I suspect many of us here have that sense of wanting to escape from reality and seeking the types of distraction you mention. Perhaps you need to find something meaningful in your life. Some way of contributing to the greater good (e.g. helping others). Or perhaps you could focus on creating something (writing, music, painting, gardening etc). Are you retired or do you still work?
Hey there forlorn. Thanks for the response No, I still work. Will probably do so as long as health holds up. I'm in my late 60s but never planned well for retirement You are right forlorn. We WILL fill our lives with something. Still fighting the fight Warm regards Boxer
Boxer17, I'm 66 still working. and you are correct we need to decide what we fill our lives with. my porn use sure used to waste a lot of time. hang in there. I'm not dead yet. so I may as well live. and live clean and sober. come what may. I like paul simon too. there is a song that haunts me everytime I hear it. "Emily whenever I may find her".
Yes. I love that song. I love many of Paul Simon's works Especially a lot of the early stuff. Cloudy, April comes she will, the leaves that are green. I know it's very commercialized but bridge over troubled Waters is a good one too
Hello everyone. Just checking in. I am staying busy. Health seems good so far My employment is deemed essential so work has not been impacted by the corona hysteria surrounding us. I am still fighting the fight. I sometimes fall but get up again. I don't know if I will ever utterly vanquish this negative aspect of my life but I do fight to control it. Merry Christmas! And let's all hope that the next year finds us moving in positive directions. Warm regards to all Boxer
"the dangling conversation". another song that still haunts me. beautiful poetic music. love early simon and garfunkel. early neil diamond as well. really take me back.
Hello my friends This is a ramble of thoughts I am still punching in this struggle for dignity and self control. It's worth noting that one becomes more aware of oneself over the years. Among these wonderings: 1 I wonder if I am truly capable of truly loving someone. 2 I am aware that all my life I prefer M over real sex relations with a woman. I don't know if this is nature or nurture, or a combination of the two. *By nature I have been voyeuristic since before puberty. * I was nurtured in a very conservative environment and was taught the were certain lines one should not cross before marriage. *By nature I am very cautious. And physically involving yourself with another person especially when pregnancy could result was certainly a factor. In high school I was moderately successful in having girlfriends. As a senior I went steady with two very desirable girls... cheerleader level. During those relationships both girls tried to seduce me. I would enjoy all the foreplay in those encounters but would never pull the trigger. I think it was a combination of the unknown,I was basically a virgin, sharing an STD, and pregnancy. At 17 I had briefly penetrated a girl once but a buddy walked in on us and things came to a screeching halt. I got a mild case of STD because of it. When those girlfriends tried to seduce me, part of my thinking was I did not want to potentially infect them though I am pretty sure I was cured by then; I had gone to the doctor and was treated. In reality I think was more the case that I was afraid and also did not want to become so involved someone else. However, their seduction efforts certainly fueled the memories for many an MO session. I used to pride myself in thinking I was better than other guys who just wanted to have sex with girls. I now think it was more that I just wasn't interested enough to go through all that a real encounter with another person entails. With one's hand you can just finish and walk away seemingly unscathed. Or maybe I don't like the closeness. For reasons I don't understand, the physical closeness during sex almost seems too intimate. I am pushing 70 married for most of my life, children,grandchildren My most enjoyable O's are solo. I haven't really analyzed it but I was not able to orgasm with my new bride on my wedding night. I think that says something about me which I don't quite understand. As my wife has become heavy and physically undesirable our interaction has become her giving me handjobs while I conjure up some memory to put me "over the top". I am not able to get sufficiently aroused with her alone. It's something I don't mind at all. Sometimes I wonder if this was an eventual goal. -- I could cuddle and fondle and manually bring her to O and then have her give me a hand job. I know this is not good and for the most part I avoid P. However, about every 3 weeks or so I feel my need begin to build plus I know it's time to make my wife feel like she is not neglected. I will begin looking at softcore to stoke my libido and fuel my fantasies. I say al this to my shame :-( I know this is quite a ramble. But I have been thinking about these things.
welcome back my brother. here's another one of my favorite P S verses. and you read your emily dickinson, and i my robert frost. and we note our place with bookmarkers that measure what we"ve lost.
Could it be just plain old repression? Were you "nurtured" or were you shut down? At one point in my relations with the wife I, too, was more interested in a hand job than sex. Sex requires something of a person. It requires that we engage in our lives.
That is a good question but engenders an additional one; the difference between instruction and repression. To my understanding instruction enlightens and repression just clamps down. I do not believe I was shut down. I was however taught there are certain guidelines that a person and civilization need to follow to be healthy, but to my perception I was never repressed.
...yes. I like that one too. He had such an ability to paint pictures in your mind. One of the songs that does that strongly is " old friends" ..."sat on their park bench like bookends a newspaper blown through the grass falls on the round toes of the high shoes of the old men
I agree. I wonder if it's some form of anxiety that makes me more likely to prefer less engagement. Then add in the voyeurism... I have never visited a prostitute but I suspect that if I ever did I would prefer to watch her strip and me MO than actually engage physically
I think the anxiety and the voyeurism go hand in hand. Voyeurism is safe, participation can be perceived as opening up vulnerabilities. I was taught that too. But my parents didn't nurture me, they raised me. The things I loved, the things I was good at, were definitely not nurtured. They didn't try to stop me, but they didn't do anything to facilitate, either. Then I married my mom so that I could continue not to be nurtured. This is why, at one point, I was more interested in a hand-job, instead of sex. Once I'd turned the tables on my wife (mom) sex became desirable, because I had learned how to nurture myself.
for me it's the intimacy. i never knew that growing up. my dad was there but not there-he was a drunk. my mom just followed and obeyed whatever Dad said. dirt poor growing up. siblings and i had to fend for ourselves best we could with the help of Grandma. so i never knew intimacy, caring, empathy, compassion. to this day i still feel nothing. i am not cold or an asshole, just not loving. to anyone. women were something i used to satisfy my lust. married 43 yrs and still don't know what i feel for my wife. i think she knows that but we don't talk about the elephant in the room. anyway, this is not a sad story nor am i looking for pity. just setting the background for my numbness and lack of feelings. that's why porn is an attractive option for me-no intimacy, no talking to anyone, no explaining. just physical release. but i have found that it has made me more of flat, empty person than i was before. a few seconds of extreme pleasure has a very high price. i truly believe that our childhood traumas, whatever they may be, sets us up for emotional immaturity as adults. i am working on mine daily. first step is no PMO. if i start there at least i have a chance at the rest. again not having a pity party just setting the stage for my ramblings. i am sure there are others out there with the same problem just different baggage. very simple, but not easy, i need to accept myself as i am now and know that i am a work in progress. i need to find and experience love for myself so that i have something to offer. enough of my ramblings. Boxer hang in there. don't quit before the miracle. like Paul Simon says "a bad day is when i lie in bed and think of things that might have been."
The brain is neuroplatic our entire lives. Even if you're 120 years old your brain will still be capable of forging new connections. This sense of disconnection you talk about is something we all feel, especially as we age and lose testosterone. We've become so used to feel dulled that we think that's our "normal." I still have days where it feels like an effort to have a shower, let alone engage with the wife. But I know, without a doubt, that that is old programming. Things I do to make myself feel, in no particular order: walking lifting moderate weights bouncing on my mini-trampoline (very fun with funky music) hugging my wife writing on this forum reading poetry listening to great music Sounds like a pretty standard list, doesn't it? Out of the mundane we find our way out of the womb that we're trapped in. Some days are fucking hard....but the fighter still remains, right?
I guess I come from a completely different background, but I have similar issues. To me the problem is that I find sex confronting. I do love having sex with my GF, but over the years I have come to associate having sex with the issues I'm struggling with. There is shame, there is guilt, there is feeling sexually frustrated at times, there is us not being the best match sexually, there is knowing that I sometimes chose porn over her wellbeing...And it's not like that completely takes over when we have sex, but it is definitly there. When I masturbate I don't have to deal with that. Or at least not in the same way.
Maybe I'm not wanting to share myself and become vulnerable. Even though I've never been rebuffed. It's as if I don't want to open up to someone
