Posted by Andrew on 2/7/2008, 6:28 pm, in reply to "Personal Question / Confidence"

Yes, I have had some guys telling me this. It is all so bound up with self-esteem. Incidents in life where paruresis makes you miss out, or behave oddly, knock your self-esteem: that can affect your performance in other aspects of life and make you feel worse, and that makes the parureisis worse etc etc. Shy bladder is a performance anxiety; you have no control over being able to make yourself pee, you have to learn to allow it to happen. The same thing can happen with sex: it also can be a performance anxiety; you cannot make an erection happen, or make it go away. So if you get anxious about whether you will be able to do the necessary, it can make sex difficult. One answer is to recognise that sex can be good without an erection: i.e. you can give her a good time in other ways i.e. take the pressure off you. There are various tricks given by sex therapists, but this is not the site to go into that in details. You can email if you wish, or buy a Sex Guide book. Just remember that lots of relaxed foreplay with no time limits will probably get you in the mood. cheers Andrew

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