What You Need to Know About Premature Ejaculation

You and your partner are having scrumptious time making out. As your lips and bodies intertwine and clothes come off, arousal takes over, making every move nearly involuntary. You want more and more and more, but within minutes, he’s…done, done, done. 

Now what? Is this how your love life’s going to be? 

You don’t want your partner to feel bad, but you also desire more pleasure. Whether you’re aware of it or not, your partner likely has similar wishes.

Premature ejaculation is the brunt of many teenage jokes (hey there, “American Pie!”), but for countless folks, it’s a serious, potentially debilitating struggle that carries on throughout their lives. And while it causes shame and frustration for many, it is not shame-worthy at all. 

Last week, I had the pleasure of exploring PE with awesome experts, Girl Boner’s resident sex and relationship therapist Megan Fleming, PhD and psychotherapist and author of the bestselling book, She Comes First, Ian Kerner, PhD. We explored the ins and outs (ahem) of premature ejaculation, ways to manage it as a penis owner and/or their partner, the importance of honing the art of amazing oral sex and more.

Stream the episode on iTunes or below! In the meantime, here are highlights from Fleming and Kerner’s responses for a listener, who wrote this:

“I have a problem and hope you can help! My boyfriend of three years is amazing, but he comes within minutes when we make love, then can’t seem to do much for me after. Oral isn’t my favorite, but he tries. (I’m a make-out plus hands and penis girl.) My vibrator works, and he doesn’t seem comfortable with me using it every time, which then makes me uncomfortable! I want us to have a sex life that matches the rest of our relationship, which is awesome. What should we do?”  – Erica

Megan Fleming, PhD:

Most people aren’t aware that PE is one of the most common sexual dysfunctions in men, really affecting 30 percent. The thing I want to highlight for them and for you, is there’s absolutely help and treatment out there, as well as ways to give yourselves pleasure in and out of the bedroom. 

Men often feel so frustrated. They feel a sense of embarrassment or shame, and it’s really their desire to give you more pleasure, so unfortunately that mindset sort of highjacks them. If you both sort of take the expectation and the pressure off, then either before penetration or after, there are huge opportunities to use your hands, your mouth, sex toys, to give pleasure. 

I get that oral isn’t your favorite, but I think that there’s many tools in the toolbox… Creating opportunities to explore your turn-ons from head to do, there’s nipple play, not just even focusing specifically on genital stimulation is certainly an important tip.”

Ian Kerner, PhD:

First of all, she sounds like a wonderful, loving, appreciative, empathetic partner, which is really important. Her boyfriend, I’m sure, feels embarrassed and ashamed, as I felt, when I was really suffering from premature ejaculation, as someone who’s sexually crippled in some ways.

This is a person who can’t last 10 or 15 minutes during intercourse, and we also have to remember that most intercourse positions only haphazardly provide clitoral stimulation, so even if a guy, or even if this person, was able to last much longer during intercourse it doesn’t mean that there still wouldn’t potentially be an orgasm gap — but there is an orgasm gap, and they’re both trying to sort of bridge that gap and they need to find other ways to create orgasmic pleasure. That said, I might ask her to place a little more effort and mindfulness around thinking about why she doesn’t like oral sex.

When I talk to women about oral sex, some women don’t like their partner’s techniques. One woman told me, ‘Every time he goes down on me, it’s like the running of the bulls, just a mad rush to my vagina…’ Sometimes a guy’s oral sex techniques aren’t really in-tune with the principles of good clitoral stimulation.

Other times, though, women have told me, ‘I’m just a little uncomfortable.’ Maybe a woman has low genital self-esteem. It’s not an area that she thinks is her most beautiful part of her body, or a woman may be worried about how she smells or how she tastes. Some women say, ‘I just worry that it kind of takes me a long time to orgasm, and I feel bad that he’s down there and I wonder if he’s really enjoying it.’

I would encourage her to think a little more about her reasons and to have a conversation with her partner, because I think that oral sex is a great activity for providing clitoral stimulation. It’s a very loving act. Given the choice for a man between providing manual stimulation either with his hand or with a vibrator versus oral sex, many men will say they feel much more connected during oral sex…it’s very arousing for them and they love doing it. So I would encourage them to give oral sex maybe a second or a third chance.” 

Psst! Listen to the full episode to also hear my fun chat with amazing comedian Courtney Black, on her career, racism, dating and more.