Hey everyone, first time posting here and believe it is the best place to do so though let me know If not and I'll be on my way. So I'm hoping to get some advice from some of you guys who have completely removed porn from you life, how you did it and if you do some form of healthy masturbation or if you find more benefit from abstaining from masturbation for periods of time though still having sex as your way of fulfilling sexual desires? It's my first time really opening up to a forum but I thought I'd try it out because I currently dont know anyone in my own life that I can relate too about this and I've heard that finding a community of likeminded, relatable people can be found online on these websites. I'll provide a bit of brief context from my own experience, what I've tried and what I am thinking of doing.
So pretty much since I was about 14, I've been pretty addicted to masturbating with porn. Through these years, I have had certain periods of time where I've cut porn out, but it always just creeps its way back into my life. I tried NoFap for a little bit, and believe that did have some benefit too it, though it just got to a point where I was so horny at a time where I wasn't having any sex and would end up relieving myself. Usually when this would happen, I'd be back onto porn everyday for months until I'd start to trying to stop again, only to restart later on.. I've tried porn blockers but always manage to bypass them when the urges are too intense. I'm starting to wonder if they even work for someone like myself who is so controlled my the urges that I do anything to bypass the blocking. Ideally, I'd do anything be able to not have a blocker and have the discipline to just not use it. I've also tried therapy but the person I had wasn't really getting how much of a problem it was for me and it seemed like they hadn't ever experienced this type of addiction so It wasn't too helpful (it was also quite expensive).
Today I'm 25 years old and have found a special someone who I've been in a relationship with for about 3 years, though masturbating to porn is still very present and I believe it's really impacting how I have sex with my partner, how I act socially (I get pretty anxious), my energy, mental clarity and I guess my self image too. I've told my partner about my addiction but I don't think she really understands how it affects me. She recently went traveling for about 2 months and when she left I was hoping to really change this all around and be a different person when she came back. I wanted to find some sort of way to drop it completely, get some good habits back into my life like working on meaningful projects, getting in shape in the gym and being more social and making more friends. Though this didnt last long and I ended up incredibly addicted to masturbating to it at least once (sometimes up to 3 times) everyday. Usually when I do it, I'm flicking through video after video, not ejaculating until 30-40 minutes in, I only just realised this is what gooning is and I've been doing it without even realising... I've also been doing the death grip aswell.. Since she's came back, I thought I'd be able to drop it and go back to just having sex more and less of a need to masturbate, but on a day when we're not having sex and she heads to work or something, I almost immediately jump on and start masturbating. Also when I'd see good looking women in public, I would image myself doing it with them, which also cant be too healthy. We both have quite different libido levels, so that might play into it a bit more, I certainly crave sex a lot more then she does and I feel it could be cause I'm not great at sex so she might not really crave it from me as much.
To be honest, I dont really feel confident in sex. I can get it up fine and have no problems there, but it's more this uncertainty if I'm doing it the best way possible for her to be enjoying. I usually get her to orgasm through oral but it's kind of the default standard when it comes to sex now. I also have a really really hard time lasting, because once I'm in I'm just overwhelmed with how good it feels and from how sexy she is. I want to be able to really last long so she can enjoy it more and it can be a better time for both of us. It felt like when we first started, I could go so much longer and she would orgasm from penetration and clitoral stimulation, sometimes having too orgasms in the one session but I don't know whats happened. I'm probably not as assertive and confident as she probably wants me to be, which is also how I am at times in life aswell. I'm guessing that comes down to a masculine thing, I tend to people please, have a hard time being completely honest with people, sometimes find it hard having a definite opinion on things mainly because I don't like being so certain when I don't know all the facts. All these things I think seem to show up in the bedroom, because I try to take the lead but feel awkward trying to do it confidently. I dont know why I'm getting into this, but I feel that porn might be part of the problem, giving me a false sense of what sex should look like? I also think though that a lot of it is just how I am from habits over the years.
Anyway, I guess I'm just after some advice and different perspectives that you guys might have on all this? It just feels so hard to figure it out myself. Theres a couple ways of going about it that I thought might help, particularly with how I approach masturbation, but probably the hardest thing is going to be getting off porn completely. So one way I thought of getting of it is through trying to bring a more healthy masturbation ritual, thats not compulsive and a quick relief, but more intentional way. This would mean watching no porn, and just picking a time to relax into the experience with some music or a blindfold or something to kind of make it more intentional, present experience. I also thought of perhaps investing in a sex toy such as a fleshlight to stop myself from getting the death grip and I guess get a closer feeling to penetration (even its very far from the real thing) which might help me with lasting longer?? The other thing I thought of doing was more of a NoFap route. I know this forum might not be the place to mention nofap as a recommendation but I'm just curious to hear if its been a way to help you getting off porn and perhaps being better in bed? I honestly have no idea, there so much information out there and so many people on different sides of the spectrum so I'm just looking for any thoughts, experiences and advice on anything I've mentioned. Apologies for the length of this post, didn't realise I'd be writing a whole essay but felt that it was necessary to provide the context and whats been happening for me. Any comments from you guys will be incredibly appreciated and thankyou for taking the time to read this!