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    Navigate: FAQ Home Page > Male -- Erections > Problems with an erection
    Posted on: 10/10/2004

    Question

    my girlfriend and i have had sex several times, sometimes with a condom and sometimes without. everything has been good(erection wise) up until recently. we were making out like crazy, and i had no problems; i was hard that entire time...but then i put the condom on and lost it. this scares me because now she thinks its her fault and besides, i am a young man!

    Answer

    Thank you for your question. It is a COMMON concern for young men and their partners. However, there is a lot of information that I don't have regarding your physical health and situation that will make my answer incomplete. Here is my best advice.

    The mechanism of erection and ejaculation is part physical and part emotional. Inability to achieve an erection or losing an erection is a COMMON problem. It usually does NOT indicate a physical problem, especially in young men. It is not uncommon for a young man to have an erection problem once and then worry so much about it that he has trouble with achieving an erection later. In your case, perhaps the distraction of putting on the condom combined with a prolonged erection from making out resulted in losing the erection.

    With that said, the things that can influence erection and ejaculation are situation, distraction, smoking, alcohol, drugs, depression and anxiety.

    If you wake up in the morning with an erection or are able to masturbate then there usually is nothing physically wrong. It implies that the situation is more situational or emotional than something wrong with the physical mechanism of erection.

    Obviously, if this problem doesn't resolve it would be appropriate to seek out the advice of your family doctor and let them take a careful history and perform an exam.


    Answered By:
    Steve Johnson , PA-C


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