| We want it too much or not enough. She’s too uptight or too slutty. He lasts too long or not long enough. We’re never satisfied when it comes to sex. Luckily, the pharmaceutical industry is on the case, constantly coming up with new potions and pills to help us achieve the ideal sexual experience. Or to cash in on all of our sexual insecurities and doubts. Your pick. Premature ejaculation (PE) – or, if you prefer, rapid ejaculation, early ejaculation or the Latin ejaculatio praecox – is their latest target.
Thinking of your grandma or slathering some cheap, sensation-numbing cream on your penis clearly wasn’t cutting it. Bring on the drugs!
Enter TEMPE – topical eutectic mixture for premature ejaculation. Makes you wanna do it just saying it, doesn’t it? Not yet available on the market, the lab coats are all a titter about a report in this month’s British Journal of Urologists on the phase two trial of TEMPE, a prescription spray guys can spritz on their dicks 15 minutes before sex to make them last, according to earlier trials, a whole 2.4 times longer. Which sounds impressive, until you find out that the guys in the study were lasting under a minute in the first place. A numb penis, burning during intercourse and erectile dysfunction — some of the side effects experienced by men in the study — seems like a high price to pay for an extra minute-and-a-half of humpa humpa.
Oddly enough, despite all the excitement, the spray – which is a mixture of the anesthetics lidocaine and prilocaine – doesn’t sound all that different in concept from the numbing creams we’ve already seen on the market, that work by reducing sensation in the penis. I don’t have a penis, but I can’t imagine trying to enhance my sexual experience by numbing my vagina.
Dapoxetine (a milder form of antidepressant) had high hopes of becoming the first drug approved to treat premature ejaculation until the FDA put the kibosh on it late last year. Just as well. While it was labelled "safe" by scientists, side effects included nausea, headaches and diarrhea (all of which would most certainly put you off orgasm). And, again, all this for an extra two to three minutes of the old in and out. Crazy.
But not really, I suppose. It’s no surprise that drug companies would be clamouring to tap into the potential gazillions to be made off the estimated close to 30 per cent of men who apparently suffer from premature ejaculation. Considering erectile dysfunction only affects about 10 per cent of the male population, Viagra profits look like pocket change compared to the money PE drugs stand to pull in.
But, like Viagra, this approach to "treating" sexual problems makes me nuts. If we can just get him hard and make him last, sex will be good. And the very term "premature ejaculation" or "coming too soon" implies that there is some ideal amount of time to last. Or that you have to last. News bulletin. Most women don’t come through penetration!
Frankly, I’d prefer plenty of warm-up followed by a quick dip of his stick when things really get clipping along. Or, how about switching it up? Nothing says, once he’s in, he’s got to stay there. A few return visits in between lots of other fun stuff beats a three-hour cervix pounding, as far as I’m concerned. But maybe that’s just me. As for guys, don’t your knees get sore?
And besides, as Come As You Are sex shop co-owner Cory Silverberg wrote in a recent about.com article about TEMPE, the spray did nothing to improve sexual satisfaction among study participants. "Which raises an interesting question," writes Silverberg. "If you’re having lousy sex, do you care if it only lasts a minute or two? Should we be prolonging intercourse at any cost? The bigger question, of course, is why men should be asked to sacrifice sexual sensation, and arguably sexual satisfaction, in order to maintain an arbitrary and normative behavior; in this case the idea that ‘real sex’ is penile-vaginal intercourse."
And so what if he shits himself a little while doing it.
If lasting longer is an issue for you, check out some of Silverberg’s non-medical solutions: http://sexuality.about.com/od/anatomyresponse/ht/controlprematur.htm |
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