Randoman no-porn journey, Day 6

Warning: talking about sex, masturbation, and porn. If don't want to read about my private ramblings on how I'm working to unhook myself from porn, ignore this. Today I nearly PMOed. But let's go step by step. I woke up with what I would describe as "genuine sexual arousal." I had an unrelenting hard-on that just wouldn't go away even an hour after I woke up. It wasn't influenced by active fantasizing or by watching anything remotely spicy. As per my rules, this is the only moment I allow myself to masturbate. So I did it. Differently from the usual, I felt a great amount of pleasure and it re-invigorated me. It genuinely felt great, and it made me feel great. I knew full well that this is a delicate moment and that I should watch myself. Because my brain has learned that masturbation is inevitably linked to porn consumption. This means that masturbation itself is a trigger for consuming pornography. And indeed, I unconsciously browsed for a certain erotic series that I enjoyed reading (for the story, believe it or not) before this no-porn thing. In less than a second, I was taken by hard cravings, and I started desiring to open a PH tab "just to take a look." I observed my feelings and my physical reactions. I felt anxious and nervous, the typical symphtoms of withdrawal. I closed the comic, and I resisted. I won. This makes me reflect on a couple of things. These days I caught myself browsing models and boudoir photos. I can say with certainty that it doesn't affect my attempt to stop my consumption of pornographic material. I only felt the high derived from appreciating beauty. I love and admire women, and I don't intend to stop doing so. I'm pretty good at regulating myself from doing this specific thing obsessively. I'm not doing no-porn because of some kind of moralistic imperative, I'm doing this to stop my dependency on a specific compulsion. I do have to avoid representations of explicit sex scenes because those are the ones that influence me negatively. And now I'm confused: how much erotica can a story contain before it becomes full-on pornography? In doubt, I will just avoid any series/movie/comics that indulges and lingers on sex scenes for their own sake. What I decided for now is the following: if the story leads and the sex follows, then it's not porn. If the sex scenes dictate the story, then it's just porn. BTW, that comic book is mostly lame, because every time it could become something more serious the author consistently destroys any character development just to have more sex in it. I know how where everything's leading to anyway: everyone discovers they're pansexual and everyone fucks with everyone in the end. The monogamous characters will understand that semi-incestuous pansexual polyamory is the way of life and so on. I've grown tired of it. The only reason I'm hooked to it is for my addiction to porn, and the story and art only have enough quality to make the sex scenes seem more interesting than they are.