Dear Penis, Why Do You Hate Me?
*contains adult themes and language*
Erectile Dysfunction, why's it so hard to talk about? (Pun fully intended).
2012 seemed to be my 'gas leak year'. What with all of my extra health problems making an appearance around this time, one of which being erectile dysfunction.
It reared its ugly head slowly and quietly. When enjoying some alone time, I started to notice subtle changes. It wouldn't remain hard for the entire duration or it would take longer for me to get to that place. The first time it really became prominent, was with a girl I was seeing. We met while I was in Hull and we hit it off. One night, we were in my caravan, (romantic, I know), and the night was heading in the right direction. The mood was right and we got down to business. But something was amiss... I couldn't quite maintain the performance standard needed for the job in hand. What was going on? I started to have internal meltdowns, this had never happened to me before without alcohol being involved. Maybe it was nerves, no it couldn't be that. Thoughts started to whirl through my mind. I managed to finish the task but not without feeling like I'd somehow gotten it wrong. I wasn't satisfied but mainly because I couldn't stop my mind from racing.
As a younger man, I was quite virile and very sexually charged. I didn't lose my virginity until I was 19, always professing that I was waiting for the right person. This was true but also a way of saying I just hadn't found anyone who wanted to do it with me either.
After this incident in Hull it went downhill. Slowly, I went from being able to have a full erection 90% of the time to not being able to ejaculate and then eventually not getting anything at all.
0% success rate.
I flitted between girls trying to find a cure in one of them, from dating an exuberant 18 year old to having one night stands, which I had never done before and didn't really enjoy if I'm honest. There's something special about sex for me, that closeness and passion between two people. Yes, you can experience that with someone you've just met and it may blossom into something beautiful but the next day, nine times out of ten, it ends with an awkward goodbye, an exchange of numbers and a hangover. That wasn't who I was.
It became common knowledge among my friends that I was struggling with my prowess and like anything else that had happened to me before, I made jokes about it. I let everyone else know it was ok to laugh at this and it was ok to take the piss. Every time someone mentioned the word 'hard' in a sentence I would await the inevitable, "ha, unlike Matt!", and I would laugh along. It didn't bother me too much while I was single because I had discovered that I enjoyed bringing other people joy and pleasure, as I do with this blog but in a different way, obviously. So for me, the act of foreplay became my sex. It became a way of release to let people know that yes, I couldn't have sex but I can still damn well make you leave with a smile.
For years I wondered if it would ever be fixed. People telling me that it was probably just a phase, it would definitely get better or that it was all in my mind. The thing was, nobody was giving me a cause or a solution. I was lost...
I had been to see a Urologist and they had given me viagra to try out. This resulted in warm feet and a blocked nose, two of the many possible side effects but still no erection. They then moved to Cialis, a more potent form of viagra and the product of many a website hack attempt and spam email. This just did the same, no erection present, just hot feet and a headache.
I still wasn't being told what had caused this though. There were speculations of the diabetes being the aggressor or maybe it was all in my head. When asked if I'd suffered any emotional trauma, even as far back as 3 or 4 years ago, I mentioned that I had gone through a particularly horrific break up that had, for all intents and purposes, left me broken for a long time. Years after this incident I still found it hard to put my trust in someone to let them in to my life. Maybe this was the cause, but that's all I was being told, 'maybe'.
We then moved to something a bit more drastic; Alprostadil injections. Yes, injections. No, not like taking my insulin with a 4mm needle and injecting into any fatty areas. Injecting directly into the shaft with a needle that was a good centimetre or more in length.
This drug makes the blood vessels expand. That boosts blood flow throughout the body, including the penis allowing for an erection. The first time I tried it was actually at the hospital. I had to do it then and there in front of my doctor to show her I was doing it correctly and that I wasn't going to damage anything in the process. Ten minutes later, I was Travolta in Saturday Night Fever. Strutting the halls of the RUH, Bath, like a god amongst men. With a semi-erection. I felt on top of the world and was luckily wearing tight jeans so nothing was too obvious!
A month or so after this, I met my then-girlfriend. We hit it off but we took our time to get together. I was still cagey with trust issues and had a consistent nagging thought in the back of my mind, "Who would want me?". In my mind, I was broken. If I were an animal it would have been cruel to keep me alive. I had type one diabetes that wasn't under control and had left me hospitalised a number of times, I frequently spent more time on the toilet than with friends due to my stomach problems which also led me to have accidents in my sleep and now on top of this, I wasn't a real man. That's how I felt, I felt like I wasn't a real man. What sort of man can't get an erection? What sort of man can't make love to a woman? It was a pointless appendage used only for pissing.
However, My girlfriend knew all of this. Even before we officially became a couple, she knew all of my flaws. We worked together on what could be done. When we made love for the first time, I used the injection. It worked but it felt wrong, not the act itself, just that I had to be like, 'ok, hold on, stop the foreplay I need to inject this giant bloody needle into my cock so we can actually have sex like normal people'. I hated that. Eventually though, the injection became less potent and for a day or so afterward I would feel an excruciating ache where the blood vessels had expanded and where the fluid had been injected directly into the shaft. It became too much, I couldn't do it any longer. I gave up.
I was given a pump by my Urologist and told that it was to be used similarly to going to the gym. As you may know, muscular dystrophy occurs when you don't move for long periods of time. The penis is no exception. Morning glory serves as a way of stretching the muscle every day and it's important and healthy to achieve an erection in order for it to stay strong. Therefore, the longer I went without an erection, the weaker the muscle became. Again though, this contraption made me feel even less of a man. Having to use something that had been the butt of many jokes in popular culture throughout my teens. See Austin Powers for example. I was actually having to use a cock pump...
It wasn't until a drunken evening with friends, me and my girlfriend had gone to bed and began fooling around, that she took it upon herself to give it her best shot at making me happy. To both our surprises, it worked. Not in the way you might expect though. It turns out, in a bizarre twist, that even without an erection it is still possible to achieve an orgasm! Who knew! I didn't, because it's not something that is discussed or openly available as information, even on the internet! This was a revelation. A miracle if you will. It led to us experimenting and find new ways of experiencing what I thought I never would again and almost having something that felt normal.
Don't get me wrong, this doesn't have much of a happy ending to it I'm afraid. It still doesn't work and it still gets to me. I've had breakdowns where I've had to stop in the throws of passion because I can't get out of my own head. Thoughts of 'What if she gets bored of this', 'what if she wants a real man with equipment that actually works', 'what if there's someone out there who is compatible with her and can also have proper sex'. These thoughts are a poison. Thoughts of "If she were at a party without me, what if she found a guy who's essentially more of a man than I?" I didn't and still don't feel complete. Sometimes i feel as though I'm the consolation prize, awarded for effort.
Another major concern for me is the future. What happens if/when it comes time to think of starting a family..? Go back in time and ask 18 year old me what would be the worst thing to be told and I shit you not, his answer was always "That I can't have children." What sort of shitty plot twist is that..?
All I've ever wanted is a family, it always comes first before anything else but now I'm faced with a very real possibility that it might not happen. Yes, I can orgasm but I still can't ejaculate. I know there are many people out there unable to have children who cope with it and are living their lives normally but when you're faced with it yourself, it's a tough realisation to confront.
But, no matter what this world throws at me, I have people around me to help carry my load, (terrible pun), and keep me moving forwards in life.
Thank you for taking the time to read this post. You'd be surprised at how many people suffer in silence with problems like this. Please share and let others know that you're there should they need someone to talk to. It wasn't easy writing this post without cracking jokes as a defence mechanism every other paragraph and being 100% transparent about it all but I feel it's important to know exactly what it's like to have issues that aren't immediately apparent. I hope I gave you a bit of a deeper insight into what's behind the smile and the jokes.
Thanks for reading,
Matt.