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What Causes Premature Ejaculation In Men?Here's a question: is it possible a man ejaculates too fast in adult life because of his teenage sexual experiences? You know, furtive, fast masturbation - that kind of thing - resulting in a way of masturbating which produces a fast ejaculation that sticks around like an unwanted habit in adulthood? Yes, sadly. Sure, it's not the only reason why a man doesn't know how to delay his ejaculation, but it's one of the main ones. For example, if a man was brought up in a household where sex was associated with anxiety, shame, or guilt, or if he was caught masturbating and humiliated for it as a teenager, then it's likely that his sexual behavior in later life would be affected...... Most likely, a man would still feel the urge to obtain sexual relief, either through masturbation or sex, but he might do it furtively and quickly, training himself to ejaculate as rapidly as possible to minimize the associated guilt and shame. This is the opposite of learning how to delay ejaculation! And once such a pattern of sexual response (stimulus - arousal - rapid orgasm) has been learned, who knows how easy or hard it is to break the pattern? So fast ejaculation becomes normal for the man. Now, in adulthood, to overcome premature ejaculation and achieve long lasting sex with a suitable delay before he comes, his sexual responses need to be adjusted to a slower, more relaxed way of achieving arousal, orgasm and ejaculation. Bad Sexual Experience: A Cause Of Premature Ejaculation?In a similar way, a man who experiences a traumatic event around his sexuality, especially during his childhood, adolescence, or early adulthood may link sexual activity with negative feelings such as anxiety, shame or guilt. And of course that means a man may feel anxious about the prospect of sexual interaction with a partner. And such anxiety can itself cause premature ejaculation. That happens when a man just can't delay the moment of climax because he's so anxious - and he probably doesn't even know how to delay ejaculation even if he wants to.... That's because anxiety stimulates the nervous system to a higher level of arousal, just as sexual stimulation will do: in other words, anxiety can take a man closer to his point of no return, his point of inevitable ejaculation, much more quickly than he would otherwise get there. Emotional Causes Of Premature EjaculationAnxiety Reduces A Man's Ability To Delay His "Release" During LovemakingThere's another page on this website that describes the role of anxiety as a cause of premature ejaculation in much more detail. Suffice it to say, however, that both performance anxiety and the fear of failure appear to cause difficulty in preventing a man from discovering how to prolong sex, overcome fast ejaculation, and delaying ejaculation. Society has placed a great deal of pressure on men to perform sexually: for example, the western popular culture suggests men should lead during sexual activity, and some men may feel almost compelled to "satisfy” a woman. And men are often expected to meet most, if not all, of a woman's sexual needs. Since most men have little or no idea how to do any of these things, it's no wonder that many man feel anxious about sexual relationships with women. Often, simple information can help dispel misconceived ideas around sexuality that put pressure on men: for example, even today, after years of freely available information on the Internet, many couples still believe that if the man engages in vaginal intercourse and thrusts for long enough inside his partner that she will reach orgasm. These couples know nothing of the role of foreplay, nor of how to delay the man's orgasm, not the need for a woman the need for a woman to be highly aroused to reach orgasm, and that often, she may require stimulation of her clitoris to enable her to reach orgasm. (Read about more sexual techniques here.) Depression As A Cause Of Early EjaculationDepression has a major effect on both the body and the mind. When a man is suffering from severe depression, many bodily functions are affected, including appetite and sexual function. Although the exact effects of depression on a man's sexual functioning may vary from individual to individual, premature ejaculation is a common side effect of depression (as indeed is erectile dysfunction). Low Sexual Self-Confidence & Premature ClimaxYounger men who have not had much sexual experience, and even more mature men who for some reason have not had much sexual experience, may find that they lack both sexual self-confidence and self-esteem as lovers. (That's a kind of "40 year old virgin" syndrome!) This means that they may not know how to please a partner, they may not know how to pleasure a woman, and they may themselves feel inadequate about their inability to last long enough in sex. If they don't know how to slow down ejaculation, or worry about things like the size of their penis, then once again, they may feel a lot of anxiety around sex - which may lead to rapid climax. The cure, ironically, lies in having a solid sexual relationship with a loving partner, within the framework of which a couple can explore the man's sexuality and the woman's sexuality, and find out how best they can extend their lovemaking to achieve mutual pleasure. Regrettably, many teenage girls are sexually active but extremely naive, and will be looking for guidance from their boyfriends, who are probably also lacking in sexual self-confidence and knowledge. Guilt & Premature EjaculationGuilt and shame around sex is unfortunately extremely common, even in these so-called "liberated days". There are still unspoken taboos around masturbation, restrictions on some sexual activity before marriage, shame around sexual impulses, guilt about sexual exploration during childhood or adolescence.... and much more. These, and many other factors besides, can all induce a sense of guilt around sexual activity which can severely affect the natural flow of sexual arousal from desire through to orgasm and resolution. And sexual problems, including PE, can be caused by relationship stress and difficulties between partners. Sex is usually one of the first indicators of a relationship fracturing: either because of its absence, or because it's unsatisfactory to both partners. A woman's resentment may produce anorgasmia, or a man's anger against his partner (or women in general) may produce premature ejaculation. There are, of course, many other emotional issues which can lead to sexual dysfunction of one kind or another. Stress & Premature EjaculationI guess you know that work stress, financial stress, or any of the myriad of other pressures that abound in modern life can cause sexual dysfunctions including PE and erectile dysfunction. So, as you can see, there are loads of explanations why men develop PE, both for psychological and emotional reasons as well as for physical reasons. In general, psychological theories are difficult to prove, but they're still helpful in trying to solve problems around men's "prematurity". In fact, these theories have been really helpful to the evolution of treatment over the years. As long ago as 1927, Karl Abraham, a German psychoanalyst, suggested that premature ejaculation was caused by hostile feelings towards women combined with childlike pleasure in the loss of control over bodily "release". Sure, of course we all know that feeling of passive pleasure a man gets in letting go of his ejaculation in an uncontrolled way. The very idea of ejaculating uninhibitedly, and possibly uncontrollably, is exciting to him. Psychoanalytic theory also suggests that our "inner child's" narcissistic pleasure is also a fundamental part of the reward that men who make no attempt to control their ejaculation feel when they come inside their partners. However, using psychoanalytic language such as "unresolved infantile narcissism”, and similar, may just obscure the fact that some men are, quite simply, selfish lovers. In 1943 Bernard Schapiro suggested PE was a bodily symptom that resulted from psychological conflict – something like a psychosomatic headache, perhaps, but the symptom that was expressed in the genitals because this happened to be somehow innately weak in a particular individual. In psychodynamic terms, anxiety is generally considered the prime cause of PE. But in saying this we need to be careful, because anxiety can refer to a phobia, an affect, which is the end result of some kind of internal conflict were contradictory urges such as anger and guilt are at play, and the fear of what may happen, such as preoccupation with sexual failure or poor sexual performance. It is from this psychodynamic and psychoanalytic background that the Masters and Johnson view of a man's failure to control ejaculation as a learned behavior finally emerged. When they reviewed what men who had experience little or no ejaculatory control actually said about sex, Masters and Johnson noticed many of these men described their first sexual experiences being characterized by extreme haste, and associated nervousness or anxiety. Masters and Johnson therefore speculated that there was a large element of conditioning in the sexual experience of these men – conditioning to ejaculate rapidly, that is. And Helen Kaplan suggested that one of the factors involved in not lasting long enough with rapid ejaculation was a lack of sensitivity on the part of the man to his level of awareness. She suggested that men with PE had simply not developed sufficient or sensitive enough feedback about their level of sexual arousal, so that they experienced a rapid transition from low arousal to ejaculation during sexual stimulation. Yes: a man can be
conditioned to ejaculate rapidly by his teenage sexual experiences!
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