Hi. My name is Rohan and I’m 32. I’d like to describe what quitting looks like in my case. I’ll start at the beginning, with how I got into porn. There probably won’t be any surprises here. Until the internet came along it was ordinary masturbation; after that, you know how it goes. I was into porn for about fifteen years. The turning point came about five months ago. I came across the subject of how masturbation and porn affect intimate relationships with women. It caught my interest and I started reading about it. I don’t know whether porn has left me unable to have sex with a woman, because I have very little experience. Apart from kissing and a few things after drinking that I barely remember, I’m completely green.
Half a year ago I met a woman, and I won’t hide that the fear of possible problems in bed is what made me take this subject seriously. I dropped porn and masturbation overnight. A lot of people describe having to fight themselves and slipping back. I didn’t have that problem at all. Not only because I knew it was bad, but also because for a long time I hadn’t felt much pull towards porn, or towards real women either, for that matter. I think I was doing it out of habit. One clip was no longer enough; I’d open several tabs and jump between them. Stronger and stronger content (though not extreme yet), a tighter and tighter grip, weaker and weaker erections. As I said, I started quitting for a woman. That was about five months ago. Later I realised I was doing it mainly for myself. Maybe that’s a good thing, because things between us aren’t developing the way I’d hoped, and if I’d been doing it only for her, who knows, maybe I’d have gone back, though it’s unlikely.
My thoughts after five months: it varies. There were days when I felt great and days when I felt worse. I’m definitely more confident. I say when something doesn’t suit me, and I’m not as shy around people anymore. I have more self-esteem and I’m growing as a man. I still have a long way to go, but the difference is already huge. (I still need to work on not caring so much what other people think.)
As for things below the belt, it varies there too. Maybe it’s a bit better, but it’s far from ideal. From the first days of quitting, my libido dropped to zero. It had been poor before, but this was a disaster. Zero attraction. Things improved after about two months: slightly more libido, the patient showed faint signs of life. That lasted about a week. Then the patient died, and my libido with him. After another month things improved again. My libido was really strong by then: when I saw an attractive woman and thought about what I could do with her, I got an erection almost immediately. I felt great about it. It lasted about two weeks, so I thought I was cured. Unfortunately it ended, and to this day there’s no libido again. I thought it might be caused by stress and constant tension, but I had plenty of those before too, and there was still an improvement.
I don’t know whether I’d be able to have sex with a woman. Maybe yes. One of the signs is that my penis responds a little better to my own touch, but I’m not sure. I should add that in five months I’ve had maybe three morning erections, and even those were only about 80 per cent hard. That’s not many, but on the other hand I had none at all before. I miss those two weeks and those three morning erections. I haven’t had any wet dreams. On the other hand, when I get slightly hard, a little fluid often comes out. I like checking what I’m capable of now, so almost every day I imagine situations with real women. I don’t know, maybe I shouldn’t be doing that. (I don’t think about porn.)
I wanted to see whether other people noticed things similar to mine while quitting, so I read a bit of what others had written online. I noticed that quite a lot of people, after a phase of improvement, go through longer or shorter dips in libido some time later. For some it lasts several months, and some need as long as two years to fully recover. And these aren’t isolated cases; there are more and more of them. I wonder how common what I’m going through really is.
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