"Okay, so this was much longer than I expected to go on for, but just typing that I feel may have been a landmark moment in my life."
This is how I concluded my first post on Reboot Nation, an entry I provided over two years ago when I was still a virgin at age 24. The night prior, after I failed to get an erection while trying to have sex with a girl who I really had feelings for, I Google'd like a maniac to finally find an answer to my erectile dysfunction that had haunted me since my first attempt at sex as an 18-year-old. Ostensibly, through my research I discovered that my porn habit was the issue, which led me to this site at 24, and has led me back here now at 26.
I won't go on too heavily about my past, and will redirect those of you curious about my backstory here: http://legacy.rebootnation.org/index.php?topic=5603.0 What I'd like to focus on here is sharing my story, struggle, and the lessons I've learned since I first discovered that my ED was actually PIED in July 2015.
As you can imagine, after 6 long years of failing to successfully have sex, finding out about PIED was perhaps the Eureka moment of my life. As excited as I felt to have finally identified the root of my sexual suffering, I was even more amped up to learn that recovery through rebooting and rewiring (not drugs or questioning my sexuality) was absolutely possible and that many other men posting their own success stories provided me this proof. My exuberance, however, was diminished when I realized that my history (orgasming strictly to porn from age 15 to 24) penciled me in as a prime candidate for a lengthier recovery. My main concern at the time was fucking (and dating, but also very much fucking) this girl who I failed with at sex to get the PIED discovery ball rolling in the first place. Welp, she left me a week later and I never even got to explain my issue to her anyway. Heartbreak aside, I vowed to rid myself of my PIED so that I could live a sexually-healthy and romantically-fulfilling life from that point on.
Fast forward 3 months - after giving up all MO and PMO (and having no intimate female interaction at the time), I finally caved and jerked off (just to feel honestly, no porn needed) and I won't lie - it felt fucking awesome. In this 3-month interval, I began having wet dreams periodically for the first time in my life and, despite not having a partner to practice with, could tell that I was on the road to recovery. Although I was a bit disappointed with myself for having caved and MO'd, I tried not to get too down on myself over the matter and continued to not watch porn. Over the next few months, the MO'ing became more frequent and I began masturbating anally as I jerked off (which I chalked up to my prior tendency of watching anal porn). I'm sure that's gonna sound weird and possibly homo-y to some of you, but I mean we're on a support board for dude whose dicks have broken due to porn, so it's basically the Wild West around here.
Anyway, by November 2015 (4 months after discovering my PIED), my lack of porn certainly did make me crave actual female contact more and one night around Thanksgiving I managed to pick up a girl from the bars and spent the night at her place. This was my first attempt at sex since discovering PIED, and, despite my wet dreams, no PMO, and infrequent MO'ing, I still failed at achieving an erection. A huge lesson I learned from my whole ordeal was that that night, unlike with my July 2015 girl who left me, I was 100% comfortable explaining to this girl why we weren't able to have sex and that PIED was an issue for me. It may have helped that I didn't know this girl from a(n unfilled) hole in the wall, but the lack of PMO definitely gave me a certain intangible confidence boost to be open and frank with her about my issues. Thankfully, she was understanding, and we continued to see each other on a casual fuck buddy-ish basis for the next month. Finally, on our fifth or sixth encounter, I was able... to... FINALLY... I guess at least get it up enough to get a blowjob (sorry, no dick insertion yet). I won't lie, it was hardly a rock-hard boner and it occurred actually the morning after we spent an entire night (including some more butt play on both ends - more on this later, specifically on how I believe it ties into PMO) fooling around. Despite the lackluster performance relative to many guys I'm sure she'd had before, I felt like a total baller that day and was convinced that a full-fledged recovery was right around the corner.
And it probably was - but then I started watching porn again. After this November 2015 fling, it wasn't until August 2016 that I attempted to be sexual with a woman again. In this 9-month stretch of time, I had developed a painful and debilitating binge eating disorder and was going through a real anxiety-induced existential crisis. All this added stress, I realize now, had led me astray from my goals (sexual and otherwise) and by early summer 2016 I had begun watching porn with some regularity again as a way to cope (a couple times a week as opposed to the 5-6 I had done prior to discovering my issue). Unlike in October 2015 when I "relapsed" and MO'd for the first time in 3 months after my discovery, I legitimately felt really ashamed of myself for caving and getting back into porn. The first session of my second stint with porn was perhaps the saddest fap in the history of faphood, and it was from there that my habit continued.
As mentioned above, though, I did still manage to get sexual with a woman again in August 2016. I had discussed my PIED with my partner at the time prior to our attempt at actual intimacy, and the night she came over my house to seal the deal, she surprised me with the old, "I don't want to be your first, I'm worried you'll get attached or freak out" routine. As disappointing as that was to hear, my mood (and dick) was quickly uplifted when she was still willing to fool around and give me a blowjob. Much like my first BJ (Nov. 2015), this one (Aug. 2016) wasn't the hardest dick in the orgy, but it was reassuring to me that my continued porn usage didn't compromise my sexual abilities too greatly. That said, I was still slightly disappointed afterwards that in 9 months between these encounters I hadn't really improved at all in my performance. I was watching porn again, sure, but now that I knew the PIED implications of it, I couldn't just aimlessly enjoy my PMO's like I did from ages 15-24 (before I discovered PIED). I had taken the Red Pill (Matrix reference, not Cialis or whatever) at this point, and knew that my PMO'ing, as well as my anal masturbation (which had continued to this point) had to stop if I were to realistically expect any real results with physical intimacy.
After my successful Aug. 2016 blowjob, I continued to watch porn regularly and occasionally anally masturbate, all the while knowing that neither of those were going to help my recovery efforts. Although I had a handful of near-chances with intimacy in the months that followed, it wasn't until June 2017 that I got another chance to be fully intimate with a woman again. Once again, I wasn't able to get fully aroused, despite her even trying to stimulate me anally. There was no full erection or ejaculation, so at this point I was worried that I was in close to as bad footing 2 years into my knowledge of PIED as I was when I first started. Over this two-year stretch, it's noteworthy that I evolved and did quite a bit of introspection and made attempts to change my habits. I began meditating on-and-off, got heavily into self-help/self-development, and tried a litany of other measures to kick both my simultaneous porn and binge eating addictions. After all my methods of trial-and-error, I do believe that THE game-changer for me in overcoming my porn issue was getting a more informed perspective on the matter and why I sought porn (and junk food and other meaningless pleasure) in the first place. My "magic pill" in this regard was looking into evolutionary psychology.
Now I'm sure this will seem tangential af from the main discussion about PMO, but after all my years of anxiety and addiction, I truly believe that the clarity I received about what it really means to be human and the psychology of how our current-day behavior relates to the tendencies of our ancestors has finally put me in the frame of mind to seek more wholesome behavior (and, yes, that means actual women over pornography). Like most of you, I watched Gary Wilson's TEDx talk on porn when I first discovered my PIED issue. Years later, now that I have been able to achieve orgasm successfully with a woman, I have gone back and listened to much of Gary's material, and think it's imperative that we all pay special attention to the way porn affects our BRAINS and neurology. I try to be open-minded and am all for people doing whatever it takes for them personally grow; but as a former self-help junkie, I have to say that siding with science over faith and feelings on these issues has clarified things in an incalculable way for me.
"Yeah, yeah, do the brain stuff - but did you really skip over the part about finally boning some chick after over a quarter century of living?" Yes, but have faith, here's where I talk about putting my thing in her thing.
Last week, I went on my second date with a girl I had begun seeing and when we went back to her place, we attempted to have sex for the first time (my first attempt since June). She asked me during foreplay whether I was clean and I acknowledged to her then that I had never had sex and very briefly mentioned the porn thing. But we were in the heat of the moment, and the conversation quickly ended once things started advancing sexually. A brief, but satisfying two whole minutes later, I was officially no longer a virgin. As you can imagine, I felt like a true alpha badass (and woke up the next morning blasting "We Are The Champions" with a shit-eating grin on my face). In the moment after initial intercourse, as corny as this sounds, I felt like I truly summited my Everest. Eleven long years into biological manhood, eight years into actual sex attempts, and over two years into my awareness of PIED, I had finally slayed that elusive dragon (/pussy).
As rant-y and meandering as this whole story was, I do want to give you all a few concrete takeaways from my struggle, in hopes that some of you can avoid the same mistakes I made along the way in your own recoveries. Realize this: porn addiction is a legitimate addiction, and must be treated as such. I never truly considered my pornography-watching as an addiction (just a thing to do when I was bored) in the past, but I was hooked neurologically nonetheless. Also, consider the following: you can be religious or spiritual or whatever ideology floats your boat; but when it comes down to beating PIED, you must embrace and try to comprehend the science - change your brain, change your behavior, erase your problem.
As far as non-scientific words of wisdom go, an important lesson I've picked up along the way is to concern yourself with the process and not the results. Yes, it's cool to say, "I made it to the [insert brag number] day mark without porn," but it's difficult to sustain motivation using this model. Think about it this way - if you keep telling yourself "90 days without porn and I'll be proud of myself," then only 3 months from now will you allow yourself to even go "atta boy." What's going to happen on day 10/30/75 when you're having a rough time? You haven't allowed yourself to give yourself any positive feedback or encouragement along the way and will feel even more desperate in that moment to cave. Don't make your goal a number or a destination. Make your goal something more regularly-attainable and process-oriented. My goal with food now, for instance, is to have a healthy relationship with food and eat as mainly non-processed foods. That's it! Did I want to lose 25 pounds at the beginning of my weight loss journey? Absolutely, but a specific weight had been goal for two years, and all I got for my efforts was a constant spectre of 187 lbs mocking me until I got specifically there. ENcourage yourself, don't be DIScouraging by setting destination goals and making them your everything.
Finally, I want you all to understand this: we (at least in the Western world, and especially America) live in a very dichotomous time. While we have luxuries our ancestors would have killed for, we are also burdened with an unending barrage of unnatural temptations - hyperpalatable food, hyper-stimulating women on a screen, addictive video games and websites. Try to take stock of your habits and consider how much of your activity is centered around chasing pleasure artificially through these "shortcut" or "magic pill" means. The closer you get to your human roots and the more wholesome and natural your actions are, the more fulfilled and sustainably happy you will find yourself. I thoroughly believe this and I hope you do, too. Because, believe me, jerking off to images on a screen is far less fulfilling than the scents, sweat, and reciprocated lusting of being intimate with an actual human being.
Signed,
Ya boi and proud owner of some jizz-stained bedsheets,
- Dan
PS: Okay, so about the anal thing. What I gathered is that I had conditioned my brain to seek that type of stimulation through repetition and reinforcement. Yes, that is a kink I suppose, but it's not a very natural one, nor is it the way nature intended men to be stimulated. Rather than engaging in this type of stimulation/foreplay with my current partner (and we did discuss it), we've stuck to straight up dick/vag action, and I can already feel my compulsion to seek foreign sexual activities (i.e. either anal stimulation with her or myself) dissipating. I have been having sex for about a week now (3 times) and have gotten more erect each time, none of which involved anything other than dick/vag action, which I had conditioned myself away from through porn and anal masturbation over the years. I attribute my success and optimism for continuing to get back to being excited by more natural sexual activity to the extinction theory of classical conditioning (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extinction_(psychology)).
Suggested reading/listening:
The Pleasure Trap by Dr. Doug Lisle / Dr. Alan Goldhammer | This is the book that truly put into perspective what it means to chase happiness vs. fleeting pleasure for me. An absolute game-changer in helping me overcome my PIED and so much more.
Beat Your Genes | A podcast featuring Dr. Lisle where he tackles listeners' questions about life through the lens of evolutionary psychology.
The Mating Grounds | A podcast hosted by renowned former playboy Tucker Max and Dr. Geoffery Miller. I love this podcast because it's a great mix between real-world insights on how to court and attract women (Tucker) and the evolutionary science behind what women are looking for in a man (Dr. Miller).
Resources I'm glad I looked into in an attempt to grow, but now take issue with:
Self-help gurus | Like many of you, my decision to cure my PIED catalyzed my decision to improve my life as a whole. Along the way, I stumbled into self-help and truly took what a lot of these guys were saying as gospel. I bought a Tony Robbins book, I used to listen to countless Project Life Mastery and Actualized.org videos/podcasts, and I even attended a men's retreat weekend for self-development. Hundreds of dollars and hours later, I've realized that while some of these guys MAY be well-intentioned, a lot of what they're feeding you is opportunistic and formulated to exactly what they believe their target audience (emotionally-vulnerable people) think they need to hear. Plus, I arrived at something about even these "gurus" who are a little less nefarious. They may make whole-hearted attempts to find some clarity in life and share their experiences with you, but these experiences are largely anecdotal. Their "spiritual quandaries" and more philosophical questions may appeal to some of you as being more meta than the ones trying to be answered by those boring-ass scientists and doctors, but I now believe that we're all out here trying to find the answers to life's mysteries; scientists and doctors side with data and empirical findings, though, while these self-help dudes side with their own notions or beliefs (or "enlightenments"). Some of that feel-good-y stuff may have its place in certain aspects of life, but I am now more sure than ever that I will be sticking with science when it comes to matters of my body and brain, especially in regards to PIED.
Pick-up artists/RSD guys | Without question, one of my biggest moments of awakening with my PIED recovery was the idea that I had to rewire my brain to seek the touch of actual women without porn to fall back on as a way of sexual release. This means actually talking to more real women and having the stakes raised if I do not succeed with that, because I don't have my porn safety net. That said, I, like many of you, felt that I had to improve my "game" with women, and subsequently found the PUA community. Again, I'm not totally denouncing these guys and understand that they're probably largely well-intentioned. However, when seeking out these guys as any sort of inspiration, I suggest to be wary of those who frame women as objects in some game you have to conquer. The guys at The Mating Grounds did a much better job eloquating this point, so I urge you to check out their episode on this topic here: http://thematinggrounds.com/the-mating-grounds-podcast-episode-13-pickup-artists/
_
TLDR: I failed at sex with a bunch of women before realizing PIED was my issue at age 24. Over the next 2 years, I stopped watching porn, then relapsed a year later before fully recovering, which stunted my progress. After getting nearly hard enough for real sex over the past 2 years with different girls, I finally started having sex successfully last week at age 26. This whole process could have been much shorter had I not fallen into the "pleasure trap" and embraced the evolutionary science behind why porn and other negative habits had taken ahold of me so powerfully in the first place. I now believe I am on a much more wholesome, natural path in life, and will continue to seek out real women over porn, especially now that I know from experience how much better real sex feels than PMO. I did it, it took me 2+ years, and I believe that you can get there, too. Just focus on the process, not the outcome, and living more holistically, and you'll be smashing that real-life puss soon too bruh!
This is how I concluded my first post on Reboot Nation, an entry I provided over two years ago when I was still a virgin at age 24. The night prior, after I failed to get an erection while trying to have sex with a girl who I really had feelings for, I Google'd like a maniac to finally find an answer to my erectile dysfunction that had haunted me since my first attempt at sex as an 18-year-old. Ostensibly, through my research I discovered that my porn habit was the issue, which led me to this site at 24, and has led me back here now at 26.
I won't go on too heavily about my past, and will redirect those of you curious about my backstory here: http://legacy.rebootnation.org/index.php?topic=5603.0 What I'd like to focus on here is sharing my story, struggle, and the lessons I've learned since I first discovered that my ED was actually PIED in July 2015.
As you can imagine, after 6 long years of failing to successfully have sex, finding out about PIED was perhaps the Eureka moment of my life. As excited as I felt to have finally identified the root of my sexual suffering, I was even more amped up to learn that recovery through rebooting and rewiring (not drugs or questioning my sexuality) was absolutely possible and that many other men posting their own success stories provided me this proof. My exuberance, however, was diminished when I realized that my history (orgasming strictly to porn from age 15 to 24) penciled me in as a prime candidate for a lengthier recovery. My main concern at the time was fucking (and dating, but also very much fucking) this girl who I failed with at sex to get the PIED discovery ball rolling in the first place. Welp, she left me a week later and I never even got to explain my issue to her anyway. Heartbreak aside, I vowed to rid myself of my PIED so that I could live a sexually-healthy and romantically-fulfilling life from that point on.
Fast forward 3 months - after giving up all MO and PMO (and having no intimate female interaction at the time), I finally caved and jerked off (just to feel honestly, no porn needed) and I won't lie - it felt fucking awesome. In this 3-month interval, I began having wet dreams periodically for the first time in my life and, despite not having a partner to practice with, could tell that I was on the road to recovery. Although I was a bit disappointed with myself for having caved and MO'd, I tried not to get too down on myself over the matter and continued to not watch porn. Over the next few months, the MO'ing became more frequent and I began masturbating anally as I jerked off (which I chalked up to my prior tendency of watching anal porn). I'm sure that's gonna sound weird and possibly homo-y to some of you, but I mean we're on a support board for dude whose dicks have broken due to porn, so it's basically the Wild West around here.
Anyway, by November 2015 (4 months after discovering my PIED), my lack of porn certainly did make me crave actual female contact more and one night around Thanksgiving I managed to pick up a girl from the bars and spent the night at her place. This was my first attempt at sex since discovering PIED, and, despite my wet dreams, no PMO, and infrequent MO'ing, I still failed at achieving an erection. A huge lesson I learned from my whole ordeal was that that night, unlike with my July 2015 girl who left me, I was 100% comfortable explaining to this girl why we weren't able to have sex and that PIED was an issue for me. It may have helped that I didn't know this girl from a(n unfilled) hole in the wall, but the lack of PMO definitely gave me a certain intangible confidence boost to be open and frank with her about my issues. Thankfully, she was understanding, and we continued to see each other on a casual fuck buddy-ish basis for the next month. Finally, on our fifth or sixth encounter, I was able... to... FINALLY... I guess at least get it up enough to get a blowjob (sorry, no dick insertion yet). I won't lie, it was hardly a rock-hard boner and it occurred actually the morning after we spent an entire night (including some more butt play on both ends - more on this later, specifically on how I believe it ties into PMO) fooling around. Despite the lackluster performance relative to many guys I'm sure she'd had before, I felt like a total baller that day and was convinced that a full-fledged recovery was right around the corner.
And it probably was - but then I started watching porn again. After this November 2015 fling, it wasn't until August 2016 that I attempted to be sexual with a woman again. In this 9-month stretch of time, I had developed a painful and debilitating binge eating disorder and was going through a real anxiety-induced existential crisis. All this added stress, I realize now, had led me astray from my goals (sexual and otherwise) and by early summer 2016 I had begun watching porn with some regularity again as a way to cope (a couple times a week as opposed to the 5-6 I had done prior to discovering my issue). Unlike in October 2015 when I "relapsed" and MO'd for the first time in 3 months after my discovery, I legitimately felt really ashamed of myself for caving and getting back into porn. The first session of my second stint with porn was perhaps the saddest fap in the history of faphood, and it was from there that my habit continued.
As mentioned above, though, I did still manage to get sexual with a woman again in August 2016. I had discussed my PIED with my partner at the time prior to our attempt at actual intimacy, and the night she came over my house to seal the deal, she surprised me with the old, "I don't want to be your first, I'm worried you'll get attached or freak out" routine. As disappointing as that was to hear, my mood (and dick) was quickly uplifted when she was still willing to fool around and give me a blowjob. Much like my first BJ (Nov. 2015), this one (Aug. 2016) wasn't the hardest dick in the orgy, but it was reassuring to me that my continued porn usage didn't compromise my sexual abilities too greatly. That said, I was still slightly disappointed afterwards that in 9 months between these encounters I hadn't really improved at all in my performance. I was watching porn again, sure, but now that I knew the PIED implications of it, I couldn't just aimlessly enjoy my PMO's like I did from ages 15-24 (before I discovered PIED). I had taken the Red Pill (Matrix reference, not Cialis or whatever) at this point, and knew that my PMO'ing, as well as my anal masturbation (which had continued to this point) had to stop if I were to realistically expect any real results with physical intimacy.
After my successful Aug. 2016 blowjob, I continued to watch porn regularly and occasionally anally masturbate, all the while knowing that neither of those were going to help my recovery efforts. Although I had a handful of near-chances with intimacy in the months that followed, it wasn't until June 2017 that I got another chance to be fully intimate with a woman again. Once again, I wasn't able to get fully aroused, despite her even trying to stimulate me anally. There was no full erection or ejaculation, so at this point I was worried that I was in close to as bad footing 2 years into my knowledge of PIED as I was when I first started. Over this two-year stretch, it's noteworthy that I evolved and did quite a bit of introspection and made attempts to change my habits. I began meditating on-and-off, got heavily into self-help/self-development, and tried a litany of other measures to kick both my simultaneous porn and binge eating addictions. After all my methods of trial-and-error, I do believe that THE game-changer for me in overcoming my porn issue was getting a more informed perspective on the matter and why I sought porn (and junk food and other meaningless pleasure) in the first place. My "magic pill" in this regard was looking into evolutionary psychology.
Now I'm sure this will seem tangential af from the main discussion about PMO, but after all my years of anxiety and addiction, I truly believe that the clarity I received about what it really means to be human and the psychology of how our current-day behavior relates to the tendencies of our ancestors has finally put me in the frame of mind to seek more wholesome behavior (and, yes, that means actual women over pornography). Like most of you, I watched Gary Wilson's TEDx talk on porn when I first discovered my PIED issue. Years later, now that I have been able to achieve orgasm successfully with a woman, I have gone back and listened to much of Gary's material, and think it's imperative that we all pay special attention to the way porn affects our BRAINS and neurology. I try to be open-minded and am all for people doing whatever it takes for them personally grow; but as a former self-help junkie, I have to say that siding with science over faith and feelings on these issues has clarified things in an incalculable way for me.
"Yeah, yeah, do the brain stuff - but did you really skip over the part about finally boning some chick after over a quarter century of living?" Yes, but have faith, here's where I talk about putting my thing in her thing.
Last week, I went on my second date with a girl I had begun seeing and when we went back to her place, we attempted to have sex for the first time (my first attempt since June). She asked me during foreplay whether I was clean and I acknowledged to her then that I had never had sex and very briefly mentioned the porn thing. But we were in the heat of the moment, and the conversation quickly ended once things started advancing sexually. A brief, but satisfying two whole minutes later, I was officially no longer a virgin. As you can imagine, I felt like a true alpha badass (and woke up the next morning blasting "We Are The Champions" with a shit-eating grin on my face). In the moment after initial intercourse, as corny as this sounds, I felt like I truly summited my Everest. Eleven long years into biological manhood, eight years into actual sex attempts, and over two years into my awareness of PIED, I had finally slayed that elusive dragon (/pussy).
As rant-y and meandering as this whole story was, I do want to give you all a few concrete takeaways from my struggle, in hopes that some of you can avoid the same mistakes I made along the way in your own recoveries. Realize this: porn addiction is a legitimate addiction, and must be treated as such. I never truly considered my pornography-watching as an addiction (just a thing to do when I was bored) in the past, but I was hooked neurologically nonetheless. Also, consider the following: you can be religious or spiritual or whatever ideology floats your boat; but when it comes down to beating PIED, you must embrace and try to comprehend the science - change your brain, change your behavior, erase your problem.
As far as non-scientific words of wisdom go, an important lesson I've picked up along the way is to concern yourself with the process and not the results. Yes, it's cool to say, "I made it to the [insert brag number] day mark without porn," but it's difficult to sustain motivation using this model. Think about it this way - if you keep telling yourself "90 days without porn and I'll be proud of myself," then only 3 months from now will you allow yourself to even go "atta boy." What's going to happen on day 10/30/75 when you're having a rough time? You haven't allowed yourself to give yourself any positive feedback or encouragement along the way and will feel even more desperate in that moment to cave. Don't make your goal a number or a destination. Make your goal something more regularly-attainable and process-oriented. My goal with food now, for instance, is to have a healthy relationship with food and eat as mainly non-processed foods. That's it! Did I want to lose 25 pounds at the beginning of my weight loss journey? Absolutely, but a specific weight had been goal for two years, and all I got for my efforts was a constant spectre of 187 lbs mocking me until I got specifically there. ENcourage yourself, don't be DIScouraging by setting destination goals and making them your everything.
Finally, I want you all to understand this: we (at least in the Western world, and especially America) live in a very dichotomous time. While we have luxuries our ancestors would have killed for, we are also burdened with an unending barrage of unnatural temptations - hyperpalatable food, hyper-stimulating women on a screen, addictive video games and websites. Try to take stock of your habits and consider how much of your activity is centered around chasing pleasure artificially through these "shortcut" or "magic pill" means. The closer you get to your human roots and the more wholesome and natural your actions are, the more fulfilled and sustainably happy you will find yourself. I thoroughly believe this and I hope you do, too. Because, believe me, jerking off to images on a screen is far less fulfilling than the scents, sweat, and reciprocated lusting of being intimate with an actual human being.
Signed,
Ya boi and proud owner of some jizz-stained bedsheets,
- Dan
PS: Okay, so about the anal thing. What I gathered is that I had conditioned my brain to seek that type of stimulation through repetition and reinforcement. Yes, that is a kink I suppose, but it's not a very natural one, nor is it the way nature intended men to be stimulated. Rather than engaging in this type of stimulation/foreplay with my current partner (and we did discuss it), we've stuck to straight up dick/vag action, and I can already feel my compulsion to seek foreign sexual activities (i.e. either anal stimulation with her or myself) dissipating. I have been having sex for about a week now (3 times) and have gotten more erect each time, none of which involved anything other than dick/vag action, which I had conditioned myself away from through porn and anal masturbation over the years. I attribute my success and optimism for continuing to get back to being excited by more natural sexual activity to the extinction theory of classical conditioning (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extinction_(psychology)).
Suggested reading/listening:
The Pleasure Trap by Dr. Doug Lisle / Dr. Alan Goldhammer | This is the book that truly put into perspective what it means to chase happiness vs. fleeting pleasure for me. An absolute game-changer in helping me overcome my PIED and so much more.
Beat Your Genes | A podcast featuring Dr. Lisle where he tackles listeners' questions about life through the lens of evolutionary psychology.
The Mating Grounds | A podcast hosted by renowned former playboy Tucker Max and Dr. Geoffery Miller. I love this podcast because it's a great mix between real-world insights on how to court and attract women (Tucker) and the evolutionary science behind what women are looking for in a man (Dr. Miller).
Resources I'm glad I looked into in an attempt to grow, but now take issue with:
Self-help gurus | Like many of you, my decision to cure my PIED catalyzed my decision to improve my life as a whole. Along the way, I stumbled into self-help and truly took what a lot of these guys were saying as gospel. I bought a Tony Robbins book, I used to listen to countless Project Life Mastery and Actualized.org videos/podcasts, and I even attended a men's retreat weekend for self-development. Hundreds of dollars and hours later, I've realized that while some of these guys MAY be well-intentioned, a lot of what they're feeding you is opportunistic and formulated to exactly what they believe their target audience (emotionally-vulnerable people) think they need to hear. Plus, I arrived at something about even these "gurus" who are a little less nefarious. They may make whole-hearted attempts to find some clarity in life and share their experiences with you, but these experiences are largely anecdotal. Their "spiritual quandaries" and more philosophical questions may appeal to some of you as being more meta than the ones trying to be answered by those boring-ass scientists and doctors, but I now believe that we're all out here trying to find the answers to life's mysteries; scientists and doctors side with data and empirical findings, though, while these self-help dudes side with their own notions or beliefs (or "enlightenments"). Some of that feel-good-y stuff may have its place in certain aspects of life, but I am now more sure than ever that I will be sticking with science when it comes to matters of my body and brain, especially in regards to PIED.
Pick-up artists/RSD guys | Without question, one of my biggest moments of awakening with my PIED recovery was the idea that I had to rewire my brain to seek the touch of actual women without porn to fall back on as a way of sexual release. This means actually talking to more real women and having the stakes raised if I do not succeed with that, because I don't have my porn safety net. That said, I, like many of you, felt that I had to improve my "game" with women, and subsequently found the PUA community. Again, I'm not totally denouncing these guys and understand that they're probably largely well-intentioned. However, when seeking out these guys as any sort of inspiration, I suggest to be wary of those who frame women as objects in some game you have to conquer. The guys at The Mating Grounds did a much better job eloquating this point, so I urge you to check out their episode on this topic here: http://thematinggrounds.com/the-mating-grounds-podcast-episode-13-pickup-artists/
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TLDR: I failed at sex with a bunch of women before realizing PIED was my issue at age 24. Over the next 2 years, I stopped watching porn, then relapsed a year later before fully recovering, which stunted my progress. After getting nearly hard enough for real sex over the past 2 years with different girls, I finally started having sex successfully last week at age 26. This whole process could have been much shorter had I not fallen into the "pleasure trap" and embraced the evolutionary science behind why porn and other negative habits had taken ahold of me so powerfully in the first place. I now believe I am on a much more wholesome, natural path in life, and will continue to seek out real women over porn, especially now that I know from experience how much better real sex feels than PMO. I did it, it took me 2+ years, and I believe that you can get there, too. Just focus on the process, not the outcome, and living more holistically, and you'll be smashing that real-life puss soon too bruh!
