The Functions of Erection Reconsidered

By John D. Perry, PhD, MDiv, FAACS

A Paper Presented at the 1982 Annual Meeting of the Society for the Scientific Study of Sex at San Francisco, California in November, 1982

1995 Introduction: The presentation of this paper came at the height of the so-called G-Spot Controversy, and the actual delivery was captured in a photo in People magazine, Nov. 29, 1982. Eight years later Forum paid $2,000 for a slightly revised version of this paper, which was published under the title "New Functions of Erection".

Abstract

The prevailing explanation of the orgasmic (as distinguished from the reproductive) function of the male erection is that it serves solely to position the sensitive portion(s) of the phallus in an essentially passive receptacle which was designed by nature to provide maximal tactile stimulation and thereby trigger an orgasmic reflex based primarily or exclusively on the pudendal nerve (Kinsey, 1948; Masters and Johnson, 1966). Kaplan, for example, says that "under normal circumstances rhythmic tactile stimulation of the glans and shaft of the penis is an essential prerequisite for ejaculation" (1976, p. 19). She describes the ejaculatory reflex as consisting of "two exquisitely coordinated phases"; an inner response (emission) under the control of the autonomic nervous system, and a second phase (ejaculation) which is an "involuntary reflex...mediated by the voluntary nervous system" (p. 20).

The recent discovery of the Gräfenberg Spot (Perry and Whipple, 1980) and its function in triggering ejaculatory expulsions in some females invites a re-examination of the corresponding mechanism in males. Since the prevailing view is that the Gräfenberg Spot represents the (sometimes) vestigial homologue of the male prostate gland, it suggests the hypothesis that the function of the prostate gland might also be to serve as a trigger for an internal sympathetic reflex of emission in males. Four forms of indirect evidence for this hypothesis are observed: (1) introspective reports by subjects of manual prostate examinations; (2) reports of male homosexuals concerning the experiences with anal intercourse; (3) accounts of prostatic stimulation in classical and contemporary pornographic literature and (4) a re-examination of the nature of surgical complications in prostatectomy.

Direct investigation has focused on electromyographic recordings of pelvic floor and anal sphincter responses to vibratory stimulation of the penile shaft. It was observed that voluntary contractions of the pubococcygeus muscle enhanced the transmission of vibratory stimulation from the base of the penile shaft to the prostate gland, suggesting that emission in the male is triggered by a combination of voluntary and involuntary contractions of the pubococcygeus muscle (i.e., the mechanism of cortical enhancement) and vibro-mechanical stimulation of the prostate by the erect phallus itself.

Since it has been hypothesized that the function of the phallus in inducing "vaginal orgasm" in the female is its capacity to press its distal portion deeply against the Grafenberg Spot, it may now be speculated that a complementary function of the erection is the press its proximal portion against the corresponding male organ, the prostate. Thus a second and previously overlooked function of the male erection is to serve as a bridge between two sensitive organs of equal importance to their respective owners. The new theory provides an equalitarian explanation of the biological value of what Singer called "simple and direct coitus". The inclination of males to "batter and ram" during intercourse may be rooted not in a chauvinistic desire to dominate or exploit, but in a biological and reproductive necessity which could not be explained by the previous clitorocentric theory.

The Functions of Erection Reconsidered

In recent years the mighty phallus has fallen, as it were, upon hard times. Once the powerful servant of lustful passions and the object of feminine envy in the Victorian psychology, the male-most member was summarily defrocked during the 1950s by the alleged discovery of the primordial sexual functions of the female clitoris, which was elevated to co-equal status with its anatomical homologue, the penis. For almost two decades more its catholic function, the facilitation of impregnation, retained a slightly diminished status in the natural order of things, but today even that limited role has been threatened by zero population growth and other social trends. As women (rightly) become more assertive, demanding even sexual equality and even overtly initiating affectionate relations, the once-proud organ has all too frequently been unable to rise to the occasion, in seemingly silent protest over its correspondingly deflated status.

The rise to power of the cult of the clitoris has been, to a large extent, at the expense of the penis' past partner, the vagina. It has taken some 30 years (or a single generation, which is more to the point) for the human vagina to be relegated, along with other "male privileges", to the cultural wastebasket of a chauvanistic era. Most people would place the turning point at Kinsey's l953 assertion that "the vagina is relatively devoid of nerve endings" and the corresponding implication that it was, therefore, relatively worthless in the pursuit of feminine sexual satisfaction. In fact, Kinsey ridiculed the notion of a "vaginal orgasm" and put forth the theory that clitoral stimulation was the trigger for all female sexual sensations (in the genital region).

A decade later, Masters and Johnson buried the vagina forever, they thought, by providing a detailed explanation of the role of the Clitoris in responding to tactile stimulation. It has reached its logical, if unscientific conclusion, in the anti-vaginal writings of "feminists" like Shere Hite. I was a guest on a Boston talk show recently, making the circuit a week or two after Shere had spoken, and during a commercial break the host turned to me and said, somewhat befuddled, "She doesn't really have much use for the vagina, does she?" I had to admit that it seemed like a correct interpretation, for I myself had only a few days before re-read The Hite Report to try to ascertain the cumulative amount of vaginal utilization summarized in Hite's complex masturbatory typology. I discovered that only the figures for exclusive vaginal stimulation -- something like 1.5% -- are actually given there. If you search for the combinations, however, you will be disappointed by their absence, for Hite does not include data about frequent, regular, or even incidental collateral use of vaginal stimulation, in spite of textual references by a great number of women who like to include vaginal stimulation as part of their masturbation, even of predominantly clitoral masturbation.

It has been said that "oral sex" is the fastest-growing participatory sport in America today, and I certainly would not want to be misinterpreted as bad-mouthing oral sex. Sandy Leiblum of Rutgers Medical School has a concluding line which she uses in her presentation to the medical students each year that makes the point very well. She says that the consensus reached in her women's groups is that "It is not the length of the penis that counts, but the length of the tongue" that makes all the difference. So, on late night talk shows and in medical school lectures, the conviction is spread through the land that the old organs of copulation-at least from a feminine perspective-no longer serve a significant sexual function for female pleasure and satisfaction.

I once received an angry letter from a group of avowed lesbians at a feminist health center which had heard about my "vaginal myograph" device for diagnosis and treatment of pelvic muscle problems with EMG biofeedback. These thoroughly "modern" women condemned me and my research on the grounds-and this is an exact quote from their letter-that "anything which goes into the vagina is inherently anti-feminist!" It is ironic, of course, because much of the credit for the discovery of the G Spot has been given to the lesbian community of Miami, Florida, who first invited our research. Susanne Gage and the Federation of Women's Health Centers, who will be appearing at this meeting at least twice, have carried the clitoral cult to its logical, if illogical, extension by re-defining the entire sexual apparatus as an extension of the "clitoris".

Recent upheavals in female anatomical understanding were brought about by the announcement in April of l980 of the Gräfenberg Spot, by Perry and Whipple; and in the summer of 1980 by Zwi Hoch's confirming essay on "The discovery of an alternative sensory stimulation site in the anterior wall of the vagina." The new and defined G Spot has forced or at least facilitated a reexamination of the comparable functions of the corresponding male anatomy. Although many of our colleagues have not yet read, let alone accepted, the G Spot, I propose today to reexamine and reinterpret the function of the male erection in its light. A few years ago this might have seemed like a defensive posture; if the clitoris is everything to the female, what if anything is the function of the male erection? But the long-sought and elusive focus and rationale for female vaginal sensitivity, the G Spot, occasions such a reconsideration.

The brilliant analysis of sexological functions provided in 1973 by Josephine and Irving Singer in their book, The Goals of Human Sexuality, makes the point over and over that human sexuality has always been pluralistic at the most fundamental level. Singer describes the dual components of human sexuality as the "sensuous" and the "passionate", and contends that the integration of these two aspects is a major developmental and philosophical task. The "sensuous" refers to the sensual, reflective, gentle and gentile orientation of the upper class that was finally enshrined and institutionalized in Masters and Johnson's concept of Sensate Focus. The "passionate", on the other hand, refers to the enthusiastic, irrational, dynamic and energetic emotions that are expressed in pelvic thrusting and orgasmic contortions.

The Singers note and reflect upon the fact that Kinsey, Pomeroy, et al did also distinguish between two Systems of Sexual Mores; two systems which, according to Singer's analysis, more-or-less exactly parallel the "sensuous" and the "passionate". Singer comments upon the obvious bias of Kinsey's staff in favoring the sensuous, gentile and detached mores of the upper classes. I want to carry the discussion a step further today be pointing out that Kinsey's bias also crept into his assumptions about the nature of the biological triggers of female and male orgasmic response.

In his analysis of female sexual response (around page 580, especially), Kinsey dutifully measured and systematically reported the results of some 900 gynecological examinations for both tactile and pressure sensitivity in the vagina. When he analyzed the data, he completely overlooked the implications of his own pressure data in favor of evaluating tactile sensitivity only. His myopic analysis of female sensitivity was a natural consequence of his limited perspective on the corresponding mechanics in the human male. Kinsey believed that the tactile sensitivity of the male organ was the key to its function in triggering orgasm in men.

I would like to put forth the assertion, which I think entirely defensible, that for the past quarter-century the sexological understanding of the vagina has been largely derived from a model of male masturbation- and an inadequate model of male masturbation, at that. Developmentally, the male learns to advance from the manual masturbation model to the vaginal masturbation mode. We could call this the Hand-Vagina Transfer Theory, and the analogy holds that most sexologists pose some element of maturation in progressing from the more primitive to the more advanced focus. Essential to understanding this transfer theory is the notion that the significant stimulation triggering the male's orgasm is superficial (or surface) stimulation of the admittedly sensitive sensitive segments of the penis: the glands and the shaft. The theory was promulgated by Kinsey, endorsed by Masters and Johnson, and reaches its purest expression in the work of Helen Singer Kaplan who wrote: "In the male, tactile stimulation of the glans and shaft of the penis triggers the orgasm, which consists of reflex rhythmic contractions of striated muscles at the penile base." (p. 29) Although Kaplan accepts the notion that the male ejaculatory orgasm consists of "two exquisitely coordinated phases" (emission and expulsion), she offers no explanation for the conjunction of these two reflexes. My mentor, Soren Kierkegaard, once made a phrase out of "Lessing's Leap"; I would have to call this "Kaplan's Chasm", for it remains a mystery how activity in the pudendal nerve reflex can coordinate a separate lumbar-sacral reflex in the pelvic nerve to trigger the first, or emission, phase of the ejaculatory process. Kaplan is content, it seems, to rely upon as yet undefined mechanism of supra-spinal facilitation, but the discovery of the Gräfenberg spot in the human female and its role in the vaginal orgasm invites a corresponding reexamination of the analogous organ in the male.

Most of you have probably seen the motion picture produced by Focus International, in which my colleague Beverly Whipple served as a consultant. In that picture, the process by which direct digital stimulation of the G spot triggers an internal or uterine orgasm, without any form of direct or indirect clitoral stimulation, is rather clearly depicted. There are several important observations to be made here. First of all, you should have noticed that G spot stimulation does not always lead to female ejaculation. The movie subject known only by her dark pubic hair, told me that she indeed experienced several orgasms during that filming, but all of them were dry, without any ejaculation. Only the woman with the lighter colored hair actually ejaculated on camera in response to Gräfenberg spot stimulation.

A second point is this: the G spot orgasm, captured so well on that film, corresponds exactly to a form of sexual stimulation which we have heard and seen described repeatedly and reliably by dozens and dozens of women. So I think it is a bit foolish to ask, as some popular magazines have done, whether it is "true" that stimulation of the G spot "really" leads to an internal type of orgasm. (It is also foolish for persons who have never experienced that to say that it is false that other women have done so.) A better question, in the sense of helping advance human knowledge on this subject, would be "Why does G spot stimulation lead to an orgasm in some women and not in others?" What differences are there between women who report such experiences and women who no not? Why do older women, and those who have borne more children, more often assert that they are vaginally sensitive to this kind of stimulation?

Some of you may recall from our presentation in Dallas two years ago that Perry, Whipple and Belzer were unable to provide any anatomical evidence concerning the source of female ejaculatory fluids. That is, of course, because we were not anatomists. But we did examine the literature produced by that discipline and found consistent assertions that the human female is endowed with certain glands, variously known as the periurethral, paraurethral, or Skene's Glands.

The nature and extent of this glandular system, we learned, has not been widely studied; yet a number of investigators insist that the glands are more widespread and variable than usually depicted in anatomy texts. Only one investigator makes any reference to the possible sexual significance that these periurethral glands, and no one has yet studied the plausible relationship between their distribution and the variations in sexual expression which are observed in women. We hope that the publication of the G Spot will help to stimulate that inquiry, but I hasten to point out that the research is fraught with problems. The most significant research would seek to relate to dynamic sexual experiences with histological examination of tissue. But I, for one, would not counsel any woman to volunteer for such experimental procedures while so little is known about the topography of that area of the body.

On one issue, however, there is wide agreement; the periurethral glands of the female are the vestigial homologue of the male prostate gland. Whether that means they should be called by the same name, to which William Masters has objected, or by some other name, seems to me a trivial semantic point in comparison to the deeper issues generated by the newly discovered parallelism.

Foremost among the new issues triggered by the discovery of the independent (non-clitoral) function of the Grafenberg spot are the implications of that discovery for our understanding the function of the prostate gland in male orgasm You may recall that astronomer's calculations generated the hypothesis of the existence of the planet Pluto, which, it was subsequently discovered, existed right where the theory said it should be. It was there all along, of course, but we never saw it because we were not looking for it. Similarly, the reports about women's subjective and objective experience with digital stimulation of the G spot generates the hypothesis that, in a similar manner, the homologous tissue in the male, the prostate gland, might be capable of triggering a reflexive component.

Masters and Johnson denied that the prostate and its adjacent organs possessed any sexual significance (p. 179) - which, I might hasten to point out, they described as an absence of "sensate focus", their special term for what Singer called "sensuous" sexual experience, essentially a tactile function. But the sexual sensitivity of the G spot is not tactile, but is a response to a deep manual pressure, and our inquiry into the private experience of men confirms this parallel pressure sensitivity. But awareness of prostate sensitivity to pressure requires confession of an activity - anal penetration - which is probably still illegal in most states and certainly not yet socially acceptable in the rest. Many men talk with embarrassment about the absolutely "awful" experience they had with a rectal examination, and I can confirm the universality of that experience. (For those of you who have not experienced it by virtue of gender, let me suggest that a rectal exam is about as sexually exciting as a breast examination for cancer, and for precisely the same reasons.)

Interestingly enough, the experience of males with direct prostatic stimulation is remarkably parallel to that of females with direct Gräfenberg spot stimulation. Initially, in both instances, the experiences is often (but not always) neutral to irritating or even painful, and it is only after a period of time that the human brain learns to interpret these new sensations as pleasureable and, indeed, desirable. The parallels continue; sometimes the person never moves beyond the initial phase of danger-pain-alert interpretation. I can speak only for myself, however, in noting that such episodes are often, if not exclusively, in situations of fear or lack of immediate trust and confidence, EVEN with an otherwise trustworthy partner. In any case, many males report in confidence that they have learned to enjoy and indeed crave direct prostatic stimulation as a variation within their normal range of sex play activities.

It is only relatively recently that male homosexuals have been able to admit to their sexual preferences without catastrophic social results, so it should not be surprising that the basically heterosexually controlled literature of sexology should be ignorant of the finer points of homosexual experience. We are, I think, still at the stage when many liberals are saying to their homosexual colleagues and friends, "What you do in private is your business, and I won't hold it against you, so long as you don't force me to know exactly what it is that you do do in private."

But others, bolstered by the armour of legitimate professional curiosity, have dared to discuss the details of homosexual experiences and have heard the descriptions of the joys of anal penetration and direct prostatic stimulation. More than one correspondent has confirmed that a major model of gay sexual play involves separating those two "exquisitely coordinated phases" which Kaplan described as constituting the male orgasm into their separate constituent elements. First, digital stimulation of the prostate through the anus triggers an emission-type reflexive orgasm with occasional oozing of semen from the penile tip. This is often repeated several times, until finally manual stimulation of the penile shaft is used to "finish the job", with a distinctly different, pc-type contractive orgasm which may or may not result in the expulsion of ejaculate.

It will be interesting to see if the experts rush in to tell these men that they "really don't know what they are talking about" because, in truth, all orgasm are, physiologically, the same, according to the Masters and Johnson. I would point out that this description of the two-stage male orgasm is remarkably similar to the aspects of the "Extended Sexual Orgasm" as described by the Bauers in their new book ESO.

At this point, we have very little hard evidence about the role of the prostate gland in triggering the emission phase of the male ejaculatory orgasm. I have not seen anything in print about it, but we do from time to time hear rumors about activity at other laboratories. A number of researchers are currently seeking devices and instruments to monitor vascular and myotonic activity of the prostate gland during sexual activity, but as you can imagine there are formidable technical problems in the design of such apparatus. The major stumbling block is the same one which defeated clitoral studies for so many years -- namely, the absence of a suitable anchor in the vicinity of the target organ.

I can, however, report on one pilot project which we have undertaken with very promising results. Perhaps someone in the audience will pick up on this and carry it to its logical conclusion. The experiment was shaped by the comment of a psychologist, reported in The G Spot, page 138:

When the prostate was touched, he was able to isolate sensations associated with a familiar sexual experience -ejaculation. He discovered that the prostate had been familiar to him all along as 'the base of my penis', which always throbbed during an ejaculatory orgasm.

We put the psychologists' comment about the prostate being located at the "base of my penis" together with a technological innovation from our friends in the sex aids industry. I trust you are familiar with the egg-shaped vibrator which is designed with a pair of plastic clips that encircle the penile shaft. We monitored the pubococcygeus and anal sphincter contractions of a subject who was carried through an orgasmic response cycle by one of these little gadgets. As the penis began to stiffen, the subject noted that it began to transmit vibratory sensations of increasing magnitude down the penile shaft to the base. This, in turn, was met with a voluntary contraction of the pubococcygeus muscle, which pressed the prostate more firmly against the base of the penis, - we speculate - to more efficiently receive those vibrations. As orgasm approached, the frequency of the PC contractions increased, as did the subjective reports of prostatic sensations similar to those which I read from The G Spot.

We are now in the process of refining the experimental procedures, but our initial hypotheses are that voluntary PC contractions enhance the shaft-to-prostate contact, triggering a reflective contraction of the sympathetic side of the PC to contract, which further increases the prostatic contact, thus establishing a positive feedback loop which may provide an partial explanation for the nature of orgasm itself.

I mentioned yesterday that one function of the female pubococcygeus muscle contractions appears to be accentuated the S-shape natural curve of the vagina, and thereby increase the pressure of an inserted phallus on the sensitive area of the anterior wall which we have labeled the Grafenberg Spot. Now we are proposing that the corresponding function of the male PC is to enhance the parallel contacts between the phallus and the G spot's homologue, the prostate gland.

This, in turn, leads to an entirely new conception of the function of the male erection. In the Kinsey-to-Kaplan era, the function of the erection was to position the sensitive distal portions of the penis in an essentially passive vaginal receptacle which (1) merely masturbated the penis and (2) collected the ejaculate. In our new conception the penis becomes a bridge between two essentially similar bodies. The penis-bridge serves to connect two sensitive organs to equal importance to their respective owners -- the G spot and the prostate.

The new theory provides an egalitarian explanation of the biological value of what Singer called "simple and direct" coitus. Heretofore, the inclination of males to "batter and ram" during intercourse was assumed to be without value or consideration for the natural needs of the female partner; it was attributed to a gender-specific sociopathic / chauvinistic desire to dominate or be aggressive. Based on our analysis, the thrusting motions of intercourse turn out to be a natural, biological imperative of equal value and importance to both women and men, which could not be accounted for by the previous theory.

In case you haven't fully noticed, one implication of the new theory is a resurrection of the long dormant concept of the vaginal orgasm, far from being the myth that Albert Ellis proclaimed it, the vaginal orgasm may be as natural and wholesome as apple pie and motherhood, after all. Far from being the "biological impossibility" that Kinsey thought it was, the vaginal orgasm turns out to be a normal, natural, and readily accessible sexual event.

A second implication is that now, we will have to reevaluate once again everything which Sigmund Freud said about the clitoral-vaginal transfer theory and the developmental tasks of female sexuality. I hasten to point out, although I am certain it is too late for some, that we will do so from a distinctly different perspective with respect to masturbation -- in both sexes, and that will have a significant impact upon the moralism and role-rigidity which contaminated and discolored Freud's theories for many of us.

But lest you think that a reconsideration of Freud and the vaginal orgasm means a return to chauvinistic male dominance in sexual intercourse, let me hasten to point to a third implication of the new theory. If the function of the erection, reconsidered, is to serve as a bridge between two sensitive organs of equal importance to their respective owners, we are at once struck with one significant difference: the "bridge" is quite naturally and firmly anchored to the anatomy of one partner, already positioned for maximally effective stimulation of his deeper reflex. In contrast, the connection between the bridge and the female vaginal erogenous zone is considerably more transient and precarious. Considerable adjustment of posture and position of the female pelvis is necessary to obtain and assure contact between that bridge and her Grafenberg spot.

Therefore, we can deduce that, from a biological perspective, the most sexually egalitarian positions for sexual relations are those which permit maximum of pelvic movement and mobility for the female partner. As sexologists, rather than encouraging a return to male dominance, we must, I think, virtually outlaw the missionary position as being inherently disadvantageous to the female. In terms of sexual equality, it would appear, the female-superior position is clearly superior after all. And I, for one, intend to take that lying down! Thank you.

notes:

* There is now an internet email list dealing with The Gräfenberg Spot; to obtain more information and sign up please visit http://www.yahoogroups.com/groups/TheGSpot

* That was, of course, true in 1982; several subsequent papers have now clearly established the paraurethral glands (or female prostate) as the source of female ejaculation.

* This unique sensitivity is very soundly demonstrated in the X-rated video "The Grafenberg Spot". by the "researcher" who teachs the heroine how to stroke her own sensitive spot.

* Many of the references above are included in The Kegel Bibliography, linked to our home page and located at http://www.Incontinet.com/articles/art_urin/kegelbib.htm.