I’m in my early 30’s and had been using internet porn for approximately 20 years. I first came across all this about a year ago and after a few attempts I’ve now hit 100 days nofap, no porn.
I thought I’d give a summary of how it’s gone and what’s happened over the last year and especially the last 100 days. This isn’t the first time I’ve tried to give up porn, there have been several attempts over the last year but this has been the first successful long term effort.
I was initially inspired to do this after watching The Great Porn Experiment TED Video (http://is.gd/qfgP4J). The first few times I tried to quit porn I found the idea of going cold turkey on porn such an extreme one that I thought I’d just ‘reduce’ my usage. I figured that I’d only use images instead of movies and when that was too difficult I figured that watching movies on my phone ‘was ok’ because the screen was small therefore the negative porn effects on my brain were smaller haha. Looking back on this it seems so stupid and I can laugh at it now.
At the time I didn’t think I was addicted to porn, it was just something enjoyable to do but looking back now and given how difficult it initially was to quit I think I probably was. When I first tried to quit porn I was only quitting porn not masturbating, but I soon realised the two were so closely linked for me that I couldn’t easily masturbate without porn. This scared me and made me realise things were not good.
Before I watched the TED video and started researching (http://is.gd/iG6VTg) into the effects of porn addiction and what it does to you I had no idea that some of the things I was experiencing were porn related but looking back on it now it ALL makes sense. I never thought I had any issues until I read their check list, then I was like OH F**K
- Difficulty reaching orgasm with a partner (delayed ejaculation)
- Decreasing sensitivity of penis
- Ejaculating when you are only partly erect, or getting totally erect only as you climax
- Earlier genres of porn are no longer “exciting”
- Declining sexual arousal with a sexual partner(s)
- Losing erection while attempting penetration
- Can’t maintain erection or ejaculate with oral sex
I never realised these things were symptoms. I just thought ‘delayed ejaculation’ was a good thing, I was a stallion in the bedroom, lasted for AGES. ‘Earlier genres of porn are no longer exciting’ I just assumed as with all things you get bored of something after a while. ‘Declining sexual arousal with a sexual partner’ again I just thought I was getting bored of ‘that’ particular girl. ‘Can’t maintain erection or ejaculate with oral sex’ just figured the girl(s) were bad at giving head or that this was something that I wasn’t that into. ‘Losing erection while attempting penetration’ I usually blamed this on alcohol.
What is really bad and kinda hurts in hindsight is that I broke up with a certain girl, a girl that I thought was really awesome because I thought we didn’t have chemistry.
“Many men cannot believe that Internet porn has caused their ED—until they stop using it and recover completely. Instead, men tend to assume their ED with a sexual partner is caused by the fact the person is not their “type,” “
I remember at the time being really confused. She was physically really very attractive, smart, we had a lot in common and shared the same sense of humour but it just wasn’t ‘on’ in the bedroom so I broke up with her figuring we weren’t right for each other.
Another negative side effect of all of this is that it led to riskier sexual behaviour by me. Over time I learned that in the time period of me getting hard and then going to put a condom there was a small chance (say 20%) that I may go soft again which meant that over time I would just go in raw, without a condom to avoid that risk of going soft while waiting and putting the condom on. Not smart.
So what changed? Well a year ago I watched that video and started to get informed. Like I said I tried to quit porn and failed several times. The thing was now when those symptoms of porn induced erectile dysfunction (ED) showed up I knew what they were, no excuses. It wasn’t every time and it wasn’t with every girl but when it did happen then I knew why and grew increasingly frustrated. Something had to be done!
As I had failed several times before to quit porn by my own self will (having a PC with internet in your room is like an alcoholic trying to quit alcohol and having a bottle of vodka constantly on his desk) I knew I had to block my access to porn. I installed a web filter on my PC. This kinda worked but I also figured out how to get around it (stupid right… I’m fighting my own system), so I strengthened my own system (blocking proxies, blocking searches on certain words etc).
I knew my own tricks so I implemented measures to fight them. For a few weeks I was playing a game of cat and mouse with myself. I would plug one exploit and then on a day when I was super horny I would find another. Over time I ended up closing all the exploits and I even had to install a web filter on my phone. I had also read that during the ‘reboot’ they recommend giving up masturbation along with porn for the first few months, so I did that (the more extreme version of this is to also quit sex for a while but I wasn’t willing to do that).
I then decided to gamify the ‘nofap challenge’ as I know how susceptible I am to the idea of gamification. I created a simple day streak counter where I would cross of each day that I didn’t masturbate or watch porn. If I broke my streak I’d have to start again. My initial goal was to get to 90 days in a row.
This one thing made a MASSIVE difference. I placed it right on my desk where I could see it easily every day and if I ever felt horny I’d just look at this and not want to break my streak.
The first few days/weeks were the most difficult, then after that it became much easier. I think if you can get past two weeks you can get to 90 days without too much extra effort. Sure there will be times of temptation but you just need to power through, remind yourself why you’re doing this and have a distraction activity to change what you’re thinking about.
Over the past 100 days there haven’t really been many negative side effects. There was one 2 day period where I had extreme blue balls, painful and very sensitive, but apart from that it’s been ok. Another side effect was the ‘flat line’ period where you lose all libido and sexual drive. This was not ideal. During these periods I would go out to bars/clubs with friends as usual but I wasn’t horny and really couldn’t be bothered with meeting girls. Invariably the girls could see or feel that I wasn’t that into them.
So what benefits have I noticed so far? Increased hardness of morning wood, it’s like a steel bat now lol. Increased energy. I remember a few days when I had so much energy I would literally run and jump down the street as I walked into town. I get turned on much easier now. I’ll often get a semi while talking with a girl in a club (if it feels on). I can also get turned on by my own touch without the need for porn or other visual stimulus.
Regards to sex it’s difficult to say really as in the last 2 months I’ve only had sex once. I slept with a few girls in the first month of the challenge but as that was the early stages I don’t think any benefits had kicked in at that stage. One thing I can say is that I seemed to be much more into the most recent girl then I normally am. Like just enjoying being with her, touching her, cuddling, the simple things.
This isn’t over yet. They say it can take between 2-6 months to get ‘back to normal’ and I’m 3.5 months into it. I plan to stick it out until at least the 6 month mark. At that stage I’ll re-evaluate what to do next.
LINK – One year in – 100 days no fap
by G-5tar
EARLIER POST
Day 200 – The Good and the Bad
As I’ve just hit day 200 in my no porn no fap challenge, I thought I’d give an update to my experiences so far. If you’re interested in reading my back story and motivation you can read that in my day 100 report here (http://is.gd/jxw3yB) however here’s what’s happened since then.
Days 100-200 have been relatively easy with respects to the challenge. I haven’t really felt the urge to watch porn or masturbate very often. In fact, I don’t think I’ve desired porn at all. These days I hardly think about the challenge, not watching porn or masturbating is a normal thing for me now, it’s not something that I have to actively force myself to do or be wary off.
That said, it’s not all positive. I think my libido in general is slightly lower now, and although you could say being more chilled around women is a good thing, not having that killer instinct or drive can be a negative too. It sort of feels like a ‘use it or lose it’ situation. Because I went for several months of no sexual activity and no masturbation it feels like my body adapted to that new environment of lower sexual requirement.
For the last month I have been seeing a new girl and therefore having sex around once a week. The ED that I used to suffer (see my day 100 report http://is.gd/jxw3yB) is for the most part gone, which is good. Everything isn’t quite back to normal. There was one occasion where I lost my erection during sex with her which was quite annoying, but most times it’s fine. What isn’t fine is that I am now SUPER sensitive and ejaculate WAY WAY too quickly. This is very annoying. Even on round two or three during a session I still ejaculate far too fast which means that I (and she) are still not enjoying penetrative sex as much as we would if my stamina was what it used to be.
On the plus side I feel more ‘into’ her then perhaps I would have been in the past, enjoying the more subtle elements such as touch or spooning. I don’t desire porn and my dick basically works when it needs to (most of the time).
I’m going to give it a little longer and see what happens, perhaps after a while of regular sex the over sensitivity will subside and my sex drive will increase. If not I may reintroduce masturbation, probably once a week, just using sensual touch, no porn. But at the moment I’m going to stick with no fap.
Day 250 – Unexpected Results – Some Positives – Some Negatives
I recently hit day 250 of this challenge so thought I’d give an update. There have been a few interesting developments recently so figured I’d share them with you guys.
Warning: the below is pretty candid and sometimes graphic, if you’re easily offended stop reading now.
Before I start if you want to read my back story you can read my day 100 report here (http://bit.ly/1mIch7L) and day 200 report here (http://bit.ly/S6GphS).
If you read my day 200 report you’ll know that I’ve been getting frustrated with the problem of premature ejaculation. Since I was no longer masturbating when I did have sex I would be pretty ‘backed up’ and would ejaculate way too fast. I was seeing a girl approximately once a week so was always feeling right on the edge of ejaculating every time I saw her.
I asked people for advice on the forums and tried many different things to try and improve my stamina. Things I tried included thinking of something else during sex, staying very relaxed and controlling my breathing, using positions that in the past I’d found were ‘non cuming positions’ such as girl on top, ‘auto circumcision’ which involved having my foreskin pulled back all the time during my day to day life to numb the nerve endings in my glands to reduce sensitivity and finally SUPER slow sex.
Of the above, only the SUPER slow sex helped and I mean it was SUPER slow, two seconds on the in stroke, two seconds on the out stroke. I didn’t find thinking about something else helped when I was SO on the edge of ejaculating. It was a technique I used to use in the past and it works, but only if you’re not too close. I’ve found if you’re super close you’ll go over the edge anyway no matter where your mind is.
Then things changed. At around day 225-230 I was going away and would be staying at someone else’s house for a week. It had been 12 days since I’d last had sex and therefore ejaculated and I knew from experience that at around day 14 I would automatically have a nocturnal emission (wet dream), meaning I would ejaculate while I slept. I didn’t want this to happen while I was at this persons house so I decided to masturbate (without porn, just sensual touch) to effectively reset the 14 day counter meaning I wouldn’t ejaculate while I was at their house.
This worked and I indeed didn’t ejaculate while I was away. What it also did is help me relax about the idea of masturbating again. After all it was porn that was causing the ED issues in the first place, not masturbation. So I decided that I would masturbate a day or so before I had sex with a girl so that I didn’t feel so backed up and would hopefully last longer. I should emphasises that I was not watching porn, or masturbating regularly, just having ‘tactical wanks’ when needed. I think there have been 3 or 4 of these in the last month.
So did they help? Yes. So far, not being backed up is the only solution I’ve found to have normal, even vigorous sex without ejaculating prematurely. Unfortunately not everything is rosy just yet. The premature ejaculation problem has mostly been solved, however an old problem has reared its head. That problem is of slowly going soft while having sex, or only being 80-90% erect to being with. It seems I can’t catch a break! hahaha 🙂
This week I had sex on four separate days so premature ejaculation was not a real problem (not being backed up) although a couple times the first round wasn’t as long as it could be. However the main problem was insufficient erection quality. When I was having sex I could feel myself losing my erection which made me for example lose confidence in being able to change positions as I knew it would likely not be hard enough to reinsert again. At certain times I would lose my erection to the point where I wouldn’t be able to ejaculate and therefore just have to stop (being almost completely soft). Some other times I would be able to ejaculate but it wasn’t that satisfying and obviously it’s not as great an experience for the girl being fucked by a slightly limp dick. To be honest I’m not sure what to do here. It’s frustrating that my best erections are while I sleep, my morning wood is crazy hard, I want THAT during sex.
But let’s end on a high. Things have improved in general. I am having longer sex, it is better for me and for her. I feel happier and feel positive about all of this.
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