Finding it

Now we go looking. One instruction matters more than everything else here, and you already know it.

Forward, not deeper

Say it out loud if you have to.

It's a couple of inches in, and then toward your belly button. Not up, not further. Guys instinctively go deeper when they can't find it, and deeper is always wrong. Past a certain point you've gone straight past it.

If you're using your finger, that's roughly to the second knuckle and then curl toward the front like you're beckoning someone.

What you're feeling for

A firm rounded bump against the front wall. Roughly walnut-sized, though yours might be smaller or larger. Slightly firmer than everything around it.

The tissue over it is smooth and the gland underneath has a bit of give, like pressing the pad of your thumb through a layer of cloth.

The sensation is the giveaway

You may find it by feel. More often, guys find it by reaction.

The classic report is a sudden urge to pee, or a feeling like you're about to, even though you don't need to. That's not a problem and it doesn't mean anything's wrong. It's your urethra running straight through the gland you're pressing on.

Others describe a dull ache, a warmth, or just a distinctly "that's something" signal that's hard to name.

Pressure, not poking

Steady and firm beats fast and light. This isn't a spot that responds well to being jabbed at.

Press, hold, and wait several seconds before you decide whether anything is happening. Most of the interesting responses here are slow. If you're moving around constantly you'll never notice them because you keep changing the input.

If you find nothing

Completely normal on a first attempt, and here's the most likely reason.

The way experienced men put it: whatever you're using is an amplifier, not a generator. It makes more of what's already there. Turn up with nothing there and it faithfully amplifies nothing, and then you blame the toy.

That holds whether it's your finger or something you paid for.

Other things that help:

• Give it more time. Ten minutes of settling before you go looking.
• Change position rather than pushing harder. The next step covers this.
• Empty your bladder first, so the pee sensation is less distracting.
• Come back another day. It hasn't moved.

The outside route

Worth knowing, and almost nobody mentions it: there's a spot on the outside that does something.

Your perineum is the stretch between your balls and your rosebud. Roughly an inch and a half back from your balls, dead centre, sits a junction where the nerves serving your prostate, your anus and your dick all pass close together. Press there with a fingertip — firm, held, not rubbed — and a lot of guys feel something register deeper inside.

Two honest caveats. You are not pressing your prostate; it's further in than that and no amount of leaning on your perineum reaches it. And this is not a route to an orgasm on its own — nobody describes it that way.

What it is good for is two things. If insertion isn't happening tonight, this is a way to keep the practice going in the meantime. And if you're still not sure you can feel anything internal at all, this is a much easier signal to find first, in the shower, with nothing to clean up afterwards.

The location varies from man to man, so hunt around slowly rather than assuming you've found nothing.

What not to do

And don't turn this into a mission. The next few levels are going to keep telling you the same thing in different ways: the harder you chase, the less there is to find.