The definition of “premature ejaculation” evolves. The formal definitions (those used by doctors and therapists) work well for conducting research but not so well for bedroom purposes.
For example, the following set of questions are used as a tool to make the diagnosis of “premature ejaculation”; the man (only the man) answers five questions, and the score determines diagnosis:
1. How difficult is it for you to delay ejaculation?
2. Do you ejaculate before you want to?
3. Do you ejaculate with very little stimulation?
4. Do you feel frustrated because of ejaculating before you want to?
5. How concerned are you that your time to ejaculation leaves your partner sexually unfulfilled?
Notice that this survey has no way of directly knowing what the woman thinks; the survey only questions the man.
So, a man who only waits thirty seconds before ejaculation with every encounter, who leaves his lover very frustrated, but who is not concerned with her, and who thinks thirty seconds duration is always adequate would score well on the test and not be diagnosed with premature ejaculation.
Even if the man does worry about the emotions and fulfillment of his lover, the test assumes that his lover will tell him of her frustration; but, many women do not tell their partner of their frustration, and the man is not connected enough to his lover to perceive her feelings.
So, the double bind is that if the man truly loves his wife, then he would be concerned enough to actually score poorly if his partner opened to him about her frustration. But, partly because of his great love, his wife may not risk offending him by voicing her frustration about his sexual endurance.
His love nurtures her love, which (because she fears hurting him) keeps him stupid about her emotions, which leads to less satisfaction for her, a strain on their sex life, and eventually to a fracture of the very love he treasures.
Still, even with the limits of the above survey tool, if the man is alert and is blessed with a lover who is honest with him, the tool converts his answers into a score that can be used to quantify and compare the effectiveness of different therapies.
But this test, and most tests, do underestimate the incidence of premature ejaculation because the researcher has no way to truly know the mind of a woman if only surveying the man. There are many more frustrated women on the planet than the premature ejaculation research would indicate. Remember, around ten percent of women prefer to be in the bed with other women—they enjoy wonderful sex with no penis in the bedroom at all. Sustaining penile tumescence truly is less important than understanding your lover; I cannot stress this enough.
Still, women (at least the ones who enjoy sex) often wish that sex—done in an understanding way—would extend much longer than what the man thinks brings satisfaction. Moreover, I have often found that even when a woman has had an orgasm and thinks she has enjoyed an amazing sexual encounter, even then, after more time, with continued and artfully provided mental and physical attention, she will reach a different level of pleasure and connection, a different dimension of her sexuality, a new side path in her garden of desire that she did not know exists. She discovers herself in extended sex; that is, she finds parts of herself she didn’t know when she explores (with an understanding lover) the farther ends of the paths of her secret gardens. These deeper levels of connection and pleasure are not acknowledged or found under the present definition of premature ejaculation.
Being satisfied with “wonderful,” couples often never find “soul-opening-amazing.”
I am absolutely NOT proposing that men force sex to last longer than what a woman wants on a particular day. But there is a very good chance that your lover is completely content (be grateful for that); but, with more extended lovemaking (always done artfully), you and your lover may find that the stairway to heaven goes much much higher than what you both thought.
So, the current definitions of premature ejaculation work well for research but, maybe, not so well in the bedroom.
A New Definition of “Premature Ejaculation”
In defining “premature ejaculation,” rather than considering only the man’s impression of the sexual encounter, or even an arbitrary number of minutes of sexual intercourse (another way of defining “premature ejaculation”), I propose a new Bedroom-Definition of Premature Ejaculation (in contrast with the research definition):
“Bedroom Premature Ejaculation is when ejaculation blocks the path of either you or your lover to the level of arousal, pleasure, and soul connection that is possible and intended for a specific sexual encounter.”
Important Corollaries to this Definition
By this proposed definition, ejaculation before the point of “possible and intended” pleasure would be considered “premature” regardless of the number of minutes of the encounter: on some days, ejaculation after 1 minute would be absolutely perfect; while with the same couple, on another day (or another time on the same day), ejaculation after 1 hour of vigorous sex may be premature.
This definition of premature ejaculation, Bedroom Premature Ejaculation (BPE) would require that the couple communicate.
Also, avoiding BPE would require that, if the female partner experienced occasions of exceptional appetite, the man would require exceptional, on-demand endurance or else he would (for that couple on that occasion) suffer from bedroom premature ejaculation.
Are You a Golf Cart or a Limo?
I live in a tourist town near the Gulf of Mexico where it is legal for you to drive a golf cart on the street with automobiles. Many people use their golf cart for short trips to the store and are perfectly happy to drive only the golf cart most days. But, those same people would never use their golf cart to drive the five hours it takes to get to the nearest mountains. Most men do not want to be the golf cart, requiring their lover to find another means of transportation if she wants to travel to the mountains.
In art, the masterpiece appears after most people quit.
Every man who considers sex an art worthy of lifetime attention should study how to Extend Sex.
Hope this helps!
Charles Runels, MD
