Do men need to rise to attention to feel adequate?
The Myth surrounding the male erection.
Well here I am, having just returned from yet another inspiring weekend workshop based on the teachings of Tantra. I wanted to share my experience with you, which I have now decided to save for another time, as there is a more pressing issue at hand. Having been focused on seeing the female point of view on positive body image and going some way to helping women work on their body image fears around their sexuality, I felt compelled to write this after a visit with a male friend to the hospital yesterday. He had asked if I could drive him to a there, for which I gladly said yes. He did not say what it was for, and I did not even think to ask. On arrival as I sat in the waiting room, I slowly noticed it was only full of men, so I asked him discretely what he was there for. Upon which he answered "I can’t get a hard on and I've come for my injections". Knowing the work that I do I wonder why he had not spoken to me about it before? Yet as I looked around the waiting room again I became humbled as I began to see the embarrassed looks upon his and the other men’s faces at having a woman in the room as they waited with quiet anticipation to see the nurse. I became humble because at that point, I realised the depth of body image shame men can feel about their manhood. The sheer volume of men attending the clinic highlighted the fact that there is so much pressure on men to rise to attention, stand up on demand and if this is not achieved then they and society see this as something wrong. Conventional sex often incurs periods of intense thrusting, friction and is goal infused to get to an end point. This can lead to our sexual organs becoming desensitised, objectified, and abused. Because Tantra offers a route away from the idea that sex is all about the man ‘doing’ something to a women, it gives men the chance to move away from thinking to have sexual fulfilment he has to stay hard. Yet, I am here to say that it is possible to have sexual pleasure without an erection and that that’s ok. Yes, the concept of ‘soft penetration' may be hard for some to grasp, but a man does not need an erection to enjoy sexual pleasure. A radical ideas I know that goes against the grain. Our popular cultural perception is that an un-erect penis during sex is seen as a dysfunction and lack of ability to perform. Later that day, talking with my friend about his concerns I could see the relief on his face as the information I presented offered him permission to just be. Just as much as we need to let women off the hook around their body image, we need to do the same for our men folk. Doing so will go some way to releasing the embedded fear that to lose your erection, means you are not a full man. In Tantra, Soft penetration is seen as a way to re-sensitise male and female genitals to feel more refined sensation, this way a person can become more connected with the fullness of sensation and pleasure within the whole of the body. The emphasis is about being in the moment, allowing you to feel and taking away the pressure to perform for both parties. A penis that is lovingly soft is part of the gentle approach to sexual encounters (more on this to come later). This soft-style of love-making lets us remember that the penis is only part of the picture where sexual pleasure is concerned. We tend to forget that men are blessed with other body parts other than the penis that can bring immense please too. Really the only people that benefit from the obsession with a hard erection are the drug companies, who make men feel inadequate. Getting into an either or state of thinking only leads to a downward spiral of thinking that there is a dysfunction at play. We women too have an expectation that if it’s not hard, it’s not on. It’s time to release this myth. It is time to release our brothers from this societal conditioning and the pressure to perform. An erection like life should ebb and flow.
