DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: I’ve read some of your articles and wanted to first off say thanks! So here’s some details about myself:
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I’m a 30 yr old male with a successful career. I’ve never had a hard time attracting attractive women but I’m very sexually inexperienced due to failed sexual encounters, lack of confidence and anxiety, which I believe has led to 0 serious relationships.
I got into porn at a very young age (13 maybe) and masturbate to it regularly with the initial emphasis being to get it over as soon as possible. I always lie on my back in bed while doing so and have never deviated. I also started with a squeezing motion at a young age as opposed to an up and down motion so I’m guessing I’m the victim of the dreaded “death-grip”. Only in the past few years have I adopted the stroking motion but still apply heavy pressure, especially near climaxing.
Upon my first sexual encounter (age 25) and numerous encounters thereafter, upon penetration, I go from erect to completely soft almost instantly. During foreplay I’m very aroused, and seldom never “lose it”. In addition, I’ve experienced situations where I get only like 70% of an erection, where I can’t even penetrate. Upon failure, I go to 0% and that’s pretty much game over.
I get great morning wood (100% erection) and can get these when masturbating alone, typically after smoking marijuana. Otherwise, I get about 70% when sober.
No woman has ever been able to get me to orgasm via oral, either
Now that I’ve set the table a bit, what can I do to get better in the bedroom and get/keep 100% erections? I find myself fearful of evening trying anymore due to the embarrassment that follows after failed performances. I just want to be able to make love like a normal person! I’ve already started working out and trying to eat healthier but any tips or advice at all to try would be immensely appreciated!
Thanks in advance!
Junk For Junk
DEAR JUNK FOR JUNK: You have two issue here, JJ.
The first issue is simple. You’re absolutely right: you’ve basically carved a groove into your erotic brain and that’s interfering with your sexual response patterns and making it impossible to get off when you’re having partnered sex.
You’ve set yourself up with a very specific pattern for when you masturbate, and since you never deviate from it, it’s become more or less what you need to get off. That’s going to be a problem, because people are almost never going to f
k the way you jerk off. You’ve trained yourself to need very specific form of stimulation — that squeezing motion you mention — that simply isn’t something that the human vagina, anus or mouth can recreate. Just as importantly, you’ve taught yourself that you need a level of pressure that, again, internal muscles will never be able to match. As a result, penetrative sex is never going to get you to where you need to go, leaving you frustrated and less than 100% solid.
Now the fact that you trained yourself into this pattern means that you can train yourself OUT of it. It’s just a lengthy and difficult process. The key is that you need to starve yourself of sexual stimulation, to the point that your junk, your nerve endings and your brain are all desperate for ANY sort of contact in order to get off.
So you’re about to go on a fap-free diet from now until… let’s say, Halloween to start. That means that you now have a strictly hands-off policy with your penis. It is now purely for urination and decoration. You don’t touch it except to use the urinal or avoid getting caught in your zipper. You do not masturbate. At all.
The point of the exercise is to to let that frustration build and build until you can’t take it any more. And then you let it continue to build because you’re not there yet.
This is going to be difficult. REALLY difficult.
(Notice how carefully I refrained from saying “this will be hard”. Appreciate my restraint.)
You’re going to want to get off in the worst way. You are going to feel like you’re at the bursting point and surely by now you can take matters into your own hands.
Well, no. Not yet. It’s still too early. And don’t call me Shirley.
When you reach the point where you think your prostate is about to explode because you are just THAT backed up… then and ONLY then are you allowed relief. However, you’re NOT going to use your usual masturbation habits. You are forbidden from jerking it — or squeezing it, really — the way you always have. You’re going to switch things up. You’re going to use your other hand. You’re going to use a feather-light touch. You’re going to get yourself a Fleshlight or a Tenga Flip and some lube. You are going to take things very slowly, instead of the “get it done as fast as I can” method you’re used to. You’re going to do ANYTHING other than using your squeeze-play… which, I note, you’ve been falling back to even when you’ve been trying to switch things up.
The point of this exercise is that once you’ve starved your penis to the point that it’ll accept any stimulation is to carve a different groove in your brain — one that’ll let you be able to get off through standard penetrative sex with another person. That’s why you need to start getting yourself in the habit of using techniques that don’t use a literally impossible level of pressure or friction. If you use your old technique, all you’re going to do is reactivate those old neurons and fall right back to where you were before, with a penis that won’t respond to anything but your very idiosyncratic masturbation technique. So from now on, your squeeze-technique? It’s off-limits, because no human body can replicate that level of pressure.
But here’s the other issue you’re having: your inability to get off with another person has destroyed your confidence and without confidence, your boner simply isn’t gonna work.
Erections are like faeries in Peter Pan: they only work as long as somebody believes in them. They’re little divas who want everything to be perfect and if anything is even a smidge off, they’ll throw a tantrum. That’s they melt like the Wicked Witch of the West as soon as you don’t believe it exists.
(Yes, I just crossed the fictional streams; I’m on a roll here.)
You were already anxious about being with someone else and so you were less than rock steady and ready to go; instead it was more like trying to shoot pool with a rope. Once that anxiety became part of your experience, your worries about being unable to come or to please a woman have become a self-fulfilling prophecy – you’re expecting to lose your erection, and so you do.
The solution here corresponds with the solution to your breaking your death-grip cycle: take penetration off the table. Your fingers never go soft. Neither does your tongue. Neither do sex toys. So bring all of those into play. Use your fingers on your partners like you’re back in high-school. Go down on for so long that you’ll have to learn how to breathe through your ears. Use a vibrator on them.
This will not only have the benefit of taking the fear of a soft or non-existent erection out of play, but it’ll make you a MUCH better and more desirable lover. Most women can’t achieve orgasm through penetration alone, and men rarely give enough time to foreplay. The more practice you have at pleasing women that aren’t centered around your penis, the better you’ll be overall.
And when it’s time for them to reciprocate… they can give you hand-jobs or oral, but no penetration until you’re starting to get past the whole “I can only orgasm in this one, incredibly idiosyncratic way.”
The more you start to realize that there’s more to sexual pleasure than just your penis, the more you’ll realize that not rising to the occasion isn’t the dilemma you think it is. It just means you switch gears and use the other tools you have at your exposure until you ARE ready.
It’s a matter of practice, endurance and some willingness to clap your metaphorical hands if you believe… but you’ll get there.
Good luck.
Please send your questions to Dr. NerdLove at his website (www.doctornerdlove.com/contact); or to his email, doc@doctornerdlove.com)