Poll: those on trt for long term, how is/was libido?

[seeking]

Just wanted to get a read on people here as far as the experiences with libido (desire) and function (ability to get erections when wanted, orgasms, etc)


I have noticed in reading the topics that many people find that trt wasn't what they had hoped for going in, and brought with it much more hassle and dysfunction, so I was curious to see how a poll would look like

(poll is anonymous, and you can choose two of the choices if you feel between both)

 

[vantage108]

Cool idea. Suggest you specify what "long term" means -- 9 months, maybe?

 

[Structure]

I think a good supplementary poll would be:

What is a good libido?

1. Sex once per week
2. Three times per week
3. Every day
4. More than once per day

After all, to respond to your poll, people have to compare what is happening in their lives against their expectations. Why not make the expectations explicit? For all we know, people on TRT are more likely to have unrealistic expectations regarding what a healthy libido is...

 

[biceps72]

libido almost too good on androgel for about 5 years.

Erections can be problematic (i am 61) but I use generic levitra and get rock hard and ejaculations are great; volume varies but is always plentiful.

TRT was actually good for my libido-- it went from good to "watch out"!

 

[seeking]

Cool idea. Suggest you specify what "long term" means -- 9 months, maybe?

I was thinking more like anything over 3 months, because often many people mention that at first they were improved but a month or two in things got worse

good libido to me is not needing cialis or viagra, but as long as viagra still works then I guess that could still be considered good libido as long as function was all good

I have noticed where when libido goes bad that viagra doesn't really work very well

people can post in the thread too if they want to explain further their experiences better than the poll would suggest

(I consider good libido to be able to ejaculate once per day, that seems to be a healthy suggestion in males anyways, and certainly youthful strong libido goes more than that, where it is "necessary" to ejaculate once per day at least... as we get older we just want to be able to even though the feelings of urgent necessity are not there)

 

[seeking]

libido almost too good on androgel for about 5 years.

Erections can be problematic (i am 61) but I use generic levitra and get rock hard and ejaculations are great; volume varies but is always plentiful.

TRT was actually good for my libido-- it went from good to "watch out"!

thanks for your post, it interests me that speaking strictly about libido, there seems to be more happy people on gels than doing injections

 

[biceps72]

I was thinking more like anything over 3 months, because often many people mention that at first they were improved but a month or two in things got worse

good libido to me is not needing cialis or viagra, but as long as viagra still works then I guess that could still be considered good libido as long as function was all good

I have noticed where when libido goes bad that viagra doesn't really work very well

people can post in the thread too if they want to explain further their experiences better than the poll would suggest

(I consider good libido to be able to ejaculate once per day, that seems to be a healthy suggestion in males anyways, and certainly youthful strong libido goes more than that, where it is "necessary" to ejaculate once per day at least... as we get older we just want to be able to even though the feelings of urgent necessity are not there)

Dude---Libido, by definition = the desire to have sex.. Libido has nothing to do with the ability to get rock hard erections or theability to ejaculate enough to white-wash a fence!!!!

viagra makes your cock hard if you are lucky-- it doesn't give you the desire to use it!!!!

I don't want to be a prick but you asked about libido per se!!! erection quality, ejaculates are different issues!

 

[Structure]

I consider good libido to be able to ejaculate once per day, that seems to be a healthy suggestion in males anyways, and certainly youthful strong libido goes more than that, where it is "necessary" to ejaculate once per day at least... as we get older we just want to be able to even though the feelings of urgent necessity are not there

This is exactly what I was looking for. There's a lot of people posting on this forum complaining about libido --- I wonder how many of them are complaining because they don't have enough sexual desire to ejaculate every day.

Tomorrow, I'm going to take a look around to see if I can find any studies that break down the frequency of sexual activity by age group and gender. I have a strong suspicion that your idea of a normal libido is not so normal... It makes me wonder how many people on this forum think they are somehow defective simply because they don't have the desire to blow one off every single day.

 

[seeking]

Dude---Libido, by definition = the desire to have sex.. Libido has nothing to do with the ability to get rock hard erections or theability to ejaculate enough to white-wash a fence!!!!

viagra makes your cock hard if you are lucky-- it doesn't give you the desire to use it!!!!

I don't want to be a prick but you asked about libido per se!!! erection quality, ejaculates are different issues!

I knew all that, but the two go hand in hand in most of us without medical problems in our penis, I should have clarified that I am talking about the whole package of libido and function, ie. being aroused to think about sex which in turn causes an erection that is easily maintained and the arousal maintained as we go through the mechanics of stimulation and greater and greater excitement leading to an orgasm and ejaculation......


when things get out of whack it seems like that whole connection of feeling "horny" which signals the penis to wanting stimuli and leading to erection and orgasm gets messed up

 

[Structure]

I consider good libido to be able to ejaculate once per day, that seems to be a healthy suggestion in males anyways, and certainly youthful strong libido goes more than that, where it is "necessary" to ejaculate once per day at least... as we get older we just want to be able to even though the feelings of urgent necessity are not there

This is exactly what I was looking for. There's a lot of people posting on this forum complaining about libido --- I wonder how many of them are complaining because they don't have enough sexual desire to ejaculate every day.

Tomorrow, I'm going to take a look around to see if I can find any studies that break down the frequency of sexual activity by age group and gender. I have a strong suspicion that your idea of a normal libido is not so normal... It makes me wonder how many people on this forum think they are somehow defective simply because they don't have the desire to blow one off every single day.

Here's your study.

This study looked at 100 random army recruits between the ages of 18 to 22. This way, we can isolate the age factor out of the equation; this is a study looking at the libidos of healthy young men, in their prime:

Mantzoros CS, Georgiadis EI, Trichopoulos D. Contribution of dihydrotestosterone to male sexual behaviour. BMJ. 1995 May 20;310(6990):1289-91.

"Participants in the present study were 100 consecutively enrolled male army recruits aged 18-22 who consented to having a single blood sample drawn between 900 and 1100 am during their first day in the army. Subjects were healthy and were taking no medication. "

"Table I shows representative values of the demographic and lifestyle variables. The mean (SD) weekly number of orgasms was 3.9 (1.9), the median and the mode 3.5, the range 0 to 11, and the first and third quintiles 2.2 and 5.5, respectively. "

This means that the majority of men in their prime shoot one off once every two days. Even the top quintile, that is the top 20% of men, is at 5.5. That means that on average, even the top guns aren't shooting one off every single day.

The guy shooting the most loads per week was 11. They guy shooting the least number of loads was 0. However, the figure you cited as a normal, healty libido (7) is double what most responders are doing. It is like arguing that you have a small cock unless it is 10" long. Sure, there's plenty of guys in the world that are in this category, but there's certainly nothing normal or typical about this figure, not even when you isolate the population to healthy, fit men in the prime of their youth.

I wonder how many people on this forum also have the wrong idea of what a healthy libido is? Maybe if they knew better they wouldn't be so quick to think that their libidos were deficient.

Link: Contribution of dihydrotestosterone to male sexual behaviour -- Mantzoros et al. 310 (6990): 1289 -- bmj.com

 

[vantage108]

No, it means the majority of men in their prime who think it's a good idea to join the Army are willing to admit (to the Army, remember) to shooting off once every two days.

 

[Structure]

No, it means the majority of men in their prime who think it's a good idea to join the Army are willing to admit (to the Army, remember) to shooting off once every two days.

Actually, no --- the study was not conducted by the army. The study was done by doctors at Harvard Medical School. The participants were recruited from the army. It's also worthwhile to note that you didn't have to participate in the study, so if someone was afraid to say how often they orgasm, they didn't have to.

I take it that you are surprised by the results? What is your idea of a normal libido?

 

[Millard]

Good discussion that shows that you really need to operationalize terms like libido. It seems obvious that many people mean different things when they discuss libido and have different expectations about what is good, average, poor.

Maybe a better approach, following the study abstract Structure posted, would be to ask questions revolving around number of weekly orgasms?

 

[vantage108]

I take it that you are surprised by the results? What is your idea of a normal libido?

I wouldn't say surprised, small studies show all sorts of things. I will say that my 22-year-old self (and his gf) would have laughed pretty hard had anyone suggested he should limit himself to once every 2 days, and I never had any reason to think I was atypical at that age.

My current self (age 44)... would laugh at such a limit too, but I'm aware that I'm not exactly typical now (and neither is my current gf, which is probably a big part of this equation. I wonder how many of those Army dudes were in healthy serious relationships. I'm betting not many, or they wouldn't have been joining the Army.)

 

[Structure]

I wouldn't say surprised, small studies show all sorts of things. I will say that my 22-year-old self (and his gf) would have laughed pretty hard had anyone suggested he should limit himself to once every 2 days, and I never had any reason to think I was atypical at that age.

My current self (age 44)... would laugh at such a limit too, but I'm aware that I'm not exactly typical now (and neither is my current gf, which is probably a big part of this equation. I wonder how many of those Army dudes were in healthy serious relationships. I'm betting not many, or they wouldn't have been joining the Army.)

I'm 6'2". By your logic, I should laugh at the idea that the typical man is not over 6', regardless of what statistics show.

 

[vantage108]

I'm 6'2". By your logic, I should laugh at the idea that the typical man is not over 6', regardless of what statistics show.

Not quite. If everybody you knew was also 6'2", and you had considerable reason to believe that you and your peers were roughly typical of the population at large, you might be surprised by a study showing that 6'2" was an exceptional height.

 

[Structure]

Not quite. If everybody you knew was also 6'2", and you had considerable reason to believe that you and your peers were roughly typical of the population at large, you might be surprised by a study showing that 6'2" was an exceptional height.

I'm interested in your opinion, but without data to back it up, there isn't much to go on. I don't know you after all, so while you might be qualified as an expert, I have no way to determine that. See if you can find some data to support your opinion, and post again.

Until then, I'll leave you with this thought: "opinions are like assholes; everyone's got one."

 

[Tyler81]

I agree with Structure. If someone thinks that a healthy libido is to bone every day of the week, that's not really realistic.

I would say, a good libido = you feel desire for women. That's it, that's all.

It's not about errection quality, or how many times a week you do it, or if you are horny 24/7

Having personally gone through a strech where i had NO desire, i can promise you that libido is DESIRE.

How often you act on that desire, or how good your "woods" are, those are different issues and topics.

 

[seeking]

thought I'd bump this for some more recent responses, and maybe some of those that might have answered the poll a few months ago might have a few more months of trt under their belts so they could comment on how things were starting to settle in longer term than when they started

I know for me the initial results were always better than they turned out to be longer term