San Francisco Sex Information

Q: So i have a question…..my husband when he ejaculates doesn’t ejaculate a lot is there anything wrong with that or does that mean anything?

A: The quantity of ejaculate can vary widely from one man to another, and is generally about a half a teaspoon to a full teaspoon (.1 ml to 10 ml). In porn one most often sees very large amounts, which is not exactly the average, and sometimes is actually fake. The quantity can also decrease with age, although again, that varies from person to person.

For most men, there are different factors that can affect semen volume, such as the amount of time between ejaculations, general health and hydration, and the amount of stimulation leading up to ejaculation.

If you are concerned that he has an abnormally low volume of ejaculate, he might want to ask his doctor. There are some rare cases when this might indicate some other kind of problem.

Q: I have tried all kinds of solutions, but every time I have sex with a girl I come within a matter of minutes. Same thing for when I masturbate. I am 19 and I live in a college town where I frequently hook up with girls. Every time I have sex it seems that I lose more and more self esteem. The only times I have ever been able to control my ejaculation/climax is when I took MDMA (ecstasy). I literally went for hours. I would love to be able to do that every time without hurting my body. I have taken 5-HTP because I thought my serotonin levels were low, but still nothing. I feel like my sex life is hopeless. Please help me.

A: First of all, 2-10 minutes is actually the typical time for a male to reach orgasm, and at your age it is absolutely normal to reach orgasm very quickly. Secondly, many girls would prefer a shorter session to a session that lasts for hours because long sessions of PV sex can lead to pain for women.

As far as suggestions go:

-One thing you can do (if you’re comfortable with masturbation) is to bring yourself close to the point of orgasm, then pause to allow the orgasm cycle to relax, then continue until you get close again, and repeat. This can help train yourself into lasting longer.

-You can also take short breaks during intercourse (engage in other sexual activity- such as oral sex) to essentially do the same thing and extend the session.

-They also make condoms that are thicker than usual to decrease sensitivity, and condoms that contain a desensitizing substance on the inside (Durex Performax, for example).

Also, worrying/thinking about coming too soon will be likely to increase the chance of it happening. Try to relax, have a good time, and you’ll be fine.

[ Cross posted from Yahoo! Answers, where this SFSI Answer was chosen best answer to this question. ]

Q: My wife and I have been married for 10 years. We’re happy but the sex has gone from hot to not, and infrequent. I am trying to help rekindle something hot again. Here’s the thing: I have a friend and colleague, FriendX, that my wife is infatuated with. He’s a tall fit gentleman that most women would find him attractive probably. Over the past year and a half or so she’s become more open about her attraction to him. Always asks about his sex life/dating. Always flirting with him, even subtly flashing him when shes “drunk.” More recently she’s told me about her frequent fantasies about sleeping with him. Usually when we’re having sex now she brings up different scenarios: Riding him as I watch and masturbate. Or blowing me while he does her from behind. Stuff like that. Normally when she tells me this stuff she gets really into what we’re doing, and she ‘s gotten really specific and graphic about wanting to include him in our sex lives. At first I was jealous, but then I thought “If it turns her on, it can’t be that wrong.”

So here’s where I took a leap. I told FriendX about this sexual attraction she has for him. He was pretty shocked, but was cool with the situation. We talked about whether a relationship could just be sex, and how she and I are happy as a couple. We broached the subject of setting something up in the near future, something along the lines of a surprise for my wife. Next weekend is her birthday. I was thinking about greeting her at the door with him next Friday night. Maybe telling her that he knows everything, etc and we should live out her fantasy. What do you think about this? Should I do this? Any suggestions about how to do this? What should I do if they start screwing around–its not like husbands hang out while their wives are having sex with their friend? And lastly is this/me/her normal???

A: First off, we really wouldn’t recommend springing this on your wife as a surprise. That might work out well, but it might also be extremely awkward. The two of you have talked about her attraction to FriendX as a fantasy, but very often there are differences between what people enjoy fantasizing about and what they actually want to do in real life. Also, fantasies tend to leave out a lot of the dull but important details. What kind of activities are okay and what’s out of bounds? What kind of protection will everyone be using against STDs or pregnancy? Who will be playing with who? If either of you gets uncomfortable or just isn’t having fun, do you have the right to call a stop and ask him to leave, even if the other partner is still into it? Will it be a one-time thing or ongoing? If it’s going to be ongoing, will it always be all three of you together, or would it be okay for her to have sex with him without you? Is this just about FriendX, or are you interested in opening your marriage in other ways–like you having other partners as well?

It would be useful to have a serious, explicit conversation with your wife to answer questions like these with the clear understanding that you’re talking about actually doing it–not just talking dirty while the two of you have sex.

That would be the best way to get your question about how you’re going to participate answered as well. There’s no right or wrong answer. Some husbands do hang out, or hang out and masturbate, while their wives have sex with other men. Some couples have threesomes where everyone participates. Some couples have open relationships where one partner might have sex with a third party while the other partner just goes and does something else. What’s important is that the arrangement be agreeable to everyone involved.

And as for your last question, there is a substantial minority of married couples who include some kind of consensual extramarital sex in their relationship. The Janus Report, which was a survey of sexual behavior done in the early nineties, concluded that around 10% of people in their first marriages had had threesomes. And as I talked about above, a threesome is only one style of extramarital sex. So maybe that number is under-counting. The exact percentage probably isn’t important: the point is that you’d be far from the only couple to have included a third party in your sex life.

Q: Just wondering if you can pass HPV from a female to another female. My girlfriend went in for her pap when we first got together and she came back clean but she went back a couple of weeks ago and they put her on some medicine for HPV. Since she has not cheated on me with any guys I was wondering how it could just show up now. And no, I have never had a pap, I know I need to but I just haven’t yet.

A: HPV can be effectively passed through any genital-to-genital contact, or sometimes through oral-genital contact. So, yes, it can easily pass between females.

A couple other things to think about:

1. HPV is sneaky. It’s possible to have it for years, lying dormant, and have it flare up later. The pap doesn’t test for the presence of HPV directly, but rather for abnormal cells present on the cervix. It’s entirely possible that she had an HPV infection at the time of her earlier pap, but it just hadn’t yet affected her cervix.

2. HPV found on the cervix (where a pap smear would find it) isn’t generally treated by medicine. Did they specifically say that she’d tested positive for HPV, or just that she should take some medicine for it? I wonder if what she’s getting is actually Gardasil–which is an HPV vaccine rather than a treatment and would administered before someone actually caught the virus. If that’s what it was, it’d be a series of three shots spaced out over several months. You may want to follow up and find out what she is being treated with and for.

Q: I have a question about safe condom use. I often have condoms break and I’m not sure why. I understand how to put them on correctly, how to leave space at the tip, how to pinch the tip as you are first rolling it on, and how to keep it lubricated if needed. And yet I have still have one break about once in every 20 times. Could it be because my erections are not solid throughout the entire duration of sex, and that is somehow creating an air pocket or air bubble at some point during sex?

A: Studies done on the subject put the average condom breakage rate at about 2% and user error accounts for most broken condoms rather that faulty condom construction.

It sounds like you are putting your condoms on correctly. We’re assuming that you don’t have sharp nails or somehow rip the condom (like opening the package with your teeth), but that could be a reason for breakage. Condom breakage could be due to several things, including the reason you mentioned. So, a few big questions to consider include:

Are you using a water based lubricant?
How much time are you doing active penetration/vigorous thrusting with a condom?
Where are you storing your condoms?
How old are your condoms?
How are you opening your condoms?

Family Health International has an interesting article on breakage and slippage of male condoms.

It could be that you’re not using enough lube or that you are using the wrong kind of lubrication. For instance, if you are using a latex condom with an oil-based lubricant, that will definitely break down the latex of the condom. There is a great website you could visit for all things condom; it’s www.condomania.com (and they also have a size guide there). Notice also that when you click on Lubes at the Condomania site, they don’t even have a listing for oil-based lubricants. That’s because oil breaks down latex.

There could be other reasons for the breakage including that you don’t have the right size condom for you, or the expiration date for the condom has passed, or the condom has been exposed to heat.