Sexual Healing

by Barbara Keesling

If your penis is erect enough, insert it into your partner’s vagina for the next peak, and repeat the process. Your penis doesn’t have to be super-hard to penetrate in this position as long as you use plenty of lubrication. Every time you feel your emotional arousal go noticeably beyond your physical arousal, stop your movement or withdraw your penis until your two arousal levels are more in line with each other.

  Exercise 34. LISTENING TO MUSIC DURING INTERCOURSE

  This is an advanced exercise to fine-tune your ability to last longer during intercourse. It can be used in any position. It will remind you to slow down during intercourse.

  Choose a piece of music with a very slow beat and put it into the CD player. It should be instrumental; listening to the words of a song will distract you. When you start intercourse, just hold your penis still inside of your partner’s vagina, and pay attention to the beat of the music. Slowly start to stroke, switching your focus back and forth from the feelings in your penis to the music. See if you can keep up with the music by matching one stroke per beat or one stroke per two beats. If you are able to do this, for the next exercise you should choose a different piece of music that has a slightly faster beat.

  chapter 24

  Healing Erection Problems

  This is the longest treatment chapter in Sexual Healing. In part that’s because we know much more than we used to about erection problems. Another reason why this chapter is so long is because in addition to sensate-focus exercises, it outlines medical solutions for erection problems that have a physical basis.

  Could Your Erection Problems Be Physical?

  If you have decided that you have an erection problem and you wish to heal it, the first thing to do is recognize that your problem might be physical. Before consulting a physician and undergoing a lot of expensive medical tests, ask yourself the following questions:• Do I have erections during the night, or when I wake up in the morning?

  • Do I have morning or nighttime erections, but have trouble when I’m with my partner?

  • Do I have erections when masturbating but not when I’m with my partner?

  As described in Chapter 7, a healthy man has several erections during the night, and he also has erections with masturbation. If you answered yes to any of the above questions, your erection problems may have a psychological basis, which means you will benefit from the exercises in this chapter.

  If you never have morning or nighttime erections and haven’t for several years, try the exercises anyway. There is a good chance you have a physical problem, but the exercises won’t hurt you, and I’ve seen them work wonders for men with organic (physical) erection problems because of the powerful effect the mind has on the body. If you go through this program and experience no improvement, I recommend that you consult a urologist who specializes in erection problems. If you do not get erections when you masturbate (that is, when the psychological pressure is off), you might very well have a medical problem, and seeking medical advice is in order.

  Now for the exercises. A couple of the early ones were adapted from the second edition of my book Sexual Pleasure. Remember to end all of the partner exercises with five or ten minutes of spoon breathing, and then with each partner giving feedback based on the questions outlined in Chapter 15.

  Exercise 35. DAILY GENITAL MASSAGE

  Every day, for ten minutes, gently massage your penis, especially around the base. This is a way to get more blood flowing to the genital area. Put simply, this will help to “prime the pump.”

  Don’t massage to create an erection. Massage to become aware of your penis and its sensations. This will create or reinforce your mind-body connection, which is crucial to experiencing deep arousal. Gentle massage will also help you develop your sensate-focus awareness. Do this massage whether you have an erection or not. I promise that you will see the results in future exercises.

  Exercise 36. CARESSING YOUR MORNING ERECTION

  For many men, the hardest erections they have are the ones they have during their sleep cycles at night or the ones they have when they wake up in the morning. Here is an exercise you can do to use this to your advantage.

  Figure out roughly how much sleep you need in order to have your best chance of waking up with a morning erection. Allow a little extra time in the morning, and when you wake up, do a self-peaking exercise (like you learned in Chapter 18). Do the peaking while paying attention to your arousal levels, not your erection levels. Peak for about fifteen minutes, going up to levels 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9, and then ejaculating if you want to. This exercise is good for improving erections because your arousal level will go up and down, but your penis will probably stay relatively hard during the entire exercise.

  Many men unconsciously tighten their PC muscle when they feel themselves starting to become erect. Men develop this habit because, at first, squeezing the PC muscle seems to pump up their erection. However, if a man makes a habit of doing this, he may start to notice after a while that it takes longer and longer to get an erection, or that he gets an erection and then has trouble maintaining it. If he reacts to a loss of erection by squeezing harder, he will actually make matters worse. Here’s why. If you squeeze your PC muscle when you start to get an erection, your penis will momentarily fill a little bit, because the blood that was already in the shaft past the PC muscle will flow into the penis. After that, however, the temporary squeezing of the PC muscle prevents more blood from flowing into the penis, and the end result is a net loss. You’re literally taking one step forward and two steps back. If, on the other hand, you squeeze your PC muscle when your erection has already reached the state of rigidity, your erection will not be affected, because no more blood can flow in anyway.

  Squeezing your PC muscle as you are getting an erection also works against your erection in two other ways. First, the sensation of tension travels along a feedback loop between your genitals and your brain. When your brain registers this “tension” message, it reacts in ways that interfere with your ability to feel the first stages of erection. Your body reacts to the tension by beginning the stress response, including the release of adrenalin, which can inhibit erection. Second, the fact that you are “doing something” to get an erection shifts you into a performance mode. Psychologically, this decreases your ability to relax and just allow your erection to happen.

  Are you squeezing your PC muscle at an inopportune time? Try the exercise below to see if this is the case. Often, one session is all you need to break any bad habits. That may sound too good to be true, but I’ve seen it work with clients.

  Exercise 37. RELAXING THE PC MUSCLE FOR STRONGER ERECTIONS

  This is an exercise that you do with your partner. Start the session with relaxation and focusing caresses. Then pleasure your partner with a nondemand genital caress. Lie comfortably on your side or back in the passive role. Have your partner spend fifteen to twenty minutes slowly caressing your genitals with her hand and mouth. As you become aroused, if she feels you tighten your PC muscle, she will tell you and then wait for you to relax it before she begins the caress again. After your partner has pointed out your unconscious tensing three or four times, you will begin to recognize it yourself, and then you’ll be able to keep your PC muscle relaxed without feedback or prompting from your partner.

  Exercise 38. ERECTION AWARENESS

  Believe it or not, some men are so out of touch with their bodies that they do not know whether they have an erection. This may sound hard to believe, but it can happen if you have ignored the sensations in your body for a long time. If you have a problem with erection awareness, you may experience pleasant feelings in your genitals even while being unaware that your penis is hard enough for intercourse. I have worked with clients who had this problem. I would do a genital caress for twenty minutes or so, and the client would have an erection for almost the whole time without realizing it. Eventually the erection would go away simply because so much time had elapsed. The client would think that he had never gotten an erection during the ses
sion.

  Another reason for lack of erection awareness is that sometimes a man specifically learns to ignore his erections because he thinks that is the best way to get an erection. Actually, he is partially on the right track. What he needs to do is stop worrying about his genitals and start feeling them. The feelings of arousal in your genitals are something you definitely want to concentrate on, not ignore!

  To practice erection awareness with your partner, think of the hardness of your erection on a scale from 1 to 10 (review Chapter 7 for descriptions of the various erection levels). Level 1 would be a completely flaccid penis, and level 10 would be an extremely hard, almost painful, erection. If you get erections in the morning or when you masturbate, practice describing them using this scale.

  Begin your first erection-awareness exercise with focusing caresses. Then you may do a genital caress or nondemand oral sex with your partner, after which you should lie back and relax with your eyes closed.

  Women, you will monitor this exercise. Begin a nondemand front caress, and continue to a genital caress or oral sex for about twenty minutes. Ask your partner at various points during the caress how hard he thinks his erection is. If his estimate differs significantly from your estimate, have him open his eyes and look at his penis. No matter what his erection level is, ask him to estimate it five or six times during the course of the exercise. It’s just as important for your partner to learn to recognize the lower levels of erection as it is for him to learn to recognize the higher levels of erection.

  If your partner describes his erection as a level 2 when in fact it is hard enough for intercourse (a level 5 or 6), he needs to believe this. After he has seen his erection, have him close his eyes again and concentrate on the feelings in his penis so he can learn to recognize those feelings without having to look.

  It is important to make sure that your partner breathes evenly and remains relaxed during this exercise. If he holds his breath, remind him to breathe. If he tenses his leg muscles, lightly pinch or tap them as a signal to relax. If he squeezes his PC muscle, remind him to relax it. As always, if he starts to become anxious, caress another body part to take the focus off the genitals. If your partner finds it impossible to relax, back up to an exercise with which he felt comfortable, like a back caress or an upper-body front caress.

  Men, do the erection awareness exercise as many times as you need to until you are confident you can recognize, through feeling alone, when your erection is sufficiently hard for penetration.

  Maintaining Erections

  “What goes up must come down.” We all accept this law of gravity in the abstract. However, when it comes to erections, many men believe—or hope—that what goes up should stay up forever. In fact, it is perfectly normal for erections to get harder and softer several times during the course of a sexual encounter, especially as you get older. When men feel their erections start to go down, whether during intercourse or before, they often panic and start frenzied activities to try to regain the erection or to “use it before they lose it.” Working at it or trying to keep it hard is the worst thing you can do, as it virtually guarantees that you will lose the erection.

  If you are one of those men who panics when your erection starts to go down, you need to learn a new response to this situation. Your previous response has been, “Oh, no! I’m losing it! I need to hurry up and do something with it before it goes down completely!” Guess what? What you really need to do is exactly the opposite. You have learned to believe that once you lose an erection, it will never come back. It is obvious how you learned this. In previous situations, when you lost an erection, you worried about it, which guaranteed that it didn’t come back. Now is your opportunity to train yourself to think differently about this natural physiological phenomenon. Whenever you get that panicked feeling because you are losing an erection, use the feeling as a signal to tell yourself the opposite of what you usually tell yourself. Instead of, “Oh, no! I’m losing it,” say to yourself, “I now am able to relax and enjoy the sensations in my penis. I won’t try to work at anything sexual when I am feeling anxious. Instead, I take a deep breath, I relax my leg muscles, and I focus on how my partner is touching me.”

  Some men experience a more extreme reaction called pelvic-steal syndrome. In this case, the man can get an erection but loses it as soon as he starts to move or tighten his large muscles. The larger muscles, especially the leg muscles, literally steal blood away from the erection. This is a complex phenomenon, and there is some debate over whether it can be cured by anything other than surgery. I believe it can, and I have seen clients improve with this exercise. Whether you experience pelvic-steal syndrome or whether you panic when your erection goes down, the “get-and-lose” exercise will help you practice a new response when you feel your erection going down. You will learn that “what goes down must come up.”

  The physiology of having and maintaining erections is well beyond the scope of this book. In fact, we could write a whole book just about erections. Instead, let’s talk about it in simple terms. Think about your partner doing a genital caress or some oral sex with you. When you are breathing deeply and evenly, and not holding your breath, she will be able to feel (or even see) blood flow into your penis. If you hold your breath, she will be able to feel blood flow back out. If you keep your abdomen, thigh, and buttocks muscles completely relaxed, she will be able to feel blood flow into your penis. The instant you tighten up, she will be able to feel the blood flow back out. If you keep your PC muscle relaxed, blood will flow in. If you either consciously or unconsciously tighten your PC muscle, blood will flow back out. This simple in-and-out process, which your partner can easily observe, is the basis of the next erection exercise.

  Exercise 39. GETTING AND LOSING ERECTIONS

  Begin the exercise as you would any other session, with focusing caresses. Then you may do a nondemand front or genital or oral caress on your partner. After that, lie on your back with your eyes closed. Your partner will begin a nondemand front caress, genital caress, and oral sex. As always, she will do the caresses for her own pleasure. She should note whether you are breathing evenly and relaxing. If not, she can remind you to do so. Remember to focus on the sensations.

  Whenever you get a noticeable erection response, your partner will stop the stimulation and allow your erection to go back down to a level 1 (no erection). Then she will start over with the caress and allow your erection to come back up again. Repeat this pattern as many times as possible during a twenty-minute to half-hour period.

  The first time you do this exercise, it may be frustrating. In fact, the first time you do it, you may not have an erection at all because you will be worrying about it. If you do have an erection, you may be tempted to think your old thoughts or go back to your old habits of flexing your PC muscle, tensing your thighs, thrusting your pelvis, or holding your breath when you feel yourself losing the erection. Your partner can give you feedback about whether you are doing these things. She can help you monitor yourself so that you become aware of the simple relationship between tension level and blood flow: Relaxing equals blood flowing in, tensing equals blood flowing out.

  Many men develop a habit of tensing their PC muscle group as they are becoming aroused. Tightening your PC muscle may make you feel as if you are pumping up your erection, but in fact, as discussed above, it has the opposite effect: It will cause your erection to go down. An especially negative habit is tensing and holding the area of your PC muscle that includes the anal sphincter. This can cause you to lose your erection quickly. Make sure that you keep your anal sphincter completely relaxed during any sensate-focus exercise, especially the exercises involving genital stimulation. The get-and-lose exercise should demonstrate the relationship between muscle tension and erection quite clearly. You will learn that if you relax, your erection will return, whereas if you become tense or work at getting an erection, your penis will stay soft.

  You may also find that you feel frustrated the first few times your
partner stops stroking you. You may experience a little reverse psychology, thinking to yourself, “I’ll show her! This time I’ll get the erection and I won’t lose it even though I’m supposed to!”

  Finally, the exercise gives you a chance to practice your new responses to the former panic situation. During the first few erection losses you will probably experience frustration and worry. Tell your partner what you are feeling, and have her coach you on relaxing when you feel your erection going down. Repeat this exercise as many times as you need to, until you honestly are completely comfortable with the feeling that your erection is going down.

  Exercise 40. PEAKING FOR ERECTIONS

  In Chapter 18, on self-touch, you learned how to do the peaking process by yourself. In Chapter 23, on healing premature ejaculation, I described the peaking process with a partner using manual and oral stimulation and intercourse. The peaking process can also be used to help you have firmer erections.

  In Chapter 23 I described how to use the subjective or psychological 1-to-10 scale. That scale measures emotional arousal or your sense of closeness to ejaculation and orgasm. If you want to use the peaking process to heal erection problems, you can use either the subjective/psychological arousal scale or the erection-hardness scale. I would suggest that you first use the subjective/psychological scale. Doing so will help your erections, because focusing on arousal instead of erection removes the performance pressure. If you would like to do the peaking process using the subjective /psychological arousal scale, just do the peaking exercises described in Chapter 23 until you are confident that you can have reliable erections at level 6 or 7.

  Next, you can start the peaking process based on your erection scale. First, do focusing caresses with your partner. Then have her give you a manual and oral genital caress. This time, instead of you giving her arousal feedback, as you did when you were using the psychological/subjective scale, she will give you feedback about the hardness of your erection. She’ll stop at each peak and allow your erection to go down a couple of levels. After you have peaked at levels 4, 5, 6, and 7 (and 8 or 9 if possible), ejaculate if you feel like it or end the exercise however you wish.