Mary Roach, author of Bonk, gives a TED talk about Ten Things You Didn’t Know About Orgasm. All based on stuff that appeared in highly reputable scientific journals, but still I find the story about the brushing-teeth woman hard to credit.
(Aimed at adults, or at children who live in families who don’t think sex is dirty.)
Via Rebecca Skloot’s Twitter feed, so there’s no reason to take it seriously. (Because it’s from Twitter, I mean, not because it’s from Rebecca.)
First Love Hina, now CV. I swear the world is out to mock me.
Very stimulating!
Nice talk. She didn’t mention though that some researchers have actually been doing brain scans during orgasm (male and female). Since I’ve always asked myself if it’s the same for the guys, I found it quite interesting what was reported in a SciAm Mind article called The Orgasmic Mind:
“Neuroscientist Gert Holstege of the University of Groningen in the Netherlands and his colleagues attempted to solve the male side of the equation by asking the female partners of 11 men to stimulate their partner’s penis until he ejaculated while they scanned his brain using positron-emission tomography (PET). During ejaculation, the researchers saw extraordinary activation of the ventral tegmental area (VTA), a major hub of the brain’s reward circuitry; the intensity of this response is comparable to that induced by heroin. “Because ejaculation introduces sperm into the female reproductive tract, it would be critical for reproduction of the species to favor ejaculation as a most rewarding behavior,” the researchers wrote in 2003 in The Journal of Neuroscience.
The scientists also saw heightened activity in brain regions involved in memory-related imagery and in vision itself, perhaps because the volunteers used visual imagery to hasten orgasm. The anterior part of the cerebellum also switched into high gear. The cerebellum has long been labeled the coordinator of motor behaviors but has more recently revealed its role in emotional processing. Thus, the cerebellum could be the seat of the emotional components of orgasm in men, perhaps helping to coordinate those emotions with planned behaviors. The amygdala, the brain’s center of vigilance and sometimes fear, showed a decline in activity at ejaculation, a probable sign of decreasing vigilance during sexual performance.
To find out whether orgasm looks similar in the female brain, Holstege’s team asked the male partners of 12 women to stimulate their partner’s clitoris—the site whose excitation most easily leads to orgasm—until she climaxed, again inside a PET scanner. Not surprisingly, the team reported in 2006, clitoral stimulation by itself led to activation in areas of the brain involved in receiving and perceiving sensory signals from that part of the body and in describing a body sensation—for instance, labeling it “sexual.”
But when a woman reached orgasm, something unexpected happened: much of her brain went silent. Some of the most muted neurons sat in the left lateral orbitofrontal cortex, which may govern self-control over basic desires such as sex. Decreased activity there, the researchers suggest, might correspond to a release of tension and inhibition. The scientists also saw a dip in excitation in the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex, which has an apparent role in moral reasoning and social judgment—a change that may be tied to a suspension of judgment and reflection.
Brain activity fell in the amygdala, too, suggesting a depression of vigilance similar to that seen in men, who generally showed far less deactivation in their brain during orgasm than their female counterparts did. “Fear and anxiety need to be avoided at all costs if a woman wishes to have an orgasm; we knew that, but now we can see it happening in the depths of the brain,” Holstege says.
There is a medicine, an older anti-depressant, that can cause spontaneous orgasms. This would be a good anti-depressant.
Years ago I was cuddly-chatting with my (now ex!) wife about the sensation of orgasm. I could only talk about bodily feelings but she said “no, I feel it mainly inside my head”.
At the time I didn’t understand why we described it so differently. I still don’t, but Gert Holstege’s study at least gives a reason for our difference.
I never will understand women 🙂
How’s that for a silly obviousness? And in the JoN!
Well, proof that they were just faking it… They should repeat the experiment with only women who ejaculate during orgasm. They are hard to find, but talk about rewarding behavior!!
Does the title of the previous post have anything to do with this one?
Oh, just what we needed to learn: Zombies can have orgasms.
Pretty interesting.
Orgasm while stroking the eyebrows? While brushing the teeth? What kind of proof do they have that they were real orgasms? Nonetheless…very interesting
I wrote blog about orgasms today…let me know what you think
“How to Make a Woman Orgasm through Deeper Penetration; Cul-De-Sac Orgasms”
Married at 17, baby 9.5 months later, and the dr, when giving me birth control pills, made a comment referencing “liking sex”, and I wondered (to myself) you’re supposed to like it?
Thirty years later, when I experienced an unethical psycho examiner and drugs to assist the hypnotics ‘pushes’ he put in place, I began to understand orgasm. I feel mostly sorry I did not respond as my husband expected, even years later.
My epilepsy, dating from this period, was marked by a disassociative event and subsequent decades of involuntary organism. Its all in your head. Amazing. Of course, that in no way minimizes the very strong desire to see this ‘psycho-medico’ in jail for his abuse.
I now suspect that although sex became pleasurable, so much so that the thought would pull me into deadreaming, sex was mostly in the head—I assure you the body also has the capacity to furnish a sensation that is definitely not in your head.
I have spent years, thanks to the intro of the Internet, looking at herbals, and what the body needs. Remember the Chinese prized jade above all things, and Monteczuma, reporting to his elites, said that the Spaniards only wanted gold, they didn’t know about jade.
what 4 minerals are essentials? Sodium, potassium, calcium and magnesium. Of course, all these are tied up in what kinds, when, with what other minerals, and the activation of enzymes. Nephrite is a base of calcium and magnesium. Almost enough to make me consider reading about crystals.
consider: how many people have head trauma in this car society? What is prescribed as a ‘tranq” but is actually used to treat epilepsy? Valium.