100% of my clients who have erectile dysfunction, the cause is pornography.
Men who watch porn regularly are having trouble getting and maintaining erections during sex, as well as if they try and masturbate without porn. They are also experiencing premature ejaculation and difficulty achieving orgasm. It’s officially called Porn-Induced Erectile Dysfunction (PIED), and it effects 100% of my clients. Yes, 100%!! I have never met a man who had erection issues where the cause wasn’t porn. Yes they were aging, or on medications, or smoking etc, but as soon as they stopped watching porn, everything changed.
I’ve been giving men masturbation homework for years, to assist them with discovering "what's really here" and finding a new way of conscious self-pleasure and connection to themselves, women, and sex. It's now available to men who are not yet clients, and it’s called the 2 Week Challenge. Its where we start to get you off porn and improve your erections. It gives you specific guidelines to follow around self-pleasure, including breathwork, arousal, and how to position your body. The most common feedback to me is “it didn’t work”.
Why didn’t it work? And what does that even mean? It means that when they tried to masturbate without porn, their penis couldn’t get erect. It means when they tried to connect with their own bodies through breathing and touch, their penis wouldn’t respond. It means that when they had to tap into their natural sexual energy, there was none, and their penis didn't "work". It means that when they were left alone for ten minutes with their own thoughts and imagination, they couldn’t arouse themselves or get erect. It means that when they had to masturbate without porn, they couldn’t reach orgasm.
Pornography is the number one cause of erectile dysfunction. I see it in around 95% of my clients, and around 50% of those men aren't even aware that they have a problem until they do the 2 Week Challenge. Once they start addressing their sexuality and porn habits, it starts to become obvious.
How is that possible, I hear you say? How is it possible that 50% of men wouldn't even realise that they had erection issues? Well... it's because these men ALWAYS masturbate with porn (and always have) and therefore don't actually know what their "natural state" would be without it. The porn arouses a chemical reaction in the brain and they get erect, every time, because of being amped-up on those chemicals. When they try and masturbate without it (which they never do), they experience erectile dysfunction.
Their reference is only to porn-induced erections, or they're having sex with a woman. The thrill attached to that (and often the lack of frequency of sex with a partner for example) taps into that addictive cycle and enables arousal. Or it leads to premature ejaculation. Or... they’re single and avoiding women and sexual connections altogether. When they do have sex they orgasm really quickly because they’ve trained their bodies to ejaculate as soon as they feel the orgasm coming on. These men often don't refer to this as erectile dysfunction. Often men don’t know what erectile dysfunction means.
What is erectile dysfunction?
Wikipedia says: “Erectile dysfunction (ED), also known as impotence, is a type of sexual dysfunction characterized by the inability to develop or maintain an erection of the penis during sexual activity.” So if you’re having difficulties getting or maintaining an erection during sex, or during masturbation, or when someone is touching you sexually, then this is ED. But in my Practice, premature ejaculation and difficulty achieving orgasm due to loss of sensitivity, is also classified as ED. Porn Induced Erectile Dysfunction is the cause of all of these issues. Only occasionally do I meet a man who doesn’t watch porn and has premature ejaculation.
So unless a man is masturbating without porn, he's not going to fully understand or be aware of what's organically happening in his body sexually. So why the erection issues? Watching porn regularly over-stimulates the brain and de-sensitises the penis. The video you watched yesterday isn’t doing it for you today, and you find another one tomorrow and fast forward through that, then find a new one and so on and so on. It's the over-stimulation of sexually explicit material that causes the desensitisation, both in the brain and the genitals.
Your dopamine receptors and the reward centre of the brain are constantly being stretched to a new experience, something that “gets you over the line”. There is no AROUSAL, arousal of the 5 senses, arousal of your sexual energy (aka Kundalini). Not even Viagra will help you if you have PIED. Why? Because you need arousal and sexual energy pumping around your body to create blood flow in the groin. What it now takes for you to get aroused, is not present in front of you, even if it’s a naked woman nervously anticipating your union. Viagra won’t often work if you’re not organically aroused. And some men have been taking viagra since their 20’s due to ED, and now they can’t have sex without it. Both psychologically and physically, the programming and conditioning they’ve achieved around sex and pleasure has been hard-wired in their brain and now there is “no way out”. Add in anti-depressants, high blood pressure or diabetes meds, and you’ve got a recipe for disaster.
It’s very rare for a guy to sit down with a raging hard erection and high sexual energy to then watch porn. Instead, guys are watching porn at a certain time and then expecting their penis to react! There’s no sexual energy present in the body. There is no organic blood flow. They start watching it to try and get an erection. There is no sensitivity after some time. The brain is looking for its "love cocktail" of neuro-chemicals and the addiction to ejaculate is hard-wired. You are flogging a dead horse. I call that the "Greyhound Race"...
The Greyhound Race
You've all seen a greyhound race on TV, yes? Greyhounds running around a track chasing a stuffed bunny, which they will never catch because they're not meant to.
Porn is like a greyhound race.
The little white rabbit isn’t real and you’re not meant to catch it! The rabbit not being real represents the “fantasy” situation you’re creating and your inability to be satisfied with what's in front of you at any given moment. It refers to the brain addiction you have to the chemicals. The drug addiction.
And when we look at "fantasy" vs "reality", we have to look at the woman in real life who just wants you to show up and be present. Who just wants you to show up and connect to her in that moment - energetically, emotionally, passionately... to her body and mind. She wants you to explore the connection between you. There doesn’t have to be intense eye gazing or “I love you's”, or even any emotion at all if it’s a one-night stand (for example), but there still needs to be chemistry, passion, and connection.
She just needs you to be present. To show up. To connect. To hold space for her. And most of you are NOT showing up, you’re NOT connecting, you’re NOT present. At all. And you're not even looking for chemistry, passion and connection in sexual lovers or potential partners. You're just looking for that next "drug hit" and exciting experience just to have sex, to fill a void. It's toxic. Your subconscious mind actually thinks you’ve experienced all the things you’ve seen on porn, as you’ve had a chemical reaction to it. If you think about all the things you’ve seen on porn since your teenage years, do you think that something in real life will stimulate you? Add in the Oxytocin, the love drug that is created in the brain when you watch porn, and you’ll be bonding with the acts you’re seeing, withdrawing from sex with a partner, and never satisfied with sex when it does happen.
And the constant chase of this ‘little white rabbit’ in the greyhound race scenario is in reference to the porn ritual you have going on – the videos aren't turning you on like they used to. You're trying to find more and more material. You're watching things that are weird and violent and it's not even something you're in to. You’re down the rabbit hole after 2 hours, watching fetishes and sexual violence, gay porn, trans porn, young girls, rapes caught on camera, choking, spitting, slapping, peep shows, foot fetishes, BDSM, pregnant women, lesbians. None of it real, none of it possible in your life, some of it taking you to a place of questioning your sexuality, and most of it changing how you view women. And the cycle continues tomorrow, and the next day, and each time you are over-stimulating your penis and your brain, and therefore de-sensitising yourself completely. This is why you’ll be losing your erections during sex. This is why your erections aren’t strong like they used to be.
This conditioning, this porn ritual, I call "The Monster"...
The Monster
The monster refers to the thing you’ve created in your life that is now taking over. The thing that takes you away from your relationships and life. The thing that takes you away from reality and being present and connected during sex. In my years of experience, speaking to thousands of men, it’s very clear that men are unaware of this last point, that they’re not fully present in sex. They have nothing to compare it to, as they’ve usually been under the influence of porn most of their life. Only a woman will know this, a woman who has experienced a man that doesn’t watch porn. A man that has given up porn will know what i’m talking about. A man that’s never watched porn, and I’ve only met 20 of them, won’t know what that means either, as they have no one to compare themselves to. They only know what they know. But the women can feel it, and it’s a huge problem.
This Monster is the fantasy world that is necessary for you to survive, or you’ll crack from the rejection and stress in your relationship. You may have created this monster to stay in a relationship, as a fantasy and escape, for sexual stimulation where there isn't any in the partnership anymore. You've created this monster so you don't have to face the fact that your relationship is now unhealthy and you're unable to communicate your needs. You're using porn to avoid facing the music.
The Monster is the time of day that you masturbate, and all the programs, planning and beliefs surrounding that. For example, you might have guilt and shame around it because your wife will be home soon and she doesn’t approve of you masturbating, and certainly wouldn’t love you watching porn all the time. She probably isn’t too keen on having sex with you either, so you’re quickly masturbating in the shower after work before she gets home. You might be masturbating every night in bed as a way to get to sleep. You might be doing it first thing in the morning because you’ve formed a habit and belief that if you don’t do it then, you’ll be unsettled or stressed for the remainder of the day.
The Monster is the way that you touch yourself, the techniques you use, and the length of time you masturbate. No woman is ever going to touch you the same way you touch yourself. I’ll say that again, no woman is going to touch you the way that you’ve been masturbating. I have clients that have shared their stories with me, and it’s quite concerning the lengths that men are going to do ejaculate. One 27 year old had to get on his hands and knees to masturbate in order to ejaculate. Some men are very aggressive in their self pleasure techniques, describing the porn that they have to watch and the time it takes them to orgasm, is totally unachievable in a connected sexual experience with a woman.
Do you think a woman is ever going to touch you that way? Or replicate the scenarios that you are creating for yourself to “get off”?
The Monster is the cultural and religious programming and belief systems around sex and your body. This also ties into childhood beliefs and experiences around sexuality. Your parents’ beliefs and programming are most definitely impressed upon you as a child and you will have adopted a lot of that, even if it’s not how you feel now.
The Monster is about all the REJECTION you’ve experienced in past relationships where sex was not frequent or encouraged. It’s where you’ve learned how to condition yourself to not want sex because you don’t want to appear forceful in your approach to sex with your partner. You don’t even want to get horny anymore because it’s like hiring a race car and being told you can’t go over 20km per hour.
The Monster is the REASON why you’re masturbating or watching porn – to help you out, to get you off, to get to sleep, stress release, tension release, before the gym, when you first wake up, when you’re bored, when you’re hungover, when you’re feeling depressed, when you’re feeling lonely… all tools which become very addictive, because they are ingrained in mental health triggers.
The Monster becomes the trap. The guilt and shame feeding that Monster. The secrecy of the addiction actually setting off dopamine reactions in the body, also contributing to a stronger addiction. If you told someone, the addiction loses it “excitement”. There’s a part of the brain called the hind brain which is responsible for the impulses in the brain and body. It says “we didn’t die from this yesterday, so lets do it again today”. And again, and again, and again, and the impulses become stronger and stronger. You’re not in control of your sexual urges, because your brain is on crack!
The gap between “reality” and “the Monster” becomes so big that you don’t know how to bridge the gap at all, or find a solution to the problem. I’ve seen guys that are suicidal because they’re young and they’ve only been married a year or so and their partner has taken sex off the table almost completely. They start to really freak out about what their future relationship (and the rest of their life) now looks like. They’re facing the possibility of a life without sex! And they’re in their 20’s and in fresh relationships. Add the overwhelm of an extremely stressful job, alcohol, drugs, family pressures and expectations, and these guys are losing their shit! So, they turn up the frequency of porn and they end up run down, in a brain fog, not able to concentrate or focus, losing their erections, having immune system issues and feeling run down.
What I do, on all levels and dimensions, is throw that Monster up into the air, and we let all the pieces fall down organically and see where it all lands. Your energetic and blueprint patterns can then find themselves and the healing can begin. We’re taking you back to “scratch”, we’re activating your Kundalini, reconnecting you to self, building up your sexual energy, and teaching you how to breathe and orgasm. You’ll get regular masturbation homework, taking you into conscious self pleasure, which is a completely different experience. We see masturbation as a training exercise, to break the neural pathways and teach you how to organically arouse. The body starts to respond after a few weeks, and the erections start to return.
So it’s time to take a look at the Monster, don’t you think?
Click here to get a FREE copy of my eBook on porn addiction and male sexuality, and start your journey of education and self-discovery.
Catherine Lyell
Men’s Health & Porn Addiction Specialist
www.integratedmenshealth.com.au
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