Sexual Performance Anxiety

[Matt8642]

Well I've been dating this amazing girl for over four months now. She's incredibly attractive and has very many good qualities that make me love her. However I believe I am dealing with what is known as sexual performance anxiety, and it's becoming a big problem in my sex life...

I guess it all started about two months ago when I randomly lost my erection during sex, seemingly for no reason at all. After that, I've had on-and-off anxiety about sex, worrying whether I'll be able to get or sustain an erection, which in turn causes me not to be able to. I think my girlfriend's reaction to this was what caused a lot of the anxiety in the first place. If I'm not able to have sex, she begins to think that she isn't attractive enough, or that I'm not attracted to her. That's completely not the case, she honestly is a 10/10 to me as far as looks go, and I'm not exaggerating. Now I've talked to her and explained to her what the issue is, but even so, she still starts to feel that way when I can't get aroused. It makes her feel unloved when I can't have sex. This creates even more anxiety and pressure for me to perform. It's getting in the way of me enjoying sex, because I start to think of it as a task I need to fulfill to meet our needs rather than a fun and passionate experience. Sex has become something I worry about fulfilling rather than something that I look forward to... I know that this is a problem that needs to be fixed, or it will just keep affecting me.

Now I know some of you might tell me, "Just have fun and don't worry about it, that's what's causing the problem in the first place." I'm aware of that, and trust me, if it were as simple as that I wouldn't be here. It's definitely more of a subconscious mental thing.


Could you please guide me in the right direction here?... I'm not sure what steps to take, and it's putting a heavy strain on my relationship :( You all are good people for devoting your time to help people on a forum like this, and for that I am very grateful of any help you might have to offer.

[pcmaster]

Could you please guide me in the right direction here?

Right direction is UP.

Seriously you might feel like you dont have enought to give for hot girl like she. Thats where this problem might come from. Realise that she is used to herslef and dont see herself so hot. Also its ok to be bit uglier than women cause we man are supposed to me smart. Women love with ears, but man with eyes.

While little Yohny is shy be sure you are kind to her and respect her. Cant afford much outbursts now. Here is explanation why -

loveforum.net/threads/78020-Big-dicks-mans-conversation

[basilandthyme]

Is she aware that her reaction is making the problem worse? If not, I think you should tell her. While you have a girlfriend who's self esteem depends on your ability to have sex, this isn't going to get better easily.

Show her what you wrote here.

[niceguy911]

I had a similar problem couple of years ago.. I couldnt cum for some reason. My penis was erect all the time tough .. sometimes it took me 1 hour to finish .. and trust me, its not great like some people think (the longer the better) I found some sex positions that rly suits me .. try it

[pcmaster]

Show her what you wrote here.

Show her what I wrote too and make her press thanks !

[michelle23]

You need to sit her down and talk to her away from the bedroom OP. Have a cup of coffee and a chat in a relaxed environment. Tell her that it has nothing to do with her, it happens due to anxiety and fear of it happening. Tell her that she needs to be patient and calm when it happens as the stress makes it worse. It happened to my bf too once or twice but I didnt take it personally but I am confident and I know he thinks I'm hot. Id just touch and kiss him and he relaxes and it comes back up again lol.

Ask her can you take a step back from sex for a little while and do other things. You need to try to relax and stop worrying. Go slow. Start off with just touching, petting, stroking etc and then move onto oral after a week or two. Go back to basics and work your way up to sex.

Try not to think so much as you already know that is making it worse. You need to explain to her properly that this is not her fault-its in your head and its got nothing to do with attraction. Tell her not to freak out-its a common problem and you want to try and fix it so you need her to work with you.

Best of luck

[pcmaster]

Think michelle is right about thinking too much. The problem might be in planning everything out and ofcourse it dont go as planned and stress before and during is too much pressure. better results would be with spontaneous sex cause you wont have time to worry or think and just let go animal insticts and use the energy of being in the moment. Bet you one of those guys who even during sex thinking about other things. Girls can feel it and its not atractive. What is atractive is living in the moment, going with the flow, **** her like you wanna come, like you cant wait.

[smackie9]

Before you go off freaking out, go get yourself a physical exam to make sure there isn't something else causing this. You really want to make sure everything is ok in that aspect. Next, get intimate in other ways. There are many ways to be intimate without actually having sex. Give your partner a sensual massage or take a warm bath together. Take turns pleasing each other with masturbation so you don't always have to feel pressured to perform sexually.

And do exercise. Not only does it increase blood flow but it also increases testosterone. Helps clear the mind as well, and boosts confidence.

[haxan]

You have to open up and talk about it in a fun, anticipatory way. Like smackie suggested, do some sexual things that are playful and sensual just to get to know each other better and feel comfortable sharing pleasure.

[BoysDontCry]

Good advice here - unfortunately myself and the wife have left it too late and we have split up this last few weeks - one of the major factors is the physical issue and it all started with what you said - this was about 3-4 years ago and because we have not dealt with it we have grown apart physically and now it would almost feel weird if we did do anything. Do not leave it - try and sort it before you get to our stage. Best of luck fella.

[Matt8642]

Thank you all so much for your replies. It's still an ongoing issue of which I'm trying to resolve... What makes this even more stressful is now that it's summer, she and I have internships in cities 4 hours away, which limits our time spent together to weekend trips and such, making things semi-long distance. This puts even more pressure on me to perform when we do get the chance to see each other. It makes me more anxious, which I know isn't going to turn out well.. It's off-putting for her to lose that physical part of a relationship, and I'm really not sure how she would deal with taking a step back from sex and working back into it like Michelle suggested. Sex is part of what makes her feel loved. I'm looking into counseling right now, since I know this is a mental and not a physical issue. She said she'd be willing to do couples counseling if need be. Hopefully something will turn up on that end. Regardless of counseling, I find the advice given here to be extremely helpful, and if you have more advice to give I would be very grateful. She is coming down to spend this weekend with me, so hopefully all goes well.

[Chrisso]

I too only recently developed psychological ED. It started 2 weeks ago when I was fooling around with friend. I had a bit of a headache at the time and didn't really feel horny but we had planned to meet up earlier in the week. This was only the 3rd time we had been together and right before we started. I started to feel nervous and was shaking a little bit due to the circumstances (meeting up just to have sex - didn't feel natural). Anyway, I licked her out and then she expected us to have sex straight after but I was only semi-hard and she said to me shocked 'you just licked a girl out and you're not even hard!?'. We had to physically stimulate me because I was still feeling anxious. So we did it and it was fine but afterwards she was disappointed so I asked her what was wrong. She said that she didn't think we should sleep together any more and that it wasn't working out (I also am not intimate enough with her because we are friends not partners - I don't have really deep feelings for her but I still like her). I agreed with her.

So ever since then I haven't been able to be turned on at all. My libido is way down and my balls have even shrunk to about half the size or 2/3 of the size they normally are. I find it impossible now to get hard naturally without needing to physically stimulate myself. Even then I can't get my penis fully hard. I only realised this recently because sometimes I go through periods of low sex drive but after testing myself with porn I can't even get hard. I could still get hard even with periods of low sex drive in the past. I know this is psychological because I still get erections at night time. So I know now that I am psychologically 'scarred' from what she said to me so now I have a subconscious anxiety or fear with getting an erection I guess because I'm scared I won't be able to maintain it. I keep telling myself that I just wasn't in the mood that night and that it's normal to feel that way sometimes and I should move on but something triggered in me after that night and now I can't get rid of it. The first two times we had sex, I couldn't get RID of my erection and was hard for hours.

I'm going over to her place tomorrow night just to hang out but I'm not sure if she'll expect anything of me since she already said we should stop. I think I'll talk to her about that night and that I have performance anxiety even when I'm by myself. Maybe simply talking to her about it may spontaneously cure me? Maybe I just need to hear her say it's ok and that she didn't and won't judge me? I'm just afraid she'll make a move on me and I won't be able to perform even though I really want to. It's a vicious cycle.

Can anyone offer some advice? Maybe some guys can tell me how they beat their psychological ED?

[smackie9]

Ya go see a damn doctor...it's sounds like you have a health condition not a mental condition.....hurry before it shrivels up and there is nothing they can do. It's sounds to me you have a Testosterone deficiency.

[Am I crazy?]

Your anxiety in your big head is shutting down the little head. to me it sounds like you have allowed too much focus in your relationship to be put on sex and somehow you have it in your mind that great sex= great relationship. If were you I would try to back off a little on the sex and focus more on the other good parts of the relationship. Once you know you are secure in the other parts you probably wont need to worry as much in the sex part. You have yourself so convinced that your relationship will fail if you cant give a good performance. I don't care how hot or attractive the woman is but if your relationship is based on sex it will fail eventually. I once read a funny advice line that went like this "no matter how hot and attractive a woman is, there is always some dude somewhere drinking a beer that is glad to be rid of her". Im not saying you should dump her, but if ****ing her is giving you such anxiety is it really worth being with her?

[michelle23]

Why dont you look into hypnotherapy. I seen it on tv being done to a girl once. She was tense during sex coz mentally she couldnt relax which made sex painful. One session of hypnotherapy and she was fine.

It may be worth a try.

Does your girl still react badly to this?

Why dont you just try giving her oral till she cums-then you know shes satisfied-it takes the pressure off you and you can try to have sex after.

Also ask her to kiss and touch you the next time it happens until your able to get it up again. She needs to work on making you feel relaxed if your gonna resolve this together