Orgasm and Ejaculation

To become a multi-orgasmic man, you need to understand some basic facts about your anatomy. The most important fact is that orgasm and ejacu­lation are different. This is so startling to most men (and women) that we need to explain exactly how they are different. Let us begin by defining orgasm and ejaculation. Physiologically, an orgasm is the contraction and pulsation that most men feel in their penis, prostate, and pelvic area. It is accompanied by an increased heart rate, breathing rate, and blood pressure and results in a sudden release of tension.¹

Obviously, orgasm is much more than these rather mechanical physiologi­cal changes. It is the peak experience of sex for most people, and it is one of the most intense and pleasurable parts of being human. If you have ever had an orgasm, and almost all men have, you know exactly what we are describing.

Ejaculation, however, is simply a reflex that occurs at the base of the spine and results in the ejection of semen. It is, in short, simply an involuntary muscle spasm.

Granted, it is a pleasurable muscle spasm, but it is a muscle spasm nonetheless. Since so many men have learned to connect all the pleasure of orgasm with ejaculation, it is important to understand that most of the light­ning and thunder that you associate with ejaculation is really what occurs with orgasm with or without ejaculation.

In a moment we will review the scientific evidence that shows that men can have multiple orgasms, but it may be easier to begin with your own expe­rience. In fact, you may have experienced multiple orgasms at some time in your life. Many men experience them before they enter adolescence and begin to ejaculate.

As you may remember, boys only start to produce sperm (and therefore the ability to ejaculate) once they enter adolescence, usually around the age of thirteen. However, most boys masturbate before they reach this age. During this time, they experience orgasm without ejaculating.

Many boys continue to masturbate after one orgasm, and since they do not ejaculate they maintain their erection. Alfred Kinsey, the pioneering sex researcher, in his famous book Sexual Behavior in the Human Male reported that half of all pre-adolescent boys (around twelve or younger) were able to experience two orgasms in a row, and almost a third were able to experience five or more one after the other. He concluded that "climax is clearly possible without ejaculation."²

Multiple orgasms, however, are not simply child's play or one of the lost pleasures of youth. Kinsey studied older men as well and concluded, "Orgasm may occur without the emission of semen. . . . These males experience real orgasm which they have no difficulty in recognizing, even if it is without ejac­ulation.^"3 Dr. Herant Katchadourian, professor of human sexuality at Stanford University and the author of the standard textbook Fundamentals of Human Sexuality, explains, "Some men are able to inhibit the emission of semen [avoid ejaculating] while they experience the orgasmic contractions: in other words they have non-ejaculatory orgasms. Such orgasms do not seem to be fol­lowed by a refractory period [loss of erection], thereby allowing these men to have consecutive or multiple orgasms like women."⁴

There have long been anecdotal studies of men who claim to have mul­tiple orgasms, but the first laboratory study of male multiple orgasms was conducted by sex researchers William Hartman and Marilyn Fithian. They tested thirty-three multi-orgasmic men men who could have two or more orgasms without losing their erection.

While the men had sex with their partners, Hartman and Fithian moni­tored their heart rate, which rises from around 70 beats per minute during rest to 120 beats per minute during orgasm (see chart). They also mea­sured their pelvic contractions (which could be monitored through the invol­untary squeezing of the anus that accompanies orgasm). They found that the arousal charts for multi-orgasmic men were exactly the same as for multi-orgasmic women.

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Arousal chart for multi-orgasmic man (! = PEAK OF ORGASM)

In Hartman and Fithian's study, the average number of orgasms a multi-orgasmic man had was four. Some had the minimum of two, and one had six­teen. In another study, by sex researchers Marion Dunn and Jan Trost, most men reported having between two and nine orgasms before losing their erec­tion.5

In their famous book, The G-Spot and Other Recent Discoveries About Human Sexuality, Alice Ladas, Beverly Whipple, and John Perry argued that male and female sexuality were much more similar than we tend to think. In addition to their discovery of the G spot, they also reported that men could have multiple orgasms like women. We tend to think that male sexuality is simple and identical from one man to the next, while female sexuality is com­plex and differs dramatically from one woman to the next. The truth is that ejaculation is simple, as are all bodily reflexes (think of hitting your funny bone), but orgasm, which involves our most sophisticated sexual organ, the brain, is quite complex and variable depending on the person, the sexual experience, and even the individual orgasm.

So, if men can have multiple orgasms like women and half of all boys experience multiple orgasms before adolescence, what happens that makes them lose this ability?

Apparently, most men lose the ability to have multiple orgasms when they start ejaculating in adolescence. Orgasm and ejaculation take place within seconds of each other and for most men become one and the same. In the next section, you will learn (or possibly relearn) how to separate the two once again. This will allow you to experience the crescendo of orgasm many times before or even without the crash of ejaculation.