How Can You Treat Premature Ejaculation?

Treatment And Cure Of Premature Ejaculation

The issue of treatment is a challenging one, especially if you’re in a relationship where you are stressed by your partner’s dissatisfaction with your sexual performance.

On the one hand, you want a treatment that’s going to work as fast and effectively as possible.

That’s essential for mutual sexual pleasure, which is important in maintaining intimacy and developing a better relationship between you both, both sexually and emotionally.

So some men in this position search out a sexual therapist for one to one sessions, but the obvious disadvantage of this is that such sessions are potentially not only embarrassing but also expensive. They range from $100 to $300 per hour.

And do you really want to go through the experience of finding a sexual therapist, getting to know them, and then uncovering the most intimate secrets of your sex life in the consulting room?

Probably not.

So here is a little about the various premature ejaculation treatments available, so you can make some kind of informed judgment about what you want to try.

Also, we tell you which PE treatments simply don’t work, and are a waste of time and money.

Broadly speaking, for rapid ejaculators, the treatment methods fall into two main groups. The first is those which involve drugs, hypnosis, pills, lotions and potions. And the second involves sexual therapy, behavioral modification, and dealing with relationship issues.

Therapy & Non-drug based treatments 

One common recommendation for treatment of PE is to think of something non-sexual while you make love.

But the problem here is that this is even more distracting. And a man who ejaculates quickly needs all the feedback which his peripheral nervous system can provide, not less of it.

That’s because he is out of touch with the sensory feedback loop that makes him aware of how close he is to ejaculation.

He therefore lacks the information needed to change his sexual behavior so that he does not actually reach the point of emission.

Non-sexual touching has also been recommended as a method of desensitization, but as a treatment approach this is now discredited.

Non sexual touching can in fact be arousing, and it avoids the essential aspect of any PE treatment.

That is to desensitize the man to sexual stimuli so that he is less aroused, able to prolong the length of time he spends on the plateau phase of his sexual arousal cycle, and therefore extend the time take for him to reach orgasm and ejaculate.

Another method of inhibition – that of squeezing the penis just below the frenulum as a man nears the point of ejaculation – is also not generally recommended nowadays by sexual therapists.

This is painful, and although it causes a man’s erection to diminish and his arousal to decrease (perhaps not too surprisingly!), its efficacy in treating quick ejaculation remains doubtful.

It is surprising to hear that men were once advised to wear two condoms to reduce the amount of sexual stimulation they were receiving.

This is an unsafe sexual practice, as friction between the two layers of latex can lead to the condom developing a tear or a hole. In any event, there are no reports of this ever having successfully slowed a man’s premature ejaculation.

The same applies to condoms containing benzocaine, which is reputed to anesthetize the penis and reduce the likelihood of premature ejaculation.

In reality, men who try this treatment approach may find that they end up with a numb penis. They will not feel the pleasurable sensations of penetration and the warmth of their partner’s body, and they may still ejaculate just as quickly.

Other approaches to the control of premature ejaculation have included the advice to change positions often during sex (which effectively works because of the interruption to the progressive increase in a man’s arousal).

And another tip is to use Kegel exercises to develop control of the pubococcygeal muscles which propel semen out of the penis. But this is a forlorn hope since these muscles are almost impossible to control voluntarily.

Finally, some psychotherapy or cousneling may help.

Goal oriented psychotherapy is one of the best and most effective treatments in a behavioral approach to control of rapid ejaculation.

It may be premature to say it, before further definitive proof emerges, but any man who wishes to develop good ejaculatory control may be well advised to see a sexual/behavioral therapist to learn a behavioral control program.

And he might also wish to see a psychotherapist to discuss any underlying sexual issues which may be contributing to his premature ejaculation.

Such issues include anxiety, fear of intimacy, hostility to women, lack of a sense of masculinity or male power, and doubts about body image, penis size and self-confidence.

Premature ejaculation treatment

Obviously it’s crucial for men who have premature ejaculation to accept that they have no voluntary control over ejaculation.

But many researchers miss the fact that men who cannot control their ejaculation may well not understand that they can exert voluntary control over such an apparently involuntary bodily function as ejaculation.

In my view they may well be upset about the lack of control that they have in bed over their ejaculation, but they often do not appreciate that it is in fact possible to control ejaculation through voluntary effort.

Historically, premature ejaculation was though of as a purely psychological problem and behavioral therapy was thought of as the best treatment.

The so-called “stop-start technique” was the first and classic treatment for premature ejaculation.

It requires a man’s partner to stimulate his penis until he is almost at the point of no return, then to stop the stimulation until he knows he is no longer near ejaculation. (In other words, until his arousal has dropped below the point at which there is a danger of him ejaculating).

The pattern of stimulation and stopping stimulation is repeated until there is a degree of control over ejaculation.

A similar technique was put forward by Masters and Johnson in 1970, though they asked the man’s partner to squeeze his frenulum after she stopped stimulating him.

Presumably this was because such pressure can cause a loss of erection, so it will obviously take longer for him to get fully aroused again.

The reality, of course, is that many cases of premature orgasm are caused by a lack of sexual confidence, by psychosexual anxiety, and by interpersonal issues such as anger or lack of interest in the partner’s well-being, pleasure or satisfaction (what you might call a kind of sexual selfishness).

Although teaching these techniques to delay ejaculation has been a main plank of psychosexual therapy, it may well be much more important in a psychodynamic sense for therapy to be directed at helping a man regain his sexual confidence, reduce his sexual performance anxiety, and more than anything else to resolve any interpersonal difficulties with his sexual partner.

unhappy man sitting on edge of bed
Premature ejaculation may be natural or it may be a medical condition. It may occur every time or from time to time.

Treatment success is rather variable (although the methods on this website are about as successful as you can get).

This is because ejaculation is a spinal reflex which is strongly controlled by higher brain (cortical) centers – in other words, establishing voluntary control over it is difficult.

At least, that’s what people say. I say, that’s a matter of opinion. Because when a man’s motivation to cure premature ejaculation is high, establishing voluntary control is not so difficult.

Sure, it takes time and practice, but the key thing is motivation. And also finding the right teacher. Some men have reported great success by seeing a Tantric sex therapist, who are able to teach a way of controlling the flow of sexual energy so that the man is in control of his sexual responses.

Ejaculation control can be developed. The speed of ejaculation is influenced by past experiences and present context. (Few men have an ejaculation latency which is so short and difficult to control that they may be considered to have a genetic bias towards early ejaculation.)

Needless to say, it has been suggested that rapid ejaculation is an evolutionary advantage: the faster you impregnate a woman, the safer you are, and the more likely are your genes to pass on to the next generation.

This may be so, but it doesn’t alter the fact that today premature ejaculation is a social, if not an evolutionary, handicap.

Although conventional psychotherapeutic sex therapy is effective, it is long-term and slow – and you need a partner who is happy to help.

This has led to a tendency to prescribe drugs, which, no doubt, represent a simple and easy approach to therapy in the eyes of many men and their doctors.

Unfortunately all the drugs which are used for the treatment of premature ejaculation were originally designed for other conditions. They may therefore be inappropriate for this problem. They certainly do not have regulatory approval for this purpose.