I was checking news about prostate cancer on the internet last week and came across this post written by a man who’d been treated for prostate cancer: “I am a victim of nerve damage. It has been 17 years without sex. Please help me.”
This is such an unnecessarily sad and painful response to the loss of erectile functioning. The word “victim” signals an abandonment of hope and action, and the “17 years without sex” explains why.
There’s a pervasive conventional wisdom—or idea of “normality”—that equates “sex,” for men, with “erections”. And not just any old erections, but regular, hard, on-demand, erections. If you think about most conversations about sex, and just about all jokes about sex, that is the premise: sex (with a man) involves erections. Without an erection, no sex, and possibly even no “man”.
Yes, erections are wonderful things. Enjoying them when they are possible and available can be a lovely idea. But if you no longer have spontaneous and natural erections, of course you are likely to feel all sorts of things—embarrassment, sadness, grief, frustration. There will be a period of mourning and adjustment.
For some, medical solutions may provide a happy compromise: pills, injections, vacuum pumps, prostheses, penile implants. But these don’t appeal to or work for all men.
So what is sex, then, if it isn’t about erections? Well, the answer to that is only limited by the imagination and experimentation of the parties involved. Men can have pleasure (and even orgasms) without an erection. Women can, and frequently do, have pleasure (and orgasms) that are not the result of anything to do with a man’s erection. In fact, some women may no longer really enjoy penetrative sex anyhow, and may experience greater pleasure from other kinds of physical intimacy.
“Only an erection will do” is such a limited view of what sex can involve, and what it can
offer. Sex is, in fact, much more than a linear equation that begins with an erection for him, and ends in an orgasm for one or both parties. It is not a train with one destination, running along the same old tracks every journey. Or, at its best, it needn’t be.
So, treatment for prostate cancer doesn’t have to be an iron gate with “Abandon hope, all ye who enter here,” welded to it. If you still want to enjoy being sexual, it’s eminently possible. Talk to your partner. Experiment. Find some good books. A qualified professional therapist can provide much-needed guidance for your journey, too.
You might just discover that the “new normal” is much more than you had imagined or hoped for.
