Time is a massive factor. Most guys seem happy to stop after an hour or so. I always want to keep going for a whole lot longer than that.
Unfortunately, it's probably more physical fatigue that hampers the best of us. Missionary is unbelievably tough on the arms if your're doing it for more than 30 minutes. The key (for me anyway) is trying to make the act of fucking as easy as possible on the muscles. If one set of muscles start getting fatigued, I find keeping a hard on hard gets too be difficult.
I don't discuss my approach to edging too much on this board, mostly because many folks, especially younger men, would presume it to be so much bullshit or, at the very least, a braggart's distortion. But for me, in most situations where I'm looking for a full and complete session, three hours constitutes a quickie. my average encounter over the last five or so years runs six to eight hours; twelve is not unheard of. My current personal best is twenty-three hours, but involved slightly extended breaks where I dozed for a spell and had a snack
I have said in other threads (and often IRL) that I play by a menu rather than a script. To continue that analogy, the menu encompasses a full range of courses as would an especially lavish meal: appetizers, salads and soups, main courses, items from the grill, specialties of the house, desserts, etc. My range also incorporates a variety of moods ranging from soft and romantic to aggressively rough to somethings most anyone could only label extreme (excluding my limitations as a non-versatile top, my only real limits are
consent* and scat: all else is fair game). The best and most comprehensive sessions include not just a healthy selection from the menu but variations in mood as appropriate in the context of the moment.
*
Consent, in my life, means being HIV+, eschewing any safer-sex protocols, and the obvious ones precluding kids, animals, etc).
This approach (a sexual philosophy, really), requires stamina, interactive communication (verbal and non-verbal) and creative wit (in both the humor and intellectual meanings of the term) from both me and my sexual partner(s) throughout the session. It also requires both trust and chemistry, which can be in short supply sometimes, which is why some sessions last three or four hours while others can go on practically indefinitely.
If a certain position, like missionary, brings about a fatigue then switch it out. Personally, I find more than about thirty minutes to be about the limit on any one position, really. There also lots of variations possible in any one position that will likely decrease physical fatigue on either of the partners. This increases the longevity of any one specific position.
Breaks are, of course, necessary, though breaks totally devoid of any kind of touching, especially those lasting more than ten minutes can kill the mood completely.
The biggest factor for me is probably the mindfuck. My FB is as into BDSM as I am and knows exactly which buttons to press. Vanilla sex could never completely satisfy me because this factor is conspicuously missing.
...
I suspect that given an entire weekend with nothing to do but have sex, my FB could get me to that point of total satisfaction. Unfortunately we've never had the opportunity.
The problem is, that even when if I reached that point of complete satisfaction, it just wouldn't last long. A lot of people seem to think that a session of good sex should last you a few days at least. I don't even feel satisfied for a few hours (or minutes). I'll still be running the wonderful memories through my mind and enjoying them, but my body craves more
Ditto. Once again you've hit the nail on the head. I can identify with that wholeheartedly. Even after an orgasm, and I go soft and can't get hard again, I still want sex.
One of the reasons why my particular sex drive runs in peaks and valleys is because because when I start getting lots of sex, I crave more and more of it; the valleys come from several factors, including health issues, sheer exhaustion and changes in my lifestyle that don't allow the sheer volume of time required to have the kind of sex I've described above. The valleys create a strange inertia, where masturbation suffices, that feeds on itself until, at their lowest level, I'm essentially asexual. This inertia can be a difficult thing to break sometimes, but once broken, a hypersexuality takes over again, and I go back into a warp drive.
As to this business of the "mind fuck": hours and hours sexual activity can desensitize my dick and make my nipples (I'm hardwired and titplay is a requirement) conversely get extremely sensitive, sometimes sore. The only way to overcome this plateau and either hit a new high or finally achieve release (the more likely of the two), is to up the ante. As my partners generally have done most everything physical they're capable of doing after, say, six or seven hours, the only way to up the ante is by adding another emotional level, which is the mind fuck. It can involve anything from humiliation on one extreme to intense displays of emotional enthrallment on the other; I'm usually more inclined to go with the latter.
