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The ever continuing life of that ‘little death’ – the human orgasm

What excuse is there for another volume on the human orgasm? The response is simple, ‘the little death’ (la petite mort), as the French so aptly describe it, has an ever continuing life that never fails to intrigue scientific investigators. New evaluations and empirical investigations have been made that continue to enhance our knowledge of the phenomenon. This present collection of articles contains both. The distinguished author line-up with their articles includes: Janniko Georgiadis, a brain imager from the Department of Neuroscience at Groningen University Medical Center, The Netherlands, who reviews critically but clearly what imaging can tell us especially about the creation of orgasms in the female brain but with applications to the male as well. Three articles expand our concepts of orgasm and how it is induced. Barry Komisaruk and Beverley Whipple, at the Department of Psychology at Rutgers, reveal non-genital orgasms created by stimulation of a wide variety of body structures and even by thinking alone. Debby Herbenick and Dennis Fortenberry from the Center of Sexual Health, Bloomington, and Adolescent Medicine at the University School of Medicine, Indianapolis, respectively, characterise sexual arousal and orgasms that are induced by exercise, which opens up a new field for investigation. A description of Tantric orgasms and their possible application to specific human conditions are provided by Mike Lousada and Elena Angel, who are Independent Tantric practitioners at Heart Drake and Dragon Tantra in London. These appear in the context of a recent flurry of controversial papers by Brody and his co-authors (see Brody, 2010) that describe the psychological, physiological and mental health merits of sexual arousal and induction of the female orgasm induced by penile-vaginal intercourse contrasted with that obtained from clitoral stimulation. While many would think this controversy had been, and still was, relegated to Freudian psycho-analytical treatises of yesteryear (Levin, 2007), the volume of their recent publications denigrating clitoral stimulation merit critique. Many questions arise about these studies and their conclusions as the evidence presented is practically all correlational, yet causality is inferred. Are they really ‘‘game changing’’ as Brody et al. would have us all believe and act on through sexual education, research, clinical assessments and treatments? Or do they pathologise and rob the huge percentage of women of their sense of normalcy by demonising the clitoris and over-sanctifying the vagina? Considering the implications of these numerous accounts, the groves of academe involved in the scientific study of human sexual function and those in the treatment of its dysfunction have so far remained strangely silent, perhaps they all think that by ignoring them they will simply fade away. Three linked reviews in this issue focus on aspects of this sensitive subject. Mine, ‘‘The human female orgasm: A critical evaluation of its proposed reproductive functions’’, examines their controversial findings in the light of female genital tract Sexual and Relationship Therapy Vol. 26, No. 4, November 2011, 299–300