I’m 25. I’ve a huge femdom fetish that started about 12. Internet porn at 14 and high-speed video porn at 16/17. From 17-24 it was porn and masturbation every single day. Without fail for a lot of years. I had extreme social anxiety that didn’t come from porn, but the porn made it ten times worse. I also had mild OCD and just general anxiety.
It constantly felt like my brain would plunge into a horrible feedback loop when any little problem came up. Until age 24 masturbated prone. I one day got the courage to look up prone masturbation and if it caused ED, found a site saying I should quit and also linked to YBOP. Been trying to quit PMO for about a year. I got a lot of 40 day streaks, and I think I’m pretty much cured after a 56 day one.
My story with this is a weird and nuanced one, but I think everyone can say the same. I’m grateful for everyone who’s shared their stories here, they’re encouraging and informative. More than anything I’m thankful to Gary Wilson for the work he’s put into this. More than these forums I found myself on yourbrainonporn.com near the end, rereading the advice the more I’d make progress.
Porn and erectile dysfunction
I only had sex at 22.
In bed with women from about 16-21 I just didn’t know what to do. I wouldn’t get hard. I didn’t know why I should get hard, this was nothing like what I’d masturbate to. My penis got smaller if someone would touch it. It was horrible. I got ED a few times, it’s hard to say how many because sometimes I’d avoid ending up in bed with a woman because I knew I’d get it. I’d get into bed and just expect it to get hard because, well, it just does its own thing around porn.
Then one day I had a sex with a girlfriend. This was at 22. Here’s the thing, this was only after sleeping with this woman without sex a lot because she didn’t want to have sex herself so fast. Looking back this was like rewiring without knowing it. I really enjoyed it. With a girlfriend before this we’d sleep together without sex, but it always felt revolting because I knew she wanted it from me and I couldn’t give it. I can’t remember, but I think I also started to make efforts to stop watching porn around this time. Those attempts never lasted very long but they did help.
Then began a year of having sex and watching porn a lot. Sex never felt great. It always felt like masturbating. I would have to imagine porn vividly to have sex, it was mentally exhausting. I could last for however long I wanted. It was still great, but I could not imagine just having sex without thinking a lot about it. This relationship ended when I was 23, I’m convinced had it went on, I would have got PIED. When this relationship ended I spiralled hugely into porn, hugely. I’d say from 23-24 I damaged myself a lot.
Porn frenzy
I’d look at porn and masturbate twice a day at least, every day. I had bizarre uncomfortable fantasies about my ex, but you’d have to have a femdom fetish to really understand that. I found weirder porn, I paid a lot of money for very strange, particular femdom porn. It wasn’t good. But I had no idea this was damaging. I had no morning erections. Wouldn’t ever get the slightest bit hard about a woman in real life. I thought I was very horny, I thought I’d eventually find a woman into BDSM and that would turn me on as much as porn. Looking back I was a complete mess. Any problems with college or work: porn made it better. Out of a scale of 1-10 of happiness, finding new exciting porn videos was a 10 for me. This wasn’t right.
More ED
A year ago I got a GF, one of the hottest girls I’ve ever seen, and I got PIED. This is when I looked up prone masturbation, found yourbrainonporn and began to try to quit. We broke up, and I began to quit PMO for the past year.
What helped me
More than anything, understanding this: I had to beat porn with awesome things. I’m not saying if you’re addicted to porn you’re a shitty person. I mean, I was, but anyway. Take it out of your life, put awesome stuff in instead. Walking. Doing 20 push ups every morning. Things so simple as this are so awesome when you compare it to porn.
And if you’re like me, you’re might want to understand this too: you’re going to feel shit and it’s OK. When I had an argument with someone or something difficult happened to me during the day, it was a binge porn session ASAP. Quitting porn this would happen instead: I’d sit down, feel shit. I’d think “that was shit”. I understood for the first time that it was OK, and it would pass. I figured out talking helped. Journalling helped. I figured out I could make the shit feeling go away by doing something that made me feel good, but unlike porn didn’t damage me. But about half the time, I just took it. I went to bed without PMOing and felt shit. And it didn’t kill me.
Way of Life and Google Spreadsheets. Way of Life is a great app for your phone to track no PMO. It helped a lot. It was all I cared about for months but Google Spreadsheets I found to be even better for tracking no PMO and habits.
Reading everything I could find on here and yourbrainonporn. Rereading it, understanding it.
Journaling and thinking long and hard about my background and how I got so messed up.
Books. Books about meditation, philosophy, the brain, habits, self-help books (there are good ones, find the ones you like the look of, and even the bad ones are useful). I had social anxiety and I read a lot on that. I read books on confidence, depression. But good fiction books also really helped. I’m glued to my laptop, and that makes quitting porn pretty hard. Getting away for some amount of time and lost in a paper book helped a lot. If you think you’re not a big reader you’re wrong: find a book you like even if you have to start twenty ones you don’t.
Meditation. Hard to get into, get a book on it.
The gym. It’s done wonders for me. I was hugely skeptical about this, but it’s amazing what it can do for a person.
I told myself I wasn’t going to have sex for a year. And it was about a year. Tinder, Facebook and OKCupid slowed down my reboot a lot, but at the same time I felt so lonely without them. I’d go on dates here and there, but really what began to happen was my attitude that sex and women would fall into place. I got so focused on other things like work that I didn’t have time for Tinder. But you’ve got to judge this for yourself. What really helped a lot was something Gary said about being the captain of your own ship. I began to learn to really trust my own instincts. “Is this wrong? Someone posted that they did it, but it feels wrong to me”, then it probably is wrong.
No PMO streaks and flatlining It went up and down so much and it was head-wrecking. I’d begin a streak, have a hard few days, then bliss, then the desire would slowly come back until it was literally impossible to not PMO. It felt like I had no choice. I’d get insomnia, I’d get anxiety. I’d let myself look at porn, see if there’s anything new, stop. Day later, check again, then binge. Depression. Start again. Here’s the thing: I don’t have a lot of willpower. But what I did was try and fit so much into my life that I had no time for porn. Then you don’t need willpower. Work, books, gym, hobbies. I got two brand new hobbies just for the sake of doing something. I made friends through them. That gave me more stuff to do. I tried to learn coding, failed, tried to learn German, failed. Guitar, failed, pathetically at that one. But I crossed them off the list and eventually found stuff I wanted to do.
The Final Streak
But to be honest, the final nail in the coffin for PMOing was a woman. But I only met this woman from trying to be an awesome guy who didn’t PMO every day. I only impressed her because of the confidence I had from no PMOing and instead doing awesome things, which is literally anything except masturbating to porn twice a day. That’s when I said “You might get PIED with this one, or you might do it, but you’re not PMOing again. Look at porn and don’t masturbate to it, masturbate but without looking at porn, but you’re not doing both ever again”
At the start of this streak I got insane horniness. I’d have boners all day. I thought I was cured, but I kept going for as long as I could without sex, masturbating or PMOing.
Then three weeks before sex I got the worst flatline I ever had. I think with other streaks, I’d edge a lot, and masturbate to the porn I remembered. It might as well have been PMOing, but with this streak I tried to PM to real life women as much as possible. I think this caused me to enter a proper, deep flatline.
And it was horrendous. I wouldn’t wish it on anyone. The boners stopped. My penis felt tiny. Didn’t want to look at porn (which was actually a relief). I felt depressed, anxious again. I had no energy. I made mistakes at everything. I didn’t want to be in bed but I didn’t want to do much. I’m amazed I didn’t get hit by a car or something during these weeks. It felt like I was inside myself, but I couldn’t control myself properly, I couldn’t speak to someone properly or react fast enough.
I won’t get into it, but it came down to now or never with the woman.
We got into bed, she just wanted to cuddle. Great. No erection. Shit. Oh well, it felt great though.
Then the next day we were in bed again. I was super anxious. I hadn’t got an erection in three weeks. In bed with her and, somehow, it all came back. Huge erection. My confidence came back. Before I knew it we were having sex. I didn’t have to think about it. It was incredible.
Being porn free makes it feel better than any sex I’ve ever had when I was addicted to porn. No porn fantasies replaying in my head to maintain the erection. I never came so quick before. I felt like I was not in control of it for the first time. No need for 40 minutes of foreplay, I was ready to go. And I’ve had sex every day since. It’s the best thing. I can’t believe it. It feels better every time, each time makes me rewire that little bit more. I thought I’d have to make it to at least 90 days no PMO this time, but I guess all the streaks had some effect on my brain.
I thought my case was stranger and deeper than any I could find, but I did it. It was hard, stressful, it felt like a nightmare, but if I can do it anyone can.
LINK – Sex every day after 56 days no PMO streak (and a year of failing)
BY – faofao
;