Killer orgasms?


Sometimes I do get strange requests in email. For instance, I was asked if the claim in this article was true:

When an orgasm has been achieved through sex, you can measure theta waves. These are also said to cause the “running high” feeling of euphoria experienced sometimes by marathon runners. If theta waves are taken as a criterion, the entire brain emits theta waves when women reach an orgasm that are close on 10 times stronger than when men climax. So, if theta waves are an indication of an orgasm’s strength, then women experience an orgasm that is physically impossible for men to go through. Putting it a little crudely, if the intensity of a woman’s orgasm was played through a man’s brain, there’s a danger that the shock to his system would kill him. That risk makes it impossible to experiment on a man at the moment.

Now I’m no expert on EEGs, but what little I know suggests that this is a silly claim, and common sense tells me that somebody is full of BS here. Theta waves are slow (4-8 Hz) rhythmic patterns in brain activity that have been hypothesized to be important in temporal encoding, and they’ve been known to be correlated with alert states—in particular, that they are expressed in the hippocampus, and may somehow be part of the circuitry that processes and integrates sensory input into memory. That pretty much exhausts my knowledge of the subject, and a quick plunge into pubmed shows lots more detail, but nothing to contradict my impressions (although there is some material on increased theta activity in paroxysm/seizure that might be relevant). It also shows no articles on both theta waves and orgasm, so I’m inclined to suspect that someone is making stuff up.

My skeptiferous gland also perks up at the claim that this hypothetical risk makes it impossible to experimentally run a woman’s orgasm through a man’s brain. Uh, what makes it impossible is that we have no way of replaying anyone’s experiences through a different person’s brain. These are subjective experiences which we cannot assess in the way claimed, except indirectly, by observations of physical responses and behavior. I’m afraid there’s nothing in those measurable effects to indicate anything like a ten-fold greater intensity of the effect in women; I dare say that if women were getting an order of magnitude greater stimulus from sex, I’d wonder how they can ever get themselves out of bed.

So I’m sorry, O hopeful questioner, I think the article is complete nonsense. However, if someone does figure out how to induce the feminine orgasmic response in a man’s brain, I would bravely volunteer as a research subject, even at the risk of dying in cataclysmic ecstasy. I’ll pay the price…for Science!

Comments

  1. Kurrajong says

    Perhaps the questioner should canvas the Theban seer Tiresias. That ten times stronger is pretty close to his estimation of nine times.

  2. Ross says

    Something tells me that even with the dangers disclosed there would be no shortage of men volunteering to participate in the experiment.

  3. says

    Maybe this is a scientology thing. “Thetans” are big in scientology, along with clam monsters in your brain. Maybe “Thetans” **are** lam monsters in your brain, I forget.
    A pathologist once told me about a rare condition that results in “defecation death”. As I remember, it’s a specific kind of stroke that happens when the victim is on the toilet. (Not a drug overdose, pathologists are very familiar with those.

  4. David Livesay says

    Women already have orgasms that last about ten times as long as men’s, and they can have one after another after another till they drop, so it really wouldn’t be fair for them to be ten times more intense too. I mean, I know life isn’t fair and all, but come on!

  5. Pete K says

    Yeah, what a way to go. Coming, then going…

    The article doesn’t explain HOW the gender-bender orgasm would kill. It’s trying to widen the gulf between the sexes, when in actuality, an orgasm’s intensity has no known correlation with gender (I’d say “sex”, but that would be confusing).

  6. phdlife says

    I dunno anything about theta waves, but since the clitoris has 8000 nerve fibers – twice as many as a penis – it doesn’t seem unreasonable that women’s brains may be wired to handle a greater input than men’s, in this area. But before putting your hands up to experience female orgasms, y’all might like to remember that the payback is women have to experience labour, too.

  7. says

    Why is someone asking PZ this? He’s a marine biologist specializing in squid. As in, not humans. He may post pictures of squid getting it on here and there, but that’s the closest he gets to this subject, as far as I can remember.

    The non-traumatizing mental scenario to explain this is just a “The Professor” mentality. You know, like how in TV shows or comic books, a doctor or scientist of any subject will have an expert-level familiarity with all scientific fields of study. Reed Richards, noted physicist and space explorer, was involved in cloning experiments and performed brain surgery in a recent comic book, for example. Stuff like that. So if PZ is an expert on tentacled invertebrates, then he’s probably also an expert on human sexuality.

    Aaand that leads rather neatly into the first of many other possible motivations for this e-mail, but they are, as I said, traumatizing.

  8. says

    No, I’m not a marine biologist (darned few of them here in Minnesota, alas) and I don’t specialize in squid (I just think they’re cool). I’m a developmental biologist with a special interest in the nervous system — my Ph.D. is from the Institute of Neuroscience at the University of Oregon. I’m not particularly interested in human brains, though; I prefer simpler systems, like insects and larval zebrafish.

    I also like sex. But then who doesn’t?

  9. llewelly says

    That’s a pretty good dodge, PZ.

    But here the truth is widely known. We know that global warming is turing Minnesota into a swamp, and squid, well aware that humans do not know squid live in swamps, have staked out their territory.

  10. says

    Well, that shows how much I know. Let’s see, not a marine biologist, not specializing in squid, and is in fact, neurologically-oriented, even if he’s “not particularly interested in human brains.” Oh well, at least I was truthy. Or something…

  11. says

    “But before putting your hands up to experience female orgasms, y’all might like to remember that the payback is women have to experience labour, too.”

    Actually, through the miracle of modern science, that’s no longer true. We have these things called birth control pills and condoms and abortions. Nobody has to experience labor — of that type, at least.

    PZ, I knew you were awesome, but I didn’t know you studied at UO. That’s nearly enough to make me want to cross half the country to go to UM Morris. :P

  12. False Prophet says

    If I recall 1st-year psychology, all human brains are wired for both sexes, as numerous studies with transgendered people show. I think the theory was that the human brain is hardwired for both sex roles, and that at some point in utero when sex is determined the appropriate hormones decide whether the brain will run the “male software” or the “female software”.

    Does anyone have better information? I wouldn’t be surprised if I misremembered it all.

  13. says

    If anyone’s ears pricked up (huh, huh, he said “pricked” in a thread about sex) over the “defecation death” thing, I assume the reference is to vasovagal syncope, which can result from straining at stool, urinating, etc., among other things. With a pre-existing narrowing of a head or heart artery, such an event can indeed cause a stroke or a heart attack…

  14. sylvia says

    False Prophet:

    The theory you’re thinking of is the organization/activation hypothesis. The idea is that prenatal hormones organize the brain along gendered lines, which is later “activated” during puberty. This hypothesis has been used to explain everything from sex differences in cognition, the etiology of homosexuality and transsexualism, to autism. While appealing in its overall simplicity, later research into the mechanisms has shown that life is a little more complicated. Specifically, our brains are not irrevocably pink or blue.

  15. Tukla in Iowa says

    I’m not particularly interested in human brains, though; I prefer simpler systems

    — insert gratuitous creationist joke here —

  16. Jessica says

    I don’t think it’s unreasonable to ask PZ about brain waves during orgasm. Although I recognize the ridiculousness of “The Professor” mentality, the truth is that any well-schooled biologist with access to PubMed could provide at least a superficial answer to most questions of this type. The most important stuff you’ll pick up in graudate school has nothing to do with factual information– rather, any biologist worth his or her salt will spend 5+ years learning how to evaluate research– including his or her own– with a critical eye.

    That said, last Thursday I performed livesaving brain surgery on a sheep in space before cloning it. But I am a superhero.

  17. Pierce R. Butler says

    Sid Schwab: …the reference is to vasovagal syncope, which can result from straining at stool, urinating, etc., among other things.

    This is the reported cause of death of The King, aka Elvis Aron Presley. Just as it took a few generations before the religion centered on an earlier cultural breakthrough figure settled on the cross as its primary symbol, perhaps by the end of this century we’ll see Elvisians wearing little toilet pendants, and kneeling before larger ones in weekly rituals. The latter practice is already regularly and devoutly observed in frat houses and other celebratory centers across the nation: every successful religion builds on earlier customs.

  18. CaptainBooshi says

    I have heard that if you’re on the point of strangulation right when you orgasm, its supposed to be much, much more intense, which is why people keep dying attempting to hit that sweet spot. From the department of numbers pulled straight out of their ass, someone told me that it was like 100 times more intense.

  19. Sarcastro says

    Perhaps the questioner should canvas the Theban seer Tiresias. That ten times stronger is pretty close to his estimation of nine times.

    That was Tiresias of Kyllene as related by Hesiod and Ovid. Tiresias of Thebes (from the dramas of Sophocles, Euripedes and Aeschelus) was a different, later blind seer. The first was turned into a woman for interupting a couple of screwing snakes, turned back into a man, asked who had it better, blinded by Hera for saying the girls got it better and given prophecy by Zeus to compensate, while the later one saw Athena nekkid, got blinded for his trouble (compared to Acteon he had it easy) and given inner sight to compensate.

    There were a bunch of blind seers named Tiresias running around mythic Greece. So many that it was probably a title rather than a proper name. A lot of confusion comes from Euripides’ The Bachae which kind of conflates the two (as part of the satire) as Tiresias of Thebes, along with Creon the King, runs around in a dress for a lot of the play.

  20. AL says

    If women have an orgasm that’s 10x better than men’s, why do women spend less time thinking about sex than men do?

  21. says

    Has anybody done dimensional analysis on orgasms? How are they measured in the metric system? Granted if you find somebody dead, with a ineradicable smile on the face, melted fillings, and scorched genitalia, you’d figure it was a good one; but that’s pretty informal. Meanwhile, even the nastiness of monarch butterflies has had its own defined unit of measure for decades, the BEU or Blue Jay Emetic unit.

  22. AnInGe says

    It is important to know the experimental conditions of these tests. Theta waves (acording to Wekipedia) are associated with memory tasks. It is obvious that the young ladies being tested were trying very hard to remember if they had moved the laundry from the washer to the dryer while they were faking their orgasms.

  23. Hyperion says

    Nah, EEGs aren’t going to tell you much from that, this is an orgasm, not an epileptic seizure (although there have been times with certain exes where I’ve had to wonder…)

    You’d think the massive amount of endorphins released during orgasm, being primarily inhibitory neurotransmitters, would actually prevent one from blowing a fuse during climax. On the other hand, the far larger amounts of dopamine/norepinephrine released during arousal and during the act itself certainly will have a helluvan excitatory effect (I mean at the post-synaptic receptors, get your heads out of the gutter). I’d be more worried about the rise in heart rate and blood pressure during the act itself than blowing out your brain during an orgasm.

    Then again, I’m not a neurologist, so I’m almost certainly wrong.

  24. Cathy in Seattle says

    PZ sez: However, if someone does figure out how to induce the feminine orgasmic response in a man’s brain, I would bravely volunteer as a research subject, even at the risk of dying in cataclysmic ecstasy. I’ll pay the price…for Science!

    Comments

    Ooh ohh! Count me in too!
    Posted by: Llywellyn | February 6, 2007 06:42 AM

    If women have an orgasm that’s 10x better than men’s, why do women spend less time thinking about sex than men do?
    Posted by: AL | February 6, 2007 06:00 PM

    ===============================

    Be glad we’re not spending our time trying to figure out how to use our awesome orgasm powers to blow up your male brains, now that we know it’s just that easy.

    ;-)