In his posthumously published diaries, The Business of Living, the Italian writer Cesare Pavese (1908–1950) describes his own life as a lost battle. Pavese was impotent because of a congenital defect in his sex organ. He talks of a struggle with his own character, which over the years he came to regard as an insurmountable fate. When Pavese put an end to his life in 1950, it was the culmination of something he had been heading towards for years. There has been much conjecture and much has been written about why he committed suicide: criticism and 157
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misunderstanding from the Communists, the fact that no woman was prepared to commit herself to him, but mainly his sexual problems.
A few fragments from the diaries:
7 December 1937: A man who has not come up against the barrier of some physical impossibility that affects his whole life (impotence, dyspepsia, asthma, imprisonment, etc.) does not know what suffering is. In fact, such causes bring him to a decision of renouncement: a despairing attempt to make a virtue out of what is, any case, inevitable. Could anything be more contemptible?
23 December 1937: The child who passes his days and nights among men and women, knowing vaguely but not believing that this is reality, troubled, in short, that sex should exist at all, does he not foreshadow the man who spends his time among men and women, knowing, believing this is the only reality, suffering atrociously from his own mutilation? This feeling that my heart is being torn out and plunged into the depths, this giddiness that rends my breast and shatters me, is something I did not experience even when I was befooled in April.
The fate reserved for me (like the rat, my boy!) was to let the scar heal over, and then (with a breath, a caress, a sigh) to have it torn open again and a new infection added.
Neither deception nor jealousy have ever given me this vertigo of the blood. It took impotence, the conviction that no woman ever finds pleasure with me, or ever would. We are as we are; hence this anguish. If nothing else, I can suffer without feeling ashamed: my pangs are no longer those of love. But this, in very truth, is pain that destroys all energy: if one is not really a man, if one must mix with women without being able to think of possessing them, how can one sustain one’s spirits and vital power? Could a suicide be better justified?
25 December 1937: If screwing was not the most important thing in life, Genesis would not have started with it.
Naturally everybody says to you ‘What does it matter?
That’s not the only thing. Life is full of variety. A man can be good for something else,’ but no one, not even the men, will look at you unless you radiate that power. And the women will say to you: ‘What does it matter,’ and so on, but they marry someone else. And to marry means building a whole life, a thing you will never do. Which shows you have remained a child too long.
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a i l m e n t s o f t h e p e n i s Spinal cord lesion
A spinal cord lesion is a catastrophic event. There is an abundance of therapies for this group of mostly young patients: physiotherapy, water therapy, psychotherapy, you name it. But sex therapy is not on the list.
Not only many professional helpers, but family members and others believe the patient will never again have a sex life. The unspoken question they are asking themselves is to what extent someone can love such a badly injured body.
The writer D. H. Lawrence (1885–1930) takes this as his theme in his once shocking but now classic novel Lady Chatterley’s Lover (1928). The main character’s husband is a war invalid, who at the age of 29 suffered a complete spinal cord lesion. His wife is six years younger. It so happens that the husband, Clifford, proved emotionally cold even before his injury. With great artistry Lawrence describes Lady Chatterley’s passionate relationships: first with Michaelis, whose
‘pathetic two-second spasms’ cannot ultimately satisfy her, and later with Mellors, the gamekeeper, the embodiment of the natural male element and the complete antithesis to her wheelchair-bound husband.
Particularly in the initial post-traumatic phase many spinal cord lesion patients see sex as a closed chapter, something that is no longer compatible with their badly damaged body image. At a later stage spas-ticity or stiff joints may hamper sexual activity, and there may also be involuntary loss of urine during sex, especially if the bladder is not emptied in advance. One positive aspect is that new erogenous zones may develop, such as nipples, neck, earlobes or the skin in the transitional area between those parts of the body with and without sensation.
Sexual need is particularly great among these patients without a partner. That need is catered for, for example, by the TLC Trust (www.tlc-trust.org.uk), which provides counselling and sexual services, and by discussion forums for the disabled like that at www.thesite.org.
A new technique, still in its infancy, is a neurological bypass. This involves an operation to redirect a nerve from the groin to the head of the penis, which requires the damage to the spinal cord to be below the point where the inguinal nerve branches off from the spinal cord, that is, below the first lumbar vertebra. The operation was first performed in the Netherlands with spina bifida patients. It often takes at least six months before any kind of sensation returns and it may take two years before it is possible to assess how pleasant that sensation is.
The brain has to learn that signals are no longer coming from the groin, since at the beginning a touch to the glans is registered in the groin.
The man himself has to begin to (re)associate the sensation in the penis with sex.
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If there is a partner and she is responsible for most of the care, that may be to the detriment of the sense of their being lovers. Friction between partners, one of whom is handicapped, often relates to that care. ‘If you have a row with your wife and half an hour later you have to ask her to put you on the toilet, it’s no joke,’ as one spinal cord lesion patient told me. Experts advise that the seriously handicapped are best cared for by a professional rather than by the partner, which is a way of preventing the carer–patient relationship from coming to replace love and friendship.
Partners wanting to end a relationship with a spinal cord lesion patient may feel a certain guilt, which can lead to the postponement of that decision. This may stem from a feeling of responsibility and concern about what will become of the invalid partner. It is important to distinguish love and pity: in the view of some psychologists staying with someone out of pity is a mistake. Others believe that love can develop into empathy: the sense of experiencing and sharing the other’s suffering.
That does not detract from the fact that it can be a very hard decision, especially if those around one take the side of the person left behind.
Lady Chatterley chose to leave after she become pregnant with Mellor’s child and her husband refused a divorce – and who can blame her?
Wedding-night impotence
One day I was rung up by a psychologist to ask if I would teach a patient to inject himself in the penis. The case was as follows: a young Turkish man was due to leave for his homeland to collect his wife. They had only been married for a few weeks, but unfortunately his bride had been taken back home because the poor bridegroom had been unable to achieve an erection on their wedding night. His wife remained a virgin, bringing shame on her family. On the principle of ‘now or never’, the unfortunate man was taught how to inject himself: if things didn’t work spontaneously, he would have some chemical backup. He left with needles, syringes and a number of ampules of vasodilatory fluid. A few weeks later we heard that fortunately everything worked without injections, and that the patient had been able to display the bloody sheet proudly to the family.
In the story ‘Le moyen de Roger’ (Roger’s Method) French writer Guy de Maupassant (1850–1893) paints a very accurate psychological picture of an initially disastrous wedding night. A young Parisian couple, Roger and Gabrielle (who is a widow), plan to celebrate their wedding night quietly at the bridegroom’s apartment. Consume
d by passion and desire, they soon withdraw to the bedroom, but Roger, the brand new bridegroom, finds it impossible to achieve an erection: 160
a i l m e n t s o f t h e p e n i s When I joined her in bed, I lacked confidence in myself, I admit it. I felt edgy, troubled, ill at ease.
I took my place beside her as a husband. She said nothing. She looked at me with a smile playing round her lips, visibly anxious to make fun of me. This ironic attitude, at such a moment, finally disconcerted me and, I admit, robbed my arms and legs of their strength.
When Gabrielle realized my . . . embarrassment, she did nothing to reassure me, quite the contrary. She asked me, in an offhand way:
‘Are you as full of life as this every day?’
I couldn’t stop myself answering:
‘Do you know you’re insufferable?’
Then she started laughing again, but laughing in a quite immoderate, unseemly, exasperating way.
It’s true I cut a sorry figure, and must have looked very silly.
From time to time, between two paroxysms of hilarity, she said, choking on her words.
‘Come on – that’s the spirit – put some energy into it – my
– poor darling.’
Then she broke into such helpless laughter that she couldn’t stop giggling.
Rage and humiliation drive the young husband into the street. In despair he determines to put his manhood to the test, follows a prostitute to her room, and lo and behold, succeeds with no problem in doing what he had failed to do half an hour before. With a restored feeling of self-worth he returns to the hotel where he acquaints his wife, herself a-tremble with trepidation and excitement, with the delights of love, this time with an erect penis.
In Japan wedding-night impotence is still a frequent occurrence, presumably prompted by the very different sexual mores of the country. Wedding night impotence undoubtedly occurs in other countries too, but often for quite different reasons: many bridegrooms over -
indulge on the big day, or even more often, are too tired.
Adultery
Almost two thousand years ago the Apostle Paul’s pronouncement that it is better to marry than to burn in hell was a reluctant admission that human sexuality must have some sort of outlet. Marriage – the institution within which sexuality was to be experienced – was thus 161
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accepted by the church – though not yet blessed: that came only later.
This view of St Paul’s had far-reaching consequences for Western civilization.
The story of Anna Karenina, told by Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910) and set in Czarist Russia, is deeply sad. Trapped in a marriage with Karenin, twenty years her senior, Anna travels with her family to St Petersburg, where she meets Count Vronsky. Vronsky is a professional soldier, a gifted horseman and a man of honour, and does what he can to avert the impending disaster. But their feelings cannot be suppressed, they fall hopelessly in love and – as is common in an extra-marital relationship – become increasingly reckless and careless. When the affair reaches Karenin’s ears and he publicly disowns his wife, Anna’s status and life are shattered, and she finally throws herself under a train.
Vronsky suffers no more than a setback to his career.
People will go on being unfaithful until the end of time. Playing away retains its attraction, even for people who in practice never indulge. The fact is that many people are unfaithful in their fantasy: 60
per cent of women and 80 per cent of men fantasize about sex with someone other than their own partner. Figures on actual adultery differ so widely that it is difficulty to say anything conclusive about them. It probably happens more frequently than we think. However, we are left with the problem that ed quite frequently occurs with adultery, since the man often feels guilty about deceiving his partner. Guilt sometimes also derives from the awareness that one is being unfeeling and cruel to the person one is deceiving. Many men realize that they can no longer truly love their partner, and the same probably applies to women: adultery causes one’s partner, male or female, great suffering and painful humiliation.
A poem by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) illustrates this point. In ‘The Diary’ he describes meeting a pretty young woman at a country inn. There is an immediate spark of attraction, and very soon they find themselves in bed, but at the crucial moment his penis leaves him in the lurch. The poet describes the accompanying feelings of rage and shame: ‘My master player, hitherto so hot, / Shrinks, novice-like, its ardour quite forgot.’ He is a prey to anxiety and despair. ‘Better a bloody foe / In battle than this shame!’ ‘I raged a thousandfold, my soul was rent / With cursing and self-mockery both at once.’ He cannot comprehend why he cannot perform better. Then the mood of the poem changes. Despite his failure, his bedfellow is satisfied, having experienced love and tenderness:
How chaste she was! For though she made me free
Of her sweet body, loving words, a kiss
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Desiring, as it seemed, no more than this;
Happy she looked, peacefully, yieldingly
Satisfied, as if nothing were amiss.
The real moral of Goethe’s poem is that male impotence is a divine punishment for adultery. Wasn’t the sacrament of marriage after all instituted to combat promiscuity and ensure that the reproduction of the species took place in an orderly manner? Imagine the general surprise at an article that appeared in a newspaper on 18 April 1995 under the headline: ‘Bishop: adultery in the genes.’ In the article Richard Holloway, Anglican bishop of Edinburgh, was reported as saying that the church should not condemn adultery. ‘Man can’t be blamed for being unfaithful. It’s how God made him. It’s in the genes,’ said the bishop. This statement was part of a series of lectures in which he wanted to take sex out of the taboo sphere. The response of the head of the Anglican Church, despite the appeal to genes in mitigation, was unambiguous: ‘Adultery is and will remain a sin.’
The bishop probably has a valid point. Human beings are not innately mono gamous: the vast majority of cultures recorded by anthropologists are polygamous. Sociobiology sees men as having a deeply rooted urge to supply their sperm to as many women as possible, just as women prefer to receive as many suppliers as possible in order to optimize the chance of pregnancy. That would explain why so many people – both men and women – have such a problem with monogamy: the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. That is definitely not just a matter of our Judaeo-Christian cultural roots. Who cannot feel Othello’s genuine jealousy? He loves Desdemona and his jealousy is mingled with the fury of the insulted husband. This kind of jealousy –
clearly timeless – should not be confused with the feeling of besmirched honour.
The only possible answer to the question of the jealous husband, of Othello: ‘What are you thinking, what are you feeling?’ is the pathological answer of masochism, self-torment. Where adultery has been proved, the only way out is love itself: surrender, acceptance of the freedom of the loved one. Impossible? Perhaps, but it is the only exit if we are imprisoned by jealousy. Love can exist only by the grace of freedom.
In the view of the Mexican writer Octavio Paz freedom in love is a great mystery, a paradox that grows in a psychic substratum which unfortunately also contains poisonous plants like faithlessness, be-trayal, jealousy and forgetfulness.
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An unsatisfactory partner
Some men are unable to find real satisfaction with their own wives, though they have no problem at all with other women. The problem is partner-linked, and there is a host of possible reasons. For almost three decades Bernhard Premsela (1890–1944) worked as a gp in Amsterdam. In addition he was medical director of the Aletta Jacobs Family Planning Institute. Over the years he had heard every possible question about sexual matters and learned how to answer them – including questions about partner-linked impotence. H
e did many people a service by recording his experiences in Sexology in Practice (1940). However, in the chapter describing the psychological causes of ‘relative impotence’
in men, it is women who come in for severe criticism: A slovenly appearance is often responsible. Some women believe that once they are married there is no further need to take care about clothes or toilet. They look sloppy; a neglected face and hands complete the picture. Don’t misunderstand me: I’m not arguing for rouge, lipstick and plucked eyebrows. I deplore this kind of make-up, which turns the average woman into a herd animal and robs her face of all personal cachet –
which is precisely what gives it its charm. I mean only that pleasant grooming, which keeps the women and marital relations fresh and fascinating. Any woman who neglects such things, may pay dearly for this failure, with her husband’s relative impotence.
A little later he has this to say about odours:
For many partners alcohol-drenched breath is an insurmountable obstacle to achieving an erection. I believe this pheno -
menon is more common that is usually believed. Some people find tobacco smells from the mouth or on the fingers a powerful arousal-dampening factor, though I have also known cases where the smell of a cigar or pipe, but especially of cigarettes, had exactly the opposite effect.
On excessive hair growth:
There are women who even when young exhibit a different pattern of hair growth from the average. Two aspects may have an inhibiting effect on the man’s libido. Firstly, body hair. The average woman has only armpit hair and pubic hair, the upper 164
a i l m e n t s o f t h e p e n i s limit of which – as a secondary sexual characteristic – is marked by a horizontal line. Many women diverge from this norm and have a more or less virile pattern of hair growth (no horizontal upper limit to the pubic hair, but a diamond-shape, ending at the navel; hair-growth on breasts, arms and legs).
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