Cum Too Fast? Learn Why Some Men Ejaculate Faster Than Others

If you lack control over your ejaculation and you cum too fast, you may suffer from premature ejaculation. You can learn more about the biological explanation on What is Premature Ejaculation page or on the Causes of Premature Ejaculation page. Here, we want to explain why some men ejaculate sooner than others in sexological terms. We illustrate how ejaculation works and how some men react differently to arousal.

How does ejaculation work?

Ejaculation is a reflex. It occurs when you meet a certain threshold of arousal. Men who ejaculate faster than others have a more sensitive arousal response. Because of neurobiological factors, they get aroused more easily and more quickly.

Just like any reflex, the ejaculation reflex is involuntary. Thus, you can’t have any control over your ejaculation. Arousal is a response. Although it’s not possible to “control” your arousal, there are some ways to modulate it. If you learn how to manage your arousal response, you will learn how to slow things down and not come too fast. But first, we need to understand what is the arousal response.

How to Not Cum Fast

Your arousal is like a balloon that inflates. When a balloon contains too much air, it bursts. At a certain point, there’s nothing you can do, the balloon is just too filled out; it’ll explode.

If you want to delay the “explosion,” you have two option. First, you can learn how to let less enter your balloon. Second, if you let too much air in, you can still let some air out.

Arousal is the way our body prepares us for reproduction by leading men to erection and ejaculation.

In our example, our balloon is inflated by air. In sex, stimuli inflate arousal.

How does arousal work?

Nop, this stimulus doesn’t arouse me!

Yep, this stimulus raise my arousal level!

A stimulus is something that excites our senses. It could be the view of the naked body of our partner, her smell, her moaning, our touch, etc. Anything that we can see, smell, hear, taste or touch are stimuli interpreted by our brain.

Our brain can consider a stimulus sexually arousing or not. For example, for heterosexual men, the view of an attractive naked woman would be, most of the time, considered sexually arousing by our brain. This view would increase our arousal level. On the other hand, the sight of a wooden chair would do nothing to our arousal level.

Arousal works on two levels. There’s a physical and a psychological component to it.

Psychological Arousal

The psychological aspect of arousal is when you feel aroused. It’s your brain interpreting stimuli as arousing. You see your beautiful naked partner; it provokes something in you. You’re heart rate increase, and you can feel your sex becoming harder. It’s the start of an erection, one of the first reaction to arousal.

While some men can gain an erection only by psychological arousal, other would need physical stimuli on top of their psychological arousal.

For example, some men will be hard just by looking at their partner naked body. Other men, would need genital stimulation on top of the sight. They would have to ask their partner to caress their penis, or start to masturbate themselves, to be fully erect.

In the same vein, some men with severe premature ejaculation issue can orgasm only with psychological arousal.

While most men need physical stimulation to come, men who suffer from ante portas premature ejaculation ejaculate before they enter the vagina. Erotics thoughts and stimuli are enough to make them cum. The will climax even if no one touche their penis.

Physical Arousal

Physical arousal occurs when someone touches your sex. It’s the genital stimulation aspect of sex.

While in most case, physical arousal happens at the same time of psychological arousal, it can occur independently.

Most of the time, when your partner touch your sex (physical arousal), you are already psychologically aroused by other stimuli (like the view of your partner). Still, physical arousal can happen without psychological arousal. For example, for research purposes, scientists can test your response to physical stimuli by plugging your sex to a piece of equipment that induces an electric current. This purely physical arousal could be enough to provoke an erection and ejaculation. You will come even if you do not feel aroused by the experience.

To Slow Things Down…

So, if you want to “not cum so fast”, you have to do two things.

First, you need to reduce the number of arousing stimuli (psychological and physical). Of course, those stimuli are what make sex fun in the first place. Yet, there are some ways to reduce the impact of an erotic stimulus. As you can read at the end of this article, sex therapy, masturbation exercises or desensitizing products can help you with that.

Second, you can learn how to calm yourself during sex. Some relaxation, meditation and breathing techniques can help you reduce your level of arousal. Here again, sex therapy can help you with that.

Arousal Response: Why You Cum Too Fast

The reason why some men cum too fast is because each man responds differently to arousing stimuli. Let divide our arousing level on a scale of 10. Zero is the point where you are not aroused at all and 10 is the point where you ejaculate. Let say that you get a full erection at 5. At 2 you’re starting to get hard without having a full erection.

Imagine a simple scenario. You are with your partner, and you exchange kisses. She undresses you while you do the same for her. You are both naked. This simple scenario can be interpreted differently by different guys.

The Average Guy Response

Jim Case (normal psychological and physical response)

Jim is an average guy in term of arousal sensitivity. Jim’s arousal level would be at 1 after the kissing and at 2 after the undressing stage. Thus, he has a soft erection and a lot of room left for the next steps. When genital stimulation begins (for example his partner start masturbating him), he should be able to last for a long time.

The Premature Ejaculation Response

Mark Case (sensitive psychological response and normal physical response)

Mark is a premature ejaculator and he is way more sensitive to psychological stimuli than Jim. When the kissing stage becomes more intense, he starts anticipating what will come next and he became more psychologically aroused than Jim. His arousal level is at 5 while everybody still has their clothes on. When they finally get undressed, Mark already has an erection. The fact of seeing his partner naked is enough to inflate his arousal level from 5 to 7. Unlike Jim, he doesn’t have 8 stages of arousal left, but only 3. When things get more serious, Mark will ejaculate quicker than that Jim.

John Case (normal psychological response and sensitive physical response)

Now, imagine John. John is also a premature ejaculator, but unlike Mark, he has a reasonably good response to psychological stimulation. In fact, his arousal response is the same as Jim’s. The difference between Jim and him it’s the physical arousal response. As soon as genital stimulation occurs (masturbation in our example), his arousal level will increase quicker than Jim, and he will not last as long as him.

Matt Case (sensitive psychological and physical response)

Matt is a severe premature ejaculator. Just like Mark, his arousal level is sensitive to psychological arousal. But unlike him, he is also sensitive to physical arousal (like John). So, he will be at 7 after the undressing, and he will get at 10 almost as soon as the physical stimulation happens. That’s why Matt come even faster than Mark and John.

The 4 arousal responses

As you can see, Matt will come faster than John and Mark, and John and Mark will come quicker than Jim.  Here is a graph that compares the 4 arousal responses with an estimation of the time they will last while stimulated by their partner:

Why Some Men Cum Too Fast (Why They Have a Sensitive Arousal Response)?

The way your brain and nervous system react to arousal is not totally understood, but we suspect endocrinal (hormones) and neurological causes. For example, a diminished serotonin level is linked to a more sensitive arousal. The same is true for some hormones like testosterone and TSH play also a role. Some psychological and behavioral reasons are also suspected. You can read the Premature Ejaculation Causes page for more information.

How to Stop Yourself from Cumming Fast

There are some strategies that we can adopt to develop a slower sexual response. We will take a look at the different approaches that can help you slow things down.

Is it possible to be less sensitive?

Our goal is to be able to modulate our arousal response. In a perfect world, we would be able to stop the increase of arousal while it’s high enough to have pleasure but still before it’s too close to the ejaculation point. Somewhere between 7 and 8. We call this arousal response the plateau. Some men can sustain this plateau as long as they want. They have perfect arousal control.

Mastering the plateau response is hard, even for a guy who has an average arousal response like Jim. You can find below the best ways to achieve this desired response and to last longer.

Exercises and behavioral therapy

Some exercises and therapy (home self-therapy, professional sex therapy or online therapy) could help you with your psychological arousal response.

The goal of those exercises is to learn to be aware of where you stand on the 1-to-10 arousal scale. When you’re conscious of how aroused you are, you can develop some tricks to calm yourself and let your excitement go down a little

Desensitization Products

If you always you cum early, even if you don’t feel particularly aroused, it’s possible that your issues lie on the physical side. If you want to test your physical arousal response, you can try the premature ejaculation training test.

There are some easy ways to slow down your physical arousal. It consists of blocking the signals the penis send to the brain with a local anesthetic. Lidocaine and benzocaine products are available over-the-counter in different formats (condoms, gel, cream, spray). Those products could help you not to cum too fast and masteries the plateau response.

For example, with a product like Promescent, you won’t feel the same urge to ejaculate when your partner stimulates your penis. Thanks to the lidocaine, during intercourse, you’ll only have to manage the psychological arousal. Promescent will take care of the physical aspect.

Prescription Drugs

Finally, some prescription drugs, like SSRIs, can also be an option for more severe cases. By altering your serotonin levels, the drugs will have a direct effect on your arousal response.

However, since those drugs act on your entire nervous system, it can have some side effect. It’s important to note that drugs treatment for premature ejaculation requires a doctor prescription. You should always consult a doctor before taking a pill for premature ejaculation.