O

by Jonathan Margolis

  Erotic sensations travel from the various outposts of erogenous skin to brain at high speed – 156 mph to be precise. As muscle tension and blood-flow to the pelvis approach their peak before dispersing in the final orgasmic reflex, there are spasms in the buttocks, tingling in the fingers and toes, and mounting muscular tension (myotonia) in the neck, legs and arms. Most (but not every) male orgasm involves ejaculation, which internally occurs in two stages. During the first stage of emission, seminal fluid is expelled from the vas deferens, seminal vesicles, and prostate gland into the base of the urethra near the prostate. The collecting fluid is felt as a consciousness of imminent ejaculation. Some men can have an orgasm at this point through rubbing the prostate gland.

  In the ejaculation stage, the seminal fluid is propelled by the muscular contractions of orgasm into the portion of the urethra within the penis and then expelled from the urethral opening. The mechanism of the ejaculation is a series of powerful muscular contractions from the pubic or pubococcygeal (PC) muscle group that supports the pelvic floor, running from the pubic bone in front to the coccyx, or tailbone at the back, and within the testes and scrotum, then continuing through the epididymis, vas deferens, seminal vesicles, prostate gland, urethra, penis, and anal sphincter. These contractions, a maximum of three or four in number, at 0.8-second intervals, have the effect of expelling the seminal fluid along the urethra at a speed that has been measured at 28 m.p.h. The initial contractions can be followed by two to four slower ‘aftershock’ spasms. The length of a male orgasm is typically from 10 to 13 seconds.

  Even though friction from the passage through the penis obviously slows sperm down from its 28 m.p.h. starting speed, the initial volley is occasionally, especially when there is a build-up of semen, still fast and powerful enough on exit to project a body of seminal fluid from roughly a fraction of a centimetre to a few centimetres. The young male capacity for sexual self-mythologising will often expand this masturbatory projectile capacity to implausible ceiling-scraping proportions, however. In Argentina, it is said, boys have for generations gathered in parks to compete to see who can project their semen further while masturbating. The evidence suggests this can hardly have been a great spectator sport.

  Pornographic films, in which an impressive (and often faked) ‘cum shot’ (otherwise known as ‘the money shot’) is de rigueur, increase the pressure on males to exaggerate their own projectile capacity. It might be noted that once inside the vagina, where it is designed to go, semen has a fight ahead akin to swimming in treacle. It slows down to a less than snail-like 0.0011 m.p.h., which means it spends five minutes travelling the six inches or so to the cervix.

  The amount of ejaculate expelled, typically one to two teaspoons (2½ to 5cc) per orgasm, differs between men, the volume (as well as the potency) varying with the frequency of orgasm. A man produces 125 million sperm each day, and each orgasm expels between approximately 80 million and 800 million. In the average lifetime, a man produces 14 gallons of ejaculate, enough to fill the fuel tank of the average-sized family car. The semen’s chemical composition, spermatozoa aside, is inconsistent even in individuals. About 8 per cent of the solution consists of dry solids, the majority of the sperm is a mix of more than thirty elements and compounds from nitrogen to fructose, cholesterol and vitamins C and B12. Interestingly, the average ejaculatory volume contains about 60 percent of the American recommended daily intake for vitamin C.

  Just as the truth about ejaculatory distance is fogged by vanity and nonsense, ejaculatory volume is also a contentious area, undermined by mythology and bragging. The line taken by many sex websites (often those selling quack potions) is that women are impressed by voluminous ejaculations (although less so than by penis size) for psychological reasons to do with their perceptions of virility and the likelihood of their being fertilised. The 2½ to 5cc ejaculatory norm is even said to be on the low side, many women regarding anything less than a tablespoon as an unacceptably small load. The one to two teaspoon figure, it is asserted, is misleading because ejaculatory quantity is related to sexual excitement, and men are not inclined to be very excited in laboratory conditions.

  So far as the truth on both distance and volume is concerned, it unsurprisingly lies towards the bottom end of the middle range. As far as one can tell from subjective evidence, most men have smaller ejaculations than they would wish for, or imagine a partner hoping for; additionally, the true distances of schoolboy and dormitory ejaculation stories are rarely a fraction as great as stated, and tend in the vast majority of cases towards the minuscule. Even the demands of ‘the money shot’ are relatively modest in terms of projectile distance; if semen were to be ejected at a ridiculous speed, the camera would never be able to catch it from the requisite few inches’ filming distance. Fluid mechanics dictate anyway that semen, so long as it is healthy, is simply too viscous and the penis too inefficient a firing instrument to send it spurting aloft like an ornamental fountain.

  While, classically, the male orgasm has been saddled with a monolithic definition implying that it is interchangeable as both term and concept with ejaculation – the male sexual climax has probably always been experienced differently by individual men and by those men at different times.

  Although human males have a trickier task maintaining erection than most mammals in that they depend entirely on hydraulics – most animals, including all primates except man, have a bone called the baculum to shore themselves up -men still do not inevitably lose their erection after orgasm or ejaculation. A controversial (and lately fashionable) body of opinion exists that orgasm and ejaculation in men are quite separate functions; that physiologically, ejaculation is simply a reflex that occurs at the base of the spine, an involuntary muscle spasm resulting in the ejection of semen and felt only in the penis, whereas orgasm is somehow much more than that, an unspecified ‘whole body experience’ produced by clenching muscles throughout body to avoid the penis being sensitised.

  Multiple orgasm, in which ejaculation is not necessarily involved, is according to some modern research and ancient texts on sex something of which men are physiologically capable only by the application of learned techniques. Researchers William Hartman and Marilyn Fithian of the Center for Marital and Sexual Studies in Long Beach, California were the first sexologists to present scientific data on the existence of multi-orgasmic men. They monitored the orgasms of 282, of whom 33 proved multi-orgasmic. Their most prolifically orgasmic subject was an athletic young man who consistently managed sixteen orgasms or thereabouts in less than an hour. Sex researchers Beverly Whipple and colleagues, writing in the Journal of Sex Education and Therapy, have for their part reported on a man who had six orgasms in thirty-six minutes with no erection loss.

  The secret to men achieving multiple orgasms, according to Hartman and Fithian, is nothing more spiritual or arcane than learning to control ejaculation via the PC muscle, also known as the voluntary urinary sphincter muscle, that starts and stops the flow of urine. Once strengthened, it can provide the same sort of control over ejaculation. ‘Just prior to the moment of ejaculatory inevitability, you clench the PC tight and hold it until the urge to ejaculate passes – roughly fifteen seconds,’ Hartman reports.

  Another modern researcher, Barbara Keesling, who has worked as a surrogate sexual partner, has moreover identified three distinct patterns of male multiple orgasm: one, she calls non-ejaculatory orgasm (NEO) in which a man has an orgasm but inhibits ejaculation using the PC muscle, and only allows himself to ejaculate (‘release the hounds’) after several orgasms. Keesling’s second model is multi-ejaculation, in which a man has several partial ejaculations in succession. Her third pattern is for the man to have one intense orgasm and ejaculation, followed by less intense ‘aftershocks’. All of these patterns, says Keesling, can occur without loss of erection. Other researchers speak of a phenomenon called ‘injaculation’, whereby semen is retracted by force of will into the bladder instead of out through the penis. (‘Injaculation’ is one of t
he Holy Grails of practitioners of ‘Tantric sex’, an offshoot of Buddhism which explores sexuality, as we will see later, as a way of transcending the limitations of ordinary life. But it is worth noting that backwards-flowing semen is elsewhere regarded as a male sexual dysfunction.)

  Men who can achieve multiple orgasm, Keesling reports, say – say being the important word, since one always suspects a measure of one-upmanship in this field, as in ejaculatory volume and trajectory measurements – that they feel energised rather than depleted after orgasm, and that their climaxes are stronger and more intense. She writes: ‘I describe orgasms on a continuum from a localised genital sensation that is mildly pleasurable to a full-body orgasm with intense psychological sensations and all the fireworks – the kind of orgasm one of my clients calls “the psychedelic jackpot that lights up the universe”.’

  The most significant feature of an apparently sophisticated sexual technique practised by men, however, is not that it may or may not be more imagined than real; nor that it may be destined to become a debunked myth to equal that of Freud’s distinction between clitoral and vaginal orgasm, which, as we shall discuss in a later chapter, is today a thoroughly discredited theory; nor that Tantric and Taoist methods of orgasm delay are predicated on the arguably vain, macho misconception that hours of thrusting is what women actually want from sex; nor that such techniques are a retrospective attempt to ‘feminise’ the male orgasm now that men have belatedly realised that women have the richer orgasmic experience of the two genders.

  The point is that, useful or not, ejaculation withholding is an acquired skill, whereas the majority of men’s sexual pleasure is highly instinctive. Erection is an involuntary, hydraulic phenomenon, which cannot normally be willed. Ejaculation usually results from intercourse with a minimum of effort.

  It would seem to be stretching our belief in the intrinsic ‘naturalness’ and instinctive character of sex to imagine that prehistoric men were as interested as were subsequent cultures in developing the (arguably) female-pleasing ability for extended erection and multiple orgasm. Boys never have to be taught to masturbate, whereas, even today, large numbers of women live and die without knowing such a thing is even possible. It follows that for sex to be a shared pleasure, the will to make it so — plus study and application — are of primary importance.

  Whether on the other hand sexual dysfunction afflicted the prehistoric male human is an interesting question. Simple erectile dysfunction is strictly a little outside the scope of this book, since both orgasm and ejaculation can easily occur without erection, and for some men, a flaccid or semi-flaccid penis provides a more satisfactory masturbatory experience than a full erection.

  However, averaging out a variety of studies, we can gauge that some 80 per cent of men in the modern world are at some time unable to get an erection; and given that most women greatly enjoy the sensation of penetration even if it does not lead directly to orgasm, erectile failure must after all rate as both a dysfunction and, equally, as an indication to a woman that something is either medically wrong with a partner or psychologically wrong with his attitude to her. In these respects, it seems plausible that both erectile and orgasmic dysfunction were probably far from unknowns to the real-life Flintstones.

  It should also be noted that for men there is scope for debate over what comprises premature ejaculation. It is only within the framework that designates ‘satisfactory’ heterosexual intercourse exclusively as penetrative sex culminating in simultaneous orgasm – the unobtainable Holy Grail for the huge majority of people – that premature ejaculation as it is classically delineated becomes a true handicap to a loving and mutually orgasmic sex life. Strictly speaking, a man who ejaculates after ten or fifteen minutes – an heroic performance by average standards, but nevertheless insufficient for most women to have even the slim possibility of a ‘natural’ orgasm – is suffering from premature ejaculation. A lot of feminists would say so, just as a lot of misogynist men would (and do) say that any woman who fails to orgasm through penetrative sex, howsoever perfunctory, is, ergo, dysfunctional.

  In modern times, male sexual dysfunction is the stuff of girls’-night-out jokes and saucy seaside postcards, but it deserves a more sympathetic approaching. The female orgasm may be a subtle and complex phenomenon, but the sensitivity of the male response can be, and generally is, underestimated. In 1994 the Massachusetts Male Ageing Study, at its time the largest ever epidemiological survey of male sexual functioning, revealed that 52 per cent of American men between the ages of 40 and 70 had minimal, moderate or complete sexual impotence.

  In a typical modern Western population at any given moment – and one can speculate as ever about the implications this may hold for earlier eras – epidemiological surveys of male sexual functioning suggest that 13-17 per cent of men of an age to be sexually active suffer from decreased or non-existent libido; 7-18 per cent are unable to get an erection; 28-31 per cent of those who can suffer from premature ejaculation as they themselves see it; 7-9 per cent of those with fine, long-lasting erections find themselves nevertheless prey to anorgasmia, the inability to orgasm at all; and 15 per cent are anxious either from their own or their partners’ perspective about their sexual performance. The incidence of erectile dysfunction in men increases with age; at 40, about 5 per cent suffer the condition; at 65 and older, the incidence is 15-25 per cent. But although sexual vigour in men declines with age, a man who is healthy, physically and emotionally, should be able to sustain erection, and enjoy sex regardless of age; impotence is not an inevitable part of ageing.

  The male sexual performance is clearly a rather more delicate flower than is generally acknowledged. Ageing aside, any of the above symptoms can be brought on by problems in any of the following areas: ill health, psychological wellbeing, medical treatments, smoking, family, societal and religious beliefs, and neurological, vascular or endocrine systems. Ejaculatory disorders come in three varieties: premature ejaculation, retarded ejaculation and retrograde ejaculation – the propulsion of semen through the urethra back into the bladder rather than out through the tip of the penis, aka ‘injaculation’.

  Sexual dysfunction in men can additionally be quite paradoxical because the mind exercises such a huge influence on sexual function. It is commonplace, for example, for a man to be unable to get an erection because a woman is unattractive to him. But with such a partner, he may easily be able to achieve and maintain a fine erection – only to have his underlying lack of true sexual attraction betrayed by anorgasmia. And just as easily as he is able to put in what appears (until he fails to ejaculate) to be a championship performance when he does not actually find a woman very attractive, he may equally suffer a disastrous premature ejaculation precisely because he finds his partner extremely beautiful. Su-nii-ching Fang Nei Chi, the seventh-century author of a book called Secrets of the Bedchamber, recognised the potential for men to use to their advantage this ability to maintain an erection with an unattractive partner. He advised: ‘Every man who has obtained a beautiful crucible will naturally love her with all his heart. But every time he copulates with her he should force himself to think of her as ugly and hateful.’

  Masturbation also confuses the picture of male sexual dysfunction a little. Many men can easily orgasm through masturbation but have difficulty in heterosexual intercourse. This may be because they use far heavier pressure in masturbating than is normal in vaginal intercourse. Until they learn to orgasm with lighter pressure, they may well have problems in ejaculating during coitus. Equally, masturbation may be an easier way than intercourse for an anorgasmic man to ejaculate because he suffers an emotional dysfunction over intimacy.

  Then there is the fraught question of whether a lot of sexual dysfunction seen as the woman’s predicament is actually a male failure. What has been called ‘the dissatisfaction theory’ holds that a great deal of female sexual dysfunction – ‘frigidity’ as it was charmingly called until recent times – is not caused by psychological factors, hormo
ne deficiency, diminished pelvic blood flow or any one of the usual suspects; it results from nothing more than inadequate genital stimulation, by men.

  A host of factors, from religious observance to shyness to simple lack of communication, can result in men not knowing how to stimulate a woman so that she becomes aroused; this leads to unsatisfactory sex and in turn to lack of sexual interest, depression, and aversion to sex. The self-evident fact that young, healthy, apparently balanced women experience sexual dysfunction is probably the clincher for this view.

  As for whether male sexual dysfunction was ‘treated’ in any way by prehistoric man, we are particularly clueless. We know, as we will see in a later chapter, that the ancient civilisations were very aware of the subject and had any number of supposed folk remedies for it. But as far as prehistoric man is concerned, we have no idea if dysfunction was considered a problem, because we do not know if functioning correctly was thought particularly desirable.

  3

  Herstory

  ‘I’ll have what she’s having’

  Director Rob Reiner’s mother’s line in When Harry Met Sally

  In theory, if the tumescent male, caveman or not, can control himself enough to thrust for long enough inside the female, typically for between ten and twenty minutes, the female will automatically reach an explosive orgasm, a consummatory release as intense and tranquillising as the male’s. Her muscular actions will have become largely involuntary from the moment of penetration, her vaginal contractions harmonising with the thrusts, her eyes losing focus in ecstasy.