Would you consider yourself impure by pmoing so much? Would you consider yourself impure for bedding tons of women including hookers? If you could travel back in time would you increase your lay count or find the one that got away and just settle? Or do the first before doing the latter? Has you remaining pure helped you in anyway at all? How important is purity?
Seeing things through the lenses of pure/impure is closely related to self-loathing. This is an unskillful labelling. I'm still feeling some guilt for some things I have done, but I don't consider myself being impure because of this. I just recognise I've made mistakes, but those mistakes don't define me anymore (or at least, much less than a few months ago). But if you see purity as not seeing through pornographic lenses (which translates beyond not watching porn: it's also not seeing women as just bodies, for example), yes, it's very important.
as one nofapper put it: "nofap makes your soul feel clean" and i can attest to that as well. try nofap for 90 days and i guarentee you will feel the same (and many other benefits as well). dont worry about not feeling "pure" man. im a stright dude and i used to beat off to gay/tranny porn, granny porn, and pretty much anything that was legal. even got a bj from a 70 year old dude because that was my fetish porn (fucking gross) i felt the same way forever.. "dirty" "impure" "tainted" etc etc. nofap has changed my life. none of the shit from my past effects me because i know it is not who i truly am. it is an addicted part of my brain calling those shots. i have declared war on that part of my brain and am never letting my guard down. It comes down to one simple lifestyle choice.. fuck porn and do nofap. "get busy living, or get busy dying." -out
PMO itself is very enjoyable and I don't care about self-righteous morality. The reason why I don't PMO like I used to is because of the health issues such as fatigue, anxiety, depression and sexual dysfunction. I don't MO daily because I need the nutritions and energy to build muscle. But I do intend to start to MO once a week again to kickstart 7-day testosterone peaks and increase horniness. If you keep abstaining from sexual activity, the benefits deminish after a while. You won't become more confident, social, relaxed and your libido doesn't endlessly improve. After a while, it's time to stop nofap and have sex again or MO. A lot of guys take nofap too far because it's easy to blame every life issue to MO or porn. There's nothing wrong with MO once in a while. Just don't use porn. Don't MO in the early stages of a reboot.
Purity is very important but for me it doesn't mean you need to be a virgin or whatever. You just need to have a clean and pure mind or at least do the best to have a clean and pure mind and heart. Deep down, you know what your core values are. To be pure you need to live in harmony with your core values, otherwise you lose your integrity, you do not respect yourself and you don't feel pure.
Eh, no. Daily masturbation is not going to "hurt gains". I assure you a lot of fitness models and bodybuilders are having very frequent sex. In my POV everyone is "impure" in one way of another, because we are all human and we suffer from the human condition. Besides, "purity" is rather relative isn't it? Who determines who is pure and who isn't, and by what criteria? Quit porn/masturbation because of personal choice or to achieve any actual attainable goals, not to adhere to some self-enforced morality complex.
I know ejaculation doesn't lower testosterone, but it makes me tired and weak. But if I abstain too long (months), I get unmotivated and stressed as well, because I don't have a sexual outlet. My counter says 0 days since my last MO, but I didn't MO. I just reset it to know I'm planning to do it in 7 days from now. I'm going to do it weekly to stay balanced.
I'm pretty into spiritual teachings (not religious, big difference) and something that has helped me out A LOT is realizing that you are NOT the person who watches porn, goes to strip clubs, uses hookers, etc. You can think of it as two people (actually more) living inside you. One is your TRUE self, the one who that holds the integrity, the one who knows its wrong, the one fighting to quit. That person is always pure and always true. Then you got your other lets say sub-personalities like your porn addition. This guy exist because something likely happened in your childhood (even if you down remember) that made you start looking at porn. This guy, lets call him porn addict, likes to tell you that you NEED porn to feel better and usually you listen. Why do you listen? Simple, your unconscious mind (where porn guy lives) is 1000X stronger then your conscious mind (your true self). Your true self doesn't want to look but your unconscious mind does and when those two things conflict you will lose every time, which is why willpower can;t be relied upon to beat this. Next time you have strong urges i suggest you talk back to your addict, it may be weird but trust me he'll respond. Say "why are you doing this, why do you want to look at porn" and see what he says. It night be something like "because it feels good, it relaxes us". Remember you are NOT the voice inside your head, you are the watcher, the listener. To sum up...No, none of the compulsion sexual acts will cause you to lose your purity or make you less pure.
I had to forgive myself the past in order to become a more spiritual person. Forgiving yourself - letting go of notions like purity or sin - is a vital first step. You have to have compassion for yourself in order to have the courage to break out of negative habits. Try not to think of purity versus impurity (or sin) - actions are either skillful or unskillful. Porn comes into the latter because it hurts us, the viewer, so much. When I was a porn addict, and early in my reboot when I was still thinking porn, I would have gone back in time to increase my lay count - I wish I had this confidence back then. . . - but now I think what's the point? Who am I living my life for? If I'd rather stay home and read a book than chase bimbos, well that's just the way it is.
Purity doesn't really make sense in a secular context. Only in religious contexts where the belief is that one's body is a temple of God, and can be defiled by breaking the designated sex laws. I personally reject the concept of purity, and instead choose to follow the concepts of self-acceptance and self-compassion. That doesn't mean that I believe "everything is good", or "anything goes". Rather, it means that I exercise forgiveness and understanding towards myself whenever I do something I feel that I shouldn't have done.
