“That’s what you think I want? Really??”

It was one of those priceless sex therapy moments.

I was working with a heterosexual couple. Let’s call them Pete and Angela (not their real names). Pete had gone soft trying to have sex with Angela after a long night of heavy drinking, and had worked himself into total panic in the months afterwards.

Every time they would start moving towards the bedroom, he’d start worrying whether or not he was going to be able to stay hard. The doubt and anxiety would overwhelm him, and as you can guess, would turn each new sexual experience into a horrible self-fulfilling prophecy.

It had gotten to the point where Pete had started to avoid sex, out of fear of not being able to perform. The couple hadn’t had sex in months, and it was causing a lot of tension.

During our session, Pete talked almost obsessively about his penis. He talked about its approximate firmness at various times when they’d attempted intercourse. He talked about how firm it used to be, and how long he used to be able to go during intercourse. He assured me that these issues had neverhappened to him before, and that he’d always been able to perform just fine. He talked about wanting to give Angela “what she deserved” – a rock hard penis.

Angela listened quietly, but you could sense her losing her patience. Finally, she uttered the line. “That’s what you think I want? Really??”

Angela launched into her own little speech. She said she wouldn’t have cared about Pete going soft that fateful night if he hadn’t made such a big deal of it. She knew the two of them could have had a fun and pleasurable night together even if his body wasn’t cooperating perfectly. She couldn’t believe that Pete thought she needed and expected him to be rock hard 100% of the time.

Pete was floored to hear all of this.

Like Pete, so many men internalize unrealistic sexual expectations from society and porn, and get obsessed with this idea of performance perfectionism. Getting and staying rock hard. Lasting the exact amount of time that’s not too short but also not too long.

But that’s not what the women who sleep with men actually need.