Performance anxiety in men: why it happens and what actually helps

Why become a male sex coach?

MJ: Hello everyone and welcome back to S3x, Love & Energy. Today I have another amazing guest — and today I’m all about men. He’s a male sex coach, which I’m so excited about, because we need to talk about the other side of this. How are you today?

Cam Fraser: Pretty good. I’ve been quite sick for the last two weeks, so it’s nice to be feeling better. Thanks for having me back after we had to reschedule.

MJ: Let’s start from the beginning. What made you become a sex coach — specifically a male sex coach?

Cam: As a younger guy I was really struggling with my own sexuality and masculinity. I was insecure, quite anxious, and very worried about how other men and young women were perceiving me during my teenage years.

To compensate, I drank a lot. One of the things here in Australia that supposedly shows you’re more of a man is how much alcohol you can drink. I went to America to study and had a bit of a reputation as the Australian who could drink. That was how I fit in, and how I got praise from my peers. It wasn’t healthy.

There was a period of about five years during my adolescence where I didn’t have one sexual experience sober. I was never able to fully connect with the women I was being sexual with, because I was always drinking.

I experienced alcohol-induced impotence — drinking to the point where I couldn’t get an erection. And because I was so anxious and so highly concerned about my performance, even when I could get an erection, I’d usually ejaculate quickly. I was also watching a lot of pornography at that age and had a poor relationship with it.

Thankfully, I did a lot of work with a therapist, and with other modalities — yoga, massage, then sacred sexuality, tantra, breathwork and meditation. It radically changed how I related to myself and how I thought about my body. I felt more confident in my masculinity. I stopped caring what other people thought.

I developed communication skills through therapy, so I could actually talk to the women I was being sexual with — about the sex we wanted to have, about pleasure and desire. I saw the profound impact that had on my life.

I was already interested in psychology and wanted to get into clinical practice. I thought: what if I specialise in sexuality, and specifically male sexuality? People resonated with it. Men needed support around this, they still do, and they probably always will. That was ten years ago.

The “act like a man” box

MJ: I appreciate your honesty. You were honest with yourself about what the problem was — hiding things, drinking too much, replacing real connection with superficial stimulus.

There’s a lot of fear around masculinity. We live in a society — and I’m not from Australia, so I notice the difference — where men project strength. Don’t feel too much, don’t show emotion, don’t be in your body. The disconnection is normalised.

So how would you encourage someone who thinks taking Kamagra is normal, or that having three drinks before intimacy is normal, but who knows deep down it isn’t okay?

Cam: I use a concept called the act like a man box — the idea that there are unwritten but widely acknowledged rules men feel they have to follow to be a “real man”.

Here in Australia those are: be strong, don’t cry, don’t show your emotions, don’t be vulnerable, be successful, be confident. Very stereotypical.

Then I ask: if you don’t follow those rules, what happens? Most men can articulate it — you get bullied, ostracised, othered, told you’re weak.

So what they’re identifying is that there’s an idea about masculinity placing pressure on them to perform. That creates anxiety, because it’s almost impossible to live up to an idealised version of what it means to be a man.

The sexual man box, and what porn teaches

Cam: The same is true in the bedroom. There’s what we might call the sexual man box — what it means to be a man sexually.

Most guys can identify it immediately: you’re supposed to be dominant, in control, knowledgeable, confident, have a big penis, last a certain amount of time, give your partner fifty million orgasms.

When I have conversations with men about pornography, we can usually identify that a lot of that man-box idea is exemplified in porn. There are no issues in porn. It’s all large penises and men lasting forty-five minutes.

That creates anxiety, tension, and expectation about what it means to be a man in bed. A lot of men feel pressure to perform, and feel that if they don’t match it, they’re less than.

Shifting from performance to pleasure

Cam: So first it’s understanding that concept, then giving men the tools to unpack it. I do one-on-one work, group work, and I speak to any guy who’ll listen: it doesn’t have to be like that.

You can be much more playful. Much more sensual. Much more erotic. When you start to do that, you typically have better sexual experiences — and you also feel better in your body.

Feeling anxious and worried about how you look, how you perform, and what people think of you requires enormous energy and mental load. Letting go of that and stepping into does this feel good for me? Is my partner having a good time? Are we smiling? Are we laughing?

Rather than focusing on what it looks like and what you’re doing to prove you’re being a man, can you focus on what it feels like? Can you measure success in terms of intimacy, connection and pleasure — rather than how many orgasms, how long you lasted, and how big your penis is?

You shift from focusing on performance to focusing on pleasure. That shift is not easy. It takes a while to unpack. But that’s the direction I try to move men in.

MJ: Focusing on connection and intimacy instead of performance. Unfortunately porn is often the only education men have. It’s a show. It’s entertainment. It’s not a reflection of who we are or how we handle relationships.

“Outperform a Porn Star” — reframing the competitive mindset

MJ: What about the common problems you mentioned — normalising Kamagra, suppressing, too much masturbation and porn, to the point where men say I don’t feel anything and I’m doing everything?

Cam: I had a course for men called Outperform a Porn Star. The idea was to leverage the way a lot of men think about pornography — they idolise it, they think what they see is what good sex looks like and what they should aspire to. We know that’s false.

But the premise was: if you could actually have genuine, authentic, connected, highly pleasurable sex with your partner — sex that was enjoyable, that made you laugh, that made you feel intimate and erotic — then you’d be outperforming any porn star.

Because the sex they have on screen isn’t actually very pleasurable for the people involved. I included interviews with performers talking about how much they didn’t enjoy the sex they were having on screen, and how much of it was performance.

A lot of guys have a competitive, performance-based mindset about sex. I wanted to leverage that mindset rather than just telling them to move away from performance — and shift them in a positive direction using it.

How masturbation creates conditioning

Cam: A lot of men condition themselves to experience pleasure through the way they masturbate and the way they watch pornography.

I’m not anti-masturbation and I’m not anti-porn. I still encourage men to experiment with their self-pleasure practice and with the material they engage with. But the underlying principle is variety, experimentation and exploration — not routine.

A lot of men are masturbating and watching porn exactly the way they did as teenagers. If you do that repeatedly without changing how you explore your body, it’s very easy to create conditioning and patterns in your erotic pathways.

When I talk to men about how they masturbate, usually they’re sitting or lying down, stationary. There’s a lot of tension in the body. They’re not breathing well and not moving — just moving their arm, with one hand on a screen or phone. It’s very disconnected.

That translates into the sex they have. They transpose the conditioning straight onto partnered sex. They usually go straight for penetration, and the penetration is friction-oriented, fast and rigorous. And they think sex has to finish with ejaculation — the money shot in pornography. There are a lot of scripts men get about what sex looks like from porn.

What to do differently

Cam: So I give men prompts. Stand up. Move your body. Create new pathways of pleasure — breathe, open up, move around, use lubricant, and touch other parts of your body rather than focusing solely on your genitals.

Broaden the way you experience and explore pleasure yourself, so you have the opportunity to do that with a partner. Get curious about your own body, then extend that curiosity to your partner’s.

That comes with developing the skills to communicate — to ask questions, to check in, to assert boundaries. It isn’t a purely physical practice. There’s a relational practice as well.

Some men’s coaches say don’t masturbate, don’t watch porn, it’s bad for you. I don’t think that’s helpful. A more helpful message is: it’s okay to explore your body, there are benefits in doing it, and here are some ways to do it well. That non-shaming, non-judgmental approach is much more conducive to actual growth.

MJ: The same happens for women — we go into the same movement, the same pattern, and then can’t connect. It comes back to basics. Breathing. It’s what brings you into the present moment, connected with your body. Slowing down matters, for men and women.

In tantra we talk about the waves of pleasure, and how you navigate those layers. You’ll discover more about yourself that way than by sprinting.

Sex toys, and why men feel threatened by them

MJ: I hear from a lot of men and women that men feel left behind when women want to bring toys into intimacy. They feel we’re not enough — why do I have to do this? What’s your view?

Cam: I used to be an ambassador for a sex toy company here in Australia, so I’m familiar with them. In my own relationship, my wife and I were the opposite — I introduced most of the toys.

I’ve never personally felt afraid of toys. But before introducing anything external, one thing has to happen first: decentring the penis.

You mentioned men fear they aren’t enough, because they can’t provide all the pleasure their partner wants from their penis alone. I think about this two ways.

First, you aren’t just your penis. You can experience pleasure all over your body, not just in your genitals. And when you have sex with your partner, you aren’t just using your penis, you’re using your whole body. So how can you incorporate all of you?

Second, a lot of people define sex as penis in vagina. It’s very penetration-oriented. How do you broaden that? Sure, sex is penis and vagina — and it also incorporates fingers, your mouth, the rest of your body, sensual massage, eye contact, breathing together. All of that, before any toys.

If you introduce a toy without the foundational work — addressing the fears, incorporating the full body, decentring the penis — it can be really intimidating.

In my experience, getting men to decentre the penis first creates a light-bulb moment: sex can be all these different things, pleasurable in a variety of ways. Then it becomes what else can we introduce to keep broadening?

MJ: When you open your mind you realise you can have an orgasm without penetration, and discover layers you never knew were there. And there are toys for penises too, aren’t there?

Cam: There are fantastic toys for men, and I advocate for men to use them — alone during self-pleasure or with a partner. That can be another whole broadening of horizons.

The “no big deal” mindset

MJ: Before we go — quick advice for a man who’s single and doesn’t know how to approach women because he knows he’ll ejaculate quickly, or knows he won’t perform well?

Cam: One of my biggest pieces of advice is a mindset shift: a no big deal approach to sexual issues.

If you ejaculate quicker than you’d like — who cares? You’ve still got a mouth. You’ve got a tongue. You’ve got fingers. Possibly toys. And if you wait fifteen minutes, usually you can go again, and typically last longer.

So what are you making it mean? If you struggle to get or maintain an erection, how can you hold the frame: that’s not a big deal. I’m still here. I still want to explore pleasure with you.

It’s easier said than done and takes practice. But the way it shows up for women, in my experience, is: okay, he’s honest, he can acknowledge this happens, he’s not making it a big deal — so I don’t need to worry about it. And he’s interested in pleasure in other ways.

And when the issue is anxiety-related, being able to hold that — it’s not a big deal, I’m not going anywhere, sometimes this happens, I’m working on it — creates exactly the slowing down and relaxation that helps.

Do the work on the side as well, obviously. But that mindset is far more comfortable for you and for your partner.

MJ: You took the words out of my mouth. From a woman’s point of view, we genuinely don’t mind when a man is honest about it beforehand. That’s the best mindset to take.

Thank you so much for being here today. And thank you all for watching — see you in the next episode.