The psychological causes of delayed ejaculation

First of all, there is anxiety or fear of various kinds. This is generally the cause of delayed ejaculation in young men. Failure to ejaculate during intercourse is a tremendous threat to his male concept of masculinity in general and his own self-esteem in particular. He gets so anxious about it that he loses what little ejaculatory control he may have had in the first place.

The main factor that will resolve his anxiety is his self-acknowledgment that he is inexperienced in sexual techniques. If he can convince himself that when he has had more practice he will be all right, more often than not the anxiety is removed and he learns to ejaculate normally.

But many men do not seem to have this faith in themselves, and so they are dragged into the bad old vicious circle: the fear of not staisfying their partner makes it difficult for them to ejaculate.

In his eagerness to satisfy her, he gets so anxious that any psychological control of ejaculation he might have possessed is weakened to the point of being non-existent. If only, instead of trying, he would remain calm, forget about his problem, make love to his girl and go into her when she is ready, he could time his orgasm and so progress to full control.

Other anxieties include fear of catching STD – this can be the cause in young men who shop around for their sex. The answer here is to use condoms. Once, however, they have got into the habit of ejaculating slowly, they have put themselves on a cycle of negative reinforcement and will have difficulty in changing this, even after they have a long term relationship and the reason for their fear no longer exists.

Another cause is just plain fear, sparked off by, of all people, the partner. The prospect of a good session of sex may be unconsciusly fearful. Then, all psychological control is lost and the sexual nervous system becomes paralyzed.

If it’s with a regular partner, she will more likely than not be equally excited, and may be critical. Such criticism can cause fear and anxiety about letting down his partner which may not be shrugged off so lightly.

If the man is young and hasn’t the experience to ignore her criticism and to laugh off his failure with, ‘There’s always the next time,’ when the next time comes he will be apprehensive about failing again, and ten to one his apprehension will cause delayed ejaculation. The second failure causes him to panic, and sets him going round in the vicious circle.

Video – delayed ejaculation

There are other causes of anxiety, and they all produce the same pattern of delayed ejaculation. 

Anger or resentment against or desire to “punish” the partner is aother cause of delayed ejaculation. Psychologically, usually the resentment or the desire is  subconscious, but it’s real enough to cause havoc in the sex-life of the couple.  There are several causes of such resentment, one of which is the man’s assessment of his partner’s sexuality and sex-drive being stronger than his own.

Or he may find that the relationship isn’t all he thought it was going to be. He may resent being tied in a disappointing relationship. He may put the blame on his partner, never on himself. He decides either consciously or subconsciously to punish her by not ejaculating during intercourse. This may not be obvious even to the man himself.

Or he may be jealous of one or more of her attributes which may have no connection whatsoever with their sex-life. He can show his resentment or desire to punish in one of two ways. Either he can ejaculate rapidly and prevent her from obtaining sexual satisfaction through intercourse; or he can so influence his sexual relations that he never ejaculates at all, however long he thrusts his penis in the vagina. This is the essence of delayed ejaculation.

The man who uses delayed ejaculation to demonstrate his resentment against or desire to punish his partner is placing all the blame for his not being able to ejaculate onto her.

The Impact of Delayed Ejaculation

Men with delayed ejaculation get a very stiff erection which they can keep up for three-quarters of an hour or more. But even if he keeps up constant penis movement in the vagina all this time, or allows his partner to masturbate or fellate him, he cannot reach orgasm.

The tension is there all the time, and creates more frustration than any other form of orgasm impairment. Most men with delayed ejaculation have some  resentment or desire to punish. They do this by maintaining penis-vagina contact or partner masturbation or fellatio for half-an-hour or more. After this, in desperation, they withdraw and masturbate themselves, when they will invariably come off within a minute.

By doing this they are, in effect, saying to their partners, ‘You see, it must be your fault!’ He is making his partner the victim of his own emotional conflict.

What can be done about delayed ejaculation?

It is important that men should know one of the basic sex-facts of life, namely, the average man who does not try to control his progress towards orgasm and who has not been manually or orally stimulated by his partner, will reach orgasm in two or three minutes if he starts to masturbate the very moment his penis has reached full erection, or if he puts his penis in the vagina immediately he has become fully erect. Any man who can maintain penis-vagina contact for two minutes without reaching orgasm and ejaculating does not really have a medical problem. However, if you wish to check out a self help treatment for delayed ejaculation, you can find one here.

A swinging movement of the penis in the vagina is just as stimulating for the woman as a thrusting movement is. The man who has taught himself to swing, and has also learned a little psychological control, should be able to keep up the swinging movements for five or ten minutes. Only when his partner tells him she is getting near orgasm, or after she has come, he can bring himself off literally in seconds of changing from swinging to thrusting and tensing his pelvic and buttock muscles.

Almost without exception, men with delayed ejaculation have been ‘cured’ by learning to swing. Even in cases of psychologically-induced delayed ejaculation, in which resentment or other emotional issues are the basic cause, ejaculation can be promoted by swinging.

That said, some men with psychologically induced delayed ejaculation are best treated by psychotherapy which aims at uncovering and removing the psychological ‘block’.

Treatment of delayed ejaculation

Recently doctors have been experimenting with a fair measure of success along predominantly psychological treatment directed at explanation, education, reassurance, support and developing and maintaining motivation.

This form of treatment involves both partners, and without the woman’s full co-operation cannot be carried out.

She joins the same psychological program as the man, but it is she who plays the major role in the restoration of the man’s normal ability to ejaculate. This treatment involves the woman inducing full erection in the man, and then masturbating him with her hand until he is almost at the threshold of the point-of-no-return.

At this point, he tells her to stop; whereupon she presses the point in her partner’s perineum which stops him ejaculating while she counts a slow five. By five the man’s imminent-orgasm sensations will have faded away.

She then masturbates him again until he tells her to stop, when she repeats the squeezing. In one training session this is carried out for four or five times.

After a number of sessions of this treatment, the man can last a little longer than before the treatment. The next stage is then begun. In this, the man lies on his back, and the woman kneels astride him, facing him, with her knees on or slightly below his nipple line, and bending forward at about 45 degrees. She then puts the tip of his penis inside her vaginal entrance, and slowly slides her vagina back on the penis.

She remains absolutely still until the man feels he may ejaculate. She then slips off his penis, takes hold of it and presses his perineum until the sensations have died away. The process is then repeated three or four times. This accustoms the man to  the feel of intravaginal containment, i.e. the sense of the penis in the vagina.

Several sessions of this procedure generally lengthen the time that the man can last during sex so that he can please his partner. When this has been achieved, the woman can introduce movement.

She should keep this up until the man is on the point of coming: then she stops moving, counts to five, withdraw, presses and waits. This further increases the man’s ejaculatory control, until he should be able to make love with the swinging technique for two or three minutes before ejaculating.

With new-found confidence, over a period, he should be able to control his progress to orgasm.