Not sure how to masturbate without porn? Ask anyone over 40! Remember: your ancestors didn’t have the internet. Therefore they didn’t fall into the trap of conditioning their sexual template to everything associated with their porn use, such voyeurism, multiple tabs, HD streaming hardcore, searching/seeking, endless novelty. It can also include porn-induced fetishes, strange acts, shock, surprise, anxiety, etc. The age users start watching erotica matters. A teen’s brain is at its peak of dopamine & opioid production and neuroplasticity, making it highly vulnerable to addiction and sexual conditioning. It’s also possible they didn’t masturbate nearly as much as men do today. See Masturbation, Fantasy and Captivity and WEIRD Masturbation Habits.
Your sexual responsiveness should increase automatically as your brain returns to full sensitivity. You don’t have to do anything to make this happen; the solution is not doing. However, you may benefit from conditioning your sexual arousal to real people (as would have occurred naturally during a pre-internet adolescence). While this helps everyone recover, it may be a key component for young men with little or no sexual experience. This does not mean that you need to have sex to “rewire.” (see- Do I have to have sex in order to rewire?). In fact, slowly getting to know someone is probably the best path. Snuggling, smooching, hanging out, whatever you can do to connect sexual arousal and affection to a real person, may be essential to your recovery.
Here are one man’s observations about how masturbation was without porn:
I’ve realized I have subverted my ability to reach orgasm by sensual touch. When I first went through puberty I would experiment with seeing just how softly I could touch myself and reach orgasm. When I did this I wasn’t looking at porn or fantasizing. It was all about purely experiencing the pleasurable sensations arising from my own body, and these would build in a type of feedback loop until I exploded in orgasm. I suspect this isn’t uncommon given I had a friend mention he had done the same sort of thing. My home had a lot of porn available so I pretty quickly started relying on it to help me release. I think I then trained myself to only be able to cum through porn and fantasizing. (He’s reversing this now.)
Another guy:
Unlike many of you, I’m not an addict. At least, I don’t self identity as one. As a typical, American, 24 year old male, I was definitely a user. I never really delved into rough or more raunchy scenes than I expect me and my girlfriend to engage in. …
I was able to get it up, but I wasn’t able to get off from a hand job and eventually went soft. Even a blowjob couldn’t get the job done. This was far from what I expected, but I came across this site after turning to he who knows all- GOOGLE!
I was somewhat skeptical at first. I had heard of a similar philosophy on reddit (no fap) and even seen a TedTalk discussing this topic. However, until I actually got in the sack with a real life girl, it didn’t matter. I had no signs that I could identify myself. As I said before, I don’t consider myself an addict. Porn wasn’t an everyday thing, it simply was something I did when I masturbated.
I masturbated 5-7 times a week depending on what I had going on, and that was that. I had never had too much trouble getting off. I had never had any trouble at all with ED, and thank God delayed ejaculation was the real problem I had. My penis getting soft after a while was more frustration, though had I gone without rebooting any longer it may have eventually begun to develop more severely. The key thing that I believe made my journey much easier is that I didn’t always go to porn. I started on my own, without porn. I masturbated sometimes with my own thoughts about real people either because I lacked access or simply didn’t want porn that night. (Age 24 – Not addicted, but developed delayed ejaculation: It’s cured.)
Some men wait for two wet dreams without masturbating, so they can see what might constitute a normal interval for their bodies.
Below are some insightful comments on the effects of porn on masturbation. I think it captures much of what we are trying to get across on this site:
Subject: Cause and effect. I’ve been reading these articles with some interest, and also participating in my own anti-porn/anti-masturbatory experiment. Here’s what I’ve been thinking about: the two things, porn and masturbation, seem to be continually lumped together as a common cause of the sexual dysfunctions men are reporting. I realize men don’t usually look at porn without masturbating. However, has there been any attempt to conclude whether it is porn with masturbation, porn w/o masturbation, or masturbation alone, that might be the cause of the problem? I realize this is a relatively new issue, and not many studies have been done. It just seems like from a scientific perspective, the researcher would want to try to separate these activities to refine the results. Speaking purely from personal experience, I tend to think its the porn that is the hyper-stimulus resulting in dysfunction, not the masturbation. The odd thing I am finding about my personal experiment is that without the porn, I don’t really feel like masturbating and even when I try, I am not aroused enough to masturbate. My mind doesn’t fantasize anymore, like it used to when I was a kid in the pre-porn days. I am interested in discovering if, after another month or two, my fantasy life returns. I kind of miss it.
Here are two guys’ comments about the differences between masturbation with and without porn:
If I just masturbate, then I may have that somewhat yucky feeling afterward, but if I use porn, then I feel a certain amount of revulsion. I guess what I’m noticing is that if it feels like the need for intimacy, the feelings are better or not quite as unpleasant. But when I use porn it’s also because I’ve decided to let go of my self-control and give in to a more powerful compulsion, so probably my brain is far more stimulated, which could account for the stronger reaction afterward.
The most striking thing I noticed after stopping porn was how difficult it was to masturbate without visual stimuli. I think that’s what I’d say to the person who wants to give up porn but continue masturbating. You may not want to, or be able to, masturbate without porn. For about a month after giving up porn, I really couldn’t get hard enough to masturbate, and when I “forced” it my orgasms were pretty unsatisfying. Fortunately, sex with my wife improved pretty quickly after I went on my porn fast. So I didn’t miss masturbation all that much.
Remember the lube!
At about 40 days without masturbation or porn, I masturbated and it was the best orgasm I probably every had. I realized I had been masturbating wrong my whole life! A lot of liquid based lube and a light grasp is all you need. No more of that Darth Vader chokehold, but a sensual touch.
Another guy:
Here’s another guy with an excellent account of the differences between masturbation with and without porn:
In the last four weeks since my realization that PMO was a far-too-impairing part of my life, I have relapsed twice, and made new discoveries about myself, even my past sexual issues.
Almost two weeks into my first time without PMO, I went through enormous sexual tension. One night I writhed in bed, aching to touch myself or look at something arousing. My body was in high hormonal gear, and I thought the experience would make me orgasm spontaneously! When I awoke the next morning, I had not wet dreamt, nor did I feel the ‘buzz’ I always had after a PMO session. But I knew one thing: my body was crying out for sex. Real sex.
This is where things are more difficult, seeing as I’m not in a relationship. So I tried something completely different – M and O without P – something I’ve never considered. I’ve never even had real sex, so how was this supposed to work?
Two days later, I added the P to the MO on a whim and relapsed.
The two experiences were so vastly different. Just MO was almost shocking at the finale, because I had no buzz, no shift of perception. It turned out to be a sweet, invigorating feeling.
The full PMO session felt like I was totally on a DRUG. Every picture turned my body into a searing blast of tension, each new one more powerful than the last. I felt almost like a “dope surge” run from my brain through my body.Suddenly I could hear and feel EVERYTHING more intensely. Then it was like a cloud of idiocy swept over my being, and everything went numb. That feeling lasted FOREVER. Like, two days at least.
Reading about all this stuff here on YBOP was one thing, but experiencing it, and actually having the chance to NOTICE… That was really enlightening.
Finding a schedule for porn-free masturbation can be challenging, but that’s a challenge people have faced for a long time. See Are there any guidelines for healthy masturbation? Just watch for unwanted escalation. This comes from the NoFap Academy newsletter:
What is your viewpoint on me masturbating to memories and thoughts of regular sex (that is, no inclusion of porn-induced fetishes or anything) with my real-life partner? We are currently long distance, and I feel fapping to thoughts of my partner 1-2 times a week is actually helping to keep me away from porn. I want to eventually cut out masturbation as well, but porn is of course the real enemy here. Am I slowing down my reboot? I can’t see this being unhealthy, but what are your thoughts?
It is hard for an “ex” porn addict to establish a healthy masturbation routine – that is non-excessively masturbating without the use of pornography or pornographic fantasy. I put ex in quotes because I believe that the effects that porn has on the brain last for a long time, especially since many of us first-generation Internet porn users learned to associate our sexualities with the computer screen from a very young age.
Whenever I told myself I would only masturbate and never go back to porn, it wasn’t long before masturbation became kind of boring to me. I would fantasize about real-life memories in the beginning, but my brain would quickly jump to memories from porn scenes & unrealistic fantasies. From there it would lead to erotic fiction, to amateur images, and then straight back to the hardcore porn videos (notice how it escalates?).
For myself, I’m a huge fan of the cold-turkey approach. Similar to how many alcoholics going through recovery never return to the cup for the rest of their lives, some porn addicts will have a hard time returning to masturbation. I think that Fapstronauts can return to a healthy masturbation routine after engaging in NoFap’s challenges, but for many people it takes longer than 90 days of abstinence.
I’m not an anti-masturbation zealot. If you believe that it isn’t negatively impacting your relationship or other areas of your life, I’m not going to tell you not to do it. But just keep in mind that it seems to be a slippery slope and it’s easy to gradually fall back into old habits. If you notice that your mind is straying towards unrealistic fantasy or pornographic scenarios, maybe it is time to take another break.
This book discusses the benefits of masturbation without fantasy. “No More Mr. Nice Guy”
Finally, a friendly warning from a guy who tried to incorporate masturbation-without-porn too soon in the rebooting process:
I ended my 2nd attempt a few days ago and went on a 3-day porn binge. My 1st attempt lasted around 30 days and my 2nd attempt ended at 45 days. The relapse after the 2nd attempt was very discouraging and caused me to completely waste a weekend, but I’m back to give it another shot.
On the first two attempts, I only eliminated porn. I continued to have sex and still masturbated occasionally, but less frequently than before. Masturbation led to my demise both times and drastically impeded recovery since it seems to be a gateway to porn relapse.
I would decide to ‘masturbate once just to release tension.’ This would go OK, so I would decide to do it again a few days later. But, porn fantasies would creep back into my head on the second attempt and I would end up masturbating to visually intense thoughts. The next time, I would start looking at sexually suggestive images online while masturbating. I convinced myself that it wasn’t porn, so it was fine.
As you can guess, the next time I decided to masturbate, I ended up on an full-fledged porn binge. So, this time will be a complete abstinence from porn, masturbation, and sex.
Here’s what one guy said (who successfully rebooted, thought he would be able to use porn again…and ended up caught in his addiction again for months):
I would not mind masturbating if it’s inevitable. But it must be without porn. I am now afraid of binging if I use porn. I already know from my recent experience that if I masturbate while watching porn, I would do it continuously for days. The “chaser effect” is gonna be very strong.
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