His and Her Health

What can be done about it? My husband has been having this problem for almost 6 years. It's very frustrating and he won't do ANYTHING about it. I totally feel that I'm married to a woman. He has a very stressful job and suffers from anxiety. He says that he needs to work out, and get his anxiety under control without medications. It's been years and I'm still waiting. It's gotten to the point that I don't relax during sex anymore. Sex has become ALL foreplay and just 30 seconds of real intercourse. I told him that I'm not lesbian and he KNOWS I enjoy intercourse more than anything else. <BR>I'm very unhappy and he won't do anything. I just turned 30 and all my 20's went by been very unsatisfied with my guy. He's great with everything else. But isn't sex important in a marriage too?<P>Thanks in advance for any help. <P>

Yes sex is very important to a marriage and being satisfied that both parties as doing everything to make the other satisfied is equally important. Unfortunatley there is not a lot of cures to P.E. There are some tricks like telling him to masterbate about 30 minutes prior to sex to reduce his body's desire to ejaculate once engaged in sex. Also there are creams you can purchase at a drug store to de-sensatize his penis. They can be found by the condoms.<P>If he is having a lot of anxiety he really should consult a doctor. Now the doctor will probably want to put him on a medication but you should make sure he understands any side effects of the medication since they are likely to effect his sexual drive. Also he should exercise more since that is a natural way to combat anxiety.

You might want to purchase some condoms and get him to wear them. Or you might want to rub him with some oils before intercouse. There are a number of new oils on the market and they might take care of the problem.

Also try a diffrent positon

Okay, here goes my PE rant. I've said it before, and you can probably find it in the archives.

PE is very, very difficult to treat successfully unless it's 100%, verifiably phychologically based; and, even then, if it's not a recent occurance (and it doesn't sound like it is), it can still be difficult or impossible. The Master's and Johnson study REALLY overstate their success rates, and their method has been since given a success rate of 50-60% "success."

It's important to note that by "success," professionals DO NOT mean a man will be able to sustain vigorous thrusting for a significantly longer period of time. For most professionals, "sucess" means one of two things in most of my experience and (significant) research: 1) longer sex by showing the man how to stop before orgasm, or 2) making it no longer a problem. The first means that instead of prolonged (let alone vigorous)thrusting, it will just mean that if your man usually comes after 5 thrusts, he'll learn to stop at three and "rest" until the sensation goes away. I imagine for some women this is great, and it can help the man acheive more satisfying orgams because there is more buildup, or it prolongs "closeness" and "intimacy." In my case, it was just more frustrating because I am only (easily) vaginally orgasmic, and him stopping so often just meant I NEVER got to orgasm and often he'd have to stop just as I was getting ready to. The second option means that the couple simply learns to deal with it in other way. Or, in our case, (and I realize this is totally cynical) they made us so repulsed by the idea of sex that we just didn't give a sh*t anymore becuase we didn't sleep together anyway.

There are therapies that are "appproved" for PE, and these will mostly help men who've recently had something happen to cause the PE: performance anxiety, trauma, etc. If a man has had good ejaculatory control for most of his life, he should be able to return to that. If he has not, he's unlikely to be able to gain the degree of control that will allow for vigorous or prolonged thrusting. Professionals WILL NOT tell you this until WELL into your counseling, and as we've been there--done that, I try to let people know so they don't do what we did to find that little tidbit out. I practically had to pull teeth from our board-certified, sex-specialist, pschitatrist/hyptnotist. After literally arguing with him, he finally gave it up that the hypnotism was something my husband would have to do 1-2 hours a day for the rest of his life, and we'd have to practice the other "methods" which included me "holding still and not getting too excited" for most of our sex if we wanted to see and/or maintain any results. By "results" he finally admitted we could probably get to a full minute of sex, maybe two, if we kept this up for several years. This, keep in mind, was standard--it was what most men with lifelong PE could expect, according to him. Oh, and did I mention it would cost$4-5K to even get to the point my hubby could do most of the "practice" and hpno session on his own? Yeah. We decided a long vacation was a far better use of our theraputic dollars at $4-5K a minute for mediocre sex. And this is an FDA approved treatment for PE.

Sorry, this is a bit of a rant. If it's always been a problem, my personal recommendation is to find a way around the situation and screw therapy and all the crap that goes with it. Get the new condoms with desensetizing cream on the inside, practice lots of foreplay and satisfy each other that way, etc. It's cheaper, and hopefully will save you the pain, abuse and loss of any and all savings we went through. Like you, I prefer intercourse as I am only vaginally (not clitorally) orgasmic. I wish I could be supportive by saying "YES, your husband CAN learn to have hot, long, vigorous sex!" The truth, however, is more important I think. It's not at all likely he'll get over this without meds. THe meds, meaning antidepressants, do not work on everyone and often have the side effect of killing libido.

6 years is a long time. It's unlikely to go away, even with therapy, at this point unless he's willing to try meds. It doens't sound like he is, and you can't force him. So, you have the choice I did: do you learn to live with sex that will never fulfill you, or do you leave. I stayed, because my husband is an amazing man. His condition is medical, and likely not curable unless some new miracle drug comes out. It's up to you, but setting your expectations too high will only set you up for a fall. Be realistic about what you can expect from your sex life, and see if there's a way for you to be satisfied with it.

Fascinating discussion. I can only reinforce dona1's point of view from the other side of the coin. It would never even have occurred to me that PE could be a problem for any man had I not read about it or heard from others. Even from my first ejaculation as a young teen, prolonging the buildup and having it last as long as I wanted has always been the experience my whole life, without exception. I haven't gone back and forth from PE to control depending on relationships, exciting new sexual situations, or any of the stuff I hear about.

The only insight I can offer, so to speak, is that I have no insight into how other men could possibly suffer from PE. I feel my arousal rising, and as I approach the point of arousal that will result in ejaculation, I can just back off on the mental thoughts and physical stimulation, which brings me back from the brink of ejaculation. If I want to thrust longer, I back off on the stimulation for a short while until I'm farther back from the brink, at which point I can pick up the thrust, stimulation, or whatever, more vigorously, but making sure not to increase it to the point where the overall arousal level will rise so high I have to back off again. In addition, I can choose my sexual fantasies in such a manner so as to supplement the physical stimulation or reduce the overall arousal level a little bit. In this way, I can stay deliciously close to the point of orgasm/ejactulion for a long time -- so close it almost feels like I'm having a continous orgasm going on without end. Then, at any moment of my choosing, I can increase the stimulation and reach an explosive climax. My experience has never been anything different from that.

The only thing I can figure is that men with PE must not be aware of the arousal level they are at, which doesn't make sense to me because if you don't know your arousal level, how can you be experiencing any pleasure in first place? If you're experiencing pleasure, you know how much, right?

Or is it that the climax just starts happening and you can't sense that it's happening before the point of no return? I don't understand that either because with lots of experience, you must know what that point is going to be.

What I've said probably wouldn't be helpful to a man with PE. I don't know.

PE can be from a man not realizing where the "no return" point is and/or not understanding his own arousal,. That is what every psych therapy approach focuses on; however, this is only helpful in a very small percentage of PE cases. Most men with PE can quickly realize what the no-return point is, but do not have either mental or physical control over how long it takes to get there. So, they may definitely know, for example, that 5 strokes is all it takes. They can easily learn to then stop at, say, 3 strokes and back of stimulation. After some period of time, they may then be able to do 3 more strokes, stop, rest, and do 3 more strokes. That is simply all their body will allow, and that is what the psych profession calls a "success." Unf, for most couples, that stop-start-stop thing is almost always more irritating/frustrating than just having more foreplay and very brief sex, especially if (like me) the woman really enjoys penetration and her orgasms (like mine) come primarily from penetration.

Medical science is finally realizing that in many cases, PE doesn't have to do with the mental aspects at all. It's often a problem with over-sensativity, nerve-firing problems, or other physical issues. These can sometimes be dealt with via SSRI's, but the success rates on those are still in question, and the other side effects (such as libido loss) can make them useless.

Yes, stress, anxiety or other factors can have an effect on PE, as well, and can be somewhat easier to treat. Usually, these cases aren't life-long, and are treated successfully with behavioral therapy and finding ways to alleviate stress. Frankly, however, from the anecdotal evidence presented on board and in support groups for PE and ED, these factors don't seem to make up a very large percentage of cases of persistent PE.

Originally posted by dona1:
In my case, it was just more frustrating because I am only (easily) vaginally orgasmic, The trouble (not that I'm complaining, though!) with reading these bulletin boards is what you learn about other people. I mean, I get turned on simply from reading the quoted sentence above. If my woman responded as dona1 describes herself, I'd flip!

I'm curious, but hardly dare ask, is the enjoyment over once you reach your first climax with vaginal thrusting, as is the case for some women? Or can you just continue having multiple orgasms with endless thrusting? Maybe you better not tell me, or I'm going spend an evening of uncontrollable fantasizing.

LOL. Patient, I am right there with you about reading the messages sometimes. Your post did much the same thing to me--I miss the days of a mate who has utter control ) Until my husband and I met, I didn't understand PE, either. All my parnters had the kind of control you described, and it was a huge slap in the face when my husband's control flagged.

To answer your question, I am vaginally multi-orgasmic, and the orgasms usually get better the more I have (to a point--eventually, I just get too exhausted to want more). The pleasure can literally bring me to tears. I am not sure why some women are like me, and others are done after one orgasm. I do know, and this theory comes from Zane, that I have phenominal PC muscle control. In her diet to help women become vaginally orgasmic, this seems to be one key piece; so, perhaps that's part of it. Also, I am just a sensual, sexual, tactile creature, which I believe is something that not everyone can learn to the same degree. Sex is only good for me when I can smell it, taste it, and hear it. What I have found, in this vein, is that all the women I know who are multi-orgasmic vaginally don't masturbate that frequently because it's pointless: it's tiring, it requires gymnastics to accomplish, and what we love the most is missing: they physicality of it.

I suppose, perhaps, that you could look at it in reverse for PE: maybe men with PE are just like women who are vaginally orgasmic. In women, it's a great thing, but in men it is a problem. I'll have to think more on that theory, and the "whys" of multi-orgasmability (that's my new word, use at will) and see if I can come up with a more concise explanation/idea/theory.