All ages of male sexuality

Male sexuality through the eyes of the famous French psychoanalyst and sexologist Alain Eril is much wider than just sex. To be a man means to become a man, to define yourself through your attitude to your body and your feelings, to your parents, women, friends and your own children, to your male role in the family and society, to weakness and strength, vulnerability and responsibility.

The sphere of sexuality is a personal universe, and each of us, man or woman, has to invent it on our own. There are no recipes and instructions, but there are patterns and common difficulties and discoveries for many of us, which Alain Eril analyzed for more than twenty years, communicating with patients in his office.

One of his main ideas is that at each age a man will have to rethink his masculinity, answering his main questions, finding a balance between his pleasure and the feelings of another, mourning for youthful lightness and accepting himself in maturity. Six Ages of «Being a Man»: A Sexologist’s Insight and First-Person Testimony.

10 – 20 years

Adolescence: Finding Yourself

Entering adolescence often causes such enthusiasm and energy in the boy that it literally overwhelms him, pushing him forward towards physical and mental autonomy.

Adolescents experience an ambivalent feeling in which fear and delight are combined. Powerful hormonal changes, a new body, and the real prospect of experiencing first sexual contact and first love cause a deep identity crisis. And in all this you have to find your own way, deal with yourself and with the world. A teenager is a knight, acting to conquer life cheerfully, with enthusiasm and a light heart.

Keywords: hormones, crisis, curiosity, fear, joy, shyness, rudeness, lightness, masturbation, homosexuality, first love.

Quote: “I first fell in love when I was 13. I remember everything like it was yesterday! A girl with brown eyes, the sight of which made my heart beat wildly. But I never told her about my feelings. I kept them to myself. Yes, and how to say? The girls looked askance at us, waiting for us to come up first. I didn’t know how to approach them.» (Mark, 64)

20 – 30 years

Youth: a collision with reality

Many men find it difficult to say goodbye to youth. They are nostalgic for the ease and carelessness with which they have to part. The pleasure principle comes into conflict with the reality principle, and the young man is looking for a way to reconcile them. You have to take responsibility for your professional choice, for your feelings and relationships. For the first time, the thought arises that the current romance will last a long time, it is possible that it will last a lifetime.

One way to build yourself up and overcome fear of the future is to be friends with other men who serve as both a mirror and support in facing the world, especially since the discrepancy between expectations and reality sometimes causes a depressive state. A man outgrows the «spirit of contradiction» and begins to develop his own values ​​and views.

Keywords: mourning, pleasure, reality, future, mother, friendship, values, vulnerability, penis, orgasm.

Quote: “It was unbearable: to be so gentle, to feel the tears coming at the sight of her message: I could not come to terms with it! There was a choice for me: her or my company … And I chose friends! I must have made her suffer terribly, but I suffered too! Three years later we met again. I was closer to 30, I became more mature and wiser. And he agreed to be vulnerable and sensitive — for his own happiness! (Victor, 30 years old)

30 – 40 years

Fatherhood: the end of carelessness

The prospect of becoming a father causes panic and dizziness in many, and this prospect usually becomes real after 30 years. There is a feeling of a new start, a new test: after so much effort that it took to become a man, you need to start all over again!

In addition, fatherhood forever changes the status of a man as the son of his parents. In the male unconscious, questions arise: will I remain a man, becoming a father? How to truly enter into the role of a father, and not just portray him? What kind of father do I want to be? There are profound existential choices in the answers to these questions. Sexuality is also changing: “phallic” self-affirmation is adjacent to the first sexual difficulties, you need to maintain a constant dialogue with your future mother, accept your fantasies associated with her pregnancy, see her and yourself in a new way. And also to cope with confusion, jealousy and a sense of worthlessness in order to become part of the father-mother-child triad.

Keywords: man, child, initiation, loneliness, break, stress, role, attachment.

Quote: “I was happy that my son was born. I was even proud of it. I was proud that I had succeeded: I thought that I could not cope with the role of the father. But it was painful for me to accept that my wife and my son could have their own relationship. When she gave him a breast, I felt anger boil in me, and I was ashamed of this feeling. (David, 34 years old)

40 – 50 years

Maturity: point of balance

Sometimes forty-year-old men live in anticipation of their fiftieth birthday, which they feel as a moment of loss of male power, mourning for omnipotence, betrayal of the body. This decade is associated with many fantasies and fears related to sex.

Many become fathers again in order to maintain the illusion of immortality. After forty, a man begins to really fear old age and feels that he has to change. A new, mature personality must arise, and some habits and behaviors will remain in the past. But there is a need to seduce, charm, please, in order to confirm one’s masculinity, to multiply love victories and sexual acts, to prove to ourselves that the world can change at our will.

The same age usually accounts for the emergence of adult relationships with their own father (“like men with men”) and the adoption of decisions that will predetermine the rest of their lives.

Keywords: aging, responsibility, middle, apogee, seduction, body.

Quote: “I no longer feel desirable and seductive. My hair is thinning, in the gym I can no longer show the previous results, and my erection is not at all the same, it seems to me! I’m tired, really, really tired…” (Lev, 47 years old)

50 – 60 years

Finding yourself: time speeds up the run

Body changes become apparent, which can lead to hypochondria. A philosophical outlook on life and understanding of oneself, if they have been achieved earlier, give wisdom, courage and calmness to cross the threshold of fifty years. Owning oneself, respecting oneself, asserting one’s way of being in the world are the main joys of this age.

However, the specter of «sexual death» often pushes men into the arms of young women. Decreased libido and erection problems can be alleviated by understanding «being a man» as broader than sex as in your 20s.

Keywords: race, illusions, erection, nostalgia, present, anxiety, freedom, beauty.

Quote: “Some changes in the body make us remember the streets we have been walking on for many years. Here the store closed, the signboard disappeared, the premises are rented out; and we ask ourselves what was there before, that is, a week ago. (Daniel, 55)

After 60 years

sacred sexuality

It’s time for real sexual freedom. Attitude towards sexuality becomes more mature and happy. Sex is no longer associated exclusively with pleasure and genital contact, a spiritual dimension appears in it. One of the ways of sublimation is a new attitude towards a woman, towards the feminine principle as sacred. Tenderness, touch, the depth of emotional intimacy in a couple come to the fore.

Keywords: spirituality, deceleration, caresses, feminine, rituals, awareness, appeasement.

Quote: “I became more respectful, gentle, calm. I no longer need to prove anything to anyone. In fact, I feel the need to glorify women, to admire them admiringly. This does not mean that my sexuality has become less pronounced. She’s just different.» (Gleb, 62 years old)