i can't get hard (enough)!

feeling a little bored, i googled "sex and the middle-aged man" this morning. and surprisingly, a whole lot of resources appeared. scrolled down the list and one of them caught my attention. it was on erectile dysfunction (ed), aka unable to get hard, impotence, and so on. and considering that in the past few months, i do not seemed to get as hard as i used to, and that i need a longer time to orgasm (if i do indeed cum), i decided to read it up...

when i clicked on one of the links, i was put through some simple questions to determine my category and hey! no surprise! i am considered a "middle-aged man"! doh! anyway, the interesting thing i noted was that there is actually a questionnaire created for people to take as part of the process to determine the severity of their ed. there was the full version (which comprised 15 questions and that i tried but i cannot find the link to interpret the test results), and the shorter version that comprised only 5 questions. and interesting, as i navigate and answer the questions, i realized i had difficulty answering some of them. in a way, i had tensions with the functional approach to how  the questions were crafted. firstly, the questions crafted suggest that sex must be about penetration. it does not cater to men who choose to abstain from sex/ masturbate as a "norm". secondly, the questions all assumed that the men is always the top/ or plays the penetrative role, and that sex that occurs between 2 individuals have to be penetrative in nature. such narrowly scoped question certainly do not cover the breadth of a person's behaviour/ preference when it comes to sex. and lastly, it assumes that there is a certain frequency of penetrative sex that must occur for one's organ to be considered to be healthily functional.

and my goodness, whoever designed the questions should know never to include qualifiers/ conditions as part of the questions... "if this... if that..." hmmm... not an easy task answering the questions... if stress is a factor of ed, then answering the questionnaire itself would make a person soft straight away! i tried all sorts of different answers and the results i got were - that i am having anything from severe to moderate to mild ed! ok, ok, before i digress and make this post into an academic discussion on how to craft good questionnaire questions, let me get back to talk about ed. bottom line, a questionnaire is nothing but one of the many tools used to help diagnose ed, one needs to see it in the full perspective of other means including the need to see and discuss the issue with a professional/ doctor.

well, perhaps the assuring thing that i came to realize was that all middle-aged person will at some point experience a decreased in his libido, and the degree of hardness in his erections. but having said that, all middle-aged person should and can continue to enjoy sex well into old age. there are also things that one should make a conscious efforts to do and that include (1) to stay off alcohol, (2) to not smoke, (3) to exercise regularly, eat right and to maintain a healthy lifestyle, and finally, (4) to manage one's stress. and reflecting, i can only conclude that what is affecting me is point number 4. 

and so, what i conclude here that the days where i can get so hard i felt it could burst again and again and again... is over. or more accurately, those days were over a long time back!

haha...

picture from http://www.vuotquaroiloancuong.com/