Zicoflex It’s not just
a snappy
sitcom
plotline: The
female
orgasm is a
giant
mystery.
And not just
to the
average
man, either.
Turns out,
top
researchers
and even
women
themselves
have a hard
time making
sense of
what
actually
happens to
the body
and the
brain during
climax,
according to
research by
neuroscientist
Nicole
Prause and
her
colleague
Greg Siegel.
In a recent
study
conducted
at the
University
of
Pittsburgh,
Prause and
Siegel—
who hoped
to glean
insight into
arousal and
orgasms as
a way to
treat things
like social
anxiety,
insomnia,
and low sex
drive
without the
need for
drugs—
measured
the
physiological
responses
of 22
subjects as
they used
computer-
operated
vibrators to
stimulate
themselves
to orgasm.
(Interesting
side note:
Prause and
Siegel
weren’t
allowed to
pay these
subjects
because it
would have
been
considered
prostitution.)
Using
electroencephal
—the
technique
that
measures
what's
going on in
the brain by
attaching
electrodes
to the scalp
—the
researchers
asked
subjects to
press a
button
when they
started to
have an
orgasm, and
to press it
again when
it was was
over. They
also
measured
anal
contractions,
a muscle
movement
that's
believed to
be present
during all
climaxes, as
"verification
for when
they
pressed the
button and
as a backup
for when
they forgot
to press it.”
However,
that
supposed
backup
measure
ended up
revealing
something
pretty
surprising:
About half
the women
indicated
they were
having an
orgasm
even
though the
monitors
showed no
contractions.
Meanwhile,
no men in
the study
reported
orgasms
that
weren’t also
accompanied
by
contractions.
Because
nothing
pertaining
to the
female
orgasm is
easy, the
scientists
remain torn
on why
women may
have
reported
climaxes
that didn’t
show up on
the
monitors.
“There are
two basic
ways you
could
interpret
that, and
right now
my
coauthor
and I
disagree,”
Prause
says. “One
is to say
that women
aren’t
actually
having a
climax—
they think
they are,
but they’re
not.” That’s
the
explanation
she favors,
explaining
that it’s
likely that
many
women are
just
misinformed
about what
to expect
during sex
and, as a
result, don’t
know what
an actual
orgasm
feels like.
“How do
women ever
learn what
that
experience
is?” adds
Prause.
“There’s
nowhere [to
get
information].
We don’t
ever talk—
even among
our friends,
generally—
about that
level of
detail.”
But her
coauthor
thinks it’s
something
else. “The
other
interpretation
is that
women
have
multiple
kinds [of
orgasms]
that men
don’t have,
because all
men have
are
contractions,
and that we
just have
never
documented
them
before,"
Prause
explains
(Siegel's job
doesn't
allow him
comment on
unpublished
research).
Adam
Safron, a
researcher
at
Northwestern
University
who studies
sexual
arousal in
the brain,
agrees with
Siegel's
possible
explanation.
He believes
that the
anomaly in
the study's
findings can
be
explained
by making a
distinction
between
what
happens to
women
during
"climax" and
during
"orgasm,"
thinking of
them as
closely
related but
ultimately
separate
processes.
Climaxes, he
says, are
physiological
occurrences
that involve
contractions
in the pelvic
region and
altered
hormone
levels.
Orgasms
are
“subjective
sensations
that often,
but not
necessarily,
accompany
climax.”
Translation:
Women
could
potentially
be having
two
different
kinds of
orgasms.
The first is
the
standard-
issue climax,
which
includes all
the go-to
physical
side effects
(like
contractions)
that
scientists
usually use
to tell
whether
something
qualifies as
an orgasm.
The second
type
doesn’t
have the
physical
tells, but
could still be
considered
totally valid.
The
uncertainty
around
these
findings is
all just
proof that
science still
has a long
way to go
when it
comes to
understanding
female
sexuality.
“It is
possible to
orgasm
without
climax, and
also to
climax
without
orgasm,”
Safron
says. “While
they are
using
common
words, their
orgasmic
experiences
are actually
quite
different.”
He adds,
“This is
similar to
the
philosophy
of mind
question, ‘Is
your
experience
of the color
red the
same as
mine?’"
Depending
on which
interpretation
you buy,
either
women
don’t
understand
how their
bodies work
enough to
determine
whether
they’re
having an
orgasm, or
the
scientific
community’s
definition of
the act is
too narrow
to include
the
diversity of
the female
orgasmic
experience.
It could also
be a little
bit of both.
“You could
see either
one of
[these
explanations]
as feminist
in the sense
that his
version
means
‘Whatever
women are
having is
valid—we
study that
as-is,’”
Prause
says. “My
interpretation
is ‘Stop
believing
magazines
that tell you
how to
have 14
orgasms in
a minute,
because
they’re
probably
not real.’”
Either way,
it’s clear
that there’s
a lot left to
explore.
We’ll start
researching
on our own
and let you
know what
we find.
SHARE
TWEET
PIN