A Masturbation problem
This might not seem very philosophical but I am wondering if some philosophical analysis might help me.
I grew up in a very strict religious house where I had to attend church up to 5 times a week sometimes. You might say the values were very Victorian. We were not allowed to watch television and do other things they called "worldly."
Then at 13-14 we were taught about masturbation in a science class and I started experimenting. At the same time I was badly bullied at school and ostracized. Then on one occasion when I was nearing 16 I had a wet dream and the next day something unpleasant happened to me and somehow I convinced myself that any sexual release like this would cause bad things to happen to me. So I became paranoid about sex and highly regulated it. Now at 17 I left Christianity and stopped believing in it. I became atheist then agnostic. But I have never recovered from my "superstitious" or paranoid attitude towards sexual release.
But I am not generally superstitious and I have never had a religious experience of seen ghosts. So I only tend to believe things based on experience. I have studied psychology and philosophy at university as well.
Being paranoid about sex has been really depressing and restricting and held me back.
The general question I suppose is why I have this weird conviction or premonition which is nearly supernatural based when I am usually very rational minded and logical (although I suffer from anxiety in general). No amount of reason has affected my fear and repression. This might relate to anyone leaving a strict religious experience behind and still feeling paranoid about the strictures they no longer believe.
I feel like I cannot reason my self out of this anxiety. Also this might relate to the philosophy of sex and the impact of sexual impulse on reason and behaviour. I find sex to be problematic because it is like an insatiable desire but quite shallow unless in a romantic context. But there is huge amounts of porn online and people can become addicted to it or just spend ages consuming it. I don't know if sexual desire becomes less wild in a relationship. I found the pleasure I got from self pleasure was conflicting with my religious beliefs in a way because the religion was so forbidding but this was like free pleasure.
I grew up in a very strict religious house where I had to attend church up to 5 times a week sometimes. You might say the values were very Victorian. We were not allowed to watch television and do other things they called "worldly."
Then at 13-14 we were taught about masturbation in a science class and I started experimenting. At the same time I was badly bullied at school and ostracized. Then on one occasion when I was nearing 16 I had a wet dream and the next day something unpleasant happened to me and somehow I convinced myself that any sexual release like this would cause bad things to happen to me. So I became paranoid about sex and highly regulated it. Now at 17 I left Christianity and stopped believing in it. I became atheist then agnostic. But I have never recovered from my "superstitious" or paranoid attitude towards sexual release.
But I am not generally superstitious and I have never had a religious experience of seen ghosts. So I only tend to believe things based on experience. I have studied psychology and philosophy at university as well.
Being paranoid about sex has been really depressing and restricting and held me back.
The general question I suppose is why I have this weird conviction or premonition which is nearly supernatural based when I am usually very rational minded and logical (although I suffer from anxiety in general). No amount of reason has affected my fear and repression. This might relate to anyone leaving a strict religious experience behind and still feeling paranoid about the strictures they no longer believe.
I feel like I cannot reason my self out of this anxiety. Also this might relate to the philosophy of sex and the impact of sexual impulse on reason and behaviour. I find sex to be problematic because it is like an insatiable desire but quite shallow unless in a romantic context. But there is huge amounts of porn online and people can become addicted to it or just spend ages consuming it. I don't know if sexual desire becomes less wild in a relationship. I found the pleasure I got from self pleasure was conflicting with my religious beliefs in a way because the religion was so forbidding but this was like free pleasure.
Comments (32)
I'm nearing 30, and have never had sex. Eventually, you grow out of the super conditioned dubbyliminated response to want to have sex, that manifests in masturbation.
It'll be hard work, but it'll be worth it.
I have always wondered if this is the solution. I think I would feel less guilty having sexual experiences mutually and in a loving relationship.
I have gone without masturbation for several years recently because it can escalate your desire. But then there is something missing when you have no sex.
I think sexual problems can make sex more alluring. Like the forbidden fruit.
But I am puzzled as to why I feel convinced something bad will happen after sexual release because it seems irrational. But the evidence I use is that if something bad happens the day after I attribute it to that. So what happened is I would only do stuff on a weekend because I was paranoid I might get bad news in the post or on the phone during the working week or make a fool of myself when out and about.
So it is like a mental prison. I don't know what other mental prisons people have experienced but this has been my main one. But it does make me question the power of reason. I seem to need some other solution.
You are not alone in this perspective and I use the word "perspective" because my hope is that I can change a similar feeling within myself.
I wish I could say that the self imposed expectation gets easier to break away from with time but that is not my experience.
Are you able to clear your mind into like a 'blankspace" to achieve sexual release? For me even if I can clear my mind, thinking comes rushing back in usually before self release. It's frustrating as fuck and I cannot get past it. Concentrating on my breathing was one suggestion but it didn't work.
I have had some general cognitive behavioral therapy not specifically related to this. But I have mentioned it though. The first counselor I had suggested I experiment with doing what I liked when I liked to try and just challenge the feelings. So I did it spontaneously once but then the next day I was really mean to someone who was annoying me and felt guilty and like I had behaved badly.
Someone else made a similar experiment and said they would monitor my behaviour after I had an experience but i rejected the suggestion because it is awkward obviously.
The main way I have coped is by trying not to think about the issue.
However this topic is not just about sex but my "superstition" and the failure of my rationality when I have a degree which involved complex thorough reasoning and psychology.
In a way the straightforward explanation might simply be that religion screwed me up and conditioned me to exhibit these behaviours an anxieties. But I think it is really hard to overcome what you have learnt
Well, I'm no sex psychologist; but, in simple terms, there's a great deal of guilt associated with sexual activity and especially masturbation from the Judeo-Christian tradition.
It's hard to apply reason to the situation, and a lot of neuroticisms arise when one tries to do so.
Just don't go searching for a hookup, that's probably the ultimate debasement.
Just like when we acquire motor skills, the acquisition of beliefs changes our brain structure, and just as with motor skills, some affect brain structure in a way that can be hard to "erase." So simply realizing that a belief is bunk isn't going to do it. You need to more systematically work on changing beliefs over a period of time. As mentioned above, therapy can help a lot with this.
Because therapy can help a lot in changing beliefs like this.
It's just a matter of how much you want to change and whether you can accept help or not.
I don't think I can clear my mind. I am an over thinker. I was also recently diagnosed as autistic which doesn't help.
Obviously sex has been a very potent force for humanity and has had widespread effects including obviously population growth but also relationship woes and mental health and repression (The whole Freudian dynamics thing).
I don't know if it was Freud who first connected sex with death (probably not).
But sometimes I find an exquisite attraction to a person you find beautiful/handsome/lustful can be very painful and unfulfilled desires can make one consider death. But I don't know how widespread this is. But It seems to be the most powerful perception (sexual perception)
Fine, but you might as well tell a person they need to see the doctor over a common cold, you know?
If a common cold lingers for a month, say, it would definitely be advisable to see a doctor, no?
This is something that's lingering for however many years (I have no idea how old he is). He's not been able to get rid of it on his own yet. He wants to get rid of it.
I don't mind people suggesting that. It makes sense and I have had some therapy.I am a very open person so sharing this is not problematic for me.
What I was interested in here though is analyzing the nature of what seems irrational and superstitious and why I have just this one superstition and no others.
I am happy for any input because I really welcome any kind of analysis or potential solution as well as being interested in in the structural issues.
Yeah; but, my point was that it denies you the possibility of hearing out other opinions as if there were some authority on masturbation or sex...
Do you have any other OCDish sort of behaviors--like needing to count certain things, or preferring certain numbers (for example, in a numbered parking lot, maybe you'd only park in spaces with odd numbers, and preferably ending in a 7 or whatever), or needing to do things in a certain order, where otherwise you're a bit uncomfortable? Anything like that? Those sorts of things are very common, and they're very similar to superstitious thinking.
I believe in freewill to some degree but I am not confident about my ability to change in any fundamental way.
The suggestion I like best at the moment is about falling in love. But I am not sure of this is an antidote for anxiety but I have seen plenty of anecdotal of people who overcome a problem because they were in a relationship but therapists and thinkers often try and dissuade you from having a relationship for some reason and focus on self help.
But I think self help is isolating and puts to much onus on the individual. In away it is like modern western individualism has been very bad for our mental health.
No and that is why this is strange. I am not frightened of the dark or terrorists or bangs in the night.
I did have one other superstition but that ended when I left Christianity. I took the Bible very literally (and now I think that relates to my ASD) So when the bible said that God was just I believed that if God was just we should all suffer equally and there was a woman in our church with severe arthritis and so I thought that I should have to suffer a little bit each day. The ironic things is that I had a bad home life and was bullied in school but I didn't reflect on that.
However when I stopped believing in Christianity I dropped that belief because it was strictly associated to the Judaeo Christian God and explicit biblical verses.
I feel it is important to talk about the impact of religion like this. I think my whole upbringing was cruel and the dogma completely, unnecessary and perverse and yet people still claim religion is the solution. I don't oppose all religion but I do oppose the literalist psychologically damaging, dogmatic approach.
I agree. Personally I don't want to be stuck in years and years of therapy reliving my past.
Some countries or societies approach mental health as a public responsibility and try and help the person in the community with diverse community input.
"There is no such thing as a free lunch." = proverb. If you feel guilty about sex, that's the price you pay. Other people pay strippers, or hookers, or whatever. You pay in guilt. Same difference, you pay, they take, you give, you get.
"Can't buy me love." -- The Beatles. You can buy sex, via guilt or via prossies, but you can't buy love. You fall into it. And in about three months to a year (my average has been 6 months) you fall out of it. It's called "honeymoon phase", and it's nature's (evolutionarily developed) way to catch you in a legally and socially binding relationship. During which in our evolutionary past you got married, irrevokably, and that was binding, so much so that when the honeymoon phase fizzes out, you are still stuck there with your wife or husband. For life.
"Losing My Religion" -- R.E.M. After the honeymoon phase you regain your identity, you again are looking out for numero uno, that is, for your own interest. But you don't need to leave your pregnant wife or your no-good husband.,.. you can work things out, and half the joy of life is the struggle to make the best of what really is an intolerable situation. The other half is swallowing the guilty pleasures of life.
"'Till death do us part" -- a long marriage with a compatible partner ensures a steady, comfortable, stable existence, with normally much longer longevity for the man in the partnership compared to single or divorced men. A two-horse carriage can not only double, but octuple the load of a single-horse carriage, and can cover six times the distance.
"Don't let me down" -- The Beatles -- when in a courtship, look for the real part in your future partner, not what you imagine her or him to have. And give your true self. Don't put on airs like you enjoy severe beatings and torture by your partners, while you in effect don't. Honesty ensures a lasting relationship. If you like shooting rats at an abandoned railway yard, don't spring that on your partner after four years of marriage -- instead, invite her to a shoot on the second date.
"When a man loves a woman, he give all his comforts... he'll sleep out in the rain, if she wants it." -- Otis Redding. You and your spouse will need to do some sacrifices, and if one of you refuses, the other had better suck it up, or else.
"In Burmingham, they shot the gov'ner" -- Lynyrd Skynyrd -- eventually one will survive the other. the death comes at a terrible price of mourning, and with a sweet surprise of the gift of independence. If you get divorced, it can really decimate you financially, the both of you, and depending on the penned-up anger, it can become really ugly.
What ever you do, try not to make plans to off your wife or husband. Prison is a lonely place, though you are closer than arms-length with most other inmates.
I lived in such a country. Basically they kick the mentally and/or emotionally problematic people around. The community gives them the scraps of everything in life, and some have to stay up all night to take the contents of the septic tank in buckets to the river and dump it there.
How many psychiatrists does it take to change a light bulb? One, but it will take ten years of analysis at $400 a session, and the lightbulb itself will need to want to change.
I am not referring to that kind of country or society. An example comes from Cambodia where a man became depressed because he had problems with his feet But had to work in paddy fields. So the health practitioner thought that this was the cause of the depression and he raised money to buy the man a cow so he could use that to generate income instead and he became happier. This kind of model has lead to the increasing application of "social prescribing"in the west.
I am not trying to portray the non western world as some kind of paradise and I am aware of the abuses. But I am pointing out different models and potential solutions for mental health issues
I am a supporter of medication however but I don't know if there is a pill to banish paranoia and guilt.
I'm 43.
It is interesting because we can effectively change a lot of our beliefs just by new evidence. For example I if I thought New York was the capital of The USA then I was told that no it was actually Washington DC. I think that belief would change straight away.
So I think something must be re-enforcing my belief I suppose.
I think that the belief/Brain/Mental representation relationship is puzzling. Some people believe in the embodied cognition model which I suppose suggests that a lot of what we believe is actually external in our relationship with the world or that our whole body is us and not just our brain.
But on the other extreme there are neuroscientists trying to find away to erase specific bad memories (without resorting to a lobotomy).
What I wonder about is how brain states can have truth value.
In my case I am Gay (that was a sexuality condemned roundly by the church).
I am not sure what evolutionary model applies to gay sexuality because the sex will not lead to offspring.
There is a suggestion that gay men are more promiscuous because of matching levels of sexual drives. However I feel that the reason some gay men are promiscuous might be to do with the the lack of available stable relationships or contexts including marriage and the pathologising of their sexuality.
I feel monogamous and don't have a desire for an open relationship. My ideal would be a long term monogamous relationship. (My fantasy life might be different though).
I think we as people and societies probably don't know what the source of our sexual dynamics is and how much of it is cultural or subconscious or inherited from religion or caused by capitalist commodification etc
Before you learned to think critically and analyse stuff, you were still learning. It's not your fault that it's hard to challenge these things with reasoning; it's a blessing that you can analyse it, that gives you some tools to fight it. But it won't be refuted by a single knock down argument, it's not a proposition, it's a pattern of thought you've had the misfortune of getting rooted deep in you. Reasoning to fight it is more like house work than essay writing, thinking analytically like you do about it is a form of self care; it takes time.
I've had some therapy for sex stuff - related to shame, body image, and feelings of numbness/anhedonia during the act. One of the things they got me to do was pay very close attention to how sex stuff, even wanking, feels. How it feels to fantasise, what the bodily sensations are, what pleasures you. This was accompanied by being asked to pay more attention to how my body feels in general; just being present with the sensations.
It wasn't always a pleasant exercise, feeling how my body moved and what pleasured me was uncomfortable and even frightening at times, I really wanted to switch off from it. It was hard not to look away. Eventually worth it though - sex became a lot different, and less shameful. I felt less ashamed about my body (still working on it) and enjoyed being in it more (still working on that too).
How I am personally working to move America to be more like the country you speak of above. :flower:
Thank you for your reply. :flower:
This issue bothers me in two ways:
1. LGBT people who commit suicide because of far-right fundamentalist condemnation.
2. Negative religious paradigm's causing otherwise heterosexual dysfunction.
Take for example Madonna. She was raised Catholic and saw the dysfunction there relative to masturbation (the need to celebrate oneself). And in her prime, she also went out of her way in making her point about the similar need for human's to talk about their own sexuality. It was arguably the most outlandish rebellion against sexual dysfunction at that time. And it was a good thing.
So don't feel repressed or guilty or any of that other emotional dysfunctional crap. Celebrating oneself is just the intrinsic need to procreate. Normal and healthy to do so... .
(Obviously spending too much time celebrating can be a bad thing.)
You are suffering from an unresolved cognitive dissonance, in which the conscience is participating, that empowers the conviction to feel "supernatural" - it isn't coming from your logic.
Quoting Andrew4Handel
So the religion has been the environment wherein your conscience has formed, having adopted core values and attitudes reflecting the culture that you naturally aspired to as the child.
Quoting Andrew4Handel
.. and there will be other residues of your faith, too, that remain with you, despite that you have been driven beyond accepting the ideologies that conflict with your better sense.
Quoting Andrew4Handel
Of course, that is the natural way to express love, to allow them into that private place that everyone knows is off-limits. In fact, the natural purpose of sex without any social indoctrination, produces the hesitancy that you describe wrestling with.
Quoting Andrew4Handel
Just keep in mind that it is only possible because of discontentment.
Quoting Andrew4Handel
With what you have said about your preference for men, it seems that there is a great potential to lead you into a severe addiction if the exploit is successful. I said severe, because it would become a potent wedge between yourself and God if you were to casually expect it as a natural right. Also, it is important to notice that the punishment for offences has the fingerprint of the adversary, that counts toward developing your disgust of what you believe the character of God to be. If they can succeed in getting you to think "God is cruel because He punishes me for doing the thing that He made me to do naturally", then you become the embittered anti-Christian who, having such a rich knowledge of scripture, can do much harm in the world. You might consider 1 John 4:18.
Quoting Andrew4Handel
You know, religion is the problem when it says things that aren't true as though they are true, and then come to oppose the truth in the name of God. But Jesus said that it is the truth that would set us free, and to be set free from what? .. the blind ignorance of the truth, precisely! (But the human problem is a human problem, and religion is merely a symptom of, and instrument for, that problem).
Quoting Andrew4Handel
There can be, but it will come at a cost (whereby other problems will creep in), and it isn't a guaranteed solution anyway. As with any mental illness, it is a combination of environment and philosophy that produces a discomfort that ultimately is unacceptable. The solutions are found sometimes by removing the environmental harms (such as bad friends, bad tv, games, porn, drugs etc), so that the environment then supports healthy mentality to grow - or, if the mentality is not producing acceptable results from an environment that it should be able to do so in, then the way of thinking needs to be adjusted, by identifying the values, expectations, attitudes etc that empower the erroneous interpretation (iow, "counselling"). Medication is prescribed in hope that the brain's chemical environment will support it to function in a specific way that subdues the undesired symptoms, but they really do not understand what makes the way of thinking change in a person, because that is spiritual.
Quoting Andrew4Handel
I oppose saying such things. You only need to look at children to see how pliable they are, and that society forms them, through various means, to develop tastes and then to cling to their identity through instruments of ridicule or wrath, invoking pride. You were 14 when you became aware of it, but if you look further back you will remember things people said that exercised your thinking to explore and draw conclusions that became axiomatic to your decisions in later explorations.
Well, it's interesting to see you discussing things so openly!