Helping your partner's sexual anxieties

April 8, 2007 10:13 PM

How do I help relieve my boyfriend's sexual performance anxieties?

I am almost a year into a long, happy relationships with a great guy. We are wonderfully compatible and overall things are going amazing. However, our sticking point is sex. It's not a huge issue. In general, the sex is great and frequent. But occasionally, and especially in the past couple of months, he's been dealing with performance anxiety.

I am a person who likes sex. I like it a lot. He likes it too, but not as much as I do, not as kinky as I do, and not as often as I do. He finds it awkward to be in the position of the person with the lower libido, he's not used to someone so sexually aggressive, exploratory in ways he's not initially comfortable with (though he defines Good, Giving, Game), and on top of all this he knows he's not the type I usually date. These things have combined to worry him that he can't "handle" me, or he's not enough for me, or I'll leave him for a "better match". This causes serious problems in the bedroom when these things start bouncing around in his head. He starts thinking I'm faking it, or I'd prefer to be somewhere else, and bam, it's all over--which of course causes him even more anxiety.

I've tried everything I can think of. I assure him I love him and I want him. I assure him he is a great sexual match for me. I've tried roleplaying to keep his mind off the worries. I've tried restricting our activity to cuddling and makeouts and teasing so he goes crazy for the act. When it happens in the middle of the act, I've tried asking him to talk about it (which he will do so readily), and I've tried pretending nothing's wrong and continuing to play in other ways so he knows the performance issues don't bother me (and they don't). Some of these things work, some don't, but even the solutions are temporary.

He's open and communicative, and intellectually he knows he's being silly. But the worries persist. Is there anything I can do that I'm not doing to help him?

posted by anonymous to human relations (20 comments total)

Your boyfriend is a perfectionist. He does not understand that his self worth does not ride on you loving every minute of sex and love with him--instead he believes that only a perfect performance every time will continue to allow him to be your boyfriend.

Try this--explain to him that you want to practice him being a bad lover, just once. Tell him he should try to be a bad lover in bed and to do what a "bad lover" would. Then continue to love him even after he does his "bad lover" attempt. Repeat as needed.
posted by Ironmouth at 10:39 PM on April 8, 2007

Clarification: Not bad in the James Brown sense.
posted by Ironmouth at 10:39 PM on April 8, 2007 [2 favorites]

I sympathize somewhat with your boyfriend. I think many men feel that unless they can fulfill their girlfriend in bed each and every time, going off like a proverbial firecracker in the sack, then they will lose said girlfriend. I blame shows like Sex In The City and Ally McBeal. Shows such as these portrayed an image of women who get what they want from their men and dump those who didn't satisfy them completely. Not that there is anything wrong with this. But the way it was portrayed on shows such as these was particularly terrifying for men who weren't able to be defined by the traditional image of a handsome, perfect man and as such, the bar was artificially raised for many of us.

The downside has been that for a lot of women, women like you, performance anxiety has crept into the bedroom and terrified their males. In some respects, you should take this as a compliment. Your man obviously likes (or loves) you and wants to make you happy. But as you say, it dosen't make him happy because, as ironmouth has rightly suggested, he is probably a perfectionist.

Speaking as a male, I would say that you are already doing all I can think of that would make me happy were I in his shoes. I think you just need to accept that sometimes his ego is going to be soothed by your assurances, and other times it won't. We're men, after all. Sometimes your curves will soothe the savage beast, and other times we'll just be angry at ourselves for not being able to keep our shit together.

To err is human, as they say, and the point to remember here is that your boyfriend is, infact, human. He's not some sort of computer game where if you do something the right way or punch in the right code you'll somehow succeed where you previously failed. Not that I'm suggesting you treat him like a game, but I'm trying to make a metaphor here to help you understand that sometimes something will work and sometimes it won't at all.

So my advice is keep doing what your doing, but remember that it won't always work. Eventually he'll come around, and realise he's won you and won't worry anymore. You just need to ride the rapids until then, I guess.
posted by Effigy2000 at 10:56 PM on April 8, 2007 [1 favorite]

Perhaps you might consider showing him this post?
posted by prentiz at 12:17 AM on April 9, 2007

I don't really understand why, if everything is as you say, he still has the anxiety. Are you signalling it in subliminal ways perhaps?
posted by A189Nut at 12:33 AM on April 9, 2007

practise, praktice practice
posted by kanemano at 1:07 AM on April 9, 2007

20+ years ago I was in the early stages of a relationship with the woman I have been with ever since. But there was a chance, in the early days, that I wouldn't be able to continue in that relationship because I was dealing with issues similar to what you describe your boyfriend going through. But with the love and patience of my wife, I finally got over it.

There are a lot of stupid territorial primate behaviors that drive male behavior, things that result in there being many more people in the room than you think when you're having sex with him: the shadows of every person you've slept with (or the people he imagines you've slept with) before him, the ghosts of all of the men he imagines his former girlfriends left him for, the caricature people and acts he's seen in porn or heard about in the locker room. He's competing for your attentions with people who aren't actually in the room, don't actually exist, or are statistical outliers. You're outnumbered.

Whatever you do, don't 'try' to make him feel more secure... this will only prove to him that his worrying is justified. Enjoy life with him, enjoy sex with him, be more verbal about how much you enjoy your physical relationship with him, tell him what you enjoy, ask him to "do that again". Ask him if he'll do something you enjoy but that he doesn't ordinarily do, and thank him afterward. Take time out to relax and be intimate with him, without engaging in activities that will trigger his performance anxiety. If he brings the issue up, tell him that you're the one receiving his affections and that you enjoy them the way they are. Show him what you like, let him share a space with you where you are receiving pleasure but his performance cred isn't on the line. Let him know, through your actions and words and being, that it is the intimacy that makes everything else so satisfying, and that you enjoy being intimate with him.

And on preview, Effigy2000's last two paragraphs.
posted by foobario at 1:25 AM on April 9, 2007 [4 favorites]

The less of a big deal you can make out of this, the faster he's going to get to see it as no big deal; and the faster he gets to see it as no big deal, the less often it will bother either of you. Talking it over is the wrong thing, because that just draws attention to it. If he falls off mid-ride, change rides and keep playing.

If you can find something to do that doesn't involve trying to get him hard again, that's better.
posted by flabdablet at 1:34 AM on April 9, 2007

And I've said this before, and I'll say it again: good sex is conversation, not performance.
posted by flabdablet at 1:35 AM on April 9, 2007 [1 favorite]

In the Guide to Getting it On, they say that foreplay should be considered everything that goes on between one bout of lovemaking and the next -- just hanging out with the other person and doing normal dumb things like the dishes, watching TV, hanging out.

It might be useful to look at how the interaction is going in this area. I think that a lot of reassurance can come from how you interact during this non-sexual time. If you're sending him the message during these non-sexual periods that you find him hot and appealing and entrancing, perhaps he'll be less concerned about trying to keep you through the sex.

Usually performance anxiety comes around at the beginning of a relationship, not the middle, unless something has happened. Did you or he go through some source of stress or conflict? Is there anything he's said to you -- or you've said to him -- that could have led to this situation?

I am of course the world's greatest lover, but when I do have the occasional failing I try to approach it with humor and lightheartedness. If he is unable to do so this suggests some level of insecurity over the relationship.

Um, is there some way you could have some sort of failing to make him feel a little less self-conscious? Like, let out a huge fart or something. That'd take the edge off of things.
posted by Deathalicious at 1:43 AM on April 9, 2007 [1 favorite]

It sounds like you might need sexual counselling. From what you write, it sounds like he's got a lot to work through. Getting it out into the open will make for a much healthier relationship.
posted by humblepigeon at 3:24 AM on April 9, 2007

Just to play devil's advocate: could it be that part of the problem is that he is feeling forced into having more sex (and more "adventurous" sex) than he really wants, and the easiest way to say "no" is to have a floppy penis? Or to ask this a different way, if the choice was sex five times a week, but with a 20% failure rate and a stressed out partner, or sex that was only twice a week, but with a 100% success rate and a happy partner, what would you choose? (Numbers obviously totally fictitious.) Could you be happy getting less than what you want, or can he be happy getting more than what he wants? Someone will either need to compromise, or genuinely change their libido. (Rewriting your question, but with the genders reversed, might be a useful exercise, if only to see how the assumptions one brings to the question change.)

Secondly, is he doing the things that are known (at least anecdotally on the internet...) to help libido, such as being in shape, not drinking three beers right before getting it on, noting drug interactions (like with SSRIs), etc? Personally, my sex drive closely follows both my physical fitness and my stress level; improving both makes a great deal of difference. These are outside-the-bedroom issues that, however, affect things significantly inside the bedroom.

Talking with a counselor could help, if you can find a really good one who is comfortable with these issues and can make your boyfriend feel ok talking about it. Similarly, he should have a chat with his doctor -- you are sure that it is "just in his head," but really he should get checked out to be sure that there isn't a physical issue underlying the erectile issues. Some guys do really well by using the chemical crutch of drugs like Viagra to "get over the hump" as it were and regain their confidence, but I think you want to rule out other possibilities first.
posted by Forktine at 4:12 AM on April 9, 2007

Is there anything he does for you sexually that your old kinky partners didn't? Anything at all?

(A: "Yes, of course there is. Otherwise I wouldn't be with him." Right?)

Even if you set aside the normal (but sorta childish) desire to feel like the Biggest Stud Ever, everyone likes to feel special some of the time. If he knows you're getting something from him that you can't get elsewhere — even if it's something tiny: that one face he makes, that special way he moves his hips, that favorite square inch of bare skin — then that's a step towards feeling less replaceable.

(That's the downside of the whole GGG mystique, if you ask me. "I do all the pervy things my partner asks me to" isn't really a reason to feel special because he can't really own it — all he's doing is following directions. If it's the only thing he's getting praise for, then yeah, it's gonna feel like pretty faint praise. He'll be happier hearing that you get off on something little that's uniquely his.)
posted by nebulawindphone at 5:45 AM on April 9, 2007

foobario's got it nailed down. Your boyfriend is insecure. It's hard to counsel someone out of insecurity because even addressing it is uncomfortable and usually causes a defensive reaction. Overcoming insecurity is a hell of a thing and I can't propose anything profound on that, especially since you are an anonymous stranger. So instead I'm going to try and give you quick-fix advice using only my penis brain, which is known to make huge mistakes all the time. However, it warrants mentioning that there is a good chance that this is the same kind of brain causing your boyfriend's insecurities...

Speaking as a male hormone factory, I will propose these two causes for general male sexual insecurity: 1) not being first, and 2) not being the best.

It will obviously be difficult trying to convince your boyfriend that he's the best at anything. If you somehow manage this, then good - you're on track towards fortifying his sexual psyche. If not, my lower-brain's advice would be that you do something with him sexually that you've never done before. I don't know what this will be, but hopefully there's something left... If it's something that you both end up enjoying, that's a bonus.

On preview, exactly what nebulawindphone is saying. Much better way of putting it.
posted by krippledkonscious at 6:08 AM on April 9, 2007

Follow-up from the OP:

Thank you for the advice so far! As a clarification, my boyfriend is my first sexual partner. I am not his. Issues of not being the "first" would not apply in this case.
posted by jessamyn at 7:23 AM on April 9, 2007

Well then he is just being silly. He should know he's rocking your world because your world has not otherwise been rocked!

As far as you are concerned, he is the greatest lover that ever lived.

Note I can say this because I had the exact same worries when I was with my high school sweetheart, who we were each other's first. She would regularly tell me "you're great, and even if you weren't, how would I know?" She was a lot smarter than me back then.

Although I will say from personal experience and anecdotal evidence from a myriad of friends... if you are already more kinky, more horny, and more adventurous than he is, it is unlikely you're going to be fulfilled in the long term with this man.

Just throwing that out there.
posted by Ynoxas at 8:04 AM on April 9, 2007

Has it occurred to you that you're not that kinky, and not that adventurous, at least in the ways that interest him? From the initial question, it really sounded like you were the worldly, experienced one who was bringing new things into this. It's possible, though, that what seems novel to you might just seem like a waste of time to him and he's being kind. Is this likely? Probably not, but it's possible.

Start out simple. Make it obvious that just being with him turns you on. Leave out all the other adventurous, kinky, random stuff until you've got a good start. If problems persist, then maybe he has something else on his mind that he's not willing to share yet.
posted by mikeh at 8:15 AM on April 9, 2007

I respectfully disagree with mikeh. I think you need to assert yourself honestly, and completely, early in the relationship.

If he's not on board with your self-described "kinky" stuff now, it is profoundly less likely he will be later in the relationship, especially if it seems to come out of nowhere.

Sexual compatibility is important, and worth making abundantly clear as soon as is reasonable.
posted by Ynoxas at 9:41 AM on April 9, 2007

As a clarification, my boyfriend is my first sexual partner.

Do you masturbate? Do you find orgasms via oral or other methods besides penetration to be somewhat less than satisfactoy? Because, yeah, if his penis is your only source of sexual gratification and you like to be gratified often, then he is justifibly feeling a lot of pressure to perform. In this case (and I don't know this is the case), I would advise learning to be more of your own sexual outlet...and letting him (just) watch, heh.
posted by and hosted from Uranus at 12:04 PM on April 9, 2007

Depending on your kinky dynamic, you could punish him when he gets a performance anxiety attack. Tie him up, spank him, tell him that Mistress is very, very angry that he is making her listen to his whiny drivel about his stupid anxieties, masturbate in front of him and go watch television in the other room. Then untie him.

If he’s genuinely not turned on then this kind of treatment will make him angry. If he is turned on but anxious, it could be reassuring. Use your judgement.
posted by kika at 1:11 PM on April 9, 2007