My one and only post

Hi everyone, my name is David and I've been going on NoFap here and there for around 6 months. I love what this place is all about and it has defiantly encouraged me to stay strong when sometimes there seemed like theres no hope. Ive never posted and never thought I would, but recently I had to write a paper for my Human Sexuality class and thought some you guys and gals might be encouraged/enjoy what I wrote. I was addicted to PMO for over 8 years, Im 20 now, and feel confident that it will no longer be apart of my life. This was and still is not easy, but I could not do it without God's help. Enjoy friends!

"Porn, Masturbate, Orgasm: The Lie We Live"

All my life I have pushed my body physically through sports like football and track, but I had never pushed my body like this. Going without masturbation after it had become a normal life routine is extremely difficult. Why would anyone want to stop pleasuring them self? What’s the point of stopping? These are questions I was constantly being asked. I should start by saying the reasons that anyone would stop masturbating is complex, and the reasons come from many different angles. The most popular reason to quit masturbation stems from religious belief. Coming from a Christian background, pornography (typically linked to masturbating) is looked down upon. The idea of the Christian faith is to be selfless, which is why it doesn't support having your hand to your dick/vagina trying to recreate that amazing feeling. Another reason why one might want to stop masturbating is because it is no longer satisfying. Like many other things in life, it gets old! That amazing feelings deters and all you're left with is a safari history of pornography and a lot of dirty tissues. The reason why I chose to stop masturbating (and watching pornography) was a combination of these reasons. As I continue to commit to my faith I see many different angles of my life that need improving and this was a major one. So I started, and failed. Masturbating started in my early teens and continued all the way through to my early twenties, and it had become such a strong urge and normal reaction that I found it nearly impossible to stop. I would go a few days, sometimes up to two weeks without doing anything, and suddenly the urge was so strong that I would snap. I went on many streaks like this, long periods of time without even an urge, then I would see a pretty girl, or a scandalous commercial, and would go do my thing. Two months went by like this and I decided If I was serious about this, I needed a game plan. Removing the laptop from my room, not taking my phone into the bathroom, and turning to prayer are just a few of the steps many people have to take to refrain from PMO (porn, masturbate, orgasm). Eventually I succeeded. Weeks have now gone by and I refuse to give in. I was chained to this addiction and after a long time of struggling with it, I won. 
During this journey to end my addiction I often times felt down. I would start a good streak without watching porn or masturbating, and felt like I was on top of the world. I would look at girls differently, with more respect and gratitude, not just objects of sex. I would have more time in my day to do homework, go to the gym, or simply put what was the thoughts of banging girls in my head and turn them into thoughts of how I can go out and help someone in need. This was perfect, life began to look good, but this isn't how our crooked society is run. Living in this world, people are driven by sex, often times thinking its the pinnacle of life. Billboards, commercials, magazines, and friends infest our lives to fill it with the sex craved mindset, and suddenly I became a victim of it. A long streak of bettering myself and the world around me quickly becomes fifteen minutes in the bathroom drilling holes in my brain and filling them with videos of someones daughter getting manipulated. Leaving the mess behind me I walk out with nothing gained, and only some of my life lost and my brain fried. The same old extremely depressing feeling overwhelms me, sometimes ruining entire days. I begin to look at the world in a sadistic way, look at girls as things to fuck and the beautiful college campus as a matting ground. After experiencing pornography addiction, I now see it all very differently, as well as the people involved in it. I see them as victims that fell for the sex trap. I see men and women that watch pornography as people that are searching to find something they will never get. Now being a male that used to masturbate every day to porn, I see how it changes your every day thoughts from innocent ones to very contaminated ones. My overall emotional reactions during this experiences were rough, often times depressing having seen the world in a new light, but I can walk away ready to help someone else remove themselves from this quicksand so many people fall into. 
     All of my male friends patronize sex. To my guy friends, sex is what life seems to be all about. When girls are in the room, flirting with them is a must, and when they leave the room, talking about how badly they want to bang them is standard. Our society has created this sex craved life style, so finding other people that don't masturbate or watch porn is difficult. My first instinct to find people that refrain for PMO was to go to a religious group. I began attending Christian groups on campus. Salvestors Cafe was the meeting ground where I would begin to meet others that also don't masturbate, or as they call it, remain pure. My initial impressions of the people I began to meet were utterly fantastic. The men I was meeting up with were people full of life and love. They did not see the world as a playground where they could go have their fun, but rather saw it as a place to love others. The people I met with were whole hearted people. I had finally found a group that saw this flaw in our society as well. 
This was a journey to say the least. What was a simple project for school quickly became something much more. PMO was a way of doing life, something that I never evaluated until now. After looking deeper into issue that is PMO I realized just how important this project became. In the beginning it was difficult, never scary, but uncomfortable. Having the natural urge to have sex grew everyday I pretended to (masturbating being pretending to have sex), so when I stopped masturbating that immense urge only grew. I found that I felt this way because society, and I myself, had trained my brain and body to need this. Before trying this no masturbation thing I thought it would be a breeze. “Its only a small part of my everyday, it'll be easy to dismiss it” is what I used to think. After going on this journey I now understand that it was an addiction, something I practically couldn't live without. 
From a first person stand point it was easy to evaluate it. When I began to look at how our society and my friends view PMO my knowledge began to broaden. Unaware that I had been evaluating them, I began to look at how my friends viewed sexuality, specifically PMO. I learned that masturbating in a social context is shunned. No one speaks about it, yet its always there. Everyone does it, yet it stays in our bathrooms and bedrooms. PMO is the elephant in the room that no one wants to talk about, and we even pretend that its not there at all. I have close friends that in a social setting have no problem talking about porn or masturbating, but if the opposite sex is there, no one brings it up. Its just guy talk, or its just girl talk. We learned in this class that guys aren't just walking penis’s and aren't sex craved individuals. I agree to an extent. Its sad to say that I can be taught that men aren't just sex fiends in class then go to a buddies place and half the conversation is about porn stars or sorority girls they fucked or want to fuck. When I stepped back and evaluated our society, I saw that many peoples values are shunned, judgements are blurred, and feelings are lost, and the only thing we’ve socially accepted is fucking. As I tore back the covers and looked at my friends and how they view PMO I learned that this was a major outlet that they all experienced and learned a large part of their sexuality from. It began with masturbating, then led to porn, then it led to them seeing what the “pros” did and applying it to their own lives. I can say that I am victim to this as well. I used to base my views of women and how I saw and experienced sex almost entirely on PMO. Its almost impossible to masturbate to pornography and not want to try it in real life, thinking its the next big thing. I know hundreds of other men that do the same as well. They learn from masturbating and pornography and turn their sex craved dreams into a reality, except this reality never satisfies. The most precious thing on this planet which we call love is completely stripped back, stepped on and burned, and we instead replace it with PMO. From evaluating this all, I reevaluated my views/judgements/feelings because I saw so many others had been thrown out the window. Now walking away from masturbation I recognize my true feelings and views, they are no longer blurred by masturbating and pornography. 
To say I would recommend this to a friend would be an understatement. Although this was a long hard journey, I can walk away from it stronger, and with a better head on my shoulders. My brain is clean and is put to better use. I wish every individual could take this journey at least once in their lives. Stripping back the covers of sex in society and figuring out where some might argue it comes from has been entertaining, difficult, and sad. Although I know a many good number of people that still PMO, I found that the ones who have done this same journey as I have, seem view society in a different way. The men that have gone on this journey no longer constantly look at girls asses, and instead look at their eyes. The girls that have gone on this journey no longer care about constantly impressing all guys, but rather care about meeting the right one. I hope that now that I can say I have been on this journey, that many more will pry back their sex craved mindset, and begin to look at life as something much more precious. I only pray that I can help someone else take this journey, so they may no longer be a slave to their small bathroom/bedroom walls.