Action on Smoking and Health A National Legal-Action Antismoking Organization Entirely Supported by Tax-Deductible Contributions    Search  | Info About  | ash.org | To Join |  Email Page To Comment or Read Other Members' Comments, Click Here

Excerpts from: Want Better Sex?:  Then put out that cigarette.
                        Researchers are finding that smoking decreases both desire and performance.

                     By Glenn Gordon, Healthy Man  http://content.health.msn.com/content/article/

                    When Mark Jordan was a 22-year-old substitute
                     teacher in Phoenix, he had been smoking for about
                     a year and noticed the fire in his love life was no
                     longer raging.

                     "Sex was suddenly getting boring," he says. "I
                     didn't want to have it. I would get out of breath so
                     easily, and I simply felt gross." While he averaged
                     only half a pack a day, he often smoked much more
                     on the weekends. The effects were not good.

                     "I remember having sex in the shower and feeling
                     like I was going to pass out," he says. That was a
                     turning point. He stopped smoking, started
                     exercising, and began to eat right. After the
                     changes, he had a much greater interest in sex and
                     enjoys it more than ever.

                     The investigators began to realize that smoking
                     actually became a method of subtle communication
                     for members of the couples being studied. Lighting
                     up gave clues to each partner that it was time to
                     talk, time to give space, or even time to defend
                     yourself because a world-class argument was about
                     to begin.

                     And of course, as Jordan found, smoking can
                     directly torpedo the sex, too.

                     "Smoking has a direct, negative effect on the
                     sexuality of a man on every level," says Panayiotis
                     M. Zavos, PhD, director of the Andrology Institute of
                     America and professor of reproductive physiology
                     and andrology at the University of Kentucky in
                     Lexington.

                     From their work with couples being treated for
                     infertility, Zavos and his fellow researchers have
                     found that men's smoking had a significant and
                     negative effect on the ability to conceive. But they
                     also turned up a surprise: Smoking significantly
                     diminished a man's sexual desire and satisfaction --
                     even for young men in their 20s and 30s.

                     The smokers reported having sex less than six
                     times a month, whereas the nonsmoking men were
                     having sex nearly twice as often. This difference is
                     especially significant considering that these
                     couples were actively trying to conceive.

                     Zavos found that when diminished desire is
                     combined with impaired performance, overall
                     satisfaction is likely to suffer. When asked to rate
                     their satisfaction with the sex they were having on a
                     scale of 1 to 10, nonsmoking couples averaged 8.7,
                     while couples with male smokers fared far worse
                     with an average of only 5.2. "There's no doubt in my
                     mind," says Zavos, "that nearly any man's sexual
                     satisfaction and frequency [of having sex] would
                     increase if he stopped smoking."

                     Other experts agree that smoking can impair sexual
                     performance. "Smoking causes damage to smooth
                     muscle inside the penis that interferes with erectile
                     functioning," says Richard Milsten, MD, co-author
                     of The Sexual Male and a urologist for more than 30
                     years in Woodbury, N.J. "So if men can't perform as
                     well, it would make sense that their libidos would
                     suffer."