Hi there, I’m a 24 year old gay man. During adolescence I would say I had a high sex drive and remember wanting to have sex with guys even in non sexual scenarios. I would masturbate every day and my sex drive never declined and never thought twice about whether my experience was normal.
At about the age of 19 however I began to notice that I didn’t think about sex as much and this eventually lead to a point at about 20 where I didn’t feel physically driven to have sex at all, though I still masturbated regularly so I still had the ability to have an erection and ejaculate but the experience wasn’t the same and my orgasms weren’t as intense.
It was around then that I began to question whether I had something physically wrong with me. From reading online articles, talking to male friends and sexual partners, I started to get the sense that what I experience through masturbation or sex isn’t normal. For one, I don’t experience direct pleasurable sensations through my penis; the experience is more mentally stimulating and my sex drive carries me through but from what I’ve heard, it’s normal for guys to experience intense physical pleasure from the penis, even in the perineum. Also, internally, I only have awareness of nerves in my right thigh; it isn’t a pleasurable sensation per se but I just have awareness of something beneath the surface. When I orgasm though, the feeling in my thigh is very good but less so since the loss of my sex drive.
At age 23, I summoned up the courage to go to the doctor about it because it was becoming an extreme barrier in relationships; I’d never want to have sex and wouldn’t be able to ejaculate while having sex with another person, my sex drive would be nothing and my penis felt absolutely nothing. The only way I could ejaculate is by watching porn by myself but even then the experience wasn’t pleasurable.
The doctor initially suspected I had low testosterone but a blood test revealed I actually had high levels of testosterone, while still being in a healthy range. I was referred to a urologist who performed a physical examination of my penis and said it looked perfectly fine and since my hormone levels were good, there was nothing he could do. I find this baffling as he just sent me away with no information or hope and had no apparent interest in my symptoms, despite the penis being his area of expertise. He suggested I see a psychotherapist and figure out whether I had any emotional hang ups that was causing this.
Even though I truly feel that the source of my problems is physical, I ended up seeing a psychotherapist anyway and have been working through insecurities that I’ve had since adolescence which has been great but hasn’t lead to any changes in sex drive. No matter how my mental state has fluctuated over the years, my decline in sex drive has just been linear and I don’t feel the two are related.
At the moment, I feel I should just accept the loss but wanted to just put my issues here in case anyone has gone through something similar and had any advice. Through all my research on this, I have never come across anyone speak of anything like this, especially my situation with my nerves. I’d appreciate if anyone could give their two cents on this. Thanks 🙂