Orgasm Challenges with Partners: Early or Never, the Male Edition

If you're a person with a penis or partnered with someone with one, this episode will help you understand and solve some very common orgasm challenges for male-bodied people during partner sex: having orgasms sooner than you'd like ("premature ejaculation" or PE) or not at all.

It will help you stop trying to extend your time to orgasm by thinking about something awful and checking out (pro tip: that is horrible advice), and I'll walk you through what actually works instead.

If you have trouble orgasming with a partner, or you’d just like to try some new approaches to orgasm, this episode will also help you with the most common reason for that and how to overcome it.

Plus you may hear a few tips to enhance male orgasms that you may not have tried yet.

Sign up for my email newsletter with free mini-courses, workshop announcements and general love notes for you, and get the Wheel of Erotic Emotions guide to understanding your turn-ons here: https://laurajurgens.com/wheel

Book recommendations mentioned in the episode:

• How to Overcome PE, Please Your Partner & Have Great Sex by Metz & McCarthy
• Making Love Real by Harel & Hirschman (recommend to all people in relationships)
• The Multi-Orgasmic Man by Arava & Chia 

Course recommendation for PE:
2-hour audio course by the Somatica® Method founders: https://www.celesteanddanielle.com/work-with-us/sex-coaching-homework-exercises/control-ejaculation-audio-download/ 

Learn more about me, get a FREE GUIDE to FINDING YOUR DEEPEST TURN-ONS, inquire about coaching, and learn how to get help with relationships and intimacy at https://laurajurgens.com.

Get a transcript of this episode by going to https://sexhelpforsmartpeople.buzzsprout.com/ Click on the episode, then choose the transcript tab.

Transcript

Hey everyone. Welcome to episode 13. So today we're talking about orgasms with partners for people with penises and especially if you'd like to extend your time to orgasm, have trouble orgasming with a partner, Or you just like to try some new approaches to your orgasm. So whether you or your partner have the male equipment, this episode will help you understand some common challenges and how to overcome them to have more pleasure together.

It will also give you some fun ideas that you may not have tried. So let's get at it.

Hey everyone. 

So, welcome to episode 13. 

I am excited about this one today because I am really excited to offer some insight for male bodied listeners and their female partners about male orgasm challenges that are super common. But often we are just not talking about them in our relationships or with anybody else.

And so -- How to start addressing some of these common issues so that people don't feel so alone, so that people feel like they can really talk to their partners and open up about them is really my purpose today. And also I want to give you a few extra fun things about male anatomy that a lot of people aren't trying out yet but can be very pleasurable.

So this episode is focusing on cis men and non binary folks with penises who aren't transgender & are not taking hormones -- because those hormones introduce a whole other set of issues. 

So today we're going to cover two main things in terms of common issues. Early ejaculation or generally coming faster than you'd like, often called PE. Premature ejaculation. So this is super common and uncomfortable for many people to talk about. It's unfortunately often ignored out of shame or embarrassment, but it is so common and also there are great ways to approach it that really work and really help solve this issue. So getting it sort of out of the dark and into the open is really important and also I just want to normalize so much -- it's so common.

So you don't have to feel alone if this is you and it can help, you know, sorting this out can help everyone in a partnership have more fun together. The other main issue we're going to cover is actually kind of the opposite -- challenges in orgasming with a partner at all. And this is also super common for men.

And so a lot of men, if you are masturbating and orgasming with yourself, that doesn't necessarily mean you have an easy time orgasming with a partner, and so we'll talk about both of those issues today and some fun ways to approach overcoming them. I am not gonna cover ED today-- erection challenges-- because I want to talk about those and the fact that, you know, erections come and go all the time. It's very normal. I want to talk about that in a dedicated episode where we can really dive into it. So for today, I'm just going to say that: erections coming and going -- it happens to literally all men at some point in their lives if they live long enough. So hopefully it will happen to you because that means you have lived long enough to have that experience. It is very normal, it may or may not resolve with a pill, and there are some very useful things to do to enhance your arousal whether you choose meds or not. And some very important things for partners to know about not putting so much pressure on your erection.

So we will talk more about that soon and I'm just gonna leave it there for today. 

So for today, I'm focusing on orgasms for men, which is really plenty to cover. And in fact, I can't even cover all the reasons for PE or orgasm difficulties because there are just so many. So I'm gonna focus on some of the most common, but that doesn't mean there aren't some other possibilities, and I'll offer a few book recommendations at the end today to help you dive into these issues in more detail on your own so that you can really feel knowledge empowered. So we're going to talk about both of these issues and how they often stem from the same source, interestingly, even though they, they seem quite different, right? Almost opposite.

And there's some common ways to work on them --  there's some commonalities in how we work on them and then there's some differences. And we'll talk about a few fun things to try that can help you have better, more, and even longer orgasms if you're a man. And then I'll close with a couple exercise recommendations, plus those book recommendations I mentioned. 

Alrighty, so let's talk first about extending time to orgasm for people who experience PE. And actually this issue, right, and the issue of having trouble reaching orgasms with partners, often, both relate to how men and boys learn to be sexual and common habits of masturbation.

So before we want to dive into all that, I do want to emphasize the role of communicating with your partner here. So if you have these challenges and a partner, I promise it is affecting them. Now, if your partner is a man, he's probably brought it up already because gay men tend to be, and bisexual men too, tend to be less shy about bringing up issues in sex. So you are probably talking about it to some extent already.

But if your partner is a woman and she isn't saying anything, that doesn't mean it's not an issue. It probably is. Women are socialized to protect men's feelings at our own expense. So, that means guys, you need to step up and talk about it. Ask for her support.
Tell her you're working on it. Just talk about it. Bring it up. Not when you're having sex, but at some other time. And saying, Hey, you know, this is really hard for me to talk about is absolutely okay. In fact, I really encourage that. 

If you are a woman and listening to this and your partner has one of these issues, please also challenge yourself to bring it up too. You're not helping anyone by just letting this all go under the rug if it's bothering you. And chances are it's probably bothering you to some extent. But I do want you to remember that it doesn't mean your partner -- having either P. E. or challenges orgasming --doesn't mean anything about your skill or sexiness at all. Or if he has a porn habit that helps him orgasm, that doesn't mean he doesn't love you or find you super sexy. So please don't make it about you being deficient in some way. You are not. Actually offer to allow this to just be a challenge for your partner that you are there to support him with.

You can absolutely express an interest in working together on finding solutions. And it is okay to ask your partner to work on his P. E. or orgasm challenges so you can both have more pleasure together. 

Okay. So what we all need to know about this is that there is a common cause for both of these things that is just most often, is mostly what I see. Now there are some other causes and we'll mention those in a little bit. But a big root cause is that we have a sexuality shaming culture. We've talked about that before. There's a lot of shame for women around just being sexual beings. Not so much for men around that, but there is sexuality shaming culture overall where boys are often taught to really hide their emerging sexuality and that it's embarrassing.

Boys often learn to hurry masturbation and to "finish" fast so they don't get "caught." That means not taking time, not noticing sensations, not letting them build slowly, but rushing. And boys inadvertently train themselves to orgasm quickly because of this that can lead to later P. E.

Boys are also often using porn to masturbate, that's part of our culture, and they are also training themselves through that to be very outwardly focused. So being focused visually on porn, or later in life when you start having partners, on the visual input of your partner rather than really being with your own experience and the sensations in your body or even with the connection to your partner if that's something that's hot for you -- is that sort of outward focus can really keep you from noticing your own experience and sensations and being able to tolerate arousal in its different forms and different levels.

So, I'm not going to go into the ethics of the porn industry today, except to just say that we all know it is fiction, or we need to know it is fiction. It is really important to remember that it is literally made by companies trying to make money to sell to men to arouse men. It's usually made by men, and it's definitely made for men in 99.99 percent of cases. So, just know that it is fiction, it's not reality, we cannot expect our partners to respond that way because they are real human beings, not actors. But boys are often conditioned to use porn as a visual aid to aid arousal, I mean that is what it is made for.

And I'm not saying that porn is all bad or never to use it, just know that it can be harder to learn your own body and pay attention to your own sensations when you are outwardly focused.

And in getting in the habit of rushing in masturbation, being outwardly focused, one of the things that happens is that boys and men often hold a lot of tension in the pelvic floor during arousal. The body knows that will lead to faster orgasm. And that's on top of the day to day tension we all often hold in our pelvic floor muscles and just not knowing how to release it.

And this is one of the big factors for PE, is a very tight pelvic floor, especially during arousal. Now, another factor that is part of how boys often train themselves to masturbate is the death grip. A very, very firm grip, often used during masturbation, especially to orgasm quickly. And this is one of the big factors that can cause trouble later orgasming with partners.

So if you have no trouble with yourself and you know that you are using a very firm grip, this is likely one of your contributing factors. So you can see now how we have like a perfect storm for some issues with orgasms. The habit of rushing, holding lots of tension in the pelvic floor, Focusing outward on porn or a partner visually rather than noticing one's own sensations and taking time with them and the death grip.

And now add in doing that several times a week or perhaps several times a day for many years and it's no wonder why there are challenges with either coming fast or not at all with partners. So, hence, super duper normal. And both issues are actually most commonly related to the ways that the mind and body are trained by these masturbation habits.

So the good news is that you can unlearn them in part by retraining yourself in masturbation, by learning to be more inward focused and present with yourself and your sensations. by learning to breathe more deeply and relax the pelvic floor and also learning to go up and down the arousal ladder more slowly with a softer touch.

It also really helps to learn what really turns you on psychologically, what really turns you off. are your core desires. And if you haven't yet, check out episode five about that. It's all about erotic emotions and what really turns us on, which will help you a lot, especially if you have challenges orgasming.

But this is just like learning a sport. So learning a new way to self pleasure takes practice and will feel super weird at first. But once you've got it down, you can then start working with a partner's help. And I'm going to talk about how to be more present with your sensations and relax your pelvic floor during partner sex.

And so look, when we're thinking about these two issues, not coming with partners and PE, there are other reasons for them. So there can be relationship issues like pressure or belittling or just bad communication around sex. Sometimes a bad, a really bad sexual experience. Right. There could also be injuries that can lead to some of these challenges.

And then psychological and emotional wellness issues like low self esteem or confidence, anxiety, depression, and OCD are some of the major factors that could really be affecting these people. orgasm issues. But the masturbation habits and how you've, or basically how you've trained your body and mind around sex, right?

And so those are some of the most common. If those issues, the masturbation stuff resonates with you and you think your P. E. or orgasm challenges are probably related to something like that, then here are some steps you can take. And I'm going to tell you the steps in a second, but I just also want to let you know.

There is support available and so that's important to note. You can start all this on your own, but you don't have to. This can be a really ingrained habit in both the mind and the body. So either a coach or a sexological body worker is very helpful and probably more helpful in this case, in my opinion, than a sex therapist, unless it's only a psychological issue.

And most people don't have only a standalone psychological issue. It's often also partly body training. So coaches and sexological body workers will have more ability to work with you on those things. I will also recommend a those books that I mentioned in an audio class here at the end. And just think about getting help if you get stuck in your progress, even though I do recommend starting, of course, on your own.

So here are some steps to start on your own. And I will give you a little more tools on these more directly in the exercises at the end. So the steps for P. E. And they are going to be slightly different because these are different issues even though they can be related. One, learn to relax your pelvic floor during arousal.

This is super important and just take some practice. I'll explain when to Place to start at the end here, and the audio guide I'm going to give you is by some great teachers will help too. It, this, relaxing your pelvic floor during arousal just involves some breath work, focus on the muscles in your pelvic floor, and Kegels with an emphasis on the relaxation part.

Number two is going to be learning to tolerate arousal. without trying to go so fast up the arousal scale. So rather than going sort of zero to 10, with 10 being that precipice of orgasm where you can't turn back, you want to be able to get aroused up to a moderate level, ease back down, go back up without hitting that my orgasm's inevitable peak of 10.

And that's the other exercise I'll offer, and it's also one I do with clients too. It can really help to have a practice partner who is skilled and boundaried. And so I do this clothed in my office or online, helping build arousal to sort of middle levels, relax, build, relax, and just practicing that can really be helpful.

But you can also do that on your own. Some other things that you might want to try are sex positions that let you relax your pelvic floor. So once you have a mind body connection and awareness of your pelvic floor muscles and are able to relax them, trying sex positions and seeing which ones actually help you stay relaxed while you're having intercourse, while there's some insertion, right?

So for example, there's, you know, if you're on the bottom lying down, Especially with your legs kind of a little bit more spread, like in a, you know, a good reverse cowgirl style, that can help stretch and relax your pelvic floor. But it's different for everyone, so just see which positions work for you to keep your pelvic floor muscles relaxed.

You can also try, and this one's fun they're all pretty fun actually. So try perennial vibration or massage. And I suggest just using a vibrator on your perennium. You can also do self massage to relax it. And, you know, side note, this can give you some really great orgasms if you are orgasmic there.

And you might even build that capacity with practice. So give it a shot. You basically just use a broad headed vibrator right on the perineum and see and just breathe into it and allow yourself to relax and see if that can help open up the pelvic floor. The other one is to try focusing on your own sensations and sexual energy during partner sex more often.

So being less sort of visually externally focused and allowing yourself to really notice your sensations, to slow down when you need to slow down, to breathe and to relax that pelvic floor while you're doing any sort of partner sex is really a helpful practice. And you can do it while you are just, you can use that sort of going up and down the arousal scale as part of that mindfulness practice with your partner, right? Whether you're doing anything from making out to actually having intercourse, you can practice that awareness and mindfulness. Okay, so steps for people who have trouble reaching orgasms with partners. I recommend also learning to control your pelvic muscles and relaxing and contracting your pelvic floor because the more mindful awareness you have of that, the more you'll be able to bring some gentle contractions online when feel like you want to start building to an orgasm.

So yours is almost going to be the opposite. You're going to want to actually really learn that mindfulness, but so that you can increase the pressure in your pelvic floor. Also learning your core desires so that you have more psychological arousal. So check that episode five again. And then you are going to need to retrain your penis through lighter touch masturbation or gentle massage to enjoy those sensations and to really slow down in your masturbation.

So slower, lighter touch masturbation, not focusing so much on orgasm while you're masturbating. I know that sounds sort of counterintuitive, but actually, if you're reliably orgasming during masturbation, but not in partner sex, taking the orgasm off the table during masturbation will actually help you.

get more into and receive all the pleasure that's possible for your penis from lighter touches. Okay, so you need to stay away from the death grip for a while and really focus on getting your turn ons met so that you're aroused and being really present for the lighter touch. You perineum massage vibration or strong pressure on the perineum, that's really great.

And I recommend prostate play. Especially if you have challenges with orgasms with partners, why not get the male G spot in play? It can be so powerful for pleasure for men. So you need to go at it through the anus and that means you need a proper anal toy long enough to reach your prostate with a flared base.

Not just any old thing. Butts will just -- butts suck in anything-- and you will wind up very embarrassed in the ER if you just put any old thing in your butt. So please use a proper anal safe toy or a partner's finger or your own finger if you have really long fingers .But it can be hard and if your partner doesn't have super long fingers it can be kind of hard to reach your prostate. Use lots of lube regardless of whether you're using a toy or finger and making sure your partner knows to go very slow if they are the ones inserting it, or you go very slow yourself.

You need to give -- there's two anal sphincters, you need to give both of them time to relax. But using a butt plug during partner sex can really enhance your sensation and create nice long orgasms for men. So I suggest you give it a whirl. My favorite recommended toy for which I get absolutely no kickbacks (I'm just saying this because it's a public service because it's great) is the vibrating weighted B-vibe. So Give that one a try or find one that appeals to you. 

All right, so here are my book recommendations. So for people with PE, How to Overcome PE, Please Your Partner, and Have Great Sex, which is by Metz and McCarthy.

And I'm going to put all these in the show notes so you can find the titles. The second one is actually a book I recommend to all human beings in relationships, in sexual relationships, no matter your gender or any issues you have. It's called Making Love Real by Harel and Hirschman. And the last one is more of a Tantra guide, but the breath work and presence focus can be really helpful for PE and for people who are wanting to have more orgasms: The Multi Orgasmic Man by Arava and Chia. And of course, you know, multi orgasmic situations are not a bad thing either. So if you get there, then more power to you. But even if you don't wind up with multiple orgasms, you will learn something from that book. 

My course recommendation is a two hour audio course by my instructors in the Somatica Method, Celeste Hirschman and Danielle Harel, and that is a link I'm going to put in the show notes for that audio course on PE in particular.

All right, so exercises for you. So the two exercises I want to offer first is to practice relaxing and contracting your pelvic floor. with the focus being on relaxation, especially if you have PE. Get connected to your pelvic floor muscles with your mind by just gently contracting and relaxing them. All people, regardless of the equipment you have, whether you have a penis or a vulva or you're intersex, have pelvic floor muscles, and it's very helpful for all people to have a mindful connection with them in order to have better sexual experiences. It will help you have better orgasms and also last longer if you're a man. So get in a relaxed position, lying down or reclining, and just spend five to ten minutes, several times a week, practicing contracting and relaxing fully while breathing deeply. There are some great guided meditations for this. You can find them on YouTube. You can also find them from various pelvic physical therapists or do the audio course I recommended in the show notes, if you want more specific guidance for how it applies to PE. Just give yourself five to 10 minutes of practicing breathing deeply, relaxing and contracting your pelvic floor muscle.

And the more you do it, the faster your results will be. So you can do it a few times a week, you can do it every day, you can do it, if you do it once a week, you, it will take a much longer time to get results. So I suggest doing it at least, you know, three to five times a week. Another practice I strongly recommend for both issues is to, Practice going up and down the ladder of arousal.

So you can do this with a partner who is able and willing to help you get aroused through their touch or their sexual energy or making out, or you can do it with yourself through masturbatory touch using a light touch. Not focusing on orgasm or porn, but instead focusing inward on your body sensations and noticing even gentle arousal in your body.

Let yourself really extend the session. So take your time. This should be at least a 20 minute session. Don't rush. Deliberately slow down and feel the sensations of light to medium touch. And what you want to do instead of going from zero to 10, right? Where 10 is that point of no return where you're about to come instead, go zero to like four or five, then up to seven or eight.

Let yourself come back down two of three or four or five, then go back up to a seven or eight and go back down to a five or so before you ramp back up. So toggle back and forth between like a four or five and a seven or eight on that arousal scale and only go to a 10 when you've had several rounds of easing up and down the arousal scale.

This will not only build your ability to tolerate that those intermediate levels of arousal and to know where they are and how they feel for you. But it will also really be, help you extend your pleasure and It can just enhance your overall experience and your overall orgasm so you can have much, much nicer and longer orgasms.

So I hope this is helpful for you all. I wish you can go forth and enjoy all of this and I will see you here. Next week. If this podcast was helpful for you, please consider going to Apple Podcasts or Spotify and leaving a five star review. Not only do I really appreciate your time doing that, but five star reviews really boost the show visibility, which helps people just like you who need it be able to find it.

Thank you so much. I'll see you here next week.