Love and Relationships

[Two Pronged] Sexual performance anxiety and the pandemic

Margarita Holmes

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[Two Pronged] Sexual performance anxiety and the pandemic
The pandemic upends everything, including intimate relationships. How do you tackle a possible case of sexual performance anxiety?

Rappler’s Life and Style section runs an advice column by couple Jeremy Baer and clinical psychologist Dr Margarita Holmes.

Jeremy has a master’s degree in law from Oxford University. A banker of 37 years who worked in 3 continents, he has been training with Dr Holmes for the last 10 years as co-lecturer and, occasionally, as co-therapist, especially with clients whose financial concerns intrude into their daily lives

Together, they have written two books: Love Triangles: Understanding the Macho-Mistress Mentality and Imported Love: Filipino-Foreign Liaisons.


Dear Dr Holmes and Mr Baer,

I am 32, a physician, and a boyfriend to this most amazing woman who’s older than me by 7 years. We’ve been together now for almost 3 years. It was a rocky 3 years before, since she came from a long abusive relationship and I sort of came in and “saved” her. 

There are a lot of fights, mostly starting from her end because of all these insecurities and I presume it came from her past traumatic experience. I decided to be open minded, patient and understand. Everything went well.

The COVID-19 pandemic came and I had to live with her in her apartment for practical reasons. She is used to becoming the more dominant one. Living under her home would meant she is in charge. This is when living together brought out the best and the worst in us.

Our sex life was affected. I had a difficulty “performing.” I think I have this thing called sexual performance anxiety. Not making her satisfied makes me feel nervous. My heart races.

She has said very hurtful words before as she really is astraightforward, I’ll-speak-my-mind type of person. She acknowledged it and said sorry but I feel that I was scarred and my self confidence just plunged.

Am I hopeless?

Chris


Dear Chris,

Thank you for your email. Yours seems to be a relationship in two parts. The first, pre-pandemic, saw you living apart from your girlfriend (let’s call her Bea), both of you coming to terms with Bea’s trauma from her previous relationship, with her in the role of victim and you as savior (a role familiar to physicians). 

Despite all the difficulties that a new relationship can bring and notwithstanding the trauma issue, this was in your comfort zone.

The pandemic has stood all this on its head. By choosing, for practical reasons, to live in Bea’s apartment, you now occupy a subservient position. 

Bea is dominant, in charge and not averse to speaking her mind. Thus, she is a very different person to the one you knew originally, and your roles are, to an extent, reversed.

You say your sex lives have been affected though you are not specific. It is possible that the change in your circumstances has contributed to your feelings of nervousness and anxiety.

Relationship issues and gender role issues can lead to SPA and once SPA begins, it can easily result in a downward spiral, particularly if Bea is openly critical of your performance.

There seem at least three possible options open to you.

Firstly, if you find the “new” Bea’s character less attractive or indeed unattractive, you can terminate the relationship. After all, do you really want a partner who responds to your problems with hurtful comments?

Secondly, if you think that the relationship is worth saving and your current problems would be reduced if not eliminated by escaping from your COVID dictated siege conditions, you could move out until normality is restored and a less stressful atmosphere prevails.

Thirdly, if you are still anxious to make the relationship work under prevailing conditions, then you need to identify the cause of your SPA and address it, preferably with the loving support of your partner.

Finally, with regard to your comment about not satisfying your partner, it is good to remember that penetrative sex is not the only route to sexual satisfaction though admittedly that does require a partner who shares the same viewpoint.

All the best,

JAF Baer


Dear Chris,

First of all, you are not hopeless at all! Among other reasons, we still aren’t at all sure what the original cause of your poor sexual performance was. 

Secondly, as sex therapists always say, whatever the sexual dysfunction is, even if the person got it before he met his current partner, the interaction between the partners is one of the reasons the behavior is maintained.

I agree. Therefore, when Bea criticizes you, she is, in effect, also criticizing herself.

There is a saying: anxiety is the first time you cannot do two rounds; panic is the second time you cannot do one round at all.

It sounds like you are in panic mode – at least according to this meant-to-be- funny statement.

Meant to be funny and yet… such a lot of truth in it.

There are many reasons for a first time ED (erectile dysfunction) experience. Usually, a couple your age, tries to find the reason/s and rectify it/the so it doesn’t happen again. Berating one’s partner – no matter how often it happens before does not seem a very smart – let alone, caring-thing to do.

There is another saying: “Apihado, Abusado, pero ‘di Aminado”

Someone who feels or has actually been abused can become an abuser him/her self but doesn’t admit (or probably is not even aware) of this.

Your girlfriend came from an abusive relationship and yet seems unaware that she is doing to you what was done to her. True, perhaps not in the same manner or with equal intensity, but the inability to put yourself in another person’s shoes is one of the critical factors that separates a person who can abuse and one who cannot.

And no, being someone who is a straightforward, I’ll-speak-my-mind type of person, does not mean one can be hurtful or thoughtless. It just means you can say what you feel and not necessarily blame the other person for what is going on, particularly when it comes to sexual performance.

Finally, dearest Chris, you seem to take as given that living in someone’s apartment during the pandemic automatically means s/he will be in charge. 

In my opinion, a person who presumes this sort of ascendancy for the simple reason that she owns/rents the apartment you both happen to live in under the pandemic is not necessarily someone you want to spend the rest of your life with.

True, this pandemic has upended many things. But I do not believe it has changed people from saints to demons. Your basic personality – whether you are primarily a giver or a taker, whether you primarily are kind and understanding or unkind and unable to walk in another person’s shoes – does not. 

The stress we all feel might mean we are quicker to react, lose our cool and ultimately our temper, but it does NOT mean we change from lovely people into ogres. 

If you find your girlfriend changes into an ogre over sex or under other circumstances, then perhaps living with her is a warning, helping you dodge the bullet of an even greater commitment.

All the best,

MG Holmes

– Rappler.com

Need advice from our Two Pronged duo? Email twopronged@rappler.com with subject heading TWO PRONGED. Unfortunately, the volume of correspondence precludes a personal response.

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