As a woman, it’s difficult not to be curious about men’s sexual health and the male orgasm in particular. Some wellness experts even suggest that there are all kinds of benefits that sperm can have for your wellbeing, which shrouds the male orgasm in mystery even more. But what surprising facts do we know about the male orgasm?
Firstly, and unfortunately for you, in most cases his orgasm will outlast yours. The typical female orgasm is about 18 long, whilst blokes get an extra four seconds of mind-numbing bliss on average. However, this is just an average and Kristen Mark, PhD, a sex and relationships researcher and assistant professor at the University of Kentucky, says that both genders can buy a few extra seconds of pleasure by regularly practicing Kegel exercises.
Next, when a man ejaculates, his sperm can travel a mile in about the same time it would take you to speed-walk the same distance. Though Mark says it’s hard to measure, the most commonly cited top speed of ejaculated sperm is 28 miles per hour, which is about as fast as Usain Bolt can run. In the vagina, sperm slow down to the four miles per hour speed-walk pace, and can take anything from 30 minutes to three days to make it all the way to the waiting egg.
However, if your man’s an athlete, and is making you hold off on sex so that it won’t jeopardise his performance in tomorrow’s big game, it’s a load of nonsense. Many athletes and coaches believe sex the night before an event saps energy and ‘mojo’ from losing testosterone through ejaculation, but according to a review of the literature published in the Clinical Journal of Sport Medicine, there’s no scientific evidence behind this.
A study from the University of Albany raised eyebrows a few years ago when it concluded that women who had unprotected sex might be happier than those who had sex with condoms or abstained completely. This is because only 2-5% of an ejaculation is sperm, and the rest is made up of everything the sperm needs for its long and treacherous journey. This includes natural mood enhancers like serotonin, cortisol, prolactin, oxytocin, and estrone, as well as the sleep-aid melatonin.
Finally, Abraham Morgentaler, MD, FACS, urologist and author of Why Men Fake It: The Totally Unexpected Truth About Men and Sex, says that sometimes a man can have an orgasm without ejaculating, just like women can. Whether his patients have experienced this due to an operation, diabetes, neurological conditions, or a side effect of alpha blockers prescribed for urinary problems, Morgentaler says men still describe the feeling as pleasurable… just less messy.
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