4.1 Porn
Planted: September 1, 2022
Last tended: February 25, 2023
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Video Transcript
Finally, we are here, the last stage of the process, putting it all together and taking action. We’ve dealt with the theory, we’ve dealt with the subconscious mechanisms and self reinforcing spirals and the root cause the additional causes. And I’ve given you quite a lot of action steps already throughout the stages. Hopefully, you’ve been doing them. I think you need to take a little break from the deep psychology now, and address the more practical side of things first, because although we’ve dealt with the core of the problem, that is inadequacy, there’s actually one other thing that leads us to get to this fetish. And that is porn. Porn literally has the ability to change your sexual desires. And with the influence of subconscious inadequacy, it changes them in the direction of this fetish. But it’s porn. That’s the real cause. And I think that, for 99% of you, this statement is true that you wouldn’t have this fetish without porn. And that’s because porn has powerful effects on the brain that literally change your sexual desires, and it’s porn that has pushed you in this direction. And that’s what we’re going to talk about here. Watching porn releases dopamine, that’s the feel good hormone that we associate with pleasure. Dopamine is pleasure. Porn floods our brains with dopamine. And after months or years of doing this, we become desensitized. We need more of a kick to reach the original dopamine levels. Watching some types of porn may cause you to experience shock or surprise or anxiety, or anything that releases stress hormones, hormones like norepinephrine, epinephrine, and cortisol. You don’t need to remember these. But the point is that these hormones, what they do is they increase excitement, and they amplify the effects of dopamine. Because of this amplification of the pleasure hormone that comes with stress hormones, it’s all too easy to get to shocking, forbidden or taboo genres in order to boost declining dopamine levels, which basically just makes it feel more exciting. So once again, porn literally changes your sexual desires. The core of the problem is inadequacy the cause of the problem is porn. inadequacy does not directly cause the Fetish Otherwise, we’d see way more people with this fetish. And way more girls with this fetish. Girls probably watch less porn, and they certainly don’t watch it every day for years on end. Porn is what’s caused you to go in this direction. And furthermore, every time that you get off to this fetish, you reinforce it. This ties back in with what we said about conditioning. Every time it happens, you strengthen its association with arousal. Every time you get off without this fetish. You recondition your brain into not needing it to get off. And bit by bit, you can slowly recondition yourself. And it may take time, but every day is a chance to move in the right direction. Every time you masturbate or have sex, you will either reinforce the fetish, or recondition your brain. So it’s really really important to stop watching porn and start reconditioning your brain. But this isn’t so easy, is it? Why? Well, let’s look at what actually happens when you watch porn. Firstly, we said that your brain gets filled with dopamine. This is actually a survival mechanism. Our brain creates dopamine, for things that encourage survival. And then it creates pathways to ensure that we are driven to get those things and therefore survive. So sex is pleasurable, because we need it to survive. And if we didn’t find it pleasurable, we wouldn’t do it. So the human race would die out. Food is the same thing. If you eat a high calorie meal, it feels good. It’s pleasurable, because in terms of survival, we need food. So that’s why we come to crave it. Dopamine is produced for survival purposes. The trouble comes when we unknowingly create dopamine from things that aren’t actually conducive to survival. In this day and age, for example, we have enough food, some of us actually having to use willpower to not eat too much food. If you sit around all day eating chocolate, believe me it’s pleasurable, because our ancestors would have benefited from those calories. But now, it’s actually not going to increase your chances of survival. In fact, it will probably decrease it. Yet, the old survival mechanisms in our brains remain. The same goes with porn. It’s very pleasurable because sex was necessary to survive. It’s effectively short circuiting the brain survival mechanisms to make us feel good. By the way, that’s okay. It’s not a, it’s not a bad thing to feel good. Let’s not get too stoic here, pleasure is fine. You’re you’re allowed to have pleasure. It’s important for yourself that you fulfill your sexual needs, right. But there is a problem with actually, what you’re doing doesn’t make you happy. And instead, you’re doing it simply because of pleasure, not happiness, because it releases dopamine not because it makes you happy, then it becomes a situation where you’re ingrained survival mechanisms prevent you from making the best choice for you. But it’s okay to have pleasure. It’s important to make that distinction here that porn is not bad. It’s only bad if you watch it, but don’t want to. And that’s what we’re dealing with here. When we talk about dopamine, we’re talking about taking back control, as opposed to avoiding the evil of porn, be careful not to associate porn itself as a shameful activity. Because that only adds to the shame spiral. It’s not bad. We’re just not in control. That’s what’s bad. And we’re not in control because of our ingrained survival mechanisms. There’s nothing shameful about that. Because these are present in literally every human, it’s just a matter of dopamine. And then it’s the continual desensitization of dopamine, which leads to again, worse and worse over time. And then the introduction of stressful things that, again, increase the excitement, increase the basically the dopamine increase the pleasure we get. But again, that’s just a part of everyone’s brain, no shame. So after flooding our brains with dopamine, they become trained to seek the behavior that provides elevated dopamine levels, and a neural pathway is created to fast track that behavior with cravings and almost irresistible drives. Our brains are full of pathways, every time we learn something new a new pathway is created. The more you practice a new skill, the stronger the associated pathway becomes in your brain. At some point, the skill just becomes unconscious precisely because the pathway associated with the skill becomes so ingrained. Unfortunately, this process also happens with other things, and repetitive or regular porn rewires the brain by creating a new neural pathway, which leads to urges and cravings. Anything that triggers dopamine is something that will strengthen that neural pathway. Now, if you’ve been if, if you’ve been doing this for months, then those neural pathways become stronger. And if you’ve been doing this for years, they are very strong. Dopamine forms pathways with a protein called delta FOS B. This is the thing that creates and strengthens neural pathways. Studies have shown that it takes eight weeks for it to drain away once it’s been created. This means that your brain won’t be creating new pathways or strengthening pathways. After eight weeks, you won’t be getting worse and you’ll be getting better slowly. Now the wiring stays there after eight weeks, and it will take a long time for those proteins to break down years really, so you’ll still be vulnerable for a long time. Some people say that these pathways never truly go away. But that doesn’t matter. We just want to get to a point where we have full control. You can speed up the recovery with actions that activate the frontal lobe the part of the brain that provides impulse control and meditation is a powerful way to do this. Now here’s the thing a thing called sensitization means that your brain’s pathways get stronger after you quit. In fact, they get even more sensitive, or dopamine responses and sensitization is designed to ensure that we engage in biologically desirable activity, like breathing and eating. Why do you sensitize pathways initially grow stronger when you try to quit porn? This is because these pathways are designed by evolution to cause us to crave for natural rewards, such as sex or food. Do we give up on these natural rewards, it will sorry, we will die or fail to reproduce. If you deny your brain that dopamine it will crave it harder and harder. And you have to get through that first before the connections start to fade. Over time, unused pathways break down, and we stop feeling the urge. Once again, I want to, I want to stress that the important point that I think I made pretty well is that watching some types of porn may cause you to experience shock, surprise and anxiety. And this causes the release of stress hormones, which increase excitement and amplify the effects of dopamine. And because of this amplification of dopamine that comes with stress hormones, which we crave after being desensitized to dopamine, it’s all too easy to get to shocking, forbidden or taboo genres in order to boost dopamine levels, which makes it feel more exciting. Good. So next we’re going to talk about habits and willpower.Porn. Big topic. Potentially big problem. Iβve come to learn that iβm biased against porn, and frequently recommend completely stopping watching porn. Really, this is your decision, but based on the evidence it seems that this would be beneficial. Most of all, it just doesnβt fulfil your needs. You can fulfil your sexual needs without porn! Itβs just unnecessary and seems to cause more problems than happiness. Iβm biased; make your own mind up, and work out the role of porn in your life. Lots of people watch porn when they donβt want to, and thatβs a big problem.
Fixing the root cause of this fetish β the subconscious inadequacy β wonβt completely remove the fetish, because thereβs another part of it: the desire for porn and the associations between the fetish and pleasure. Like I said in the sections on covert sensitization and aversion, the link between cuckolding and pleasure is still present in your brain. The easiest way to deal with that is to not watch any cuckold porn or engage in any cuckold fantasies while simultaneously healing the root cause. BOTH OF THESE THINGS NEED TO BE DONE. Not just one! Stop watching cuckold porn because it reinforces the link between the fetish and pleasure!
But also, itβs best to stop watching all porn. If you start watching the softcore stuff, you may eventually go back to this fetish (and then reinforce the mental association, making it very difficult to change).
Furthermore, porn has the ability to change your sexual desires.
Watching porn releases dopamine. Thatβs the feel-good hormone that we associate with pleasure, Dopamine is pleasure. Porn floods our brains with dopamine and after months or years of doing this, we become desensitised, and need more of a kick to reach the original dopamine levels.
βWatching some types of porn may cause you to experience shock, surprise, and anxiety. This causes the release of βstressβ hormones such as norepinephrine, epinephrine, and cortisol. These hormones increase excitement and amplify the effects of dopamine." Because of this amplification of the pleasure hormone that comes with stress hormones, itβs all too easy to get to shocking, βforbiddenβ or taboo genres in order to boost declining dopamine levels, which basically makes it feel more exciting.
Itβs also very addictive, for a number of reasons. Repetitive or regular porn rewires the brain by creating a new neural pathway which leads to urges and cravings.
These reasons are why I highly recommend that you stop watching ALL porn, not just cuckold porn.
I want to elaborate on a point i mentioned in the cultural inadequacy section: that feeling different = feeling inadequate. In porn, the values that are represented may be different from your values. Porn portrays rampant casual sex, debauchery, and very liberal values around sex. If your values are opposite to those things, then porn will make you feel worse about yourself. Itβs not pleasant to surround yourself with things you donβt like or agree with. And thatβs one way in which porn can cause a sense of inadequacy β the more you immerse yourself in these things, the more youβll feel out of place, as if youβre the problem.
Source
Author(s) || Connor McGonigal
Website || howtostopbeingacuckold.com
Article || 4.1 Porn
Date || Between January 27th and November 14th, 2018
tags: [“evergreen”]
contributors: ["Connor McGonigal"]