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Dear Dr. Dick,
We are a happy but frustrated couple looking for advice. I’m a 25 year old male, and my lovely girlfriend is 20.
"I have no problem bringing her to orgasm and pleasing her, but since we’ve been seeing each other I have not been able to cum once. In the past it was always difficult for me to cum during sex. My first time (age 18) my then girlfriend and I went for about three hours before we just gave up. Usually I would have to jerk myself off afterwards, but now I can’t even do that. However if I am alone with porn I am easily able to masturbate and can get off a few times a day. How is it that I can jerk off to pictures that mean nothing to me, but can’t cum for the woman I love the most?
I’ve spoken with a doctor and he said medically there is nothing wrong with my penis. What do you suggest we do? We are really getting frustrated and just want to be able to please each other.
Sincerely,
Dan & Rebecca
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Dear Dan & Rebecca,
Simply put, there’s a difference between the psycho-sexual response we have when we are alone and the one we experience with a partner. Your doctor is right, there’s probably nothing wrong with your unit. It’s all in your head, or your mind, to be more exact. And I’m not being flippant. If I had to guess, I’d say you have a real bad case of performance anxiety. Here’s how this nasty thing works.
Say I have a less than satisfying sexual experience for one reason or another. Before I know it, I’m replaying the incident over and over in my mind’s eye until that’s all I can think about. The proverbial molehill has become a mountain. I then bring my anxiety to my next encounter. My hyper self-consciousness primes me for more disappointment. And I’m all prepared to interpret the disappointment as a failure.
Well, you can see where I’m going with this, huh? My fears become self-fulfilling and I find I’m beginning to avoid partnered sex and my relationship flounders, I develop a full-blown sexual dysfunction and my self-esteem takes a nosedive.
My preoccupation with my problem makes it less likely that I’ll be fully present during sex with my partner, which pretty much scuttles my sexual responsiveness and any hope for spontaneity. It looks to me like performance anxiety is putting a damper on your sexual arousal and short-circuiting your sexual response cycle. Get yourself to a sex-positive therapist ASAP! Believe me, this is nothing to fool around with, especially for someone at your tender age.
When I see this sort of thing in my private practice, I always begin the therapeutic intervention by calling a moratorium on fucking of any kind. This immediately takes a great deal of the pressure off the couple. From there we begin to rebuild the partnered psycho-sexual response one step at a time. We begin with sensate focus training, stress reduction and relaxation exercises. I have the greatest confidence in this method; it succeeds over 90% of the time.
Good luck,
Dr. Dick
This is a guest post from Richard Wagner, Ph.D., ACS - aka Dr Dick, sexologist, author, educator, syndicated sex advice columnist and publisher of Dr Dick's Sex Advice and Dr Dick Sex Toy Reviews. He's been a practitioner of Sex Therapy and Relationship Counseling for over 30 years.
Richard Wagner (Dr. Dick) affirms the fundamental goodness of sexuality in human life, both as a personal need and as an interpersonal bond. He knows the unhappiness and anxiety, which sex-negative attitudes can engender in individuals, alienating them from their own body and the bodies of others.
Find Dr. Dick on Twitter @DrDickSexAdvice.
