Does Viagra Keep You Hard After Coming?
Cards on the table, fellas: a lot of folks are sketchy on their Viagra® facts. Many men wrongly believe, for instance, that Viagra can cause erections without sexual stimulation — that if you take one you’ll just pop a tent. And some men even mistakenly believe that erectile dysfunction medicines like CialisⓇ (tadalafil) and LevitraⓇ (vardenafil) can make your penis bigger.
Does Viagra keep you hard after ejaculation? It’s honestly not an unfair question, especially when the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) warns of four-hour erections. Between the urban legends and the horror stories, it’s no wonder that a guy who’s not already taking “the little blue pill” might misunderstand what it does and doesn’t do.
We’ve cleared a lot of this up below. Starting from the basics, we explain what Viagra actually does, what happens after you orgasm on Viagra and whether it keeps you hard after coming.
How Viagra Keeps You Hard
Viagra (the brand-name version of sildenafil citrate) and many other ED treatment medications are called phosphodiesterase-5 (PDE5) inhibitors. They are indeed designed to treat erectile dysfunction by keeping you harder for longer, and they’re effective at doing so.
PDE5 inhibitors essentially block an enzyme produced in your tissues, allowing your blood vessels to relax and widen to increase blood flow to your penis. While Viagra was first created as an effective treatment for hypertension, it was found that the active ingredient in this blood pressure medication could address the blood flow issues in ED.
By continuing to increase your blood flow, Viagra gives you a window of several hours in which you can get hard with sexual stimulation.
But let’s not forget: it’s not a cure-all for good sex. It can’t cure performance anxiety (though it can help), and it can’t make sexual intercourse last longer or increase your sex drive.
Before we answer your pressing question, though, we need to explain just one more thing.
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Why You Stop Being Hard After You Come
Nothing great lasts forever, boys. You finished, climaxed, popped the champagne — and now the bottle is empty. We know what comes next: the deflated Wacky Waving Inflatable Arm Flailing Tube Man.
Every male orgasm is immediately followed by something called the refractory period — a sort of reset/reboot phase after you climax. Most guys get minutes (which can feel like hours), and some get hours (that can feel like days). Every guy is different, and honestly, experts don’t really understand the specific functions of the refractory period.
What we do know is that this period gets longer as you age.
The nearly nonexistent teen phase becomes a longer commute sometime in your 20s and your reboot gets longer as more time passes.
Long story short: you get soft after you finish because your body needs to reboot, and the older your internal computer is, the more agonizingly slow the ol’ hard(ening) drive runs.
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Traditional Pill
SildenafilGeneric equivalent to Viagra®
From £2.36/use
The most commonly prescribed ED treatment, contains the same active ingredient as Viagra® but is 80% more affordable than the brand name.
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Daily TadalafilDaily Generic Cialis®
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A clinically proven treatment for erectile dysfunction that helps men achieve and maintain erections more easily. It gives you the freedom to enjoy spontaneous sex without needing to plan ahead.
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As-Needed TadalafilGeneric Cialis®
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The unbranded, more affordable generic form of Cialis® taken as needed. It is clinically proven to help men get and keep harder erections for up to 36 hours.
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The over-the-counter branded version of sildenafil. Viagra Connect® improves blood flow to the penis, helping you achieve and maintain strong and satisfying erections.
Important safety information for Sildenafil, Tadalafil, Tadalafil Daily or Viagra Connect.
Does Viagra Keep You Hard After Coming?
Okay, we’re ready to answer the big question on your mind: does Viagra work to help you skip the limp phase after an orgasm? No, it doesn’t.
If you were thinking about using your Viagra (or even someone else’s prescription medication or an over-the-counter ED medication) to go all night, we’ve got some bad news for you.
Experts don’t really agree what the refractory period is, but they know it doesn’t go away. Beyond this though, they have yet to answer seemingly simple questions like what does and doesn’t affect the length of your refractory period.
ED medication might have a reductive effect on your refractory period according to some users, but there’s not much data to support it. One study from 2005, for instance, found no correlation between sildenafil use and a reduced refractory timing.
The bottom line? Your refractory period isn’t going anywhere — but that’s a good thing.
Erections can actually last too long. Erections lasting longer than four hours are a serious medical condition known as priapism, which can do permanent, irreversible damage to your penis.
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Do You Stay Hard After Coming with Viagra? Takeaways
If there’s one takeaway we can leave you with, it’s to keep your safety in mind. While using the active ingredient sildenafil for the treatment of erectile dysfunction is safe, doing so for recreational reasons is dangerous.
We say this mostly as a disclaimer: when people search for “does Viagra make you last longer,” they should actually be seeking medical advice for ED (a widespread problem that affects millions of men worldwide) or premature ejaculation — not a stamina power-up.
Erectile dysfunction medication is designed to treat erectile dysfunction, not enhance sexual performance.
If you’re struggling to get hard, stay hard and finish hard, you should talk to a healthcare provider. Many problems with erectile function can be solved with the support of a medical professional.
Tell them about health conditions like heart disease or mental health issues that may be affecting your sexual satisfaction, and be honest.
Overdoing it with Viagra to try to skip your refractory period is dangerous, and it’s not how things actually work.
Too much Viagra can lead to a higher risk of side effects like chest pain and heart attack. You can read more in our guide to the side effects of Viagra.
Seek medical advice immediately for an erection longer than four hours or if you have painful erection symptoms.
And if you don’t want to look a healthcare professional in the eye to talk about any sexual dysfunction, consider having the conversation remotely via our sexual health consultation.
So take care of your sexual health (and issues like premature ejaculation), but don’t do anything unsafe. Start working on those things today.
This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute medical advice. The information contained herein is not a substitute for and should never be relied upon for professional medical advice. Always talk to your doctor about the risks and benefits of any treatment or medication.