The female orgasm remains, in many respects, a taboo subject that has been little discussed and researched. On the vaginal orgasm, in particular, the controversy is served. For example, a study published in 2016 in the journal Clinical Anatomy Review and that reviewed the most used terminology regarding women’s sexuality, stated that vaginal orgasm does not exist and that most women are unable to reach orgasm during intercourse without stimulating the clitoris.
Related to this topic, the popularizer Pere Estupinyà explains in his book S = EX ^ 2 The Science of Sex (Editorial Debate, 2013) a curious experiment carried out by none other than Marie Bonaparte, Napoleon’s great-niece, at the beginning of the century XX. The princess was not able to have orgasms when she had intercourse with her husband , and it was hypothesized that this problem was due to the fact that her clitoris was too far from the vagina, so it was impossible for it to be stimulated during intercourse.
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Marie Bonaparte’s study
Applying the scientific method, Marie Bonaparte designed a study to verify her hypothesis and interviewed 243 women, in addition to asking them about the frequency of orgasms during sexual intercourse. The conclusion of his work, published in 1924 in the magazine Bruxelles-Medical under a pseudonym, is that there was an inverse relationship between the distance between the clitoris and the vagina and the frequency of orgasms while having sexual intercourse. Years later, an American psychologist replicated the study and came to the same conclusion as the princess.
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A wrong correlation?
As we already know, finding a significant relationship between two variables does not have to lead to the conclusion that there is a causality between the two, since these correlations often occur by mere chance. In his book, Estupinyà recounts his encounter with Kim Wallen, a researcher at Emory University who in 2011 reviewed both studies using the most updated statistical methods to date and concluded that the distance between the clitoris and the vagina could indeed be a factor that explains the fact that many women are totally unable to experience orgasms during intercourse but with masturbation. His work was published in the journal Hormones and Behavior , although the author is cautious and recalls that the correlation may be, as we have said, mere chance.
The important function of the clitoris
In any case, it does not seem that the only function of the clitoris is to induce sexual pleasure, but that this organ would also play an important role in reproductive function. This was the conclusion of a study published in 2019 in the journal Clinical Anatomy, which suggested that stimulation of the clitoris would produce an activation of the brain that in turn triggers a series of physiological changes aimed at achieving fertilization of the ovum. These included an increase in blood and oxygen flow, an increase in lubrication and vaginal temperature, as well as a change in the position of the cervix, the entrance to the uterus. The lead author of this work was Roy Levin, a biomedical scientist at the University of Sheffield (UK).
