"I dunno dude. People get treatment for losing libido. Docs call it a symptom. Pharmaceutical companies warn against it on pills prospects as an adverse reaction and stuff.
At the end of the day, it is loss of enjoyment of smth you could otherwise enjoy. This alone is unfortunate."
To the people who feel they are missing out...yes, it is unfortunate.
"Why not have both. Interesting, the "purity" thing. Were you raised religiously? And if purity was your thing, why were you regularly consuming porn since 8? Did that feel dirty to you?"
I was raised semi-religiously. Parents had loose beliefs. Once I figured out Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, and the Easter Bunny were all fake, I started to question a lot about the things I was told. I was still a Christian at that point, but developed heavy skepticism.
I attended a Lutheran academy for a few years. Mass on Mondays, essays on God, etc. This heavy religious programming took place well after I'd discovered pornography. I was originally interested about human sexuality. And Christianity has the nice loophole of "atone your sins to Jesus, and they will be forgiven," so being Christian was not an impedance to what I wanted to see or understand.
The whole idea of "purity" in high school was probably a combination of prior religious programming, as well as my own desire for a relationship that felt "perfect." I noted this was naive because relationships are, of course, not so simple. Simultaneously, pornography did not feel "dirty" to me, because I had never felt guilt about viewing it.
As a kid, I knew I was not supposed to be viewing such content. But I did not feel that because such a rule was imposed on me, it was "bad" to break that rule. I was curious, and did not respect restrictions placed on that.
"Why not have the real sex though? For that same reason. Why would masturbation be better."
I don't value one over the other. This is a situational thing. To me, it's like: Chemistry > Masturbation > Sex without chemistry.