Impulse6701
Member
Hello all, this is my story...
I first started watching porn when I was ~15. It started fairly innocently, just a teenager looking up "Girls kissing" on YouTube, eventually I was watching porn almost every night in my teens and twenties. I would sometimes go a couple weeks or even a month without watching it, especially during those semesters where I shared a room with someone, but I would always fall back into my old ways.
Anyways, cut forward to 22 years old and I'm about to graduate college. At this point I am not technically a virgin, I have had sex but it was with a stranger, we were both drunk, and I didn't feel very comfortable during the encounter. I had hooked up with a few people by this point, but it would always be non-penetrative or oral sex and I would leave or ghost someone before making that leap. The few times I did try penetrative or oral sex, I would either be so physically desensitized that I could not enjoy sex, or I would be struck by anxiety-induced ED and not perform at all. Sex had become a game of chance: will I be able to get it up tonight? Will I feel anything? Will this be as bad as last time?
I made a choice some time during the summer before my final year to completely cut porn out of my life, and 3 months into that journey I started dating one of my best friends. I had a crush on her for years, we both discovered those feelings were mutual, and decided to explore those feelings together in a relationship. I was fairly straight-forward with her that I was not super experienced, had a poor first-time experience with sex, wanted to take things slow, and was abstaining from porn. She was very sweet and supportive of that, and took things as slow as I was comfortable with. I was actually making some progress, we had tried oral stuff that went really well and even had sex once (I asked if we could stop because I was getting frustrated with my delayed climaxes and low sensitivity). I really miss that relationship. Sex aside, she and I seemed really awesome together: we had the same interests, sense of humor, were both very attracted to one another, were in the same sports club, and were going into the same career. She had this secret smile that would only come out when she and I were alone together, I loved listening her give advice to other people, and her relationship with her family was very heart-warming. I think she might have been the first person I fell in love with.
I must have missed something though, because 4 months in there was one weekend where something just felt off all of a sudden, and a couple days later the hammer fell that she wanted to end the relationship. A few days later I got COVID, a training partner of mine died, and I started falling behind in my courses. I got insanely depressed, fell HARD back into porn, and couldn't go a week without having a panic attack or thinking of jumping in front of a bus. I was a blubbering mess, and I think I ruined her opinion of me. As soon as graduation ended, I booked a ticket to California and started a 2 month backpacking trip across the USA, Canada, and Europe, all without telling any of my friends or immediate family. When I returned to start work, I saw she unfollowed me on every social media account I still had. I haven't checked, but I imagine she's blocked me or at least lost my phone number.
Since then, I am trying to get my life back together. I started taking anti-depressants, got diagnosed with ADHD, am getting a test to determine if I am on the ASD, eating healthier, going to the gym, reading classic books+films (I am working my way through the IMDB Top 100 Movies of All Time), getting back in touch with my old hobbies, starting new ones, and am planning a second shorter and more well-planned backpacking trip for the summer. I like the stoic approach to life: everything that happens is--at best--something to be joyful about--and at worst--necessary to become a more well-rounded and wiser person. What happened this year rattled me to my core, but it set me on a path where I am taking more responsibility for my mental health, drinking up more culture, and polishing the edges to my ego.
Porn was certainly not the reason my relationship ended, but it played too large a role in setting the boundaries of our relationship for me to ignore it. There is no reason why I shouldn't be comfortable in a physical relationship, and if pornography is one possible explanation for why I find that so challenging, I would rather just live without it. So here is what I am committing to:
1. Absolutely zero porn from here on out
2. Once a week, engage in "mindful masturbation" using only my mind; I think this will help with the desensitization, and making sex less about "when will I climax..." and more like "I am enjoying every moment of this..."
3. Use lubricant and soft grip to avoid desensitization
4. Post updates to keep myself honest
This is my first time using an online forum like this, I hope that having a like-minded community will help.
I first started watching porn when I was ~15. It started fairly innocently, just a teenager looking up "Girls kissing" on YouTube, eventually I was watching porn almost every night in my teens and twenties. I would sometimes go a couple weeks or even a month without watching it, especially during those semesters where I shared a room with someone, but I would always fall back into my old ways.
Anyways, cut forward to 22 years old and I'm about to graduate college. At this point I am not technically a virgin, I have had sex but it was with a stranger, we were both drunk, and I didn't feel very comfortable during the encounter. I had hooked up with a few people by this point, but it would always be non-penetrative or oral sex and I would leave or ghost someone before making that leap. The few times I did try penetrative or oral sex, I would either be so physically desensitized that I could not enjoy sex, or I would be struck by anxiety-induced ED and not perform at all. Sex had become a game of chance: will I be able to get it up tonight? Will I feel anything? Will this be as bad as last time?
I made a choice some time during the summer before my final year to completely cut porn out of my life, and 3 months into that journey I started dating one of my best friends. I had a crush on her for years, we both discovered those feelings were mutual, and decided to explore those feelings together in a relationship. I was fairly straight-forward with her that I was not super experienced, had a poor first-time experience with sex, wanted to take things slow, and was abstaining from porn. She was very sweet and supportive of that, and took things as slow as I was comfortable with. I was actually making some progress, we had tried oral stuff that went really well and even had sex once (I asked if we could stop because I was getting frustrated with my delayed climaxes and low sensitivity). I really miss that relationship. Sex aside, she and I seemed really awesome together: we had the same interests, sense of humor, were both very attracted to one another, were in the same sports club, and were going into the same career. She had this secret smile that would only come out when she and I were alone together, I loved listening her give advice to other people, and her relationship with her family was very heart-warming. I think she might have been the first person I fell in love with.
I must have missed something though, because 4 months in there was one weekend where something just felt off all of a sudden, and a couple days later the hammer fell that she wanted to end the relationship. A few days later I got COVID, a training partner of mine died, and I started falling behind in my courses. I got insanely depressed, fell HARD back into porn, and couldn't go a week without having a panic attack or thinking of jumping in front of a bus. I was a blubbering mess, and I think I ruined her opinion of me. As soon as graduation ended, I booked a ticket to California and started a 2 month backpacking trip across the USA, Canada, and Europe, all without telling any of my friends or immediate family. When I returned to start work, I saw she unfollowed me on every social media account I still had. I haven't checked, but I imagine she's blocked me or at least lost my phone number.
Since then, I am trying to get my life back together. I started taking anti-depressants, got diagnosed with ADHD, am getting a test to determine if I am on the ASD, eating healthier, going to the gym, reading classic books+films (I am working my way through the IMDB Top 100 Movies of All Time), getting back in touch with my old hobbies, starting new ones, and am planning a second shorter and more well-planned backpacking trip for the summer. I like the stoic approach to life: everything that happens is--at best--something to be joyful about--and at worst--necessary to become a more well-rounded and wiser person. What happened this year rattled me to my core, but it set me on a path where I am taking more responsibility for my mental health, drinking up more culture, and polishing the edges to my ego.
Porn was certainly not the reason my relationship ended, but it played too large a role in setting the boundaries of our relationship for me to ignore it. There is no reason why I shouldn't be comfortable in a physical relationship, and if pornography is one possible explanation for why I find that so challenging, I would rather just live without it. So here is what I am committing to:
1. Absolutely zero porn from here on out
2. Once a week, engage in "mindful masturbation" using only my mind; I think this will help with the desensitization, and making sex less about "when will I climax..." and more like "I am enjoying every moment of this..."
3. Use lubricant and soft grip to avoid desensitization
4. Post updates to keep myself honest
This is my first time using an online forum like this, I hope that having a like-minded community will help.
