When Nick came across April* on Bumble, he felt an instant spark. After some back and forth, the two took things offline and went on a date. It went well. Like, hours of conversation over dinner and then an evening of bar-hopping, well. But when Nick wound up at April’s house later that night, he didn’t feel excitement. Instead, he felt humiliated.
After a hot, lusty make-out session, Nick was hard and unbearably turned on by April’s body. But once April made a move to go down on him, his mind went into overdrive, and he began to feel his erection shrivel. “It was all too much,” he recalls, thinking back to the panic he felt at not being able to perform in the moment. “I was too weighed down by my worries that I’d embarrass myself.”
While his erection rallied, the pressure soon brought the encounter to an abrupt stop. “By the time I entered April, my erection was depleting,” he explains. “I was simply too scared I was going to fuck up. I couldn’t be in the moment anymore. I thrust a few times, but the motion was foreign to me, and soon my shrinking penis had lost enough volume and extension that it kept exiting [April] with every hump. The condom loosened, and I was too soft to penetrate again.”
The aftermath was upsetting. April felt “overwhelmed and ugly”. Nick left, devastated. “It was 2 am, and I quickly got dressed and thought about how I wanted to die,” he says. “When I got home, I went to bed thinking about how big of a fuck-up I am.” At just 24 years old, Nick is part of a silent sexual crisis: a growing trend of young men facing erectile dysfunction (ED).
Defined as difficulty achieving or maintaining an erection, ED can wreak havoc on self-esteem and sexual well-being. But while the condition is often associated with older men, a not insignificant proportion of men face sexual dysfunction earlier in life. Historically, research has placed the percentage of younger men with ED at 19% for those under 40, but even this could be a conservative estimate, given the reticence of men to report the condition.
Traditionally, ED is associated with physical conditions such as high blood pressure or high cholesterol, heart disease, and diabetes. But for many younger men, problems getting hard can’t always be traced back to a physical cause. So, why exactly is this happening? How is it impacting our sex lives and relationships? And, most importantly, what can we do about it?
A silent epidemic
According to data provided exclusively for Cosmopolitan UK by Mojo, a sexual wellness app that addresses ED, the number of young men struggling with the condition could be even higher. Out of the over one million men who have taken their personalized quiz exploring ED, 43% are under 30, and a whopping 70% are under 40. Louis Morgan, Mojo’s director of marketing, explains that their data corresponds with an overarching trend: men are facing erection issues younger. “In terms of erection issues, a recent study showed that the prevalence in young men has increased 31 times in the past 10 years,” Morgan explains. “It’s an epidemic that no one is talking about.”
These findings are alarming. But what, exactly, is behind this trend? The paper highlights that the men affected often assume that their testosterone (T) levels are to blame. This may well be due to the large quantity of videos circulating on TikTok which advocate for ‘testosterone maxxing’ and attribute any number of issues to low testosterone. However, the quantity of young men who actually do have low T levels is wildly overestimated, and, in fact, the ED epidemic in younger men may well have a psychological rather than physical cause.
Indeed, Dr Ben Davies, a clinical sexologist, sex and relationships therapist, and GP focusing on sexual medicine, suggests that while ED might be experienced in the body, for many young men, it’s very much connected to the mind. Specifically, he refers to the increasingly concerning landscape of male mental health (not only do men have lower life satisfaction rates than women, they are less likely to pursue mental health treatment).
Young men may be doubly vulnerable to mental health challenges, not just on the basis of gender but also age. After all, the biggest changes among young people over the past couple of decades has been skyrocketing reports of poor mental health. While this was already in motion before the pandemic, it sharply increased post-COVID: between 2020/21 and 2022/23, mental health referrals for children and young people increased by over 50%.
In many instances, it’s the mental health crisis which is to blame for young men’s growing difficulties in bed. “In younger men, ED is most commonly linked to stress, anxiety, low mood, or relationship dynamics,” Davies explains. “If someone has good morning erections, good erections during masturbation, and desire is intact, but things falter with a partner, it often points to the mind rather than the body.”
However, there are lifestyle factors to be mindful of, too. In particular, certain medications can take their toll. “Medications are another key cause, especially hair-loss treatments and antidepressants,” Davies adds. “Hormonal issues are less common but can occur, particularly after using anabolic steroids.” And while Reddit boards are filled with men making links between ED and porn use, Davies is skeptical on that one. “Despite what’s often mentioned online, there’s no good evidence that porn use causes ED.”
How to navigate ED during casual sex
For heterosexual men, sex can often focus on performance: how hard you get and how long you last. When you can’t get or keep an erection, you can feel like a failure. As a result, the knock-on effects of ED can be hugely detrimental to both your sex life and your sense of self.
Davey* began having problems getting erections in his late 30s, when he and his partner were experiencing broader intimacy issues. Now, a lack of erections has chipped away at Davey’s sexual confidence. “Me and my partner used to be active on the kink scene and had an immensely fun sex life,” he recalls. “Now, I feel embarrassed and ashamed for having ED. I’ve always been quite sexually driven, [but not being able to achieve an erection] makes me feel like I am not fully equipped for sexual scenarios.”
Often, this isn’t something these men are going through alone — their partners are affected too. Davey notes that his partner thought it was “her fault” that he struggled to get an erection; a perspective that was echoed in Nick’s dealings with April. Sometimes, women can feel like a weak or absent erection is a sign that they aren’t hot or alluring enough; that their body isn’t a turn-on. However, speaking to women on the casual dating scene, this perspective — that a man’s erection is a stamp of approval of your own hotness — is beginning to fade. As more and more post-date group chat debriefings light up with tales of lost hard-ons, women are beginning to understand the prevalence of ED, and the fact that a flaccid penis doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with them.
As Laura*, 29, explains, a sizeable percentage of men on the dating market right now are struggling with getting it up and keeping it there. “I’ve been casually dating for the last year and a half. I was just coming out of a relationship that was very sexually dysfunctional and was determined to have as much sex as possible,” she says. “I wasn’t prepared for just how much ED was waiting for me. Of all the men I’ve slept with over the past 18 months, about half have struggled to achieve or maintain an erection.”
Beyond casual connections, she’s felt like ED has been a barrier to forming deeper relationships due to an inability to develop lasting sexual chemistry. “I broke things off with a very promising guy at the start of this year because of his ED, although that’s not the reason that I gave,” Laura adds. “We’d only been out a few times, and I just couldn’t take the connection any further because every time we tried to have sex was like, two hours of futile hand stuff. I wish I could text him now and be like, ‘Hey, what’s up with your penis, any success?’.”
For Laura, the most tactful way to navigate ED is honesty; something which takes the sting out of a difficult encounter and allows casual partners to decide upon other, non-penetrative, ways to hook up. “Many casual partners with ED have been pretty honest with me,” she explains. “Some told me they were on SSRIs and many told me that they were having issues with sex generally.”
On the other hand, ignoring the issue is the easiest way to kill the mood and prevent Laura from meeting up with men a second time. “What’s really surprising is how many partners just pretended like nothing was amiss,” she says. “I’ve had several encounters that were particularly hot and heavy over text only to show up to their apartment and they aren’t able to achieve an erection, and it just hangs in the air. I’m an understanding person, but when it’s not acknowledged it does just make you feel bad.”
What can be done about ED?
So, besides acknowledging it, how can ED be navigated in the bedroom, whether it’s a casual connection or a more long-term situation? Well, there are plenty of practical approaches, like trying cock rings or vibrators, and longer-term solutions such as sex therapy and, in particular, techniques like Sensate Focus: touching exercises designed to help with sexual anxiety and challenge goal-oriented sexual patterns. But the best piece of advice for individuals experiencing psychologically induced ED is to focus on connection rather than performance.
“A great starting point is exploring what actually feels pleasurable and what reduces pressure,” Davies explains. “Early in a relationship, intimacy without penetration can be incredibly connecting. Follow your turn-on rather than a script. When men lead with curiosity about their erotic world, exploring fantasies, sensations, and desires, they stay more present and less anxious.”
Of course, there’s a temptation to opt for a little pharmaceutical assistance in the first instance. While these are necessary treatments for some, others may benefit from a more holistic approach to their sexual wellness — and decentring the pressure to perform altogether. As Davies sums it up: “Pleasure doesn’t depend on penetration; there are countless ways to have amazing sex while giving your nervous system a chance to relax.”
*Names have been changed
Megan Wallace (they/them) is Cosmopolitan UK’s Former Sex and Relationships Editor covering sexual pleasure, sex toys, LGBTQIA+ identity, dating and romance. They have covered sexuality and relationships for over five years and are the founder of the PULP zine, which publishes essays on culture and sex. In their spare time, they can be found exploring the London kink scene and planning dates on Feeld.
