Reflexive Relationship Research Articles

Dream Stuff: The Postwar Home and the Australian Housewife, 1940–60

During the postwar period the modern family home assumed a special place in the Australian imaginary. Women achieved a greater public presence in this context, reflected in calls to Australian housewives to think about how their ideal home would look. The ‘new look’ required of the national home was addressed to its occupants, the Australian family, and was articulated through both government policy discourses and the popular media. Planning for and dreaming about modernity became key activities of homemaking. The requirements of women, in particular, to dream and plan for the future family produced the housewife as a modern figure responsible for the planning of a successful future for her family. The modern challenge to make home anew spoke to women's authority on day-to-day living, moving the efficient arrangement of the home and its public exposure firmly into their domain. However, this new, mass-mediated way of looking at domesticity created a contradiction in female domestic subjectivity. On the one hand, both state and market discourses suggested that women could sweep away the elements of traditional, particularly prewar, home designs that bound them to the home. On the other, popular magazines also placed a great deal of emphasis on the look of things and on looking itself, further inscribing women's identity within domestic space. We argue through a case study of the figure of the housewife in Australian home magazines that as a result of this contradiction during this period the identity of ‘housewife’ came to offer a new, reflexive relationship between female selfhood and home. Via the domestication of modernity in terms of gender, previous divisions between the public and private were destabilised. We suggest that the housewife's gaze both towards the home and towards her ‘domestic self’ intensified the problematic of feminity, putting it on the threshold of public and private space, offering a critical, enabling position for an ensuing feminist analysis.

‘Presenting’ the past: perspectives on time for accounting and management history

Concepts of time in accounting and management historiography have only previously been considered as partial subsets of other methodological issues. This paper investigates our concepts of historical time with a view to offering alternative foundations to the unidirectional linear concept of chronological time employed in historical research project design and execution. Its analytical approach is pluralist in that it draws upon the historiographic writings of historians and historical theorists of traditional and post-modern persuasions, both within and beyond the accounting and management history fields. It addresses teleological, historicist and narrativist temporal underpinnings and considers historical practice in relation to assumptions about and interpretations of continuity and discontinuity. Time is extended beyond its conventional accounting and management chronology to include consideration of co-present, cyclical, relativist, structuralist and spatial time. Intrinsic and reflexive relationships between past, present and future are explored. The paper argues for a postmodern pluralisation of our historiographic approaches to time and their informing revisitations of historical accounting and management subjects with a view to better understanding that which we thought we already knew.

Study of the effect of cervix uteri buffeting on the vaginal musculature with identification of the cervico-vaginal inhibitory reflex

During penile thrusting, the penis repeatedly buffets the cervix uteri (CU). We investigated the hypothesis that CU stimulation induces a change in the motor activity of the vaginal wall musculature. The response of the vaginal wall musculature to electrical and mechanical CU stimulation was recorded in 27 healthy women (age 34.8+/-7.3 years). The test was repeated after separate anesthetization of CU and vagina and after normal saline injection. Resting electric activity in the form of slow waves (SWs), followed or superimposed by action potentials (APs), was recorded from two electrodes applied to the vagina. The waves displayed the same frequency, amplitude and conduction velocity from the two electrodes. Electrical or mechanical stimulation of the CU effected disappearance of the electric waves; this response was reproducible. Individual stimulation of the anesthetized CU or vagina did not evoke the response, but saline infiltration did. CU stimulation resulted in disappearance of the vaginal electric activity which presumably denotes vaginal tone disappearance. Meanwhile, stimulation of the anesthetized CU or vagina did not evoke that response. The data suggested the presence of a reproducible reflex relationship between the CU and vaginal musculature that seems to be mediated through a reflex which we call "cervico-vaginal inhibitory reflex". Disappearance of the vaginal tone probably enhances vaginal penetration and penile thrusting during the sexual act and penile buffeting of the CU. The cervico-vaginal reflex may be incorporated as an investigative tool in sexual act disorders.

Effect of straining on perineal muscles and their role in perineal support: identification of the straining-perineal reflex

Objectives. The functional activity of the superficial (STPM) and deep (DTPM) transverse perineal muscles is poorly addressed in the literature. We investigated the hypothesis that these muscles act to support the perineum during increased intraabdominal pressure (IAP). Methods. 46 healthy volunteers (mean age 30.4 ± 1.2 y, 20 nulliparous women) were studied. The IAP was recorded by a manometric catheter introduced into the rectum. The response of the perineal muscles to straining (sudden by coughing and slow by Valsalva’s maneuver) was registered by a needle electrode inserted into the STPM and DTPM separately. The response was recorded again after individual anesthetization of the perineal muscles and rectum using Xylocaine. The test was repeated using saline instead of Xylocaine and was performed on both sides. Results. Straining (sudden or slow sustained) effected increase of the rectal pressure and the motor unit action potentials of both perineal muscles. The higher rectal pressure was increased by straining, the higher the motor unit action potentials increased MUAPs. The latency showed a gradual decrease upon incremental rectal pressure elevation. The perineal muscles did not respond to straining after individual anesthetization of the rectum and perineal muscles, but did respond to saline administration. The response was similar from muscles on both sides. Conclusion. Perineal muscle contraction on straining postulates a reflex relationship that we call the “straining-perineal reflex.” We suggest that this reflex, which results in perineal muscle contraction, supports the perineum against the increased IAP induced by straining and the tendency of the perineum to descend. The results warrant further study of the role of the straining-perineal reflex in the genesis of perineal functional disorders.

On economic reality, representational faithfulness and the ‘true and fair override’

The concept of ‘representational faithfulness’ is related to notions such as financial statements ‘giving a true and fair view’ or ‘presenting fairly’, which form a key part of auditors' opinion statements, and to ‘creative accounting’. These considerations lead to some deep conceptual issues concerning the relationship between financial reporting and its objects. We argue that it is mistaken to consider this relationship as one of ‘correspondence’. It is a more subtle, reflexive relationship which needs to be explicated if both the power and the fragility of accounting and financial reporting are to be properly understood. A related issue with which accounting standard-setters are confronted is exemplified in IAS 1, namely the possibility that ‘compliance with a Standard would be misleading, and…therefore departure from a requirement is necessary to achieve a fair presentation’ (IASC, 1997 para. 13). This issue is sometimes referred to as ‘the true and fair override’ (TFO), whereby a guiding principle, or higher-order rule (meta-rule), is invoked to justify non-application of a lower-order rule. The issue of the TFO is related to that of representational faithfulness (RF) mentioned above because the standard justification given for the TFO implies ‘correspondence’ between financial reporting and what it seeks to represent. We argue that if the characterisation of the relationship between financial reporting and its objects as one of ‘correspondence’ is rejected, justification of the TFO is problematic. In other words, while such a meta-rule has a key role to play as a guiding principle, to use it as an ‘override’ raises serious philosophical problems, as well as potential problems of preparer opportunism.

Effect of Urethral Dilation on Vesical Motor Activity: Identification of the Urethrovesical Reflex and its Role in Voiding

We investigated the hypothesis that mild urethral distention, which presumably occurs during the passage of urine through the urethra, stimulates stretch receptors in the urethral wall, leading reflexively to vesical contraction. We evaluated 9 male and 10 female healthy volunteers with a mean age +/- SD of 39.6 +/- 8.3 years. The posterior urethra was distended by a balloon filled with saline in 1 ml. increments up to 6 ml., while recording vesical pressure. The test was repeated after individual anesthetization of the urethra and bladder. Vesical pressure increased significantly at 1 and 2 ml. urethral distention (p <0.01). Increases in urethral distention effected further vesical pressure elevation (p <0.001), although there was no significant difference in distention at 3 to 6 ml. (p >0.05). No significant vesical pressure response of the individually anesthetized urethra or bladder occurred during urethral distention. Urethral distention is thought to cause vesical contraction through the stimulation of urethral stretch receptors. Vesical contraction at urethral distention postulates a reflex relationship that was abolished by individual anesthetization of the urethra and bladder. This relationship, which we call the urethrovesical reflex, appears to have a role in maintaining vesical contraction during voiding. Further studies are required to investigate the role of this reflex in voiding disorders.

Embodying the Environment in Everyday Life Practices

This paper suggests ways in which ‘the environment’ needs to be reconfigured so that it better resonates with how people are experiencing politics, nature and everyday life. Through empirical research on environmental concerns and everyday practices, this paper sketches a framework through which the values associated with contemporary environmentalism might be developed in a more reflexive relationship to wider transformations in society. In particular, the research critically evaluates the standard storyline of a ‘global nature’ under threat and in need of collective action by a global imagined community. In contrast to rhetorics of the global environment, this paper explores ways in which the environment is being embodied, valued and experienced in an array of social practices. The paper further outlines the significance of such embodied practices as significant yet undervalued points of connection for wider, global environmental issues.

Engaging Words: The Culture of Reading in the Later Middle Ages (review)

Amtower's study is "limited to what may be called the age and influences of Chaucer" (12). Her title may mislead by underplaying that limitation, but it does capture the ambitiousness of Engaging Words, as Amtower responds to theoretical positions expressed by Foucault, Ong, Iser, Altieri, Greenblatt, and Bakhtin; assimilates twenty years of research into the material history of books by such scholars as Lillian Randall, Jonathan Alexander, Michael Camille, and Paul Saenger; integrates studies of the ethics of grammar and rhetoric by J. B. Allen, A. J. Minnis, and Rita Copeland; and engages the interpretations of Chaucer offered by an agonistic host of sophisticated interpreters, from Carolyn Dinshaw to C. D. Benson, Lee Patterson to Sheila Delaney. A much larger book would seem to be required, but Amtower defends her hypothesis that a "reflexive relationship existed between reading habits and the shaping of identity" (2) with enviable efficiency, in just five suggestive chapters.

Effect of perineal compression on vesical motor activity.

It has been reported that digital pressure on the perineum inhibits bladder contraction; however, the mechanism is not fully understood. We investigated the hypothesis that this mechanism may be reflex in nature. A total of 21 healthy volunteers (13 males; mean age 42.3 +/- 11.8 years) were studied. A barostat system consisting of a balloon-ended catheter connected to a strain gauge and air-injection system was used to assess vesical tone. The catheter was introduced into the urinary bladder and the balloon was inflated with 150 ml of air. Digital pressure was exerted on the perineum and the vesical tone was simultaneously assessed by recording the balloon volume variations, expressed as the percentage change from the baseline volume. The test was repeated after separate anesthetization of the perineum and bladder with xylocaine and after using normal saline instead of xylocaine. Digital pressure on the perineum effected a significant decrease in vesical tone, which ranged from 42% to 84% (mean 67.5% +/- 12.5%) of the baseline value. The mean latency was 18.6 +/- 2.6 ms. There was no significant difference between men and women in terms of vesical tone response to perineal pressure. Digital perineal pressure applied 20 min after individual anesthetization of the perineum and bladder produced no significant changes in vesical tone. The response returned after the anesthetic effect had waned. The vesical tone response following saline administration was similar to that before administration. Vesical tone decrease in response to digital pressure on the perineum suggests a reflex relationship which was absent on individual anesthetization of the two possible arms of the reflex arc: the perineal skin and urinary bladder. We call this relationship the "perineovesical reflex". This reflex may have the potential to be used as an investigative tool in the diagnosis of vesical motor disorders.

Study of the effect of straining on the bulbocavernosus muscle with evidence of a straining-bulbocavernosus reflex and its clinical significance.

The bulbocavernosus muscle (BCM) surrounds the vaginal introitus and covers the vestibular bulb. Its role in erection is known. However, as it surrounds the vaginal introitus, it may also have a role in intravaginal pressure regulation and in the pathogenesis of uterovaginal prolapse. We investigated the effect of increased intra-abdominal pressure (IAP) on the BCM, aiming to assess its possible function in supporting the uterus, vagina and anorectum. The intrarectal (representative of the IAP) and intravaginal pressures were measured by manometric catheters in 19 healthy women volunteers (mean age 46.2 +/- 10.4 years). The EMG activity of the BCM and its response to straining at different pressures were recorded by a concentric needle electrode. Two types of straining were tested: sudden momentary and slow sustained. The procedure was repeated in 11 of the women after individual anesthetization of the BCM, rectum and vagina. Sudden straining (coughing) produced a significant increase in intrarectal ( P<0.0001) and intravaginal ( P<0.0001) pressure as well as BCM EMG activity. Slow straining effected a similar but lower response: the BCM responded gradually with pressure elevation, whereas the latency exhibited a gradual decrease. The BCM did not react to straining after individual anesthetization of the BCM, vagina and rectum, but did respond to saline administration. The results were reproducible. BCM contraction on straining postulates a reflex relationship, which we call the 'straining-bulbocavernosus reflex'. We hypothesized that this reflex is evoked by straining and results in BCM contraction and closure of the vaginal introitus. The vagina is believed to become a closed cavity, counteracting the increased intra-abdominal pressure and the uterine tendency to prolapse. The high pressure in the closed vaginal cavity presumably supports the rectovaginal septum against the high intrarectal pressure, and is suggested to share in the prevention of rectocele. The role of BCM in the pathogenesis of uterovaginal prolapse and rectocele needs further study.

Rock ‘n’ Roll Music as a Timepiece

This essay illustrates the value of time in understanding baby boomers' experiences of rock ‘n’ roll. In a distinctively interactionist style, I use time as a sensitizing concept in my research on this phenomenon. The orientation that guides this research is methodological tourism, by which the researcher treats something as common and taken‐for‐granted as rock ‘n’ roll music in everyday life as strange if not exotic. Structurally, songs about time constitute the most visible temporal structures in the world of rock ‘n’ roll. Interactionally, I will argue that the concept of the cohort is more useful than that of the decade for an interpretive analysis of musical nostalgia, a key feature of the phenomenon in question. Illustrations of the reflexive relationship between rock ‘n’ roll and time in middle age include using awareness of recent deaths of rock ‘n’ roll performers to interpret the existential significance of aging; using rock ‘n’ roll songs as benchmarks for significant events such as birthdays and anniversaries, as well as gift giving for these events; and using rock ‘n’ roll music to pass the time.

Reflexive Practice: The relationship between social research and health promotion in HIV prevention

This article describes the reflexive practice of both health educator and social researcher in the context of gay community responses to the threat of HIV and AIDS. It describes the processes and structures that were put in place in Australia by AIDS Councils and by social researchers to develop effective health promotion campaigns. It also describes the reflexive relationships between these two partners and between each of them and the gay community. A health promotion campaign that arose out of social researchers identifying an HIV-prevention strategy developed by gay men themselves that was subsequently elaborated by health educators and reflected back to the gay community illustrates the critical reflexivity of the partnership. It concludes that the development of such reflexive partnerships between the gay community, health educators and social researchers provides the basis for effective HIV prevention and education.

Argumentation, instructional design theory and students’ mathematical learning: a case for coordinating interpretive lenses

This paper coordinates argumentation and the instructional design theory of Realistic Mathematics Education (RME) to provide a microanalysis of one second-grade, whole-class discussion. We use tenets associated with Toulmin’s theory of argumentation to identify the structure of the emerging argument. We also use Krummheuer’s notion of collective argumentation to account for how the argumentation is socially accomplished. We then analyze the same discussion using Gravemeijer’s levels of mathematical activity to characterize the students’ emerging, self-generated models. As a consequence of adapting our interpretive framework using these two perspectives, on the one hand, we clarify the reflexive relationship that exists between the students’ models and nature of students’ mathematical arguments. On the other hand, we argue that these two aspects of the students’ mathematical activity play an important role in facilitating possible learning opportunities during the lesson.

Effect of pelvic floor muscle contraction on vesical and rectal function with identification of puborectalis-rectovesical inhibitory reflex and levator-rectovesical excitatory reflex

The effects of pelvic floor muscle contraction on rectal and vesical function were studied in 19 healthy volunteers with the aim of shedding light on some of the hitherto vague aspects of the mechanisms involved in micturition and defecation and their disorders. Rectal and vesical pressures were recorded during puborectalis (PR) and levator ani (LA) muscle stimulation with the rectum or urinary bladder empty and full. Muscle stimulation was effected by needle EMG electrode. The pressure responses to stimulation of the PR and LA muscles were also recorded with these muscles and the rectum and urinary bladder individually anesthetized in 12 of the 19 subjects. The test was repeated using saline instead of xylocaine. PR and LA muscle stimulation produced no pressure response in the empty rectum or bladder. Upon rectal balloon distension with a mean of 156.6+/-34.2 ml of carbon dioxide the mean rectal pressure was 64.6+/-18.7 cm H2O, the subject felt the urge to evacuate and the balloon was expelled to the exterior. On PR muscle stimulation at rectal distension with the above volume, the subject did not feel the urge to evacuate, the rectal pressure was 8.2+/-1.6 cm H2O and the balloon was not expelled. Upon LA stimulation at the same volume, the urge persisted, the rectal pressure was higher and the balloon was expelled. Vesical filling with a mean of 378.2+/-23.6 ml of saline initiated the urge to urinate and elevated the vesical pressure. PR muscle stimulation at this volume aborted the urge and pressure elevation, while LA stimulation caused more elevation of the vesical pressure and spontaneous micturition. Bladder filling with a mean of 423.6+/-38.2 ml produced high vesical pressure and spontaneous urination, both of which were prevented by PR muscle stimulation but not by LA muscle stimulation. Stimulation of the PR and LA muscles during individual anesthetization of the rectum, bladder or PR and LA muscles resulted in no significant rectal or vesical pressure changes. Repetition of the test using saline instead of xylocaine resulted in rectal and vesical pressure responses similar to those without the use of saline. In conclusion, the decline in rectal and vesical responses upon PR muscle contraction indicates a reflex relationship which we term 'puborectalis rectovesical inhibitory reflex'. This reflex is suggested to abort the urge to defecate or urinate. In contrast, LA muscle contraction produced rectal and vesical pressure elevation which is suggested to be mediated through the 'levator rectovesical excitatory reflex'. 'This reflex is probably evoked to promote rectal and vesical evacuation.

Vagal rebound and recovery from psychological stress.

To characterize cardiovascular recovery and examine the possible relationship of vagal activity and reflexes to risk for heart disease. Subjects performed cold pressor and mental arithmetic tasks. Heart rate, heart period variability, and pre-ejection period were obtained for 1 minute before, during, and after each task (Experiment 1). In the second experiment, subjects performed a Stroop color-word task and a mental arithmetic task. Heart rate, heart period variability, blood pressure, and baroreflex sensitivity were obtained during the 5-minute baseline, task, and recovery periods (Experiment 2). In Experiment 1, heart rate during recovery was lower than baseline despite continued pre-ejection period shortening, whereas recovery heart period variability was higher than baseline. In Experiment 2, blood pressure increased throughout the session. However, recovery heart rate after mental arithmetic was lower than baseline heart rate, and heart period variability was higher during both recovery periods than during baseline. Vagal rebound, a sharp increase in variability in the first minute of recovery, was reduced in men in Experiment 1 and in individuals with a family history of cardiovascular disease in Experiment 2 and was associated with degree of change in baroreflex sensitivity between task and rest. Cardiovascular recovery from stress is associated with increased vagal modulation despite residual sympathetic activation. Vagal rebound may be involved in mechanisms resetting the baroreflex sensitivity at the onset and offset of stress. Diminished vagal rebound during recovery from stress is associated with standard risk factors for cardiovascular disease. The results support an association between attenuated vagal reflexes and risk for cardiovascular disease.

The Concept of Social Construction

The present paper attempts to clarify the social constructionist position by way of an analysis of its central concept, namely `social construction'. (1) Three central theses connected with this concept as used in epistemological debates are identified: (a) The production of knowledge is a creative interpretation process and cannot be adequately framed within a logicistic theory of knowledge. (b) In their experiments scientists actively aspire to produce results that accord with their theories. (c) Knowledge is always grounded in a background of contingent assumptions and local investigative practices. It is argued that none of these theses is incompatible with realism. (2) Thereafter, three central theses connected with the concept of social construction as used in debates concerning the subject matter of psychology are discussed: (a) The subject of psychology is not a natural kind but an artefact. (b) There is a reflexive relationship between psychological discourses and the subject of these discourses. (c) The subject of psychology cannot be adequately analysed in natural scientific terms. It is argued that these insights have important consequences for psychological research, and yet are unintelligible against the background of anti-realist presuppositions.

Trust Between Culture: The Tourist

Trust between culture is a salient issue to tourism studies. But the effect of tourism on culture is disputed, and surrounded by a basic lack of trust. Tourists as well as hosts categorise 'others' by their most immediately functional role, which is economic. Yet difference is an unavoidable social fact and does not exempt one from the responsibility of social relationships. For tourism, simulations of 'the other' are desired but must be always kept distant. So difference is accentuated by commerce, maintained by role identification and exacerbated by the brevity of the tourist's encounter. Therefore, the social alchemy between host and tourist is marked with dominance, power and alienation. Trust is engagement with 'the other', a reflexive relationship of engagement over time. Trust can exist in the tourist's encounters when differential power relationships are recognised - and negotiated through sincere engagement and natural communication. Professionals and intellectuals as well as the tourist must take an active and sensitive role in fostering reflexive and engaging social relationships between culture.

The University in the Knowledge Society

The university has become the subject of much critical debate in the social sciences in recent years. While earlier interpretations, such as those of Weber (see Shils, 1973), Parsons (Parsons and Platt, 1973), Bourdieu (1988, 1996), emphasized the autonomy of the university within the context of a social theory of modernity, the recent appraisals are more critical and call into question the very coherence of the project of modernity in the postmodern and global age. Four debates can be identified. 1. The entrenched liberal critique, which can be called a cultural critique since it is primarily concerned with the university as a medium of cultural reproduction. The liberal idea of the university—associated with the positions of Allan Bloom (1987), who bemoans the attack on the traditional curriculum in the name of diversity, and Russell Jacoby (1987), who regrets the decline of the public intellectual who has disappeared from the university—on the whole looks backwards to the golden age of an earlier university. Despite the different positions within this broad stance that derives from the neo-humanist tradition, the tendency is to see the university in crisis because of the decline of the autonomy of culture, be it the culture of critique or, in its more conservative version, the traditional culture of the canon. 2. The postmodern thesis, associated with Lyotard (1984) and recently restated by Bill Readings (1996), announces the end of the university along with the end of the nation-state. It is claimed that knowledge has lost its emancipatory role and the very notion of universality, or even the very idea of a curriculum, is now impossible, given the fragmentation of knowledge, as in, for instance, the separation of teaching and research. 3. The reflexivity thesis, which is best associated with claims that there is a new mode of knowledge based on a more reflexive relationship between user and producer, offers a less dramatic theory but one nevertheless that announces the obsolescence of the university (Gibbons et al., 1984). As a Mode 2 paradigm around applied knowledge emerges, the university, which is caught up in the more hierarchical and disciplinary-based Mode 1 knowledge production, becomes, it is claimed, increasingly irrelevant to the postfordist economy. 4. The globalization thesis draws attention to the instrumentalization of the university as it embraces market values and information technology. According to various authors, the university is far from irrelevant to capitalism, as the previous thesis would claim, but is in fact fully integrated into it and, as a new manageralism takes over the university, there is a resulting loss of academic freedom (Curie and Newson, 1998; Etzkowitz and Leydesdorff, 1997; Slaughter and Leslie, 1997). This thesis suggests that the university has become a major player in the global market and in information-based capitalism. What are we to make of these announcements of crisis and even of the decline of the university? I believe a more nuanced interpretation is possible.

Autocatalysis, information and coding

Autocatalytic self-construction in macromolecular systems requires the existence of a reflexive relationship between structural components and the functional operations they perform to synthesise themselves. The possibility of reflexivity depends on formal, semiotic features of the catalytic structure–function relationship, that is, the embedding of catalytic functions in the space of polymeric structures. Reflexivity is a semiotic property of some genetic sequences. Such sequences may serve as the basis for the evolution of coding as a result of autocatalytic self-organisation in a population of assignment catalysts. Autocatalytic selection is a mechanism whereby matter becomes differentiated in primitive biochemical systems. In the case of coding self-organisation, it corresponds to the creation of symbolic information. Prions are present-day entities whose replication through autocatalysis reflects aspects of biological semiotics less obvious than genetic coding.

Rectal inhibition by inferior rectal nerve stimulation in dogs: recognition of a new reflex--the 'voluntary anorectal inhibition reflex'.

The effect of inferior rectal nerve (IRN) stimulation on the rectum was studied, postulating that nerve stimulation might inhibit rectal contractility and could thus be used in the management of defecation disorders. The IRN was exposed through a para-anal incision in 12 dogs (18.2 +/- 3.3 SD kg, seven male, five female) and a cuff-type electrode was applied to the nerve. A balloon introduced into the rectum was filled with saline in increments of 5 ml. The rectal and rectal neck (anal canal) pressures, and the electromyographic (EMG) activity of the external anal sphincter (EAS) and Internal anal sphincter (IAS) were recorded until the balloon was expelled to the exterior. The test was repeated until the expulsion volume was reached, and the IRN was stimulated (pulse width 200 mu/s, charge density 2 to 6 microCi/cm2 per phase). The test was performed again following individual anaesthetization of the EAS and the IAS. At a mean rectal distending volume of 38.3 +/- 2.3 ml, the rectal pressure increased (P < 0.01), rectal neck pressure declined (P < 0.01), the EAS and IAS EMGs disappeared, and the balloon was expelled. IRN stimulation at a distending volume of 38.3 +/- 2.3 ml increased the EMG activity of the EAS, whereas the rectal pressure and IAS EMG did not change (P > 0.05) and the balloon was not expelled. With IRN stimulation at the distending volume of 38.3 +/- 2.3 ml while the EAS was anaesthetized, the rectal pressure increased (P < 0.01), rectal neck pressure diminished, IAS EMG activity disappeared, and the balloon was expelled. Upon repetition of IRN stimulation during anaesthetization of the IAS, the rectal pressure remained high and the balloon was not expelled. It is suggested that the EAS produces continence by a twofold action. The EAS prevents IAS relaxation on rectal contraction, with a resulting rectal relaxation. A reflex relationship is postulated to exist between failure of the IAS to relax and rectal relaxation. We call this reflex relationship 'voluntary anorectal inhibition reflex'. Secondly, the EAS mechanically compresses the rectal neck. It seems that contraction of the EAS, which is a striated muscle, mechanically occludes the rectal neck for a few seconds--enough for the rectum to relax in a reflex manner as an effect of the voluntary anorectal inhibition reflex.