Pornography - love it or loathe it ??!?

Pornography - love it or loathe it ??!?
Strangeways said:
I love pornography ... too much. I know that I use it as a coping strategy when I'm stressed,
Click to expand...
I am the same. My T is the one who pointed that out after many sessions. I was angrey at myself for pleasuring myself to and i have been since i was a kid. Then all this stuff came up and i was so angrey at myself because i felt i was terrible looser of a person. Then i realized i used it less avoided it but my drinking increased. This is when she pointed out porn was my way of coping with stress and now i just traded to alcohol which i dont like drinking so much.

After a lot of sessions, open discussions on it and my past she has helped me to understand its ok. I am not sick or this looser. Its what i used since childhood as my way to cope with things. It could have been worse at a young age i could have turned to drugs which at times i am surprised I didn’t.

So for me i fully accept using it in a healthy way and to no feel the shame.
Visitor said:
Alex says it well... it is complicated. I've been working for years on releasing the shame I always carried about how I express myself sexually. Now I give myself permission to simply be right here with whatever strikes my fancy.
Click to expand...
Visitor and Alex said it very well.

This past week two weeks were very bad for me mentally due to work changes. the only nights i got any rest was after watching or reading porn and allow myself to feel good and then not beat myself up afterwards. Its been a struggle over the years of hating myself for using it. But as my T told its ok to read, watch or fantasize i am not hurting anyone, no one knows and i am taking care of myself so stop telling myself i am terrible.
 
I was attracted to READING abusive porn,
such as when straight males go to jail and get sexually abused. But I know this is not healthy for me as it is triggering my abusive fantasies which just fans the flame. I’ve been better lately as I’m not reading it…
 
I like it and hate it both.

It has become like a pseudo intimacy for me. I am actually scared of human contact in a sexual way, I want it but am terrified that it will lead to abuse. Porn is a very poor substitute, but it's all I have.
I really hate it because I see how abusive it is. Even when it's solo vids or pics I can't help but wonder what is broken in that person's psyche that drives them to display themselves like that. I've posted my own stuff in the past and understand my own motivations now, I can't help but see that in others. Half the time I find myself wondering the person I'm watching would be safe, would they be accepting and the other half I'm convinced they are warped and dangerous. I stay away from porn for the most part because it gives me no answers and just leaves me feeling alone, which I'm mostly OK with!
 
RippleInStillWater said:
I like it and hate it both.

It has become like a pseudo intimacy for me. I am actually scared of human contact in a sexual way, I want it but am terrified that it will lead to abuse. Porn is a very poor substitute, but it's all I have.
I really hate it because I see how abusive it is. Even when it's solo vids or pics I can't help but wonder what is broken in that person's psyche that drives them to display themselves like that. I've posted my own stuff in the past and understand my own motivations now, I can't help but see that in others. Half the time I find myself wondering the person I'm watching would be safe, would they be accepting and the other half I'm convinced they are warped and dangerous. I stay away from porn for the most part because it gives me no answers and just leaves me feeling alone, which I'm mostly OK with!
Click to expand...

That sounds like you made a good decision. None of us need additional triggers!
 
We each bring our own mix of traumatic experiences to our preferences for porn. You can pretty much count on the fact that what you're drawn to is rooted in exactly what you experienced as a boy. As I written many times, the particular mix that was part of my experience contributed to confusion both about gender and about sexual orientation. I've written about my crossdressing experiences beginning when I was a boy. That confusion has played out both with porn and with behaviors away from porn. In the same way that I've worked to release the shame that consumed me my whole life that was perpetuated by porn, I've needed to release shame about crossdressing.

Clearly I'm not recommending any path to the men here but I believe it is important that whether we engage or restrict our sexual acting out behaviors that we never shame ourselves or blame ourselves. We have come to precisely these ways of managing stress... not because we love them so much or have made a rational decision to take this course of action. We learned in the midst of trauma how to survive and since trauma remains in our bodies long past the events that started it all, we still rely on old defenses. We're here to release shame, to learn self-compassion AND to find ways of self-care that enable us to claim our aliveness. As a number of men here note... our reliance on porn or any coping mechanism will diminish when we feel safe enough to simply be here. We trust the healing journey and through conversations like this support one another. I wish us all well!
 
Visitor said:
We each bring our own mix of traumatic experiences to our preferences for porn. You can pretty much count on the fact that what you're drawn to is rooted in exactly what you experienced as a boy. As I written many times, the particular mix that was part of my experience contributed to confusion both about gender and about sexual orientation. I've written about my crossdressing experiences beginning when I was a boy. That confusion has played out both with porn and with behaviors away from porn. In the same way that I've worked to release the shame that consumed me my whole life that was perpetuated by porn, I've needed to release shame about crossdressing.

Clearly I'm not recommending any path to the men here but I believe it is important that whether we engage or restrict our sexual acting out behaviors that we never shame ourselves or blame ourselves. We have come to precisely these ways of managing stress... not because we love them so much or have made a rational decision to take this course of action. We learned in the midst of trauma how to survive and since trauma remains in our bodies long past the events that started it all, we still rely on old defenses. We're here to release shame, to learn self-compassion AND to find ways of self-care that enable us to claim our aliveness. As a number of men here note... our reliance on porn or any coping mechanism will diminish when we feel safe enough to simply be here. We trust the healing journey and through conversations like this support one another. I wish us all well!
Click to expand...

I never thought of it that way, but we’ll said Visitor! It’s so important for us to be gentle on the little boy that was abused as he did the best he could under difficult circumstances…
 
I loathe pirn because it leads you from basic nudity into variety of forms of fetishes. There is no end to the number of places you can go once you lower the boundary of looking at nude images.

For this reason, I a afraid of porn
 
Torres said:
I was always told as a lad growing up that 98% of people look at porn at some point in their lives, and the other 2% are lying .

What is your experience with porn ? Do you like looking at it ?? Do you love it ? Do you loathe it ?

Since opening the door on my recovery and facing up to my CSA at the hands of my dad (its only been 8 weeks since I started seeking counselling and help), I've come to the conclusion that I really hate porn and I dont like it any more. However, I cant stop looking at it. Not that it was ever fulfilling, but it filled a need. It increased the drive, the desire, the turn on, and it allowed me to live out thoughts in an environment that was inside and not out there, do you know what I mean ?

I grew up in a household where faith was present, and I remember being told by my mum that looking at pictures of naked women were wrong, and not the right thing a lad of faith should be looking at with his time. However, growing up in a household with 3 females, and no father (we fled after the abuse), and no one to ask the "male questions" to at early times in my development, no one ever actually said to me as a kid that looking at male pornography was wrong. Now, I learned v quickly in a household of faith that looking at either wasnt right however I always remember the guilt over woman, but there wasnt any over guys.

(for a detailed history where I discuss my Bisexuality growing up read my other post https://forum.malesurvivor.org/thre...-spiderman-that-made-me-bi.82060/#post-583464

So, a young Bi lad discovering himself, and discovering pornography, I have pretty much seen it all. All shapes, all sizes and discovered more fetishes out there than I ever knew there was. 25+ years of looking at porn and, as I mentioned at the start, I dont have a love for it any more, not even a like of it. But its something I struggle to walk away from.

I am trying to heal, to grow, and for my recovery, I feel I need to walk away from it but its a struggle. I've always liked the more risqué side of things, with some scenarios maybe relating back to my csa. I've liked restraints, bdsm, fetish, power play and pup play (if we are looking for details) and the whole environment that each of them entertain, however afterwards, I've just felt empty and unfulfilled. With never looking at my healing and recovery from the abuse I went through until recently, I have never really paralleled everything closely but I have been thinking, how can I go through recovery if my preferences of online entertainment are possibly rooted in what I went through. as a child. How do you heal and grow from that?

Intimacy is a major thing for me, and I dont like being touched unless I initiate it first (or know where it's going), however, through pornography, I dont have to have that fear. It's gone. However, either way, I am left feeling empty at the end of it. Would love to know your thoughts on pornography. Is this something you can navigate successfully while dealing with your (c)sa, or is it something youve felt right to walk away from?

I have tried, and do try to walk away from it, but cant say I've ever had more than a few weeks success at any one time

How are you getting on with it?
Click to expand...
 
Since my CSA I repressed any and all wants to date. SO to be honest, I have never dated. The only sex was with my hand because it was safe, so Porn and masturbation was center in my life. Did or do I like Porn? Yes, because it was safe, and I wasn't ready to deal with my past. Now the most frightening part of my life is beginning. For a little over a week now, I have been impotent. How embarrassing, but there I said it. My T says its completely normal and not to panic, but this is way easier said than done. Questioning my manly hood, my body shame, basically my whole being is being questioned.

Anyway, Porn is necessary, and worked for me, hopefully will work again soon!

Hopefully I can be of help to someone out there!
Brian
 
Neither love it or loathe it.

For years it was my relief, I was taught to believe sex was an evil thing others did to another. So, with porn I could releive myself of desire without doing evil to others... most of the time. There would be times I gave into my urges and felt like I was a monster for doing so, until I hooked up with a woman that showed me the sex wasn't evil, it was something all parties involved in can enjoy.

Today, I'm not much of a porn watcher. I will on occasion, but instead I read erotica (still a form of porn).
 
I love it and I loathe it at the same time. My sister would show me porn tapes to get me in the mood (I later learned she “borrowed” them from my dad’s sock drawer) and it did just what she wanted. I’ve gone without it off and on but for the past few years I’ve masturbated to porn on just about a daily basis. So I loathe it too, because I feel addicted to it.
 
I've been separated from my domestic partner for 6 years. I'm 74 years old so I don't have much of a sex life. The pandemic didn't help. I don't go to bars because I'm in recovery, so I use porn to help me as foreplay since I don't have a partner. I was never very good at intimacy, but I was damn good at sex because I learned young and became hypersexualized, that was the bad part and it's followed me all my life. I meet a man and the first think of is sex with him, well maybe not all men, but I would check out their crotch. That is where I'm sick. I don't act out on those things anymore, so porn helps me keep my sexual urges down even though they are not as much as they were when I was younger. I used to feel ashamed about reading my porn and fantasying but I had to learn to let that shame. guilt and self-loathing go.
 
Remember Dave you are NOT sick, you are traumatized. You were sexualized by the early trauma and it is manifest in exactly the ways you describe. No, there is nothing to be gained by acting out in any of the ways you learned as a boy, but you really deserve compassion, not judgment. If porn gives you some release, so be it. There is no need for shaming ourselves because we use porn to soothe ourselves. Amazingly, when we stop shaming ourselves, the porn begins to loose its allure. Please be gentle with yourself.
 
Visitor said:
Remember Dave you are NOT sick, you are traumatized. You were sexualized by the early trauma and it is manifest in exactly the ways you describe. No, there is nothing to be gained by acting out in any of the ways you learned as a boy, but you really deserve compassion, not judgment. If porn gives you some release, so be it. There is no need for shaming ourselves because we use porn to soothe ourselves. Amazingly, when we stop shaming ourselves, the porn begins to loose its allure. Please be gentle with yourself.
Click to expand...
I agree 100%.
 
Thanks, I'm learning I'm not sick, just traumatized and sometimes that shame still raises its ugly head. I am better at not going there, just enjoy my porn and release.
 
Briang517 said:
Since my CSA I repressed any and all wants to date. SO to be honest, I have never dated. The only sex was with my hand because it was safe, so Porn and masturbation was center in my life. Did or do I like Porn? Yes, because it was safe, and I wasn't ready to deal with my past. Now the most frightening part of my life is beginning. For a little over a week now, I have been impotent. How embarrassing, but there I said it. My T says its completely normal and not to panic, but this is way easier said than done. Questioning my manly hood, my body shame, basically my whole being is being questioned.

Anyway, Porn is necessary, and worked for me, hopefully will work again soon!

Hopefully I can be of help to someone out there!
Brian
Click to expand...
Though I am married, I get no sexual relationship with my wife, so I too, turn to porn. But over the last 10 years, I've been having a harder and harder time getting an erection. My doc won't give me any of those blue pills, maybe because I had heart attack 10 yrs ago so I don't even know if blue pills would work for me! I wish getting relief was easier! And I hate thinking about boys and masturbation, but at least this way no boys would ever get hurt, except in my mind only. I don't know what I would do if I went after a real boy, I think I'd write a letter and then exit life.
 
I hate porn and ashamed to view it, but it's a compulsive reaction I get when I'm "deep in my trauma" and desperately need love and affirmation in the place I was shamed and abused. The specific porn I need is 2 guys doing the things that my abuser did to me. That's not easy to find either so I can end up spending hours looking at porn trying to find "my fix". If I nail it and find a clip that's a "home run" for me I save it so I can see it again later. Eventually, even these I end up deleting because I'm ashamed to keep them. Then a week or two later I'm back looking at porn again, and the cycle starts all over.
 
I watch gay porn to deal with my dark and unspoken abused feelings for me it helps at time of need I know it's confusing and probably not the best therapy but after all that is how I keep on trucking
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top