Orgasms are a Turn-OFF for Women

25 June 2005
NewScientist.com news service
Michael Le Page

FOR women, it seems, sex is a big turn-off. A scanning study has revealed that many areas of the brain switch off during orgasm - including those involved in emotion.

"At the moment of orgasm, women do not have any emotional feelings," says Gert Holstege of the University of Groningen in the Netherlands. His team recruited 13 healthy heterosexual women and their partners. The women were asked to lie with their heads in a PET scanner while the team compared their brain activity in four states: resting, faking an orgasm, having their clitoris stimulated by their partner, and clitoral stimulation to the point of orgasm.

As the women were stimulated, activity rose in one sensory part of the brain but fell in the amygdala and hippocampus, areas involved in alertness and anxiety. During orgasm, activity decreased in many more areas of the brain, Holstege told a meeting of the European Society for Human Reproduction and Embryology in Copenhagen this week. Only one part of the brain, in the cerebellum, was more active in women during orgasm. The cerebellum is generally associated with coordinating movement.

The findings appear to confirm what we already know: that women cannot enjoy sex unless they are relaxed and free from worries and distractions. Looked at from an evolutionary point of view, it could be that the brain switches off the emotions during sex because at such times reproduction and survival of the species become more important than survival of the individual.

The team has already done a similar study with 11 men, which revealed far less deactivation during orgasm than in women. However, Holstege says the results are probably unreliable because PET scanners measure activity over 2 minutes - and in men it's all over in a few seconds.

From issue 2505 of New Scientist magazine, 25 June 2005, page 14

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