External influences on libido

I said jokingly a little while ago that all I had to do was write about having no libido to start it up again. A week and a half later, I think I was wrong. A kind of an intellectual interest in how everything works returned, but no physical interest. I haven't masturbated or wanted to since September, before the accident. No wet dreams either.

There have been a few stirrings when I went over sexy memories to write something here, but never a complete erection. Normal complete noctural erections, though. I have pretty much no interest in porn, or erotic stories, or fantasizing.

A year ago, living with my wife, I was so frustrated that I couldn't have sex 3-4 times a week; and I loved porn and looked at least morning and evening if not more often. Fantasizing was something I couldn't avoid doing.

Before the accident my libido wasn't this low, but it was still really low; I started noticing a drop a few months after my wife moved out. After about six months it was down to masturbating once every week or two, before the accident it was down to every two weeks.

So what's controlling my hormones? My best guess is that it's so low due to two things: the absence of unrelated, nubile women, and healing my broken neck. My 80-year-old mother is the only woman living in the house; I see my sister pretty often. I see a pretty randomly-assigned professional nurse, all of whom have been women so far, about every third day for about 10 minutes. So, no hormones. Before the accident I saw women even less. But I do seem to have a fair amount of interest in intellectual discussion of sex, on the Web, and if a chance ever comes by in real life; which I think is partly drive to meet women.

Based on previous experience with being divorced and seeking a wife, when I start meeting women my drive will go up; get more physical. I will be fascinated by them, and occasional have fantasies, but will only feel like masturbating about once a month. As me and a particular woman see more of each other, my drive will ramp up and I will masturbate more often, eventually going up to about 3-4 times a week when we see each other pretty much every day.

No one ever told me about this stuff in sex ed, and I haven't seen any discussion on the Web in some searching. So I figured I'd write it down.