After a year in print, the awkwardness of conversations about my book has driven home just how socially undiscussable erectile differences are. Yet there is a hunger for authentic open conversations about this awkward topic.

People thrive on sensual pleasure. Erectile differences, difficult though they can be, definitely don’t need to block sensual and sexual satisfaction.

Readers from their 20s to their 70s, of all genders and sexual orientations, showed up at my first in-person book launch last month. Their energy started a remarkable intergenerational conversation about sex with erectile differences. It was amazing and the conversation must go on.

I’m grateful to Come As You Are for hosting the launch. As you can see from the image above, I was not short of props to do technique demos from the chapter on Pleasure. The store has been a sex-positive mecca in Toronto for 29 years and offers an exceptionally wide range of books and toys and events.

Why talk about erectile differences?

These conversations are important. Millions of penis owners and their partners are in some kind of private hell because the penis in their lives doesn’t meet the phallocratic norms of this world. And most are stuck behind a wall of shame and can’t imagine exploring loving sensual connection without that penis standing up. All around the world, it is more difficult to talk freely about erectile differences that most other “differently able” body non-conformity.

Erectile function is one place where men get a taste of what it is like to be limited by body stereotypes. And almost everybody alive today has been affected by the last thirty years of Viagra advertising. The lucrative trade in “little blue pills” benefited commercially from stiffening the phallocratic illusion that all cocks can and must be hard on demand.

Erectile differences across the ages and genders

In the conversation at the launch of Beyond Erections, what emerged was a myriad of alternatives. There was a man in his 70s who’s taking female hormones as an alternative to chemical castration to ward off Stage 4 prostate cancer. There were people into BDSM who highlighted that hardness and intensity need not come from erections but might be introduced by teeth and/or toys. There was a young trans woman whose hormone treatment renders her penis soft. She finds that even in queer circles, conventional hard cock expectations persist. Potential lovers believe that whatever looks like a cock should always be hard in sexual situations.

The truth I see is that the sex lives of a very large number of people include a penis in some way. For a myriad of reasons these penises are not always hard, even in sexual situations. The current reality for most penis owners is to be ashamed of erectile differences. We often isolate ourselves from sexual opportunities or are shamed for “not getting it up.”

This is simply stultifying to all the millions and millions of people of different ages, genders and sexual orientations who encounter softness in their own or their partner’s penis in sexual situations.

Towards a post-Viagra generation: continuing the conversation online on June 1st

The conversation at the launch was so rich, that I want to make it available to global participation, live and on Zoom. There is a big need for alternatives to the iron rule of hard cocks – for their owners, for their partners and in public imagination.

So I will be hosting an online conversation about sexual pleasure in changing bodies, including tips from my book, on Monday June 1st, at 12 noon Eastern time – 6 pm in Western Europe and Africa. To maximize accessibility while supporting the work involved, it will be a “pay what you can” event. Please join us for an hour of rich exploration of the world of possibilities that opens up when we are able to discuss the undiscussable.