SUMMARY :
Only taking care of the penis means only taking care of the end part of a function. That means assessing only the factors of local dysfunction and to only wondering : does it work or not ? It's the alexythimic way of thinking frequent in the impotent male. Satisfying oneself with making the penis working means accepting a confusion of symptoms and causative disease.
If a gastric catheter is inserted in an anorectic patient, this may increase his weight but without enhancing his appetite... and it does not cure the illness.
Speaking about the impotent male involves notions of feeling, desire, and implies the evaluation of the central control of the peripheral function.
The present scales and questionnaires largely neglect these notions and especially lead to lose the meaning of sexual desire as primary factor of the human sexual function.
All those who claim to have sexual desire not necessarily really feel it.
Wishing to have an erection refers to the narcissistic function of the self image and often expresses an inaptitude to relationship. Many men who wish to have an erection not necessarily want to have an inter-course ; in many cases this refers to an identity problem and only means to want being valorised and reassured, to compensate for an inferiority complex.
By local stimulation or with a vasoactive substance we can induce an erection in a man ; this does not mean that this man is automatically motivated to penetrate "the other" as a person.
Each erection problem includes a central participation either at its origin or secondarily.
The impotent man is confronted to a problematic of power whether the cause or the consequence of it. To neglect this aspect is to open the door to magic thought and to forget that, sexual pathology being caused by multiple factors, sexology has to be a global medicine.