Orgasm: The Little Death

As doctors, the Taoist masters were interested in sexuality as part of a larger concern for the health of the entire body. They practiced Sexual Kung Fu because they discovered that ejaculation drains a man’s energy. You have probably also noticed this loss of energy and general feeling of fatigue after ejaculating. Even though you would like to be attentive to your partner’s sexual and emotional needs, all your body wants to do is sleep. As one multi-orgasmic man put it, "Once I ejaculate, the pillow looks better than my girlfriend does." The image of the unsatisfied woman whose lover ejaculates, grunts, and collapses on top of her is so common that it has become a cultural joke, but the exhaustion that men feel after ejaculating is as old as the first coital groan. Peng-Tze, a sex adviser to the famed Yellow Emperor, reported almost five thousand years ago: "After ejaculating, a man is tired, his
ears buzz, his eyes are heavy, and he longs for sleep. He is thirsty and his limbs feel weak and stiff. In ejaculating he enjoys a brief moment of sensation but then suffers long hours of exhaustion."
Western folk wisdom agrees with the Taoists regarding the importance of conserving sexual energy. Athletes have long known the weakness and lethargy that follow ejaculation, abstaining from sex the night before the "big game." Artists have also felt the lingering effects on their work. Jazz musician Miles Davis explained in a Playboy magazine interview: Davis: You can't come, then fight or play. You can’t do it. When I get ready to come, I come. But I do not come and
play.

Playboy:
Explain that in layman's terms.

Davis: Ask Muhammad Ali. If he comes, he can’t fight two minutes. Shit, he couldn’t even whip me.

Playboy:
Would you fight Muhammad Ali under those conditions, to prove your point.
Davis: You’re goddamn right I’d fight him. But he’s got to promise to fuck first. If he ain’t going to fuck, I ain’t going to fight. You give up all your energy when you come. I mean, you give up all of it!
So, if you’re going to fuck before a gig, how are you going to give something when it’s time to hit?
Miles wasn’t exactly a romantic, but he didn’t mince words, either. As one of the world’s greatest trumpet players, he knew how ejaculating decreased his stamina and depleted his art. Unfortunately, like most men, he didn’t know that he could have had sex all he wanted, even have orgasmed, before any gig – as long as he didn’t ejaculate. It might have even improved his "hitting."  Although the effects of ejaculating may be more obvious to professional musicians and prizefighters, all men eventually experience the same depletion from coming – which might more appropriately be called going. According to one multi-orgasmic man, "I really notice it in the morning if I ejaculate. I get up dragging my feet and I am tired by noon. When I
have multiple orgasms without ejaculating, I wake up refreshed and I need less sleep." Another man who was recovering from a chronic illness explained: "My sexual desire has always been strong, so I ejaculated often, once or twice a day. And with every ejaculation my health got worse and worse because I was losing a lot of energy." Many men, especially young men, may not notice this feeling of depletion at first unless they ejaculate when they are sick or working hard.
In the West, we assume that ejaculation is an inevitable culmination of male arousal and the end of lovemaking. In China, however, doctors long ago saw what the French call le pe it mort –
"the little death" of ejaculation – as an avoidable betrayal of male pleasure and a dangerous depletion of male vitality.