Struggler

I am a porn addict. When I was about 12 years old I was introduced to my first porn video and it has just continued to point where I want to have intercourse with escorts and erotic massages and am actively seeking out escorts.  In the past I have had erotic massages and am trying desperately to fight the desire to have a hard core massage.

Questions, sometimes these erotic fantasies come into my mind, like how great would it be to have intercourse with 3 or 4 high class escorts at the same time, what can I do to suppress these awful thoughts? Also during times like these my hands grasp my genitals and pull on them a bit but I force myself to come back and not ejaculate. Is this a good step forward or should my hand be completely away from my genitals at all times.

Please help me, I am losing control of my life. I will buy the book - your brain on porn. 

Hey man. Glad to see you taking the first steps to make positive change in your life. I can totally relate to struggling with fantasies, and I'm not sure I've got that one figured out either. It's annoying cuz whenever you say to yourself "I must not think about x" that's the first thing you think about. I find what helps a fair bit for me is focusing my energy into things I'm passionate about, like school, work or hobbies (coupled with desperately praying my face off).

I think you're onto a good start with getting the your brain on porn book. Educating yourself is a major step towards changing the way that you think about porn addiction and women in general. Recently I've been reading a book called "big porn Inc: Exposing the Harms of the Global Pornography Industry," and that's been really useful for me in terms of changing the way that I think about the porn industry. It's a little on the scholarly side though, but if that's not your thing (cuz lets face it, scholarly articles are crazy boring usually) there's a lot of other great resources on the subject. Yesterday when I was having a hard time I watched a documentary called "Trapped" on netflix about the sex industry and how it depends on the exploitation of women, you might find something like that useful. Although it does have some triggering material, so you'd want to make a decision about whether that'd be a problem for you before watching it. Although just listening to the audio of it would still be useful.

As far as your hands go, if not masturbating is one of your goals then yes, you should probably keep your hands as far away from your pants as possible. That being said, I personally think that porn is the primary concern, so if it were between the two than M would be the healthier option. Personally though, for me I've always found that M and P are mutually reinforcing (one always leads to the other eventually), so I strive to avoid both. But everyone is different in that regard, you'll need to make the choice that works best for you.

Sorry for the long-windedness. Welcome to the community. And good luck.