male, ejaculationSome men, e.g., those who have had their prostate removed, are physically unable to ejaculate but can still experience orgasms.
What other circumstances can present in which adult male orgasms are not accompanied by ejaculate?
Have any men demonstrated an ability to consciously control ejaculation independent of orgasms?
Yes this is technically possible and by more simple means than one might think: simply by “drying off” all the available semen.
During orgasm, the body release most of the semen it has. If the male then has a second orgasm shortly after, there will still be some semen but much less. Third orgasm in a short time span (e.g. less than 30 minutes after first) would result in no ejaculation since the body has nothing to push out. You will still feel the orgasm the same way and it would feel like something is going out, but actually it would be dry.
I’m not sure if this is the answer you’re looking for, but there is a thing called dry orgasm that happens to men.
It has the same feeling like ejaculation, but you don’t see anything ejaculating. No fluid comes out.
This can happen for many a reason, not necessarily bad ones.
To be more exact, if I remember correctly, a tiny amount of semen comes out, but it is not visible.
There are many references for this. Here are a few:
A ‘dry orgasm’ is what happens when a man reaches a sexual climax but does not ejaculate – so no fluid emerges from the penis.
Dry orgasm occurs when a man reaches sexual climax but doesn’t release (ejaculate) semen from the penis — or releases very little semen. Semen is the thick, white fluid that carries sperm.
Oh, yes, it's definitely possible. I live with a man who does it often.
It appears that all boys can do this prior to semenarche (first ejaculation). After semenarche, it can happen naturally and some men can do it deliberately. Verbal descriptions of non-ejaculatory orgasms ("dry orgasms" or "drygasms") by men are remarkably similar to the way women describe clitoral or vaginal orgasms.
Because it is ejaculation, not orgasm, that triggers detumescence, a man does not necessarily lose his erection after a dry orgasm, and is therefore able to continue his sexual activity. This means that any discussion of dry orgasms tends also to involve the topic of male multiple orgasms.
Male Orgasms in Childhood
Boys have been observed masturbating in the womb and during infancy and early childhood, apparently including orgasm. Many teenage boys and adult men can remember masturbating to orgasm before the first time they ejaculated. Often they are unclear about whether a dry orgasm should count as a "real" orgasm, but the descriptions they give are essentially identical to the ones girls and women use to describe their own orgasms. Kinsey claimed that half of the pre-teen boys he studied were able to have several orgasms in a row. [For sources, please see my answer to Sexual function in prepubescent children.]
Natural "Drygasms" in Adult Males
This is an excerpt from Multiple Orgasms for Men: Some History, the second in a series of five articles I wrote a couple of years ago:
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.)
Dunn and Trost actually lump two different kinds of dry orgasms together. One is natural and typically occurs immediately before or after a normal ejaculatory orgasm, especially if the man has been highly aroused for an unusually long period of time. "Preshocks" are dry orgasms leading up to the primary ejaculatory orgasm, usually with a separation of 5-15 seconds. "Aftershocks" occur most often as a result of strong manual stimulation during and after an ejaculatory orgasm, but some men routinely have a series of orgasms even during regular vaginal sex. They may or may not be completely dry. What all of these orgasm have in common is that they are spontaneous. You can create the conditions for them, but you can't compel them to happen.
Intentional "Drygasms" in Adult Males
The second type of dry orgasm referred to by Dunn and Trost is one that is consciously controlled by the man. As a general rule, this type of orgasm is followed by a partial drop in the level of arousal but no loss of erection. If stimulation continues at a high level the man will typically be able to have another orgasm in 1 to 5 minutes, although of course it can take longer at lower levels of stimulation.
Hartman & 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! The subjects also included one man who could have multiple ejaculations in a row without loss of erection. [Ibid.]
In 32 out of 33 cases, these men were having dry orgasms before (optionally) a final orgasm with ejaculation. Interestingly, H&F were unable to tell reliably from the EKG recordings whether an orgasm was accompanied by ejaculation. Both dry and normal orgasms had the same pattern of heart rate acceleration just before and during the orgasm and the same deceleration afterward.
Personal Observations
My long-term partner regularly experiences both kinds of dry orgasm. We practice a kind of "slow sex" often called "modern tantra," and one of the components is an exchange of roughly hour-long erotic massages. During his massage, I'm in an excellent position to observe his arousal levels and his orgasms at close range.
Except for the lack of ejaculate, a controlled drygasm seems indistinguishable to me from a normal orgasm. Preshocks and aftershocks likewise appear normal, except that the penis does begin to go soft during a long series of aftershocks. Any of these may sometimes include small amounts of clear or cloudy fluid, but if fluid is present it is produced without force.
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