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It was absurd how much Eliot meant it— you’re cute—so cute Eliot wanted to swallow him whole.

+ vaguely dubconnish porn for a fandom i know nothing about. virgin kink.

Porn is the symptom.

You watch porn to escape reality. You watch porn to manage your emotions. You watch porn because you're bored, lonely, stressed, depressed, angry, isolated. You watch porn to feel good for a moment, to replace uncomfortable emotions and situations in your life.

If you feed these urges by peeking, even if it's just pictures of hot babes in bikini, then they will invade your mind and rob you of your ability to concentrate or remain calm. Eventually "autopilot" mode will be engaged and we all know what happens next.

You're not having urges to cum.

You're having urges for a "high" and a "rush".

Remember that.

This is why porn urges don't go away when you get a girlfriend.

It is a drug, and you need to learn how to live without it, regardless of whether you have a girlfriend or not.

"The most common path people seem to have is Hyper-Arousal --> Flatline --> Natural Arousal, where the final end is a natural, healthy attraction/drive towards women that didn't exist at the beginning. Now there are quite a few variations on this

Why this happens, no one knows for sure. It seems reasonable that your brain has conditioned (rewired) itself to require a certain level, and type, of sexual stimulation. When it's removed your libido drops because your subconscious expectations aren't met, and your body registers its "disappointment" by dropping your dopamine. In scientific terms, this is called a "negative prediction error."

The good news is that it will pass, and your libido will come back. Everyone's recovery is a bit different, though, and it is not necessarily linear. Even after you start to notice signs of life, it's quite normal to see them followed by phases of sleepy-libido before you are completely back to normal. A few men with longer reboots experience a return of libido for a few weeks, followed by a few weeks of flatlining libido, or several of these cycles.

The bad news is that this unnerving “flatline” phase can last weeks to months. However, we know of no one whose sexual performance issues are related to heavy porn use, who hasn’t ultimately improved—provided that he avoids intense sexual stimulation (ideally PMO and sexual fantasy) while allowing his brain to return to normal sensitivity

Mistake #1: Using Porn to Stop Feeling Bad
People who are unaware of this mistake are going to have a very difficult time quitting porn.

This is what usually happens:

You're very stressed about work or school. You spent all your day working your ass under pressure and you know that the upcoming days are going to be the same. There's pain in your body. You're mentally exhausted. You want to relax and feel good. So what do you do? Watch porn.

You go out to have fun one night. There's one girl you really like, so you try to talk to her, but she keeps ignoring you. One of your more outgoing friends keeps making her laugh with his jokes. You're jealous. You say to yourself "Fuck this shit" and start approaching other women right there. They all reject you. Even one of them said to you "Get away from me!". You go back home feeling incredibly frustrated. Your mood is very down. You start to wonder if you'll ever be able to get a beautiful girlfriend. You get temporarily depressed. It's painful. You want to escape these feelings. So what do you do? Watch porn.

You went out drinking last night. You had a lot of fun, but now you're left with a terrible hangover. You have a headache, nausea, stomach pain. You can't concentrate or do anything. You're just lying there drinking some Gatorade. Obviously, being hungover sucks. You want to stop feeling bad, at least for a few moments. So what do you do? Watch porn.

You're bored as fuck in your house. You and laziness become one. You're not in the mood for anything, not even watching a movie. Boredom, boredom, and more boredom. Who wants to feel bored? Nobody. Time runs slowly. Nothing is fun. You go to Facebook and there are no interesting updates. You refresh your favorite forums and there are no new replies to your posts. There's nothing to do. You start becoming anxious and restless. So what do you do? Watch porn.

Please, stop this.

You need to stop medicating yourself with porn every time you feel pain and discomfort.

This is ignorance to the reality of life.

Stress, depression, frustration, hangovers, boredom, injuries, physical pain, anxiety, embarassment. You know what they are? You know what they're called?

They're called LIFE.

Do not run away from life. Do not run away from reality.

We will never become happy if we keep doing this.

In Buddhism this is called aversion. Running away from pain. Running away from discomfort.

All these bad feelings are temporary. Boredom, stress, hangovers, feeling down. They will all pass.

If we keep taking refuge in porn and running away from pain and discomfort then we will never be able to grow as persons and become real men.

If an addiction-related brain changes or sexual conditioning are underlying your symptoms, you may be able to reverse the process by giving your brain a well deserved time-out from overstimulation.

We call it 'rebooting' so you can envision restoring your brain to its original factory settings

It's very confusing at first because the process is nonlinear, and each brain recovers differently. Some people have intermittent cravings and flatline periods. Some have their worst cravings in the first two weeks. Some have rather severe withdrawal symptoms. Some feel good for a short time and then go into a more challenging period. Some feel horribly anxious. Some feel *less* anxious overall, but also have sluggish libido for weeks. Others don't find out their libido was recovered until they get with a real partner after several months. Be aware of psychological symptoms that fail to improve with time. It's possible that heavy porn use obscured a pre-existing condition such as depression, anxiety, or OCD

The quickest way to reboot is to give your brain a rest from artificial sexual stimulation—porn, porn fantasy, browsing dating apps or Craigslist, and erotica. For some a temporary time-out from masturbation and orgasm is also helpful. Many guys eliminate or drastically reduce orgasms during their reboot period (men with sexual performance problems tend to do this). On the other hand, sensual contact with a real person can be beneficial, as long as you don't fantasize about porn. In fact, some guys engage in gentle intercourse, in which they avoid getting close to the edge or orgasming. This sidesteps the chaser.

Taking the public subway In Stockholm for the first time in a long time. Interesting choice of artwork.