Thank you, LynEyre. Here is my post, with my wife's full approval!
We are both retired and live on our own. We have known each other for a very long time and have had very active sex life (only with each other!) both before and after my robotic RP nine years ago. We have managed to keep our sex life active because of our love for each other and keeping our relationship full of fun, humour and arguments. Ours is a long story but I will answer your question directly by describing a typical intimate scenario:
Sometimes during the day my wife might say 'let's have sex" (surprisingly she is generally the one to initiate day-time sex and therefore it's very exciting for me of course). Covid-19 has been responsible for an uptick in the amount of daytime sex in our house! We would go up to bed and, for some reason this reminds me of our student days in the sixties, and just basically please each other by being gentle and loving by touch and voice, and of course cuddling and kissing.
Part of the foreplay involves my using quite a powerful vibrator which has several attachments and is the only one approved by Dr Ruth, the well-known sex therapist in the States. No, not the Hitachi Wand type, which is ridiculously powerful and designed for elephants, I think. This gets us both excited, but on my part I have no erection and therefore there is no urgency. It is quite amazing how long this foreplay can last since I am in no rush. When she is very excited she'll say, 'why don't you go and pump yourself up before you make me go'. So I disappear into our bathroom (while waiting for me she may read because she is an author and a great reader). After nine years with the pump, I have turned the process of achieving an erection into a fine art and am able to do so in less than ten minutes. Because my wife is waiting in bed, the process of using the pump is quite erotic and exciting. When I 'apologise' for keeping her waiting she says, 'You're worth it!'
Recently we have found a lubricant or vaginal moisturiser called "YES" (which she applies from a pre-filled single-use applicator while waiting for me to achieve an erection using the pump); Google 'YES lubricant' to find the website. There is a whole range for 'him' and 'her'. We have tried various ones but settled, for now, with this. We have found KY Jelly rather messy and it is too slippery and does not allow for an easy orgasm because of lack of sufficient friction. At our age the advantage for us, when my wife uses the YES moisturiser is that I do not have to use any myself. The texture and feel of this lubricant is quite different from KY Jelly; for both my wife and me, the feel is very natural and therefore very pleasurable. For a woman to use this lubricant there is a further advantage, to quote from the YES website:
"....the vaginal lubricant is a pH balanced moisturising water based lubricant for women with mild to moderate vaginal dryness for use during intercourse. The water is released quickly to help lubricate dry vaginal tissue to make sex more comfortable." We thoroughly recommend YES. (no, we don't get a commission!).
With the experience I have gained over nine years now, I can achieve an erection as strong as when we first met, in our twenties; this is a great bonus for me and for her too. There are lots of issues when using a pump which I will not go into (perhaps leave those for another post, if there is popular demand!) The main problem, when using a pump is that because of the position of the ring the penis is very floppy at the base and you have to be careful not to hurt yourself or even damage the penis when in the erect state. This could be serious. If you use the missionary position you have to very careful! For this reason, we use different positions, 'spoon sex' position is our favourite. Since a woman's orgasm mostly requires stimulation of her clitoris, we use a combination of both manual stimulation by me and my wife uses the vibrator after penetration (this is one of the benefits of using the spoon-sex position. The result is magical sustained orgasms for both of us...tantric sex but with orgasms!
What's not to like about the pump: no implants, no injections and no need to take Viagra which often does not work and very often causes headaches...for the man!
Finally, when you buy a pump the instructions and videos are useful but they do not cover the nitty-gritty; it is like learning to ride a bike without getting on it! I can say a great deal more about types of pumps, rings (this is a very vital issue and requires trial and error to select the most appropriate ones), the actual mechanics of achieving and sustaining erections without hurting yourself and other aspects which instruction manuals do not cover.