How Porn Gave Me ED (& How I Fixed It)

Pornography gave me erectile dysfunction. Or to be more precise, pornography made it difficult for me to get hard when I was with real people, real life partners.

See, I was fine getting it up when I was by myself watching porn, but I noticed that with partners I was suffering from delayed ejaculation, so it was harder for me to cum. And I also started suffering with erectile dysfunction.

And for a long time I thought the issues were just physical. You know, there’s something wrong with me, there’s something wrong with my penis, it’s not working properly, I’m getting into my mid-30s, so maybe it’s that.

But the reality was, there was nothing wrong with me physically. It was my porn and masturbation habits that were training me for a certain type of arousal that just wasn’t compatible with real life partners.

Porn Is a Super Stimuli

See, porn is a super stimuli and it delivers us visual arousal and mental arousal far above anything that we could experience in real life.

When you’ve got multiple tabs open and you’re doing extremely long porn sessions with your favorite scenes or your favorite kinks, you’re just getting hit after hit after hit of novelty and dopamine. And it really activates this mental arousal pathway, or more specifically a visual arousal pathway, where you need to be incredibly visually stimulated in order to be able to get an erection.

Compare that to when you’re with a partner and you’re lying down in bed and you’re kissing each other and you’re touching her and maybe she’s touching you. You can’t really see much because your partner is right in front of your face and you’re kissing them.

And when you’re having sex, maybe the lights are dimmed or maybe you’re in certain positions where you can’t really see much. But honestly, even if you can see all of your partner, it doesn’t really compare to how visually stimulating porn is and the intensity of that.

You also tend to find with porn that your tastes change over time and may become kinkier and kinkier. And then when you’re connecting with a partner and you’re not experiencing any of that kink or any of the extreme stuff that you see depicted in porn scenes, then it can be harder for you to get aroused.

You Become Numb To Your Own Pleasure

And also, I think the way that most guys watch porn and masturbate and the way that I was doing it, you don’t really tune into your own pleasure. You’re so focused on the screen and what you’re watching and the particular scene that’s being acted out and you’re kind of just mindlessly touching yourself.

You’re not actually taking time to experience the feelings that are happening for you and really feeling your hand against your penis, really feeling how that’s making your body feel, or even fully getting aroused by the physical sensations that are happening.

It’s so focused on the mental and the visual that in a way, you kind of become numb to your own pleasure and you become not very aware of your own pleasure.

And over time, I found the more that I did this, the less in tune with my own pleasure I was. So when I was connecting with a real partner, it didn’t feel as good as I thought it should.

So for me, sex with real partners wasn’t feeling as good as it had in the past and wasn’t feeling as good as I knew it could be.

And often I’d need to fantasize about porn scenes to stay hard with the partner that I was with, which is crazy because a lot of the time you watch porn and you wish that you could actually be connecting with a real person. That would be so much more pleasurable. It would be so much more fulfilling.

And then you’re actually with a real person and you’re finding yourself going back to the porn in your mind just to be able to stay hard and enjoy it with this person. And sometimes I wasn’t really present with the person that I was with.

Now, this didn’t happen all the time. It wasn’t like every time I connected with someone, it was like this, but it was something that I noticed and it was a recurring issue for me.

In fact, I suffered with erectile dysfunction for a number of years without realizing at any point in time that porn could actually be partially causing or fully causing my erectile dysfunction.

It wasn’t until I discovered there’s a thing called porn-induced erectile dysfunction and I discovered the website Your Brain on Porn and I started to read other guys’ stories who’d experienced similar things to me that I realized that yes, porn was having an effect on my erections and I needed to take action in this area. Otherwise, this is going to be something I continue to struggle with.

But I’m happy to say that I’ve now made changes and I now rarely if ever struggle with erectile dysfunction.

So what exactly did I do?

1. Take Regular Breaks From Pornography

I’d love to say that I now never watch pornography at all. However, I am human. I do slip up at times or I do consciously choose to do it.

But when I choose it, it’s more of a mindful choice and something I’m choosing to do for a set period of time, not something that I’ll just mindlessly do all the time.

2. Set Time Limits For Pornography Watching

In the past where I might edge for a long period of time, maybe even hours, I now have limits, which is more around 20 minutes to half an hour.

And so I’m not going down these rabbit holes of just spending exorbitant amounts of time watching pornography. And I have a lot of times where I don’t watch pornography at all.

3. Take Breaks From Masturbating Completely

Many guys call this a reboot where you have a break from porn and from masturbation completely in order to rewire your mind and regain your erections when you’re with partners.

And I’ve personally found this is a really good thing to do. It can be very difficult in the beginning to have a break and to not do it. And you find yourself just wanting to do it out of habit.

But I do find that when I’m not watching porn or not masturbating, that I do have more motivation in my life. I’m more motivated in business and in work, I’m more motivated in dating.

And there are also studies that showed that if you practice semen retention, it can boost your testosterone levels as well. While semen retention isn’t something that I’m super focused on, like I know some people are, I do enjoy the benefits of it from time to time.

4. Practice Mindful Masturbation

Rather than masturbating with porn and focusing on the scene and getting into that and just masturbating and not really feeling my body, I now practice mindful masturbation where I will not watch any porn and I will not fantasize at all.

So I’m not thinking about any porn scenes in my mind, any sex scenes or anything related to sex. I’m simply just touching myself, touching my body and touching my penis and getting aroused simply based off the feeling alone.

I find these sessions are really good because they help me tune into my body. They help me really feel the feelings of touching myself.

And while in the beginning these sessions are quite boring compared to watching pornography because you’re not as mentally and visually stimulated, over time they become really pleasurable and they help you get in tune with your body.

And I found that now when I’m with partners, I can feel so much more. I enjoy their touch on me so much more. I can tune into my body as they’re touching me or as we’re having sex and I can feel everything in a much more vibrant way.

5. Do Pelvic Floor Exercises While Masturbating

And I found that by being conscious with this mindful masturbation and also using this time to do my pelvic floor exercises and strengthen them, my erections now are harder than they have been in years.

Sometimes it’s crazy how hard they are, not just when I’m with partners, which is great. And that was what I wanted. But even my morning wood is stronger.

I now get hard so much easier with partners. The sex with my partners feels better and I’m not stressing about not being able to get it up anymore.

If you’re suffering with erectile dysfunction like I was, you might want to consider a reboot and having a break from porn and masturbation in order to regain your erections when you’re with partners. But there’s also a lot of other things you can do as well to really strengthen those erections and overcome any performance anxiety or erectile dysfunction you may have.

I’ve created a free ED toolkit where I outline some of the best things that you can do to strengthen your erections and get healthier and harder erections than you’ve had in years. To download that free toolkit, simply go to passionately.com/ed.

That will also sign you up for my newsletter where I share loads of different tips on how to overcome erectile dysfunction, get stronger erections and give more pleasure to your partners and many of those tips I don’t share on YouTube.

And if you want to go deeper on overcoming erectile dysfunction, check out my Healthy Erection Mastery course.