Impotence means literally the inability to perform sexual intercourse, though the word is often used in a disparaging sense, implying helplessness. Impotence is probably one of the best kept bedroom secrets and, at least for those affected, one of the most shameful. Fortunately a euphemism has been devised: erection problems or, even more useful, erectile dysfunction or ed.
Modern medicine sees the erection of the penis as based on a neurovascular reflex, dependent on a correct hormonal balance, a healthy anatomy, an adequate blood supply and an undamaged and efficiently functioning nervous system. If one takes all this on board, one realizes that it’s easy for things to go wrong occasionally. Put more strongly, it’s a miracle that things go smoothly so often! So this chapter will highlight not only the technical, but also the miraculous aspects.
Displaying an erection or having sex in public is not usually possible — in fact, it’s illegal. So to show that one is functioning properly as a man, there is only one option, which is to father a child. If that fails, for example because of poor sperm quality, the man involved feels seriously inadequate. These days things are a little less pressured, since quite a few married couples opt — by their own testimony, at least — for voluntary childlessness. (This topic will be discussed in greater depth later.)
There has never been such a thing as an impotent woman. Leaving aside anatomical or mental abnormalities, every woman is capable of passively accepting a man’s sexual advances. This is sadly not true of the man, and for that reason a man’s relationship with his penis is not comparable with a woman’s with her clitoris and/or vagina. A woman says ‘I’m not in the mood’; for her the vagina is an integral part of her body. Of course a man’s penis is too, but an erect penis, the phallus, is more.
In the novel Io e lui (1971, English title The Two of Us) by the Italian writer Alberto Moravia, the hero Federico is constantly getting into difficult and embarrassing situations because of his huge and demanding penis, which he calls Federico Rex. It is a confrontational book: the protagonist is constantly debating with his unruly member and plunging into every conceivable erotic folly. The final scene is humiliating for Federico: his member, ‘he’, carries him back triumphantly to the woman from whom he had tried to escape:
To satisfy him, I pressed the bell once more. Standing stiffly in the air, ‘he’ seemed now to be rising up, in short, successive jerks, as if to bring himself to the level of the keyhole and look into the flat. At last I heard a slight bustling sound. Then Fausta’s voice asking: ‘Who is it?’
‘It’s me, Rico.’
Fausta’s hand undid the chain, the door opened, and she appeared on the threshold in her dressing-gown. She looked at me, looked down, saw ‘him’ and then, without saying a word, put out her hand to take hold of ‘him’, as one might take hold of a donkey’s halter to make it move. Then she turned her back to me, pulling ‘him’ in behind her, and, with ‘him’, me. She went into the flat; ‘he’ went behind her: I followed them both.
The title of the novel is very apt, in both Italian and English. Many men suspect or think that their penis has a will of its own and does what it likes. Quite a few men refer to their penis as ‘he’. It is the symbol of the ability to procreate with the accompanying feelings of male self-worth. Muscularity, determination, effectiveness, penetration, directness, strength — the phallus underlies them all.
And so it happens that every man discovers one fine day that his penis is not like an arm, finger or leg: it doesn’t react automatically. The penis can be compared to a well-trained dog, which usually follows the instructions it is given — but the owner must always allow for the possibility that one day it will refuse, despite the fact that it is trained, or in more human terms, socialized. Men can gain some control over their penis: on a nudist beach, for example, you scarcely ever see men with erections, although there are naked women (or men) to admire everywhere. A half-naked woman lying in stirrups for a bladder examination is unlikely to provoke an erection in any urologist. He is focused on the sick woman in front of him.