Viagra, Porn, Sexual Dysfunction, and the Path to Healing
I remember the night clearly. She was beautiful, kind, and she really wanted me. We had been dancing, drinking, kissing — everything was lined up. I should have felt lucky, excited, confident.
But instead, I felt weak. Embarrassed. Ashamed.
I had drunk almost 200ml of whiskey trying to calm myself down, trying to override the stress and fear. I didn’t want to lose my erection again. I didn’t want to feel like I always did — not enough, not man enough, not capable of giving or receiving.
But my penis didn’t respond. It stayed soft. The more I panicked, the more nothing happened. I remember lying there, pretending to be okay, while inside I was spiraling.
That night was a turning point. It was when I made the decision: I need help. Or at least, I need a way through this. That’s when I turned to Viagra.
And for a while, it genuinely helped. It gave me some breathing room — a chance to interrupt the old loop of fear, failure, and shame. It became a kind of bridge. I’m grateful for it. It gave me glimpses of another possibility, helped me show up a bit differently, and slowly started to rewire the “not enough” story.
But it didn’t make me feel connected. It didn’t teach me how to be present in my body, or with another. It didn’t bring intimacy. It wasn’t the medicine I truly needed — but it was a helpful crutch, and I honor it for that.
This story isn’t really about Viagra, though. It’s about what was buried underneath: years of silence, shame, and disconnection. It's about porn, numbness, pressure, and the question I carried for years: What’s wrong with me?
But most of all, it’s about healing. About breath. Presence. Sensuality. Reclaiming softness and strength. And if you’ve ever felt alone in your body or your story — this is for you too.
In my family, sexuality didn’t exist in the open. It wasn’t talked about, explored, or welcomed. There was no space for questions, no language of warmth around it. Any curiosity I showed was met with discomfort or silence.
I remember once I peeked through the bathroom door and saw my father naked. His reaction was sharp, angry. It left an imprint — not just about that moment, but about the unspoken rules: this is wrong, this is something to be ashamed of. That energy stayed in my nervous system. And it wasn’t just that event — I never saw my father express affection toward my mother, never saw desire or intimacy between them. As a boy, I didn’t have any healthy model of masculine sexual presence. What I absorbed instead was distance, shame, and suppression.
When I was ten, I had an innocent experience with another boy. We showed each other our penises — playful, curious, childlike. But he trapped me. He called in older kids who mocked me, called me gay, laughed at me. That moment shut something down inside me. It wasn’t just humiliation — it was confusion. The shame I felt didn’t have words, and it wrapped itself around something I didn’t yet understand. From then on, that word — gay — took on a threatening weight. It became tangled with fear, with identity, with not being “man enough.” That doubt lingered for years, echoing through moments I didn’t even realize were connected.
Not long after, around age eleven or twelve, I had a painful physical experience. No one had taught me how to properly clean my body — no one told me I needed to wash the head of my penis. Over time, the skin became tight and inflamed, until it was too painful to retract, eventually requiring surgery. It was confusing and embarrassing. I didn’t know how to speak about it, and there was no space to bring it up with anyone. Again, my body became a source of shame and secrecy.
That experience deepened the quiet belief that my body was somehow wrong — that I was different in a way I couldn’t name. I didn’t know how to speak about it, and no one ever invited that kind of honesty. It was just something to deal with, to fix, and to hide. And so, again, I learned to handle pain alone — to compartmentalize, to move on without ever really understanding what had happened inside me.
As I moved into adolescence, that numbness hardened. I don’t remember a lot of feeling from those years — mostly I remember the absence of it. I was in my head most of the time. Analytical, sharp, good at problem-solving. That became my safety. I could succeed in school, argue well, navigate the world with logic. But underneath, I was anxious. There was a constant edge of tension in my system. I didn’t know how to be in my body — not in any grounded, connected way. And I didn’t know how to let anyone see that.
At some point in my mid to late teens, I started watching porn. I don’t even remember exactly when — it just kind of entered, like smoke slipping under a door. It became a habitual thing. Quiet, quick, unconscious. A way to release pressure, to escape the discomfort of intimacy or emotion. There was no breath in it, no connection — just a brief moment of sensation followed by the same old numbness. I didn’t question it. It felt normal, even necessary. But it was already shaping the way I related to my own sexuality — turning it into something fast, isolated, and disconnected from real presence.
When I entered my first relationship at 18, I brought all of that with me. I loved her, deeply. But when it came to sex, I felt like a stranger in my own body. It was quick, pressured, and full of anxiety. I didn’t know how to slow down, how to be with sensation, how to breathe. I just knew I was supposed to perform, and I was terrified of failing. So I rushed. I came too quickly. I worried constantly that I wouldn’t be able to stay hard. And over time, I started avoiding sex altogether. It didn’t feel good — not for me, and certainly not for her. We’d go months without being sexual. And when she reached out, I pulled away. It hurt her deeply, I still feel some glimmers of guilt and shame, connecting to what she must have experienced.
I was watching porn regularly during that time. I didn't see the contradiction back then — how I could feel so shut down with someone I loved, but still crave that isolated release. Looking back, I can see it clearly: porn was safe. It required nothing of me. No vulnerability, no presence, no risk of being seen.
My second long-term relationship, years later, played out in a hauntingly similar way. There was connection, even tenderness, but sexually I was still caught in the same loop. Same fear. Same shame. Same quiet self-abandonment. Alcohol became a crutch sometimes — it helped me escape the tight grip of my mind, the constant mental commentary of you’re not enough. But it didn’t really help. Not in the long run. It dulled the anxiety, but also dulled my capacity to feel.
And through it all, I never really talked about it. Not with my partners, not with friends, not even with myself in an honest way. I just kept moving forward, carrying the story that something was wrong with me — and that no one could ever really know.
Then came that night. The first time I was with her, I felt weak, embarrassed, and almost humiliated. The old fears bubbled to the surface — the fear of failing, of not being “man enough,” of losing control. I was overwhelmed by shame and anxiety. It was in that moment I made the decision to try Viagra.
Viagra gave me a bit more space — a way to step outside the old loop of anxiety and erectile weakness. It wasn’t a cure, but a bridge. I’m grateful for that bridge. It helped me rewrite some of the old brain patterns, gave me a boost of confidence I hadn’t felt in years. For a while, it worked. I could show up differently. I wasn’t constantly collapsing under the pressure.
But it didn’t make me feel connected. It didn’t make me present. The old breath patterns remained: quick, shallow, disconnected. The numbness lingered beneath. I still found myself rushing, trying to get through the act, as if the goal was just to finish and move on. The experience didn’t open me up to more intimacy or vulnerability.
I hid it from my partners. I wasn’t proud of needing it. There was a secret shame wrapped around it, even though I knew I needed it. It was my little secret, my safety net. And I wouldn’t change that — I don’t regret that choice. It was part of my path. But it was also clear: this was not the end of the story.
During those two years, I had a few short relationships, always leaning on that blue pill. But the underlying issues were still there. The breath still escaped me, the connection still felt fragile. The shadow of not enoughness was still hovering.
Before I took that step with Viagra, something important had already begun to shift inside me during the Covid era. I started to explore and allow my feminine side — a part of me that had been denied, feared, or shamed for so long. This was not about gender or sexuality in the conventional sense; it was about softness, presence, creative openness, and emotional flow.
I was scared to go there at first. Part of me worried that if I let myself fully feel and express that softness, I might discover I was gay — a thought that had haunted me since childhood. But slowly, through dance, movement, and connection to nature, that fear began to dissolve. The story I’d told myself about who I was — or wasn’t — started to melt away.
One catalyst in this journey was a beautiful Bulgarian woman named Zori, who introduced me to shamanic and relational dance meditations online. The feminine movements, the gentle rhythms, the sense of connection — all of it helped me face that old fear and see it for what it really was: hollow.
That work opened a door for me — a vital step, a shift in momentum. Later, other layers began to unfold. Not all at once, but as a series of awakenings that arrived in their own time, as I became more ready to meet them.
It wasn’t a single moment, or a single practice. It was a series of awakenings — happening at the right time, when I was finally ready.
I stumbled upon Nemanja’s Masculine Alchemy course online, almost by accident. One of the most powerful things I took from that course was the practice of no-fapping. Restricting ejaculation helped me reclaim energy I hadn’t realized was being drained. I began to feel a new reservoir of power inside me.
Another practice that transformed me was learning to build a new relationship with my body — creating sacred space to touch and love myself without any goal of erection or ejaculation. These self-loving sessions were a radical act of kindness and presence. They taught me to experience the sensuality of my body, without pressure or shame.
Then came a tantra retreat — another seeming coincidence — where I was introduced to breathwork, slowness, and the deshaming of sexuality. There was no expectation of sex, no goal to achieve. Just presence, breath, and simple, raw experience.
One beautiful encounter during that time was when I gave a tantra massage to a man. That moment was deeply healing for me. It helped me release some of the old “am I gay?” and “am I man enough?” doubts that had weighed on me for so long.
From there, things started to shift in my relationships. With an experienced older woman, I allowed myself to completely let go of quickness, of rushing towards ejaculation. Instead, I learned to receive and give pleasure, to be present with sensation and breath.
Soul Zouk dance came next — a dance that was unlike anything I had known. It was all about connection, slowness, and space. It perfectly matched where I was on my journey, inviting me to explore presence in a way that was safe and healing. And something remarkable happened: I stopped needing alcohol altogether. The edge I’d tried to smooth out with whiskey simply disappeared.
Eventually, I met Anna, my current partner. With her, I was able to slow down and be honest about my fears. She welcomed me with open arms and a receptive heart. I never needed to use Viagra with her. The whole landscape of my sexuality had shifted. It was no longer about performance or quick fixes. It was about connection, breath, presence — and love.
This healing journey didn’t just change how I showed up sexually—it reshaped my entire life. The shifts I experienced rippled far beyond the bedroom.
I found an immense wellspring of energy inside me — energy that had been locked away beneath years of shame and disconnection. That energy gave me clearer direction in life, a sense of purpose that felt deeply rooted and authentic.
I discovered a new kind of masculine confidence, one born not from proving myself or rushing to meet expectations, but from simply being present with who I am. This presence brought a groundedness I had never known before, a feeling of standing solidly in my own power without needing to armor up or hide.
Shame loosened its grip, replaced by compassion for myself and the journey I’ve walked. Alongside this came joy — the simple, radiant joy of living fully, feeling deeply, and connecting honestly with others.
This transformation was not about becoming someone new, but reclaiming the strength and fullness that had always been there — buried beneath layers of fear and old stories. It was about stepping into my life with an open heart and steady breath.
If there’s one thing I’ve come to understand, it’s that being “man enough” isn’t about meeting society’s checklist or living up to anyone else’s expectations. For me, it’s about the willingness to be present — right here, right now — with all the fear, vulnerability, and beauty that presence brings. Manhood became less about proving something and more about simply breathing, feeling, and loving myself exactly as I am.
Looking back, I imagine what I might have told my eighteen-year-old self: breathe. Love your body. Feel your balls — they’re there, and they’re yours. Everything needed for transformation is already inside, waiting to be noticed. Just take a breath, feel the air on the skin, and smile at the world.
This journey has been long and winding, marked by pain, shame, and fear — but also by courage, compassion, and healing. If any of this resonates, I hope it offers a sense of companionship in what can sometimes feel like a lonely path. Healing is possible, and light can find its way through even the darkest places.
Each person’s path is unique. If there’s one hope I carry, it’s that gentleness with ourselves and presence in the moment can open doors we might have thought were closed. Worth is not defined by performance, image, or past stories — it’s found in the simple, profound act of showing up fully and truly as you are.
Thank you for reading 🙏
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With Love, Tanka
