(02-15-2021, 11:40 AM)Vasil Wrote: [ -> ]Question for @Shannon
Currently 4 months into E4 and one of the things I'm noticing is that I'm getting morning wood way more frequently during my on days (especially on masked).
Additionally, it seems I'm having an easier time getting erections naturally and feel more connected to that part of my body. It seems like the program is at least partially reversing what I assumed was PIED. Sometimes the effects seem to fade but I assume that means I need to keep going.
The E4 description indicates there is some sort of sexual healing involved, but can you explain exactly what that part of it is supposed to do and how it connects with these observations?
What you're seeing is that your ED was due to emotional triggers. What the world loves to forget is that despite the social hype, men have emotions and are emotional creatures just like women are. We process and experience our emotions differently, largely because of what society teaches men about how to deal with our emotions, but we are still humans, and we still have emotions.
In many men, the association with sex and sexual arousal involves the emotions. That can be feeling vulnerable, or perhaps feeling that sex and love are intertwined, and other things as well.
We have long seen evidence that "porn addiction" really isn't addiction, it's just a fear driven coping mechanism that triggers more fear, which triggers the coping mechanism more, which forms a vicious cycle. When we remove the fear, the cycle is broken and the interest in porn as a coping mechanism is lost.
Likewise, "porn induced erectile dysfunction" is a complex interplay of fear, coping through masturbation, using porn, acclimating to porn, and then forming beliefs about this that lead to guilt, shame and or fear, which are negative emotional states. If you internalize the belief that "I can't get it up because I masturbate so much", the subconscious will take that not as an observation, but as a command. "It's required that I only get hard to porn, because the conscious mind says I'm not allowed to become aroused by women, only porn." The conscious mind then responds with doubling down on the belief in PIED, and strengthening it because "it has evidence!" and this leads to more fear and negative emotions, which hinder sexual arousal when they are triggered, while creating the negative expectation by the conscious mind that "I can't get it up when I have a woman."
The subconscious also understands that expectation as a command, and executes it as such, making it real. (That is how placebo works, actually.)
When you start healing the emotional states, and the issues, beliefs and expectations that trigger negative emotional states, beliefs and expectations, you not only heal the emotions, but the resultant symptoms as well.
In many cases, ED, and especially PIED, are caused not by a physical damage or drug effect, but by negative beliefs, expectations and emotional states that are associated with sex or sex with a specific type of person, in this case, women.
Because society assumes and expects that "men have no emotions", they are treated as being without emotions. Women are commonly judgmental of men sexually for size, shape and performance, and they don't just criticize him to his face, they also do it publicly, talking to their friends and even publishing things on social media. So let's take a virgin guy in his teens who doesn't know how to put on a condom because he's a virgin and he never did it before. He gets his big chance with a girl - maybe not his dream girl, but a real girl who for whatever reason, wants to have sex with him. She strips, and he's aroused, but then he strips and she starts making snarky comments about his penis size. Is this going to A) make him hard, or B) make him feel emotionally and sexually vulnerable, and kill his arousal and erection?
If he can make it to putting on a condom without losing his erection (let's say she doesn't judge his penis size negatively), but then tries to put it on upside down, and she starts laughing at him for his inexperience, is this going to A) make him hard, or B) make him feel emotionally and sexually vulnerable, and kill his arousal and erection?
Now consider that he's somehow made it to putting on this condom correctly, and he gets inside her but pops immediately. He is a virgin, of course, and as such is overexcited sexually (if he hasn't been sexually or emotionally traumatized by this point) and probably has years of horny to catch up on dealing with. Once again, an easy opportunity for her to laugh and criticize. And even if she doesn't laugh and criticize him now, will she later to her friends? He has to worry about that as well. And those friends may not be so kind to him, even if he is in public.
There's a lot of ways that ED can get started based on a scenario like this. Even if he's not a virgin, giving him criticism in the rightt way, at the right time and place, can emotionally devastate a man, and this will become "something to avoid in the future" to his subconscious. How best to avoid it? Don't let sex happen. And if all else fails? At best, he gets to sex again, but he's going to be afraid of her criticism, which will - you guessed it - kill his arousal.
Men are emotional creatures, just as any other HUMAN is, and their emotions are no less valuable or worthless than those of any other HUMAN. But because men are taught that emotions are feminine, and weakness, they go along with society and participate in what amounts to self abuse by denying and repressing their own natural emotions. That never has a good outcome... it just makes things worse.
So basically, it all boils down to healing the emotional wounds that he may have suffered, which frees him up in a lot of ways. The E4 script is designed to make that happen in whatever direction is appropriate, and handle whatever aspect is appropriate. So if you have ED as a result of emotional damage, abuse or trauma, once it gets to a certain point in it's function cycle, you will see the ED fading out as the reasons for it are healed.
Although I joined PUA world like many, and tried to solve everything logically, tried to act like an alpha (because I think I am beta, weak, immature), honestly, I couldn't. And worse, I keep attracting same kind of women who will friend zone me and create huge depression in my mind. It is like Shannon's cycle. Mine comes like every 2 year or so.
)
I break eye contact in fear, as if he will kill me/I am guilty.