Malaysian men prefer to keep silent

NST: Malaysian men prefer to keep problems below the belt to themselves. They ranked below the Taiwanese, South Koreans and Chinese when it came to seeking treatment for erectile dysfunction (ED).
"In every country, including Western countries, there is an uptrend in ED, but Asian men and Malaysian men in particular are not so forthright and don’t want to tell us about their problems," consultant urologist Prof Datuk Dr Tan Hui Meng said.
He recently concluded the first phase of the "Asian Men’s Attitudes to Life Events and Sexuality Study" which showed Malaysians are still hesitant to talk about ED.
The RM4 million study polled 9,057 male respondents aged between 25 and 70 in four countries, with 3,000 respondents in Malaysia, 2,000 in Taiwan, 2,055 in China and 2,002 in South Korea.
"Although we asked embedded questions, Malaysians were still less forthcoming," he said.
The questions included: "How do you rate your confidence that you can get and keep an erection?" and "During sexual intercourse, how difficult was it to maintain your erection to completion of the intercourse?"
Dr Tan, who is secretary-general of the Asia Pacific Society for Sexual Medicine, said this was the first time a psychosocial study on quality of life issues, health treatment issues and men’s attitude towards health had been studied.
Despite the high prevalence of ED, seeking a treatment was low among Malaysian men, with only 36 per cent seeking help.
"The interesting bit about this study is that we found that 20 per cent of Malaysian males with ED sought traditional treatment," he said in an interview.
The study concurred with an earlier Western study that the older men became, the more they reported their struggle with ED.
Between ages 20 and 29, only one to three per cent of men in the four countries reported ED to their doctors.
Of those in their 60s, between 10 per cent (Malaysia and Taiwan) and 30 per cent (China and Korea) reported such cases.
In Malaysia, 11 per cent of men in their 60s reported ED cases. The low figures among Malaysians could indicate reluctance to talk about their sex life or the inability to have one, Dr Tan said.
In South Korea, Taiwan and China, men with ED were significantly dissatisfied with their quality of life.
Dr Tan said Malaysian men were a "generally satisfied bunch".
"In all countries, people with ED were less satisfied with their quality of life but Malaysia ranked the lowest."
Various aspects of respondents’ lives were studied, including their career, relationship with partners and their sex life.