health, sex, masturbationI read somewhere that men can also attain multiple orgasms. It further said that as soon as you are on the verge of ejaculating, you need to stop and wait few seconds. And then restart.
I’m a little worried that could it be harmful for stopping at that moment, when the sperm is just about to come out?
To clarify, I think you're asking about semen, not sperm. Sperm cells are produced by the testicles, travel down the vas deferens, and mix with the semen, assuming they aren't blocked by a vasectomy or the equivalent. Semen - the whitish liquid you ejaculate - is produced primarily in the prostate and the seminal vesicles, with contributions from other glands. Semen can contain 0-5% sperm by volume. [http://www.britannica.com/topic/semen] But the amount of sperm won't make any difference for the question I think you intended to ask, which is whether "edging" and non-ejaculatory orgasms are harmful.
And the answer to that question is no, they are not. The semen remains where it is, waiting for your next ejaculation, just as if you had done nothing to stimulate yourself. If becoming aroused for extended periods without release did harm, millions of teenage boys would be crippling themselves by making out for hours without release. And I've personally interviewed two dozen men, including my own partner, who have deliberately had dry orgasms regularly over many years, in some cases for more than 25 years, without any harm.
Since you asked this in the context of men who are trying to become multi-orgasmic, it's probably worth expanding on that simple "no" answer to include information related to that topic. It starts with the difference between orgasm and ejaculation. Although male orgasms and ejaculation usually go together, they are not the same thing. Under certain circumstances men can have an orgasm without an ejaculation, just as boys do before semenarche, and they can have an ejaculation without an orgasm.
An orgasm begins in the central nervous system. Within 1-3 seconds of onset, the orgasm triggers the ejaculatory process in the nerves and muscles of the pelvic region, creating waves of muscular contractions that force the semen down the urethra and out. If you are male, you may recognize the actual onset of the orgasm in your brain as a feeling of inevitability, "the point of no return," followed moments later by the onset of ejaculation.
A few men have the ability to suppress the ejaculation signal purely by mental choice. In all cases I know of, these men masturbated to orgasm frequently as boys, before reaching semenarche, and they somehow retained the ability to select which kind of orgasm to have. However, most men who can voluntarily have "dry" (nonejaculatory) orgasms have learned to use a strong, extended contraction of the pubococcygeal (or "kegel") muscles just before or at the onset of orgasm to suppress the ejaculation signal.
[Note that this actually interrupts the signal and prevents the internal contractions, it does not just block the expulsion of semen. There is a third technique for preventing ejaculation that does involve physically blocking the urethra with fingers or a hard object. This is entirely different in mechanism and effect, because it does NOT prevent the ejaculatory contractions from taking place. Instead, these fairly forceful contractions occur, but the semen is physically prevented from moving forward. As a result, the semen is often forced backward into the bladder (called "retrograde ejaculation"). Blocking the urethra like this is dangerous and can lead to damage to the urethra or the prostate or both. It is not uncommon to see blood as well as semen in the urine afterward.]
Some source material from an article I wrote awhile ago:
For a very long time, all Western writers about sex stated unequivocally that a man could not have an orgasm without an ejaculation, and that every man had to wait through a recovery (or “refractory”) period after one orgasm before he could get another erection and have another orgasm. A few dabblers in Eastern religion and sexual practices came across clues that this wasn’t necessarily true, but it wasn’t until Alfred Kinsey’s pioneering study, Sexual Behavior in the Human Male, in 1948, that there was a hint that some normal men didn’t follow the supposed rules.
Kinsey noted that, out of the thousands of American men he studied, a few reported experiencing orgasm without ejaculation, and being able to have multiple orgasms in a row as a result. Because “everyone knew” that this was impossible, it was largely ignored, or dismissed either as a reporting error or as men simply exaggerating their sexual prowess. The same thing happened in 1966 when Masters and Johnson mentioned the possibility of male orgasms without ejaculation in their landmark book, Human Sexual Response, even though they were relying on laboratory studies, not self-reports or surveys.
In 1978, two researchers published a paper describing interviews with several multi-orgasmic men (M. Robbins, G. Jensen; "Multiple Orgasm in Males," Journal of Sex Research, vol. 14, no. 1; 1978), but again there was little attention paid to it. It was not until 1984, when William Hartman and Marilyn Fithian published their how-to guide, Any Man Can, that members of the general public became aware that the conventional wisdom was wrong.
Hartman and Fithian were among the most respected sex researchers of their era. They recorded extraordinary amounts of data during more than 10,000 hours of observation and recordings of more than 750 subjects masturbating and having sex in their Los Angeles lab, still a record in the field.
Among their 282 male subjects, they found 33 who could have anywhere from 2 to 16 orgasms in a row without losing their erections. (Orgasms were defined and determined by recording and measuring the rapid increases in the heart rate and the involuntary contractions of the anal sphincter and pelvic muscles.) These 33 men averaged four orgasms per session, which was typically 20-30 minutes, with the record held by a young man who had 16 consecutive orgasms in less than an hour, an average of less than 4 minutes for each one!
In 1989, Marion Dunn and Jan Trost, researchers in New York, published a study of 21 multiply orgasmic men. They found “that detumescence does not always follow an orgasm, that a nonejaculatory orgasm can occur prior to as well as after an ejaculatory orgasm, and that it is possible to have a series of orgasms. Some of the men reported always having been multiply orgasmic, whereas others experienced it relatively late in life. Others have actively learned to become multiply orgasmic.” Of these, eight were men who learned to become multi-orgasmic after age 35. ("Male multiple orgasms: a descriptive study." Dunn, Marion E; Trost, Jan E, Arch Sex Behav. 1989 Oct;18(5):377-87.)
The "edging" process described in the question is commonly used by men who are learning to recognize the onset of orgasm with sufficient accuracy to use the kegel method to control ejaculation. If you maintain a high level of arousal for too long, it can cause the painful pelvic congestion called "blue balls," so it's a good idea to continue to the point of ejaculation after an hour or two. (Experiment to find the time period you find works for you.)
Men who use the kegel technique to orgasm without ejaculation typically have a series of dry orgasms followed by an ejaculatory orgasm, so they don't have the pelvic congestion problem. However, "blue balls" are merely uncomfortable; in spite of what some teenage boys would like girls to believe, they are not actually harmful or dangerous.
The main side-effect of stimulating yourself without orgasm is “blue balls”. This is a scientifically documented condition and is caused by the rapid reversal of the physiological events brought about by the stimulation, without the hormonal control brought about by ejaculating naturally.
The other danger is that you don’t stop yourself in time. At this point, there are three things that could happen.
You could ejaculate normally.
If you’re trying to have multiple orgasms as a man, the goal is that you will eventually be able to have an orgasm without ejaculating at all. This is called a dry orgasm, but as far as I know there’s little evidence to suggest that it actually leads to multiple orgasms. As the source says, it is usually harmless, but can interfere with a man’s ability to father a child.
More likely, at least when you start out, is that you will ejaculate into your bladder. This too is normally harmless but can affect your fertility.
This is known as Orgasm control aka Edging, and I could not find any reliable source claiming it might be harmful or pose any health risk.
From my own common sense, I don’t think it can be harmful.
Will keep looking and update here.
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