Baring my soul here

Well, looks like I don’t have enough posts so must post this here. I wanted to post in the men’s sexual health forum because it deals with ED. But I’ll post it here and maybe some of you can help me.

To explain my issue I need to forget about pride and give all the facts. Until a few days ago I was a 65 year old virgin. All my adult life I’ve suffered from high anxiety, including panic attacks. Along with a lot of other social issues I could not be intimate with a woman. After a number of years went by I accepted it as my fate. Recently I retired and, within a few weeks, I found myself unable to sleep. I fell into clinical depression, for the first time in my life. I sought out a therapist (also for the first time). She led me through a long series of sessions which brought me out of depression. My negative thoughts went away, life started looking good again, and I regained hope. But one major issue remained; my virginity. At this point I knew I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life alone. I also knew that I longed to be intimate with a woman but I knew nothing. I had never even kissed a woman. What a wonderful therapist I had found. She helped me find a sexual surrogate within three hours of my home (this was the first time my therapist had sought out a surrogate). And so, two Mondays ago, I drove to this woman and had my first session. She is great at what she does. She put me at ease. During the third session, on June 21st, I lost my virginity to this woman. It was wonderful and I’ll never forget it. But, there is a major issue. She has diagnosed me with “anxiety induced unreliable erections”. I can’t achieve a full erection. On the session where I lost my virginity she gave me a hand job which eventually got me 90% hard, put a rubber on, straddled me cowgirl, got me inside her, then had me roll over with her so she was on her back and I was laying on top of her. She told me to lie with her and experience being inside her. It was wonderful but I couldn’t really feel or do anything because I was too soft. These sessions are very expensive and it’s turned into a big head game. She’s working to get me “out of my head and into my body”. I understand the concept and agree with her but it’s a very, very, VERY difficult thing to do. I’m praying for a breakthrough but, if it doesn’t happen after a few more sessions, I may have to stop the financial bleeding and call it quits. I also know that if this woman can’t make it happen no one else can. She knows her stuff. I think the world of her.

So, here’s some more data. I’m in very good health. I’m 5’ 9” and weigh about 140 lbs. I was a distance runner into my 40s, ran some marathons also. I still walk 2 1/2 miles every day. My resting blood pressure is ~ 115/75. I take no medications. I also do stretching daily and some other exercises. I get erections during the night (some of them full hard) and morning wood probably 9 out of 10 days (some of them full hard). But, here’s the bad part. As the decades went by I had more and more trouble trying to successfully masturbate (achieve ejaculation), so I turned to porn. As the years went by it got more and more difficult to get visually stimulated. As I reached my 60s the only way I could make it happen was to let two weeks pass before each masturbation attempt. Sometimes I would wind up going as long as a month between ejaculations. I wound up purchasing a VR headset so I could immerse myself in the porn. I think all of this has backfired on me in a terrible way. On Thursday this week, after my latest surrogate session, I went home and deleted all my porn video and picture files from my computers. When I was in bed that night I also (seriously) had a conversation with my body, told it I was sorry for everything bad I had done to it, and promised to no longer look at porn and to pursue relationships with real women and engage in natural sex. It sounds like a strange thing to do but I was surprised what a powerful moment that was. I feel like my body may give me full erections again; we’ll see.

So, I’ve bared my soul because I trust you guys (and gals) and I need advice on what I can do to have the best chance of success during my session Monday and subsequent sessions. I welcome all advice and I thank all of you in advance.

Download Tinder

Get that old rooster rocking 😂😂

The sessions with your surrogate partner have helped you to a certain extent.

It seems that it could further improve the condition. But as you said they are expensive. Have you considered talking to her about it? About the financial part? Probably a few more sessions could be even more effective.

Way to go! Thanks for telling us so much. It must feel good to unload all of that personal information. I am glad you bared it all and feel good for you for doing so! I’m also happy to hear you are pursuing a surrogate to make sex happen for you.

Porn is bad stuff. I’ve posted on this forum a bit on quitting it and the benefits it has brought me because I didn’t know it was doing so much harm to me. Like you, I faced the “anxiety induced ED” while trying to have sex with my wife again after about a 14 or so month break due to her onset and issues with menopause. We used to be bunnies and did it every single day of the week, literally, for years and years. But menopause is a mother fucker and it takes a lot (for some women and couples) to surpass it and the limitations it sponsors in a woman’s body. Although I had been waiting patiently to have sex with her again, and not sex that was painful like it was throughout 2020, when she was finally happy, libido high enough and pussy wet and supple enough to accept me I was in sheer panic mode. I could pop a boner no problem any time of the day, even while we made out and did foreplay, but within seconds I was over her, with a wet noodle of a cock, sweating profusely and shaking with fear and panic. Overwhelming is not a big enough word. Why was I like this? What was going on with me?? Never had this issue before, but on second thought, in the past I faced these anxiety-induced boner killers here and there: after a long break due to a medical issue of hers, overly excited for a certain sexual activity (like anal sex, I was so excited to finally be doing it with her again that I couldn’t get hard to put it in her ass and it was all I wanted for years), and, the first time we had sex, which was the first time we ever had sex because we were both virgins. First night we tried I was hard but lost it for penetration. Next day we tried again and the anxiety left me and we fucked.

Porn, though, locked me into a daily grind of popping boners for no real reason other than to just get them and it was paired with porn. All my masturbation, which was almost every single day of the year, was paired with sitting at a screen edging myself for up to an hour and then releasing. It was when I was alone out of town that I realized porn was a problem. I was hard with porn, moved to the bathroom to cum, and couldn’t get hard anymore. Got back on porn within seconds I was hard and cumming. That was the last day I looked at porno and it was 14 weeks ago tomorrow. Now I’m hard a lot for my wife and don’t even think about not being able to be hard with her. I blame porn almost 100% for my problems because when I quit it, almost within a week, my body was back to normal.

One thing I would advise you to do is try to be body-positive and love yourself during masturbation with no porn on. The more comfortable you are with yourself alone, and the more in love you are with your body and penis, the easier it will be to let someone else love your body and penis, too. I’m about 20 years younger than you but it sounds like we’ve suffered some of the same little glitches with our bodies and minds, albeit different situations and lifestyles. I wish you all the best in the world and hope that your session tomorrow goes great. The more you are with her the easier it will be to find normalcy with sex. Sorry it costs so much though. However, maybe you can look at the expenditure as a huge positive for your life and its growth in positive ways.

But I gotta ask: is your surrogate hot? What does she look like if you don’t mind me asking? I’ve always wondered what sex surrogates look like, although I imagine they are beyond sexy and erotic in their movements, attitude and outlook on a sexual life.

> porn

Do a forum search for “porn detox.” That’s probably 75% of your problem.

There are some dietary supplements that will help *some*. L-Arginine and L-Tryptophan, primarily. Look at the threads on those.

And finally, you can talk to your doctor about a prescription for one of the ED drugs like Viagra or Cialis.

Lots of people wound up here because they had ED. It’s annoying and embarrassing, but it’s not the end of the world, and you’re not alone. There’s a ton of information here posted be people with similar problems to yours; Thunders’ has been around a *long* time. Schedule some time out of your day and start digging.

Thanks Golfclub for the suggestion. I think she’s charging a fair price and, at this point, I don’t want to insult her and have her tell me her services are no longer available to me.

Thanks PumpedMember for all the good advice. I totally agree with you about porn induced issues but I also think my life-long anxiety issues are significant enough to be making a contribution also.
Is my surrogate hot? OMG yes! She’s early fifties, red head, petite, actually a hard body type. Very much into fitness, yoga, etc. She has the face of an angel and the most beautiful big blue eyes. I am blessed to have found her. She’s been through the IPSA training and was an apprentice for two years. When they offered her certification she refused it for valid reason that I won’t state here. My impression is that the average IPSA surrogate is not particularly good looking, and that could be a big problem for someone like me (having issue getting a full erection). With my surrogate I definitely am turned on and have the desire. I just need to get out of my head and into my body, and also continue to abstain from porn. I also very much agree with you on loving my body. I’m working on that. I am a thin man man and, because I concentrated on running for about 25 years, my upper body has no muscular look. It almost looks atrophied. And so I was insisting I wear a T shirt when naked with the surrogate. She said no. She gave me a full frontal caress while I lay on the bed. She told me she liked my chest and stomach hair. After a couple sessions I was comfortable being fully naked in front of her. I actually do like my body now. It’s not the best man-look but it’s not undesirable either.

Thanks AndyJ for the info. I don’t want to take Viagra. I’ve been looking into Yohimbine. It sounds safer and more natural. I will need to visit my doctor to get a subscription.

Thanks to everyone who has submitted advice. I really do appreciate it. Hopefully there will be even more good advice! :-)

Thanks for sharing. You never know how much your story can help or inspire others.

You had a couple of things working against you.

1. Life-long anxiety/social anxiety. This is a boner killer by itself. But worse, if you took/take anxiety meds, they don’t just kill your boner, but they do so by inhibiting/lowering your testosterone production leading to long periods of hormone imbalance which is not good. This will kill your energy, your cognitive functions, and more.

2. Porn. Porn impacts your ability to get aroused through normal stimulation as well as lowers your "ambition" because for those that do finish (and are over 30), you are constantly in a state of depletion. My daily routine at one point had me so depleted that I friend-zoned myself on a few occasions with women who were interested. I mean I simply wasn’t interested.

3. Confidence. Low confidence is a boner killer. I think it would be hard to keep high confidence with the experiences that you’ve mentioned.

My recommendation. Stay away from porn. Thank your surrogate and see if you can work something out with her at a lower cost. Also ask if she can recommend a surrogate who works within your budget. Save yourself for the real deal. Get accustomed to the feel, scent, and touch of a woman. You have good size so you can have a great sex life once you let go. I agree, try ED meds, they will help initially. You may even have to go the tri-mix route if the orals don’t work. As you have more encounters, your confidence should return and then you can begin to work on overcoming the anxieties tied to being with women.

Finally, this guy introduced a social anxiety program that appears to have been successful. The site is no longer updated, but the content is still there. It was targeted at younger men, but I think you can extrapolate the gist of it and begin to take your own modified steps.

Approach Anxiety Program .

Thanks Damian. I agree with all your points. I took a quick look at the website you linked. I will take a longer look later today. BTW: I’m not taking any anxiety meds. One thing I’m wondering. I just stopped porn this week. I wonder how much time needs to go by before it’s not affecting my ability to get a full erection? I have a session tomorrow and then on July 5th. Maybe by July 5th things will be different? Or might it be several months? I may need to stop the sessions and resume a month or so from now.

Stay committed and focused on the process. It does take time to see the changes after stopping porn use. You’ll be glad you did!

I completely agree with this. It does take time. I’m about 5 weeks free from porn and my erection are slowly getting back to normal. My issue was never going soft while inside a woman more that I would get over stimulated and blow very fast. It’s so much better now.

Some natural things that help with erection that I can think of are l arginine, yohimbe and horny goat weed. There’s others out there but that’s all I can think of at the moment. You don’t need a prescription for any of it as a matter of fact Im pretty sure you can get all of them on Amazon.

I know you said you didn’t want to take viagra but a low dosage can work wonders. Or a low dosage of Cialis would work too.

Hi WorthyQuest,

Assuming you’re not vegetarian or vegan, check out the research on psilocybin as a treatment for anxiety. Then check out the laws on psilocybin in Texas (not pretty).

yes, yohimbe is easy to get I think there are dozens of brands out there. My advice taking it, though, is to follow a strict no-tyramine diet and research everything that has tyramine in it and don’t eat or drink that stuff that day. When I do I get headaches and really panicked for no reason. But, at low doses for me, yohimbe is a great boner-inducer. Sometimes I’ve been so hard I didn’t want to be that hard! Everyone’s body chemistry is different but I can’t take more than 300mg without anxiety issues and accelerated heart rate happening. Tribulus is really good too, helps your free testosterone do what its supposed to do. I take it and it makes me focused and confident in everything. Just be careful taking yohimbe and you’ll enjoy it I think!