A 1954 Theory of Female Orgasm - A Journal Article I Read

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  Welcome back to An Article I Read, where I summarize a scientific article relating to female orgasm (check all the past ones out HERE).  I have a bunch of to-be-summarized articles in a folder, and I was feeling a bit motivated to write some article reviews, so I picked the first one and decided to go for it. It's first in the list because they have the publish year at the front of the file title, and this one was published in 1954.  

So, it's old. You'd think an article this old wouldn't be that relevant, but I think it actually provides a great look into the world of lady-gasm science - a window into why this not particularly complicated science continues to seem deeply tangled and confusing. Specifically, it contains all the same hang-ups and logic circumventing that still exist today surrounding the desperate need to justify and explain the existence of a vaginal orgasm whilst faced with strong evidence against it (and mere hearsay for it). 

Some Considerations Concerning Orgasm in the Female. Marmor, J. Psychosomatic Medicine. Vol. 16 No. 3 (May 1954), pp. 240-245.

MY QUICK SUMMARY

This is an article written by an MD in the height of the Freudian -vaginal orgasms are mature and clitoral orgasms are immature- era. Overall, this doctor agrees with Freud's assessment that the female orgasm does mature over time, but not about the  because of, ya know, anatomy and reality, he also agrees that it couldn't possibly make sense that there are 2 different pathways for the female orgasm or that there is some kind of actual movement of a female's orgasmic sensitivity that begins in the clitoral glans and then relocates into the vagina (as is suggested by Freud and Freudian thinkers). He is a medical professional and knows that 1. the vagina just really does not seem to have the sensitivity or receptors to elicit the orgasmic response; 2. that the clit is homologous to the penis and that sensibly the clitoral glans would react quite similarly to the glans penis when it comes to orgasm; and 3. that the glans clitoris does indeed have the same nerve set up as the glans penis (only packed into a smaller glans). 

So, he asserts that the female does not in fact make an anatomical transition from the clit to the vagina (aka clitoral orgasm to vaginal orgasm) as she matures. Instead he suggests that since that physical transition is impossible, it must be more of a psychological transition. Basically, he grabs onto the idea that during intercourse, the clitoral glans must certainly get a little stimulation too (that's a big ol' MAYBE, but Lordy people cling to the idea of indirect stimulation of the clit while getting banged). This indirect stimulation, he asserts, mixed with the emotional/psychological openness and intensity that a mature woman receives from a loving partner during intercourse is what give this more whole-bodied, deeper, better orgasm we call the "Vaginal Orgasm." 

Without that emotional/psychological openness and intensity that can be achieved during the penis-vagina interlocking, he asserts that a female would need way more direct physical stimulation on the clit. In other words the clitoral glans is always needed for a female orgasm no matter what, but if she gets fucked and is mentally and emotionally on-point, then the indirect stimulation is enough to give her an orgasm. In fact that getting-banged orgasm is even better because the mental/emotional element is so amazing that the orgasm will be more amazing than she could get from directly stimulating the clit. That direct stimulated orgasm doesn't have the closeness of the penis-in-vagina situation, and it's just the boring ol' localized orgasm we know as the "Clitoral Orgasm."

I like this try. So, basically, this man knows (because it's pretty obvious and there's been clear evidence to support for a long time) that female orgasm is based on clitoral glans area stimulations as much as the male's orgasm is based on penile glans stimulation. He's not any stupider about this stuff than anyone in the 60's, 70's 80's or Today. I mean - this was even before Master's and Johnson's research really solidified that knowledge in the scientific community. It's basic and hard to ignore. Yet, he's REALLY trying to logic his way around this to still find his way to there being a vaginal orgasm. He's trying to tell us that it's clear ladies need clitoral glans area stimulation in order to orgasm, but ya know, the thing that's even better than that - is to not stimulate it very much at all, like just VERY indirectly. In fact don't even worry about that too much. Just get over all your sexual psychological hang-ups, be with a loving partner, and then just let his penis fuck your vagina. Everything else will fall into place and actually, you know what? It's actually THE BEST orgasm because of some the undefined psychological/emotional of the excitation. Aaaand...if you can't do it that way, and have to have direct clitoral stimulation, it's cool. You're just too hung-up and inhibited to get it THE BEST way. 

It's beautiful to me because it's the same shit different day. I do believe he has good intentions. I really actually do. He's just of his time. He quite rightly mentions how the culture gives women sexual hang-ups that could block their sexuality in ways it doesn't men (see, we've always known it). And at the end he basically says there's a lot of women worried about not having vaginal orgasms. They may even urge their partners away from their clit for that reason, but they shouldn't. Foreplay is good and important and the clit is needed for the mature "vaginal orgasm" they are wanting during intercourse. So, he's at least giving proper props to the clit. But, in the end, he can't stray from the idea that having a penis move in and out of the vagina is a way that women can orgasm too. Because, let's be honest - it would be soooo convenient if intercourse - the very thing that gave men direct continued stimulation to their glans penis, something that is a bedrock of hetero sex, something that dudes seem to really like - if that thing just magically gave females the same orgasmic possibilities it gave men too? Wouldn't it be easy-peasy for dudes? Wouldn't ladies love it too - to not have the hassle of trying to get their partner to acknowledge and appropriately react to their orgasm needs too? Wouldn't life be easy?

That my friends is the issue. We are stuck on that hope. REALLY stuck.

Same shit different day. This 1954 MD knew how women orgasm, and he knew there's no evidence it was from the vagina getting a good bang, but he clung to the possibility that -'weeeelll, actually it probably does happen, though.' He went with clinging to an undefined level of emotional connection and psychological openness as the thing we're missing.  But, many more have tried. Before this guy (and honestly, well after him too), it was oft said that the walls of the vagina itself were what could be stimulated to orgasm. This was known as nonsense early, but also clung to. This guy's angle was the whole psychological Freudian thing. When those two things went out of vogue, and one couldn't shove that nonsense down women's throats anymore, feminists and their insistence on the myth of the vaginal orgasm had a short, beautiful heyday in the 70's. It was short lived, though. They were quickly minimized. Even today otherwise sex positive progressives will call these women radicals for their over-emphasis on the clitoral orgasm over the vaginal one. Luckily, for the ladies-orgasm-from-a-fuck advocates, the G-Spot hit the scene in the early 80's and that was the new thing everyone clung to. It was a magic button we hadn't previously known about in the vagina that caused 'Vaginal Orgasms' (or whatever popular term was being used for an orgasm from a penis). Strangely the interesting info learned about the ejaculation and the G-spot at that time (and still today) was largely ignored or minimized in service of the idea that it could cause an orgasm. The G-spot as a orgasm button never had any sensible evidence and in the past 40 years has been refuted so many times it finally just recently went out of vogue too, but not before there was a solid replacement. Today, again with no actual evidence, the 'vaginal orgasm' is explained by the 'inner clitoris.' You might hear it as the clitoral complex or clitoral legs or the clitourethrovaginal CUV complex, but it's just the new hope for a newly discovered magical thing in the vagina to convince people women can orgasm from the ol' in and out. Same shit different day.

Anyway, that's what I found most interesting about this article. It shows the through-line of desperate logic circumvention that researchers and 'sexperts' have fed us over the years to justify the idea that banging a woman can make her come. Secondly, though, I found another aspect interesting. It proves to some extent something I see people disregard often - that professionals understood the important basics of female orgasm, the role, extent, and impressive glans nervature of the clit, long before feminists were saying it and way before the contemporary discussion of it. That knowledge, though, (both then and now) gets minimized, ignored, skewed, and smoothed over in an effort to never fully negate the hopes and screw-brained illogical justifications of vag-gasms and their champions.

THE ARTICLE SUMMARY

Some Considerations Concerning Orgasm in the Female. Marmor, J. Psychosomatic Medicine. Vol. 16 No. 3 (May 1954), pp. 240-245.

In these summaries, you can assume that anything I write is a genuine attempt to reflect what is said in the paper - even if it's shortened or summarized. My opinions, if I have any to add will either be inside brackets likes these [me:], or in a section headed in a way that clearly lets you know these are my opinions. All quotes are from this article unless specifically noted.

You can check out the list of all the past 'A Journal Article I Read' Summaries HERE.

Intro

A lot is known about male orgasm but less about female, some likely reasons are that you can see the ejaculation which is related to a male orgasm but it's harder for females themselves or an observer to identify the female orgasm. There's also all the quite harsh taboos women feel about their sexuality. Of women, it says, "One might speculate as to whether their very sensory perceptions of the process, having developed in the crucible of these conventions, have not been affected in such a way as to interfere with the accurate evaluation of their own sexual reactions."

Freud's Concept of Genital Erogenicity

• "...most psychoanalytical concepts about the physiology of the female orgasm date back to Freud's classic formulation in his 'Three Contributions to the Theory of Sex.'" Basically Freud asserted that the erotic genital center for females is at first in the clitoris (an immature phase) but should transfer to the vagina, and so orgasm in the healthy mature woman should be due to vaginal rather than clitoral stimulation. If this sensitivity transfer does not take place, it leads to 'frigidity' or 'anesthesia'. Freud believes this is due to "profuse sexual activities in infantile life."
• Some researchers named Horney [ME: hilarious, am I right?] and Lorand propose it's possible vaginal sensation may be present in childhood, "but the conclusion that clitoral sensitivity must ultimately give way to vaginal sensitivity in the normal female seems never to have been seriously questioned in the psychoanalytical literature."
• This Freud hypothesis was based on common clinical observations. Masturbation in the young female is generally centered on the clit. "Frigid" women who can't come from vaginal stimulation often do seem to orgasm fine from clitoral stimulation. Also. "women who seem to have achieved the greatest degree of sexual freedom and responsiveness are able to have orgasms freely through vaginal intercourse." "most observers" report clitoral orgasm is a localized response and vaginal orgasms "seem to be a more violent, intense, and generalized reaction." [ME: i.e. clit-gasms are immature and weak and lame and only genital. Vag-gasms are amazing, mind-blowingly intense and whole-bodied. I just want to point out that the Freud immature vs. mature theory is relatively outdated, but the idea of vaginal orgasm being better and more whole-bodied is still quite strongly with us. Look around at how modern information often describes it. Also those "common clinical observations" don't have references attached. Miiiiight be a bunch of trash and hearsay.] 
• "Although these clinical observations seem well authenticated [ME: Do they?], recent studies have thrown doubt on their theoretical interpretations, and specifically upon the hypothesis of the transfer of erogenicity from the clitoris to the vagina. Evidence has accumulated in recent years to indicate that in the normal adult woman clitoral excitation by the penis in the process of intercourse is an important factor in the stimulation leading to orgasm." [ME: When they say clitoris in this article, they mean the clitoral glans and surrounding externals tissues. I have to make this clear since people are now way into thinking that the "inner legs" of the clitoris are what actually causes orgasms. Spoiler: We've been lied to. There's no Evidence for that]. One study indicated that a shorter distance from the clit to the vagina (so the penis might have a better chance of touching it while thrusting) is correlated to higher possibility of having intercourse orgasms. Another researcher, Robert Latou Dickenson, disagrees with this assessment, but does believe stimulation of the clit is essential to female orgasm. "In his opinion, the most reliable index to clitoral function is not its location so much as its susceptibility to displacement during intercourse." [ME: you might say he's suggesting that it's more about if that clit can position itself to consistently grind against something during the banging - and I can get behind that idea]
• More evidence, though indirect, of the importance of the clit in sex comes from looking at common sex positions. Some researchers found face-to-face sex, which affords possible clit stimulation is most popular throughout the world. The Kinsey studies found woman on top face to face to be what people considered best for lady-gasms. Another researchers found doggy style [ME: They used the term coitus-atergo, which I had to look up and kinda sounds awesome], is not preferred in any more than 35 societies they studied, and suggested it may be because clit stim is minimal.
• "Most significant of all, however, are histological studies in females of the sensory cells known as the genital corpuscles, which 'are highly specialized end-organs for the perception of this particular sensation (i.e. orgasm) just as the retinal is adapted for the sense of sight and the neuro-epithelium of the nose is adapted for the sense of smell.'10 These histological studies indicate that the genital corpuscles do not occur in the vaginal mucosa and are confined predominantly to the glans clitoridis.10 Some are also found in the areas directly adjacent to the clitoris, notably the labia minor."

Importance of the Clitoris

• This all means the main organ for erotic sensation in females is the clitoral glans just as in males it is localized in the homologous [ME: they arise from the same tissue in the embryo] organ, the glans penis. The penis shaft and the vagina are lacking in these genital corpuscles. There are other secondary erogenous zones of course, like lips, butt, etc. and their importance is well known.
• "There are kinesthetic receptors within the vagina, the stimulation of which by the erect penis contributes to volumptuous sensations to the normal woman. [ME: I have no idea what voluptuous sensations are] There are similar receptors in the bulbocavernous muscles around the lower end of the vagina which contribute a sense of ejaculation during orgasm by the spasmodic pulsations. The contractions of these muscles in the male cause actual ejaculation of semen from the penis during orgasm. [ME: This statement is interesting because it acknowledges a few things 1. that the bulbocavernous muscles - now called bulbospongiosus muscle- in both males and females spasm -one might say contract rhythmically- during orgasm. This was over 10 years before Masters and Johnson released their groundbreaking research on this topic which tells me that basic understanding of orgasm was pretty clear well in the past. It is interesting that they describe that as giving a 'sense of ejaculation' in females but I guess that's just because it's a spasm like the kind that shoot the semen out in spurts. 2. that it recognizes that the bulbocavernous muscles which cover the vestibular bulbs in females. This is of note because the vestibular bulbs are what O'Connell, in her 1998 paper, asserted should be included in our definition of the clitoris - even though it is a different organ and other anatomists would disagree. That paper is what people often assert 'discovered the full structure of the clit in 1998.' It did not. I have a whole thing on that idea and that paper HERE. Anyway, there is a sense that people didn't know about the inner parts of the clitoris or the vestibular bulbs before 1998, but they absolutely did and this is just 1 of many evidence of that.]
• This knowledge of the clit's importance in adult women calls into question the idea of the clit to vagina sensation shift that's supposed to take place, but before discussing that further the knowledge of the male anatomy should be examined
• "It is accepted fact that in the male there is an orgastic spinal center in the sacral segment of the spinal cord. As can be demonstrated from the evidence of neurophysiology, discharges of tension in this orgastic center can be achieved either at a reflex spinal level or by cortical stimulation." In the instance of the 'reflex' stimulation, orgasm is simply achieved by stimulation of the genital corpuscles in the glans penis. In the instance of the 'cortical' stimulation, orgasm is achieved through psychological stimuli - for instance; stimulation of secondary erogenous areas, witnessing exciting events, erotic literature, fantasy, daydreaming - even with no physical stimulation of the penis. In some neurotic men, extreme anxiety or tension has been observed to cause orgasm. [ME: this does not have any references, so take as you will] 
• However, in the normal "from a psychodynamic standpoint" male, both 'reflex' and 'cortical' stimulus are needed. The cortical stimulus (psychological, secondary erogenous zones, etc.) is sufficient for erection but not orgasm. A certain amount of penile glans stimulation, "through the process of intercourse, is necessary. [ME: umm...you can get penile glans stimulation other ways, ya know... but for real - they are obsessed with intercourse. am I right?] This physical excitation is further enhanced in the process of intercourse by the psychological stimulus from the mounting excitement of the partner [ME: aka - this lady's so hot about you climbing on top and jamming it in that it makes you even hotter, baby!]. Under ideal circumstances this crescendo of excitement occurs in both partners simultaneously, and the combination of physical and psychological stimulation finally results in orgasm." [ME: remember this fine assessment of how hot intercourse makes people. This is crucial to their later hypothesis that the psychological hotness of getting banged overcomes the very indirect (you might say barely feel-able) clit stimulation that (maybe) happens during basic in-out sex. the will assert it not only gets a lady to orgasm, but makes her come like a motha-fucka - an amazing, whole bodied, stars falling into your gasping mouth, vaginal orgasm - simultaneously with him, of course].
• "In considering the parallel mechanism of orgasm in the female, there is no reason to expect from our knowledge of anatomy and the physiology that the female has two spinal orgastic centers rather than one. On the contrary, it is fair to assume that the female undoubtedly has an orgastic center located in the sacral segment of the spinal cord, exactly as the male has. From neurohistological evidence, it can be shown that the sensory receptors for this spinal orgastic center are the genital corpuscles, located predominantly in the glans clitoris, just as the homologous sensory receptors in the male are confined to the glans penis." [ME: I want to take a quick moment to point out that it is the glans of the clit and to a lesser degree area directly around it - not the clitoral legs and vestibular bulbs that are surrounding the vagina- that contain all this nervature. People are always seeming to forget that when they act like the inner parts of the clit are somehow supposed to cause orgasm as they are jostled indirectly through the vagina and surrounding tissue]. 
• In case people wonder how the tiny clit could play such a sensory role, they quote from Dickinson's 1933 Human Sex Anatomy. He describes how the amount and size of the nerves in the little clit compare strikingly with those in the penile glans. In fact it's "demonstrably richer in nerves than the male glans, for the two stems of the doralis clitoridis are relatively three to four times as large as the equivalent nerves of the penis." [ME: Again, I just want to point out that the quite large nature of the clitoral nerves were known. Granted there are more detailed anatomy studies today, but I've seen people assert that the striking size of the clitoral nerves was not understood until recently and that is disingenuous.]
• It's suggested this extremely rich nervature of the clit may explain why women have a greater capacity for multiple orgasms. [ME: There are studies with physical evidence that some males have multiple orgasms as well. It seems like it is when they are able to have orgasms without ejaculation. The multiple orgasm session seems to end when ejaculation finally happens...in case you wondered if males could have multiple orgasms]

Orgiastic Impotence

• Even with evidence that females should be as orgasmic as males, they just aren't. One study of 1000 married women showed only 2 of 5 women experience regular orgasms during intercourse, and they say these figures are corroborated by others but don't describe where.
• It seems almost inescapable to conclude that there could not possibly be 2 different pathways for female orgasm (vaginal and clitoral) as many have suspected, so one must assume the problem women tend to have with orgasming vaginally must not be physiological - but rather psychological. [ME: or, and hear me out, maybe it's that expecting a woman to orgasm from ramming a dick in her vagina is like expecting a male to come from rubbing his balls. It's dumb, makes no anatomical sense, and you should stop expecting it. So...ya know, maybe it's not psychological or a physiological issues, but a simple user error.]
• It's noted that the menstrual cycle may play a part in the female libido, but they don't believe it is related to frigidity.
• The psychological factors for females that might affect frigidity are huge - including; "the greater degree of sexual repression and inhibition which our culture imposes upon them, and the envy and hostility to men which stems in part at least from the position of women in an androcentric culture [ME: aka the motha fuckin' patriarchy], are only a few of the factors that interfere with the capacity of women to enter with uninhibited pleasure into a sexual relationship. Fears of being injured by the penis, fears of pregnancy and childbirth, and lack of adequate skill, tenderness, or potency on the part of the male partners..." 
• This paper is less concerned, however, with the psychology of frigidity (inability to have 'vaginal' orgasms through intercourse), and more concerned with how the element of psychology can help explain what a vaginal orgasm really is - since we know it couldn't be some different physiological pathway from the clitoral orgasm pathway. Specifically, it seems that if there are psychological inhibitions holding a female back from the full capacity to enjoy sexual intercourse, she will still usually be capable of orgasming through direct clitoral stimulation (the 'reflex' stimulus). "On the other hand, if the woman has been able to free herself from the blanket of psychological inhibition, she will be capable of responding through the medium of enhanced cortical excitement (that is, through cortical facilitation) to vaginal intercourse." 
• The authors tells us ,"as has been pointed out, [ME: from somewhere. no reference.] some stimulation of the clitoris almost invariably occurs in normal vaginal intercourse and is an important factor in the excitation leading to orgasm. The difference between the so-called clitoral and vaginal orgasms, therefore is explicable not in terms of the different origin or location of the orgastic response, but in the different intensity of it and in the degree to which cortical factors are contributory."
• In other words, the assertion is that frigidity does not come from the body's inability to transfer sensation from the clit to the vagina, because that seems physiologically impossible, but from the mind's inability to overcome psychological inhibitions. These inhibitions can exist for a woman and still allow orgasm, but only by direct clitoral stimulation. However, these inhibitions must be overcome in order to achieve the enhanced 'cortical' (mental/emotional) excitement that makes the indirect stimulation of the clit during intercourse enough to have an so-called orgasm. 
• They assert that in both males and females the intensity of the orgasm relates to the degree of psychological excitation present. In the 'purely spinal reflex,' due to the mechanical stimulation of either the penis or the clitoris, the orgasm is generally experienced as a localized and limited reaction. "On the other hand, in both the male and female, the higher the degree of emotional and psychological participation, the greater the degree of cortical facilitation of the spinal discharge, and the more general and intense the orgastic response is." [ME: So, they know stimulating the penis or clit directly can cause orgasm, right? They say it's a lame, lesser one, but one none the less. So, to get a more intense, whole-bodied one, we're told that males and females just need more psychological excitation (more arousal and intimacy), right? Through lack of inhibition and intercourse, right? So...to get this better orgasm, men still get to give their penile glans really good direct stimulations by engulfing it in a vagina, but females get way less clitoral glans stimulation, maybe barely any at all, but they're saying somehow females still should expect the same results as the males. How's that shit make any sense?]
• The authors think it would be useful to do electroencephalographic studies of the cortical patterns during intense orgasm. 

Extra Genital Orgasm

• There are other reactions in the female similar to those in the male. For instance, women too are capable of orgasming without any local genital stimulation. They quote from Dickenson and Beam's study of a thousand marriages.  "The records contain instances of orgasm obtained from nipple suction, from nursing a baby, from pressing down (fully dressed ) against another [ME: That's called 'cloths burning' or 'dry humping', and that actually does include genital stimulation, amiright?], from a shampoo at the hands of a male hairdresser, from a look, from a kiss, from touching the eye or ear, from a handclasp, and from a picture or flower which contains no figure and no likeness to a person or scene." [ME: Daaaaaamn  - coming from merely looking at picture of a driveway or something. That's a horny motha fucker. Respect if that's you, but I venture to guess one shouldn't count on that doing the trick. And did we ever consider these tales might just be lies women have told their old-timey husbands after they read their wife's diary saying she orgasmsed with Pierre - like 'oh - Pierre's the shampoo boy. I just inexplicably came while he was washing my hair. Strange, huh?' ]
• Those non-genital orgasms are ones based on the cortical excitation only, but normally males and females need both cortical (emotional/mental) and reflex simulation (physical stimulation to clit/penis). Also - "In the normal woman, moreover, as in the normal man, the excitement of the partner, and particularly the setting off of his orgiastic reaction, constitutes an intense psychological stimulus for her and often acts as a trigger for her climactic response." [ME: I mean, just goes to show you that the ol' -him coming made me come- story has been around forever to give both males and females alike a way to justify the otherwise quite unrealistic situation of banging, a sexual act that gives the penis great stimulation and the clit little to none, causing simultaneous orgasms.]
• "Pursuing the logic of this hypothesis, therefore, we may say that strictly speaking there is no such thing as a 'vaginal' orgasms in the female, anymore than we might speak of 'scrotal,' 'anal,' or 'prostatic' orgasm in the male. It seems logical to assume that the actual spinal mechanism of orgasm is identical in all females."
• The variations that take place, however, are due to the level at which inhabitations accompany the physical stimulation. If inhibitions are great enough, they may inhibit even direct clitoral stimulation, and create a total incapacity for orgasm. If it's less inhibition, prolonged direct clitoral stimulation may overcome the inhabition and an orgasm is possible. These are what are known as 'clitoral orgasms.' "However, where cortical inhabitations do not exist, where there is freedom from psychological tension or anxiety in the sexual act, and instead there is a high degree of tender, affection, love, and psychological excitement, then cortical facilitation takes place. The result is an intense orgastic response in which the intromission of the phallus into the vagina is of major importance. This is both psychodynamically and physiologically the optimum type of response, and represents what is ordinarily characterized as a 'vaginal' orgasm." 

Conclusion

The reason all this is important is to help people; women, their male partners, and the doctors and psychologists they go to for help. With this new understanding that the clitoris doesn't give sensitivity up to the vagina as women mature, and that the clitoral glans continues to be important to orgasmic response, will help. Anxious women need not worry if their clit is still sensitive past youth and should know that stimulating it is important in their mature, adult sexual experiences. They shouldn't feel that allowing it to be touched is bad or a sign of immaturity. Men should understand the importance of clitoral foreplay, and the doctors and psychologists can use all this information to better counsel women. [ME: see - I do believe this was created out of good intention - old-timey good intention, yes- but none the less I imagine this, for its time, was forward thinking, and I can appreciate that.]

Summary (in entirety)

"Some considerations have been presented which throw doubt on the popular assumption that genital erogenicity in the female becomes normally transferred from the clitoris to the vagina. There is evidence to indicate that clitoral sensitivity is a continuing factor in adult female sexuality, and the chief difference between so-called clitoral and vaginal orgasm is explicable not in terms of the different origin or location of the orgastic response, but in the different intensity of it and the degree to which cortical facilitation of the spinal reaction has taken place."

Crazy Ex-Girlfriend S1 Ep 4 & 8 - The SSL Review

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Crazy Ex-GirlFriend
I do quite enjoy this show. It's a wild ride. I respect that. I also love the creator and star, Rachel Bloom. She is an Orgasm Equality advocate, ya'll. She dropped some truth bombs on Twitter, and I loved it. I wrote a post about it and made her an official Orgasm Equality Ally She also drops in subtle accurate, realistic depictions and discussions of lady-gasm stuff in her show, which honestly, is my dream of dreams. If all shows did this, we wouldn't have much of a problem anymore.

Anyway, it's a network show so there's not a ton of orgasm, masturbation, and clit stuff being thrown around for obvious reasons, but there are things from time to time that are SSL Reviewable. For those that don't yet know, an SSL Review is a critique specifically of discussions or depictions of female orgasm, female masturbation, or the clit. I focus on that and really only that (unless I want to talk about something else). I'm looking mainly at realism and about how the depiction/discussion plays in the larger cultural conversation about female orgasm and women's sexuality. I have 2 simple ones from Season 1 to talk about here.

Please, my friends, do enjoy more SSL Reviews for MOVIES and TV SHOWS.

S1 Ep4 - Dirty Hippie Dudes
Rebecca, played by Rachel Bloom, ends up having a one night stand with this unkempt hippie-style guy. After they have sex, the dude gets up.

Hippie Dude: "What do you want me to do with these 2 condoms you made me wear."
Rebecca: "Uh trashcan in the bathroom"
Hippie Dude: Cool. Hey by the way, you finished right?
Rebecca: Oh yea. I finished a bunch.

The hippie dude is satisfied with that, and she gets him out of her apartment quickly.

She definitely did not come 'a bunch.' She's clearly being sarcastic in this scene. The audience has no idea about what physically happened during the sex, but we can assume that the dude must not have been that interested in her orgasm during the act since he asked as an afterthought. We can also suspect he's not very perceptive since he was fine with her clearly sarcastic answer,. That's real. They probably just banged. He came. She didn't. That's about as typical a hook-up as one can imagine.

So, this scene is not super progressive or anything, but I like how it mirrors the female reality of shit one-night-stand sex that includes intercourse but no lady-gasms...because frankly hook-ups, for a variety of reasons, are just not all that great generally for the clit and thus the female orgasm.

I think the simple act in media of pointing out that sexual encounters are often not orgasmic for women is a small but important task. In order for our culture to begin really caring about actual female orgasm and to embrace the idea of clitoral glans stimulation as main-course fare (as opposed to intercourse as main-course fare), we all need to really get the point that what we tend to do currently in sexual encounters is not working all that well...like we need to really get that. We need to for real understand that a penis moving in the vagina does not a lady-gasm make.

Little pokes like this scene are poignant, and I appreciate that.

S1Ep8 - Frigid 
This is flashback of Rebecca as a kid trying to please her mom. She tells her that her principal said she was the youngest and prettiest of all the moms in her grade. Her mom retorts back,

Mom: Just in your grade?
Rebecca: Oh no in the whole school.
Mom: I don't know why you're even talking about him. He's married...but I heard his wife was frigid. Go on.

Frigid. It's not actually used much these days. It was used a lot from the 40's into the 80's. It is a Freudian word specifically meaning a woman that cannot orgasm from vaginal penetration. She may be able to orgasm from clitoral stimulation, but that was immature. She was frigid unless she orgasmsed from intercourse. In pop culture it also seemed to kind of grow a less specific meaning in that it referred to a woman that was just not able to orgasm at all or was not generally that interested in sex or not easily aroused. It was always seemed to have a derogatory, bad feel.

I'm not sure, off the bat, how to place this scene in the sexual culture. I do know Rebecca's mom is clearly mean and vindictive in this show, and her saying that about another woman shows it to be kind of a shitty and maybe gossipy thing to say. I guess though that bringing up frigidity at all and the derogatory feel surrounding it about a woman's ability to orgasm or to orgasm in the right way, is not real positive - especially if it's left unaddressed. Women's insecurities about our orgasmic capabilities are deep and strong (women's magazines know that...that's why every issue gives us tips about how to be correctly orgasmic), so little mentions of frigidity, even if made by a clearly vindictive character, can add onto the pile of other media mentions that remind and reiterate to that women we aren't orgasming right or enough.

The Vulva Rating
I loved the realism about lady-gasms the show put out there in Rebecca's answer to the hippies question about her 'finishing.' I think that's a solid and intentional schooling on the realities of sexual encounters for females. The frigid statement was just a joke about her mom's vindictiveness, but if I want to be picky (and I do often want to be picky) I do think bringing up derogatory concepts like that without speaking to their ridiculousness leaves them to just fester there with all the other similar mentions in the media we watch. It's an unintentional reiteration of the fears women already have.

So, This will not be a perfect score, but it won't be bad either. I will give this a 3 1/2 out of 5 vulva rating.

(!)(!)(!)(!

Chewing Gum S2 Ep3 - The SSL Review

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Chewing Gum!
Like I said in the first SSL Review I did on this, you should check this show out on Netflix. I continue to love the shit out of it in the 2nd season. It's a top-quality comedy that you should definitely watch. It may have a tricky British accent to follow, but turn on the captions and get on with watching it. It's great. It's also progressive in the ol' female orgasm department, and I feel like it has a unique perspective - not just because her gender or color or anything like that, well it is a lot of that, but I don't think the way a writer or director identifies is enough to bring a truly unique voice to a work. It's how they use their craft as well. To me, it seems like Michaela Coel (writer/star) really unabashedly dives into her own perspective and brings things into her story that are new and unexpected. In short, she's just a great creator and people should watch this show.

Michaela Coel - Chewing Gum creator, writer and main actress

And it's SSL Reviewable
This means I will be critiquing only discussions or depictions of female orgasm, female masturbation, or the clit. For these reviews I'm mainly interested in physical realism (like are the things happening to the woman's body actually things that would realistically make a female orgasm?) and about how the depiction/discussion plays in the larger cultural conversation about female orgasm and women's sexuality.

Please, my friends, do enjoy more SSL Reviews for MOVIES and TV SHOWS.

S2 Ep3 - Boy Tracey
There's only 1 SSL Reviewable scenes in here, so I'll describe it and then give you my take.

Boy Tracey is Tracey's (the main character's) male cousin with the same name. They are kinda like childhood BFFs, but then the next time she sees Boy Tracey, he's obsessed with sex and girls...and there's other stuff too I won't ruin for you. Anyway, Boy Tracey is chilling in Tracey's room, and Tracey kinda wants Boy Tracey to talk about a particular thing, but he just isn't, and it's annoying her. Then Boy Tracey randomly says:

Boy Tracey: Do you think girls like stimulation via the clitoris or the vaginal itself? Or are all girls different?
Tracey: [scoffs] I wouldn't know Trace.

She changes the subject - less because it's a weird thing to say to your cousin and more because she's annoyed that Boy Tracey isn't speaking about what she wants him to. So, his question is just kinda left in the air.

My Thoughts 
This is a pretty small scene, and I'm not really sure what it puts out there in the world about lady-gasms. The thing to know is that both Tracey and Boy Tracey are super incredibly sheltered, naive, and inexperienced with sex - Boy Tracey more so, and that's saying a lot because Tracey is pretty damn naive herself.

Clearly, his question carries the baggage of clit vs. vaginal orgasm debates that are still very much alive. The modern form of this debate takes a bit of a different form than it did in Freud's time when he was telling the world that women who cannot orgasm from vaginal stimulation alone are psychologically immature.

Now no one now is saying that women who cannot orgasm from vaginal stimulation are immature...um that's not true. There are people that still say that. In fact a scientist named Stuart Brody regularly gets shitty scientific articles that say that exact thing published in respected peer reviewed journals - seriously  But largely that's not how people think any more. Instead, that sentiment lies in subtleties and subtext.

There is an underlying feeling that if a woman can't orgasm from getting boned, she's missing out. She's emotionally or hormonally broken, or she's just not naturally that sexual, or she's just a bit lesser than. It stems from the long history of glorifying penile-vaginal sex as the ultimate in pleasure, from the vast amount of depictions in our media of P-in-V sex causing orgasm for women with no additional clit stimulation, from the lack of basic anatomical, physiological lady-gasm knowledge in education, sex advice, and even -sadly- a fair amount of sex research. It stems from basically the whole of how our sexual culture approaches female orgasm.

I guess what I'm saying here is that although sexperts today would like to say that our culture is no longer worried about the clit vs. vaginal stimulation debate of Freudian times, they are wrong. We are very much worried about it. We just don't speak about it the same way we used to, but it's definitely in the air of our sexual culture, and I think the fact that the character, Boy Tracey, asks about it means it's something that people still hear about and worry about. Boy Tracey's question carries a lot of baggage, in the show it goes unanswered, just as it does in the sexual culture at large.

Just to be clear though, It's not an unanswerable question. There are answers. Now, I'm not able to answer what any one person 'prefers' sexually, but if Boy Tracey was getting at how he could make a woman orgasm, then clit stimulation is the only sensible and scientifically backed answer. Period. Females need clitoral glans stimulation to orgasm just as males need penile stimulation to orgasm. It's not the popular answer (believe me - I made a movie saying this that straight up pissed a lot of people off), but it is the one backed by scientifically sound evidence.

Vulva Rating
I don't know exactly how to review this because it just put the question out there without comment really. I guess the fact that both the Traceys in this discussion are so naive about sex, sometimes hilariously so, would indicate that the question is a bit naive. And it is. It's a silly question because clearly clits are most important just like it's clear penises are most important to males. Yet it's also a completely sensible and normal question to ponder because we as a culture are so confused and silly about female orgasm.

I guess I kinda like the way this question sits out unanswered and sorta reflects the way that same question sits out there seemingly unanswered in the larger sexual culture. However, it's not progressive, it doesn't really add any scientific wisdom or female-centric insight to that question, but it doesn't add anything incorrect about it either.

I am going to give this episode a completely middle-of-the-road 3 out of 5 vuvla rating because it's a very neutral scene.

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Retro Post: Skeptic Ink Article Critique and the History of The Debate It Led To

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Retro Post Intro
This is a retro article. I originally wrote this in June of 2014. I re-read it recently and still feel strongly about what I've said here, and think it's worth a re-issue. 

Plus, this article actually sparked a pretty long blog-to-blog discussion, which I think is also worth going over and linking to here (which I will do below).

The history of the debate that this post led to
You see, after I let commented on the author's (Edward Clint's) original post that I had done some critiquing. He, to my surprise, graciously agreed to further debate.on this topic. He replied to my critique I'm re-posting on his own blog HERE. I replied back HERE. 

At that point he didn't respond back and about 4 months later, I emailed him seeing if he was still interested in the debate. We had a very cordial relationship, and I told him I hoped I hadn't been too harsh and offended him. He was very nice in his reply, and let me know he 
I am not offended by your style saying, "By internet standards, you're practically Ned Flanders." He went on with a bit of a gripe though. "However, you do appear to have taken a swipe at me in order to pick a fight on the topic you prefer while ignoring the fact that I was not speaking to that topic. I find that borders on disrespectful, not that I believe you intended any offense. You sense that we disagree on that topic, and I think you are straining to find a way to see that disagreement in what I have written, but it is not there. You had, and have, a much better option if you want to have that other discussion: you could have just asked what my position was and if we could discuss that. There's no reason that couldn't happen without us endlessly dissecting whether or not my essay about bad io9 reporting was sufficiently deferential to your sense of history and fact."   

So, I took a little issue to that and emailed him back a long-winded email describing how I thought maybe he wasn't actually reading my arguments because he is speaking on the topics I'm critiquing him on and that we do, in fact, disagree. He, as you might expect, took a bit of issue to that, then wrote me back the following after writing some nice small talk that we'd been engaging on:

Let me clarify some things for you. I am not ignoring or failing to understand what you have said. I am asserting the autonomy and rules of engagement as they apply to your actions. There are two arguments I am perfectly inclined to have and one that I will refuse you. I will call those A, B, and C

A) What is the factually correct definition, description, and nature of orgasm as it relates to stimulation of the clitoris and vagina?
 B) How defensible was my post on clitoral anatomy and bad science reporting?
 C) Whether or not my resolution of A caused my resolution of B.  

I am not wiling to engage with you on C. My reasons for this are that it strikes as not entirely appropriate (as I wrote before, it seems like picking a fight). You don't think that you are, and I take you at your word, so I will give you two other reasons why I will not engage with C. One, we will never get past the "B" component, ever. You are mistaken about your belief here. I am sure you believe your interpretation, but I have access to my own beliefs, intentions, and memories and you are not correct. I simply did not ever intend to say VIO is real and true and should be taken as the truth. I knew it was contentious territory when I wrote about it, and so I tried to stay out of that particular debate, deliberately, knowingly. I've read your arguments to the contrary and they will not succeed. But whatever your beliefs, know that we will never get past "B" and to "A". I will simply not allow a false point criticizing my writing to stand.I will counter every one of your points, and we can go around and around doing that if you wish, as I said I am fine with "B". Reason number two: "A" is a very big debate. It should stand alone, and not be muddied by blog politics about whether I was right in some tangentially related earlier writing or not. It deserves to have its own debate where one side, mine, is not instantly set to the defensive and put in a pit of assumed wrongness. It must begin on clean, neutral terms, or not at all, just like any formal debate.  

 These reasons are why I could not just take you up on your offer, you prefaced it with a C argument against me, forcing me to defend B and preventing me from ever getting to A, because I will not permit this water to be muddied, even if you believe that it already is. I do not, and I will not agree to that as a term.  

 So pick one, A or B, or none of the above. But whichever you pick, you must let the other one go, and if you choose A, then the exchange must be reset and not a direct continuation of the discussion up to now (though of course it can be justly called a consequence of it). Those are my terms. 

 
I wrote him back a quick email letting him know that if those were his boundaries, I'd be happy to debate A. So, that is the explanation for why we shifted focus, and at that point we started a new and separate debate. He started it HERE. Then I responded HERE . Ed responded back HERE. And I responded a 2nd time HERE. 

I really enjoyed the chance to debate. I think responding to him and thinking about all this from a different perspective helped clarify a lot of things for me and I'm grateful to that. I'll let you go through all these as you will and get what you get from this debate...it's only like a thousand million trillion hours of reading, so super easy spare time reading - yay!  


...And Now the Original post from June 2014

Charlie sent this article to me (The Clitoris Revealed and How io9 Got It Wrong) from Skeptic Ink. The author (Edward Clint) was lambasting a recent i09 article on its terrible coverage of a 2009 study that used a sonogram to look at the full clitoral complex (there's a lot of erectile clitoral tissue below the skin). The study linked an area where part of the clitoral complex got cozy against the vagina during penetration to an area the 5 women in the study felt was a pleasurable one in the vagina. The researchers suggested this may be the "g-spot" (as in the "g-spot" may actually just be the area where the root of the clitoral complex butts up against the vagina during penetration and not be some piece of anatomy within the vagina). There is a suggestion that this "g-spot" is linked to the "vaginal orgasm" the 5 women in the study claim to have, but there is no specific causal connection asserted in the study's conclusion. 

Edward Clint rightly details how the io9 article covering the study is characteristically silly in the way media interpretations of scientific studies always seem to be, and I appreciated that he pointed that out. In fact, I loved that this article pointed out a lot of things about scientific reporting that annoy me (not telling the full story, over exaggeration, only picking out the parts that seem exciting), but then at the end of the article, there is a section called "The vaginal orgasm and the G-spot debate: We can all stop caring now," and that's where it all goes wrong. 

Frankly, I don't think that Clint (and he's not alone - honestly his tone and arguments are very much the status quo) has a good handle on some important aspects of this subject, Let me tackle the larger issue first.

An orgasm caused by stimulation of something inside the vagina (a Vaginally Induced Orgasm or VIO),  has never actually been recorded. I know it sounds crazy, but it's true. It doesn't exist in scientific record. (I explain that further HERE and HERE if you are interested).  Most people writing about g-spot/vaginal orgasms don't know or completely ignore this. They, quite wrongly, take for granted that VIO's exist, and I think it twists the entire picture of female sexual response into a confused mess that is not helpful to anyone. Take for instance Clint's discussion about the "vaginal vs. clitoral orgasm debate." 

In the first half of the 20th century, notions of vaginal vs. clitoral orgasm took hold (thank Freud, who coined the term vaginal orgasm), along with the ignorant and sexist notions that women incapable of the “vaginal” orgasm were “frigid” and that penis-vagina sex was the only source of orgasms that counted. This lead some feminists to adopt the opposite and politically-valenced position that the vagina was irrelevant to pleasure, and that the vaginal orgasm was a lie. Just in case you think I am overstating, feminist Anne Koedt wrote in 1970, It has also been known that women need no anesthesia inside the vagina during surgery, thus pointing to the fact that the vagina is in fact not a highly sensitive area. (This quote was repeated to me in a 2012 gender studies classroom by a professor, quite seriously) This is why it’s good to remember the opposite of wrong is not necessarily right and that it’s a bad idea to confuse facts with moral values: facts can change. 

He seems to play Anne Koedt as some crazy ideologue, but she is not. Koedt was part of a larger feminist campaign that emerged from the then recent Master's and Johnson physiology of orgasm research. M&J's research described how there was no evidence of VIOs and showed how stimulation of the clitoral glans caused female orgasm. That research is, to this day, still relevant and foundational. Let me be clear. Orgasms caused by stimulation of the clitoral glans have been described, documented, and there is a clear understanding of what is needed to get them and who is capable of having them. Orgasms from vaginal stimulation have not been documented or described and there is no clear understanding of what is needed to have them or who is capable of having them. 

Koedt's statement that the vagina has very little sensitivity to touch and that the vaginal orgasm is a lie is not just a willy-nilly opposing reaction to Freud. It is what the science says (this was true in 1970 and still today). Freud's theories, including the "vaginal orgasm" that he so kindly birthed into this world, are just some completely untested ideas a famous dude had that really, really caught on - that's all. To pose Freud's bullshit against Anne Koedt's article, an article that is backed up by good science, is just plain silly.

Even after the G-spot was "discovered" and brought into the public eye in 1982, there still has been no causal connection documented in a lab between something in the vag being stimulated and an orgasm. From the G-spot's 1982 "coming-out,", we did learn that there are prostate-like ducts surrounding the urethra that protrude out from the vaginal wall when excited (this is what I would define as the g-spot), and that when there is sufficient pressure and stimulation of that area, some women ejaculate (which is different from orgasm) through their urethra. That is the only type of sexual release caused by vaginal stimulation that has been documented, and yet strangely this article and almost all like it ignore this very real and concrete quality of the g-spot. Instead the focus is on its possible part in a type of orgasm, that frankly, may not even exist. 

Another issue I have is that Clint confuses two different " clit vs. vag debates." There is a debate about whether a vaginal orgasm exists at all. This is the debate I'd like to have and the debate that was in question with Anne Koedt and similar feminists of the time. Then there is the debate about whether VIOs are caused by something actually in the vaginal structure  vs. the idea that VIOs are caused by indirect stimulation of the deep clitoral roots through the walls of the vagina. Clint sort of lumps these two together as the clit vs. vag debate, but they are actually quite different. The first follows what is scientifically known and simply sees no evidence for a VIO. The second assumes that VIOs obviously exist and is simply asking whether the clitoral legs stimulated through vaginal penetration is the cause or the vag itself. 

The modern research tells us that everyone is right! Or, everyone is wrong, however you’d like to parse it, because all of the parts are important. And right on cue, both “sides” of the G-spot debate have claimed immediate victory with the anti side saying “See, it’s just clitoral!” and the pro side saying “see! it is real, and just where we said!”. The correct answer is, researchers aside, who cares? 
What if the orgasm some women experience during vaginal intercourse is caused by the internal clitoris? Does changing the mere label and invisible mechanism for the event from “vaginal” to “internal clitoral” change a thing about the event for anybody involved? Does it somehow change moral arguments about the political equality of women? I don’t think that it does. Isn’t it cool if it’s a fact that the G-spot that some women report actually is the spot where the clitoris contacts the anterior vaginal wall?

This is annoying to me because the very important debate about whether vaginal orgasms even exist, the debate he unfairly poo-pooed as just a feminist reaction to Freud's nonsense, is further being pushed into irrelevant obscurity because he's incorrectly lumping it with a debate about which undefined mechanism causes an undocumented, not understood, orgasm that may not even exist. "Is it the thing in the vag we can't find?" vag side says, "or the penis pushing against the wall of the vagina - which then pushes on the surrounding tissue - which then pushes on the clitoral leg that causes VIO?" clit side asks. Framed this way, Clint's right, who cares? It probably doesn't exist anyway. (and P.S. when it's said that the clit has more nerve endings than the entire penis, it is meant that the clitoral glans, the part on the outside, has that many nerves, not the whole clitoral structure. I can't find anything that says how nervy the inner clit legs are, but I think it's fair to say it's a hell of a lot less nervy than the glans. The inner legs engorge with blood when aroused, that seems to be their claim to fame - not intense nerviness). 

My other major problem with Clint's last 3 paragraphs is a little more complicated. You see, although I've already pointed out that a VIO is neither understood nor documented, and that wondering which part (the inner clit or the vag) causes these VIOs is kinda useless since we can't even describe the thing they supposedly cause, the idea of a VIO is still incredibly important to tons of women and their partners. Women and men hear it exists, and the details of what exactly may cause it are a matter of great interest. A quick scan through advice columns, magazine articles, books and the internet would easily show how interested people are in this. It shouldn't be taken lightly that women are in search of better information about these types of orgasms, and I was bothered by the flippant way Clint speaks about the level of actual interest non-research people might have in the specific details of how a VIO might be achieved. 

Frankly, I think Clint underestimates the amount of worry, confusion and frustration women (and men) carry about VIOs. Just think about it. These VIOs are over-abundantly depicted in porn, romance novels, and everywhere else sex is depicted. They result from the most common of sex acts - vaginal-penile intercourse. They are low maintenance (just get banged!), supposedly wildly amazing orgasms, yet only 20 to 30% of women say they can experience these elusive trophies of female sexuality. Why wouldn't people hang on every tidbit of information about them? People are not stupid, and they know that understanding these detailed mechanisms are the key to both learning and teaching how to achieve VIOs.(Does the inner clitoral leg really butt up against the vagina to cause these wildly elusive VIO's or is there another stand-alone piece of anatomy some women have that makes them unique and lucky vag-gasm princesses?!? Are all women's bodies capable of VIOs, or just some? What is the anatomy difference among the haves and have nots? Is it the sex position or the dude's junk size that makes it possible?). Just telling people that it's a vague area that can be reached through the vagina is not enough. People certainly want more. I think it's ridiculous, given how much of an importance our culture puts on VIOs to say, who cares? 

So, again, my larger issue with this article and the g-spot/vaginal orgasm debate in general is that the discussion begins from the assumption that there is something that causes these vaginal orgasms, but no one (even quite skeptical people) thinks to say, "hey, wait....what exactly is a VIO? Oh, there is no real definition? It's never actually been physically documented? Why is that? Hmmm, maybe it's kinda problematic to be looking for the cause of something that is not actually defined." 

Having straight-faced discussions about which possible anatomical configuration causes vaginally induced orgasms is as gross to me as discussing what causes women's intuition. Yeah, people talk about it as if it exists, and women will even tell you that they have it, but it is not defined. It may not even exist, and there is no way someone can identify the cause of something when no one knows what exactly that something is. This is pretty basic stuff, and critical people should be looking at and talking about this debate differently. In the future, I would love to see skeptics be as thorough and skeptical about female orgasm as they are with evolution, religion, and global warming.

Freudian BS in a Legit, Peer-Reviewed Journal: A Journal Article I Read

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Welcome back to 'A Journal Article I Read,' a series where I summarize a lady-gasm related journal article in a way that is hopefully both comprehensive and also not too long. You can find a list of all the journal articles in this series HERE.

Here is what I'll be summarizing today.

A woman's history of vaginal orgasm is discernible from her walk.
Nicholas A1, Brody S, de Sutter P, de Carufel F.
J Sex Med. 2008 Sep;5(9):2119-24.

The BS intent of this article - a background from me
This is a unique summary for me because I have a lot to say about not only this article, but also about the author of this article and the background of why this article exists. Spoiler alert: I'm pretty darn disappointed with the amount of bias, the direct link to Freudian BS, the incorrect assumptions about scientific understanding of vaginal orgasm, and the experimental design. 

Let me begin with the quickest summary of my discontent that I can conjure up.
 Freud thought the vaginal orgasm was the only mature way for a woman to orgasm and that ability to orgasm from clitoral stimulation only was a sign of immaturity. He just made that shit up. Like if I just decided to say that for men, orgasm from penile stimulation was infantile, and to gain full maturity a man must be able to orgasm from anal intercourse...and people believed me and acted like it made sense.

Anyway, it was not backed up by reality or scientific investigation and it still isn't. In fact, there actually is still not any physical evidence at all in scientific literature that women can orgasm through vaginal stimulation alone. This is after decades of research into female orgasm - which does btw clearly back up the knowledge that women can and do orgasm from outer clitoral/vulva stimulation just as men do from penile stimulation. Clitorally stimulated orgasms have been observed and physically verified numerous times. Just like penile orgasms, it is fairly clear in scientific literature how they can happen, what happens in the body when they do, and to some extent who can have them...i.e. any intact healthy body is capable of a penile or clitorally (really anything around that tissue even if it's somewhere in between a clit and a penis) stimulated orgasm. Female orgasm is not mysterious or confusing, but vaginal orgasm is because as much as it's discussed, researched, and advised about, scientists have not yet found physical evidence that orgasms can happen though stimulation inside the vagina without additional external genital stimulation.

So, to be real clear, when a person (and believe you me a shit ton of these people are scientists in peer reviewed journals*) speaks about the vaginal orgasm, about what women and/or their bodies are like who have them, about their health benefits, about what they look like in the brain, these people are, if you will, talking out of their ass. If they make no mention that orgasms caused by stimulation inside the vagina, with no additional outer vulva/clitoral stimulation, have never been physically verified, then they are not speaking, and may not even understand, the whole story. We don't actually know if these orgasms can happen. We don't know what is actually happening in the body when the women who say they have vaginal orgasms are experiencing what they call vaginal orgasms. So please tell me how we can make distinctions between women who do and do not have them?

NO RESEARCH ARTICLE YOU'VE EVER READ OR HEARD OF THAT TELLS YOU ABOUT A DIFFERENCE IN WOMEN WHO ORGASM VAGINALLY VS. THOSE WHO CAN'T IS ACTUALLY ABLE TO BACK UP THE CLAIM BECAUSE THEY DO NOT KNOW FOR SURE THAT THE WOMEN WHO CLAIM TO ORGASM VAGINALLY ACTUALLY ARE PHYSICALLY DOING THAT. #RealTalk ya'll. Feel free to go through the existing research yourself. If you find something that proves that wrong. I would LOVE to see it.

So...what exactly pisses me off so much
Incorrectly going about a study as if vaginal orgasms (orgasms caused by stimulation inside the vag only w/ no additional outer stimulation) are a scientifically understood and verified phenomenon is sadly pretty normal for female orgasm studies in peer reviewed journals. Me critiquing that uninformed assumption in these journal summaries is par for the course, so that's not what I'm most worried about in this one. I'm worried about the Freud-was-right-vaginal-orgasms-are-the-only-mature-sexual-climax-a-woman-can-have-and-clitoral-orgasms-make-women-less-mentally-and-physically-healthy agenda this article and this author seem to have. Because I do feel like there is evidence for this kind of agenda.

A little history of clit hate
Freud made that shit up about vaginal orgasm in his whole psychoanalysis deal. Wilhelm Reich was a student of Freud. Alexander Lowen was a student of Reich. All of them had similar feelings about the supremacy of the vaginal orgasm. Reich combined elements of the body into psychoanalysis and Lowen updated Reich's philosophy. It's called bioenergetic analysis. A main tenet of which is "blocks to emotional expression and wellness are revealed and expressed in the body as chronic muscle tensions which are often subconscious. The blocks are treated by combining bioenergetically designed physical exercises, affective expressions and palpation of the muscular tensions." - from Wikipedia.

Stuart motha-fuckin' Brody
Let me also point out that this is an article by a man named Stuart Brody, who is an absolutely prolific writer of scholarly, peer reviewed research articles jocking hard on vaginal orgasms, penile-vaginal intercourse, and even barebacking. He's not the lead author in this particular one, but I see him as a constant player in Freudian BS studies, so I'm picking on him. Please see a list of some of his articles at the bottom of this post - and it's just a few. This dude really cranks these out. But seriously, just take a minute to check out the names of these articles. I think it will help orient you.

The premise of the article
Anyway, Brody was an author on a previous article that claims to show that women who orgasm vaginally use less immature defense mechanisms. Since one must find some type of measurable aspect of maturity in order to prove someone (non-vaginally orgasming women, perhaps?) immature, that study uses a series of self-report questionnaires about personality and psychological defense mechanisms against a questionnaire about their sex lives...and voila, proof that non-vaginally orgasming women are less mature. And do be sure, Brody cites that study several times to back up a variety of statements he makes in his article I will be summarizing below.

This, I would argue, is the first backbone intent in the article I will be summarizing below: Freud/Reich/Lowen were actually right about vaginal orgasms reflecting female maturity! The second backbone intent takes it all a bit further to prove, as Lowen's bioenergetic analysis would tell us, a mental problem (immaturity) manifests itself in us as a physical problem...often tension or 'muscle blocks.'

So, put those together, and we get why the fuck someone (Brody) would even care to study whether a woman's history of vaginal orgasm is discernible from her walk...because immature clitorally orgasming women probably have tension and muscle blocks, and they won't have that swaaang in their walk like the mature vaginal orgasmers...and this article will prove this and Freud and bioenergetics were right all along!!!!!!


What annoys me? Let me count the things.

1. So, the premise here in itself is annoying to me. Freud just made shit up. Just. made. shit. up. There's been decades since then that have shown us he was pretty off base - particularly about female orgasm. Why are people still acting like what he says is worth further scientific investigation?
2. The fact that in this study, and in every other study, Brody and his cohorts assume vaginal orgasms are a verified and scientifically understood entity and that the women in their studies who say they orgasm vaginally are actually orgasming vaginally shows ignorance of the existing scientific data and bad experimental design - and is annoying to me. 
3. That this study bases its data on how some 'experts' visually rate women's body movement instead of using technology to actually take measurements of things like women's hip rotation is lazy and possibly extremely biased - and is also annoying to me. 
4. Maybe the most annoying thing is that this shit is somehow legitimate lady-gasm science. This article's in a respected peer reviewed journal - a lot of his studies are. Brody is legit. He doesn't seem to be an outcast from the mainstream lady-gasm researchers (although he does have critics- thank you Prause and others, he's still getting his work into mainstream journals). He teams up occasionally with some of the most well known scientists in female orgasm research (Komisaruk for example) and gets included in major journal expert reviews on the topic of vaginal orgasm. This article has also been referenced a fair amount in pop culture. It was even used in a quite popular book Vagina by Naomi Wolfe to emphasize the importance of and help prove the existence of vaginal orgasms.  

More proof of Lowen/Bioenergetic asshole-ery
Before we begin the summary, I'd first like to show you I'm not completely making assumptions about how deep into the vaginal-orgasms-are-real-things-and-also-the-best-things agenda this article, this author, and Lowen/bioenergetics has. Below is a quote from a book written by Lowen (the father of Bioenergetic Analysis). This book is cited in this here article I am about to summarize. I repeat. This is not from this Brody article, but from a book that is referenced in this Brody article.

Most men feel that the need to bring a woman to climax through clitoral stimulation is a burden. If it is done before intercourse but after the man is excited and ready to penetrate, it imposes a restraint upon his natural desire for closeness and intimacy. Not only does he lose some of his excitation through this delay, but the subsequent act of coitus is deprived of its mutual quality. Clitoral stimulation during the act of intercourse may help the woman to reach a climax but it distracts the man from the perception of his genital sensation and greatly interferes with the pelvic movements upon which his own feeling of satisfaction depends. The need to bring a woman to climax through clitoral stimulation after the act of intercourse has been completed and the man has reached his climax is burdensome since it prevents him from enjoying the relaxation and peace which are the rewards of sexuality. Most men to whom I have spoken who engage in this practice resented it.    

I do not mean to condemn the practice of clitoral stimulation if a woman finds that this is the way she can obtain a sexual release. Above all she should not feel guilty about using this procedure. However, I advice my patients against this practice since it focuses feelings on the clitoris and prevents the vaginal response. It is not a fully satisfactory experience and cannot be considered the equivalent of a vaginal orgasm.  

-Lowen, A. Love and Orgasm: A Revolutionary Guide to Sexual Fulfillment. New York, Collier Books, 1975. pp.216-217.

THE ARTICLE SUMMARY
So, that's the point from which I'm starting this summary, but I'd like to let you see for yourself. I will summarize below as straightforward as I can - just as I always try to do, and I will only add in my thoughts or opinions in the me brackets "[Me:]" So, please enjoy,

Summary quick-style
This article is actually quite simple. 16 women take a survey with a question about how often they reach vaginal orgasm. 8 said they vaginally orgasm always or usually and another 8 say they vaginally orgasm rarely or never. The ladies then meet the researchers outside and walk for 100 meters while thinking of something nice, and another 100 meters while thinking of a man they are interested in romantically. They are taped from a distance doing this, and then 4 people, "two appropriately trained (in Functional-Sexological therapy) professors of sexology...and two female research assistants" watch the tapes and come to a consensus on whether or not each woman has had vaginal orgasms or not. "The basis for judgment was a global impression of the woman's free, fluid, energetic, sensual manner of walking (with an emphasis on energy flow through the rotation of the pelvis and the spine)."

The raters made a correct assessment for 6 of the 7 women who claimed vaginal orgasm and 7 of the 9 women who claimed not to have vaginal orgasms.

Introduction
I'm going to go over some main points the authors put forth in the introduction with a quick discussion of the studies they cited to support their statements;

This article begins with, "A growing corpus of empirical research has clarified that orgasm triggered by stimulation of the vagina and cervix differs physiologically from climax induced by clitoral stimulation." This is backed up by citations for 2 Komisaruk studies about women with spinal cord injuries having 'cervical orgasms' that are facilitated by the vagus and not the pudendal nerve and also by Brody's own studies about vaginal orgasms being associated with less use of immature psychological defense mechanisms and about there being more prolactin hormone releases after p-in-v intercourse vs. after masturbation.
[Me: Not one of these studies actually verifies that the women who claim vaginal orgasm are having an orgasm, so they're, let's say, not all that convincing. Also, the 'cervical orgasms' in the Komisaruk studies are not only never physically verified as orgasms, but furthermore they are strangely 'achieved' by a method of cervical stimulation that is not something one could do at home or even with a penis during intercourse. These Komisaruk studies referenced here are cited in pretty much any study talking about vaginal orgasms, but are rarely cited, in my opinion, in a way that could actually back up what the authors presume to back up. I detail the main Komisaruk study HERE].

"At a more speculative, theoretical level, the idea that chronic muscle blocks (or excessive muscle flaccidity) impair sexual function by impairing feeling, sexual motility (and perhaps being a tangible representation of corresponding  psychological blocks), and the discharge of sexual tension has it's roots in a theory developed by Reich [11]. His student Lowen [12,13] developed that theory (and safely distanced it from one of Reich's less well reasoned theories later in his life) and the corresponding psychotherapeutic approach of  bioenergetics, which sought to integrate psychoanalytic psychotherapy approaches with direct liberation of chronic muscle blocks. Other body therapies focus more exclusively on the muscle blocks alone. These body therapies and the underlying theory have rarely been subject to empirical evaluation."
[Me: The citations [11-13] are Reich and Lowen's philosophical work including the book by Lowen that I quoted above.].

"However, one study of men found that the Rolfing method of tissue manipulation led to both a decrease in standing pelvic tilt angle and an increase in cardiac vagus nerve tone associated with improved parasympathetic function [14]." [Me: Maybe check out the Wikipedia on Rolfing HERE] There is then a quick discussion of a few more studies, including one that these authors admit does not have clear controls, that relate physical therapy to improved sexuality. The articles cited in this section are pictured below.

"Observation of the characteristics of a person's walk can convey diagnostic information beyond the obvious musculoskeletal an neurological disorders" It goes on to point towards a few studies (pictures below) that illustrate the point.

The Introduction ends with: "The primary hypothesis in the present study is that clinical sexologists appropriately trained in the relationship between personality, sexology, and body movement will be able to differentiate between women with and without a history of vaginal orgasm purely on the basis of observing the women walking. As an exploratory measure, there is also an examination of the association of vaginal orgasm history with specified components of the walk (described below)."

[Me: The introduction of a scientific article, in my opinion, is meant for a few things. It orients the reader to the history of research on the subject thus far. It also sorta justifies why this the experiment being undertaken is a worthwhile experiment and what the outcome of this experiment might mean to the science of this subject. So in many ways, the introduction is an incredibly important thing to read because it gives you a look into the authors' mind. It exposes biases that aren't usually discussed as biases.]

[Me cont: So, to put this in perspective, let me piece together what the authors of this article are trying to do here. They are linking together 1. the Freudian/Reich/Lowen assumption that vaginal orgasm are better for women in the mind, body, and soul. 2. The idea in bioenergetics that psychological/emotional problems manifest themselves in the body, i.e. 'chronic muscle blocks' and 'excessive muscle flaccidity'  and 3. that if a woman were to have these psychological/emotional problems manifest in their body, one might be able to see it in her movement. So, in essence, the authors are going from the hypothesis that vaginally orgasming women are mentally/emotionally/physically  healthier people who will express that health in their energetic movement. Women who do not orgasm vaginally are less mentally/emotionally/physically who will express that unhealthiness in their bad, unenergetic movement.]


Materials and Methods

• Female psychology students in Belgium were asked (by a female researcher) to answer a preliminary questionnaire on sexual behavior.
• Of the women who did the questionnaire and who indicated their willingness to be contacted further, 10 were chosen who responded that they 'always"'or 'often' had vaginal orgasms (vaginally orgasmic) and 10 were chosen who responded that they 'rarely' or 'never' had vaginal orgasms (vaginally anorgasmic). Vaginal orgasms being defined as "triggered solely by penile-vaginal penetration." [Me: Are women who 'rarely' have vaginal orgasms the same as women who 'never' have them? I mean, I'm obviously skeptical of all these answers, given that their ability to have vaginal orgasms is not physically verified (and vaginal orgasms themselves have never been physically verified), but even if one believed these women's answers to be completely true, wouldn't one wonder if they were grouped incorrectly? Maybe women who 'rarely' have them are physically capable of vaginal orgasm and the 'nevers' are not. So grouping them together would confuse the results. The authors don't discuss this as a possible problem. Experimental design, people.]
• The women also reported their ability to have clitorally stimulated orgasms on the questionnaire
• After anonymity and confidentiality were assured, the women were given a complete description of the study although participants "were blind to the experimental hypothesis." Written informed consent was obtained, and they were scheduled individually to meet the researchers in a public place
• 4 participants (3 vaginally orgasmic and 1 vaginally anorgasmic) did not show up, making 16 total participants.
• Participants were asked to walk 100 meters while "thinking pleasant thoughts of being on a vacation beach" and then another 100 meters while "being in the same local but with in the company of a man for whom they had thoughts of love."
• These walks were filmed at a distance and the videotapes were then rated by "two appropriately trained (in Functional-Sexological therapy) professors of sexology...and two female research assistants." 
• "The raters conferred and agreed on a vaginal orgasm status for each woman."  [Me: Why did they confer? Why not let them all rate separately and see if they match each other and match the women's self reports? Did they try it that way first but found it made the results messy as hell, so they had them confer and luckily got better, more positive results? It makes me wonder.]
• "The basis for judgment was a global impression of the woman's free, fluid, energetic, sensual manner of walking (with an emphasis on energy flow through the rotation of the pelvis and the spine)."
• The researchers all also rated each woman's walk (from 0-10) for the extent of their: hip adduction, hip rotation, stride length, arm movement, and fluidity of movement. [Me: this was made in 2008. It was very possible at that time to use video of women walking to not just visually rate these things, but to do actual objective measurements of things like stride length and arm movement. Since the authors are trying to create evidence that the psychological problems from not orgasming vaginally can literally manifest physically as muscle tension and 'blocks' that make the women walk less 'fluidly,' you would think it useful to show that there are real objectively measured limitations in these non-vaginally orgasming women's movement. Yet, all the ratings on the movements are just, like, the rater's opinions, man. I mean, I'd at least like to see the authors acknowledge their choice and give a quick explanation for why they chose to have only subjective ratings of these women's movements. And, in case you are wondering if 2008 was too early for people to be thinking about the technology to do objective measuring from video and the pros and cons of rating movement that way, you're wrong. Here's a 2007 textbook dedicated to analyzing human movement patterns in relation to sports biomechanics.]
• "An additional derived variable reflecting the movement of the leg through the back (sum of ratings of stride length and vertebral rotation) was calculated."
• The correlation between women's reported experience of vaginal orgasm and the researchers' guesses of vaginal orgasm was examined using "chi-square and Fisher's exact tests (a similar analysis was performed for clitoral orgasm history)" 
• The associations between the researchers ratings of the individual components of a woman's walk and her history of vaginal orgasm were examined.

Results

• "The hypothesis was supported, because the trained sexologists were able to infer vaginal orgasm history on the basis of watching the women's walk."
• "Reported clitoral orgasm ability was unrelated to both rated vaginal orgasm ability and to reported vaginal ability."
• The only statistically significant correlation found between history of vaginal orgasm and any of the ratings of individual components of the women's walks were from the data points made from the sum of stride length and vertebral rotation. [Me: it seems a little fishy to me that this combination was the only element of the researchers' individual movement ratings to show correlation with the women's reported vag-gasm history. What actual meaning does that combo number have in the end? Clearly none of the straight-forward movement ratings such as stride length or hip rotation correlated, and it makes me wonder if that lack of correlation led them to start combining the ratings in every possible way until they found one that happened to have a statistical correlation with the vaginal orgasm self-reports. They call it exploratory, so I imagine this is close to the case. that kind of thing is probably not an uncommon practice and not really unethical or wrong, but it sure seems like it's sort of a disingenuous way to make a study show more positive results. To their credit I will say that when they spoke of this correlation in the Discussion section. They said "However, the exploratory nature of the secondary finding implies that less emphasis be placed upon it pending appropriate replication."  So, I think even the researchers don't place much meaning on this combo rating of stride length and vertebral rotation.]
• "Age was unrelated to the sexual variables."

Discussion

• "Appropriately trained sexologists were able to infer vaginal orgasm history on the basis of watching women walk. The sexologists made global inferences about the women's vaginal orgasm history based on the extent to which the women had a fluid, sensual, energetic, free gait. The ratings were unrelated to the women's reports of clitoral orgasm with a partner, and clitoral orgasm was unrelated to vaginal orgasm."
• 6 women who claimed to be vaginal orgasmers were rated correctly, and 1 was rated incorrectly.
• 7 women who claimed not to be vaginal orgasmers were rated correctly and 2 were rated incorrectly.

• "Although the couple of incorrect diagnoses could simply be that, it is also possible that in the case of the two false positives, it might be that the women have the capacity for vaginal orgasm, but have not yet had sufficient experience or met a man of sufficient quality to induce vaginal orgasm." [Me: I'm assuming the 2 women who were rated incorrectly as vaginally orgasming are not ones who marked themselves as 'rarely' vaginally orgasming (since clearly they DO have a capacity for it), because if that were the case, I feel REAL confident the authors would have been real quick to tell us that and make their results look even better.]
• The study goes on to say that these women who were pinned by the researchers as vaginal orgasmers but were not, may not have a man with a '"penis of sufficient length to produce cervical buffeting" or that isn't able to keep his erection (either because of erectile dysfunction of premature ejaculation) long enough. They also note the there are studies saying women are most likely to have vaginal orgasms with men who have signs of greater fitness - like attractiveness. [Me: Can I just quickly mention that 'buffeting' can be defined as 'to strike against forcefully and especially repeatedly; batter.' So cervical buffeting with a big ol' dick sounds to me not like a good way to bring about lady-gasms as these researchers seem to say it is, but like a terribly painful sexual encounter akin to a really long and brutal gynecological exam. This banging the cervix for orgasm thing seems kinda out of touch with reality to me, and it's also not backed up in scientific literature, and contrary to what this article would have one believe, it's certainly not backed by the Komisaruk article they cite here. They cite the same Komisaruk article they cite and I discuss in the Introduction that finds women with spinal cord injuries can orgasm from cervical stimulation, but the conclusion is a stretch of the evidence at best (I detail it here). And seriously, this study does not include buffeting the cervix. It actually uses a make-shift thing that does not actually touch the cervix but creates a suctiony stimulation at the cervix, so even if this study did find that orgasms were created from this stimulation (which it doesn't in any verified physical way), it would not be something that could be replicated by ramming a big dick into a woman's cervix. This is the only study I know of (and there are no others referenced) that can support the idea of women needing cervical stimulation or  'buffeting' to orgasm... and it's not a great one.]
• They point out that "as in any correlational study, a universe of possible unmeasured forces could play a role in the observed findings." They mention that maybe some anatomical features could predispose women to less readiness for vaginal orgasm, and specifically use a recent study correlating more distance between the vagina and urethra to women who claim vaginal orgasm [Me: you can see more on that study HERE. Surprise surprise, there are no actual vaginal orgasms verified in this research, so one should be skeptical of its conclusions] "such characteristics might conceivably influence both vaginal orgasm and pelvic movement directly, whether they are a true precursor of vagina orgasm, or develop as a consequence of developing vaginal orgasm." 
• They also mention that it might be that women who orgasm vaginally might feel more confident or comfortable or have a better relationship and it shows in their walk. [Me: Ooooorrrrrr...maybe being vaginally orgasmic is a thing women covet because of how much women in movies and porn and books are able to do so, and how much it seems that men like it (remember: stimulating the clit is pretty inconvenient and men resent doing it according to Lowen up there), so after saying they can do that on a survey, those women feel all good about themselves, but the women who just had to admit that they are lame and can't orgasm vaginally on a survey feel, well, lame. Ooooooorrrrr...there were only 16 women in the study, and the raters only got about 82% right, so it might be the luck of the draw and their walks are not really different between groups at all.]
• They point out this was a small convenience sample of volunteers so that may "limit the generalizability of these results to older women and to the wider community"
• "The present finding of vaginal orgasm being associated with a more fluid, sensual, energetic, free, unblocked gait adds to the empirical research findings of penis-vaginal orgasm history being specifically associated with the indices of women's better psychological and interpersonal function." 
• They mention that a recent study [their own previous study] associated women who could orgasm vaginally with having less use of immature psychological defense mechanisms - and say that "Two of the specific immature defense mechanisms (somatization and dissociation) that differentiated vaginally orgasmic and vaginally anorgasmic women might be related to aspects of the present finding. Dissociation involves disconnection of the usually integrated psychological (including sensory-motor) functions of the self, and somatizations involves converting psychological problems into physical complaints and impairments." 

Conclusion
The authors say that even with the small sample, the results are consistent with both theory [Me: made-up Freudian and neo-freudian theory?] and previous empirical findings about vaginally orgasming women having better psychological function. [Me: Let it be known the 'previous empirical findings' they cited were all Brody's own previous studies - 4 of them were cited]
They also say the present findings provide some potential support for "theoretical assumptions of a link between muscle blocks and impairment of sexual and character function" [Me: this is cited with 3 works by the neo-Freudians Lowen and Reich - including the book by Lowen that I quote above.]
The authors also say the findings are "consistent with the possible utility of incorporating training in movement, breathing and muscle patterns into the treatment of sexual dysfunctions"

Appendix
*I want to give Dr. Nicole Prause a shout out for being a scientist in the lady-gasm field who speaks out in direct ways against those non-sense assumptions about vaginal orgasm. I talk more about here HERE.]

More Articles By Stuart Brody!
Vaginal orgasm is associated with vaginal (not clitoral) sex education, focusing mental attention on vaginal sensations, intercourse duration, and a preference for a longer penis. Brody S1, Weiss P.
J Sex Med. 2010 Aug;7(8):2774-81.

Slimmer women's waist is associated with better erectile function in men independent of age. Brody S1, Weiss P. Arch Sex Behav. 2013 Oct;42(7):1191-8.

Women's partnered orgasm consistency is associated with greater duration of penile-vaginal intercourse but not of foreplay. Weiss P1, Brody S. J Sex Med. 2009 Jan;6(1):135-41.

Simultaneous penile-vaginal intercourse orgasm is associated with satisfaction (sexual, life, partnership, and mental health). Brody S1, Weiss P. J Sex Med. 2011 Mar;8(3):734-41.

Condom use for penile-vaginal intercourse is associated with immature psychological defense mechanisms. Costa RM1, Brody S. J Sex Med. 2008 Nov;5(11):2522-32.

Immature defense mechanisms are associated with lesser vaginal orgasm consistency and greater alcohol consumption before sex. J Sex Med. 2010 Feb;7(2 Pt 1):775-86.

Vaginal orgasm is more prevalent among women with a prominent tubercle of the upper lip. Brody S1, Costa RM. J Sex Med. 2011 Oct;8(10):2793-9.

Greater tactile sensitivity and less use of immature psychological defense mechanisms predict women's penile-vaginal intercourse orgasm. Brody S1, Houde S, Hess U. J Sex Med. 2010 Sep;7(9):3057-65.

Vaginal orgasm is associated with less use of immature psychological defense mechanisms.Brody S1, Costa RM. J Sex Med. 2008 May;5(5):1167-76.