I started my session this morning after exercising, bathing, and practicing my violin. I also checked my work email and went over the more important messages to make my life easier when I got to work. That may have been a mistake, which I’ll get into later.

I lubed up, shooting a little Shibari in as pre-lubrication and applying a dab of Boy Butter H2O on the Helix to ease insertion. I mentioned in an earlier post that I might try this. I’m not sure that the results have been affected by any of the three methods of lubrication I’ve tried. Mobility of the Aneros did not seem limited in any of them. Granted, I have only tried each method once, so it’s hardly scientific. I may try each again and figure out which I prefer.

One thing I think I may try next time is warming the lube and/or the Aneros. The lube was pretty cold and it gave me a bit of a crampy feeling until it reached an equilibrium temperature with my body. Not the most pleasant sensation, and I’d prefer to avoid it in the future. It might have decreased my level of arousal somewhat, and that’s not helpful.

I laid on my back on a towel on my bed, naked except for the glans cover I’ve been using. I thought about foregoing its use this time, but it really does keep the (potential) mess contained, and it helps prevent stimulation to my glans that might be distracting. So I think I’ll probably just continue to use it for the foreseeable future. I pulled the covers over me because the bedroom was cold and tried to relax.

I had a lot of trouble getting into the right mindspace. I think part of the reason my first two sessions were as successful as they were is because they were early in the morning just after I woke up and my brain and body were still relaxed. Today I’d already been awake for a few hours. I had read some work emails that caused me some stress and put my brain in problem-solving mode. I kept thinking about what was waiting for me at work instead of what I was feeling in the moment. It was hard to sort of sink my attention into my body the way I had been able to in the previous sessions.

Perhaps because of that, I had a hard time feeling much at all. I had previously been pretty aware of my prostate, of swelling or throbbing or tingling. I had difficulty feeling anything like that. It may also have been that my physical arousal wasn’t as high as my mental arousal was, or had been when I woke up. My body didn’t respond as well to other forms of stimulation, such as touching my nipples or rubbing my chest, belly, or legs.

One thing that helped was to try to remember what it had felt like before and imagine those sensations. That seemed to trigger real echoes of those feelings, though this was not always repeatable. It was difficult to do this because I had trouble remembering what I had felt in the past, but this technique should become easier over time.

Another thing that helped some was to focus on even the smallest sensations. If I started to feel a tingle or pressure somewhere in my lower abdomen, I focused my attention on that feeling and tried to see if I could mentally encourage it to grow. I tried not to do anything physically, because I didn’t know what physical action caused the feeling, so it might have made it go away instead of amplify. If I managed that, sometimes the sensation would increase for a time and my body would do whatever was required to make that happen. This worked well in tandem with the “imagination” technique described above. If I could detect the tiniest bit of something I had felt in a previous session which had lead to a pleasure wave, imagining the more complete version seemed to help get me closer to it. Though not close enough to actually generate p-waves.

I spent about half the time just trying to relax and do nothing. When that didn’t seem to be working, I would do or change something. I tried to be scientific about it, meaning that I would change as little as possible, just one thing, and then monitor the results. That seemed to be effective. For example, I’d allow myself to contract my PC muscles once, and then wait to see what I felt from that. Often I would feel a little something a few seconds after whatever action I took. Had I done too much, I wouldn’t have noticed those sensations.

I think I only managed to feel one or two small waves of pleasure throughout the session. I guess I just wasn’t in the right physical and mental state for that to happen. By that standard, this session was the least successful so far. But that’s not really how I’m measuring success right now. In these early days (or weeks…months…years?) I cannot allow myself to expect intense pleasure in a session. My mind and body are still figuring out what to do with the stimulus they are receiving and how to respond to generate and amplify pleasurable sensations. So for now success means just having a session at all, experimenting, observing, and enjoying the process for what it is. If I learn something, that’s a bonus. If I feel something amazing, that’s even better. But all that matters for now is that I give myself the opportunities to experience these things, even if there isn’t any obvious success. See the next blog post for more of my thoughts on this subject.

Some last notes about the session:
– There was less leakage. This makes sense. Less arousal + less pleasure = less leakage.
– The daylight shining through the window seemed distracting. I have ordered a sleep mask to try to counteract that nuisance.
–

After the session, I cleaned up and went to work. Ironically, I think I have felt more sensations from my prostate and surrounding areas post-session than I did during the session. I even felt a noticeable p-wave while sitting at my desk. I have seen people make comments about this kind of thing, e.g. “where’s the off button?” I saw one forum post in which the guy seemed pretty upset and regretful that he had gotten to that point and wished he could make it stop. Maybe this is naive, but I would guess that there is a period of time during which one has little control over these random sensations, but eventually it is possible to learn to control them. It seems like an experience to enjoy if it happens, even if it wasn’t sought out deliberately, and a phase to push through until you gain the requisite control to avoid or suppress unwanted feelings. All part of the journey. I’d be interested in experienced users’ feedback on that theory.

The last thing I’ll say in this post is that so far, this feels very different from traditional masturbation or sex, both physically and mentally. It is more meditative, I guess. Normal penis-focused sexual activities excite me in a way that is different from what I’ve begun to feel with Aneros. It seems to be a different kind of itch and a different satisfaction when it’s scratched. I find that fascinating.

Thanks for reading!