One of the greatest and most common fears men have is that their penis will not respond they way they want it to or the way it has in the past. 70% of the clients that I see who have a penis express a concern with the performance of their penis. Whether it is the primary concern that they present with or if it is something that comes up later in our work together.
The key to remember here is that it is not a performance. Your penis is a part of an intricate and complex network of nerves, blood vessels, muscles, tendons and tissues that work together to bring you to erection. Your erection can be (and more than likely will be) impacted by many different factors in your life (stress, overall health, meds, discord in the relationship etc.) Because of this throughout a man’s life, it is very common for him to experience challenges and issues with his penis. It could be the inability to get an erection, getting an erection and then losing it or not having the rigidity of the erection you would like. All of these are very common. If you are experiencing these issues, don’t worry, you are in good company and you can get help.
The first step to dealing with your concerns effectively is talking about it with a professional. For most men that can be very difficult. Why? Because as men, so much of our masculine identity is tied to our penis and we are ashamed when it doesn’t work the way we think it “should”. We have been conditioned to believe that we should always want sex, we should always have a hard penis, we should be able to have sex for long periods of time, our penis should always be rock hard on command……………… but what happens when that doesn’t happen (again which is very common)……… For most men it is a gut wrenching, fear inducing experience. I often here “there is something wrong with me”, “I am broken”, “I am not man enough”, “This has never happened before and now keeps happening”.
Take a deep breath. It is ok. Stop “shoulding” all over yourself. This is very common issue and it is something that most men can overcome. In a study of about 4,000 Canadian men between the ages of 40 and 88, almost half had experienced challenges with their erection. And while less common in younger men, it still occurs more often than you might think.
If you have experienced issues with your erection it is ok. It is very common and there are steps you can take to have the sex life that you want and deserve.