Pornography and masturbation are not selfish in themselves.
They are the release of all our worldly passions.
The very passions are the ones that are selfish and the ones that lead us to misery.
Passions are from the very moment they are felt, despicable and worthless.

pomodoro wrote:

I don't understand this post, but thank you for sharing your opinion. Hopefully others can gain from your insight.

Pornography and masturbation are not selfish in themselves.
They are the release of all our worldly passions.
The very passions and lustful desires are the ones that are selfish and the ones that lead us to misery.
Passions and lustful desires are from the very moment they are felt in our minds, despicable and worthless.

Passions and lustful desires are the very enemies of our souls.
We were born with clean and happy souls. In time, they turn polluted and miserable by means of our unrestrained lustful desires and sex passions.
How could we fight such a powerful enemy in which the pleasure anticipates to the joy in every moment of voluptuousness??
That is to say, the expectation and excitement of every lustful desire, the drunkenness of every passion??
We might want to think about self-honesty and integrity in our minds rather than what is right or not if the latter no longer makes a sense for us.
Are robbery and beating someone selfish??
No, I would say no, they are undoubtedly bad, rather what is selfish is unrestrained greediness and rage in our minds.

[quote=

Lizhensk wrote:


Lizhensk, I have mixed feeling about what you said:
There is no need to take something to the extreme to be it selfilsh.
Related to sex, the very fact of temptation, can be harmful.
If we don't take the rejection seriusly, we quickly fall into absorbing and accepting the temptation.
Temptation is not in itself "in extreme", rather it exists or not.
If we are not reassured in inmetiately get rid of it, the very temptation dominates us and in the long run, leads us to misery.

cordnoy wrote on 24 Dec 2015 01:57:

was lookin' for somethin' else, and I found this: also good.

I remember this thread.

No doubt absolutely selfish. You only think of yourself and how to please yourself and the same goes with Pornography - by watching it you also harm others who have to act in it. The ones who say it is not selfish have not tried stopping and see what it feels like not doing it.

almost everything we do... to a degree.. is selfish by webster's definition.
The word selfish has a negative connotation

We call people selfish when all they do is think of themselves in exclusion of anyone else.
But in truth we eat, drink, sleep, exercise, go to work... all these things have a strong element of being "selfish"...

I do not see the gain in isolating one act and then dissecting it to see if it is selfish....what benefit is there in further shaming an issue we all are here to address... to one degree or another we know it is wrong, but further shaming it and calling it selfish will not help.

Lu yatzura I could not find any reason porn or mz"l was wrong... do you think calling me selfish would help? I dont think theres any harm anyways... who am i hurting... Ela mai I know its wrong so what gain is there in now using it to categorize me, as a person, as a selfish person.... by dint of calling the act selfish and if I am someone who struggles not doing it... you are calling me selfish... and that helps the struggles how pray-tell??

I like focusing on the positives... how we are here to be oivdei hashem... how we acknowledge our shortcomings and are taking major steps to fix them... i rather that define me 

If we acknowledge that we are selfish, we can work on it.

cordnoy wrote on 15 Mar 2017 13:43:

but is that the issue?
We dont do it because we are selfish... we do it and therefore we are selfish...
the issues we struggle with nogaya to porn and mz"l are not rooted in being selfish it is first and foremost a strong tayva Hashem in his infinite wisdom bestowed upon us and ,for some, a serious addiction (to some a very real clinical condition)

is there no fear of harm by attaching labels which may further depress someone who recognizes already his shortcomings in this parsha?? 

RaabosMachshovos wrote on 15 Mar 2017 13:23:

II don't like analyzin' things to death, but I must say that there are several seemingly inherent contradictions in this post.

RaabosMachshovos wrote on 15 Mar 2017 13:53:

I thought I recognized that in your first post.

I believe you are mistaken.

We do it because we are selfish.
And that is key to fixin' it.

B'hatzlachah

RaabosMachshovos wrote on 15 Mar 2017 13:53:

And by the way, what do you think tayva is?

And by the way, why is "actin' upon our desire" not a label, but "doin' somethin' because we are selfish" yes a label?

And by the way, why would bein' selfish cause depression, but recognizin' shortcomin's not?

I do apologize for my questions.

Recovery is about working on yourself and about giving that back to those around you. (after taking for so long) To your non addict family that means just giving everything you have. To the addicts around you that means giving them a piece of your sobriety.
Being selfish and being a taker are both intimately connected.
I don't think an addict can come close to sobriety without acknowledging their core selfishness in all their addicted actions and taking action to becoming a giver..
That doesn't mean you can conclude that they were a bad person.
I think its a different type of selfishness compared to the kid who wont share his candy. And that doesn't make the kid bad either it makes them selfish.
Do people still talk to bigMoish?
I vote that both P and M are incredibly selfish, both in action and in thought.