A Personal Journey with Cancer

While there are many complex decisions that one approaches in dealing with any kind of cancer, prostate cancer bring some particular emotional issues that I want to introduce with this entry. I’ll get back to more about my decision to have the robotic-assisted laparoscopic radical prostatectomy in another entry.

 

The various ways that most men are taught what it means to be a man in our society include notions of virility, masculinity, and power. These ideas are conveyed in a variety of ways through examples and directives, through media, family, and peers. When an adult man, who has been sexually active, faces prostate cancer, his incorporation of these notions into his self-identity is challenged. It is challenged by results of the prostatectomy that include incontinence and impotency. Regardless of the particular fellow’s prognosis for regained continence and erectile function, there will be a period, up to years, when he has to live with these side effects. Such a prognosis varies on many factors, previous general health, age, previous sexual health, etc.

 

The issue of impotence may be the more challenging of the two since it tends to take longer to recover, typically, than incontinence and it speaks more specifically to the notions associated with how our society defines, in part, what it means to be a man. “Limp dick” and “dribbler” are pejoratives in our culture (I’m sure you can think of many more) that address the complex relationship between expectations and performance.

 

So, I would like to invite the reader (particularly men, women, men who have sex with men, women who have sex with men) to comment on the meaning of potency in how we define men. This is not just about sex; if you learn that a man has become impotent, how will it change your perceptions of him, of his sex partners you may know?

 

I look forward to your thoughts and reactions,

Steve

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