Re-evaluation of PMO's Aesthetics - Based off Emmanuel Kant and Coolidge Effect
If Escape_From_Porn is here, it's me Rainbow_Warrior. I read what you said and took the initiative of borrowing a brief excerpt I made on the NoFap website. My account name is VoreRecoverer if you'd like to read the full post. I'm not sure what I may need to rephrase or reorganize, but this is the recent development of the previous spontaneous post I made on this site last time. Please, stay safe!
Quite often, it really does take a mindset shift when it comes to getting ahead of the addiction. Either your habits shape you or your mindsets do (I took a heuristic shortcut, and thankfully that lead to better habits). I used to struggle with this so fricking much, and I relate to it with you. Though, I wrote a few things down this evening when it came to reflecting on my journey in the past, a thorough analysis involving 2 of PMO's deceptive aesthetics:
These theories delve into a few topics that the book touches upon a bit . They're refined contextualizations of what has been said in the book, but the second was sort of a shower thought that I had during the morning, and it stuck with me. All in all, please know that it is possible, just as it was for me!
Think of it as "Un-brainwashing", which targets subconscious perspectives you might not have realized you held:
1. Abysmal Redline Theory:
Every time you splurge it, the “redline” or “standard” is raised, where there is a tendency to seek "better" material after desensitization, we all know that (right, you know that? Sorry if you don't. Actually, I am sorry if you don't, and I express my condolences.). In the end, PMO only has one outcome, and that is the high, so you might as well have stopped after the very first session. Because the red line always ascends, with no other outcome to incentivize the ascension, you never will satiate “just a peak” because you already have, which is a good thing. In essence, you might think it's a different thing every time when it clearly will be a same-case-scenario, aesthetically and in circumstance. Please, don't suffer as much as I have just to realize this many months later. (Even before the thought of ever wanting to arrives, the ride is already Joever, and acknowledge that. Not in that you failed to quit before you started, but you have literally, already failed the desired high before ever committing to it and even after doing so)
2. Means-Ends Theory:
Why would you do PMO if you’re defeating the purpose of PMO? When you achieve a goal, the energy for achieving that goal is being expended, especially if your goal is to achieve an emotion. After PMO, you feel bad even though you want satisfaction. Aren’t you then expending the energy for feeling satisfied in an attempt to feel satisfied? Doesn't make sense, does it? In other words, you’re actively forcing your body to feel an emotion through no one else's but your own physiological mechanisms, which makes this emotion more artificial than you realize. To delineate, achieving goals where emotion isn’t the target naturally results in you feeling worthwhile emotions, particularly positive ones. Even with boredom, your objective would narrow down from not wanting to be bored to something actionable. When addicted, compulsion leads to the goal intrinsically being to achieve an emotional state, which is the same, sad logic that applies to brain rot, doom scrolling, etc... (compulsive viewership explained in Topic 1.3). That's why it's so infuriating when people (addicts) say that porn does in fact give them pleasure. They are simultaneously unaware that the stress is in the guise of pleasure, similar to the urge's function. Also, why else would people often fall back again after feeling worse off, if the brain associates feelings of post-session guilt with needing one more session? WOOPS, your brain associates the guilt with other feelings now: “Even emotions we perceive as negative, such as fear, anxiety, guilt, and disgust, trigger dopamine release. Normally, this dopamine motivates us to escape or resolve distressing situations, but in the context of corn, the brain misinterprets this as arousal,” (u/Kind_Grapefruit_851, 2024). make of that what you will. So even in that, it doesn't satiate "just a peak". In all honesty, why spend your time forcefully depleting yourself of the capacity to feel when you could spend your time not doing that, and I know that sounds like too much of an actual paradox, but I'd argue that you felt the same way before coming onto this post. From that logic, you might be able to construct the point that it's more sensible to feel the urge than it is to masturbate and get rid of your entire emotional bank. Why throw the baby out with the bath water? It's so cute! It’s human. It's, familiar. It's... okay.
3. I have nothing to add here, I just like patterns of 3. I mean, wait, hold on.
"When you have a David and a Goliath, you must understand the formation of the skull; the pain is relatively the same."
There : ).
Anyways, I am a happy non-user, and I hope you will be, too! And remember, you aren't your thoughts, they're the little monster's. Hopefully, I just took care of the Big Monster for you, the brainwashing. Fear is the only pang, but why fear when you know there is nothing clogging your brain to reinforce the fear? It’s just the little monster starting to starve and die. I hope everyone finds the best way to live through it, to integrate these mindsets into living our lives.
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