Men are told, with increasing urgency, to “open up,” to name and embrace their feelings, to ditch emotional suppression and allow themselves to be vulnerable. But there is one feeling most men are very familiar with yet not quite so welcome to express.

It is the dull ache that creeps in every time your partner has a headache, every day with no matches on dating apps, with every sexualised soda ad you see.

This persistent itch you just cannot scratch, this fog that makes everything seem just a little bit bleaker, magically lifts the moment you have sex, only to slowly return just days after.  

The feeling of sexual frustration. 

The Elephant in the Bedroom

Naturally, anyone can feel sexually frustrated irrespective of their gender. That’s a topic for another article, but for now: let’s talk about men. 

Most of the time, male sexual frustration gets spoken about badly or not at all. No wonder – sex is still a taboo topic in most societies, and admitting frustration can feel like admitting failure and thus be a source of shame.

It also leaves men vulnerable to judgment and ridicule – often coming from other men. 

On the other hand, men bringing it up can sound like a massive alarm bell, because we all know too many examples of male desire being coupled with entitlement and transmuting into coercion, abuse and exploitation. #MeToo and other movements have drawn a lot of attention to the topic, empowering us to express just how unacceptable this is.

Things are changing for the better and fewer people today believe that ‘a man has his needs’ while women have ‘wifely duties’, but we still have a long way to go.

Men who are sexually frustrated fall easy prey to those who promise simple solutions and stoke their feelings of entitlement to women’s bodies.

There are still way too many men who cannot start the sentence with: ‘My sexual frustration feels horrible’ without finishing it with: ‘so give me sex’. 

Meanwhile, those who justly rebel against such entitlement, say: ‘You can’t demand sex,’ but then often follow it with: ‘because sexual frustration is not a big deal.’

They minimise or trivialise it with ‘blue balls’ jokes, reminders that ‘nobody has ever died from a lack of sex,’ and glib advice to ‘stop thinking with your dick.’ Sure, sex is a basic human need but it’s not like food. People do die of lack of food. 

I worry that those who use such arguments might indeed think that sexual frustration is not a big deal, because for them it is not. They might just not have a particularly high sex drive. So just for comparison, let’s stick to food. 

I have what you could call a low food drive. I can appreciate good food, but I am quite happy eating the same breakfast every day, drinking a bland powder shake for every lunch, and cooking twice a month – first it’s a massive pot of curry I eat every day for two weeks, and then it’s a massive pot of Whatever Is In The Fridge With Tomato Sauce (TM), and I eat that for the other two weeks. When friends ask me what restaurant I want to go to, I reply that I distinguish exactly two cuisines: cheap and expensive, and I strongly prefer the former. 

Imagine me dating someone who has a strong, healthy food drive. But it’s a food-monogamous relationship and I have limited desire for culinary adventures. Imagine my partner complains about food frustration triggered by the lack of action and variety in our kitchen and I reply: stop whining, nobody has died from lack of interesting food.

In fact, I say that to anyone who can’t afford good food, is on a diet, or for whatever reason can’t get the food they want. I just laugh at their blue taste buds and ask them to stop thinking with their stomachs. 

Nobody has died of a lack of friendship, laughter, or meaningful conversation either. Or sex. But they can all make our lives pretty bleak. Bleak and frustrating. Not talking about or trivialising such frustrations won’t make them go away – it will make them worse. 

What would a healthier approach look like? We must allow ourselves to say: ‘My sexual frustration feels horrible’ but follow it with: ‘so I will seek to address it in ways that respect other people’s rights.’ Let’s break it down. 

What You Can Do With Sexual Frustration

Firstly, we need to decouple sexual frustration from shame which stops us from talking about it. Guys, we’ve all been there. It’s not like you’re the only one who’s struggling with it. Whoever is laughing at you is probably just as frustrated, except he didn’t yet realise that bottling it up doesn’t solve anything. 

Secondly, we must distinguish feelings from entitlement. Wanting sex is natural; believing somebody owes it to you is not.

Men who experience sexual frustration need to learn to talk about it in a way that invites empathy not defensiveness, and acknowledge that nobody is responsible for their feelings or owes them a solution. 

Thirdly, we need to stop invalidating and trivialising men’s feelings. By all means, stand strong against any whiff of entitlement, but accept that the pain is real. Empathy and accountability can coexist. 

Once the feelings are voiced and recognised, we should look for solutions which respect everyone’s autonomy and rights. There might be relationship dynamics worth discussing: mismatched libidos, stress, medical issues, body image struggles.

Or there may be personal patterns: avoidance of intimacy, unrealistic porn-shaped expectations, social anxiety that throttles dating life. Professional help – sex therapy, cognitive-behavioural tools, even medical assessment for hormonal issues – can help turn a vague frustration into specific, solvable problems. 

We should also acknowledge that to some extent, the problem is not solvable. Just like we can’t ensure that nobody ever lacks the food, friendship or meaningful conversation they crave, so is the case with sex. But we can still offer empathy. 

Finally, we must look at it from a systemic rather than individual perspective. Sex education should cover negotiating mismatched sex drives. The media shouldn’t tie men’s social status with their sexual success.

We need organisations, helplines and influencers who can guide men through dealing with loneliness, handling rejection without shame, and finding other ways to channel their sexual needs.

None of this absolves individual responsibility, but it does acknowledge that culture shapes the tools available to individuals. 

Men who learn to voice desire without entitlement model a form of masculinity that is both self-aware and respectful. Partners who feel safe raising mismatched needs build trust instead of feeding resentment. Communities that recognise and address the problem can improve everyone’s well-being and prevent men from falling for extremist narratives promising easy but violent answers. 

Sexual frustration is real, and it hurts. It won’t kill you, but it will make your life bleak and possibly lead you down some dodgy paths which stoke entitlement and misogyny.

The real solution starts with conversation anchored in empathy, responsibility, and, when necessary, expert guidance. 

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Simon Fokt

Author

Dr Simon Fokt is a philosopher, educator and writer. He authored multiple academic papers in aesthetics, applied ethics and metaphilosophy, and taught at universities across Europe. He is a member of the steering committee for MenEngage Europe where he runs the Working Group on Positive Engagement; the founder and manager of the Diversity Reading List, a leading online resource which promotes equality in the academia; director of TELdesign Limited, which designs and develops academic and corporate online courses and training programs; and a business consultant in applied ethics. His passion is philosophical activism: taking complex ethical concepts out of the academic discourse and sharing them with those who shape the world we live in.