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Sexual Performance Problems
 Sex performance anxiety or fear of sexual performance is a common sexual dysfunction problem in which anxiety about engaging in sexual activity becomes an overriding block to the spontaneous flow of sexual feelings and thoughts.
It doesn't necessarily involve a decreased sex drive, impotency or erectile dysfunction problems although it very well could.
The fear of sexual performance, or, more accurately, the fear of not performing sexually, can affect sexuality in a variety of ways. Performance anxiety can result in avoidance of sexual encounters, lowered self esteem, relationship discord and sexual dysfunction. Typically, an awareness of sex performance anxiety produces so much preoccupation with the anxiety itself that the person becomes less fully involved in the sexual interaction, bringing about the very failure that is feared.
In one common scenario, as the anxious person worries about how to be sexually responsive and spontaneous (how to be a "good lover"), he or she focuses on each detail of the lovemaking. The person may focus on how rapidly the partner is breathing, whether a shift in position is required, or how much lubrication or erection is present. The sexual interaction is dissected so deliberately that enjoyment is virtually impossible. Sexual encounters that proceed in this fashion have a high probability of being unfulfilling for one or both partners. Anticipation of the next sexual encounter arouses the same anxiety coupled with the memory of the previous failure and often leads to avoidance of sexual activity altogether, or at least to minimizing the amount of sexual interaction that occurs.
This may result in one member of a couple mistakenly interpreting the situation as a form of rejection. The underlying avoidance, however, is usually not to reject one's partner, but to save face in a way that helps the person feel more in control and less guilty about being inadequate. Over the long run, performance fears may lead to a lowered interest in and avoidance of sex, loss of self-esteem, and attempts to control the anxiety by working hard to overcome it (which usually reduces sexual spontaneity and causes sex to be even more of a "performance").
In addition, fears of performance often cause one or both partners to become spectators during their sexual interaction, watching and evaluating their own or their partner's sexual response.
When in the role of spectator because of performance fears, a person usually becomes less involved in the sexual activity itself. The reduced intimacy and spontaneity of the situation combined with the pre-existing fears usually stifles the capacity for physical response. This cycle tends to feed on itself: erectile failure leads to performance fears, which lead to the spectator role, which results in distraction and loss of erection, which heightens the fears of performance. Unless this cycle is broken there is a strong possibility that sexual dysfunction will be firmly established. Fears of sexual performance are not limited to men or to worries about physical responsivity such as the speed with which vaginal lubrication or an erection is attained, or the length of time that it is maintained.
Fears can also reflect anxiety about one's sexual response on a broader level, such as how much passion, tenderness, intimacy and sensitivity a person feels toward his or her partner. In these cases, a person having no apparent problems in the physical side of sexual responsiveness may be distressed by an internal perception of inadequate or inappropriate sexual performance.
Drew Voight - Better Sex
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