How does anxiety affect one’s sex life?
That’s a question I’ve been contemplating recently, having realised that when it comes to my choice in partners -- many, if not all, I suspect, have struggled with anxiety. I don’t know this for certain; it’s more of a gut instinct borne out of surrounding myself with anxious people for decades. Not that I even knew how anxiety manifested itself until fairly recently, as a result of becoming more familiar with the multitude of mental health issues that can impact being able to get through life without significant discomfort. Talking to over 250 therapists, counsellors, and relationship experts has rubbed off on me in more ways than I could ever have imagined!
Back when I was younger, like so many others of my generation, there wasn’t much awareness of mental health, and I recoil thinking of my offhand response, such as ‘You just need to be more positive,’ to a friend or relative telling me that they were struggling to get out of bed, to focus, to finish a task they’d been assigned to do. I didn’t understand how anxiety turns up in everyday life – from not being comfortable in social situations, to perfectionism that can be misread as laziness, to not being able to get a hard on. Nowadays, I like to think I’m much more sympathetic and aware of anxiety and how, despite our best intentions, our thoughts can sabotage whatever we’re trying to achieve and, in particular, how this anxiety manifests as a performance issue in the bedroom.
According to Robert Pyke’s research paper, Sexual Performance Anxiety, published in Sexual Medicine Reviews, “SPA affects 9–25% of men and contributes to premature ejaculation and psychogenic erectile dysfunction (ED). SPA affects 6–16% of women and severely inhibits sexual desire.” Potentially that’s a quarter of all men!
