Dealing with delayed ejaculation
Let’s first get an idea of how ejaculation generally works. It’s a two part process. The first part is the emission phase, where semen moves from the prostate gland and seminal vesicles into the base of the penis.
This is the “point of no return” after which ejaculation in inevitable.
The second stage is the expulsion phase, which consists of rhythmic contractions and pulsations as the muscles around the base of the penis pump the semen out of the glans penis and into the outside world (or some other receptacle!).
By the way, ejaculation is not the same as orgasm, and they can occur independently. Orgasm is a highly pleasurable series of muscular pulses and contractions, with some energy flow around the body, which men may experience physically and/or emotionally.
Similarly, emission and expulsion, the two phases of ejaculation, are separate processes controlled by separate nerve centers, and they can also occur independently of each other. Often when semen just dribbles out, for example, the emission phase has occurred but the expulsion phase has not.
The best way to have powerful, forceful ejaculations is to develop strong PC muscles and to produce loads of seminal fluid.
The good news is you can influence both these processes. To develop strong PC muscles you need to get into a routine of exercising them. This isn’t so hard, as you can identify them by stopping your piss in mid-flow or by twitching your penis when it’s erect.
You’ll soon learn which muscles are the ones to develop – they are the same ones that pump out your semen. So, if you flex and relax them three times a day with thirty flexes in each session, they will rapidly increase in strength.
It’s true to say you can’t have too powerful a set of PC muscles – the stronger they are, the more you will enjoy your ejaculation and orgasm, and the more your semen will spurt out.
The process is also helped if you have a lot of seminal fluid to ejaculate. You can increase the volume by leaving more time between your ejaculations, or, if you don’t want to do this, spending a longer time getting aroused and erect before you come.
In short, the longer you spend on foreplay, the more you will ejaculate when you come, and the better your orgasm will be.
The causes of non-ejaculation can be both physical and emotional. So can changes in the power and force of a man’s ejaculation.
Video – delayed ejaculation
Age is a factor here, because to a greater or lesser degree older men may lose the urge to ejaculate. This is caused by a lowering of sexual desire, which in turn probably results from the lower testosterone levels that come with increasing age.
In addition, fewer ejaculations make the muscles of the ejaculatory system weaker and their less powerful contractions may then make a man’s orgasm feel less powerful and satisfying.
Older men can choose to make love without ejaculating every time. This can still be a very satisfying experience for him, and it can be even more satisfying for his partner if she is able to enjoy his prolonged vaginal thrusting, thereby gaining greater pleasure and satisfaction from sex than when her man ejaculated quickly.
Sometimes the cause of delayed ejaculation is physical. Urethritis and prostatitis can both affect the mechanisms of ejaculation or orgasm, sometimes making them so painful that men inhibit their ejaculations. And various drugs can inhibit ejaculation.
Often the problem is emotional. Stress can be a significant cause of non-ejaculation, as can any emotion that inhibits a man from letting himself go and enjoying sex freely.
This usually means fear, guilt or anger, of course, so things like a fundamental religious background, or unexpressed anger at a lover, are fairly typical and common issues in cases of difficult or non-ejaculation.
If you’re a man with a delayed ejaculation problem, resolving the problem will probably begin with a physical examination at the doctor’s surgery. If there are no physical issues, the next step is think about your relationship. All these issues are explained in this book.
Is sex a problem in any way? For example, deep down, a man who doesn’t come may simply wish he was with another partner, may feel angry towards his lover, or may wish that he wasn’t “forced” to “perform” sexually when he didn’t want to do so. Clearly, developing the ability to say “No” to the demands of his partner might be a step in the right direction for a man in this situation!
Sometimes a lover may not be providing enough of the right kind of stimulation needed for a man to come. This may be a matter for negotiation or discussion between the partners.
If the difficulties come from the sexual inhibitions or unwillingness of one of the partners, there may be profound issues which are incapable of resolution, but it’s probably worth trying to sort things out by communication before finding another partner – unless you feel your relationship really has gone so far past the point of recovery that you don’t even want to try.
Sometimes, for example if there are physical issues affecting the pleasure and ease of sexual intercourse, the solution may be a simple matter like using a vaginal lubricant.
The classic advice for a man who can ejaculate in certain specific situations but not with his lover is to try and gradually extend the range of situations where he can make it.
He can practice new ways of masturbating, perhaps using new situations or new ways of getting stimulation, such as using lube to masturbate on or between her breasts or thighs, as a prelude to ejaculation inside her vagina.
It follows, of course, that if the problem is actually with their relationship and his feelings towards his partner, this is not likely to help matters much! And the use of fantasy can often be helpful in getting a man to his orgasm and ejaculation more quickly.
Another cause of retarded ejaculation is penile insensitivity. This may surprise you, but circumcision can cut away many of the sensitive nerve endings which promote sexual excitement and the ejaculation reflex. If you think this might be a factor for you, then have a look at the personal account of how one guy cured his non-ejaculation by increasing his penis’s sensitivity here.
How To Overcome Delayed Ejaculation
It must be strange not to be able to ejaculate during sex. After all, if you think about it, most guys’ problem is that they come far too soon during sex!
But while we might all envy the guy who can pound away for hours without coming, it soon becomes frustrating and depressing for him – and his partner also, if she gets a sore vagina, or even if she just wants him to ejaculate in her.
And considering how much most men play with their penis, it must be even stranger not to be able to ejaculate while masturbating. But both conditions exist, and while they may be rare, they are certainly a problem to the men who experience them.
So what can be done about it all?
Inability to orgasm with a partner
At first sight, it’s a bit surprising that a man with an inability to orgasm has a prolonged and hard erection, with which he can often bring his partner to multiple vaginal orgasms. And these erections are present even when he feels sexually repelled by or angry at his partner.
What’s more, many men who have difficulty coming with a partner actually have a clear preference for masturbation by their own hand. It’s often the only way they can get to orgasm – though some men can’t reach orgasm at all.
That seems a bit strange too. However, if a guy admits that he is repelled by his sexual partner, and even feels pleased that he denies her the pleasure of his ejaculation in her vagina, it all becomes much easier to understand.
You can hardly think of a man who doesn’t like his sexual partner as having a problem if he can’t ejaculate in her, especially if he can ejaculate quite normally with other partners. The same is true if she wants to get pregnant, and he doesn’t.
In cases like these, the man concerned needs help to express his reluctance to have sex or to voice his feelings of anger. Presumably he is afraid of his partner getting angry or retaliating – perhaps, for example, he has a deep-seated fear that she will leave him.
(By the way, this is yet another example of the ever-increasing and subtle bias against men in our society whereby they are expected to be able to perform sexually on demand even if they don’t want to. OK, that’s enough sexual politics for now.)
According to Sandra Leiblum and Raymond Rosen, in Principles and Practice Of Sex Therapy, most men with this problem seem to feel compelled to satisfy their partner, whether they want to or not. (Read more about this here.)
Their entire focus is on the satisfaction of their woman, and they seem to have cut off their own feelings in an attempt to do what she wants, thereby denying themselves the experience of their own feelings.
In a way, this urge to satisfy their partner at the expense of their own wishes explains how they can keep an erection: erection is a reflex reaction, while the process of arousal and orgasm involve the mind; therefore erection and lack of arousal can co-exist.
So, while the pounding of intercourse with a hard penis seems to satisfy the partner’s needs, it certainly doesn’t satisfy his. What’s more, the man is often taken for granted as a “satisfier” while the woman falls into a passive role, though he will not be aware of the way in which he is taken for granted, nor most likely feel annoyed by it.
The treatment prescription given to guys who went to sexual therapists complaining of an inability to orgasm with a partner used to consist of this: rapid and probably hard masturbation by his partner leading to ejaculation nearer and nearer to, and then eventually inside, her vagina. And it’s true that this sometimes works.
But only sometimes, and when it does, it seems to be because the man is snapped out of the state in which he believes he must vigorously thrust and his partner must passively receive. In other words, her aggressive masturbation of him changes the whole dynamic between the couple.
But unfortunately if this approach fails (which it often does), it can make things even worse for the man.
When men don’t want sex
The truth is that many of these men shouldn’t be having sex with their partner – they don’t want to, they aren’t turned on, their penises are numb, so why should they? – and they certainly shouldn’t have an erection, because they aren’t even aroused by her, for heaven’s sake.
And their partner needs to hear, and hopefully accept, these feelings. Obviously this may have consequences for their relationship…
But before any of this can happen, a man has to be able to identify and express his feelings (for example: “I am afraid of failing”; “I am afraid of letting you down”; “I am afraid there is something wrong with me”; I just don’t know what you want”; “I’m just not feeling anything”).
One way for a man to develop these skills is to see his partner become expressive of her feelings and needs: for example, despite the often-seen multiple orgasmic experience of the partners of non-ejaculatory men, these women are often well aware that their partners find them unattractive or are unaroused by them.
The voicing of such complaints may lead to the man finding his own voice and beginning to be able to express his own emotional responses to sex.
The bottom line is this: a guy with coital anorgasmia (fancy words, simple meaning: you can’t come during sex) needs to be aroused before he can have an orgasm during sex. And if you are such a guy, and you think you are aroused during sex, well, consider how much more aroused you are during masturbation. See the difference?
And while you may not feel you can’t be critical of your partner, the truth is you’re perfectly entitled to be. After all, you’re getting so little out of sex and she’s multiply orgasmic. Wouldn’t that make anybody feel used, left out or ignored?
And if you think sex like this is drudgery, I’ve got some news for you: it is! You have a right to expect from sex much more than you have ever received! And you have a right to say “No” to sex or your partner’s demands!
When you learn to please yourself, your sexual problems will likely disappear – as will your prolonged rigid erections and the absence of your orgasm and ejaculation.