u/Disastrous-Task902

I guess being a girl and active on this sub a lot of guys dm me for advice and stuff from a woman perspective (obvi there r some weird messages but I just ignore those).
And something I’ve noticed is a lot of you guys feel alone, and are ashamed for having feelings or unworthy of love.
I promise you, there is love coming ur way. There is meaningful connection and memories to be made that will feel so much more fulfilling than the quick thrill of porn.
So much of this addiction stems from a feeling of being incapable of change, like something is fundamentally off about you. But it’s not. The fact there are like nearly 100k weekly visits on this sub shows that even in this, there is community and collective experience.
I guess sometimes being a man can be isolating maybe more than a woman, but that’s when you find the strength within YOURSELF to accept the love that you DO have. Even if it stems from ur dog being excited when you get home, or going to Sunday service or whatever.

I thought I sounded so sane, but reading it back brought me back to how genuinely over my life felt after surviving a kinda traumatic event.

I was screaming and crying everyday ALL DAY and would have nightmares on loop to the point where I slept only for a 3 hrs a night. My mom was so anxious for me she had her own nervous breakdown and my dad nearly lost his job trying to handle all of this at once.

Went to this uber-expensive mental health ‘day camp’ and then went to this secluded mountain chain with my grandparents where the only thing that calmed me down a bit was looking at horses and cows for hours. tbf that was quite cool.
Did weird shit like force my dad to drive me around for hours bc staying inside was torture, hid all the mirrors in my house, etc etc all summer.

Nearly failed my first yr of college bc I was sleeping every single day for nearly 18 hours (thanks quietapine!), and my mom had to fly from across the country nearly every other week bc of the risk of me kms. When I was awake all I did was watch House MD, Dexter, and Law & Order SVU bc these were the only shows with high enough stakes to make me forget my life and dissociate for hours.

Having my first experience of the ‘real world’ this way was very deeply brutal. It makes me sad that it kind of stunted my development arc (high school me had so many hobbies and interests which fully stopped when I became a shell of myself, and I’ve never really picked up on them or felt passion again since), and now I have little ambition for school and a deeply vacuous personality which centers men too much but whatever. Damn I used to be so interesting :,)

I’ve never really shared this with anyone, and am typing all this now because it’s been nearly two years, and I realize now that, although I’m still depressed and truly a very unimpressive and floppy person, I survived! Yippee :P

I think all of us under 25 have obvi noticed the popularity of ‘gooning’ as a meme/trend online over the past year. Almost turning having a gooner identity into a lifestyle and socially ‘cool’ thing

I’m curious to hear if that’s impacted you guyses’ porn consumption in any way. Bc I’ve noticed that for me, the fact that gooning is so prevalent as a conversation topic amongst my comrades has almost made it harder to quit porn? Bc of all the ‘triggers’ that you see on social media (that aren’t porn, but talk about the consumption of it),, and because it almost feels like keeping up with said trends (eg. Futa was a big one a couple months back) related to this ‘gooner’ lifestyle is part of socializing and not being left out.

This isn’t an anti gooning post AT ALL. gooning is so healthy!! but I think for many of us who are alr struggling w heightened sexual ‘drive’ through consumption,, the commodification of the gooner identity and indulgent sexual consumption as a trend is bad.