26 yo gay male. First reboot; time to grow up!

I've been incredibly surprised to see so many guys my age struggling with the same thing I have. To begin, my experience is that of a gay male who grew up at the dawn of high speed internet and porn. I'm also someone who recently started dating for the first time in my life, and recently lost my virginity (to shocking results which led me here). I'm also someone who was overweight in childhood and obese in high school, only to lose it all naturally and make fitness a huge priority throughout the end of high school and college. If you can relate with any of these situations and would like to connect, feel free to reach out! This is my first attempt at a reboot and in just over a week I feel amazing about it, though I have a feeling I may need some support.

What brought me here?
I just turned 26 and I consider it to be my re-birth day, as my reboot began just a few days before. I never wanted to become a 30 year old virgin, but over the years I had started to become more and more comfortable with that idea, after all, I would always have porn, and I thought that was all I needed. I'm happy to report that I started my first real relationship in August of this year, and it's going well. We crossed a threshold recently into the physical and as happy as I was to lose my V-card, I was shocked and dismayed at how my body reacted to real sex.

I think the new-ness of sex was enough to get me hard and excited, but I was horrified to find that my dick was practically numb. I could barely feel my partner touching it. I thought, ok let me grab it myself, but it might as well have been the feeling of a doctor examining me. The kind of doctor who you're not the least bit attracted to, standing awkwardly in a cold bright office. In fact I think my dick went limp when I grabbed it because I was so shocked at the fact that I felt nothing. DECADES of watching porn had thought me that sex was supposed to be the end-all be-all. It would make me grunt and moan with pleasure and it would be the best feeling in the world. It ended up being an embarrassing disappointment. Luckily my partner, though new, is kind and understanding, and was willing to bear with me while I figured out what if anything was wrong.

A bit of backstory
I first encountered internet porn on my family's first computer around age 11. I can remember realizing I was attracted exclusively to males in 2nd grade. In fact I'm pretty sure the first "porn" image I ever saw was a scholastic book cover about a kid in middle school who switched bodies with his gym teacher. The cover was a picture of a muscular male's back flexing in a thin tank top. Suffice to say it was my favorite book. (Some googling revealed the book to be Help!: I'm Trapped in My Gym Teacher's Body, and I'm not going to lie, seeing it gave me quite a tingle). It's actually a very strong homo-erotic theme of gay porn to switch bodies with a more or less muscular person than yourself, or to see others switch bodies or magically grow or lose muscles. At least this was one of the fetishes I moved to as "vanilla" porn became more and more boring to me. Anyway, since those early days on my family's Gateway running Windows ME, I grew up masturbating to porn basically every day for 15 years.

Struggles specific to gay males
This is something I'm interested in exploring in these forums a bit, because I think there are definitely a few out there. For the most part, I've found it very difficult dealing with that fact that I am a male, my idea of attractive is a man, muscular, built, etc. I myself want to be "attractive," which is why fitness became so important to me. As someone who overcame obesity and is proudly fit and decent looking today, I can't help but wonder how my porn habits have been affecting my gym habits over the years. Do I want to be muscular and "hot" for myself, or because I idolize porn stars? Will I ever be happy with my appearance or am I chasing the impossible "ideal?" These are all things I'd like to explore. Side note, and I'm not sure how strong the stereotype is, but in my mind, I've always thought that many straight men feel uncomfortable in the locker room if they think a gay guy is checking them out. For the most part, it probably doesn't happen all that much, or it's normal for guys to look at other guys progress, but as someone who has always equated muscular, "perfect," "sculpted," bodies with porn, it's always been hard for me not to sneak a glance of guys in the locker room. Usually I'm not even in to the guy as much as I am the feeling of "I can probably fap to someone who looks just like this as soon as I get home!" (but of course that was just my entry point and I would soon wander down roads of unrelated and increasingly extreme videos and fetishes). Maybe this puts me in a category of someone who is struggling with porn affecting my health, fitness and bodybuilding goals as well.

Anyway, I have a lot to say, but I think this serves as a decent introduction. I should also mention I am listening to the audiobook of Your Brain on Porn by Gary Wilson, and that's what brought me here. His book has given me the reassurance I've been unknowingly longing for for years, that I'm not weird, I'm not alone; This is a problem and there are people out there who are going through the exact same thing and changing their lives for the better. I've relapsed a couple of times in my reboot, but even in just over a week, my porn use has gone from a religious at least once-a-day event that I looked forward to and dreaded, to just a couple of faps and NO binges.

I'm excited to share more and see how this can change my life like so many others!

Thanks for reading!