This is aimed at readers who suffer from PIED and are a significant way through their reboot and are rewiring, but I hope it might also be useful to others.
It is about rewiring, which is reconditioning the sexual response to real life partners as opposed to porn. I had PIED for 10 years in every sexual encounter. I have been rebooting for 3 years (No P, No M, O only with partner). After 6 months or so hard mode I met my current partner. During the reboot I have gone from mr floppy to solid snake. Half of the battle was stopping the cycle of PMO, the other half was rewiring and reconciling the differences between PMO and sex. These are a few things I’ve learned along the way.
It is not normal to want sex all of the time Times when my anxieties about PIED would spike would often be triggered by thoughts that I did not fancy having sex at this particular time. For example, I would find myself thinking at random times, often during times of stress, that I would not be able to have sex if it presented itself to me at this current moment. This is a ridiculous thought process but stems from the years of using porn, where due to the endless novelty and escalation, one would be still be able to PMO whatever the circumstances (i.e. if feeling depressed, stressed or anxious). This was compounded by porn, where random promiscuity was normalised. Real life sex is a lot more complex and has many more factors to consider, but the crux is that it is simply not normal to want to have sex all the time. It is completely acceptable to go through phases where you are more horny than others, and in a normal sexual relationships there are times when you don’t want to have sex. Realising and accepting this fact has helped calm me down, which in turn lends to better sexual experiences.
You do not need to be 100% hard, 100% of the time during sex. One bad thought map stemming from years of PMO is that sex must involve a 100% erection. This is probably due to watching porn where this is portrayed, but also during PMO where due to novelty, death grip and escalation one would often be 100% hard for 100% of the time. This is an unrealistic expectation to carry into the bedroom. Yes having PIED results in unacceptable levels of erection but it is normal for erections to ebb and flow during sex. One mistake I would make during the early days of rewiring would be using fantasy, when required, to keep me 100% hard during the whole encounter. This is counter productive as it takes your mind away from the experience and reduces the quality of sex. Again this is another exercise of acceptance that will reduce anxieties and stress over sex which will lead to better encounters.
Desire to PMO does not correlate to your natural libido PMO desire and libido are completely separate. There are lots of articles on YBOP about this so I will not say much more, but a common mistake I made in the early days was worrying that I did not want sex as often as I would want to PMO in my previous life. This is in part because PMO provides unnatural levels of stimulation which no real life partner could match. These anxieties diminished with reboot time and I can now easily recognise my libido as something completely different from desire to watch porn.
I keep seeing improvements even now I have been rebooting for 3 years and I keep seeing improvements. This highlights to me that the process is a long one and runs deep. I was able to have sex again after about 6 months or so of rebooting, but the quality and enjoyment of sex keeps increasing with time. The process is not linear and has different complexities dependent upon the rebooter, so my hang ups and anxieties will be different to others, but it is absolute to me that PMO severely harms sexual function, and stopping and rewiring heals.
Good luck
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by breeze03
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