2. For the next two weeks, set a goal of decreasing the amount of anal stimulation by a certain percentage during each masturbation session. For example, if you usually stimulate your anus 80 percent of the time while you masturbate, try to stimulate it only half the time, then a fourth of the time. Get to the point where you only touch your anus right before the point of orgasm. The next step is that you will be able to have an orgasm while merely thinking about touching your anus as you are close to ejaculation.
You can use this behavioral strategy to change any of the habits I’ve listed above. All of these changes will prepare you to have orgasms more easily during intercourse.
In addition, you will need to “overlearn” the genital self-caress and self-peaking exercises described in Chapter 18. Set aside separate times for having time-limited intercourse with your partner and for doing the genital self-caress. You may do a genital self-caress as often as every day, but allow yourself to go all the way to ejaculation only if you can do so without working at it. During the exercises you do by yourself, train yourself to become aroused with a gentle touch to your penis, rather than the fast or vigorous motions you may have used for masturbation in the past.
A Choice of Approaches for Healing Inhibited Ejaculation
Now we move to what might be called the advanced stage of the program for healing inhibited ejaculation. As a man who has difficulty ejaculating, you have several options for approaching your problem. Read through the three different strategies that follow and use the one that most appeals to you, based on your sense of the problem and your issues. The three strategies are the peaking process, intercourse and masturbation together, and shaping. I would use shaping for a very severe problem with inhibited ejaculation, masturbation and intercourse together if you can ejaculate easily with masturbation and can regularly go up to arousal level 8 with intercourse, and peaking if you have only recently developed the problem with ejaculation. Another strategy would be to try the peaking process first because it’s the easiest, and if it doesn’t really work for you, then try one of the others. All three programs involve a progression of exercises that should be done as fully structured sensate-focus exercises, with focusing caresses, active and passive roles, and feedback.
The Importance of Peaking
Peaking is just as important for inhibited ejaculation as it is for premature ejaculation. If you would like to use the peaking process, do it as described in Chapter 23, on healing premature ejaculation. You can do the exercises exactly as described there, with one major exception. If you are dealing with inhibited ejaculation, never squeeze your PC muscle during an exercise.
If you opt for the peaking process, do all the exercises in the following order: arousal awareness, peaking with manual stimulation, peaking with oral sex, and peaking with intercourse. When you do the exercise for peaking with intercourse, use the different positions in the following order: side-to-side, butterfly, woman on top, rear entry, and man on top. Remember, you can do one exercise in which you only peak at lower levels, one in which you only peak at higher levels, or one in which you do all the peaks at the same level. In the case of inhibited ejaculation, you will need to focus mostly on the higher arousal levels, because these are the levels with which you have a problem. Do each session of peaking as a full sensate-focus exercise, with spoon breathing, focusing caresses, active and passive roles, and feedback.
The plateauing process will also benefit you. Again, you can plateau with manual stimulation, oral sex, or intercourse in any position. Plateauing strategies include changing your breathing, changing your movement, and changing your focus. If you have inhibited ejaculation, do not use the plateauing strategy of tightening your PC muscle.
Important: If you do any peaking or plateauing exercise for inhibited ejaculation, never pressure yourself to ejaculate, and never do anything to try to ejaculate. The goal here is for you to learn the sensations of high arousal levels. If you don’t ejaculate during an exercise, that’s okay. You’ve still done the exercise correctly if you remembered to breathe, relax, focus on the sensations, and keep your PC muscle from tightening. Ejaculation will happen when it happens. It will happen when you are so focused on the sensations that you allow it to happen rather than try to make it happen.
In addition to the peaking process as described in Chapter 23, there are a couple of variations you can use for inhibited ejaculation.
Exercise 57. ALTERNATING PEAKS
In this version of the peaking exercise, you alternate peaks with manual stimulation and peaks with oral stimulation. This is really simple. Start with a low-level peak, like a 4, with your partner caressing you with her hand. Then do the next peak (a 5 or 6) as she caresses you with her mouth. Keep alternating manual and oral peaks until you either reach a very high level of arousal or ejaculate.
In another version of the exercise, alternate masturbation peaks with oral sex peaks. This generally works really well for men who have difficulty ejaculating inside their partner’s vagina. Have your partner stimulate you to a level 5 with oral sex. Next, allow your arousal level to decrease, and then stimulate yourself up to level 6 with masturbation. Try to use a sensate-focus masturbation stroke rather than a hard and fast stroke. Continue alternating these peaks, and allow yourself to ejaculate with the final masturbation peak. Another way to do this is to masturbate to the final peak of ejaculation and hold your penis up against your partner’s mouth as you ejaculate.
If you usually go into another room to masturbate, before you do these exercises you may need to practice masturbating in the same room with your partner. Have her shut her eyes at first if you are uncomfortable with her watching you. If you are able to masturbate with your partner watching, there is an excellent chance that you will be able to relearn how to ejaculate with intercourse.
Intercourse and Masturbation Together
The second strategy for dealing with inhibited ejaculation involves combining masturbation with intercourse. As you’ll see, this isn’t just one exercise, but rather a progression of exercises.
Exercise 58. INTERCOURSE WITH MASTURBATION
Begin the session with focusing caresses. Remember the basic sensate-focus principles: Focus on the sensations, breathe, and relax. Move on to a few minutes of mutual sensual kissing. Then lie on your back and take the passive role. Your partner can do a genital caress and oral sex with you. Peak up to levels 7 and 8 if you can. Next, your partner can climb on top of you and insert your penis into her vagina. Again, peak up to levels 7 and 8. At level 8, she should withdraw your penis from her vagina and let you masturbate to ejaculation.
Masturbate without tensing your legs. If you want to move, use pelvic rolls instead. Remember to breathe as you feel yourself getting more aroused. If you tend to masturbate with fast strokes, try to slow down and touch yourself in as sensuous a manner as possible. Either have your partner put her hand on the base of your penis or your scrotum as you masturbate, or have her caress herself.
The next time you have intercourse, alternate the intercourse with masturbation at high arousal levels. Peak up to level 8 during intercourse, withdraw and masturbate, then do another peak. Do three or four combination intercourse and masturbation peaks, and then ejaculate with masturbation.
The next time you and your partner do an exercise, alternate intercourse and masturbation at high arousal levels. This time, see if you can arrange your peaks so that you ejaculate in your partner’s vagina.
It doesn’t matter which intercourse position or positions you use for this progression of exercises. Part of it depends on which position you are most comfortable masturbating in. The easiest position to use for this progression of exercises is the woman-on-top position, because it’s physically easiest to alternate peaks in that position. The butterfly position will also work well, because it’s visually and physically stimulating, as well as fairly comfortable. However, if you have trouble ejaculating while kneeling, that might pose a problem. One solution would be to have your p
artner do the following maneuver. In the butterfly position, when you are doing a really high peak (an 8 or a 9), have your partner grab the arches of her own feet with both hands as you thrust into her. This creates more leverage, which allows her vagina to tighten around your penis, and makes it more likely that you will ejaculate.
Do not pressure your partner to go faster during intercourse. Allow your partner to caress you or have intercourse at her own speed. Breathe and keep your leg muscles relaxed. Focus on your feelings as your partner caresses your genitals with her hand or mouth or moves up and down on top of you. Don’t work at ejaculating even if you feel yourself getting close.
You have probably gotten into a habit of anticipating ejaculation before you are close, and then working at it. Use the arousal awareness, peaking, and plateauing exercises to relearn what high levels of arousal feel like. Nothing bad will happen to you if you passively become aroused and then allow your arousal to decrease without ejaculating. What results in negative feelings is working at ejaculating and then being unable to ejaculate because you are working at it.
Women, if you are the partner of a man with inhibited ejaculation, go as slowly as you can during the manual and oral genital caresses. Don’t allow yourself to be pressured into moving faster than is comfortable for you. If your partner pressures you, stop having intercourse and back up to a previous exercise for a few minutes.
Shaping for Inhibited Ejaculation
If you can ejaculate with masturbation but never with intercourse, try this strategy. It uses a behavioral psychology technique called shaping or successive approximation of behavior. You could also think of it as “baby steps,” or constant movement toward a goal.
The main idea behind shaping is that if you are trying to reach a particular goal, it doesn’t matter how many steps you have to take to get there or how long or short each step is. The only thing that matters is that you always move in the direction of the goal, never away from it. Our goal here is for you to be able to ejaculate with intercourse. Our starting point is that you already know how to ejaculate with masturbation.
If the intercourse with masturbation strategy does not result in ejaculation, there is another way you can approach the problem. Think of these exercises as pleasure, not work. Your problem has been that you feel that ejaculating is something you have to try to do. You need to relax so that your body can produce its ejaculation response naturally.
Shaping, or successive approximation of behavior, means you do exercises that take you closer and closer (both physically and emotionally) to ejaculating inside your partner’s vagina. Try to determine the exact point at which your sexual response shuts down—the exact point at which you lose your focus on sensations and start trying to ejaculate. Your partner may be able to help you recognize this point, because she may be able to tell when you switch from enjoying yourself to working at ejaculating.
After you are able to recognize this point, you need to overpractice the response you have right before this point. For example, if the point when you start trying or working at it is when you feel yourself reach arousal level 8 inside your partner’s vagina, you need to do several exercises (complete with focusing caresses, active and passive roles, and feedback) in which you bring yourself up to level 8 and maintain level 8 by plateauing.
Below, I describe a typical progression of exercises, all of which can be done separately, with focusing caresses beforehand and mutual feedback afterwards. These are the “baby steps” I talked about earlier. The reason why inhibited ejaculation can take so long to deal with is because the best approach for you may be to do each of these steps as a separate hour-long exercise. This sequence of exercises has worked for a number of my past clients with inhibited ejaculation. Remember to focus, breathe, and relax throughout each exercise. Also, as part of the exercises, give your partner a front caress, genital caress, or oral sex before you begin your part of the exercise.
1. Masturbate to ejaculation with your partner in the room. Close your eyes if you need to.
2. Masturbate to ejaculation while your partner is on the bed next to you and is watching.
3. Masturbate to ejaculation and ejaculate on your partner’s stomach while lying on your side facing her.
4. Masturbate to ejaculation and ejaculate on your partner’s stomach while she lies on her back.
5. Masturbate to ejaculation and ejaculate at the entrance to your partner’s vagina.
6. Masturbate to ejaculation while lying on your back, and signal your partner to climb on top as you are ejaculating (not before). By now you are probably able to know that you are going to ejaculate a few seconds before it happens. Part of your problem before was that you anticipated it too soon. Signal your partner to climb on top only after you have reached the point of inevitability and semen has started to leave your penis.
7. Masturbate to ejaculation while kneeling in front of your partner, and thrust into her vagina as you ejaculate. Continue to have intercourse in a slow, focused manner until your erection goes down.
8. Masturbate and penetrate your partner’s vagina when you reach an arousal level of 9. Keep your hand on your penis as you thrust in and out, and ejaculate into your partner’s vagina.
9. Kneel in front of your partner, and stroke your penis with your hand as it goes in and out of your partner’s vagina. Take your hand off your penis as you ejaculate. Practice this several times, removing your hand from your penis at lower and lower arousal levels.
10. Have intercourse with your partner as you close your eyes, imagining that you are stroking your penis with your hand.
Some Final Suggestions
If you can reliably go up to arousal level 8 or 9 with intercourse, there are a few small behavioral changes you can do at this point to make it more likely that you will ejaculate. These techniques have worked for some of my clients.
If you are uncircumcised, when you are having intercourse in the butterfly position, as you get to level 9, reach behind yourself and gently tug on the foreskin near your scrotum so that your foreskin tightens around your penis. This can often give you the burst of stimulation on the head of your penis that you need in order to ejaculate. Just make sure you tug only on the skin. You don’t want to pull your scrotum so that it moves too low.
If you are having intercourse in the butterfly position and you get to level 9, have your partner reach underneath you and gently rub the area behind your scrotum and around your anus. She should do this so gently that you really have to concentrate to feel it.
Some men have used vibrators to sensitize their penis. I recommend this as long as you don’t use a vibrator too often. In other words, don’t use it every time you masturbate. Use it only during intercourse or masturbation when you are already at level 9 to give you the extra boost that helps you ejaculate.
Learning to ejaculate during intercourse if you have had difficulty doing so is really a matter of identifying your strengths. Until now, I have advised you to try to make your sex life more like that of someone who ejaculates easily. For example, I’ve advised you to masturbate for shorter periods of time, and to learn to recognize high arousal levels such as 8 and 9. If you can do this, now would be a good time to reconnect with your strengths. For example, is there a particular fantasy that always turns you on? If you can peak up to arousal level 9, use the fantasy at that point. Is there a particular form of pornography that turns you on? Peak up to level 9, and use the pornography at that point. The strategy here is to allow yourself to become as aroused as you can with sensate focus, and then and only then use something that has turned you on in the past.
If you have been troubled by inhibited ejaculation, there are a couple of other things you need to remember. Any time you have intercourse, either during a sensate-focus exercise or after you have completed this program, remember to keep your thigh muscles as relaxed as possible, and thrust by using pelvic rolls rather than keeping your pelvis stiff. During intercourse, any time you feel your emotional arousal
level drop below your physical arousal level (your erection), stop thrusting for a moment and allow the two sensations to merge, even if your erection goes down a level or two.
Whenever you do a sensate-focus exercise by yourself or with a partner, you need to be aware of your PC muscle. Many men with inhibited ejaculation problems consciously or unconsciously tense their PC muscle as they reach high levels of arousal. Tensing your PC muscle at high arousal levels can cause an inability to ejaculate. To break this habit you may need to do several sensate-focus exercises (either genital caresses or intercourse) during which you stay aware of the condition of your PC muscle and consciously relax it. It is especially important that you relax the area of the PC muscle group associated with the anal sphincter.
Dealing with inhibited ejaculation can be a time-consuming process and may become frustrating for both partners. This is why it is important to increase intimacy at the same time as you go through the exercises. Sensuous kissing and mutual eye gazing are two ways to do this. Don’t be afraid to tell each other if you feel angry or frustrated. It is possible to talk about these issues without blaming the other person. In fact, sharing feelings about the process is a good way for you and your partner to become more intimate.
Another important thing for men with inhibited ejaculation is to learn to accept pleasure. You are not the whole show. Hopefully, the sexual healing program will teach you that you can ask your partner for activities you like and allow yourself to relax and enjoy them without feeling that you have to return the favor immediately.
Sexual Healing Page 29
