My Erectile Dysfunction

One day In 1998 I “couldn’t get it up”. It was very sobering, challenging, painful and unexpected. There was no “excuse” such as alcohol. My partner accepted me, but I felt very bad.

I’ve adjusted as I’ve aged over the past 22+ years. Perhaps 10 years ago I stopped being able to have traditional intercourse, after intermittent marginal successes with it.

I looked for writings by men about their similar experiences. I found nothing beyond commercial pushes for “miracle cures”.

I went to a urologist. For a while Viagra helped me some of the time. Gradually, its effect lessoned. Eventually I stopped taking it

Years later I injected medication into my penis (very scary at first) and also had limited success. Not wanting the final option, where I would artificially inflate my penis with a pump, I’ve lived reasonably comfortably without further interventions.

In 2012 — I wrote of my experiences in Voice Male Magazine (subsequently published in a book of Magazine writings) — see: https://voicemalemagazine.org/living-and-loving-with-erectile-dysfunction/ as well as on several personal blogs.

Each blog writing generated more responses than I got from all my other writing put together. 90% of the responses were rote, worthless sales pitches for “Miracle Cures” (sic).

Some years ago I was a member of an email support group. It was mostly female partners/ex-partners of men with e.d. Most commonly, their men were ashamed of their…