Men with premature ejaculation (PE) exhibit diminished control over and short latency to ejaculation. The present study attempted to delineate further characteristics of men with PE and to address a number of presumed hypotheses regarding the etiology of this disorder.

Twenty-six men with PE were compared with an age-matched group of 13 sexually functional men on multiple indices of erectile and ejaculatory response during coital and masturbatory activities. These data were collected through retrospective, prospective, and laboratory methods.

Psychophysiological testing indicated greater ejaculatory vulnerability to penile stimulation, although not visual erotic stimulation, in PE men than functional controls. PE men also showed subtle anomalies in the way they perceived their somatic response. The correlation between measures of ejaculatory latency and control was positive and high for intercourse, but low or even negative for masturbation. Whereas functional men showed consistency in ejaculatory latency over coital and masturbatory activities, PE men exhibited much shorter latencies during coitus than masturbation. Data collected under various methodologies (retrospective, prospective, and laboratory) showed greater consistency among sexually functional subjects; and preliminary analysis of laboratory data suggests psychophysiological methodology is as effective in differentiating dysfunctional from functional men as prospective and retrospective methodologies.

Although ejaculatory latency and control tend to be related, these measures are not always stable over different kinds of sexual activity or using different methods of data collection. Psychophysiological methodology is effective in differentiating group membership (PE vs. control), but does not predict individual ejaculatory responses measured prospectively.