Coming, Ready or Not
Hello!
In this blog I’m writing about something that affects around a third of men at some point in their lives yet still carries the heavy weight of shame and secrecy: premature or rapid ejaculation. If you're reading this because this is your experience, I want you to know something straight away: you are not alone. Not even close. Janet and I wouldn't have jobs if sexual difficulties were rare. They're incredibly common and this one is right up there at the top of the list.
The problem isn't just the physical experience of coming more quickly than you'd like or not being able to come at all. It's everything that goes with it. The shame. The sense that everyone else has got this sorted. The worry that you're broken. The fear of what your partner might think. The avoidance that starts to creep in. Sometimes men stop pursuing intimate relationships altogether because the humiliation feels too big to risk again.
But here's what I want you to hold onto: this is fixable. Genuinely fixable. And understanding what's happening - and why - is the first step toward change.
What Actually Counts as Premature Ejaculation?
I’m going to start by clearing up some myths. According to clinical guidelines, premature ejaculation is defined as persistent ejaculation with minimal stimulation before, on, or shortly after penetration - specifically, before you want it to happen. If it's occurring within one to two minutes and causing you distress, that's when it gets a medical diagnosis.
But what might surprise you is to hear that two to three minutes of constant thrusting before ejaculation is considered completely normal. Not five minutes. Not ten. Not the twenty-five minutes you might have seen in porn or read about in fantasy stories. If you can thrust for three minutes before ejaculating, you do not have a problem. Six minutes? You're extraordinary.
The beliefs we carry about what's "normal" are often 95% of the problem. We're comparing ourselves to a fantasy version of sex that doesn't exist in the real world.
Why Does This Happen?
To be honest there often isn't one clear reason you can point to. It’s usually a combination of small things. A bit of this, a bit of that, something from your adolescence, and perhaps your grandmother thrown in for good measure. But even when there isn't an obvious cause, it's worth exploring because understanding what's driving it can shift how you feel about yourself. You're not broken. Your body isn't malfunctioning. Something's just got lodged in your system that needs addressing.
Here are some of the most common contributors:
Anxiety and the fight-or-flight response. Premature ejaculation is often driven by anxiety. If there's fear or worry around sex, whether that's performance anxiety, relationship stress, or something deeper, your body goes into protection mode. It's trying to get you out of the situation quickly. Ejaculation becomes a flight response. Your body is trying to take care of you, even though it's not what you consciously want.
One bad experience that became a pattern. Sometimes it only takes one episode. You're about to penetrate and you ejaculate too soon. That single moment creates fear about it happening again. That fear then does cause it to happen again. The mind gets hooked and before you know it, you've got a pattern.
Trauma and humiliation. If that first experience happened when you were young and your partner mocked you, told your mates, or shared it around your social group - or worse, on social media - that's not just embarrassing, that's traumatic. Public humiliation can do incredible damage to someone's psychosexual functioning. The echoes of that experience can keep coming back year after year.
Overstimulation. If you're a regular porn user, you might be overstimulating yourself. Your arousal system is getting ramped up before you even engage with your partner. The last thing you need in that state is more stimulation. For some men, simply stopping porn use and starting to focus on physical sensations with their partner changes everything.
Adolescent masturbation patterns. If you learned to masturbate quickly and efficiently, maybe because you were worried someone would walk in, or you didn't have much privacy, you may have conditioned your body to reach climax fast. That's a habit that can stick for decades. The sensory difference between a vice-like grip and the soft, lush experience of a vagina (or other forms of penetration) means your body is responding to completely different stimuli during partnered sex.
Physical sensitivity. Some men simply aren't naturally tactile. They don't have huge needs for physical touch day to day. Then suddenly the most sensitive part of their body is in a highly stimulating situation during intercourse. It's sensory overload, and rapid climax makes sense in that context.
Inexperience. For young men taking their first steps into a sexual life, the weight of expectation is enormous. Getting naked with a partner for the first time can be so overwhelming that premature ejaculation is a very common response. The trouble is, that first experience can lay down a blueprint: "I've got a problem." And then it becomes a self-fulfilling pattern rather than what it actually is - a normal part of learning.
What Can Be Done About It?
You could go and talk about it with your Doctor and if they agree you're experiencing premature ejaculation, they might prescribe SSRIs (antidepressants or anti-anxiety medications like dapoxetine or paroxetine). These are often used on-demand before sexual activity and work by dampening the responses that cause ejaculation.
There's also a low-tech, inexpensive option: local anaesthetic cream like emla cream. You rub a small amount on the shaft of the penis when you have an erection, put a condom on, and leave it for 15 to 20 minutes. Then, and this is crucial, you wash it off thoroughly. If you don't, you'll numb your partner too and then neither of you will reach climax. Alternatively you could keep the condom on for intercourse. It's about lowering sensitivity, not deadening everything. You'll need to experiment with timing, especially depending on whether you're circumcised or not.
Delay sprays are another option available over the counter, though results vary from person to person.
Retraining Your System: Techniques You Can Try
If you're not ready to see a therapist or you want to start working on this yourself, here's what you can do. Think of it like identifying a food intolerance—you strip everything back and slowly reintroduce things one at a time to figure out what's going on.
Mindfulness and body awareness. Start by reconnecting with your whole body, not just your genitals. Take long showers or baths. Notice the sensation of water on your face, your shoulders, the back of your head. Remind yourself: I have a whole body here. This helps you get out of the pattern of being hyper-focused on your penis.
Masturbatory retraining. If you've conditioned your body to reach climax in a particular way, quickly, with a tight grip, you need to retrain it. This takes months, not weeks. You're working against years, sometimes decades, of conditioning. But it works.
Start with slow, sensual touch and use lubrication to simulate the feeling of penetration. If you're having sex with women, use silicone lubricant on your hand and water-based lubricant on your penis. The combination creates a smoother, more realistic glide. Move your body instead of your hand, because that's what you'll be doing during intercourse.
The wax and wane technique. Build your arousal gradually. Reach a level of around 3 or 4 on a scale of 10, then let it subside. Build again to 6 or 7, then let it subside. On the third time, go to orgasm if you want to. The key is taking your time and learning to ride the waves of arousal without rushing to the end.
The stop-start technique. This one is brilliant for learning to recognise the point of no return, that moment when ejaculation becomes inevitable. Bring yourself as close to orgasm as you can without tipping over. You'll get it wrong several times before you get it right, and that's fine. That's how you learn. Each time you go over the edge, that's not failure that's data. You're figuring out what that feeling is so you can recognise it earlier next time.
Once you've got the hang of it, you can bring your partner into the process. Create a code word or signal so you can communicate when you need to pause or change what you're doing. But don't involve them until you've practised on your own. You need to build your confidence first.
If There Are Relationship Issues
Sometimes premature ejaculation is symptomatic of stress within the relationship itself. If there's unresolved tension between you and your partner, your anxiety levels are going to be high during sex. Your body is essentially saying: I don't want to be here for very long. In these cases, doing the relationship work, sorting out the underlying dynamic, can sometimes resolve the ejaculation issue on its own.
Shifting the Shame
One of the biggest barriers to addressing this issue is shame. It gets wrapped up with your identity, your sense of worth, your value in a relationship. Men are supposed to always want it, always be up for it, always perform. That mythology is crushing when you're struggling with something like this.
Try and remember that your penis is just a body part. Yes, it's wrapped up with identity and masculinity in our culture, but it's still just a body part. And bodies sometimes need a bit of retraining or support. That doesn't make you less of a man. It makes you human.
Talk to someone. I know it feels like a cliché to say "it's good to talk," but genuinely don't carry this alone. Most men will struggle with this at some point in their lives, you’re not the only one. Keeping it secret only grows the taboo and makes the shame heavier.
A Small Reflection
If any of this is resonating with you, take a moment to ask yourself: what stories am I telling myself about this? Am I catastrophising? Am I convinced this means my relationship is doomed? Because often, the panic and the catastrophising are what make a fixable problem feel impossible.
Try not to panic. Take a calm look at what's happening and then start doing something about it, even if it's just one small thing. There is so much that can be done.
You're not broken. You're just figuring this out. And that's absolutely okay.
Clare
If you'd like to hear more, have a listen to Episode 8 of our podcast where Janet and I go deeper into the medical approaches, the psychological work, and the specific techniques that can help.