Do you think masturbation can help with ED, or hinder efforts?
I think using porn can be detrimental, but wasn’t sure if pornfree would hurt or help. I’m particularly wondering if I could jumpstart libido. Personally my ED difficulties have yanked my sex drive because I wanted to avoid the pain and humiliation.
I think it really depends on the cause(s) of your erection difficulties. I needed to get more comfortable with my body, sex, and pleasure, so masturbation and porn are an important part of my recovery. I believe someone knows if porn has become a problem for them. There is a unit on porn in the Mojo program that gives some guides for navigating that, I believe. Porn is an important source of sexual energy for me and I feel it’s healthy as long as I keep in mind the potential pitfalls and misconceptions. I found a nice course on watching/understanding porn here:
https://lustery.com/pov/how-to-watch-porn-course
I hear that. I feel porn has been problematic so I try to avoid it. TBH, when I have a slip and go to a porn site I don’t even “use” porn. I just think about what will happening I act out and how I’ll feel afterwards.
I don’t know how much of my ED is porn induced. Back when i used more frequently I didn’t have any issues really. It got really bad when i had some arguments with my wife when i experienced ED when we were trying to conceive after a pregnancy loss. Maybe I’m exaggerating but it’s almost like I was scared asexual. I don’t know how to get that feeling I once had back.
It’s good to go with how you feel and what works or doesn’t work for you. One other thought I had (based on your comment about “slipping,” I guess, like you might feel some guilt about it) is maybe shame about porn is part of the problem more than the porn itself? Again, that will either resonate with you or not. Sounds like the ED may be more closely tied to other issues with conceiving, long-term relationship, etc., which are all things I’ve seen come up here frequently. I feel like a decent chunk of my current challenge is to find a spark in a long-term relationship with kids and a lot of other baggage that accumulates over the years. Have you read any of Esther Perel’s work?