Ways That Men Can Be Multi-Orgasmic

[third of five posts on male multiple orgasms, starting here]   

This topic can get confusing in a hurry because there are several completely different ways for a man to have multiple orgasms, and a lot of people just lump them all together. So it’s probably a good idea to spell out the different types and approaches separately. I’m going to start In this post by clearing the decks of the two hardest. Then tomorrow we'll look at the ones most men will actually be able to experience.

Multiple Orgasms with Ejaculation

Some young men have such short refractory periods that they can be described as having multiple orgasms, but they experience at least a brief softening of erection between orgasms, and the gap always seems to get longer as they get older. However, we know that men who have medical condition that prevents prolactin production (hypoprolactinomia) are able to have multiple ejaculatory orgasms in a row, without loss of erection. This has been observed in laboratory settings by reputable researchers. It is also possible to produce this condition with the drug cabergoline (Dostinex), which suppresses prolactin production and allows men to have a sequence of ejaculatory orgasms with no loss of erection.

Unfortunately, prolactin is important for many necessary bodily functions, and low blood levels of prolactin are bad for you. A man who can have repeated ejaculatory orgasms because he has a prolactinoma, a tumor on his pituitary gland, will also generally have a range of other health problems, including anxiety, PE, ED, and infertility. If someone takes cabergoline in order to block normal prolactin production, he will likely experience the same side-effects.

The men who can have multiple wet orgasms in a row and who do not have those side-effects seem to have a rare condition that allows normal prolactin levels in the blood, but somehow blocks the surge of prolactin after an orgasm. It's quite possible that it's a genetic anomaly that blocks the normal signal that goes from the brain to the hypothalamus and the pituitary during the orgasm. 

The reality is that we don’t know very much more than that about the male refractory period, especially what causes it to be so much longer for some men than for others, or why it usually gets longer with age. We know prolactin is important, since it's the initial cause of the loss of erections. But it's part of a complex web of hormones and neurotransmitters like dopamine and oxytocin that have a variety of effects on each other and on the brain and body. 

here has been some speculation about how it works and what hormones and neurotransmitters are involved, including hints, like the one mentioned earlier, that oxytocin and prolactin generated at the time of orgasm play a part in the loss of the erection, but I know of only a few instances of serious research on the subject. (This paper, for example.)

As that reference indicates, there is a possibility that drugs will be available at some time in the future to suppress the male refractory period. Until then, however, it appears that the only way you can do this is to be born with the ability.

What Boys Know and Men Forget

Most boys begin masturbating and having orgasms at least a year, and sometimes many years, before they are physically able to ejaculate, which means that the first orgasms most boys experience are non-ejaculatory orgasms (NEOs). Kinsey reported in the 1940s that more than half of boys had non-ejaculatory orgasms before puberty, and the number may have risen as parents have become less punitive abut masturbation. Furthermore, although many boys apparently never try it, most (and perhaps all) boys have the ability to have multiple successive NEOs without delay or loss of erection until they reach full puberty and begin ejaculating. This is the ability that many men would like to relearn.

Probably the best and easiest way to become a multi-orgasmic adult is to begin that way and catch the trick of having an orgasm without ejaculation right at the outset. Several years ago one of our Tantric couples introduced me to a man I’ll call Simon who claimed he could do this. He doesn’t practice Tantra, but he agreed to tell me how this worked for him.

He had been masturbating since at least age 9 and often masturbated several times in a row. When he was 11 and first had an ejaculation, it happened on the third orgasm in a series, after two non-ejaculatory orgasms (NEOs). He masturbated two more times after that, trying to figure this new thing out. (If he had a refractory period, it was so brief he didn’t notice it.) He was able to have another NEO and then another ejaculatory orgasm (EO). The amount of ejaculate in those first two EOs was relatively small, and the fluid was fairly clear and jelly-like, so looking back on it he hypothesized that he might have brought on the first ejaculation before he was really “ready.”

Perhaps as a result, Simon never lost that ability to have both kinds of orgasms, even though he doesn’t know how he does it. He says he learned by experimentation how to have one or the other, and now he simply decides to have a NEO before he reaches the point of no return. If he waits too long, he no longer has a choice, since he has not mastered any other techniques for avoiding an ejaculation. The key is that, when he is almost completely aroused, he can intentionally trigger a NEO by an act of mental will.

Learning as an Adult

At some point I will introduce readers of this blog to the couple I've nicknamed Jack and Lita. Whereas Simon never lost the ability to intentionally trigger an NEO, Jack learned (or re-learned) the same ability in his 40s. He also knows the Kegel technique and can use that instead if he misjudges his level of arousal and waits too long to trigger an intentional NEO, so unlike Simon, he now has two different ways to have an orgasm without ejaculation.

Jack started out, as every man should, by doing a lot of Kegel exercises, both the long, slow, hold-hard-as-long-as-you-possibly-can kind and the fast, clench-and-release-as-many-times-as-possible kind. He thinks both helped. He agreed with Simon that he had to trigger the intentional orgasm before reaching the point of no return (9.9 on a ten-point arousal scale). Subjectively, he says he needs to be at around 9.5 to 9.7 to trigger an intentional NEO.

The closest he could come to explaining how he learned to do this was to say it was like learning to raise just one eyebrow: you keep trying, and you pay close attention to the tiniest differences in sensations, and finally, mostly by accident, you do it. Then you go through the same process all over again, until you manage to do it again, and gradually you figure out what neural circuit you twitched in just the right way, and you learn to make it twitch on command.

Oddly enough, this makes a fair amount of sense to me, as a woman, because I’ve been interested in the therapy sessions a young friend of mine went through to learn how to have an orgasm during sex with her husband. A lot of the focus in the sessions was on giving herself permission to have an orgasm, and a lot of the exercises she had to do, both solo and with her husband, were aimed at helping her learn to recognize her arousal level and then, when she was ready, decide to have an orgasm.

It seems an odd way to talk about a process that most scientists describe as completely involuntary, but the therapy program is quite successful and many women have learned to take at least some control over their own orgasms in this way. As I learned about it, I started to play around with some of the exercises, and I have effectively taught myself enough control to let me intentionally trigger an orgasm when I’m almost ready to have one anyway. I cheat a little bit, by squeezing my legs together as I do it, but it still sounds an awful lot like what Jack is doing.

If the mind can turn off the ability to have an orgasm – and it clearly can – then it’s reasonable to assume that it can also turn it on, at least when conditions are already ripe for it. When Jack found out how to trigger his, he probably wasn’t taking direct mental control of some on/off switch in his sympathetic nervous system (SNS). Instead, he had stumbled on something barely on the border of consciousness that sent some signal to the SNS that made it decide to start the orgasm a little bit earlier than it would have – and in the process of changing the timing, he managed to separate the trigger for the orgasm from the trigger for ejaculation.

Not A Guide, But Hints That Might Help

I can’t tell you how to learn how to do this, but I can give you some suggestions based on these two men’s quite different experiences. First, and by far the most important: change your style of masturbation completely! (This is a good idea anyway, as we will see.) Instead of a hard fast stroke on the head and shaft of the penis, learn to use a slow, soft, caressing style that includes your testicles, perineum, inner thighs, and lower abdomen. 

Meditate for at least 15 minutes before you start, so you are thoroughly relaxed. Spread oil over the whole area. Explore. Experiment. Above all, take your time. Keep your breathing slow and regular. Pay very close attention to your level of arousal. Use the squeeze and tug techniques as necessary to stretch out the masturbation process to at least 30 minutes. In other words, try hard to make masturbation as similar as possible to your partner’s best lingam massage.

Once you can reliably do that, get yourself to a point that might be 20-40 seconds before you would normally climax, stop stroking, and begin to imagine your climax starting. Try random things. Squeeze your legs together and contract your stomach muscles, then relax them. Tense and release your Kegel muscles several times, as quickly as possible. (This has to be light and ultra-fast, just a flutter. Do NOT clench hard or tense and hold!) Search around in your mind for thoughts or images that might trigger an orgasm. If you remember fantasizing to orgasm as a kid, try that now. And when you do come, pay close attention to the difference in sensation during the one or two seconds after the orgasm starts in the brain, just before the "point of no return" feeling and before the first ejaculatory contractions begin.

Jack said that when he was learning this, he got to a point a little bit short of orgasm, stopped all physical stroking, and just imagined the last time Lita had given him a lingam massage. He concentrated on reliving that experience until just thinking about it finally triggered an orgasm, including ejaculation, from the mental stimulus alone. He said it took quite a bit longer than it would have if he had continued stroking, and what was interesting was that there was also a lot longer than the normal interval – maybe 4 or 5 seconds instead of the usual 1 or 2 – between the onset of the orgasm and the onset of the ejaculation. He thought the experience helped him understand the difference between the two, which let him develop better mental control.

You could also try this as you near the end of a lingam massage. Have your partner bring you right to the edge, and then signal her to stop completely. At that point, try to trigger an intentional NEO. The disadvantage, however, is that if you have been successful in setting up a multi-chakra orgasm, you are very likely to mess it up with this exercise.

Overall, I can’t recommend trying to learn this technique, simply because the failure rate is so high. Jack is the only man I’ve met who has learned it as an adult, and this may be related to his rather unusual work schedule: he spends two weeks a month with a private cabin in the monastic environment of an oil rig, and then gets two weeks off at home. This allows him to masturbate frequently while he's away, without taking anything away from his regular sex life during the other half of each month.

In our next installment, we'll look at some kinds of multiples that nearly all Tantric men experience sooner or later, whether or not they try to learn how to control their orgasms.