Five Different Styles of Orgasm Management

Once again fellow edger/denier Mikael O has graciously granted permission for me to quote his writing here.  If this were merely an opinion piece, one man's speculation as to what another man might experience, it would not warrant inclusion here.  Opinion abounds on the internet, to the point of excess, to the point of arrogance.  Many a writer thinks he knows what transpires inside another man's brain.  Many a writer has no clue.

In this case, Mikael O's well-thought-out essay not only describes clearly a progression that most of us will recognize (I'm at Position Four, with moments of Position Five), but discusses the mindset of each class.  (As you will read, Mike himself avoids the term "level," for reasons he will explain.)  Significant here, and my primary reason for re-posting, is an enlightenment as to why a man would want to progress from one class to the next.  I have devoted a lot of words to addressing the common question of why one would want to postpone or even completely deny ejaculation.  Mikael O's essay distills this down into plainly understandable terms.

This is a worthwhile read.

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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 management.) 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 an orgasm 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 occur only 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 momentous decision that requires character and commitment. (Interestingly, this is the precise solo equivalent of the goal of tantric intercourse.) The reliable extinguishing of orgasm is hard to achieve, and uninvited orgasms will crash the newbie'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 sudden 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 orgasms 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 absolutely everything that he desires sexually. Orgasm? What's an orgasm? Even his memories of them are relegated to the mists of the past.