Sexual Potency and Personal Power - The Single Male

Sexual dysfunction in its more dramatic and visible forms is referred to as impotence or frigidity.  I don't like these terms; suggest we use ED (erectile dysfunction) and anorgasmia.  The people who come to my office with such problems are those for whom the state of being alone and feeling isolated have at times become unbearable.

A little-known fact, but one increasingly evident to me, is that sexual dysfunction can be a fatal illness.  The literature does not abound with figures, but a number of my patients have attempted suicide prior to therapy.

One patient was referred following a suicide attempt on New Year's Eve.  He was a twenty-seven-year-old fellow out for an evening of fun.  Since age eighteen he had attempted intercourse with a few women but would always lose his erection prior to penetration.  He described that particular evening as follows:

This New Year's Eve I spent in my friend's place.  We had a few drinks and started to dance.  As I danced with one of the ladies, I smelled her hair.  I don't know why, but I got an erection.  But this erection was much weaker than I remember years ago.

I don't know what I should live for.  I know this problem is ruining my life.  My life now is work eight hours a day, buy food, and watch TV.  This is my daily program.  On my day off I watch TV from morning 'til midnight.  Is this life?  I don't want to live all my life in a closed apartment and alone.  I want to have girlfriends, maybe later a wife and kids.  I am scared how I'm going to live the next 27 years.  There can be a hundred people around, but I still feel alone with my problem.  You can say "try to find a girlfriend," but no way.  If I'm gonna find a girlfriend there is going to be a day when I have to have sex.  What am I gonna do then?  I failed so many times I don't want to go over that again.

The pressure to establish 'credentials' that one is a skillful, capable, knowledgeable 'sexual technician' tends to transform sexual contact, especially the initial one, into a performance, almost a 'rite of passage.'  This kind of 'hidden' agenda does little to encourage the relaxed atmosphere so essential for the creative use of one's senses in the service of deepening the emotional aspects and satisfaction of sexual interplay.  The authors of manuals should by now know that they cannot make technicians of us all - not when we were meant to be artists and craftsmen.  The singles come to me with their problems, and so do the married ones.

Most of my single patients right now are men.  Most figures in positions of political power are men too.  The ones I treat are not very different from those in the public eye, holding top-ranking jobs.  I have patients who do hold such jobs.  In fact, most are well-educated, productive members of their communities, men who readily attract dates and potential mates.  They are goal attainers.

My therapeutic approach has been outlined in a series of papers.  The work of sex therapy is very rewarding because many sexual problems can be treated successfully by brief directive methods.  Old habits of any kind are not easy to change, but well-motivated patients are eager to learn and to gain release from their suffering.  The joy of sex therapy is the joy of helping such people.