No Longer Addicted to Nor Desire Porn, But Still Suffer From Non-Physical ED

Hi everyone,

I am 26 and I suffer from Erectile Dysfunction. I have been living with my girlfriend for about 2 years, and we have been together for almost three years now. I have suffered from an inability to become naturally aroused ever since I was 20 years old. What I mean by naturally aroused is that in order to produce an erection, I usually need to rub or struck my penis quite vigorously for a few minutes while in the presence of something sexually stimulating, like my girlfriend. Except for the past 3 years, I have looked at porn ever since I was 12 or 13 years old. From when I started looking at porn to when I stopped about 3 years ago, I gradually masterbated to it more often, and found more interesting and more erotic aspects of it to masterbate to. Also, while being with my girlfriend, I have not really masterbated unless it was during sex for the purpose of maintaining or obtaining an erection. Obviously, this has created quite a turmoil not only in my life for the past 6 years, but also in my relationship for the past 3 years. Moreover, I am often unable to obtain erection even when looking at the porn that I used to enjoy most, let alone it is still difficult to obtain an erection my manual stimulation with my hand. I have also been to two General Physicians, an Endocrinologist, and a Urologist, but after all of their examinations and two testosterone tests, they say I am a perfectly healthy young man. Lastly, I used to think I had Physiologically Induced ED, and maybe that was the case in the past to some degree because of my uncertainty about the possible causes of my problem, but now I am very confident that Performance Anxiety is not much of an issue for me, and that the primary cause most likely lies in numbed sensory response of my brain's pleasure center.

What I want to know is:  (1) Is anyone else out there in a situation that is somewhat similar to mine, and mostly, (2) Does anyone know if the Brain can change so severely from porn and over-masterbation that it can have long-tern effects such as mine? 

I rally want to end this problem, or find some way to work on fixing it, and I am very certain that I am not homosexual at all since I never have homosexual thoughts, interests, or desires.  Your help and comments are much appreciated, thank you.
 

dc6

Member
Hello.

First, I am a bit confused. Have you watched porn in the last three years? Because you said you stopped that long ago, but later on in your post mentioned that you had difficulty getting or maintaining erections to porn.

All of the information I have read suggests that your brain can heal itself over time. It's unlikely your brain will go back completely to the way it was before once a significant change has been made, but significant healing is possible and perhaps likely. Now I have read several accounts by people who used porn at an extremely high rate, and they managed to regain the full directions, sensitivity, and things of that nature within a couple of months. Perhaps a year.
 
Thanks for your response,

Well, I should have been more clear. Before I learned about the possible cause of my problem being from reward-center degradation, I looked at porn once recently in order to test if it would get me arroused. It didn't work. I also don't feel like that one time as a test of my body's arousal system was much of an event to count towards my total porn use. That was only out of desperation to see if at least that could give me an erection since everything else I have tried has given me pretty dismal results. Anyways, I didn't really enjoy it, and I'm not feeling like I'm on the verge of a porn addiction relapse. I think my almost helpless obsession with porn was a product of how my brain chemistry was in my extreme youth (or teen and early twenties years) because it's definitely not a nagging desire anymore. I'm planning on going to a sex psychologist soon to get their opinion on my condition. 5 to 10 years ago internet porn could be pretty extreme or "hard-core" and pretty available too, but today, and even more in the near future, it has and will continue to evolve into something even more sinister. I am not speaking from a moral prospective; what I am saying is that scientifically-speaking, over-stimulation of the developing and supercharged adolescent brain can possibly lead to long-term adverse effects, although there is still more work that needs to be done in order to figure out exactly what these effects are and how damaging they can be to the reward center of the developing brain. Check out this British documentary called Porn on the Brain, which explains this developing problem, especially for younger boys in their teens.  http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=VOMtXa3vScY
 
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