What is Premature Ejaculation? Confusion VS Facts

premature ejaculation couple

Premature ejaculation, a mysterious term immersed in a cloud of confusion and difficult words.

Human beings are known to be masters at making life difficult for themselves, and their mastery really reached its most marvelous peak when they tried to define premature ejaculation.

The term premature ejaculation is definitely an unfortunate one. The word “premature” has timing connotations that make things unclear.

Saying that a man’s ejaculation is “premature” assumes that there’s a standard time for ejaculation, and that his timing is premature.

Before giving you my personal point of view on the matter and an easy way to understand the concept, let’s take a look at what the internet has to say.

According to Wikipedia:

“The most common definition is that premature ejaculation occurs if the ejaculation occurs within two minutes of penetration.”

So someone did introduce a time to define p.e., the term premature does make more sense now.

The book Wikipedia is referring to in order to define premature ejaculation, “Premature Ejaculation and Serotonergic Antidepressants-Induced Delayed Ejaculation“, sets two minutes as the time to beat.

Two Minutes Defines Premature Ejaculation?

“A survey by Alfred Kinsey in the 1940s demonstrated that three quarters of men ejaculate within two minutes of penetration in over half of their sexual encounters.”

So let’s get this straight:

The founder of sexology Alfred Kinsey in his famous book “Sexual Behaviour in the Human Male“, says that two minutes is the average time.

So if that’s the average (normal) time, two minutes is not really that “premature” anymore, given that we defined something being premature as happening before the “normal time”.

I don’t want to know how Alfred did his “survey” but since he was renowned to be bisexual and polyamorous, I get the feeling he knows “first hand” what he’s talking about.

Wikipedia continues:

“Premature ejaculation can be differentiated between two types: primary, which is present from the time a male begins puberty, and secondary which is acquired later in the man’s life. Premature ejaculation can be further divided between: global p.e., which occurs with all partners and in all contexts and situational p.e. which occurs in certain situation or with specific partners.”

So far so good.

Now is where it becomes really… interesting.

The term IELT (Intravaginal Ejaculation Latency Time) is introduced, together with percentages and other curious numbers.

You might need a degree in aeronautic engineering to understand this, but let’s give it a try anyways.

“Most men experience premature ejaculation at least once in their lives. Because there is great variability in both how long it takes to ejaculate and how long both partners want sex to last, if at all, an accurate prevalence rate is hard to determine – estimates range from as low as 5% to as high as 30% – researchers have begun to form a quantitative definition of premature ejaculation. Current evidence supports an average intravaginal ejaculation latency time (IELT) of six and a half minutes in 18-30 year olds.”

Correct me if I’m wrong but I think they’re saying that an intravaginal ejaculation latency time (IELT) – intercourse time in plain speak – of six and a half minutes should be the “normal”, non-premature ejaculation time. Right?

Who Defined Premature Ejaculation Was Drunk

The above definition sounds tricky? Don’t worry, it only gets worse:

“If the disorder is defined as an IELT percentile below 2.5, then premature ejaculation could be suggested by an IELT of less than about 2 minutes.”

What? Percentile?

Imagine these guys having sex with a calculator in their hands:

“Oh sorry honey you’re too sexy, you make my percentile go down to 2.34%, I’d love to have a longer percentile, but unfortunately this is what I’ve got…”

But here Wikipedia introduces something interesting:

“Nevertheless, it is possible that men with abnormally low IELTs could be “happy” with their performance and do not report a lack of control. Likewise, those with higher IELTs may consider themselves premature ejaculators, suffer from detrimental side effects normally associated with premature ejaculation, and even benefit from treatment.”

This is very true indeed.

Some men are “happy” to ejaculate in one minute without having any control.

But I’d also point out that these men most probably have no idea that ejaculation can be controlled and transformed into a conscious act.

Probably it’s not that they’re happy in the sense that they’re proud or enthusiastic about ejaculating quickly. They’re just ok with it, it’s what they know and it’s normal for them.

If these men discovered the possibility of taking conscious control of their ejaculation I’m sure some of them would want to learn it. In the end it’s not just about the orgasm and our partner, first of all having long intercourse feels great for us.

My Definition of Premature Ejaculation?

In my opinion premature ejaculation “occurs” when you do not consciously choose when to ejaculate.

If I were to give a name to the phenomenon, instead of premature ejaculation I would call it: “Unwanted Ejaculation”.

There’s no “premature” and “non-premature” ejaculation, but wanted and unwanted ejaculation.

Let’s make it clearer:

If ejaculation happens when you don’t want it to happen (generally speaking right after penetration or within a few moments from it, or before your partner comes), then it’s unwanted or “premature”.

If you’re having sex and at one point (after one minute or one hour) you say to yourself, ok I’m done I want to ejaculate now, and you consciously take the steps you need to take to come, that’s Wanted/Conscious Ejaculation.

Of course the quality of that “sex time” is much more important than the quantity.

A man could simply learn to stop and withdraw every time he feels close to ejaculation and make his sex endless, but would that be great, fun and enjoyable sex?

Probably not.

And this is where pelvic muscles training combined with awareness of your arousal levels and simple techniques to keep things in control come useful.

By learning a few simple and effective exercises you can make ongoing thrusting easy and natural.

Easy and natural.

It might sound impossible, but it’s actually incredibly simple once you start training.

It’s like with swimming.

Anyone can swim the 800 meters. Maybe by doing 50m today, then stopping and doing another 100m tomorrow, then stopping and going on twitter a bit, then starting again…

The ones who are able to swim 800m in one go are simply more trained than you are.

Thrusting and swimming are similar – maybe thrusting is just a bit more fun.

 

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About Deon Black

In the past 11 years, Deon has helped tens of millions of people around the world through his sex toy reviews and guides. Since 2012, he and his team have spent over 60,000 hours testing more than 1000 sex toys. His work & advice has appeared on websites like: Insider, Healthline, MensHealth, Wikipedia, Yahoo, Cosmopolitan, Romper, WomensHealth and more. Learn more.