ERECTION: THE PENIS

The penis is where erection all comes together, but the penis isn’t acting alone. Looking at one, it might be difficult to imagine that it contains thousands of tiny blood vessels and a sophisticated network of nerves. The mystery deepens when you consider that all this complicated biological machinery must work together to control the flow of blood which produces an erection,

Long cylinders called the corpora cavernosa run down each side of the penis. These paired cylinders have to fill with blood for a man to obtain an erection. They are like long balloons: When pumped up with blood they are erect; when vacant, they are not erect. And they hold a lot of blood. When erect, the penis holds about eight times as much blood as when flaccid,

A tube called the urethra runs along the bottom of the penis. The urethra carries sperm and urine, but not, thankfully, at the same time. When a man ejaculates, a valve between the urethra and the bladder closes off the bladder and allows only sperm to pass. Although some sperm may be washed out when a man urinates, in general the same sophisticated valve system prevents sperm from traveling down the urethra when a man is urinating.

Surrounding the urethra is other spongelike tissue called the corpus spongiosum. This area also fills with blood during an erection. It is connected to the most sensitive part of the penis, the tip or head, called the glans penis.

The glans penis is a little bonus from nature, an extra source of sexual enjoyment for the man. It normally becomes firmer and larger when a man is aroused. And a man will respond more quickly to stimulation at this pointthan anywhere else along the penis.

The skin of the penis slides easily over the entire penile shaft. All males are born with an extension of this skin, called the foreskin, which covers the glans penis. However, it has been very common for American men to have had the foreskin removed shortly after birth with a minor surgery called circumcision. (There is usually no medical reason for circumcision, and these days many parents choose not to circumcise their baby boys.)

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MAKING LOVE: PERFECTING YOUR TECHNIQUE

To be a good sexual partner means that you should keep sex interesting, not only by regarding it as the best means of expressing your affection towards your man, but also by experimenting with a variety of techniques and practices. You always should be willing to take the initiative. Men want to feel that they are accepted by their partners, and are worth making an effort to arouse and delight. Try some seduction occasionally; tell your man to lie back and enjoy your caresses as you take the active part.

Remember always to communicate your enjoyment of what you are doing or what is being done to you. Don’t be embarrassed about the way you look or sound while making love. Almost all men find expressions of desire and signs of growing sexual excitement in women extremely stimulating. Far too many women give their partners too little feedback so that their men tend to feel discouraged and unappreciated for what they are doing and will, in future, pay less attention to foreplay.

Use your imagination as much as possible. This is especially important in long-term relationships when boredom can easily set in. In addition to picking and choosing among the entire range of the normal sexual repertoire, introduce activities that will bring novelty into your relationship. Suggest taking a bath or shower together; make love outdoors in a private place; plan lunch at home but make love instead; abandon your bed in favour of the floor, sofa or a rug; use a mirror to watch yourselves making love; view a sexy video together; or indulge in a sexual banquet of both partners’ choosing.

Show enthusiasm towards your partner if he suggests ways of enlivening your sex life. Unless something is painful or distressing, it is always worth finding out whether or not it gives you pleasure. In sex, as in all things, let your instincts be your guide.

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MASTURBATION: WHAT MEN DO

It is only through experimentation that each man discovers how best he likes to be stimulated. Some men use only the lightest of touches on the upper surface of the penis; some use strong, gripping and stroking movements over the whole organ that for many other individuals could be painful. Often, men prefer to stimulate the glans alone; they either confine their manipulation to the upper surface of the penis on or close to the frenulum, or pull to stimulate the entire area of the glans. Most men, however, manipulate the penile shaft with stroking movements that encompass the entire organ; rapidity, length of movement and tightness vary from man to man.

Many men masturbate incorrectly; they try to get it done as quickly as possible and much of their technique and timing is wrong. This may result in problems later, since many men come to associate masturbation and ejaculation with getting rid of tension quickly.

As ejaculation approaches, most men increase their actions until they are stroking the penile shaft as rapidly as possible. During ejaculation, most men either ease completely or markedly slow the movements along the shaft. This is because the glans is quite sensitive straight after ejaculation. It can be distressing for a man if a woman continues to carry out active manual stroking or pelvic thrusting immediately subsequent to ejaculation.

Some men find using a lubricant on their hands can enhance their pleasure. Petroleum jelly, hand or body lotions, and massage oils can all make the experience more pleasurable.

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FOREPLAY AND BECOMING AROUSED

Satisfying lovemaking takes time, and can never take too long. On rare occasions, you may become so aroused during foreplay that you immediately move on to actual intercourse, but usually a couple enjoys the gradual intimacies that leisurely kissing, undressing, petting, massage, oral sex and the sharing of fantasies – among others – provide.

Foreplay should be savoured as an integral part of lovemaking. Learn to excite each other slowly but surely, discovering and exploring your partner’s erogenous zones and whole body in a loving, caring, thoughtful, and not simply mechanical, way.

Becoming Aroused-Satisfying lovemaking takes time, and can never take too long. There are numerous activities for lovers to indulge in that do not involve actual sexual intercourse. On rare occasions, you may be so aroused that you immediately proceed to penetration and an orgasm, but usually a couple enjoys the gradual intimacies that leisurely kissing, undressing, petting and oral sex, among others, provide.

The variety of techniques that can be used to pleasure each other can be enjoyed as activities in their own right, or as delightful prologues to sexual intercourse. The longer, more refined and attentive the foreplay is, the more receptive you and your body will become, and the better, more magical and more fulfilling the ultimate pleasure will be.

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ATTRACTING A PARTNER: WHAT WOMEN LOOK FOR IN MEN

The choice of a sexual partner is still determined very much by evolutionary patterns whereby women first looked for mates who could be relied upon. For that reason, physical appearance appears to be less important to women than personal qualities.

Age is also not such an important factor in a woman’s choice of a man. Unlike men, who have a tendency to look for younger women, women can be attracted to men of all age groups.

Personality Confidence, assertiveness, independence and dominance tend to be found appealing, as are reliability and faithfulness, and qualities that suggest warmth, intimacy and attentiveness. Men who try to get on with women and talk freely and openly about what interests them, and use a soothing voice, are more successful with women.

Prowess Men who are successful at work or sports, and have the visible proofs, are more likely than less able men to attract women.

Physical qualities A man who is fit and healthy, with a fairly lean, well-muscled body that is not weedy, and who may have some surprising feminine characteristic such as long eyelashes, is considered more attractive than a stereotyped muscle man. Women prefer men taller than themselves.

Personal characteristics Attractive features to women are a body cleansed of the sweat of the day and free of body odour; a genital area whose scent is not too pungent; well-cared-for hands; well-washed feet, and a clean pair of socks daily; clean hair; a face that is clean-shaven or with a shapely beard, and without a rash.

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A MAN’S SEX ORGANS: THE PENIS

There is no organ about which more myths have been perpetrated than the penis. It has been praised, blamed and misrepresented in art, literature and legend since time immemorial. These phallic fallacies have become firmly fixed in our culture, thereby influencing our attitudes and behaviour.

The penis has two functions — the passing of urine and the depositing of semen in the vagina — but it is the role of the penis as the organ responsible for orgasm in both men and women that has achieved mythical status.

Although they vary in length, the average penis measures 9-5 centimetres (3 ¾ inches) in its flaccid state. It is composed of erectile tissue arranged in three cylindrical columns. The column underneath expands at the end of the penis to form the glans. Through the centre of this column runs the urethra, a narrow tube carrying semen (and urine) out of the body through an opening at the tip of the glans. When a man has an erection, and for a few minutes after he has ejaculated, the urethra becomes compressed so that he can’t urinate, although semen can get through.

The penis is covered by muscles and filled with a rich network of blood vessels and blood spaces; the latter remain empty when the penis is flaccid but have the potential to fill and expand with blood during erection.

The expanded glans is demarcated from the main shaft of the penis by an indentation that runs around its head, and the skin on the shaft of the penis forms a fold (the foreskin) that extends to cover the glans. On its lower side, the fold is tethered to the inner surface of the glans by the frenulum. For many men, this tiny band of skin is their most sensitive part and, if stimulated, may quickly arouse them.

At birth, the foreskin is attached to the glans; starting in infancy, it gradually separates. The foreskin may be removed by circumcision. There is no truth in the notion that an uncircumcised man can control ejaculation more effectively than a man who is circumcised. This myth is founded on the widespread misconception that the glans of the circumcised penis is more sensitive to touch than the glans covered most of the time by a foreskin. During intercourse, the foreskin retracts exposing the glans exactly as for a circumcised glans.

The skin of the penis is thin, stretchy, without fat and loosely attached to the underlying tissues. The penis is richly supplied with sensory nerves and nerves from the autonomic nervous system.

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HOW TO BECOME A BETTER LOVER – MAIN COMPLAINS

The women in The Hite Report had five main complaints about their vers. First, many women enjoyed touching and caressing for the leasure of the activity itself and not necessarily only as a prelude to intercourse. The touching could be from lying pressed close together; or gentle and passionate kissing; or sleeping together in a close embrace. Second, many women complained about the dull routine of sexual intercourse. Inevitably, sex began with kisses, then the woman’s breasts were explored, then her clitoral area, while she fondled the man’s penis, then, and rather too rapidly, sexual intercourse started and when the man had come it was all over. This is an exaggerated version of the man’s lack of sensitivity to his partner’s needs, but it seems to have been a ‘consistent’ pattern of sex for many of the women. Third, many women complained that their lover did not really care about arousing them in a passionate way. Many of the men spent too little time in trying to arouse their partner, or did it in the wrong way, and, worse, having aroused her, did not help her to orgasm. The man either expected the woman to reach orgasm simultaneously with his orgasm, or tried to give her an orgasm when he decided the time was right. Fourth, in spite of the so-called sexual revolution, which is said to have liberated women sexually, many women complained that the men they knew still ‘wanted to play games’, and were unable to accept the woman as an independent person, were unable to treat her as anything but a sex object, and felt threatened by a sexually ‘aggressive’ woman. In other words, they still believed in the double standard of sexual behaviour. Fifth, most women wanted sex as part of a warm, affectionate, mutually respecting relationship, and not just as a pleasurable genital sensation. British and Australian women make similar complaints about their partner’s sexual behaviour and performance, judging by letters in magazines and by surveys, similar to that made by Shere Hite in the U.S.A.

THE HUMAN SEXUAL RESPONSE – PHISICAL REACTIONS 3 (SECOND PHASE)

The second phase of orgasm quickly follows the first. The muscles which surround and support the urethra and the base of the penis begin to contract in a rhythmic, regular, co-ordinated way forcing the seminal fluid, under considerable pressure, along the urethra until it is ejected from the eye of the penis. The pressure is such that the ejaculated seminal fluid may spurt a distance of 25 to 50 centimetres (1 о to 20 inches) from the penis. At the same time the whole of the man’s pelvic muscles and those of his abdomen and buttocks contract rhythmically. The stretching of the man’s urethra, the rhythmic contraction of its surrounding muscles, and the expulsion of the seminal fluid along the urethra are interpreted in his brain as the pleasurable response of orgasm. The first two or three contractions of the pelvic muscles are strongest and it is at this time that the pleasure of the orgasm is the greatest. As they occur at intervals of 0.8 seconds, the maximum duration of intense pleasure is 2 seconds. The later contractions of the muscles surrounding the deep urethra are less strong and are associated with less pleasure. They rarely last for more than 2 seconds.

This observation is probably the origin of the statement, attributed to the 4th Earl of Chesterfield, that ‘the pleasure is momentary, the position ridiculous and the expense damnable’. However, for this momentary pleasure many a man has travelled many a mile.

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ERECTION REFLEX

When the spinal cord is intact, the sex centre in the brain controls the spinal erection reflex. If the messages coming into the brain sex centre are erotic, from memories or fantasy or thoughts, the erection reflex works more easily and rapidly, in other words, it is “acilitated. But if the messages received by the sex centre from other parts of the brain are disturbing, because of old unhappy memories, depression, anxieties, or hang-ups about sex, or because of anxieties about other matters, or because of hostility to one’s partner, the erection reflex is damped down, or inhibited. This inhibition may be so strong that the erection fails to occur, or if it occurs it may be only transitory.

With increasing age, the facilitating messages from the brain become reduced, and perhaps the reflex from the stroked penis is less easily started, so that older men often take longer to get an erection. But even very old men can get an erection if the penis is stimulated for long enough.

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THE HUMANS SEXUAL RESPONSE – ‘INTERSEX’ MEN, SEXUAL DRIVE

How a man’s sex drive starts and how it is maintained is not completely understood, but the male sex hormone, testosterone, is strongly implicated. At puberty, testosterone is secreted into the blood in increasing amounts, and all mammals (including humans) become sexually arousable.

Evidence that testosterone is essential for triggering a man’s sex drive comes from the study of the Dominican villages. Once these ‘girls’ reached puberty, their testes began to secrete testosterone and they began to have male sex fantasies, to masturbate, to ejaculate, and finally to have sexual intercourse, although they were fearful of being ridiculed because of their small penis and split scrotum.

The ‘intersex’ men not only became male in shape but they developed a male sexual drive. They perceived girls as sexually exciting, they had male sexual daydreams, and when sexually stimulated they ejaculated. In other words, each of them responded as a male would respond to erotic stimulation, although up to this time he had thought himself to be, and others had thought him to be, a girl. The testosterone had triggered his male sex drive.

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