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What do you know about the female orgasm?
Last reviewed: 01.07.2025
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Sexologists with advanced degrees still argue about how many types of orgasm a woman has: one, two, or more.
"Vaginal or clitoral orgasm?" - this is the question that sexologists have been trying to answer for several decades. As you might guess, we are talking about different types of female orgasm. Oddly enough, it is still not completely clear whether this is one orgasm or two different ones. For example, there is an opinion that there is no vaginal orgasm at all. It would seem that nothing could be simpler: ask women whether they experience satisfaction from stimulation of only the clitoris or only the vagina. But, as is usually the case in science, reasoning from the standpoint of common sense is useless here: physiologists know that the anterior wall of the vagina is intricately connected with the internal parts of the clitoris, and stimulation of the vagina without stimulation of the clitoris is practically impossible.
A discussion article in the Journal of Sexual Medicine addresses issues related to female orgasm.
Can we say with certainty that a vaginal orgasm is also a clitoral one? But this is if we judge by the structure of the genitals; at the neurophysiological level, everything looks different. Researchers from Rutgers University (USA) conducted a series of experiments that an uninitiated person could easily mistake for filming eccentric porn: scientists forced women to masturbate in different ways while in an fMRI scanner. As a result, it turned out that, although vaginal stimulation is inextricably linked with clitoral stimulation, different (albeit overlapping) areas of the brain are responsible for different types of orgasm. Moreover, in addition to the clitoral and vaginal zones, there is also the uterine zone, which responds to deep stimulation in the cervix. That is, the brain clearly distinguishes what is being stimulated there and what we get pleasure from.
The neurological differences between the types of female orgasm are also supported by medical research: women with spinal cord injuries could not experience clitoral orgasm, but they did get satisfaction from vaginal stimulation. In general, it seems that the female brain can summarize the sensations of the body from a variety of stimuli, not necessarily erotic in nature: it is enough to recall the study devoted to the "physical" orgasm. Female orgasm causes controversy not only regarding how it works, but also why it is needed. Of course, the feeling of pleasure is a powerful incentive for mating behavior and reproduction. But that's not all: it turns out that stimulation of the legendary G-spot reduces pain. Simple pressure on this point increases the pain threshold by 47%, and if the woman also gets pleasure, then by 84%. Well, in the case of orgasm, the increase in the pain threshold exceeds 100%. Here you can fantasize for a long time about some types of sexual games, but, according to scientists, this function of the G-spot is primarily important during childbirth. When the baby passes through the birth canal, it puts pressure on the G-spot, thereby reducing labor pain.
There is an opinion that orgasm is important for a woman's physical and psychological health, and not just any orgasm, but vaginal orgasm in particular. It seems to help avoid the emergence of various vicious psychological mechanisms - for example, the appearance of pain due to unresolved psychological problems, the transfer of emotions from one thing to another, the separation of negative experiences and the reasons that caused them. However, the data on the "health-improving" effect of vaginal orgasm is still too contradictory and is not taken seriously by everyone. But as for the myth of vaginal insensitivity, modern sexologists are quite unanimous. As strange as it may sound, such a theory existed, and even had experimental confirmation. Now it is unanimously called for being archived: both the walls of the vagina and the cervix are quite sensitive and can be sources of sexual satisfaction.
But many scientific superstitions regarding the physiology and psychology of women's intimate life have still not been clearly confirmed or refuted. So, to solve the mysteries of the female orgasm, sexologists are calling for the broadest multidisciplinary unification - and men can only envy the excitement this subject is causing in the scientific community.