The truth about how your mood affects your arousal
Two Valentine’s days ago, when I popped the question to my wife, something else popped up – a question.
We were at a local bar and a pair of folk singers had just finished covering Neil Young’s “Harvest Moon” when I turned to pop the fateful question. The second the “yes” left her lips, I started to feel it, that undeniable feeling. You could say my body was getting ready for the proposal after the party, but I knew even then that it wasn’t just that.
Distracted, I didn’t think much of it at the time. That is, until it happened again while we were talking about having kids. It makes sense, I guess, since my body could be saying, “Yeah, we’re ready. Let’s get on with it right away.” But again, that wasn’t all. Both of these bones were a response to something other than sex. They were encouraged by the idea of living my life with this woman, growing old together, committing to a very large size. I could only conclude that I was having an emotional erection. And, as I’ve learned, I’m not alone.
The conventional wisdom is that men only get spontaneous erections when they see a sexy stranger on the street, so it’s no surprise that a question I posted on Facebook initially invited a series of ribbings. “Did anyone else have emotional courage?” I wondered. “Bonners, no. Emotional wind, all the time,” wrote a British friend. From another: “There are moments when I am not is he supposed to have an erection? I have to see my doctor.”
Eventually, though, a couple of my male friends confirmed that it happened to them. Dustin, a man in his 30s, says he experienced this every time he and his partner talked about having children. “There’s a disturbance in my loin,” he announced the first time it happened. He didn’t understand well, so he had to say it more bluntly. “I’m having a hard time because you just said ‘baby,'” he told her.
Dustin’s newborn was crying in the background as he explained to me that the very fact that his partner wanted to have children with him was a profound and unexpected gift. The two had met later in life and she already had two teenagers. “I didn’t think it wasn’t going to happen, that I would ever have kids,” she said. In fact, he had to bring it up several times before it sunk in that he really meant it. “Each time, it was a surprise again.”
According to Dustin, his partner didn’t buy that his lumber wasn’t sexually motivated. “She was pretty sure I was high,” she explained. “I don’t think he understood the sentimental feeling about it, that [the boner] it was very connected to the idea of commitment and really loving someone.”
When my friend Roman was in his first year at university, he and his girlfriend were sitting across from each other on his couch and suddenly stopped talking at the same time. “We started looking into each other’s eyes, silent, just holding the gaze,” he said. “I was 18 and I had never been so intimate with someone. It was exciting to force the moment and we kept it almost to the point where we didn’t need sex.”
A few years later, Roman was on a double date with a new girl at some hot springs while living abroad. As night fell, he and his girl wandered off to their own corner and he took the plunge. “I told her I loved her for the first time,” he said. “He took my hand and said he loved me too. Momentary disappointment, even though sex would be impossible and inappropriate. They say a stiff prick has no consciousness, but when I was young and idealistic, I discovered that wasn’t true.”
As it turns out, there is a scientific explanation for all of this. As with everything else, it starts in the head. (The mind, I mean.) According to Dr. John Aquino, lead physician at Ontario Men’s Health, along with hormones, vascular activity and the function of the penis itself, there are two main parts of the brain that have a role in the erectile process. There is the part that receives sensory input – the temporal cortex – which is activated when you see something that turns you on. And then there’s another place—the frontal cortex and the paralimbic area, roughly—that’s the home of emotions and motivation.
“Sometimes a man can’t get an erection if he has too much on his mind, even if he’s looking at something sexual,” said Dr. signals from the sensory part. Interestingly, though, it doesn’t work that way the other way around. “If the emotional center becomes too active for any reason, or a man is in a very deep state of relaxation, the entire erectile process can start from this area alone, even without sexual stimulation. It’s not that common and it can take a lot of men by surprise.”
Don Carveth, director of the Toronto Institute of Psychoanalysis and author Still Small Voice: Psychoanalytic Reflections on Guilt and Conscience, considers bones to be fundamentally emotional — at least for humans. “As you go up the hierarchy from single-celled organisms to vertebrates to mammals, primates and then the jump to humans, the less biology regulates sex,” she said. “Most psychiatrists agree that human sexuality is 99% in the mind.”
As evidence, Dr. Carveth suggests that it’s rarely the sex itself—the act of the act—that causes an erection. “Human sexuality is deeply mediated symbolically. We’re more driven by stories and images than anything else,” she said, explaining that for men, that might include underwear, garter belts or role-play. Or, even more often, it can include the story he tells himself about his masculinity. “What turns a man on is to feel masculinity, but that’s defined in a certain context,” he said, giving the example of a patient whose wife got pregnant the first time they tried to conceive. “For weeks, he felt he had to wear a spacesuit before shaking a woman’s hand. It makes it hard for a man to feel strong.”
What about the stereotype that commitment is the least sexy thing? “Kids marry and kids have kids,” Dr. Carveth replied. “Obviously, not all men are crippled by a fear of commitment. Some overcome these fears and being ready to put a ring on that finger and have a baby can feel like a triumph.”
So there you go. Male sexuality can be more complicated than we think. Call it emotional stunt or emotional erection. Call it what you will, but there seems to be no doubt – the hard-on has a soft spot.
Micah Toub is its author Growing Up Jung: Coming of Age as the Son of Two Shrinks.
