What if I can’t get it up? - excited but anxious, Berlin, Germany

What if I can’t get it up?

Hi Rosie, I am a 45-year-old single man who is new to the scene. I can't wait to attend my first event and play with couples, but what if I can’t get hard? Is this normal in the lifestyle?

Signed, excited but anxious, Berlin, Germany

Hi, Excited but anxious.

Thanks for your message! First of all, it is important to recognise that so many things have to be right for a man to get an erection. So, it pays to know exactly what is going on within your body to give yourself the best chance of getting hard.

Hormones need to be released, and your arteries need to be working efficiently to carry blood to your penis. Your nervous system needs to be working, and the mind and body need to be communicating in perfect harmony. Luckily, your body does all this automatically, but there are things you can do to help yourself along the way.

Now, I don’t have a penis, and I don’t know what it is like not to be able to get hard. However, I have been with enough men and been in enough swinger situations over the years to have experienced their frustrations first-hand.

First of all, cut yourself some slack. No man has ever walked into a swingers club and instantly got hard, stayed hard, orgasmed multiple times, and got boner after boner. Well, he might, but there’s no way that he has achieved this without medical intervention. I have been in situations where I have been having sex with a guy, and, for no apparent reason, he has lost his erection.

The best thing we can do in this situation is simply not make a big deal out of it. It happens. It is part and parcel of having sex. Men lose their erections.

Suppose you feel you’re losing your erection. In that case, suggesting you enjoy other intimacies, such as oral sex or masturbation, can be a great way to still be intimate without the pressure of having penetrative sex.

Feeling under ‘pressure’ to perform is damaging, especially for first-time male swingers. If you have never been to a club or swingers party, then there’s a good chance that in your mind, the expectation on you to be hard and remain hard is a given. Let me clarify a few things: firstly, no one has sex for hours on end. You can play with people for a time, stop, grab a drink, chat, meet other people, play with them, and then relax again.

I’ve never been to a party where it’s been straight down to business, sex, solid for 4 hours! In a club, it’s pretty much the same; you chat, you have sex, you have a drink, you have sex again.

I’m sure I don’t need to tell you that excess drinking, drugs (both illegal and some prescription medication), stress, anxiety and poor lifestyle contribute to erectile dysfunction in male swingers. Feeling distracted, under pressure to perform, stressed or anxiously worrying about how you look will all have a negative impact on your sexual enjoyment. Of course, you can take pills to help maintain your erection, and you should always discuss this with a pharmacist or your doctor before deciding to use them.

I have had male partners in the past who have bought Viagra and used it when we attended clubs together. The results were as expected but always speak to a medical professional before taking them. I don’t want to nag you; that’s not what I’m here for, I promise, but sometimes (and this doesn’t just apply to men), understanding what’s going on inside our bodies and taking care of ourselves so that we can enjoy sex is so important. When we feel good inside, it shows on the outside.

Cutting back on smoking, drinking and fatty food and doing some cardiovascular activity will help to get that blood pumping to all the right places. The most important thing to remember is that the pressure you place on yourself will always be your worst enemy. We are our own worst critics; we always focus on what we should have done, how we could have done better and what other people are doing compared to ourselves. The judgement we fall victim to very often comes only from ourselves.

There’s a huge double standard when it comes to sexual performance, with men being expected to last a long time and have a lot more stamina than females. And whilst many men may have a lot of sexual stamina, always remember that there isn’t a right or wrong way to have sex.

Rosie x

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