The Act of Marriage: The Beauty of Sexual Love (25 page)

One of the things we have learned about the Kegel exercises is that most men, particularly those over fifty, can benefit from doing them also. As a man matures in life, his muscles also begin to relax, and he may have trouble maintaining an erection or at least as rigid as he did in his youth. In addition, he may begin to have difficulty controlling his urinary drip. In both cases researchers have discovered that faithful exercise of the sphincter muscle as outlined in this chapter for women is a tremendous help to men. Again, it is persistence that pays off.

Notes

1
. Ronald M. Deutsch,
The Key to Feminine Response in Marriage
(New York: Random House, 1968), 52–53.

2
. Ibid., 53–66.

3
. Ibid., 68–73.

4
. Ibid., 74–81.

Eleven

The Impotent Man

Convalescing after surgery in a famous medical research center, a doctor was seated in the office of a medical school colleague who was then the head of the hospital. He asked, “Do you find any medical problems increasing today?” Without hesitation his friend replied, “Yes. Male impotence! Hardly a day passes that some man does not come in and worriedly exclaim, ‘Doctor, I’m afraid I am becoming impotent.’ I have seen many of them burst into tears.” This book would not be complete without a careful examination of the increasing problem of impotence.

After his fortieth birthday a man’s most important sex organ is his brain. The size of his genitalia has nothing to do with sexual capability, but what he thinks of himself does. If he considers himself virile and effective—he is. If he deems himself inadequate—he is. The old adage “You are what you think” is particularly true of a man’s sexual capability.

I first encountered male impotence after a Family Life Seminar lecture on “Physical Adjustment in Marriage.” A forty-eight-year-old husband asked if I thought there was any hope for a man who had been impotent for eight years. Inwardly groaning at this unnecessary tragedy, I asked how his wife took it. He replied, “She has learned to live with it.” How sad! Ignorance had cheated them both out of many lovemaking experiences.

Why Some Men Become Impotent

Research shows that impotence is increasing at an alarming rate. But we predict it will get worse unless men learn something about themselves, and their wives discover what they can do to help.

The sex drive in a man reaches its strongest peak between ages eighteen and twenty-two; from that time on, it begins to taper off slowly—so slowly, in fact, that most men fail to notice it until their mid or late forties, and many do not detect it until their sixties. The first time a man has difficulty maintaining an erection or is unable to ejaculate, his malady soon runs out of control. Within an amazingly short time he has convinced himself that he is losing his manhood, and the more he thinks in this manner, the more likely he is to undergo other bad experiences.

A forty-five-year-old man who enjoyed a beautiful relationship with his wife decided to get a vasectomy. Three doctors assured him that it was perfectly safe and would not lessen his sex drive. He waited the six weeks after the operation as instructed and then had a disastrous experience trying to provide a semen sample for the doctor to test. The catastrophe fell on the same day he was to leave town on a week’s business trip. His plane was scheduled to depart at 3:00
P.M.,
so he went to the office in the morning after determining with his wife that they would make love in the afternoon in order to obtain the semen sample. She was to drop it off at the doctor’s office on the way back from the airport. Unfortunately he arrived home later than he intended, packed his clothes furiously, and then hurriedly initiated lovemaking, only to find that his erection was not hard enough to prove enjoyable to his wife and that for the first time in his life he could not ejaculate.

Although he told his wife, “It doesn’t make any difference,” it did. With a week to think negatively about his sexual failure, he returned convinced he was impotent. He loved his wife enough to seek help, however, and when he learned more about the function of his reproductive system, he regained confidence in his sex drive. The first good experience with his wife led to another, and finally all thoughts of impotence vanished. Today they enjoy a very fulfilling love life.

Ninety times out of a hundred, impotence can be cured. We are reminded, “As [a man] thinketh in his heart, so is he” (Prov. 23:7
kjv
). The heart is often used to describe the emotional center of the brain, which is the primary motivator of
every organ
of the body. If a man
thinks
he is impotent—he
feels
impotent; if he feels that way—he
is
impotent. A formula would express the problem this way: Impotent thoughts + impotent feelings = impotence. Research indicates that almost all male impotence can be cured.

Copulatory malfunction
is often the first step toward impotence. For any one of several reasons a man may find it impossible to ejaculate after years of successful experiences. After that first malfunction, his fear of another will convince him, “I’m running out of gas!” or “I’m getting too old,” and that fear may bring on subsequent malfunctions. Although he may not have had trouble maintaining an erection before, you can be sure that unless he resolves his fear, similar problems will follow.

Limp penis
is the most common form of impotence and until the last two decades was primarily a problem of middle-aged men. Now, because of the overemphasis on sex in our emotionally pressurized society, it is unfortunately afflicting many younger men today. This kind of impotence cannot always be traced to a single problem but is usually the result of a combination of difficulties.

A rigid penis is absolutely essential for satisfactory consummation of the act of marriage. The male afflicted by limp penis, either before entering the vagina or after, may be completely unaware of its cause. He may have a desire to make love to his wife but experience difficulty in getting his penis hard enough for entrance. He may make a good entrance, moving them both excitedly toward orgasm, when suddenly his penis refuses to cooperate by going soft. It is biologically almost impossible for him to ejaculate while having intercourse unless he can maintain an erection. However, a man’s wife can massage and manipulate him to orgasm with a limp penis, and this may sometimes provide temporary relief of sexual tension.

What Causes Male Impotence?

It is difficult to target a single cause of male impotence, for it usually results from a combination of several factors. Whatever the cause, it produces great emotional torture for any man. The problem is worth careful consideration because an overwhelming number of cases can be cured if the husband and wife are willing to work at it. The first step toward curing this malady is to understand its most common causes.

1.
Loss of vital energy.
Few professional football players remain active players after their fortieth birthday, and, in fact, most of them drop out of the game in their early or mid-thirties. Bones become more brittle, muscles take longer to heal, and their youthful vigor begins to wane. Such men, of course, do not cease being men. Most proceed into other professions and live productive lives.

In similar fashion, a man suffering from male impotence because of a loss of vital energies must not view his malady as a kind of castration. Merely lacking the same intensity of sex drive in his late forties and fifties that he maintained in his twenties should not suggest that he is “sexually all washed up.” Admittedly, somewhere around his forties or fifties he probably will not require the frequency of intercourse he did in his twenties, his penis may not remain as rigid as in previous years, and he may malfunction occasionally—but by no means does that signal
he is through.
In fact, with proper help and understanding from a loving wife, he can learn to experience some of the most satisfying lovemaking experiences of his life.

2.
Anger, bitterness, and resentment.
For years I have directed one leading question to impotent men: Is there anyone in your life whom you dislike? An airline pilot, scarcely thirty years old, came in and, after several embarrassed attempts to tell me his problem, blurted out, “I’m impotent!” Looking at this handsome specimen of humanity built like an athlete, I could hardly believe it.

To my question, “How are things between you and your mother?” he replied with a snarl, “Do we have to talk about her?”

“Since you put it that way, we had better,” I responded.

He proceeded to inform me about “this witch” who masqueraded as his mother. Humanly speaking, he had every right to feel that way, for if she was guilty of only half of what he accused her, she must have been a fiend.

Not until that young man got down on his knees and confessed his bitter hatred for his mother was he able to function normally with his wife. Somehow such hatred is transferred subconsciously from the mother to the wife, totally suppressing a normal sex drive. Impotence is a high price to pay for such bitterness.

Domineering mothers are not the only ones who can effect impotence through hatred. A boss, a neighbor, a father, and of course a wife can spark the same response. Such sinful thoughts and emotions will not only stifle a man’s natural sex drive and cheat him and his wife out of many thrilling expressions of love, but it will also keep him a spiritual pygmy all his life. Our Lord said, “For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you” (Matt. 6:14). Dealing spiritually with extreme bitterness provides the only therapy we know that is effective. Someone has sagely said, “Love or perish.”

3.
Fear.
Men are seldom really what they appear to be: confident, controlled, and manly. Beneath that façade may be a fear of becoming impotent. As stated previously, the male ego is closely tied to his sex drive. Some men have induced impotence by the fear that they cannot satisfy their wives. For that reason a wise woman goes out of her way to let her husband know how much she enjoys his lovemaking.

Researchers in this field almost invariably report that fear of castration is a universal problem with men. Most men give it only a fleeting thought, but with some it becomes a phobia. Since it lurks in the subconscious mind of every man, one can really appreciate why the first middle-age malfunction is mentally magnified out of proportion and leads to additional problems of impotence. Once this fear of failure grips a man, only with great difficulty can he shake it off; however, by prayer, education, and tender loving care it can be dispelled. Just as surely as a piece of metal falling across a high-voltage line can short-circuit the normal flow of electricity, so fear can short-circuit a man’s sex drive.

When a throbbing, rigid penis suddenly goes limp for no apparent reason, we may suspect that the brain is the culprit. Fear has done it again!

In spite of the bravado he maintains and the “sexually all wise” image he likes to project, a man is regularly plagued with five great sexual fears.

(a)
The fear of rejection.
Depending on his temperament and the past responses of his wife to his advances, a man often approaches his wife with a deep-rooted fear that he will be rejected. Naturally there are times when she really is “too tired” or “not feeling well tonight,” but it is important that she be very honest. If her husband is a sensitive man, she had better make sure she convinces him that the problem lies with her, not with him, lest his subconscious fear of rejection cause him to interpret her refusal to mean that she does not find him sexually stimulating. A man cannot accept being unattractive to his wife. Nothing is worse for his male ego. Wives have confided that such rejection has turned their husbands off for weeks.

(b)
The fear that he will not be able to satisfy his wife.
Recent studies indicate that a man finds it very frustrating when his wife is not satisfied in the act of marriage. This likewise seems to threaten his manhood. A wise wife will verbally make her pleasure known to her husband, as well as informing him in other subtle ways.

(c)
The fear of being compared with other men.
This basic masculine fear should never be a problem for Christians, since the Bible clearly teaches virtue and chastity before marriage. If you violated that standard, or if you were previously married,
never
let yourself express such a comparison. (Even a mature Christian has a difficult time completely forgetting this violation of God’s perfect plan.) One man I know hounded his wife until she finally admitted that her deceased husband was more sexually satisfying than he. But that confession caused inexpressible heartache, and they finally ended up in my office for counseling.

(d)
The fear that he will lose his erection.
To a large degree, satisfying lovemaking is dependent on the husband’s ability to maintain an erection. A limp penis is unsatisfactory to both partners and humiliating to the husband.

(e)
The fear of not being able to ejaculate.
Until he has experienced his first ejaculatory malfunction, no man ever dreams this could happen to him. That first experience is so devastating that recurring fear may create a neurosis that can render a perfectly normal man impotent.

4.
Ridicule.
A man simply cannot accept ridicule—and a wise woman will never subject him to it. Particularly is that true of anything associated with his masculinity, and even more so his sex apparatus. It is a strange quirk of nature, but almost every engorged penis is the same size (six to eight inches), no matter how large the man. However, the soft penis will measure anywhere from two inches to eight inches in length. Research has yet to explain adequately why some shrink more than others, but one can be certain that if a man is small when soft, he fears being inadequate. However, the male organ need only be two to three inches long to do a superlative job of lovemaking, for the only part of the inner vagina that is sensitive to touch or pressure extends from the outer lips to approximately two to three inches inside.