Steven's Journal: One gay man's story

[StevenT]

I finally decided to write down my story after reading through many posts and journals over the last few weeks. Today is day 30 of no PMO for me, something I never thought possible until very recently. I somehow stumbled across this site after seeing a video on YouTube about porn addiction and realizing how much I could relate to many of the stories on here. Reading through the posts has made me think about how seductive and destructive porn has been in my life. It's sad for me to think how PMO has taken over my sex life and prevented me from learning how to be intimate with another person.

Like many other guys, I started masturbating to magazines and books when I was about 12. The realization that I was gay and attracted to other boys around that time was devastating to me and caused me to turn inwards and develop deep shame about my sexuality. I told no one about my feelings and lived in constant fear that my family or friends would find out and reject me. This fear and shame about who I was got twisted in with my growing sexuality, causing me to feel very ashamed and dirty any time I got turned on or masturbated thinking about guys. I had a small stash of porn magazines that I hid in the basement bathroom and guarded with my life. I can't begin to imagine the hours I poured over the pictures and stories and then hid them away again. Thinking back now, it's the secrecy and shame that ate away at me. I wasn't able to talk to my friends or anyone about my feelings or attractions. That is not healthy.

By the time I was in college I was desperate to change and tried dating and having sex with women. Sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn't. I usually felt ashamed and embarrassed if I couldn't get an erection, which caused me to drink more to relive my anxiety. I'm pretty sure these early failed experiences led me to develop performance anxiety.

Even after coming out to myself and friends in my early twenties I maintained my addiction to porn and my anxiety increased. I thought being with men would be easier, but I found that performance anxiety and alcohol often left me unable to connect with people except for drunken sex. Porn was much more satisfying to me than real intimacy because it was fast, always available and I didn't need to feel.

When I was in my late 20's I met the man that I would later marry. We've been together now 19 years and I'm still struggling with intimacy. Porn has pretty much been my sex life for many of the past years. I struggle with not feeling connected or attracted to my husband and I blame porn. All these years I've avoided real intimacy and sex because I feel much more turned on by the perfect bodies I see online. This isn't working for me anymore. I want to be free of my addiction and find out who I really am. I look forward to the journey!

 

[ready2go]

Welcome Steven.  I'll predict that you find men here who totally relate to your story.  You're certainly not alone.  Post frequently and read all you can.  Contribute to others' journals.  You will be helping all of us on our paths.  Thanks for being bold and putting yourself out there.
We love you man.
R2G

 

[lyon03]

Welcome Steven! Thank you for sharing so openly and honestly. That took a lot of courage brother. There are a lot of wonderful gay or bisexual men on this website (like Ready2Go) so please feel free to reach out. I can relate to what you wrote about the unattainable perfection of porn-perfect bodies. I went from chubby to a committed gym rat three years ago and have spent countless hours in gyms in many different countries. My point is even with all the hours spent working out, I've probably only seen 2-3 guys with the porn bodies I used to fantasize about. Porn makes us feel inadequate, worse it causes us to unfairly judge others, and when we feel lesser than we can't have true intimacy. Grindr and other hook-up applications just reinforce the stereotypes. Porn/hookups pulled me into a fantasy world of mega-d*cks, mechanical sex, and facials. I mean who wants someone to ejaculate on their face? Before I hijack your thread, I look forward to following your journey. Be well. PORN IS NOT AN OPTION.

 

[Phase2]

Hi Steven. Thanks for the post. I can certainly relate to your story. For those of us who grew up in the less enlightened 70's and 80's, we suffered a lot as gay men and we will probably never quite get over the shame and bigotry that was drilled into our heads by our dear bigot friends on the religious right. But with education and understanding, I am happy to see the next generations having a much easier time than we did (unless you are unfortunate enough to live in Alabama). For us, now, we can educate ourselves as much as possible and try to mitigate some of that damage. I think you are in the right place to start that. Go here and learn all you can. http://www.yourbrainonporn.com/erectile-dysfunction-question

Post your thoughts and feelings here, it helps--and get involved with other journals and ask us questions. Healing is on the way, man. Good luck!

 

[StevenT]

Thanks so much Ready2go, lyon03 and Phase2 for your support and words of encouragement. I have read through many of your stories and other posts and feel lucky to have found a group of people I can connect with and learn from. I'm also grateful there are other gay and bi men on here who share some of my challenges. I'm tired of devoting so much of my energy and desires into something that is empty and is depriving me of real intimacy.

Lyon03, I get what you mean about our obsession with having the perfect gym body and lusting after the unattainable perfection we see in porn. I find working out a great way to reduce stress, but the gym also triggers my lust and need to compare my body to other men. I sometimes avoid the big gay gym in town because I get tired of all the cruising and resulting anxiety. I very much struggle with being married and desiring sex with other men. As a gay couple, we've come to the realization that desire for excitement and other men is an ongoing issue. I hope to write more about this and learn from others as I go. For now I will continue to focus on no PMO and reading and sharing on here.

I really appreciate you guys and this space. Thanks!

 

[Curtis]

Steven--It was great to read your story, which (except for the husband part, I went for the wife), mirrors mine, right down to the booze. You drinking, or did you stop/ cut down? I went the AA route, saved my life 3 years now. But I'm finding no-PMO is bringing about real changes in my life in ways I cannot predict...I feel, free!

We've all got our own journeys here, but sort of a group effort without the scolding, clucking, and shaming that my inner critic shackled me with for decades. I couldn't believe P and M were really the core of my problems--just a harmless little diversion. I did try to stop on my own, with sort of a half-hearted "maybe I shouldn't be doing this all day" commitment. It got me nowhere, except more despair when I would do it again. I stumbled on this site, and reading about the science and disease aspect of PMO, and allowing myself to take an honest look at hat I was doing by reading what other men were admitting to, let me see myself as part of a very real, and very destructive, syndrome.

Great you're accumulating some time. Only suggestions: post like a mad-man at first (kind of a PMO substitute, in a healing way), get an accountability partner (there's a topic on this at the top of the forum page), purge all your porn and cache of photos (that hurts like hell, I know!), and install K9 porn filter, partly to keep you from slipping up in a moment of weakness (and I've got lots of moments of weakness) but mostly to make a ritualistic break with the past.

Have a great, PMO-free day...it's your choice, and mine!

 

[lyon03]

I'd add to Gay Gladiator's list (love the name by the way) to get an e-copy of "Your Brain on Porn" by Gary Wilson. It helped me a lot in early recovery. You wrote: "I very much struggle with being married and desiring sex with other men. As a gay couple, we've come to the realization that desire for excitement and other men is an ongoing issue." I wouldn't struggle with this issue too much for the first 90 days. I have been in a relationship for 2.5 years. For the first 2 years, I f*cked everyone I could find on Grindr, while still seeing my current boyfriend. Before reboot, I couldn't even imagine a monogamous relationship. My porn addiction sexualized everything and everyone. It was like wearing smeared lenses. Now I've changed prescriptions and am happily monogamous. Now 100+ days porn free, I'm no longer a walking hookup and realized I was simply chasing porn scenes via Grindr. Like a PMO session, I felt empty and ashamed after casual sex. Porn is an addiction just like alcohol or cocaine. We first have to learn to live without the drug and only then can we determine how we want to live our lives. I hope that helps my friend and look forward to your next post. Now that we have a 'Gay Gladiator', I think I'll change my RN name to 'She-Ra' or something equally fabulous. Be well. PORN IS NOT AN OPTION.   

 

[StevenT]

Thanks so much for your insight and advice Gay Gladiator and lyon. It's incredibly helpful to hear from other guys about what's working for them. I will try and put myself out there more by posting. I'm kind of a private guy, so it feels strange to be writing my deepest thoughts and have them read by others. But I can see it helps.

Gay Gladiator, you asked me about alcohol and whether I've given that up. I have not. I know I have an issue with alcohol, especially when I'm around certain people who trigger my desire to party. I learned long ago that alcohol helps relieve social anxiety, but I struggle with knowing when to stop. I guess it's the same with porn. But I am having a hard time understanding how giving up PMO can lead to such significant changes in one's life. I know it's a problem for me, but I attribute many of my problems to other things such as anxiety, lack of confidence, and low self-esteem. Can giving up PMO help with those issues? I hope so.

Lyon, thanks for sharing about your experiences with your relationship and sex. I feel sex is such a heavy and long standing issue between my me and my husband. It's been years since we've had hot, fulfilling sex. My deepest fear is that I'll never have that again because I don't feel sexual toward him. I've had some experiences recently with other guys that were so incredible that I felt alive with desire. I want to be able to feel that way again.

Thanks for being there, guys!

 

[lyon03]

Thanks for sharing brother. What you have described, "I've had some experiences recently with other guys that were so incredible that I felt alive with desire. I want to be able to feel that way again." sounds a lot like your brain seeking porn-like novelty. I know too little about your relationship to express an opinion but I can write from personal experience. Once I stopped wasting my time and sexual energy on porn and meaningless sex, I was even more attracted to my boyfriend. This helped me find intimacy for the first time. Porn, Grindr, Scruff etc all train our brains to seek out new and novel sex, like some f*cked up vending machine. Reboot is about removing all the unnatural stimulation so we rewire to others in a meaningful way. This may mean your partner or perhaps someone else but you first have to reboot for 90 days or more to relearn what natural attraction feels like. It's not easy but you're not alone my friend. Be well. PORN IS NOT AN OPTION.

 

[StevenT]

Thanks Lyon, I suspect you're right about my having sex with other guys being similar to craving porn. I'm feeling pretty messed up and confused about my relationship for a number of reasons. For so long we weren't very sexual with each other and both using porn to fulfill our needs. In the last couple years we've experimented with three-ways, which made me realize how much I miss having real sex. Problem is, it usually left my partner feeling left out as I was ravenous for the other men's bodies and didn't pay enough attention to him. We just started couples counseling yesterday and my partner brought up my porn addiction. I told him and the therapist about giving up PMO and that I know it's been a real problem my whole life. They were both very supportive about it.

I'll have to wait and see how giving up porn affects my relationship and attraction to my partner. Since going no PMO last month I haven't had much interest or desire. I guess this is flatline, but I also take Prozac for anxiety and those type of drugs have always caused sexual problems for me. Im hoping the next few months will help me heal from all this mess and bring about some clarity in my life.
Thanks for your help, man!

 

[lyon03]

It might be helpful to look at your sexual appetite a bit like your normal appetite. You two are doing so much junk food snacking alone there is really no need to sit down and enjoy a meal together. Porn and hook ups are a bit like the McDonalds drive thru: always there, always available, quick & easy, and yet you feel a bit sick when you indulge too much. So when you get home, there is nothing emotional nor life-changing about it: you're just not hungry. Similarly, you've lost your sexual appetites for each other because you're 'Big-Mac-ing' through porn and hookups rather than enjoying the 5-course meal that is loving intimacy. Try going 30 days without any masturbation or hook ups. I guarantee you'll rip your husband's clothes off on day 30. But you've got to wean yourself off the junky porn to get hungry again for your partner. Hope that helps...and didn't make you too hungry for McDs.

 

[Curtis]

Steven--Good to say your day count accumulating. You ask: "How can giving up PMO lead to significant changes in one's life?"...and also mention anxiety, lack of confidence and low self-esteem. Trust me, they're linked, in sort of a chicken-and the-egg which-came-first kind of way. Something I paid attention to when I was nearing the no-pMO decision, was to look at why and when I was doing this. A moment I stress over a problem, sent me straight to jacko world, instead of dealing with the problem. I was using porn as an outlet for my emotions, instea of dealing with my emotions directly as a mature man. It gave me no self-esteem or confidence, and fueled my anxiety and desire for "more" rather than bringing calm.

This is exactly what addiction does. It might help to read about porn addiction here. I also found it useful to read about addiction in a more general way (like on Wikipedia), just for an understanding of what the symptoms are. It made it easier for more to truly accept that I had a porn addiction. And the only medicine for an addiction, is totally abstinence one day at a time, of the drug of choice, in this case PMO.

Thanks for filling me in on the drinking. It's only yours to discover if you have a problem you want to address. My suggestion: go to an AA meeting or two, just as an experiment, and see if you relate to any of the things people are seeing. Addiction is really cunning, baffling and powerful--and if you have an addiction to porn, it's very possible there are a few other compulsive behaviors going on that you can't quite see. I mean, look at me: I knew I was an alcohol addict, but it took me 20 years before I realized this porn thing was way more than a hobby.

I can relate to the "feels strange sharing deepest secrets," or however you phrased it. Hah! Welcome to the club. There's a giant group of men here in the same boat, an it's totally anonymous...so start unloading, it's safe. And the more you share what's on your mind, the freer you'll become.

But there's really only one goal: go to bed tonight, without doing it to a computer screen.

 

[Phase2]

It seems strange to say, but having PIED has helped me get off porn for good. Having a working erection is EXTREMELY important to me as a man and as soon as I realized porn was screwing up my libido and erections it was so easy to give it up. Forever. And that's what I've done. But some guys on here, and I sort of sense this is you Steven, don't seem to have a real fire in the belly for giving up porn yet. It's like you're visiting the idea--still more on the side of defending porn and maybe the bf is the problem--and you've got the porn lifestyle of multiple partners, three-ways and hot porn star sex still high up there on that fake bullshit gay pedestal that we all have put it on. This is really a huge problem in our community. We've lost sight of how sexy commitment, monogamy and a great relationship can be. We've collectively traded all that in for this candy store porn orgy. And our teeth our rotting and we can't figure out why. You say you haven't had good sex with your boyfriend and you both satisfy yourself with porn. Chicken or egg?

I think you will find the best results when you decide once and for all that you are done with porn and then go through the reboot and rewire process. Only then can your brain start to find other sexual solutions, like, damn, right next to you in bed!--your boyfriend! So please consider that. You need strong commitment here for results. And yes you will get results. Reading through other people's posts you will see so many of us talking about reduction in anxiety and great gains in confidence--as well as improved sexuality. I think you have a real opportunity here, so go for it.

And yeah, this was my tough love speech. But I save it for my gay brothers because I know we share a unique, extra tough journey and I truly want to help. And I wish you great success! 

 

[Curtis]

Gonna second Phase2 here, tough-love at its finest. Steven: that's the post you need to read. Maybe print it out? You might find it harsh...but that's exactly how it feels when the mallet of reality makes a crack in our denial of addiction. Go for it! You've got nothing to lose...it's a leap of faith.

 

[StevenT]

Thanks guys for the advice and for holding me accountable. It means a lot to hear from you! Lyon, what a great analogy comparing porn and mindless hookups to fast food. That's exactly what it feels like. I crave it and think about it, but then it leaves my feeling empty, guilty and thinking about the next fix. You're right that the relationship has no chance when both of us are feeding elsewhere.

Gladiator, thanks for sharing about your struggles with addiction and alcohol. I don't have too look to deep to see how my addictions are all connected and working to keep me feeling bad. About 15 years ago I gave up drinking for a couple of years and attended AA. It was something I really wanted and needed to do. I'm sure you've heard this story before, but I decided to try and drink responsibly again and stopped going to meetings. I was missing the old lifestyle of going out to the bars and getting crazy with my friends like I did before my partner. The gay scene can really get in your blood, and I convinced myself that life would be too boring. I've managed fairly well to keep it under control, but I'm aware that I'm at high risk for abuse. This is something I will think about. Thank you for the push.

And Phase2, thanks for the tough love speech. Seriously. I think I've always wanted and needed people to care enough about me to call me out. That's something I never learned how to do growing up and my family avoids being real with each other. You're right that I'm going about this kind of half-hearted. That's a theme in my life. And I agree with you that our community is deeply screwed in our thinking about sex and what's really important. We're led to believe that having perfect bodies and going to the hottest clubs and circuit parties is important. God forbid you should get older. I don't even know where I belong in this community now that I'm almost 50. I hope to find out that I have everything I ever needed right here at home with my partner.

 

[Curtis]

Steven--good to hear your thoughts. Maybe time to just f'n surrender, and work the plan here. It's not a debating society. Stop. Life can begin. If you've been to AA, you already know where the answers lie.

 

[StevenT]

I'm now on day 37 of no PMO and starting to struggle with sexual thoughts and the desire to MO. I was in bed last night getting aroused thinking about some of my favorite porn scenes. I came close to giving in, but then realized how pathetic it was to be lying next to my partner while he's sleeping and me wanting to MO by myself. Something I've done many, many times in the past. Just another reminder of how easy it is for me to turn to porn rather than the person next to me.

And I'm noticing how difficult it is to get an erection when not having porn to get me excited. I've become so accustomed to looking at videos and jerking, that I find I'm not able to get hard when looking at an attractive person or thinking about something sexual. I really need my hand to get things going. I'm hoping this will change the longer I avoid porn. My partner and I are continuing to work on our relationship in couples counseling. I was honest last week in therapy and told my partner about cutting out porn. He's supportive and hopeful this will help our sex life, but I think it will be a long road to recovery.

Thanks for listening!

 

[Phase2]

Steven, 37 days is fantastic. Be proud of yourself. The only problem with 37 days is you are in the gray, dreary doldrums of having put in many weeks but you are not really getting the results yet that you want. You just gotta stick it out. I suggest that as soon as you start to think of anything sexual you stop right there and change the subject in your head--otherwise it's just torture. And thinking of porn or fantasy is just giving your old porn pathways in your brain more dopamine hits, so stop those in their tracks too. What you should be doing right now is giving your brain a real rest from sexual thoughts, so keep working towards that. You are in monk mode now! I found cold showers helpful during this period: they added a real boost to my day. I know they sound horrible and they are for the first 20 seconds, but afterwards you feel alive and renewed. Embrace them.

Keep posting. Once you write it down, your brain thinks about it all from a new angle and you start to see new solutions for yourself. I think you are off to a great start. Stay strong, buddy!

 

[StevenT]

Thanks, Phase. That's a pretty damn good description to call this monk mode! I don't really know what to feel now that I'm not getting off to porn. It almost feels like nothing is working down there because my body is so wired to porn and the quick release. I appreciate the advise and suggestion of cold showers. I can't imagine liking it but it's worth a try!

 

[lyon03]

Congratulations Steven on making it to 38 days. Don't forget that flatline = healing. You may worry about the lack of libido, but that will return soon enough. And when it does, you won't be able to keep your hands off your husband. As for your d*ck, that too will heal eventually but keep in mind your brain controls your junk. For the first 45 days, I was all about the c*ck analysis: morning wood; will it work again; and so on. Now during sex the intimate connection is my focus. Now that I no longer obsess about my junk, everything performs beautifully. You'll get there my friend but we can't rush it. Until then, you're making all the right choices: no porn, no masturbation to porn-like fantasies, and honesty with your partner. Bravo! Be well my friend. PORN IS NOT AN OPTION.