Improving Your Erection

There are multiple factors that affect your erection including physical, neurochemical, hormonal, psychological, and emotional. Because of this, a man needs to maximize all of these to ensure the best erection he can have. Oftentimes a man will seek help for his erections only after he has had difficulties for some time. But the best medicine is preventive medicine. This includes lifestyle choices and measures that you can adopt for overall health, and specifically for continued optimal erections.

So here are a few factors to consider when wanting to preserve or improve your erection:

1. Watch what you put into your body. Everything you eat, drink, or otherwise expose your body to, will affect your overall physical health and therefore, your erection. Diets that are high in fat, sugar, and artificial ingredients cause an increase in your body's inflammation response. Over time, this is damaging to blood vessels, especially those of your heart and your penis. Other culprits are nicotine (whether in cigarettes or in nicotine patches/gum) and excess in alcohol. Keep in mind that alcohol use of more than 1/2 - 1 drink per day has been shown to increase your triglycerides and LDL (bad) cholesterol which eventually contributes to arterial plaques and hardening of the arteries, resulting in decreased blood flow.

2. Get moving. Our bodies are designed to be active and in motion. By keeping active and engaging in regular aerobic exercise, you increase the blood flow to your muscles, and your penis along the way. One of the most interesting things about increasing your blood flow is that it becomes a signal to your blood vessels to grow and get wider. It benefits your brain, your heart, and your erection. The principle of "use it or lose it" is the best advise one can follow. In fact, if you don't engage in sexual activity at least once or twice a week, it would be beneficial to masturbate. This not only helps with prostate health, but encourages the blood vessels that contribute to your erection to maintain their patency and flow.

3. Don't be so uptight. When you have anxiety or stress, it creates a state in your body that directly opposes sexual arousal. This can interfere with getting or keeping an erection (or even reaching orgasm for some). Sometimes men are not aware of anxiety that they create for themselves, which may come in the form of doubts or negative thoughts. If you are having difficulties with your erection and have no physical cause for it, then it would be important to explore in what ways anxiety is affecting you. I believe that you owe this to yourself and the future of your sexual functioning.

4. Supplement your diet. Besides keeping a diet that works to create better health for you and your penis, there are certain vitamins and supplements that can improve your sexual performance and your erection. These days, our diets do not usually provide sufficient B vitamins and most people should be taking a B-100 Complex daily. In addition to this, Coenzyme Q10 100mg a day works as an antioxidant, may protect against high blood pressure, and may also be cardioprotective. But one of the most interesting supplements available is Epimedium (a.k.a. Horny Goat Weed). The active ingredient in this supplement works the same way as that of Viagra, Levitra, and Cialis - inhibiting PDE-5, thereby increasing the availability of NO. This directly causes dilation of arteries of the penis (and other locations) which causes erections. Look for preparations made from trusted sources that provide at least 400-500mg per dose and take twice daily. This works not just for those men who have started having difficulty with getting and keeping their erections, but also for men as they age to maintain the best blood flow they can.

Be aware that difficulties with an erection can be a signal to other existing medical problems such as heart or vascular disease, thyroid problems, diabetes, or other end-organ damage due to metabolic syndrome or drugs/alcohol. Please don't delay in seeking medical attention for any problems with your erection, paying attention to what may be contributing to it. But again, the best course of action is the preventative one.

Fractured Penis

Yes, you can break your penis. It's called a penile fracture, but this is a misnomer because there is no bone to break. When a penis breaks, or ruptures, what happens is that the connective tissue (tunica albuginea) that surrounds the corpus cavernosum tears so that the blood can no longer be contained in the space that it occupies. The blood that was creating pressure inside the corpus cavernosum, and therefore an erection, then leaks out of that space to the surrounding tissues (more technically - a space). Here you can see an MRI of a fractured penis demonstrating the large hematoma caused by blood escaping into the surrounding space. Notice the small arrow indicating the tear in the tunica albuginea (seen as a thick black line). This results in what urologists call an "eggplant deformity" which is when the penis becomes swollen and takes on a purplish color because of the blood filling the space between the tissues. The penis is also usually bending to the opposite side of the tear. If the tear is large enough, it may actually extend to the urethra, causing inability to urinate and blood to come out of the tip.

So how exactly do you break your penis? Usually, a penile fracture happens when a woman is on top and the penis comes out of her vagina, but instead of going back into her vagina with the next movement, the head gets pushed against her pubic bone, the side of her labia, or the perineum, causing an acute 'bending.' If a man has a fairly full erection at the time, the tunica albuginea cannot take the incredible amount of pressure that builds up with the 'bend.' A tear is then created. There are cases where the penis does not completely come out of the vagina, but the angle of return is crooked, causing it to be forced to bend as just described. In all cases, an audible 'pop' or 'crack' is heard as the connective tissue tears and the erection is lost.

But there are some cases of penile fracture when a man is not having sexual intercourse, but instead just masturbating or even 'rearranging himself' and trying to move his erection to a different angle. If he is born with a slight flaw in a particular area of the connective tissue, that may be enough to get a tear at that spot, resulting in a fractured penis. It should be mentioned that there is a practice among some men to try to bend their penis in order to get rid of an erection. You should never try to bend your erection if it is fairly full because of the immense increase of pressure on these tissues and the risk of fracturing your penis. As you can imagine, it is an emergency and does require surgery to close up the tear in the tissues. With proper surgical attention, erectile and urinary function of the penis is restored.

After it heals, you can go back to banging away. Many times, men will feel very apprehensive about sexual activity after such an event. But as you continue to have positive (non-traumatic) sexual experiences, that anxiety continues to fade.

Wide-eyed

There have been a multitude of articles and advertising in the media stating that women prefer to experience a wider penis over a longer penis. And this is truly the case. When surveyed, 90% of women stated that width was more important to their sexual satisfaction than was length. It seems that in publishing their research, Masters and Johnson did not consider certain factors when they said that penis size has no real physiological effect on a woman's sexual pleasure and satisfaction. In order to understand a little more what they may have been missing, it's important to think about the anatomy.

First, let's talk about the clitoris. Most people are familiar with the little pink pearl that sits at the top of the labia. It is extremely sensitive and is covered by a little hood of skin that is actually where the top of the labia come together. But there is much more to the clitoris than just what you can see and feel. The entire clitoris is shaped like a capital A (without the bar in the middle). It's legs (crurae) extend down and under the pubic bone, and it also has extensions that follow along each side of the vaginal opening, called the vestibular bulbs. The entire clitoris is made up of spongy tissue that fills with blood when a woman gets aroused.

When a man has a wider penis, there is more pressure put on the vestibular bulbs which gives a pleasurable feeling of fullness at the vaginal opening. Some researchers have commented that this feeling of fullness is both physically and psychologically pleasing. Also, with a wider penis, there is more tension on the labia, which in turn causes more tugging and movement at the hood covering the clitoris. This adds stimulation to the clitoris in addition to the surrounding tissues. The entire vulva, including the labia, clitoris, and the lower 1/3 of the vagina is innervated by the Pudendal nerve. The more surface area you have contact with at any one time, the more you have exciting signals travelling up through that nerve. There may be some element to the stretch of the PC muscle at the vaginal opening that adds to the pleasure - also transmitted via the Pudendal nerve. Remember, this nerve covers the whole area including below the vaginal opening and the anus. This also benefits from a little tension from a wider penis going through the lips and vaginal opening.

Now, an average erect penis is about 10cm in circumference (that's about 4 inches around for those of us not on the metric system). So all of you who are wondering how you measure up, we'll wait while you take out the tape measure.....Ok. Now there are different techniques to give a woman the feeling of a wider penis. One such technique is to have a slight circular motion as you thrust. In this way, the shaft of the penis pushes more against the sides of the vaginal opening, giving the woman that extra pressure and tension. This can also be done by choosing an angle of entry that allows you to put more pressure on the fourchette below the vaginal opening where the labia end in a little "v." This works to also tug the labia a little more and stretch the PC muscle. And still others are much more imaginative, finding ways to work in extra fingers or using penile sleeves. So that's the skinny on width. No comment on bumpy penises.