The Female Orgasm
Back in the news this week is the scientific approach to
the female orgasm.
It appears that somebody has finally decided to look at
how the brain functions during orgasm. It surprises me that it has taken this
long to state the bleeding obvious as far as arousal and blood rushing to the
brain. Haven’t we always said that the brain is probably the largest and even
the most important organ in the whole game of love-making?
"The general aim of this research is to understand how the orgasm builds up from genital stimulation and what parts of the brain become recruited and finally build up into an orgasm," said Prof Komisaruk, who presented the work at the Society for Neuroscience annual meeting in Washington DC on Monday. The work has yet to be published in a peer-reviewed journal.
As the animation plays, activity first builds up in the genital area of the sensory cortex, a response to being touched in that region. Activity then spreads to the limbic system, a collection of brain structures involved in emotions and long-term memory.
As the orgasm arrives, activity shoots up in two parts of the brain called the cerebellum and the frontal cortex, perhaps because of greater muscle tension. During orgasm, activity reaches a peak in the hypothalamus, which releases a chemical called oxytocin that causes pleasurable sensations and stimulates the uterus to contract. Activity also peaks in the nucleus accumbens, an area linked to reward and pleasure.
After orgasm, the activity in all these regions gradually calms down.
Well, I could have told them that without being bungled
into an MRI machine – apart from the bit which says these regions gradually
calm down. It takes me quite some time to ‘calm down’ after an orgasm and I
think my brain is still doing somersaults for some considerable time after my
first orgasm of the day.
Of course the thing that really interests me is the
comments made about such a study. There’s the people who moan that we are
wasting time in finding out about the female orgasm and why can we not
concentrate on the man for a change (!). Then there are the oh so not witty
responses about the need for glasses of wine and a fag as part of the female
orgasm. I mean how could a woman possibly climax without one of those drugs?
Then there are thoughtful comments in praise of the study
with the subtle suggestion that if we finally get this right, then sex for men
and women could be vastly improved.
Women have suppressed their sexuality for years due to a
misogynist society and an economic determinant of where a woman’s supposed best
interests lie. Men did not want women to enjoy sex in case they bogged off and
did it with someone else. It suited everyone’s needs, apparently even women’s,
to ignore their sexuality and get on with being the less dominant person in a
family.
I think a change is in the air and it is good that these
scientific tests are taking place so that some credence and value is rightly
apportioned to female sexuality.
However, isn’t it sad that we need a scientific study
such as this to state the bleeding obvious?
Why is it that we rely so heavily on academia when we
should really be concentrating on getting on and enjoying the entire
experience, together, exploring our sexual potential with one another.
And of course, within the entire article there is no
mention of female ejaculation.
As far as I am concerned, I would have thought we had
moved on from whether females have orgasms and what happens to the brain when
they do. Shock horror, there is increased blood action and oxytocin is
released!
But who has done a study into what female ejaculation is,
how it happens and why certain women and more gloriously susceptible to most
natural of bodily functions?
I actually want to know why I gush, what I am gushing and
how come I can continue to pour stuff out of my body even when I have soaked a
towel and a duvet or two. I want to know these things.
And I want to know them now.
I want to know whether there is any link between female
ejaculation and fertility. I want to know why we have been forced to suppress
this essential part of our sexuality and I want to know it now.
I finish with a response from one commentator on the
article.
Interesting, forthright and I love the thing about faking
orgasms.
Female orgasms happen in exactly the same way as male ones; keep rubbing it the right way and eventually you'll get there. Just like male orgasms, in the final few stages, for the final few strokes, it's basically (mutual) masturbation (just like with a penis). In fact, if you look at it under a microscope the clitoris is shaped just like a tiny penis, complete with a perfectly shaped glans.
The reason female orgasms have become so 'complicated', is because of the hangover from the punative taboos around female sexuality; men wanted their woman to stay loyal to them, not go off and and have sex (and breed) with other men, so the best way to achieve this was by making sure women didn't enjoy sex, by punishing and ostracising the ones that did, or who were promiscuous. In some parts of the world they even cut the clitoris off adolescent girls to ensure they don't have an orgasm and therefore are more likely to stay loyal to their husbands. In Victorian England too, the 'little operation' (a clitorectomy) was prescribed by doctors to wives who were regarded as 'hysterical', one of the 'symptoms' being a woman becoming 'over excited' during sexual intercourse.
Today things have changed, but the 'slag' stigma still exists, and inhibits a lot of women from really letting themselves enjoy sex (and have an orgasm) because they might start wanting it with lots of different people, and they might be called a 'slag' and subsequently treated as inferior.
Many women still don't have orgasms during sex, or even through masturbation, partly because women are still governed by the need to behave in a feminine and 'pretty way, and orgasms require one to push quite hard, and not necessarily be particularly 'feminine'. Also, mass media still for the most part tends to show men 'giving' a woman an orgasm through penetrative sex, and this inhibits women (and men too) from doing what feels good & works naturally, making them think they have to do it in a certain way, otherwise they will be thought of as 'weird' or not 'feminine' or 'manly' enough.
For all the men out there, if you really want a woman to have an orgasm, all you really have to do is make sure she doesn't feel inhibited or self-conscious when she's in bed with you, by making her feel good about herself, her body, and that anything she needs to do to come, or needs you to do to get help her come is fine with you. Non- judgemental.
For all the women out there - DO NOT FAKE IT! EVER! HOW ELSE ARE THEY GOING TO LEARN WHAT A FEMALE ORGASM REALLY LOOKS & SOUNDS LIKE?! If you really can't come, (but usually can) it's probably tiredness, or too much to drink, or anxiety etc...men understand this - these are the things that stop them having orgasms too.
Though searching for a clitoris using a microscope, and discovering it is penis shaped?
Oh dear!
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