I hate to be a real downer on anyone's playful mood, so if you don't want to get serious and stay silly, which is totally cool then reconsider reading this. But after spending some time in my college psychology class talking about human sexual desires, depravation, and other serious subject matters that I can relate to WAM, I've been wondering about how people who enjoy this stuff cope with the feelings of emptiness.

While I enjoy practicing and watching WAM as much as the next guy or girl on this site, I sometimes find myself feeling more empty afterwards rather than fulfilled. I suppose this is coming from a sense of isolation, or more specifically, a lack of intimacy. I am not involved in a romantic relationship right now, and thus I have no real partner to express my desires and fantasies with and then act upon them in a comfortable, intimate environment. Perhaps that's what contributing to my current feelings.

But I would like to know, do any of you guys feel similarly? Does this feeling come from lack of intimacy, or is it something else? Does it truly help when you have a lover or a husband/wife to participate with that gives you true satisfaction (like the Rolling Stones' song)? If you feel like it's not that personal to talk about, let me know of what you think.

I hope all of you are having a better time than I am at least.

Lack of sexual intimacy is probably a big part of the explanation of that feeling of emptiness, but the lack of intimacy itself can be a result of other baggage.

I personally find it helpful to have platonic friendships with women who I can trust and who I can be emotionally intimate with. Being able to talk to a friend of the opposite sex has been super helpful in trying to figure out where my hangups are coming from.

(Aside: I like visiting goodmenproject.com when I am caught up in stuff like this. Some of the articles are pretty crap HuffPo quality, but some are insightful.)

I don't feel like writing a long response to this but it's an interesting topic and I hope others offer their thoughts on it.

The emptiness really is probably coming from a place of lack of connection to a physical person. I hate to thing and pop culture has cultivated a perception that sex alone will fulfill you, and that's simply not the case. As long as you're WAMming solo, there's always going to be a desire to connect with another on an intimate level (in the aftercare/afterglow) that is impossible when going solo. The same pretty much holds true for masturbation.

It doesn't matter whether it's wamming or wanking, anything sexual that you do on your own can lead to empty feelings afterwards, because you always know that no matter how great it was, it would have been better with a good partner.

Keep in mind that there are people (like me, ahem) who have never had romantic relationships or even friends. Unless that makes you empathize with me, in which case don't.

I have quite a bit to say on this topic, too, but will have to wait til i have more time...

Suffice to say, I feel for anyone feeling "empty feelings" on a prolonged, consistent, everyday level.

It's been 2+years since i've been in a relationship, and my last GF just got married to the guy she met right after me. (Same exact thing happened w/my previous girlfriend -- it's starting to feel like I'm "Good Luck Chuck", not that I particularly enjoy invoking Dane Cook movies, but...)

The closest we ever came to WAM was some shampoo/soaping in the shower, and even those moments were great enough that every so often in the shower, I reflect on the "echoes" of them and it does cause some bittersweet sadness.

As someone else pointed out, ANY solo-sexual activity, you're bound to have "empty feelings", though I will say masturbation isn't quite as empty as it once was, as it's an activity I meter out, vs. my younger days when I first had my own apartment and it was like "Hooray! Let's see if i can break a new record today!" (and that was back in the dial-up era....but, i digress).

I have not self-WAMMED in....I can't even remember when. As I first got into it, I would shaving cream pie myself on a semi-regular basis, but then, yes, that just kind of got old and "empty". I haven't taken it much further than that solo-style, and I think there IS a hollow, emptiness to it, more so than regular solo sexual activity, mainly because it was like "all that prep, all that mess..........and now what, i have to clean it all up myself", etc. (I remember a couple of shaving cream/whipped cream sessions when i was a teen that were elaborate enough that I was paranoid about being caught, like "Why did you have the Reddi-Whip in the bathroom...?" "Oh, it, uh.......it's this new skin treatment i was reading about, Mom."

Another interesting topic, though obviously one tinged with sadness, emptiness, etc. ---- all the feelings I think most of us would rather NOT think about in re: to sex, and esp WAM (which already i think on some level to some of us already feels "wrong" or "weird", and may mentally seem to further define why we are alone or can't seem to find a partner).

And to the above poster who seems to indicate they've never had a sexual partner, don't have many friends, etc... I'm sorry to hear this; at least you've got a community here full of folks, the bulk of whom I've found to be pretty compassionate and helpful.

JY

Well, I will second everything others have said about it being related to lack of intimacy.

I would also say depending on exactly what you mean, if this occurs after orgasm then you could also have something called Post-coital Tristesse. Basically it is meloncholy that comes about after orgasm and it is little understood aaand also tends to pass pretty quickly.

Not looking to trivialise the debate but the comment about post coital tristess put me in mind of Woody Allen who said something like 'Sex and Death..two of the most significant events in anyone's life..and at least after death you don't feel nauseous"

To the OP...I wish you nothing about happiness and hope you find what you need. Everyone is different. For me, I am single again after the end of my 10 year marriage, but I have never felt happier

Intimacy is overrated. So are feelings.

If you're here, you've identified something that reliably gives you wood. And there's porn for it! A LOT of porn! Trust me, you're ahead of the game.

This thread is real emo.

"Orgasmic" is a feeling and I'd say it deserves a pretty high rating.

It's not a feeling, it's a chemical reaction. And you can do it by yourself! With all that wam porn! Did I mention there's, like, a lifetime of wam porn out there.

Even before I met my willing-to-get-pied wife, I never connected my love of seeing women pied with intimacy. I guess I always had only seen it on the television growing up so my brain never parsed it that way.

All feelings are chemical reactions. The only obvious difference is that inducing orgasm involves doing something that would get you thrown out of chemistry class.

Exactly.

Empty feelings? Isnt that why alcohol and drugs were invented/discovered?

Somewhere out there a sad and tortured soul is trying and failing to make a Venn diagram out of this thread :devil:

It's like watching a political or a religious debate in here. We have the sympathizers who understand the feeling and the need for intimacy, then the people who want to explain it using some post-orgasm psychological disorder, and then the people who are like "Fuck that, we have endless porn so be happy!" which I can't tell if they are being sarcastic or not.

All I can say that I had no idea how big this would blow up

At least 2 of us are being asshats.

Sorry, but I warned that this would be a bit of a buzzkill. Don't let me make anyone's dick go soft here. If you don't wanna talk about it or debate the issue, then by all means don't.

Also, I just wanted this to be thought-provoking and personal. Not emo or anything.

Hey, don't get me wrong, I'm feeling kinda empty on the inside tonight, too.

Of course, that could be because I just had a monster bowel movement.

But maybe not.

Not sure of the exact emo rules, but are you painting your fingernails black yet?

I could go either way with a thread. Or both ways. Whatever people get something out of.

Anyway you people need to stop mentioning emus, they come when they're called.

OH SHI

This site is probably one of the last you should be soliciting answers to personal existential questions from. Is Dear Abby still alive?

All the advice anyone ever needs.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-Tej0297wk

I've noticed similar feelings in the past. Pornography does effect your physchology. Living too much in fantasy will always lead you to problems. I think it just comes back to modearation. And as others have said you should really focus on finding a partner you can share your thoughts and fantasy with. Heavy porn viewing in combination with no real world intimacy will lead you into a psychological hell and can totally distort your views of intimacy and sex in the real world.


Bottom line- try and get out there and do it in real life.

This statement is simply pathetic.

Yeah, or: It's perfectly natural to be happily single, or in between partners, or only into casual hookups, or to privilege a fetish (or a fantasy life) over conventional, mainstream notions of sex or romance. And it sounds like one reason some of the sad sacks here are feeling unhappy is that people make them think they're failing if they fall into one of those categories. "Psychological hell"? Please.

to offer a slightly more objective (naturalistic) opinion:

After all is said and done (watched and masturbated to), fetish erotica or any sexual expression is a fundamentally shallow exercise/behavior....we are acting out (in our own polymorphic perverse ways) a primal urge...yes, buried deep in the brain, but always just at the surface of life (Nature must ensure that enough people get horny enough of the time to keep the species going, doesn't matter how)...it is a biological mechanism, a reflex ...psych pros call it a "drive without a need" [individual need, that is, the collective needs it to survive, of course]...that lack of need (you don't need to have your fetish or erotic/sexual life to survive) possibly translates into those "empty feelings" you get immediately (or shortly) after sexual release. If the act was fulfilling a deep emotional need, the feelings of emptiness would be minimal, or non-existent.

It's just masturbatory play, after all (with a partner, you have the addition of a second brain/mind to interact with and make the play slightly less shallow because you can emotionally reciprocate).

Fetishism is fun and stimulating, at times, but unnecessary, and too easily expressed (in the mind); It's meaning is simple, obvious. Shallow.

I don't paint my fingernails... I'm a dude and I'm not into that stuff...