Is it worth it?

You have two choices:

A. Give up: you will forever be stuck in a downward spiral, never able to have a fulfilling relationship
B. Keep going: realize that it is a difficult, painful process, however never forget the benefits that will come with success.

It is a process, you must trust that it will work. It may be a long road, but in the end, you will be glad you never gave up. If you give up now, you will never have a fulfilling sex life.

 

So you were having a non-intimate, spontaneous sexual intercourse with your dear friend... Shit, I don't even know where to start.

 

I do wonder with this, could the flat sex just have been because simply you weren't into each other?

In my experience first time sex is generally pretty shitty, and gets better once you know each other a little better. If you aren't turned on by each other it certainly isn't going make it better.

I guess recently I have realised a bit of truth in the PMO warping views aspect, that I have had the view for a while that 'a shag is a shag' type of thing, and getting laid is a good thing even if you aren't that in to the other person. I just think this is a pretty awful way to look at things and have felt a big shift in my perspective there recently (partly due to educating myself about all of this nofap stuff, and partially a wholly ungratifying recent experience).

From now on I am only interested if I am really attracted to the other person both physically and mentally - and while I am a little ashamed to admit it this hasn't always been the case for me.

 

Extend the counter, or get rid of it - I haven't decided yet.

Essentially I am doing this because I have porn-induced ED. I don't see a problem with MO in moderation but after reading up on all this nofap stuff I can see it is the regular PMO that has got me to where it is. I want that sorted, relapsing into my old behaviour simply isn't an option.

I want my sexual health back, and the only way I know I can do that is to cut out the regular PMO.

A healthy sex life is more than enough incentive for me.


I could go on and on about this, I think my last serious relationship came to an end because I had wandering thoughts so to speak, I would have never cheated on her but I wanted to go out and sleep with different girls, 'shag around' before I got older and settled down etc. With hindsight I think it is the whole unhealthy attitude that came from PMO.

I'm moving back to London soon and having a real fresh start, I'm pretty excited about the prospect of getting out dating again and finding a decent girl that I could potentially have a future with. I want to make sure I've done what I can to get rid of the ED before then, so completely focussed on no PMO!

 

Yeah, or real friends...

 

You know, the 90 days streak is there for a purpose; 90 days of abstinence are supposed to tell you with relative certainty what effects the nofap had on you. It's supposed to give a good chance of going past the potential flatline and make it possible for your dopamine to stabilize on the pre-addiction levels.

I don't want to get into the matters of having casual sex with "dear friends", it's up to your moral and aesthetic standards. But, as stated above, do consider going at least through the 90-day period.

As for me, my current 47-day streak did not bring the mental boost (increase of self-esteem/motivation) many here claim to have had; and yet - my reward is the clean conscience and peace of mind. And I am sure I won't have problems with sexual performance with the woman I want to create a family with, but that is still a bit of time to wait, so I'm taking things easy (I'm 21 y.o.). Try to seek in yourself motivations beyond the sexual pleasure. I don't know what age you are, but self-control is a necessary and valued thing (among the right people) in the adult world.

Everyone's goal is to be happy, but the key is to extend your happiness to all stages in your life, so that if you're depraved of your dick's potency in your 60s, you'll still have other sources of happiness other than pussy, such as happy, healthy and respectful grandchildren. Unless you want your grandson to die from AIDS after fucking a hooker, or watch your granddaugher do her top-paid dance in a local strip club.

I hope you see the logical connections.

 

Hi poeta,

I just wanted to say that in my experience, real-life sex oftentimes gets much better when you take the time to get to know the other person better - and I mean sexually, not as a friend. Of course, if you are lucky, sex will just work out great the very first time, but that actually has rarely happened to me. Most of the time, the first couple of times that I have had sex in a new casual or committed relationship it wasn't that great - and actually, it didn't matter at all whether I was involved in PMO at the time or not.

So I guess my gut feeling tells me that you may be overinterpreting the influence of abstaining from fapping for 30 days on that particular encounter. From all that I've read it appears that a longer period of abstinence is more likely to have a noticable impact on real life sex (the 90-day period seems to be a commonly accepted benchmark). I suspect that if you discontinue your period of abstinence from porn, there is a chance that your next real-life sexual experience won't be very satisfying. I believe your chances for having a satisfying experience will be higher if you continue to abstain from porn and aim to have repeated, pressure-free sexual encounters with a person you trust - in a casual or in a committed relationship.

All the best!

 

You will realize that you are not going to be happy without nofap. What seems like a "free decision" now is not actually a free decision. It doesn't seem that way now, but it will. While you did not technically break your PMO goal, if you didn't decide in advance what was acceptable for you and what was not, then I would consider it a recycle and you would actually be back at day 0. As others have mentioned, you may not really notice any difference until 90 days. So anything below that and there is actually nothing to analyze. You may think you are looking at relationships between abstinence and your feelings/emotions but you are actually not.

 

I don't think you have done it long enough to know fully how it will affect you.

I also don't think any of the advice in this thread is for you; but for the people giving it. (Well, maybe omarcoming was sincere.)



May I ask what are your motivations for doing this?

Without that, how can any of us possibly have an opinion on if it's worth it (for you)?

 

Didn't our friend already state his expectations? He wants to have more fulfilling relations with another person. My opinion is that by having sex with his "dear female friend" he is getting nowhere closer to that goal. To me it seems like he appreciates the "Christian" attitude towards relationships, but at the same time doesn't really feel like putting any restrictions on himself in this regard. He wants to have a good fuck and will justify this need (that undoubtedly all of us have occasionally) by the "will to help his good friend". For me it seems like he's covering his impatience and immaturity behind ridiculous argumentation that's meant to sound like it's moral in any way. I'm not claiming he's fooling ourselves; I'm saying he's fooling HIMSELF.

I mean... helping your friend with sex by having it with her?! Just think about it for a while. I was ironically thinking that maybe you should become a sex therapist? You'd just have to make sure the clients don't confuse your office with brothel.

Sorry for the harsh tone, but I couldn't have stressed my point enough without it.

 

Getting back to the first post. Didn't you say it had been 3 years since you had sex and it was longer for your friend? Just that info alone could give a better insight as to why maybe it wasn't all gangbusters between you and the ladyfriend. Then when you were asked if you were attracted to her you gave a pretty vague answer. When you are attracted to some one its pretty easy to say yes or no. Maybe you want to blame the low level performance on nofap because you have a negative preconceived opinion of its effects? I cant give you want you want in the way of having experienced the same thing, but just listening to the info I don't think nofap for 30 days is the reason your sexual experience wasn't great.

 

Excellent questions.

You are right about the 90 days, each person is different and there is nothing that magically happens on day 91. You mention that you have read as much as anyone here, but you don't know how much anyone here has read, and in what areas, so I'm not sure what you mean by that. From the information about addiction, and dopamine, which has been discovered from large bodies of research that has taken place over a long period of time, with lots of people, in many different situations, with hard outcomes, and which the great diversity of threads here corroborate, tell us that the biochemical changes that occur when one gives up PMO does not happen at 30 days and not at 60 days, but closer to 90 days, give or take a large number of days because as you say, every person is different and will experience things at different times, and of course it does not happen on a specific day, eg 82 days, but gradually over time. But the variation is not that large that anything can be expected at 30 days. This discussion is regards to addiction, which you have described a number of symptoms of: unfulfilling sexual relationships, lack of energy, having a lot of difficulty giving it up over the past 4 weeks, feelings of discouragement, and so on.

You are also right to discount anyone's opinion who is around 30 days or less, but this includes yourself and the conclusions you have made. The well-meaning attempts of the other posters in this thread is not only based on current experience, but also past experiences (keep in mind that the counter reflects the current goal, not past periods of abstinence from PMO or the longest streak in the past), and is based their reading accounts of numerous persons well over 90 days. You are not going to find many people who are more than 90 days out giving you their personal experiences here, because first of all they have already given it in many places, but besides that, as they have accomplished their goals and become happier and more fulfilled, they have less of a desire to remain active here although you will see posts even farther out reporting experiences.

Based on the information you have given, I don't think giving up PMO makes sense for you at this time. You are not sure if it is going to produce the positive changes you want or how long it will take. Maybe it caused the poor sexual performance with your friend. You have said that you realized that it is not a cure to all your problems. So don't pursue it right now but continue to read threads on this forum, others' experiences, and especially the accounts on YBOP and the videos.

 

I wanna give you clearer answer. And I feel I have to say yes. Because if I said no, you would say - you see, that is the reason why! And when Im saying yes, i dont mean I love her or that she is a girl of my dreams. There really is a space between friendship and affection, and we were on that border.[/QUOTE]

I completely understand this. I actually think that between friendship and affection is for me called attraction. You don't know what it is but you are drawn to this person. Maybe its physical maybe its the way they talk its hard to explain like you said not black and white. But I think why I was asking is because if you really weren't attracted it would explain not staying hard the whole time ya know. I always tell everybody just take your time and think a lot ( sounds like cat stevens). My experience is not yours and yours not mine, but if we share the same goals we can always give help and support. I hope at least you and your friend can talk honestly and you didn't lose a friend.