DuddyM wrote:

Excellent!
i am really happy for you
a day at a time thats thee way to do it
wow! thats amazing, you are actually keeping it up
kay hashem give you a git kvittel
and hatzlocho

just wondering!
will it ever get easier?
or ill always have to walk on my block looking down?

It'll get easier to walk on your block looking down

well said

DuddyM wrote:


Who gives you a right to think about it one way or the other?

Hey go easy on the guy. All of us like to wonder and think.

It's why we get into so much porn trouble. Half the time at least, it's because we love to wonder and think about why we don't have that, what it would feel like if we did, and what she looks like, etc.

It's natural for all of us.

So here he's thinking and wondering about this 'looking down' issue. Same exact thing as lust-wondering. Really pointless, as you pointed out...but natural for me, you, and all of us.

oh dov! you are always so to the point, common sense, "dont fool yourself" logic
i like your attitude, thanks
i constantly learn from your posts
our dear friend duddy is a real zaddik, he really wants to avoid trouble, and wants to stay safe, he made up his mind already that he must avoid any sighting of her, or else...
my heart is full of sympathy for him, and i ask hashem to please help duddy and give him the strength and appropriate measures to get over this challenge
and you have the merit to be the good messenger to help our friend

Thanks chaver, your positivity and honesty are the same balm for me (and for others too, I'll warrant).

The day he starts to pray for her from the depths of his heart, for her own benefit and true happiness, will be the day he begins to let go of her and to begin to get free of her...if he truly wants to be. He will discover whether or not he really does, eventually.

Even though we truly are good people, we often don't even realize what we are holding on to.

Just a word to the wise to think about.

Dov wrote:

Dov! I could appreciate your advice however kindly back this up please with Torah and/or other sources.
Thank You

Possibly if you keep up the practice of looking down, and always keeping your defenses up, perhaps she'll get the message that you are not going to let this go anywhere, and she'll also back off.

Keep strong. I agree with all those who say that giving in to the Yetzer Hara is simply not worth all that damage that it will cause

I have written about the topic a lot already, wish I had the time and patience to search and refer you to it on the forum. But I need not a single Torah source for a thing that works. I sincerely believe that life is way too short for philosophy.

I admit I am not sure if you question the idea stam, or if you accept it but just want sources, either of which makes sense to me. But I will assume here that you feel there might be aspects neged haTorah in such a practice of prayer (that 12 step people have been using successfully for decades) - and I think that also makes sense. So:

If a thing actually leads to ending the sweet erotic obsession, then how can it not be approved by the Torah? Unless it is a sin of some kind...or not 'Torah-dikeh', and you'd consider it a 'mitzvah habo ba'aveira...I will get to that in a minute, but first:

But how Torah-dikeh is it to worship naked women and feel that they have the real schoirah (as all masturbaters do honestly feel re our pretty women and porn), or bow to them using them in fantasies in our heads to help us feel better...instead of turning to G-d Who (we say) has all the power? How Torah-dikeh is it to desperately masturbate ourselves to get it over with because we need it so badly? Are we not supposed to need Hashem so badly, to be doveik to Him? Sefer Hamaspik by the RMB"M's son discusses ahava to things other than Hashem and defines it exactly this way. The repeated struggle with porn and sex with self (masturbation) shows there is something very 'off' in the person...even without anything like addiction. It shows us that there is a worship of erotica as the true schoira, here, that it is precious to us and that we truly love it.

And the following is why this is not saying 'two wrongs make a right':

Is it a mitzvah habo'oh b'aveira to pray for a shiksah, for example? How could it be? When Chaza"l say we are rachmonim, bayshonim and gomlei chasodim - did they mean that we Jews only want to do chessed for Jews? Or only for good people, c"v? Not mistaber. Isolationism serves it's purpose, sure. But there are stories galore of holy Rebbe's in the woods hearing a cry of help (from a sheigetz drowning or being robbed) and desperately running to their aid, and it is not unusual for people to pray for the well-being of resho'im...and certainly for people who really know no better. When Dovid hamelech described the sky, birds, rocks, rabbits, and people going to work (not to beis midrash) and then exploded with a wish that Hashem takes joy in all these things that He made - did he not mean even the shiksas? Does He not desire them to know Him as well? "v'noharu eilechoh kol hagoyim" means He wants the goyim to know Him, too. In fact, it is clear that all 10 makkos were not for the Yidden to come to know Hashem (and certainly not to get us out of Egypt!), but davka for the goyim of Egypt to come to know Him, as the psukim say three times. He cares about goyim, too.

And what the frum pervert (like me) gets by davening m'umka d'liba for the benefit of even the goyishe the woman that he obsesses about, is probably far more than what she gets, anyway. So the problem of "lo sechanem" does not even start.

It is known that R' Yisroel Slanter (and other gedolim) davened and did chessed to people who did them wrong - just as the Torah says to help the man you hate before helping the man you love. They did it (as the tosfos haRo"Sh teitches in that gemorah about the overloaded donkey) to eliminate personal hatred from their motives (hearts) even though it is a mitzvah to hate the guy because he is a rosho!

Praying for these people - not for them to do Teshuvah or to 'see the light and finally get kosher clothes' - is what makes them human, real, and not the objects they are to us. Guys who do not want to do it often do not want to let them go. They want to keep them as 'barbie dolls'. I have heard guys say to me that they are just too disgusted with the prusteh shiksah, to possibly pray for her.

To bow to her, they can do - to follow her around drooling like a dog from page to page on her porn site, they can do...but to pray for her?! She's so horrible! How could we?!

I am not talking to you, belmont, just addressing the issue as fully as I can, be"H.

Hey - have a nice evening, that's all. And look out for errant fireworks and gunshots (crazy people out there, you know). Happy New Year!

Dov!

(Going backwards), First of all you are talking to me too it's relevant to many, secondly I am not questioning if it's against the Torah, I'm not in any way thinking you would advise anything to that way, (however what works is not always in line), you mentioned the 12 steps, but didn't refer to it as the source, I'm not disagreeing with what you wrote, I just wanted to understand the concept properly.

So how I understood is that by praying for her she will become a human in our eyes and we will then not warship her as an idol, I could maybe comprehend with this, but why not pray she do teahuvah (if Jewish), and what to pray if she's not, is this the real way of achiving this goal, I guess you know (or have experience) with this method.

Thank you for your input and your constant teaching and clarifying.

Oh, I forgot, and about our dear friend Duddy, how would praying for her help him forget and remove her from his mind, it would do the opposite, he won't be able to stop thinking about her, and where the persons thoughts are, that's where his being is, maybe you have a different reasoning to this.

I'm open to listen and accept (almost) everything.

I will let Dov explain the concept. This bothered me for a while and I pestered him and he responded many times in posts, chats and calls on this topic.

Regardin' Duddy, I have spoken and chatted with Dov (with Duddy's permission) on this subject several times, includin' yesterday extensively as well. Again, I will let Dov speak for himself (as he is quite capable), but I think he understands and agrees why in this situation, it will be counterproductive.

The concept in one line is: Many of us objectify women.
Prayin' for 'em makes 'em human.

At this point, it happens not to work for me, but I do understand the principal.

belmont4175 wrote:


I gotta say this and hope it comes off well:

The discussion about this is irrelevant unless it is about you actually using it and you will only understand it by your own personal experience. Figuring it out is not a help and not even part of recovery. Alcoholics and sexaholics did not recover because they figured anything out, and they did not follow the program because they first understood its wisdom. If it made sense to people like us, that would be a very bad sign indeed.

So. If you have been forced to admit defeat to lust and know you are hopeless as i am, then you can try the praying technique I am referring to and will probably understand it then...without needing to explain it at all.

But for those who are experiencing it:

As far as explaining what the goal of it is, you wrote abt making her into a real person - that's only a part of it. There is much more that we get from it. One thing that has become clear to me is that we worship these women, don't forget. That's why we follow them around, beg for them in our hearts, seek them - and often enduring hardship, taking great risks, and even spending lots of money and time...that is mesiras nefesh. It demonstrates worship and devotion. Hashem wants all those things, like the RMBM says ahavas Hashem is like a man who is crazy in love with his women all day and cannot get his mind pff her". (his words, not mine)
As it says, "Acharei Hashem elokeichem teleichun...uvo sidbakun," etc. Follow Him around, seek Him, etc.

We essentially pray to the powerful women (or men) we lust after and seek/follow around foe they are our true G-d.

And loving things we are lusting after (including our wives) is the ultimate answer, as crazy as it may seem to you. Tzaddikim ar called "achid Shmaya v'ara" because they connect everything to Hashem. A sexaholic's Lusting after a woman (even one's own wife) is abusing her image, taking her, stealing her for himself. It is the opposite of loving her. If you truly love her, you will not really lust after her. Healthy desire for one's wife is not lust - lust ultimately divides them. This is baduk umenusa and most couples discover this at one time or anther even though addicts are not that common.

Praying for her is one fantastic way to come to love her (as Rav Dessler writes, taking actions of love creates love itself).

To pray for her to do Teshuva is fine - in theory. But in practice, doing that feeds our bekesheh-wearing ego. We looove to pretend to ourselves that she is the problem, not us - hence the presence of some (ok, many) budding sexholics at the Anti-internet rally! We love to point the finger. And we also like to imagine that of all people, we (who worship her and lust for her image etc, every day over and over!) are worthy of praying for her teshuvah. Only the ego could be that holy and crazy and prideful at the same time, no?

AA, SA and many others see that it is better to humble ourselves to accept and admit where we really are. And we can do that by trying to humbly pray for her to get whatever she needs. We do not know who is higher in this world - what she has been through, where she has come from in her family and upbringing...do you or I know that we'd have done better than she in her place? But oh how we love to despise the shiksa's --- after we have drooled at them till we are sick of it, first!! Remind anyone here of Amnon and Tamar, a bit?

So, as far as her stopping dressing like a hooker, that's G-d's business, not ours. It's the 12 step way, it seems. We have managed too much already...for people like us, step 3 is a good thing. Just leave some things to G-d.

We've got a very long way to go and have our own big fish to fry.