Touch
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Sex and ntimacy
Coaching

ON RAPID EJACULATION

Q: I’m a Minute Man – I cum almost as soon as I’m aroused. Can tantric massage help me last longer?

A: Many men take an interest in tantra for just this reason – they ejaculate sooner than they’d like to and they want to extend their sexual pleasure (and their partners’). Tantric practices are excellent for that purpose, and they require two things: intention and practice. Intention means making a positive choice to extend sexual pleasure by delaying the gratification of ejaculating – as opposed to leaving it to chance, falling into your usual routine, or viewing the postponement of ejaculation as some kind of torture or self-deprivation. The practice part includes relaxation, conscious breathing, mindfulness and self-observation, raising erotic energy, and circulating it around the body. It helps to practice by yourself first by setting aside time (at least 30 minutes to an hour) to masturbate and pleasure your body without the goal of ejaculating. Put yourself in a relaxed state. Some guys might automatically think of having a drink or smoking a joint to relax; I’d be more inclined to take a shower or do some yoga stretches, but hey, whatever gives you a head start in letting go of whatever tension you’ve built up in your day. Take some easy big breaths and let them out with no particular effort. Try making sound on the exhale, just ahhhh or ooooh, to let the sound of your voice vibrate throughout your body. The more you can relax and wake up your whole body, the more it can participate in the pleasure of sex. Start stroking yourself and raising erotic energy. If you’re a typical guy, as soon as you get aroused you start holding your breath, tightening your belly and your legs and your butt, so the only place the energy can go is out your dick by squirting. That’s fine and fun, but if you’re trying to extend your pleasure, see if you can pay attention to when you’re tensing your body, and then let go – stop clenching your butt and legs, breathe, let your belly soften. 
     You probably know yourself well enough to know what kind of strokes get your dick hard and close to shooting. So you might want to practice some other ways of touching yourself besides the tried-and-true up-and-down-the shaft. Use your non-dominant hand for a change. Tug your balls with one hand while you stroke your cock with the other. Try squeezing your cock and letting it go, or alternating firm and light touch. When you start to feel really aroused, touch some other parts of your body. Pinch your nipples, pull your hair, slap your chest or thighs. What that does is draw the energy you’re raising with your cock to other parts of your body. Every part of your body that blood travels to is available to erotic energy. 
     If you find yourself really close to ejaculating, take your hand off your dick (I know that sounds so simple as to be stupid, but some guys act like when they’re erect their hand is Velcroed to their dick) and shake your hands and feet, bounce your knees, move your whole body – that way you’re distributing pleasurable erotic energy around your body without discharging it by ejaculating. Even if your erection goes away, you’re still running a lot of energy and you can go right back to it by stroking yourself again. Another thing you can do when you’ve been breathing and raising energy for a little while is take 30 faster breaths, making a relaxed “ahh” sound on the exhalation, and then take a big breath, hold it as long as you can, squeezing your butt and your belly while you imagine the energy up from the base of your spine to the top of your head, like mercury rising in a thermometer. Some people can have a full-body orgasm, with a rush of sensation and involuntary trembling, without ejaculating. All of this takes practice – you’re not going to master it in one self-pleasuring session – but doesn’t that sound like a fun thing to practice?
     Of course, the advantage of receiving tantric massage is that a skilled practitioner (like, for instance, me!) will point out things about you that you may not be aware of – when you’re not breathing, or when you’re clenching your muscles – and can coach you in the fine points of hanging out in a high erotic state without going over the top. It’s like working with a personal trainer at the gym – you can probably figure out how to do a full workout, but you often don’t, or in any case it helps to have someone knowledgeable to show you the ropes and encourage you to do things you don’t normally do in order to get where you want to go. 
     By the way, what I’m calling “tantric massage” is a sort of bastardization of the original meaning of tantra, which is a meditation practice in which one views sex with a partner as a metaphor for union with the Divine. Tantric sex with a partner can incorporate many beautiful ancient meditative techniques and physical gestures to make sex deeper, longer, more intimate, and more soul-satisfying. For more information on that you can read Margo Anand’s The Art of Sexual Ecstasy or Bruce Anderson’s Tantra for Gay Men. 

Posted July 16, 2004

~ DON SHEWEY ~
Telephone: 212-956-4205 or email me at don@donshewey.com