His and Her Health

Quote from Owner: "Zaneblue, "But in my opinion if a woman can't orgasm by herself with a good vibrator, I think there is a physical medical issue involved" -I'm sorry but that's simply incorrect. She had sexual desire earlier on in the relationship until she started psyching herself out for being "abnormal". MANY women have "no sensation" during sexual intercourse, and they are not physically abnormal in any way, so to suggest this is simply wrong. Does she know where her clitoris is? Does her husband stimulate her there? If clitoral stimulation doesn't arouse her, does her husband stimulate her in other ways other than intercourse? It sounds a lot like inexperience/education/psychosocial, something along those lines. It's highly treatable."<P>You aren't talking about what I stated. I wasn't talking about orgasming during sex, with or without a vibrator, I was talking about orgasming during masturbation with a vibrator. I believe that even a woman with inexperience/education/psychosocial difficulties will be able to orgasm with a good strong vibrator, unless she has some kind of underlying medical issue--a hormone imbalance, poor circulation, etc. Do you have evidence to the contrary?

Just because your friend owns a vibrator doesn't mean she's going to know how to use it. I do home toy parties where I live, yes I take this act on the road; and I've spoken to many women that know a vibrator is supposed to give them an orgasm and is supposed to be pleasurable, but don't know exactly how to use it, and some of these women are in their 50's! So, this is not an unheard of fact to me about your friend. She may need to learn how to use a vibrator. Another possibility is for some women some vibrators are too powerful and they are unable to orgasm because of numbness but usually the problem is not knowing what to do with the darn thing.

True. Perhaps I should have said a vibrator and five minutes of instruction. I know even in this day and age some women don't know where their clitoris is.

I disagree with you, Zaneblue. I am orgasmic during sex with a man (and probably would be during sex with a woman, although I've never tried it), but I can never orgasm from masturbation by myself, unless I'm watching an erotic movie and I imagine myself being the woman in the movie who is being stimulated. It's very mental for me. Stimulating myself physically with a vibrator or manually, without the visual cues, does not do it for me at all. I have to imagine myself being stimulated by someone else, but I guess I don't have a good imagination on my own so I need the external visual cues from the movie.<p>[This message has been edited by conner (edited 11 November 2003).]

I stand corrected. Do you know if this proclivity is common?

Actually, conner, fantasy is a large component of masturbation for many women (and men--vibrator or no. I doubt there are a lot of women (there may be some)who could orgasm from a vibrator alone if their mind were completely blank (I know I couldn't, even though I was very easily multi-orgasmic for most of my adult life), or if they were thinking of grocery shopping or work. <P>Fantasy can take many forms, from fantasizing about making love to someone to watching yourself masturbate, to concentrating on the feelings your experiencing. Everyone has their own fantasies and turn-ons, and yours seems to be visual stimulation. That isn't strange or unusual at all. When I speak of masturbating, I would never mean simply whipping out the vibrator and setting it on her clitoris while she does her economics and statistical analysis homework. This might work for some women, but I doubt it would work for most (though, it might make homework more fun). Fantasizing is usually part of what instructional books work on helping women do, for those who don't do so naturally.<P>Men also fantasize while mastrubating. Most men I know keep a collection of materials just for this, or at least have very good imaginations. There are probably exceptions to this rule--men and women who can just touch themselves with a totally blank mind or while thinking about baseball--and orgasm, but I can't help but think it's an amazingly small minority.

Still, you agree with the main point conner's making, that sex is as much in the mind as in the genitals. So I'm still wrong. However, the mind does reside in the brain, and the brain is strongly influenced by hormone and neurotransmitter levels, so I might not be so far off in my general approach with my orgasmic diet.

Oh, I definitely agree that the mind has a big part to play in sexuality--I am living proof. Look what traumatic therapy did to me. That said, I don't believe the mind is the whole picture, either. Like you, I believe if a woman can't experience pleasure and/or orgasm through self-stimulation, she should look into why. There are definitely physicical possibilities, as well as psychological ones. If there's no history of trauma or repression (religion, upbringing, etc.) and the woman has a basic clue about her own anatomy, then physical causes should be pursued. <P>I didn't post here, but on Greg's board, I posted the effects my perimenopausal treatment seems to be having, for example. My treatment includes T-cream for bone mass, but some other interesting side effects have come out of it. The hormones, whether T or estrogen I am not sure, are affecting things like my focus on sex. We also know that hormones can play a part in depression, and that other chemicals produced by the body (or sometimes not produced) can cause everything from depression to menopause to weight gain/loss to sexual enjoyment (librication, etc.). I don't think it's a stretch at all that changing things like dopamine levels in the brain can affect sexual pleasure. I consider an imbalance in the brain a physical issue, and not a mental one.<P>My husband is a perfect example, in some ways. His issues are neurologicaly hard-wired into his brain. The problems he has with digestion, prostate, etc. are functions of his condition, not "all in his head," so to speak. If something in the brain isn't quite right, there's every reason to believe it will affect other things.<P>So, the short version is yes, I do believe mind can have an impact on sex. I also believe physical issues can. Just because your orgasmic diet doesn't treat the psychological possibilities doesn't mean it isn't worthwhile--what if we said that about the diabetic diet? Diabetes often carries phsychological components with it, but we don't throw out the diet because of that--the diet is integral to treating diabetes. So might your orgasmic diet become integral to treating anorgasma, etc. Something like this isn't necessarily going to "cure" everyone, but could help in treatment of many and may out right solve the entire issue for some.<P>Wow...how did this get so long?

Perception is not always reality. Interesting to note new research just published is showing men's own perception of their aging symptoms, including sexual functioning, is not related to circulating androgen levels, which contradicts what has become widely believed in recent years.<P>Also, a new Viagra study just published shows once again that a woman's subjective arousal is not well correlated with her physical arousal as measured by vaginal photoplethysmograph.