Who is This Guide For?
Have you ever had trouble getting hard when you're in bed with a woman? If so, this guide is written for you. More specifically, this guide is written for any man who has trouble getting hard, but doesn’t have a physiological issue
How do you know if you have a physiological issue? Bottom line, if you can get hard to pornography, you don’t have a physical issue. Your anatomy is working just fine. If you can get hard to porn, but sometimes have trouble getting hard when it comes to real life sex, this guide is for you.
Who’s Writing This Guide?
My name’s Derek, a student of Jim Benson’s. I’m 25 years old, yet for about 6 years of my life, I've struggled with erectile dysfunction. In theory, an 18 to 24 year old should be at the peak of his sexuality. He’s “supposed” to just spring into action when duty calls, erect at the first sight of a naked woman’s body.
Yet for me, that wasn’t how it worked. I had a hard time getting hard, no matter how attractive the woman I was with was. In fact, sometimes it was the really attractive women that I had the most trouble with.
It drove me insane. I remember two specific experiences that really drove me to figure this thing out once and for all:
• I had an great picnic date with a gorgeous young blond artist girl. Everything went great, we ended up back at my apartment. I ended up fingering her to six orgasms. She was literally raking her nails on my back and screaming at the top of her lungs. Yet no matter how hard I tried, I just couldn’t get hard. We tried for maybe 20 minutes, then just gave up. She never called back.
• On vacation in Greece, I took a beautiful Malaysian girl back to my hotel. Again, I had trouble getting hard, despite her stroking me, kissing me and doing everything to please me. Eventually she asked, “Would it be easier if I was a guy?” (Not that there’s anything wrong with that – But, as a straight man, that hit a pretty hard blow on my sexual confidence.)
Fast forward to today. Erectile dysfunction is a complete non-issue for me now. Often times I’m hard, even before the clothes come off. I don’t get weird, “Are you okay?” looks from girls anymore. I can’t tell you how good it feels to have this taken care of.
It’s not just about getting hard either. Because of the information in this guide, I feel more sexually powerful, more virile, more confident and more attractive all around. There’s more “sex energy” in my body at any given time, which women feel, sense and are drawn to.
Ready? Let’s jump into it.
The Shocking Cause of Erectile Dysfunction
When I first heard about this particularly insidious cause of erectile dysfunction, I didn’t believe it. It’s something that’s a big part of 99% of men’s lives. It’s something that I did every day. It’s something that I thought was completely normal. Harmless. Fun, even. I had never thought that it would possibly have such a negative impact on my life.
What is it? It’s porn.
Now, before we go any further let me just say: I have nothing against porn. I consumed porn just like 99% of other adult males for the last 7 years of my life. Until I learned what I’m about to share with you and realized the true cost of my porn habit.
How does porn cause erectile dysfunction?
The Science: Explained in Simple Terms
I’ll start by explaining the science and the theory, then share my experience of quitting, as well as the experiences of others.
Dopamine: Sex, Food, Companionship
At the core of your brain’s pain-pleasure reward circuitry is a chemical called dopamine. This is the part of your brain responsible for making you want things that help you survive, while keeping you away from dangerous activities.
Some people call dopamine the “pleasure molecule,” but that’s not quite right. It’s more like the “craving” or “addiction” molecule. When you see something that your body is genetically programmed to want, including sex, food or companionship, dopamine is released in your brain.
• See that chocolate ice cream through the grocery store window? Blast of dopamine.
• See that attractive woman walking by? Blast of dopamine.
• That feeling of wanting to win when you’re playing a video game? That’s dopamine from wanting the victory, the conquest.
Desensitizing Your Brain
One of the most powerful ways to release dopamine is through the promise of sex. The feeling you get when you see a naked woman who wants to have sex with you is far stronger than, say, the feeling you get when you’re about to eat ice cream.
Every time your brain perceives an opportunity for sex, it releases dopamine. And here’s where porn comes in. To your limbic, primal, reptilian brain, there is no difference between porn and real women. When you see a woman on screen, your reptilian brain thinks: “Mating time!” and releases a blast of dopamine in your brain.
Unlike having sex with real women, there’s no limit to how many girls you can “sleep with” in a porn session. Have you ever gone on a porn binge? Where you were hopping from porn site to porn site, seeing possibly hundreds of women in an hour? During this whole process, more and more dopamine is released, causing more and more excitement and more and more of a high.
Inherently, there’s nothing wrong with that. But this begins a process called progressive desensitization.
Because you’re overstimulating your reward circuitry with so much dopamine and so much “perceived sex,” your brain naturally starts to become less and less receptive to the dopamine. What used to turn you on suddenly becomes not enough. You start to look for more and more novel things to turn you on.
Before, just seeing hot girls having sex on screen was enough. But now, as your brain gets more and more desensitized, you need stronger and stronger stimulation to get turned on. Over the course of months or years, plain sex turns into “barely legal” sex, into BDSM fantasies, into rape fantasies, into shemale sex, into all kinds of fantasies that you just weren’t into a few years ago.
Much like how a heroin addict needs to continually take higher and higher doses to get the same effect, your brain gets desensitized to “normal porn” and starts to need more and more extreme porn to get the same effect.
I remember when I was about 14 years old and found my first naked picture of a woman in my dad’s room. That alone was enough to turn me on. Discovering porn and naked women was an adventure in and of itself. But that didn’t last for long. By the time I was 20 though, I was regularly browsing BDSM forums, reading dark fantasy stories and watching Kink.com videos.
The Cost: Desensitization Carries Over to Real Life
Basically, because your brain is so bombarded with hyper-stimulation in the form of hundreds of women an hour, or intense sexual fantasies, it starts to get desensitized. But since your brain can’t tell the difference between real women and women on screen, it gets desensitized to both.
More specifically, here are some of the ways porn consumption can affect your relationships with women:
1) You’re used to getting turned on to intense porn. Whether that’s BDSM or even just intense onscreen fucking, the fact is that you’ve programmed your brain to need intense stimulation to feel turned on. But in real life, sex is almost never that intensely stimulating. It’s often slow and sensual. It’s kissing, not face slapping. It’s cuddling, not hard fucking. If your brain’s primary exposure to sex is extremely intense, there’s no way it’ll be able to get turned on just from a tender kiss or a gentle caress.
2) Because you’re so used to see “perfect” women on screen, with 18-year-old bodies and angelic faces, you’re much more likely to see imperfections in women in real life. They just don’t match up what in your mind a “hot girl” looks like. So you’re less turned on by women in general
because you’re matching them up to a theatrical reality.
3) Because you’re ejaculating every day, almost every day or more than once a day, your body naturally has less sexual energy and sexual vitality for when you sexually interact with a real woman.
Are You Hearing Me?
Are you seeing the link between porn and erectile dysfunction more clearly now? Your brain is so wired to respond to extreme stimulation, it becomes very difficult to respond to “imperfect” women in more subtle sexual interactions.
Let me ask you a question: Which is more important? Have genuine, primal, connected, heartfelt, raw lovemaking? Or jacking off to porn? Don’t answer that just yet. Keep reading.
Stopping: It’s Not As Hard as You’d Expect
If you ask most men to stop using porn or to stop masturbating, you’d almost immediately get a “What?!” or “No way!” response. It’s so ingrained in our lives that it seems next to impossible to stop. It’d be like asking some guys to stop eating.
Fortunately, I’ve found that when it’s done right, stopping actually isn’t that difficult at all. I know you might not believe me right now. You might think of how horny you’d feel, or how badly you’d want to masturbate to porn. Don’t worry, I’ll give you a nearly foolproof step-by-step guide to making the jump shortly.
But first, I really want you to get why you should want to quit.
The Benefits of Quitting
When I quit porn and masturbation for 90 days the first time around, I didn’t do it because I wanted to cure my erectile dysfunction. I actually didn’t think it would work. I did it out of curiosity, after reading some of the literature around the subject. The results shocked me.
What kind of benefits can you expect from quitting?
• Cure erectile dysfunction. After not using porn or masturbating for 90 days, getting hard became a complete non-issue for me. My friend down there springs into action at the first sight of possible action. Hundreds of others who’ve done the same challenge report similar results.
• Your attraction for women will increase. Before I quit porn, attraction for me was based mostly on a girl’s face. I rarely appreciated her whole body, breasts and ass and all. Today, when I see a woman I really drink her in. I feel much more alive and vibrant around women. It feels great.
• Women are more drawn to you. No joke. You’ll feel more sexual, and because you’re more genuinely attracted to women, they’ll be more attracted to you as well. Sparks fly naturally, because you’re already in a sexual place naturally. A lot of younger men who take on this challenge report losing their virginity a few weeks after quitting.
• Increased confidence and self-esteem. I don’t really have an explanation for why this happens, but it does. For me, it wasn’t a huge boost because I’m already a pretty confident guy. But for a lot of people who do this challenge, the boost is huge.
• More comfortable making moves. For me, making eye contact as well as making physical contact with women became a whole lot easier. Instead of feeling nervous about making a move, I smile and feel excited about it. It’s not a logical thing; I feel like my limbic brain basically got reprogrammed to feel excitement instead of fear when I want to make a move on a girl.
• Desire to improve other physical areas of life. A few weeks after starting the challenge, I had so much energy that I had to exert it somewhere. So I started working out, just by doing at-home exercises. Then I figured since I’m exercising, I might as well start eating better, so I took on the Paleo diet. It’s been a few months now, and for the first time in my life I have four-pack abs.
• Disk space. Most people will easily free up 50GBs or more by deleting their porn stash.
• Time - I gained about an extra hour a day.
Let’s face it: Pornography isn’t natural. Can you imagine a caveman having trouble getting hard when he’s in his cave with a cavewoman? Your body is naturally designed to be able to reproduce. It’s extremely unnatural to not be able to get hard when you have an attractive, willing and horny woman in front of you.
It’s time to stop desensitizing your brain and reclaim your natural sexual vitality and masculinity. Ready?
The Easy, Step by Step Guide to Quitting Porn
Step 1: Self-Motivation
I’m not gonna lie to you: It won’t be a walk in the park. It’ll be worth it, but it’s going to take effort, especially during the first two weeks. That’s why it’s so important that you build up a strong reserve of motivation before you even get started.
How do you build up a strong sense of motivation before you start? By learning more about the costs and benefits of quitting porn. You know you’re motivated when you physically feel a sense of excitement about what you could experience by quitting.
Start by reading this article: http://www.yourbrainonporn.com/doing-what-you-evolved-to-do
It’s a long article; it’ll probably take you 20 minutes to get through it. It’s the science of porn and the brain. Yes, it’s dry, but read it anyway. It’s eye-opening and goes into a lot more detail than I did here.
Next, read this:
http://www.reddit.com/r/NoFap/comments/lwst9/three_months_90_days_no_pmo_full_report/
Remember to scroll down past the line break to read the full story. This is a report from someone who quit, and what his experience was after 90 days.
Then my invitation is for you to read as many of these motivational stories as you can.
http://www.reddit.com/r/NoFap/comments/r7xob/nofap_resource_thread_90day_reports/
http://www.reddit.com/r/NoFap/comments/sbqx6/nofap_resource_thread_reports_from_days_6090/
When I first learned about this, I spent 2-3 hours just reading articles and reading stories. I went into the challenge highly motivated, determined to do the full 90 days in one shot. I did.
Don’t go into this challenge half-assed. Go in ready to commit. Supercharge your motivation, then make a commitment to finish the challenge before you begin.
Step 2: Quitting Porn (and What About Masturbation?)
Though the primary purpose of the program is to stop using porn, the challenge is to do 90 days with no porn and no masturbation. There are two reasons for this:
1) It’s much easier to reprogram your brain by completely stopping masturbation than by masturbating without porn. Chances are, if you masturbate during the initial 90 day period, you’ll end up using fantasy, which still isn’t going to be great for you.
2) To see what it’s like. I never knew what it’s like to not ejaculate for an extended period of time until I did the challenge. The hard part was the first two weeks. After that, I’ve found it to be incredibly rewarding. I have more energy and more drive. I am more sexually vibrant and overall more powerful and alive.
My invitation to you is to take on this challenge fully. See what it’s like to not masturbate and not use porn for 90 days. If at the end of 90 days you think your life was better with porn, you can easily go back. My wager is that you won’t. But give it the full 90 days.
Now, you might be thinking:
Step 3: Get Support
Quitting without support is extremely tough. Fortunately, there’s a vibrant online community dedicated to helping men quit porn.
You can access it here: http://www.reddit.com/r/NoFap/
Navigating Reddit can be a little tricky if you’ve never used it before. To get started, you can read the Frequently Asked Questions: http://www.reddit.com/r/nofap/faq
The front page of /r/NoFap/ shows a combination of recent posts and popular posts. To see the top posts of the day, week or month, click on “Top” in the top navigation bar. You can select the date range once the page loads.
People come to this message board to share inspiring stories, ask questions or discuss their challenges. You’ll be able to stay motivated by reading success stories, as well as get help on your challenges. Sometimes, you might just want to vent, and that’s a great place to do it.
I would have never made it through the challenge without that community. I highly recommend taking a little bit of time to get to know the site.
Step 4: Next Steps
Go through the challenge. There will be ups and downs. The first 2 weeks are often the hardest. Notice any changes, physical or emotional.
At the end of your challenge you can decide what kind of relationship you want with porn and masturbation moving forward. For me personally, I chose to quit completely.
How Does This Work With the Multi-Orgasmic Lover?
If you’re doing the Multi-Orgasmic Lover program at the same time as this challenge, here’s how I’d approach it. Continue to do the exercises. Don’t use porn and to the best of your ability don’t ejaculate when you’re doing any of the practices. Don’t use fantasy to get yourself hard or turned on.
In fact, the Multi-O program and quitting porn go hand in hand. Not ejaculating will help you cultivate more sexual energy and power, while the practices you're learning will help you harness and wield that power.
Finishing Thoughts
Let me ask you a question: What have you got to lose?
If you do this challenge, the worst thing that can happen to you is you spend three months of your life not looking at imaginary women on a computer screen. Big whoop. The potential upsides are enormous.
Treat this as an experiment. See what happens. You really have very little to lose, and a lot to gain. Get started by reading the articles above. Reading about how this challenge impacted other poeple's lives can really boost your motivation. Get motivated, then make a commitment to yourself: 90 days, no porn and no masturbation. If erectile dysfunction is an issue for you today, I'm willing to bet that in 90 days, that issue will be gone for good.