Samir Gardner argues pornography is a choice, not an addiction, and that NoFap coaches push the addiction label without scientific backing. He claims framing it as addiction removes free will and creates shame, while treating it as a voluntary behavior lets people quit more easily.
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Look, I'm gonna make this video, tell you the real dark truth about NoFap, and you might not even believe me, and that's correct. And you might believe that what I say is completely irrelevant and that I'm just basically spreading lies, but I don't care, okay? Because once I've taught this concept to my students, it literally made them free from porn forever and from masturbation and from lust, right? I have many students that have, you know, I'm not gonna say their names, you can look at it on my website, you can look at it on my Instagram, and even some of my past videos. I've helped hundreds of men quit porn and masturbation forever. And there's one thing that NoFap disagree with me heavily, and that you will probably also disagree with me heavily, is that porn is not an addiction. The reason why I say porn is not an addiction is not only because it's detrimental to believe that you're addicted, but because it's false. Sadly, nowadays we just believe everything we're told. If we, if we get told by our favorite YouTuber, if we get told by some random experts that eating marshmallows addiction, then we will believe so. Because, and if they present compelling enough evidence, then we will just believe so, even though we didn't do any critical thinking. That's the problem in this society. We just believe everything without even thinking twice. We believe porn to be an addiction just because some experts that knows about dopamine and brain chemistry told us that's an addiction. And because you believe in it now, and because you believe in it now, you link the concept of addiction to the fact that you watch porn and that you have no control over it. So I've seen many and so many people that you don't hear about because they leave, they never joined the NoFap space. But I hear so many people that just leave porn like this, that just leave masturbation like this overnight because they chose to and they decided, you know what, I'm gonna move on from this the same way that we move on from playing with toys as a kid. And they just moved on from porn and masturbation. They never had to struggle with it ever again, simply because they never really believed they were addicted. They never really believed that they had a problem with this. They just believe, oh, you know what, I'm consuming this, let me leave it, right? But once we attach addiction to porn, we basically remove the concept of free will, which any religious texts constantly say that we have free will as human beings. They constantly say that we are always in control, but we ignore that and we say, oh, you know what, I'm addicted, and we use that as an excuse to watch porn because we're motivated to watch porn because we've been told so many li— we've been told so many lies about porn. We've been told about porn that it's gonna relieve our stress, it's gonna give us pleasure, it's gonna relieve our sexual needs. And because of that, we're motivated to watch porn because we think we're gonna get all of those things from porn. And what happens then is we want to watch porn because of those things, and then we blame addiction in order to feel less shame. Look, I want you to go and look at the studies online. That's saying that porn is an addiction. There's none. And every single time I watch videos about these NoFap coaches, go and do your own research, please don't just believe me blindly, obviously, right? Go and come to your own conclusion, do your own research. But you look at these NoFap coaches, you look at these NoFap gurus, you look at these coaches on Instagram that have like hundreds of thousands of followers, and what do they say? Porn is an addiction. And then they never ever cite the study, right? And even if you look at the study, if it happens, you'll see that these studies are not proving that porn is an addiction, but rather they're just showing the effect that porn has on their lives, okay? And just think about it. If you were to see yourself as someone who has control over his porn consumption, that just does it out of a choice because he sees a bit of pleasure in it, and that can stop at any time, and you compare that to someone who thinks he's addicted and that he's a slave to porn and that his brain is wired to just seek porn and that he's not going to get any pleasure outside of porn, it's going to be hard for him to leave it, that's going to take years. Like, who do you think is going to have an easier time just leaving? What do you think he's actually going to leave for? The guy who's overtaking and stressing about it and thinking that he's doomed forever, or the guy that's just relaxed and can think critically and be like, oh, you know, I watch porn for these reasons. If I simply decide to move on from this and, you know, maybe do something else with my life which is going to be more fulfilling, then, then I'm going to move on. Like, you see there's two different reactions. One is using critical thinking, one is not even using critical thinking because he thinks that he's doomed and that he cannot do anything about it. So please guys, make sure to not follow the NoFap side of things because they simply tell you lies on top of lies. And guess what? In order for NoFap to run, they need to have members. So if their members are not struggling with porn, they're not struggling with masturbation, you'd really think they're gonna still be in the NoFap forums? You really think they're still gonna be in NoFap Reddit? You really think they're still gonna be watching NoFap videos and struggling with and, and looking for NoFap advice? No, they'll just move on. I highly recommend when you watch my channel, move on from my channel. The moment that you debug porn, the moment that you have enough information, you feel like you should move on, move on, move on from my channel, stop watching my videos and go and just live your life. One of the guys recently in one of my videos said this, and I was extremely happy because that's the goal. Move on, and then you don't need any advice. You don't need the— one of the key components of freedom is not being dependent on something else, or being— not to be dependent on someone else. That's true freedom because you're autonomous. That's freedom. Humans being autonomous. So guys, don't— the moment you debunk everything around porn, masturbation, you realize that you don't need porn, you don't need masturbation, move on. You don't need any help. You don't need my help. You don't need someone's help. You just need to live life and move on, okay? It's really that simple. Don't look at yourself as an addict because it creates a false self-image that is very detrimental and false. And instead, look at porn as a choice that you're making for specific reasons, and it's going to help you a lot to just think critically and move on from it. All right, it's Samir Gardner. Peace.
