When Longer Isn't Better: Breaking the Silence on Delayed Ejaculation

Premature ejaculation gets the commercials and the jokes. Delayed ejaculation? Crickets. Yet this condition affects millions of men and their partners—and it matters more than you think. In this episode, we're breaking the stigma around delayed ejaculation. We explore the medical causes (medications, injuries, conditions), the psychological factors (anxiety, performance pressure, relationship dynamics), the real impact on partnerships, and most importantly, what actually helps. If you're experiencing this yourself, supporting a partner through it, or just believe sexual health deserves honest conversation—this one's for you. 

Transcript

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When was the last time you heard someone openly talk about lasting too long during sex? Probably never, right? We live in a culture that celebrates sexual stamina where men are told that going longer is always better. But what happens when longer becomes a problem? When what should be pleasurable becomes frustrating, exhausting, or even impossible? Today, we're diving into a topic that affects millions of men, but rarely gets discussed, delayed ejaculation. And if you've never heard of it, you're not alone. But trust me, by the end of this episode, you'll understand why this conversation matters. Whether you're experiencing it yourself, you're a partner trying to understand, or you're simply curious about sexual health. Now, when most people think about ejaculation problems, they immediately think of premature ejaculation, finishing too quickly. That gets talked about everywhere, in movies, in comedy routines, in those awkward late night pharmaceutical commercials. But what about the opposite problem? The one where a man takes an extremely long time to ejaculate or can't ejaculate at all, that barely gets a mention. Men dealing with delayed ejaculation often feel isolated, confused, and embarrassed. Their partners might feel inadequate, wondering if they're not attractive enough or skilled enough. Whether you're experiencing delayed ejaculation yourself, you're in a relationship with someone who is, or you're just someone who believes that sexual health deserves honest, stigma-free conversation, this episode is for you. Because here's the truth, sexual health is health, period. And just like you wouldn't hesitate to see a doctor about chest pain or a persistent cough, sexual function issues deserve the same level of attention and care. So let's break the silence, let's get educated, and let's talk about delayed ejaculation. But first, let's define exactly what delayed ejaculation is, because it's more nuanced than you might think. Then we'll explore the causes, the impact on relationships, and what can be done about it. I think we broke a record for saying ejaculation. I think so too. On YouTube. But I'm pretty sure. I think so too. So let's keep going. Let's define what the medical definition of delayed ejaculation is. It's also called impaired ejaculation, and it's when it takes an extended period of sexual stimulation to reach orgasm and ejaculate, or when ejaculation can't occur at all. There's no specific timeframe that defines too long, and the medical concern is that it causes distress for the man or their partner, and the condition is defined by the distress it causes, not by measuring time. So the different types of delayed ejaculation are lifelong, present since sexual maturity began, acquired, develops after a period of normal sexual function, and generalized, happens in all situations with all partners. And then we get to situational, which is where I'm gonna kind of hand this over to Ed, because his situation is similar but different. And situational occurs only with certain partners or during specific types of sexual activity. Right, right. So let's dive into that. Yeah, I have what would be defined as something called intentional postponement or a form of edging or orgasmic control. So early on when I first started having sex, which was- Exciting. Actually not all that early, I was in my mid 20s when I first started having sex. And I got in the habit of holding out until my partner achieved their orgasm before I had mine, which was good at the time, but it's kind of created this really weird situation for me. Such a giver. I know, I try to be a generous lover. And what's kind of evolved for this situation is that because I've delayed for so long and I get into like lifestyle situations, a lot of times I was holding off so that I wouldn't orgasm except for with you, especially early on in the lifestyle. But then with the condoms and holding out and waiting for them, et cetera, I get to a point where I get basically desensitized from basically too much friction over an extended period of time. And then it's just not gonna happen. I have to like give myself a break and kind of the feeling comes back to a certain degree. And it's not like I'm numb. I'm definitely feeling things. It's just that it's not enough to achieve orgasm or it's not the right kind of stimulation to achieve orgasm. I looked something up too. And I think this applies to you. It's called spectra-tottering. It's kind of like tater tottering.(laughs) And it's that psychological component where your focus is very much on a partner's pleasure. So that happens with me and that happens in the lifestyle. And it leaves you a bit of a detached observer from your own performance. And you need that mental stimulation to finish. I know for sure in the lifestyle, there's like so much going on where you're just spectra-tottering. Like how could you not? Like, there's so much going on, especially in an orgy room, which is what we are used to and what we started off doing. And I wanted to say one thing about when we're together, I noticed early on when we started doing the lifestyle that when you get in these desensitized moments, when we're back at home and we're still flying off the vibes of the event. If I started talking dirty in your ear or about what was happening in the room or something we saw or something somebody did, you were like, "Bing!" I mean, that was the catalyst. Yeah, that adds some weight to the whole spectra-tottering because while I'm in the moment, I'm not really taking it all in, but it's like so overwhelming that I'm not really processing it. But then afterwards, I'm focused on what I'm doing and you're, of course- In rejecting a little extra stimulus, boop, into your brain and you're like, "Oh, I remember." Yeah, and I do like when you talk dirty. When it's specifically about the event that just happened, yeah, that's pretty awesome. It's pretty awesome. Let's talk about some of the primary symptoms for someone that has delayed ejaculation. Primary symptoms are inability to ejaculate. I think we covered that.(laughs) Taking 30 minutes or more of sexual stimulation to ejaculate and emphasizing again that the timeframe isn't a hard rule. It's really just that distress that somebody has that's causing, that's a result of this. It could be a multitude of medical conditions. So let's talk about some of those. Yeah, and I think to talk about the 30-minute one that you just talked about, the primary symptom, I think doctors like to give a symptom with time to go, it's not five minutes. It's not three hours. They're like, "Okay, roughly speaking, you kind of need some barometer, some metric to be able to figure things out by." So that's very true. Speaking of the medical professionals, so some of these conditions that exist are things like birth defects and they can affect the male reproductive system, probably nerve damage, things like that. Ooh, and the next one is about injury to the pelvic nerves. And I really wanna talk to you about that. Yeah, this is a good one. Because those can damage the way you control your orgasm. And you were a cyclist for all through college cycling every day, like hundreds of miles a day. So how did this not damage you? It's interesting. So when you ride for a long time, sometimes you do have some numbing that goes on. I don't know that I rode enough to do like permanent nerve damage, but I know that there was some temporary kind of fatigue of it. And I'd had this concern too. And I think most of my concern had been like, is this gonna affect erectile function? Is this gonna cause other problems? And possibly, but I don't know that it was, I don't know that it was causing actual damage. Right. And that's the best way for me to describe it. You didn't experience any adverse effects on road biking. You also did, it's like the cobblestone thing that they do in cyclocross. Right, right. If none of you have seen that, oh my God. And then one of the events had you riding naked for a mile, two miles? Yeah, it was a naked mile ride. And that was one of the cyclocross races that I had done locally. Oh my God. Although I will say most of those men did stand up and cycle. Not many of them sat down. Yeah, yeah. And you don't wanna delve too far into the cycling thing, but having a good seating position and they make seats that have like cutouts on the bottom of them. Oh, that's true. I don't know that there's ever been any kind of like scientific studies about whether that's necessary or not necessary or what. I would say that if you're riding for an extended period of time and you're numb like the whole time, that's probably not good. Just like sleeping on your arm for like an hour. Yeah, you're cutting the blood circulation off. So you're probably doing damage to a certain degree. So yeah, I mean, stand, move around, keep the circulation going. And if you're wearing underwear that's too tight that's causing circulation problems, think about that too. Cause you're wearing those for like eight plus hours a day. Right. Certain infections like an STI can also create prostate inflammation, which I didn't know. Right. Which is also damaging. Yeah, and I could see any kind of STI that damages the urethra or any of those kinds of, mechanisms that are going on down there, having an effect on maintaining erections and... Yeah. Ejaculation and all that. To finish this section up with medical conditions, you've got prostate surgery, cancer and radiation treatment, neurological diseases and thyroid issues. All of those are contributors to some of these physical causes of delayed ejaculation. And medicines are also very, very common. We hear this over and over again. And obviously doctors should be providing this side effect information to you about the medicine that you're taking. Antidepressants, especially SSRIs, which are the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors. And then certain diuretics, anti-psychotics, anti-seizure and blood pressure medicine. That's a lot, I hear a lot of people say that about the blood pressure medicine, which is kind of a bummer. Yeah, you figure anything that affects your circulation and your blood pressure affects erection strength. And I know that when I'm having, when I'm distracted or I have a less firm erection, that it is harder to achieve orgasm. So Viagra has helps with stuff like that. And so if you've got blood pressure medication, which is lowering your blood pressure, which is probably softening your penile tissue, it's gonna be harder. Yeah. Not harder, but harder to achieve orgasm. Right, right. And then of course you have substance use, which is heavy alcohol consumption or drug use. And that's, could be a bonus in the lifestyle though. You're at a party. You were trying to delay your ejaculation? Yeah, yeah. Right. Definitely riding that edge where you're starting to hurt your ejaculation probably because of the erection. They sure. Yeah, yeah, influence, yeah. But like one extra shot of Jack and then you're in the ED category. So it's probably a sign that you're maybe consuming too much at events. If you're having a hard time ejaculating, it could be the alcohol. I actually wonder how many guys do ejaculate with a partner in a play environment. Right. I honestly have not seen it very often. I'd love to know the number. Right. I would say in our, I've lost track 10 plus, 12 plus years of doing this.(sighs) What? One out of five maybe. Yeah. One out of two out of eight, two out of 10. That's the same thing. You've had a pretty high and still I think low in the terms of like 20 to 30%. But you've had a pretty high ratio of men who've been able to achieve orgasm with you. Mm-hmm. I like when I'm able to do that. I like when I'm able to torture them and tease them because they're trying to hold out and they're like,"Oh, you know, I usually, they're like,"Oh, I can hold out and I'm known for holding out." And then I do my special technique and then they're like, "Oh my God." It's my favorite, honestly. So much like the spectatoring that we talked about earlier, which is basically a psychological case, there are emotional and additional psychological causes of delayed ejaculation. So these probably play an even larger role than even the physical conditions. And that's that you've conditioned yourself to do something over an extended period of time or not do something over an extended period of time. And now it's kind of like ED where it's like, the one thing I'm supposed to stop thinking about, I keep thinking about, and you end up in this cycle where you just can't stop thinking about it. And you're like, "Eh." Right, in your case, like the spectatoring or the situational aspect of it, but if it's where you've conditioned yourself, but if someone has a more physical component to it, then yeah, it could create some depression. It could create anxiety for both generalized and in your sexual performance. And like you said, you get stuck in that anxiety cycle. Yeah, yeah. And it's very much like the performance anxiety cycle where you're experiencing that delayed ejaculation once, and then you start to worry about it the next time. And then in a sense, you're kind of predicting that it's gonna happen again. You're just visualizing it happening again. Which is why a lot of guys love to use a form of Viagra in the lifestyle because it just gives you that little extra boost of confidence to break you out of that cycle. It's really nice. I love that for guys, honestly. There's a lot of pressure on the men. Right, right. Then there's relationship causes, unresolved conflicts between partners, poor communication, relationship monotony, or lack of novelty. And there's also cultural or religious beliefs being raised to view sex as sinful or wrong and internal conflicts about sexuality. And the religious aspect, I would say, we see that a lot in the lifestyle, people coming from LDS or other backgrounds. I've never specifically asked them if that, how that impacts them in the bedroom when they're at an event, because these are not topics that you just lost out on, having a good time. But I have always wondered, because they, it's really different. It's difficult to break free from all of that background. Yeah, that's a really good thought. I wonder if we should just start asking people, so how does breaking from the standards that the church has set down affecting this experience for you? Yeah. We've really delved into that. Now, it's a slippery slope, because you're really not supposed to talk about politics, religion. I know. There's certain things you just don't talk about in lifestyle, because it's not sexy, and religion is definitely not one of those sexy topics. Yeah. Sexual fantasies and expectations. There's gonna be differences between the reality of sex versus sexual fantasies or expectations, and then some men can't ejaculate with very specific types of stimulation or fantasies. So all of these are, some of these I think are more situational. And I wonder if part of that plays into why, a reason why people think about getting into the lifestyle. There's so many reasons why people think about it. But once it starts, I will say, once it starts getting into that, I'm just satisfied within my relationship. Let's look for something else that we can do together to help repair or fix. That's always a bad sign. Yeah, and I was gonna say, if you're experiencing delayed ejaculation, the lifestyle is probably not what your doctor or your therapist would recommend as a solution to that. Right. We enjoy it, but it's definitely not a clinical path, typically for these kinds of things. But as we've been talking about things a lot lately, the novelty and that dopamine hit does help kind of break things out. Yeah, well, let's run down quickly on the impact and complications that this does have on a relationship. Sexual and relationship effects, diminished sexual pleasure for both partners, sex can start to feel like work rather than intimacy. And then you've got stress and anxiety specifically about sexual performance. And then like we mentioned before, you've got some of that emotional impact where it can spill over into other areas of life beyond the bedroom, and that sense of inadequacy or embarrassment, and men may feel like they're failing at something that's supposed to be natural. And partners may internalize it, wondering if they're not attractive or skilled enough. And that's where it starts to be really hard and kind of sad, because once you start thinking about that, that's, I feel really, I feel sad. Yeah, go to the doctor, I guess I'll help. Yeah, yeah, for sure. And all of these kind of emotional stresses and physical stoles that are taking place while you're having sex can start to have relationship effects. So you can develop new relationship issues or worsen existing ones. You've got communication breakdowns, because it's hard to admit or talk about. You've got this growing distance between you and your partner because there's something there, but you can't tell what it is and you don't wanna talk about it. And I think there's an important clarification here, which is this is not a reflection of attractiveness or desirability, much like when men have erectile dysfunction problems, in other words, can't maintain an erection. That's also not a symptom of attractiveness or desirability. All right, getting help and treatment options. When to see a medical doctor, because you should. If the problem is real, it's affecting you mentally, it's creating issues between you and your partner, see your doctor, if it's persistent or reoccurring, you might need adjustments to your medicine. And if there are legitimate concerns, just don't suffer in silence. Medical professionals are there and trained to help you reach out to your dude friend, get some support. Treatment approaches for psychological causes, depending on the underlying cause is sex therapy, specifically focuses on sexual issues and provides strategies and techniques. You can get some individual therapy for depression, anxiety, or other mental health concerns. And there's also a couple of therapy, which is valuable when relationship issues are contributing factors. The main points to remember really is this, this isn't something that somebody can get over on their own, unless it's the situational type. I mean, but even then you're having a conversation with your partner and you're making adjustments to your personal interaction, because if it starts to become something that's, what's the word I'm looking for? A stressor that's keeping you from connecting. Then obviously switch up your play style, try something new, do something different. Maybe your husband is, make him the first one, be the first one to give him pleasure and just focus on him for the night. The good news is you've got qualified of professionals out there and we know actually some E&M life coaches that can help walk you through this. So if you are seeking that support, please email us, reach out to us, call us, however you wanna do it and we'll send them, send you their information. Final encouragement, Ed. Well, the most important thing is admitting that there is an issue that you need help with and then reaching out for help. So talk to your doctor, definitely talk to your partner. And remember that sexual health is an important part of overall health and wellbeing. So it's the whole package and it affects everything that's going on in your life, including your relationship. Thanks for tuning in. We appreciate you joining our community. If you want more or simply want to listen or watch us, check out our podcast and the YouTube channel. Don't forget your homework. Tell a friend about our show and leave a review and comment. You can also leave us a voicemail at 916-538-0482 or contact us at swingertuniversity.com. And as we like to say, Keep learning, keep growing and keep it sexy.