Erection

Av been on masturbation since i became sexually active in other to avoid Std and other sexually transmitted disease,des went for long makin me lost appetite for ladies,now ready to settle down but my erection and my appetite fails me as often as possible,am afraid of losin my woman.what do i do pls.

[Janice M Epp, PhD]

I'm not sure I understand your question, so I'll give you some general information.

How about you stop thinking that good sex is all about your erection and that it’s all YOUR responsibility? Holding these ideas puts way too much pressure on you. Once you begin to worry, it becomes a vicious circle: you worry, so your erection goes down, and then you notice it, and you worry some more, etc. Pretty soon your penis stops cooperating all together.

Men receive so many messages that sex is about “performance” and pleasing a partner, rather than just enjoying the pleasure of it. Everything is goal-oriented—like a football game. High-achieving or very anxious men may have a particularly difficult time of letting go of a goal and just enjoying themselves. The other message that many men—and women—receive is that sex is somehow dirty and wrong, unless you’re doing it for reproductive purposes. Sometimes this can creep into our unconscious thoughts and sabotage any pleasure. This is more common among people who have been raised in a strict, pleasure-negative religious or philosophical orthodoxy.

Do you have any sense of what is bothering you? What are you thinking about during sex? What are the conditions like when you’re being sexual? Do you have enough privacy? Are you both relaxed and happy? If not, these can contribute to your discomfort.

There are various other possible psychological/emotional factors too numerous to detail here. These include fear of intimacy, fear of women or negative feelings about them, unresolved anger, etc.

You may have negative attitudes about sex in general, you may have performance issues or you may have conflicts about relationships or about women in general. Either way, it’s easy to get trapped in a cycle of trying too hard, which, in turn, just leads to more stress and anxiety. And you know what? It’s not that uncommon, and it’s not that hard to change. Take a deep breath, relax and examine these issues and see if any fit for you. Something is getting in the way of your pleasure, and you’ll need to do some serious thinking to figure out what it is.

In any new relationship, it takes time to relax with each other and learn about your body and its responses. But anything worthwhile takes a little time and practice, no? If you talk with your partner and tell her you’d like to slow down and learn about each others’ bodies and responses, together, you two can discover just what it is that arouses you. You have a chance to take a wonderful journey of discovery with each other which can not only be educational but lots of fun. Best of luck to you. Dr. J