Reposting from the megathread since it's slow atm and wanted to share the good news!
I have some good news to report. I've made some headway in cutting porn out of my life. I haven't looked at it in days! I consider this some progress as I needed it to get off. So instead I'm using drawn smut as a substitute and I don't feel the same self-loathing for getting off to stuff I'd normally not be comfortable with. I've also cut down on getting off all together, down from every day to every 2-3 days, again progress!
Next up is to quit smoking/vaping and start incorporating some exercise into my life. I'm thinking about getting back into walking again as I used to do it a lot.
This is maybe a bit apropos, but today I finally got around to writing a bit more of my "for my eyes only" erotic novel. I haven't done that in months, even though writing smut comes highly recommended from me. Have you ever tried this? I find it "meditative" for lack of a better term.
deleted by creator
Not really. Becoming a writer and getting off to whatever you write isn't really an effective way to quit porn for most people, I wouldn't think. What writing smut can be instead is a way to reflect in a somewhat structured and absolutely creative way about what sex/porn/masturbation/fetishes/whatever actually mean to you — that's why I call it "meditative". It's a complete blank canvas with no-one to judge you but yourself, and what better way to unlearn your own brainworms about sex than by giving yourself that sort of a quiet space to confront them? So for instance the key themes in the story that I'm writing for myself are things like beauty, shame, self-acceptance, identity, and connection, because these are the sorts of topics which have impacted my own relationship to sexuality the most.
...But I guess I've just always been the type to hyper-psychoanalyze every facet of my own sexuality, and felt like most other people by comparison tend not to be nearly as interrogative of their own internalized attitudes to sex, even when a bit of introspection probably would do them good.
deleted by creator
O ye of little faith.
I've not written anything for a long time but folk around here may remember that I do self-photography/self-bondage/greenscreen editing to produce softcore Bdsm erotica.
And channeling horniness through creative activities is far more rewarding than consumption.
Channeling anything through creative activities is far more rewarding than consumption, frankly.
I’ve done that and have a few erotic novels I’ve written when going through particularly bad horny spells. People seem to really like them so I guess something good came out of my moment of horniness lol
Thanks for the suggestion.