Six months to life

Atone left the following in response to my suggestion that if one can go six months without having an orgasm, one can go much longer:

I don’t know if six months is the magic number but somewhere around that point I realized that it is possible that I might be able to go the rest of my life. The logic went something along the lines of – well, it’s been over six months and that went well, I should have no problem going another six months to make it a year. After a year it truly became normal to not have an orgasm, I could probably go another. It has now been almost 16 months and I occasionally think it would be really nice to have an orgasm but then remember how much happier I am now that I don’t do that anymore. I think if I had an orgasm now I would want another, and another. While the idea of a break is sometimes nice to think about I believe it would end up being rather unsatisfying.

This is going to be different for every person, obviously. Some men will recoil in horror at the idea of preferring a mostly orgasmless existence (even those who enjoy chastity or orgasm denial). Others of us, obviously, not so much.

I don’t think six months is a magical number. Niether is a year. They’re just nice and round. The thing I really gravitate toward in Atone’s comments is the part about how, at some point, it becomes normal not to have orgasms. At some point, it stops being a game or a gap or a test of endurance and it just becomes how you are. And you realize that you like yourself better that way.

Now, I know there’s a lot of dissonance out there about whether or not male orgasm denial makes men better partners (on all levels). I acknowledge that an ass is an ass and there’s no magic bullet to fix that. But I also know from first-hand experience that easy and frequent access to orgasms can make a man distant and even indifferent to their partner. I know that the disconnection of one’s sexual “satisfaction” (a word I use in the most tactical and transitory way possible) is detrimental to the health of a monogamous relationship (I can’t speak to non-monogamy, of course, though I have some opinions there, too). I’m not the perfect mate by a long shot, but I know I’m better now than I was when I could sneak off at night and pull one out.

What I’m saying is, at this point in my life and if it were up to me, I’d rather be the kind of guy whose default existence was to not have orgasms. Not that THOU SHALT NEVER HAVE ANOTHER ORGASM AGAIN or whatever, just that based on my experience, I prefer how it feels not to. I prefer how it makes me relate to my partner. Sure, there are complicating things that go along with being orgasmless (the occasional sleeplessness, an ever-present need for sexual attention, etc.), but in balance, they’re outweighed by how it’s changed my fundamental outlook toward my partner. The early years are behind us. The difficultly I had in adapting to this “lifestyle” are mostly over. I’ve come to terms with how it feels to keep the orgasm inside and am able to maintain that feeling in mostly productive space.

And it’s not that I don’t want to come. Of course, the constant desire to do so creates the thermal energy that fuels all the positive outcomes. When I mention to Belle that it’s been four months, it’s not because I’m dying for the next two to be over, it’s because I’m thinking, Jesus, it’s been four fucking months! In a way, it’s kinda like but then again totally not like an addiction. Once a certain kind of person is addicted to something, they always want it. The desire never leaves them. They have to learn to live with it. That’s where I am with orgasms. They still feel good. As Atone says, the idea of having one is appealing. But that would release certain chemicals in my brain that might lead to having more which would leech all the good stuff that’s built up inside me away.

Of course, this is all talk without Belle’s buy-in. Is she willing to make that exchange? Are the trade-offs sufficiently valuable to her to live without me intentionally coming inside her from now on? Also, by becoming one of those guys, will she have a hard time relating to me? Guys who don’t want to orgasm are…weird. Also, not for nothing, I gave her my orgasm several years ago. I can’t make this change without her consent either way. She’s my partner and I’m her sub.

In a way, this is like discovering the proverbial secret garden. You chase this little ball of orgasm denial into a dark and overgrown grotto and discover behind the hanging moss and ivy a Wonka-like environment you’re not entirely sure is known to anyone except a very few. It’s not all that hard to get back, but once there, why leave? I suppose you’re either going to grok that or you’re not.