A Different Kind of How-To-Quit Video

My scattershot survey of how-to-quit-masturbating videos on the internet has identified these common characteristics: confusing psychology, pretzel-like philosophy, goofy advice, scare tactics, and, oh, um…let’s see, absolute boredom.

Here’s my curve ball. I hope you find it entertaining and engaging.

The Crude Life of Masturbation, Pornography and Sexual Fantasy

Dirty thoughts are fun. I bet the nun and the priest do it just out of earshot. What if Dick’s Sporting Goods were really about games involving dicks? Those girls walking into Fridays right now dressed up for Prom Night would be perfect for Girls Gone Wild, and what better place than a Fridays, with customers like me watching? Heck, you gotta relate to the real world this way to give your porn some meaning, don’t you?

Then again, I’m not psycho. Dirty thoughts aren’t, you know, who I am. I don’t want to take my kids to the The Muppets and have to fight off dirty thoughts about the moms and kids around me.

How can anyone really control their thoughts? Actually, that’s what this website is about.

Yet, there you have it. It’s so hard to do both, to be both. There’s an ownership mentality that goes with surfing pictures, “demanding” each new model displayed reveal their ready and willing equipment with nothing protected from my gaze or fantasy. The orgasm at the end of–Dear God, how many hours did I just waste–rewards an overwhelming sensation of conquering bought babes and servant studs. That mindset cannot simply be turned off. I continue to swim in the gutter even when I’ve been relieved, even when I’m not feeling the least bit sexy.

So, the world becomes a puzzle of potential double entendres, profanities, obscenities, and porn stars that I am charged with discovering and fleshing out.

Quit Masturbating: The 100 Word Solution

Masturbation is always a CHOICE. Desire the reward of FREEDOM badly enough to accept some momentary FRUSTRATION. Recognize that the ORGASM caused by masturbation is small REWARD compared to the feelings of POWER and CONTROL that come from viewing pornography and imagining sexual situations with VULNERABLE people. Write down what you really BELIEVE about how people’s HUMANITY, innocence, independence, and privacy should be respected. Acknowledge the difference between your SEX THOUGHTS and your CORE BELIEFS. Daily RECITE out loud your core beliefs. When sex thoughts arise, take DEEP BREATHS and confront them with the truth. RECORD and REWARD your PROGRESS.

Boys, Don’t Twist an Arm to Get a Boner

When you realize what sexual arousal and the erection (boner) that goes with it are for—to make it so a guy’s penis can push its way into a woman’s vagina—it’s easy to assume that every erection will have a predictable starting point. In other words, if you are feeling tight in the crotch, you think you should be able to go, “Oh, yeah, caught some cleavage on that Melissa,” or “What would I expect? Jasmine just brushed up against me.” So, it seems like you should be able to justify erections and ask the question, “What logical reason would there be for my penis to think that I wanted to have sex with a girl right this minute?”

“It’s a common fear: You have an erection and it’s clearly caused by something that should not be stimulating to you.”

Well, of course, things aren’t that simple. You know that. You’ve no doubt awakened with a boner (“morning wood”) and your only real desire at that moment is to urinate. You might try to focus your foggy mind on the night behind you and try to remember a sex dream of some sort, but you won’t necessarily identify a fantasy lover who got you hot and bothered in your sleep. Generally, morning wood is the hardest boner you have (takes forever to go down) and seems the least justified (thoughts that usually seem sexy are pretty lame right then).

It’s a common fear: You have an erection and it’s clearly caused by something that should not be stimulating to you. Assuming you picture yourself an attractive heterosexual guy who will snag a beautiful bride in the coming years, it’s scary to think that something you consider perverted aroused you, particularly another guy or a younger child.

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.

Hold That Dirty Thought…

One of the most useful tools I’ve discovered in my fight against obsessive sexual thoughts is “Gratitude Breathing.” I’ll say right up front that I got this “circuit breaker” technique from the Candeo Healthy Sexuality program. I’ve made it my own, though, and I really recommend you embrace it wholeheartedly. Understanding it and believing in it are key to making it work.

THE BACKGROUND: The chains that bind you to sexual obsession and all of the problem behaviors that go with it are made of emotions. I know how hard it  is for guys to acknowledge that even have emotions, let alone admit that they are controlled by them, but that is absolutely the case. Emotions are drivers that can send us around familiar loops with or without our consent. It’s very difficult to leave that thought loop before it peters out on its own, but if you practice this technique, it will serve you well.

What’s My Motivation?

Sex problems are complicated by 1) a nasty tangle of lies we tell ourselves and 2) bad brain wiring. Mind you, bad brain wiring is not a birth defect. It’s the systematic way you connect things. There are both healthy and unhealthy connections. They were learned and they can be un-learned. (As a negative example, if I conked you on the head every time you smelled cinnamon rolls, you’d soon fear the smell even if you were half-asleep.) Escaping from unwanted habits, desires, and thought processes requires that we shine the light of truth on why we connect things the way we do and what really motivates us to think and act as we do.

“I look at naked people in the sex act is to feel power over them.”

Undressing Nudity, Part One

I have a real hang-up with nudity. When I was a kid, it was a scary, unnatural, disgusting thing. Then when puberty hit, it was still scary, but I strongly associated it with sexuality. As I’ve matured, I find it easier to be casually naked. Better yet, I’m not bothered that my kid is comfortable seeing and being seen naked. Still, I recognize that I have deeply-entrenched associations with nudity. They are not healthy and I want to address them. In fact, I believe my obsession with it is core to my problem with sexual fantasy and pornography.

Circuit Breakers for Unwanted Sexual Thoughts

Thinking about sex is definitely not bad. The problem for me has been that I have had a lot of sexual thoughts that weren’t by choice. They came to me by habit.

I call them circuit breakers. That’s because I think of these habitual thoughts as bad brain circuits (mind you, it’s not my brain that’s defective, it’s the habits that have been programmed into it).

Consider this scenario: I see a person who fits a character type in my library of sexual fantasies and I essentially own that person while I imagine them in my fantasy scenario. Can we agree that that’s not always a thought you want to have?

Consider another scenario: You’re flipping through channels and see a movie advertised. It’s a sex comedy and just that fact makes you ponder things about sex comedies and how far one on a particular network might go.