The worst anxiety

I once did Chilecca! What heaviness, what a terrible embarrassment in admitting such a common and, at the same time, so hidden, repressed, unacceptable truth. Still, that's how it happened. And you know, in these cases, a scapegoat is found at any cost, however probable it is: "I drank too much," says someone; "I'm tired," someone else; "Eh, the radiation of the mobile phone ...". Recently Tommaso Ghezzi, for "the pocket", told in an article what, at the time, was a famous television story: the Chilecca di Pietro Taricone in front of the cameras of Big Brother 1. In short, the competitor Sex Symbol and Super-Macho He had not reached an erection during a relationship with Cristina Plevani. And Ghezzi tells of how the media megaphone of Antonio Ricci acted: having all been taken off and therefore eager for a motivation, to the microphones he declared that that défaillance was "due to the bombing of electromagnetic waves irradiated by the batteries of the microphones, which the boys They keep on the trousers at the height of the groin ». How could, in fact, the male par excellence fail in his greatest peculiarity? Of course, that was the Italy of the early 2000s, and the Berlusconian lighthouse Mediaset shone more than ever: it was unguarded between sexism and machismo without the few and faintly cries of protest being listened to by anyone. Yet, on the question itself, even today the reactions are similar.

It happens to do Chilecca, well. It seems that it is always necessary to find an explanation outside of ourselves, download the responsibility of the thing on an external factor - possibly plausible - so that we can justify ourselves in the eyes of the world. The psychological factor cannot be a excuse: the male does not fail during sex, he does not feel anxiety. It is a perfect machine, properly oiled, that once activated it works to satisfy (are we then so sure?) The needs of the female. And in the meantime we males, who grew up with this belief since the first days of adolescence, gradually cultivate a silent paranoia, not shared with anyone: the possibility of failing. It is so silent, in fact, so placed in depth in our unconscious as to make us forget about its existence until one day, inexplicably, we fail. Let's make a Chilecca. The world collapsed on us: it happened. We begin to sweat, get angry and get rid of the reason for that tragedy. We convince ourselves that we are the only ones, because it is something that should not happen, because we have printed the idea of ​​sex as the animalistic exercise of the gym porn-actor and invincible. We do not want, of course, to download the responsibility of a problem on pornographic industry, but rather to highlight the distorted image that is commonly has virility. The shame of non-erection is nothing more than the umpteenth of the many representations of what should not be or to be a man: he must not cry, he must not take on typical female attitudes, he must not fail during sex. Etc. In the ideal of common male with which we grew up there is no place for emotion, let alone for every fragility of whatsoever: virility is physicality, at any cost. It then happens that sexual pressure becomes very high, for some unsustainable, and it happens that a common and little weight event as the failure to achieve the erection is transformed into real performance anxiety, sometimes into impotence. Because each of us, closed in his own shell of convictions, is terrified of being the only one, of representing a problem. If we began to dialogue between us, to admit our daily uncertainties, our human fragility, we would notice (heartening) of one thing: it happens to everyone, or almost. This is the (sad? Bitter? Bitter? Trivial?) Truth. Leaving aside the cases of helplessness, whose numbers are much lower, according to estimates, one in two man had difficulties of erection at least once in his life. Perhaps it is an army of drunk, or people constantly affected by radiation in the genital area. Or, more simply, they are common men, defined as anyone by a very complicated range of emotions, by a psychological spectrum irreducible to automaton status. In short, men of everyday, without a doubt not infallible.

 Enrico Ponzio