Hello all you great people of the GYE family:
Today was my first day as a registered member of GYE.
I was looking through the different areas of the site and I am truly amazed at the stuff some of you guys have been through and have come out of or are working on coming out of.
there's one subject which I haven't really (yet?) found being addressed on the site, (though I've got a very very long way until I get through reading all of it).
The issue is "THE PITFALLS OF THE GYE SITE ITSELF"!!!!
I have head about this site long before I joined -but i have not been a stranger to it. i would come here to read the great stories with all the "juicy details" of how the guys were so into porn and masturbating, and about all the girl they hung out with and even prostitutes sometimes. I would read all about the unclad women they watched in the stripclubs etc. etc. etc.
and believe me guys-
It turned me on!!
I would fantasize about the stories thaat these guys (you guys!)wrote and it was almost as much fun as any sexually related site, [minus the photographs, which i created in my own mind].
I'm sure that the wonderful people - no I'm not being sarcastic or facetious - i really really do admire them and the work they are doing here! - who ae in charge of this amazing site MUST have considered this angle just as they have considered and addressed every other angle of the subject which this site is intended to address.
What about the dangers of the site itself?? yes I know they have set up boundaries between the men's forums and the women's forums, and even between the married and unmarried, also with the men and women chats, going as far as setting up a voice-identity system-
but there is still so much danger involved in people who are sooooo susceptible to this disease (yes! I agree!) - being open to all this.
It seems that the exact site which is meant to serve as a healer serves also as a spreader of the problem
SO- Any comments either from the staff themselves or from you dear fellow participants, on the subject of...
"THE GYE PORN!!" ????

you are blessed if this is the type of porn you have been exposed to.
most of those on the site have found better/worse places to view porn if they are so inclined.
and the truth is this subject has been addressed and when someone goes too far there usually is a comment to stop it from going tooo far

TO KILOCHOLU:
I DID NOT SAY THIS IS THE ONLY PON I WAS EXPOSED TO- WHAT I SAID WAS THAT THIS SITE WHICH SHOULD BE THE PROTECTOR CAN SERVE AS A PITFALL.

the benefits far far by many miles outweigh the risks as I wrote before.
there may be/are other risks that are way more serious than what you have brought up and they also have been addressed maybe w/o such clear conclusions

i agree that the benefits are great but im wondering if anything can be done for this problem?

Yes!

Hey there shivisi!!

First of all, Welcome to GYE!!! Looking forward to getting to know you better!!

As for comments.....I used to wait every year for some special Parshiyos, the story of Lot with his daughters (that's my facvorite), that Rivka didn't have any relations with men, Yaakov Avinu and the switch of sisters (did they do it through a sheet?!), Yehudah and Tamar, etc. Next in line were gemara's.....

Do you have the same question? The Torah which is supposed to be THE ultimate healer, served as a pitfall?

Yes, if I am looking to fall then I find it anywhere, and there is only one person to blame......me. Yes, there are things that are too explicit, but they are very few and far, and almost always edited. The quest to find something in a "kosher" way was most exciting for me, I didn't have to feel so guilty, I was innocent (reading all the meforshim on those stories, and on the gemara's was mamish L'shem Shamayim!!)!!

So, we don't tell women to stop walking on the street when we are there, and we don't tell our wives to find another place to stay when they are a niddah (and even when not), and we don't ask artscroll not to translate certain parts of Torah, because we know that the problem isn't them, it's us, same with here, you don't ask recovering sexaholics not to mention sex, it's not their probelm.....it's yours.

HEY!! Don't be a stranger, you're amongst friends, people who are going through the same stuff as you!!

Start a thread introducing yourself, what your struggle is, and what you find works!!

Most of all, KOT!!!

To Pidaini:
I already did the introducing thing in the forum.
It's here:
guardyoureyes.com/forum/19-Introduce-Yourself/227674-%28PART-of%29-MY-STORYhttps://guardyoureyes.com/forum/19-Introduce-Yourself/227674-%28PART-of%29-MY-STORY
Thanx alot,

I'm a little shocked and even a bit offended by this post. I am almost tempted to believe you are writing this in spite, or as someone coming to mock GYE. I mean, common, are you serious? GYE is where you went to get turned on?? An addict has about 6 billion BETTER places to go to get turned on. Why would he try getting turned on HERE?

Second, Rule #8 of our rules states very clearly: "Posts should not contain details (about personal struggles or otherwise) that others may find triggering, or contain links to websites that some may find triggering. If a member wants to submit a detailed post that may need to be edited, he should send it to the administrator or to the moderators as a private message."

We are very careful on GYE not to allow anyone to post anything triggering or suggestive. Where did you find posts with "juicy details" on our site about prostitutes and unclad women?? I don't mean in general - I mean "in detail". (General mentioning of these things is obviously going to be discussed on the site, and there is nothing wrong with that. It is not a chiddush to anyone here that there is such a thing as prostitutes or unclad women on the internet, and general discussion of people's struggles is helpful for their recovery).

Once again, we encourage anyone on the forum who sees any post which could be a trigger to immediately report it to the admin. When we get a report of a post like this we delete the triggering details right away.

For some of us even the toned-down stories on this site could be a problem, as they can be a trigger for fantasy, which is what I think Shivisi was trying to say.

Personally, just as I thank Hashem for leading me here just at the time when i needed it most and was ready for it, so too I thank Him for not letting me find it earlier. I had been seeing the ads for it for months, and I was ignoring them thinking it was just another filter company, which I was not interested in at the time. I was deep in the shmutz and desperate for anything to turn me on, and I know that if I would have found the forums at that time I would have misused them for my own pleasure. But then Hashem caused me to go through an upheaval in my life which led me to realize that I had to change, but I had no support and I felt so alone and different, and now i was desperate in a new kind of way. Only then, through a random roundabout way, did Hashem lead me here, when I was finally ready to use the site properly.

I did speak to an Adam Gadol about my issues and I mentioned that some of the stories here can be a bit triggering. And he told me that it's still worth it to stay here because the benefits far outweigh the possible risks. And I must say that without the friendship and support I've found here I don't know where I would be today.

1. For people who suffer from SSA as well, GYE can be a bit more of a problem than for most addicts. The mechitza between men and women is of little use to them!

2. If our ads make people think we are a filter company, then we need to rework our ads. Please let me know which ads made you think this.

If I may suggest an eitza, shivisi...ok, a few eitzos...

First, thanks for being honest about your concern here. I share your experience, in a way and want to write about it. There is a great and famous author in the psychological world who broke ground in sexual addictions. I learned three things from reading his books:

1- lots of new ideas for ways to try to act out sexually, unfortunately, which I put into practice;

2- that there is such a thing as the 12 steps and that if I am really an addict I could use them and get better, fortunately;

...and 9 years later when I was finally really ready to give up the losing fight and was ready to get real help:

3- phone numbers to get good local therapists who knew about sex addiction. The lady Hashem led me to heard my entire story and then suggested that I was ill and that I speak to an SA member regarding Sexaholics Anonymous meetings. I did, started attending SA meetings regularly, and have been sober since for 17 years now. It saved my yiddishkeit, life, marriage, etc.

OK, so yeah you can read things here and get 'triggered' by them...but I blamed my getting triggered from that shrink's book on myself...and by the same token I suggest to you that the problem of you getting triggered by stuff you read on GYE rests squarely and only on yourself.

You may fear your lusting, your sinning, etc, and may sincerely wish you'd quit getting into trouble playing with fantasy (and probably with yourself). But I suggest that if you felt triggered by the details of posts you read here - and continued reading those posts anyway even for an instant - then you still have not given up your lust. You were looking for it, at some level. Not an insult, just a suggestion to consider after looking in the mirror a bit.

In my own case, if I am reading a post and get the feeling that it is written in an unhealthy way with unnecessary detail, I quit reading it immediately. Even if the poor guy is begging for help! I will not sacrifice my sobriety and serenity for anyone else, period. If I did, I would soon be unable to help anyone, anyhow, and besides, it's stupid.

You can learn a lot here, but no one will ever teach you how to side-step responsibility for yourself. You will never get 'passive filtering programs' for your head. There are pervert in me'ah She'arim, too - even though they filter the dress of women coming through...ein apotropos l'arayos. You are the owner of your mind and will always have to judge what you let into it. The world will not change for you. And the best place to start learning how to do that, may be right here on GYE.

So when you start getting the idea that a post feels filthy, instead of trying to change GYE: just stop reading it and move on.

Hatzlocha brother!

- Dov

To Guard:
I will try to respond to each part of your comment / response separately:
1. "(You wrote) - I am almost tempted to believe you are writing this in spite, or as someone coming to mock GYE".
ME: No! I was not in any way trying to spite or mock GYE in any way whatsoever, chas vesholom! Maybe in my past stages would I have considered doing that but now I'm here to try to get help and I have great admiration and appreciation for what the GYE site is doing. I truly wrote this as a plea to the managers of the site and to other members to help me with an issue which I felt might hinder the extent of help which I so much want to get by joining GYE.
2. (You wrote)"common, are you serious? GYE is where you went to get turned on?? An addict has about 6 billion BETTER places to go to get turned on. Why would he try getting turned on HERE?"
ME: Now first let's go back to the past: Since we do have a filter on our home computer which blocks sites which contain sexual content, including removing photographs of scantily clad women even on sites which were ok as for the site itself, there were not many “BETTER places to go to get turned on”. Even at times when I did have access to those so called “BETTER” sites, there were times when I would seek out types of satisfaction for my desires from such places where I could “pretend to fool” my conscience. I would say to myself “I’m not in a porn site. This is a discussion about “shalom bayis” or about “dealing with certain health issues” etc. And “what more “kosher porn” can there be better than a site which is set up by frum kosher Jews looking to help people, with the endorsement of great rabonim??”, etc.
Now, as for the present, I am most definitely not SEEKING to get triggered or turned on now. I’m looking to dig myself out of the grime and dredge which I have gotten myself into, and which, who knows better than you at GYE, how difficult that task is. As with almost all addictions, the addict who is attempting to free himself of his addiction must be very cautious when in the vicinity of even the smallest thing which may trigger his desire for the object of his addiction. Therefore I was truly concerned that the stories and descriptions here might, even if not completely defeat, will interfere with the purpose of my joining GYE. And this was feeling was strengthened in view of my experiences in the past as stated before. Although the circumstances are obviously different, as then I was seeking to get triggered, and now I’m trying to become free of that, yet can I trust myself , being that I’m just at the beginning of my “cleansing” process, that I won’t get pulled again into past pitfalls??
3. (you wrote) "We are very careful on GYE not to allow anyone to post anything triggering or suggestive."
ME: Yes, I did notice that the moderators of the site try to do their best to “edit” content which might be too explicit, (even the heading of this very post was “moderated”),yet I still felt that as a beginner, I might still be in danger of “relapsing” chas vesholom, as a result of being triggered by certain stories.
No, I don’t have any suggestion as how to deal with this issue and it was NOT written in way of “criticism” but rather as a “share” of my feelings and fears in regard to myself and maybe GYE other beginners.
I apologize if my letter was misunderstood and cause you or anyone else any offense.
Thank you all again for an unbelievable site.
SHIVISI

shivisi wrote:


I want to reiterate some of what [I think!] Dov was trying to say using my own life [not anything sexual- don't want to trigger anyone...] as an example.

When I was about twelve years old I decided that finishing Shas would be quite a grand accomplishment, I figured that if I start when I'm bar mitzva I can finish when I'm twenty (I'm twenty two, never happened). When I was in yeshiva ketana I decided it would be a grand idea to finish Shulchan Aruch Orach Chaim. I made a decision that as soon as I get into Yeshiva gedola I'll start (Still didn't finish, though I am close, but according to the original plan I should've been up to Choshen Mishpat by now). When I was in yeshiva gedola I made a decision that I need a really good chazara of hilchos shabbos and go for a farher. I decided I'll take care of that after my chasuna.

As an addict, I am forever waiting for the world to change so that I can implement my grand plans. I cannot finish shas but when I'll be a "barmitzva bachur" then I'll be able to! I cannnot learn Shulchan Aruch, but when I'll be a "yeshivagedola bachur" then I'll be able to! I cannot farher myself hilchos Shabbos, but when I'll be a "Kollel Yungermahn", then I'll be able to!

Do you understand what I'm saying?

If only GYE would be cleaner I wouldn't fall... If only I would have a long white beard I wouldn't fall... If only my father wouldn't be critical of me I wouldn't fall...

The list goes on and on, but it's all my addiction telling me not to take responsibility for my thoughts behaviors and actions.

To Tehillim Zugger: First of all thank you for responding.
As far as the main jist of your response, you are definitely right that if we keep saying "if only things were different.... I would... then we never get there. This is one of the lessons learnd from the mishna in Avos which says "Al tomar l'keshefne eshne shemo lo tipone" (אל תאמר לכשאפנה אשנה שמא לא תיפנה). I once heard it explained: that not only is it saying that the spare time you are waiting for might not come, but maybe BECAUSE you have such an atitude of "lekeshefne eshne" (לכשאפנה אשנה) - "if only I had more time... when this happens... when that happens...then I will do this and that...." - THEREFORE the time may never come, Since you will ALWAYS find something else to use as a reason for not being able to do it now!
BUT as far as my post goes: I did not mean to say "IF ONLY - GYE won't cause me to "trigger" then I would not fall..." What I was doing was SHARING a DIFFICULTY which I had with being triggered by certain things on the GYE site, and was asking for help and chizuk in my struggle. And surely By no means was I chas vesholom BLAMING GYE for my failure to get better.
I keep saying that I have ONLY praise and admiration for this site and for all the wonderful amazing people involved!
Hatzlocho rabo in ALL your goals- both here and in all areas of life -shas -shulchon oruch - etc etc... chazak V'ematz!

BTW Did you at least finish "Tillim zugen"???