12. You're Not Addicted to Porn — You've Been Lied To

Welcome to the Breaking Free from Porn podcast. My name is Samir Gardner, and today we're going to talk about how to change your relationship with porn. Now, what we need to understand is that we make a big mistake when it comes to porn and masturbation. I want to go over this because this is crucial we understand this, because This could make the difference, not just when it comes to your porn and masturbation, uh, you can say consumption— obviously we don't consume masturbation— but your, uh, masturbation, let's say frequency, how many times you do it, and your porn consumption, your porn usage. Not just those things, but your life as a whole. And this is the concept of looking behind the curtain. One of the big mistakes that people make nowadays, and, uh We're talking more so about like the, let's say porn recovery coaches, for example, the people that you see on YouTube, the people that you see on Instagram, the people that you learn from when it comes to NoFap, when it comes to porn recovery reboot and so on. One of the things that we need to understand is that porn and masturbation are by nature very, very taboo, especially nowadays. I mean, even more in the past, but porn wasn't really out there, at least in its digital form. But it was, and it is still something very taboo. It is not something that we just talk about openly, except in certain environments. That's, for example, if you're with some of your peers or you're in a more open— let's say, let's use the word open-minded place or environment— then they'll be a bit more open to these discussions, but even then it's still considered to be taboo. And it is obviously— I am a man of faith, and for men of faith it is a sin. So we're not willing to negotiate that this is something normal or healthy whatsoever. And I am also on that side, but I'm also trying to be open-minded to really make sure that we— yes, okay, we're not going to compromise on our morals, so we're not going to compromise on our values, But we shouldn't just blindly follow whatever mainstream faith narrative approach when it comes to porn addiction, because we see great mistakes. And this is what I'm going to talk about. We see huge mistakes being made that only creates the struggle in the first place, okay? And nowadays, on top of that, porn consumption is pathologized, meaning we say that it is a disease. This is something that is relate to your biology and not just to specific reasons like your psychology. So one of the big issues, and this is like I said, looking behind the curtain, is that because porn is so taboo, because, because lust is taboo and, uh, it's pathologized and it's a sin and something we do privately, whenever someone has certain problems in their lives and they mention that they also consume porn and masturbation, What happens is the, is that we are quick to blame the porn and masturbation consumption, especially, especially, and I'll repeat it again, especially if you are in a NoFap slash porn recovery forum or group or environment. The reality is a lot of the times the problems that we are facing in life, let's say for example, We are getting divorced, or financially we're not showing up to our jobs and we're not really performing at work like we used to do. We are quick to say, oh, this is because I consume too much porn, and because I've seen other people on the internet say that the reason that they have these similar problems is because of porn. We are quick to just blame Everything, everything on porn. And this is my criticism that I have when it comes to the porn recovery ideology. The movement is that we trace everything, every struggle, or let's say the majority of our struggles, back to porn, back to masturbation, instead of looking behind the curtain, instead of saying, okay, that man is getting divorced. Is it because in private you watch porn? Now, of course, I'm not saying that if his wife knew about him watching porn, that the reason why she wants to get a divorce is not because of porn. No, no, no, no. I'm not talking about in that sense. I'm talking, okay, let's say a man is looking to get married, but he can't get married. And then he says, oh, it's because I masturbated too much. I masturbate once a week. I watch porn once every 2 weeks. The problem with that mindset to just blame everything on a single habit is that we do not look actively at the solution or at the root, the real root of the problem itself. Okay, why is it that I have no confidence in order for, uh, because I want to be married? Why is it I have no confidence to talk to the opposite gender? Oh, um, because of porn. No. I'll give you a personal anecdote. I still remember, of course it was years ago, but I think 5 or 6 years ago, or even maybe more, probably 5 or 6 years ago, I was working at a job and at first it's only been like, let's say, like a few weeks or maybe 2 to 3 months, let's say, to be conservative, that I found out about the concept of quitting porn, what we call NoFap. And one of the things that they say, and one of the things that I genuinely believe, because I just thought that this was the truth, I didn't question anything, is that the longer your streak, the more confident you'll become. Now let me give you my background. I used to be the guy, and I'm not kidding when I say this, of course I was younger, but I used to be the guy that when a woman, let's say I was like in school back then, a woman would talk to me for whatever reason, let's say that we're supposed to do homework, I would stress out so much. I would be so nervous that I would feel my fingers, they would be sweating. Like they would be just sweaty because when you stress essentially like you start sweating. I like, that's the level of, of, um, like stress. That's how uncomfortable, that's how I had zero confidence. And then when I would talk to, uh, the same sex, like men, uh, let's say for example some friends of mine, um, and I would just try to be confident, I, I couldn't really be confident because they were often, I mean, I was a people pleaser, I was a nice guy, and they were just taking advantage of that. And I I just couldn't confront them. I was too scared of confrontations. So when I got introduced the idea that all of these problems, it was not really my fault, but it was because of porn. It was like, oh, so that means that if I stop watching porn, these problems will magically, magically be solved. Here's what happened. Let's go back to work. I was working this job and there was a female colleague. And I was on day, and it was I think the first time I got on day 20. And of course I just found out about NoFap like 2 to 3 months ago. I get on day 20 and I'm like, okay, now I can have confidence. In my mind I thought, okay, you cannot have confidence below day 7 because on day 7 you get like a spike in testosterone. And when you relapse, there's usually like a few days where you feel down and you feel like you have no energy, you have no confidence, you feel worthless. And I genuinely believe that, therefore I felt like that, I acted according to that. So I was on day 20. On day 20, I was like, okay, I'm going to be confident. So what I would do is that I want to talk to this female colleague because I think she asked me for something, for some help. And I talked to her and I faked my confidence so much because I didn't want to feel like, oh no, I'm doing all of this. I just left porn thinking that this will be the only— like, it's my only solution to feel confident, and it doesn't work. Imagine how deceived I would have felt. So guess what happened? I faked my confidence. But then what happened is when I got to day 90, later on when I got to day 120, yes, I did feel a bit more confidence, but maybe that was just because I was improving my life. I was working out, I was putting myself in uncomfortable situations, I was doing all of these things, I was reading books. But I got on day 120 and I still remember still having this thing where my palms would be sweating when there was a woman, when there was the opposite sex in front of me. So I thought, is it just because of my porn consumption? And this is me being a bit, let's say, naive. I just I said, oh yeah, maybe it's because I'm not free yet. When I'll get on like 1 year without porn and masturbation, then I'll have the confidence. So you see, I was blaming the fact that I didn't have the confidence, just attributing that to porn, to my past porn consumption. When in reality, it's just that I was a people pleaser. I was too much of a nice guy. I was too scared of confrontations. I never learned how to confront people. I never learned to feel like, uh, to feel worthy to, to pursue the things that I want to do. I always follow what everyone else would expect of me. I never learned these things. So for me to just blame everything on porn is like saying, oh yeah, um, I'm sick and all of the junk food I ate, all of the, uh, let's say all of the The days that I just slept for like 2 hours and all of the alcohol that I consume, these things, yeah, they don't really matter. That's not the reason why I got sick. The reason why I got sick is because I got the flu. The reason I'm sick, I mean, the reason I have a disease is because I just, let's say, it's just my age. It's just that it's genetics. It's like, yeah, these things play a role. Okay. They do play a role, but will you really, really disregard everything else that is absent or everything else that could be, and there is strong evidence that could be causing the problem, and just blaming it on one little thing? And I don't want to sound passive-aggressive. I just really want to call out this because I see too many people kind of going about quitting porn with this mindset, with this belief that this is going to be the thing that's going to save me, this is the thing that will just unlock every door for me, it will change your life. I'm telling you, the amount of, uh, new energy, uh, like mental energy, mental space, uh, time and so on— I mean, focus, so many great things, especially over time as it compounds and you do other better things with your time, you're going to see like a huge change in your life and your mind is not going to be as maybe sexualized. You're going to gain like a lot of things. But to go about quitting porn thinking, oh yeah, all of my problems is because of porn, the moment I quit porn and I'll get on, let's say, on, uh, 90 days without porn, 180 days without porn, then all of these problems will kind of disappear. You might feel like, okay, no, actually, uh, I was deceived. But in reality, it's just that porn was just a small little factor. So what we need to understand— so another thing that we need to really, uh, talk about is that the distress, the struggle that people face nowadays, uh, when it comes to porn and masturbation addiction. And look, this might sound like I'm being a bit controversial, here. But what I'm about to say, I'll just tell you, I'll just preface this by saying I am a man of faith. I do follow, I believe objective morality, that morality is one thing. Okay, I don't think that morality is subjective. It's like, oh, how you feel, well, that's your morality. Like, okay, how you feel is going to determine what is good and bad. No, I don't believe that. I believe that morality comes from God. But what I'll say, and this is based on the research from Grubbs, that morality was found out— religious, religiosity, okay— morality was found out to be the strongest predictor of perceived porn addiction, stronger than the frequency of use of porn itself. Now you might be like, okay, yeah, but people that do not have any type of morality and they do not care about their porn consumption, they just like watch porn every day and they don't really care about it. Yeah, sure, they might not feel as bad, but they're still addicted. What you need to understand is, and I've seen this, and this is obviously self-reported and this is my personal anecdote, I've seen multiple times over and over again. When you treat a problem as, okay, this is something that I choose to do, this is not something that I'm out of control, what happens is you will be much more rational, you will feel much more in control when you do decide to leave it behind. Of course, if you don't wanna leave it behind, then why would you be forced to leave it behind? Why would someone tell you, okay, you shouldn't watch porn, don't watch porn, but you don't want to? Like, of course it's not going to work for that person. They don't want to. If I— if you love ice cream and I just tell you stop eating ice cream, and I say because it might make you unhealthy, would you really care? I mean, say that to a kid, would they really care? You can even bring them evidence, they don't really care. Now, what are we talking about? This— the issue that a lot of people have, and when it comes to lust, porn, masturbation, fetishes— and I'll get into fetishes very soon— is that the moral conflict that is happening is very loud in their minds when they watch porn. When they masturbate, they feel like— they— I mean, their conclusion is, if I am doing something that goes against my morals and values, what we call moral incongruence, I'm doing it but it goes against what I believe to be true, then there must be an explanation to that. It can't just be I want to do it for X, Y, and Z reason. I want to do it because I feel lonely and I have no partner and I feel like I'll never be married, therefore I'm never going to get any type of sexual experience. People don't think about the real reasons why they want to engage in porn. And so they come up to that conclusion of, well, I don't know why I'm doing this. Maybe it's just because I'm a dictated was the guy that, let's say, that doesn't have— that doesn't, let's say, follow this or doesn't believe in this, or someone that, let's say, doesn't really have that concept of morality. Not saying that that's good, of course not. I'd rather— and I'll tell you guys, I'll be a bit controversial again. For me personally, I think it's better for someone to have that morality and feel like they're struggling than to have no morality and not feel like they're struggling. Because at the end of the day, Objective morality would mean that this would be the ultimate truth, okay? But that's another topic for another day. But the guy that, let's say, doesn't have that morality, doesn't really feel like, okay, I'm doing something wrong, I'm just doing, he thinks I'm just watching porn, it's just pleasurable, I'm not harming anyone, that's his belief. But that guy, what's going to happen is when, if he tries to come to a conclusion as to why he's watching porn, Well, he can. It's gonna be much easier for him because he knows that he wants to do it. He's not doing it because the, the women on the screen are just so, so attractive and he's addicted to that. No, maybe he's gonna be honest with himself because he doesn't even see it as bad. The guy that sees it as like bad, and of course from our perspective it's bad also, but the guy that sees it as bad will not try to think, okay, I want to do it because of these reasons. Because why, if it's bad, why would I think about why I want to do it? This is the thing that's missing. They don't, we don't look behind the curtain. We just say, oh, the conclusion is I'm addicted to porn. Okay. Now, here's an exercise I came across recently, which I believe would be very helpful. You want to ask yourself, and this is going to change a lot because a lot of people feel shame about, for example, their different sexual preferences. Let's say that because of porn, they learned to like certain types of positions, certain types of acts within intimacy, and they think, well, these things are bad, why do I even desire those things? And of course, there's that moral incongruence. But oftentimes what happens is it's not because, let's say, their religion, or because of the set of values, or what they believe to be objective morality, say is wrong, or say is bad, or forbidden. They don't think, okay, I discern this specific position, I shouldn't want to do this because it's immoral. Because sometimes their morality doesn't say that it's immoral. It's sometimes culture, it's sometimes religion, What did they learn from their environments? And that sometimes the opposite sex— and this obviously will differ based on the partner and based on the human being— but sometimes the opposite sex, they think that, let's say they get married, that their future partner will criticize them for having a certain type of preference within intimacy. So here's the questions I want you to reflect on. You want to first ask yourself, where did your values— where did you learn your values when it comes to intimacy? Where did you learn, okay, this act within intimacy is forbidden or is bad, and this other act is good. Because let's be honest, the mainstream narrative when it comes to, um, intimacy is that, okay, people— and I, I don't want to like criticize it because I don't really care about people's sexual preferences. Of course, if it's something illegal, then yes, I would care. But if people have some preferences, then it's up to them. I'm not here to judge anyone and never judge anyone when it comes to these matters. But the concept of sexual addiction, for the most part, is really focused on this idea that— and again, I don't criticize, I'm not going to criticize that— but it's based on this idea that it should be like a this kind of like vanilla, uh, focused idea of sexuality where it's obviously monogamous. Like, it is something which is, to simplify it, uh, just basic intimacy, and, uh, you don't deviate from that. So the issue here comes with if someone slightly deviates, they feel like they are deviants, they feel like they are Well, they should feel shame for wanting to have these, for wanting these things. And this is the trap that a lot of people get trapped in, where they learn these ideas about sexuality and they never question them again. So another question, it can be, okay, who did you— like, who was like your— you can say the the guy that you looked up to when it comes to intimacy? It might be a weird question, but think about it. For the younger generation, now I'll say this because I see this a lot on the internet. For example, we have a famous figure by the name of Andrew Tate. I'm not a big fan of such guy, but one of the things that he talks about in his content is intimacy. And so in terms of intimacy. I don't want to be explicit here or graphic, but for him, for example, if you have intimacy, then you should have some type of oral sex and you should have many women. And here, I'm not here again to criticize these things, but that's his idea. Now, people learn from him And then they think, if I want something that's outside of that, that's not as masculine as that, then that means there might be something wrong with me. But then their faith, for example, doesn't say that, but they think that. Or for example, we have the red pill, very, very, very popular. Oh, uh, you need to be like this in bed. If you're not like this, then you're not— are not a man. And so if someone doesn't follow these specific criteria or doesn't perform based on what was expected of them based on these types of ideologies, then they feel like they're failing. They feel like they are— they should feel shame about that. So for example, if someone— and this is something because I've been coaching people for the past few years, something that a lot of people struggle with— if someone has a specific type of fetish that's a bit more, let's say, feminine. Okay? And I'm not advocating, nor am I going against these types of fetishes because again, I'm not here to judge that. But when they have these types of desires, they feel like they're really, really like an outcast, like they're an outsider. They're very deviant. And the question is, okay, Where did you learn that this specific type of fetish was even? Because sure, you could say, okay, let's say for example, my faith says to not do something along those lines. And I'm not saying that you should just adopt these types of fetishes and just want to have them and should just continue indulging in them, nor am I saying that you should just suppress it from the start. But really think about it. Where did you learn? I'm just saying question. I'm not saying like come to a conclusion right away. Just saying, where did you learn that this was right? Because if you realize that, okay, I learned this from like this old, like a long time ago and it doesn't make sense anymore, then it'll be easier for you to kind of like remove that stigma, to remove like this cloud of shame that's around it. And then you'll be able to rationalize, okay, do I still actually want this in my life? Okay. Why do I want this? Okay. It's because I, felt like I never had some type of intimacy in my life, and that fetish made me feel like I, um, I was being taken care of, let's say, for, for whatever reason. Oh, okay, well, can I do something else instead when it comes to me taking care of— oh, okay, I want to indulge in this fetish because my life gets overwhelming, and when I'm in this specific fetish, well, I feel like I am Loved. Okay. Okay, so you want to escape and feel love. Okay, what can you do to actually— I mean, what can I do to feel love and escape maybe in another way? How can I cope differently? So you see, like, then the person can be proactive in finding solutions and finding alternatives. So I hope this was helpful. Really reflect on these questions, and I'll see you guys in the next episode.