First post here. It’s actually my first time writing this story down anywhere or voicing it to anyone other than myself. Disclaimer: I’m not a fan of being overly explicit so I’ll keep it light.
Buckle up, it’s going to be a bit of a long post. I’m writing this down mostly for myself so no worries if the tldr has hit you on this one. I appreciate the platform.
Just over four years ago, back in the end of high school for me, I had found a fantastic girl I had hit it off with, and I felt that I had really fallen for her. Let’s note here that I’m a virgin in the typical sense. She was from the East Coast and I’m from the West Coast. We met on a trip across the world – the chances were next to none that we’d have come across each other, yet we somehow connected in a pizza hut on the other side of the globe.
I had been recovering from an emotionally abusive relationship for about 6 months, and so had she. We both found it amazing we had run into each other, and we loved the time we could spend together.
Naturally, things progressed intimately, but we didn’t have sex on that trip. We only established that we both really cared for one another and that we’d keep in touch after the trip ended.
About two weeks later she was back on the East Coast, and I was back across the world, having been given a remarkablely fortunate opportunity to study abroad for a semester.
We never stopped texting or chatting in any way we could sort out, always close, but never labeled as partners – you know that weird adolescent space where you don’t really want to make a big deal of something romantic but it also becomes your whole world? Anyway, one night about two months into my semester abroad, we were skyping and she brought up that we might as well call each other boyfriend and girlfriend, and when I asked, “What would be different?” she replied, “Nothing really.” It was the first moment in my life I’d seen a relationship actually natural transition from best friends to partners fluidly without the typical and characaturish high school dramatization (the prom asking, the big gestures).
All this to say, it was the first time sex had come up in my life as a natural progression of my care for someone else. I forget exactly how it came up but she was going to be able to make a trip on her own dime to visit her sister who was visiting the same country abroad at the time, visiting me as well.
Long story short, she made it and we spent an amazing day together. I had a curfew to be in my bed by so I had to sneak out at midnight to make it to her room. The intention was clear, I would lose my virginity that night and we would share a memory imperfect and lackluster as it would likely be in the country we first found each other on.
One snag. I couldn’t stay hard. Initially during the beginning of our foreplay, I was, but as we continued not rushing things, I went completely limp. We’re talking nothing. 0% hard. At this point I was panicking a bit inside, already nervous about all that was happening and the circumstance of this girl of all people having flown across the world to find me. We tried to make it happen and I recall spending hours with her, bless her patience, that night, slowly seeing her get frustrated through her patience, slowly growing increasingly frustrated myself.
At the time, I didn’t know about Porn Induced Erectile Dysfunction. So while I sat there beside her at what must have been 3AM or 4AM at that point, I felt I had failed as a man, a boyfriend, and ultimately that I couldn’t trust myself, my body, to function like I was told it would.
The relationship continued, bless her for not just jumping ship at that point, for a few more months. It wasn’t until I had returned home that we had begun to drift a bit more. It was at that point we ended the relationship and resolved to be good friends that we could always text when something was on our mind. Which we did actually do for the year that followed. Now, I haven’t chatted with her in years. Allowing things to pass.
Looking back on the experience and the past four years of college, the past very celibate years of college – and not deliberately so – I’ve come to question my sexual behaviors and habits.
First off, I haven’t felt that I’ve had a connection with any number of the majority female college I am a part of. I’m a rather outgoing and nice guy which of course drags up various stereotypes of the guy who’s too nice to not be friends with but to brotherly to sleep with. All those reductionist thoughts aside, I have felt like I’ve been open to a relationship, even a hookup. But I have also felt a worry, ever present and dominent: will I even be able to perform, or will I experience the same shame over and over and over again with less and less understanding and patient women?
At this point, I consider myself still virginal. I wouldn’t count my past experiences as sex in the complete sense, though I have been close with the girls I had mentioned in my teenage years.
All this to say, I believe online pornography has been silently stealing my ability to connect with any potential partner by rendering me incapable of sensing the attraction and robbing me of the initiative to pursue someone if I did feel she was interested.
I believe the so coined Porn Induced Erectile Dysfunction, or PIED, was what hit me that night across the world four years ago. That and the obvious pressure to perform.
At this point, nearing the end of my college experience, I’ve simply missed the window for moving forward sexually and breaking that mental barrier I feel. I have felt little to no urge to seek out a sexual partner truly in a committed way, more in a fantastic and fleeting way. That last percentage of the way past the flirting always dissapates with my memory of shame and my lack of faith in myself.
I constantly worry that I’ve been somehow rendered incapable of identifying interest of a potential partner, and that I won’t be able to find someone I trust enough with my potential impotence to try to have sex again.
Definitely my number 1 self-conscious doubt in myself, and the one I feel is most actively limiting to me. Because I can’t progress past this thing that ultimately is not as big a part of living as it has been in my mind. All in all, I don’t want to pursue a woman as a test of myself. I don’t want to use a woman to prove something to myself, but I also worry that without any sexual confidence in myself, I may miss the opportunity when the right one comes along.
For any of you on here that read that, damn, you’re a real one.
The addiction at the root of this stemming and evolving mental/physical issue is an addiction to online pornography.
Over the years I’ve watched porn nearly daily, and I’ve progressed through some pretty weird shit, from horror porn to random Japanese language porn games. Fucking bat-shit crazy writing that now. The kind of thing you think back on when you’re sober and wonder, why oh why in the hell did I go there?
I’ve been off all pornography for 31 days, and I’ve been on nofap as well for 20 days. Cold turkey. First time intentionally and mindfully doing it.
On porn, the high is the horniness. The sensation of satisfaction one gets from scratching the itch of what feels to be a basic need.
The really terrible thing if that because I have a bit of a history with sexual shame and dysfunction, it rooted itself deeply in my hierarchy of basic personal needs. Many regard sex as a basic human need, and I think its obvious why. It’s a natural expression of our connection with one another.
I feel that this upcoming generation, millenials like myself included, will suffer from porn addiction at ever increasing rates, and I worry it is not something being addressed openly in our sex education beyond an “it’s gross don’t watch it it isn’t real”.
I wonder if other men have suffered from the same stack of conditions and if they’ve managed to reconnect and come out on top.
To those who read, thanks much. Thanks ultimately to this community for providing a first platform to speak openly about addiction and in my case it’s relationship to profound insecurity. I wish you all the very best strength in pursuing your goals.