Do People Generally Prefer Longer Sex?

Q: My husband and I have been married for 5 years, together for 10. I find our sex life satisfying and I think he does too, even with a toddler and another baby on the way. One thing I‘m curious about, though, is he often comes quite quickly, during either vaginal sex or a blow job. It doesn’t bother me at all (I can’t come from vaginal sex, so my release is always manual and separate from his), but I don’t know if he would prefer to last longer. Occasionally, when receiving a blow job, he’ll ask me to slow down — but not usually. Do you think he’d prefer we try different things to make sex last longer? Do people generally like longer sex or is anything that ends in an orgasm good? (The latter is how I tend to feel personally.) Is there any way I can ask him about this without making him feel bad for finishing quickly? I know it can be a touchy subject for men. I just want to make sure he’s having the kind of sex he most enjoys! Neither of us has had any other sexual partners, so I’m not sure what's normal.

A: When it comes to sex, what’s “normal” is a whole lot less important than what feels good. Normal has almost no bearing in the bedroom. If you come from doing 27 jumping jacks, amazing! Do 27 jumping jacks! The best way to have sex is to do what you and your partner enjoy! In fact, in terms of premature ejaculation, the actual medical diagnosis requires that the person be bothered by how long sex is lasting for them. (That might include being bothered if their partner is bothered). Urologists who study this agree that if you and your partner are happy with how long sex is lasting — no matter how long that is — then you don’t have a problem! Although, if you’re curious, the best study we have placed the average erection during sex lasting 5.4 minutes, and in another study, it took heterosexual women in long-term relationships an average of 13.41 minutes to orgasm — foreplay is your friend! But all of this is rather irrelevant to you.

I completely understand your inclination to try to figure out what other people are doing, especially because you two are each others’ only partners. If there’s one thing humans love to do, it’s compare ourselves to others sexually. And at least 99 times out of 100, we lack the information, so we make up a narrative. We convince ourselves that mythical people out there are having better, hotter, easier, spicier, and more sex all the time without putting in any effort. We fill in the gaps of our knowledge about other people’s sex lives with completely imagined scenarios, usually based on our own insecurities. I want to make it so clear that you are not alone in doing this. Pretty much all of us have, at one time or another, worried that we’re somehow not doing sex correctly, and rarely is it based on any feedback we’re actually getting from a partner. It’s so much more often based on vague ideas we have about other people. It turns out, staying in our own sex lanes is rather difficult.

Sincerely, you can take this worry off your plate. Free yourself to think about Harry Styles and baby elephants not knowing how to use their trunks well and how to get the stain out of your favorite sweatshirt. That said, there is one overarching theme to your letter, and while I don’t ever want to tell someone that they should worry about something, you might want to think about it a bit. It seems like you and your partner aren’t doing a whole lot of communicating when it comes to sex. Maybe other areas of your life, too, but specifically it seems that you aren’t talking about sex, otherwise you would have an answer to your question already because you would have asked your husband “Hey, do you want sex to last longer?” or even just “How is our sex life for you? Is there anything you would change?”

You also say you “think” your husband is satisfied with your sex life, which means you two aren’t talking about that, which is very fundamental. Additionally, it seems like you don’t trust that he would bring this up if he were unsatisfied, which suggests to me that you’re both used to not talking about sex. This is all OK! It’s totally fine to not immediately and naturally fall into really great sex conversations! Especially with your first partner, even if he is a long-term partner and your spouse and the father of your children. Most of us are pretty mediocre at talking about sex for a lot of reasons. It can be awkward, it can be emotional, it takes a lot of practice to get comfortable discussing, and we’ve been told not to talk about it for most of our lives. You’ve probably talked about cucumbers with more people than you’ve talked about sex! You both probably haven’t had much opportunity to get good at chatting about sex with one another. And certainly, your relationship can stay that way and survive. Many, many, many couples don’t communicate about sex and have long, loving relationships. But I strongly urge you to strive for more!

You are only having sex with one person — one! You guys get to share this really beautiful, cool, hot, intimate thing with only each other. It’s a little secret club. There are a lot of parts of a romantic relationship that are not exclusive to your partner. Yes, you joke with them, but you also joke with friends. Yes, you share child care duties with them, but you also do with your child’s preschool teacher. Yes, you do family traditions with them, but you also do that with your children. But sex? That’s just you two! (Obviously, not all couples are monogamous, but from your letter, you seem to be). It seems, to me, like it would be very lovely — and hot — to get to talk about that. It doesn’t have to be deep, awkward conversations, although I super strongly recommend pushing through the discomfort and having those, too. It can just be you saying something like, “I find it so hot when you X” or “Would you ever be into me doing Y?” That counts as communication!

And when it comes to your specific question, there are multiple ways you can figure out if your husband wants sex to last longer without it seeming like you’re suggesting that he comes too quickly. You can say, as sex is beginning, “Do you want me to slow down?” or you can pose the question “Hot and fast or slow and romantic tonight?” Or you can ask him outright, out of the bedroom (or wherever you’re having your spicy moments), “Do you ever want us to slow down and have longer sex, or are you happy with the speed we’re going?” That makes it clear that you understand that you’re both setting the pace, rather than it being all about his orgasm, which it isn’t, by the way! I’m hoping that when you say your orgasms are “separate” you don’t mean that you go have them alone without him. I absolutely don’t think orgasms are the point of sex — it should all be pleasurable. But I really hope you’re both as invested in you feeling good as you are in him feeling good.

It’s A Pleasure appears here every Thursday. If you have a sex, dating, or relationship question, email Sophia at BustleSexAdvice@gmail.com or fill out this form.