Saturday 18 December 1999

Magnetic resonance imaging of male and female genitals during coitus and female sexual arousal

BMJ 1999;319:1596
(Published 18 December 1999)
doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmj.319.7225.1596

Willibrord Weijmar Schultz, associate professor of gynaecology [a],
Pek van Andel, physiologist [b],
Ida Sabelis, anthropologist [d],
Eduard Mooyaart, radiologist [c]

Author Affiliations

[a] Department of Gynaecology, University Hospital Groningen, PO Box 30 001, 9700 RB Groningen, Netherlands
[b] Laboratory for Cell Biology and Electron Microscopy, University Hospital Groningen
[c] Department of Radiology, University Hospital Groningen
[d] Department of Business Anthropology VU, De Boelelaan 1081C-NL, 1081 HV, Amsterdam

Abstract

Objective: To find out whether taking images of the male and female genitals during coitus is feasible and to find out whether former and current ideas about the anatomy during sexual intercourse and during female sexual arousal are based on assumptions or on facts.

Design: Observational study.

Setting: University hospital in the Netherlands.

Methods: Magnetic resonance imaging was used to study the female sexual response and the male and female genitals during coitus. Thirteen experiments were performed with eight couples and three single women.

Results: The images obtained showed that during intercourse in the “missionary position” the penis has the shape of a boomerang and 1/3 of its length consists of the root of the penis. During female sexual arousal without intercourse the uterus was raised and the anterior vaginal wall lengthened. The size of the uterus did not increase during sexual arousal.

Conclusion: Taking magnetic resonance images of the male and female genitals during coitus is feasible and contributes to understanding of anatomy.

Introduction

“I expose to men the origin of their first, and perhaps second, reason for existing.” Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) wrote these words above his drawing “The Copulation” in about 1493 (fig 1). The Renaissance sketch shows a transparent view of the anatomy of sexual intercourse as envisaged by the anatomists of his time. The semen was supposed to come down from the brain through a channel which can be seen in the spine of the man. In the woman the right lactiferous duct is depicted as originating in the right female breast and ending in the genital area. Even a genius like Leonardo da Vinci distorted men's and women's bodies—as seen now—to fit the ideology of his time and to the notions of his colleagues, who he paid tribute to.

The first careful study—since the sketch by Leonardo da Vinci—of the interaction of male and female human genitals during coitus was published by Dickinson in 1933 (fig 2). A glass test tube as big as a penis in erection inserted into the vagina of female subjects who were sexually aroused by clitoral stimulation (occasionally with a vibrator) guided him in constructing his pictorial supposition.

In the 1960s Masters and Johnson made their assessments with an artificial penis that could mechanically imitate natural coitus and by “direct observation”—the introduction of a speculum and bimanual palpation.

[...]

Acknowledgments

We thank our volunteers for their cooperation, laughter, and permission to publish intimate MR images of them; those hospital officials on duty who had the intellectual courage to allow us to continue this search despite obtrusive and sniffing press hounds; Professor J Kremer for his encouragement to use the scanner to study female sexology and for his critical reading the typescript; and Professor W Mali for offering the use of equipment at the University Hospital Utrecht. P van Andel does not want to be acknowledged for his idea of using MRI to study coitus. He excuses himself by quoting the French romantic poet Alphonse de Lamartine (1790-1869): “C'est singulier! Moi, je pense jamais, mes idées pensent pour moi.”

http://www.bmj.com/content/319/7225/1596

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