The Missing Part of the ED Conversation

This episode will help you understand the most common underlying causes of erectile challenges and how to solve them. While drugs can mask symptoms, they don’t actually address the underlying causes of ED. I explain the big missing piece of the ED conversation, which is how relationships, socialized pressure, psychology and emotional situations affect erections. If you have a penis, play with people who do, or just want to be more aware of how to support people who do – this one is for you. 

Note: it is important to know that it's normal for erections to come and go. Do please get checked out by a doctor, especially if you have trouble getting erections all the time, including while masturbating. Consistent ED can be a symptom of underlying health issues. 

Get my free guide: Get Out of Your Head: A Starter Guide to Releasing the Pressure, Shame, and "Shoulds" Around Intimacy at https://laurajurgens.com/guide

Find out more about my offerings and read the blog: https://laurajurgens.com/

Go to my calendar to book a consultation here.  

Copyright notice: All content in this podcast is copyrighted and copying, scraping, data mining, or using the content to train AI is prohibited. 

Transcript

[00:00:00] Welcome to Sex Help for Smart People. I'm your host, Dr. Laura Jurgens, former science professor turned somatic sexologist and intimacy coach. This podcast is all about helping smart women over 40 and their partners of all genders get the evidence based relationship and intimacy support you need for great sex and connections.

[00:00:19] I'm glad you're here, so let's get at it. Hey everyone, welcome to episode 38. So today we are talking about the big missing piece of the ED conversation, which is how relationships, socialized pressure, psychology, and emotional situations affect erections. So if you have a penis, if you play with people who have penises, or if you just want to be aware of how to support people who do, this one is for you.

[00:00:51] So let's get at it. And I just want to say, okay, so I am in Asheville, North Carolina. This is two and a half weeks ish after Hurricane Helene. This podcast is coming out a day late, which I am sure you'll all forgive me for because it is kind of crazy here, but I have been just so amazed and grateful at the way.

[00:01:17] My community's come together at the way my clients both locally and elsewhere are just being so beautiful and resilient and supportive. So I'm just feeling really I'm really lucky and really grateful to not just have survived this, but to be connected to so many wonderful people. And that includes all of you podcast listeners.

[00:01:45] So I just want to really want to thank you for supporting this podcast, for sharing it when you do, for just being here and kind of being part of my community, even if I've never actually met you. So Thanks for that. All right, so let's talk about penises today. So we're going to talk about erections and, you know, there's a lot of conversations around ED are, are erections that come and go or erections that maybe aren't so reliable, erection challenges, right?

[00:02:17] A lot of the conversation is about drugs. Like what drugs do we take? What, you know, there's so many being advertised at you constantly, and that's okay. If you want to take that, that is absolutely fine and up to you. But a lot of people actually don't want to take drugs, or they understandably recognize that drugs can mask symptoms, but they don't actually address the underlying cause of ED.

[00:02:50] The underlying cause of ED is purely physical, such as, for example, heart disease, or complications from cancer treatments, radical prostatectomies, those kinds of things. And especially if you have trouble getting erections in all situations, including when you're masturbating, you definitely want to see a doctor and get checked out because there can be some important, erectile challenges can be an important indicator of underlying health problems that are really important to address.

[00:03:18] Thanks. However, for a huge portion of men and people, other people with penises who are trying to get erections, if you sometimes get erections, especially with yourself, and if erections are often more challenging with your partner, there underlying emotional or psychological or relational situations that are going on, reasons for you not to be getting erections, often really good reasons that you may want to address that will either help you get erections without having to take drugs, or will help you get off the drugs, or will help you never have to even start them in the first place.

[00:04:02] So it is a large portion of people who have erectile challenges where it's actually probably not an underlying physical or physiological issue so much as it is a psycho emotional issue. And that can be hard for men especially to hear, but it's actually really good news because it means that not only will you get a chance to solve a lot of your challenges with the erection situation, but you'll also get a chance to really feel more turned on, more connected, and just better.

[00:04:44] in your body and more confident if you solve some of these issues. So it's really kind of a win win to solve it from this direction, from the sort of psycho emotional direction, rather than just relying on the drugs. And you may want to Mix both. That's totally okay also. So the three most common reasons for erectile challenges are number one, performance anxiety and pressure.

[00:05:13] And this is pressure that is imposed by you internally. And, or your partner, often inadvertently, because they're taking an erection as a referendum on their attractiveness, or your attraction to them. Or a lot of times it's both of you, right? But performance anxiety and pressure. is a big one. Number two is a habit of shutting down desire because you've gotten the message that it's either harmful to others or shameful.

[00:05:47] So you're shutting down your own arousal because you're either feeling some measure of guilt or shame. Number three is when your penis knows something you don't. So there is something off and what I mean by that is that there is something off with your emotional safety in relationship or your connection or attraction to your partner and your penis is letting you know this even though your brain in your head is trying to overwrite it.

[00:06:16] So for example, You have a harsh or manipulative partner and your penis is saying, we actually don't want to connect with this person. A second example is you chose your partner for attractiveness to other men, but you're not really that attracted to them. So for example, they look like a model, but what your body really likes is totally different than that.

[00:06:39] And your penis is basically telling you, Hey, this is not what we're into. In both of these cases, your penis actually knows better than the brain that's in your head. So, that's number three. For each of these situations, I'm going to be honest and tell you, because I'm always honest with y'all, that solving these is beyond one podcast episode.

[00:07:00] However, I'm going to tell you where we start with each one of these in coaching, and I think you can at least get going with just this information today. So whether you ever come to coaching or not with me or somebody else, this will at least give you some insight into what might be going on for you or for your partner or whoever in your life.

[00:07:23] And some reflection on your own can really get you. Quite a little bit down the road on this, even if it doesn't solve it completely. And if you want additional help, this is something that both me and a bunch of other coaches that I know work extensively on and, and very successfully on. So please reach out to, for either a consult or a referral if you want some support.

[00:07:49] But I'm going to give you some tools just to get started today. So number one with performance anxiety and performance pressure, the first thing we need to do is figure out where it's coming from. Some of it is always, always coming from within. Otherwise you wouldn't actually have the ED symptoms.

[00:08:11] Learning first to accept and normalize that erections come and go is step number one. Men get this social message that they are supposed to constantly want sex and constantly be ready for sex with an erection at the drop of a hat that just stays there as long as their partner wants. And that is not reality.

[00:08:32] It is an unrealistic expectation. It is not how men's bodies work. Yes, maybe teenagers get erections from, like, any old thing, the wind blowing, right? But it is not the same with adult men. And especially as your hormones shift throughout the day and over time, it is just 100 percent normal for erections to come and go.

[00:08:55] And it does not have to be a problem. It also doesn't mean you're not attracted to someone. And if you are the person with the penis who, whose erection is coming and going, you know that you can be incredibly attracted to someone. You may just not be hard in that moment, right? But it's really important for partners to hear this, that an erection is not a referendum on your beauty or attractiveness or how much your partner is attracted to you.

[00:09:23] Erections come and go and that's normal. So when we normalize it, it takes a lot of the pressure off, and we want to release that pressure because that's actually getting in the way. We want to let whatever feels good feel good. And you can have a lot of delicious, wonderful feelings with all of your nerve endings in your penis, whether you're hard or not.

[00:09:45] And so we also want to help your partner not be sort of overreacting and also help you not be overreacting. and sort of freaking out if your erection goes away for some period of time. We can continue to play with a soft penis and oftentimes the erection will just come back if we're not losing our minds and making it mean all these things that it doesn't mean.

[00:10:09] So when we stop inadvertently putting pressure on your penis to be hard, a lot of times that will actually just Help the person relax, and that usually just, and patience, and some continued attention usually solves a lot of problems. And what we can do then is just have a really nice time together with whatever is happening All right.

[00:10:38] For the second issue, if you have guilt or shame that is shutting down your erection, this is typically from controlling ourselves too much. It's when there is almost like too much impulse control. And what we do in that situation is we work together on releasing the guilt or shame. And so my invitation to you, working on your own, is to really identify.

[00:11:05] Do I feel guilty? Do I feel like somehow I could be harming someone? This can really happen if people close to you were harmed by men or if you yourself had sexual trauma, whatever, the person or the cause, you know, if you have, or if you've just been, you know, very sensitive to living in a society where there's a lot of predatory men who assault people, right?

[00:11:32] And you've internalized this idea that your erection could somehow be damaging. And it's, it's really, that's not true at all, but that doesn't mean that you haven't. inadvertently internalized that. You having a hard penis is not actually threatening or hurting anyone. You having arousal is not threatening or hurting anyone, right?

[00:11:58] As long as you proceed always with consent and there's a lot of people who will be happy. to an enthusiastic to consent to playing with your hard penis. So just notice if you have guilt, if that's something that you identify with, or if you have shame, and shame is more, you know, thinking you're a bad person.

[00:12:20] And It can often be from religious messaging that you grew up with or some sort of familial repression around sexuality. So we want to work together or you work on your own to help you discover joyful arousal, letting yourself feel safe and accepted while being aroused. All right, number three, the last major reason for erectile challenges in a sort of psycho emotional way.

[00:12:48] is that there's something off with your relationship or your partner that your body knows. And it has a good reason for not wanting to get close to that person. And, this one. I find can either be very, very easy to see for yourself or very, very hard to see for yourself. So sometimes just hearing that this is a reason for ED, men are like, oh shit, I see exactly what is wrong and I know, I know that this is, I know I don't feel comfortable with this person.

[00:13:23] I know that I haven't felt emotionally safe with them. And. That's why hearing, okay, yes, this could be a reason for ED, now everything makes sense, right? But actually a lot of times it's the opposite, a lot of times it's hard to see. And you might have a vague feeling, you may wonder if you're right, that there's something off in the relationship.

[00:13:45] And it can help through a lot to work through it with someone outside your relationship who can really help you identify what is working and what is not working in your partnership. If that's you and you're wondering, gosh, I have some spidey senses that maybe something is off in my relationship and that's what's going on with my partner.

[00:14:04] erections. If that's you, whether you reach out to me or someone else, it is really empowering and important to figure out what's actually happening that is turning you off. What is it that your penis knows that your brain hasn't yet been ready to know? Okay, so those are the top three psychoemotional reasons, and They're all solvable, so that is really good news, and they're all a lot, we have so much success with solving these underlying issues.

[00:14:38] The other thing I want to offer is that it's really important to make sure that your particular desires, your core desires, your psychological arousal needs are being met in the type of sex you're having. Because if. If the type of sex you're having is just not the type of sex that turns you on, then that's another reason that's really common that you might not have consistent erections or as consistent as you would like them to be.

[00:15:08] So there may be some, maybe some kink you haven't acknowledged, maybe some psychological need, maybe an emotional need, maybe a need to bring in some fantasy, maybe a need for some sort of affirmation, a need for some sort of emotional emotion. Your psychological arousal is all about the emotions you want to feel.

[00:15:29] And there's an episode on that, so go check that one out. But if you're not getting that kind of arousal, then really touches your particular psychological needs, then it makes sense that you wouldn't be having consistent erections. All right. So your exercise, if you have a penis or you are partnered with someone with a penis, I want to invite you to spend some time reflecting on what you make erections mean.

[00:15:57] So this is, you know, what is your default brain telling you That a person having an erection or not having an erection means about them, about their partner, about their attraction, about their quote unquote manliness or their capacity or whatever. What is the default thinking telling you? And that means your unexamined thoughts, not your sort of intentional intellectual reasoning, which might know much different, right?

[00:16:28] But what is that sort of default thinking telling you? that an erection means. It's almost like a Rorschach test for an erection, right? Like what exactly, if you were just to think about it, what are all the connotations underneath and how is that playing out in your brain? I want you to think about writing down all those things.

[00:16:50] You're making erections mean about you and about your partner, and then consider whether you really wanna keep believing those things. Are they really serving you? Are they serving your partnership? Are they serving your connection, or are they inadvertently putting pressure on you or on someone else?

[00:17:08] Okay. So that's your episode for today. I really look forward to seeing you back here next week, and I hope you all take care. Hey, if you're curious about how you could have better sex and connections, go grab my free guide, Find Your Secret Turn Ons. It's right on my website, www.laurajurgens.com, and the link is in the show notes.

[00:17:27] I'll see you here next time.