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Just because you have a cock, doesn’t mean that you have to be the one in charge, or the top, or the dominant, or the person doing the penetrating, or be assertive, or be "masculine." Also, even if you are the one doing the penetrating, that doesn’t necessarily mean you’re in charge. You can be receptive, receiving, and vulnerable. You can be a bottom, be submissive, or be "feminine." The act of penetrating does not have to be a defining feature of being a man or being masculine and the experience of being penetrated does not have to be a defining feature of being a woman or being feminine. If you have a cock, it can be a liberating and opening experience to play with the energetic dynamics of penetration. Can you penetrate from a position of surrender and submission instead of the socially expected position of assertion and domination? Just because you have a c0ck, doesn’t mean that you have to be the one in charge, or the top, or the dominant, or the person doing the penetrating, or be assertive, or be "masculine." Also, even if you are the one doing the penetrating, that doesn’t necessarily mean you’re in charge. You can be receptive, receiving, and vulnerable. You can be a bottom, be submissive, or be "feminine." The act of penetrating does not have to be a defining feature of being a man or being masculine and the experience of being penetrated does not have to be a defining feature of being a woman or being feminine. If you have a cock, it can be a liberating and opening experience to play with the energetic dynamics of penetration. Can you penetrate from a position of surrender and submission instead of the socially expected position of assertion and domination? 
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Our world has set up penile-vaginal intercourse (PVI), specifically, as the “default” sexual activity - as the one kind of sex the majority of people will tend to think of when someone says “I had sex.” This was definitely the case in my adolescence. In fact, there was the notion that it only "counted" as sex if your penis penetrated her vagina. I remember a phrase oft used to enforce this notion, "Yeah, but did you fuck her?" PVI certainly isn’t the only kind of sex people have, it’s just one of many ways to be sexual with someone else, but that’s not how it’s presented a lot of the time. When something is framed like that, as the thing to do, people will tend to learn, covertly and overtly, that that’s what sex is and that’s what they should want. Strong messages that people should want something tend to pack quite a punch, especially for people who are very concerned with normalcy, which is a lot of people. Emphasizing PVI does a disservice to everyone who has sex. It makes foreplay seem less important, it pressures people to have penetrative sex before they may be ready, it perpetuates a heteronormative and phallocentric notion of sex, and it limits the amount of pleasure that can be experienced. Could "I had sex" also mean oral sex? Anal sex? Digital sex? Mutual masturbation? Phone sex? Perhaps it is time to start thinking about outercourse in addition to intercourse.  Many men ask me about ejaculation control and state that they're somewhat familiar with Mantak Chia's 3-finger, Million Dollar Point technique. Something I always make abundantly clear in my work with men is the dangers of using such techniques. The reason is simple: You are using external force to stop ejaculating. Now, this may well be ok if your intention is just to not externally ejaculate. But, if you're concerned about circulating sexual energy, having different kinds of orgasms, and making sure your pelvic muscles are healthy, the Million Dollar Point technique is not useful. The applied force to the perineum traps sexual energy in that area, which can cause physical and energetic complications. This is because you're creating a stoppage, not a recirculation of sexual energy. This forced stoppage of sexual energy creates congestion and, if done too regularly, can also create a stopping pattern in the body. This manifests as physical tension and tightness in the pelvic floor, which actually hastens the urge to ejaculate and limits your capacity for experiencing pleasure as well as different orgasms. While there are some effective ways to use the Million Dollar Point technique - utilizing a combination of massage, breathing, and visualization - I've found that many practitioners become falsely obsessive with stopping ejaculation at any cost, which can lead to sex-charged guilt when some seed is released. Which, in turn, creates a whole new set of anxieties and tensions. Not only that, these kinds of techniques can actually cause retrograde ejaculation, where the seminal fluid is sent into the bladder and is then expelled during urination. So, in actuality, you're still releasing your seed, perhaps just not when you think. Ejaculation control is about the recirculation of sexual energy. If you're relying on creating a forced blockage at the perineum because your abilty to recirculate sexual energy is not good enough to re-direct the ejaculatory impulse to the rest of the physical and energetic body, you are doing yourself more harm than good.  Everyone has stories about men's sexuality, including women. Here's something for the women who have messaged me. These are general and will not apply to every man: (1) We respond to praise. We aren't sex-crazed animals with no self-consiousness surrounding sex. We feel self-conscious about our weight, or parts of our body, and can really be affected by this when being sexual. We like to hear compliments. (2) We fear intimacy. We don't have a lot of outlets for intimacy in our lives and society tells us that we shouldn't want or need it. So taboo is this desire for intimacy that its possibility can terrify us; not because it's smothering, but because we realize how desperate we are for it. (3) We like sex for sex's sake. While intimacy and post-sex cuddling can be wonderful for many of us, sometimes a little "throw-me-down sex" is exactly what we want, plain and simple. This isn't about dominating you, it is about ravishing you. (4) We want to be touched. We aren't just our cocks, the rest of our body feels great when you touch it. We just don't tell you to move your hands elsewhere because we're afraid that if we do, you will shut down and not touch us at all. (5) We have sexual fantasies. We want to share our fantasies with you but we worry that you will shame or judge us. We also want you to share your own sexual fantasies with us. (6) We want you to be vocal and honest. Heavy breathing, groaning, and moaning are all sounds that turn us on. Talking and asking for what you want during sex is also a huge turn on. We want you to embrace sex. But, we don't want you to fake it. If the sex isn't good for you, we want to know. (7) Erections aren't everything. We can be aroused and not have an erection, just like we can have an erection but not be particularly aroused. If we aren't hard or able to get it up, it doesn't mean you don't turn us on. There are also ways to be sexual that don't involve an erection. (8) Ejaculation isn't the be-all and end-all. There are plenty of reasons we might not "finish" and just because we don't, doesn't mean we're not enjoying ourselves. It's also not your job to make us "finish".  Women experience more pleasure than men. An often made claim is that the clitoris has 8000+ nerve endings, double the amount found in the penis. The source of this claim is Lowry, Morrione, and Lowry's 1976 book, entitled "The Clitoris." In it, the authors reference studies of cows and sheep, stating that bovine penises had about 4,035 nerve endings while the clitoris had 7,733 (Thank you @jessica_ann_pin for tracking down this citation). As a 2015 journal article in Clincal Anatomy and a 2018 journal article in Differentiation note, the human clitoris and penis are embryological homologues. They are homologous. This means they are similar in position, structure, and origin. So, theoretically, the human clitoris and penis should have similar amounts of nerve endings. To my knowledge, there are no studies conclusively stating and comparing the number of nerve endings in the human clitoris and penis. The clitoris may be more sensitive than the penis, but not because it has more nerve endings. A 2013 article in the Journal of Sexual Medicine notes that the glans clitoris has greater variability in receptor density compared with the glans penis. Because they seemingly have a similar number of nerve endings, but the clitoris is generally smaller in size than the penis, there is smaller area for these nerve endings to be packed into, thus potentially making the clitoris more sensitive. The belief that cis women’s primary sexual organ has twice as many nerve endings as cis men’s - that female pleasure is more intense than male pleasure - might sound empowering, but this perpetuates the view that women feel things more intensely and that female sexuality is fundamentally different from male sexuality. People with penises can experience just as much pleasure because they ostensibly have the same amount of nerve endings, just spread across a larger surface. If they're able to spend time heightening sensations and exploring the nuances of stimulation, men can experience as much pleasure as women.  Edging is an ejaculation control technique whereby you maintain a high level of sexual arousal for an extended period of time without ejaculating. That is, you pleasure yourself right up to the edge of ejaculation and stay there, without going over. This is often easier to practice alone, because you are the one who is aware and in control of your own stimulation and sensations, but you can also practice with a partner. By doing so, you can enjoy direct sexual stimulation for longer and potentially overcome premature ejaculation or simply learn how to last longer. If or when you decide to ejaculate, the physical sensations are usually more intense and pleasurable. Because edging prolongs the experience of powerful sexual sensations occurring during the final build-up to orgasm, the physical demands of maintaining this highly excited state for an extended time can induce a pleasurable, almost euphoric state. To practice, masturbate up until the moment before ejaculation, then stop suddenly before going past this "point of no return." Notice the twitching, pulsing sensations of the impending orgasm when you stop stimulating. Or, masturbate up until the moment before ejaculation and slow down the stimulation to maintain a heightened level of sensation for an extended time, you may need to vary the speed of the rubbing or stroking of your penis to navigate right to the edge of ejaculation. On way to think about this is with a scale of one to ten - "10" being your maximum arousal and subsequent ejaculation, "1" being practically no arousal at all. Gradually stimulate yourself to a "9" and then see if you can keep yourself there for 5min, 10min, 15min, without going to a "10" and ejaculating. To help, masturbate to your edge then move your stimulation to another area of your body, like the lips, nipples or other erogenous zone. This can move the intense localized pleasure from your penis and disperse it through your body, heightening your full-bodied sensations and allowing further masturbation.  Every time I speak about semen retention, someone asks me about ejaculation frequency and prostate cancer. Usually, they're referring to a Daily Mail headline from 2017 which reads, “Ejaculating at least 21 times a month significantly reduces a man’s risk of prostate cancer.” This article references a 2016 study by Rider et al. which found more frequent ejaculation is associated with a decreased risk of prostate cancer. Interestingly, an earlier study of the same cohort of men found ejaculation frequency is not statistically significantly associated with prostate cancer (Leitzmann et al., 2004). In 2008, Dimitropoulou et al. found frequent ejaculation in younger life increases risk of prostate cancer, but is protective against prostate cancer when older. Moreover, there have been several recent systematic reviews regarding the connection between ejaculation frequency and prostate cancer, all reporting inconclusive findings. One review found there to be no universally accepted themes and insufficient agreement about the relationship between ejaculation frequency and prostate cancer (Aboul-Enien, Bernstein, & Ross, 2016). Another review found no linear association between ejaculation frequency and the risk of prostate cancer (Jian et al., 2018). As one review noted, least convincing evidence is available for the interaction of sexual activity and prostate cancer, and well-conducted and longitudinal studies are clearly necessary to evaluate whether the suggested associations between prostate cancer risk and sexual behavior are real or spurious (Brookman-May et al., 2019). Depending on which systematic review you want to believe, you can say a number of different things about ejaculation frequency and prostate cancer. My opinion, based on the most recent review conducted in 2019, is that we simply cannot tell if there is a causal relationship. In any case, there are better ways of caring for your prostate than just changing how many times you ejaculate. Instead of worrying about ejaculation frequency, if you're really concerned you should focus on not smoking or drinking alcohol as well as eating a good diet and doing regular prostate massages.  It is natural for erection firmness to wax and wane throughout a sexual experience. Many of us expect a penis to be hard the whole time we're being sexual, but this is sometimes unrealistic, especially during longer sexual encounters. If a penis does go soft, it doesn't necessarily mean there is an emotional or physical block, it could simply be a natural fluctuation in firmness. So, there is an acceptance piece to this which challenges the story that a man needs to be hard from start to finish of a sexual experience. One way to work on this acceptance is recognizing that a soft penis can still feel pleasure, it still has nerve endings even though it's soft. If you or your partner do lose some firmness, try exploring some soft penis pleasure. Typically, it is the thought of not being enough, or of being embarrassed, or of being less of a man, that stops a guy from continuing to be sexual when he goes soft. There isn't anything wrong with his body but because for him "erection = arousal" he gets in his head and thinks that if his erection is gone it means he isn't aroused, which is a bad thing and makes him feel anxious/ashamed. And this anxiety/shame does indeed dampen his arousal, making it more difficult to get firm again. So spending some time getting back in his body when he does go soft can be really helpful. Helping him recognise that he can still feel pleasure in these moments of softness is one way of getting him out of his head. This pleasure that he can then start noticing becomes a positive feedback loop and helps him feel more aroused and in turn his erection firmness will probably come back.  |
Cam FraserThis blog aims to discuss all things masculinity, sexuality, male bodies and men's experience of pleasure. Archives
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