No porn? No problem.

Tiger Tale goes cold turkey

‘Two months with no porn, no masturbation, and hopefully my neural pathways will rewire and I’ll start enjoying my sex life again… I plan to diarise my thoughts, feelings, stresses and freak-outs at least once a week for this period, just to see if I notice any difference, and if I can do it at all.’ — Tiger Tale, When too much porn is never enough

Week One

Wow this is hard. To be honest I didn’t realise how much of a crutch pornography was until I took it away.

Avoiding it during the day is easy. In fact, I can be exposed to sexual material and it’s not the same. I’m starting to think it’s not the porn itself but the act of looking it up that triggers me — a bit like rolling and lighting a cigarette. Knowing it’s there, just thinking about viewing it, is what drives my fantasies and release, rather than the porn itself.

Night time on the other hand is hard (no pun intended). When I’m bored in bed my instinct is to look something up. It’s not so much a conscious thought as it is a habit. I don’t have any porn in the house and I refuse to install some sort of ‘net nanny‘ as I think that’s just avoidance. How can I prove my will power if there’s no test?

On the upside my various hobbies are benefiting from my:

a. sudden wealth of spare time,
b. need to occupy myself, and
c. large amount of nervous energy.

I’m finally getting an illustrator organised for a children’s story I wrote and finishing some projects for friends I have been putting off.

On the downside I’m finding it hard to get to sleep. I feel restless, fidgety and plain old horny. Plus my poor housemate is sick of the smell of dye (I’ve been up late dyeing a suit of Larp armour someone commissioned — don’t ask).

To keep me motivated, I’ve devised a reward system. Every day I go without, I put $10 into a jar, while any relapse costs me $50. At the end of my two months I get to spend whatever’s in the jar with no restrictions.

So that’s my first week done, with little sleep, feeling vaguely twitchy, but $70 in the jar. Here’s hoping I stick to my guns and get to keep my cash.

Yours,
Tiger