Day 55

Success Fatigue

I’ve been doing very well with my recovery for the past couple of weeks, but I feel like I have reached the peak of success and now maintaining it is becoming dreary and tiresome.

I find myself more and more tempted each day now to just take a peek at some porn. Actually, it’s not even porn I’m interested in. Really, I find myself wanting to sneakily view some Facebook profiles of my students again. I have allowed myself one or two fantasies about a particular student. It doesn’t help.

My brain starts to make funny rationalizations for seeking out porn when I get like this. Firstly, I catch myself thinking things like “Well, if I just take a look at some Facebook profiles, that’s not even real porn so it doesn’t count”. I then admit to myself that viewing Facebook profiles of 17 and 18 year old girls will inevitably lead to masturbating to them. Maybe not right now, but it would happen within a day or two at the most. That’s why I can’t allow myself to look at them at all.

So then I try a different tactic. I start thinking, “well, if I really want to avoid masturbating to pictures of my students, then I should just use some regular soft porn from a consenting model.” Of course, that leads to complete relapses in no time at all. Once I start looking at the equivalent of FHM pictures, I’ll be looking at much harder stuff within the hour. It doesn’t take long before I start looking up all of the stuff that in the cold light of day I am ashamed of.

I think I might write the list of search terms I never want people to know I have used tonight. I think that will be a good deterrent for me. But first I’ll head over to NoFap. If I’m still struggling later tonight, I’ll write more.

Day 18

To help me quit masturbating to porn I wanted to make a list of triggers for the things that are likely to make me relapse. I am hoping that by listing them as accurately as possible, it will help me recognize them for what they are (triggers) and not mistake them for what they aren’t (impossible to disobey commands). As these are my triggers, and I am a self confessed pervert, you may find these weird or disturbing. Just remember, these weren’t always my triggers – porn has done some strange things to my brain over the years, of which I do not approve…

Triggers

Loneliness, Isolation, Boredom
As it happens, I am alone and bored right now. I started this blog so that I would have something else to do whenever I felt the urge. Since I’m writing here now, you can guess that I came pretty close to relapsing. I nearly did relapse tonight, but I think I’m past it now. All the same, these three feelings always seem like the quickest way to ensure I relapse. I have some strategies to deal with this, but I’ll save those for another day.

Surprise Hot Women
I am constantly bombarded by Surprise Hot Women. By this I mean, hot women I didn’t intentionally seek out, but ones that I saw nonetheless. This happens all the time online, on TV (FUCK HBO – great television but way too much porn), even in advertising. I was stuck in traffic behind a bus the other day that had a lingerie model advertising something or other. An eight feet tall semi-nude, perfectly proportioned Surprise Hot Woman. These kinds of thing weaken my resolve daily.

Intentional Hot Women
These are a combination of the two triggers above. Take Dark Knight Rises, for example. I saw that a little while ago and was blown away by Anne Hathaway. An exemplary Surprise Hot Woman. Later that week I was home alone and bored, so I Googled Anne Hathaway. Also an exemplary Intentional Hot Woman. This was actually the reason I relapsed two weeks ago and decided to start this blog. As I explained in the first post, it wasn’t long before I was disabling safe search and then ignoring Anne Hathaway images all together in favor of some actual porn. It’s a slippery slope. I was tempted to do this tonight, as it happens.

Young Women
This is wear I start to get creepy. I am a teacher. I teach in a Co-ed highschool. I have a lot of contact with girls aged 16-18. I am attracted to some of them. I don’t believe anything will ever happen with them (because I would lose my job and I don’t actually want to be THAT guy), but I think about it regularly. This has led to me Googling some pretty dodgy shit for a highschool teacher. I keep telling myself that it’s not that big a deal, since I’m only interested in girls that would be completely legal if only I weren’t their teacher. If I was some average guy, it would be legal to do all sorts of things with these girls. I know, because I have Googled that shit too. The frustration of being in this position though has led me to seek out porn where the women look young. In another blog post, I will actually list all of the keywords I can think of that I’ve searched for – right now, I think I have said enough. So I’m pretty creepy, right?

Students dressed casually
Yes I have sought porn that has young women in school uniform. It’s all very cliched, if you know your uniform porn. Pigtails, tartan skirts, open blouses, ties, and sometimes lollipops. But a real world trigger for me is when my students are not required to wear uniform for the day. They make an effort to be attractive. They are trying to impress the boys in their year level and each other with their fashion sense. They are also inadvertently impressing me, their perverted and broken teacher. There are a few girls I actually look forward to seeing on these days. It’s quite gross really.

Facebook
Now you will hate me, because I’m even creepier than you thought. Some guys masturbate to pictures their friends have posted on Facebook. That hot friend you have…no one will ever know…it’s not harming anyone…I’m that guy too. One day it occurred to me to search for the Facebook accounts of some of my students. Some of them have very lax privacy settings. Some of them post reasonably hot pictures. I actually hate myself and am disgusted by it, but I have masturbated to pictures of my students that I intentionally sought on Facebook.

I wanted to write these because I often feel powerless in the face of these triggers. Like once I’ve seen them or experienced certain feelings, all bets are off and I better just tug one out to get over it. The truth is, these things will keep happening or showing up, so I have to get used to telling my body that I’m not going to do anything about it…

Wish me luck, and pray for me.