#in part to recover from writing eight(8) sex scenes

[hpowellsmith]

Three-quarters through drafting Honor Bound wooooo

[houseofzoey]

Plot

This is a rare example of a House of Night book actually having a clearly defined plot. I know that the central conflict is Zoey’s soul shattering and the possible disastrous fate that invited upon the world at large, I know that the ultimate goal is to bring Zoey’s soul back together so she can return to her body, and I know that the resolution is Zoey doing exactly that.

That doesn’t mean the plot is well executed, though.

The biggest problem with this book and most other books in this series is that it relies so heavily on dialogue. Don’t get me wrong – dialogue is important and can accomplish a lot, and there are definitely some excellent dialogue-driven books out there. The problem is that this particular conflict shouldn’t be solved just by talking about it. This is a group of teenagers trying to figure out how to get one of them to a different realm in order to save the Chosen One’s soul and bring them back from eventual death. You don’t just talk that out.

Because it relies so heavily on dialogue and not characters actually doing things to find a resolution to this problem, a lot of the breakthroughs characters have are really contrived and way, way too convenient. Aphrodite suddenly discovers an entirely new use for her affinity. Thanatos and Darius conveniently know about an ancient and mostly forgotten religion. Stark is conveniently related to the one family that serves as Sgiach’s Warriors on the Isle of Skye.

Even the Stevie Rae chapters have this problem. It doesn’t help that her chapters are also wrapped up in the Rephaim subplot and her entirely unnecessary love triangle, as well as lip service to the idea that she’s trying to figure out how to deal with the rogue fledglings. Once again, she doesn’t actually do very much, but instead spend most of the book talking about her problems and the things she should do to solve them.

Stevie Rae’s entire character arc in this book is reactive, and she learns nothing. She still refuses to tell a single person about Rephaim or seek help with her situation – she doesn’t even really tell anyone about what happened with Dallas turning to Darkness! Where her story concludes is basically no different from where it began in this book. It doesn’t really feel like there’s a conclusion or resolution to her section of this book.

If Stevie Rae’s story lacks a proper conclusion, then Stark/Heath/Zoey’s conclusion is deeply disappointing. For one thing, the part of the story that was all about Stark and Aphrodite segues into being about Heath and Stark and Zoey. Aphrodite just kinda… drops out of the book. She leaves a voicemail with Stevie Rae and snarks with Zoey when she wakes up and… that’s it. That’s the end of her contribution to this book. It just makes her part in the story feel even more weird, because she’s just as present and involved in bring Zoey back as Stark, but she has no personal agency or character arc, but it still feels weird that her place in the book just kinda ends.

But that’s honestly not even the most disappointing part. Convincing Heath to leave Zoey so she’ll be willing to pull her soul back together and return to her body is supposed to be extremely difficult, but it takes maybe a page to do so. The book spends so much time building up Zoey pulling together the scattered pieces of her soul, but it also takes less than a page and her soul turns out to only be missing three pieces anyway. And the rest of the ending was… weird. Like, yes, the idea that Kalona was trying to stop Zoey from returning to her body was well-established, and it made sense for Stark to step up as her Warrior/Guardian to fight, but the actual fight was terrible. Not only are these authors not good at writing action scenes – especially ones involving weapons, considering Kalona doesn’t use his spear properly – but it doesn’t feel climactic. It renders Stark’s whole scene where he learns to kill the Warrior to give birth to the Shaman pointless because it doesn’t actually help him, even though he unlocked his weird “geometric strike lines” powers for fighting. Stark literally does nothing in the fight against Kalona – he doesn’t get a single hit in. It’s a complete curb stomp battle. Then, when Zoey finally shows up to intervene, she doesn’t even have the sense to use air to stop the spear when Kalona kills Stark.

The timeline between all the perspective chapters is really hard to piece together, too. Let’s roughly outline Stark and Aphrodite’s timeline, then Stevie Rae and Rephaim’s and discuss why it doesn’t make sense.

Stark and Aphrodite: Day One: (January 5th, Wednesday) Chapter 4, 8-10 Stark, Aphrodite, and the rest of Zoey’s friends are still in Venice trying to make sense of what happened and where to go from here. They discover that Kalona’s soul is also shattered and Neferet wants to be able to take him back to the Island of Capri. Thanatos ends up befriending Stark, Aphrodite, et al and they tell her of Neferet’s true evil. She tells them about the old religion and the bulls, suggesting that might help them find a way to save Zoey, but warns them that the Isle of Skye is closed off with a protective magic circle and no one has entered the island for centuries. Aphrodite talks to Stevie Rae over the phone in chapter eight. This is important.

Day Two: (January 6th, Thursday) Chapter 15 Stark, Aphrodite, et al sit in the palace library researching. The talk about Barbies unnecessarily. They learn that Stark is of the MacUallis clan and thus can be a Guardian, meaning he can be let on to the Isle of Skye.

Day Three: (January 7th, Friday) Chapter 19-20, 24-26, 28-31 Stark, Aphrodite, and Darius reach the Isle of Skye. Somehow all of them are granted entry onto the island because the definition of queen is really loose in vampyre society. They travel to Sgiach’s castle, where they talk for a while about what Stark is trying to accomplish and what he needs to do to accomplish it. Stark eventually gets cut up and disconnects with his body enough to enter the Otherworld, where he begins a test to defeat his Other self. Meanwhile, Aphrodite meditates into a vision, sees what’s happening with Zoey and Stark in the Otherworld, learns what must be done to ensure Zoey will actually return to her body once her soul is back together, and sees a grim version of the future should they fail. This is communicated to Stark, who develops magic geometric strike line powers and defeats his mirror image in a sequence that doesn’t make much sense. He gets to the Otherworld, convinces Heath to move on so Zoey will return to her body, and the convinces Zoey she needs to pull herself back together by confronting Kalona. The final showdown happens, Stark dies momentarily, and there’s a magical feeding scene wherein Zoey’s tattoos return. Zoey then wakes up in the physical world and stops the cutting ritual on Stark.

Stevie Rae and Rephaim Day One: (January 6th, Thursday) Chapter 2-3, 6-7, 11-14 Rephaim wakes up in the abandoned Gilcrease Museum. He’s still recovering from his injuries and tries to draw on Darkness to heal, but is interrupted when he feels Stevie Rae’s grief. He sends his powers to comfort her and also draw her to him. We cut to Stevie Rae, who has woken up in the infirmary to discover that she slept for more than a day since burning on the rooftop. She learns what happened to Zoey, has some romantic drama with Dallas, and grieves a little before being interrupted by Rephaim’s red mist. She seeks him out (after more conversation with Dallas about the rogue fledglings) with the intention of forcing him to tell her everything he knows, but no such confrontation happens and they calmly talk about what has happened and what they will do for the next two chapters. Stevie Rae has a brief confrontation with the professors on the school High Council. Later, prompted by a phone call from Aphrodite, Stevie Rae sets out to call on the bulls for knowledge about how Stark can reach the Otherworld. She’s stopped by Kramisha, who gives her a poem, and Dallas, who joins her. The ritual goes wrong and she accidentally calls the white bull of Darkness. While the bull collects its blood debt, she calls out for Rephaim, who feels her need through their Imprint, heals himself with Darkness, and flies to her aid. He takes the debt on himself, Stevie Rae calls the black bull to fight the white bull and thus pays its debt, binding herself to Rephaim’s humanity. Rephaim flies off and Dallas drags Stevie Rae back to the House of Night, where she argues with him and the professors about what really happened. Stevie Rae then goes to sleep.

Day Two: (January 7th, Friday) Chapter 16-18, 21-23 Stevie Rae is talking with the school High Council. Dragon doesn’t want her going outside after what everyone believes was a Raven Mocker attack. She insists she can take care of herself. She and Dallas have relationship drama. Stevie Rae plans to go to the abbey to speak to Grandma Redbird about what happened to Zoey (because everyone forget to inform her family, I guess), and stresses over how to get to Rephaim with everyone watching her so closely. Kramisha reshares an old poem with her that might help Stark with Zoey in the Otherworld, and they discuss boy troubles again. They talk to Grandma Redbird and receive Cherokee wisdom. Then Stevie Rae separates from Kramisha to go see Rephaim, who she calls on earth to heal and has more boy drama with. When Stevie Rae gets back to school, the rogue fledglings have made the news and she finally intervenes. This, of course, goes disastrously, resulting in multiple people dying. After cleaning up the aftermath, she and Dallas start making out and she decides she wants to have sex. Rephaim, meanwhile, has been flying aimlessly and moping that Stevie Rae will never love him, but then senses Stevie Rae being intimate with Dallas and, in a jealous rage, tracks her through their Imprint to confront her. This goes horribly, Dallas embraces Darkness, and the secret of Stevie Rae’s involvement with Rephaim is kinda sort of out, except that no one will believe Dallas’ word over Stevie Rae’s. Stevie Rae and Rephaim return to Gilcrease to sleep.

Day Three: (January 8th, Saturday) Chapter 31 Stevie Rae wakes up to find Rephaim has been watching over her and she has a foreboding voicemail from Aphrodite. They go outside and talk by a fountain, where Nyx reveals an image of Rephaim as a human reflected in the water. Then they sense Kalona and Zoey returning from the Otherworld and realize they can no longer be together when they’re goals/alliances are so counter to each other.

That’s the whole timeline. Did you catch on to the problems yet? Yeah – Stevie Rae’s first phone call to Aphrodite is technically about a day before she would have actually wake up in the infirmary. And no, time zones do not account for this. Stevie Rae called Zoey shortly before she went in to speak with the High Council, which wasn’t long before she shattered. There were probably less than two hours between that phone call and the one Stevie Rae made to Aphrodite in chapter eight of this book, but Stevie Rae passed out right after she got off the phone with Zoey and didn’t wake up for a full day. So Stevie Rae’s entire timeline is a full day ahead of Aphrodite’s, but this is never addressed.

[kaleidodreams]

40 Questions - Meme for Fic Writers

Well, I only got one ask for this game, but I really wanted to answer more questions, so I’ve just decided to answer all of them!

1. Describe your comfort zone—a typical you-fic. - I don't know if I really have a "comfort zone"... Maybe family drama and dealing with characters' backstories?

2. Is there a trope you’ve yet to try your hand at, but really want to? - Hmm, fake dating seems like it would be pretty fun to try to write. I just wouldn't know which characters to use.

3. Is there a trope you wouldn’t touch with a ten foot pole? - The whole A/B/O thing... Yeah, no.

4. How many fic ideas are you nurturing right now? Care to share one of them? - Maybe five or six? And you can check out the answer to Question 37 if you want to know what most of them are.

5. Share one of your strengths. - People seem to like my original characters.

6. Share one of your weaknesses. - I'm not very good at description.

7. Share a snippet from one of your favorite pieces of prose you’ve written and explain why you’re proud of it. - This is from Ashes to Ashes:

However, the more time that passed, the more otou-sama lost himself in his work and the more distant we became. Our house, which had always been full of laughter and smiles when okaa-sama was alive and healthy, might as well have been a cemetery itself, the ghost of her memory haunting us who remained. Even as young as I was, I realized that otou-sama would never be able to truly recover from his grief as long as we stayed there, where the scent of okaa-sama's favorite perfume still seemed to linger in the air and every room remained a museum to the woman who once lived there because otou-sama couldn't bear the thought of putting her things away.

I just really like the "house is a cemetery" metaphor. (By the way, that story is written from Rei Hino’s point of view, if that wasn’t clear from the title.)

8. Share a snippet from one of your favorite dialogue scenes you’ve written and explain why you’re proud of it. - This is from To Build a Home:

"Take if off and put it back the way it was," he ordered, crossing his arms over his chest.

"But why? You always said my bed looked so cute."

"Yeah, your bed. But this is my bed, and I don't want it to look cute."

"Your bed?" She set down an ugly-cute hippo plush and arched an eyebrow. "Isn't it our bed now?"

He rubbed at his temple. "Yes, of course, but… You know what I mean." Mamoru pointed an accusing finger at a very familiar blanket – one that was too small to properly fit the queen-sized bed. "I am not having sex on a bed covered in bunnies and crescent moons!"

"That's never stopped you before. We did it all the time –"

"You're missing the point, Usako! We're adults now. Isn't it about time you outgrew all this cutesy crap?"

He regretted it as soon as the words left his mouth.

"Oh, I see. I can move into your oh-so-sophisticated apartment, just not my 'cutesy crap'." She grabbed an empty cardboard box from off the floor and started throwing her plush toys in it with a force that made Mamoru very glad she wasn't pummeling them at him. "If that's how you really feel, then maybe we shouldn't move in together at all!"

I like it because I tend to have trouble writing arguments, but this one turned out exactly how I wanted it to, and I can just picture the scene so vividly.

9. Which fic has been the hardest to write? - Hmm, probably Melting Ice? It took me about eight years -- I started writing it a couple of years before I actually started posting it -- to finally finish the whole thing. Sure, it’s a long fic (over 150,000 words), but in comparison, I managed to write Spirit of Fire, which is almost twice as long, in only two or three years (ignoring the side stories added later).

10. Which fic has been the easiest to write? - Probably my first fics because back then I wasn’t as self-conscious about my writing. But later in my career, I seem to recall Blood On His Hands being really easy and fast to write until I got to the last chapter. Honestly, I think the ending took me longer to figure out than the rest of the story!

11. Is writing your passion or just a fun hobby? - Both!

12. Is there an episode above all others that inspires you just a little bit more? - This is easiest to choose with Sailor Moon, so can I just say the entire SuperS season/Dream Arc? Obviously because of the Chibiusa/Helios OTP factor, but also because we learn about the Inners’ families and Elysion/the Golden Kingdom, both subjects that I love exploring.

13. What’s the best writing advice you’ve ever come across? - I learned about this from a post on Tumblr, but it’s REALLY helpful to run your story through a screen reader (I just use Google Translate). I think I’m pretty good at catching spelling and grammar errors, but one thing I have trouble with is missing words. Hearing the story read aloud instead of just reading it to myself and mentally filling in the blanks makes the skips so much easier to find. I also worry a lot about the flow of my writing, so I figure if it doesn’t sound too terrible being read by a computer, it’s probably not as awful as I think it is!

14. What’s the worst writing advice you’ve ever come across? - Probably the "avoid adverbs" rule. Sometimes using an adverb is the best choice!

15. If you could choose one of your fics to be filmed, which would you choose? - Oh, man, this is totally impossible to choose... Um, To Be By Your Side? I really don't know.

16. If you only could write one pairing for the rest of your life, which pairing would it be? - If I had to, I would no doubt pick Chibiusa/Helios, but I’m really glad I don’t! I enjoy being able to write a variety of couples and imagine I would get bored fairly quick if I was limited to just writing one OTP forever, as much as I may love them.

17. Do you write your story from start to finish, or do you write the scenes out of order? - It depends on the story, but most of the time it’s out of order, which is frankly annoying, but it seems to work for me.

18. Do you use any tools, like worksheets or outlines? - Not really, unless you count screenwriting and research tools.

19. Stephen King once said that his muse is a man who lives in the basement. Do you have a muse? - Haha, I remember when I first started writing fanfiction as a teenager, there were four characters I considered my muses: Helios (obs!), Shigure from Fruits Basket (who is a writer himself), Touya from Card Captor Sakura, and Tooya from Ceres: Celestial Legend (not sure why, though, since I never wrote for Ceres). I guess I would still consider Helios my muse?

20. Describe your perfect writing conditions. - At my desk in my bedroom, with the room at a comfortable temperature and absolute quiet.

21. How many times do you usually revise your fic/chapter before posting? - I tend to edit while I write, which I know isn’t generally considered the best way to do things, but it works for me. So I can’t really answer this question definitively.

22. Choose a passage from one of your earlier fics and edit it into your current writing style. (Person sending the ask is free to make suggestions). (Skipping this one unless someone wants to make a suggestion for a passage.)

23. If you were to revise one of your older fics from start to finish, which would it be and why? - Spirit of Fire, because while I love the story and the characters, I think it could be better written, especially the earlier chapters.

24. Have you ever deleted one of your published fics? - I did take down a first chapter of a planned multi-part and reworked it into a one-shot when I decided I didn’t want to write the rest of it, if that counts. (The Legend, if you’re interested.) Otherwise, no.

25. What do you look for in a beta? - Basically someone who wants to beta for me. *laughs* Like I said before, I consider myself pretty good at catching spelling and grammar goofs, so I don't feel like I really need a beta, but if someone offers, it doesn't hurt to have a second pair of eyes!

26. Do you beta yourself? If so, what kind of beta are you? - I've done so in the past, and if somebody asks me, I would probably be willing to do it again. I would say I focus mainly on spelling/grammar, occasionally making suggestions or asking questions if something seems off (like a character feels OOC or something).

27. How do you feel about collaborations? - I've never really been a part of one, so I don't have much of an opinion. If you're good friends, it seems like it would be a lot of fun, but maybe a bit difficult if you have different styles.

28. Share three of your favorite fic writers and why you like them so much. - his lordship Chaos, Allekha, and commas_and_ampersands 

29. If you could write the sequel (or prequel) to any fic out there not written by yourself, which would you choose? - I honestly can’t think of any. I have enough sequels and prequels of my own stuff to write! *laughs*

30. Do you accept prompts? - Not unless I’m doing a drabble game, which I haven’t done in years, or I’m taking part of some writing challenge. Just random prompts, though? No. I like to write what I want to write.

31. Do you take liberties with canon or are you very strict about your fic being canon compliant? - I’d say I’m middle-of-the-road between the two, closer to being strict about being canon compliant.

32. How do you feel about smut? - Despite being asexual, I’m a fan!

33. How do you feel about crack? - A lot of it is really stupid, but with the right writer and idea, crack can be brilliantly funny. I usually only read it on recommendation, though.

34. What are your thoughts on non-con and dub-con? - It’s not something I go looking for as a reader, but I don’t mind if I come across it and it’s handled well. I’ve written some dub-con myself, mostly in the form of drunk sex, but also some incidents involving magic. Overall, though, I’m really a HUGE fan of consent when it comes to sex scenes. Consent is sexy!

35. Would you ever kill off a canon character? - Yes, of course. Done it before and I’ll probably do it again!

36. Which is your favorite site to post fic? - I like AO3 and FF.net equally well.

37.Talk about your current wips.

Friends With Benefits (Kaleido Star) - This is the only WIP I’m actively posting. It’s a sequel to Blood On His Hands, and it’s about Layla and Yuri engaging in a, well, “friends with benefits” arrangement, leading to complications when they fall in love. 

The Bonds We Choose (Yuri!! On Ice) - A sequel to It’s Complicated, taking place about four years later. Yuri, Otabek, and Mila have settled into their unusual relationship -- Yuri and Otabek are queerplatonic partners while Otabek is also dating/living with Mila -- when a drunken mistake at the Olympics changes their lives forever.

Metamophosis (Sailor Moon) - This is kinda a prequel to To Be By Your Side, telling the story of how Helios became priest of Elysion.

Stolen Dreams (Sailor Moon) - Ha, this is the only non-sequel/prequel story on the list! But it’s about an incubus who plans to get revenge on Helios by seducing a grown-up Chibi-Usa, who’s under a lot of stress due to her upcoming college entrance exams.

38. Talk about a review that made your day. - I was really happy when @floraone favorited and wrote a review for my Sailor Moon Smutember entry, Head of the Class. Knowing that someone like her, who IMO writes the BEST sex scenes I’ve ever read, enjoyed it... Well, like the question said, it really made my day! I also was pleasantly surprised to get any reviews at all for my last two YOI fics, Lonely Hearts and No Risk, No Reward, since Minako/Celestino and Sara/Emil are both extremely rare pairs. I seriously didn’t think anybody would read them, so I was thrilled with the reviews I got.

39. Do you ever get rude reviews and how do you deal with them? - Occasionally, and I just ignore them.

40. Write an alternative ending to [insert fic title] (or just the summary of one). (Again, skipping, unless someone wants to suggest a story.)

[adambstingus]

12 Former Porn Addicts Describe The Pitfalls Of A Serious Online Sex Habit

2. THE FATHER WHO KILLED HIMSELF BECAUSE OF AN ADDICTION TO PORN

Within a fairly short period of time, I found myself watching up to eight hours of pornography a day, every day.It wasnt unusual for me to be on a business trip and stay up until 3 or 4AM watching porn, knowing full well that I had an 8AM meeting the next morning where I was making a presentation to sell multi-million dollar software to corporate directors.I was thinking seriously about walking over to the Wal-Mart not too far from where I lived, buying a gun, sticking it in my mouth and pulling the trigger. It was when I started thinking about writing a suicide note to my boysthat, thank God, is when I woke up. I decided that it wasnt the legacy I was going to leave to my kids: the father who killed himself because of an addiction to porn.

3. THE FACT I WAS AROUSED BY SHIT AND ANIMAL PORN MEANT I HAD BRAIN DAMAGE

Since age 19, I’ve been completely unable to control my use of pornography on the Internet, my compulsive masturbation, my driving need to seduce women, and in recent years my nasty habit of spending hundreds of dollars a night in strip clubs, not so much making it rain as shamefully shoveling a wad of 20s at a stripper before scuttling away.My therapist said the fact I was aroused by shit and animal porn meant I had brain damage, simple as that. His conclusion took a couple of days to sink in. Essentially, the part of my mind responsible for rational decision-making has been overridden by a huge desire for more pleasure chemicals, and I do stupid, dangerous things to get those chemicals no matter the consequences. That’s addiction.

4. I AM A RECOVERING PORN ADDICT; I AM ALSO A 25-YEAR-OLD WOMAN

I am a recovering porn addict. I am also a 25-year-old woman.I watched and masturbated to movies in the “Girlvert” and “Meatholes” series, where the obvious goal was to humiliate and degrade the women involved. The disturbing thing was that I had been performing in porn for a few years myself by then, and I knew exactly the sort of cruelty, abuse and exploitation that went on behind the scenes. Yet I still watched and got off to these horribly violent and misogynist forms of pornography.

6. I WAS LYING TO PEOPLE ABOUT WHAT I WAS DOING

It was starting to take up large chunks of my time; I was lying to people about what I was doing in my spare time. I’d stay up viewing all night and go to work on an hour’s sleep; it was affecting my productivity, my health, my relationships and friendships. There were times I didn’t turn up to people’s parties or I wouldn’t go out, because I’d been viewing all day, or I’d think, I’ll just view one more thing before I leave. It’s a bit like when someone goes into a casino and they lose track of time and then they realize they’ve been in there for a day.

7. Shooting up on porn allowed me to savor female energies without all the emotions

Like millions of other well-functioning married men with issues, I turned to pornography. For several years I wanked myself stupid. Time and space was filled with horniness beyond my wildest dreams. Time that might otherwise have been used to be creative, productive, or even just plain bored got devoured by lust. In any moment where there was a desire for some escape from life I scored some porn.I hated porn. I couldnt sniff her, worship her or probe the beauty of her being. I couldnt feel her essence bathing my wounded masculinity to wholeness.But for me, porn somehow replaced the real thing. It was just, well, easier. Neurosis-free women.Shooting up on porn allowed me to savor female energies without all the emotions. Small men everywhere, who would rather not deal with the truth that women have for them, can go get a fill of female energy, have a beer, then get on with their day. Men, what is happening to us?

8. MY HEART WOULD THUMP WITH A MIX OF THRILL AND SHAME

I would sneak downstairs to the family computer once the house was dark. As I would settle into the polyester-cotton seat of the swivel chair and open a browser, my heart would thump with a mix of thrill and shame, my ears perked for any reason to abort my missionzip, pull and dart with an excuse ready about checking the weather for tomorrow.It was an addicts high, a high-stakes heist for sexual pleasurean association that would not soon recede in my primal brain.I found myself rapidly desensitized to online images. If a threesome was kinky last week, then Id need something wilder this week. To reach climax, I had to find that same toxic mix of shame and lust.It was a dissociative, alienating, almost inhuman task to close my eyes while having sex with someone I really cared about and imagine having sex with someone else or recall a deviant video from the archives of my youth that I was ashamed of even then.

9. THERE WAS SOMETHING WRONG WITH ME

One day I was watching pornography in my car, when I realized that I was late for my test. I closed my laptop and ran off. When I came back I found my car broken into, and my laptop gone. That evening my friend and I went to a strip club to help me feel better. My friend soon got tired and wanted to go home, but I couldnt get myself to walk away. Observing the consequences of my actions and my inability to walk away forced me to suspect that may be there was something was wrong with me after all.

10. IT HAS AFFECTED MY ERECTIONS

I was 15 when I started watching porn after my parents bought me a laptop. I did what pretty much any teenage boy does and look up porn websites. It became an everyday thing very quickly. I was watching porn for two hours a day.I found a website dedicated to porn addiction and I felt like I had an epiphany. I felt like I wasn’t alone any more. I did 100 days of porn abstinence and masturbation abstinence. It’s exactly like going cold turkey. The first two weeks were pretty awful with lots of mood swings. It was rough, it was really rough. There were sleepless nights. There were nights where I’d wake up in cold sweats. I’ve been able to get back to my routines and I’ve been OK but it has affected my erections. When I’m with a woman I’ve noticed it’s softer down there and I’m not as excited.I couldn’t get erections anymore with real women when I tried because I’d watched so much porn.

11. I HAD TERRIBLE WITHDRAWALS

I was 15 when I first masturbated to online porn. The high I got was immense, and it lasted about 30 minutes. At that point in my life I’d been feeling really low, and had been for about seven years. But, for the first time, I didn’t feel depressed at alleverything lifted. It made me want to do it again, and againso I did, until I was watching online porn every day.Eventually, I became desensitized to ‘vanilla’ guy-on-girl pornit simply didn’t turn me onso I sought out more extreme porn to shock my system into being aroused again. For the same reason, sex with real women was pretty much impossible. I didn’t link it to my porn addictionbecause I didn’t know I had one. I just thought there was something inherently wrong with me, which made me feel more low.I went cold turkey on porn. I had terrible withdrawals. My hands shook and I had awful mood swings, vivid nightmares and hot and cold sweats.

12. YOU NAME A GENRE, AND I WAS PROBABLY INTO IT AT ONE POINT

You name a genre, and I was probably into it at some point. Things that would have disgusted me one month I relied on the next to get me excited. The process Ive described above is well-known to addiction psychologists and therapists and is called desensitization.Excessive abuse over extended periods of time can lead to decreased libido, erectile dysfunction and impotence. In my case, the warning signs were there. I felt terrible after a session browsing the dark side of the neta mixture of shame, disgust, dissatisfaction, depression. I realized I could bring myself literally to the brink of orgasm solely with visual stimulationwithout using my hands at all. The encounters I had with women felt somehow disappointing. Sexually I felt a bit dead, occasionally I failed to maintain an erection. Desensitization is an apt word, because years of beating my meat to porn left my penis less sensitive to touch. I blamed it on condoms, on performance anxiety, on alcohol, on being out of shape, but finally, I realized the truth: porn.

from All Of Beer http://allofbeer.com/12-former-porn-addicts-describe-the-pitfalls-of-a-serious-online-sex-habit/ from All of Beer https://allofbeercom.tumblr.com/post/183392592447

[samanthasroberts]

12 Former Porn Addicts Describe The Pitfalls Of A Serious Online Sex Habit

2. THE FATHER WHO KILLED HIMSELF BECAUSE OF AN ADDICTION TO PORN

Within a fairly short period of time, I found myself watching up to eight hours of pornography a day, every day.It wasnt unusual for me to be on a business trip and stay up until 3 or 4AM watching porn, knowing full well that I had an 8AM meeting the next morning where I was making a presentation to sell multi-million dollar software to corporate directors.I was thinking seriously about walking over to the Wal-Mart not too far from where I lived, buying a gun, sticking it in my mouth and pulling the trigger. It was when I started thinking about writing a suicide note to my boysthat, thank God, is when I woke up. I decided that it wasnt the legacy I was going to leave to my kids: the father who killed himself because of an addiction to porn.

3. THE FACT I WAS AROUSED BY SHIT AND ANIMAL PORN MEANT I HAD BRAIN DAMAGE

Since age 19, I’ve been completely unable to control my use of pornography on the Internet, my compulsive masturbation, my driving need to seduce women, and in recent years my nasty habit of spending hundreds of dollars a night in strip clubs, not so much making it rain as shamefully shoveling a wad of 20s at a stripper before scuttling away.My therapist said the fact I was aroused by shit and animal porn meant I had brain damage, simple as that. His conclusion took a couple of days to sink in. Essentially, the part of my mind responsible for rational decision-making has been overridden by a huge desire for more pleasure chemicals, and I do stupid, dangerous things to get those chemicals no matter the consequences. That’s addiction.

4. I AM A RECOVERING PORN ADDICT; I AM ALSO A 25-YEAR-OLD WOMAN

I am a recovering porn addict. I am also a 25-year-old woman.I watched and masturbated to movies in the “Girlvert” and “Meatholes” series, where the obvious goal was to humiliate and degrade the women involved. The disturbing thing was that I had been performing in porn for a few years myself by then, and I knew exactly the sort of cruelty, abuse and exploitation that went on behind the scenes. Yet I still watched and got off to these horribly violent and misogynist forms of pornography.

6. I WAS LYING TO PEOPLE ABOUT WHAT I WAS DOING

It was starting to take up large chunks of my time; I was lying to people about what I was doing in my spare time. I’d stay up viewing all night and go to work on an hour’s sleep; it was affecting my productivity, my health, my relationships and friendships. There were times I didn’t turn up to people’s parties or I wouldn’t go out, because I’d been viewing all day, or I’d think, I’ll just view one more thing before I leave. It’s a bit like when someone goes into a casino and they lose track of time and then they realize they’ve been in there for a day.

7. Shooting up on porn allowed me to savor female energies without all the emotions

Like millions of other well-functioning married men with issues, I turned to pornography. For several years I wanked myself stupid. Time and space was filled with horniness beyond my wildest dreams. Time that might otherwise have been used to be creative, productive, or even just plain bored got devoured by lust. In any moment where there was a desire for some escape from life I scored some porn.I hated porn. I couldnt sniff her, worship her or probe the beauty of her being. I couldnt feel her essence bathing my wounded masculinity to wholeness.But for me, porn somehow replaced the real thing. It was just, well, easier. Neurosis-free women.Shooting up on porn allowed me to savor female energies without all the emotions. Small men everywhere, who would rather not deal with the truth that women have for them, can go get a fill of female energy, have a beer, then get on with their day. Men, what is happening to us?

8. MY HEART WOULD THUMP WITH A MIX OF THRILL AND SHAME

I would sneak downstairs to the family computer once the house was dark. As I would settle into the polyester-cotton seat of the swivel chair and open a browser, my heart would thump with a mix of thrill and shame, my ears perked for any reason to abort my missionzip, pull and dart with an excuse ready about checking the weather for tomorrow.It was an addicts high, a high-stakes heist for sexual pleasurean association that would not soon recede in my primal brain.I found myself rapidly desensitized to online images. If a threesome was kinky last week, then Id need something wilder this week. To reach climax, I had to find that same toxic mix of shame and lust.It was a dissociative, alienating, almost inhuman task to close my eyes while having sex with someone I really cared about and imagine having sex with someone else or recall a deviant video from the archives of my youth that I was ashamed of even then.

9. THERE WAS SOMETHING WRONG WITH ME

One day I was watching pornography in my car, when I realized that I was late for my test. I closed my laptop and ran off. When I came back I found my car broken into, and my laptop gone. That evening my friend and I went to a strip club to help me feel better. My friend soon got tired and wanted to go home, but I couldnt get myself to walk away. Observing the consequences of my actions and my inability to walk away forced me to suspect that may be there was something was wrong with me after all.

10. IT HAS AFFECTED MY ERECTIONS

I was 15 when I started watching porn after my parents bought me a laptop. I did what pretty much any teenage boy does and look up porn websites. It became an everyday thing very quickly. I was watching porn for two hours a day.I found a website dedicated to porn addiction and I felt like I had an epiphany. I felt like I wasn’t alone any more. I did 100 days of porn abstinence and masturbation abstinence. It’s exactly like going cold turkey. The first two weeks were pretty awful with lots of mood swings. It was rough, it was really rough. There were sleepless nights. There were nights where I’d wake up in cold sweats. I’ve been able to get back to my routines and I’ve been OK but it has affected my erections. When I’m with a woman I’ve noticed it’s softer down there and I’m not as excited.I couldn’t get erections anymore with real women when I tried because I’d watched so much porn.

11. I HAD TERRIBLE WITHDRAWALS

I was 15 when I first masturbated to online porn. The high I got was immense, and it lasted about 30 minutes. At that point in my life I’d been feeling really low, and had been for about seven years. But, for the first time, I didn’t feel depressed at alleverything lifted. It made me want to do it again, and againso I did, until I was watching online porn every day.Eventually, I became desensitized to ‘vanilla’ guy-on-girl pornit simply didn’t turn me onso I sought out more extreme porn to shock my system into being aroused again. For the same reason, sex with real women was pretty much impossible. I didn’t link it to my porn addictionbecause I didn’t know I had one. I just thought there was something inherently wrong with me, which made me feel more low.I went cold turkey on porn. I had terrible withdrawals. My hands shook and I had awful mood swings, vivid nightmares and hot and cold sweats.

12. YOU NAME A GENRE, AND I WAS PROBABLY INTO IT AT ONE POINT

You name a genre, and I was probably into it at some point. Things that would have disgusted me one month I relied on the next to get me excited. The process Ive described above is well-known to addiction psychologists and therapists and is called desensitization.Excessive abuse over extended periods of time can lead to decreased libido, erectile dysfunction and impotence. In my case, the warning signs were there. I felt terrible after a session browsing the dark side of the neta mixture of shame, disgust, dissatisfaction, depression. I realized I could bring myself literally to the brink of orgasm solely with visual stimulationwithout using my hands at all. The encounters I had with women felt somehow disappointing. Sexually I felt a bit dead, occasionally I failed to maintain an erection. Desensitization is an apt word, because years of beating my meat to porn left my penis less sensitive to touch. I blamed it on condoms, on performance anxiety, on alcohol, on being out of shape, but finally, I realized the truth: porn.

Source: http://allofbeer.com/12-former-porn-addicts-describe-the-pitfalls-of-a-serious-online-sex-habit/

from All of Beer https://allofbeer.wordpress.com/2019/03/12/12-former-porn-addicts-describe-the-pitfalls-of-a-serious-online-sex-habit/

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12 Former Porn Addicts Describe The Pitfalls Of A Serious Online Sex Habit

2. THE FATHER WHO KILLED HIMSELF BECAUSE OF AN ADDICTION TO PORN

Within a fairly short period of time, I found myself watching up to eight hours of pornography a day, every day.It wasnt unusual for me to be on a business trip and stay up until 3 or 4AM watching porn, knowing full well that I had an 8AM meeting the next morning where I was making a presentation to sell multi-million dollar software to corporate directors.I was thinking seriously about walking over to the Wal-Mart not too far from where I lived, buying a gun, sticking it in my mouth and pulling the trigger. It was when I started thinking about writing a suicide note to my boysthat, thank God, is when I woke up. I decided that it wasnt the legacy I was going to leave to my kids: the father who killed himself because of an addiction to porn.

3. THE FACT I WAS AROUSED BY SHIT AND ANIMAL PORN MEANT I HAD BRAIN DAMAGE

Since age 19, I’ve been completely unable to control my use of pornography on the Internet, my compulsive masturbation, my driving need to seduce women, and in recent years my nasty habit of spending hundreds of dollars a night in strip clubs, not so much making it rain as shamefully shoveling a wad of 20s at a stripper before scuttling away.My therapist said the fact I was aroused by shit and animal porn meant I had brain damage, simple as that. His conclusion took a couple of days to sink in. Essentially, the part of my mind responsible for rational decision-making has been overridden by a huge desire for more pleasure chemicals, and I do stupid, dangerous things to get those chemicals no matter the consequences. That’s addiction.

4. I AM A RECOVERING PORN ADDICT; I AM ALSO A 25-YEAR-OLD WOMAN

I am a recovering porn addict. I am also a 25-year-old woman.I watched and masturbated to movies in the “Girlvert” and “Meatholes” series, where the obvious goal was to humiliate and degrade the women involved. The disturbing thing was that I had been performing in porn for a few years myself by then, and I knew exactly the sort of cruelty, abuse and exploitation that went on behind the scenes. Yet I still watched and got off to these horribly violent and misogynist forms of pornography.

6. I WAS LYING TO PEOPLE ABOUT WHAT I WAS DOING

It was starting to take up large chunks of my time; I was lying to people about what I was doing in my spare time. I’d stay up viewing all night and go to work on an hour’s sleep; it was affecting my productivity, my health, my relationships and friendships. There were times I didn’t turn up to people’s parties or I wouldn’t go out, because I’d been viewing all day, or I’d think, I’ll just view one more thing before I leave. It’s a bit like when someone goes into a casino and they lose track of time and then they realize they’ve been in there for a day.

7. Shooting up on porn allowed me to savor female energies without all the emotions

Like millions of other well-functioning married men with issues, I turned to pornography. For several years I wanked myself stupid. Time and space was filled with horniness beyond my wildest dreams. Time that might otherwise have been used to be creative, productive, or even just plain bored got devoured by lust. In any moment where there was a desire for some escape from life I scored some porn.I hated porn. I couldnt sniff her, worship her or probe the beauty of her being. I couldnt feel her essence bathing my wounded masculinity to wholeness.But for me, porn somehow replaced the real thing. It was just, well, easier. Neurosis-free women.Shooting up on porn allowed me to savor female energies without all the emotions. Small men everywhere, who would rather not deal with the truth that women have for them, can go get a fill of female energy, have a beer, then get on with their day. Men, what is happening to us?

8. MY HEART WOULD THUMP WITH A MIX OF THRILL AND SHAME

I would sneak downstairs to the family computer once the house was dark. As I would settle into the polyester-cotton seat of the swivel chair and open a browser, my heart would thump with a mix of thrill and shame, my ears perked for any reason to abort my missionzip, pull and dart with an excuse ready about checking the weather for tomorrow.It was an addicts high, a high-stakes heist for sexual pleasurean association that would not soon recede in my primal brain.I found myself rapidly desensitized to online images. If a threesome was kinky last week, then Id need something wilder this week. To reach climax, I had to find that same toxic mix of shame and lust.It was a dissociative, alienating, almost inhuman task to close my eyes while having sex with someone I really cared about and imagine having sex with someone else or recall a deviant video from the archives of my youth that I was ashamed of even then.

9. THERE WAS SOMETHING WRONG WITH ME

One day I was watching pornography in my car, when I realized that I was late for my test. I closed my laptop and ran off. When I came back I found my car broken into, and my laptop gone. That evening my friend and I went to a strip club to help me feel better. My friend soon got tired and wanted to go home, but I couldnt get myself to walk away. Observing the consequences of my actions and my inability to walk away forced me to suspect that may be there was something was wrong with me after all.

10. IT HAS AFFECTED MY ERECTIONS

I was 15 when I started watching porn after my parents bought me a laptop. I did what pretty much any teenage boy does and look up porn websites. It became an everyday thing very quickly. I was watching porn for two hours a day.I found a website dedicated to porn addiction and I felt like I had an epiphany. I felt like I wasn’t alone any more. I did 100 days of porn abstinence and masturbation abstinence. It’s exactly like going cold turkey. The first two weeks were pretty awful with lots of mood swings. It was rough, it was really rough. There were sleepless nights. There were nights where I’d wake up in cold sweats. I’ve been able to get back to my routines and I’ve been OK but it has affected my erections. When I’m with a woman I’ve noticed it’s softer down there and I’m not as excited.I couldn’t get erections anymore with real women when I tried because I’d watched so much porn.

11. I HAD TERRIBLE WITHDRAWALS

I was 15 when I first masturbated to online porn. The high I got was immense, and it lasted about 30 minutes. At that point in my life I’d been feeling really low, and had been for about seven years. But, for the first time, I didn’t feel depressed at alleverything lifted. It made me want to do it again, and againso I did, until I was watching online porn every day.Eventually, I became desensitized to ‘vanilla’ guy-on-girl pornit simply didn’t turn me onso I sought out more extreme porn to shock my system into being aroused again. For the same reason, sex with real women was pretty much impossible. I didn’t link it to my porn addictionbecause I didn’t know I had one. I just thought there was something inherently wrong with me, which made me feel more low.I went cold turkey on porn. I had terrible withdrawals. My hands shook and I had awful mood swings, vivid nightmares and hot and cold sweats.

12. YOU NAME A GENRE, AND I WAS PROBABLY INTO IT AT ONE POINT

You name a genre, and I was probably into it at some point. Things that would have disgusted me one month I relied on the next to get me excited. The process Ive described above is well-known to addiction psychologists and therapists and is called desensitization.Excessive abuse over extended periods of time can lead to decreased libido, erectile dysfunction and impotence. In my case, the warning signs were there. I felt terrible after a session browsing the dark side of the neta mixture of shame, disgust, dissatisfaction, depression. I realized I could bring myself literally to the brink of orgasm solely with visual stimulationwithout using my hands at all. The encounters I had with women felt somehow disappointing. Sexually I felt a bit dead, occasionally I failed to maintain an erection. Desensitization is an apt word, because years of beating my meat to porn left my penis less sensitive to touch. I blamed it on condoms, on performance anxiety, on alcohol, on being out of shape, but finally, I realized the truth: porn.

from All Of Beer http://allofbeer.com/12-former-porn-addicts-describe-the-pitfalls-of-a-serious-online-sex-habit/