By midlife, most men have learned how to be comfortable.

They know which activities to avoid. Which conversations to sidestep. Which symptoms to tolerate. 

They’ve learned how to arrange life so nothing flares up too much, physically or sexually.

That skill matters.

It’s also incomplete.

Comfort keeps things from getting worse. Competence keeps options open.

Comfort Is About Avoidance

Comfort often looks reasonable.

You avoid situations where your body might surprise you.

You plan around fatigue or pain.

You quietly limit positions, timing, or effort so nothing goes sideways.

None of that is laziness. It’s adaptation.

But over time, comfort narrows the field. Life becomes easier to manage, but harder to expand.

Competence Is About Capacity

Competence is different.

It’s not about pushing harder or ignoring limits. It’s about knowing what your body can handle, what it can’t, and what helps widen that gap.

A competent body isn’t extreme. It’s reliable.

You trust it to:

• Handle physical effort without surprise
• Recover without extended fallout
• Shift positions when intimacy requires it
• Show up when connection matters

That trust changes how you move through the world.

Where Sexspan Fits

In sexual medicine, there’s a useful concept called sexspan.

It’s not about performance or frequency. It’s about the ability to remain sexually active, confident, and connected as you age.

Sexspan tracks closely with healthspan.

When physical confidence erodes, sexual confidence usually follows, often before anything is medically wrong.

Men notice this first as hesitation.

Not dramatic anxiety. Practical hesitation.

Will my back hold up?

Will this position hurt?

What if I can’t keep up?

That hesitation alone is enough to shut things down.

Comfort Shrinks Sexspan

Comfort says, “Let’s avoid situations where this might not work.”

Over time, that avoidance reduces variety, spontaneity, and confidence. Sex becomes something to manage rather than something to participate in.

This is how sexspan shrinks.

Not from loss of desire. From loss of trust in the body.

And it rarely stays confined to sex. The same hesitation shows up in travel, spontaneity, and initiating closeness at all.

Competence Protects Sexspan

Competence says, “I know what this requires, and I’ve prepared for it.”

That preparation isn’t just medication.

It’s sleep.

It’s vascular health.

It’s managing pain instead of ignoring it.

It’s choosing tools that match where you are now, not where you used to be.

I see this when a man stops avoiding certain positions and instead addresses the back or hip pain that made them risky.

Or when he stops hoping a pill works and starts planning for what actually makes sex reliable.

When competence is in place, anxiety has less room to take over.

This Isn’t About Optimization

This isn’t about getting back to who you were at 35.

It’s about staying capable enough to say yes when intimacy matters.

That might mean sex that looks different than it used to. 

Different timing. Different positions. Different tools.

What matters is that the choice stays yours.

A Better Question to Ask

At this stage, the most useful question isn’t:

How do I stay comfortable?

It’s:

What do I need to stay capable?

Sometimes the answer is physical. Sleep. Conditioning. Managing pain.

Other times, the work is conversational.

It might mean talking honestly with your partner about what feels good now and what doesn’t.

It might mean telling your doctor something hasn’t been working and asking what else should be considered.

It might mean seeing a specialist who deals with this every day instead of trying to adapt around the problem.

Doing doesn’t always mean pushing harder. Often it means having the conversation you’ve been postponing.

Because comfort keeps life manageable.

Competence keeps choice alive, including sexual choice.

And choice only lasts if you’re willing to act before it disappears quietly.