We are in the age of quick fixes. Any problem can be solved with one click of a button. This culture has made people with sex problems want instant solutions. In fact, they keep off if they learn that the treatment prescribed to them may go for months and run to pharmacies for a quick tablet or to the herbalist or diviner for an instant solution.
This possibly is an expression of what is increasingly becoming our nature, especially in Kenya. We are becoming a country of shortcuts. You do not have to go through the long haul of assembling maize, vegetables and beans to make githeri. Just walk to the supermarket and buy a cooked one. The whole problem of corruption comes from the fact that people want to be helped faster. Students spend time scheming on how to steal exams rather than reading to gain knowledge, and now, we all want a button we can press and fantastic sex happens!
“Doctor, can’t I just get a tablet for my sex desire to come back?” Men and women with low libido frequently ask.
“He has been away and he comes back this evening but I have no feelings and I fear this will offend him. Do you have something I can apply, drink or swallow just for the night?” I hear from women.
Unfortunately, treatment of sex problems does not operate in that way. This is because sex problems result from several intersecting causes which require proper investigations to determine. The investigations call for interviews, laboratory tests, and sometimes even home assignments for individuals or couples.
A sex problem can come from biological causes. A good example is lack of desire. Sometimes sex hormones are the cause. When some of the hormones are produced in small quantities or in higher than normal amounts, the first symptom of the problem could be a sexual dysfunction.
But a big chunk of sex problems also result from self-esteem and body image issues. Good sexuality is an expression of vitality and self-confidence. When people have self-pity, do not value their image or appreciate their beauty, the results can be catastrophic. It could be a simple matter, such as feeling too fat, or having pimples that make you feel unattractive, or you could have been brought up in a big family where you were the laughing stock for your big head. The resulting erosion of self-confidence many times manifests as a sexual dysfunction.
Sometimes the issue is to do with heightened emotions. The emotions could be positive, such as during celebrations when people are in a carnival mood. Sex easily and perfectly happens. But there are also difficult emotional moments. It could be that someone is making your life difficult at work, or that you have been bereaved, or just that you failed your exams. These emotional lows do affect sexual function. Unfortunately, in today’s fast-paced world, couples do not always know or understand what their spouses are going through emotionally.
Some sex problems result from relationship issues. Sex is an expression of friendship and love. It works pretty well when the relationship is functional. Dysfunctional relationships lead to dysfunctional sex. Unfortunately, this can become a vicious cycle. A couple has a relationship problem, goes to bed and sex fails, gets suspicious of each other, and gets into more relationship problems.
Something deeper about sexuality is its spiritual connection. There is a way the two souls involved in sex connect supernaturally. When this spiritual connection is absent, sex becomes mechanical. It becomes a laborious duty. Soon, people start finding excuses for not engaging in it. We are all too familiar with the headache that only comes at bedtime.
Closely related to the spiritual dimensions of sex is the energy flow between spouses. Maintaining a healthy relationship calls for investment of internal energy in your partner. This means spending energy thinking about them and directing the energy to activities that make them happy. It means channeling energy into positive communication with them, spending the energy to clear emotional obstacles to your spiritual connection.
In some relationships, however, positive energy is replaced by negative one. Spouses spend their energy scheming on how to hurt each other. This is common where there are subconscious power supremacy battles between spouses. Each of them spends time and energy to scheme their next actions. The actions are to show that they are the superior ones in the relationship. The result many times manifests in bed. People work to disappoint rather than make their spouses happy.
Whenever you are faced with a sex problem, the cause can be anything. It may take repeated interviews with a sexologist for some causes to be identified. Sometimes there are multiple causes to the problem. In fact, there may be many problems happening at the same time.
Once the cause of your problem is determined, treatment is directed to the cause rather than the symptom which is many times what a person is bothered about. A quick fix tablet, herb or cream can be a temporary measure but definitely fails as fast as it may appear to solve the problem.
