Ask Michaela: How can males last longer in bed?
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This is a common question that I get from my male clients as a somatic sex coach. While this article offers educational insights, it is important to note that this content is general advice and doesn’t replace personalised 1:1 coaching.
Unfortunately, there are often layers of shame, anxiety, and secrecy wrapped in the question, and that is something I work with clients (and couples) to unravel during sessions.
If you or your partner have ever found yourself focusing on the clock or trying to distract yourself by thinking about something sad, you are far from alone, and you are not broken.
Shifting the goal posts: what is your “Magical Number”?
When a new client brings this concern to me, one of my first curiosities is how long they are currently lasting, and what they believe their “magical number” of minutes should be.
Pornography and long-standing cultural myths around masculinity have conditioned many men to believe that a baseline of sexual stamina should naturally stretch on for hours without interruption. In reality, a large-scale stopwatch study published in The Journal of Sexual Medicine shows that the median time from penetration to climax is between three and seven minutes for penis owners.
Acknowledging that typical penetrative sex lasts only minutes can work to ease the mental pressure of the anxiety loop that can actively cause an earlier climax. When we drop the expectation of a “marathon performance”, sex and intimacy shift from a goal-oriented test into a shared and connected experience.
Mainstream advice typically tells men to pull away, use mental distraction, or numb the sensations. While using tactics like thinking of boring topics, relying on pre-sex masturbation or applying desensitising creams may work to temporarily delay a climax, they rely on disconnecting you from the present moment as well as from your partner.
From a body-based perspective, bypassing your physical responses or ignoring your partner by distracting yourself leaves you with little room to experience connection and presence. Within a somatic model, you learn that sexual stamina isn’t developed by trying to feel less; it is developed by learning how to track and handle intense pleasure safely within your body.
The science behind why trying to “feel less” often fails involves your autonomic nervous system, which controls your sexual responses through the Dual Control Model.
This psychological model shows that your sexual response relies on a balance between two independent systems:
The Sexual Excitation System (SES), which acts as the accelerator
Sexual Inhibition System (SIS), which acts as the brakes.
When you try to feel less or distract your mind, you introduce a performance demand that causes anxiety, which your nervous system mistakenly treats as a threat. Anxiety sits within the excitation system, activating the fight-or-flight response to help your brain either fight or flee from a perceived threat. Anxiety then floods your system with adrenaline, and then accidentally slams your foot on the accelerator in your brain that triggers a rapid climax.
📖 A book I recommend to clients that looks into how the brakes and accelerators work in everyday life is Come as You Are by Emily Nagoski.
Somatic Practices I explore with Clients
Retraining your sexual stamina is an experiential process rather than just a mental exercise. In my 1:1 and couples coaching space, we partner together to map out where your body sits on the arousal scale and how you specifically respond to intense pleasure.
A cookie-cutter approach doesn’t work for everybody, so in session, we intentionally tailor body-based techniques that teach you how to down-regulate and expand your capacity for pleasure. Below are 3 techniques we may explore in session:
Arousal Scale
A lot of men only have awareness of their bodies when they are already at the edge of a climax, which ends up being too late to make a physical change. In sessions, we work together to identify your early signs of arousal before you hit that threshold. Learning the skill of mapping your arousal levels means you can consciously track sensations before the body locks into an automatic reflex. This then allows you and your partner room to slow down, pause, or shift focus without losing connection or pleasure.
Box Breathing
When sexual excitation occurs, your breathing becomes irregular, either in the form of fast, shallow breathing or the breath being held. This physical symptom of anxiety reaffirms the perceived danger to your brain and causes the fight-or-flight accelerator. In somatic sex coaching, you learn breathing techniques like box breathing, which down-regulates your heart rate and signals safety to your nervous system. Practising this alongside a partner also allows for co-regulation, turning a moment of panic into a shared moment of grounding.
Mindful Touch
A lot of men resort to distracting themselves or simply aren’t aware of the physical sensations at play when trying to last longer. In our sessions and as take-home practice, we utilise Sensate Focus therapy techniques: a structured, non-erotic touch protocol that takes the pressure off performance.
By engaging in guided Sensate Focus homework, you learn to tune into temperature, texture, and physical sensations without the goal or expectation of climax or penetration. Bringing your attention to the simple pleasures of touch instead of worrying about performance trains your nervous system to stay present. This shift breaks the anxiety cycle, takes the pressure off the climax reflex, and allows your body to sustain intimacy with greater confidence, depth, and pleasure.
Explore Related Reads
If you found this helpful, keep diving into body-based intimacy, arousal mapping, and breaking down Early Ejaculation:
Struggling to Last Longer? How Somatic Sex Coaching Can Help: A deep dive into my 3-step somatic framework for ejaculatory control, moving away from stop/start methods to build lasting body awareness
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Sources
Bancroft, J., & Janssen, E. (2000). The dual control model of male sexual response: A theoretical approach to centrally mediated erectile dysfunction. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 24(5), 571-579.
Brotto, L. A. (2018). Mindfulness-based sex therapy: A review of the literature and future directions. Current Sexual Health Reports, 10, 17-23.
Guardiani, J. M. (2008). Canadian and American Sex Therapists' Perceptions of Normal and Abnormal Ejaculatory Latency Times. The Journal of Sexual Medicine.
Waldinger, M. D., et al. (2005). A Multinational Population Survey of Intravaginal Ejaculation Latency Time. The Journal of Sexual Medicine.
