CARNAL NATION

There were supposed to be three of us in that bed – her, me, and my erection. Only two of us showed up.

And she probably told you that that it happens to all men sometimes, didn’t she? Well, she may not be absolutely right- somewhere there’s probably some guy who gets erections exactly when he wants them,  and we bet he’s a real asshole. But in our experience, it happens to just about all men at least once in a while.

Why? Well, some reasons can be medical. A lot of conditions, including diabetes, hypertension, and hypothyroidism, can help prevent prevent you from reaching your, um, full potential. so can many of the medications used to treat these directions.

Other reasons are emotional. If you’re stressed, distracted, feeling distant from your partner, or otherwise not on your game, your dick may feel that way too. And let’s not forget the effects of drugs, alcohol and/or lack of sleep. It’s also a generally a good idea to have a partner you want to be with.

Conventional wisdom tells you, “If you ever wake up with an erection, your condition is from an emotional, not a physiological, cause.” Well, no (another myth bites the dust). There are plenty of reasons why you might have nocturnal erections but be unable to have one during sex, and not all of them are emotional. And if you don’t wake up with an erection, that doesn’t mean the cause is necessarily physiological, either.

But really, we’re not here to second-guess why you’re not getting it up-that’s a job for you and your doctor and/or your sex therapist.  We’re here to tell you what to do about it.

Our first suggestion; Who says you have to have intercourse this time? There are a whole lot of ways you and your partner can have absolutely wonderful sex with no erection at all. If you go to your favorite restaurant for dinner, but they just ran out of your favorite dessert, you’d probably consider trying another dessert- such experiences, called AFOG (another fucking for growth or maybe, in this case, Another Opportunity for Fucking Growth?) can open up whole new horizons.

Most men can orgasm and ejaculate with a soft dick. We bet that your tongue, fingers, and other appendages are all behaving just fine. And if you have a spare sex toy or two lying around, so much the better.

But let’s say it’s an ongoing problem and it’s troubling you. What you don’t want to do is let the problem go on so long that you and your partner get pout of the habit of being sexual together – it can be tough to get back into your old patterns again after something like that.

So, here are some options you can try…

Some people find that the use of a cock ring can help. A cock ring helps trap blood in the penis, and also makes a cute bracelet for the fashion-conscious among us. A cock ring costs a couple of bucks – OK, that was the last time we bought one; these days they’re more like $10-15 – and can be a fun sex toy even if it doesn’t help.  We think this is the best place to start.

Mechanical devices such as penis pumps can help some men. These work by suction – you insert your cock into a cylinder, pump (think of a bicycle pump in reverse), and the suction draws blood into the penis. You add a cock ring or a special rubber band to the base of the penis and you’re good to go. Prescription penis pumps cost several hundred dollars, and the non-prescription ones a bit over a hundred dollars.  But it’s a one-time expense, you can sometimes get insurance coverage with the expenditure, and many guys find that they’re also fun masturbation devices.

There’s a little suppository you can tuck down your urethra that can inspire your dick to greater heights. There are also medications you can inject into the base of your dick (yep!) that will give you a perfectly lovely hard-on for as long as you need for what you have in mind. They’re all prescription-only, of course but they do work, and we’re told that the injection thing isn’t really as bad as it sounds once you get used to it. In fact, we know a few folks who’d probably enjoy doing it just for fun.

The last-resort scenario is surgery. Penile implants have gotten much better in recent years – some of the new inflatable ones have worked miracles for their owners.

But none of this is why you came to this page, we bet. You want to know about the little blue pills, Vitamin V – Viagra — or the other similar drugs like Cialis and Levitra.

Well, you’ve come to the right place. The author with the letters after his name has lectured and written papers about Viagra and is now going to share all that information with you. The world is just beginning to feel the effects of this new fom of “better living through chemistry,” and while it may not be a reolution on quite the scale of the “pill” a couple of decades ago, a lot of people’s lives are being changed.

Viagra works by blocking the action of the chemical in your body that allows your hard-on to go away. What's important to understand about this is that nothing about Viagra makes you get hard — you have to do that on your own. (If you take your Viagra and then read the newspaper for a few hours, you've wasted a pill — unless there's something in the newspaper that turns you on.) You get hard, the Viagra keeps you from getting soft again before you want to.

You should take your Viagra from half an hour to two hours before you expect to need it. You can experiment to find out the minimum dose that you need to achieve your goal — some men need the full high-dose 100mg, others need 50 or even 25.

If you are way out of shape, you may need your doctor to clear you for the physical exertion of sex before you try Viagra; having a heart attack while fucking is a fucking bummer (literally).

As the Viagra takes effect, you may feel a headache, upset stomach, a blue tinge to your vision, and/or blurry vision — these are all relatively rare but do happen to some men. It is very important to avoid nitrate drugs for 24 hours before and after taking Viagra — they can cause an interaction that can kill you. The only nitrate drug available without a prescription is "poppers" (inhalants used to intensify sex, sometimes sold with weird labels like "video head cleaner"). There are also several prescription drugs that contain nitrates, so it's very important to tell your doctor if you've been taking Viagra, bootleg or prescription — it limits the medicines that he/she can give you. And if you get an erection that doesn't go away, that's called "priapism" and it's a medical emergency.

Have fun — just be careful.