The Penis, Men & Male Sexuality

Why do men ejaculate so quickly?

There are several reasons. The first is that we're male animals. Surveys show that three quarters of men ejaculate within two minutes of putting their penis in their partner's vagina. For young men in particular, as much as four minutes of penile thrusting is almost a lifetime!

But why? You might think it strange that rapid ejaculation is so common. After all, there are few things in life more pleasant than having your erect penis in a warm, moist vagina! But our ancestors lived in a harsh environment, probably at risk of being killed by hostile enemies.

The shorter the time during which males were distracted by the act of sex, the better, because they were defenseless while they mated. The quicker they mounted the female, penetrated her with their penis, ejaculated and dismounted, the better. Sex wasn't for pleasure - it was for reproduction.

So, in evolutionary terms, it would be much safer to make the act as brief as possible. And what's more, the less time males spent on sex, the more time would be available for protecting the females and babies or hunting.

This must have been an effective strategy for preserving the species and producing babies, but it certainly didn't leave us with a great legacy as human males: the thrusting of a penis in a vagina was designed to produce a quick ejaculation. And all too often it still does!

The second reason is that we learn to ejaculate quickly as young men.

Most boys discover how to stimulate their penis to orgasm in secret, and I think almost every young man would be horrified if his parents ever revealed that they knew he was playing with his penis and masturbating - it just isn't talked about, even though every father in the world masturbated when he was a boy (and probably still does).

So even though almost all teenage boys fondle their penis with great enthusiasm and frequency, we don't talk about it, and there's still a lot of shame attached to the act.

And the shame means it's done quickly - a boy pulls his penis to orgasm under the bedclothes, in the bathroom, wherever: reaching orgasm isn't something that he learns to spin out and enjoy to the full.

He never tries to develop the skill of lasting longer in bed by teasing his penis to the brink of ejaculation and then backing off. Nor does he ever stop to savor the experience: the urgency is too great, and his quick orgasm is too rewarding anyway!

All of this means he does not learn about the feelings his penis can produce in his body as he moves towards orgasm, especially the feelings that mean he is about to ejaculate.

The result is that he has no sense of how to slow down and spin out masturbation. And so he never learns how to control his arousal and the speed with which he reaches orgasm.

And the third reason we may ejaculate quickly after inserting our penis into a partner is that we're not confident lovers. Anxiety is the enemy of self-control, so fears about our performance don't help us to be long lasting lovers. It's a fact that having the confidence to know you can keep going actually helps you keep going.

The opposite seems to be true, too: if you're not confident of your ability to keep going, your nervousness increases your level of emotional and sexual arousal, and, before you know it, bang! you've ejaculated too soon again.

To put this in simple terms, finding a woman who allows you to penetrate her with your penis is an urge driven by every aspect of our masculine being. It's fundamental to our self-image as men, and it's something that we think about endlessly (as you know!).

But often, when we get a partner, there's a sense of perhaps not quite being in command of the situation, a certain surprise, perhaps, that we are in a sexual relationship with a woman who wants us to make love to her; and if this is backed up by a sense of nervousness about not being up to the job, or not being fully sexually confident, or even at some very deep level of our male soul feeling afraid of women, or angry at women, then premature ejaculation is to be expected. But it can still be controlled.

But can men really control their ejaculation?

I remember my first experience of sex very clearly. I ejaculated the moment my penis penetrated my girlfriend's vagina and felt the warmth of her body around my penis, and I continued doing this for many weeks after that.

No-one would describe that as a satisfactory sexual experience, I'm sure. But then what would be satisfactory? Ten minutes of penile thrusting before coming? Half an hour? An hour?

I remember a friend telling me when we were in our late teens that he could actually choose when to let go and ejaculate.

I found this absolutely astonishing: if he and his girlfriend wanted a "quickie", he said, he allowed himself to ejaculate almost at once, simply choosing not to make it last; but if they wanted prolonged intercourse, then he could thrust away for ages.

I found it difficult to believe this, because like most men my experience was about grimly hoping for the best and yet nearly always coming uncontrollably - not that it was ever unpleasant, of course, but it was certainly disappointing.

So, like I said above, the important thing about premature ejaculation is not so much that a guy comes quickly, but that he has no control over his penis and when he comes. If you're a quick comer, what you need to learn is not to last longer but to be able to control your ejaculation and have choice over when you ejaculate.

What about the woman's experience?

For the female partner, quick ejaculation may be frustrating, especially if she thinks she might have an orgasm through intercourse if only her man could thrust for long enough!

This may produce conflict, though couples may choose to prevent ejaculation by ensuring that the woman has one or more orgasms through oral sex or masturbation before her man enters her. This will mean that no matter how quickly he comes, they are both satisfied.

And if the partners embrace and cuddle afterwards, they can still enjoy wonderful feelings of closeness and love. It's also important to remember that for some couples, premature ejaculation is not a problem - in which case it probably isn't "premature", it's fine! But a lot of couples want to be able to control their lovemaking, and both the man and the woman may be keen to see the man last longer.

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Causes & Cures: Premature Ejaculation

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