Abstract
BackgroundThe nature of a woman’s orgasm has been a source of scientific, political, and cultural debate for over a century. Since the Victorian era, the pendulum has swung from the vagina to the clitoris, and to some extent back again, with the current debate stuck over whether internal sensory structures exist in the vagina that could account for orgasms based largely on their stimulation, or whether stimulation of the external glans clitoris is always necessary for orgasm.MethodWe review the history of the clitoral versus vaginal orgasm debate as it has evolved with conflicting ideas and data from psychiatry and psychoanalysis, epidemiology, evolutionary theory, feminist political theory, physiology, and finally neuroscience.ResultsA new synthesis is presented that acknowledges the enormous potential women have to experience orgasms from one or more sources of sensory input, including the external clitoral glans, internal region around the “G-spot” that corresponds to the internal clitoral bulbs, the cervix, as well as sensory stimulation of non-genital areas such as the nipples.ConclusionsWith experience, stimulation of one or all of these triggering zones are integrated into a “whole” set of sensory inputs, movements, body positions, autonomic arousal, and partner- and contextual-related cues, that reliably induces pleasure and orgasm during masturbation and copulation. The process of integration is iterative and can change across the lifespan with new experiences of orgasm.
Highlights
The nature of a woman’s orgasm has been a source of scientific, political, and cultural debate for over a century
Controversy has raged over them for more than a century. If they do not serve an obvious reproductive or fitness-related endpoint (Lloyd, 2005; Wallen & Lloyd, 2011; see Puts & Dawood, 2006), why do they exist? What do women get out of them? Can all women have them? And the most mysterious of all: What produces them? This latter question continues to ignite vehement debate over the role of the clitoris and vagina, a debate that we argue stems from at least four sources of misinformation: 1) a misunderstanding of the anatomy and sensory potential of the clitoris, vagina, and cervix; 2) a misreading of the directionality of sexual differentiation in mammals, in which the clitoris is deemed a ‘vestigial penis’ (e.g. Wilson, 1992); 3) a misattribution of the
The distinction between different orgasms, is not between sensations of the external clitoris and internal vagina, but between levels of what a woman understands a ‘whole’ orgasm to consist of. This depends on the experience with direct stimulation of the external clitoris, internal clitoris, and/or cervix, and with knowledge of the arousing and erotic cues that predict orgasm, knowledge of her own pattern of movements that lead to it, and experience with stimulation of multiple external and internal genital and extra-genital sites that can be associated with it
Summary
The nature of a woman’s orgasm has been a source of scientific, political, and cultural debate for over a century. Mah & Binik, 2002, 2005), raising the question of whether orgasms are a singular experience for men and women or whether gender differences truly exist in their expression. This plays into an old controversy concerning the nature of women’s orgasm Á where it comes (a) body of uterus endometrium recto-uterine pouch fundus of uterus suspensory uterine ligament of (fallopian) ovary tube ovary ovarian ligament round ligament posterior fornix external os of uterus cervix anterior fornix rectum anus vagina urinary bladder mons pubis pubic symphysis clitoris urethra urethral opening labia majora vaginal opening labia minora vestibule of vagina (c)
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