Sharing my experience

Hi guys, I'd like to share my experience and hopefully get some insight. Don't know if it's the right section, if not please move it to the right one.

I'm 38 years old, and I'm struggling with what I think could be PIED. Allow me to build some background first.

I have luckily always been in long term relationships and never really had any ED problems, maybe some performance anxiety the first time I was starting to get intimate but nothing more. I have always viewed porn and masturbated on it since I was around 18/20 years old (not every time, I'd say one out of three I would do on my own), and never had any problems in performing with my partners. The frequency has always been around 1-3 times a week, with sometimes even 10 days apart or more between PMO. As I have said, I have most of my lifetime been with a girlfriend so having sex wasn't an issue. Most of the time happened when we were apart or could not see each other for days because of work/study/whatever.

I have been alone for the last 18 months more or less, and due to problems with work and family could not find some girl to interact with. I had a few one night stands with my latest ex around the last months of 2018, so I'd say I've been running on my own since December 2018. I have somewhat mantained my "rhythm" of about 1 to 3 PMO a week, and sometimes I spent a whole week without even thinking of it. I confess that althoug I consider myself straight (I have always liked girls, and never thought of men in a sexual way) during the latest months my porn tastes have sometimes crossed over the line (shemale, sometimes gay stuff, I even thought of trying a gay experience just to flush my doubts away) and I feel somehow brainwashed or at least confused.

Come present day:

I stopped completely watching porn and masturbating since 9th of august, sincerely I don't know where I got the idea (did not know about all the research on the matter), I just thought "what the hell I'm doing? I've never had problems with meeting girls and so on, why should I spend time in my house with this stuff instead of going out and meeting them?".

So I have recently met a girl I like, around a week later, and it's been around 20 days since we've been seeing each other. Really nice, beautiful girl and so on. We tried having sex a couple times but my penis would not cooperate. Some half mast boners while petting each other but after a while he just went unresponsive. I spoke to her about my previous issues with performance anxiety and she has been quite sensitive and comprehensive, stating that it was not a problem. Could not spill the beans about porn because I don't feel she would like it. I'm not shy about it, I have talked about it with a couple of close friends, simply put I think it could "distort" her image of me or something like that so early in our relationship.

I tried Cialis, with no success (not even side effects, pretty weird).

Libido on and off, but I really like this girl and I'd like to make love with her and push our relationship forward.

The last few days I started again having morning wood nearly every morning, and some random boners during the day (sometimes I give a stroke on my crotch just to see if it wakes up).

I'm a little confused, or at least I'd like to isolate the problem to understand it better. I have even thought that I maybe don't like this girl as much as I think, but she's pretty hot and it would baffle me if it was so. I mean a "normal" myself (if at this point I'm no longer normal) would jump on her at first sight after seeing her half naked.

Hope this helps me by sharing, and with some feedback and support by you guys.

Stay strong.

Sounds like you are having problems with PIED. Depending on your history, it might not be that strong and 1-3 months of no PMO (esp. leave out porn or any artificial sexual arousal) should do the trick. I would always advise to stop masturbation as well but that is really up to you and how you feel. Porn, on the other hand, should be avoided at all costs. Facebook/Instagram babes count as porn as well.

Stop it before you are knee-deep in porn related problems and malfunctions. Your morphing porn tastes are already a sign of what porn does to your brain and how it works in general. Even though you like women and probably started with lesbian or something in that ballpark, you are experiencing what is called "escalation" of tastes which happens to most if not all long term porn users. Porn releases dopamine but shock, disgust, anxiety also leads to dopamine being released. Therefore, quite a few straight fellas end up watching shemale, gay, or other extreme stuff that doesn't match their initial tastes.

Again. Stop the porn, be patient, no pressure, and you should revert back to normal.

Cialis/Viagra doesn't tend to work with PIED because it only helps if you feel aroused. If there is no arousal, Cialis/Viagra basically will have no effect. I had PIED for the longest time and I was always wondering why I couldn't get it up. I wasn't aroused bodily... But intellectually, I was always attracted to my partners. Well, that's not enough, if your brain is desensitized.

All the best!

Thanks a lot for the advice. I am actually keeping the no PMO/MO attitude, and avoiding all kind of porn or anything related as you say. I have a constant "tingling" feeling in my intimate areas, and I sometimes feel the need to orgasm just to release this sensation (and hopefully to avoid a premature ejaculation in case I manage to move forward with the girl, since I have never had this issue before) but I am restraining from it.

I guess I should be patient as you say and everything will be resolved 

Thanks again for the support!

Stay strong.

Hi guys,

Actually on 60 days of no PMO (exluding a few times that I managed to have sex with my gf). More on that later. Sorry for the wall of text.

a quick update and a few questions. Since things with this new girl were starting to be a little difficult, I had to spill the beans and confess. At first she did non believe that this could be a sort of "condition", and really thought that I was not attracted to her in a sexual way. I must admit that my libido is swinging actually, going from quite strong and having the urge to be close with her, touch her body, smell her skin, be inside her and so on to "zero sexual desire at all".

We spent a few days in a very tense situation, but things finally have settled since she said that she cares for me. I don't know if she's willing to wait for me to be fully recovered if it would take many months, but as I told her this is something that I have to fight and overcome in any way, with or without  her(obviously I would prefer with her ).

As I said she took it pretty badly because she has some insecurities of her own, and she has a healthy libido, and was expecting me to express my own as her other past partners have done.
This whole ordeal hase caused also her to be a little "blocked" in expressing her sexuality, and feeling inadequate and fully free to perform certain acts or to come looking for me when she's feeling hot. You can understand how all this can be hard on a recently formed couple, where the first weeks should be sort of "sex sex sex" or something like that, if you understand what I'm saying.

I had trouble sometimes even trying to start something because I would not trust my body to perform properly, hence her thoughts of me not being attracted to her have spawned.

A couple days later we have talked again about it and things seem to go better. We had sex a few times, but there have been a couple times were I would go soft during the act. Other times I managed to have an orgasm (and boy, what orgasms! very intense and pleasurable). I, or better to say we, are trying to be relaxed about it, I am tring to not let this whole thing bother my mind when I get close to her, and it seems to help. For example, yesterday evening we went to bed together and we had sex, I had an orgasm and felt very good, emotionally and mentally, being able to be with her as I like. I didn't last long, but I must admit she was moving in a very sensual way .

This afternoon we tried again, I had a good erection, started sex, she had her orgasm and after that we changed position but I got soft. I felt a little sorry and broken but as I have said I'm trying to be relaxed about this. She felt a little bad (comprehensible), but not as bad as before we talked properly about it.

Right now I'm trying to focus on the feelings that I have when I caress her, I touch her (not only in a sexual way), kisses and so on, and erections have begun to come back pretty often whenever we cuddle and are together. I didn't have any relapses, (only fapped a couple times but without P, only on my own) and any minimal urge to go back to P has been crushed by my focus on being better and returning to my former self, a fully functional human being.

I also have intention to go get myself checked by some doctors (urologists, blood tests, psyologist specialised in sexual disfunctions), just to be sure and to allow my gf to understand better that this is a real condition and it is in no way her fault (or that I don't like her). I must admit that the thought that us being somewhat "incompatible" or that I did not really like her has crossed my mind a few times, but even if that was the case she is still a beautiful, sexy young woman, and if I were healthy it should at least have worked the first times if only on a mere "biological need" basis.

The questions are pretty simple:

1) Is it normal to go soft during sex sometimes during this "reboot/rewire" work that I'm doing?

2) As I have said I'm on day 60, based on your knowledge and experience and what I have said, would you say that I'm making progress?

3) Am I working correctly towards my goals? Should I change something?

Thanks for the support guys,

Stay strong.

Hi guys, a little update.

Today I had somewhat of a relapse. It's been a couple days since I felt a strong urge to O, and today I masturbated (without porn or fantasy, I was actually trying to thing to anything non sexual, like the cars I could see out of the window or the people going about their business on the street). It all worked better, I managed to achieve an erection and O in about a couple minutes. I still feel some "tingling" at the base of the neck, like the need for more (I guess it's some sort of chaser effect or something like that, since this orgasm was not as intense as those I managed to have with my girlfriend).

With her things are moving along, we went for a few days on a trip and had sex a couple times, one of which I performed somewhat well and the other I got soft after 10/15 minutes. I had eaten a lot at dinner and drank wine and cocktails all evening, I was pretty tired/a little buzzed so I guess that didn't help.

I now manage to have erections when I kiss her or caress her most of the time, and if she touches my crotch most of the time I have some reaction, so I guess things are going in the right direction (PIED wise)
Sometimes even if I feel strongly attracted to her emotionally and intellectually, wanting to be close and intimate with her, I avoid making my moves because I don't always trust my body to do his work at the best, I think I should try to be more relaxed about it.

For other reasons we are dealing with a pretty stressful situation, totally unrelated to my problem, and I tend to keep that in account too when we are alone in our intimacy.

I'd like some insight on the questions on my previous post, if someone would like to contribute.

Thanks guys, and stay strong!