LAST LONGER IN BED!
Ultimately, it was the "stop-start" method that pushed my fiancée, 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 cannot just get up and go—"
"Why not? That is 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 would be able to have sex for a whole minute by then.
"I am so sick and tired of saying, ' It is okay, really,' every time we have sex," she yelled. "It is not okay! This is your problem, not mine. Moreover, if you do not 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 most significant 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 is 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 was not pleasurable, but at least it was not humiliating. Now, however—could I go it alone? The first time we made ungloved love, I was overwhelmed by the sensations: the wet warmth, the wetness of being inside her. It felt so amazing; I wanted desperately to savor the experience. However, it was out of my control. On my very first thrust, I went in, but I did not make it out. Also, 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 premature ejaculation (PE) my tragic downfall and believed myself cursed with an Achilles penis. Today, at least I know I am 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.
Survival of the Fastest
However, what if premature ejaculation is not a curse after all, but merely "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 is not a sexual dysfunction at all— it is an entirely rational way of functioning, based on male physiology. That is why we should stop calling it "premature" ejaculation and come up with a new, more accurate term: "immature ejaculation." Because, frankly, that is what it is: an immature way of doing things that mostly stems from the way we are 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. Weightlifters 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 have trained ourselves to ejaculate quickly, and we need to relearn the process of sexual response in order to last longer. (Worried about ejaculating too quickly? Check out these ten ways to last longer in bed.)
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 are quick on the trigger." However, it did not work for me, and I doubt it 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 three 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 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 did not know if I was coming or going. Alternatively, for that matter, if I would be coming and then going after having sex with her.
Also, as she emerged from the shower and came to bed, naked and glistening, I was so nervous, and I did not just prematurely ejaculate, I spontaneously ejaculated.
True to her word, she left me. Don't feel bad. I do not. (Anymore.) Moreover, don't worry, either. According to the MensHealth.com and Cosmopolitan survey, less than 10 percent of women say they have dumped a guy because he was quick on the draw.
Shortly after we broke up, I began working with a terrific sex therapist. I overcame PE within a few months, using six techniques. 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 precisely 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 love, Sarah. My short story finally found a happy ending.