The Unseen Battle: Teen Triumphs over Porn-Induced Erectile Dysfunction

I've got a letter from a 17-year-old guy who's managed to heal from his crippling porn-induced erectile dysfunction. Let's see how he did it!

Anon's words are in italics. My comments and responses are in bold.

First of all, I want to thank you and the no fap/porn recovery community. You guys are doing such an excellent job at shedding light on the dangers of pornography. Before finding the community, I felt lost and confused. “Why would a 17-year-old have erectile dysfunction?” I would ask myself. At first, I thought it was nerves but after realizing I was not nervous at all, that’s when I began to search for answers. Luckily, I found resources such as yourbrainonporn.com and your channel which exposed the truth behind my dysfunction. Porn was the problem all along.

I'm glad you found us. I know personally how hard it is to connect the dots without someone drawing the lines for you. Now that you're aware (and luckily at a young age) you have the magnificent opportunity to change and heal!

To all the guys that are struggling with porn addiction and dysfunction, I know how hard it is to stay clean. I relapsed over 100 times and still managed to recover from PIED. After trial and error, I figured out how to abstain and started to make real progress.

You could easily have given up after trying a few times, or 20 times, or 99 times. But you kept at it and found success. That commitment to keep moving forward is the most important quality you need when overcoming addiction. However, there are many ways to make the process easier, quicker, and more effective. You don't have to go it alone. Even when it's possible to break free without personal guidance or support, I encourage anyone reading to do yourself the favor of not reinventing the wheel. Find out how I can help you.

My number one tip is to use your relapses as learning experiences. I obviously do not encourage relapses but when you are in the middle of a relapse, really think about what you are doing and why you are doing it. And after a relapse, learn what led to it, such as triggers that occurred days before or not being occupied enough.

You're absolutely right about this. You'll be much better able to change your habits and break free of your compulsions if you take the perspective of a scientist testing hypothesis, learning from failures, and refining your approach. On the other hand, punishing yourself and swearing things will be different next time without making fundamental changes is a losing strategy.

Again, thank you Noah for everything you have done for the porn addiction community. Now, let me share my story. 

When I was 11 years old, I was exposed to a picture of a woman with her legs open, revealing herself. I was disgusted yet intrigued. That picture was engraved in my mind for a long time. At 12, I got a tablet for Christmas and had high speed internet on it. I used to look at pictures of a model I liked but never actually masturbated to her, since I did not even know what masturbation was. I had friends who explained what masturbation was. I was intrigued and decided to give it a try. My first time masturbating is an experience I will never forget. I felt so scared but had a surge of excitement when I was done. It became a once a week habit until I did some research on how often I could masturbate safely. I got the answer “As long as you do not hurt yourself, there is not a limit.” From then, it became an everyday habit.  

In their eagerness to be sex positive, many writers give bad information and advice concerning masturbation and porn use. Unfortunately, you had to discover the hard way just how sex negative porn-induced ED is.

Once I reached middle school, there would be times where I would masturbate without porn. I would fantasize about my crushes and enjoyed doing that. That eventually got boring, so I went back to watching porn regularly. I would masturbate to porn daily, sometimes 2-3 times. I would feel pain sometimes but masturbated anyway. I actually had 3 total girlfriends in middle school but never did anything sexually with them. Once I reached high school, this is when things escalated. The usual porn I watched became boring, so I had to switch it up. I never escalated to anything taboo, but I definitely developed preferences for body parts. I started to notice that my erections were becoming weaker and could only maintain one if I were touching myself. This scared me but I continued to pmo daily regardless.

A very common and typical progression. Binge on sugar every day and you lose your sensitivity to sweetness. Sugar loses its kick, and the apple tastes like ash. So you look for something more potent.

Once I reached my Senior year (fourth year of high school), I started talking to this girl. We would text each other daily and I eventually ended up linking up with her. This was my first time having alone time with a girl. When we started to get physical with each other, I noticed something strange. I did not get an erection at all. The very thing I dreamed of right in front of me did not get me hard at all.

This is painfully familiar for me, and I'm sure many of you watching.

I did not think too much about it since we still had a fun time together. She ended up becoming my girlfriend and we would see each other often. Every time we would get physical, I would feel nothing. I just would not respond. This scared me and I would just tell her it was “nerves.” I later received my first BJ from her. I was like 60% hard and would even lose my erection. I could not finish either, which really surprised me. I was still happy I got a BJ but was confused on why I did not respond the way I thought I would from it. When it came to us trying to have sex, I could not get hard. I actually shrank when we tried. It would shrivel up and was stiff. What also confused me was I would be able to MO to the nudes she would send me but could not have sex with her. I did some research and heard about no fap fixing erectile dysfunction. I would abstain for 3-4 days before I would see my girlfriend but that was never enough to heal me. She ended up breaking up with me and this really brought me down.

Since it was your first time trying sex, many people will tell you that it was nerves keeping you from becoming aroused. And that can be a contributing factor. Indeed, it tends to become a bigger contributing factor after the first few failures, as now the seed of self-doubt has firmly taken root. Check out this video for how to overcome the anxiety factor as you also recover from the porn-induced effects.

I went back to porn daily. This occurred for about a year. It got to the point where I could not even get hard to porn anymore. This led me to do more research and find out about PIED. 

Once you get to that point of not having full erections even for porn, you've achieved a severe level of PIED. Fortunately, it's fully reversible even at this stage.

I was in shock. I learned what I did to my brain and how I wired it to only react to porn. From that day I decided to quit porn and recover. This was February 2022. I lasted about 4 days. This happened repetitively. I would go 3-7 days then relapse. That is when I found out I was an addict. I eventually reached my highest streak which was 14. Sadly, I ended up relapsing. I started to feel hopeless. I felt I would not be able to overcome this addiction. In June, I found out about self-improvement which changed my life. Even though I was relapsing constantly, I was getting to higher streaks such as 20 days (about 3 weeks). In July, I asked this girl I work with out on a date. She said yes. 3 months later, she became my girlfriend.

Hey, congratulations on not giving up on yourself and achieving incremental progress! Once you've relapsed many times, it's easy to start believing a toxic story about yourself: that you're too weak to kick this compulsion and live pornfree. Instead, you only took it as a sign that you needed to learn from your mistakes and take new actions.

We tried having sex for the first time and I could not get hard. I told her I had issues like this in the past but did not really elaborate on it because I was too scared to tell her the truth. We tried again another time and the same thing happened. This happened about 4 times before I decided to share with her what I was dealing with. Once I told her the reasoning of why I could not get hard was because of porn, she was understanding and was willing to be patient with me. I felt a weight off my shoulders. I was still relapsing but not as often as before. I started to make progress.

Good on you! That's one of the hardest but most valuable steps to take in recovery. It really does come down to honesty, openness, and vulnerability. Check this video out for a complete guide on how to have this conversation.

She gave me BJ’s multiple times, but I was unable to finish. I was happy regardless because I started to feel more sensitized down there. That meant progress was being made. One day, we tried having sex again. She gave me a BJ to get me hard, which it did. I ended up penetrating her, but it was only for about 15 seconds. That is when we both technically “lost our virginities.” I could not keep my erection which disappointed me. I was happy that I was making progress but disappointed I was unable to please her. I ended up giving more details about what I was going through such as how I wired my brain to porn and that I am rewiring with her. I showed her the yourbrainonporn website and explained how I am really attracted to her, but my brain has not recovered from the amount of porn I watched over the years. That is when she fully understood what I was going through. Ever since then I had a burst of motivation to stay clean. I started going cold turkey and it changed my life.

We ended up hanging out for our 3-month anniversary and she gave me a BJ that day. It was the first time I came from head/finished with another person. I was so happy. When you start seeing progress, it is such an amazing feeling. A few days later, we ended up having successful sex. I maintained my erection 80% of the time and when it would start going down, I did not have a problem getting it back up. I could have finished if I wanted to, but I ended up holding back since I wanted to enjoy the moment. I saw her the next day and we had successful sex again. This time it was slightly better. I did not hold back and ended up finishing. I have never been so happy in my life. 

I would not say I am fully recovered yet, but I am definitely reaping the benefits from not watching porn. I am leaving porn in the past and focusing on what I really want in life. A loving relationship and intimacy with a real-life partner. My sex life with my girlfriend will only get better from here! 

Good job, brother. Need I say more? Actually yes, I need to say more. I got to the place you're at, pornfree and healed from PIED, only to later throw it away by relapsing and getting caught in the compulsive cycle once again. I underestimated the strength of my addiction, and I don't want you to do the same. You're not doomed to relapse, but that part of you still exists and will call out to you when times are tough (such as if your relationship ends). If it ever starts to tempt you again, I highly encourage you to join the Support and DIscussion Group that I run.