Sex

Hi, don't really like talking about this. But I take seroquel, lamictal, and prozac. I can watch porn and do my thing but cannot make love to my wife without viagra. What the hell is wrong with me. She is a little overweight but pretty. Help me or any suggestions?

Hello dpellsworth: I believe it is the case that most, if not all, psych med's come with at least the potential for sexual side effects. Plus... depression & anxiety themselves can negatively impact one's sexual capabilities. Taken together it's probably not surprising that you're having the problem you're having.

When you're alone & watching porn, there's no performance anxiety... no potential for embarrassment. But when you're with your wife, you're in the spotlight, so to speak. And once you begin to experience difficulty, you start to become apprehensive about it & that just creates more anxiety. So your anxiety spirals up-&-up feeding on itself. At least this is my perspective on it.

So, having written that, what is the answer? It's probably going to take some work to sort it all out. First of all I think it's important for you to be able to be open & honest with your wife regarding what's going on with you & how you feel about it. Some individual therapy or couples counseling may help. You may also want to discuss, with your prescribing physician, what you're experiencing.

I wish you well...

I can relate I am on luvox visteral and just started some clonopin as well. i agree with what skeezyks said the only thing i thought i'd say is sometimes it just takes some time. i don't know if that is the case with you, but i had a lot of difficulty with sex until the meds had been in my system a while. now it is better. i also lowered the dosage of my ssri by 50, with my pnurse on board with it. i think that helped
i'm a woman so i know it's a bit different but the general principles may apply i think.

3/4 of the time I can't orgasm masturbating to porn.

You've listed these meds that you're on. Did this issue start before or after all these meds?

I've never masturbated while watching porn or anything like that.

In the past three (?) months, though, I can't go for a week without masturbating while thinking of one of two ex-girlfriends, Nancy & Chandra. Nancy 85% of the time.

The thing that baffles me is that I'm not supposed to be able to get an erection. They cut off my legs when they couldn't sustain blood flow and told me that Moby would forever lose his Special Purpose.

Then when I started being smitten by these manic spells, I felt surrounded by a dozen Nancy's (think few years younger Kill Bill Uma Thurman) all a'frolicking and I couldn't stop. If it hadn't been for the ministry of two old friends, L&M, and the kindness and understanding of their husbands, I would, I know that I would have done something risky.

Now, when the urge comes upon me, I just lay back, close my eyes and tilt my closed eyes to the ceiling and remember.

Sooo... when I masturbate I daydream (?) of Nancy.

Here's something strange: my wife and I were friends with another married couple and we used to just do the same crap that married couples do. But J and I were at an Irish pub waiting for our wives and he told me that (you have to pay attention here – I didn't understand the first time)... okay that when they were having sex, that J would call his wife, C, my my wife's name, M, and that C, his wife, would call him, J, by my name, cider. And that they would "pretend" to be us making love to us.

I've certainly been in some situations that could be called out-of-the-norm, freaky even, but that playtime was one of the oddest involving me without my participation. I never told my wife or mentioned it to the couple again.

My reaction to that little best-not-tell fantasy of his makes me sound hypocritical when I admit that when a woman has told me that they were getting on with Mr. X, but thinking of me the entire time, I could understand that.

One question in re masturbation and pornography. Is it like a by-the-pool quickie? The quickie part, I mean? From the little that I've seen, there's not a lot of foreplay or afterplay. I don't know, though... if I go into rut for 2-3 months again and L&M couldn't make it, I guess that I could give it a try. I feel like an idiot whenever this subject comes up. Like not a 'real guy.' Guys watch porn. I'm not naive. I like an artist in any medium who's able to catch a fleeting moment of of pleasure, or pain, for whatever reason. And I probably have much kinkier sides to me than watching pornography. I'm not sure, though.

I guess you either get it or you don't – like opera. I've had men and women try to explain what they find erotic and why. I've talked myself into a corner again. About a subject that I know nothing about. Maybe I should subscribe to Playboy. My dad did and there was nothing creepy about him.

Jesu. I'm "talking" so much because I'm nervous, not because of my hypergraphia. I could be naked in a room full of clothed Amish couples and not feel as embarrassed as I do just thinking about pornography. I'm a freak. Honestly; that's what I feel like. Crimey, that's what I am. Porn magazines, porn videos, digital porn stills, etc. I've been in enormous sex stores that cater to every (legal) sex act that can be imagined. I know what bothers me (maybe?)... the commerce side and that I have one friend, only one that I knew of, who put much more time and energy and MONEY into collecting porn movies rather than on pursuing any kind of 'real' relationship. That didn't stop him from whining about not being in any kind of relationship, though.

His father had been a U.S. Senator for 10 terms (joke! A long time...) from a SE US state. Jim-Bob had inherited a truckload of some of the most beautiful luggage from his dad but that luggage had been his dad's mother's back during the days when you traveled by boat instead of plane. Anyway, Porn Gnome kept his porn videos in this beautiful luggage.

He was (and still was,the last that I checked) a short, round guy and I've never met anyone more hirsute than him. Never. Very bright, very funny, a kind guy, post-grad degree smart, a sweetheart genuine. He thought that it was all about his looks and I guess that if he was sitting there, day-after-day, comparing himself to those male porn stars that most guys would probably feel inadequate. I have a horrible body image now; I think that he'd been nursing one all through his life.

Women were always asking about his status; "ah, she'd never go out with me," blah, blah, blah. Many women loved everything about him, thinking that he was irresistibly cute and with that dazzling personality he wasn't so much breaking hearts as leaving a lot of women confused. Finally, an overwhelming woman laid it on the line and he and his wife will be celebrating their 10th anniversary this December. He sold all but a few of his porn movies and he has that sort of ex-smokers attitude about porn now. I also learned, after the wedding, that the luggage held up throughout the European honeymoon.

He's an interesting and fun guy to be around. Someone that I genuinely miss (and really wish that I'd known his wife better). A good person. A very good person. A better person (and I am only judging him, not anyone else)... a better person for making a choice that no one asked him to make.

Hmm. Maybe I do have an anti-porn streak in me. Maybe I don't want to understand it. Don't get the idea, though, that I've any confusion about sex! As in two or more joined in married or unmarried bliss and, honestly now, yes, the digital girls stay forever young but you'll never be able to push their head under the covers after a wretching fart.

You don't think that the latter is important? Try it with an iPad. Rip, then push. Then, try it with a woman that you love. You won't get a slap on the shoulder or a yell in the ear from the iPad. The iPad won't remind you of the incident hundreds of times over the remaining years of your life.

Maybe that's my real problem with porn; the fakery. The pretense. Mixing that all together and saying... this was my love.

I've been writing this for 20 hours or so and I'm drawing a blank. I'd best just submit and try to sleep. All day, I've been seeing large dogs from the corners of my eyes. And hearing them growl. It's usually on a tug boat.

Submit.

I saw a tv show about porn and the affect it has on teenagers eg boys getting the impression that ejaculating into a girls face was their right and generally getting a tainted view of what they can expect from a sexual partner. But perhaps as an adult who has experienced the reality of sex ( take your partners feelings into consideration as well as having to please them while also trying to get yourself satisfied ) you are finding pornography more stimulating because it's about you, none of that considering someone else a sense of being able to do exactly what you want, to be selfish without the consequences, just plain self gratification which leaves you able to get an erection without meds. If that is the case perhaps after conversation with your wife you could re-enact something from a porno or role-play your filming your own. Have fun with it ��

The role-playing is a great idea... I hope the OP gets your message.

But that thing about teenaged boys in re porn/facial ejaculation, I'm not so sure about. Maybe the documentary was right about boys viewing the practice as their right after seeing it in pornographic movies. I never saw it in any movie and I don't think my first girlfriend would have but she introduced me to the practice in 1971, I guess. I learned, pretty quickly over the years, that it wasn't every girls cup of tea.

If I can get the courage, I'll ask her where she learned of the practice. Since it was new to us, I thought that her older sister had taught her. It wasn't until college that I learned that the practice was controversial amongst girls and that MANY boys had a kind of sick sadistic/domineering feeling about it.

So it's common in pornography? They've kind of ripped the guts out of anything private, I guess.

Unfortunately nowadays there really is no limit as to what goes on in pornography, the 'facial' as it's termed is fairly common as I guess it is more graphic and visual that other climax related acts ��

Before I get back on topic... I just noticed the pain and chronic pain near your avatar. I've had chronic pain since 2003 which was multiplied by a factor of 10 after I sustained surgical nerve damage in 2006. I've been through one outpatient pain management regimen and two inpatient. My mental health team told me that I had to choose between being treated for chronic pain or my mental disorders. I go to see a new pdoc on the 28th and can't wait.

"Graphic and visual." That's true... I guess that's what I found so exciting about it that first time and in the years to follow. I sent Sue a msg last night to ask where she'd come up with the idea, but she usually only responds on weekends.

There must be some scholarly psychological studies about what people find erotic in visual pornography. I'm going to Google that in a moment.

But that brings up more questions, more things that I don't 'get.' Getting back to the "visual." I admit being very visually involved with my lovers... one of the reasons, I think, that my memories are enhanced by visual cues. But those are cues of my lover and me: not movies of strangers. I know what goes on in my head when I masturbate – memories. Where does the excitement come from when watching a movie of a girl (that you might not even find very attractive) doing things to a man that you've always considered highly personal and private?

And then there are all of those behind-the-counter men's magazines that feature "hot lesbian action!" I've never asked for one of them to see exactly what this action on a magazines pages might look like (the same sort of action seen on a fake battlefield with toy soldiers re-enacting Waterloo?) but I can hope that the art director hired professional advisor's before shooting.

When Susan and I started doing things that we would only find later had a name and that others did – the 'facial' being a very good example – we were just messing around with things that felt good or that we thought would feel good to the other. We knew about birth control from church and her mom had her on bc pills by the time she was 12, I guess. Anyway, the point that I seem to be dancing around is that we didn't have any kind of sexual instruction. We didn't look at porn movies and say, "let's try that." Sue would occasionally ask her much older sister a question (I can't even think of an example now) but I don't recall either of us thinking that anything was taboo or 'nasty.' It wasn't like some "Blue Lagoon," no one else around naïveté, exactly. We knew how babies were made and were lucky that Onan's method of birth control worked until the pills came through.

I don't think that we were weird, though, in thinking that the feelings that we had for one another and the physical way that we expressed those feelings were personal and private, though. I'm not a prude or anything; when the portion of Black's was 'clothing optional,' that's how we visited; opting for no clothes. We took photos of one another naked; I remember how giggly she would get in my darkroom. My God, but she was wonderful! I don't know if she ever showed the photos to anyone else, I know that I didn't. I wasn't bothered, at all, when I was older, to think that nude photos of me might have been shown around... and now I've come round to my topic, I think.

How can a pornographic photo or movie, of strangers, be arousing? To me, it takes arousal of all of the senses (well, most of the time) to be sensual. Does that make sense? I mean visual, touch, smell, taste and hearing.

Finally, and this may sound prudish, I don't understand why anyone would want to witness private sex acts. I know that there are disorders such as voyeurism or exhibitionism that can make an individual less culpable, but I can't believe that every person who watches porn is a voyeur or that every 'actor' is an exhibitionist. But, really, I'm not so prudish as to even suggest that "private sex acts" means sex between only two partners! It could be three or four!

I need to read the original post again. I've never been able to openly discuss my confusion about pornography with other guys; only with a handful of close female (and mainly lesbian or trans) friends. I'm afraid that I took the ball and ran and forgot all about the OP!

Hey, guy,

I'm afraid that I've been writing all around you without offering any suggestions, trying to understand what I don't 'get' about porn. I've pretty much given up on that endeavour but I would like, if you're willing, to talk about what may be "wrong" with you and help you as you think of possible solutions.

If I can think of anything that might help, we could always use the Private Message function to communicate? Just a thought.

You started by saying that you don't really like talking about this problem with your sexuality. That's normal for anyone. When I started my downhill road to, what I thought was, total impotency, I can't even begin to tell you the negative feelings that I had to grapple with. I had always been a very highly-charged sexual person and while I didn't define myself primarily by my sexual identity (in a world full of heterosexuals, I was just another) I did think of sex as an essential part of my life. Not EXACTLY like food, but like GOOD food. It was also something that I enjoyed and something that I was good at. The latter was certainly an ego-booster and the liking it was just normal, I thought.

I don't know what your primary emotions are when you think that you may lose your sex drive but I think that my biggest two were fear and shame. Fear that I was going to lose that part of me forever (which I largely did) and shame that I would never be able to give a woman that part of my love again (pretty much true, as well). I'm not trying to make you feel all snappy-happy, but your condition is much more liable to be temporary; a direct result of the medications that you're on. And, as a few people, I think, have pointed out, with pornography there's no performance pressure. If you're unable to achieve an erection or to ejaculate, you're not going to feel ashamed and you're no going to hurt anyone's feelings.

I think that it's great that you're considerate of your wife and if Viagra is working for you, and you're not having many of the bad side-effects, I don't know if you really need to do anything at this point as long as you're on the psych meds. You don't say, but I get the impression that you've not talked this over with your wife? It may be difficult to do, it may even be something that you'd want to do with your pdoc, but I would think that the more that she understands, the more that she may be able to help. Whether it's you or the doc explaining, she should be made aware that your psych drugs are causing you to experience unwanted sexual side effects, that these side effects have nothing to do with her or your love for her, that (if she's not aware that you're using it already) Viagra may be able to help and that you need all of the love, support, ideas and problem solving skills that she can give you during this difficult time.

Stress that you recognise that this is a difficult time for you both. If you don't feel as though you both communicate well, now's the time to start. Don't allow, if you can possibly stop it, your mental illnesses destroy your marriage. You don't tell us much about yourself – age, years married, diagnoses, kids or not, med dosage, years of treatment, etc. Knowing those things can help in offering suggestions.

I truly hope that you'll be back.

I think in todays world it's expected that you watch porn, especially men. And for young teens peer pressure, lack of descent sexual education and the easy access to online porn takes away that naive first exploration into sex.

As for myself although I do watch some porn I definitely don't masturbated over it, but then again since I injured my back I'm not that interested in sex ��

I think that the onset of chronic pain, impotence and loss of libido all occurring within 1-1 ½ years of one another were coincidental. Why I have daily hypersexual manic attacks are anyone's guess (except my therapist who isn't hazarding a guess at this time). I never had an actual "one night stand" as I understand them; never met a girl, brought her home and had sex during a 24-hour period. I tried it, but couldn't get an erection.

I had to know a woman for at least 3-4 days and genuinely like them before I wanted to have sex with them. This will sound odd, but I felt as if any woman/girl that I was going to have sex with deserved to know a bit of what they could expect before hopping in bed. So if foreplay on day 3 (or 6 or 60) didn't go well, there wouldn't be any hurt feelings.

The four women that I loved, each for a minimum of 5 years, each stand out for different reasons, which is right and natural. I'm not really sure that "naive" is the right word do describe the way we explored and experimented over the years – I certainly can't say that either of us were experienced! – but maybe naive in the sense that we did what seemed natural. Without going into detail, the "facial" thing. The things that she taught me about periods (yes, we had sex during and I always did and I learned to calculate next periods in my head... then came the miracle of the bc pill). The way that her clitoris became more sensitive from 11 to 13. All of that. God, I could write a book about each one!

I was trying to tell someone, recently, how I would hate to be a teenager today. I didn't think about the sex side of it. Except for the Playboy magazines (where I let my eyes read the curves and not the type) I don't know that there was any access to pornography. And I was, at least, smart enough to know that Susan's curveless body would grow and that her hips and breasts would fill out, which they did.

Naturally. That's how I learned of sex and women's bodies. Not seeing crap on computer screens. By experience. We have had a mutual gushing of thanks over the years; thank you for showing me, thank you for letting me, (in chorus) thank you for loving me.

Now I'm fixated on the second girl that I loved. I'm fixated on love. How good it felt to love and be loved. And the tears start again. Never sure why. I think that I must have thought of love as a journey and that, at the end, you settled in with your true and final love. To my horror, I went beyond my true love.

To my horror.

Ciderguy I do hope I didn't offend using the term naive but I meant that purely you and especially your formative girlfriends/lovers were not under the influence of the highly edited and fakery of todays sexually aggressive multimedia world.

Do we need to know a position is called doggie or the reverse cowgirl to enjoy them ! HELL NO ! �� I knew touching and stroking myself felt incredibly good before I had ever heard of masturbation. And I sure knew that having a guy grab the back of my head and ram his member down my throat during oral sex because it was what all the porn stars do was enough scare me half to death and saw that particular not so gentleman out the door very quickly.

Oh, no, you didn't offend at all! And it was just the one - Susan - my first love but for a bit over 6 years - that I had that type of wonder with. No, we didn't know that many things had "names" exactly and if some things didn't seem to "fit" exactly, we just thought that's the way things were (until we were high school - I was off in a different state but came home whenever possible).

I found my Special Purpose at about 5 years old, I guess. I just knew that it felt good. I'm glad that I'm able to chat with her occasionally now. I would never tell her this, but she lost those beautiful facial features with age (and I did, too, but Nancy? My God, she still looks young!!).

I have to eat, Today has been a very bad day,

Hope your having a better day today, I've been having a bad few days so can sympathize

Today was horrible. I slept the whole day, didn't awake until 10 p.m. That's not a good sign. Bizarre thoughts, not exactly dreams, I'm not sure.

Just not a good spot and even more hopeless than usual.

40th high school reunion coming up in July, Wisconsin. No way I'd want those guys to see me like this. I usually don't wake up with such a strong self-hatred.

Ach.

My father recently had a class reunion and it the days leading up to it he was stressed and volatile ! The only people that class/school reunions benefit are the so called popular kids, the look at me types who really just revel in making others feel inferior and who spend their whole lives eating out on their stories of the glory days. So to hell with them your not their to help fuel their self worth. You have lived the life you have and nothing short of a time machine can change that and I am positive that some of your days have been nothing short of living hell but you came through all of those and can do it again ✊

It's strange for me to look at the photos on the 'net from my 30th high school reunion. I know that half of them went on to major seminary and that maybe half of those became priests but since there were only two at the 30th reunion wearing clericals I've no idea who stayed in, who got married, etc. It doesn't seem so much like it's the "popular" kids that never miss these things (because I fit that sobriquet more than anyone) but rather the guys who, as you say, have "spent their whole lives eating out on their stories of the glory days." There are people in my "semi-hometown," where I live now, who really went overboard with it. People that I knew in grammar school who went to the same high school and never left. Two of them died in their 40's of alcoholism.

My main reason that I would never attend any kind of reunion is because of vanity – I look like a monster and my success came to an end 19 years ago.

With a few exceptions – normal exceptions – the first 38 (to be precise) years of my life were great. Mother died when I was 4, didn't get on with my stepmother, my dad died when I was in my mid-20's, just normal gut-punches. Christmas of 1996, five months before my wife used the word 'divorce,' was the best ever. Christmas of 1997, my first ever spent alone, was mind-shattering.

I'm thankful for those 38 years, but the good memories hurt, too. Can't seem to catch a break.

This conversation has been good for me, surprisingly. Instead of bad nostalgia, it's sparked good memories that were never overshadowed by bad.

Over the past week, I think, I've been slipping out of my hypergraphia. My output has become normal and, worst of all, the words aren't coming so easily or so quickly. I'm going to hate to lose it. I'll need to get in touch with my hypergraphia doc.

It's late but I don't know if I'll be able to sleep. Just so sad right now. Not sure why, really.

I'm glad this conversation has been somewhat helpful for you �� Unfortunately my partner finds that happy memories seem to drag the bad in behind them. And he too ends up laying awake eaten up by sadness. But I am glad to hear it sounds like you have therapists that help you �� Touch wood you'll find something that sparks off more positive memories again if you do find out where Susan got the idea of experimenting with ' facials ' would still be interested to know ��