a date is really whatever you want it to be

in all (or partial seriousness) I act out with porn and masturbation. I cannot date well when I am acting out.

I would suggest you go for at least a month clean and see what it feels like.

That may be good advice, but it's gotta be only a start, at best. There is simply no way that just resisting the desire to chase and enjoy porn or masturbate one's self is going to change a habitual porn-worshiper and masturbater enough to...to what?

Yes, porn-on-the-brain is a condition that makes it impossible to date properly. But I think a rule that 'any guy who has masturbated should not be dating for x-amount of time' makes no sense, at all. And this is why:

The first question to answer here here is, are we talking about a guy who has been worshiping images of naked women and worshiping his penis and self-pleasuring on-demand as part of a long-standing love affair with fantasy (or with real fantasy women), or not? That was me for about 20 years...11 of them married and in hell.

So...

If we are talking about a man who is an addict and has a long-standing chronic, progressive 'problem'...then vadai even staying clean forever will not fix him. He needs some sort of real help. Negative sobriety is just not going down-hill. It's great, holy, and super...but corrects nothing. Such a guy should not be dating! He is fooling himself and probably way too disoriented by her body, his fantasies, and hos adventures last night in his bed or shower, to have the soundness of mind to decide anything as huge as who to marry, right now. He needs a sognificant period of clean time, and a real corection of his attitudes toward women, towad his need for sex, toward other things, too, probably. And without those changes, he is like a man running full speed in pitch-darkness. He's probably gonna screw up badly and be very, very sad. Just staying clean will not save him.

But if we are just talking about a normal guy who has a yetzer hora, eyeballs, and privates, and struggles with his desires (as the Torah and sforim tell us to) even if he is not perfectly successful - then that is just a normal person! And if he came to GYE or wherever and was inculcated with the nonesense that 'anything less than perfect success against his yetzer hora proves that you have an addiction'...then I believe he has been very badly misled.

He should be dating like anyone else should be dating...no difference.

People just need to be a little more honest with themselves, either way. The best way for that to actually happen, is to open up to another safe, understanding, person. They can help you know if your problem is within the realm of normal. But it has been well-known for a long time that religious fascination with ultimate purity has made many young men into fastidiously obsessive sexual anorexices...and they end uo thinking about sex and lust far more in the long-run than they would have otherwise.

Hey, did that go on too long?

Does anyone in the parsha hear me at all?

Does anyone on the parsha care?

I will say that you are making a lot of sense but I do not know if that point - that not all people on GYE who look at porn and masturbate are not out of control addicts who are screwed up (and are just guys living in the 21st century who are being stimulated 24/7) - is well understood. The idea the former can date and the latter even if he makes good choices about who to marry is doomed to pain in marriage is very good too. Again I don't know how many single guys understand what being an addict does to marriage (especially since the married men's forum is blocked to them)

I think the last point that drive to stay totally clean makes people nuts is a can of worms that is worth pondering but I will leave it at that.

Thanks so much, chaver.

Re the last point, I agree it is worth pondering. I have posted abt it many times before, but just to hint at the pervasiveness of the issue with "that drive to stay totally clean makes people nuts", I will just point out that over the years, It amazed me how many times here on GYE I heard and read guys defining 'Teshuvah from this problem' as davka and only (what the RMB"M famously calls) 'Teshuvah Gemurah"...you know, where the guy will not fall ever again and "Hashem testifies that the guy will no longer sin in this manner"...

It's lust. Religious lust. Lust for perfection and the great glamour of high madreigos. It's a sickness just like any other.

And rebbi's are afraid to stamp it out when they see it. Why else are the only stories where we see that happening ones involving davka the greatest of the great (for example, the Chofetz Chaim going to beis midrash telling guys to go to sleep cuz it ws just too late...etc.)? Cuz the rank-and-file yeshivish guy would scoff at anyone of lesser pedigree praising normalcy and maturity in avodas Hashem! Obviously, it is only the greatest 'mit groiseh pleitzos' who can afford to openly talk of things like moderation and good sense in avodas Hashem.

What can I say? Extremism is posh!

And that's about Talmud Torah. When it comes to things like geder arayos, naturally the small people are the most eager to run to whatever extremism sounds the most extreme. But we are talking about real live people, here. Many frum Jewish teenagers in yeshivah are pretty prone to obsessiveness...no? Encouraging their obsessive power in fighting the whole sex and lust thing naturally budding in them then, is like throwing gasoline on a flame.

There has got to be a better way, no?

Go Steelers!

Huh?

I need to think about this idea more before I comment.

However, I do want to revisit the issue of single guys not understanding what being an addict does to a marriage. I think most guys simply don't understand what is at stake.

They see their friends get married, they go for a meal on shabbos and things seem fine and they have no idea that marriage with an addiction is hell. I know the married guys forum is locked to them but I think this is an idea that would serve them well if there was a way to expose them to it.

any suggestions?

...Well...where's the oilem?

so what I am getting so far is that some are saying that days do matter somewhat but others are saying its just the problem of being able/unable to control ones sexual impulses, even if someone will act out once in a while (who decides what that is btw?!) if overall he is in control and can shut fantasies out of his head when they intrude or he does not have to worry about walking down the street and chasing every skirt that passes him then marriage won't be an issue so I have two questions
1)dov, just like when someone gets strep or pneumonia (wow I remembered that p lol) no matter if he starts meds and we know he is gonna get better he still needs minimum 10 days of recovery so too here, how come he won't need 90 or wtvr days prior to dating simply to "detox" or get better?
2)what did u mean by "But if we are just talking about a normal guy who has a yetzer hora, eyeballs, and privates, and struggles with his desires (as the Torah and sforim tell us to) even if he is not perfectly successful - then that is just a normal person! And if he came to GYE or wherever and was inculcated with the nonesense that 'anything less than perfect success against his yetzer hora proves that you have an addiction'...then I believe he has been very badly misled.

He should be dating like anyone else should be dating...no difference.
How does one know if he is messing up bec he has eyeballs and taiva or because he has a lust issue after all all falls are preceded by a lust "wave" addict or not so...

I wrote a long post (for my standards) before, but gye crashed and poof!

I will try replicating...in short though

welcome
I did not respond to your question, for it sounded like you were askin for practical guidance and I am not equipped to provide that. it is a bit reckless to expect anonymous posters (mostly) to give you accurate life advise, when they hardly even know you.

that being said, why would you want to incorporate someone else into your issues?

on the sa site, there are 20 questions one can ask themselves to determine if perhaps they might be addicted to lust.

I have recently answered to myself that I probably am (after answerin' no for many months). whatever....is your life manageable when you are not masturbating? are naked women dancing over rashi and tosfos? when you hit the bed, does your mind drift to fantasy? do you see women with x-ray vision?

there are plenty more questions you can ask.....b'hatzlachah

I also can't answer this question (and my other question got lost in the shuffle) but do you feel powerless over lust?

mr.clean wrote:


As a theoretical question about 'others', 'one', or 'he', your questions have already been over-baked elsewhere on GYE many times...why rehash it just for curiosity's sake? It's probably another endless slog that will rile up people on both sides.

But if you, Mr Clean, can insert the facts as they are about just yourself and only yourself, then I believe that discussion would bear clear and useful fruit. And I want to suggest that this is true about most of the round-and-round-debate topics on GYE. If the theoretical would be replaced by the awkwardly practical and simply factual about us rather than just trying to establish rules of thumb or philosophies, there would be a lot less argument.

It would read like this: "Hiding all this has only gotten me more freedom to keep getting worse...so I have had enough. This is what I did_______, this is what I do_______, this is how often I do these things and since when_______ and all the ways I got caught yet still keep doing it, and this is exactly what I did last_______ and these are the exact challenges I struggle with today_______ and these are all the ways I can think of how it all has affected my actual daily life_______."

For many, writing all this clearly out on paper would prove beyond reasonable doubt that they are not addicts at all! That they need to get some counseling, open up to a Rov, shrink, or make better gedorim.

And for some, it would prove pretty clearly that they are really beaten. For them it will confirm that the one way they can guarantee further failure is to keep using their wonderful seichel to fight with, and 'our very best thinking is precisely what got us this messed up.' For us, it is over. Time to give up and find a third way - a trap door out of it.

But that's a lot less fun. Mea culpa.

Nu.

Arguing?

On GYE??

I don't believe it!

Sight Sry guys been kinda MIA this week, ok to catch up... Sparky good questions I like em they hit home, the answers honestly are that sometimes yes I do feel powerless over lust but many times I don't in fact I may not even be lying when I say most of my falls were because of boredom, irritability and plain and simple pleasure. Regarding the other points, yes sometimes I feel that when I walk in the street that my mind begins to race and I view women either with x ray vision or concoct on my head various scenarios, but recently I have been working on that and working on shutting these ideas and thoughts out of my head and you know what... B"H Bl"h its NOT as hard as I thought it would be. So I am I guess in control of my fantasies. Of course I don't mean to say its easy but I can stop my mind from coming up with these wild thoughts.
DOV- I don't understand ur last post I agree that when referring to this problem if I am talking about myself I should be more honest and say that but my main question was, that just like any other desiese that there is a certain amount of time that one will be sick regardless if he is taking his meds or not eg. Strep. The same must hold true for lust addiction (however u wanna define that word) that even if MY sexual urges and thoughts/drives do come back to "normal" 1) how long will it take till it does? it can't just be from one day to the next there must be a "holding" period 2) how will I know when I get there?

Hey there Mister!!

When this thread started I was on "sabatical" I think it might be time I joined!! (after all, which thread do I not stick my head into???)

I'll tell you my way of looking at this whole thing, it's very simple.....what has worked/is working and what hasn't/isn't?

If you think you've pinpointed the triggers, that's GREAT!!!! what are you doing to fix them? Are those things working to stop you from doing the things that you don't want to be doing?

If those things are working, then that's gevaldig, awesome!! if not, then what else should I do?

That's the bottom line for me, I don't care for labels, the only question that really matters is "Am I behaving the way I want to be? or are there still things that I need to find a way to deal with?"

KOP!! KOMT!!

mr.clean wrote:


OMG.

You are so geshmak, but did you read what i wrote? I wrote that figuring things out is BS, waste of time, whatever term you want to use...and all you did was run right back into the figuring it out by asking for a diagnosis, guidelines, guesses at how long it will take...gevalt. That is the problem, chaver, not the solution.

If you are happy with whatever you are doing and it is working fine for you, then great, like Yankel just wrote so well. But if not, then for G-d's sake man, just think and ask less, write and admit more.