Trigger Happy Premature ejaculation doesn't have to mean a premature
end to your sex life. Use these strategies and ye shall, ahem,
overcome
by Ian Kerner, Ph.D.
Ultimately, it was the "stop-start" method
that pushed my fiancØe, Tara, over the edge. What with so
much stopping and so little starting, not to mention all my
various instructions--"Slow down, easy, easy, okay, go ahead,
stop, I said stop!"--she finally blurted out, "Jesus, are
we having sex or parking a car?"
As she jumped out of bed and reached for
her clothes, I pleaded, "Wait. . . . You can't just get up
and go--"
"Why not? That's what you do every time
we have sex."
I stammered and said something about lasting
10 seconds--2 more than last month. She said something about
menopause and how maybe we'd be able to have sex for a whole
minute by then.
"I'm so sick and tired of saying, It's okay,
really,' every time we have sex," she yelled. "It's not okay!
This is your problem, not mine. And if you don't get it figured
out by the time I get back from Hong Kong, the engagement
is off!"
Ungloved Love Premature ejaculation (PE) has been, without a doubt,
the single greatest factor in the formation of my character.
Whenever someone asks me why I pursued a Ph.D. in clinical
sexology and became a sex therapist, I always say it's because
of my struggles with PE and the years of quiet desperation
I endured.
I still remember when my college girlfriend
first went on the Pill. I was terrified. Until then, a condom
lined with lidocaine (a numbing agent that rendered me barely
able to feel my penis) had been my first line of defense.
The sex wasn't pleasurable, but at least
it wasn't totally humiliating. Now, however--could I go it
alone? The first time we made ungloved love, I was overwhelmed
by the sensations: the slippery warmth, the wetness of being
inside her. It felt so amazing; I wanted desperately to savor
the experience. But it was out of my control. On my very first
thrust, I went in, but I didn't make it out. And as I lay
on top of her--defeated, depleted--I cried.
I wanted to make love like a man, but I
was a little boy, incapable of controlling my bodily functions.
I considered PE my tragic downfall and believed
myself cursed with an Achilles penis. Today, at least I know
I'm not alone. Indeed, whenever I see a commercial for Viagra
or one of its new competitors, I get ticked off: Why isn't
the media talking about PE? According to urologists Andrew
McCullough, M.D., of the New York University school of medicine,
and James Barada, M.D., of the Albany College of Medicine,
PE is the number-one sexual-health problem afflicting men,
and is three times more common than erectile dysfunction (ED).
Estimates vary, but 20 percent to 30 percent of men suffer
from PE--and those figures are based on self-reported studies.
What do women say? Nearly two-thirds of
them have had sex with a man who experienced premature ejaculation,
according to a recent survey of 900 women conducted by MensHealth.com
and Cosmopolitan magazine. PE strikes men of all ages, and
the condition affects virtually all men at some time in their
lives. Dr. McCullough and Dr. Barada surveyed more than 1,100
men with PE and found that those men report less satisfaction
and more anxiety about their sexual relationships. It can
wreck their confidence and cause them to avoid new relationships.
Survival of the Fastest
But what if premature ejaculation isn't a curse after all, but
simply "survival of the fastest"? According to Mark Jeffrey
Noble, M.D., a consultant to the Cleveland Clinic Glickman Urological
Institute, "One might find some logical sense, from an evolutionary
point of view, to the idea that males who can ejaculate rapidly
would be more likely to succeed in fertilizing a female than
those males who require prolonged stimulation to reach climax."
So in that sense, maybe PE isn't a sexual dysfunction at all--it's
a completely normal way of functioning, based on male physiology.
That's why we should stop calling it "premature" ejaculation
and come up with a new, more accurate term: "immature ejaculation."
Because, frankly, that's what it is: an immature way of doing
things that largely stems from the way we're taught, or rather,
not taught, to masturbate in childhood.
Most young men, fearing discovery, masturbate
furtively and quickly, unwittingly exploiting, and simultaneously
hard-coding, their natural propensity to rapidly achieve gratification.
Weight lifters talk about "muscle memory." I believe that
premature ejaculators experience "penis memory." No wonder
the pioneering sex researcher Alfred Kinsey observed in his
book Sexual Behavior in the Human Male that the average
man can maintain penetrative thrusting for only about 2 minutes.
(However, Cosmo readers said the average guy lasts
10 to 15 minutes.) We've trained ourselves to ejaculate quickly,
and we need to relearn the process of sexual response in order
to last longer.
The Sensitive Man
At first, like any overexcited teenager, I dealt with PE in
the usual ways: masturbating before going out on dates (which
helps, but becomes less effective as you get older and require
more downtime between erections); downing beers; and donning
double, even triple, condoms. I even tried to delay orgasm in
the heat of the moment by distracting myself with baseball statistics
or images of dead people--and let me tell you, thinking about
corpses during sex: definite mood killer.
Later, I graduated to herbal remedies, topical
ointments, and miracle creams advertised in the backs of porn
magazines. On one occasion, my little experiments led to an
acid burn of my penis in the men's room of a Japanese restaurant.
In yet another doomed effort, I put the
Errol Flynn method to the test: a dab of cocaine on the tip
of the penis. The matinee idol once explained that it could
be helpful "if you're quick on the trigger." But it didn't
work for me, and I doubt it really worked for Flynn. He claimed
to have slept with more than 13,000 women in his lifetime.
Now, how the hell are you going to do that without being a
premature ejaculator?
Am I Coming or Going?
The day Tara left for Hong Kong--giving me 3 weeks to shape
up or clear out--I spiraled to an all-time low. In a desperate
attempt to keep that ring on her finger, I tried every type
of radical therapy. There was biofeedback treatment, in which
an electrode was inserted where I least wanted it, and I was
encouraged to engage in an activity once thought to cause blindness
in teenagers; self-hypnosis tapes that lulled me into such a
deep trance with its sounds of water being stopped and started
that I woke up soaked in my own urine; and a session with a
German "masturbation specialist" who sternly observed and critiqued
my methods of self-pleasure, all the while keeping time with
a metronome and commanding me to "stop, start, squeeze; stop,
start, squeeze!"
By the time Tara returned, I was a complete
mess. I didn't know if I was coming or going. Or, for that
matter, if I'd be coming and then going after having sex with
her.
And as she emerged from the shower and came
to bed, naked and glistening, I was so nervous, I didn't just
prematurely ejaculate, I spontaneously ejaculated.
True to her word, she left me. Don't feel
bad. I don't. (Anymore.) And don't worry, either. According
to the MensHealth.com and Cosmopolitan survey, less
than 10 percent of women say they've dumped a guy because
he was quick on the draw.
Shortly after we broke up, I began working
with a really terrific sex therapist. I overcame PE within
a few months, using six techniques. (See the Related article:
"6 Steps to Beat PE".) I was so transformed, and inspired,
that I decided to change careers and go down that path myself.
Today, I continue to learn about PE, which is exactly what
the late sex therapist Helen Singer Kaplan, M.D., Ph.D., advised
in what is still considered the definitive guide to conquering
PE, titled How to Overcome Premature Ejaculation. My
struggles led me not only to my passion in life--writing about
sex and helping others through sex therapy--but to the love
of my life, as well: my wife, Lisa. My short story finally
found a happy ending.
Ian Kerner, Ph.D., is a certified clinical
sexologist and the author of She Comes First: The Thinking
Man's Guide to Pleasuring a Woman.
