How To Define “Premature”?

Several large scale studies have suggested that the most common male sexual dysfunction is premature ejaculation (otherwise known as PE). Unfortunately there is no consistent definition of the word “premature”, nor indeed is there any definiton of delayed ejaculation. (If you are seeking to recover the ability to ejaculate in a timely way during sex this book might help.)

And there’s another point here – we tend to think of a man who ejaculates quickly as being a poor lover… but what if quick ejaculation was normal in the human male? How would that affect our thinking? It would mean that to last longer in bed, to delay their climax, men must learn how to control their natural responses during sex.

Previous attempts to define just what is “premature” when it comes to the male orgasm have been based on the number of pelvic thrusts before ejaculation, or the time before ejaculation, or the level of satisfaction with sex of both the man and his partner. Not very helpful. Men want to know how long they “should” last during intercourse. Just what is the normal delay before male orgasm? How would anyone know? 

Video – Laci Green On 2 Minute Sex

We Don’t Know How Delayed Ejaculation Stacks Up

Startlingly, it has been shown that up to half of all men come too quickly for their liking, and this includes even those men in couples who are happily married or in long term relationships. But what may be even more astonishing to you is that up to 25% of young men’s first attempts at sexual intercourse result in ejaculation outside the vagina, before they’ve even penetrated their partner…..!

So let’s look at some expert opinions of what a good definition of premature might be. By doing so, we might be able to say what men need to do to fall into the category of average delay before ejaculation.

The fourth version of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of the American Psychiatric Association (DSM-IV) defines premature ejaculation as a condition in which a man regularly experiences climax (i.e. orgasm and emission of semen) with only a little stimulation, before he wishes it to happen, which may be at the point of vaginal penetration or very shortly afterwards.

But this is meaningless if a man is with a new sexual partner or is sexually inexperienced: a rapid climax with ejaculation is the norm in such circumstances. It’s also meaningless if a man is on medication which is prompting him to come quickly.

Is Not Knowing How To Delay Climax Really A Problem?

Well, probably only when it’s causing a man or his partner lots of emotional stress or interpersonal difficulty, so their lives are adversely affected. And that’s more common than you might think – for although not knowing how to delay enough during intercourse may be a problem for men that seems trivial to you, it can be a major problem for some men and women.

The DSM-IV (a medical manual which defines every disease known to mankind) lists three other factors that might be important in a definition:

• 1) rapid ejaculation can be either a life-long condition or it acquired after the onset of sexual maturity, perhaps even when a man has considerable sexual experience
• 2) lack of delay may occur with all sexual partners, or might be specific to one partner, or for that matter, a set of circumstances
• 3) and it may be psychologically caused – by one or many factors working together.

Obviously therefore, if we are to call the performance in bed of a man with little or no sexual experience “premature ejaculation”, this will be the most prevalent form of the condition.

Young men in this category have a strong sex drive and often ejaculate before they desire to do so. For men like this, lasting longer during sex may be mostly about getting more experience in bed.

Their “prematurity” is in part provoked by the emotional tension and arousal or anxiety which they may experience before and during intercourse.

Oddly, a very common contributing factor to PE is erectile dysfunction: there may be long periods of time between sex (due to the man not having an erection very often) so that the novelty and stimulation of the situation cause an over-rapid climax; the man will often lose his erection just as he ejaculates.

There are many other definitions of PE: one that we have mentioned elsewhere on this site is when ejaculation takes place with a delay of less than two minutes after penetration more than 50% of the times when a couple make love. Most men in this situation would want to last longer than two minutes before they came during sex.

Another very vague definition is that sex lasts for less than one hundred thrusts after penetration. And yet another centers on a man’s lack of voluntary control over his ejaculatory reflex.

Some clinicians have suggested that release (of semen during orgasm) is “premature” if it occurs before a man’s partner experiences a vaginal orgasm. As one critic responded, every man in the world would be considered a premature ejaculator if this was the case.

But maybe there is a glimmer of truth in that suggestion – the art of lasting long enough during intercourse to fully satisfy a female partner is not something most men even think about.  Pioneering sex therapists Masters and Johnson’s definition depended to a large extent on the level of satisfaction of the woman during sex.

They talked about delayed ejaculation as being something done by the man that meant a woman could not achieve orgasm in 50% of intercourse attempts. Well, as we know all very well, few women ever reach orgasm through intercourse, so this definition is highly questionable.