In a nutshell, fall in love without the unconscious desire to have sex.

I'm nearing 30, and have never had sex. Eventually, you grow out of the super conditioned dubbyliminated response to want to have sex, that manifests in masturbation.

Go see a therapist? A sex therapist?

It'll be hard work, but it'll be worth it.

I have always wondered if this is the solution. I think I would feel less guilty having sexual experiences mutually and in a loving relationship.
I have gone without masturbation for several years recently because it can escalate your desire. But then there is something missing when you have no sex.
I think sexual problems can make sex more alluring. Like the forbidden fruit.

But I am puzzled as to why I feel convinced something bad will happen after sexual release because it seems irrational. But the evidence I use is that if something bad happens the day after I attribute it to that. So what happened is I would only do stuff on a weekend because I was paranoid I might get bad news in the post or on the phone during the working week or make a fool of myself when out and about.

So it is like a mental prison. I don't know what other mental prisons people have experienced but this has been my main one. But it does make me question the power of reason. I seem to need some other solution.

Being paranoid about sex has been really depressing and restricting and held me back. — Andrew4Handel

You are not alone in this perspective and I use the word "perspective" because my hope is that I can change a similar feeling within myself.
I wish I could say that the self imposed expectation gets easier to break away from with time but that is not my experience.

But I am puzzled as to why I feel convinced something bad will happen after sexual release because it seems irrational. But the evidence I use is that if something bad happens the day after I attribute it to that. — Andrew4Handel

Are you able to clear your mind into like a 'blankspace" to achieve sexual release? For me even if I can clear my mind, thinking comes rushing back in usually before self release. It's frustrating as fuck and I cannot get past it. Concentrating on my breathing was one suggestion but it didn't work.

I have had some general cognitive behavioral therapy not specifically related to this. But I have mentioned it though. The first counselor I had suggested I experiment with doing what I liked when I liked to try and just challenge the feelings. So I did it spontaneously once but then the next day I was really mean to someone who was annoying me and felt guilty and like I had behaved badly.

Someone else made a similar experiment and said they would monitor my behaviour after I had an experience but i rejected the suggestion because it is awkward obviously.

The main way I have coped is by trying not to think about the issue.

However this topic is not just about sex but my "superstition" and the failure of my rationality when I have a degree which involved complex thorough reasoning and psychology.

In a way the straightforward explanation might simply be that religion screwed me up and conditioned me to exhibit these behaviours an anxieties. But I think it is really hard to overcome what you have learnt

Well, I'm no sex psychologist; but, in simple terms, there's a great deal of guilt associated with sexual activity and especially masturbation from the Judeo-Christian tradition.

It's hard to apply reason to the situation, and a lot of neuroticisms arise when one tries to do so.

Just don't go searching for a hookup, that's probably the ultimate debasement.

Just curious how far past your teen years you are. I would guess that time might be the cure here, but if you're already in your mid 40s or something, then that might not be the case.

Just like when we acquire motor skills, the acquisition of beliefs changes our brain structure, and just as with motor skills, some affect brain structure in a way that can be hard to "erase." So simply realizing that a belief is bunk isn't going to do it. You need to more systematically work on changing beliefs over a period of time. As mentioned above, therapy can help a lot with this.

Why the fuck are people telling @Andrew4Handle that he needs to see a therapist?

Because therapy can help a lot in changing beliefs like this.

It's just a matter of how much you want to change and whether you can accept help or not.

Are you able to clear your mind into like a 'blankspace" to achieve sexual release? For me even if I can clear my mind, thinking comes rushing back in usually before self release. It's frustrating as fuck and I cannot get past it. Concentrating on my breathing was one suggestion but it didn't work. — ArguingWAristotleTiff

I don't think I can clear my mind. I am an over thinker. I was also recently diagnosed as autistic which doesn't help.

Obviously sex has been a very potent force for humanity and has had widespread effects including obviously population growth but also relationship woes and mental health and repression (The whole Freudian dynamics thing).

I don't know if it was Freud who first connected sex with death (probably not).

But sometimes I find an exquisite attraction to a person you find beautiful/handsome/lustful can be very painful and unfulfilled desires can make one consider death. But I don't know how widespread this is. But It seems to be the most powerful perception (sexual perception)

Because therapy can help a lot in changing beliefs like this.

It's just a matter of how much you want to change and whether you can accept help or not. — Terrapin Station

Fine, but you might as well tell a person they need to see the doctor over a common cold, you know?

If a common cold lingers for a month, say, it would definitely be advisable to see a doctor, no?

This is something that's lingering for however many years (I have no idea how old he is). He's not been able to get rid of it on his own yet. He wants to get rid of it.

Why the fuck are people telling Andrew4Handle that he needs to see a therapist? — Wallows

I don't mind people suggesting that. It makes sense and I have had some therapy.I am a very open person so sharing this is not problematic for me.

What I was interested in here though is analyzing the nature of what seems irrational and superstitious and why I have just this one superstition and no others.

I am happy for any input because I really welcome any kind of analysis or potential solution as well as being interested in in the structural issues.

I don't mind people suggesting that. — Andrew4Handel

Yeah; but, my point was that it denies you the possibility of hearing out other opinions as if there were some authority on masturbation or sex...

Do you have any other OCDish sort of behaviors--like needing to count certain things, or preferring certain numbers (for example, in a numbered parking lot, maybe you'd only park in spaces with odd numbers, and preferably ending in a 7 or whatever), or needing to do things in a certain order, where otherwise you're a bit uncomfortable? Anything like that? Those sorts of things are very common, and they're very similar to superstitious thinking.

It's just a matter of how much you want to change and whether you can accept help or not. — Terrapin Station

I believe in freewill to some degree but I am not confident about my ability to change in any fundamental way.

The suggestion I like best at the moment is about falling in love. But I am not sure of this is an antidote for anxiety but I have seen plenty of anecdotal of people who overcome a problem because they were in a relationship but therapists and thinkers often try and dissuade you from having a relationship for some reason and focus on self help.

But I think self help is isolating and puts to much onus on the individual. In away it is like modern western individualism has been very bad for our mental health.

Do you have any other OCDish sort of behaviors--like needing to count certain things, or preferring certain numbers (for example, in a numbered parking lot, maybe you'd only park in spaces with odd numbers, and preferably ending in a 7 or whatever), or needing to do things in a certain order, where otherwise you're a bit uncomfortable? Anything like that? Those sorts of things are very common, and they're very similar to superstitious thinking. — Terrapin Station

No and that is why this is strange. I am not frightened of the dark or terrorists or bangs in the night.

I did have one other superstition but that ended when I left Christianity. I took the Bible very literally (and now I think that relates to my ASD) So when the bible said that God was just I believed that if God was just we should all suffer equally and there was a woman in our church with severe arthritis and so I thought that I should have to suffer a little bit each day. The ironic things is that I had a bad home life and was bullied in school but I didn't reflect on that.

However when I stopped believing in Christianity I dropped that belief because it was strictly associated to the Judaeo Christian God and explicit biblical verses.

I feel it is important to talk about the impact of religion like this. I think my whole upbringing was cruel and the dogma completely, unnecessary and perverse and yet people still claim religion is the solution. I don't oppose all religion but I do oppose the literalist psychologically damaging, dogmatic approach.

Yeah; but, my point was that it denies you the possibility of hearing out other opinions as if there were some authority on masturbation or sex... — Wallows

I agree. Personally I don't want to be stuck in years and years of therapy reliving my past.

Some countries or societies approach mental health as a public responsibility and try and help the person in the community with diverse community input.

but this was like free pleasure. — Andrew4Handel

"There is no such thing as a free lunch." = proverb. If you feel guilty about sex, that's the price you pay. Other people pay strippers, or hookers, or whatever. You pay in guilt. Same difference, you pay, they take, you give, you get.

"Can't buy me love." -- The Beatles. You can buy sex, via guilt or via prossies, but you can't buy love. You fall into it. And in about three months to a year (my average has been 6 months) you fall out of it. It's called "honeymoon phase", and it's nature's (evolutionarily developed) way to catch you in a legally and socially binding relationship. During which in our evolutionary past you got married, irrevokably, and that was binding, so much so that when the honeymoon phase fizzes out, you are still stuck there with your wife or husband. For life.

"Losing My Religion" -- R.E.M. After the honeymoon phase you regain your identity, you again are looking out for numero uno, that is, for your own interest. But you don't need to leave your pregnant wife or your no-good husband.,.. you can work things out, and half the joy of life is the struggle to make the best of what really is an intolerable situation. The other half is swallowing the guilty pleasures of life.

"'Till death do us part" -- a long marriage with a compatible partner ensures a steady, comfortable, stable existence, with normally much longer longevity for the man in the partnership compared to single or divorced men. A two-horse carriage can not only double, but octuple the load of a single-horse carriage, and can cover six times the distance.

"Don't let me down" -- The Beatles -- when in a courtship, look for the real part in your future partner, not what you imagine her or him to have. And give your true self. Don't put on airs like you enjoy severe beatings and torture by your partners, while you in effect don't. Honesty ensures a lasting relationship. If you like shooting rats at an abandoned railway yard, don't spring that on your partner after four years of marriage -- instead, invite her to a shoot on the second date.

"When a man loves a woman, he give all his comforts... he'll sleep out in the rain, if she wants it." -- Otis Redding. You and your spouse will need to do some sacrifices, and if one of you refuses, the other had better suck it up, or else.

"In Burmingham, they shot the gov'ner" -- Lynyrd Skynyrd -- eventually one will survive the other. the death comes at a terrible price of mourning, and with a sweet surprise of the gift of independence. If you get divorced, it can really decimate you financially, the both of you, and depending on the penned-up anger, it can become really ugly.

What ever you do, try not to make plans to off your wife or husband. Prison is a lonely place, though you are closer than arms-length with most other inmates.

Some countries or societies approach mental health as a public responsibility and try and help the person in the community with diverse community input. — Andrew4Handel

I lived in such a country. Basically they kick the mentally and/or emotionally problematic people around. The community gives them the scraps of everything in life, and some have to stay up all night to take the contents of the septic tank in buckets to the river and dump it there.

It's just a matter of how much you want to change and whether you can accept help or not. — Terrapin Station

I believe in freewill to some degree but I am not confident about my ability to change in any fundamental way. — Andrew4Handel

How many psychiatrists does it take to change a light bulb? One, but it will take ten years of analysis at $400 a session, and the lightbulb itself will need to want to change.

I lived in such a country. Basically they kick the mentally and/or emotionally problematic people around. The community gives them the scraps of everything in life, and some have to stay up all night to take the contents of the septic tank in buckets to the river and dump it there — god must be atheist

I am not referring to that kind of country or society. An example comes from Cambodia where a man became depressed because he had problems with his feet But had to work in paddy fields. So the health practitioner thought that this was the cause of the depression and he raised money to buy the man a cow so he could use that to generate income instead and he became happier. This kind of model has lead to the increasing application of "social prescribing"in the west.

I am not trying to portray the non western world as some kind of paradise and I am aware of the abuses. But I am pointing out different models and potential solutions for mental health issues

I am a supporter of medication however but I don't know if there is a pill to banish paranoia and guilt.

Just curious how far past your teen years you are. I would guess that time might be the cure here, but if you're already in your mid 40s or something, then that might not be the case.

Just like when we acquire motor skills, the acquisition of beliefs changes our brain structure, and just as with motor skills, some affect brain structure in a way that can be hard to "erase." So simply realizing that a belief is bunk isn't going to do it. You need to more systematically work on changing beliefs over a period of time. As mentioned above, therapy can help a lot with this. — Terrapin Station

I'm 43.

It is interesting because we can effectively change a lot of our beliefs just by new evidence. For example I if I thought New York was the capital of The USA then I was told that no it was actually Washington DC. I think that belief would change straight away.

So I think something must be re-enforcing my belief I suppose.

I think that the belief/Brain/Mental representation relationship is puzzling. Some people believe in the embodied cognition model which I suppose suggests that a lot of what we believe is actually external in our relationship with the world or that our whole body is us and not just our brain.

But on the other extreme there are neuroscientists trying to find away to erase specific bad memories (without resorting to a lobotomy).

What I wonder about is how brain states can have truth value.

And in about three months to a year (my average has been 6 months) you fall out of it. It's called "honeymoon phase", and it's nature's (evolutionarily developed) way to catch you in a legally and socially binding relationship. During which in our evolutionary past you got married, irrevokably, and that was binding, so much so that when the honeymoon phase fizzes out, you are still stuck there with your wife or husband. For life. — god must be atheist

In my case I am Gay (that was a sexuality condemned roundly by the church).

I am not sure what evolutionary model applies to gay sexuality because the sex will not lead to offspring.

There is a suggestion that gay men are more promiscuous because of matching levels of sexual drives. However I feel that the reason some gay men are promiscuous might be to do with the the lack of available stable relationships or contexts including marriage and the pathologising of their sexuality.
I feel monogamous and don't have a desire for an open relationship. My ideal would be a long term monogamous relationship. (My fantasy life might be different though).

I think we as people and societies probably don't know what the source of our sexual dynamics is and how much of it is cultural or subconscious or inherited from religion or caused by capitalist commodification etc

However this topic is not just about sex but my "superstition" and the failure of my rationality when I have a degree which involved complex thorough reasoning and psychology. — Andrew4Handel

Before you learned to think critically and analyse stuff, you were still learning. It's not your fault that it's hard to challenge these things with reasoning; it's a blessing that you can analyse it, that gives you some tools to fight it. But it won't be refuted by a single knock down argument, it's not a proposition, it's a pattern of thought you've had the misfortune of getting rooted deep in you. Reasoning to fight it is more like house work than essay writing, thinking analytically like you do about it is a form of self care; it takes time.

I've had some therapy for sex stuff - related to shame, body image, and feelings of numbness/anhedonia during the act. One of the things they got me to do was pay very close attention to how sex stuff, even wanking, feels. How it feels to fantasise, what the bodily sensations are, what pleasures you. This was accompanied by being asked to pay more attention to how my body feels in general; just being present with the sensations.

It wasn't always a pleasant exercise, feeling how my body moved and what pleasured me was uncomfortable and even frightening at times, I really wanted to switch off from it. It was hard not to look away. Eventually worth it though - sex became a lot different, and less shameful. I felt less ashamed about my body (still working on it) and enjoyed being in it more (still working on that too).

Thanks

Some countries or societies approach mental health as a public responsibility and try and help the person in the community with diverse community input. — Andrew4Handel

How I am personally working to move America to be more like the country you speak of above. :flower:

@fdrake
Thank you for your reply. :flower:

I'm just going to share an essay a gay philosophy professor shared with me about love and sexuality. He didn't come out until his 60s and had 4 children in a marriage. He was depressed a lot and at his funeral his children recounted how he wasn't truly happy until he could be and act gay. It might have some meaning for you even if it's only tangentially relevant to your question.

The truly blessed life involves the proper cultivation of both activity and passivity, working in harmony and mutuality. A horror of passivity lies in the condemnation and hatred towards openness. This will lead to a life impoverished in value and knowledge.

As a consequence we must attempt to seek what I would like to call the spirituality of everyday life. An experiential basis for qualitatively ranking the pleasures seems to be necessary to not let go to waste such openness for the transcendental. For that reason those pleasures like gluttony, which “fat [us] like hogs” (Richard Hooker or Antiphone?), are qualitatively inferior to those which accrue from aesthetic delight or contemplative ecstasy.

An immovable hierarchy is not what is suggested here though. Pleasure and beauty are complex: moments with relations to other moments, previous and future experiences. Just as the untrained ear has difficulty enjoying certain classical music, so is it with others experiences of pleasure. As a consequence it is a personal hierarchy, which has as its imperative prerequisite: openness. Openness to new experiences and to learn and place those experiences in their rightful place.

I am also not talking here about extremely esoteric matters; one simply needs to recall Abraham Maslow’s expression “peak experience” to grasp what I suggest. A peak experience may be the result of seeing a sunrise on the desert, or being “hit” by a line from T.S. Eliot, or of hearing Beethoven’s second movement of the Moonshine Sonata. And also, the pleasure derived from intimate sexual union with the ascent of the soul to spiritual ecstasy and mania.

This vision of a transcendental form of love is of course not in any way new. The famous simile of the ladder of Eros, proceeding from its first rung – the physical love of a beautiful young body – to the highest rung, the love of the divine ground, is but an example. However, perhaps it is time that we assess our spiritual freedom to turn from the Nietzschean nihilism of the “culture of desire” and recapture a new balance. We have the freedom to find our way through the chaos of competing sexual lifestyles and to take our bearings from a more paradigmatic expression of our humanity (whether gay, lesbian or straight).

The paradigm I think should be sought in a joining of sensibility and sexuality, the passionate sexual union is a metaphor for the soul’s ecstatic spiritual union with the divine. The aesthetic dimension of Eros is paramount, for the lover sees in his beloved a reflection of divine beauty. The entire experience is suffused with tenderness. Eros embraces and nourishes the whole soul; it is far from being a merely physical act.

It is clear that today we often confuse sexuality with genital sexual union. Of course we must include genital sexual union in the love relationship, but the love relationship should be above all and primarily a sensibility or state of consciousness. Humour of a particular kind is very much part of that sensibility. Such humour should not repress but affirm and extol sexuality. It is fun and funny to be in love.

We should therefore defend the richness of lovers’ play, reminding us that this receptivity expresses itself in jokes, puns and laughter as well as in the shared pursuit of wisdom. The openness in such relations should be an openness to transcendence or to how the being together of lovers encourages them to seek in their consciousness for the immutable ground of human mutable love and for the reality of Beauty in which every beautiful thing in the Between of human life participates, to the extent that it is really real. Surely ordinary experience suggests that the reason two people would be joined over time in such an intimate complete relationship is that their union suggests more than it contains and opens to them the Being in which they live and move.

This lover’s play also encompasses tension between opposites and character. This tension creates excitement, where the other is just out of reach and where she or he also remains, because as close as two people get they never become one. And yet this opposition creates understanding and in a sense knowledge of the other is revealed through disclosure of limited aspects.

Another message in this regard that I find important is the one carried by the existential reality of death. Dying to the world’s priorities, including the pursuit of power and money, is the prelude to loving the things that matter. Due to, for instance, Plato’s intense love of the beautiful body (in this case male) he was able to conceive of divine reality in erotic analogy. And what could be more divine in temporal existence than the body of one’s beloved?

Sex without love is empty, anonymous sex violates the very principle of encountering the other as partner in a spiritual quest and sex motivated by violence is a violation of true Eros. A long-term, meaningful, relationship is consistent with this view and above all, tenderness must be the norm and beauty the animating spirit.

In the final analysis sexual union is at the same time the union of two different substances, two different irreconcilable entities. A divine union that is at the same time an unholy loss of self and of everything that makes us human. Sex is such a spiritual thing, because it is in every respect a union of opposites, whores in the temple and nuns with orgasmic experiences seeing a figurine of the saviour. The saint and the voluptuous are one.

Of course, not everyone can be a spiritual mystic and attain to the vision of the Good (in Plato’s words) but we can all partake in some measure in the journey from the sensual love that joins true lovers together to Dante’s “love that moves the sun and the other stars.” Nevertheless, fortunate is he, who finds his life partner and shares with her (or him) a fusion of sexuality and spirituality.