I know that this is a weird one, I just wanted to see if anyone else has had a similar experience.
I’ve been suffering with performance anxiety ever since I broke up with a long term GF about 2 years ago, have been with my current girlfriend for a year and a half and have had on and off (mostly off) issues with performance anxiety. she has been very supportive. I quit porn and masturbating as soon as the issue arose and done all sorts of other things - exercise, meditation, proper diet, talking with my girlfriend etc. to try eradicate the anxiety around getting hard. I had some decent results from trying these various things but I would always slip back into my head and have another episode of no erections. I also tried cialis/viagra with really good results but obviously do not want to be dependant on them as a man in his mid twenties with nothing physically wrong with me. I recently just had a fuck it moment and masturbated to porn during a morning shower, later on that day I was with my girlfriend in bed and she was touching me and I got hard pretty much straight away, and we ended up having really good sex. Wasn’t in my head at all and had full sensation in my penis. It was as if masturbating had REsensitised which is funny because people always go on about how masturbating usually works the other way round. It’s been a few weeks now and have been masturbating every other day pretty much and also been having great erections for sex. Can anyone explain haha? Or has anyone had a similar experience ? I’m obviously very happy but I’m also very confused and am worried that I’m going to slip back into my old ways again and would appreciate advise going forward if anyone has any.
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Well, for me it is the same and it’s pretty obvious if you ask me, because sexual thoughts are selfreinforcing and make you more horny. This is actually based in scientific studies as far as I know. For example, celibate people like monks who dont engage in porn or masturbation at all are generally less horny than people who watch porn regularly. Porn and masturbation can jump start arousal and increase horniness overall. This is usually ignored by the nofap/noporn movements, which is stupid in my opinion.
On the other hand, they do have a good point though. It is not all black and white. Watching too much porn really does desensitize you, I have experienced this very clearly. Also, too much porn can lead you to seek out more extreme porn and weird fetishes etc, which are very bad for real life sexuality.
In summary, it is a yin and yang kind of thing. You have to find your personal balance with porn and masturbation that leaves your sexual drive and sensatizability at exactly the right level.
One more thing.
Watching the right kind of porn is also very important in my opinion. It should mimic a real life sexual scenario as much as possible. I personally strictly only watch pov stuff for example.
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Yes definitely have a similar story ,married for years everything was fine got divorced and straight away i struggled to maintain erections i almost felt guilty being with another woman even though my wife left me ,i done the viagra which worked but stopped eventually,i gave up all porn and masturbation lots of herbal remedies nothing worked so i tried porn and masturbation and hey presto rock solid ,i still limit porn to once a week and watch realistic porn and i have definitely seen improvements
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From a completely different angle, but not dissimilar results. My (very supportive) wife experimented recently, which took both our minds of the ED and other family challenges. We’ve had cracking ED free sex since. But I’m aware this is not a long term solution. But still fun