1.5 Covert Sensitization
Planted: September 1, 2022
Last tended: February 25, 2023
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Earlier I spoke about aversion, which is where you associate the Fetish with some negative behavior, you receive some sort of negative punishment, whenever you think about the fetish, and then that conditions your brain into associating the Fetish with bad things happening. This is used for all sorts of things other than fetishize things like overeating, for example, there’s, there’s a very obvious payoff in overeating. In that you get the instant gratification, the pleasure of eating the satisfaction of being full. And the nice taste, even though imbalanced, you know, in the long term, it’s obviously a bad thing to do, you don’t actually realize that when you’re doing it. And because you don’t get that negative payoff, instantly, that link in your brain doesn’t fall. And that’s why people will overeat very easily. And that’s why it’s quite a difficult thing to overcome, because it has that link in your brain between the eating and the pleasure, something like smoking is the same. Obviously, everyone knows that smoking is bad for your health. But, of course in the moment, for people who do smoke, I imagine it probably does feel good, you do get that instant payoff. And that’s why people do it, even though it’s not good thing to do. And that’s why we do anything that actually isn’t good for us. It’s because we have this association, this link in our brain between that thing, and good consequences. And obviously, with the Fetish we have sexual pleasure, we have the association between the Fetish and the orgasm. Like I said before, this doesn’t get to the root cause. But it is true, at least it is true that there is that link in the brain. And of course, you can just treat that link, which I wouldn’t advise advise actually treating the root cause of the problem. Covert sensitization differs from a version in that instead of receiving a negative stimulus, you imagine a negative stimulus, which is a lot more ethical. And it’s a lot, it’s a lot more common nowadays, a version is kind of a thing of the past, because it’s just so unpleasant. But by imagining the negative stimulus, you get the same effect as actually receiving it, there’s a lot of research to indicate that it is as effective as actually receiving the negative stimulus. So this is how it works. You think of the Fetish you imagine some horrible consequence. And you repeat that. And over time, your brain becomes conditioned into associating that horrible consequence with the fetish. And you know, you no longer have that link between the Fetish and the instant gratification. By doing that, you actually just don’t want to engage in fetish anymore. You don’t want to, you don’t have that compulsion to seek this out, and get that pleasure, get that positive consequence. Instead, you kind of have the opposite. The imagined consequence, the horrible consequence that you’re imagining, it does have to be quite disturbing in order to be effective. And you have to imagine it with sufficient vividness so that a sense of discomfort or anxiety is actually experienced. So what horrible consequences could you imagine you could imagine, some sort of real life humiliation, something like maybe your family finding out, or maybe just being mocked about this, maybe anything, it’s very individual, and you have to, you have to work out what would really be horrible for you. So you can work on this, you can decide to do this yourself. This is just information. Again, I’m not trying to give advice with this. I’m not a doctor. But you can decide what to do with this yourself. One thing that I would recommend is realizing that this link is formed, realizing that every time you watch porn, you strengthen the link, every time you engage in this fetish in some way you strengthen that link. So you can just stop doing that, you can just stop strengthening the link. And then by treating the underlying root cause the inadequacy, you will then no longer actually want to engage in the Fetish and it’s a lot better to do it that way. I think it’s a lot more permanent if you actually get to the root cause. Again, if you if you don’t treat the root cause then it might come up with some other situation is possible for inadequacy to be eroticized in other ways. Aside from this fetish, it’s possible for you to develop other fetishes. I mean, we all have more than one sexual interest. So that’s why I would recommend not doing this so much. One thing you could do though, is think of some sexual behavior that you do want some sort of positive sexual behavior, something that you actually want to change to be something that you want to find pleasurable. And then imagine a great consequence, because that will condition your brain. Again, it’s the same thing. It’s just a positive way of doing things that will condition your brain into associating the sexual behavior that you do want with a great car. consequence so that’s really just some food for thought just to reiterate that this is a link in your brain that’s formed between infection pleasure I still think it’s best to treat the root causeThere’s at least 100 studies showing the effectiveness of this method. Unfortunately, it’s still unpleasant.
Covert sensitisation comes from the theory of conditioning: that there is a link in your brain between this fetish and arousal. By changing this link, so that you come to associate the fetish with negative things, you no longer feel the urge to engage in it.
I once mentioned this to a client and he told me an interesting observation he’d made in his past. When he kept watching cuckold porn after he’d ejaculated, he couldn’t feel any of the arousal (obviously) but he did feel all of the shame, disgust, and negative feelings. So by doing this, he had inadvertently started to associate the fetish with negative feelings. He mentioned that for the next week after, he simply had no desire to watch cuckold porn, because this unpleasant experience of feeling shame and disgust had changed the way he thought of the fetish. That’s one way to change your associations. When it happens again and again, it can change your deep-rooted associations, and therefore change your drive to engage in these behaviors.
I later found out that this exact method had also been studied under the term “orgasmic reconditioning” – although in those studies, the participants continued to masturbate after orgasm. I’m not sure how, and I’m not really sure why, but it worked.
The trouble with these methods, along with aversion, is that:
They’re unpleasant. They involve putting yourself in a negative state, which obviously isn’t nice. Arguably, the negative feelings in doing this are probably less than the negative feelings from doing nothing, which is why some people continue to pursue these methods. But it’s unnecessary.
They don’t actually solve the root cause. They don’t solve the reason why the fetish is there in the first place.
Some have suggested that they’re not permanent, and the negative association wears off, so it would need to be repeated.
There’s the potential to make the root cause even worse. If you are feeling shame, and that shame gets internalized, then you’ve reinforced the fetish.
Furthermore, they miss out on all the benefits of removing your subconscious inadequacy!
Really, it’s just not necessary when you get to the root cause, and of course by getting to the root cause you solve all the other issues in your life that stem from that. So I’ve really just put this here for the sake of knowledge, and to leave no stone unturned. I really wouldn’t advise this, although I suppose it’s comforting to know that at the end of this, no matter what, you won’t have this fetish any more. Some people become so hopeless that it stops them from achieving what they want, because to do that, they first need to simply believe it’s possible. So perhaps, if nothing else, the overwhelming clinical evidence and scientific validation for this method will at least do that for you 🙂
Source
Author(s) || Connor McGonigal
Website || howtostopbeingacuckold.com
Article || 1.5 Covert Sensitization
Date || Between June 22nd and November 14th, 2018
tags: [“evergreen”]
contributors: ["Connor McGonigal"]