I no longer offer consultations for premature ejaculation. This article remains a reading resource; to explore further, I recommend Étienne Vallon’s book.
Try this test, right now. Sit comfortably. Breathe in calmly through your nose. Now clench your teeth. Hard. Really hard. Hold the tension for three seconds. While your teeth are clenched, try to relax your perineum — your pelvic floor, the area between the anus and scrotum. Try to feel it becoming heavy, relaxed and open downwards.
You cannot do it.
Or, more precisely: you can feel very clearly that while your jaw is locked, your pelvic floor cannot relax. As though the two were connected by a taut thread.
That is exactly what is happening. And it is one of the most useful things you can understand if you ejaculate too quickly.
The anatomical link: not a metaphor
I have often said to clients: ‘Your jaw and your pelvic floor breathe together.’ This is not an image. It is a neurological fact.
The diaphragm (your main breathing muscle), the perineum (your pelvic floor) and the jaw are connected through several pathways:
Embryological. The three areas share a common embryonic origin — they develop from the same foetal structures. This is why osteopaths have long spoken of multiple ‘diaphragms’ in the body: the pelvic diaphragm (the pelvic floor), the thoracic diaphragm (the breathing muscle) and the oral diaphragm (the jaw). Three connected levels.
Fascial. Fascia — the continuous connective tissue surrounding all your muscles — runs uninterrupted from the jaw to the pelvic floor. Chronic tension at the top creates tension below through traction in the fascial tissue.
Neurological. The trigeminal nerve (which supplies the jaw) and the pudendal nerve (which supplies the pelvic floor) communicate through the autonomic nervous system. When one is on alert, so is the other. When one relaxes, the other follows.
Postural. The chewing muscles, neck muscles, deep abdominal muscles and pelvic floor work as a chain. A clenched jaw pulls the head forwards, tightens the neck, braces the abdominals and hardens the pelvic floor. The entire chain is under tension.
Why this matters for premature ejaculation
Premature ejaculation — in the vast majority of cases — is associated with a hypertonic pelvic floor. Too tense, too locked, too heavily recruited.
And an overly tense pelvic floor lowers the ejaculation threshold. The reflex triggers earlier. Control disappears.
The problem is that most men with hypertonicity do not feel tense. Tension has become their baseline. They have forgotten what relaxation would feel like. And when asked to ‘relax your pelvic floor’, they do not know where to begin. It is like asking someone to move a muscle they have forgotten how to move for ten years.
The jaw, however, is easier to feel. You know straight away whether your teeth are clenched. Your cheeks, the back of your neck, your temples — you feel the tension immediately when you pay attention. And because of the neurological link, relaxing the jaw starts to relax the pelvic floor. Without needing to target the pelvic floor directly.
This is one of the most useful discoveries of a body-first approach to premature ejaculation: the pelvic floor can be approached through the jaw. Much more accessible.
First, know whether this is your profile
Before spending weeks working on your jaw, you need to know whether this approach fits your profile. Premature ejaculation does not have just one cause — it has several distinct clinical profiles. For some men (predominantly anxious profiles, without marked pelvic hypertonicity), jaw work offers only a small benefit. For others (predominantly pelvic-hypertonic profiles, often associated with night-time bruxism), it is one of the most worthwhile tools available.
If you recognise several of the signs below, you are probably among those for whom this work will make a difference most quickly:
In my past clinical work, I noticed recurring patterns. Many men who consulted me about premature ejaculation — particularly in the ‘predominant pelvic hypertonicity’ subgroup — showed one or more of the following signs:
- Night-time bruxism — clenching or grinding their teeth at night (often diagnosed by their dentist, sometimes treated with a mouthguard they do not wear)
- Chronic neck tension, upper-back pain and tension headaches
- A visibly clenched jaw in photographs (you can see the contraction of the masseters — the cheek muscles — in someone whose jaw is permanently locked)
- Holding their breath under stress — without realising it
- A tendency towards perfectionism, control or ‘taking it all’ without letting anything go in daily life
These men almost never truly rest. Their bodies are on alert 24 hours a day — including at night, including during sex. Their pelvic floor follows. Always ready. Always about to go.
The ‘teeth test’ — the simplest clinical tool I know
This is an exercise I have offered many clients in a first session. It takes two seconds and changes how you understand your own body.
Phase 1. Sit down. Breathe in calmly. Now clench your teeth hard. Notice what you feel. Not only in the jaw — everywhere. Your shoulders. The back of your neck. Your belly. Your buttocks. Your pelvic floor. You will feel that everything tightens together. The jaw does not clench alone — it is the visible top of a system closing down.
Phase 2. Now release the jaw. Let the teeth move slightly apart (the correct resting position: the teeth do not touch). Rest your tongue against the roof of your mouth, behind the front teeth, without pressing. Let air flow through your nose. Feel what happens in the rest of your body. The shoulders drop. The neck lengthens. The belly softens. The pelvic floor — if you pay attention to it — becomes heavier and more open.
You have just done something you did not know you could do: relax your pelvic floor through your jaw.
This is an entry point. Once you know how to open that door, you can use it at any time — at work, in the car and, above all, during sex.
What it changes during sex
Here is the typical sequence that develops after a few weeks of attention in men who practise checking in with their jaw:
Before sex. You notice your jaw is clenched. You consciously release it. You feel your whole body come down a notch. You arrive in bed wearing less armour.
During sex. When arousal starts rising too quickly, you bring your attention to your jaw — not your penis, not how long you last, not your anxiety. You release your teeth. You let your breathing settle. The pelvic floor loosens. The ejaculation threshold rises. You gain space.
This is more effective than thinking about something else. More effective than squeezing a muscle (which, ironically, often makes things worse by tightening the pelvic floor further). More effective than counting backwards.
Why? Because you are not fighting your body. You are releasing the lock that keeps your body in rapid-release mode.
How to work with the jaw in daily life
A few complementary tools for men who recognise themselves in the clenched-jaw profile:
Repeated jaw check-ins. Set 5 silent alarms on your phone (08:00, 11:00, 14:00, 17:00, 20:00). At each alarm: where is my jaw? If it is clenched — and it will be 4 times out of 5 — release it. Three seconds. Your whole body breathes a little more easily. Do this for 21 days. Your brain will begin to make the awareness automatic.
A mouthguard, if you grind your teeth at night. If your dentist has prescribed a bruxism mouthguard and you are not wearing it, put it in. Not only for your teeth — for your sleep, your nervous system and your pelvic floor. You recover each night. The making of a man who ejaculates quickly also includes nights spent clenching his teeth while dreaming he is fighting. End the night-time war.
Masseter massage. The masseters are the muscles in your cheeks — you feel them when you clench your teeth. Massage them in slow circles with two or three fingers, 30 seconds on each side, twice a day. At first it is uncomfortable because they are overused. Within a few weeks, it becomes pleasant. And the jaw releases a notch.
An induced yawn. Make yourself yawn widely, with your mouth fully open, several times a day. Yawning stretches the masseters and stimulates the vagus nerve — the main pathway of the parasympathetic system (the relaxation branch of the autonomic nervous system). It is the biochemical opposite of stress.
What your dentist knows that your doctor does not
There are fields that have taken the jaw seriously for a long time: occlusodontics, maxillofacial physiotherapy and osteopathy specialising in the TMJ (temporomandibular joint). If your jaw is severely locked, support from one of these professionals can speed up what you are trying to do alone. Ask your dentist whether they know a trained colleague.
Sex therapists are beginning to incorporate these approaches into care for premature ejaculation — for clients whose jaw and pelvic floor are visibly pulling together. It is not yet mainstream. That is a shame. Because for some men, releasing the jaw moves their PE forward more than six months of Kegels.
A recap
Premature ejaculation is almost never an isolated problem of the penis. It is a problem of a nervous system on alert, expressed as a locked pelvic floor, expressed as a rapid release.
The jaw is one of the most accessible entry points for interrupting this system — provided it fits your profile. Easier than targeting the pelvic floor directly. More effective than mental distraction techniques.
If you clench your teeth — at night, at work or even right now as you read — there is a great deal to gain by beginning there.
But before committing to weeks of practice, the first useful question is ‘what is my profile?’. That is exactly what my book Sortir de votre éjaculation précoce — Durer plus longtemps en habitant son corps offers from its first chapter: an A/B/C clinical questionnaire with subprofiles, to understand where you are — and therefore which exercises are priorities for you. Not a universal programme. A programme shaped around your situation. French edition.
📖 The jaw is only one entry point. The whole body is part of the work: this is the body-first method I explain, exercise by exercise, in Sortir de votre éjaculation précoce, available on Amazon in French.
Scarlett Kaplan has been a sex therapist in Paris for ten years. Her writing on premature ejaculation centres on the principle that it is a problem of presence, not duration — and that presence is relearned through the body as much as the mind.