If may sound like a silly question, but the fact is there’s been a great deal of debate over the years as to what exactly constitutes premature ejaculation. How long should the average guy actually last when having sex? Of course, it’s a pretty subjective issue…what might seem too quick for one guy, may seem like a marathon sex session for the next. The crux of the matter of course is whether it’s causing you or your partner any anxiety of frustration. But nevertheless…in order to set the record straight, here’s an overview of what researchers throughout the years have had to say.
When it comes to prevalence, there’s no doubt premature ejaculation is a common problem (or at least the number of men who consider that they suffer from the condition is common). In 1999, a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association reported that between 28 and 32 percent of 1410 men between the ages of 18 and 59 years old considered that they frequently experienced premature ejaculation. What’s more interesting however, is that the highest prevalence of premature ejaculation (32 percent) wasn’t in the youngest age group as many would expect, but in those aged between 30 and 39.
What about a Definition for Premature Ejaculation?
Masters and Johnson, who pioneered a great deal of research into all aspects of human sexuality, considered that there was a definite problem if a man ejaculated before his partner reached orgasm more than 50 percent of the time. So of course, according to Masters and Johnson there wasn’t a quantifiable magic number of minutes (or seconds) you needed to last, instead it was all down to whether your partner managed to climax before you did. But if it takes your partner an average of 20 minutes to climax and you on the other hand, last on average only 10, can you really be condemned as the one with the problem?
Not according to the Kinsey Institute – another prolific researcher of all things sex related. According to Kinsey, three quarters of men ejaculate within two minutes of entering their partner on at least 50 percent of occasions. So unless the average woman manages to sprint to climax in less than two minutes flat, it would seem that projecting these statistics onto the conclusions of Masters and Johnson gives us the rather depressing prospect that the vast majority of men suffer from premature ejaculation. On the other hand, if ejaculating in less than two minutes is such a frequent occurrence, doesn’t that suggest that those who last longer are the exception rather than the norm?
Because of all the vagaries and questions raised by the findings of the likes of Kinsey and Masters and Johnson, two studies, both conducted in 2005 and both reported in the Journal of Sexual Medicine attempted to accurately measure the time it takes men to ejaculate…stop watch style.
The first, a four week study entitled ‘A Multinational Population Survey of Intravaginal Ejaculation Latency Time’ looked at how long 500 heterosexual couples typically took to have sex. The median time for each sexual encounter recorded by the study was 5.4 minutes. But it was the bottom 2.5 percentile of subjects that were of most interest to the researchers. Out of the test group 0.5 percent of men took less than a minute to ejaculate; and these the study concluded had “definite” premature ejaculation. Another 2 percent of men in the study ejaculated between 60 and 90 seconds after penetration, and were considered to have “probable” premature ejaculation.
The next study followed the second-by-second sexual encounters of another 1587 men. After review of the statistics, the researched placed the men into two groups – those who were, and those who weren’t diagnosed with premature ejaculation. For the 1380 of men who were placed in the “non PE” camp, the median time for ejaculation to occur was 7.3 minutes, whilst for those 208 men unfortunate enough to be diagnoses as PE sufferers, their median sexual encounter lasted a mere 1.8 minutes.
In 2008, due in part to the findings of the above research, a committee of sexual health experts finally reached agreement on a solid definition for premature ejaculation. According to the new definition, once again published in the Journal of Sexual Medicine, three criteria have to be met in order to be diagnosed with premature ejaculation. Firstly, ejaculation should always or nearly always occur no more than about one minute after penetration; secondly, there should be an inability to delay ejaculation in all or nearly all sexual encounters and thirdly, negative personal consequences such as avoidance of sexual intimacy, frustration and anxiety should be present. It’s important to note however, that the researchers concluded that these criteria should only be used to diagnose cases of ‘life-long’ premature ejaculation. In other words, if premature ejaculation hasn’t always been an issue, it may well be a symptom (either emotional or physical) and not the root cause of another issue that needs to be resolved.
Regardless of these scientific definitions however, most therapist agree that ejaculation anywhere from between 2 – 10 minutes from the initiation of sex is quite normal. If you last longer than this, you’re the exception rather than the rule. The bottom line however, is whether you feel you have any control over when you climax or whether your lack of control is causing you any degree of distress. No one should feel anxious at the prospect of having sex or feel frustrated because they think their performance is under par. If this applies to you, all is not lost, there are various methods you can employ to help delay ejaculation and they don’t necessarily involve a trip to see your doctor. But more about that next time.
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