Anyone can cure Death Grip Syndrome (DGS) with a little discipline and a plan to hold themselves accountable to. Death Grip is a horrible curse that ends relationships, so let’s be clear that this is a worthwhile cause to summon your willpower to get through – because you will be going through significant dopamine withdrawals, especially at the beginning.
The below plan, simple as it is, is the product of numerous inputs and research. The following list sets out these building blocks for further reading:
- Your brain is plastic – you can program and reprogram neural pathways
- It’s not just about DGS – might only be a component of your problem
This plan has a fundamental hypothesis: you need to:
- unwire the stimulation + arousal you historically needed to ejaculate, and
- program yourself to ejaculate to natural stimulation + arousal with a lover.
The stimulation component will shift you away from the Death Grip of your hand toward something better replicating a vagina’s comparatively ‘warmer, wetter and looser’ sensation.
The arousal component requires a blanket boycott of all pornography, to help you level out to something more natural.
## Let us be more clear. Porn is a no no for the entire Plan ##
Step 1. Recruit your #1 supporter – your significant other
Purpose: To bring your significant other on board with your plan to cure Death Grip. It will make you more likely to see it through and it will take the pressure off. If you are struggling, she is the best person that can help.
What to do: Talk about this plan in detail – especially if you want to use a Fleshlight in Step 3. The last thing you want is for them to find it in your bedroom.
How to be successful: Read, digest and discuss some of the information on this website. Reading about the website author’s own journey has been effective with helping partners empathising with what a struggle this can be. Reading on brain plasticity and some of the other materials can help her understand you a bit more, as well.
Step 2. Get back to baseline
Purpose: regain sensitivity in the penis, allow any porn dependence to perish, and your libido to build.
What to do: watch no porn & perform no masturbation for 30 days. Easier said than done, but to cure Death Grip, you must first give your brain a chance to reset.
How to be successful:
- Mark when the 30 days ends in a calendar.
- Tell your partner what the date is.
- Every time you feel an urge, do pushups
- Start exercising regularly
- Don’t put yourself in the situation where you used to masturbate – i.e. don’t take a phone to the bathroom / don’t take the laptop into the bedroom. Install a net nanny or the like.
- Make a daily pledge to yourself to not look at porn. Avoiding porn is typically the hardest part.
- Read the post on what to expect when you go through this process (sore balls, big urges, self bargaining to cheat etc).
- Join our forum and vent any frustrations there.
- Write a letter to yourself for when you do have an urge, to remind yourself of why you are doing this.
- Remind yourself: discipline is remembering what you really want. Your body will rebel against you trying to break a X number of year old habit.
Step 3a. Retrain yourself – handheld
Purpose: To train yourself to reach orgasm from the ‘warmer, wetter, looser’ vagina-like sensation.
What to use: This website advocates the use of a Fleshlight for several reasons, but if you or your partner are uncomfortable with this, then a hand with lube can be used. However, to most reliably cure Death Grip, emphasis is really to divorce the association between your hand and penis to achieve your orgasm trigger
Regarding selection of a Fleshlight (there is a daunting rang), we advocate for models that best replicate the feeling of a vagina, and have the least exotic internal textures. You should see our recommendations here.
What to do: Use the following rhythm:
- First two weeks (after your 30 day baselining): Masturbate with the Fleshlight handheld once per week. If you fail to climax, wait out the rest of the week.
- Next two weeks: Masturbate with the Fleshlight handheld twice per week. If you fail to climax, still count it as part of the weekly tally.
- After four weeks: Masturbate with the Fleshlight handheld as often as you like.
## When you have climaxed four times with the Fleshlight – go to Step 3b ##
How to be successful with Step 3a:
- Take your time. Try to set aside at least 40 minutes each time to not rush. This will be a learning experience.
- Do warm up the Fleshlight, through either putting it in a sink of hot water, leaving it in front of a heater or buying a warmer. The more you can do to simulate the real thing, the better. (Warmers are available, which greatly simplify this whole experience.)
- Go slow. Don’t expect that you will be able to replicate the speed you used to use your hand with the Fleshlight. If you do, you will probably chafe yourself as you run out of lube. Experiment with what feels good, including what setting on the Fleshlight’s suction cap feels the best.
- Expect to get really frustrated. You are retraining yourself to enjoy the sensation and find your orgasm trigger from something new. But this will be like reaching out blindly in a dark room. You won’t know what to look for. However, frustration in the form of really wanting to cum is a good thing. It means your libido is working and your mind is searching for a way to connect to the sensations you are feeling to fire your orgasm trigger, and you are on your journey to cure Death Grip.
- It’s ok to let your mind wander into fantasy at the start. Over time, you will become more attuned to the feeling that makes your orgasm, versus relying on a particularly elevated level of arousal to get you there.
- One trick that might help break the ice the first time – imagine being with your partner and include another stranger in the mix. Fantasy of your partner and another is a surprisingly potent arousal cocktail that apparently applies universally.
Step 3b. Retrain yourself – hands free
What to do: Switch to the ‘hands free shower mount’ to thrust into the Fleshlight, versus using your hand to operate it. Adopt the following rhythm:
- First week: take a break. Let your libido build up again to help with the coming shift.
- Next two weeks: Once each week, you can masturbate by thrusting into the Fleshlight as its held steady by the shower mount.
- Next two weeks: You can have two thrusting sessions each week.
- After four weeks: You can have as many thrusting masturbation sessions as you like, but don’t revert to handheld.
## When you have climaxed four times into the Fleshlight from thrusting sessions, you are ready to move onto Step 4 ##
How to be successful at Step 3b:
- We advise you don’t do this in the shower, to better replicate normal intercourse.
- The shower mount fits well against flat surfaces like walls, bedside tables, dressers etc.
- It’s fine to hold the Fleshlight as you thrust, as long as you are thrusting. The key is to build the orgasm trigger to fire while you are working hard with your hips, and building the neural pathways between hip thrusting and orgasm.
- Expect to go through the frustration stage all over again, but keep at it. This is the final physiological barrier to the holy grail of normal, satisfying, giggle-inducing sex.
Step 4. Tentative re-wiring complete
You are ready to give the real thing a go!
If you have moved through the plan to date, you have had at least eight orgasms simulating what a vagina feels like, four of which also replicated the movements of sex. Additionally, you have abstained from porn, restoring you arousal levels back to a more natural setting.
The only theoretical change with real sex is now adding the dynamic between you and your lover. Don’t be disheartened if the first time doesn’t work, especially as there will naturally be a little pressure from the build up. But your arousal from having the real thing in front of you should be much higher than your solo sessions. We have heard that doing it twice in one night is often successful, as the first time has all sorts of anxiety related to it (from both sides); whereas the second time many of those nerves have dissolved. Remember, time and touch builds intimacy. If you haven’t been touching your lover much recently, it might take some time to build up your connection again.
It didn’t work…
If you were fine with getting through Step 3, but Step 4 didn’t work, it may speak more toward a dynamic between you and your lover, versus problems held within the bounds of Death Grip or Delayed Ejaculation itself.
If you don’t have success from ten couplings, despite being able to comfortably orgasm with a thrusting Fleshlight, raise the disappointment with your lover and acknowledge it. Surfacing it may invoke a courageous conversation that you both need to address anything between you.
The next thing I would try is putting the Fleshlight away and giving it a good three weeks of no masturbation, to see if an elevated libido helps.
If this pause of masturbation doesn’t help, and communication isn’t an issue, it might be time to turn toward professional help, especially if your communication with each other is really transparent.
Step 5. Ongoing vigilance
To cure Death Grip for good, you will have to abstain from ongoing dry hand masturbation, and unfortunately what we have found is that it will come back if given the chance.
Now that you have won yourself normal sex with you lover, guard that privilege, by:
- Seriously thinking if you want to consume porn again, if ever, now that you have had an extended period free from it. From our talks with others that have suffered DE as well as our own experiences, we strongly advise that porn doesn’t re-enter your life.
- Never resorting to hand masturbation again. Your body will re-embrace the old mental pathway again in an instant.
- Always using lube at a minimum for any future masturbation.
Were you successful?
We want to know! Tell us about your journey to date. We need all the success stories we can get to help others find their way out of this cursed labyrinth. You can read about the author’s success story here. Equally, we want to hear from anyone still struggling. The more we know, the better. Hopefully this can become a safe space where others like us can come and have a real exchange.
Start your journey now and get your Fleshlight by reading here.
We wish you all the best!
The Beat Death Grip Team