I am 28, a woman, in law school, and have a history of PTSD which makes me wonder if I am inventing reasons to be upset…
I also have an incredibly high sex drive. I mean like it’s ridiculous I have never met my match. I’m a two, three times a day kind of gal. Vanilla, kinky, whatever, I just love to fuck. I also try to be realistic about the odds of finding a partner who wants to fuck as much as I do. I have a set of vibrators and lots of batteries and have no problem taking care of my own needs, but I greatly prefer partnered sex. It’s just so much more satisfying.
I am dating a 38-year-old man who is kind, supportive, loving, and hilarious. He is also very distant emotionally and physically sometimes. It’s weird, it’s like a switch that turns on and off. He is fully present and loving and amazing most of the time and then for days or weeks he will tap out and just be gone, hard to reach out to, impossible to engage with.
We started dating in October, and very quickly started having issues with him being unable to maintain an erection during penetrative sex. I brought it up (gently, I hope) three (!!!) times, and he was somewhat responsive but not really willing to discuss the issue. By January I was feeling extremely alienated and rejected, and I broke up with him without specifically saying it was about the sex. I thought that would have been cruel.
On Valentines Day he texted me.
The rest of the letter—and my response—after the jump.
He asked me out for a drink and we ended up having incredible marathon sex that blew my mind and was everything I had been looking for while we had been dating. I’m talking like six hours of mutual oral, vaginal penetration (yes, please!), orgasms galore (both of us!), eye contact, dirty talk—the full nine. It was the best sex of my life, not only physically but also because it was with someone I care about so deeply. We got back together after about a month of dating and awesome sex. Two, maybe three weeks back in, the impotence issues are recurring. He just doesn’t seem to be able to hold on to his erection for long enough for either of us to come.
I am starting to take it pretty personally (again) and am wondering what the fuck is going on. Am I a jerk? (I’m not a jerk.) Am I ugly? (I’m not ugly at all.) Am I doing something horrible that totally turns him off? (I’m doing all the same things he loves when he is able to be responsive.) I hesitate to bring it up with him yet again. I don’t want to destroy his confidence or imply that there is something wrong with him. I don’t want to medicalize his sexuality. But this is killing me. I fucking love this man he is incredible and such an impressive person. I want to be with him. Fuck I want to marry him.
So my question is: What the fuck do I do? Tell him to see a shrink? Tell him I’m worried I will cheat on him? Break up with him? He is not a motherfucker so DTMFA is not applicable. Is it just that he’s in his 40’s and this kind of thing is to be expected? My #1 goal is to not hurt him with any kind of accusatory language. But Dan I need to fuck. And I’m worried that I will eventually take care of that need with an outside party.
The only reason I am asking you what to do is that from my research on the subject it seems like we are a textbook case. But there is no textbook answer. Impotence and performance anxiety seem to be huge issues for a lot of men. I want to be supportive and I also want to fuck my boyfriend. Do you have any idea what might be going on? Am I being an asshole? Am I overreacting? Am I taking it too personally? Am I being too demanding? We have sex about once a week currently. Maybe half of those (if lucky) we are successful.
Should I just suck his dick more? Is this a lost cause? Is he being an asshole?
Stressed Out Student
P.S. Dan his cock is thick and beautiful and glorious when it’s hard. You would approve.
P.P.S. I’ve been reading your column for 15 years!
Your boyfriend isn’t doing this on purpose to upset you—that’s inconceivable—so let’s take “being an asshole” off the table. (I’m sure he finds his boner issues just as frustrating as you do, SOS, if not more so.) And he wouldn’t have pursued you in the first place, texted you on Valentine’s Day, been anxious to jump back in the sack with you, or have been willing to get back together with you if he didn’t like you and didn’t find you physically appealing. So we can also rule out “thinks you’re a jerk” and “isn’t attracted to you.”
And I think we can safely rule out a medical problem. His dick worked 50% of the time since you got back together officially, SOS, and his dick worked 100% of the time you when you weren’t together technically. So from where I’m sitting—right here at Ann Landers’ desk—this looks like a cut-and-dried case of performance anxiety.
Your boyfriend’s particular strain of performance anxiety seems to kick in as the emotional stakes get higher. Not in a relationship? Boners are not a problem. In a relationship? Boners are suddenly a problem. My hunch is that when you weren’t officially together his erections meant one, simple, straightforward thing: He wanted to fuck you. But now that you’re officially together, SOS, his erections mean a great deal more. They’re no longer a simple and straightforward indication of arousal, SOS, but a barometer that he (rightly) worries his girlfriend uses to measure his attraction to her, his commit to her, and his general levels of satisfaction with the relationship—and his dick is collapsing under the weight of all that meaning.
You say you’ve been reading my advice for fifteen years. But apparently you missed—or failed to commit to memory (for shame)—my advice to a woman in 2005 whose husband started avoiding sex after experiencing similar difficulties:
Your husband avoids “fool around situations,” or FAS, because he feels like he won’t be able to satisfy you, his theory being, “no bone, no satisfaction.” That seems to be your theory too, HORNYW, and embracing it is making your problem worse. It’s perfectly understandable that he would avoid FAS—and the humiliation of failure—until he’s absolutely positive he can keep it up. That’s why the best approach in a situation like this is to take the focus—and the pressure—off his dick. Tell him he can’t fail to satisfy you with oral sex, masturbation, and toys (perhaps working your way up to strap-ons), and he’ll begin to think of sex as something he’s good at again, boned or boneless. And guess what, HORNYW? You may find that once your husband is not expected to produce an erection during FAS, his dick starts getting hard.
I would give the same advice to you, SOS: Take the focus and pressure off your boyfriend’s dick. The talks you had with him before—those three times you gently raised the subject—didn’t take the pressure off his dick. Those conversations about his problem (lost erections) were framed around a premise/fix/demand (no more lost erections) that only served to put more pressure on his dick.
It’s time for a new conversation. You say you’ve got a nice collection of toys. Instead of keeping them around for those times when you’re not having sex, SOS, you need to incorporate those toys into the sex you’re having. Introduce your boyfriend to your vibrators and tell him that from now on there’s no reason to stop having sex when he loses his erection. Dick not cooperating? Not a problem: he can use his fingers and his tongue, he can explore your body with your vibrator, you can suck his dick more (always err on the side of sucking more), he can stroke himself while he eats your pussy or uses a vibrator on you—just keep going.
If you stop having sex when he loses his erection, SOS, success will always be contingent on his erections. But if you keep enjoying each other whatever happens—if you keep playing, erection or no erection, if you can learn to shift effortlessly from his cock to other pleasurable activities and back and forth until you both get off—the sex will always be a success.
