In April last year, in the town of Nanyuki, Kenya, a skirmish between local civilians and officers from a nearby British army base saw the military authorities clamp down on the soldiers being allowed to visit the town. It was a controversial decision, as the military men were renowned as good customers in an area that needs all the hard currency it can get. But the greatest outcry came from the Kenyan Union of Commercial Sex Workers, whose protest not only observed that British soldiers were willing to pay more for straight sex than local men (4,000Ksh instead of 2,000), but also “Kenyan men take a long time, but the British only take a few seconds, so then we can go and find another customer.”

I am not going to be drawn into discussing the sexual characteristics of different nationalities. The French may, as the old saying goes, be the greatest lovers; the Italians may be the most fiery; the Brits may be more comfortable with a hot water bottle (although my own experiences with an English lover tended to leave me lying hot and soggy beneath the covers, while he was still up for anything).

But until I read that article, I’d always assumed that every man was different, and it doesn’t matter where he’s from. In the predominantly American world of my past lovers, I’ve had guys who habitually leave me feeling like a very wet noodle, and I’ve had men who think a long, slow screw should be over in time for football, which starts in five minutes. Ethnicity and nationality don’t enter into it. Do they?

I talked in a previous article about just what a wonderful piece of engineering the penis is, but I deliberately skipped over its actual workings, largely because I don’t understand them. Nobody does. Not even guys. How can a picture seen or a few words spoken transform a couple of soft inches of sleeping willy into a rampant wild animal, hard as nails and hot as hell? It’s like Clark Kent turning into Superman before your very eyes, and he doesn’t even need a phone booth in which to make the transformation. Any time, any place, anywhere. But, having undergone this magnificent , magical change...how come sometimes he keeps the cape on for hours, and other times removes it in seconds?

We’re not talking about premature ejaculation here, because that is such a meaningless term. He ejaculates when his body decides to, and if it happens sooner than either of you would prefer, well that’s just the way it is. There is a medical condition (or, at least, the medical profession has created one) in which the habitual inability to gallop like a stallion can be treated with pills and such, but all that really does is shut down the body’s own natural functions. A bit like spilling coffee on the carpet, then laying another rug across the stain without bothering to clean it, or even let it dry.

Patience, confidence, understanding and not allowing it to become an obsession are the best remedies for most cases of what we call PE, which is why that first teenaged fumble with your virginal Adonis is no preparation for the pounding he will give you once he’s found his sexual bearings. Over-excitement is a very powerful aphrodisiac.

Also, remember again that it’s only premature if your schedule decides it is. Yes, I was very surprised the first time a guy came in my mouth, ten seconds after I closed my lips around him, but I didn’t think “oh my god, premature ejaculation.” I thought “wow, he enjoyed that even more than I expected.”

Making your man cum is one of the greatest experiences in the world, no matter how many times you’ve done it, no matter how easy it seems, and no matter how natural the whole process is. You did that. As a child, I had a book entitled The Wonders of Nature, filled with coelacanths, kangaroos, and other weird and wacky animals. As an adult I realized that the orgasm is just as wonderful as any of them...well, with the possible exception of the duck-billed platypus, but that’s another conversation. The ability to actually induce that wonder in another human being, then, is nothing short of miraculous.

Of course, there are plenty of reasons for wanting to delay the inevitable for as long as you can (we’re talking about the male inevitable here), to prolong the pleasure for everyone involved. Especially if he is one of those guys who cums, grunts, and then falls asleep. But you can have as much fun with a soft cock as you can with a hard one, if you put your mind to it, and if he has a mind to reciprocate, there’s a cupboard full of toys just in reach of the bed. Let’s play!

In other words, a swift ejaculation should be no obstacle to a fulfilling romp, any more than erectile dysfunction should be allowed to stand in the way of a mutually enjoyable time. His body, his rules, and you just work with what you’ve got. Personally, I love arousing the sleeper with warm jaws around its softness, feeling it harden in my mouth and then, whether it’s five seconds or fifty minutes later, feeling it return to softness again.

We are encouraged to think of sex as some kind of endurance test, which is why there are so many “performance-enhancing” treatments on the market. Or, at least, on the Internet. But it isn’t. As with that other dream that so many guys apparently have, of having a dick the size of Delaware, forgetting that not all of us have pussies to match, endurance is in the eye of the beholder and it doesn’t matter how much a woman loves having sex, there comes a time when things start to tire...to ache...to wish that it was over.

Maybe because she doesn’t want to be walking around all day tomorrow feeling half-crippled. Maybe because at the back of her mind, she’s worrying about priapism. Or maybe because, like the hookers who we started with, she wants to get some more clients in before the end of the day.

In a perfect world, sex would always be perfect. He would last as long as you both desire, and the boudoir would be a bed of roses. Sadly, this is not a perfect world and we have to take the rough with the smooth. The soft with the hard. The slow with the fast. At the end of the day, though, and at the end of his passion, there is one thing that will always be as good as it gets.

He came, and you did it. Even if you don’t think you had time to do anything at all.