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The Latest Alleged Cure-All for Premature Ejaculation? A Prostate Massage

But can that possibly be right?

Most men ejaculate within the first five minutes of sexual intercourse.

That’s actually an improvement from 70 years ago, when Kinsey found that three-quarters of men came within the first two minutes.

And it’s even worse for the guys who actually suffer from premature ejaculation — for whom orgasms arrive in seconds, not minutes.

Over the last few decades, cures for premature ejaculation have included communication, medication, desensitizing creams, thicker condoms and rearranging fantasy baseball rosters. Each of them contain at least some degree of logic (i.e., they all would seemingly numb either your dick or your brain long enough to stave off an orgasm for at least a couple more minutes) — even if their scientific grounding is more dubious than promising.

The latest, however — a prostate massager called Aneros — is a bit of head-scratcher. Its makers claim that the key for longer sexual staying power is best achieved via “prostate massage,” an act that would seem antithetical to preventing orgasm. After all, the act is typically meant to stimulate the so-called male G-spot.

And yet, from an Aneros press release we recently received:

Aneros has conducted extensive research and went on to become the creator of the only medically patented prostate massager on the market for its stimulating male products … many that help men gain more control of their bodies by retraining to last longer through prostate milking.

Generally speaking, the claim that prostate massages help cure premature ejaculation is rooted in two theories:

  1. It “takes the edge off.” When reservoirs of semen in the prostate are full, the body wants to ejaculate for the same reason it wants to pee when the bladder is full. One way, however, to reduce semen in the prostate is with prostate milking, which can release tension and make you less horny.
  2. It gives your pelvic muscles a workout. Stronger PC muscles — i.e., the ones between the scrotum and rectum you use to stop urinating midstream — allow you to better control your orgasm, since you can squeeze them when you feel like you’re gonna come. Some men are able to continue thrusting while squeezing the pelvic muscle; others need to stop until the sensation subsides.

“Prostate massagers can be used to amplify a traditional (ejaculatory) orgasm or generate a powerful prostate centered orgasm (Male G-spot orgasm/ Super O),” explains Forrest Andrews from Aneros. “With respect to the latter, prostate massagers are used to focus on an alternative arousal pathway. As men become accustomed to generating Super O’s they invariably become more in touch with their bodies, achieving better pelvic floor muscle tone and greater sensual awareness.”

It all still seemed far-fetched.

So I reached out to Paul Nelson, a men’s sexuality educator in New York City, to help me make sense of this device, which looked like a moose cock on a coat hook, and explain how it’s meant to keep the horse in the barn for as long as possible.

It’s not technically wrong to say you’d be entering sex with a slightly less-full tank after milking the prostate, he explains; it’s just a stretch. “It wouldn’t even be on my long list of things to treat premature ejaculation,” he says. The only benefit to premature ejaculation the Aneros might offer, Nelson adds, is in the form of strengthening those pelvic muscles mentioned above by doing Kegel exercises. “That could theoretically — though minimally — help with premature ejaculation,” he explains.

“While the Aneros may help with premature ejaculation this actually occurs more indirectly,” clarifies Andrews. “The Aneros facilitates Male-G-spot orgasms. As men gain mastery over these orgasms they realize control over the erotic energy in their bodies in a more general way as well. We have noted that many men who have Super O’s on demand are capable of choosing what type of orgasm they will have.”

Nelson does use the Aneros with patients he works with as a sexuality educator at his men’s sexual medicine practice. And he’s downright evangelical about the benefits — but to treat the exact opposite of premature ejaculation: delayed ejaculation. “One out of four guys can’t come as fast as they want,” he says. “For men who have trouble reaching climax because of a desensitized penis, we have them wear the Aneros during sex. The motion rocking against the prostate is an incredible sensation that most often results in ejaculation.”

Men can have two kinds of orgasms, Nelson explains: There’s the one everyone knows about — the penile ejaculation orgasm — but there’s also the prostate orgasm. The traditional orgasm, where you blow your load all over the place, is entirely different from the prostate orgasm, where there’s a small leak at most. Still, many men report that prostate stimulation leads to the most powerful orgasms of their lives.

“Men who started using Aneros realized they could have whole-body orgasms that have nothing to do with the penis,” Nelson says. “Enormous, super orgasms from anal and prostate massage with no ejaculation, no erection, no nothing. It’s like a female orgasm. It’s unbelievable. It will change your life. And the nice thing is, because there’s not an ejaculation, there’s no flood of prolactin afterwards, which normally turns off all sexual desire. So you could have multiple prostate orgasms for hours.”

But back to the topic at hand: avoiding orgasms.

Nelson says premature ejaculation is difficult to treat because men are hardwired to ejaculate quickly. Evolutionarily, mammals are vulnerable when mating because they let their defenses down — both the fight and the flight. So we’ve evolved to want to dump our seed as fast as possible and run off before bears and coyotes can eat us. “When a man presents with premature ejaculation,” Nelson explains, “the first treatment is medical — typically Sertaline [brand name: Zoloft].”

You know how antidepressants often result in a low libido? For the same reasons, in very small doses, they also can help to delay ejaculation.

Nelson’s description of the second treatment is reminiscent of my afternoon with a masturbation coach: “I teach men to learn how to identify when the orgasmic energy is rising by practicing edging while standing up with their knees bent. We change their masturbation technique to a yoga practice, basically, and that’s mindful and focused on the breath. It’s the mind-body connection that will eventually help you control the ejaculation.”

In other words, it has very little to do with your ass.