A 1997 study in the BMJ based upon 918 men age 45–59 found that after a ten-year follow-up, men who had fewer orgasms were twice as likely to die of any cause as those having two or more orgasms a week. A follow-up in 2001 which focused more specifically on cardiovascular health found that having sex three or more times a week was associated with a 50% reduction in the risk of heart attack or stroke. There is some research suggesting that greater resting heart rate variability is associated with orgasms through penile-vaginal intercourse without additional simultaneous clitoral stimulation.A small percentage of men have a disease called postorgasmic illness syndrome (POIS), which causes severe muscle pain throughout the body and other symptoms immediately following ejaculation. The symptoms last for up to a week. Some doctors speculate that the frequency of POIS "in the population may be greater than has been reported in the academic literature", and that many POIS sufferers are undiagnosed. Dysfunction and satisfaction
The inability to have orgasm, or regular difficulty reaching orgasm after ample sexual stimulation, is called anorgasmia or inorgasmia. If a male experiences erection and ejaculation but no orgasm, he is said to have sexual anhedonia (a condition in which an individual cannot feel pleasure from an orgasm) or ejaculatory anhedonia.
In antiquity, Latin literature addressed the subject as much as Greek literature: Book III of Ovids Metamorphoses retells a discussion between Jove and Juno, in which the former states: "The sense of pleasure in the male is far / More dull and dead, than what you females share." Juno rejects this thought; they agree to ask the opinion of Tiresias ("who had known Venus/Love in both ways," having lived seven years as a female). Tiresias offends Juno by agreeing with Jove, and she strikes him blind on the spot (Jove lessens the blow by giving Tiresias the gift of foresight, and a long life). Earlier, in the Ars Amatoria, Ovid states that he abhors sexual intercourse that fails to complete both partners.The theme of orgasm survived during Romanticism and is incorporated in many homoerotic works. In FRAGMENT: Supposed to be an Epithalamium of Francis Ravaillac and Charlotte Cordé, Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822), "a translator of extraordinary range and versatility", wrote the phrase "No life can equal such a death." That phrase has been seen as a metaphor for orgasm, and it was preceded by the rhythmic urgency of the previous lines "Suck on, suck on, I glow, I glow! ", which has been seen as alluding to fellatio. For Shelley, orgasm was "the almost involuntary consequences of a state of abandonment in the society of a person of surpassing attractions".