2hands+: Ageing and sexual decline - be prepared...(part 2)
My responses to the collapse:
My immediate response to my sexual collapse was to drastically reduce my alcohol intake, and start taking regular exercise. These things helped me reduce weight and get in form. Today I can say that to look at me you would probably have no idea that I was as sexually declined as I am. My sexual response level does not fit with the rest of my body (except with the head of gray hair which seems to have been the main colateral consequence of this process of collapse).
Neither cutting out the alcohol or the exercise, benificial though they probably were, appear to have had the slightest impact on the process of sexual decline. Indeed none of the innumerable small changes we have made in our lives has had the remotest effect. The downhill slide continues steadily on its way.
What you might ask was my response to all this. Well, the first response was profound shock. This was followed by a deep sense of sadness. This was a turning point in my life for which I was not remotely prepared. I knew vaguely that sexuality declined with age, but simply expected that the very slow decline which had occurred up to 48 years of age would continue at about the same rate.
Nothing prepared me for the collapse. When it came it was almost instantaneous. It could happen to any one of you tomorrow or next week. Maybe for you it wontīt be so sudden. I hope not.
One of the most enduring responses was a sensation which I can only describe as being like what I imagine it must be like to suffer an amputation. In all those endless situations in which my body used to respond sexually in some way or other there was suddenly nothing. A kind of physical memory profoundly expected something to happen. Each and every time this happened I was jolted back to my new reality. This sense of physical loss lasted about 2 years. Today that physical memory of what my sexual responses used to be is now almost completely deleted.
Today I am just a perfectly healthy, otherwise fully functioning guy, with no sexual responses. Nothing else (apart from my hair (and my teeth!)) seem to have aged much at all. Physically I am as fit as 10 or 15 years ago, I donīt use glasses, my skin is excellent, and my thought processes and memory seem just as they have always been.
The medical industry:
After the initial 3 week "shutdown" I went running to an urologist. As fast as I said the word erection he said Viagra. That basically sums up the medical industryīs contribution to the situation. The doctors are either not interested, very uncomfortable, ignorant and ill-informed, or simply repeat what they have been told in endless Pfizer seminars. They order up a barrage of tests for Testosterone, Prolactin, Diabetes, prostate problems etc. and prescribe Viagra.
The last thing they want to hear about are any details of your specific case.
All my tests proved to be within expected ranges except for the Prolactin which at the start was slightly outside the range, but soon returned to normal. The Viagra gave me an erection, but nothing gave me back my sexuality. A Viagra erection is a very strange thing if your body is not natually primed for sex. It works at times, but is seems a bit like having sex with a dildo, as if your erection is not really part of you. There is much more to sex than an erection. What I miss most now is not the erection itself, but rather the desire for sex which comes before the erection and makes the erection grow from within. That erection which comes with force from within and which wonīt stop coming is what I really miss. It went away so fast.
Time to come out of the closet:
All I had ever read about this subject, before I became initimately affected by it, were coded comments about how, after a certain age the sexual relationship becomes less physical and more one of companionship. Or some vague stories about a couple in their 50s who separated when the husband could no longer "accompany" his wife as she enjoyed a sort of sexual boost around the time of the menopause. All very coded. Nothing specifically telling it as it is. Why on earth, at the start of the 21st century, can we not tell the truth, and talk openly, about the sexual decline which can devastate the life of a man in his late 40s or early 50s. This is not a sexual disease, or a sexual problem, it is a SEXUAL FACT OF LIFE. On the basis of this I would like to suggest that the moderators of LPSG think about the creation of a new major section for the site, which clearly separates real sexual problems and diseases, and the occasional impotence of early adulthood, from the problems of dealing with the inevitable decline in sexuality which comes with age. These two things are so different. The first is probably temporary, in that it probably has a specific cause, and possibly a cure. The other is a change of life in the same very real sense that the menopause is a change of life. I suggest the name for the new section could be "Aging and Sexual Decline".
Like others I have decided to post here because I find it is a forum in which ANYTHING can be said. No subject is taboo. That is very healthy. We must talk openly about sexual decline so that future generations can learn from our experiences and prepare themselves better for this moment.
Recommendations:
Cut down drastically on your alcohol intake as soon as you can. Alcohol is the only thing which I may have consumed in excess. If alcohol was responsible for my accelerated sexual aging then it is almost criminal that the warnings that go with cigarettes are not also associated with alcohol.
Incorporate regular exercise into your life style. This was the major thing which I did not do in excess, when maybe I should have.
Other than these two things I have no idea why I should have aged sexually so much sooner that others. The only thing I can think of is that perhaps nobody is telling it like it is, and that many, many, others are in the same situation as myself, but because of the pressures of society they go on pretending that they have not suffered any kind of change. Like I said before, you canīt tell the level of a personīs sexual responses just by looking at them. Maybe millions of guys are just acting as if nothing has changed because that is what society expects.
Lets talk about this...
One last thing:
Measure your testosterone and prolactin etc. now, while things are working normally. These will serve as a reference in the future and help eliminate certain causes of any future problems in this area. |