Lubrication, especially vaginal lubrication
is an important part of sexual arousal.
It readies the vagina for penetration and reduces
any accompanying friction or irritation.
But don’t use saliva as a lubricant during sex.
If anyone with a mouth sore uses saliva as a lubricant,
the partner would be exposed to genital herpes.
Men Get Erections; Women Get Lubricated
When a woman is sexually roused, increased blood
supply to the vagina causes it to swell, decreasing
the size of the vaginal opening by about 30%.
The clitoris becomes increasingly erect
and the glans moves towards the pubic bone,
becoming concealed by the hood.
Rise and Rouse
Women’s genital responses are hidden from view
and produce fewer somatosensory cues [touch sight].
While men may get turned on by feeling themselves
get erect, women do not.
Even when women received feedback about their
level of vaginal engorgement, correlations
between genital and subjective arousal were
low and statistically insignificant. Being told
we’re getting turned on doesn’t necessarily turn us on.
Women may edit their self-report of feeling sexually
aroused because of socially desirable responses.
Positive effect directs attention to erotic stimuli,
thereby increasing sexual response, whereas
negative effect interferes in the processing of
sexual cues, resulting in lower sexual response.
Lower consistency among women may reflect their
experience of negative effect while watching
the conventional, commercially available erotica
which is primarily produced for men.
Vaginal Lubrication Is an Automatic Reflex
Female genital response entails increased genital
vasocongestion, necessary for the production
of vaginal lubrication which reduces discomfort
and the possibility of injury during vaginal penetration.
Genital response to sexual stimuli may be an evolved
self-protection mechanism. Female genital response is an
automatic reflex [like blinking] which is elicited by sexual
stimuli and produces vaginal lubrication, even if the woman
doesn’t subjectively feel sexually aroused.
Ancestral women who didn’t have an automatic vaginal
response to sexual cues may have been more likely
to experience injuries that resulted in illness,
infertility, or even death subsequent to unexpected
or unwanted vaginal penetration. They would have
been less likely to pass on this trait to their offspring.
Rise and Rouse from gerardoriarte on Vimeo.
Hot Flushed Sex
Turn on & Increase Blood Flow to the Skin
When a woman’s touched on the hand or the face by a man it’s enough to cause a rise in body temperature. The same is true for men. Their skin becomes warmer when they’re sexually excited.
The rise in skin temperature is caused by increased blood flow, which could also cause the face to appear more coloured and attractive.
A slight reddening of the face may also be a subtle signal of arousal meant for the partner.
Scientists recruited 16 heterosexual women aged 19 to 24 and secretly took thermal images of their faces while an examiner pretended to measure their skin temperature in four different places using a hand-held plastic device.
When the device was held against their palm, outer arm, chest or face, the women’s facial temperature increased by an average of 0.1C.
The change was much more pronounced when “personal” areas of the body, such as the face and chest, were touched and was stronger when the researcher was male rather than female.
The temperature change was driven by face and chest contact which were significantly higher than arm or palm contact. It is really the personal location contact that is causing it.
A second experiment, with only male researchers carrying out the measurements, found that the temperature rise was strongest along the centre of the face, with increases of 0.2C around the nose, 0.3C around the eyes and 0.46C around the mouth.
Social interaction also causes a change in the face’s colour.
It isn’t known if temperature changes and colour changes are inherently linked but it’s predictable if blood flow is increasing to an area, making it hot, it would also get redder.
Facial redness has been shown in previous studies to make people appear more attractive, but it could also have a negative impact because blushing is a signal of feeling uncomfortable.
Even if there is no change in colour the changes in facial temperature could still be detectable by others through touch or even smell, or they could be a signal to the individual themself to change their own behaviour.
She said: “Whether the changes measured in this study are detectable by others is currently unknown.
If such changes in facial temperature during social contact are detectable by observers or the individual, they could act as social cues.
Temperature changes may be evident to observers directly through touch, or indirectly through sight or smell.
Because temperature changes are due to changes in blood flow, they may be visible via concurrent skin colour changes.
Sex Flush During Orgasm Is Normal
Every time my boyfriend has an orgasm he gets goose bumps on his arms, shoulders and back. I also have noticed this with previous boyfriends. What causes this and does it happen with all men?
Your boyfriend is probably experiencing the sex flush, a rash-like color change of the skin, which results from a change in the pattern of blood flow just under the skin surface. The sex flush occurs as a normal part of sexual response in approximately 25 percent of men and 50 percent to 75 percent of women.
The flush usually begins on the upper abdomen and spreads over the chest, shoulders, and sometimes to the neck, buttocks, back, arms, legs and face. Sex flush appears when women and men are close to orgasm and disappears within 5 minutes after orgasm.
Some other changes that can result from sexual arousal are: swelling of the inner walls of the nose; nipple erection; muscular tension in the pelvis, abdomen, back, thighs, feet, face, and hands; perspiration; and increases in breathing, blood pressure and heart rate.
The First Phase of the Sexual Response Cycle: Excitement
General characteristics of this phase, which can last from a few minutes to several hours, include the following:
Muscle tension increases.
Heart rate quickens and breathing is accelerated.
Skin may become flushed (blotches of redness appear on the chest and back).
Nipples become hardened or erect.
Blood flow to the genitals increases, resulting in swelling of the woman’s clitoris and labia minora (inner lips), and erection of the man’s penis.
Vaginal lubrication begins.
The woman’s breasts become fuller and the vaginal walls begin to swell.
The man’s testicles swell, his scrotum tightens, and he begins secreting a lubricating liquid.
Playing with Pussy
As porn films permeated society, so too did pussy, this time deployed as a “pretty” word used by men in porn to describe female genitalia. Language is constantly evolving—that’s how it survives—so it’s par for the course that pussy would change meaning over time.
Pussy starts to have a considerably less feminist connotation. While it’s pretty amazing to see women using pussy politically, giving the word power, and staking their own claim on it, if it was originally popularized by the male-centric porn industry, what does that mean for the empowered woman? Where are we taking it back from, and is it worth keeping if we don’t like its origin?