Male Orgasm is Not as Simple as You have Been Taught

I recently had a client, who was having internal worries about having an orgasm, or lack thereof, as a bottom. Paraphrasing, this is part of what he had to say to me in our session:

I’m a Bottom that has been in several relationships and enjoyed each and every one of them but for one aspect that in retrospect has been glaring me down in the face, though I failed to see it… I never finish (ejaculate) as a bottom!

I really ENJOY anal intercourse and love being a submissive partner, but I realized very recently that not once in all these years, have I ever completed during the act and worse recently, I’m failing to even maintain arousal entirely… I take pride that my Tops have all been satisfied and appreciate what I have to give, but I myself have been left with a very hollow feeling of dissatisfaction and somehow loss.

So my worries are twofold… first, is it common for a Bottom to not complete during the act and often to lose an erection? … If not, what can I do differently to help light my own fireworks show (so to speak) and feel the bliss I’ve been missing out on?

I’m honestly at a loss and am afraid that I’m just turning frigid. [At this point he started crying.]

To my client, and to all of you out there, first things first: You’re not lacking. There’s nothing wrong with you or your body, and you must stop thinking like that.

Once I had confirmed that “complete during the act” he referred to, meant “ejaculating,” I was able to set his mind at ease. It is very common for bottoms to not ejaculate (“cum”) during anal sex.

There are bottoms who don’t love the physical feeling of getting fucked, but they enjoy the mental idea of being dominated and used by someone else. Their orgasm is a mental orgasm, an emotional high. They rarely ejaculate purely from the physical sensation.

Then there are bottoms who love the physical feeling of getting fucked, but even they rarely ejaculate solely from getting fucked. With training, you can learn to cum hands-free from getting fucked, but that’s very hard to do (contrary to what fiction and porn portray), and very seldom happens.

Let’s expand the concept of orgasm beyond blowing a load. There are many ways to “cum” that don’t involve cum. Let me put that another way: There are many ways to orgasm that don’t involve ejaculation. With training, you can experience anal orgasms, which are more intense than ejaculative orgasms, and those are usually hands-free. But anal orgasms are just one other way to orgasm. There are many more.

Let’s expand the concept even further. What if your orgasm is sheer mental pleasure? What if it is simply feeling hot and intense with another person? There is no textbook definition for orgasm. Many guys feel left out of this experience because our culture teaches men that our orgasms are simple: you get aroused, your dick gets hard, and after a certain point of intensity, a milky fluid comes bubbling or shooting out of it.

That is not orgasm. At least, that’s not the orgasm that many men experience.

Women have been experiencing orgasms for as long as humans have walked the earth, yet we still don’t fully understand how or where they experience them. That’s partly because the study of women’s pleasure has largely been a male-led science, and the subject is drenched (no pun intended) in misogyny and non-scientific myths. What we know is that orgasm for women is anything but simple. Women describe it countless different ways: as a quick, sudden jolt or long, drawn-out moment, like falling into a warm bath. Debate rages over where, exactly, their orgasms happen. In the clitoris? Somewhere else? We still don’t know for sure.

Some women describe their orgasms with ejaculation and the release of fluids, others do not. Here’s the truth: Men are no different. We’ve just been taught that our orgasms are simple, so most of us accept a simple understanding of male pleasure. On top of that, social gender roles make many men feel closed off from experiencing the emotional and mental aspects of orgasm.

It’s OK to cry when you cum. I have. It’s OK not to cum and simply feel held, protected, and loved. It’s OK to simply enjoy pleasing someone else. It is OK to be a submissive and have pleasure in that fact. All these are valid and intense ways to feel pleasure. It’s sad that most men never allow themselves access to these rich feelings.

My client stressed that he enjoyed bottoming, enjoyed submission, and had a history of pleasing his tops, and craved being fucked. He was like so many other bottoms and on the right track, but like so many other bottoms I see, the myths about male pleasure are hold them back from completely and authentically being themselves.

Here’s some homework: Stop positioning any single experience (whether that’s ejaculating, getting hard, or experiencing an orgasm) as the “completion” of sex. Your sex is complete if you enjoy it. If you are experiencing pleasure, you’re doing it right. Do more of what makes you feel good. If you’re not experiencing pleasure, it’s time to experiment. Explore the sensations that arouse your body and mind instead of focusing on maintaining an erection and blowing a load, because those may end up being very different things.

There are many ways to light your own (interior and exterior) fireworks. Enjoy the sparks.