160 days into reboot - Need some advice

Hey all,

Today is day 160 of my reboot. I started PMO'ing at the age of 14/15 (I don't remember exactly) and especially at that age, I'd watch porn every day. Now I'm 25 and I decided something had to change several months ago. My porn use wasn't as regular as when I was younger in the past years but the times I masturbated while watching porn were intense, i.e. several hours at a time. The reason why I quit porn and masturbation was because I almost never had the desire to have sex with my partner and I suffered from PIED. I was able to get an erection but only with stimulation and my penis went flaccid as soon as the stimulation stopped. This simply didn't feel right.

So 160 days ago, I decided to quit porn and since then, I never intentionally watched it again. I did see some images once in while (e.g. when deleting porn images or videos from my computer) but I always immediately looked away or tried to keep the visual impressions as superficial as possible. I also cut out masturbation which I did daily before my reboot. When I did not watch porn while masturbating, I did sexting.

Now, after quite some time, I do see improvements, so the positive things first. My penis is way more sensitive than before. I have erections every night and I think I want to have more sex with real people instead of sitting in front of my computer and jerk off while watching people having sex. When somebody slightly touches my dick, it usually gets hard within seconds. As I haven't had too much sex up to this moment (because I didn't want to destroy the progress of my reboot), I cannot tell for sure whether this happened every single time, but most of the times I did have sex, my erections lasted longer and didn't fade immediately after stimulation ended.

There are, however, several things I kind of worry about. Virtually every time I cuddle with my partner or we kiss, nothing happens down there. Sometimes I do feel "something" but this is still far from being an erection. Even when she strokes my body (meaning everything but my penis and balls), most of the time my dick doesn't get hard. This might be because my body doesn't associate all this with true arousal anymore. To get this back, we don't touch my dick my when we have "sex". Also, I still feel that strange kind of arousal once in a while which is no real "dick arousal" but stems from the artificial super-stimulation caused by porn use. I think this is my brain forcing me to jerk off and/or watch porn. Even though I really don't want to watch porn ever again because it does harm to my health, it's still in my head. Sometimes porn scenes pop up in my head especially right before falling asleep or after waking up. I always try to ban those thought from my head and most of the time this works well. But during the last month or so, the urge to watch porn and to masturbate increased again (especially the latter). When I fantasize I don't fantasize about having sex with my gf but with other people I know. I regard it as a good sign that I don't think about having sex with some porn actress but I don't understand why it's not my gf I fantasize about even though I really love her. Maybe this is because I try to replace the porn in my head by some porn-like scenes with people I know personally.

My point is I do see improvements after 160 days but I wonder why I still don't get erections when making out with somebody or when looking at a beautiful girl on street or whatever. Are there people out there who went through the same worries? Anything I can change? Anything I should continue doing? Any thoughts or comments on this are appreciated. I need somebody to tell me where I am in this journey.
 

pichaelthompson

Active Member
Hey man, while I can't speak directly from experience (my longest streak was 120 days) I was fantasizing hooking up with real women which I believe contributed to my eventual relapse. These thoughts are natural, and nothing to be ashamed of. However, I think we can improve our rewiring process if we try not to give these thoughts any energy. I would suggest letting them arise and die back down, kind of like a wave...treating it like an exercise in meditation. These thoughts may never die completely, but the will come less frequently and less intensely, and you will have more strength to let them go each time! Best of luck to you :)
 
pichaelthompson said:
Hey man, while I can't speak directly from experience (my longest streak was 120 days) I was fantasizing hooking up with real women which I believe contributed to my eventual relapse. These thoughts are natural, and nothing to be ashamed of. However, I think we can improve our rewiring process if we try not to give these thoughts any energy. I would suggest letting them arise and die back down, kind of like a wave...treating it like an exercise in meditation. These thoughts may never die completely, but the will come less frequently and less intensely, and you will have more strength to let them go each time! Best of luck to you :)

Hey, thanks for your response. Do/did you suffer from PIED? Do you get erections when making out with a girl?

I would really like to read about other people's experiences regarding the points I mentioned in my initial post.
 
C

cranm329

Guest
Hi ToBe
Your experiences are normal.  Despite being in an older age group I have had similar things happen. Men are generally more tactile and visual in sex than women who need atmosphere and time. Men need these too. Both are screwed up by PMO. Being close with gentle touching and no expectation of getting hard or doing PIV sex is a great way to allow the subconscious parts of your mind to re-program. Even if you're doing sex you may go soft. No problem. There are soft sex positions and  techniques that can give great pleasure to both partners without feeling by that either has to have an O. Make sure that you're not rushed but even 'quickies' can be great.
 

pichaelthompson

Active Member
ToBeOrNotToBe said:
pichaelthompson said:
Hey man, while I can't speak directly from experience (my longest streak was 120 days) I was fantasizing hooking up with real women which I believe contributed to my eventual relapse. These thoughts are natural, and nothing to be ashamed of. However, I think we can improve our rewiring process if we try not to give these thoughts any energy. I would suggest letting them arise and die back down, kind of like a wave...treating it like an exercise in meditation. These thoughts may never die completely, but the will come less frequently and less intensely, and you will have more strength to let them go each time! Best of luck to you :)

Hey, thanks for your response. Do/did you suffer from PIED? Do you get erections when making out with a girl?

I would really like to read about other people's experiences regarding the points I mentioned in my initial post.

I did suffer from PIED, but after going on several long streaks and failing, my PIED was gone....however I do often have PE that I think stems from the habit of jumping to the most exciting parts of porn and quickly PMO (within 2-3 minutes). Everyone's body brain is different so recovery times will vary, I think Gabe Deem mentioned it took him 15 months to be able to MO without any P. I get erections w/ a little precum when making out with a girl but it dies down quickly, so I am doing this in hopes that my brain will appreciate the actual experience more and not just the spike in excitement, and hopefully my body will respond accordingly.
 
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