Sex and love addiction, sexual compulsions, insecure attachment, risky sexual behaviour, HOCD, HIVOCD
What if you lost the love of your life due to a sexual impulse? What if you recognised sexual impulsivity as a pattern of your behaviour, deeply deeply ingrained into your being, and that you want to overcome it? That’s me.
I chose the name clarity because when I started to post, I was dipping in and out of psychoses and other really mentally unhealthy states. I would have moments of clarity, inspired by stuff I read in the sequences and other LessWrong posts and they would be like gulps of air saving me from drowning in really turbulent water. Now that I’m on some kind of boat, I don’t have to actively think about how to breath.
Until now, again.
I haven’t posted a lot recently. Mainly because I have been doing really, really well. My epic failures I dare so have given me a reputation here, and I talk about them freely. But, again, I have been doing well lately.
With an exception. Let me explain:
Since I already have a soldiery mindset due to some abuse from my childhood I thought I could grow by joining the French Foreign Legion. I had decided not to in the past due to risk of permanent injury but considered it again. I decided not to this time because I figured I wouldn’t be able to meet, court and enjoy time with someone, fall in love etc. – it’s unsuitable for married life (which correlates strongly with happiness), according to this link: https://www.cervens.net/legionbbs123/archive/index.php/t-53.html
Lately I am infatuated with someone. She seems to have the potential to meet my criteria for a good potential wife: communication skills, personality, responsibility, emotional honesty, attractiveness, matching sex drives, and value alignment. I just wish I had some good comebacks for when a person is out and about with an Asian girl and people making comments that make me feel self-conscious. She gives me a different feeling than that bewilderment kind of pleasant feeling I would get when my ex housemate I fell for used open her small mouth really really wide in amazement at something, haha. I get more of the nice chill longing of when I think of that cute little housemate listening too hip-hop.
I’ve been thinking about her strong feelings for veganism so I looked up some stuff about the case for veganism.
So another recent experience really stood out to me as a bad choice, by a similar rationale. I consider myself heteroflexible, or perhaps hetero but rather sexually fluid. On Sunday night I went to a gay sauna, tossed up a bit between that and a brothel, but decided I prefer the idea of guys this time. I’m a bit anxious and unattached to guys physically, except if its porn (which I had watched before going). So I went into a dark room with two guys I later saw were ugly AF and of course, like previous times, they give me tonnes or props and validation as a good looking guy. One guy said he was a cleaner when I asked what he does. The other had scaly crusty balls. I didn’t stop, unfortunately. And now maybe that sore was Herpes or Genital Warts and now if I got herpes which is incurable, then it might ostracise me from 4⁄5 of the beautiful women in the world (maybe just not the slutty ones who have that too, and may just break my heart in time anyway).
Worst case scenario, I just HIV. I mean it’s a dark room, anything can happen, a grazing, a bite, etc., a pin prick from some vexed crazy guy. No accountability. In the heat of the moment something could slip off too. And, I’m not familiar with much more than the superficial statistics around HIV transition and lore, like that oral sex HIV could but they doubt it often happens – but as a medical researcher I know the quality of research must be judged in a case by case basis and never take the overviews credibility for granted.
I reflected in the moment and realised I wasn’t enjoying myself in the slightest. I think it’s some need for validation, or loneliness or risk taking or a compulsion. Fuck me autocorrect almost corrected to compulsive homosexuality. Got to fix that too, or I will be outed.
I think I have HOCD, or something accounted for by these accounts:
I find each of them helpful and hope to revisit them.
If I don’t do it (regardless of where unless I find myself in a stable relationship with that person before or within a week) again by 2020 I’ll give one my close friends $141 as a prize to encourage me. 1/1/2020. If not I’ll donate the same amount to a sex, love and or romance focussed impulse control related group.
Masturbating alone is hedonically better and it’s safer anyway, what the fuck is wrong with me?
I have an addiction but I have some much will power and a track record of discipline. This is the last frontier. Never again.
My life places me in a position to observe an uncommon number of people repenting and trying to change. As you might expect, humans being what we are, few accomplish their goal.
A fact that I’ve observed is that NONE of those who other themselves and blame the shard get it done.
If someone says “I’ve got a terrible temper”, he will still hit. If he says “I hit my girlfriend”, he might stop.
If someone says “I have shitty executive function”, he will still be late. If he says “I broke my promise”, he might change.
So, when you say “I have an addiction”, I’m a bit concerned. A LW truism is that we don’t have brains, we are brains. We aren’t ghosts manning machines, we are machines.
I think it is some old “devil made me do it”, stuff. The “other me” isn’t real, so energy spent fighting him is wasted. Effort spent changing my behavior might bear fruit.
I’m reading a lot into phrasing, so if this isn’t you, my bad. Just...my advice… be sure to own your stuff man. You either “have an addiction”, or “screwed some randos without protection”, and my experience suggests that thinking of it as the second one will help you more.
A fact that I’ve observed is that NONE of those who other themselves and blame the shard get it done.
I don’t smoke meth!
If someone says “I’ve got a terrible temper”, he will still hit. If he says “I hit my girlfriend”, he might stop. If someone says “I have shitty executive function”, he will still be late. If he says “I broke my promise”, he might change.
Wow, I never thought of it like that. So internal attributions lead to antisocial behaviour, compared to external attributions which lead to behaviour change?
I’m reading a lot into phrasing, so if this isn’t you, my bad. Just...my advice… be sure to own your stuff man.
I think you are on to something, but I find it a bit hard to understand.
You either “have an addiction”, or “screwed some randos without protection”, and my experience suggests that thinking of it as the second one will help you more.
I think you are right. It’s just that I feel so shamed thinking of the second one. I can feel psychological defences like denial and rationalisations coming to my mind while I type. I screwed some random without protection. I am a dumb person.
Sorry, I didn’t mean that to be what you took from it.
I used to be fat. ( I still am, but not nearly to the same extent) Like, Jabba fat. My parents got doctors to say that I had an eating disorder, and maybe I did.
Othering my appetite never helped me. Like “I have an eating disorder” focused my energy on something (my disorder) that didn’t have a mind. It couldn’t get tired, or bored...it didn’t exist. It’s like “fighting” cancer.
But that doesn’t mean that what worked was thinking “I’m a glutton”.
When you say that “I am a dumb person”, it isn’t any closer to a thought you can act on. Kicking yourself when you are down feels good (or, at least, it did for me), it feels like “paying” for the behavior, but that’s just thoughts. It doesn’t actually change stuff.
I was shooting for more “I am a person who had unprotected sex with sketchy folks at place X”. That feels, ‘actionable’, if you will, to me. Like, if the problem is a sex addiction, I dunno what the solution is. If the problem is being a dumb person, I dunno what the solution is. But if the problem is going to a place and doing stuff, there are a bunch of solutions.
1: Carry protection, everywhere. Put it in something that you carry everywhere (wallet, little thingy on your car keys, cell phone case, whatever). If you ever screw someone sketchy, make sure you take it out and use it. If they aren’t willing, maybe that’s a spur to reconsider?
2: Enlist the help of the dudes who run the place. Tell them if they see you there, you will give them ten thousand dollars, or however much money would sting. Ask them, as friends, to kick you out. Tell them you have leprosy. Whatever words you have to say to make sure you aren’t welcome back there.
3: If this place is pay to play, then ration your funds. Each morning put exactly as much cash as you’ll need that day in your wallet, and don’t carry a credit card.
I don’t know if any of these could work for you, but something similar might. A behavior that you don’t want to repeat can always be made more inconvenient. That’s what helped me out with eating too much. I hope that you can do a similar thing to get yourself a different habit.
DBT combines standard cognitive behavioral techniques for emotion regulation and reality-testing with concepts of distress tolerance, acceptance, and mindful awareness largely derived from Buddhist meditative practice. DBT is the first therapy that has been experimentally demonstrated to be generally effective in treating BPD.[8][9] The first randomized clinical trial of DBT showed reduced rates of suicidal gestures, psychiatric hospitalizations, and treatment drop-outs when compared to treatment as usual.[4] A meta-analysis found that DBT reached moderate effects in individuals with borderline personality disorder.[10]
I thought I could grow by joining the French Foreign Legion
I have opinions on this as well, having gotten very close to doing so myself.. until I met the love of my life 6 months before my planned one-way ticket to Aubagne. I can advise if you are interesting in contemplating this further.
I just wish I had some good comebacks for when a person is out and about with an Asian girl and people making comments that make me feel self-conscious.
Can you give an example? You called her out as Asian—you mean like racist comments or something? What’s your ethnicity?
Regarding the main point of your post, seek out a sex addiction group. I don’t think LessWrong can help you here.
Also: get tested for STDs, ASAP. Especially before you see that girl you like again.
Part of my motivation is motivated by hopes of greater social status. Recently I read that sociometric status is associated with greater happiness which fits in with my notions about the esteem of the military. However, when I read about the empirical research on the correlates of sociometric status (at least in kids) it appears to be traits very very different than would be expected in the military!
Also, I ran across a paper and a podcast I remember saying that peers ratings (essentially sociometric status) factor in to military career advancement so there is that confounding things.
I think I prefer to be a lover, than a fighter. I mean, I am probably driven to fight by my childhood trauma and I shouldn’t give in to that. I can gain a better life by growing through developing a secure attachment style probably instead.
Interacial dating
Yes, when I went out with another asian girl in the past someone once said: it’s an ‘x’ (can’t remember what they guessed) and an asian together?′ it’s a really strange voice—they were two teenage guys. Not quite rascist, but it could be in the future. I’m mixed ethnicity but appear either dark skinned Latino or Arab I guess.
Re STD check
It happened in Sunday the 16th. I will not have sexual contact till I get tested, but because some STI’s incubate p to 9 weeks (hep c—but I couldn’t be exposed to that). The next longest is HIV 1-3 months but that’s low likelihood since I didn’t have unprotected penetrative sex so I am not concerned this time (but don’t do it again, Clarity! Just in case! Oral herpes which is 4-6 weeks but apparently everyone has that, even kids, so I am not concerned. But the same for genital herpes (4-6 weeks) which I am concernd about so I will wait well the average upper 6 weeks to get tested. That means testing on the 27th of November. I’ll just have to do it when I’m overseas I guess...
Part of my motivation is motivated by hopes of greater social status.
That would be a bad reason to join the FFL. It is a small clique of people that would assign higher social status to a legionnaire, current or former. Most, thanks to Hollywood, will think you a psychopath or maybe a fugitive on the run. At best your so-called friends and family will be left wondering “why France?”—because in their minds the only justifiable reason to serve is patriotism, and how can you be a patriot for a nation that is not your own? You don’t even get a French passport at the end unless you are wounded in battle.
So if it is social status seeking by people you already know, then the FFL is not for you. But if you think it’s more than that, read on.
I would read some works by David Grossman, specifically “On Killing” and also “On Combat”. Maybe start first with this classic essay by him, excerpted from “On Combat”:
Ask yourself: are you a sheepdog? Not do you want to be a sheepdog, but are you? Is that how you define yourself? If so, the path of a warrior might have value for you. But don’t take this question lightly. Talk to those whose opinion you trust and who know you well. Only tell them as many details as you need to, but get their opinion of you. You might recognize things you never realized in how others see you. Maybe reach out to some warrior forums and get some opinions from those who did serve.
If you do join the légion étrangère, it is really in your interests to go all-in. Make sure you excel at everything you do, top of the class. Then volunteer for the 2e REP parachute regiment, which is the special ops branch. Volunteer for as much advanced training as you can get. You’ll then serve the remaining 3-4 years of your tour on assignments in various hot spots. Get to know everyone, but particularly focus on those that are the most professional. This will help your career whether you stay with the legion or not.
When you’re out you’ll have access to the alumni network of people that live not above but outside the rule of law. Those who understand the true nature and basis of governance and serve when it is necessary as its blunt instrument. Your reputation is what gates access to this network.
One thing to note: “soldier of fortune” is misnamed. You will not get rich being a merc. The pay is decent, and tax-free, but we’re talking like maybe $100k/yr. You can do way better in tech or finance and without putting your life on the line. Only do this if it is a serious calling.
it’s an ‘x’ (can’t remember what they guessed) and an asian together?′ it’s a really strange voice—they were two teenage guys. Not quite rascist, but it could be in the future. I’m mixed ethnicity but appear either dark skinned Latino or Arab I guess.
Nah man that’s totally racist, and f—them. I would have been in their faces causing trouble if that was at me or my girl. That goes far beyond “having a good comeback” territory.
Sex and love addiction, sexual compulsions, insecure attachment, risky sexual behaviour, HOCD, HIVOCD
What if you lost the love of your life due to a sexual impulse? What if you recognised sexual impulsivity as a pattern of your behaviour, deeply deeply ingrained into your being, and that you want to overcome it? That’s me.
I chose the name clarity because when I started to post, I was dipping in and out of psychoses and other really mentally unhealthy states. I would have moments of clarity, inspired by stuff I read in the sequences and other LessWrong posts and they would be like gulps of air saving me from drowning in really turbulent water. Now that I’m on some kind of boat, I don’t have to actively think about how to breath.
Until now, again.
I haven’t posted a lot recently. Mainly because I have been doing really, really well. My epic failures I dare so have given me a reputation here, and I talk about them freely. But, again, I have been doing well lately.
With an exception. Let me explain:
Since I already have a soldiery mindset due to some abuse from my childhood I thought I could grow by joining the French Foreign Legion. I had decided not to in the past due to risk of permanent injury but considered it again. I decided not to this time because I figured I wouldn’t be able to meet, court and enjoy time with someone, fall in love etc. – it’s unsuitable for married life (which correlates strongly with happiness), according to this link: https://www.cervens.net/legionbbs123/archive/index.php/t-53.html
Lately I am infatuated with someone. She seems to have the potential to meet my criteria for a good potential wife: communication skills, personality, responsibility, emotional honesty, attractiveness, matching sex drives, and value alignment. I just wish I had some good comebacks for when a person is out and about with an Asian girl and people making comments that make me feel self-conscious. She gives me a different feeling than that bewilderment kind of pleasant feeling I would get when my ex housemate I fell for used open her small mouth really really wide in amazement at something, haha. I get more of the nice chill longing of when I think of that cute little housemate listening too hip-hop.
I’ve been thinking about her strong feelings for veganism so I looked up some stuff about the case for veganism.
I decided to go milk free after watching this: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=UcN7SGGoCNI Wool free after watching watching just 243 of this video. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=siTvjWE2aVw
So another recent experience really stood out to me as a bad choice, by a similar rationale. I consider myself heteroflexible, or perhaps hetero but rather sexually fluid. On Sunday night I went to a gay sauna, tossed up a bit between that and a brothel, but decided I prefer the idea of guys this time. I’m a bit anxious and unattached to guys physically, except if its porn (which I had watched before going). So I went into a dark room with two guys I later saw were ugly AF and of course, like previous times, they give me tonnes or props and validation as a good looking guy. One guy said he was a cleaner when I asked what he does. The other had scaly crusty balls. I didn’t stop, unfortunately. And now maybe that sore was Herpes or Genital Warts and now if I got herpes which is incurable, then it might ostracise me from 4⁄5 of the beautiful women in the world (maybe just not the slutty ones who have that too, and may just break my heart in time anyway).
Worst case scenario, I just HIV. I mean it’s a dark room, anything can happen, a grazing, a bite, etc., a pin prick from some vexed crazy guy. No accountability. In the heat of the moment something could slip off too. And, I’m not familiar with much more than the superficial statistics around HIV transition and lore, like that oral sex HIV could but they doubt it often happens – but as a medical researcher I know the quality of research must be judged in a case by case basis and never take the overviews credibility for granted.
I reflected in the moment and realised I wasn’t enjoying myself in the slightest. I think it’s some need for validation, or loneliness or risk taking or a compulsion. Fuck me autocorrect almost corrected to compulsive homosexuality. Got to fix that too, or I will be outed.
I think I have HOCD, or something accounted for by these accounts:
I find each of them helpful and hope to revisit them.
http://blogs.psychcentral.com/sex-addiction/2013/03/when-straight-men-are-addicted-to-gay-sex/ http://www.sexaddictionscounseling.com/can-a-straight-man-be-addicted-to-gay-sex/ http://www.brainphysics.com/yourenotgay.php https://www.google.com.au/amp/m.wikihow.com/Overcome-Sexual-Addiction%3famp=1?client=ms-android-optus-au
If I don’t do it (regardless of where unless I find myself in a stable relationship with that person before or within a week) again by 2020 I’ll give one my close friends $141 as a prize to encourage me. 1/1/2020. If not I’ll donate the same amount to a sex, love and or romance focussed impulse control related group.
Masturbating alone is hedonically better and it’s safer anyway, what the fuck is wrong with me?
I have an addiction but I have some much will power and a track record of discipline. This is the last frontier. Never again.
My life places me in a position to observe an uncommon number of people repenting and trying to change. As you might expect, humans being what we are, few accomplish their goal.
A fact that I’ve observed is that NONE of those who other themselves and blame the shard get it done. If someone says “I’ve got a terrible temper”, he will still hit. If he says “I hit my girlfriend”, he might stop. If someone says “I have shitty executive function”, he will still be late. If he says “I broke my promise”, he might change.
So, when you say “I have an addiction”, I’m a bit concerned. A LW truism is that we don’t have brains, we are brains. We aren’t ghosts manning machines, we are machines.
I think it is some old “devil made me do it”, stuff. The “other me” isn’t real, so energy spent fighting him is wasted. Effort spent changing my behavior might bear fruit.
I’m reading a lot into phrasing, so if this isn’t you, my bad. Just...my advice… be sure to own your stuff man. You either “have an addiction”, or “screwed some randos without protection”, and my experience suggests that thinking of it as the second one will help you more.
I don’t smoke meth!
Wow, I never thought of it like that. So internal attributions lead to antisocial behaviour, compared to external attributions which lead to behaviour change?
I think you are on to something, but I find it a bit hard to understand.
I think you are right. It’s just that I feel so shamed thinking of the second one. I can feel psychological defences like denial and rationalisations coming to my mind while I type. I screwed some random without protection. I am a dumb person.
Sorry, I didn’t mean that to be what you took from it.
I used to be fat. ( I still am, but not nearly to the same extent) Like, Jabba fat. My parents got doctors to say that I had an eating disorder, and maybe I did.
Othering my appetite never helped me. Like “I have an eating disorder” focused my energy on something (my disorder) that didn’t have a mind. It couldn’t get tired, or bored...it didn’t exist. It’s like “fighting” cancer.
But that doesn’t mean that what worked was thinking “I’m a glutton”.
When you say that “I am a dumb person”, it isn’t any closer to a thought you can act on. Kicking yourself when you are down feels good (or, at least, it did for me), it feels like “paying” for the behavior, but that’s just thoughts. It doesn’t actually change stuff.
I was shooting for more “I am a person who had unprotected sex with sketchy folks at place X”. That feels, ‘actionable’, if you will, to me. Like, if the problem is a sex addiction, I dunno what the solution is. If the problem is being a dumb person, I dunno what the solution is. But if the problem is going to a place and doing stuff, there are a bunch of solutions.
1: Carry protection, everywhere. Put it in something that you carry everywhere (wallet, little thingy on your car keys, cell phone case, whatever). If you ever screw someone sketchy, make sure you take it out and use it. If they aren’t willing, maybe that’s a spur to reconsider?
2: Enlist the help of the dudes who run the place. Tell them if they see you there, you will give them ten thousand dollars, or however much money would sting. Ask them, as friends, to kick you out. Tell them you have leprosy. Whatever words you have to say to make sure you aren’t welcome back there.
3: If this place is pay to play, then ration your funds. Each morning put exactly as much cash as you’ll need that day in your wallet, and don’t carry a credit card.
I don’t know if any of these could work for you, but something similar might. A behavior that you don’t want to repeat can always be made more inconvenient. That’s what helped me out with eating too much. I hope that you can do a similar thing to get yourself a different habit.
Dialectical Behavioral Therapyis at least worth looking into.
I have opinions on this as well, having gotten very close to doing so myself.. until I met the love of my life 6 months before my planned one-way ticket to Aubagne. I can advise if you are interesting in contemplating this further.
Can you give an example? You called her out as Asian—you mean like racist comments or something? What’s your ethnicity?
Regarding the main point of your post, seek out a sex addiction group. I don’t think LessWrong can help you here.
Also: get tested for STDs, ASAP. Especially before you see that girl you like again.
Thank you for your advice.
French Foreign Legion
Part of my motivation is motivated by hopes of greater social status. Recently I read that sociometric status is associated with greater happiness which fits in with my notions about the esteem of the military. However, when I read about the empirical research on the correlates of sociometric status (at least in kids) it appears to be traits very very different than would be expected in the military!
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1619136 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3286817 https://www.jstor.org/stable/23086265?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents
Also, I ran across a paper and a podcast I remember saying that peers ratings (essentially sociometric status) factor in to military career advancement so there is that confounding things.
I think I prefer to be a lover, than a fighter. I mean, I am probably driven to fight by my childhood trauma and I shouldn’t give in to that. I can gain a better life by growing through developing a secure attachment style probably instead.
Interacial dating
Yes, when I went out with another asian girl in the past someone once said: it’s an ‘x’ (can’t remember what they guessed) and an asian together?′ it’s a really strange voice—they were two teenage guys. Not quite rascist, but it could be in the future. I’m mixed ethnicity but appear either dark skinned Latino or Arab I guess.
Re STD check
It happened in Sunday the 16th. I will not have sexual contact till I get tested, but because some STI’s incubate p to 9 weeks (hep c—but I couldn’t be exposed to that). The next longest is HIV 1-3 months but that’s low likelihood since I didn’t have unprotected penetrative sex so I am not concerned this time (but don’t do it again, Clarity! Just in case! Oral herpes which is 4-6 weeks but apparently everyone has that, even kids, so I am not concerned. But the same for genital herpes (4-6 weeks) which I am concernd about so I will wait well the average upper 6 weeks to get tested. That means testing on the 27th of November. I’ll just have to do it when I’m overseas I guess...
That would be a bad reason to join the FFL. It is a small clique of people that would assign higher social status to a legionnaire, current or former. Most, thanks to Hollywood, will think you a psychopath or maybe a fugitive on the run. At best your so-called friends and family will be left wondering “why France?”—because in their minds the only justifiable reason to serve is patriotism, and how can you be a patriot for a nation that is not your own? You don’t even get a French passport at the end unless you are wounded in battle.
So if it is social status seeking by people you already know, then the FFL is not for you. But if you think it’s more than that, read on.
I would read some works by David Grossman, specifically “On Killing” and also “On Combat”. Maybe start first with this classic essay by him, excerpted from “On Combat”:
http://www.killology.com/sheep-wolves-and-sheepdogs
Ask yourself: are you a sheepdog? Not do you want to be a sheepdog, but are you? Is that how you define yourself? If so, the path of a warrior might have value for you. But don’t take this question lightly. Talk to those whose opinion you trust and who know you well. Only tell them as many details as you need to, but get their opinion of you. You might recognize things you never realized in how others see you. Maybe reach out to some warrior forums and get some opinions from those who did serve.
If you do join the légion étrangère, it is really in your interests to go all-in. Make sure you excel at everything you do, top of the class. Then volunteer for the 2e REP parachute regiment, which is the special ops branch. Volunteer for as much advanced training as you can get. You’ll then serve the remaining 3-4 years of your tour on assignments in various hot spots. Get to know everyone, but particularly focus on those that are the most professional. This will help your career whether you stay with the legion or not.
When you’re out you’ll have access to the alumni network of people that live not above but outside the rule of law. Those who understand the true nature and basis of governance and serve when it is necessary as its blunt instrument. Your reputation is what gates access to this network.
One thing to note: “soldier of fortune” is misnamed. You will not get rich being a merc. The pay is decent, and tax-free, but we’re talking like maybe $100k/yr. You can do way better in tech or finance and without putting your life on the line. Only do this if it is a serious calling.
Nah man that’s totally racist, and f—them. I would have been in their faces causing trouble if that was at me or my girl. That goes far beyond “having a good comeback” territory.
On Combat is a pretty great book. Enjoyed it.