Manhood: The Rise and Fall of the Penis (37 page)

pde5 inhibitors are registered only for men with erection problems.

Studies in women were inconclusive and did not finally result in regis-tration. Female sexual problems tend to be more complicated and consist of symptoms that are hard to quantify. pde5 inhibitors have a salutary effect on men’s minds and perhaps also on their relationships with women, as was maintained by the actor Jack Nicholson in an interview with
Playboy
in 2004:

Over the years I have heard many people, after ending a marriage or a relationship, say, ‘I would never have left her if I could have said, without fear of shattering her entire existence,

‘I just don’t want sex anymore.’ The relationship could have continued if I had been able to say, ‘Fuck someone else if you want.’ Everything would have been fine between us. Instead, the disinterest in sex that can come along becomes so intense that it can dominate the relationship. Viagra solves that. Once, twice a month – and regardless of what people tell you, that’s enough – stimulate yourself with this pharmacological solution, go out there and tear Mom up, baby, and everything is fine. It could save many relationships.

Getting older

As the years go by most men notice that they sometimes have trouble in achieving an erection or maintaining it for long enough. Some conclude that this means they are finished as sexual beings, that they have reached the ‘penopause’. Understandable, if one knows that many of them were brought up with the idea that sex is actually something like

‘fertilizing’, or at least being capable of it. The machine has to be in good order, or ‘there’s no point’, as they put it.

Obviously every person reacts differently to growing older. Some cease to perform much physical activity somewhere between the ages 193

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of twenty and 30. For the present generation of heart surgeons it’s nothing special to have to insert artificial coronary arteries in someone in their thirties. Others withdraw into a shell for years and then once they turn fifty emerge with great zest. Often it ends in disappointment. There are those who continue swimming, playing badminton or something similar as they have always done – perhaps not as fast at 50 as at twenty, but still keeping active. The same applies more or less to sexual activities. With the passing of the years all men have to rein themselves in a little, but not all at the same age and/or with the same con sequences. Some men drop their sexual acti vities early, sometimes completely, sometimes in part. Others stay active until some illness more or less takes them by surprise and they have to keep themselves in check.

Some men associate sex with the battle against death. Because their organ refuses to ‘stand up and fight’ any longer, they are frightened of losing the battle. These men particularly are relieved when they hear from the lips of a specialist that the penis always becomes less rigid with the passing of time, and that it’s more or less normal that their penis should let them down occasionally. They then usually forego artificial therapies. Their marriage no longer desperately needs con-summating: the important thing was to know whether or not death was round the corner.

The physical manifestations of the penopause are often accompanied by brooding: the man starts reflecting on the life he has led up to then. What have I achieved of all the things I once dreamed of? I shall have to stay married to this woman till death do us part. Until my dying day I will never again see anything else but the same furniture, the same house, the same street. And until I retire I shall have to go on slogging away day after day at that stupid job of mine! The man at this stage is regularly ambushed by these kinds of reflections. He begins to wonder what the future has to offer him. Though he is still fertile, it is possible for a man to think that his potency is declining. In that case the occasional lovemaking session may go wrong.

Men should worry less about the fact that as they get older their penis occasionally goes on strike. But that’s precisely the point. Often when it happens out of the blue the man starts worrying seriously, which in turn provokes fear of failure. Guilt ensues and the man concerned eventually comes to find lovemaking torture.

A fairy tale about ageing

When God had created the world and was about to fix the length of each creature’s life, the ass came and asked, ‘Lord, how long shall I live?’ ‘Thirty years,’ replied God; ‘does that 194

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content thee?’ ‘Ah, Lord,’ answered the ass, ‘that is a long time.

Think of my painful existence! To carry heavy burdens from morning to night, to drag sacks of corn to the mill, that others may eat bread, to be cheered and refreshed with nothing but blows and kicks. Relieve me of a portion of this long time.’

Then God had pity on him and relieved him of eighteen years.

The ass went away comforted, and the dog appeared. ‘How long wouldst thou like to live?’ said God to him. ‘Thirty years are too many for the ass, but thou wilt be satisfied with that.’

‘Lord,’ answered the dog, ‘is that thy will? Consider how I shall have to run, my feet will never hold out so long, and when I have once lost my voice for barking, and my teeth for biting, what will be left for me to do but run from one corner to another and growl?’ God saw that he was right, and released him from twelve years of life. Then came the monkey. ‘Thou wilt certainly live thirty years willingly?’ said the Lord to him.

‘Thou hast no need to work as the ass and the dog have to do, and wilt always enjoy thyself.’ ‘Ah! Lord,’ he answered, ‘it may seem as if that were the case, but it is quite different. When it rains porridge I have no spoon. I am always obliged to play merry pranks, and make faces which force people to laugh, and if they give me an apple, and I bite into it, why it is sour! How often sadness hides itself behind mirth! I shall never be able to hold out for thirty years.’ God was gracious and took off ten.

At last man appeared, joyous, healthy and vigorous, and begged God to appoint his time for him. ‘Thirty years shalt thou live,’ said the Lord. ‘Is that enough for thee?’ ‘What a short time,’ cried man, ‘when I have built my house and my fire burns on my own hearth; when I have planted trees which blossom and bear fruit, and am just intending to enjoy my life, I am to die! O Lord, lengthen my time.’ ‘I will add to it the ass’s eighteen years,’ said God. ‘That is not enough,’ replied the man. ‘Thou shalt also have the dog’s twelve years.’ ‘Still too little!’ ‘Well, then,’ said God, ‘I will give thee the monkey’s ten years also, but more thou shalt not have.’ The man went away, but was not satisfied.

So man lives seventy years. The first thirty are his human years, which are soon gone; then is he healthy, merry, works with pleasure, and is glad of his life. Then follow the ass’s eighteen years, when one burden after another is laid on him, he has to carry the corn which feeds others, and blows and kicks are the reward of his faithful services. Then come the dog’s twelve years, when he lies in the corner, and growls and has no longer any teeth to bite with, and when this time is over the 195

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monkey’s ten years form the end. Then man is weak-headed and foolish, does silly things, and becomes the jest of the children.

This fairy tale by the Brothers Grimm, written over a hundred years ago, expresses very succinctly a view of older people that is current even today. Very many young people assume that the above-mentioned stupid old monkeys no longer indulge in sexual activities. Place ‘old’ in front of some of the slang words for penis, and the insult stings even more. Being called a ‘prick’ is bad enough, but an ‘old prick’, one that no longer works, is far worse. What man does not dread the moment when his penis leaves him in the lurch once and for all?

Growing old has been compared to a game of chess, in which pieces are eventually lost, though certain strong pieces still control the board and can even engineer a powerful new position. But every chess player knows what the loss of the queen means in a game. The power of the queen is a very good analogy for the meaning of eroticism in a human life. In fact, it is not the loss of sexual performance, but the loss of the erotic dimension that generates most apprehension in confronting old age. Men can sometimes exorcize that fear, for example, through singing with their comrades. I was once given, by an anaesthetist friend of mine with greying temples, who had served as a doctor during his military service, the words of a song sung by British officers in the mess in the evenings. They are as follows:

Your spooning days are over

Your pilot light is out

What used to be your sex appeal

Is now your water spout

You used to be embarrassed

To make the thing behave

For every bloody morning it

Stood up to watch you shave

But now that you are growing old

It sure gives you the blues

To see the thing hang down your leg

And watch you shine your shoes

One thing remains: with the passing of the years the frequency of sexual activity declines. The Rotterdam physiologist and sexologist Koos Slob presented the following figures based on various surveys: 84 per cent of men in their fifties, 67 per cent of those in their sixties, 43 per cent of septuagenarians and 16 per cent of octogenarians are sexually active.

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For women the percentages are 76 per cent (51–60), 40 per cent (61–

70) and 7 per cent (71–80) respectively. No survey information is available for women over 80. There are certainly great individual differences. The decline in later years is shown to be least in those most active at a young age.

Until quite recently experts believed that ed later in life was almost always the result of arteriosclerosis. There are also indications that the stiffness of the penis declines as one gets older as a result of a change in composition of both the erectile tissue compartments and the stiff capsule of connective tissue surrounding them, which plays an important part in retaining blood. It is anyway generally true that muscles, tendons and articular capsules grow thinner with age and lose their elasticity, and the loss of elasticity in the erectile tissue compartments is actually the main reason why the penis becomes shorter as one gets older. Of course there are other factors that can affect potency in the elderly. Chronic medication dependency and diseases like diabetes mellitus are more prevalent. Joint calcification caused, for example, by rheumatism, may cause pain and restrict movement, impeding intercourse. And although heart attacks and strokes need not automatically lead to problems in lovemaking the patient and his partner are understandably often frightened of a recurrence.

After a heart attack many men don’t dare ask their doctor for advice about their sex lives. For example, what exactly does ‘taking it easy’ mean in this context? It may well be that a reduction in sexual activity will have an adverse effect on the patient’s condition. It is understandable that men who have had a heart attack should be worried about putting too much strain on their heart, but heart patients can have a perfectly satisfying sex life without putting themselves at risk. Driving in heavy traffic, playing with a grandchild or having a heated discussion put more pressure on the heart than sexual intercourse. Research into the incidence of heart attacks during intercourse revealed that when these occurred they were almost always related to an extramarital affair, making such affairs particularly inadvisable for heart patients.

Set in one’s ways

‘Getting stuck in a rut’ as one gets older is the theme of Guy de Maupassant’s story ‘Set in One’s Ways’ (‘La Rouille’), which describes how Monsieur and Madame de Courville finally fail to get the old Baron Hector Gontran de Coutelier to marry Berthe Vilers. To begin with the baron is very enthusiastic about the proposed bride-to-be, and she accompanies him on many hunting parties, but when after a while he 197

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is asked straight out if he wants to marry her, he appears dumbstruck.

Weeks later he announces to Monsieur de Courville that he does not wish to pursue the proposed marriage and months later confesses once and for all that he is impotent. The baron had decided first to go to Paris and had visited several ladies of loose morals, none of whom had been able to provoke an erection. Next he tried all kinds of piquant dishes, which did nothing but upset his stomach. He draws his conclusions and makes his confession. As he listens, Monsieur de Courville has great difficulty in not bursting out laughing, and on his return home he tells the story to his wife. She doesn’t laugh, but listens attentively and when the story is over says the following: ‘The baron is an idiot, my dear; he was afraid, that’s all. I’ll write to Berthe and tell her to come back straightaway . . . when a man loves his wife, you know, those things . . . always sort themselves out.’

The psychoanalyst Wilhelm Stekel (1868–1940), a breakaway pupil of Sigmund Freud’s, takes the view that under certain circumstances the potency of older people can improve. According to Stekel, the peak of a man’s potency depends not on age, but on the sexual

‘object’ available to him. In one’s youth the sexual urge is generally stronger and more tempestuous. The man is less concerned about the soulmate who can satisfy him fully, than with ‘the bit of skirt’ that meets his taste and his daily needs. According to Stekel that is why many younger men may frequent prostitutes and as they grow older stop. In his view, in maturity, as desire becomes more refined, love becomes increasingly something ‘in the head’, which is why under certain circumstances potency can be even greater. Stekel believes that only in a sexually harmonious marriage, with mutual understanding between the partners, can the wife respond to the ‘refined taste’ and the ‘intellectual desire’. The man must show himself capable of bringing about a ‘spiritualization’ of the marriage . . .

He illustrates this with the story of an elderly painter. His considerably younger wife is described by Stekel as a strikingly intelligent,