78 - Wednesday, October 26, 1988 ~

Q. We are both middle-
aged, in good health and
married five years. A little
less than six months after we
married my husband became
impotent on most occasions.

We have seen two sex therapists
and followed their instructions pa-
tiently with no real results. He has
also seen a urologist and (tsken
medication which produced
sleeplessness and ean urge to
masturbate in the aight.

E am naturally feeling unattrac-
tive to him, although sex
throughout my first marriage was
wonderful. He was also impotent
in his first marriage.

He has stopped tsking the
medication, and we both take a
somewhat dim view of sex therapy
since nothing worked for us. At
present there is small talk and
friendliness in our marsiage, but
no sex. Must we accept the umac-
ceptable? Or have you another
suggestion we have not consid-
ered?

A. You both have been through
a discouraging experience, so it is
not surprising that as a result you
are discouraged. Giving in to
discouragement and abandoning
hope, however, are your worst
enemies. Even though you tried
two sex therapists, maybe you did
not try hard enough to find one
who suits you better. No sex ther-
apist is for every couple.

I have had my failures and don’t
know a sex therapist who has not
failed with some clients. The one
who can really help you may be at
work right now, using personal
methods just suited to a couple like
you. Get to the phone, call up
whoever first referred you to a sex
therapist, and describe your pro-
blem. Say you are determined to
try again — with a new therapist.

Many therapists are especially
good with marital counselling,
which helps to resolve non-sexual
conflicts within a marriage. This

North Shore News

can smooth the way for more suc-
cessful sexual therapy.

In sex therapy, ‘impotence’ is
not a helpful word; many men
with sexual capacity have been
frozen in hopelessness by being
labelled impotent. In the past the

“I-word’? was used to cover a
variety of sexual difficulties that
could be improved. I want you and

your husband to drop it from your *

vocabulary. Try to think of the
difficulty you have encountered in
your shared lovemaking as a
shared problem.

In the first six months of mar-
riage, he was capable. Something
happened to send him back into a
pattern of despair and avoidance
of sex. My hunch is that the cause
is something in your relationship.
This is not an accusation, and it is
only an educated guess, but one
worth exploring with a marital

counsellor or sex therapist who is

also a marital counsellor.

I doubt that your husband is en-
tirely incapable of any sort of sex-
ual experience or gratification.
And you are not. I feel sure there
is something you two can share,
and this has been abandoned or
not even attempted.

Often in my practice I have met
with sabotage of the therapy by
one partner or the other, perhaps
in some cases by both. Sometimes
one partner takes a _ neurotic
satisfaction in making the situation
hopeless. This is why some marital

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therapy or even psychotherapy may
be called for.

You say that you followed the
sex therapist’s instructions ‘‘pa-
tiently.”” Something other than pa-
tience probably was needed to
make the prescribed exercises suc-

ask
Dr. Ruth

Ruth Westheimer

Bie

cessful. The exercises are best
undertaken with hope and an-
ticipation; often they are consid-
ered a pleasure. Patience may be a

. Virtue, but it can be the flip side of

pessimism. Perhaps if you had
persisted the therapist might have
found some alternation of the ex-
ercises making them more helpful
to your particular case. And
perhaps a different therapist might
have been more encouraging and
more inspiring for you both.

Q. I am 24, and I have an
atrophic testicle. I am
monogamous, but it is still embar-
rassing when my partner and I
make love and she can feel only
one testicle, I read in one of your
columns that a gel prosthesis can
be inserted that is impossible to tell
from the real thing. I was wonder-
ing if testosterone injections or
something similar could stimulate
the faulty tesiicle’s growth. Also,
couid my present condition affect
my ability to have children? It
doesn’t seem to interfere with my
sex drive. And, where can I find a
surgeon to insert the gel prosthesis
if this is the only recourse?

A. My good friend, you have
had this condition some time, and

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you use a good deal of terminolo-
gy. I feel sure you have discussed
this condition with a doctor. You
should direct most of your ques-
tions to a medical doctor and, best
of all, a urologist — a specialist in
men’s reproductive conditions. If
you were in my office I would
refer you to a urologist, because
you deserve the most authoritative
answers to your questions.

Please understand, your ques-
tions are legitimate. They are im-
portant to you and you deserve a
urologist’s answers. If you go to
one you will get them. Write your
questions down so you don’t
forget them.

As a matter of general knowl-
edge, one testicle can produce
sperm — copiously and of good
quality — good enough to
engender a child with the help of a :
partner who shares your desire for
one. If you have doubts, go to a
fertility clinic for a sperm test. '

Have you found ‘out how she :
feels about it? *

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