Free O by Jonathan Margolis Page A

of Freud’s distinction between clitoral and vaginal orgasm, which, as we shall discuss in a later chapter, is today a thoroughly discredited theory; nor that Tantric and Taoist methods of orgasm delay are predicated on the arguably vain, macho misconception that hours of thrusting is what women actually want from sex; nor that such techniques are a retrospective attempt to ‘feminise’ the male orgasm now that men have belatedly realised that women have the richer orgasmic experience of the two genders.
    The point is that, useful or not, ejaculation withholding is an acquired skill, whereas the majority of men’s sexual pleasure is highly instinctive. Erection is an involuntary, hydraulic phenomenon, which cannot normally be willed. Ejaculation usually results from intercourse with a minimum of effort.
    It would seem to be stretching our belief in the intrinsic ‘naturalness’ and instinctive character of sex to imagine that prehistoric men were as interested as were subsequent cultures in developing the (arguably) female-pleasing ability for extended erection and multiple orgasm. Boys never have to be taught to masturbate, whereas, even today, large numbers of women live and die without knowing such a thing is even possible. It follows that for sex to be a shared pleasure, the will to make it so — plus study and application — are of primary importance.
    Whether on the other hand sexual dysfunction afflicted the prehistoric male human is an interesting question. Simple erectile dysfunction is strictly a little outside the scope of this book, since both orgasm and ejaculation can easily occur without erection, and for some men, a flaccid or semi-flaccid penis provides a more satisfactory masturbatory experience than a full erection.
    However, averaging out a variety of studies, we can gauge that some 80 per cent of men in the modern world are
at some time
unable to get an erection; and given that most women greatly enjoy the sensation of penetration even if it does notlead
directly
to orgasm, erectile failure must after all rate as both a dysfunction and, equally, as an indication to a woman that something is either medically wrong with a partner or psychologically wrong with his attitude to her. In these respects, it seems plausible that both erectile and orgasmic dysfunction were probably far from unknowns to the real-life Flintstones.
    It should also be noted that for men there is scope for debate over what comprises premature ejaculation. It is only within the framework that designates ‘satisfactory’ heterosexual intercourse exclusively as penetrative sex culminating in simultaneous orgasm – the unobtainable Holy Grail for the huge majority of people – that premature ejaculation as it is classically delineated becomes a true handicap to a loving and mutually orgasmic sex life. Strictly speaking, a man who ejaculates after ten or fifteen minutes – an heroic performance by average standards, but nevertheless insufficient for most women to have even the slim possibility of a ‘natural’ orgasm – is suffering from premature ejaculation. A lot of feminists would say so, just as a lot of misogynist men would (and do) say that any woman who fails to orgasm through penetrative sex, howsoever perfunctory, is,
ergo
, dysfunctional.
    In modern times, male sexual dysfunction is the stuff of girls’-night-out jokes and saucy seaside postcards, but it deserves a more sympathetic approaching. The female orgasm may be a subtle and complex phenomenon, but the sensitivity of the male response can be, and generally is, underestimated. In 1994 the Massachusetts Male Ageing Study, at its time the largest ever epidemiological survey of male sexual functioning, revealed that 52 per cent of American men between the ages of 40 and 70 had minimal, moderate or complete sexual impotence.
    In a typical modern Western population at any given moment – and one can speculate