Manhood: The Rise and Fall of the Penis (31 page)

In the story ‘Le moyen de Roger’ (Roger’s Method) French writer Guy de Maupassant (1850–1893) paints a very accurate psychological picture of an initially disastrous wedding night. A young Parisian couple, Roger and Gabrielle (who is a widow), plan to celebrate their wedding night quietly at the bridegroom’s apartment. Consumed by passion and desire, they soon withdraw to the bedroom, but Roger, the brand new bridegroom, finds it impossible to achieve an erection: 160

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When I joined her in bed, I lacked confidence in myself, I admit it. I felt edgy, troubled, ill at ease.

I took my place beside her as a husband. She said nothing. She looked at me with a smile playing round her lips, visibly anxious to make fun of me. This ironic attitude, at such a moment, finally disconcerted me and, I admit, robbed my arms and legs of their strength.

When Gabrielle realized my . . . embarrassment, she did nothing to reassure me, quite the contrary. She asked me, in an offhand way:

‘Are you as full of life as this every day?’

I couldn’t stop myself answering:

‘Do you know you’re insufferable?’

Then she started laughing again, but laughing in a quite immoderate, unseemly, exasperating way.

It’s true I cut a sorry figure, and must have looked very silly.

From time to time, between two paroxysms of hilarity, she said, choking on her words.

‘Come on – that’s the spirit – put some energy into it – my

– poor darling.’

Then she broke into such helpless laughter that she couldn’t stop giggling.

Rage and humiliation drive the young husband into the street. In despair he determines to put his manhood to the test, follows a prostitute to her room, and lo and behold, succeeds with no problem in doing what he had failed to do half an hour before. With a restored feeling of self-worth he returns to the hotel where he acquaints his wife, herself a-tremble with trepidation and excitement, with the delights of love, this time with an erect penis.

In Japan wedding-night impotence is still a frequent occurrence, presumably prompted by the very different sexual mores of the country. Wedding night impotence undoubtedly occurs in other countries too, but often for quite different reasons: many bridegrooms over -

indulge on the big day, or even more often, are too tired.

Adultery

Almost two thousand years ago the Apostle Paul’s pronouncement that it is better to marry than to burn in hell was a reluctant admission that human sexuality must have some sort of outlet. Marriage – the institution within which sexuality was to be experienced – was thus 161

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accepted by the church – though not yet blessed: that came only later.

This view of St Paul’s had far-reaching consequences for Western civilization.

The story of Anna Karenina, told by Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910) and set in Czarist Russia, is deeply sad. Trapped in a marriage with Karenin, twenty years her senior, Anna travels with her family to St Petersburg, where she meets Count Vronsky. Vronsky is a professional soldier, a gifted horseman and a man of honour, and does what he can to avert the impending disaster. But their feelings cannot be suppressed, they fall hopelessly in love and – as is common in an extra-marital relationship – become increasingly reckless and careless. When the affair reaches Karenin’s ears and he publicly disowns his wife, Anna’s status and life are shattered, and she finally throws herself under a train.

Vronsky suffers no more than a setback to his career.

People will go on being unfaithful until the end of time. Playing away retains its attraction, even for people who in practice never indulge. The fact is that many people are unfaithful in their fantasy: 60

per cent of women and 80 per cent of men fantasize about sex with someone other than their own partner. Figures on actual adultery differ so widely that it is difficulty to say anything conclusive about them. It probably happens more frequently than we think. However, we are left with the problem that ed quite frequently occurs with adultery, since the man often feels guilty about deceiving his partner. Guilt sometimes also derives from the awareness that one is being unfeeling and cruel to the person one is deceiving. Many men realize that they can no longer truly love their partner, and the same probably applies to women: adultery causes one’s partner, male or female, great suffering and painful humiliation.

A poem by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) illustrates this point. In ‘The Diary’ he describes meeting a pretty young woman at a country inn. There is an immediate spark of attraction, and very soon they find themselves in bed, but at the crucial moment his penis leaves him in the lurch. The poet describes the accompanying feelings of rage and shame: ‘My master player, hitherto so hot, / Shrinks, novice-like, its ardour quite forgot.’ He is a prey to anxiety and despair. ‘Better a bloody foe / In battle than this shame!’ ‘I raged a thousandfold, my soul was rent / With cursing and self-mockery both at once.’ He cannot comprehend why he cannot perform better. Then the mood of the poem changes. Despite his failure, his bedfellow is satisfied, having experienced love and tenderness:

How chaste she was! For though she made me free

Of her sweet body, loving words, a kiss

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Contented her; she nestled close to me,

Desiring, as it seemed, no more than this;

Happy she looked, peacefully, yieldingly

Satisfied, as if nothing were amiss.

The real moral of Goethe’s poem is that male impotence is a divine punishment for adultery. Wasn’t the sacrament of marriage after all instituted to combat promiscuity and ensure that the reproduction of the species took place in an orderly manner? Imagine the general surprise at an article that appeared in a newspaper on 18 April 1995 under the headline: ‘Bishop: adultery in the genes.’ In the article Richard Holloway, Anglican bishop of Edinburgh, was reported as saying that the church should not condemn adultery. ‘Man can’t be blamed for being unfaithful. It’s how God made him. It’s in the genes,’ said the bishop. This statement was part of a series of lectures in which he wanted to take sex out of the taboo sphere. The response of the head of the Anglican Church, despite the appeal to genes in mitigation, was unambiguous: ‘Adultery is and will remain a sin.’

The bishop probably has a valid point. Human beings are not innately mono gamous: the vast majority of cultures recorded by anthropologists are polygamous. Sociobiology sees men as having a deeply rooted urge to supply their sperm to as many women as possible, just as women prefer to receive as many suppliers as possible in order to optimize the chance of pregnancy. That would explain why so many people – both men and women – have such a problem with monogamy: the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. That is definitely not just a matter of our Judaeo-Christian cultural roots. Who cannot feel Othello’s genuine jealousy? He loves Desdemona and his jealousy is mingled with the fury of the insulted husband. This kind of jealousy –

clearly timeless – should not be confused with the feeling of besmirched honour.

The only possible answer to the question of the jealous husband, of Othello: ‘What are you thinking, what are you feeling?’ is the pathological answer of masochism, self-torment. Where adultery has been proved, the only way out is love itself: surrender, acceptance of the freedom of the loved one. Impossible? Perhaps, but it is the only exit if we are imprisoned by jealousy. Love can exist only by the grace of freedom.

In the view of the Mexican writer Octavio Paz freedom in love is a great mystery, a paradox that grows in a psychic substratum which unfortunately also contains poisonous plants like faithlessness, be-trayal, jealousy and forgetfulness.

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An unsatisfactory partner

Some men are unable to find real satisfaction with their own wives, though they have no problem at all with other women. The problem is partner-linked, and there is a host of possible reasons. For almost three decades Bernhard Premsela (1890–1944) worked as a gp in Amsterdam. In addition he was medical director of the Aletta Jacobs Family Planning Institute. Over the years he had heard every possible question about sexual matters and learned how to answer them – including questions about partner-linked impotence. He did many people a service by recording his experiences in
Sexology in Practice
(1940). However, in the chapter describing the psychological causes of ‘relative impotence’

in men, it is women who come in for severe criticism: A slovenly appearance is often responsible. Some women believe that once they are married there is no further need to take care about clothes or toilet. They look sloppy; a neglected face and hands complete the picture. Don’t misunderstand me: I’m not arguing for rouge, lipstick and plucked eyebrows. I deplore this kind of make-up, which turns the average woman into a herd animal and robs her face of all personal cachet –

which is precisely what gives it its charm. I mean only that pleasant grooming, which keeps the women and marital relations fresh and fascinating. Any woman who neglects such things, may pay dearly for this failure, with her husband’s relative impotence.

A little later he has this to say about odours:

For many partners alcohol-drenched breath is an insurmountable obstacle to achieving an erection. I believe this pheno -

menon is more common that is usually believed. Some people find tobacco smells from the mouth or on the fingers a powerful arousal-dampening factor, though I have also known cases where the smell of a cigar or pipe, but especially of cigarettes, had exactly the opposite effect.

On excessive hair growth:

There are women who even when young exhibit a different pattern of hair growth from the average. Two aspects may have an inhibiting effect on the man’s libido. Firstly, body hair. The average woman has only armpit hair and pubic hair, the upper 164

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limit of which – as a secondary sexual characteristic – is marked by a horizontal line. Many women diverge from this norm and have a more or less virile pattern of hair growth (no horizontal upper limit to the pubic hair, but a diamond-shape, ending at the navel; hair-growth on breasts, arms and legs).

I saw many cases where impotence had resulted from

excessive hair on the thighs, sternum or breasts. The second aspect, which can have a powerful inhibiting effect on the emotions, is hair growth on the upper lip and chin. This may vary from a very light down above the lip, which some men find very attractive, particularly in dark-skinned women, to the forming of a moustache or beard. The latter may extinguish all sexual feelings. The cure is the removal, preferably as soon as possible, of the
corpora delicti.

Of course Premsela’s points are overstated, but some of them may ring true. At the same time one needs to realize that ‘clothes maketh the man’ is not an empty phrase. Many women find sexual relations with their beer-bellied spouse a far from pleasant experience!

In fiction too partner-linked impotence is a much-discussed topic as, for example, in Milan Kundera’s
Farewell Waltz
:

‘I’m really tired,’ he said.

She took him in her arms and then led him to the bed.

‘You’ll see how I’m going to make you forget your fatigue!’

And she began playing with his naked body.

He was stretched out as if on an operating table. He knew that all his wife’s efforts would be useless. His body shrank into itself and no longer had the slightest power of expansion.

Kamila ran her moist lips all over his body, and he knew that she wanted to make herself suffer and make him suffer, and he hated her.

‘Professional’ impotence

Some men are in love with their work, and put all their energy into it –

which can lead to problems. One of these is described by the sexologist Wolfgang Buhl in
Eros mit grauen Schläfen
(1962): ‘professional impotence’.

Buhl also speaks of ‘scholarly impotence’. Any academics who feel under attack can console themselves with the thought that they are in good company. Louis xiv of France, Emperor Napoleon i, the com-posers Beethoven and Mahler, and the writers Gustave Flaubert, John 165

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Ruskin and Bernard Shaw were known for their inadequate sexual performance. The impotence of many mathematicians and scientists is a matter of record: it is even said of Sir Isaac Newton that he never experienced full sex in his life.

Total concentration on work may gnaw away at erotic interest.

Basically this is more a matter of not wanting than of not being able.

This freely chosen way of life is no problem at all for workaholics. They themselves feel no deprivation, unless a conflict arises with their partner, who feels neglected, sexually as well as in other ways. Buhl illustrates with the example of Heinrich E., an engineer approaching 50.

He has been married for twelve years to a wife ten years younger than him. A serious marital crisis leads the engineer to seek help. He tells his story: ‘It’s possible she sometimes finds me a bit odd, when I’m so absorbed in my work that I don’t see or hear anything, but I always thought she’d got used to it. Of course she feels somehow excluded, but she just doesn’t have a clue about technical things.’

The crisis turned out to have been triggered by a 40-year-old journalist, who Heinrich had got to know in the course of his work.

Subsequently, ‘because his wife wanted different people around for a change and not just colleagues of mine and their endless shop talk, he invited him to their house.

He was an easy talker, whereas I don’t usually say much. I think my wife knows perfectly well that there isn’t much behind all those words – but, well, the guy was giving her something that I wasn’t. I knew that nothing had happened yet, as they say, when I asked my wife what she really thought of the guy. She replied that I must have forgotten that I was a man and she was a woman. And she was right.