Porn Free for 90 Days

[dhammapal]

13 days porn-free.

It was really hard to throw out the 17 female nudist photos at Day 9 but now male and female bodies seem much the same and my life feels a lot simpler. I don't need to talk so much to either my male or female friends.

With metta / dhammapal.

[Sarva]

Hi All
Do you know if there are any articles which explains how frequent male ejaculation must be to maintain good health and fertile semen production etc?

Sorry if I missed a reference elsewhere, I have yet to find a satisfactory answer on-line to this question so thought this might be a useful place to ask if anyone has found an answer which satisfies them.

metta

[reflection]

Dear friends,

And how does a monk remain focused on mental qualities in & of themselves with reference to the five hindrances?

There is the case where, there being sensual desire present within, a monk discerns that 'There is sensual desire present within me.' Or, there being no sensual desire present within, he discerns that 'There is no sensual desire present within me.' He discerns how there is the arising of unarisen sensual desire. And he discerns how there is the abandoning of sensual desire once it has arisen. And he discerns how there is no future arising of sensual desire that has been abandoned.
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka ... .than.html

Six things are conducive to the abandonment of sensual desire

1.Learning how to meditate on impure objects;
2.Devoting oneself to the meditation on the impure;
3.Guarding the sense doors;
4.Moderation in eating;
5.Noble friendship;
6.Suitable conversation.
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/auth ... 6.html#des

There are Four Great Efforts; the effort to avoid, the effort to overcome, the effort to develop, and the effort to maintain.

What, now is the effort to Avoid? Herein the disciple rouses his will to avoid the arising of evil, unwholesome things that have not yet arisen; and he makes efforts, stirs up his energy; exerts his mind and strives.

Thus, when he perceives a form with the eye, a sound with the ear, and an odor with the nose, a taste with the tongue, an impression with the body, or an object with the mind, he neither adheres to the whole, nor to its parts. And he strives to ward off that through which evil and unwholesome things, greed and sorrow, would arise, if he remained with unguarded senses; and he watches over his senses, restrains his senses.

Possessed of this noble `Control over the Senses' he experiences inwardly a feeling of joy, into which no evil thing can enter.

This is called the effort to avoid
...
http://www.quangduc.com/English/Books/W ... b4nt11.htm

[dhammapal]

13 days porn-free.

It was really hard to throw out the 17 female nudist photos at Day 9 but now male and female bodies seem much the same and my life feels a lot simpler. I don't need to talk so much to either my male or female friends.

With metta / dhammapal.

16 days. My doctor said that male and female bodies are the same except for the reproductive organs. I don't want to have children so this helps. Even skin is the same except for whiskers etc.

With metta / dhammapal.

[Ben]

Well done!
I hope you are also maintaining your Dhamma practice.
kind regards

Ben

[dhamma_newb]

I want to thank tilt for all of the wisdom he's brought through his posts on this topic. I was listening to a Dharma talk on Dharma Seed by Tara Brach titled "Relating Wisely to Desire" and I think it really touches on what tilt has been talking about here.

Relating Wisely to Desire

With Metta,
Don

[Moth]

Do you know if there are any articles which explains how frequent male ejaculation must be to maintain good health and fertile semen production etc?

If you're worried that stopping masturbation will affect your health, you shouldn't be. If the body needs to release semen it will, trust me. When you stop masturbating you start having wet dreams again. When you start having wet dreams you start seeing how foul the whole matter really is, at least in my experience.

[Buckwheat]

Hi All
Do you know if there are any articles which explains how frequent male ejaculation must be to maintain good health and fertile semen production etc?

Sorry if I missed a reference elsewhere, I have yet to find a satisfactory answer on-line to this question so thought this might be a useful place to ask if anyone has found an answer which satisfies them.

metta

I looked into this in the past, but can only go off memory and can't remember my source. However, I remember reading that there is no health concern. If you are actively trying to have a baby, you need to ejaculate at least once a week to keep your swimmers fresh (how that could be a problem when trying to have a baby, I don't know), but other than that, there was no health concern over abstinence other than stress of trying to exercise restraint. I wish I could remember where I read that. Sorry. Hope it helps.

[dhammapal]

Day 24. I was planning to post after watching a TV discussion forum on the topic of the effect of pornography on children, but I decided not to watch it. One of the regrets following throwing away the 17 female nudist Duchenne smile photos was the desire to find a career helping men to prefer soft core to hard core material as a kind of sex education, but I've realized I should concentrate on overcoming my own personal addiction otherwise discussing the content of photos might just be an excuse to indulge my own fantasies and desires. Alcoholics who haven't drunk for twenty years still call themselves alcoholics (I've never had alcohol though). I still have skewed perceptions e.g. that women are being generous by taking off their clothes.

I thought of donating to the Rape Crisis Centre again but their current appeal is for online education for fathers to raise ethical sons which I think is too indirect. I donated to the Women's Domestic Violence Crisis Service Appeal instead. This is helping overcome anger at home. I'm living alone at the moment but haven't been tempted to look at naked women anymore.

With metta / dhammapal.

[Ben]

Thanks for the update, Dhammapal!
Wishing you all the very best,

Ben

[manas]

Dhammapal, you are the man! You are inspiring me to make more effort myself. Keep up the good work, and remember to simultaneously do some body-centred meditation practice, daily. Ajahn Thanissaro made this point that if we can start experiencing some taste for meditation, it will get easier to forgo lust. Anapanasati, interspersed with some asubha bhavana, seems to help me whenever I go on an anti-lust drive.
Sadhu.

[Alobha]

Almost 30days then dhammapal, that is great! Keep on with it!

[manas]

Hi dhammapal, all,

This might be of assistance:



I take from this that we should find skilful means to overcome lust, rather than just willpower. Of course some willpower is needed, but willpower alone would be a very hard and painful route to take. Giving up sex pleasure is always going to be tough, but there's no reason to make it tougher than necessary. If we can find ways to smooth the journey, we will have a greater chance of success, and less chance of a relapse into old patterns.

Something else that came to mind (and this one is my own idea, not the Venerable Ajahn's!) is that possibly real-life female companionship could help, too. Of course I'm not advocating seeking out a girlfriend if you were aiming at complete brahmacariya, no; but maybe exploring the idea that it would be a healthier alternative to porn addiction is worth thinking about, if like most people, you wish to give up porn, but might not be ready to give up sex life totally. Companionship doesn't have to mean sex per se, anyway. It can be on many levels. It could be as innocent as just friendship, even. I just thought that it might also help to lift the mind out of the temptation to indulge in the 'quick-fix, instant gratification' allure of porn, which is of course unrealistic and out of step with what sex life would involve in the real world (such as affection, respect etc), if one were to engage in it (according to the lay precepts, of course). Just another idea that might be of assistance.

(NB: I was not implying that you have an addiction to porn, but whether we like it or not, online porn is highly addictive, those who produce it are aware of this and actually design it in a way that increases the addictiveness, and I am puzzled as to how some people (not from this forum) can regard it as harmless, or that one could somehow use it casually and not have one's usage increase over time. It is like a drug, and the addictive chemicals are produced in the brain itself - we become our very own drug dealer!)

with metta

[dhammapal]

Hi Manas,

I am a major InterNet student of Thanissaro Bhikkhu. That Dhamma talk (which didn't mention porn) is transcribed here:
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/auth ... .html#lust

I'm pleased to let you know that I'm not as desperate as I sound, but I'm practicing zero-tolerance regarding clicking on photos. I've used porn for less than 12 hours since I donated to the Rape Crisis Centre in 2004 (which was the best $100 I ever spent) and didn't use InterNet porn before that. I had 168 days porn-free before my recent two-day episode 27 days ago. Throwing out my photos at Day 9 has been the only sleepless night I've had. I still masturbate occasionally with residual memories of porn (I abstained for a year once and got a prostate infection). I always abstain on Uposatha Days.

My interest in porn started before puberty searching through National Geographic magazines for photos of topless New Guinean tribeswomen. I wanted "freedom of information" about what women's bodies looked like. I found this Thanissaro quote last year that helped me to let that idea go:

"The primary practice focused on the sense media is the practice of restraint. Instead of looking to the processes of sensory perception to gain information about the world, one watches them to see how they act as tools of defilement: seeking out details that will give rise to greed, anger, or delusion, or to enflame any greed, anger, and delusion already there in the mind. Because sensory contacts and their resulting feelings are among the foods nourishing the process whereby consciousness proliferates into becoming (§41), one must exercise care not to feed that process. This involves focusing away from details that feed these defilements, and focusing instead on other details that help to starve them. By engaging in this practice, one is in an excellent position to see how the feelings produced by sensory contact are ephemeral and unreliable. This observation helps to develop dispassion for those feelings, thus undercutting any clingings or fetters that might arise based on them."
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/auth ... fering.pdf
From: The Shape of Suffering: A Study of Dependent Co-arising (112 page pdf)
by Thanissaro Bhikkhu

What type of relationships with women would help overcome porn addiction? I have one female Buddhist e-mail friend who is older and like a mentor and we never write about sex. I make a point of having a man for my doctor(s) and face-to-face mentor, as a matter of boundaries. I had a female Buddhist psychologist once and became hypersexual (fortunately no harm done). I agree that the problem with porn is that you are freeze-framing women and not listening to them which gives the illusion that they are controllable objects. Their facial expression in reality relates to their relationship with the photographer with the mere illusion that they are smiling at you.

Overcoming lust is a huge topic which is beyond the scope of this thread. Could someone point me to a current thread on the topic?

Thanks / dhammapal.

[Ben]

What type of relationships with women would help overcome porn addiction?

Brother/Sister, Mother/Son, Father/Daughter.

Overcoming lust is a huge topic which is beyond the scope of this thread. Could someone point me to a current thread on the topic?

This thread documents some members progress in overcoming a great difficulty in their lives. I hope this thread provides you with the inspiration, encouragement, strength and feelings of companionship with others who are dealing with the same demons.

[manas]

Hi dhammapal,

I posted the above half out of wanting to encourage you to keep going (because it is actually inspiring to read of someone sticking with something like this), and half out of just relating what has, or might, helped me and others. As you said, sexual lust is a big topic, and sometimes I feel as though it is this demon that hinders us from treading the path properly, it's such a stubborn irritation! But we can't just take a sword to it and kill it, though sometimes we might wish we could.

What type of relationships with women would help overcome porn addiction? I have one female Buddhist e-mail friend who is older and like a mentor and we never write about sex. I make a point of having a man for my doctor(s) and face-to-face mentor, as a matter of boundaries. I had a female Buddhist psychologist once and became hypersexual (fortunately no harm done). I agree that the problem with porn is that you are freeze-framing women and not listening to them which gives the illusion that they are controllable objects. Their facial expression in reality relates to their relationship with the photographer with the mere illusion that they are smiling at you.

That wasn't really my idea, I just meant that Thanissaro Bhikkhu obviously didn't suggest that optiion! I was being hyper cautious that no-one should misunderstand.

Ok, where I got the 'meet with more real-world women' idea: I was at a sort of 'healing relationships' website where they recommended more interaction with real-world females as a means to alleviating the kind of 'spell' that porn can have. In my experience, it does actually work. I can recall being quite involved in using porn, and then one day I met this girl I felt quite drawn to, and thinking of that one glance into her eyes where two people made a connection, rather than just one man looking at a picture on a screen, had a tangible effect on me. That night I did not feel like doing porn, I actually felt like meeting her again. Nothing lasting came of it, but I have found in other instances also, that getting out more in the real world and spending time with real people does help break the spell that porn casts.

Anyway, that's all just my thoughts, take what might help and leave the rest!

with metta to all,

[dhammapal]

What type of relationships with women would help overcome porn addiction?

Brother/Sister, Mother/Son, Father/Daughter.

I meant that as a rhetorical question offering my answers. I attended a talk by Ayya Khema once and she taught the idea that male and female bodies are much the same.

Overcoming lust is a huge topic which is beyond the scope of this thread. Could someone point me to a current thread on the topic?

This thread documents some members progress in overcoming a great difficulty in their lives. I hope this thread provides you with the inspiration, encouragement, strength and feelings of companionship with others who are dealing with the same demons.

When I said "huge topic" I didn't mean I was overwhelmed. "Overcoming lust is a very broad topic" would have been more accurate.

Yes I found this thread very helpful at Day 9. I wouldn't have thrown out the CD-ROM backups of my photos if I hadn't posted here earlier that night saying I had deleted them from my hard disk and Recycle bin. And hearing about the distress that porn addiction has caused others is helping me realize that the problem is real and not just my own idiosyncrasy. I think I have overcome the addiction for this lifetime but I still need to overcome the perception that porn is desirable otherwise I will definitely use it as an adolescent in future lives.

I've decided not to post to this thread anymore as it is triggering a heart condition I had when I looked at porn last year. As I wrote previously I need to let go of the tendency to want to teach others and just concentrate on overcoming my own addiction.

With metta / dhammapal.

[dhammapal]

I've decided not to post to this thread anymore as it is triggering a heart condition I had when I looked at porn last year. As I wrote previously I need to let go of the tendency to want to teach others and just concentrate on overcoming my own addiction.

With metta / dhammapal.

I think it would be triggering to not post here, so I'm back. But I'm going to stop calling myself a porn addict which is negative thinking. Maybe ex-porn addict might be better.

27 1/2 days.

With metta / dhammapal.

[manas]

But I'm going to stop calling myself a porn addict which is negative thinking. Maybe ex-porn addict might be better.

27 1/2 days.

With metta / dhammapal.

I would agree with that. One of the things that greatly annoyed me when I tried a 12-step program, was this labelling of 'you are an addict'. It's wise to drop the label.

[dhammapal]

But I'm going to stop calling myself a porn addict which is negative thinking. Maybe ex-porn addict might be better.

27 1/2 days.

With metta / dhammapal.

I would agree with that. One of the things that greatly annoyed me when I tried a 12-step program, was this labelling of 'you are an addict'. It's wise to drop the label.

Thanks. That made my day!