Maybe it was love at first sight, or perhaps it's finally wedding bells for the happy couple.
Either way, today is ending only in one way, with sweet marital bliss in the bedroom.
That's right, it's time for a bit of how's your father, as our British cousins would
say, or to lay one down for Ol' Glory for our American viewers.
But what's all the fireworks business about- what exactly is an orgasm, why do we do it,
and why does it feel so good?
It's time to quit the laughing and snickering in the back row, because Infographics is putting
on a sex ed class.
Hey, it could be worse, it could be your parents teaching you this stuff.
The word orgasm comes from the greek word 'orgasmos', meaning excitement or swelling,
and is typically the culmination of sexual intercourse- though not always.
For men an orgasm is the grand crashing cymbal, and the older you get the more likely that
it will be a one-shot performance for the evening.
In males, orgasms come in two stages, the emission of semen and then a refractory period,
during which the male must recover before another orgasm is possible.
Unlike women, men are physiologically incapable of having a second orgasm until their recovery
period is up, as their bodies need time to recover from the physical exertion of the
emission of semen.
And the male body does indeed come under incredible exertion when it ejaculates, shooting semen
at a whopping ten miles an hour- fast enough to get you a speeding ticket in most hospital
emergency room zones.
That speed, and the orgasm that builds the body up to generating it, are crucial though
for the ultimate purpose of making the beast with two backs- pregnancy.
Sperm have a long, twisting road ahead of them if they want to fulfill their life's
goal of fertilizing an egg, and the extra speed helps propel them along, a goodbye gift
from their donor, you.
Unlike many women, men are completely unable to halt their orgasm once they begin the process.
Once you pull that rip cord, there's no getting back in the plane guys, so you better be sure
you've been cleared for a landing.
The male orgasm begins seconds before ejaculation, with the testicles and penis contracting powerfully,
as the semen races from storage to blast off, and about three seconds later, the inevitable
happens.
The greater pleasure a man feels during an orgasm, the greater the volume of ejaculate,
helping ensure pregnancy by delivering more egg-fertilizing semen to the woman.
Female orgasms are both similar, and different from male orgasms.
For starters, they're far more complicated affairs, and require a greater amount of stimulation
or concentration to achieve.
Men might be the wild shooting pistoleros of the wild west, firing off every which way,
but women require greater focus and effort to achieve their own orgasm.
To even the score though, women are capable of repeated orgasms with no interruption in
between, unlike their male counterpart which needs longer and longer periods of rest in
between an orgasm the older they get.
As long as a woman's stimulation doesn't dip below plateau levels, she can orgasm very
quickly after the first, while her male partner may need a long breather.
Women may be capable of more frequent orgasms, but achieving an orgasm is typically much
harder for a woman than a man.
While a man's nerve endings run along the head and shaft of the penis, a woman's vagina
has far fewer nerve endings overall, and thus regular penetration may not be sufficient
for an orgasm.
The most common way for a woman to orgasm instead is through stimulation of the clitoris,
which is packed with nerve endings and is very sensitive.
Sometimes the clitoris can be stimulated through regular vaginal penetration, but most of the
time it must be specifically stimulated.
Because it is homologous to the penis, the clitoris is packed with over 8,000 nerve endings,
giving it as great sensitivity- or possibly greater- as the male penis.
Overall, the interior of the vagina has less nerve endings than the male penis, which makes
it difficult for women to orgasm during normal penetrative sex.
Some biologists believe that the difficulty in achieving a female orgasm may be due to
the fact that it serves a far lesser role in reproduction than the male orgasm.
Men, which carry the sperm needed to fertilize an egg, need a physiological process by which
to release that sperm only at the proper time.
If the process of having an orgasm was easier, i.e. if a man could have an orgasm with far
less stimulation, it might lead to orgasms in situations that serve no reproductive purpose,
wasting precious sperm and the energy required to produce it.
By requiring protracted and pleasurable stimulation of the penis, the body ensures that precious
sperm is delivered only under the very specific circumstances of reproduction.
In essence, the orgasm is like the safety on a gun, preventing it from going off except
for under very specific circumstances.
While conserving sperm may not seem like a big deal, producing it is in fact a costly
endeavor in terms of precious energy, and evolution always plays things conservatively.
When our ancestors were running around the African savannahs and hunting for their next
meal, every ounce of energy that could be conserved helped ensure our continued survival.
It's exactly because of the nature of the male orgasm though that leads some biologists
to posit that the female orgasm is purely vestigal, a leftover trait from when we were
a far more primitive lifeform.
After all, for the process of reproduction, the female orgasm doesn't seem to have any
obvious use, and data on it is both rare and inconclusive- though three theories exist
as to the presence of the female orgasm.
The first is known as the 'poleaxe' theory, and it states that female orgasms help the
woman to relax which in turn encourages her to lie down.
Lying down is believed to help semen travel to its destination with greater ease, but
the data on this is very inconclusive.
The second theory is the 'upsuck' theory, which posits that the contractions involved
in the female orgasm helps to hoover up male sperm.
In some studies conducted, the amount of male sperm that leaked out of the vagina shortly
after sex was less in women who had experienced an orgasm shortly before male ejaculation.
This might also help to move sperm deeper into the woman's reproductive system and ensure
fertility.
The third theory is that the orgasm once served an evolutionary purpose, but does not do so
any longer.
It is thought that for a woman, an orgasm once kicked open the doors to ovulation, making
them prime for reproduction.
This after all is true about cats today, as the female will not ovulate if she hasn't
copulated yet.
Evolutionarily speaking, this would be a major advantage to our ancient ancestors, as it
would ensure that fertilization and the ensuring pregnancy would come at a desired time, with
a desired partner.
As a form of birth control, the orgasm would have ensured that a woman was truly ready
to have a child, as it would have required multiple sessions of intercourse to begin
the process of ovulation.
This would prevent unwanted pregnancies from rape or unsuitable partners, and the female
could hold off until situations were optimal for the inevitable pregnancy to follow.
With one of the world's longest lasting pregnancies, having a child was an incredible investment
of time and energy, and our ancient ancestors may have needed the orgasm to help them control
reproduction until the environment and the social situation was suitable for childbirth.
This remains only a theory however, as it's unlikely that men, who experience a very powerful
evolutionary urge to procreate, would have willingly submitted themselves to extremely
long periods of chastity.
Another theory is that the female orgasm serves to emotionally bond a woman to her lover,
and indeed during both the male and female orgasm the brain releases bonding chemicals
that work to make us feel closer to our sexual partner.
As a strong family unit was critical for child rearing during our ancient past, this would
have been a great boost to ensuring that a male remained with his pregnant partner, and
helped provide for her and the child.
Likewise, the bonding chemicals released by the female orgasm would make a woman more
likely to stick with her partner and increase the odds of his own successful fertilization.
In a way, the female orgasm may have been an evolutionary trick to help men by making
women more likely to stay with their partner long enough to get pregnant by him.
The vagina and penis however aren't the only way to orgasm, and both men and women- though
men much more frequently- can orgasm from anal stimulation.
For both sexes, nerve endings can be found in great quantities around and just inside
the anus, and stimulation of these can lead to orgasm.
A male orgasm resulting from anal stimulation is typically longer, more pleasurable, and
more widespread than a traditional orgasm.
The same can be true for women, though the proximity of the pudendal nerve, which runs
via offshoots to the clitoris, can lead to much easier orgasms for women than men.
Recently though, doctors confirmed a long-standing rumor that women could achieve orgasms via
stimulation of their nipples alone.
A study in 2011 using an MRI machine discovered that during stimulation of the nipples, some
women were able to achieve an orgasm.
The doctors discovered that the pleasurable sensations from nipple stimulation traveled
to the same area of the brain that receive sensations from the vagina, clitoris, and
cervix, and could thus create orgasms in a small amount of the female population.
Evolution is all about one thing and one thing only: creating the next generation and successfully
passing one's genes down.
For this purpose, the orgasm is both a compelling tool for procreation, and a physiological
process to ensure successful fertilization.
While most monkeys and apes are believed to orgasm, it's not known if other animals do,
and it may be only us and our nearest ancestors that get to experience these happy little
endings.
Now let’s go back to the basics and check out The Science Behind Kissing (Why Do We
Kiss) or watch this video specially selected just for you!