Written by Dr.Deyn on 22 April 2019, Latest medically reviewed and updated by Dr.Deyn Natthakhet Yaemim, MD on 22 April 2021

Orgasm reset time  |  Why the wait?  | Reducing refractory time | Pelvic Floor Control

Why Can’t Men Have Multiple Orgasms?

Some porn might have you convinced that people with penises are Energizer Bunnies that keep going and going and going. That’s the power of editing. The male orgasm is like a rollercoaster ride. Not because it involves a thrilling series of ups and downs, but because once it’s done, you can’t just stay in your seat for another go — you have to head to the back of the line and wait your turn all over again.

But why? What is so impossible about the male body that it can’t experience multiple orgasms the way some women can?
It all has to do with the refractory period.

There are three stages to a male orgasm
Phase one is the excitement phase — the part where your nipples will get hard.
Phase two is the “plateau phase,” where there’s a sustained level of arousal that ends in ejaculation.
Phase three is the refractory period, which is when men generally become flaccid — and stay flaccid, despite their most frantic efforts to the contrary.

Women don’t necessarily follow this path and can repeat the second phase again and again in what we generally think of as multiple orgasms. While some younger guys might claim to be able to do the same, in reality, their refractory period is just shorter.

So what exactly is your body doing while you’re trying to get hard again?

Physically speaking, only two organs are holding you up — your penis and your brain.

Your Penis

Despite having seemingly just dispensed their load, your testicles don’t need any recovery time to go again: They produce about 1,500 sperm per second, so when it comes to your ejaculate, there’s always more where that came from. Your penis, on the other hand, suffers from a pretty dramatic change during the refractory period.

Once the ejaculate leaves the body, the penis is telling the brain that it no longer needs that blood supply. Since the neurotransmitters in your brain don’t register that you’d like to keep going, it redistributes the blood that was previously keeping you hard. To regenerate, the arousal process needs to start all over again. In younger men, this may be a matter of mere minutes, while further into adulthood, the average is more like 30 minutes. In older people, it can take up to 24 hours.

Your Brain

During arousal, your brain releases dopamine, the hormone responsible for that first big wave of pleasure. Just as your phone sometimes needs to install updates, your body needs time as well. The excitable fight-or-flight nervous system recedes, and the rest-and-restore system comes forward. Once you’ve ejaculated, though, your desire rapidly dissipates because the brain starts releasing other chemicals that have different effects. After orgasm, a person who has a penis will see their dopamine levels drop and their prolactin levels increase. An increase in prolactin levels contributes to a longer wait between posts. If prolactin levels are lower, his refractory period will be shorter. First comes serotonin, which is responsible for the lazy-feeling high you experience after sex, followed quickly by oxytocin, the bonding chemical that puts you more in the mood to lie strewn across the bed, still entangled with your panting partner, than to try for a second screw. Combined, the most likely feeling you’ll have is not one of horniness but of wanting to sleep.

So Is There a Way to Keep Going?

I can tell you for sure that a man can orgasm more than once. Most men have what we call a ‘terminal orgasm,’ where you’ve just blown your load and it’s done, but it doesn’t have to be that way. Men can extend that pleasure and learn to orgasm more than once.

The key is to be able to separate the orgasm from the ejaculation, which as we all know is no small feat.

The orgasm is the part of the sexual experience that happens between two and seven seconds before ejaculation. It combines an increase in full-body sensitivity, a quickening of breath, and a flood of sensations through the scrotum and penis.

Ejaculation is the final step of stimulation and involves the release of semen, as well as the neurotransmitters that will send the body into 'rest and recovery mode,' or the refractory period.

You have to practice solo first, to learn your body’s “pleasure scale.” The trick is to bring yourself very, very close to orgasm, but then back down, get close again, then back down and keep repeating that. That way, you’ll understand the subtleties of where that high arousal lies.

Once you learn your pleasure scale more closely, it’s possible for men to orgasm without ejaculating, yet still experience those same waves of pleasure. While men can’t have multiple ejaculatory orgasms with no refractory period, you can climax several times in a row if you don’t release any semen. The technique is known as non-ejaculatory multiple orgasm, or NEMO. My best recommendation for people with penises who want the ability to have sex multiple times in a short period is learning ejaculatory control. This allows them to experience an orgasm without ejaculating. It’s a trick we’ve discussed previously and one that all comes down to pelvic floor control — the ability to hold off from actually ejaculating by tensing the muscles of, essentially, your taint.

Wait, did we mention that this isn’t very likely yet? Even Dr.Deyn cautions that you shouldn’t get your hopes up, since this ability is very rare in men. “This used to be a secret practice in Daoist philosophy because you’re supposed to be an aficionado at using your energy,” he says. So unless you’re really in command of your chi, you’re just going to have to accept being a one-shot wonder. 

Pelvic Floor Control, How To Strengthen those PC muscles?

As we mentioned earlier, having multiple non-ejaculatory orgasms is all about controlling your pelvic floor. While some men experience multiple orgasms accidentally, others can learn to invite such a reaction.

You can do this with Kegel exercises, which strengthen the pelvic floor muscles and your ability to control orgasmic and ejaculatory responses in the heat of the moment, she says. Your pubococcygeus (PC) muscle — which stretches from the pubic bone to the tailbone — controls ejaculation. If you can keep yourself from ejaculating after an orgasm, you’ll be more likely to skip the refractory period and orgasm again — and again, and again.

To perform Kegel exercises, you want to contract the PC muscle as you would when you control the flow of urine as you’re peeing. You can practice Kegels anywhere — like contracting the muscle for 10 seconds while sitting in your car.

Try a different position

If you have a hard time delaying gratification, switching positions during sex can help you control ejaculation and erection. Try having sex in a chair, where he/she's in the chair and you're on top of him/her, but still able to stand up and pull out before you ejaculate. That way, you can tighten your muscles right before the point of ejaculation so you can experience orgasm without ejaculation.

Check your T-levels

Maybe you don't want to have multiple non-ejaculatory orgasms but just want to shorten your refractory period. In that case, make sure you have optimal testosterone levels — it'll make your orgasms better, too. You can check your testosterone level at PULSE CLINICS region-wide.

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