Having an orgasm without ejaculation sounds like the holy grail for many men. It implies that one can have sex for much longer, get more pleasure out of it and remove the downsides that are generally associated with ejaculation, like fatigue, disinterest in touch and a dampened mood.

Tantra, or at least how it is used in a Western context, promises full control over male ejaculation and an increase in energy and satisfaction.

This article will take a pragmatic look at the technique, its benefits and its limitations.

The Technique

In short, the tantric technique as practised by men revolves around controlling the way they perceive arousal, which is mostly a mental practice, and the act of physically flexing the PC muscle to consciously prevent ejaculatory fluids from progressing through the urethra.

As such, the technique itself combines meditation, posture and precise muscle control, which makes it as demanding and challenging as many other physical arts.

Interestingly, the mental aspect is more important than the physical since the key lies in controlling and redirecting energy, an esoteric term representing hormonal releases and nerve firings.

Moving that energy requires much more mental control than physical control, which makes the art difficult to master and unpredictable due to the daily mood changes men naturally go through.

The Key To Tantra

From a conceptual perspective, I like using a metaphor from my childhood.

As kids who swam competitively, we always had to go to the local swimming pool and obtain an access card which allowed us to enter the facilities and obtain a locker key.

The locker rack used a mechanism to exchange your card for a key: after inserting the card, a key was unlocked, and you were able to turn it and pull it out.

When you left, you reinserted the key into the key rack, turned it until the key locked and thereby retrieved your card. Only then could you use that card to leave.

As kids who were easily bored, we, of course, experimented.

I don't remember who discovered this, but if you returned your key and, instead of simply inserting and turning it until it locked, turned it to the right only as far as the point just before the system registered the lock, you could trick the sensor into thinking the key was returned without the system being able to lock the key.

As a result, you could turn the key backwards and pull it out again while the system returned your card to you.

That meant you got your card back and also kept the key. You could then reinsert the card and get a new key, which allowed you to repeat the process and obtain as many keys as you wanted.

It was a bug that allowed you to obtain infinite keys because the sensor that recognized when the key was returned and the physical lock that prevented you from retrieving the key were not perfectly in sync.

There was space between the two.

Tantra works the same way. The key is the orgasm, while the lock is the ejaculation. These two events are not in sync and represent different bodily processes.

With practice, one can find the gap between them and get one without the other.

The State

Tantra changes your mentality. I remember one girlfriend often telling me that I was different after doing the technique and that it was noticeable.

The way I would describe it is that tantra allows you to retain the horniness and energy associated with sexual desire but removes the immediate need to engage with it, thereby making you more self-sufficient.

You can get hard and have sex as much as you want, but you can also stop if you feel like it.

After having been in ketosis as a dietary experiment many years ago and experiencing the high-ketone state for multiple months without interruption, I find that the ketogenic and tantric states have similarities.

Both change your brain and give you a different, more energetic sense of reality.

In the tantric state, if you do the technique daily, you are always horny but never lustful. You are permanently suspended within an orgasm, as if you entered it but never left.

In some sense, you have tricked your body into releasing the orgasm but not the hormonal response associated with it.

This does not mean that you feel arousal all the time. Quite the opposite. If you don't touch your genitals or someone else, you completely forget about sexual desire. But if you do touch, you immediately get incredibly aroused.

The Imperfection

After having done tantra daily for at least a few months many years ago, then having restarted the practice a few years ago and now having performed it almost daily for over two years, I have encountered many different curiosities and data points that are worth writing about.

Tantra is an inherently imperfect technique since it combines emotional states and arousal with physical performance, which leads to a high degree of variability and unpredictability.

There is no single standard for determining when the technique worked and when it did not.

If anything, the success or failure of the technique depends on the subjective perception of the practitioner.

The Levels of Success

In general, the technique is successful when:

• You feel a clear orgasm that goes beyond edging
• No drops of ejaculatory fluid emerge from the penis
• You sense a strong energy rush moving up your spine and into your head after the orgasm
• You feel no hormonal response after the orgasm (e.g., sensitivity of the penis, softening of the erection, the familiar fatigue)
• You are still hard and horny after the technique and can easily perform it multiple times without forcing yourself
• After you are done and pee, your urine is free of any cloudiness, white strings or foam that could indicate a retrograde ejaculation into the bladder

The Complications

While the list above seems quite straightforward, the reality of tantra is not that simple:

• There are many levels of orgasm and you often have to match the depth to your current mental and physical state. If you feel like you have little control, you should not go deep and vice versa.
• Pre-cum frequently, but not always, emerges from the penis during arousal. That means drops frequently occur no matter what you do.
• The hormonal response itself is not a good indicator of success since a deep orgasm will often trigger slight sensitivity in the tip of the penis even if the technique was performed perfectly. But the sensation bounces back within seconds and you can continue.
• You can fully ejaculate without having the hormonal response since you can mentally suppress it without redirecting the energy, which allows you to simply continue. While this is a clear failure, you can still apply parts of the technique.
• You can have an orgasm and do the technique, then later wonder if you had an orgasm at all since you feel like nothing happened because it felt so light.
• Even if no drops emerged during the technique and your post-orgasm urine is clean, your second or third pee might reveal clouds, white strings or ejaculatory fluids that have made their way deeper into the bladder. Also, even if your urine was clear, a later poop that requires you to press your pelvic muscles more strongly might reveal sperm that got stuck further upstream and never even made it into the bladder.

The Purpose

In my experience, it is not useful to obsess over the perfection of the technique. If you aim to have the perfect tantric practice, then you would need to create the most rigid routine, diet and mental state to allow you to have true continuity day by day, but this would be akin to putting your life in prison.

And you would likely fail in the attempt.

There is daily variation in the human condition. Tantra is a prime example of that due to its connection to hormones, emotions and muscle control.

When do I think the technique has worked?

First and foremost, I judge it based on how it felt during and after the technique. Here is my mental checklist:

• Did no drops emerge from the penis during or after the technique?
• Am I still hard and horny after?
• Is my urine clear?

The goal is to answer all three questions with a yes.

But if at least two of these questions can be answered with a clear yes, then the technique was successful as well. If one of them is a maybe, then there is no need to obsess over it.

Some pre-cum is fine if the urine is clear and the erection remains. Having light sensitivity in the tip is fine as long as you are still horny, did not release ejaculatory fluids and can get hard within seconds. Having slight foam or a bit of cloudiness in the urine is fine as well, as long as no drops emerged during the technique and your erection remained hard.

And if you completely mess it up and fully ejaculate by accident, then simply view it as a tip to the tantra gods.

You can do better next time.