Does no erection mean lack of interest?
Is there a link to erectile disorders with low desire or feelings? Here’s the response from psychoanalyst and sexologist Catherine White, author of “The Uninhibited Sexuality.”
This formulation, or the affirmative, “He has an erection, so he must still love me” suggests that women have power over the erection of a man, that through love and the desire, he is inspired. Despite not knowing for themselves (even if it’s just fantasized), women think it is easy for a man to just decide whether he wants an erection or not. What is happening if it doesn’t respond? She may then think less of herself and wonder, “Am I really less desirable? ”
More often than not, to rid of this concern, the woman prefers to guilt the man and make him responsible for his lack of erection, adversely making her think he has a lack of love for her. And the man? He also sometimes lands in uncertainty that it’s the woman who reigns over his erection, hence the masculine expression, and adopting the notion that, “she’s just not into it tonight.”
WHAT TO DO WHEN THE ERECTION IS NO LONGER PART OF THE RENDEZVOUS?
This part is a lot like tennis, in which the two parties refer responsibility for failure or power over the other, and even the fragility of one and the other. The desire to control and powerlessness of his penis which obviously does not obey commands the way the finger and the eye do… But the erection does not only depend on the appearance of a woman, no matter how attractive. Men have many reflexes like nocturnal erections that often have nothing to do with the woman sleeping beside him.
When the erection is not part of your rendezvous, and is without any physiological disorder, it must be sought in psychological issues. What is happening internally that the man subconsciously “doesn’t want” his erection? Who would he punish? Himself? It? Sometimes it might even be an overpowering love that prevents the arousal, because consciously or not, the man may associate penetration to a violent act or degrading to the woman he cares for.
The erection falls within the power of man, and it is up to him to take charge of it or not, even if it is often unconscious. If the man becomes more free to think, with the help of a therapist, about what upsets him, the woman can also ask why she must make a penis determine her own value.
From The Uninhibited Sexuality by Catherine White, published by Flammarion.
Fabienne Broucaret and Nur Syazana H.
