ED and Performance Anxiety. My adventure into beating it.

[BonersAtAllCosts]

My adventure into beating it. the anxious boner into submission

I am 24 and have ED (performance anxiety) that is entirely psychological. I am in the process of minimizing and hopefully ending it. I am signing up partly because I want others in my same situation to know they're not alone and to see my approaches to dealing with it -- also, I really liked the information I kept running across on Google that Flavio has posted in a lot of places. I suspect it's also theraputic.

My interests in academia extended reasonably far into psychology, with the requisite college chemistry (interestingly enough, I know practically nothing of biology). In any case, I'm no stranger to living in research papers/studies and my background is science/engineering. The correct mindset that this is a solvable problem, it simply requires dedication to the study of several fields -- most notably, cognitive psychology and pharmacology. I've got a fair bit of social anxiety I've overcome in the last year (it's now near-impossible to detect, other than that I am sometimes unusually silent in groups of people), am a classic introvert, and am amazingly introspective -- the kind of guy hypnosis and sneaky placebos won't work on (I have never underwent hypnosis, but you get the idea; my brain will pick anything apart without me wanting it to).

Unless you're truly interested in my case, now is a good time to stop reading!

Sexual history: losing virginity to first girlfriend
I lost my virginity a bit less than a year ago at age 23. My then-girlfriend and I played around in the shower while drunk late in the evening and I believe it essentially ended in oral sex -- whether from tequila or memory suppression, I think I lost my erection while receiving a oral sex. In any case, that in itself was not a big deal and I do not feel it impacted anything -- I got it up just fine and attributed it to growing quite tired from drinking.

The next morning was where things slid a bit; we attempted regular sex. However, I lost my erection before penetration and was extremely flustered -- I never expected this to happen to me, I knew it made her insecure, and it was one of the more terrible feelings I've ever felt. I apologized profusely. However, she was very understanding (despite never having had an ex-bf who'd done this -- heh, that sure helped me feel secure!) and we watched a movie cuddling naked together. This was a great idea and is pretty similar to what a sex therapist might suggest -- after the movie, things went perfect.

So, let's speed it up. Over the course of our reasonably short 3-month relationship I observed the following things:
* Around 50% of the time we had sex, I'd go soft, which typically ended our little session.
* I lasted a very long time, to the point of insecurity (she would sometimes comment on it in "when will you finish?" fashion), which I had to overcome by focusing on the sensation of sex as much as possible
* I realized that "coming out of the moment" was what did me in (others call it "spectatoring") -- with her, it would consistenly be triggered by 2 major thoughts that derailed me: (A) my penis is not long enough to have sex in this position [and I am actually quite happy with my size], (B) oh *censored**censored**censored**censored*, I am failing to make entry into her vagina [I feel this was basically related to A]
* Porn/masturbation was probably not helping at all. I was getting stressed toward the end of the relationship (related to the move) and started using those hour-plus-long masturbation sessions with a very desensitizing "death grip" as a means of dealing with stress (bad -- it was a habit that resurged from my teenage years). Anxiety about the state of our relationship sent it all downhill from there and I made only one last-ditch effort at sex after I entered an interesting "cuddle-zoned" status weeks before moving (don't worry, I've since realized that was an unacceptable way to let my self-esteem get steamrolled).
* I left the relationship with the feeling my sexual inadequacy had contributed to its deterioration, although facts would indicate it was simply because I had to move and she came to terms with it.
* As much as I hate to admit it, we had sex a lot while both with an alcohol buzz, although I definitely recall at least one time where things were great and I was sober.

Sexual history: Not quite a player yet
So, I moved to South America for half a year. In that time, I gained a lot of experience in dealing with women in the nightlife scene -- not the same as the US, but good place for me to roll with training wheels on (gringos have high social value in South America, and in Chile women are typically not ever going to turn down your approaches, and the guys are a wee bit passive, so there's way less competition). My desire was to give the "player" thing a try, which it turns out is incredibly difficult in Chile -- Chilean women are very conservative and sexually repressed as a result.

In any case, I finally found an attractive woman who was 28. On the second night we went out, she came back with me to my friend's apartment and we slept in the same room. I was quite wasted, but realized I was in very close quarters with an attractive female and got to work. We're making out and whatnot and I am slowly growing concious of the fact I'm not hard. She goes fishing in my boxers and that was when I got the old familiar adrenaline surge of anxiety. I feigned passing out to eject myself from the situation.

The next night we met up, we ended up back at her place, but it was a weird situation where her friend came back with her [I was not really "supposed" to be there, but had no taxi money] and we all slept in the same bed (I very much doubt it could have become what you might think, but you never know!). Next morning her friend left and we ended up back in her bed. I made my move in her room lit with sunshine, completely sober, a bit hung over, hungry, and all the other things you suddenly become aware of while anxious. We made out in bed and I started fingering her, and she went fishing again. All I was doing is asking myself "am I hard yet? hard yet? yet?", and finally realized I was a nervous wreck and told her I was anxious, and went through all the motions to try to get her to realize it wasn't her fault (she immediately thought I was worried she might have an STD, etc.). Flustered, I knew I was screwed. There was another miniature attempt at ramping up for sex about 10-15 minutes later, but you know how that ended. Three strikes and you're out -- despite back-and-force on facebook about my other little issue and other stuff, I got friendzoned shortly after. I'll leave the PUA analysis out

Oh, I did totally have a chance to have sex in a bathroom while very, very drunk at a party on top of an apartment complex. Some decent-looking chick just dragged me in. I basically ejected, which I don't fault myself for -- very few guys can go under that pressure.

[BonersAtAllCosts]

Dealing with it:
Here's a general list of what I've been doing, and results:

* I've discussed it with my roommate who's been moving/living with me for this same amount of time, and it certainly happens to him, but only sometimes when first having sex with a new partner. Our personalities are very similar, but he has a longer sexual history that I am sure helps out a good bit. Through him, I was first acclimated to the idea of taking Viagra (in previous encounters he'd use some that he'd obtained from his dad if the girl was a wee bit sub-par or if he was just really drunk with a hot girl). It was described as getting what is essentially an uncontrollable boner (I later realized this is partly a placebo effect, unless his body is particularly good at working with PDE-5 inhibitors -- e.g. crazy-high nitric oxide levels).
* In Chile, I ordered liquid cia[lis] from AR-R research chemicals, driven by my failed sexual episodes and friendzoning by the previously mentioned woman. I'd just take it on Friday and hope for the best. I never got to use it with a woman, but I did make sure to observe its effects. To be honest, I noticed it doing very little (I couldn't really quantify any effect, other than *maybe* being harder and keeping a fuller state while relaxed) and felt it might be a bad bottle (even though AR-R has a solid reputation on bodybuilding.com). My friend took it before we went on a beach trip and he said he felt it worked great for him -- he got a random shower boner with a girl he didn't really feel that attracted to.
* Returning to the US just recently, I ordered generics of cialis, viagra, and levitra from alldaychemist (use a disposable CC -- they will not rip you on your order, but they are either losing their CC database all the time or selling your card info to scammers/carders based on reports I've read). I've tested the viagra and levitra and while I felt an effect that was better than cialis, they just didn't live up to expectations. There's no doubt they'll boost confidence before I next have sex (harder/fuller, and it seemed I held an erection without stimulation much longer), but my mind has me fairly convinced it's still largely a placebo effect (e.g. popping pills as a test instantly puts your mind in a state similar to before masturbating, so of course you pop a boner easier). I am quite confident my physical sexual health is excellent, which is why I just don't feel PDE-5 inhibitors do anything for me. Again, I can go from being rock hard with a girl to losing it in a short period of time due to anxiety. Research confirms that these sorts of pills may really be placebos. Calm down though -- they definitely boost sexual functioning and probably help a lot while drunk, so take some solace in that if you're going to give it a try with a lady.
* In the last 2-3 weeks I've cut porn back out and am making a genuine effort to never watch it again. I did well back when I had my girlfriend, but relapsed into watching it toward the end of our relationship as I got stressed, and undid any of the good effects it brought me. Less importantly, I am also backing off my masturbation frequency and trying to regain sensitivity by ridding myself of my unique death-grip that guarantees about as much densitization as possible when masturbating.
* I'm changing the way I think about relationships with women (reducing neediness by increasing respect for myself) and how I view my "problem." It is what it is. I have had sex just fine before and I am certain that physically I am just as "potent" as my teenage years. I simply get way too worked up before sex, and really for no reason at all. I accept that this is probably going to happen again -- the difference is I am not going to care if it happens. If a woman leaves me because of it, that's fine. I've shown I now have the skills to acquire another. Whether it's running through dozens of women in I-can-give-a-*censored**censored**censored**censored* mode until I really don't give a *censored**censored**censored**censored* (psychology!) or using a drug that truly works, it is going to happen. And hey, I've been hot n' heavy with 2 other women where it was just shy of turning in to sex and I was quite confident those would have turned out well. I can't let my small number of experiences override all else.
* Moving forward, I will probably be seeing my ex-gf again through social functions and perhaps something will happen there. That will be interesting. I may also be moving again and will have a much better money flow to do some additional experimentation with (not to mention, grease the gears of the promiscuous sex machine I want to conquor). The next logical step if I continue to hit issues despite the new 'tude would be to get ahold of drugs acting on the adrenergic receptors, to eliminate the ability of the fight-or-flight adrenal response to kill your boner for 5-15 minutes. After that, there's playing with the brain's dopamine/serotonin receptors (territory I will try to avoid if possible -- trying a sex therapist first and at least trying to ease the issue through forced exposure to multiple partners is highly preferred) -- big props to Flavio for helping me pin down a few specific drugs targeted at ED for this, though (Vigamed/Vasomax[Phentolamine], Uprima[Apomorphine], etc.).

[Yannis]

Welcome to the site and congratulations for your extremely mature approach on the problem,despite the fact that you are quite young, as i read carefully everything you wrote!
The fact that you deal very early with the problem,without any hesitations that we older guys had in the past,increases extremely the possibilities of overcoming it!
I really liked what you wrote about the acknowledgement: " i am who i am!I will definitely try to solve the problem,until then if a woman does not want to be with me,it's ok,i'll find another one".this is extremeley mature attitude and believe me few men have the courage to do that,most men with ED refrain from sex and relationships because of the fear of embarrasment,which is absolutely rediculous,the quality of a person does not depend on how hard his penis is and the vast majority of reasonable women acknowledge that!
Keep us posted,you are doing a great job!

[Flavio]

Fascinating read and, like Yannis said, a very mature approach.

I mentioned oral drugs on several forums but they're always a last resort treatment and should only be taken under the supervision of your urologist/psychologist. Try a natural approach first: in my case, something as simple as a warm shower before sex can do wonders (it will relax you and widen the blood vessels that bring blood into the penis to form an erection).

Porn and large amounts of alcohol are definitely not good.

Good luck and keep us posted on your progress!