Random Male Hite Report - #12

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Hello, friends. It's time for more Random Hite Report! In 1976, Shere Hite dropped The Hite Report where she compiled detailed survey answers from over 3,000 women about sex, masturbation, orgasms, and relationships. It's insane to me how revolutionary this book still is. Read it, seriously. We really haven't changed that much in 40 years, and it's an incredibly insightful read.

Then in 1981, she dropped The Hite Report on Male Sexuality where over 7,000 men give detailed answers about sex, relationships, and women. It too is revolutionary, and the honesty, vulnerability, and detail in this book is so important and moving. I think everyone should read this too. So, I give you a taste every now and then to entice you to get these books. Seriously, they are both like 1 cent online.

Anyway, what I do is flip to one random page and copy the contents of that page, no more-no less, directly onto this blog. Enjoy.

 The Hite Report on Male Sexuality
Knopf, 1981 pg 450

This is from the chapter INTERCOURSE. Under the question "When should a man ejaculate? Should the woman be consulted?"

...to terminate. Someone could always go on longer."
    "Personally I think the best time to ejaculate is at the end of a long series of thrusts. I usually like to thrust my way through a series of peaks, always backing of at the 'point of no return.' Finally, when I've decided I want to orgasm, I thrust away to a building, burning peak and quickly wash over it to my release. There is no need to consult the woman, because the final pattern and urgency of the thrusting communicates the ides."
    "A man should ejaculate when he's ready. Consultation is not needed."
    "Things should happen without a great deal of studied manipulation."
    "A strange question this, but a man should ejaculate when he has an orgasm and both he and his partner should set their sexual paces towards his orgasm, or orgasm for both. The woman should be consulted in a way, but orgasm will happen after so much stimulation, not on command." 

    Many said ejaculation was involuntary, and therefore consultation impossible:   
    "A man ejaculates when he can't hold it back any longer. It's not the type of thing you have a consultation over."
    "Frankly, I don't have too much control. I do let them know when I'm about to come."
    "I don't decide. It's when I finish climaxing."
    "I think sex ends in the majority of cases precisely when the male is 'finished.' My wife, for instance, can go on and on, whether she has had her orgasm or not-a man cannot do this. This is the reason, I think, that the male decides when to end sex."
    "After I'm done, it's over. I can't help it." 

    Some men resented the idea of consultation: 

    "Consult the woman? How? I wouldn't want to ask for her permission."
    "A man should ejaculate when he's damn good and ready, that's when. But, damn good and ready depends on my partner, and if she ain't damn good and ready, then I ain't either. 'Consulted?' Sounds like we're calling in medical advise as to whether or not to operate. A man and a woman should get to know each other, then they would know, or could at least lay a pretty good guesss, as to when his or his partner was going to come; one night stands excepted. Sex should end like it started, naturally, and together."
    "When he can't stand it another minute or second longer. Since women don't get any real pleasure out of when I come or thrusting, why should they be consulted? It's my orgasm."
    "When it comes, it shouldn't be forced or held back. I don't consult the woman, and I certainly don't expect her to consult me as to when she can orgasm. When it comes, it comes."

Reverend Hornibastard and the Case of the Male Orgasm

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A little over a month ago, I wrote a long post detailing and defending my stance on the definition of the female orgasm as part of a debate I agreed to do with Edward Clint over at Skeptic Ink. Turns out a guy who calls himself Reverend Hornibastard (because, honestly, why wouldn't you call yourself that), read it and asked me some thoughtful questions in the comments. We had an enjoyable exchange, and a couple days later he commented that he had written something inspired a bit by my blog post.

He has a blog called Hornibastard's Mad Muse (obviously), and he decided to write a post about the what the male orgasm is. You can find it HERE. He first spoke about my post, and what I really appreciate is that he got a lot of what I was saying - that a clear definition of the female orgasm must be used by everyone from researchers to sex advisers to pretty much anyone who speaks on the subject, if we as a culture are ever going to be able to move forward on the subject. Right now, we're talking around each other more than anything. Anyway, he got that, and honestly, that's a part of my argument that people seem to disregard or misunderstand a lot, so I very much appreciate him saying what he said.

Then he went on to speak about how he defines orgasm for himself. His thoughts are self-admittedly informal and anecdotal, so not exactly great to draw larger conclusions from, but they are personal and he doesn't try to make them more than that. I'm always interested to hear how people view and experience their orgasms and sexual pleasure. I think it's incredibly interesting and important. Here's how he began

All this got me thinking, "What defines the male orgasm?"

This may seem like a silly question to most people. Everyone regards the male orgasm as the point when the male ejaculates. The sudden emission of semen and all the exquisitely pleasurable convulsions of the muscles in the male's erogenous zones that produce that geyser of baby batter defines the male orgasm for nearly everyone.  

But not for me.  

Like almost everyone else, my orgasms almost always coincide with ejaculation and all those wonderful muscle contractions that make the ejaculation happen. But a lifetime of unofficial, informal research suggests that there is more to a male orgasm than the emission of semen. There is also a vital psychological component.

He goes on to describe times when "semen unexpectedly started shooting out of" his kielbasa  when he was only beginning to get excited; times when we woke up having splooged in his sheets without going to bed horny or remembering any erotic dreams; Times when he felt an orgasm but nothing came out.

By the same token, I've occasionally had a "dry orgasm." In those instances, I was extremely happy and felt like it was time to discharge my bazooka. But when those intensely pleasurable reflexive muscle convulsions got underway, absolutely nothing came out. 

Nada. 

Nary a drop. 

Despite the lack of a proper ejaculation, I still regarded those events as orgasms. They felt like orgasms (in both the physical and psychological senses).

He uses all these anecdotes to point out that he doesn't feel as though he can define his orgasm in a clinical way. He concludes with:

I realize my analysis is informal and anecdotal, but for me the physiological markers alone do not define what I call an orgasm. The right emotional and psychological states must coincide with those physiological events. 

Researchers can define an orgasm however they want, but I will always cherish most the orgasms that meet my own personal criteria.

I love that ol' Reverend Hornibastard is thinking and writing about this topic. I think that the discordance people feel between a very clear physiologic definition of orgasm and the way they feel and experience their orgasms and their sexual pleasure is one of the trickiest and most charged parts of the conversation SSL is trying to elicit. Putting labels on anything is generally gross to people, but particularly when talking about something like orgasm which, although a physiologic event, is so deeply intertwined with emotion, love, pleasure, and human contact. It's a hard (pardon the pun) conversion, but an important one to pick through, so Thank You, Thank You Reverend Hornibastard.

Now, I'm going to be picky ol' me and point out a physiological thing that struck me as important to the points he was making. Orgasm and ejaculation are actually different physiologic events for men, just as they are with women. Normally men experience them in perfect tandem, so that the ejaculate is pushed out into the urethra (the ejaculation) and the spasms of the pelvic muscles (the orgasm) propel it with force out of the penis. They can happen without the other though.

From what I've read, it seems like men who can have multiple orgasms do so by controlling their bodies in such a way that they orgasm sans ejaculation until the ejaculation finally happens and puts an end to the fun. There can also be ejaculations without orgasm - for instance with prostate stimulation minus the penile stimulation. I don't really have an data or studies to back this up, but I've often wondered if for men, a significant component to their level of pleasure at orgasm related to how well their body happened to time the ejaculation with it. So, maybe an ejaculation happening just slightly earlier or later than the orgasm could make the whole thing feel quite different. Maybe an early ejaculation puts a bit of a kibosh on the orgasm following it. I don't know, and I don't even have the male junk to test these thoughts on and give you some personal anecdotal experiences. I just wanted to point out that maybe for Hornibastard and for other men too, some of the variation they feel in their sexual releases have more to do with physiological issues and a little less to do with emotion than one might think.

To me, his post made me even more interested in seeing how clear definitions in regard to sexual release could possibly help people - men and women - understand, describe, and pursue their orgasm in better more thoughtful ways.

Sorry I'm always over-analyzing these types of thing, Mr. Reverend Hornibastard, but that's the nature of my blog. Thank you again for writing about this, thinking about this, and for talking about your experiences. Rock on with your self and you Mad Muse blog!