021 All About Erections
Even though we’re kind of socializing men to be like, you know, man up and you got to be man enough and your value is you know how much sexual prowess you have, right? And so I feel like we just need to like call bullshit on this a little bit and honor the fact that sometimes men don’t want to have sex. Sometimes men want to feel like they’re cared for and like they’re connecting to this person, and they want to feel wanted and not just like sex is an act. I hear this a decent amount for men.
This is the ask a sex therapist podcast, helping you change the way you look at sex. I’m Heather Shannon, and in a world full of sexual censorship, I’ll give you the raw truth about pleasure, intimacy in your relationships and enjoying your body, because it’s time for you to ask a sex therapist. Hey, everybody, welcome to this week’s episode. It’s all about erections. I’m really excited to talk to you guys about this topic. I have some, I think, kind of interesting insights, having worked with people of all genders and understanding how erections impacts them. But first, we are gonna have our review of the week. So remember, if you hear your review read, reach out to us because we will give you a free bundle of books about sex, they can be audiobooks, or they can be keeper books, whatever works for you, or Kindle, you know, do your thing. So this week’s review, the title is sex education for adults, this show has quickly become one of my favorites, and Heather Shannon, a sex therapist addresses all those topics that are difficult for individuals to face, you will learn everything about it being sex positive to having fun, once again in the bedroom. I appreciate Heather’s approach to each of the topics and I highly recommend the show. So thank you so much for this review. I love hearing people who are listening repeatedly, you know, and are into it, and like waiting for the next episode to be released. So that’s just exciting. For me, it’s so motivating to know that my work is resonating. I’m sure I’m sure a lot of you feel that way too. Like oh, making a difference is cool. And I just appreciate you because I also feel like we can’t shift the culture in a more sex positive direction. Without all of you I can’t do it by myself. So the more you share the show, the more you leave reviews, it’s all helping other people who need this message to get the message. So thank you very much for that. Alright, so a few points I want to make about erections. First of all, I think it’s fun topic. Personally, I’m a fan. One of the you know, meat issues that people come to see me about is erectile dysfunction. And it was actually really interesting, before I became a certified sex therapist, and just kind of have like a regular sex therapy practice, I would say, um, two thirds, lots of my clients were women, about 1/3 were men, once it became a certified sex therapist, I would say the percentage of men, especially even within couples, like which partner reaches out, you know, sometimes it’s two men, sometimes it’s two women, but when it’s a male female partnership, I’m getting more of the man reaching out. So it’s been a real interesting shift. And I think that’s because these are my theories, I’d actually love to hear from you guys. And what you think about this, my theory is that men’s identity is maybe a little bit more wrapped up in sex, there’s some interesting research about people’s lives are better the more relationships they have with women. And that’s regardless of gender. So regardless of your gender, if you have a bunch of relationships with women, you tend to be happier, feel more fulfilled in your life. And this is not to diss men. But I think it’s also showing that maybe, you know, men are maybe getting as many of their needs, especially needs for touch from like guy friends and stuff like that. So, I do also want to recognize that not everybody who has a penis identifies as a man. And so this episode really is about erections and how they function. And so regardless of your gender identity, this will apply if you have a penis, so say people with penises. So most of what first came through to me when I was working with men, which I still do not past tense, is that men are often in their heads. So when they’re having a hard time maintaining erection, or orgasming, with a partner, it can be due to anxiety due to being more with their thoughts than with their body. So some of the examples are, you know, someone’s in a new relationship and they think, ooh, like I’m really into this person, this could kind of be my person might want to marry them, like I can really see a future. And so what happens is, the stakes get really high, you know, mentally and emotionally and there’s more feet You’re about screwing it up losing this person, there’s also probably more care about, wow, I really want to meet this person into me, I want them to have a great time, I want to be a great lover for them. And so it can lead to sexual pressure cooker, right? Where, you know, instead of just enjoying the moment and noticing the sensations and you know, enjoying your partner’s body, both from like a touch standpoint and a visual standpoint, enjoying the sounds they’re making, there’s just a lot less enjoyment and a lot more like, Oh, my God, am I gonna calm? Is this going to work? Are they going to be satisfied with me like, oh, it just becomes not very sexy, right. And so that that was originally a lot of the work that I did with people who are presenting with erectile dysfunction in my office. Now, the other really interesting thing about it is that I hear about this issue from both sides. So whether you’re the person who has the erectile dysfunction, or whether you’re the partner of somebody who has erectile dysfunction, puts me kind of in a unique position to get to understand both sides. And so I do want to speak to the side of the partner. And I have this with friends too, not just with clients. So sometimes if someone’s having erectile dysfunction, the partner will interpret it as Oh God, like I’m they’re not attracted to me, am I not doing it for them, might not satisfying them. This is like bad news. Like they’re losing interest. And so I have actually found, that’s almost never the case. Like, I’m gonna say 90% Plus, is almost the opposite. It’s where the person feels that pressure, they’re so interested, that it’s harder for them to perform. Certainly there can be other things that they get in their head about, but it’s rarely that the attraction is just not there. As little caveat to that, I will say, I don’t think that people who are raised as a man and taught how to be a man and taught what it means to be a man and what that should look like. I don’t think that they’re kind of taught that they’re allowed to say no to sex. So that’s actually been an interesting thing as a sex therapist, as well is hearing stories from men where they didn’t really want to have sex. I mean, they were, I will say that that is the minority of cases. But it kind of speaks to consent in the importance of consent. It also kind of speaks to the importance of reading your partner, you know, and knowing their signals. So if you want to check back in on the consent episode, that’s episode number 12. And then we’re also going to refer back to the episode on the emotions of sacks, which was episode number three. Because I do think that erectile dysfunction in particular, is a pretty emotional issue, right. And so this is kind of a unique perspective that I haven’t heard a ton of other places about erections, but I’ll share a story. So when I was living in Chicago, I had started becoming friends with this guy, and he was married and exploring polyamory. And he was telling me about some of his experiences with it. And one of the things that was coming up is that he was having some erection issues. And so you know, me being the nosy sex therapist. I was kinda like, Okay, well, let’s kind of see if we can solve this puzzle, right? And so I said, okay, like, Are you still having sex with your wife? And how’s it going with erections with your wife? And he said, No problem, no problem at all. With her. I’m like, Oh, that’s interesting. So we kind of talked about, like, how was he feeling and like, was he in his head. And really, what we wound up finding out is that there was this sense of the reader there was attraction there was enjoying of these people that he was going on dates with and making out with, and he was enjoying that process of making out and he was a real natural connector. So I think he really is really enjoying just connecting with people and flirting, you know, he really enjoyed that flirtatious energy. But when it came to intercourse, or oral sex, if he was receiving, it just wasn’t happening. And what we realized was, he was having a sense of pressure. And there was a belief and I think this is where we go wrong with the messaging that we’re sending to people with a penis, that we’re socializing as men that we’re kind of saying, Don’t do that. You’re not allowed to say no, you should always want sex, you should always be hard, like on command and stay hard as long as needed. And I just think we’ve gone like way too far down this path of men should just be these like sex machines or something like that. It’s like what I think we’ve gotten so far, that’s actually making sex worse. I marinate on that a little bit. But I think we have gone so far down this path of like mentioned just be sex machines and erection machines that like We’ve really lost touch with the fact that men are emotional people and men have emotional needs too. And so what this guy was saying when we’re talking about it was that he didn’t feel super comfortable. And he actually didn’t really want to be having sex with people aside from his wife. That was interesting, because it was his idea to open the marriage. And she got real into it. And he actually wound up realizing, I do like going on dates, I do like making out I don’t actually want to be having sex with these other people. And so his penis, his erection, or lack thereof, was actually communicating his emotional state, more effective than his conscious brain realized. So I just think this is fascinating. And this is not the only time that I have come across this. That was more of an impersonal study. But in my work, I absolutely come across this where, you know, men want to have that emotional connection. A lot of men every everyone’s different, of course, right. But even though we’re kind of socializing men to be like, you know, man up, and you got to be man enough. And your value is you know, how much sexual prowess you have. Right? And so I feel like we just need to, like call bullshit on this a little bit. And honor the fact that sometimes men don’t want to have sex. Sometimes men want to feel like they’re cared for, and like they’re connecting to this person, and they want to feel wanted, and not just like sex is an act, I hear this a decent amount for men. Right? So I think it’s fascinating. The reason I’m so fascinated by is because I think we’re so divorced from our bodies, in certain ways, where we’re not tuning in, we’re not listening to our body’s cues. And the way this works, and this was something I realized, just from being a general therapist, before becoming a sex therapist, is that our emotions are this is an oversimplification. Our emotions are like crying babies, right. And so when you don’t like pick up the baby and hold it, and soothe it, and be nice to it, it’s gonna cry louder, like the baby is in distress is trying to communicate something to you. This is how our emotions are, too. We evolved to have emotions for a reason. And when we don’t listen to them, our bodies typically find a way to communicate louder. And so I think that’s what’s happening in many cases of erectile dysfunction. If you have a penis, you would do really well, to tune into your emotional state more. Again, go back and listen to the emotions of sex episode three, if you haven’t, that will give you at least a baseline kind of foundation or some resources to explore further. But it’s important, you know, our emotions are there for a reason. They’re not just a nuisance, they’re not just a pain in the butt. I totally get it from personal experience that they’re not always pleasant to feel. But I also know that when we’re able to feel them, it’d be curious about them without so much of like, the mental drama about them, like, oh, I can’t do this, it’s too painful. If I, if I give this emotion an inch, it’s going to take over, it just doesn’t work that way. In fact, it works the opposite way, that when we resist our emotions, that’s when they get louder in terms of unwanted symptoms that we’re having. But then also, that’s when it lingers more, too. So you know, a lot of times people wind up in depression because of that, because they’re avoiding their emotions. They’re numbing their compartmentalizing. I also see that turned into low libido, a lot of times, so your erection can be communicating an important message. Also, I will share since I am a person who has interacted with penises before. How do I feel, you know, when someone is having some erection issues? For me, and this might be because I’m a therapist, I love to like go deep on all the topics. I just kind of want to know what what is going on with this person. I actually had one person tell me, Hey, this is something that just kind of happens like the first few times and the more you get comfortable with someone, it just goes away on its own. It was like, okay, cool. I love that I love that you understand yourself. I love that we kind of know this is temporary. I love that like the more I can just be like accepting of you, the more it’s a non issue. I think that’s actually a really big one. I think that men want to feel really accepted as they are and kind of want that assurance that you know if there is some kind of erection issue that you’re not going to like abandon them. So that can be part of what’s going on. But I will say if somebody’s having an erection issue, and they just kind of get like, huffy about it and kind of like shut down and like won’t share anything or won’t kind of just change course with me and do something else. That’s fun. That was a little bit tough. So I feel like how you handle the erection issue is also important. I actually think it’s more important. I think it’s more important than whether or not you’d have an erection issue because, I mean, I think that most people The pianists are gonna have an erection issue at some point in their life, right? And I think the more we could just realize, like, Okay, not that big of a deal, let’s not do the mental drama about it, let’s just kind of be like, Oh, hey, I don’t know why this is happening, but I’m gonna like, I’ll reflect on it and get back to you, or, let’s cuddle or, Hey, let me go down on you, I do think that can be helpful to developing some some good oral skills using some sex toys like change course. And if you’re somebody who has some erection issues at times, and I know sometimes they’re also influenced by medication and health factors, we’ll get into that a little bit, that are beyond your control, your mental game might be like on point, and it’s just a thing that happens, decide, you know, decide ahead of time how you want to handle it, and communicate with your partner, like, okay, let’s just see how it goes. Because I’ve also seen this happen in cases where couples haven’t had sex in a long time. There can be some more performance anxiety, when it’s been a long time and kind of pressure to, you know, oh, my gosh, we have to be intimate to make the marriage work. And what if I can’t perform, and then, you know, they’re so disappointed, and then like, things just end and then I am abandoned, you know, so to really kind of decide how you want to handle things together. And if that’s the case, I think just taking the pressure off, and communicating ahead of time, Hey, it’s your effort that matters to me, it’s you showing up in in trying that matters to me and like, I actually don’t care how it goes. Because remember, the more we attach to an outcome, the more we’re kind of gripping on to like, it’s gotta go this way, the more we’re creating anxiety for ourselves, the more we’re getting in our head, the more likely we’re gonna have a reaction issues. Right. So that is also important. Couple more physiological points that I have noticed, working with clients is that health really matters. And one really important thing that I want everyone to be aware of is, if you’re starting to have erection issues, and it doesn’t feel super mental, it maybe it really caught you by surprise, one time, there could be a cardiovascular issue going on, because we have to remember that erections are blood. erections are blood flow. So I think that’s important for us to realize and go get checked, go see a cardiologist, at least your primary care doctor, a urologist, urologist know to do those kinds of cardio tests with erections as well, at least if you have a halfway decent one. So that’s important to know, as well. And so when I’ve worked with clients who have changed their diet, and I want to be very clear, I’m not promoting any specific diet, I think everyone should do what works for their body. And I think that we all have different needs. But I had a client who did the keto diet, came back to me two or three, three weeks later for our next session. And it was kind of like, Yeah, well, I’m having nighttime reactions again. Right? So that can also be a sign you kind of want to look at, how’s my erection when I’m masturbating? How’s my erection when I’m with a partner? And am I having any nighttime erections? And that will kind of help you realize how much of a psychological issue is it? And how much of a physiological issue is it? Often with erectile dysfunction, I find that it’s a little bit of both, because I find when it starts is a physical issue, it can become a mental issue. Sometimes I do think it’s just a mental issue. And that, that you’ll know, if you’re having nighttime erections, if you have no problem with erections, when you’re masturbating, it’s probably pretty psychological. And that will help you decide, do I want to go talk to a sex therapist about it? Or do I want to go see a urologist about it? So you can kind of make an informed decision about what direction you go in. But yeah, so just changing his diet, he like lost some weight, got rid of lots of inflammation, and I really think it’s the inflammation that matters. You’ll even kind of understand that if you’ve tried Viagra or Cialis. I’m not really a big fan of those for several reasons. We don’t have time to get into that. But I had people try them and kind of be like, it didn’t work. I’m like, I know, because you didn’t have a physiological issue, you have a psychological issue. So when you take those medications, you still have to have the desire, right. So if the attraction is not there, if the desire is not there, if the emotional connection is kind of not there, and then killing the mood for you, so that you know this, the psychological part is just not working. Viagra, and Cialis are not going to bulldoze through that, like you actually have to do the emotional work. Sorry, not sorry. So that’s important to know, too. So to recap this, if you’re the partner of somebody with erectile dysfunction, don’t take it personally. It’s almost never about you. Support the person. Don’t make a big deal out of it. Don’t insist on like having a big conversation about it like right then you can maybe ask them like okay, what are you gonna do? If you are the person with erectile dysfunction? Try not to engage in the mental drama. Be curious know that this is a normal thing that happens. Assess for yourself. If it’s more physical or more mental and in take some action don’t let it go unchecked. especially if it could be physical. You don’t want to let that stuff go on check to make sure you’re taking care of yourself. But yeah, so if this is something that’s resonating with you, share this episode with a partner. You know whether you’re the one with erectile dysfunction, you kind of want your partner to hear it from a neutral third party expert that, hey, it’s not because I’m not attracted to you. Or if you are a partner, and you want the person with erectile dysfunction to know like, Hey, I’m not blaming you, let’s just like not do the mental drama. Let’s come up with a plan. You know, this can kind of help you discuss it.
So thank you guys for listening. And I will be here with a guest next week and looking forward to chatting with you more bad guys are you feeling stuck or shameful and your sex life, you can have an authentic and pleasurable sex life and it doesn’t have to be a huge downer to figure it out. Through my holistic coaching program, you’ll become a pro at sexual communication. Get clear on what does it for you in the bedroom. Learn how to manage libido and become more confident and comfortable in your skin than ever before. Go to Heather shannon.co. Again, that’s Heather shannon.co and click Apply to get started. I can’t wait to work with you
