Posted on 11/08/2005 3:26:22 AM PST by Pharmboy
Despite a glut of literature available on how to have more and better orgasms, science is only beginning to unravel the mysteries of the nervous system. The experiences of some paralyzed women prove how little we know: Though seemingly cut off from all feeling below the waist, some have found they still had orgasms when they tried sex.
More mysterious still, some could have orgasms when touched in a spot on the trunk or neck just above the region of injury.
One Philadelphia-area woman who was paralyzed from the waist down in a car accident was overwhelmed to learn she'd never walk again. She was 30, and single. She assumed she'd never enjoy sex again either, though at the time it was a lesser concern.
Ten years later she fell in love. The couple tried sex. "I was fulfilled, I had orgasms," she said. "It was like I was reborn."
Neurologist Barry Komisaruk of Rutgers University has been studying sex in paralyzed women for the last 10 years. Sometimes, the loss of sex was the most devastating and irreconcilable consequence of spinal-cord injury, he says, tearing apart relationships and families.
"Doctors had told many of them their sex life was over because there's no pathway to the brain," Komisaruk said.
A behavioral neuroscientist, he started out studying the nervous systems of rats. In female rats, the vaginal stimulation from sex caused a cascade of hormonal changes and kicked in a painkilling effect more powerful than morphine. There could be a blockbuster drug in this, he reasoned, if he could decode the neurobiology of female rat sex.
He tried severing the three known nerve pathways that connect the genitals to the brain - the pelvic, pudendal and hypogastric nerves. Oddly, the rats reacted to sexual stimulation as if their nerves were intact.
He discovered a new channel for sexual pleasure - the vagus nerve - which threads from the brain through the lungs, intestines, and other internal organs, bypassing the spinal cord.
Could the vagus nerve also channel sexual sensations in humans? To find out, he decided to study women with complete spinal-cord injury.
He and colleague Beverly Whipple brought women into their lab and interviewed them. In their stories, recorded in a 1997 academic paper, most had shut down sexually at first.
"I have no feeling... therefore I can't experience any type of sexual pleasure... . I became I guess you'd call frigid... ice woman... ," one said.
"I went back to teaching full time... I drove my car... everything was in its place except for my liking myself and my sexuality, and feeling like I was a woman again," reported another.
In months or years, many of them began to experiment with sex, either to please a partner or because they were curious. Some discovered they could orgasm from sex, others found their nervous system had become reorganized, so they discovered new hypersensitive regions above their injury that could lead to orgasm.
In the lab, the researchers investigated the women's sexual potential directly by giving them a device called a stimulator, which looks a little like a tampon. It's designed to create sensation in the vagina and cervix.
"Some of the women who realized they still had sensation started crying," Komisaruk said. Until then, they had given up.
Last year, his team began using MRI to look at what was happening in their brains as women were having orgasms.
He found in those with and without spinal injury, it lit up an area called the nucleus accumbens which is, not surprisingly, also activated by nicotine and cocaine.
He also scanned women who had orgasms from being touched above the injury, and found that in the brain it looked like any other orgasm.
Komisaruk and his colleagues are now trying to change patient care to put more emphasis on the possibility of sex after spinal-cord injury. They're also planning more brain scanning to better understand orgasm and compare the male and female versions.
For a phenomenon that many experience several times a week - or even every day - there's still plenty of terra incognita to be explored.
Since I know a woman (who shall be nameless) who can have an orgasm purely through thinking impure thoughts for about 10 minutes, I'm actually not that surprised.
If we elect an America friendly Conservative government in the upcoming election than I may well do so, until then, I have a long memory. Until Americans look at us again with trust that we Canadians have earned, I'm afraid I will remain ashamed.
Ah, but was it as good for him as it was for them?
If the brain is the largest sex organ and it has an orgasm, I would strongly suggest staying in the middle of the room so as not to bang your head in the throes of ectasy.
He tried severing the three known nerve pathways that connect the genitals to the brain - the pelvic, pudendal and hypogastric nerves. Oddly, the rats reacted to sexual stimulation as if their nerves were intact.
---Seriously though. How do they know for sure what they are reacting too? I mean if the nerves were severed, if they could still feel "pleasure", then they might have been feeling "pain" because they can't tell the person
"Hey look Buddy. This isn't an orgasm. You cut my nerves and my body is involuntarily twitching"
I am not sure of the moral consequences of this work. At first sight it gives some form of healing hope for quadraplegics.
Yet if the brain is mainly it, there should be more fulfillment out of it than this. Many fully functioning people choose celibacy and total abstinance for a reason....if thy right hand makes you sin, cut it off, type logic.
So it would be kind of a false hope in that respect, instead of taking life as it is as a blessing to open our eyes to other worlds than the carnal harlotry threatening kinds. Superanimalizing man ourselves is a strange art that makes guinea pigs and rats wiser than us when hungry. Our brain is our asset but also a great betrayer whose sophistication makes it more demanding than it gives.
Accepting Christ is a form of total self-rejection, and rebelling against harshness of life is ambiguous as a promotioyn of life itself.
If quadriplegics want it, and if I could, I'd give them my spinal parts for such things, begrudgingly as a sinner, yes, but I can compute it would be the wiser thing to do.
These "independent pleasure" doctors, on the other hand, bother me. The confederation of a couple's life around an exclusive system of doctors and without a network of charitable donors is bothersome.
For one thing, they never give credit to the husbands who helped wives heal, but the paper credits this "paper writer" researcher... with his "tampon" instruments.
You have to tell them you hate Bush, and love the environment, puppies, ponies, rainbows and unicorns. You have to pretend to like their poetry. Beer helps.
Hate to break it to you wizard she's faking on you........
Don't know about that..but it says alot more than I want to know about AlGore and John Kerry.
Is that a brain in your pants, or are you just happy to see me? ;-P
Good find!
Oh baby, Ohh Baabyyy, OHHHHH, BBBBAAAABBBBBYYY !!!! Yes, Yes, YES !!!
I've heard SH is real kinky...Seems like I remember reading an account from a former wife, or lover.
You're re-Joycing?
Flim's sister?
Nice story!
A few years ago he divorced his wife, the one who had helped him for decades during his worsening handicap, and took up with his much younger nurse. He must be capable of something extremely sexual. Overall quite a cruel and selfish thing to do, but not surprising either. In my experience, such attitudes and behavior are very common among super-genius and academically oriented men. Which just goes to show that people who are severely physically disabled often aren't much different deep down where it counts than the rest of us, for better or worse.
Hate to break it to you, but you have no idea what the situation is.
So you are THAT interested in biology, huh? I'm suspicious.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.