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  Years ago, I taught college-level Human Sexuality.  Every year I gave a lecture that was titled on the syllabus, “Sexuality: The Early, Dysfunctional Years.” The lecture was on Premature Ejaculation and women’s inability to have an orgasm during sex.  This lecture was always crowded and I could sense the anxiety in the room when I arrived.  As I spoke, I could actually see students exhale.  I began as follows:

            “We all begin our sexual lives as we begin every other complex skills set- clumsily. Men are born into the world Premature Ejaculators and women are born having Orgasmic Difficulties. Men have to learn how to relax and manage or delay their orgasms and women have to learn how to relax and have orgasms. That men are initially sexually ‘too fast’ and women are ‘too slow’ is definitely evidence for some kind of cosmic sense of humor. Or maybe it’s just that the universe has done it this way so that we are forced to learn to open up and talk about important things to figure all of this out as preparation for all of the other things we have to figure out to have successful relationships.”

The students seemed to relax as they heard it was completely normal for them to be struggling with their sexuality at their age. These “problems” usually go away as we have more sexual experiences and learn to trust and open up in our relationships.

But for many men and women these problems don’t go away.

In the next series of columns, I am going to talk about sexual problems that many adults—both men and women—struggle with and that should not be ignored. These problems result in disconnection and misunderstandings that can threaten the core of the relationship. 

Let’s start with discussing men with Premature Ejaculation (PE).  

Most men gradually learn to understand their arousal in ways that help them learn more control over their orgasm. PE is a very common male sexual problem where a man is unable to control his arousal resulting in his ejaculating only a short time after full arousal and erection. If you’re looking for numbers, in most sexual experiences the average man takes between five to nine minutes after penetration before coming. A man is said to have PE when, on most occasions, he takes less than two minutes after penetration to ejaculate.

            Obviously, PE can be very distressing for both the man—who wishes nothing more than to last longer—and his partner, who in her own frustration, might blame him for intentionally not attending to her needs.

There are two types of PE. The most prevalent is where the man has never learned to control his orgasm enough to allow him to last long enough for him and his partner to feel satisfied. The second situation is where PE becomes a problem later in a man’s sexual life, say after several years of a relationship where for the most part he was able to be fairly consistent in managing his orgasm.

PE is one of the most treatable sexual problems. Yet most people avoid getting help until the problem creates a crisis in their relationship.