03-23 Beware of Cutting Down

Beware of Cutting Down

Many PMOers resort to cutting down either as a stepping-stone towards stopping or as an attempt to control the little monster. Many recommend cutting down or a ‘porn diet’¹ as a pick-me-up. Obviously, the less you PMO the better off you are but as a stepping-stone to stopping, cutting down is fatal. It is these attempts to cut down that keep us trapped all our lives.

Usually cutting down follows failed attempts to stop. After a few hours or days of abstinence the PMOer says to himself something like:

“I cannot face the thought of going to sleep without visiting my online harem, so from now on I will just PMO once in four days or I will purge my collection of ‘bad’ porn. If I can follow this ‘porn diet’, I can either hold it there or cut down further.”

Certain terrible things now happen:

1. He has the worst of all worlds. He is still addicted to internet porn and is keeping the monster alive not only in his body but also in his mind.
2. He is now wishing his life away waiting for the next session.
3. Prior to cutting down, whenever he wanted to visit his harem he would fire up his browser and at least partially relieved his withdrawal pangs. Now, in addition to the normal stresses and strains of life, he is actually causing himself to suffer the withdrawal pangs from porn most of his life. So he is causing himself to be even more miserable and bad tempered.
4. While he was indulging himself, he didn’t enjoy most of the PMO sessions nor did he realize he was using a supranormal stimulate. It was automatic. The only harem visits that he imagined he enjoyed were after a period of abstinence (e.g. the first in the four days, the one after a business trip, etc.).

Now that he waits an extra hour for each harem visit, he ‘enjoys’ every one. The longer he waits, the more enjoyable each PMO session appears to become because the ‘enjoyment’ in a session isn’t the session itself; it’s the ending of the agitation caused by the craving, whether it be the slight physical craving for internet porn or the mental moping. The longer you suffer, the more ‘enjoyable’ each session becomes.

The main difficulty of stopping PMOing is not the brain chemical addiction. That’s easy. PMOers will all on without it anyway on various occasions - such as death of a loved one, family/work affairs keeping them away from access etc. They will go say, ten days without internet porn and it doesn’t bother them. But if they went the same ten days during which time they can have access to internet porn, they would be tearing their hair out.

Many PMOers will get a chance during their work day and abstain from masturbating to orgasm. PMOers will pass through Victoria’s Secret store in the mall, swimming pools and so on without undue inconvenience. Many PMOers will abstain if they have to sleep on the couch temporarily to make space for a visitor or if they are themselves visiting . Even in the Go-Go bars or on nudist beaches there have been no riots. PMOer are almost pleased for someone to say they cannot masturbate. In fact, PMOers who want to quit get a secret pleasure out of going long periods without a harem visit. It gives them the hope that maybe one day they will never want it.

The real problem when stopping is the brainwashing. That illusion of entitlement that internet porn is some sort of prop or reward and life will never be quite the same without it. Far from turning you off to internet porn, all cutting down does is to leave you feeling insecure and miserable and to convince you that the most precious thing on this earth is the missed new clip on your tube site, that there is no way that you will ever be happy again without seeing that one.

There is nothing more pathetic than the PMOer who is trying to cut down. He suffers from the delusion that the less he PMOs, the less he will want to visit the online harems². In fact, the reverse is true. The less he PMOs, the longer he suffers the withdrawal pangs; the more he enjoys the PMO. However, the more he will then notice that his favourite genre or star are not hitting the spot now. But that won’t stop him. If the tube sites were to dedicate to one star only no PMOers would ever go more than once to those online harems.

You find that difficult to believe? OK, let’s talk it out. Which is the worst moment of self control one feels? Waiting for four days and then having a climax. Which is one of the most precious moment for most PMOers who are in the 4 day porn diet? That’s right, the same climax after waiting for four days! Now do you really believe you are masturbating to it to enjoy the orgasm? Or do you think a more rational explanation is that you are relieving withdrawal pangs and the illusion that your are entitled to PMO?

It is essential that we remove all these illusions about PMO before you extinguish that final session. Unless you’ve removed the illusion that you enjoy it before you close the window on the final one, there is no way you can prove it afterwards without getting hooked again. So, unless you are already online waiting to go to your tube site, do type it now. Open up your favourites folder and PMO to your most favourites - star, genre, theme etc. Now as you are in the action ask yourself what is so glorious about this thing. Perhaps you believe that it is only certain clips that are of good taste, like the one on your habitual or favourite theme? If so, why do you bother to watch the other videos and themes?

Because you got into the habit of doing it? Now why would anyone get into the habit of PMO which is screwing up their brain scripts and wasting themselves? Why should a clip of the same star that ‘hit the spot’ last month not be as exciting now? Nothing is different after a month, so why should porn clip be different after a month?

Don’t just rely on me, check it out yourself. Find that hot clip from last month to prove that it is different. Now, set a reminder and watch the same clip after a week of no PMO. It will hit (almost) the same spots like it did last month. The same clip will also do a different thing to you after a social event where you are turned down or tested by some potential partner. The reason is that the addict can never be really happy if that little monster remains unsatisfied.

Where does satisfaction come into it? It’s just that they are miserable if they aren’t allowed to relieve their withdrawal symptoms at those times. So the difference between PMOing and not PMOing is the difference between being happy and miserable. That’s why the internet porn appears to be better. Whereas PMOers who get on the internet first thing in the morning for porn are miserable whether they are PMOing or not.

Cutting down not only doesn’t work but it is the worst form of torture. It doesn’t work because initially the PMOer hopes that by getting into the habit of using less and less, he will reduce his desire to PMO. It is not a habit. It is an addiction and the nature of any addiction is to want more and more, not less and less. Therefore in order to cut down, the PMOer has to exercise willpower and discipline for the rest of his life. So cutting down means willpower and discipline forever.

The main problem of stopping is not the dopamine addiction to internet porn. That’s easy to cope with. It is the mistaken belief that the porn gives you some pleasure. This mistaken belief is brought about initially by the brainwashing we receive before we started using internet porn, which is then reinforced by the actual addiction. All cutting down does is reinforce the fallacy further to the extent that porn dominates the user’s life completely and convinces him that the most precious thing on this earth is the addiction.

As I have already said, cutting down never works anyway because you have to or must exercise willpower and discipline for the rest of your life. If you did not have enough willpower to stop then you certainly have not got enough to cut down. Stopping is far easier and less painful. I have heard of literally thousands of cases in which cutting down has failed.

The handful of successes I have known have been achieved after a relatively short period of cutting down, followed by the ‘cold turkey’. These PMOers really stopped in spite of cutting down, not because of it. All it did was prolong the agony. A failed attempt to cut down leaves the PMOer a nervous wreck, even more convinced that he is hooked for life. This is usually enough to keep him reverting back to is online harem for pleasure and crutch for another stretch of time before the next attempt.

However, cutting down helps to illustrate the whole futility of PMO because it clearly illustrates that a visit to the harem is enjoyable only after a period of abstinence. You have to bang your head against a brick wall (i.e. suffer withdrawal pangs) to make it nice when you stop. So the choices are:

1. Cut down for life. This will be self-imposed torture and you will not be able to do it anyway.
2. Increasingly torture yourself for life. What is the point?
3. Be nice to yourself. Stop doing it.

The other important point that cutting down demonstrates is that there is no such thing as the odd or occasional harem visit. Internet porn is a chain reaction that will last the rest of your life unless you make a positive effort to break it: