This year’s Election Day was arguably the single-most anticipated event in modern political U.S. history. November 3, 2020, was going to give one side of the electorate or the other cause for great celebration. Then COVID-19 happened, and because millions of Americans sent mail-in ballots to help mitigate the virus’ spread, the election results were excruciatingly stymied. It was as if the entire country was collectively edging itself, waiting to pop at the news of a projected winner.
To some of edging’s most ardent devotees, however, this was nothing — they apparently go for much longer than half a week. When we’re talking about edging and masturbation, the possibilities seem endless.
Me: Give it to me, baby…
AP election map:
Me: It’s growing!
AP election map: Its called edging, bitch. Just wait for it.
— dysmorphia (@dysmorphia_wb) November 6, 2020
Reddit Edging Challenge
In the Reddit forum r/EdgingTalk, you’ll find posts with titles that read “7 Days and It Feels So Good,” “Day 10 Update,” and “100 Days of Edging to Cum to an End.” There’s even one post, “Almost 9 Months Without Release,” written by a dude who says he’s “going crazy” from his extensive edging, but “having fun at the same time.” Through the subreddit, he sought “fellow experienced edgers” to provide him “mental support to get [past] this period of extreme horniness.”
Some edgers’ streaks are so lengthy that they need to stretch out their core muscles to continue it, while others edge for such a long time that they get “stupid,” unable to focus on simple tasks, with thoughts of sex running interference.
To be clear, when people say they’re “edging” for days on end, throughout that time they’re not just actively masturbating up to the point of no return, and then dialing their efforts back until sensations drift away from orgasm again (though that’s a huge part of it). Their definition of the experience may be broader than that, and can include “any level of anticipation or desire,” says Kenneth Play, an international sex educator.
“You can talk about the space between arousal to the point of no return as a zone of edging,” he observes. Even just looking forward to going on a hot date one night, “all the drama in your own head, building up the anticipation” could be perceived as part of edging.
How to Edge, According to One Expert
A pseudonymous 19-year-old college student named Ray tells me he edged every day for a month, but with daily masturbation sessions, the longest of which lasted five hours. When he finally finished himself off at the end of the month, he says he enjoyed “one of the best orgasms” he’s ever had. “My legs were shaking and my cock twitched a lot and I lost my breath,” he explains.
Ray’s edging practice is to simply stop stroking himself when he’s close to cumming. A guy can also grip the head of his cock to keep the ejaculate from shooting out, forcing the load back deeper into his reproductive organs where it’ll conveniently be reabsorbed. VoyeurOfBliss, who, along with his wife, publishes edging tutorials on Reddit and Pornhub, says there’s also the “dry male orgasm.” “The technique often involves a well-timed manual contraction of the kegel just as the male orgasm starts, interrupting the flow of semen,” he says. “This can stop, block or redirect the semen; sometimes it can end up in the bladder.”
Female Edging Works Too
When it comes to women edging, VoyeurOfBliss says, “they have smooth muscle inside the vagina and uterus that can shift and change opportunities for stimulation.” “The cervix may move to allow better access to the A-spot or P-spot,” he continues. “The G-spot may swell and become sensitive to both pressure and friction. The outer and inner clit can stiffen and increase to extreme sensitivity.”
Women can achieve multiple orgasms while edging and/or resist a single orgasm. VoyeurOfBliss also notes that “the refractory period trigger can be similar to a man, in that a combination of things may cause it, while restraining can prevent it.” For example: Edge the G-spot and clit together until the second before an orgasm is about to trigger, then quit stimulating the clit while continuing stimulation of the G-spot. “The clit, similar to the penis, still has anxiety for a climax, and completely blocks the refractory period,” VoyeurOfBliss says. “Cycling through techniques can give some women access to limitless orgasms, during sex or edging foreplay. The highly sought-after squirting female orgasm can be learned much easier by testing techniques back-to-back this way.”
“Stephanie,” a pseudonymous 24-year-old pastry chef who lives on the West Coast, says, for her, edging is about “taking the time to explore my body and learn new things that feel good sexually.” She discloses that her longest edging session lasted nine straight hours. “I wanted to hold myself on the edge for so long that there was no way I could possibly prevent the orgasm,” she tells me.
But why subject yourself to such torture?
‘Stuck in a Haze of Pleasure’: Edging and Better Sex
The anticipation of a release that will probably be more explosive than if you orgasm more regularly is a primary reason. “The more you build up your cum, the bigger and more satisfying it’ll be,” says redditor LeonardoMancino. The longest he’s ever edged is only three days, and he says it still took him years of practice to be able to do it. “I edge that long until my cock oozes precum and I cum hard,” he explains, shooting his outsized load over his head, sometimes hitting his own face.
Women report similar sensations, even while not ejaculating in the same way men do. Stephanie says the orgasm she experienced after nine hours of edging was the best she’s ever had in her life. Another female, a 20-year-old college student who asked to be referred to as “Tiffany,” says her personal edging record is three weeks. It took “a lot of trial and error,” she says, to “figure out what worked and what didn’t, what would push me over the edge or encourage me to orgasm.” When her epic edging ended, “My orgasm was unbelievable,” she says. “I found that the build-up was much more intense, the orgasm itself lasted longer and was much more enjoyable, and post-orgasm, I was in a much better mood than with regular orgasms. I was almost stuck in a haze of pleasure.”
This redditor says edging led to better sex between him and his wife in part because he’s “learned to appreciate going slow and feeling the build-up of cum in my balls and feeling how hard my cock gets.” His partner, on the other hand, has noted a gratifying boost in intensity between the sheets.
Edging to Build Stamina and Last Longer
“As you edge more and more, you get a better understanding of when you’re about to cum, and when you’re having sex, it helps your body train for that so you can control your climax and choose when you want to cum,” says Daniel Saynt, founder of the New York City sex club NSFW. He sees edging as a reminder that the act of sex as a whole should be gratifying, not just the orgasm. “When you have sex with someone, you don’t have to cum,” he says. “Sometimes you just want to enjoy the experience of sex, so edging allows you to do that without making climax be the highlight or the end-all of sex.”
There are some who enjoy edging so much that it can be a kink. “Letting go and not having control of that release is what they get off on,” says New York-based dominatrix Mistress D, who sometimes edges her male submissives. “When they actually do get a release, it’s a much bigger release for them because they’re honing in on that energy for a long time and building up on it.”
Mistress D says she’s edged clients off and on for up to six hours. She pays close attention to muscle tension, breathing patterns and verbal cues, getting to know their bodies over time, so as to deduce when she can change course away from orgasm. Meanwhile, the longest continuous edging of someone she’s pulled off lasted two straight hours. “It was a pretty big load,” she says. Normally in such a scenario, that client would have engaged in body shakes while cumming, but “he was actually bound down,” she explains, “so he couldn’t really move and that added on to the experience.”
Edging Porn: Gooning, Goon Caves and Goon State, Explained
Some guys are able to edge for so long while watching porn that they report entering a trance-like, meditative state. This phenomenon — apparently reserved only for men — is known as gooning. There are subreddits where users share porn pics and clips, as well as memes that encourage edgers to keep on ’bating. There’s also r/GoonCaves, featuring user-submitted photos of multi-screen setups splaying a variety of porn that are utilized in gooning sessions.
“I usually don’t enter a goon state until around two to three hours of edging, though I have gotten to that point after like 15 minutes,” says redditor Christfister, who moderates r/GoonCaves and r/GOONED. “When you can get to that point and can maintain it without cumming, you can basically stay in an orgasm state that lasts for hours instead of seconds. I’ve had gooning sessions where I’ve edged for 14 hours in a single sitting before finally cumming.”
It’s anyone’s guess as to who holds the world record for edging. The best we can come up with is the accepted record for consecutive time spent masturbating — at least, publicly — which is 9 hours and 33 minutes. But one person on Reddit recently imagined what it would feel like to edge for 16 years, in what must certainly be a satirical post. “The release was monstrous,” wrote Sternmoose. “My penis contracted so hard my shaft vacuum sealed and caused such pressure to build up that the next jizz rocket slammed a hole through my ceiling. I blacked out after that, and woke up in a pool of my own brogurt dazed and confused, but somehow at peace.”
Perhaps the perfect metaphor for how Biden supporters felt 84 hours after Election Day concluded.
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Your Hardest Questions About Sex, Answered
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Michael Stahl
Michael Stahl is a freelance writer based in New York City. He's covered the arts and culture, sex and relationships, business and tech, history and politics and other topics for Rolling Stone, Vice, Vulture, CityLab, Quartz, Narratively and many more publications. Follow him on Twitter @MichaelRStahl and read more of his work at MichaelStahlWrites.com.
