Vagina (51 page)

3
. Sunyata Saraswati and Bodhi Avinasha,
Jewel in the Lotus: The Sexual Path to Higher Consciousness
(San Francisco: Kriya Jyoti Tantra Society, 1987), 180–81: “Only through woman can man come to enlightenment as she is the divine principle. And so in Tantra, female energy, symbolized by the Divine Mother, is worshipped.”

4
. See Clement Egerton,
The Golden Lotus,
trans. Lanling Xiaoxiaosheng (London: Tuttle, 2011).

5
. Virginia Woolf,
A Room of One’s Own
(New York: Mariner Books, 1989), 18.

6
. Onlineslangdictionary.com/thesaurus/words+meaning+vulva+(‘vagina’),+female+genitalia.html.

7
. Blackchampagne.com/wordpress/.

Chapter 12: The Pornographic Vagina

1
. Naomi Wolf, “The Porn Myth,”
New York
magazine, October 20, 2003. nymag.com/nymetro/news/trends/n_9437.

2
. Dr. Jim Pfaus, interview, January 29–30, 2012.

3
. Ibid.

4
. See Robert Sapolsky,
Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers: An Updated Guide to Stress, Stress-Related Diseases, and Coping
(New York: W. H. Freeman, 1998).

5
. Dr. Helen Fisher,
The Anatomy of Love
:
A Natural History of Mating, Marriage and Why We Stray
(New York: Ballantine Books, 1992), 182–84.

6
. Dr. Pfaus interview, Montreal, Quebec, January 29–30, 2012.

7
. Marnia Robinson,
Cupid’s Poisoned Arrow
:
From Habit to Harmony in Sexual Relationships
(Berkeley, CA: North Atlantic Books, 2009), 133–66.

8
. Ibid, 137–66. For more on porn addiction, see J. M. Bostwick and J. A. Bucci, “Internet Sex Addiction Treated with Naltrexone,”
Mayo Clinic Proceedings
83, no. 2 (February 2008): 226–30. See also Marnia Robinson and Gary Wilson, “Santorum, Porn and Addiction Neuroscience,”
Psychology Today,
March 26, 2012, www.psychologytoday.com/blog/cupids-poisoned-arrow/201203/santorum-porn-and-addiction-neuroscience.

9
. Naomi Wolf, “Is Pornography Driving Men Crazy?” Project Syndicate, June 13, 2011, www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/is-pornography-driving-men-crazy.

10
. Reuniting.info/science/articles/sexual_neurochemistry#reward.

11
. Ibid.

12
. www.psychologytoday.com/blog/cupids-posioned-arrow/201107/porn-induced-sexual-dysfunction-is-growing-problem.

13
. Jason S. Carroll and others, “Generation XXX: Pornography Acceptance and Use Among Emerging Adults,”
Journal of Adolescent Research
23, no. 1 (January 2008): 6–30.

14
. In Britain, the number of labiaplasties carried out on the National Health Service rose by 70 percent in 2009. http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2009/nov/20/cosmetic-vulva-surgery.

15
. Dr. Basil Kocur, interview, New York City, February 26, 2011.

16
. John Cleland,
Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), 116–17.

17
. Ibid., 139.

Four / The Goddess Array

Chapter 13: “The Beloved Is Me”

1
. See Marcus Buckingham,
Find Your Strongest Life: What the Happiest and Most Successful Women Do Differently
(New York: Thomas Nelson, 2009).

2
. Douglas Wile,
Art of the Bedchamber: The Chinese Sexual Yoga Classics, Including Women’s Solo Meditation Texts
(Albany: State University of New York Press, 1992), 9.

3
. Ibid., 140–41.

4
. Richard Burton, trans.,
The Perfumed Garden
of Cheikh Nefzoui: A Manual of Arabian Erotology
(London, UK: Kama Shastra Society of London and Benares, 886), 129–59.

5
. Leora Lightwoman, of Diamond Light Tantra, another Tantric teacher, offers caveats for the growing field of Tantric sexual healing for women. In an e-mail, she wrote:

Tantric massage for women, including yoni massage, is a beautiful ritual to share between lovers, and practitioners such as Michael offer this opportunity to those who are not in a couple, or whose partners are not Tantrically inclined, to receive a delicious, sacred sexual and emotional offering. This is good. Tantric massage can be profound. . . . I am, however, deeply concerned about the reputation of the whole field of Tantric massage, as it is clearly not regulated. Anyone can call himself a Tantric masseur. The difference between a Tantric massage and an erotic massage can be nebulous, even to those in the field, and I would see it more as a continuum.

She sets out what she sees as distinctions between real Tantric sexual healers and garden-variety sexual healers and cautions that the Tantric teacher should have respect for the client and should have a “sense of innocence” about the transaction.

Also, Leora Lightwoman, interview, London, UK, July 15, 2011.

Chapter 14: Radical Pleasure, Radical Awakening: The Vagina as Liberator

1
. Judith Horstman,
The Scientific American Book of Love, Sex and the Brain: The Neuroscience of How, When, Why and Who We Love
(New York: Jossey-Bass, 2012), 85.

2
. Dr. Louann Brizendine, M.D.,
The Female Brain
(New York: Morgan Road Books, 2006), 123: “In the male brain, most emotions trigger less gut sensation and more rational thought. The typical male brain reaction to an emotion is to avoid it at all costs. . . .”

3
. Dr. Helen Fisher
, The
Anatomy of Love: A Natural History of Mating, Marriage and Why We Stray
(New York: Ballantine Books, 1992), 182–84.

4
. The following is a description of the instrument that measures the vaginal pulse amplitude:

Vaginal Photoplethysmography—

Embedded in the front end of the probe is a light source that illuminates the vaginal walls. Light is reflected and diffused through the tissues of the vaginal wall and reaches a photosensitive cell surface mounted within the body of the probe. Changes in the resistance of the cell correspond to changes in the amount of back-scattered light reaching the light-sensitive surface. It is assumed that a greater back-scattered signal reflects increased blood volume in the vaginal blood vessels (Levin, 1992). Hoon et al. (1976) introduced an improved model of the vaginal photometer that substituted an infrared LED (light-emitting diode) for the incandescent light source and a phototransistor for the photocell. These innovations reduced potential artifacts associated with blood oxygenation levels, problems of hysteresis, and light history effects. The vaginal photometer is designed so that it can be easily placed by the participant. A shield can be placed on the probe’s cable so that depth of insertion and orientation of the photoreceptive surface is known and held constant (Geer, 1983; Laan, Everaerd, & Evers, 1995). The photometer yields two analyzable signals. The first is the DC signal, which is thought to provide an index of the total amount of blood (Hatch, 1979), often abbreviated as VBV (vaginal blood volume). The second is the AC signal, often abbreviated as VPA (vaginal pulse amplitude), which is thought to reflect phasic changes in the vascular walls that result from pressure changes within the vessels (Jennings et al., 1980; see Figure 11.2). Although both signals have been found to reflect responses to erotic stimuli (e.g., Geer, Morokoff, & Greenwood, 1974; e.g., Hoon, Wincze, & Hoon, 1976), their exact nature and source is unknown. Heiman et al. (2004) compared, in 12 women, VPA and genital volume changes as measured using MRI, and found no significant correlations between the two. Heiman and Maravilla (2005) suggested it may be possible that at moderate levels of arousal the vaginal probe might detect changes to vaginal tissue that do not correspond with other genital blood volume changes. (Interestingly, however, the same study reported higher correlations with subjective sexual arousal for VPA than for MRI variables.) The interpretation of the relationship between the photometer’s output and the underlying vascular mechanisms is hindered by the lack of a sound theoretical framework (Levin, 1992) and of a calibration method allowing transformation of its output in known physiological events. At present, most researchers describe their findings in relative measures, such as mm pen deflection or change in microVolts. Levin (1997) stated that one of the basic assumptions underlying use of the plethysmograph is that changes in VBV and VPA always reflect local vascular events. In his discussion of findings from studies on the effects of exercise and orgasm on VBV and VPA, however, he suggests that the signals are likely to reflect rather complex interactions between sympathetic and parasympathetic regulatory processes and between circulatory and vaginal blood pressure. However, Prause et al. (2004) found that, whereas VPA discriminated between sexual, sexually threatening, and threatening film stimuli, blood pressure (while increased during all three conditions) did not. The construct validity of VPA is better established than that of VBV. Researchers have reported high correlations between VPA and VBV, particularly with stronger sexual stimuli, but others have found low or no concordance between the two signals (Heiman, 1976; Meston and Gorzalka, 1995). VPA appears to be more sensitive to changes in stimulus intensity than VBV (Geer et al., 1974; Osborn & Pollack, 1977). VPA also corresponds more closely with subjective reports of sexual arousal than VBV (Heiman, 1977). Finally, VBV changes in response to increases in general arousal, indicating that VBV is less specific to sexual arousal than VPA (Laan, Everaerd, & Evers, 1995). Two studies have directly assessed the sensitivity and specificity of VPA (Laan et al., 1995; Prause, Cerny, & Janssen, 2004). Both studies measured responses of sexually functional women to sexual, anxiety inducing, sexually threatening, and neutral film excerpts, and found maximal increases in VPA to the sexual stimulus and moderate increases to the sexually threatening film. (Participants also reported intermediate levels of sexual arousal to the sexual-threat stimulus.) On both studies, VPA did not increase in response to anxiety-inducing stimuli. These results demonstrate response specificity of vaginal vasocongestion to sexual stimuli.

From E. Janssen, N. Prause, and J. Geer, “The Sexual Response,” in
Handbook of Psychophysiology,
eds. J. T. Cacioppo, L. G. Tassinary, and G. G. Berntson, 3rd ed. (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007).

5
. Dr. Louann Brizendine,
The Female Brain,
77-86.

6
. Beverly Whipple and John Delbert Perry, “Pelvic Muscle Strength of Female Ejaculators: Evidence in Support of a New Theory of Orgasm,”
Journal of Sex Research
17, no. 1 (1981): 22–39.

7
. Ibid., 22–39. Whipple and Perry also looked at the neural connections in the lower spine to explain their hypothesis. Indeed, one member of the research team had suffered a sprained lower back and then found that her Kegel-type uterine contraction strength measurements were significantly lower than usual: the health and functionality of the spinal cord, in this study, was confirmed to have affected the contracting powers of the vagina.

8
. Ibid., 22–39.

9
. Ibid., 22–39.

10
. Ibid., 22–39.

11
. Janniko R. Georgiadis and others, “Regional Cerebral Blood Flow Changes Associated with Clitorally Induced Orgasm in Healthy Women,”
European Journal of Neuroscience
24, no. 11 (2006): 3305–16.

12
. K. Mah and Y. M. Binik, “The Nature of Human Orgasm: A Critical Review of Major Trends,”
Clinical Psychology Review
6 (August 21, 2002): 823–56. See also R. King and others, “Are There Different Types of Female Orgasm?”
Archives of Sexual Behavior
40, no. 5 (October 2010): 865–75:

In attempt to identify and validate different types of orgasms which females have during sex with a partner, data collected by Mah and Binik (2002) on the dimensional phenomenology of female orgasm were subjected to a typological analysis. A total of 503 women provided adjectival descriptions of orgasms experienced either with a partner (n = 276) or while alone (n = 227). Latent-class analysis revealed four orgasm types which varied systematically in terms of pleasure and sensations engendered. Two types, collectively labelled “good-sex orgasms,” received higher pleasure and sensation ratings than solitary-masturbatory ones, whereas two other types, collectively labelled “not-as-good-sex orgasms,” received lower ratings. These two higher-order groupings differed on a number of psychological, physical and relationship factors examined for purposes of validating the typology. Evolutionary thinking regarding the function of female orgasm informed discussion of the findings. Future research directions were outlined, especially the need to examine whether the same individual experiences different types of orgasms with partners with different characteristics, as evolutionary theorizing predicts should be the case.