PIED Recovery Journal

I'm a male in my early 30s who I believe has been suffering from something like PIED. But my situation is a bit different than "normal" PIED.

I was a "late bloomer" in my sexual life and didn't really lose my virginity until I was in my mid-20s. And these sexual experiences were fairly dysfunctional being so new at it, and it wasn't until I got in my late 20s that I really started to come into myself as a man and gain confidence in myself (gotten into better shape, etc.).

But as I got older I realized I have something of a kink for women who are very fit, and even something of a kink for very muscular women.

We all have our kinks, so it's kind of whatever and I can't really control what I like, however weird or unattainable it may be, but the issue with this is that I've masterbated to images and videos of these women a lot. What's interesting is that I don't actually view porn, usually it's just flex videos or whatever, which is why I say I don't think I exactly have PORN induced erectile dysfunction, but in any case it's the same result. I've trained my brain to ejactuate to my own hand while viewing images of women that frankly aren't realistic. So it might as well be porn, it's images of women that I'll never be with and frankly women that aren't healthy as most of their bodies can't be attained without unhealthy substances.

Last year I met a woman who I love very much and has a very attractive body. However, while she is in decent shape and very beautiful, she isn't like the type of women I've conditioned my body to ejacuate to through these unrealistic internet viewings. Additionally, because I conditioned myself to ejacuate to my own hand, I've always struggled with erectile dysfunction issues with her. She's pretty understanding, but at the same time it's something I really need to fix and is embarrassing. I'm ashamed of this, and though I know plenty of ways to please her aside from full-on penetration, it's something I need to fix eventually. It's not like we can't have penetrative sex, but I do struggle with staying hard throughout, and I do have issues with delayed ejacuation that make finishing through penetration very difficult.

At the beginning of this year, I decided to finally do something about it and quit masterbating. I don't necessarily think you have to go cold turkey on it, but I clearly needed to cut down on it and make my only form of release my girlfriend. I've never been an obsessive masterbator like some in this community, but I'd say in the past I've averaged something like one ejacuation per day, which is still probably more than is healthy.

I made it 40 days, but today I fell short and not only masterbated, but did so to images I probably shouldn't have (I think masterbating to my imagination probably wouldn't have been as bad). I've done a good job at fighting off urges over these 40 days, but for some reason today my urges were very strong and my balls were hurting and I also haven't seen my girlfriend in a while because of being out of town, and I did what I said I wouldn't do. So I am making this post to hold myself accountable so it doesn't happen again.

In a sense, I think masterbating once a month is probably fine and isn't really an issue, but the problem is that doing it once a month is probably harder than going full-on cold turkey because of the chaser effect. I don't want to let myself fall into this trap of going at it again and losing what I've gained. I need to stay the course.

I'm disappointed in myself, but also proud that I made it this long. I've also noticed my PIED improving in recent weeks and I am hoping this one time doesn't set me back too much on that. I just need to take this as a blip and continue on my journey, and I am hoping this forum can help with the accountability. I've not really noticed any other tangible benefits from NoFap (a lot of the so-called "superpowers" always seemed pretty placebo'y to me, plus I've never been one of those four-times a day masterbators), though I've also been ejacuating fairly regularly still from sex with my girlfriend, so I am not doing hard mode. Still, the main reason I got into this was for PIED, and for that I think it has been helpful, and as I put masterbation further in the rear view mirror, perhaps it can become even better.

The only "positive" I can take from this experience is when I did self-pleasure today, I did so with a very gentle touch (just a couple fingers), and came pretty quickly, so at least these days off have conditioned my penis away from needing the harder grip I used to use (which is frankly not how a vagina actually feels). It also felt more amazing than usual, LOL. So I can take some solace from that.

Sorry for the long-winded ramble, but I thought I needed to vent a bit. I hope everyone is doing well!