Performance Anxiety

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Performance Anxiety
by mike roger

Joe still remembers the first time it happened: “I was in college, and I went to bed with this incredibly sexy girl I’d just met. I don’t know what it was—the beer we had been drinking, the excitement, the guilt that I was cheating on my long-distance girlfriend—but I discovered to my horror that I just wasn’t responding. It really freaked me out, and the more anxious I got about it, the worse the problem became. I’ve never forgotten how my equipment failed right when I needed it.”

No guy ever entirely forgets a bout with sexual performance anxiety, that terrible situation in which negative thoughts keep you from rising to the occasion. Unlike physical impotence, performance anxiety can strike at any age, no matter how healthy you are. “You have to realize that it’s just the way it is. It’s part of being a guy, part of human nature,” says Bernie Zilbergeld, Ph.D., author of The New Male Sexuality.

If you’re experiencing power failure on a regular basis, the first thing to do is see a doctor to make sure the problem doesn’t have a physical cause. (If you get erections while sleeping or wake up with “morning wood,” it’s likely that your difficulties are in your head.) Be sure the physician knows about every drug and supplement you’re taking, since some of them may be having an effect on your erectile abilities. (Certain antidepressants, such as Prozac, are notorious in this area.) Among other things, the doc may test for diabetes or clogged arteries, both of which can affect blood flow to the penis. Of course, alcohol consumption can be a factor, too.

It’s not so terrible. Easy for me to say, right? But look at it this way: Your erection is an expression of your feelings, rather than your will. Which means of course it won’t always behave as you want it to, any more than you can suddenly be happy or excited or in love just because you choose it. When your body doesn’t respond, it’s signaling you that, for whatever reason, you aren’t ready for sex with a particular woman at a particular moment. The point is to figure out what that reason is and deal with it. Once you’ve done that, you’ll probably be fine.

The reason is probably pretty straightforward. In the majority of cases, when you don’t get it up in a sexual situation it’s because you’re feeling one or more of the following: too excited about what’s happening, not excited enough, nervous about being a great-enough lover, nervous about a previous failure, guilty, angry, preoccupied, powerless at work, unhappy with the relationship, or worried about commitment issues, pregnancy or stds. Any of these might be enough to stop an otherwise perfectly good erection in its tracks, at least until you actually deal with the issues on your mind.

The more worried you are that it will happen, the greater the likelihood that it will According to Zilbergeld, performance fears are often a self-fulfilling prophecy: “We often find that the man has had a bad experience in the past, a time at which he didn’t perform, so now he’s worried that it’s going to happen again. Other guys are just naturally fearful of having a performance problem even if they’ve never had one before.”

If you deal with it right away, it’s a lot less likely to happen again. “Don’t be afraid to talk to her,” Zilbergeld says. “What doesn’t help is withdrawing from your partner or shying away from sex.” “By talking about it, you’ll feel closer to her and not feel so much as if she’s judging you,” adds Mark Goulston, M.D., a Southern California psychiatrist and Men’s Fitness Advisory Board member. “Try not to do it from a point of whining or feeling sorry for yourself, but as if you’re trying to confront a challenge that has shaken you temporarily but hasn’t broken you. Then, when you feel more accepted by her, you can bounce back and be able to perform sexually again.”

You can, and should, have sex anyway. Men freak out over performance issues because they view an erection as a prerequisite for any kind of sex, says Michael Plaut, M.D., a University of Maryland psychiatrist and president of the Society for Sex Therapy and Research. “What you should understand is that there are other ways to please a partner: kissing and hugging, manual and oral stimulation. We recommend exercises in which genital touches aren’t even allowed, which gets your mind off the issue. Then, often, the erection will happen spontaneously.”

If there are major issues to deal with, consider professional counseling.
“Often, going for professional assistance for a few sessions can help; just reading some self-help materials can be anxiety-reducing,” says Zilbergeld. Because long-term performance anxiety often stems from problems that began when you were a child, therapy can make a big difference. “You may have grown up with an emotionally hungry mother who made premature demands on you, leading to a sense of inadequacy,” says Santa Barbara, Calif., psychologist Robert Firestone, Ph.D., author of Fear of Intimacy. “Or if you grew up with an angry, insecure or resentful father who was competitive with you, you may have internalized your father’s rage and feel overly anxious today. You may also be confused about your manhood if your father had problems with his own sexual identity, or if there was a role-reversal in the family, with a dominating mother and a weak father.” In any of these cases, understanding the root of the problem can help you to resolve it, Firestone says.

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