Exploring the Mind-Body Orgasm

Wired has a cool interview with the authors of The Science of Orgasm. Their research is very cool and very fascinating, and it might be the beginning of a redefinition of what sexual stimulation means.

Here is a taste:

Wired News: What have we learned about orgasms in the past five to 10 years?

Beverly Whipple: With new technology and women being more open, we're able to document that women can experience orgasms from many different forms of stimulation. There's more than one nerve pathway involved: Orgasm is not just a reflex.

Barry Komisaruk: We recognize four different nerve pathways that carry sensory signals from the vagina, cervix, clitoris and uterus, and they all can contribute to orgasms. That's a new recognition.

WN: You've discovered that women can have orgasms when a variety of parts of their bodies are stimulated, right?

Komisaruk: Orgasms have been described as being elicitable from any part of the body -- the mouth, the nipples, the anus, the hand. It leads us to think that there is a general orgasmic principle of building up excitation from different parts of the body leading to a climax and a resolution -- not necessarily ending in ejaculation, but a feeling of an orgasmic experience.

Whipple: We have documented in our laboratory that women can have orgasms from imagery alone without touching their body. The point is that women can experience orgasms and sexual pleasure from many forms of stimuli. It does have not have to be through genital stimulation.

Read the rest.


tag: Wired, orgasm, research, The Science of Orgasm, Beverly Whipple, Barry Komisaruk, sex