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“It’s not so easy being a man,” I was once told by a construction worker who was also a bodybuilder. He was referring to what he thought was the difficulty of living up to women’s expectations.
Recently, President Trump remarked that it was scary being a young man today. He was referring to the supposed danger of predatory women accusing them of sexual abuse when no such thing had happened. He was obviously thinking of himself when he spoke. Both remarks indicate a fear of women, a picture of women waiting to pounce if you give them a chance. Put another way, they are expressions of vulnerability.
Such a fear can exist even in men who pose as hypermasculine (“Macho”), including those who fulfill the criteria of "sexual addiction." If asked, none of these men would admit to being afraid of women, but their speaking of “conquests” suggests, at the least, that their relationships with women always involve conflict of some sort. They may speak about the danger of being “trapped” into a long-term relationship or, worse, marriage.
In a different context, such behavior is called “counterphobic,” the strategy of overcoming a specific fear by obsessively confronting it over and over again. G. Gordon Liddy, in his book Will, describes how he overcame his fear of rats by capturing them, cooking them, and eating them. Over time, he also overcame his fear of lightning by tying himself to trees during thunderstorms.
Some responses to my previous blog posts also allude to such a caricature of women. “All they want is to get you interested so they can reject you.” “They’re all bitches… They’re vicious.” “They are super-choosey. No man is good enough.”
These characterizations border on the myth of the “vagina dentata,” or the vagina with teeth. Most reflect concerns that are unconscious—although one man did tell me recently that he was literally afraid of vaginas. Of course, the real fear is the fear of the powerful woman.
Insecure men are more likely than others to be afraid of women. Although their feeling of inadequacy may be reflected in all sorts of circumstances—including work, for instance—they may have specific self-doubts about sex. A common concern is that their penis is too small (or smaller than average, at least). If Lake Wobegon has students all of whom are above average, the dating population seems to have a majority of men who are below average in penis size.
Another common fear is the fear of losing one’s erection. Putting aside the relatively small number of cases of impotence that are physical in origin, either from diabetes or nerve damage and such, most causes of impotence have psychological roots. It is fear that leads to impotence. There are many such fears: the fear of being found wanting on a first date, the fear of being caught in the act by a parent, the fear of doing “a bad job,” and so on. And the fear of failure itself makes failure more likely.
Between one thing or another, most men will experience some degree of impotence at some time in their life. Since failure leads to more failure, this condition tends to compound itself. The longer it goes on, the more likely it is to continue. Worse, the fear of the woman’s reaction makes them more afraid. If a man starts off thinking women are nasty and predatory, their fears are worsened still.
During the first 30 or 40 years of my psychiatric practice, I told men that I never heard of a woman not being sympathetic in this situation. Even if they were, in fact, disappointed, they were always reassuring, precisely because they understood that the condition is likely to respond to reassurance. And then I encountered a woman who was not!
Of course, it is still very unlikely that a woman will be turned off by someone who is impotent from time to time. The woman I mention above is so uncharacteristic of women in general, I think it is worth thinking about what made her different.
When she first came to my office, she told me she was suicidal because the man she loved had just rejected her. Two weeks later, she told me she was in love with someone else.
She was a chubby, attractive woman who exuded sex. She boasted to me once that when she was eight months pregnant, passing truck drivers would whistle at her. She had three children by three different fathers. She was always in trouble. She worked intermittently and never had any money. She lived off the various men she knew. She was not observant of the ordinary rules of friendship. She stole electricity from a neighboring apartment. She borrowed clothing, money, and other possessions from new-found friends but would not return them. “I had no other choice,” she explained to me. She sometimes walked around her apartment naked in front of her 13-year-old son. Her diagnosis, back then, would likely have been hysterical personality—a term used to describe psychopaths who happened to be female. Yet she was full of life and somehow appealing.
Her behavior toward men was seductive and combative. She was always fighting with them for little reason, exploiting them, and, ultimately, being rejected by them. It became obvious that she had contempt for them.
One day, when a casual date proved impotent, she sneered at him: “I don’t have any time for this.” She was, in short, the malevolent woman that some men imagine all women to be. But she was the exception that proved the rule. The vast majority of women are not interested in fighting and winning a war. They are not looking forward to opportunities to criticize their dates.
They want the same things that men do. They want someone to be friends with and to have a good time with. They want someone to care for and to care for them. Occasional impotence is seen as a problem to deal with, not a reason to walk away. They would be walking away from everyone.
In other words, you don’t have to worry so much. Also, thank goodness—nowadays, there is Viagra.
