A Guide to Sexual Dysfunction

Sexual dysfunction is when you have difficulty at any stage of sexual activity that prevents you, your partner, or both of you from enjoying or performing the act.

This article will define sexual dysfunction. It will also discuss the different types of sexual dysfunction, the causes, and treatments.

By Mandy Baker

What is sexual dysfunction?

Sexual dysfunction is when you have difficulty having or enjoying sexual activity, and it concerns you. It is the result of an issue within your response cycle. The sexual response cycle has various stages:

  • excitement, which includes arousal and desire
  • plateau
  • orgasm
  • resolution

Sexual dysfunction affects people of both sexes assigned at birth. It is also fairly common, affecting over 40% of females and 30% of males. While it can occur at any age, sexual dysfunction is more common among those ages 40–65 years.

Many people avoid talking with their doctor about sexual dysfunction out of embarrassment and discomfort. However, treatments are available to help the issue. If you are experiencing sexual dysfunction, contact your doctor and be open with them so they can suggest the most effective treatment for you.

What are the types of sexual dysfunction?

There are four main categories of sexual dysfunction. These categories include:

  • Desire disorders: These involve your desire and interest in sex. They are also known as low libido or libido disorders.
  • Arousal disorders: This type of disorder means it is difficult or impossible for you to become sexually aroused.
  • Orgasm disorders: These disorders involve delayed or absent orgasms.
  • Pain disorders: These disorders involve pain during intercourse.

There are various types of sexual dysfunction disorders within each category. Some are more common than others.

Hypoactive sexual desire disorder

Hypoactive sexual desire disorder (HSDD) is one of the most common sexual dysfunction disorders. HSDD is sometimes a lifelong condition. It can affect anyone.

If you are experiencing HSDD, it means you have little to no sex drive and do not have much interest in sex in general. Someone with HSDD typically shows the following signs:

  • having little to no thoughts or sexual fantasies
  • having no response to sexual suggestions or signals
  • experiencing a loss of desire for sex in the middle of it
  • avoiding sex completely

Erectile dysfunction

Erectile dysfunction (ED) is when you have difficulty getting or maintaining an erection. It is the most common sexual dysfunction males visit their doctor for, affecting more than 30 million people.

It is not uncommon for most males to experience ED from time to time, especially after age 40. However, it becomes an issue when it is progressive or begins to happen more routinely.

ED can be a warning sign of cardiovascular disease. It can also cause:

  • low self-esteem
  • depression
  • distress within the individual and their partner

ED is treatable. Contact your doctor if you are experiencing ED and it is affecting your life or relationships.

Orgasm disorder

It is not uncommon for people, especially females, to have difficulty orgasming from time to time. However, it is more of an issue when:

  • you do not have orgasms
  • it takes a long time for you to orgasm
  • you do not orgasm as often as you would like
  • your orgasms are not as strong as you would like or expect
  • you feel sad, anxious, or concerned

Genital arousal disorder

Genital arousal disorder is when you have difficulty becoming or staying aroused. In females, this often means that the desire to become aroused may be there. However, your body, mind, or both do not react as expected.

These issues with arousal may come from emotional issues, behavioral issues, or an underlying medical condition. Speak with your doctor to help discover the underlying issues and get treatment.

Vulvodynia

Vulvodynia is persistent pain in the vulva that is not due to an infection or other medical condition. The pain typically lasts for at least 3 months. However, it can become a long-term issue as well.

Pain in the vulva area is the main symptom of vulvodynia. This pain may be:

  • burning, stinging, or throbbing
  • sore
  • triggered by touch
  • worse when sitting
  • constantly present in the background
  • widespread

If you are experiencing unexplained pain, contact your doctor.

Premature ejaculation

Premature ejaculation is when you ejaculate sooner than you would like or expect during sexual activity. In the United States, 1 in 3 males between the ages 18–59 experience premature ejaculation.

Premature ejaculation is not always a cause for worry. However, if it is happening routinely, is causing issues in your relationship, or concerns you, contact your doctor.

What are the symptoms of sexual dysfunction?

The symptoms of sexual dysfunction vary depending on the person and the cause of the dysfunction. Some common symptoms do occur, however.

Signs in both males and females

Both males and females may experience:

  • difficulty becoming aroused
  • a lack of sexual desire
  • pain during intercourse

Signs in males

Males with sexual dysfunction may experience:

  • inability to achieve or maintain an erection
  • delayed or absent ejaculation
  • premature ejaculation

Signs in females

Females may experience:

  • vaginal dryness
  • inability to achieve orgasm
  • pain that may be due to vaginal spasm or inflammation of the vulva
  • What causes sexual dysfunction?

    Many possible issues can contribute to the development of sexual dysfunction. These include:

    How do you treat sexual dysfunction?

    Treatment for sexual dysfunction mostly depends on its type and cause. Speak with your doctor to diagnose the underlying cause and find the most effective treatment for you.

    Treatments for sexual dysfunction include:

    • Medication: Medications to treat underlying medical conditions can help sexual dysfunction as well. Certain medications, such as viagra or hormone replacements, may also help. The effectiveness of certain medications depends on the cause.
    • Mechanical aids: Vacuum devices, penis pumps, and penile implants are all possible options if you have trouble achieving or maintaining an erection. For females who experience muscle tightening or spasms, special dilators may help.
    • Therapy: Both psychotherapy and sex therapy can help treat the psychological causes of sexual dysfunction.

    Self-help tips for sexual dysfunction

    Ways you can help yourself with sexual dysfunction include:

    • being open with your partner
    • masturbating
    • limiting your use of alcohol or drugs
    • stopping smoking
    • using lubricants
    • exploring using sex toys
    • limiting your stress
    • exercising regularly
    • practicing kegel exercises

    Summary

    Sexual dysfunction is not uncommon. Both males and females experience it. Many find it embarrassing and uncomfortable to talk about.

    However, many issues that cause sexual dysfunction are treatable. Therefore, speaking with your doctor can help. Being open with your partner about the issues can help your sexual dysfunction and your relationship.

    Sexual dysfunction may be a sign of an underlying medical condition. Contact your doctor if you are experiencing signs of sexual dysfunction and it is causing you concern or affecting your relationships.

  • Complete Article HERE!

Sobriety & Sex

Name: Gregg
Gender: Male
Age: 40
Location: Seattle
Since getting sober now almost 8 years ago I am very tense about sex and I feel as though I have lost my mojo. I am unable to relax and be intimate with a man and I am thinking I need an intimacy coach or sex coach, or something. Perhaps someone with tantra training who can help me find a comfort level with my body again and being touched and touching another.

Hey, thanks for your interesting question. Sadly, yours is not an uncommon concern. In fact, I just finished an 8-week group for men in recovery who were dealing with similar intimacy issues. A lot of the work we did together was helping one another reestablish a sense of trust.

legs & bootsSo many of us gay men start out our sexual lives with alcohol and/or drugs to help us overcome our inhibitions as well as a means of dulling some of the anti-gay messaging that comes to us from the world around us. Sometimes, the substances take hold of us and instead of we being in control the substances are in control. There was one guy in the group I just mentioned who is in his 5o’s, and he confessed to the group that before he got clean and sober, a couple years ago, he had never had sex sober. And he had been sexually active since his early twenties.

Substance abuse can rob us of more than just our dignity. It often effects our sexual response cycle in ways that diminish our ability to enjoy our sexuality. Men often report erection problems and women report arousal phase problems when they come off booze and or drugs. This, as you suggest, impacts on our comfort level in all intimate situations. If our parts aren’t working like we would want them to, we’d rather avoid intimate contact rather than be embarrassed. So, in other words, when we rid ourselves of the substances that once enabled us, we often need to relearn how to be ourselves, particularly in intimate situations.

Learning to trust others enough to open ourselves to others, even with our “brokenness,” is the key to regaining our sense of sexual self. We need to learn how to overcome our shame, which often gets in the way of reaching out to others. And if some of our shame is unresolved internalized homophobia, well then, we really have some work to do.tit bite

I think you’ve hit upon the perfect solution to your pressing problem. Working with a sex coach or intimacy coach is definitely one way to go. For those challenged, as you are, verbal therapy is great. But there is no substitute for actual hands-on therapy.

I know several people who have been helped by a surrogate partner or a sexual healer. I applaud you for thinking so creatively. Of course, finding the right person to work with will be a challenge. And I should mention that other helping professionals, even some sexologists, do not always look upon these kinds of interventions as legitimate. That’s a pity, but what are ya gonna do.

As you know, there are loads of sex workers out there. Unfortunately, very few have the training needed to provide surrogate partner therapy, or understand the delicate issues that a trained sexual healer must deal with. I hope you find what you are looking for.

If you need someone to discuss this with further, give me a shout. You’ll find my contact information on either the ABOUT page or the THERAPY AVAILABLE page in the header above.

Good luck

Where went the wood?

Name: bob
Gender: Male
Age: 26
Location: pa
(Never happened before) But I couldn’t get it up tonight, and this chick was H OT. Now I’m not gay at all, but I haven’t had sex in about 3 years because I was locked up…so I masturbated pretty regularly about 3 or 4 times a week. But I can’t figure out why I was soft… the only thing I can think of is “I ate clams tonight and I’ve never had them before. Could it be that or should I get checked out?

It weren’t the clams, my friend! And I don’t think you need to get check out, either…at least not right away. If you could back away from the situation a little bit and stop freakin’ out. I think you’d discover the source of your problem all on your own.

Here’s the thing, while you were out of commission, there in the jailhouse, you relied on, as you say, jerkin’ off. Ok, cool. We all gotta get by somehow. Now the first time you try to score after your release; you go soft. This tells me you have a mild case of performance anxiety. We all get that from time to time.dessert

There’s probably nothing wrong with you or with your johnson. You just got the jitters first time you tried to get you some fine pussy after bein’ away, that’s all.

The anticipation of bonin’ this HOT chick, fueled by some predictable self-consciousness; what with just gettin out of the slammer and all, pulled the plug on your wood. No surprise there, right?

What I don’t want to see happen is for you to replay the incident over and over in your mind’s eye till that’s all I can think about. Hey, maybe that’s already happening. If it is, this proverbial molehill will, sure enough, become a mountain. You’ll then bring all this anxiety to your next encounter. Setting you up for even more disappointment. You can see how this shit can snowball, right?

If you interpret every less than satisfying encounter as a failure, your fears will become self-fulfilling. You’ll begin to avoid partnered sex and you’ll develop a full-blown sexual dysfunction. Your self-esteem will take a nosedive too.

If you are preoccupied with your performance, it’s less likely that you’ll be fully present during sex with a partner. This pretty much fucks up your sexual responsiveness and any hope for spontaneity. Don’t let this happen to you, Bob. Why not just relax into the whole sex thing and not try to prove your manhood or your sexual prowess with your pecker?

Good luck

Dude dilemmas…

Name: Mike P
Gender:
Age: 25
Location: LA
My girlfriend needs to watch lesbian porn to get off and sometimes kicks me out of the bedroom to masturbate by herself. Initially I was turned on by her desire to watch porn — but now — it’s become a blockage. She always needs porn. I am frustrated and to make things worse — she has started abusing me through financial manipulation. She makes me pay her rent — pay for her food, pay for everything — and she never gives me nookie.
Should I leave this woman?

Time to wake up, fella! Your “girlfriend” — and you’ll notice I put that term in quotes — is decidedly not YOUR girlfriend, and possibly not any dude’s girlfriend.

I’m gonna go way out on a limb here and say; I think your “girlfriend” is a certifiable, died-in-the wool, muff-divin’, coozie-lovin’ lesbitarian. All that’s really left for her to do to make the picture perfectly clear…even for you, is to show up one day in a mullet and a plaid flannel shirt. Holy cow, Mike, how is it that you are missing the obvious?

Listen, bub, it’s clear to me, you’re excess baggage. She keeps you around for comic relief…oh and to foot the bill.

Should you leave this woman, you ask. Honey, she’s beaten you to the punch on that one. She’s long gone and left you way behind, at least emotionally and sexually. All that’s left for you to do is find the door and say good-bye to this embarrassing situation.

Name: Leslie
Gender:
Age: 46
Location: Brisbane
Will bicycling make me impotent?

YIKES Leslie, what kind of bike riding are you doing that would put such a notion in your head?

My initial response to your question, of course, was a wisecrack. “Sure, bike riding will make you impotent if you get your balls caught in the spokes. Throw those things over your shoulder when you ride, for christ sake!”

Then I thought to myself, “Wait, what does Leslie mean by impotent?” I know lots of people confuse and/or conflate the two very different concepts of impotency and sterility. So maybe this is an opportunity to sort this out some.

Impotence is characterized by a dude’s inability to develop or maintain an erection. And I suppose extreme bike riding, like the kind I often see on TV, could possibly cause this condition. Especially, if you are knocking your cock around enough to cause your darling little willie serious injury.

Male sterility, on the other hand, is the inability of the male reproductive system (a dude’s balls, basically) to produce enough (or even any live) sperm for the purpose of impregnation. The reason I bring this up is, I know fertility specialists are very concerned about men wearing tight-fitting underwear and pants for long periods of time. (We used to call these cheap hotel pants — there’s no ballroom! Get it?) Tight fitting garments elevate a man’s nuts to the base of his pelvis, which in turn increases the temperature in his huevos. Too much heat kills the little juniors in our baby-batter, don’t cha know!

The reason evolution designed our family jewels to reside outside our bodies and actually hang off of and away from our bodies is so that all our adorable little sperm buddies can stay relatively cool and comfortable till they blissfully shoot out of our dick into a vagina, asshole, condom or Kleenex.

Tighty-whities and all such things, particular those obscenely clingy spandex (which is basically glorified plastic) bike shorts makes things even hotter.  They’re notorious sperm killers! So in a way, Leslie, yes, biking can make you sterile if not impotent.

Good Luck ya’ll!

Room With A View

Look for my new

Video Reviews!

This week we have two great titles: COUPLES MASTURBATION and EVERY COUPLE CAN.

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“I think we can all agree that there’s nothing more fundamental to a happy and healthy sex life than masturbation. Dr. Michael Perry. Ph.D., ACS, the producer of these fine movies, introduces the concept of masturbating with and for your partner.”

d306.jpg

“This R-rated video (EVERY COUPLE CAN) has much more of a story line than the previous one. First we meet Sam and Marie, a sexually frustrated couple. Sam turns to a sex surrogate to learn how to overcome his sexual problems in the hopes he’ll be able to save his marriage. Sam’s friend Trevor and his wife are having sexual difficulties too. What a surprise! “

…full reviews here

Strangers In The Night, Part 1

And now, we turn our attention to our first crop of anonymous submissions.

Name: MIke P
Gender:
Age: 25
Location: Los Angeles
My girlfriend needs to watch lesbian porn to get off and sometimes kicks me out of the bedroom to masturbate by herself. Initially I was turned on by her desire to watch porn — but now — it’s become a blockage. She always needs porn. I am frustrated and to make things worse — she has started abusing me through financial manipulation. I have to pay her rent — pay for her food, pay everything — and she never gives me nookie.
Should I leave this woman?

Hey Mike,Time to wake up, fella! Your “girlfriend” — and you notice I put that inlesbian_tickle.jpg quotes — is decidedly not YOUR girlfriend, and possibly not any man’s girlfriend. I’m gonna go way out on a limb here and say; I think your “girlfriend” is a certifiable, died-in-the wool, muff-divin’, coozie-lovin’ lesbitarian. All that’s really left for her to do to make the picture perfectly clear…even to you, is to show up one day in a mullet and a plaid flannel shirt. Holy cow, mike, how is it that you are missing the obvious?

Listen, bub, it’s clear to me, you’re excess baggage. She keeps you around for comic relief…oh and to foot the bill.

Should you leave this woman, you ask. Honey, she’s beaten you to the punch on that one. She’s long gone and left you way behind, at least emotionally and sexually. All that’s left for you to do is find the door and say good-bye to this embarrassing situation.

Good luck!

Name: leslie
Gender:
Age: 46
Location: Brisbane
Will bicycling make me impotent?

YIKES Leslie, what kind of bike riding are you doing that would put such a notion in your head?

img_6549.JPGMy initial response to your question, of course, was a wisecrack. “Sure, bike riding will make you impotent if you get your balls caught in the spokes. Throw those things over your shoulder when you ride, for christ sake!”

Then I thought to myself, “Wait, what does Leslie mean by impotent?” I know lots of people confuse and/or conflate the two very different concepts of impotency and sterility. So maybe this is an opportunity to sort this out some.

Impotence is characterized by the inability to develop or maintain an erection. And I suppose extreme bike riding, like the kind I see on TV, could possibly cause this condition. Especially, if you were knocking your cock around enough to cause your darling little willie serious injury.

Male sterility, on the other hand, is the inability of the male reproductive system (a guys’s balls, basically) to produce enough (or even any live) sperm for the purpose of impregnation. The reason I bring this up is, I know fertility specialists are very concerned about men wearing tight-fitting underwear and pants for long periods of time. (We used to call these cheap hotel pants — there’s not ballroom! Get it?) Tight fitting garments elevate a man’s balls to the base of his pelvis, which in turn increases the temperature in his balls. Too much heat kills our little juniors, don’t cha know!

The reason evolution designed our gonads to reside outside our bodies and actually hang off of and away from our bodies is so that all our cute little sperm buddies can stay relatively cool and comfortable till they blissfully shoot out of our dick into a vagina, ass-hole, condom or Kleenex.

Tighty-whities and all such things, particular those obscenely clingy Spandex — which is basically plastic — making things even hotter — bike shorts are notorious sperm killers! So in a way, Leslie, yes, biking can make you sterile if not impotent.

Good Luck!

PS: take a look at this: http://www.travelblogs.com/dougdo/world_naked_bike_ride.htm

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