How Come You Can’t Come?
You might be surprised to hear that a lot of men have difficulty reaching orgasm and ejaculating during intercourse. In fact, I estimate about one man in twelve has difficulty ejaculating.
Even more surprisingly, many of these men can’t orgasm at all during sexual intercourse.
These men are experiencing delayed ejaculation. This is all about problems reaching orgasm or being unable to ejaculate during sexual intercourse. (And occasionally during masturbation, too.)
Many people think the most common problem men have during sexual intercourse is coming too quickly. So it may seem baffling that there are healthy men who either can’t ejaculate at all, or have difficulty doing so.
And this condition isn’t much talked about, either, because there can be quite a bit of shame attached to it. Imagine the idea of a man not being able to “finish” during lovemaking! What on earth could cause that?
As you can imagine, delayed ejaculation is not just a problem for men – it’s a problem for the women who they love. After all, the very visible evidence of a man reaching his climax during lovemaking is proof for a woman that she is attractive, that she can turn her man on, that she can get him aroused, and that she can make him orgasm.
For many women, the sensations involved in having their partner climax inside them is most enjoyable, both emotionally and physically. Not experiencing this may be difficult for a woman. And if a couple want a baby, and the man isn’t able to reach orgasm during intercourse, well, you can see this may really cause challenges within their relationship. Even so, men may put up with delayed ejaculation for years before they seek help – and many men never do.
But Is Delayed Ejaculation A New Problem?
No, but it’s really only come to the attention of the wider public because of the Internet. You see, forums devoted to less common medical conditions like this one have helped people get together and compare notes. And that’s gradually shown that delayed ejaculation is much more common than you might think.
In general if you look at these forums, you’ll see what sex therapists already understand about men with delayed ejaculation (DE for short): a lot of men with DE have far less difficulty ejaculating during masturbation than they do during intercourse. And there are plenty of men who can’t come at all during intercourse.
Faced with this situation, it’s no wonder that men don’t talk about it much, and perhaps no surprise that they don’t seek help – after all, where would you go, as a man, to admit that you can’t even climax during intercourse?
Definition Of Delayed Orgasm and Ejaculation
Exactly what constitutes delayed ejaculation? How long is long (talking about duration of intercourse), and how slow is slow (talking about time to male ejaculation)?
The normal average time of intercourse before men reach orgasm is four and a half minutes. From one point of view, anything over this makes you slower than average. But of course, there will naturally be around 50% of the male population who take longer than average to come. That’s simple mathematics. So taking over 4.5 minutes to orgasm doesn’t mean you have DE!
The time of intercourse is measured as “intravaginal ejaculatory latency time”. This is the time it takes a man to reach orgasm and ejaculate after he’s penetrated his partner. So at what point does long intercourse become “delayed ejaculation”?
To some extent it’s a matter of judgement, but most would agree that if a man can’t ejaculate within 15 to 20 minutes of starting to make love, then there’s something unusual going on.
However, the definition also needs to include something about the level of sexual stimulation that a man is receiving. After all, there probably isn’t a man on the planet who’s tried to make love when he’s not been particularly sexually aroused, and in those circumstances it might not be entirely surprising for a man to lose his erection and/or not be able to ejaculate.
And in any case, definitions are all very well, but for a man who has this problem they may be an irrelevance. If you can’t ejaculate during intercourse, you know about it. If you have great difficulty ejaculating during intercourse, you know about. If you have trouble ejaculating, you know about it.
So the real issue for men with this difficulty is finding a solution that enables them to ejaculate (or come, or cum), in a normal timescale. As you might expect, over the years a lot of different methods of treatment have been suggested. These range from delving deep into a man’s unconscious to find out if he’s got some kind of problem or emotional issue with women, sex, or intimacy all the way through to hard penile stimulation leading to vaginal insertion at the moment before the man feels he’s going to ejaculate.
Andt what will solve the problem for one man may not work for another. This treatment program covers all possibilities, including ways to deal with sexual dysfunctions which originate in the relationship. In essence, this delayed ejaculation treatment program provides you with effective sexual techniques that will enable you to come without difficulty during sex, no matter whether you’re a husband, a partner, or a boyfriend expereincing difficulties.
Delayed Ejaculation Is Not Your Fault!
Ian Kerner is a leading sex therapist who’s written a lot about delayed ejaculation and premature ejaculation. His grasp of the issues affecting men’s sexual experience is second to none.
In an interview with the Today online magazine, Kerner said that he’s seen a significant increase in the number of men trying to cope with DE. And that includes not only men who can’t reach orgasm during lovemaking, but also men who can’t achieve orgasm at all, ever. Unsurprisingly, the Internet has been a big forum for spreading information about DE so in part this apparent increase could be the result of better reporting and greater awareness.
But … there’s more to it than that, and in a discussion with Dr Michael Perelman, Kerner tried to get to the bottom of what was going on. Kerner suggested that the number of cases of delayed ejaculation is rising for several reasons. One of the most obvious reasons is that more medication which causes delayed ejaculation is being used more often.
This includes antidepressants and anti-hypertensives; many of these compounds can have the side-effect of slowing ejaculation or even making it difficult to ejaculate to even impossible to ejaculate at all. He also made the interesting point that drugs like Viagra may make a man think he’s turned on because he has a hard and long-lasting erection, when in fact he’s not even very aroused.
And clearly if you’re not really sexually aroused then you’re not likely to reach orgasm or ejaculate any time soon. And it’s certainly true that the many men with delayed ejaculation have no difficulty at all keeping an erection — they just simply don’t seem to be very sexually aroused.
For many women, the sight of an erection implies that a man is sexually excited and ready for sex, However, this is not true. The idea that a hard penis means a man is ready for sex is simply wrong. Just as women need to be aroused emotionally and psychologically, so do men. Especially as they get older.
There’s another interesting and subtle factor causing an increase in the amount of delayed ejaculation. The number of men around the age of 50 is increasing rapidly, and men naturally begin to slow down, sexually, around 50 years of age. Obviously if you have more men reaching the age at which you have more men experiencing sexual dysfunction, then it looks like the prevalence of sexual dysfunction, including delayed ejaculation, is increasing. But – as always – there’s more to it than this.
An increasing number of men seem to have trouble ejaculating because of increasing levels of shame and guilt. So although we look like we’re becoming more liberated as a society, there may be some hidden issue here.
Society and Sex; Delays Abound
For example, boys may be brought up in very orthodox religions where masturbation is frowned upon. In many cultures, sex outside of marriage is forbidden. Men may grow up in a family environment where is sex is shameful, guilt-ridden, taboo, embarrassing, or not talked about (or a million other issues).
All of these things can cause shame and guilt and stop men from learning about the natural expression of male sexuality, both mentally and emotionally. Later in life, when they become sexually active, these men simply don’t develop the arousal necessary to reach orgasm.
Harsh Masturbation Can Cause Ejaculation Problems
Some boys develop unusual (“idiosyncratic”) masturbation styles that require a lot of friction and pressure to achieve orgasm. As you may imagine, this is a very potent training method — that is to say, a potent training in how not to reach orgasm and ejaculate, because hard masturbation feels so different to being stimulated by a real person. This is a great picture, isn’t it? It sums up traumatic masturbatory syndrome perfectly. That means hard and fast self-stimulation.
What else did Perelman mention?
He talked briefly about men who are in relationship with women who want to have a child when the man is ambivalent about it. Clearly this can be a significant relationship problem. When the couple don’t talk about this it’s almost certain there will be problems ahead, because a lack of communication appears to be one of the major factors behind the current rise in delayed ejaculation.
Perelman also talked about the way that men are socialized to be in control and not express their feelings. He said that control issues frequently play a role in delayed ejaculation: effectively you’re looking at a man who seems to have trouble “letting go” and experiencing pleasure, perhaps not just in sex, but in life in general.
Another male attitude that promotes delayed ejaculation is seeing sex as a kind of responsibility or even a chore, something you have to do “to be a man”. Men who have feel like this may never fully immerse themselves in their sensual experience.
Other men, it seems, somehow never learn the art of using their mind in a way that can enhance their sexual arousal — perhaps because in the past they’ve always been able to rely on physical stimulation to get them hard and sexually aroused. Many of the men who have delayed ejaculation will probably not have an awareness of the fact that they’re mentally disconnected from sex.