Does This Issue Make Me Less Sexy As a Gay Man?

Ask Daddy is an advice column for LGBTQ readers with questions relating to sexuality, morality, coming out or navigating relationships. And always remember, the best advice this Gay Daddy has for you is that if you have an urgent issue or are in need of regular counseling, seek out a therapist who can offer you individual care in person.

This week, Kevin responds to a writer who succinctly asks a pair of pointed questions about what it means to be a gay man in today’s world — especially if you can’t always rely on your penis to point the way.

Hi Daddy, and thanks for sharing your words of wisdom with all of us!

I am 55, and have had ED ever since I had my testicular cancer treatment/surgery.

My question is: at what point should I tell my perspective sex partners I don’t always get an erection? I am a bottom, which normally comes up early in the conversation, especially if meeting up on one of the apps.

Thank you,
Chris

Hi Chris,
Thank you for the kind words — and your courage in coming forward. Gay guys can quickly go to the lowest common denominator when it comes to attraction: Can he or can’t he get it up? If you can’t perform an active role by obtaining and sustaining an erection, are you worth someone else’s time?

The answer is of course you are. And, as I have been known to say (often very loudly in bars, so that everyone within earshot can hear it), the biggest sex organ we have is not the one between our legs. It’s the one between our ears.

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Coming Clean

I’d say that the best time to tell a prospective partner that you experience intermittent erectile dysfunction is as soon as you have the sense that “it might go there.” Before then, it’s no one’s business but yours. And anyone who screens you out as a potential partner because of your finicky penis is simply a poor fit — if you’ll pardon the imagery.

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