I’m technically writing this on Day 47 since my last orgasm. Before that, I went a little over 100 days. I started this journey seriously when I finally began reading literature distilling Taoist thought on sex to Westerners like myself. The desire to read the material came from a nagging concerning about my vitality. I’m a martial artist — have been most my life — and I’ve never really stopped practicing, even during my lowest points in life. It has been the one constant in my life. Naturally, notions of qi, and subsequently Taoist thought and practice, became an interest. When I heard that Taoists had particular thoughts on sex practice, I was very interested.
Masturbation to Internet porn has been like breathing to me. I did it all the time. Even now, I think about doing it. I still have my favorite porn replaying in small pieces in my head. My frequency of use increased dramatically during my 20’s.
I didn’t even notice at first, but when I started working full-time, and the stresses increased even more, I reached a point where I was having trouble orgasming. I could look at porn for hours and literally feel like I couldn’t finish. I felt tired.
I found myself changing my behaviors when going through the porn ritual. For about 12 years, I always masturbated dry. Now, I was suddenly interested in finding the best lubricant. This was solely because it wasn’t stimulating enough anymore. But I didn’t actually register that. I just did what I had to do to climax.
Still, a nagging thought in my brain kept firing up. I would feel tired, or overwhelmed. I’d wait a week to “recharge my batteries”. Then I’d go at it six times in one night the night before returning to work.
I finally decided to figure out how to optimize things for myself. The Taoist texts noted how sex was actually connected to my health and vitality. This relieved me in one sense because intuitively I felt this. Of course, on the Internet, if you type in statements like “The dangers of Masturbation” you get treatises on why the hairy-palms theory was bogus, and entire websites, with videos, dedicated to making masturbation better.
One question was never broached: Why would I need technique when masturbation always felt just fine as a child?
I started reading about “tantric” sex practices, and conserving Jing, and a great deal of it made sense. While they didn’t explain how orgasm truly affected the mind and body, they did at least hit on the point that the body wasn’t meant to be a constant self-pleasure machine. Nearly all of the texts vehemently decried masturbation, saying it was utterly destructive. This was something that our modern culture never says, beyond the mockery of 1950’s bogus advertisements. I decided that I should probably stop, but kept going. The pull was too strong, and I never understood why.
Then I found this site. Every other website I read promised that if I conserved myself, I could have mind-blowing orgasms and all the pleasure I wanted. If only I’d learn “the 13 secret techniques and exercises” or whatever. Yes, indeed, the key to life and relationship harmony was by giving my potential spouse/girlfriend a real good slamming.
Subconsciously, two things were going on. On the one hand, this fed into my addiction and need. I loved the idea of giving women orgasms, and then having a great one myself. That was my only model for sex.
On the other, the whole idea was patently absurd. If great, mind-blowing orgasmic sex was the key to relationship stability, why did EVERY story ever written about someone’s wild and crazy sex life end on a depressing low note? Married couples frequently gain weight, lose attractiveness, and stop touching each other.
Hollywood actors separate from each other frequently, and they are the fantasies of millions of other peoples’ private thoughts. These guys are touted for their legendary endowments, or love-making abilities, and yet they never keep a girl for more than a few years. Their loyalties to them are based solely on the desire to have their sexual needs fulfilled whenever.
And on top of all of that, men and women are frequently and secretly viewing or reading porn on the side. I even found my most recent ex-girlfriend’s porn stash on her computer one day. It intrigued me, but didn’t surprise me that women liked the lemon-stories. I liked the videos, naturally. All of that love and passion, and yet we were still connected to our porn like our underwear.
I finally decided to take the plunge. If this notion about orgasm not being what it was cracked up to be was bunk, then I’d find out rather quickly. And quickly I did. I took a whole summer off from masturbating. I started in May, and made it to September. It was terrible. The ordeal was patently nuts. I told no one that I was even doing it. Not my parents. No friends. No one. It was my private experiment.
It was the best thing I ever tried.
I felt great. I finally decided to embrace the feeling of my libido instead of constantly ejecting it. I didn’t ignore it. I just decided to let it stick around. It bothered me intensely for the first 8 weeks…and then it was like any other ache, pain, or sense phenomenon. It was me, and I wasn’t going to get rid of it. Granted there were several other things that helped me.
- I didn’t stay home very often. I did martial arts during most of my free time. I’m a teacher, so my summers are off. Instead of just sitting around, I made sure that martial arts became my job. In May, I found work to be a great help in curbing my masturbation habits because I was too busy to just sit in front of the computer, and tired enough when I got home to ignore the urge. Over the summer, I made sure I was doing something to keep away from my usual triggers.
- Physical exercise helped relieved the tension.
- I read books. I’ve read about 7 novels in just a few months. 5 of them were 800 pages plus. Usually, I’d get 30 pages in… stop, and then let the virtual babes fulfill my needs. Now, I had a more attentive mind.
I ended up relapsing into porn, and finally orgasmed again in September, but I just laughed a bit, got back on the horse, and thus far have given up the porn too.
As hard as it is to break a habit, the benefits have far outweighed any of the emotional trials I’ve been through. I don’t feel “backed up” or clogged. I don’t sit there foaming at the mouth, and I truly enjoy having my vitality constantly roiling. It’s been months since I’ve felt depleted or worried that I might need to take a week off just to feel alive again, or even interested in sex.
This is great. I’m truly thankful for this site and how things have been going in my life since I’ve started. I just felt like I needed to get all of this out.
by Fisherman
UPDATE – 2 YEARS LATER
So finally got around to it. When we wanted to. It was organic, in it’s own weird way. Relationship has been going along well. Unless she secretly hates me or resents me, I’d say we’re well on track.
So far we’ve had a few sexual experiences. So far, I’ve only orgasmed in two of them. One was accidental. We were going for maybe 20 minutes, and I let things heat up for me way too quickly, to the point that I just lost control and couldn’t stop in time. Woops. What’s hilarious is that the wisdom of Cupid’s Poisoned Arrow proves true in those moments. The connection immediately dissipated. I lost all motivation and ability to really stay in the moment within five minutes. Fortunately, we just got a good laugh out of that one. I think we were able to laugh mostly because we knew it wouldn’t happen again. She is conscious of where I’m at, and gives gentle reminders to not orgasm during our moments together.
The second time was by mutual request, and was after a longer session. I went with it because I wanted it, and it only proved, at least to me, how useless it ends up being. I enjoyed it… but not really. I mean the finishing part. Everything else, from beginning to end, was just awesome.
The latest encounter I’ve revved it down, and followed some advice from Michael Richardson’s book Tantra for Men. By entry time, I went slow (at least for me), and probably took a good ten minutes before moving all the way in. Kissing, light touch, gentle movement. What’s funny is that all that time going slowly, enjoying the sensations, not only made me far more interested and engaged in it, but it desensitized my penis more too. On a more scandalous note, things heated up towards the end, and I’m pretty guilty in truly enjoying it. She orgasmed as much as I could get her too… and I admit that I enjoyed trying. A lot. I refrained. While my biology wanted to finish, my mind is now fully conscious of how unrewarding that is. So ultimately I didn’t. I remember feeling a small twinge of regret for not finishing… but then several hours of feeling great and being happy that I didn’t finish.
So that’s where things are at. She’s about 3/4 of the way through Cupid’s Poisoned Arrow. I gave her my copy, and she’s been reading every since, much to my pleasure.
I guess you can’t get much luckier than that. Not sure which “direction” to take things in terms of sex from there. We spend plenty of time cuddling, maintaining physical contact while sleeping, etc. It’s gone a LOONNNG way to improving my mood and demeanor and outlook in life. I look forward just to snuggling up with her, especially sleeping, and so it’s become clear the just getting our jollies off in sex is not the primary motivation. She’s taught me a great deal about myself, but more importantly, been and open and welcoming space to allow me to move into that space. In short, it’s been beyond awesome.
But, in short, it’s all nice to be able to come back on here and say “Hey guys, CPA isn’t nonsense. It works. Even if you only execute small bits of it initially.” We’ll work more towards “karezza” as we go along. For now, things are just gently going where they’re going.
Cheers.
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