Over the many years this wonderful forum has been around, few people have put down gold nuggets on so many topics as Dov. Here's a post from an old thread entitled: 2date or not 2date?

WARNING: Strong, blunt language:



Yes, porn-on-the-brain is a condition that makes it impossible to date properly. But I think a rule that 'any guy who has masturbated should not be dating for x-amount of time' makes no sense, at all. And this is why:



The first question to answer here here is, are we talking about a guy who has been worshiping images of naked women and worshiping his penis and self-pleasuring on-demand as part of a long-standing love affair with fantasy (or with real fantasy women), or not? That was me for about 20 years...11 of them married and in hell.



So...



If we are talking about a man who is an addict and has a long-standing chronic, progressive 'problem'...then vadai even staying clean forever will not fix him. He needs some sort of real help. Negative sobriety is just not going down-hill. It's great, holy, and super...but corrects nothing. Such a guy should not be dating! He is fooling himself and probably way too disoriented by her body, his fantasies, and hos adventures last night in his bed or shower, to have the soundness of mind to decide anything as huge as who to marry, right now. He needs a sognificant period of clean time, and a real corection of his attitudes toward women, towad his need for sex, toward other things, too, probably. And without those changes, he is like a man running full speed in pitch-darkness. He's probably gonna screw up badly and be very, very sad. Just staying clean will not save him.



But if we are just talking about a normal guy who has a yetzer hora, eyeballs, and privates, and struggles with his desires (as the Torah and sforim tell us to) even if he is not perfectly successful - then that is just a normal person! And if he came to GYE or wherever and was inculcated with the nonesense that 'anything less than perfect success against his yetzer hora proves that you have an addiction'...then I believe he has been very badly misled.



He should be dating like anyone else should be dating...no difference.



People just need to be a little more honest with themselves, either way. The best way for that to actually happen, is to open up to another safe, understanding, person. They can help you know if your problem is within the realm of normal. But it has been well-known for a long time that religious fascination with ultimate purity has made many young men into fastidiously obsessive sexual anorexices...and they end uo thinking about sex and lust far more in the long-run than they would have otherwise.



Hey, did that go on too long?



Does anyone in the parsha hear me at all?



Does anyone on the parsha care?

Do you have the link for this thread? I can't seem to find it

Whoops! My bad, usually try to link. Sorry.
guardyoureyes.com/forum/19-Introduce-Yourself/227464-Re-2date-or-not-2date#227464

Truly an amazing thread!

jackthejew wrote on 25 Apr 2024 02:44:

Agreed. Dov’s brilliant, insightful post are incredibly thought provoking and can even be life changing. I think it’s a tremendous loss to this forum that he can no longer take the time to post regularly. This post that you quoted is great. 

One point- Dov’s posts are chock-full of deep ideas and need time and effort to understand. The blunt language can distract sometimes from the numerous ideas he packs in a post. And he refers to ideas that he expands on in other places. For those who are relatively new to the forum and have not had experience with them, I think it’s kidai to read a bunch of them to get a handle on how to read “Dovish”.  
Markz has a link in his signature to “Dov quotes”. (I can’t find and post the link on this device) 

Gut Moed 
Eyes on Cheirus, 
מאן דבעי חיים

chaimoigen wrote on 25 Apr 2024 11:33:

guardyoureyes.com/forum/4-Wall-of-Honor/124072?limit=400#124072
EDIT: Thanks to @CO for posting this, it reminded of another gem from Dov about disclosure:
"Dov" post=131391 date=1327290962 catid=1
This is not an accusation. I am observing and relating, for I do understand the struggle as do many here.

Now, I do not know what you are actually doing that makes you so upset and convinces you that you are living the life of a ba'al tayvoh, because you have not detailed it yet. You wrote that you "already lost the battle," that you liked looking at pornography and got caught in it after seeing that your father had used it...but you have not explained what that means. What do you actually do when you mess up? How often do you mess up? And what happens next? Is there a cycle? Is it repetitive? Has it been getting better over the past year or two - or is it getting worse? Does it directly affect how you treat your wife? Is sex with the wife directly affected by it?

None of these things are big evils, secrets, or taboo. For crying out loud, this is a totally anonymous forum. Nobody will figure out who you are and 'out' you! What is holding you back from using this forum to follow R Meilech's advice (#13 in the tzet'l koton) where he says to detail all the emess about all your shameful tayvos and failures with a safe, trusted friend "without holding back a single detail"?

Use it. We are here. Do not - please, please, do not use your wife for that purpose. It is a gave error for these reasons:

1- she cannot understand it, really, though she may say she can...she just so badly wants to, but it perplexes and pains her with no refu'ah;
2- she cannot share back any personal experience at all, for her feminine sexuality is obviously different;
3- she is too close and personally affected to you to be objective and helpful;
4- it is excruciating and damaging to her - so it is cruel;
5- it is often the secret desire and hope of a husband to tell his wife all about his struggles in order to motivate her - either with fear, or with telling her dirty stuff - to make her more sexually available to him.

Yes, telling the wife the truth is very, very important. But the timing here is off. Telling the entire truth about us to safe men - men who struggle with it too - men who are not invested in us by marriage - men who understand the struggle, the pain, and are learning to be free...that must come first.
 
The original post. (Only summarized on the Dov Quote page)
​guardyoureyes.com/forum/1-Break-Free/130270-CONFUSION!-Pure-and-utter-confusion!?limit=15&start=30#131391

you guys have a wonderful conversation going on, jewish wizard asked such an important question. i've been waiting for someone to go into this noisa in depth.
i'm also a bochur in shiduchim, and have gotten professional, and halochik advice on the matter. 
some of you have brought out great svoros l'kahn ul'kahn, and in this extremely sensitive topic experts and daas toira should absolutely be consulted.

hatzlacha

Would you or anyone else like to add any insight to keep the conversation going?
No pressure 

sure!

 having said that, i know that there are others who respectfully argue w this sh*ta. i've heard sh*tos l'kahn u'lkahn. and it might depend on the person.

i heard an important vort from a friend here on gye. he shared a story of a boy who's mother would get very upset. things went so far that in his adult life he has been hit by his mother. when he was dating he felt that he had to share this w the girl, and she wasn't ready to except it and turned him down.
now in that story many would say that he shouldn't have shared that information, which is largely irrelevant to a girl who would marry him. the problem was that he for himself had a hard time accepting his situation w his mother, and felt like it was front right and center of his life. this is arguably his problem more then the actual anger issues his mother has. also, he probably presented it as this crazy thing, putting the girl in a position that she'd be weird to want to marry him.

b'noigea l'inyoneinu: even if one decides (al pee hora'a from daas toira) that they should share, it would probably be a mistake to dim the lights and drumroll before the big reveal. as if there's a behr hiding under your bed you're about to let loose. if you understand that you're a normal person, that your desires are completely regular and expected, that a tremendous amount of tayere choshuve yiddin struggle w this. aderaba, you're being responsible by actively working on yourself now and trying to tackle it (in your specific case as you wrote you opened up voluntarily to your rabbeim, which is extremely commendable) it can come up in a casual mature conversation. (it can be a hashkafa conversation about technology use). (also, a rav suggested to me that even if sharing, the word porn shouldn't be used. you can say inappropriate non tznius but better not to use that word)

another important point, careful when sharing that it shouldn't come across as asking permission to continue this, rather it should be clear that you're committed to tackling it.

this post is getting long, but i wanna unload something that's been bothering me a while: how many of our boys are watching/watched porn? they say it's a huge percent. how many of them are getting married? again bh many kein yirbu. are they telling the girls? to me it seems that not (i may very well be wrong).
on a drop of a different note: how many of our girls are wetching/watched? i'm afraid the answer is more then we'd expect. maybe in 2024 girls have some more knowledge and understanding/acceptance on the matter? or is this just impossible for the feminine brain to comprehend?

there you got my two cents, looking forward for this conversation

I was gonna bring this up as a point but wasn't sure how to write it.
      I feel like this battle with this nisoyon and the nisoyon itself is a huge part of me as a person. I've had this nisoyon for nearly a decade. That's a long time. So yah I feel like it's part of the center of my life, especially now and for the past few years that I've been fighting it. 

       Another side of this is that for most of each day I feel as if it was a dream that I had this nisoyon. (Dream as in never happened, not fantasy) and then only when I get an urge or I see a women does my guard go up. Is this being complacent or is it progress? 
When on my 108 day streak I never thought of how many days it was I just went along with it and controlled myself (not that it was easy of course). Only after I fell did I count the days to see how long I lasted. Now I am on the forums so I am more aware but it's not at the forefront of my mind. I hope it's  a sign of progress as opposed to being complacent with how I am doing right now. 
      Thank you so much for sharing!!
      have a great Yom Tov!!

I came late to the party, and only read through this thread now.

First off, welcome jewwizard, you are in the right place,  as you can see, many understand and relate to your struggles. 

Let me preface by saying that you are in a good place that you chose to address the issue now. We are here to help and guide, and IT IS POSSIBLE TO BREAK FREE!

I would like to point out EMPHATICALLY,  that I sincerely hope that all of your contemplation in regards to sharing with your future wife is purely hypothetical!!

As a Bachur there are any facets of a woman's thought process in general, and the way she views her (future) husband in particular, that you cannot understand. 

1- I hope that you want your wife to respect, trust, and believe in you. By sharing with her your experiences in these areas, you are lowering, if not eradicating all that RIGHT UP FRONT. 

2- When a (potential) wife hears A, she really heard ABCDEFGHIJKL, meaning that everything is blown up and out of proportion on her head. She will already be imagining things much worse than you shared, and terrified at what you may have really done. 

3- Why would a good girl start off life with someone who has such a past? Do you really want a girl who is willing to "comprise" (from her perspective) and settle for a Bachur who has such a past? Or do you deserve a wife that is looking for someone who has put all of this behind him and is clean? (Assuming that you are clean, at that point.) At that point, once you've done teshuva, it's pointless and wrong to bring up past sins to others.

5- Bear in mind that it's likely that she won't make the decision to continue with you on her own, she will likely consult with her parents, mentors, or Rav. Do you need all of them knowing your darkest secrets as well?
I understand why you feel the way you do and it is coming from a good place in your heart. But it also may stem from inexperience and perhaps, just perhaps, immaturity (not in the negative sense, rather from a factual vantage point) in the area of Shidduchim.

Sorry for the ramble,  but it's SUPER IMPORTANT!
(I skipped number 4 by mistake, but did not fix it up as there are many reasons to put in there)

Keep in touch!

@sisonyisheach
i have a lot to say about the points you made, but i'm refraining from writing cuz

A ) i don't want to hijack reb wizard's thread. and 
B ) you make a great point that the approach and focus of a bochur should be much more on how to beat this habit, and less on should i/will i broach the subject w a future potential spouse. i agree with this point, thanks for bringing it up.

good luck to all

jewizard21 wrote on 28 Apr 2024 21:17:

I think a big Tachlis of the work in this entire area may be to have this not be a central point of my life. Because then it takes up space that could be used to have actual life. While the lessons I've learned and the things I've worked on stem from a problem involving porn, if it had been a Lashon Hara problem or a problem of not wanting to pay Chatzi Nezek if my ox gored someone, the main effect on my life would still be the choices that I then made to pull myself out of a bad situation BS"D, the realizations and lightbulb moments that I then had, and the amazing Hadrachah that I got through the trip. I feel like a lot of the feeling that the sexual challenge was something central to my life was sometimes about the stigma , fear, and deception of it all. Not saying it's that way for you or anyone else. Just a personal perspective.
(Disclosure Note: The following was copied from something I wrote a while back)
One big moment for me was actually reading the first Siman in Mishnah Berurah of Shivisi Hashem L'negdi Tomid and realizing how I'd led my life exactly as if I'd replaced Hashem with Porn R"L. Evaluating every action, every thought, every word. Will someone catch me this way, that way, or the other way. The "end of the road" constantly played itself out in my imagination. I imagined the feeling of being made to "Give Din V'cheshbon", not to Beis Din Shel Maaloh and Hashem, but to my parents, Rabbeim, Friends, and the whole world who would surely judge me and denounce me for the Rasha I was. I'd be thrown out of Yeshiva, my community, and my circle of friends. I'd never get a Shidduch. I might be put in Cherem. And on and on and on... It's no wonder that walking around with THAT on my head for years will do some damage in many areas. Therefore, the relief cannot be overstated of getting to a point where I am not just relieved that I'm not being judged, but realizing I don't care much if others judge me in this area, since I know I'm doing what I can  Al Pi Da'as Toirah.

I have a lot going on rn so I can't post a long thing but I am reading.
thnx and I will rreply soon. I agree with many points made but also think there are different perspectives and you can't just say things as fact.
Ill get back to yall, thnx

Hi, Jewizard! I'm a little late to the party, but Hi anyway! you have done some great work already, and guys like you make GYE a great place. Keep posting, stick round, my special friend
I'll just say, even after all the guys warning, and even after the great point of the whole discussion of disclosure not being something you need to deal with now, I'm still scared enough to add: DON'T DO IT WITHOUT A SERIOUS RAV AND/THERAPIST TELLING YOU IT'S THE RIGHT THING TO DO
For the people that porn or masturbation doesn't take over their lives, meaning, it's not an issue that they currently see as effecting their marriage, why on earth would you tell her about that?
Keep trucking, stick to the here and now, and may Hashem bless you that you should have to talk to your rebbe about this soon;)