Why lowering your gaze sensitizes you sexually

Assalamualaikum,

Ramadan is here, and I’m doing my best to stop masturbating and watching porn completely. Inshallah, this will be the month that I can leave it for good. This is my 3rd day of fasting, and the weight of filth is burdensome.

The first day I was too busy with family events do have time to think or carry out any sort of filth. I was lowering my gaze all the time, keeping myself away from the television, away from the computer, and busy with work. When I left my house my eyes were cast downwards.

The second day was really hard. I was checking my e-mail, and went over to Google News to check on things, and I saw a little picture of a celebrity and about her performance at some Teen Choice Awards music festival. Let’s call this celebrity Person A.

I got really angry. She’s known for her whorish music videos, and I was shocked that she did a performance at a kids show.

I convinced myself that I had to make sure that she wasn’t wearing anything too vulgar considering the audience was just kids. So I youtubed “Person A teens choice awards”. MISTAKE!

I want to re-iterate that I’ve been watching hardcore porn for at least 10 years, really hardcore, to be shamefully honest. Yet the clothing and dance moves that this singer was using at a children’s show was enough to arouse me (and anger me, because there were kids in the audience). It’s disgusting that there are boys in the audience who will become hyper-sexualized from watching Person A, and girls in the audience who will look towards Person A as their role model, and will mimic her dance moves and clothing.

Although I convinced myself that the reason I wanted to youtube her was to “make sure that she wasn’t wearing anything too revealing”, there were obviously more sinister motives that I didn’t want to acknowledge.

The kids who commented on the youtube video were cheering her on. Some were comparing here to another musician, Person B. I quickly youtubed Person B, watched a few music videos, disgusted but aroused. The filth aroused me, and sooner or later I realized I had crossed a line and was fooling myself into thinking that I was doing “research” on the epidemic that children are becoming hyper-sexualized.

That’s how filth gets you, it lures you in.

This was all happening while I was fasting, early on in the day. Only Allah knows if my fast was accepted that day, I made dua and pleaded for forgiveness and strength during Taraweeh time.

I didn’t masturbate from those youtube videos, and I didn’t lead myself to googling porn videos. But after about an hour of youtubing and watching music videos,  I had a full erection and my underwear was wet with pre-ejaculatory fluid. I went to the washroom and ran cold water over my private parts until I calmed down, then took a shower and prayed. Even after that, images from the music videos flashed in my mind. Thoughts would emerge when in bed and trying to go to sleep, when I woke up in the morning and when I was still in my bed, trying to get a few more minutes rest. The thoughts are always there trying to invade my mind.

Even writing this blog entry is stimulating me, images are flashing in my mind from those music videos that were especially powerful and right now as I type those images are stimulating a similar arousal. However, me acknowledging this fact and being completely honest with myself is countering the effects of those flashes, reminding me that I’m here on this blog to become filth-free. Writing about this is an experience in itself.

Lowering your gaze will Sensitize you Sexually

If you watch hardcore porn all day long, a girl walking down the street in a mini-skirt to you is like a brick wall. There is little or no arousal.

If you lower your gaze, keeping your eyes downcast and your head away from the TV/Internet, a glimpse of that same girl walking down the street in the same mini-skirt will send electric pulses through your blood.

That’s what happened to me with Person A, I kept myself away from hardcore porn, and within a day, a mere celebrity with certain dance moves and skimpy clothing had such huge effects on me.

I was sensitized sexually

Why is it that the Men of the Sahaba RA were asked to lower their gaze to such an extent? The prescription given to them [and to us], was to not indulge in a second glance at a woman walking by. The first glance is incidental, the second one has lustful intentions.

But think about it! The women of that time were Sahaba too – they were completely covered! They lowered their voices, they practiced exemplary modesty – there would be nothing to see even if you had a second look (na’uzubillah)!

And on the other hand, the male Sahaba were mutaqieen – people who FEARED and LOVED Allah. Their character was pure, they wouldn’t even have lustful intentions for anyone but their spouses. They feared Allah! Why would anyone in the context of that much taqwa have to worry about lowering their gaze?!

You would think that they wouldn’t even need to worry about lustful intentions – right? WRONG!

With all of this piety comes forth sensitization, the more pious you are the more you become sensitized sexually.

The guy who doesn’t ever look at girls will be extremely aroused when he sees one with revealing clothing.

Why sexual sensitivity is painful but good

Sensitivity is really hard to endure. I felt it yesterday when all of this Person A/Person B drama happened, but I made dua last night during Taraweeh and I feel like my burden has significantly lessened. I haven’t thought of any filth thoughts today at all, alhamdulillah.

Sensitivity is good in the long run with marriage. When you are lowering your gaze and you “have eyes for no one except your spouse”, the sexual energy between you and your spouse is intense. Imagine all of the pent up energy you would have while lowering your gaze all day long, not glancing at a single woman’s face, keeping your eyes away from billboards, away from magazine stands, the dirty ads on television, and the dirty ads on the internet. Lowering your gaze at those times is really an acknowledgement of the fact that those things; billboards, magazine stands, and internet ads are sexually arousing to you, and you are keeping yourself away from it because it is wrong. In other words, the thought of sexual satisfaction is on your mind you’re just trying to safeguard yourself from it, but you if there was a halal way to get a sexual release, you could really use one at that time, except there is ONLY one halal way to get that sexual release: having a spouse!

You would come home to your wife, with this intense sexual energy pent up inside of you, that builds up naturally even without any stimulation. Both of you have these intense feelings for eachother fueled by all of the energy it took both of you to lower your gaze for the whole day. That kind of intense emotion translates to only one three-lettered word.

And that kind of intense sex can only happen between a husband and wife, because Allah willed it so. That sexual energy is not only healthy, but needed for a strong marriage, and it all stems from lowering the gaze. It’s ironic, but it means that lowering the gaze now means better sex later. This is for both long term and short term lowering the gaze,

An extension to this is lowering your gaze BEFORE you get married.

The sexual feelings you will have for your wife will be all the more intense if you have refrained from masturbation for YEARS and have guarded yourself from every possible enticing glance of any other girl in your class, lab, workplace, dirty ad, and of course through porn.

You’ll be pent up with all of this energy waiting for a release, and then WAM – marriage! The sexual satisfaction between you and your spouse will ONLY be for you and your spouse, it can’t come from anywhere else, and it is all the more special and all the more intense. Your wife will be the only one to please you sexually, and it will make her all the more special. How would you react to her given that you lowered your gaze the way I described. Compare that to this!

So yeah, it’s hard to be that sensitive, and it’s hard to lower your gaze, but it’s worth it once you get married and enjoy a sexual intensity that cannot be competed with!

In conclusion,

Staying filth-free makes you more sensitized as you progress, which requires you to stay even further away from filth-ridden environments, to the point where you don’t even indulge in that second glance. In the mean time, since I’m not going to get married anytime soon, I need to do a lot of fasting, and distract myself from my hormones to the best of my ability. Even spending too much time on this blog, talking about having sex with a non-existent wife isn’t doing me any favors. I’m writing all of this for the benefit of the reader, to realize that there ARE positive things to look forward to, even sexually, if you lower your gaze!

Dating and Muslims

Western Society and Western Culture has taught us that marriage is something you do when you are older and more mature. The younger generation should date to “find their true love”.  They should experiment with many girlfriends/boyfriends until they know who they really are in love with.

And guess what? Young Muslims WANT TO DATE, they want to mingle and flirt, they want to have girlfriends/boyfriends, they want to make-0ut and go to coffee shops together. I know because I am a young Muslim, and although I’ve never gone as far as dating, I’ve come pretty close – and I am a firsthand witness of Muslims friends (some of whom who memorized half of the Quran) who dated other people, dated girls who aren’t Muslim or who are Muslim and who don’t wear hijab – either way it doesn’t matter because DATING IS HARAM.

The social pressure of movies, music, and television have developed in us a longing for immediate companionship. In fact, the longing for companionship itself is completely innocent and intrinsic to human nature, but dating is not a valid way to get that companionship. I explain why a little below, but one obvious Muslim reason is that is haram, the wisdom behind that Islamic ruling is sometimes hard for people to understand especially when triggered by such passions as attraction for somebody or “falling in love”.

For the Muslims addicted to pornography and masturbation, you are most likely either involved in a dating relationship, were once involved, or have never been involved but dream about it, and imagine and fantasize what it would be like to have a girlfriend/boyfriend to kiss, and hug, and maybe even have sex with. Perhaps you even masturbate to these types of thoughts.

And here is where I make a critical point:

You need to want to be married. It needs to be a goal that you look forward to in the near future (within a few years). If you find yourself imagining how nice it would be to date some girl (or some boy) you seriously need to change your mindset. Think about being married instead,  if not you have completely bought into the invalid idea of the dating scheme and it leads to a dissatisfied life and I can explain it below:

What dating really proposes is a “casual love” without any real commitments. And how can you have love for someone without showing any commitments or making any real sacrifices?!!! Young Muslims in the West who went to public highschools have seen students going out and saying “I love you” to eachother, and yet breaking up after weeks. Even if their relationship lasts for the 4 years of highschool (which is rarely ever the case), these kids haven’t been through any real life experiences or have had to sacrifice anything, they haven’t really made any commitments. When you are married, and you have to settle conflicts between your mother and your wife, and you have to sacrifice the things you want to buy like clothes because your wife wants a nice apartment, or needs a nice dress for an upcoming dinner party, or wants you to clean up the house when you get home from work when you want to play videogames, or wakes you up at 2am because she needs you to rub her back and you have to leave for work at 6am, and when she screams at you for forgetting to put the cap on the toothpaste and you don’t say anything even though you’re pissed, and when she crashes the car on her way to the grocery store, and you don’t yell at her and you comfort her, even though you’re pissed and will have to pay increased insurance for the nest 5 years – and you actually do it all without fighting, than that’s when your “I Love You” means something.

The dating scene is a joke -> its a game. What’s the point? Where is it going? If you have no commitment to this person, and they have no commitment to you, then why are you even starting a relationship that statistically is going to end in weeks?

Because it is NOT a relationship, it is a chance to have fun with the idea of “love”. Because TV and Western Culture has taught you that kissing, and hugging, and singing songs, and roses, and choclates, are all “love”. Although all of those things feel nice, and are sometimes small tokens of showing affection they don’t show the strength of love that is tested by facing a difficulty. Real love is proven through the pain you are willing to endure. If you’ve ever heard a woman giving birth to a child, and heard the pain in her voice –> well that is love, that is the pain that the mother is willing to go through just to have a child. And when the child gets older and cries in the middle of the night, or wets the bed, and the mother has got to drag herself out of the bed and hold this urine-soiled child and clean everything up at 3:00 am, then you’ll know what love is.

That’s the kind of ironclad love that a marriage demands and a girlfriend/boyfriend dating “casual love” can never ever have. A marriage is a lifetime commitment that you will be with this person forever. If you can have that kind of ironclad relationship –> why waste time dating?

If you have strong feelings for someone, and they have strong feelings for you, and you have the guts and the maturity to commit yourself to the responsibilities of a real relationship, it doesn’t take long to figure out if you are both compatible. The next step is really just getting married.

Husbands who watch still watch porn

This is a long post but an important one that has some key distinctions that may help you become filth free. Feel free to skim through the bolded excerpts.

This does not contradict my last post.What it is saying is that although marriage is a fundamental component of becoming and staying filth free, it is not the complete solution.

Here is some proof of that:

http://www.dearcupid.org/question/my-husbands-porn-watching-has-put-me-in.html

Go through that page. There are tons of online posts like these that you can find within seconds on any search engine.

It is truly heartbreaking. These are the stories of wives who had found their husbands watching pornography and masturbating and it illustrates the mindsets of these husbands and the complete destruction of the wives’ self-esteem, self-respect, love for the husband, and overall happiness.

Still don’t believe that marriage isn’t the all-saving solution?

Read these excerpts from those wives:

I lost it and fell deeper into a depression. I was in shock because I have a very healthy sexual appetite … so I couldn’t understand why he would do it behind my back and feel the need to masturbate when he has unlimited access to me.

He has made me feel so ugly and disgusting and totally betrayed.

Why do men do this? Does it mean that my husband doesn’t like me? Does it mean that my husband wishes I was the porn stars on the videos?

It makes us feel jealous, insecure, cheated on, worthless, nosy, hurt, betrayed.

This is a long one:

I blamed myself and he blamed me. He said, “I do this because you dont’ give me enough sex.” I hated him. I never wanted to sleep with him after that and things got worse. He stayed in the bathroom with the computer and I lay in bed at night and cry. Hating him more and more desiring him less and less. Then I started forcing myself to give him sex even when I didn’t really want to (and I still do it) and I felt like a dirty whore and I began to hate myself. I fell into a deep depression over this. Fights and more fights. I even contemplated suicide. I felt worthless but at the same time like I wasn’t going to be told how many times a week I should be giving ANYONE SEX!!! He says to me, “I’m not saying I am going to cheat on you but one day there is going to be some fine chick who wants to throw it on me, and since you don’t give me any, you are going to make my decision real hard for me.” He may as well have hit me in the face with a baseball bat….it would have hurt a little less. Then I was lost. I didn’t know if I was having sex with him because I wanted to or because he told me I “should” be. I hated sex and I hated that computer.

It is so important to read these excerpts. Ask yourself, do you want to be the kind of guy who causes this kind of pain to your wife? Do you want to be in this position where your wife hates you, and hates herself because of you? Do you think that a married couple can EVER recover 100% of the relationship after a husband engages with this kind of filth – regardless if he later becomes “filth free”?

The answer is no. Once the innocence is gone, it doesn’t come back, neither does the innocence of a new and healthy marriage –> that innocence is delicate and irrecoverable. Sure a marriage can become healthy again after a lengthy and painful process where it may take a decade to regain trust, but you cannot undo what is done, and you cannot erase memories.