whats the longest you’ve gone without masturbation

    • Sean2001 wrote:

      royalemeraldbuilder wrote:

      ...Since starting? 5 1/2 weeks or thereabouts.
      That's a long time. Was that a challenge or just circumstances.
      combination of No Nut November and just not feeling like it for about the last week or so of October and the first few days of December. I completed the challenge along with one other person out of the dozen or so I asked. We ended up celebrating together, though not in person haha.

    • royalemeraldbuilder wrote:

      Sean2001 wrote:

      royalemeraldbuilder wrote:

      ...Since starting? 5 1/2 weeks or thereabouts.
      That's a long time. Was that a challenge or just circumstances.
      combination of No Nut November and just not feeling like it for about the last week or so of October and the first few days of December. I completed the challenge along with one other person out of the dozen or so I asked. We ended up celebrating together, though not in person haha.
      What made you join NNN? Did you feel any benefits from it?

      Haha. Did you celebrate via a video call or something then? You say together but not on person

    • No longer in Use wrote:

      royalemeraldbuilder wrote:

      Sean2001 wrote:

      royalemeraldbuilder wrote:

      ...Since starting? 5 1/2 weeks or thereabouts.
      That's a long time. Was that a challenge or just circumstances.
      combination of No Nut November and just not feeling like it for about the last week or so of October and the first few days of December. I completed the challenge along with one other person out of the dozen or so I asked. We ended up celebrating together, though not in person haha.
      What made you join NNN? Did you feel any benefits from it?
      Haha. Did you celebrate via a video call or something then? You say together but not on person
      I wanted to reset my focuses and priorities, and draw closer to the Lord (I'm Christian), and beat the addictions I had developed. I recommend it for everyone. You'll discover just how much more time you have for other things you've been neglecting, including sleep.
      And no, no video call (that would've been very inappropriate). Just messaging back and forth :)

    • royalemeraldbuilder wrote:

      No longer in Use wrote:

      royalemeraldbuilder wrote:

      Sean2001 wrote:

      royalemeraldbuilder wrote:

      ...Since starting? 5 1/2 weeks or thereabouts.
      That's a long time. Was that a challenge or just circumstances.
      combination of No Nut November and just not feeling like it for about the last week or so of October and the first few days of December. I completed the challenge along with one other person out of the dozen or so I asked. We ended up celebrating together, though not in person haha.
      What made you join NNN? Did you feel any benefits from it?Haha. Did you celebrate via a video call or something then? You say together but not on person
      I wanted to reset my focuses and priorities, and draw closer to the Lord (I'm Christian), and beat the addictions I had developed. I recommend it for everyone. You'll discover just how much more time you have for other things you've been neglecting, including sleep.And no, no video call (that would've been very inappropriate). Just messaging back and forth :)
      Ah. Fair enough. Do you view masturbation as something that goes against/causes tension with your faith?

    • It can. I view it the same way as drinking alcohol. There are some, including Jesus Himself, who can drink and not get sloshed, and for them, drinking isn't a sin. Others need to avoid alcohol completely, because for them it leads to sin very quickly. So it becomes a sin to even entertain what's become a major temptation for them. Masturbation isn't mentioned in Scripture, so we have to go with what IS, which is lust. I say if you can masturbate without lusting (a strong sexual desire to have someone) go for it. But at this point I'm not sure if I can do that, so I'm trying to avoid it altogether. It's a major addiction that's kicking my ass, though XD

    • royalemeraldbuilder wrote:

      It can. I view it the same way as drinking alcohol. There are some, including Jesus Himself, who can drink and not get sloshed, and for them, drinking isn't a sin. Others need to avoid alcohol completely, because for them it leads to sin very quickly. So it becomes a sin to even entertain what's become a major temptation for them. Masturbation isn't mentioned in Scripture, so we have to go with what IS, which is lust. I say if you can masturbate without lusting (a strong sexual desire to have someone) go for it. But at this point I'm not sure if I can do that, so I'm trying to avoid it altogether. It's a major addiction that's kicking my ass, though XD
      I guess it depends what you regard as lust.

      I'm not religious so I can't say.

      But I would say masturbation is pretty natural. And so is a level of desire. Society wouldn't really be able to go on without sexual desire - we'd have no reproduction. Lol.

      I don't know but I would say you shouldn't feel bad about doing it.

    • No longer in Use wrote:

      royalemeraldbuilder wrote:

      It can. I view it the same way as drinking alcohol. There are some, including Jesus Himself, who can drink and not get sloshed, and for them, drinking isn't a sin. Others need to avoid alcohol completely, because for them it leads to sin very quickly. So it becomes a sin to even entertain what's become a major temptation for them. Masturbation isn't mentioned in Scripture, so we have to go with what IS, which is lust. I say if you can masturbate without lusting (a strong sexual desire to have someone) go for it. But at this point I'm not sure if I can do that, so I'm trying to avoid it altogether. It's a major addiction that's kicking my ass, though XD
      I guess it depends what you regard as lust.
      I'm not religious so I can't say.

      But I would say masturbation is pretty natural. And so is a level of desire. Society wouldn't really be able to go on without sexual desire - we'd have no reproduction. Lol.

      I don't know but I would say you shouldn't feel bad about doing it.
      I don't, not every time. I do when I look at certain things online though. I used to have accountability software that automatically sends everything you search for and every page you visit to one or more people you've agreed to help keep you accountable. Just that alone gets rid of 90% of the problem (and it means a lot less masturbation). Just because something feels natural doesn't mean we should do it. Sexual desire is great, but it should be directed in the right place, not unrestrained.

    • royalemeraldbuilder wrote:

      ...Sexual desire is great, but it should be directed in the right place, not unrestrained.
      Bear in mind I am not religious, but I have been exposed to quite a lot of Christian teaching.

      Some branches of Christianity have a pretty narrow definition of what is "in the right place" with the most extreme seeming to be "within marriage, for procreation". Most people will find that pretty hard to comply with and the attempt may cause more stress than it resolves.

      There is a more general theme in the Bible and which is common to other Abrahamic religions, i.e. Judaism and Islam, which is that adultery is really bad. We could also look at the sexual behaviour of other mammals, including other primates, and say that adultery is also natural behaviour but that doesn't mean it is good for a peaceful society so yes, I get the point about natural not necessarily meaning desirable.

      In relation to adultery, there are things in the bible like being told "not to covet another man's wife" and that committing adultery in fantasy is the first step to doing in practice.

      The first thing to bear in mind when interpreting these things is that, when the bible was written, marriage was younger and puberty was later so having a long period between puberty and marriage, when you desire some sexual release, wasn't a thing. So if a man lusted after a woman who was not his wife it was assumed that he was both married himself and so was the woman he was lusting after. So the concept of a young, single guy lusting after a single girl or woman isn't addressed.

      Then the evidence seems to be contrary to the idea that fantasy leads to action. I stumbled upon an article which showed that, as access to the Internet has increased, so rape has decreased. While in theory this could be due to excellent anti-rape education taking place on the Internet, this seems unlikely, and the authors assertion was that as men had easier access to porn, they were less likely to rape women.

      That's a bit of an extreme example but, to me, it fits the model of a flood defence. In times of flood, when there is a large body of water that poses a risk to a town or village, it is very hard to hold the water back. The more successful approach is to direct it to somewhere where it won't flood people's homes. It seems to me the sex drive is much the same. It is really powerful and it is really hard to resist it, yet we can direct it into something harmless, i.e. masturbation which, taking the edge of our horniness, allows us to approach what should be non-sexual situations more easily and avoid sexualising them.

      To me, this also links with the masturbation vs. sex discussions. It seems to me that there can come a time when we want to move on from just the kind of love we get from our parents to love from a partner and, obviously, masturbation won't provide that. But when it comes to being horny and the urgency we feel to deal with that, we don't need sex, what we need is to cum. Sex will obviously satisfy that and we may like sex, but masturbation also has the effect of taking us into the refractory period and leaving us temporarily less horny. So masturbation can be a tool to help us choose more carefully when and with whom to have sex.

    • Sean2001 wrote:

      royalemeraldbuilder wrote:

      ...Sexual desire is great, but it should be directed in the right place, not unrestrained.
      Bear in mind I am not religious, but I have been exposed to quite a lot of Christian teaching.
      Some branches of Christianity have a pretty narrow definition of what is "in the right place" with the most extreme seeming to be "within marriage, for procreation". Most people will find that pretty hard to comply with and the attempt may cause more stress than it resolves.

      There is a more general theme in the Bible and which is common to other Abrahamic religions, i.e. Judaism and Islam, which is that adultery is really bad. We could also look at the sexual behaviour of other mammals, including other primates, and say that adultery is also natural behaviour but that doesn't mean it is good for a peaceful society so yes, I get the point about natural not necessarily meaning desirable.

      In relation to adultery, there are things in the bible like being told "not to covet another man's wife" and that committing adultery in fantasy is the first step to doing in practice.

      The first thing to bear in mind when interpreting these things is that, when the bible was written, marriage was younger and puberty was later so having a long period between puberty and marriage, when you desire some sexual release, wasn't a thing. So if a man lusted after a woman who was not his wife it was assumed that he was both married himself and so was the woman he was lusting after. So the concept of a young, single guy lusting after a single girl or woman isn't addressed.

      Then the evidence seems to be contrary to the idea that fantasy leads to action. I stumbled upon an article which showed that, as access to the Internet has increased, so rape has decreased. While in theory this could be due to excellent anti-rape education taking place on the Internet, this seems unlikely, and the authors assertion was that as men had easier access to porn, they were less likely to rape women.

      That's a bit of an extreme example but, to me, it fits the model of a flood defence. In times of flood, when there is a large body of water that poses a risk to a town or village, it is very hard to hold the water back. The more successful approach is to direct it to somewhere where it won't flood people's homes. It seems to me the sex drive is much the same. It is really powerful and it is really hard to resist it, yet we can direct it into something harmless, i.e. masturbation which, taking the edge of our horniness, allows us to approach what should be non-sexual situations more easily and avoid sexualising them.

      To me, this also links with the masturbation vs. sex discussions. It seems to me that there can come a time when we want to move on from just the kind of love we get from our parents to love from a partner and, obviously, masturbation won't provide that. But when it comes to being horny and the urgency we feel to deal with that, we don't need sex, what we need is to cum. Sex will obviously satisfy that and we may like sex, but masturbation also has the effect of taking us into the refractory period and leaving us temporarily less horny. So masturbation can be a tool to help us choose more carefully when and with whom to have sex.
      Wow, this is quite a lot. I'll just say 3 things in response:

      1) No, it was not assumed that all people were married. Marriage was the expectation for most people for most of history until very recently, but there have always been single people: the apostle Paul, for instance. Or Jesus.
      Display Spoiler
      Jesus did mean both single people and married when he talked about a man looking on a woman with lust in his heart. God sees adultery and fornication in the same light.

      2) I'd like to see the study you're talking about, but i believe it when you say rape has gone down with the massive increase in porn access. But for the worst of reasons: we just don't crave real sex, consensual or not, the way we used to. Even though it's in our faces to an unprecedented degree, our generation is actually having less sex than any generation did before us. It makes sense: why go out and go to all the trouble of finding a partner, wooing them, spending a ton of money, getting to know them, finding out their flaws, and committing to stay with them warts and all for the rest of your life just to have sex with them and find out they don't look the best or give the best pleasure, when you can stay in your room and "have sex" with all the hottest supermodels on the planet with zero effort for free? (And these women could easily be sex trafficking victims; you have no way of knowing. That's a whole other animal). Porn is ruining real relationships; it's just the worst. Don't defend it; there's nothing good about it at all.

      3) There is never a need to cum. It feels like a need, because for you and I and a great number of people It's become a very powerful addiction. Similarly, alcoholics often think they need a drink but they don't. With masturbation you're getting addicted to the dopamine and oxytocin released in floods during orgasm. This creates neural pathways that rewire your brain to crave the same levels of those substances or higher on the regular. But there are no huge risks from quitting masturbation. Other than the irritable feeling you get during the initial withdrawal phase (which can easily be mitigated with increased exercise, socialization, and other healthy ways of stimulating your brain), quitting can only benefit you; it does zero harm. So no, cumming is a strong biological DESIRE given us by God, and is ultimately necessary (for males) in some degree across humanity for procreation so we survive, on the individual level it is NOT a need.