I'm new to this forum, but I have been thinking about this topic a lot myself actually. Since having truly amazing sex, and a true emotional connection with someone, (my ex girlfriend) it's hard to go back to just having sex with someone which lacks any true connection on a higher level. The problem is, I haven't had an opportunity to meet a girl who is on my wave length yet.
As a lot of people here on this site probably do, I get deep with people, very quick, and very easy. And not a lot of people can handle it. Only ones who are on, or near, or on a similar, way of thinking will understand. And the ones who don't, I struggle to connect on a sexual level with. So my situation at the moment is, I'm looking for a Girl on my wave length, and I have met a few to be honest, but because these people are likely to attract simmiliar kind and loving people, it is likely they will get snapped up very quickly, by loving and kind men.
So this leads me to not having sex, I am a good looking man, but I live in England. And in general, I find girls here tend to be very wrapped up in there egos in our current culture. So I am going through a stage now, where I crave sexual release, but can't get it. And the more I masturbate, the more the drive to hunt goes down. However, regarding no fap. The real problem comes from dopamine, and this comes from porn. If your masturbating to porn. You associate the natural hardwired sexual state of arousal (high dopamine release) to pornography, rather than real sex. And this conditioning, this can calm (not destroy) the hardwiring to real girls, and real touch, and real interaction.
Regarding fapping without porn, I feel if I am forcing a fap (when I'm not feeling horny) I feel this to be more damaging than if I was to fap when I genuinely felt the need to fap because I was naturally horny. The body generally has a way of communicating to you what it wants or needs, and is better to just follow your instincts sometimes. So rather than just fapping when your bored, fap when your body absolutely craves it. Personlly, I find fapping once a week has kept sex drive high, whilst keeping my sanity & stress (and potentially my health) low. (Although saying this, if I feel only a little horny, I find it's better to let it build a bit until I HAVE to masturbate)
Regarding the vibrancy of life when not fapping, I do notice a difference, I put this down to testosterone though to be honest. Because the feeling I get when I don't fap for a while, and the way my cognitions fire, feels simmiliar to the way I am after doing heavy lifting, such as squatting and deadlifting. And these excersises increase testosterone levels. I feel testosterone increases engagement levels and "On it" ness. (Excuse the informality =].
