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Take a moment to think about how you wank. I'll wait... If you conjured up an image of yourself sitting in front of a computer screen, cock in one hand, mouse in the other, clicking on a new video from your favourite tube site... Or, lounging/laying in bed, cock in one hand, phone in the other, scrolling or swiping through your favourite Instagram models... I hate to break it to you, but this way of masturbating is negatively impacting your sex life. The way you masturbate is the way you have sex with your partner. If you're closed down, stagnant, stationary, tense, focussed only on your cock, outsourcing your arousal to a fantasy on the screen in front of you, and furiously jerking off to reach an ejaculation as efficiently as possible, this is what will happen when you're with a sexual partner. You're conditioning yourself to experience pleasure in a certain way. When I encourage men to change the way they masturbate, one of the suggestions I make is to minimize the amount of porn they watch. Often, when men try this, they find it difficult to feel aroused without the visual stimulation and resort to fantasizing about a sexual encounter. Unfortunately, many imagined sexual fantasies are unrealistic, that's why they're fantasies. So, the fantasy on screen is just being substituted for a fantasy in your head. This isn't very conducive for changing your masturbation. Instead of fantasizing about something you want to, try visualizing something realistic actually happening to you. As you masturbate, visualize your current partner or person you're dating. See in your mind's eye their real body, in real positions. Hear their moans, feel their skin. Visualize your partner reaching orgasm. Imagine it all from a first-person perspective. And, if you're really ready to change your masturbation, start moving your body and connecting to areas other than your cock. Practice makes perfect, so don't just make this a one-time thing. The more you're able to visualize and become responsible for your own arousal as well as explore your pleasure and become responsive to your own touch, the better sex you'll have. 
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Just about every man - regardless of the actual size of his penis - worries about being too small. In fact, according to a 2008 study in the Journal of Health Psychology, men list the size of their penises among their top body concerns along with height and weight. Some men experience extreme self-consciousness regarding their penis size, fretting that others will be able to see the size or shape of their penis even when they have trousers on. Wylie and Eardley (2007) call this excessive concern 'small penis syndrome'. A man might not actually have a small or short penis, but that doesn’t mean this psychological condition can’t have an impact for him physically. For example, men who think they have a small penis might be less likely to visit sexual health clinics for check-ups. Most men find the combination of sex education with standard penile measurements helpful and relieving. This combination can correct any previous sexual misconceptions, relieve unnecessary anxiety concerning penile size, and decrease the desire to undertake still-to-be verified lengthening procedures (Shamloul, 2005). While reassurance about average sizes is often comforting for most men, for some men who are very anxious, it doesn’t make any difference to them because they feel that they are inferior. It's an emotional feeling of penis shame and can sometimes be a symptom of an underlying anxiety problem. If you find yourself worrying about your penis size on a daily basis, or if the intensity of your anxiety seems excessive, you may want to focus on daily anxiety management. Mindfulness practices such as meditation and breathing exercises can help to reduce your anxiety. Additionally, you may want to try minimizing your anxiety triggers. For example, watching mainstream porn can expose you to skewed representations of penis size. So watching less mainstream porn or watching porn with more diversity can be helpful.  What's your partner's relationship with your ejaculation? Something I encourage couples to do is experiment with intentionally not ejaculating when they're being sexual. I invite them to take ejaculation off the table for a few weeks. I ask them to do this for a few reasons. One reason is because it often brings up unconscious stories they have about ejaculation. I refer to these stories as the unspoken or unacknowledged symbiology of ejaculation. Ejaculation is usually considered a symbol of the man's pleasure. If he ejaculated, he must've enjoyed himself. Many people share this opinion. So, if he doesn't ejaculate, one story that arises is that he hasn't had a good time. Of course, this typically isn't the case and sex can be pleasurable without an ejaculation. Another related story that pops up is that of self-esteem for his partner. If he doesn't ejaculate, his partner may feel that they're not attractive enough or they haven't done enough to pleasure him or something is somehow wrong with them. This too isn't typically the case and there are many reasons why a man might not ejaculate, such as choosing not to do so. One other story that can be elucidated by abstaining from ejaculating is that of successful sex. For a lot of couples, sex ends with ejaculation, that's how they know sex was a success. Without ejaculation, couples can explore what else there is to sex and how they want to wind down.  🎨 Andy Warhol 1) Spend longer times in heightened states of arousal when masturbating. 2) Breathe into your diaphragm. 3) When you're close to cumming, change to a new sex position. 4) Create more safety and comfort with your partner. 5) Use toys! 6) Practice Kegel and reverse Kegel exercises. Do these during sex. 7) Don't rush to penetration. Do other sexual activities together beforehand. 8) Learn about other areas of your body where you experience pleasure. Incorporate these into sex. 9) Thrust slow and shallow. 10) Tell your partner that you're close to cumming and need to slow down. 11) Experiment with a numbing spray. 12) Imagine drawing your built up sexual tension away from your cock and toward your heart. 13) Relax your muscles instead of squeezing and trying to hold back your ejaculation. 14) During penetration, invite your partner to grind against you rather than stroke up and down on your cock. 15) Literally take a break from stimulating your cock during sex. Pull out and do some oral/fingering for a while instead. 16) Relax your tongue... seriously. 17) Try squeezing the head of your cock when you feel close to cumming. 18) Learn about other areas of your partner's body where they experience pleasure. Incorporate these into sex. 19) Don't tense your glutes and pump in/out. Instead, relax your lower back and rock your hips forwards/backwards. 20) If you do ejaculate, keep the pleasure going for another 15-20min until you get an erection again and go for round two.  In her 1991 journal article, anthropologist Emily Martin examined how gender roles are projected onto reproductive biology, portraying eggs as passive and sperm as active. Gynaecologist Gro Nylander exemplifies this in an excerpt from her 2002 handbook on pregnancy, writing: There she lies waiting. Big, mature, fertile. As it should be, the swelling Princess Ovum wears a crown. Not on her head, exactly. But she has a bright cell-crown all around her, the corona radiata. And here comes the prince. He is within the best room in the king’s castle. Now the last achievement remains before he gains Princess Ovum. He advances, and just before he touches her, it happens... He releases solvents, making it possible for him to penetrate the corona radiata crown and further into the interior of the ovum. He flaps energetically with his tail, drilling through the egg shell and in... From the moment she has let the prince in, she turns her other wooers away... He has fought and won. As Lie et al. (2011) point out, this story's protagonists, the gametes, are recognized as male and female due to their traditionally masculine/feminine looks, capacities, and aims. Nettleton (2015) also found this in her analysis of YouTube videos. Sperm are represented as little men embodying hegemonic masculinity and the most heroic sperm perilously outcompetes all others to win the egg prize. Whereas eggs are represented as featureless planets floating around without agency or action. It's about the “journey” of the sperm; the egg has no journey. The story-line resembles the fairy-tale Sleeping Beauty. Engelstein and Johnson (2014) note this kind of language is still used in scientific textbooks, potentially obscuring students’ understanding and undermining teachers’ accuracy. In fact, these gendered representations of fertilization aren't all that scientific. Instead of winning the sperm race, evidence suggests that specific sperm are selected by the egg as it releases compounds called chemoattractants (Fitzpatrick et al., 2020). This is exertion of cryptic female choice and is totally at variance with the stereotypical fairy-tale narrative of conception.  Vasectomy is considered a simple, safe, effective and economical method used worldwide for long-term male contraception (Yang et al., 2021). The procedure involves isolation/exposition and occlusion of the vas deferens (Labrecque, 2019). That is, microsurgery is performed to cut the the duct which conveys sperm from the testicle to the urethra. Getting "The Snip" is considered to be 99.9% effective at preventing pregnancy and, while vasectomy can be reversed in most men seeking to restore their fertility (Ramasamy & Shlegel, 2011), the surgery is usually promoted as permanent (Patel & Nguyen, 2019). Only about 2-4% of men around the world use this method of contraception (Shattuck et al., 2016). And, approximately 3-6% of men opt for a vasectomy reversal, however this is a much more technically challenging procedure (Patel & Smith, 2016). As such, in Australia, the Australian Medical Association advises that a vasectomy should cost around $650 while a vasovasectomy, or vasectomy reversal, should cost around $7000. Depending on the technique used to reconnect the vas deferens cut during a vasectomy, the reversal can have a success rate between 70-90% (Kavoussi, 2015). According to Zhao et al. (2018), vasectomy has no long-term effect on testosterone and does not increase the chance of prostate cancer. Having worked with several men who've had a vasectomy, I have observed that it also does not diminish their capacity to circulate sexual energy or use their ejaculation for manifestation. After vasectomy, many men start to produce antisperm antibodies (Nowroozi et al., 2007). This happens because the surgery may break the blood-testis barrier and sperm may come in contact with blood, setting off an immune response that attacks the "foreign" sperm. Sperm antibodies can interfere with the ability of sperm to swim and to attach to eggs thereby preventing conception even if a vasectomy reversal is successfully (Lee et al., 2009). Therefore, you may want to consider freezing your sperm before vasectomy. This'll probably cost you AUD$600 to freeze and AUD$400+ per year to store. Making an informed decision about your vasectomy is important.  One framework for exploring our sexuality is the Jungian archetype of the Lover. For myself, I've noticed how easily accessible the shadow aspects are; the Addicted Lover and the Impotent Lover. The Lover Archetype is the part of us that seeks to connect, to bond. Generally it is how we relate - how we relate to our emotions, to our body, to other people, to the universe, as well as to a Higher Power. Therefore, addiction in the context of the Lover can not only look like typical indulgences and compulsions, but also like an overflow of emotions, being clingy or needy. I notice my own expression of this when I haven't been doing my personal practices and I feel a rising desire to project my sexuality outwardly. I want to touch, to watch. I lust, look and crave. Then, impotence in the context of the Lover can not only look like lacklustre libido, but also like emotional stuntedness, being unable to open up. I notice my own expression of this when I allow my addict's desire to be fulfilled and I feel satiated. My itch has been scratched. I go back to being cut off. I've observed this same swinging between the two shadows in other men. They go from excessively engaging with their sexual energy to completely detaching from it, from addiction to impotence. Often, men will try to stop a detrimental habit or pattern by abstaining from that sexual behaviour. This may work for a little while but, without guidance, they then swing back and start engaging unhealthily with their sexual energy again, until attempting to stop once more. This flip-flopping can stem from shame about love or connection. Maybe you believe that you aren’t loving enough, or sensual and sexual enough, or emotional in the right way. Maybe you believe you're not really a loving person. So, you either give up on loving, or try to exaggerate any behaviors that look like loving to compensate for your shaming belief.  🎨 @victoria_bruno_portfolio If you or your partner have a penis, you’ve probably seen an ejaculation. You may have even noticed that not all ejaculations are the same. For example, sometimes an ejaculation is expelled with more force and spurts like a fountain. Other times an ejaculation doesn’t have as much force behind it and instead leaks out to form a puddle. Does it make a difference if it dribbles or shoots? Well, seminal expulsion occurs when semen is propelled along the urethra and out through the penile meatus with coordinated contraction of the external urethral sphincter, the bulbocavernosus, the ischiocavernosus and pubococcygeus muscles (Shafik et al., 2005). Therefore, it has been theorized that the stronger these muscles are, the more velocity an ejaculation has (Watson, 2018). . One study (Lee et al., 2014) observed three ejaculations of fifty different men and categorized them into three grades based on the distance travelled while lying in their back; (1) overflow – where the seminal fluid just dribbled out, (2) below the belly button, and (3) above the belly button. 54% of the men had a grade 3 force of ejaculation, while 32% had a grade 2, and 14% had a grade 1 force. 62% were a complete match on all three ejaculation samples. Those who had a grade 3 ejaculatory force reported significantly higher scores of orgasm satisfaction than grade 2 or grade 1. Thus, in this study ejaculatory force was found to be associated with orgasmic satisfaction. According to Kasman et al. (2020), lower strength of ejaculation is positively associated with increasing age. While I know that some men I’ve spoken with perceive their orgasms as more pleasurable when they shoot their ejaculate further, and it appears there is some evidence to suggest that this may indeed be the case, this isn’t to say that an ejaculation which dribbles is any less pleasurable, because ejaculation doesn’t equal orgasm and pleasure isn’t limited to ejaculation. Whether you dribble or shoot, there's no need to judge an ejaculation. Shooting far may be a good party trick but if you dribble it doesn't mean anything negative about your pleasure or function.  Men don't often handle their cock with gratitude and reverence. Instead, taking their cock for granted, they will use their cock to get something - an ejaculation, an orgasm - treating their cock like it has a job to do. Many men also focus on their erect cock, thinking that their flaccid cock is something to be embarrassed about or ashamed of. So, when they do touch their cock, it is usually also with the intention of getting an erection. If you have a partner, you may not realize the profound healing effect that lovingly touching their cock can have on them. Firstly, when men touch their own cock, they're not only receiving sensory information from their cock as they touch it, they're also receiving sensory information from their hand as it touches their cock. This double feedback can actually minimize the pleasure they feel. The cerebellum, the part of the brain which coordinates and regulates muscular activity, can predict sensations when your own movement causes them but not when someone else does. So, when you touch yourself, the cerebellum predicts the sensation and this prediction is used to cancel the response of other brain areas to the pleasure. But, when you touch him, he can experience much more sensation. The power of your touch is amplified if you caress his flaccid penis. As shared above, men often feel embarrassed of or ashamed about their soft cock. Remember, your partner doesn't need to be erect in order to feel pleasure. On top of that, you're gentle touch of his soft cock, signaling you're acceptance of it, can help him to accept it as well. If your partner has a penis, I encourage you to own the power you have in your hands to effect positive change in their relationship to their body by intentionally and lovingly touching their cock.  You've probably heard the saying before that, "men are more visual." While I think the reality is a little more nuanced than that, this phrase often becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy for many men when it comes to experiencing pleasure. Many men feel that their arousal is heavily connected to and dependent upon how they perceive their partner's experience to be. Men derive a lot of their own pleasure from their partner's expression of pleasure. The more excited, wet, vocal, etcetera that their partner gets, the more excited he gets. Men care that their partner looks like they're enjoying themselves during sex. Contrary to popular belief, many men wouldn't have sex with an unmoved and physically non-responsive partner. However, his reliance on pleasure being derived solely from what his partner looks like and whether he perceives that they're having a good time can be detrimental. Firstly, he shoots himself in the foot regarding his own pleasure because he is experiencing pleasure vicariously through his partner. He is experiencing pleasure indirectly, thus it will be less than would he could potentially be able to feel. Secondly, he puts pressure on his partner to look a certain way and to also express their pleasure so that he can experience pleasure. This is one reason why so many women feel the need to fake their orgasms. So, if this sounds like something you've been doing, it might be time to change. Chiropractor and Sexological Bodyworker Betty Martin suggests that, instead of taking the indirect route to pleasure, you could take the direct route. This means focussing on the pleasurable sensations that you actually physically feel from touching or being touched by something or someone. You can practice this when masturbating. If you're watching porn, rather than focussing solely on the person(s) in the photo/video on the screen, experiencing pleasure vicariously through them, try shifting your attention to your hands and your cock. Notice what pleasurable feelings arise when you touch yourself in a certain way. Allow pleasure to take a direct route.  |
Cam FraserThis blog aims to discuss all things masculinity, sexuality, male bodies and men's experience of pleasure. Archives
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