Must-Read: Erection Killers

Cheer up, penis!

Erections. They are crazy things. Sometimes, they come at the least opportune time, when you should be doing pretty much anything EXCEPT getting an erection. And really, that’s most of why you’re getting one in the first place. Other times, when you want nothing more than to get one, it just won’t work. You just stare and stare at it, scolding it, damning it to hell, and it just won’t show the faintest signs of life. There is no more frustrating time than that.

But there’s a method to the erection’s madness. It’s just not going around, getting hard and going limp whenever the hell it feels like it. There are certain things that will help it or hurt it that you should be aware of. Which is why today we’re highlighting this article over at Men’s Health that goes through four of the biggest turn-offs to a man’s sexual psyche. Basically, if you’re in the midst of a turbulent and emotional bout of make-up sex with a current or former girlfriend, well, get ready for the sex to be terrible:

Tears Are an Instant Turn-off

Not into makeup sex? Blame her waterworks. Being exposed to sad emotions and female tears actually decreases your arousal and reduces your levels of testosterone, says research published in the journal Science. Using fMRI scans, researchers had 24 men view emotionally ambiguous images of women?s faces and rate the sadness and sexual attraction of each photo. While viewing the images, subjects were asked to sniff tears (obtained from women watching sad movies) in order to see if the men could tell the different between that and a saline solution. The results: Regardless whether the faces were attractive or not, exposure to the tears reduced sexual arousal in men. What gives? Researchers claim it has to do with chemosignlas in tears?substances that are odorless, yet have an impact on mood when absorbed through the nose.

Head on over to the above link to check out some other erection-killers. And then go ahead and cancel that “coffee date” with your ex-girlfriend, that you just know is going to lead to some terrible, terrible sex.