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Orgasms: 12 odd facts

By Steve Korver on

Love Matters prides itself in providing all the basic facts you need to know about the orgasm. Here, however, we provide some less basic facts.

1. A fetish for feet is a common. Foot Orgasm Syndrome, however, is less so. One case study, Mrs A, has a spontaneous foot orgasm 5-6 times a day – and she doesn’t find them particularly enjoyable. Researchers suspect that her nerves regenerated incorrectly after foot surgery and now send conflicting signals between her foot and clitoris. 

2. A recent study says orgasms are better for the brain than doing crosswords – thanks to the full head rush of oxygen and neural nutrients that comes with coming.

3. Orgasmic Meditation is a thing. Take a class to turn your oms into mmms.

4. Synesthetes are people prone to mixing up their senses. Some taste words. Others see music. Others feel colours… In a study of sex and synesthetes, a participant described their sexual build-up as an initial fog evolving into a wall that at the moment of orgasm shatters into ‘ring-like structures’ with ‘bluish-violet tones’. Sounds pretty!

5. Donating your orgasms for scientific research is tricky work. As one researcher describes it: ‘No matter how comfortable participants may be with their sexuality in the real world, donating an orgasm to science in a sterile scanner is awkward at best.’

6. Neuroscientists have mapped the brain’s main pleasure centres. In other words, we are getting close to having implants that allow us to have orgasms on demand. But is this a good idea? Especially since humans are very much like lab rats: given the choice between food and orgasms, many rats opt for starvation.

7. Lesbians and men of all sexual orientations experience more orgasms than heterosexual women, according to a study.

8. Women experience at least two types of clitoral orgasms, according to French research. When a female test subject brought on an orgasm externally via the tip of the clitoris, a sonograph measured a change of blood flow in the tip. When an orgasm was brought on internally via penetration, the blood flow changed around both the clitoral tip and the clitoral roots around the vagina. Voila: two clitoral orgasms.

9. Women who regularly achieve orgasm during intercourse seem better able to focus on their bodily sensations and erotic fantasies than women who don’t regularly achieve orgasm during intercourse, according to research.

10. Some people suffer from post-coital tristesse (PCT) – post-orgasmic sadness that can last anywhere from a few seconds to a few hours.

11. Yes, men can also have multiple orgasms. But it involves lots of practice-practice-practice and giving up on that old boring idea that ejaculation = orgasm.

12. After an orgasm, people are more likely to share important secrets with their partners – it seems that the release of oxytocin makes us more trusting. However, if the sex was mixed with alcohol, people are less likely to divulge their secrets. So if you want to keep a secret, drink more and orgasm less.

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