Age 20 – Clarity about my asexuality

 I’ve been fap-free for five months. It feels absolutely unbelievable to be honest. It’s been a major contributor in helping with depression – masturbation was conflicting heavily with confusion about asexuality, and also other personality issues that I found tough to deal with – and in the last two months I’ve felt happier than ever (also due to other reasons).

The first month or so was the hardest; I’d often find myself beginning to fool around down there, getting very tempted, getting far closer to the edge than I should – it was always very hard to resist going over. Since then, though, it’s got progressively easier rather than harder. My mind is almost never on sex, I’ve been able to stand back and take a look at myself, where my kinks stem from, and how to address them in non-sexual ways (which, if I ever do get into sex, will help me to avoid letting them become kinks again), and I’ve found many things that give me a longer, slower burst of joy than that fleeting moment of hitting a climax – always inevitably followed by that deep, gloomy period of shame.

So coming out of these first five months, I reckon I’m more prepared than ever to go for a sixth, then go for twelve, and then go on as long as it takes me to find my sexuality – or to stay off of it forever. To everyone else out there just starting, or struggling through the early stages, keep it up (the effort, I mean, not your penis), and it’ll become easier with time. You’ll be all the better off for it too, psychologically especially.

I was not long eighteen years old when I went fap-free (although this is the third time I’ve done it – once a few years ago, and I lasted six months, but it was much tougher than this time has been, and once again last year, when I didn’t quite make a month). I still feel like I’m propbably asexual, yes, but I’m not entirely sure. Things have happened that kind of drove me away from sex. In the last two years I’ve gone from having sexual interests to wanting nothing to do with anyone in a sexual relationship. It’s only been recently that those thoughts have started coming back, and probably in large part due to the whole no-fap thing, but now that I’m getting interested again, it’s less intrusive than it was before, and much healthier.

Porn? Very very rarely. I wasn’t using it for long before I started to feel asexual, and once those feelings kicked in, porn went out the window.

And the shameful feelings, I know there’s a neurochemical low, but this is worse. It mingled with depression to give me some pretty severe fits of self-loathing, to the point where it was beginning to be worrying, and occasionally dangerous.

The most important progress, though, has been the kinks. They were giving me the most grief, so finding ways to address them non-sexually has been a very significant step in moving towards being happy with myself. I learnt that they stem not from sexual desires, but from desires relating to how I view relationships with people – or in other words, relating to my perception of love. Now that I’ve learnt how to address those kinks through how I love people, they’re no longer sexual, and don’t get in the way.

LINK – Yesterday marked my fifth month fap-free. I feel better than ever!

by FiendishlyHandsome