By Russell Nolte
Special to YNOT

MALIBU, Calif. – If you’ve read my previous contributions to YNOT, then you know I’ve been working on quitting porn for some time now. In fact, it’s probably fair to say I’ve had my share of struggles and stumbles along the way.

A couple of weeks ago, though, I felt a new inner strength, a new wisdom, something that has enabled me to replace my crippling porn addiction with a wonderful and endlessly productive habit. Instead of spending time determinedly downloading and furiously fapping, I’ve been putting to work a gift I didn’t even know I had.

What is my gift? It’s the blessing of expressing myself at great, even excruciating length, in furtherance of making a really simple point that probably could be made in about 12 words.

I can’t take all the credit for discovering this gift, however, nor am I alone in possessing it. Apparently, it’s something that is bestowed on a lot of men who quit watching porn, including this guy from Slate.

To make my case, I have to digress a bit — from my new condo right up the street from the rehab center where I recently spent a few (OK, 11) months, back to an opium den in Peshawar, Pakistan.

While these days I’m a happy camper ensconced in the warm embrace of civilized society, I was a college student for almost 25 years, a time during which I observed a lot of changes, obviously.

For instance, as recently as my third freshman year, parking on campus was reasonably priced. By fourth junior year, however, I was reduced to riding a skateboard to class because paying the daily rate of approximately every dollar I’ve ever had to my name was no longer feasible.

I also noticed a lot of people’s attention spans, including my own, seemed to be getting shorter, to the point where my fellow students and I would routinely start sentences only to have them trail off into some… Some… Damn, I’m hungry.

Anyway, I blame this pandemic of short attention spans on technology, social media, Daft Punk, Ellen DeGeneres and internet pornography (not necessarily in that order).

Not long after noticing the attention-draining effect of talk shows hosted by lesbians, the internet, anal porn, Facebook and guys who wear really fancy-looking bike helmets on stage, I finally earned an undergraduate degree and moved to the only place that made sense: Gila Bend, Arizona.

A few weeks later, after realizing Gila Bend sucked big, dry burro balls, I decided to take a job in Peshawar, Pakistan, as a pool boy at the American embassy. The job didn’t pay much, but every time the ambassador went on vacation, I’d jerk off inside his house a bunch of times, often ejaculating into the breast pocket of one his innumerable suit coats. (Trust me, he had it coming. The guy was a total dick.)

My time in Pakistan was about more than skimming pools and befouling an ambassador’s suits, however; the sojourn also provided an opportunity to stare at some guy across the street from the embassy who always looked incredibly stoned.

Whenever I tired of adjusting the pH of the embassy pool, I’d entertain myself by watching the stoned dude across the street nod off in his chair as the unmistakable scent of burning opium wafted across the thoroughfare. There was a cycle to his routine: drift, nod off, wake up, go inside, smoke, come back outside, repeat.

One day, while watching him snooze in his slowly decaying chair, an epiphany came upon me like Saul of Tarsus on the road to Damascus: We’re all addicted to something. I just hadn’t figured out what my compulsive cross to bear was — not yet, at least. I also hadn’t figured out where to sit when I’d inevitably drift off from the effects of whatever it was I had an addiction to, but figured I’d work out that part later.

For whatever reason, watching the perpetually drifting-off opium junkie also made me incredibly, irresistibly horny — which probably explains the thing with the ambassador’s suit coats, come to think of it. Soon, though, I grew tired of masturbating to the images I could summon in my imagination, so I began freeloading on the ambassador’s WiFi. Thus my addiction to internet porn began.

As the guy from Slate noted, “The irresistible lure of online porn is that it’s easy, risk-free; the sting in the tail is that not only is there no accountability, there’s no presence. We’re not involved, really. We’re an army of unmanned drones, piloting our libido through the ether, one hand firmly on the controls, risking nothing.”

Having surrendered three laptops to viruses contracted via late-night tube surfing sessions, I’m not so certain about the “risk-free” part.  I definitely agree with the unmanned drone aspect, though — until somebody catches me in the middle of a “reconnaissance flight,” if you know what I mean.

Anyway, my assumption, which I firmly believe to be rock-solid and inarguable, is the guy from Slate and I are awesome, super-smart, frank, honest with ourselves and totally self-aware in ways most of you other guys reading this just aren’t. If anybody could resist the siren song of online porn or manage to consume it in moderation, it would be me and the Slate dude. So, if we’ve struggled with online porn, I figure the rest of you fellows are basically just breathing piles of fleshy, unbridled lust, essentially unable to function other than to the extent watching internet porn requires “functioning.”

I must admit, though, I don’t think I’ve been clean of porn for as long as the guy from Slate, because even though I’ve discovered this amazing gift of loquacious gibbering via the written word, I’m already getting tired from the effort it takes to be this smart, perceptive and clever for so many words in a row, and yet I think this piece still isn’t half as long as his.

I’m not discouraged, though. In fact, I’m energized in a way I’ve never been before. The Slate guy has given me a standard to which I can aspire, a word count to reach for, a level of ceaseless self-fascination that has convinced me everybody else must be interested in every word I write, no matter how many other words I’ve written and they’ve had to read in order to reach the next one.

I’m also optimistic, because where once I suffered from the same internet-smut-driven attention deficit disorder you readers are fighting through right now, as a man cleansed of porn I have the ability to see things through, to finish what I’ve started and to… to… Umm…

Fuck it, I’m taking a nap.

Russell Nolte is a recovering porn addict who has been entirely porn-free for two weeks and won’t shut the fuck up about how much better he feels now or about how much better you will feel when you follow his lead. No really — it’s going to be fantastic for you once you quit watching porn. You won’t believe how much smarter and more eloquent you will be. It’s like going to sleep as George W. Bush and waking up as William Faulkner!