40 Days/Nights

I was one of those people who kept porn on their computer. I started watching it before streaming sites became big, and downloading it was just a habit. I mainly downloaded gay stuff, and watched straight things online. But I decided to just get rid of it all. Not just delete what I had, but not use streaming sites or anything. Complete abstinence from it. I don't know why I didn't do it before, deleting it, but I guess you form a kind of stupid attachment to it. I tend to hoard things anyway. All the bits of paper that come with DVDs or CDs or whatever I keep, even the plastic film it was wrapped in if there was a sticker on it or something. My computer is full of stuff I won't get rid of in case I need it later. This was just another side of that tendency, more digital hoarding.

I was reading websites where people talk about how using Internet porn had messed them up in various ways. Sexual dysfunction, needing more and more extreme porn to get the same thrill, guys who has no interest in men needing gay porn to get off. That last one kind of struck a cord with me, except with the sexualities switched around. The last dozen or so times I've masturbated, it has been mostly to straight porn. And then things like threesomes or gangbangs (probably because there are more males in those, since I don't get much arousal from the female participants). So there was times, as I have written about here before, where I wondered if I was bi or something. Not to the same level as 'gay OCD' sufferers who worry they might be gay and are really troubled by it, but still.

And there are times when I just couldn't keep my mind on having sex, and would end up 'replaying' porn in my head. Which actually happened the first time I had sex. I'm trying to remember when I have actually orgasmed during sex (except oral, which has a grand total of twice), and I am not sure if I have now. I have enjoyed it, and there were probably other factors at play, but something is obviously not working right there. So what do I have to lose?

To be honest, I have grown ambivalent towards porn lately. Maybe a bit more negative than just simple ambivalence. I am not about to go around condemning it, or telling other people what they should do. I have just become cynical about it as a whole. Looking at attractive people is nice, and watching them have sex is nice. Just as a consumable item, as a piece of entertainment, it has lost appeal for me. I look at what it adds to my life, and there's nothing, really. The chance to see guys I will never have sex with, having sex with other people (sometimes not even of the gender I'am attracted to)? Sex acts I haven't tried? Situations that I'm unlikely to experience personally? I suppose there are those, but I have grown far too pessimistic about the whole industry to really enjoy it. So I am taking it out of my life. See what it is like to completely remove it and any influence it might have. 'Rebooting' myself back to a state before it.

('Industry' is something that could easily apply to any type of entertainment medium, and there is of course a lot of amateur stuf out there now, but still.)

 ***

First time I saw porn, probably like a lot of guys, it was stuff my dad had. There wasn't really much special about it, except one magazine had an older guy pissing in a young woman's mouth (the word 'vintage' is forever tainted for me by its use in the caption of that image), and that the guy looked like the music teacher at my school. But there was this big collection of magazines that formed a series about sex, talking about different topics and giving techniques. More informative than pornographic (though at that age it was still enough to get me hard). There was one issue that had an article on being gay. I can't remember now if it was about being gay yourself, or your child being gay. I have a gut feeling it was the latter. I have the memory of pictures of a man and woman sitting with their daughter, and another pair talking to their son. At that time I wasn't 'gay' yet, but there was something about that article that stood out to me more than the others.

While I don't think had much idea about my sexuality growing up, I did have that feeling of being different in some way. I wouldn't say that I was one of those guys who 'always knew' considering most of the crushes I had up until e age of about 13 were on girls, but I did feel like there was something that wasn't quiet the same. I'm not one to really try to psychoanalyse the past and figure out why things happened. I don't have a good enough recollection, so any insights are probably going to be influenced by what I know or feel now. It doesn't really matter to me if I was always the way I am now or if it is something that shifted and changed as I grew.

I kind of want to read that article again, but those magazines were thrown out years ago. There is not really any need to read it, since I won't really learn anything useful. I don't have kids or plan on having any in the near future (and I should hope I'd be accepting of them being gay) and my parents have either taken my coming out really well or are likely to. Nostalgia is probably the main reason, It's moments like this that make me hoard things!

***

This 'giving up porn' thing also includes another sacrifice: no wanking. It was part of the whole 'rebooting' program I had read about. I am aiming for about a month. Seeing as how I can't motivate myself like an adult, I am motivating myself like a child with the promise that I will buy something big and expensive if I make it.

So far, it's not going too well. I can go about four days before I give in. Trying this thing, it has surprised me how many times I might have found myself idly looking at porn during a week without any specific intention. It is something I didn't expect to need to look out for.

I am back on day 1 today. I wondered what it would mean if I had sex, would that spoil the process, but yeah. I don't think I have to really worry too much about that spontaneously happening. It has been a long while now since anyone showed interest (or at least anyone I had any interest in back) so I don't think that's going to be too big of an issue here.