Some men have been known to say, “you can’t just expect sex after sex.”
But why not?
While men want to continually sexually satisfy the women they love, it’s a fact that women have an anatomical advantage. “As long as she’s aroused and lubricated, a woman is physically capable of having sex as many times as she wants without a break in between,” explains Drogo K. Montague, MD, of the Cleveland Clinic Glickman Urological Institute.
Guys actually have a built-in recovery period (nature’s cockblock, if you will) after sex. It’s called the male refractory period (MRP), and it’s the time after ejaculation—lasting anywhere from a few minutes to a few days—where a guy is unable to get an erection again.
While women don’t have an equivalent (allowing for the possibility of multiple orgasms), every man experiences some kind of post-ejaculation recovery period.
“On average, a man in his 20s needs 5 to 30 minutes following his first orgasm to attain an erection again,” says Dr. Montague.
A 30-something man will need a few more minutes of recovery time; the older the man, the longer it takes for him to get that second erection.
Here’s why:
Every time a man ejaculates, his pituitary gland produces a surge of oxytocin and prolactin, hormones that make him relax, says Larry Lipshultz, M.D., a professor of urology at Baylor College of Medicine.
These hormones suppress dopamine, the neurotransmitter responsible for arousal.
Scientists suspect that lengthened refractory periods are caused by