It's an unfortunate fact that a lot of men don't discuss their sexual health until it's too late. Whether it's out of bravado, or anxiety, or toxic masculinity, men will often maintain a stoic facade when it comes to sexual or genital issues, and pretend to be unaffected by aches, pains, lumps and rashes which would convince a woman to visit the gynaecologist.
One man who is now railing against this kind of mentality is company executive Ben Twemlow. Ben, who hails from Kent in England, was diagnosed with testicular cancer in August of 2017. On the same day of his diagnosis, Ben proposed to his girlfriend Andrea, hoping that he could marry his partner provided he survived the ordeal.
Initially, after discovering the lump on one of his testes, Ben's GP assumed that he had a trivial infection, and he was prescribed a course of antibiotics. However, a later ultrasound revealed that Ben had cancer, and three days later he was in the operating theatre and going through an orchiectomy to remove the affected testicle. The operation was a success and Ben was given the all-clear. However, he later had to contend with the psychological impact of losing a testicle, which had a profound impact on his love life.
After his operation, Ben's sex drive plummeted. His self-esteem had been affected by the loss of his testicle, and he went from having regular intercourse to losing his libido completely. Not only that, but there were physical issues to contend with. Ben had been left with painful scars and bruising outside his scrotum, which intensified in agony when his the skin testicles tightened in cold temperatures. For months after his surgery, sex was impossible because of the pain.
But when these wounds healed, Ben found that his performance had been badly hindered by a loss in confidence, and erectile dysfunctions soon became sadly routine for him. It was so bad that, after his wedding at Las Vegas in the Lucky Little Wedding Chapel, Ben was unable to consummate his marriage afterwards.
Commenting on his issue in a recent interview, Ben stated: "After the surgery, my sex drive just completely vanished because of the sudden loss of testosterone and I fell into a pit of feeling very low and depressed a lot of the time. Before the cancer, I had sex a good three to five times a week with Andrea, but afterwards, it was very far from my mind and we’d be lucky if we made love once in a fortnight."
"Andrea and I are a very physically affectionate couple. We’d obviously had had lots of sex before, but your wedding night is the night that should be special, a night to remember. But it wasn’t and that was disappointing for both of us, because I love this woman more than anything else in the world. Luckily, though, thanks to her love and support, on the third night of our honeymoon everything changed and we made love as if nothing had ever been wrong."
He added: "Men can be embarrassed about visiting the doctors for this sort of thing, but when you think that your life could be at risk, it’s madness to put it off. Having a testicle removed can make you feel as though you’re no longer a man any more, especially when, on top of that, you feel like you can’t have sex. But you are still just as much of a man as you were before and, more importantly, you are alive. I’m just so grateful that I’m still here, because surviving cancer has meant me being with the love of my life for, hopefully, many more years to come."
Luckily for Ben, thanks to Andrea's trust and paitience, he was able to get over his impotency and now enjoys a healthy sex life. So if any men out there are reading this and are worrying about their own sexual health issues, or maybe are having issues with sex itself, then please don't be afraid to seek help and advice from a doctor. You're not alone, and you might find that the solution is just around the corner.
