What’s This All About, Really?
Masturbation and Sex:
Reaching Orgasm Is Not Always Easy
Many men with delayed ejaculation are able to ejaculate more easily when they are masturbating alone.
You may think this implies that delayed ejaculation is caused by relationship issues or difficulty with a sexual partner.
However, why blame the relationship or the people in it?
Fact is, if a man can’t ejaculate during oral sex, intercourse, or even masturbation by a partner, but he can come when he masturbates by himself, it could be that none of these activities provide a high enough level of physical stimulation to get him sufficiently aroused to ejaculate?
Traumatic Masturbation
Aha! So, a man may have learned to apply hard pressure to his own penis while masturbating on his own. And, that’s not what sex with a vagina is like…. that’s much softer….
That’s right. The penis can be conditioned to respond only to very high levels of stimulation. Think here of an adolescent boy furtively masturbating by thrusting his erect cock on or into his bed.
So perhaps many cases of delayed ejaculation are caused by a man using harsh, firm, or high-frequency pressure during masturbation.
If he doesn’t get this level of stimulation during sexual activity with a partner, then you’ve pretty much discovered the cause of his inability to ejaculate.
And the cure will lie in retraining his body, his penis and maybe above all, his mind, to respond to much more gentle stimulation of the kind that can bring about an orgasm during sexual activity.
Surely Slow Ejaculation Is More Complicated Than That?
Therapists and counselors tend to take the view that the relationship is often the cause of the problem.
But is this kind of therapy the appropriate solution for delayed ejaculation?
Well, it can be. I’ve seen many couples where a gradually increasing level of hostility has reduced intimacy to the point where the couple no longer enjoy sex, and the man even resents it.
And if you resent sex, why bother ejaculating? Why would you give your partner the obvious sign of your sexual pleasure – orgasm and ejaculation? You could simply make your feelings clear by not coming during sex with your wife or girlfriend.
To start with, communication is needed. A couple who have sex but don’t talk stand little chance of communicating in a way that might open a path to resolving the man’s delayed ejaculation. Or, for that matter, his hostility, anger, or whatever he may be feeling.
Personality Plays A Part
Even if a man doesn’t feel any hostility, anger or any other negative emotion towards his partner, he might be a bit slow to ejaculate by nature.
That’s because one particular type of personality is prone to delayed ejaculation. This personality type appears to be of a man who
- is somehow detached from his own “process of sexual arousal”,
- is frequently unaware of how aroused he is during sexual activity
- regards sexual activity as a duty for which he is responsible
- regards himself as responsible for his partner’s pleasure
- believes that the woman’s pleasure must come first and is the priority during sex
- often, whether consciously or not, regards himself as the “workhorse of sex”, laboring away (often against all the odds) to bring sex to a successful conclusion for him and his partner.
I also see many partners of men in this situation being a bit passive around sexual issues. It’s almost like they think their man is somehow responsible for their sexual pleasure. (As opposed to the obvious fact that they are responsible for their own orgasm.)
And men who have this personality profile tend to have a lack of awareness of their own level of sexual arousal.
In fact, often they don’t really know much about sex, or they haven’t had much sexual experience …
Often there seems to be some kind of lack in their sexual experience. To compensate, they link their internal process of sexual arousal with the external process of engaging in intercourse with a partner.
Simply put, this means that their own erotic world somehow doesn’t function as a source of sexual arousal and pleasure. They are left in a sort of sexual “limbo” where they are trying to have sex without all the emotional and physical experience. The mental processes which are necessary for sex to be an enjoyable and intimate experience are missing or incomplete. I hope that makes sense.
How often do husbands have trouble ejaculating during sex?
It’s not at all clear how many men experience slow ejaculation, because very few men with this condition seek help or are willing to speak about it.
This is in stark contrast to premature ejaculation. Men with PE tend to discuss it with partners, doctors, researchers and friends. The social stigma of being quick off the mark is much lower than that of being slow to “pop your cork”, it seems….
The most reliable research available suggests that the frequency of delayed ejaculation in the population is about 10%.
This comes from a survey of men visiting their family doctors in London. The reason that some estimates are much lower than this is probably the high level of embarrassment, shame, and inadequacy of men with delayed ejaculation tend to experience.
But ejaculation problems are completely natural – and common. And if you look around the internet you will soon see many questions from women whose boyfriends can’t ejaculate during sex, and from woman after woman whose husband has trouble ejaculating during intercourse… on and on it goes….
Summary!
You can see how a man might have difficulty with ejaculating with when he feels inhibited, can’t get aroused, doesn’t feel turned on, or because he’s concerned about some aspect of sex.
Such fear might include other people hearing the noises of lovemaking, or fear about the consequences of sex (pregnancy), or anxiety about his ability to pleasure a woman, or his sense of failure in bed, or his lack of confidence, or…. well, you name it.
A lot of experts believe that premature ejaculation is a similar response to stressful events during sex. It’s certainly a response to a high level of anxiety around sex, which has the effect of catapulting a man’s arousal sky high, far too quickly. Coming far too soon as a result.
Delayed ejaculation, or even a man simply having some trouble ejaculating with wife during sex, speaks to me of an emotional distance between the man and partner. It hints at emotional separation, withdrawal, and isolation. And all of that suggests this may be a relationship where two people are not intimate or communicating well.
By that, I mean they are NOT communicating about what they are truly thinking and feeling.
How To Ejaculate
Generally speaking, you’re going to find that a man isn’t particularly aroused when he suffers from slow ejaculation (with the possible exception of the physical causes mentioned above).
So all kinds of ideas have been suggested to increase arousal These include the use of vibrators to increase sexual stimulation, nipple stimulation, anal stimulation, prostate massage, and so on.
All of these things are aimed at increasing a man’s level of sexual stimulation and so his level of arousal.
And because porn is very arousing, it’s also been suggested that viewing porn might be helpful. However while viewing erotic films together may increase arousal, there are dangers of using porn – disassociation from real life partners being one of them.
So what’s the cure? Well, as far as I’m concerned, it’s about re-establishing intimacy between a couple on both the physical and the emotional level.
Emotional intimacy comes from open, honest, clear communication from an authentic place. Physical intimacy comes from a whole series of exercises which are described in the treatment program on this website. See the top right hand corner of this page for a link to the treatment program.