So what causes an erection? You may think it’s an outside stimulus that gives you an erection, but that’s just the beginning. A whole cascade of responses have to happen for you to achieve and maintain an erection. Luckily for you these are autonomic responses that happen on their own. It’s a natural progression. And the exercises you learn in this course will help amplify and optimize this process.  

So, let’s start with what an erection is and how you actually get one. 

A firm penis is one that is bulging with blood. Which is the result of increased blood flowing into your penis and then being held there.

This is usually initiated by sexual thoughts, visual stimulation or physical touch.

An erection is the result of a carefully orchestrated series of events controlled by your Nervous System. Anything that interferes with the nerve pathways to the penis can lead to problems with erections.

Your penis has three chambers inside of it.  The two that run along the top side form the bulk of your penis. An erection happens when these chambers fill up through the pressure of arterial blood flowing into them. A rigid erection is maintained when the blood is held in these chambers. When you’re just going about your day, hitting the gym, running errands, the arteries supplying blood to your penis are only partially open. This provides enough blood flow to keep your tissue healthy but without so much blood that you are walking around with a continual hard on.

When you become aroused in response to some form of stimulation, your brain, a very important part of this process, sends signals that trigger a hormonal response that allows those same arteries to open completely. 

These open arteries allow more blood to enter the penis. The blood enters faster than it can leave through the veins.

Once in the penis, the blood is held in place by a sustained contraction of two muscles which compress the veins, trapping the blood in your penis. This chain reaction allows you to achieve and maintain an erection.

An erection ends when the muscles in the penis relax and the blood leaves  the penis and it returns to its flaccid state.

So a functioning erection starts with a stimulus, which sends a signal to the brain to release hormones which send signals to the body to carry out the order for an erection. 

Now, erectile dis-function can occur because of problems at any stage of this process and can have a variety of causes, both physical and psychological, which we are going to explore in this course.