In the context of my busy urologic practice, I am often asked if there is any way to make male orgasms last longer. This area is one where men are jealous of women. I call it Venus Envy. For reasons unknown, nature designed humans so that women can experience prolonged wavelike orgasms, while men can experience brief and thunderous orgasms, five to seven seconds in duration. Wouldn’t it be great, men dream, if we could make that ecstatic sensation last a full minute? Five minutes? An hour? So far, no one has come up with a way to prolong orgasm. However, we have found ways to delay it.
I will go out on a limb and predict that we will find a way to prolong male orgasms somehow, someday. With sex being studied by more scientists than ever before, I believe that researchers will eventually accomplish what most men have been unable to achieve on their own. When that day comes, it will be a great one for men.
In the meantime, many excellent techniques can be employed to delay orgasms in men, prolong the pleasurable sensation that sexual stimulation embodies, and delay ejaculatory inevitability.
With sufficient stimulation to an erect penis, the reflex action of ejaculation is eventually triggered. The amount of time it takes for ejaculation to occur depends on the individual and the circumstances. The sensation of pleasure involved may also vary depending on the different encounters. A man might experience fireworks and ejaculate very quickly, or he might require an extended period of stimulation to achieve climax. The differences in the intensity and pleasure of orgasm are mediated in the brain. These differences entail psychological and emotional factors, such as love, romance, fantasy, physical chemistry, and the level of physical and emotional passion that precedes the orgasm.
What takes place physically during ejaculation is always the same (with minor variations), whether a man is masturbating in a closet or making love under a tropical waterfall with the partner of his dreams.
When a certain level of excitement is reached, a complex chain of nerve impulses signals the muscles in the pelvic floor to contract. (These muscles are located in the perineum, the area between the back of the scrotum and the bottom of the rectum.) These pelvic contractions are accompanied by muscle contractions in other parts of the body, such as the lower back and abdomen, and an increase in the heart and respiratory rates. All of these reflexes make ejaculation a whole-body phenomenon.
When the contractions of the perineal muscles forcibly start to move the semen on its route to the penis, men feel the sensations that tell them they are about to ejaculate. From this point on, ejaculation is inevitable. It is a pure reflex that cannot be stopped. Any effort to delay ejaculation has to be made before this point of no return.
To delay reaching this point of ejaculatory inevitability, one must get extremely close to the threshold of ejaculatory inevitability and then halt all stimulation and relax all muscles of the perineum and lower back before resuming direct stimulation. With practice, this process can be done multiple times, but it takes a considerable amount of mental, physical, and emotional discipline. Though not medically correct, this technique is sometimes labeled “the continuous male orgasm.” The trick, of course, is to reach a high level of excitation before ejaculatory inevitability, back off, reach a higher level of excitability before ejaculatory inevitability, back off, and continue this exercise for as long as possible.
A good idea is to start with gentle self-stimulation. One can bring oneself to the edge and then back off, repeating the process. The key is to get very close to ejaculatory inevitability and then completely relax all of the sexual organ muscles and cease stimulation to the penis. This exercise, of course, can also be done with a partner, but the principle is the same. Some of my patients use this approach and combine it with the “squeeze” technique, which involves a sharp squeeze of the tip of the penis just before ejaculatory inevitability. This maneuver will reset the clock, and then the process begins again. Another approach is called the Valsalva maneuver. Again, one is brought close to the point of ejaculatory inevitability and then increases abdominal pressure by bearing down as if one were having a bowel movement (without, of course, having one). This increased intra-abdominal pressure will have the same effect as pelvic relaxation and the squeeze technique.
These techniques will not create a state of continuous orgasm but will merely prolong the period of sexual excitation before ejaculatory inevitability. Learning to resist the temptation of orgasm, which is not easy to do, can prolong the period of sexual excitation. The key thought should be “get close, relax, get closer, relax, and so forth.” With practice, the stop-and-go approach will delay orgasms, increase the period of high-level sexual excitement, and bring a broad smile to all involved.
