No libido as a young man can feel like something is badly wrong, because desire is supposed to peak in your 20s. In fact, low sex drive and erection problems at this age are common, and they rarely have one cause. Stress, mood, sleep, alcohol or weed, medicines, training, relationships and hormones can all play a part, and for some men, so can solo habits built around porn.
Some people have always felt little sexual interest and are fine with that. This page is for a change that bothers you: “why don’t I want sex anymore?”
Why is my libido low in my 20s?
The NHS lists relationship problems, stress, anxiety, depression, some medicines and drinking too much alcohol among the main causes of a low sex drive, along with long-term conditions such as diabetes or an underactive thyroid. NHS: low sex drive. At this age, these are the ones worth checking first:
- Stress, anxiety and low mood. Exams, a first job, money, a breakup. Depression often takes desire with it, and so can its treatment: the NHS lists low sex drive and erection difficulties among possible side effects of SSRI antidepressants, sometimes continuing after stopping. NHS: SSRI side effects. Talk to your prescriber before changing anything.
- Sleep. In a small study, a week of five-hour nights lowered daytime testosterone in healthy young men by 10 to 15%. Leproult and Van Cauter.
- Alcohol, weed and other drugs. Cleveland Clinic cites one study in which men who used marijuana were twice as likely to have erection problems. Cleveland Clinic. If your drive changed after starting or quitting a substance, the timing is worth telling a doctor.
- Heavy training, too little recovery. In a survey of 1,077 men, the most intense and longest endurance training was associated with lower libido scores. Hackney et al..
- Hair-loss medicine. Finasteride can reduce sexual desire and erections, and MedlinePlus notes these effects may continue after treatment stops. MedlinePlus: finasteride.
- Past steroid use. Coming off anabolic steroids can bring low sex drive, depression and fatigue. NHS: anabolic steroid misuse.
- The relationship. Conflict, resentment, or sex that feels like a duty lowers desire for that person, not necessarily desire in general.
Is erectile dysfunction normal in your 20s?
It is not rare. Cleveland Clinic cites estimates that between 1% and 14% of men under 40 have erectile dysfunction, and its urologist names psychological factors as the most common cause at a younger age. Even one bad night can start a cycle of performance anxiety. Cleveland Clinic. Doctors call this psychogenic erectile dysfunction.
The NHS says occasional erection problems usually come from stress, tiredness or alcohol, and notes that, depending on the cause, erections at other times, such as on waking, can still happen. NHS: erection problems. So “ED at 25” that only happens with a partner is a different picture from no erections at all. If yours work alone but not with someone, see hard alone but not with a partner.
No libido but normal testosterone?
A normal result is useful. Endocrine Society guidance recommends diagnosing low testosterone only with symptoms plus consistently low results on fasting morning blood tests, repeated to confirm. Bhasin et al.. A single afternoon test, or a home kit, is a weak basis for conclusions either way.
If your levels are normal, the answer is probably elsewhere on this page. The same guidance reserves testosterone therapy for men with confirmed deficiency, so it is not a libido fix for normal levels. Steroids taken without supervision can leave you worse off.
When should I see a doctor?
See a GP or a sexual health clinic if erection problems keep happening. NHS: erection problems. Go sooner if:
- morning and spontaneous erections have mostly stopped;
- the change followed a new medicine, finasteride or steroid use;
- low desire comes with constant tiredness, low mood, or losing interest in things you used to enjoy;
- your sex drive does not return to normal after a stressful period has passed, which the NHS also names as a reason to see a GP. NHS: low sex drive;
- you smoke, or have diabetes, high blood pressure or high cholesterol. Cleveland Clinic notes that under 40, erectile dysfunction can be an early sign of cardiovascular problems. Cleveland Clinic.
If you are having thoughts of harming yourself, contact emergency services or a crisis line now.
Depression deserves a doctor, not a countdown. Lucas describes planning to see a psychiatrist but deciding to handle it himself with a long break from porn and masturbation. During it, he writes, he had no morning erections and “one week of higher libido, then another three weeks of flatline,” and he came to believe the depression was holding him back. Read his story. Content warning: it discusses depression, severe anxiety and alcohol use.
Could porn be part of it?
This is the cause people rarely check, and the evidence is mixed. How often men watch does not consistently predict erection problems. Grubbs and Gola. The pattern of use seems to matter more. In a survey of 3,419 men aged 18 to 35, higher problematic-use scores were linked with higher odds of erectile dysfunction, and so was finding porn more arousing than partnered sex. Masturbation frequency was not. Jacobs et al.. Among coupled men with lower desire (an older sample, average age around 40), frequent porn-related masturbation looked partly separate from desire for the partner. Carvalheira et al.. All of this is correlational. It cannot show porn caused anyone’s low drive. For the full evidence on erections, see can porn cause ED?
A short self-check:
- Do you feel desire with porn, but little for a partner or for real-life sex?
- Do you masturbate often while partnered sex feels like effort?
- Have you needed more novel or intense content to get aroused?
- Is porn your usual response to stress, boredom or a bad day?
- Has sex without a screen been rare since your teens?
- Have you tried to cut back and found it harder than expected?
Several yes answers suggest your habits are worth looking at alongside the causes above, not instead of them. If none fit, this section is probably not about you.
Two warnings. Forums describe a “flatline”, a stretch of very low desire after quitting. That is a reported experience, not a measured stage; what flatline means. Lukas, 24, wrote that at the beginning “libido drops.” Read his story. Content warning: it contains explicit descriptions of sexual material. Also, abstinence does not “boost testosterone”: the study behind that claim has been retracted.
A 30-day experiment
If the self-check sounded familiar, choose a 30-day window to observe what changes. It is not a cure or a recovery timeline.
- Record a starting point. Each day, rate desire from 0 to 10, and note morning erections, sleep, alcohol or weed, training and mood.
- Leave porn out. Decide separately whether to keep masturbating. Both are reasonable choices.
- Make porn harder to reach on your phone. Turn on a content blocker or your phone’s built-in screen-time limits, and charge it outside the bedroom.
- Fix the basics at the same time. Protect sleep, drink less, ease off extra training.
- Take pressure off partnered sex. If you have a partner, say what you are trying and agree on closeness without a goal.
- Keep any doctor’s appointment. The experiment runs alongside a check-up, not instead of one.
If desire dips at first, note it without drawing conclusions. At the end, read your notes. If things improved, you cannot tell which change helped. If nothing changed, you have not failed, and your notes are a good starting point for a clinician.
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