Masturbating before sex to last longer – it doesn’t work?

Here’s a good question that I recently received:

I hear the advice to masturbate before sex to last longer. The problem is this doesn’t make any difference.

For example, if I get myself off then have sex with my girlfriend a bit later – then sometimes we have sex again a bit later that same day – I still come really quickly. Does this mean my premature ejaculation problem is severe?

Now something we don’t know from your question is what your definition of really quickly is. Let’s remember that for some guys, if they don’t always last as long as they’d like to or their partner doesn’t always have as many orgasms as they hope for or sex isn’t always this mind-blowing, super-satisfying experience, they diagnose themselves as having premature ejaculation. So it’s quite subjective.

But for the purposes of this question I’m going to assume that you fall within the understood parameters of premature ejaculation: you are regularly coming within a minute or two of starting intercourse and it’s happening every time.

Masturbating before sex can help

You’re right that this advice about having a release and masturbating before sex is very often given. It’s based on taking advantage of the male refractory period.

This is the period of time after we’ve come where our body rebuilds its sexual energies. It takes us a bit longer to feel horny again and get hard and hence it slows everything down. It resets the clock, so to speak.

Masturbating before sex can increase stress

The refractory period differs for every guy. It might be minutes, a couple of hours or for some guys, it’s the next day before they feel ready to go again. I think this can cause one of the problems around using this technique to last longer: timing stress or even anxiety.

Let’s just say that it’s date night tonight (or date afternoon or you’re going to be spending some time with your partner). Here’s the kind of inner-monologue you mind find yourself having:

“Well it’s been quite a long time since I’ve had an orgasm… I’m quite pent up. So if I masturbate now and I don’t leave enough time before having sex later… am I going to have enough energy? Am I going to have trouble getting an erection? But if I don’t do anything about it and I just go for it later, am I going to be all pent up and find it difficult to last?“.

Sounds familiar? So we fall into overthinking and stressing which creates a self-fulfilling prophecy of worry and coming sooner. This is very common with premature ejaculation.

Knowing your natural latency

This brings me to the second point: some guys are simply wired to come quite quickly.

I’ve spoken before about the various physiological factors that contribute to premature ejaculation. This includes our hormone balance, serotonin levels, skin sensitivity and our genetic profile.

For various reasons, you might be wired to come a bit sooner. If you have sex and just let nature take its course and you don’t yet have a working strategy for slowing things down and staying relaxed, your body wants to come quickly every time.

If that’s what you’ve experienced, there’s no reason why you can’t persevere a little bit and experiment. But don’t get hooked up on this because it doesn’t mean that you have a severe premature ejaculation problem. It simply means that you’ve learned a bit more about how your own body wants to work.

There are a whole load of different techniques, different things that you can do. There are proven, effective ways to slow down and relax into sex.

By all means continue to enjoy masturbation. We know the benefits. It can help you build awareness of how arousal feels in your body. Mindful masturbation can help you experience that balance of arousal and relaxation which is key here.

You don’t need to masturbate for a reset before having sex.

I hope you found this helpful and thank you for asking this really excellent question.