In the Onania Masturbator Forum, a Masturbator Wrote:
First, I need to stipulate that the term “orgasm” in this treatise means a complete ejaculatory orgasm–the kind that exhausts a male’s desire and plunges him into a refractory period. It does not mean the highly pleasurable non-ejaculatory state that is the object of edging, which event is sometimes called a non-ejaculatory orgasm, a mini-orgasm, a tantric orgasm, an extended orgasm, etc. Those are very worthy events, and please feel free to have them all day long with my blessing. However, unless a complete ejaculation is somehow involved in the process, they’re not what I mean here by “orgasm.” Also, everything below is equally applicable to penetrative sex with partners, but this being a masturbation forum, I will explain it all in masturbatory terms.
Okay, with that out of the way, here’s the meat of my topic:
All masturbators can be divided into five classes according to the five different styles or philosophies of orgasm management that they employ. Even though there is an undeniable progression that can be followed through these five classes, I will hesitate to call them “rankings” or “levels” out of respect for those males who are content with the satisfaction that they obtain from their current station in the progression and choose to remain there.
The five styles of orgasm management can be called: default, voluntary, optional, exclusionary, and transcendent. They are further described as follows:
(1) Default. Every pubescent male who discovers masturbation begins here, hence it is the natural default. (This is not so much a style of orgasm management as it is the lack of any.) Orgasm is his goal, and he typically rushes through the other sensations of masturbation with little thought. They are merely means toward an automatic orgasm at the end. His masturbatory pleasures tend to be of short duration, and the only way he knows to increase them is to masturbate more frequently. Unfortunately, there is a point of diminishing returns, where orgasms can become weakened and cheapened, such that the only thing less fulfilling than too-frequent orgasms is even more orgasms.
(2) Voluntary. Sooner or later, many males will gain voluntary control over the timing of their orgasms. This is the beginning of real orgasm management. The practitioner has learned that he can control the length of his sessions and have his orgasm only when he is ready. As he does, he begins to savor and take increased pleasure from all of the sensations of masturbation. A male using the most advanced form of voluntary orgasm management, known as “edging,” extends the duration and multiplies the pleasure of his sessions by achieving the plateau phase of near-orgasmic bliss and remaining there as long as possible before he has his orgasm. He might also make repeated run-ups toward orgasm before he finishes himself off with one that easily eclipses the quality of the default variety. A male using this style is no longer dependent on frequency of orgasm for increased sexual pleasure. Still, though, he is wedded to orgasm as an essential part of each masturbatory session and cannot conceive of why anyone might want to opt out of having them.
(3) Optional. This is when a male has come to the realization that orgasm can be an optional part of masturbation and adopts a management style that omits it from some of his sessions. Edgers sometimes discover the value in this when some unexpected interruption forces them to abandon a session before its orgasmic conclusion. Other males are motivated to experiment when they read about orgasm denial or about Eastern practices such as tantra or Taoism. Once he experiences it, the male realizes that ending an edging session without orgasm produces exquisite feelings of frustration and horniness that vastly heighten his sense of masculinity and eroticism. It leaves him basking in an afterglow similar to the one that follows orgasm, except that it can last for hours. Opting out also builds character, because it takes a strong man to turn his back and walk away from an orgasm that’s about to happen. In doing so, the modern Western male learns what many in the East have been taught in their youth since ancient times. Many males, once liberated from the Western ejaculatory imperative, will choose to decline available orgasms occasionally for the sake of variety and for the distinct pleasures available only via that means. Some others will alternate between their normal orgasmic responses and occasionally attempting binges of non-orgasmic edging for certain numbers of days, which can be incredibly pleasurable. Just as the voluntary style breaks a man’s dependence on the diminishing returns of orgasmic frequency, the optional style further decouples the mental concepts of orgasm and sexual pleasure. As edgers become more accustomed to the alternate pleasure of opting out of orgasm, some begin to choose it more often than not and soon find themselves thinking of the next logical step in orgasm management.
(4) Exclusionary. This style of orgasm management begins when a male makes a conscious decision to exclude orgasm from his edging routine and to attempt to remain completely uncummed for either a long duration or indefinitely. This can only occur after sufficient experience with intermittent opting out has convinced the male that a whole new dimension of pleasures will more than adequately compensate for his sacrifice of orgasm. It’s a momentious decision that requires character and committment. (Interestingly, this is the precise solo equivalent of tantric intercourse.) The reliable extinguishing of orgasm is hard to achieve, and uninvited orgasms will crash the newby’s sessions, but each accident can be a learning opportunity on how to avoid the next. Some become discouraged and revert to the optional style of management, perhaps to try again later, but the devoted practitioner persists. He still desperately craves the orgasms that he denies himself, but it’s that very desire that stokes his spiraling passion for ongoing denial. He takes increased pleasure from the increased frustration of his increased desire for the release that seldom or never comes. He simply derives more pleasure from edging with denial than he ever found in orgasm. He edges without orgasm at every opportunity, and his aggregate pleasure far exceeds anything he ever experienced or even imagined.
(5) Transcendent. The male reproductive system is amazingly capable of readapting its desires to whatever the sort of pleasure it receives over the longer term. Thus, the male who has succeeded in excluding orgasm from his edging routine can come to the rather suddenly realization that his mind and genitals have rewired themselves to his current situation. He has transcended any need for orgasm management, because he no longer craves the organsms that he no longer has. His passions and pleasures are as strong as ever, but they’re no longer about orgasm. His formerly difficult task of denying orgasms has been replaced with a new normal of relaxed profound enjoyment of lengthy edging and arousal just for their own sakes. Orgasms are so far beyond his repertoire of sexual activities that neither they nor their absence even cross his mind during his sessions. When he must eventually stop, zip it up, and go about his day, he feels no frustration–only an intense sense of sexual satisfaction, those same heightened senses of masculinity and eroticism, and that long, intense afterglow. He has absoluetly everything that he desires sexually. Orgasm? What’s an orgasm? Even his memories of them are relegated to the mists of the past.
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I go between 3 and 4 above with the ultimate goal of getting down to two orgasms a month while edging 2 to 3 hours a day. I find that being impotent really helps me hold my loads. I masturbate and listen to my body. After about an hour I can finish without an orgasm that way. I still have trouble going more than 3-4 days like this but I keep masturbating and continue to work on extending my time.
I love being a chronic masturbator!
A beautiful and well stated summary of the 5 stages. While I have always been a dedicated and frequent (okay, chronic) masturbator, I had a very strong libido and the ability to ejaculate numerous times a day for many decades. While I edged for hours, I also let myself ejaculate nearly every time I masturbated, which was usually 3 to 5 times a day. About 10 years ago, I kept reading more and more about the tantric sex masters and the next level pleasures from those who stopped and/or limited ejaculatory frequency and mastered the multi-orgasm techniques. I had experienced multiple orgasms myself this way from time-to-time during long undisturbed masturbatory sessions where I had the ability to get into a deep meditative state, but I was unable to achieve these regularly as I rarely seemed to the right time and place and level of focus and dedication required to get into the zone.
However, I decided to re-examine things and give it another shot as a female friend of mine encouraged me to re-dedicate my efforts to push the limits of my pleasure. Over about a 3 month period of daily meditative masturbation, things began to click. For me, it was my conscious breathing taught by many tantric experts that led me to achieve a deep meditative state on a consistent basis which let me into the zone where I could enjoy multiple orgasms on my own terms, and not just here and there.
As a result, I ejaculate about once a month now, which is a far cry from something like 90 to 150 times a month as I did 10 years ago. As a side note, my balls are full almost all the time and I enjoy the fullness throughout the day as they fill my underwear and pants nicely and I am so much more aware of them.
Even though I am now in my 50s, I can become erect quickly almost anytime as my desire is strong all the time and with no ejaculation, there is no refractory time.
the pleasure is immense, too. I will admit that I have made masturbation a priority in my life ahead of many many other things, but without regret. Who needs tv or video games to occupy time when you have the ability to give yourself a slice of heaven every single day!
I enjoyed reading this having found over the past several years that my passionate pursuit in masturbation is almost always to edge continuously and to step in and out of my hot erotic edging phase multiple times over a period of at least a week at a time and usually closer to two weeks. As your excellent explanation here makes clear, the objective ceases to be to have an ejaculation – although when excitement suddenly rises and there is an unplanned ejaculatory release, that too should be thought of as part of one’s sensual training. But for me, the sheer pleasure of masturbating with a focus on keeping my hot passion rising and even when it’s subsiding, to just enjoy the sensate pleasures of handling, fondling, caressing, lubing, teasing, tapping and vibrating or lovingly ‘slapping’ my hot cock. I really do enjoy the whole process, even when work, business, home, community and other engagements require a couple of days or more uninterrupted attention – when I’m back into my privacy where I can lovingly strip and savor naked masturbatory pleasure, the goal is to extend my play time as long as the clock and my other commitments will allow. In terms of the categories you’ve listed here in your article, I’m probably about half-way between #4 and #5 – often in the Exclusionary phase and sometimes, happily and with erotically charged euphoria, in the transcendent phase. However, as it is true in all aspects of sexual pleasure, including the more conventional marital relations involving foreplay between two lovers and sensuous focus with a goal to mutually pleasuring and intercourse, the single most important thing to always pursue is to enjoy each moment and each aspect of erotic and romantic pleasures. So I do it with my very eager and demanding penis as often as possible and whenever loving mutual sexual pleasure is available, to savor those moments as well. I’m not a ‘no-pussy-pledge’ guy like some have proposed here in Onania.org. I understand their perspective but that’s not me. However, the most continuous and frequent passionate pursuit in my sex life is this amazingly adventurous non-ejaculatory orgasmic journey you’ve summarized so well. This was fun to find and really intriguing to read. Thank you for your research and thoughtfulness in sharing this!