Day 7

I'm already facing some urges for porn. I can definitely say that it's related to trying to go without masturbation. That's the reason why my last attempt came to end after 67 clean days and I can tell that my increased sex drive from not masturbating for the last 2 days is whats causing me urges for porn right now.

My plan from the beginning was to realign my sex drive towards women instead of fantasy and pornography and now is the time to do that....

I have an idea for how to change the direction of my sex drive towards women instead of towards pornography and fantasy and masturbation but first I want to talk about some issues I've realized about my perception of women.

There are 3 things that I know of so far that have created my resistance towards connecting with women in a sexual relationship.

1. In the past I haven't always practiced safe sex. I've had sex with 3 women in my life and I only ever used a condom with the first one and that was only for the first few times we had sex. Now all of these women were on birth control but we didn't get tested before having sex without a condom. I felt confident that I wasn't going to get them pregnant but I didn't know if I was contracting an STD or not.

I've been tested and I know I'm clean but I'd like to create a rule about this for the future. For now on, when I'm with a new woman I use a condom when we have sex no matter what. The only exception is if we are exclusive, we've been tested, and she's on birth control. I'm stating this rule here publicly and I take full responsibility for carrying it out.

2. Another challenge I'm facing right now is that I don't have a lot of time. I work 30-35 hours a week at a coffee shop, I day trade 10-20 hours a week and I have other responsibilities I try to keep up like exercise, working out, and meditating regularly on top of household chores like laundry, buying food etc. Having a woman in my life right now would be hard to balance on top of those things and I don't want a woman distracting me from following through on this stuff because some of it is really important to me.

The solution may be to simply communicate this to whoever I'm dating. Be honest and upfront about it. I think part of me is afraid that my loneliness will take over the reigns and I'll end up spending more and more time with whoever I'm dating and forget about the other things I care about. A possible solution to this is to build a network of friends to socialize with and I'm gradually doing this. I met a guy recently who I cycle with and I'm planning on hanging with some other guys I met this weekend. Having friends (something I've struggled with) would prevent me from getting all wrapped up in the women I date.

3. One of the most mysterious problems I'm facing is that of shame. My earliest experiences with women and dating were full of shame. I hit puberty late and wasn't interested in girls until most of my friends already were and I remember feeling really guilty about it. I felt very uncool and immature. That theme ran strong throughout my teens. To this day I still feel ashamed of my feelings towards women. I feel like is a dangerous game with a high probably of failure and embarrassment and humiliation. Occasionally I escape that feeling and go nuts and approach girls like crazy and feel free and strong but mostly I feel scared and ashamed.

The solution to this one is tough but it ties in with the assignment I mentioned earlier. For the next couple of days I'm going to imagine having sex with the attractive women I run into during the day. The idea is to take this pent up sexual energy and desire and unleash it on women. The first baby step towards doing this is just to imagine having sex with women when I come across them during the day. Once I build a habit of this I can learn to express that desire in a safe way (flirting/approaching/etc).

My habit right now is to see women and to get this gut reaction of shame and fear. It only happens if they're attractive and I feel I might want them. Then the fear and shame kick in to prevent me from risking the humiliation and embarrassment that I felt when I was younger.

So 15 minutes of walking around with the sole intent of imaging having sex with the attractive women I meet is very doable. I'm gonna do that for the next 3 days. Sunday I'm going out to approach girls again.

That's it for today... Can't believe how long this turned out.