Did you know that "Orgasm Day" is an official holiday? It may not be marked on your calendar, but the mayor of a small town in Brazil recently signed a city council bill proclaiming May 9 Orgasm Day with the goal of improving relationships between married couples. They spent the day talking about orgasms from many points of view, even having a panel discussion on premature ejaculation (PE), a topic that's typically kept hush-hush. Clearly, sex is not the taboo subject in Brazil that it is in many other parts of the world. In fact, the mayor of the largest city, Sao Paolo, is a well-known sex therapist.
Even though I talk about sex all day long in my private practice, when I first heard about Orgasm Day, even my own natural reaction was to laugh. There's nothing wrong with finding this news humorous as long as we also recognize its serious side. After all, though we are all born sexual creatures, most of us remain embarrassed by the subject of sex. That's why, despite the constant bombardment of sexual content in the media, we still don't talk about it enough with our sexual partners. That communication is critical to our sexual satisfaction and to our relationships. This Brazilian town held a panel on premature ejaculation, but how many couples experiencing it actually talk about it? Quite a small percentage, I would guess.
The reason for this could also be due to the fact that the term has such a loose definition. In a recent study, hundreds of wives used stopwatches (yes, stopwatches) to time their husbands in bed in order to determine the difference between "normal" and "premature" ejaculation times. Because men have no individual frame of reference, some of the men who participated and lasted under three minutes felt ashamed for being unable to restrain themselves for longer, while others who lasted under three minutes were unaffected, figuring that was a "normal" duration.
