In the second century ad the physician Galen wrote: ‘The testicles are more important than the heart; the heart serves to keep us alive, the testicles to make us truly alive.’ Being ‘truly’ alive takes its toll. In that respect eunuchs were men without ballast. If one studies the operation of testosterone closely, one has […]

One thing is certain: sexuality, including sexual potency, is nature’s great engine, and reproduction constitutes the natural basis of our existence — there is no escaping and no denying it. So respect for sexuality, but also respect for the problems of the impotent man is called for. Many people cannot summon up that respect. The […]

The first sexologists were still heavily influenced by Victorian thinking. Havelock Ellis, an English doctor, was the first Victorian with a modern view of sexuality. He believed that a person’s attitude to sexuality was individually and culturally determined. This was something totally new, since in the preceding centuries, it had been assumed that sex was […]

A professor of neuroanatomy at Groningen University is convinced that all sexual behaviour can be explained with the aid of brain scans and computer models. ‘As long as you programme computers properly, of course you can teach them to fuck,’ were his actual words. His statement testifies to an ancient and outdated view of mankind, […]

Erection, orgasm and reproduction form part of a long cycle, in which people partially fade into the background as they pass on their life to their descendants. In the last analysis we live not only for ourselves, but partly also for previous and succeeding generations. Seen in this light, intercourse, having an orgasm and fathering […]

Unfortunately as far as ‘seduction’ is concerned the twenty-first century has begun as a time of confusion and there is no immediate sign of im­provement. Now male reluctance to show emotions has been over­come, the ‘new’ post-feminist woman turns out to have had enough of cotton wool. Men must again, as they have traditionally done, […]

According to recent American research 40 per cent of men don’t feel much like sex and regard lovemaking with their partner as a duty, more work than play. It is no accident that the first self-help manual on this nettlish topic recently appeared in the United States. ‘Making sure you’re properly equipped’ plays an important […]

In the early 1970s there was talk of the ‘new’ impotence. Partly because of advances in medical science in the preceding two decades the 1970s were to be the age in which the women’s movement would demand equal sexual rights. Women began making demands on intercourse. It wasn’t a matter of quantity as it had […]

In our culture many men tend to ‘instrumentalize’ sexuality: they con­centrate on certain parts of the body rather than the whole woman. Women generally focus more on the man as a ‘person’, and the vast majority find it hard to give themselves unless they have been touched emotionally. One cannot say it often enough: in […]

Certain physical abnormalities in the woman — abnormalities at the gate — can cause impotence. J. Smit, in his Manual for Men and Women Suffering from Impotence, Infertility and Other Mechanical Sexual Disorders (1810), formulates the problem as follows: Aristotle is right: fat ladies have too little charm, are too cold­blooded, their ovaries, encased in […]