What is the Ideal Penetration Time for Sex?

Medically reviewed by: Kazuhiko Fukumoto, MD, Ph.D

If you are having sex with a partner, there may have been times where you were concerned whether you were satisfying your partner's needs by maintaining a sufficient amount of penetration time before ejaculating. Men who suffer from premature ejaculation in particular tend to feel that they need to make their penetration time longer.  However, have you ever considered a woman's perpective of what is the ideal duration time?  So for men who are concerned about their penetration time, we would like to share some data we have compiled on the subject.

Contents

"Ideal Penetration Time for Women

Penetration Time for Men with Delayed Ejaculation

Premature or Delayed Ejaculation? How to Self-check

Summary: A Better Sex Life Through Satisfying Penetration Time"

Ideal Penetration Time for Women

Actual penetration time versus ideal penetration time for women

Here is the data of "actual penetration time" and "ideal penetration time" during sex for 449 women (100 people in their 20's, 100 people in their 30's, 100 people in their 40's, 80 people in their 50's, 69 people in their 60's, average age 42.7 years). Surveyed by TENGA Healthcare in 2017, where the average actual penetration time was 11.2 minutes, while the ideal average penetration time was 9.7 minutes.

Although these are merely averages, they show that there is not much difference between "actual penetration time" and "desired penetration time by women".

The top responses to the ideal penetration time were as follows:

<Top 5 ideal penetration times for women>

1: 10 minutes (20.9%)

2: 5 minutes (18.9%)

3: Less than 1 minute (12.9%)

4: 15 minutes (9.6%)

5: 3 minutes (7.1%)

Aggregating the data, about half (46.8%) of the women desired an penetration time of 5 minutes or less, and about 3/4 (74.6%) desired an penetration time of 10 minutes or less, while less than 10% (8.0%) of the women desired an penetration time of 30 minutes or more, representing a minority of the respondents.

Looking at the data, there may be many men who think that the responses from women's ideal times are shorter than expected. They might think that if you can last for about 5 minutes, you may not have to overthink and worry about premature ejaculation. However, there are some women who desire a penetration of longer than 30 minutes, so it is best to have a heart to heart conversation with your partner about their wants and needs.

Penetration Time for Men with Delayed Ejaculation

In reviewing this chart, bear in mind that these are responses for the average penetration times during regular sex for 100 men (20-40s, average age 36.9) who self-diagnosed their condition as "normal," "mild delayed ejaculation," "delayed ejaculation," and "severely delayed ejaculation".

Even men who considered themselves to be "normal" had about 1.5 times (14.2 minutes) the ideal penetration as expressed by the women surveyed (9.7 minutes), and even those who considered themselves to have "mildly delayed ejaculation" had about twice the ideal time compared to the women surveyed, showing a difference in perception of penetration time between men and women.

Premature or Delayed Ejaculation? How to Self-check

Since many men are concerned about whether they have premature or delayed ejaculation, we have created a self-check you can perform on the following websites.

Premature Ejaculation Diagnostic Tool

Delayed Ejaculation / Vaginal Ejaculation Disorder Self-Check

Finally, whether you have premature or delayed ejaculation, it is important that you and your partner are both satisfied with the during of penetrative sex. For some, even if the penetration time is only 5 minutes, it may be too long; and for others, even if you can keep going for 30 minutes or more, it may be too short. You may know your ideal time, but many people do not know their partner's. Knowing what your partner wants may be a step towards a mutually satisfying and better sex life.

Summary: A Better Sex Life Through Satisfying Penetration Time

In this article, we have looked at the penetration time during sex. There seems to be a difference in men's and women's perceptions of ideal penetration time. In particular, if you have a strong desire to satisfy your partner, you should have a converstion with your partner about this subject. If you can find a compromise that satisfies both of your needs, your sex life can be more mutually satisfying.