O by Jonathan Margolis Page B

sexual friction. Kinsey was adamant on this: ‘The vagina walls are quite insensitive in the great majority of females … There is no evidence that the vagina is ever the sole source of arousal, or even the primary source of erotic arousal in any female,’ was his verdict. Germaine Greer, however, in
The Female Eunuch
, published in 1970, wrote: ‘It is nonsense to say that a woman feels nothing when a man is moving his penis inside her vagina. The orgasm is qualitatively different when the vagina can undulate around the penis instead of a vacancy.’ If only as a modern woman, not merely as a pioneering theorist on female sexuality, Greer might be expected to know better than the decidedly odd figure of Kinsey, whoseposition is, as will be examined later, today being critically reappraised in a rather negative light.
    The muscular vagina certainly has a fundamental role in sexual response, whether or not it is sensitive. As orgasm approaches, there is swelling of the vaginal barrel’s contracting outer third, and during orgasm itself there is a two- to four-second muscle-spasm in this region, followed by rhythmic convulsions at intervals of 0.8 of a second. There are from five to eight major rhythmic contractions in each orgasmic experience, followed by nine to fifteen minor ones. The total duration of these muscle contractions has been measured as lasting between 13 and 51 seconds, although women reporting their subjective perceptions state that orgasm lasted between 7 and 107 seconds. During these contractions, the heart races and the arms and legs spasm more or less out of control. There is slight expansion of the inner two-thirds of the vagina, a contraction of the uterus and, frequently, strong muscular contractions in many parts of the body. Respiratory and heart rates approximately double.
    The woman’s face may remain composed quite rigidly until the beginnings of her orgasm, at which point her composure breaks and the features become mobile and distorted. Her breathing in and out loudens and accelerates and the nostrils flare, while extra saliva flows in the mouth, which can make her tongue react by lolling and contorting. The pupils of the eyes dilate and temporary photophobia along with the delirious pleasure of the moment may cause her to shut them. As the climax of orgasm continues, disjointed words, highly charged with emotion, may come from her mouth, coalescing into a single long cry expressive of sublime pleasure.
    One orgasm is seldom sufficient. Women are naturally multi-orgasmic. ‘A woman will usually be satisfied with three to five orgasms,’ stated William Masters and Virginia Johnson in their 1966 book
Human Sexual Response
. ‘That is,’ they added, ‘if a woman is immediately stimulated following orgasm, she is likely to experience several orgasms in rapidsuccession. This is not an exceptional occurrence, but one of which most women are capable.’
    An interesting variation on the multi-orgasmic woman theme emerged in 2003 when Professor Sandra Leiblum and psychologist Sharon Nathan of the Centre for Sexual and Relationship Health at the MMDNJ-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School in New Jersey, reported a previously unknown affliction they called Persistent Sexual Arousal Syndrome, PSAS. This is
constant
desire for orgasm that has to be dealt with one way or another for the women to function normally. PSAS, Leiblum said, has been identified in some 50 women worldwide. One woman suffering PSAS reports that she needs as many as 800 orgasms a day.
    Her gynaecologist, the afflicted woman wrote in the London
Sunday Telegraph
told her, she was, ‘every man’s dream’.’I wanted to punch him. I said, “How would you feel if you had a permanent hard-on all day long?” That shut him up.’
    The physiological similarities between male and female orgasm notwithstanding, there is also an enormous difference. It is not merely that males