Mastering Sexual Stamina: a Practical and Comprehensive Guide to Lasting Longer in Bed Naturally

Welcome to the shelter, my man. Now, you are on your way towards mastering your sexual stamina.

It’s not going to be easy, but it’s going to be freeing. I’ve been there. I know how it feels to be held hostage by your urge to ejaculate. Today, I am a free man. Tomorrow (figurative sense), you will be too. 

A couple of years back, it felt like my penis was in the driver's seat. As soon as I was entering the vagina, it was “go-time”. Honestly, it sucked. Every time I was having sex with my girlfriend, the pressure would grow. My insecurity kept me from opening up to her. My toolkit to keep my premature ejaculation a secret was vast. One of the most pathetic attempts went as far as simply to continue to hump her after I came. I then proceeded to fake an orgasm at a time that I considered appropriate. This is how embarrassed I was at 19. 

You might be less embarrassed, you might be more embarrassed. Ain't matter. We got this.

Before we start, try not to view your fast orgasm as something purely negative. Consider the upside. You have a fully functional package and are good at becoming aroused. That’s a great starting point! 

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The goal is not to last as long as possible

We find that the average man lasts 5.4 minutes during intercourse (Waldinger et al., 2005). So the average time is just over 5 minutes. Typically, 7-13 minutes of vaginal penetration seem to be ideal for female pleasure (Corty & Guardian, 2008). 

I say, every human is different and every sexual experience is different. Don’t let stats define what works for you and your loved one/s. I’ve had great sex where I came after one minute and I have also gone to pound town for an hour. 

Most other guides will tell you that you need to delay your orgasm as long as possible. The typically proposed equation is:

Reduced Arousal = Later Orgasm. 

The full equation, however, looks like this:

‍Reduced arousal = Less Pleasure = Later Orgasms

This is because the more aroused you are, the better stimulation will feel. 

So, if you follow traditional advice, you will inevitably try to avoid your own pleasure. Now, isn’t the idea of sex is to give and receive pleasure?

Women care less about penetration than you

We men tend to see penetration as the main event. That’s what we look forward to. That’s why we are here. It appears that vaginas are spectacularly good at granting men orgasmic relief. A massive 96% of men reach climax with only vaginal stimulation (Richters et al., 2006). 

However, women’s conception of amazing sex is vastly different. Only less than one in five women can achieve orgasm during intercourse alone (Herbenick et al., 2018). That means, even if you’d last a solid two hours, it would be nothing but dreadful to 80% of all women. 

In other words, lasting long is not required to be a great lover. Lasting longer is mostly about your ego and not about the pleasure of your partner. 

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You will satisfy a woman with holistic stimulation

According to science (Frederick et al., 2017; Richters et al., 2006), there is an array of things that you can do to increase your partner's chance to climax:

• Extensive foreplay
• Manual stimulation
• Oral stimulation 
• More oral stimulation (you get the idea; this one is important)
• Anal stimulation
• Taking your time
• Praising something they’ve done in bed
• Expression of your love
• Sexy talk
• Novelty (new positions, sexual fantasies, locations)
• Teasing them before sex (during the day, week)

Generally, women like it if you combine multiple sexual acts in one session. Then the likelihood that your female partner will orgasm is vastly increased. 

Also, the happier a woman is with the relationship, the better her sexual satisfaction (ibid.). I’ll do an in-depth guide about all of this. Subscribe to my newsletter, so that you won’t miss it😉

You don’t have to master your sexual stamina to be a great lover

The biggest barrier to being a great lover is anxiety and shame. If you feel these emotions during sex, you will be busy with yourself. 

What you need to create great sexual experiences is freedom. Freedom from performance-related shame and pressure. Then, you have the power to turn your head off and enjoy the sensations that your own and your partner(s) bodies are granting you. 

Sex will turn from something stressful to something that you savor. For me, sex is one of the safest spaces. Sharing intimacy is one of these moments when I feel truly present and in my comfort zone. 

Besides learning about your ejaculatory control, there is another way of setting yourself free from performance anxiety: truly accepting that you are unable to control when you orgasm. If you are comfortable with the intensity and duration of the penetrative parts of your sexual experiences, you are free, too. 

Your limited orgasm control has only power over you as long as you care about it. Once you realize that it’s okay to orgasm whenever you are no longer limited in your ability to please your partner. 

Truth to be told, acceptance of limited control over when you orgasm can be difficult to achieve. We, men, like to feel in control after all. Recognizing and internalizing that sexual stamina is just for yourself requires inner work in itself. It’s not a shortcut.

Why bother about the mastery of your sexual stamina?

One word: Pleasure. Let me explain:

I am not worried about my performance in bed. Instead of trying to fight my arousal, I welcome it. Within the first one or two minutes, I get so heated that I could orgasm on command at any time. I am basically edging at a 9-9.5/10 on the arousal scale for the majority of the penis in vagina (PIV) sex. 

It’s like dancing on a razor's edge and it feels freaking awesome. 

Let’s do some math: 

We assume that we are aiming to have 13 minutes of vaginal sex, which is the upper end of what women find ideal (Corty & Guardiani, 2008). 

For the sake of simplicity, we assume that pleasure and arousal increase linearly.

So, the average guy lasts 5.3 minutes (Waldinger et al., 2005). That would mean he is receiving ~11 points of pleasure during vaginal intercourse. 

Let’s assume you follow typical advice to delay your orgasm and you end up lasting 13 minutes. Here you would yield ~65 points of pleasure. Pretty nice. 

Now let’s say that you are applying what you are learning here. Wow, what a heavenly feeling at ~115 pleasure points! You must be dreaming. 

Bazinga. A 76.9% increase in pleasure. 

Of course, this calculation is not meant to be taken at face value. There are way too many factors at play to determine your pleasure. Still, I hope you get the idea. 
Another side-effect of this increase in pleasure is that you will get way more enthusiastic in the bedroom. This newfound enthusiasm will then make you even better at pleasuring your partner. 

Anyways, let’s get on with it.

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Step 1: Alleviate performance-related anxiety

Anxiety is crippling and will limit your growth. So, if you are suffering from performance anxiety or any other strong negative feelings around sex, you have to start by addressing them. Unfortunately, it's normal for us men to see intimacy as a sexual performance. This performance mindset already puts you at a disadvantage. 

You don't need to feel ashamed of how long you last. If you feel overwhelmed, please get help. It’s okay to ask for help. It really is. Talking to a trusted person or a therapist will make it much easier to overcome your fears and means that you are taking care of your mental health. 

I am happy to receive your message as well and will do my best to answer you as soon as possible. Just note that I am not a trained sex therapist and can’t help you with any trauma or disorders. I want to urge you to consult a licensed professional in your area for this.

I’ll write an article about how to conquer sex-related performance anxiety and link it here soon. Feel free to subscribe to my newsletter so that you can read it as soon as I have finished it. 

On a quick note, things you can try:

• Meditation
• Communicating with your partner/s about your anxiety to get their support
• Connect with others online (reddit: r/Sex, r/SexPositive, r/MensLib are good starting points)
• Internalize that the duration you are able to have intercourse has no major significant effect on the pleasure your partner feels
  

You can also try short-term tricks that make you last longer: 

• Masturbate before you have sex
• Use thicker condoms
• Numbing agent
• Stop-squeeze technique
• Inflict mild pain like a bite in your hand
• Think about something that you don’t find arousing
• Desensitizing spray (never tried, so can’t vouch for that)
• Switch sex positions if you get close (if you are being assertive a tease can make sex more) interesting)
• Have a few drinks (don’t make it a habit to drink before a sexual encounter, alcohol dependence is a severe illness)
  

I don’t recommend relying on any of these eternally. The idea here is for you to gain more confidence in your abilities with these tricks. Think of them as swimming wings. 

The most effective tip: If you can, first make your partner come and then have intercourse. This way, the experience is already great for your partner and doesn’t rely on intercourse. After your orgasm, you will feel tired and it’s going to be much harder to do this. Also, many women have been conditioned to see the male orgasm as the end of sex. 

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Step 2: Develop a growth mindset around sex

You won’t master your sexual stamina overnight. So, if you are in for a quick fix, I have to disappoint you. It took me roughly 3 years of regular practice to be at a level where I could control it most of the time. I have experienced many failures during this period. I was learning a new and exciting skill. So, I was trying to enjoy the walk instead of being fixated on the goal. I am not going to lie; it was a bumpy road. 

So, be patient and give yourself time. 

If you happen to come earlier than you wanted. So, be it. There is always the next round. 

Be resilient, never surrender

When you were a baby and you just fell on your feet for the thousandth time, did you decide that this walking thing isn’t for you? No, you kept on trying. The thought of whether you would be able to learn how to walk never crossed your mind. 

At some point, you might feel like you simply cannot learn how to control your orgasm. You might start questioning whether you are really capable of getting there. 

Let me answer that question for you. You can and you will. Just keep trying. 

I’ve read two books that are super helpful to obtaining a resilient growth mindset:

The Obstacle is the Way - Ryan Holiday

Mindset - Carol Dweck

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Read these books if you are struggling with your confidence in your ability to learn. Scrap that, just read them. 

You are doing this for yourself

I said it before and I will say it again. Most women don’t care how long you last. Some inexperienced partners might be stuck on wanting a partner that lasts particularly long (because it’s “manly”). If that’s the case, it’s likely that she is insecure herself and hasn’t fully understood what she likes. As always, exceptions exist. 

Anyways, that means that you don’t need to compare yourself with anyone else. Don’t see it as a contest. See it as something that you are excited to learn out of your own interest. You want to learn this because it makes sex more pleasurable for yourself. Through that, you might be able to create better experiences for your partner/s 😉

Step 3: Become aware of your body

Before you can control your orgasm, you need to understand what happens in your body when your arousal increases until you ultimately climax. 

I am going to keep it simple. If you want to gain a deeper understanding, you can read this:
Human Sexual Response Cycle; Normal Male Sexual Function

So, when you are stimulated sexually and you get more aroused, you will likely feel a couple of sensations: 

• Your heart pounds faster
• The frequency of your breath becomes higher and your breath becomes more shallow
• More blood rushes towards your penis and it becomes harder
• You become a bit jittery and a slight feeling of impatience might arise
• Your testicles tense up
  

When you are under a lot of stress, you will be busy thinking about not screwing up. You would not be able to observe much of what’s going on in your body. That’s why it’s important to resolve stress first. 

Bodily cues tell you about your level of arousal

Every human being will experience the “side-effects” of arousal differently and to a varying degree. Each of your sexual experiences will be different, too. That’s why it will take time to get an intuitive feeling for your own arousal. 

Still, eventually, you will get the hang of reading the time on your arousal clock.

The most important indicators for your arousal are (Jacob & Allarakha, 2020):

• Increase in heart rate
• Increase in respiratory rate
• Increase in erection strength
• Increase in muscle tension
  

Note: The correlation may vary over time and among individuals. 

Control your breath

Unconsciously, you will take shallower and shallower breaths the more excited you get. Automatically, your breathing accelerates as well. 

Your body uses a shallow breathing pattern to deal with stressful situations. Your body activates its shallow breathing when “it prepares to confront or avoid danger” (Harvard Medical School, 2020). 

Shallow breathing also sets you up for a rapid and difficult to manage arousal. From an evolutionary perspective, it makes total sense to ejaculate quickly when in danger. Imagine you have found a beautiful stone age lady for a romp. Suddenly, you hear another, potentially stronger male. You tense up as your body gets ready to fight or flight. But first, you hastily pump your load into your female mate to ensure a chance in the casino of genetic survival (Perelman, McMahon & Barada, 2004).

For you, that means that you want to do the exact opposite of shallow breathing. 

By taking deeper, calmer, and more controlled breaths, you are telling your body that you are safe. Deep belly breaths tell your body that no quick shot is required. 

Try to start with 3 - 5 second long, deep and consistent breaths. Don’t hold your breath at any time, not even after the inhalation or exhalation. Imagine like you are a small fishing boat swaying back and forth on the open sea. Your breath should feel fluent. 

In the beginning, you will have to consciously pay attention to your breath. As you gain experience, it will become an increasingly subconscious thing. 

When you are being stimulated, your arousal will typically feel like heat. When you have sex, your penis will feel very hot from all the blood and friction. This heat then radiates through your body and accumulates until you orgasm. When you do your breathing right, it will feel like you are channeling this heat off while you exhale. Through that, you are allowing yourself to enjoy the new sensations your body feels as they come in. It’s a bit like taking the lid off the pot to save it from boiling over🥔

Working out and getting fit will also enable you in the long-term to become better at regulating your breathing. How do you want to control your breath if you are gasping for air 2 minutes into the action? 

The PC muscle: Your closest ally

The pubococcygeus (PC) muscle or pelvic floor muscle is the single most important tool in your arsenal to control when you orgasm. In tantric sex, some men use their PC muscles to achieve multiple orgasms (Lousada & Angel, 2011). Some men do that by firmly clenching their PC muscles when they are about to orgasm and immediately stop any stimulation. This way, the seminal fluid gets redirected into the bladder and the refractory period (the idle time between orgasms) doesn’t set in (Chia & Arava, 2002). This thing is powerful. 

Let’s locate your PC muscle. The easiest way to get a sense of which muscle I am talking about is to go to the toilet and start urinating. Then, simply interrupt the flow of urine. Congratulations🎉

You just used your PC muscle. 

Now, the PC muscle acts like the throttle on a motorcycle. If it is tensed up, it acts as an arousal accelerator. If you relax it, then your arousal will either increase at a much smaller rate, stay the same or slowly reduce. The more you practice, the more effectively relaxing your PC muscle will become at throttling your arousal. 

In the beginning, it will be difficult to get stimulated without tensing up your PC muscle. The more you practice, the easier it will get. 

In order to use your PC muscle for arousal management, you need to work it out. The equivalent of bicep curls for your pelvic floor are called Kegels. Here are two pretty good explanations of how to effectively train your PC muscle through pelvic floor exercises: 

Wikihow; Kegel-Exercises Website

Edit: A user from the Premature Ejaculation subreddit brought the effectiveness of Reverse Kegels to my attention. I personally haven't done this exercise. However, after conducting some research I believe that a 1:1 combination of regular Kegels and Reverse Kegels will most likely yield great results:

‍Tutorial for Reverse Kegels

With training, you will also get better at intuitively sensing and commanding your pelvic floor muscle. 

Tip: Urinate before your training or having sex. A full bladder leads to tension and makes managing your arousal much more difficult. 

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Step 4: Practice

Having sex with another human being requires multi-tasking and controlling when your orgasm is a complicated skill. 

The learning process of sexual stamina feels comparable to learning how to walk or swim. When we are little babies, we aren’t just crawling and in an instant, we transform into Claudia Schiffer, leaving our parents in awe while graciously levitating over the catwalk. Instead, we are learning to walk one fall at a time. 

That’s why I’ve tried to compartmentalize the different elements of orgasm control in such a way that they can be practiced more or less in isolation. Please be patient with yourself and focus on your practice until one element feels more or less effortless. Otherwise, you will easily feel overwhelmed and discouraged. 

When you are having sex, only work on one thing, e.g., while breathing calmly. All the other things don’t matter. One day of sex = one thing you pay attention to. Ideally, you don’t switch your focus until you have made significant improvements. 

Masturbation is your safe practice ground 

Start with mindfully masturbating while paying close attention to your body. Take deliberate time out of your schedule to explore your body. Enjoy. 

You probably have the habit of watching porn. The problem with that is that you become fixated on finding the clip that gets you off or what’s happening on the screen. That’s why I recommend you to stay away from visually stimulating porn if possible. 

The next time you masturbate, try to closely pay attention to your sensations. Do this regularly and try to find patterns. It helps to get a notebook and write down after each session what you felt. 

Tip: If you find it difficult to masturbate just with your thoughts, you can try listening to erotic audio on r/gonewildaudio (nsfw).
Masturbation without any external input will yield the best results, though. 

I’ll write a mindful masturbation guide and link it here soon (you know what to do 😄). 

After 2-3 sessions of mindfully exploring your body, start to calm your breath throughout your self-pleasure process.

After 2-3 calm breath sessions, you can try the “stop-start-technique”. You might know it under the term edging. The idea here is to bring yourself very close to orgasm and then take a brief pause. When your arousal has diminished a bit, return to stimulate yourself. This way, you will get a good grip on your arousal and when you are close.

Another 2-3 sessions in, try to get a feeling for your PC muscle and how it affects your arousal. Start contracting it and see what happens. Then, try to relax your pelvic floor and observe your sensation. 

Don’t forget to write your experiences down 😉

A vagina feels vastly different from a hand 

In other words, you need to get familiar with the penile sensations of sex. If you don’t have a partner with whom you are regularly having sex, no worries. I was using a Fleshlight (an artificial vagina sex toy) to get more used to the feeling of a vagina. I would recommend the Lotus sleeve (haven’t tried anything else and to me, this sleeve feels quite realistic) but feel free to use any toy that is similar and available to you. 

You can apply all the masturbation exercises from above while using the Fleshlight. The Fleshlight is advanced territory. So, I suggest you do the practice cycle once without the Fleshlight and then start to practice with the toy. 

Beyond emulating an actual vagina, the big advantage of a Fleshlight is that you can also practice thrusting into the toy. 

You will quickly realize that the physical exhaustion during actual sex makes everything much more difficult. Therefore, thrusting is great, as it is far closer to real intercourse. The more realistic you can simulate real intercourse during your masturbation practice, the smaller the difference will be when you are having sex with another human. 

If you don’t have the financial means or feel too embarrassed to buy a toy, you can go DIY (haven’t tried, so no idea how authentic that’ll feel):

Build up your arousal tolerance

As you can see in the graph, the urge to orgasm is not growing linearly. Typically, the willpower that is required to not give in to your desire for instant relief grows rather suddenly once you have reached a certain arousal threshold. The more you expose yourself to high levels of arousal, the more aroused you can become before your urge to orgasm grows exponentially. 

This concept can be understood by picturing a freediver who dives underwater on a single breath of air. A freediver’s urge to breathe is mainly caused due to the increased levels of CO2 in his bloodstream. If a freediver now starts with breath-hold training, the body will get accustomed to higher levels of CO2 in the bloodstream. His CO2 tolerance has increased, which means that his urge to breathe starts later into his dive (Schagatay, 2001). 

Through consistent training, similar to a freediver, you can increase your arousal tolerance.
Now, that almost sounds like arousal is something bad. It’s the opposite, arousal makes everything feel even better. So, if we increase our arousal tolerance, we can enjoy very high levels of pleasure with relative ease / low risk of involuntary orgasm.

I personally like to banter in the 9.5 - 10 area because it gives me a wonderful thrill. Of course, I screw that up from time to time and that’s okay😁

If you just want to have a great time, stay outside your exponential arousal growth zone. 

Apply what you have learned during sex

Even when you have practiced a lot by yourself, you will quickly realize that sex is a completely different game. Your physical exhaustion alone increases the frequency of your breath. You are way more excited and you still want to focus on your partner's needs. 

The first time I had sex after all my self-practice felt like a massive setback. I came almost instantly and it was like I haven’t made any improvement whatsoever. Don’t get discouraged. If you consistently work on this, you will get there. 

The key remains the same. Just focus on individual aspects of your sexual stamina and not everything at once. 

The more you practice, the less attention you have to pay to control your orgasm. It’s like driving a car. At some point, you develop an auto-pilot. 

Gain your partner as a supporter (if you have one)

I know. It requires a lot of vulnerability to open up about “wanting to last longer in bed” to your partner. Depending on your relationship, it could feel outright scary. I want to encourage you to give your partner the chance to support you. 

Ask them, you two might be going on a beautiful journey together. Your partner will benefit as much as you by becoming more aware of their own body and pleasure. 

You could give your female-identifying partner one of my favorite books, “Come as You Are” by Emily Nagoski.

It’s a self-awareness journey and will provide her with an understanding of her own lust, arousal, and orgasm. Growing your pleasure together is a beautiful trip that will further foster your bond. 

If your partner doesn’t want to go on this journey together, that’s okay. Don’t pressure them into something. Consent is gold. 

If only you are walking through this journey, your partner still can support you tremendously. Remember the start-stop method? You can do this together with your partner as well. Just tell them when you are close to the edge so that they know when they should stop moving. Then wait for your arousal to fade away before you continue. 

Your partner can also hold you accountable by providing feedback on your breathing, for instance. Either way, I recommend that you thank your companion for their support with actions that they particularly appreciate (as long as you are comfortable doing them). This could be anything like a massage, extended cunnilingus, or even doing the dishes. 

In general, doing this as a team will benefit your relationship and your growth. It’s totally okay if you are not ready to open up to your partner about this too or if you don’t have a partner. 

Get up and get started

You can be a great lover without worrying about how long you last. For my own pleasure and confidence, it was worthwhile to invest my time and effort in acquiring this skill.

Once you embark on your journey towards mastering your sexual stamina, it's vital to be gentle with yourself. To get started, do the 12 mindful masturbation sessions. Put them into your calendar and be consistent. All of this will take time and you will encounter setbacks. Just keep at it and you will get the hang of it.
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If one human being can do it, so can another. 

Sources

Corty, E. W., & Guardiani, J. M. (2008). Canadian and American sex therapists' perceptions of normal and abnormal ejaculatory latencies: How long should intercourse last? The journal of sexual medicine, 5(5), 1251-1256.

Chia, M. C., & Arava, D. A. (2002). The multi-orgasmic man. HarperCollins.

Frederick, D. A., St. John, H. K., Garcia, J. R., & Lloyd, E. A. (2017). Differences in orgasm frequency between gay, lesbian, bisexual, and heterosexual men and women in a U.S. national sample. Archives of Sexual Behavior. doi: 10.1007/s10508-017-0939-z 

Harvard Medical School (2020, July 06). Relaxation techniques: Breath control helps quell errant stress response. Harvard Health Publishing. URL; accessed 16.08.2021

Herbenick, D., Fu,T.-C., Arter, J., Sanders, S. A. & Dodge, B. (2018) Women's Experiences With Genital Touching, Sexual Pleasure, and Orgasm: Results From a U.S. Probability Sample of Women Ages 18 to 94, Journal of Sex & Marital Therapy, 44:2, 201-212, DOI: 10.1080/0092623X.2017.1346530

Jacob, D. & Allarakha, S. 2020. What Happens to Our Bodies During Sex? MedicineNet. URL; accessed: 19.08.2021

Lousada, M., & Angel, E. (2011). Tantric orgasm: beyond Masters and Johnson. Sexual and Relationship Therapy, 26(4), 389-402.

Perelman, M. A., McMahon, C. G., & Barada, J. H. (2004). Evaluation and treatment of the ejaculatory disorders. In Atlas of male sexual dysfunction (pp. 127-157). Current Medicine Group, London.

Richters, J., de Visser, R., Rissel, C., & Smith, A. (2006). Sexual practices at last heterosexual encounter and occurrence of orgasm in a national survey. Journal of sex research, 43(3), 217-226.

Schagatay, E. (2001). Role of spleen emptying in prolonging apneas in humans. Journal of Applied Physiology, 90, 1623-1629.

Waldinger, M. D., Quinn, P., Dilleen, M., Mundayat, R., Schweitzer, D. H., & Boolell, M. (2005). Ejaculation disorders: A multinational population survey of intravaginal ejaculation latency time. The journal of sexual medicine, 2(4), 492-497.