Masturbate but didn’t cum. Does that count?

That's known as 'edging', and it's not ideal, especially if you do it for a long time.

 

Not a relapse. Keep your counter going. We have all done it.

 

Not sure what sort of advice are you getting here and what are you expecting from your journey. Are you trying to keep yourself PMO Free? (Porn, masturbation, orgasm) free? If yes, then you relapsed because you have masturbated and got dopamine in your head while having an orgasm. In this case, you won't repair your dopamine receptors if you are going to orgasm often. It needs at least 90 days reboot to rebuild itself in your head (for some people even some years).

Porn - Fucking up your visuals, you objectifying women, you take them as body parts, opening gates to evil energy. Causing all sorts of mental issues like social anxiety, self-hatred, and another 100 different ones.

Masturbation without orgasm - Having huge dopamine in your head while achieving nothing. Tricking your body that you achieving something, therefore a state of not being able to follow your goals. Getting dopamine into your head for no reason is not beneficial. You can become addicted to masturbation and then also depressed as small amounts of dopamine will not make you happy anymore, you will need to masturbate to maintain normal mood during the day. Mostly you are not rewiring anything in the head as you must imagine something while masturbating. So your pathways constantly are fed by something sexual.

Orgasm - Getting rid of your vital energy in the semen. Wasting important body fluids. Being walking zombie half-sleep person with no goals. So much to talk about.

 

For the male, the speed of the rubbing or stroking of the penis may vary to navigate right to the edge of ejaculation. With orgasm control, a male can experience a longer or more intense orgasm, as well as a larger volume of semen expelled during his ejaculation. Because solo masturbation allows for precise control over the feelings, the timing, and the speed of stimulation, many people practice orgasmic control by themselves. One technique, commonly referred to as 'edging', involves masturbating up until the moment before reaching the plateau phase just before orgasm occurs, and then stopping suddenly before experiencing a climax.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edging_(sexual_practice)#In_masturbation



Some men attempting the rebooting process believe that as long as they avoid ejaculation, they are successfully rebooting. This twisted logic leads them to endorse an unhelpful practice common to Internet porn users, called edging. This is masturbating up to the edge of orgasm, then stopping to cool things down, then revving up again. Three common versions of edging:

1. Watching porn without masturbating
2. Masturbating while viewing porn, but not ejaculating
3. Masturbating without porn and without ejaculating

Since a reboot is defined as no porn or porn substitutes 1 & 2 make no sense. For those trying to overcome problematic porn use, edging while viewing porn (or fantasizing about porn) is far worse than simply having an orgasm and getting it over with. Why is that? It all comes down to dopamine.

Addiction-related brain changes and sexual (Pavlovian) conditioning are initiated by:

1. Dopamine levels which are higher than levels attained through natural means (drugs, for example)
2. Moderate dopamine levels that remain elevated for long periods
3. Combo of 1 & 2

If you are edging to porn you are combining naturally high dopamine levels of masturbation with the dopamine raising abilities of 1) exciting, novel visuals 2) searching the net for porn 3) finding surprising or shocking genres. Edging can keep dopamine levels elevated for hours, and train the brain to require constant visual stimulation, rapid-fire novelty, clicking from scene to scene, particular fetishes, and the pressure of your own hand. None of this matches real sex.

High dopamine tells the reward circuit that “This activity is really, really important, and you should do it again and again.” Forget the (very real) possibility of addiction-related brain changes. Chronically high dopamine is conditioning your sexual arousal to everything associated Internet porn use. You are now training for the wrong sport. It’s like spending your time hitting golf balls in order to become great basketball player.

Worse than training for the wrong sport, you may be taking yourself out of the game all together. Dopamine is odd. It really shoots up when something is better than expected, but drops when expectations are not met. Rewiring your sexuality to Internet porn means you unconsciously expect to be a voyeur controlling your dopamine with a mouse. When real sex doesn’t match porn, dopamine plummets – along with your excitement and erections. Streaming porn use appears to be causing an unprecedented rise in youthful sexual dysfunctions.

What about edging without using porn? Depends on your goals I guess. Keep in mind that YBOP is about Internet porn, not masturbation (hello nofap/reddit). Is it similar to simply staying close to the edge with a partner? Not exactly, because you are wiring your sexual response to your own hand. Having sex means you are wiring your sexual response to another person. This may be significant for visitors who are are dealing with sexual dysfunctions and need to rewire to real partners.

It’s important to realize that sexual stimulation is by far the highest level of dopamine naturally produced. Dopamine is at its peak when on the verge of orgasming (edging). In the pre-internet days, guys would usually masturbate, orgasm and be done with it – it might take 10 minutes or so. At orgasm, prolactin rises, which drops dopamine to baseline levels and inhibits its release. That normally spells some relief.

Placing your foot on the dopamine gas, without ever hitting the brake (prolactin) results in a continuous state of cravings without satisfaction. This practice of edging calls to mind the earliest experiments on the reward circuitry of the brain in which animals would stimulate themselves over and over, braving electrical shocks and ignoring willing mates.

In the end, chronically high levels of dopamine (in conjunction with a specific stimulus) are the trigger for the brain changes that can lead to full blown addiction, as over-stimulation of the reward circuit leads to the accumulation of DeltaFosB, activation of genes, and specific brain changes. As the sustained molecular switch for addiction, DeltaFosB initiates both behavioral and chemical addictions. Yet one of its evolutionary purposes is sexual conditioning. It rewires the reward circuit to sexual cues in the environment and makes “sex” even more enticing. If your sexual environment is Internet porn, that’s what your reward circuit expects….and craves.

https://www.yourbrainonporn.com/reb...-masturbate-edge-or-watch-porn-without-orgasm

 

No, it's not fine. It's bad. Even a single peek easily leads to relapse. All you're doing by edging is pretty much teasing yourself and it results in increased thoughts and urges because you pretty much took your brain to the very edge and then deprived it of satisfaction.

Don't give yourself any leeway. It's go hard or go home. And not the kind of hard you think of.

 

Don’t Edge!
It makes matters worse and wastes even more time!

 

Hi I am 24 and on day 7. I’m trying hardcore monk mode. I recently been talking to a milf though that I met through a friend. She’s 37. She was sending me pantie pics. And last night I looked at it and began grinding on the loveseat I immediately stopped right before I came or orgasmed. I don’t think I failed because I still feel confident that I’m doin this. So if anyone wants to talk I am here

 

Man this is straight to the point. This explains why whenever I used to edge for more than two hours my whole body exhusts with an unexplainable fatigue and pain and nervousness, bad kind of anxiety where heart pulpitations and High BP take the role for the rest of the day. I describe edging as frying the mind for hours. It is very unhealthy, especially with porn, symptoms are much much worse.
Thank you very much for sharing.

 

Hi! Actually, in some Tantric cultures masturbating but without cuming is actually good, u can release stress and enjoy the act without realizing your vital energy, but... to understand it you'll need to study "better ways" of masturbation, commonly known as "conscious self pleasure" (or something like that, I'm translating from Brazilian terms), any way, I hope we all have a great journey, stay strong my dudes!