These days it’s no secret that pretty much every guy in the world deals with premature ejaculation at some point during his life. After all, the condition is notoriously easy to trigger with everything from too many burgers at lunch to being annoyed about the last episode of Game of Thrones being able to throw a wrench in the works. Still, with so many men dealing with it, the condition remains chronically under-reported.

The Challenge of Diagnosing Premature Ejaculation

The reason why so few men are diagnosed with the condition boils down to a few key factors. First there’s the issue regarding men and doctors in general, which is also one of those well-known secrets. Times are changing in regards to men and the medical community but, even today, there are very few men who feel comfortable talking to their doctor about their own sexual performance.

Instead, more and more men are turning to self-diagnosis and at home treatment options long before they even consider seeking out the advice of their primary care doctor. This means that many men are able to resolve the issue on their own, without ever going through the diagnostic process. So that reduces the official statics for the condition overall.

There’s also an issue of how vaguely the condition is defined in the DSM-IV, the diagnostic manual used throughout the medical field. According to the latest edition, the condition is diagnosed by meeting the following criteria:

“A. Persistent or recurrent ejaculation with minimal sexual stimulation before, on, or shortly after penetration and before the person wishes it. The clinician must take into account factors that affect duration of the excitement phase, such as age, novelty of the sexual partner or situation, and recent frequency of sexual activity.

• The disturbance causes marked distress or interpersonal difficulty.
• The premature ejaculation is not due exclusively to the direct effects of a substance (e.g., withdrawal from opioids).”

Since there’s no set time for how long a man should last, this makes the condition hard to properly identify. After all, a man may feel he is ejaculating too quickly after 10, 15 or even 20 minutes of sexual activity. In reality, the condition is marked by lasting only a few moments – not minutes – but still many men aren’t sure how long they SHOULD be lasting so they don’t know for sure if they need help.

The Truth About Stamina

The fact of the matter is that sex doesn’t last as long as most people think it does. This point was driven home in 2008 when a group of American and Canadian sex researchers got together to discuss sex and determine just how long intercourse should last.

The group published their findings in a 2008 edition of the Journal of Sexual Medicine. According to their article, the average time for actual intercourse (not counting foreplay or any other kind of sexual play) lasts a mere 3 to 7 minutes. Anything beyond that almost certainly couldn’t be diagnosed as premature ejaculation, but that doesn’t mean men are happy with their stamina levels at that point.

And therein lies the rub – premature ejaculation isn’t necessarily about meeting a set of specific criteria, it’s about a man who isn’t happy with his endurance. For men on the extreme end of that scale, that is, men who last less than 2 minutes, that can necessitate the need for medical intervention and even the use of strong pharmaceuticals to deal with the issue. For others, including those who fall within the lower end of that scale, it often means using simple techniques and exercises to increase their overall stamina. Either way, this news can help many men finally determine once and for all if they need to seek professional help or if they simply need to take steps to increase their stamina to beyond average.