Tuesday, February 25, 2014

Irony is a harsh mistress

It has not escaped my notice that my last post here came way back in December. That was not my intent when I started Libido Obscura, but to be brutally honest, I haven't had much desire to write here.

More specifically, I haven't had much desire, period.

Follow: From the moment I hit puberty, I've had an overclocked sex drive. In high school my deep-seated, nightmare-inducing fear was that I'd die a virgin. I dodged that bullet, thankfully, but that didn't ease my libido. Sex was constantly on my mind. Legs would joke with her friends that the best way to get me in the mood was to say, "Wanna?"

Cut to November. My doctor diagnosed me with dysphoria. Not the debilitating, end-of-the-world depression that afflicts some people, but rather a persistent melancholy, an inability to take joy in life's experiences. In short, I wasn't happy on a chronic basis. So he wrote me a prescription for bupropion, otherwise known as Wellbutrin. For those of you unfamiliar with anti-depressants, this stuff differs significantly from SSRI medications like Prozac, in that it increases dopamine levels in the brain (that's an over-simplification, but it'll do for now). Significantly, bupropion did not show the negative sexual side effects in testing that SSRI medications are notorious for. In fact, there is evidence that bupropion actually enhances the sexual experience. Win-win, right?

Let me tell you, when 85 percent of patients taking bupropion experience normal or even enhanced libido, it really, really sucks to be part of the other 15 percent.

In other words, who starts a sex blog, then immediately stops having sex?

I started on bupropion at the beginning of November, and by Thanksgiving had felt a clear boost to my mood. Actually, it was only a modest improvement, but I noticed the difference. It was a few days later that I realized I wasn't having any erections. And I wasn't getting Legs naked at every opportunity. I didn't want to believe it at first--after all, this particular drug is supposed to boost most people's libidos. But I stopped having spontaneous erections all together (for the most part--A Very Good Morning was a surprising and welcome exception). I'm circumcised, but you wouldn't know it by looking at my penis, as it's normally so small and withdrawn these days that it looks for all the world like I have intact foreskin covering the head. Intentional erections are possible, but take effort. Masturbation's mostly futile. When we do have sex, Legs has to put a lot more effort into keeping me hard and engaged than she ever did before. Despite that, we've got a pretty good handle on how to compensate for and overcome the physical side effects. It's my deal libido that's the biggest frustration. I just don't want to have sex anymore. I don't not want to, either. I just don't really care one way or the other, outside of brief flickers of desire every couple of weeks or so. It's gotten so that Legs and I schedule sex now whether I want to or not, just for the principal of the matter. Once I reach a certain point, desire re-ignites and passion takes over. But other than that, sex holds little interest for me beyond a general intellectual curiosity. I still read sex blogs with interest, but I don't find them stimulating.

The sad thing is, I've pretty much made up my mind to ask my doctor to up my dosage. Before, sex was pretty much the only thing that made me unambiguously happy, but the warm glow from that lasted only an hour or two before the melancholy returned. Now, I'm no longer melancholy, but only marginally so. To trade marginal contentment for the breathless excitement and orgasmic joy sex once offered is simply not satisfactory to me. It's an unbalanced trade. I'm giving up too much for too little. But I don't feel an increased dosage can dampen my libido any more than it already has, and the prospect of improving on my current, mostly positive outlook, it too enticing to pass up. My doctor was stunned when I told him of my problems, and very sympathetic, as no other patient with this prescription has reported these side effects. Being in that 15 percent is a bitch, I tell you. But he's suggested Viagra to help in achieving and maintaining erections, so if I do get him to up my bupropion dose, I'm going to take him up on that Viagra prescription as well.

When I first told Legs I wanted to write an anonymous sex blog, she asked what I would write about. I told her I planned to write about my desires, my fantasies, thoughts on sex in general, but mostly about having my way with her. That hasn't changed, but there's a lot less of all of the above now than there was then. I still intend to do my best in sharing my experiences, but it's probably going to focus more on coping with coping with sexual dysfunction than sharing erotic escapades. That's not what I'd hoped, but if someone can maybe take something positive away from my experiences, then maybe it will be worthwhile.