Let's not start the cult of /r/nofap here. And no, you are not suddenly more charismatic and confident. You are just not reeking of cum all the time, something achievable with regular showers as well.
Nofap and celibacy cults are pretty toxic, but there is some virtue in self restraint.
If it just takes a month to break, it’s not an addiction. It’s a habit.
Really hate the way that the word addiction is watered down by people who just look at porn a lot.
To be fair, everyone handles habits and addictions differently.
I'd like to agree with you, but I don't think there are fixed periods where stopping something turns it from being addiction into habit.
Addiction is an inability to stop using a substance or engaging in a behavior even though it may cause psychological or physical harm.
I think porn can come within that definition, just as much as smoking or drinking can be called a habit.
And I’m saying that what’s described in the OP is a habit, not an addiction.
‘Addiction’ is very overused when it comes to porn because people don’t have any concept of what addiction actually is. Half the time the harm doesn’t come from looking at porn, it comes from the purity culture that we’re inundated with in western society. Being abused by puritanical ideology does not make looking at porn an addiction. Neither does having a strong sex drive that makes us want to engage with sexual content.
Porn addiction is real, and watching porn can have more harm than just puritanical bullshit. Most people that I've watched looking at porn don't just find a video a watch it start to finish. They watch multiple videos, fast forwarding to their favorite parts. Delayed gratification is good for you. Also, porn doesn't accurately depict what sex is like. It can give you fucked up expectations of what sex should be.
If you watch so much porn that you can't have an orgasm without watching it, if you are only aroused by porn that can't exist in real life, if you stop having sex with a partner to instead only masturbate to porn, if you find yourself constantly watching porn even at inappropriate times, if the amount of porn you watch decreases your quality of life... That's addiction.
I think that masturbating is healthy and good for human sexuality, but I think a lot of people could benefit from masturbating differently. Try reading or using your imagination or even just masturbating meditatively, focusing on sensations.
"It's just a heroin habit!"
Masturbating is good for you. Stop self harming.
satire?
Nah it's good for prostate health to masturbate at reasonable intervals
I'm glad you mentioned reasonable levels because like with anything, it can be harmful if done too often.
How often is too often?
Great question.
Essentially if its not interfering with your life in a meaningful way, you're fine.
If it causes you to miss work or if you're unable to wait until you get home and end up doing it somewhere its not acceptable, then its an issue.
Or not being able to stop or reduce the frequency can also mean its an issue.
However, rather than listen to some nobody in the internet, you'd want to consult a medical professional.
There haven't been any studies to conclusively prove that this is the case but some correlation shows that nocturnal emmisions are lower in men who masturbate more. Probably more than likely this guy would have nutted in his sleep during that month of no fap.
Literally prostate cancer research determines a 20% decrease in risk when ejaculating 21 times a month.
This isn't 2016 anymore when the research was still going on.
Porn addiction isn't a thing. People with addictive personalities always out here trying to blame whatever they are hyperfocusing on, instead of getting some therapy and addressing their neurodivergency.
I think I'm confused here. Would it not be true that porn addiction is a thing, just that porn isn't the root cause of it? Like, addictive personalities result in addictions but they have to be addicted to something and that addiction is the {insert vice here} addiction.
Gambling addiction, porn addictions, gaming addictions etc. Just because the personality is the cause I thought it would still be helpful to get them away from whatever they hyperfocus on in order to start working of the addictive traits.
True. There is no chemical part of porn itself to make it "addictive." Orgasm just releases dopamine that feels good.
If you are addicted to meth, it's not easy to give it up because you are chemically addicted to it.
If you are "addicted" to porn, it's moderately easy to give up, if you have self control
But you just stated yourself, porn, which leads to an orgasm usually, leads to dopamine release.
Dopamine release feels good.
Big dumb animal brain associates porn with feeling good.
Brain wants to feel good, brain watches porn.
We're all animals, we're all conditioned. If you want to say technically there's no addiction mechanism for porn itself, sure whatever, but that's not actually very useful is it? Just because the addictive (replace it with 'conditioned to seek' if you want) bit is a little downstream from the porn itself doesn't mean the porn itself isn't the problem.
Also, if self control was so fuckin easy, you wouldn't have anyone with any real problems, they'd just self control them all into solved.
The Goonless
Can they float tho?
If you don't masturbate, you become reimu?
I don't masturbate because I'm horny. I masturbate because I'm bored.
Good for him.
> Greentext