldn’t be. It’s just like a dieter choosing to be passionate about fresh, healthy vegetable dishes and enjoying improved scale readings instead of focusing on the pain of exercising longer or the deprivation of jumbo desserts.

Look, our brains didn’t get wired overnight. A lot of it is driven by tendencies that are permanent. I strongly believe, though, that through practice and positive reinforcement, we can coax our thought patterns to tend toward healthy thoughts and blow off destructive ones. And, let’s face it, obsessive sexual thoughts and fantasies are destructive. To give yourself completely to that cycle of temptation is to gleefully dive into a tailspin.

Be healthy. Think about what you think. If there’s problems there, think about adding thoughts, not subtracting them. If your timing is well chosen, the good thoughts will beat the bad. Brains work that way.

What Tying the Knot Taught Me About Pornography, Masturbation, & Sexual Fantasy

My wedding night was a bust. The big moment of my life, the one I’d waited for for more than a decade longer than my average high school classmate ended with a manually achieved orgasm. As thrilled as I was to be having sexual intercourse for the first time, something in my body didn’t follow “Ready” and “Aim” with “Fire.” My bride had already reached the top twice and was as impatient as I was.

I couldn’t get out of the comfort zone of my fantasies, my pictures, and my familiar hand.

My new wife had already allowed me to look at certain pictures in books and on the internet. We’d talked about my sexual fantasies and explored many of my curiosities. She had almost acted indifferent to whether I masturbated or when I masturbated. So…my strategy for trying to get the lovemaking right was to either precede sex or interrupt it to go get stimulation from sexy pictures. Odd, isn’t it? I wanted sex so bad in the thousands of times I’d jerked off and when I had a willing partner I couldn’t get out of the comfort zone of my fantasies, my pictures, and my familiar hand.

It’s Okay! This Porn is Newsworthy! (Say What?)

In case you were unaware, sexual activity has occurred between people of inappropriate ages, at inappropriate times, in inappropriate places, in inappropriate situations, in front of inappropriate people, and for inappropriate reasons SINCE THE DAWN OF TIME. Unfortunately, a particularly unsavory incident happened recently at a school somewhere and the video has found wide distribution on platforms that are not supposed to allow such things. I don’t know how this has happened and I’m not going to investigate.

Are you tempted to search? Does it seem okay to view bona fide child pornography because far too many people have seen it on public information streams for anyone to get in trouble (for what is daily prosecuted as a serious crime)? PLEASE RESIST THE TEMPTATION.

The bottom line is that you have to decide what is right and wrong universally and what part of “not wrong” is still a bad idea for you. You cannot count on other people’s or a company’s decision about what is legally or morally okay. They don’t dictate your morality and they can be careless. I would like to think that if someone posts illegal media of activity with a child on [INSERT SITE NAME HERE] that it will be caught and the appropriate punishment will befall the guilty provider of that media. But let’s be honest. There is more and more problematic material being transmitted, often by the subjects of the media. AND while we’re being honest, have you ever went searching and found more than you expected? Or is that just what you told yourself? Whether the surprise search results raises legal questions or exacerbates your sexual obsession, it’s a problem. I suppose if you were trying to get an image of wood cutting river animals for your child’s science project and got a screenfull of bare human crotches, I’d absolve you of any guilt, but I imagine you’ve allowed yourself a search for something a little bit titillating and were surprised by something pornographic. If, to any degree, what you found was a logical result of your search, you’ve got a conscience to come to terms with.

Please be careful. Trust me. No one’s going to give you a sex holiday and say, “Just for today all prohibitions are canceled. To that, I say, “Always and forever consequences will hold firm.” Don’t look. You are only missing out on self-disgust and anguish.

Do Sex Toys Play With Your Head?

BE ADVISED. THE FOLLOWING ARTICLE IS ONE OF MY MOST GRAPHIC. IF IT STARTS TO SOUND LIKE A FANTASY TO MASTURBATE TO, CLICK HERE.

Check out our great new Adult Toy Store! Try a new adventure! Put some spice into your relationship! We’ve got costumes to (barely) cover up your honey’s naughty parts. We’ve got whips, gags, restraints, and complete outfits to fully restrain and pretend to torture the one you love. We’ve stocked silicon phallic shapes of all sizes and colors for for effective and convenient penetration and stimulation all around. And all product packaging bears the image of an average, ordinary user turned into a being of sexual perfection through the use of the product inside. Don’t you dare try to play pretend in the bedroom without having a look here.

Oh, and while you’re in the store, we’ve got fantastically tasteless greeting cards and vulgar gag gifts. Hey, nothing expresses greatest wishes for a bride’s forthcoming marriage like a greeting card sporting a naked sailor of offensive proportions making a naughty offer.

I may be wrong, but I don’t think sex between a healthy, loving husband and and a healthy, loving wife can be improved upon with accessories.

Okay, enough of the silliness. Here is the story of how my opinion of adult toy stores and sex toys went from titillation to disgust. It wasn’t long after my wife and I got together that we first checked out an adult toy store. I had been wary of such a thing previously, thinking it was too immoral for the facade I maintained, but with the approval of my beloved, I felt free to indulge. And the lure was huge.

But Isn’t Masturbation Normal and Natural?

My advice for quitting the habit of solo masturbation was recently challenged with the claim that masturbation is normal and natural and beneficial to sexual well-being.

I agree with this assessment of masturbation. It is normal and natural. I don’t think it’s any accident of design that a human’s hand is perfectly positioned to massage his or her own sex organ. I think our sexual well-being requires some level of awareness of our sexual functioning. In fact, I believe it’s only logical that all people, both male and female, discover self-pleasure as children. But I don’t think masturbation works well as a lifelong habit. I think we are best served by growing out of the practice.

There’s a level of higher functioning not far above you. All you need to do is look up and start climbing.

Weiner and Schwarzenegger and Edwards Are Not Unique

The common response to politicians getting caught in sex scandals is “How stupid are they?” and “What a slimeball!” Indeed, it is easy to point fingers. And, certainly in these public cases, the enormous ego of the politician in error contributes greatly to the fallacy that the person was going to get away with it and to their pathetic belief that a firm denial would blast away the weight of any evidence.  But, let’s face facts: if you have obsessive compulsive behaviors in matters of sex, then you have been, are, or could be the slimeball people are pointing to.

If You Respect Marriage, Pornography Fails

Continuing the theme of my previous post, A Clearer View of Sexual Intercourse, I want to lament the decline of the traditional family. Modern society has become so intent on not marginalizing alternative family groups that it’s now marginalized the old-fashioned mom-dad-and-their-offspring-under-one-roof idea.

I have a lot of sympathy for homosexuals and I don’t have any illusions that gays and lesbians can be forced to change or should be suppressed or shunned in some way. However, I do believe that the marital union and sexual union of husband and wife is a divine design and should stand separate and unique. To me, the use of the word marriage for same-gender couple is a misnomer, plain and simple. It makes no more sense to me than for a court to declare that adoptive parents are now to be referred to as the biological parents. Or suppose two men are great friends. How about they have a judge declare that they are identical twins? Adoption and friendship are wonderful, amazing things, but from a definition standpoint they are not absolutely not the same as biological parenthood and brotherhood. What’s the point of us lying to ourselves?

Don’t Be Naked on Facebook

Please don’t be offended, but you can’t friend me on Facebook. If you see any profile for a Monroe, I guarantee it’s not me. I admire people who give advice like mine and fully identify themselves, but that’s not me. Only a small segment of people connected to me offline know that I share my experience with masturbation and pornography and sexual fantasy online. Honestly, I would be happy to share it with more people, but this is a need-to-know category and if you don’t need to know, you don’t want to know. That’s a healthy boundary.

Wake Up, You Thumbsucking Masturbator!

As exciting as pornography and sexual fantasy are, they were, in large part, a security blanket for me, a most comfortable and familiar collection of thoughts and activities. In fact, there were times when masturbation didn’t seem like it was moving toward a climax. It was like I was asking thumbsucking to be interpreted by my body as a sexual conquest, with the attendant thrill. As I detail elsewhere on this website, the trap of sexual obsession and compulsion requires self-deception. Sometimes that’s bold denial of the truth, for example, obsessing and salivating over the idea that a threesome in your bedroom would yield excitement, satisfaction, and fulfillment beyond imagination (well maybe for a moment, but damage will cancel any benefit). Many times, though, I think that my attachment to sexual thoughts and fantasies is more of a sleepy acceptance of the fairy tales. So, assuming you relate to that notion in any way…WAKE UP!

I am thrilled to tell you that it’s totally awesome to be on the other side of sexual obsession.

I Heart Boobies? Geez! Where Do I Begin?

I hate this new campaign to allow elementary school kids to display the word “boobies” at school. Of course, this wrist band/bumper sticker/T-shirt/etc campaign is really about breast cancer awareness. (Remind me again, what color goes with prostrate cancer awareness?) Oh, well, I guess it’s just a natural progression after the famously successful AIDS prevention campaign “Remember Your Fucking Rubber!” Remember those bumper stickers with the hilarious cartoon? Do you still have one those cuddly teddy bears that had “Remember Your Fucking Rubber!” tattooed on their derrieres? Okay, that was crude and I made it all up. My point is that in the desire to get this message as widespread as possible (and that’s presuming no dark motives), the “I ♥ Boobies” campaign creators are using a flamethrower of a word that leaves some scorched earth.