Not getting it up will bring social disgrace

Another common saying is that if the man is unable to satisfy his wife, she will then go to other men for sex. This is a great disgrace for any man, as it is supposed to expose his lack of mardanigi.

You'd lose the battle of manhood if you don't get it up with wife

Young men in traditional India are told that if a man fails to get it up in the first night (of marriage), he would lose the 'battle' and will become a Joru ka gulaam, i.e. he will be ruled by his wife for the rest of his life.

Forcing oneself to have sex with girls

Ravi is a handsome 21-year-old young man working in an office in Delhi. He has a problem that often, when having sex, he does not get a proper erection. When counselled, he reported that he does not always like the girls that he has sex with. Sometimes he even feels nauseated having to sleep with them.

When asked why he has sex with girls whom he does not like, he says that the girls themselves approach him, and he cannot say no to them, lest they call him chakka (a eunuch/ hijra/member of the third sex). He has accepted his fate of having to have sex with people he can't stand. But such is the irony of male sexual roles that he himself takes the 'blame' for his predicament.

Pressure to get an erection in a medical exam

18 years old Mukesh is also dealing with the pressure to get an erection whenever in physical contact with a girl. He is scared stiff of what will happen if he is caught with not having an erection if ever forced in a situation where he is physically close to a girl.

He has to visit the government hospital for something, and he is referred to a female doctor. He doesn't want to see a female doctor, but has no option. A woman can refuse to see a male doctor, but a male may not say so. In fact, he was not sure that the doctor will need to touch him at all and he hated seeing a female doctor even without the pressure to get an erection.

The lady doctor, who is quite attractive, makes him lie on a stretcher and asks him to pull up his shirt and loosen his trousers zip.

Mukesh is exttremely tense in this situation. All he can think about is that now he won't get an erection and he will be caught. They'll think he's 'gay' or a 'namard'. The tension is writ all over his face.

The lady doctor touches his abdomen all over, and he lies there extremely stressed, she also pushes down his underwear a bit (though not stripping him) to feel his abdomen. Now, Mukesh is sure that he has been caught and the doctor must now think that he is abnormal, a queer. The lady doctor speaks with him rudely and he is sure that it is because she has found out.

Mukesh feels so awful that he can barely stop himself from jumping before a bus.

His medical report talks of ova cysts, and his limited knowledge of science tells him that ova is found only in girls. He is now sure that he is abnormal and has some cells of girls that makes him not get an erection like everybody says boys should get in such situations.

The pressure to get an erection with girls

The pressure created in the boys group in our society to force men to work on their sexual interest for girls and to pretend it all the time includes the misconception that 'real' men get an erection as soon as they come in intimate contact with a woman, or see their 'sexy' photographs and in any case when they are naked with them. This is how men, especially young men and boys react to it:

Tarun is 18 years old and in first year. His friend in college keeps talking about girls all the time and Tarun is forced to do the same. It is not that Tarun doesn't have an interest in girls, but its not so prominent that he has to talk about it all the time. He is not even interested in a relationship with girls.

But Tarun is extremely worried about one thing. His friend keeps talking about getting an erection as soon as he sees pictures of naked girls. He mentioned how in school once when he was made the monitor for a day, he kept pushing girls by holding their hands to discipline them. He said this gave him an erection all day.

He just doesn't get that aroused that he should develop an erection like that. In fact, he is not even sure that when its time for him to 'prove' his manhood, if he will be able to develop an instant erection or not? And this worries him no end.

In public however, he too adds to the overall pressure that the society conditions boys to create, by claiming all the time that he develops an erection by seeing girls' pictures and on buses while being close to them.

But he is dead scared that if anyone should ever find out, he will be ruined. He is sure that he will commit suicide if this should ever happen. He is extremely scared of growing up and getting married, for then he will have to have sex with a girl, and then he will be 'caught'.