Erectile dysfunction and the shame that keeps men silent
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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Two young people in love and you're just mad about each other. You just want to be with each other all the time and got your hands all over each other and you just think it's inevitable you're going to have sex. And so I just thought it'd be the same for me until I went to try and have sex and I couldn't. I couldn't penetrate.
I'm Jennifer Zamparelli and this is Just Between Us, a podcast about life and sex and relationships and the moments that deserve more than a whispered conversation. Today, we're talking about something that affects far more people than you think, but almost no one talks about. Erectile dysfunction, shame and the long road to getting help. I'm joined by Bobby McQuaid, a new dad who spent years struggling in silence before finally getting the treatment he needed. Today, he's opening up about the pressure he felt as a young man.
It's just this constant message from every media that it should be instant and it should be easy and it should be able to be done at a click of a finger.
The impact it had on his relationships. I started to get the thought, is she better without me?
You know, I love her so much. Do I need to let her go? Because this isn't fair. I don't want to put this on her.
The shame that kept him quiet. I couldn't even Google it. I had a fear somebody might see it and they might find out my big, deep, dark secret.
And why so many men are going through the exact same thing without ever saying a word.
I thought there was absolutely no escape. And so the shame just keeps you there and you can't get out of it. There's nothing wrong with me. I'm not strange. I'm not odd. I'm not unique. I'm none of those things. I'm just somebody who has a medical condition that got missed.
Bobby, you're very welcome to the podcast.
Thank you for having me, Jen.
Thank you so much for doing this. Now, you wrote publicly about your experience with erectile dysfunction, something most men would never dream of saying out loud. So what made you want to tell your story?
I suppose for me, the main thing was I went through all of this with my now wife, we started this journey together, the healing journey. And I suppose as we moved towards it forward in our life together as a couple and we got pregnant and we fast forward all through all those things, we had a house together. I felt really settled in my life. I felt like things had really worked out well for me and I felt comfortable. I wouldn't say I was fully healed, but I felt like I definitely processed a lot of the stuff I'd gone through in previous years. And at that point, I just thought, look, I feel confident and strong enough to talk about this publicly. It's not something that's talked about by men at all.
And so I thought, look, I have a little bit of an obligation to go and speak about it because I felt like I could. So, yeah.
Well, fair play to you. Can we talk about when you were 19 in your first proper relationship? So to speak, you were exploring sex for the first time. Can you tell us about that moment when you realized that things weren't working the way you, well, expected to?
Yeah, so my first serious relationship, obviously two young people in love and you're just mad about each other. You just want to be with each other all the time and you've got your hands all over each other and you just think it's inevitable you're going to have sex when you feel ready to do so. And so that was the exact same for me. And I had never had any other thought other than that. Until basically we went to the point of actually having sex.
What is erectile dysfunction and why is it rarely discussed?
And I'd never stopped to think about the mechanics of it or how it worked.
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Chapters
5 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:00–4:02
2
What is erectile dysfunction and why is it rarely discussed?
4:02–11:41
3
How did Bobby first realise he had sexual difficulties at 19?
11:41–14:20
4
What role did poor sex education and cultural messages play in his experience?
14:20–32:37
5
How did shame and secrecy prevent Bobby from seeking help for years?
32:37–33:07