Submitted by ATL on 8/6/2012 – I’ve been reading this site for the past week and thought I would introduce myself. I’m a 32 year old male, and have had HOCD from the age of 25. I won’t go into all the details of that, most are the same as the other OCD sufferers. It’s been the most challenging and scary experience of my life. I also used to be a habitual PMO-er. I found porn and masturbation when I was 17, and for most of the years since I didn’t go to bed without PMO. And frequently woke up to PMO as well. I watched A LOT of porn.
Fortunately for my psyche, I never ventured into the trans/gay porn area. I’m thankful for that. My HOCD 7 years ago was preceded by a significant and sudden drop in sex drive. I tried all sorts of things to get it back over the years, and probably spend thousands of dollars on doctors, tests, supplements, etc. All basically to no avail. I felt worn-out sexually. I had erection problems. I had sensitivity problems. I had just a fraction of the sex drive I had before. And yet, I continued to PMO.
I got over HOCD for several years, and then got into a serious relationship earlier this year and it all came back again. And then it transitioned to Gender Identity OCD, which basically means I am worried about being too feminine. I analyze what I am doing, and how other’s perceive me, to check my masculinity. I guess you could say I’m insecure in my masculinity. But to an obsessive degree. I’ve never been insecure about it before this year.
Here’s the thing, though. When I don’t orgasm for about a week, these worries go away for the most part. My HOCD has been on the out anyway, and my GI-OCD is significantly decreased when I don’t orgasm for a week. But then when I do orgasm, I get insecure about my masculinity again and feel like I am not masculine enough and start googling all sorts of things related to gender identity and it sends me into a spiral of worry and anxiety. I went on a camping trip with my girlfriend this past weekend, after almost a week of no orgasms, and I totally felt like my normal self. Very few HOCD thoughts and feelings of femininity. It was great.
But having a girlfriend whom I love very much, and who I share a great sex life with, makes things a little tricky when it comes to not orgasming. So last week I committed myself to stop watching porn and stop masturbating. I’ve been able to keep that commitment successfully. But, I am still orgasming with my girlfriend. In fact, this weekend, I orgasmed 5 times. I guess it shouldn’t be any surprise that my GI-OCD and HOCD are flaring up today.
WHen I found this site, and a lot of things clicked with me. The addiction to PMO. The HOCD. All the symptoms of having orgasmed too much and watched too much porn.
So my plan is this: stop the porn and MO, which I’ve done so far (5 days). In another month, my girlfriend is having minor surgery and she won’t be able to have sex for 4 weeks. I’ve already talked to her about using that time to give my brain a break from orgasm. She was a little bit skeptical, but seemed on-board for the most part. She enjoys giving oral sex (lucky for me) so she’s a little disappointed she can’t do that during that month.
I’ll keep this space updated with how things are going. As I’ve mentioned, so far the no PMO or MO has gone well.
10/02/2012 – Patience
I think it’s good to remind ourselves that this process might take awhile. When you consider that I’ve been PMOing daily for ~14 years (nearly half of my life!), I think it’s unrealistic to see dramatic changes very quickly. Particularly since I haven’t been as good (so far) with stopping the MO, or O altogether for that matter.
I’ve seen some good improvements so far, even if subtle, which I’ve mentioned before in this blog. Just have to keep going, and see how it goes from here.
I’m coming up on 90 days of no porn, and I feel great about it. I was thinking about it today, and I don’t even WANT to look at porn anymore. It just doesn’t have any allure. When I think about it, it feels draining to me in some way. I think having regular sex helps me and if I wasn’t having sex I would be more drawn to the porn.
Speaking of which, last week I went a little overboard with the orgasm. I masturbated twice (thinking about previous experiences), and had sex that led to orgasm 5 times. 3 of those were in one day, two days ago.
And after that little bender, in these past couple days, I’ve felt pretty bad. Slightly depressed, lethargic, totally disinterested in my partner, zero libido, lacking any kind of mojo whatsoever, feeling like I just want to stay in bed all day. Very little motivation to do anything. Unproductive at work.
So it’s clear 7 orgasms in 1 weeks is not good for my brain, I can feel that.
So I am going to take this week off from orgasm, and see how I feel. I’m guessing it will be a lot better.
I should mention that my HOCD has been as low as it’s been since my relapse in March. It’s hardly bothered me at all. I credit quitting porn for this.
11/18/2012 – My first Karezza experience
My first step here was eliminating porn, which I’ve done successfully for about 110 days now. Then I sought to stop masturbating, which was a lot harder to do, although I’ve been “clean” for about two weeks now from masturbating. Finally, tonight I told my girlfriend I wouldn’t be orgasming. She was a little surprised at first, although I had talked about trying Karezza before. So she did have an idea about what it’s all about.
My impetus to finally give Karezza a shot with my girlfriend was another one of my orgasm “benders” which I’ve discussed on here before. I had 11 orgasms in 6 days, and I just felt like crap. I wasn’t sleeping, I had that sorta tired, unmotivated, blah feeling. My attitude toward my girlfriend was one of total indifference. HOCD was bad again, and really bothering me.
So tonight we gave it a shot. It was fantastic, and she loved it, which is a relief to me. We went slow, tried a variety of positions, and just enjoyed ourselves in a very relaxed and sensual way. I was a little surprised at how I was able to keep from orgasming and just find a “zone” where I felt good and not like I was escalating. I sorta went back and forth from this really intense NEED for her, and then settling back down into just enjoying the sensations. I was really surprised to look at the clock and discover we’d been doing it for almost an hour. I really didn’t notice time fly by.
Right afterward we went to dinner with a couple friends of ours. In the car on the way, we were so touchy and amorous. We were both just feeling “WOW” about the whole experience. I felt fantastic. I was quick witted, charming, focused at dinner. I just felt “on my game.” My social anxiety and feeling of social awkwardness were very low. I felt confident.
We came home and cuddled for about another 30 minutes before she had to go home. I showed her the “orgasm v. performance” video that Marina posted and she was very intrigued by it. I was hesitant to change our love-making style, and worried about how she would react to it, if she would like it as much. But her response has been great, she seemed to really really enjoy it.
I realize maybe this is a placebo effect, or maybe I can’t expect this kind of success in the future. But it was a really great first experience, and it has given me a lot of confidence to keep going with it. One of the most important factors being that my girlfriend was really happy with our first foray into it.
12/04/2012 – The elusive Karezza
My last entry was two weeks ago, after I had just had my first Karezza experience with my girlfriend, and a very positive one at that.
I’m a little sheepish to admit, I haven’t been so good since then. No relapse on porn (4 months!) or masturbation, fortunately. But I am not doing very good at keeping sex in the Karezza realm, and out of the orgasm/escalation real. The thing is, I really enjoy orgasming during sex with my girlfriend. I love the feeling. So even though I go into sex with the intent to have Karezza and not orgasm, it usually turns into an escalation to orgasm.
Then, I have the emotional dip. For instance, last night. I orgasmed twice during our love-making session. Then today, I felt like I had zero libido. No woman looked particularly attractive to me. When I kissed my girlfriend tonight, it was like kissing a wall or something. There was just no feeling there. And that’s pretty discouraging. I find my girlfriend very sexy, but when I’m in my post-orgasm dip I’m just very indifferent to her. I get that feeling where I don’t feel very manly, where I don’t feel all that confident. Relatively passionless.
I guess all that makes sense in terms of what happens to perception after orgasm in the increase in prolactin and decrease in oxytocin and such.
And if I’m being honest, my libido has been flagging a bit in the past couple weeks, and I’m not really sure why. I haven’t been orgasming any more than I used to, in fact I’ve been orgasming less because I don’t masturbate anymore.
However, I am really limiting my time on the HOCD message boards (I don’t count this as one, as it doesn’t give my brain the same addictive “kick”) which I think has really helped my positive outlook and mood in general. And a lot fewer HOCD thoughts. The one HOCD thought I have been getting stuck on it about giving oral sex to a guy. I have this feelings almost like I would enjoy it. Although in reality I think it would freak me out. But sometimes when I’m feeling good my brain will tell me “well what about that oral sex thing, what are you going to do about that?”
So, that’s where I’m at. One interesting note: my girlfriend is going to have a surgical procedure next week and she won’t be able to have sex for a month. I think this is a great time to try and go the whole time with no sex, no orgasm, just cuddling and see what happens. It will be an interesting experiment, if I can hold out that entire time. She’s offered to “take care of me” in other ways, which is very generous, and that’s going to be a tough offer to decline. But if I can do it I think it will be interesting to see what happens.
ATL
LINK TO POST – Porn is not sex
Submitted by ATL on 12/29/2012
Having been porn free for nearly 5 months now, I’ve realized how much pornography influenced my sexual life. I had sex in the way I saw people doing it in pornography. The sex I had was meant to emulate what I saw, because that’s what looked and felt good.
But real sex I don’t think is really like that. At least sex that leaves me deeply fulfilled. It’s less about performance and show, and more about intense intimacy and an expressions of love with your partner.
I’m really glad I quit porn. The farther I get from it the more artificial it feels. I’m not saying to don’t feel that pull every now and then. But my life and my sex life is definitely better without it.
Several years ago I had an instance of ED and I really freaked out. I had several more instances of it and I did my usual obsessive thing, did all sorts of internet research on it, tried all kinds of supplements, etc. etc. etc. I also felt like I had lost some of the sensation I had in my penis. There were no instant cures. Slowly, things got better and it is no longer an issue for me whatsoever. In fact if I told my current partner that I once had a problem with it, she’d probably laugh.
I think I had just worn myself out with PMO, and it took longer than I thought to rebound.
Fully healed of ED? Yes. I’m back to normal on that front. But really the reason I came here in the first place was HOCD and my on-going struggle with that monster and the intrusive thoughts, the doubts, the spikes, the questioning, the analyzation, the constant battle in my mind over my “orientation.” I put that in quotes because I don’t believe my orientation was ever really in question. It is a mental issue. I feel about 80% better on the HOCD front at this point in time.
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