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It is difficult, although not impossible, to acquire any adequate understanding of the physiology of sexual response from clinical records or case history data, for they constitute secondhand reports which depend for their validity upon the capacity of the individual to observe his or her own activity, and upon his or her ability to analyze the physical and physiologic bases of those activities. In no other area have the physiologist and the student of behavior had to rely upon such secondhand sources, while having so little access to direct observation.

This difficulty is particularly acute in the study of sexual behavior because the participant in a sexual relationship becomes physiologically incapacitated as an observer. Sexual arousal reduces one’s capacities to see, to hear, to smell, to taste, or to feel with anything like normal acuity, and at the moment of orgasm one’s sensory capacities may completely fail. It is for this reason that most persons are unaware that orgasm is anything more than a genital response and that all parts of their bodies as well as their genitalia are involved when they respond sexually. Persons who have tried to describe their experiences in orgasm may produce literary or artistic descriptions, but they rarely contribute to any understanding of the physiology which is involved.

Among the mammals, tactile stimulation from touch, pressure, or more general contact is the sort of physical stimulation which most often brings sexual response. In some other groups of animals, sexual responses are more often evoked by other sorts of sensory stimuli.

Among the insects, for instance, the organs of smell and taste are most often involved. In such vertebrates as the fish it becomes difficult to distinguish between responses to sound and responses to pressure. It is true that among mammals, sexual responses may also be initiated through the organs of sight, hearing, smell, and taste; but tactile stimuli account for most mammalian sexual responses.

It has long been recognized that tactile responses are akin to sexual responses, but we now understand that sexual responses amount to something more than simple tactile responses. A sexual response is one which leads the animal to engage in mating behavior, or to manifest some portion of the reactions which are shown in mating behavior. Mating behavior always involves a whole series of physiologic changes, only a small portion of which ordinarily develop when an individual is simply touched.

The organs which make the animal aware that it has been touched, and which at times may lead it to make more specifically sexual responses, are the end organs of touch (nerve endings) that are located in the skin, and some of the deeper nerves of the body. Certain areas of the body which are richly supplied with end organs have long been recognized as “erogenous zones.”
As examples of such lists of erogenous zones, see: The Kama Sutra of Vatsyayana [between 1st and 6th cent, a.d., Sanskrit]. The Ananga Ranga [12th cent. A.D.?, Sanskrit]. Van de Velde 1930:45-46. Havelock Ellis 1936(11,1):143. Haire 1951:304-306.

In the petting techniques which many females and males regularly utilize, the sexual significance of these areas is commonly recognized. It is, in consequence, surprising to find how many persons still think of the external reproductive organs, the genitalia, as the only true “sex organs,” and believe that arousal sufficient to effect orgasm can be achieved only when those structures are directly stimulated.

The data that are given here on the sensitivity of certain structures must, therefore, be considered in relation to the fact that the tactile stimulation of all other surfaces which contain end organs of touch may also produce some degree of erotic arousal.

Table 95a. Responses to Tactile Stimulation and to Pressure, in Female Genital Structures
Structures %
Responding		 Total No.
of cases		Typical variation in response in 15 cases
1 23 4 56 7 89 1011 12 1314 15
Area of Tactile Stimulation
Labia majora
Right 92854 x xv v xx v  v vv  v v x
Left 87 854x x vv v xv  x v v  vv x
Clitoris 98 879v x vv v vv v xv v xv v v
Labia minora
Right, outer surf. 97 879x x vv x vv v vv v xv v v
Right, inner surf. 98 879x x vv x vv v vv v xv v v
Left, outer surf. 95 879v x vv x vv v xv v xv v v
Left, inner surf. 96 879v x vv x vv v vv v xv v v
Vestibule
Anterior surf. 92 650x x xv v   v v vv v vv v
Posterior surf. 96 879v v vv v vv v vv v xv v v
Right surf. 98 879v v vv v vv v vv x vv v v
Left surf. 98 879v v vv v vv v vv x vv x v
Vagina
Anterior wall 11 578x x xv x xx v xv x xv x 
Posterior wall 13 578x x xv x xx v xx x xv x 
Right wall 14 578x x xv v xx v xv x xv x 
Left wall 14 578x x xv v xx v xv x xv x 
Cervix 5878 x xx v vv x xx x xx x xx
Area of Pressure
Vagina
Anterior wall 89 878x v vv v vv v vv x xx x v
Posterior wall 93 878v v vv v vv v vv v xx v v
Cervix 84 878x v vv v vv v vv x vx x v
The check (v) shows response, x shows lack of response to stimulation in the designated area. The tests were made by five experienced gynecologists, two of them female, on a total of 879 females. In all of the tests, the vagina was spread with a speculum, and all testing of internal structures was done with especial care not to provide any simultaneous stimulation of the external areas. The tests of tactile responsiveness were made with a glass, metal, or cotton-tipped probe with which the indicated areas were gently stroked. Awareness of pressure was tested by exerting distinct pressure at the indicated points with an object larger than a probe. Finer standardizations of the tests proved impractical under the office conditions. It should be noted that awareness of tactile stimulation or of pressure does not demonstrate the capacity to be aroused erotically by similar stimuli; but it seems probable that any area which is not responsive to tactile stimulation or pressure cannot be involved in erotic response.

Figures 118f-119f. Female and male reproductive and genital anatomy


The physical differences between the genitalia and reproductive functions of the mammalian female and male have been the chief basis for the longstanding opinion that there must be similarly great differences in the sexual physiology and psychology of the two sexes. In view of the considerable significance of such concepts in human social relations, it has, therefore, been important to reexamine and reevaluate the similarities and differences in the anatomic structures which are involved in sexual responses and orgasm in the two sexes. Specifically we have found that:

1.    In both sexes, end organs of touch are the chief physical bases of sexual response. There seems to be no reason for believing that these organs are located differently in the two sexes, that they are on the whole more or less abundant in either sex, or that there are basic differences in the capacities of the two sexes to respond to the stimulation of these end organs.

2.    The genitalia of the female and the male originate embryologically from essentially identical structures and, as adult structures, their homologous parts serve very similar functions. The penis, in spite of its greater size, is not known to be better equipped with sensory nerves than the much smaller clitoris. Both structures are of considerable significance in sexual arousal. The chief consequence of the larger size of the penis is the fact that sexual stimulation is more often directed specifically toward it. Its larger size accounts in part for the greater psychologic significance of the penis to the male.

3.    The labia minora and the vestibule of the vagina provide more extensive sensitive areas in the female than are to be found in any homologous structure of the male. Any advantage which the larger size of the male phallus may provide is equalled or surpassed by the greater extension of the tactilely sensitive areas in the female genitalia.

4.    The larger and more protrudent and more extensible phallus of the male, and the more internal anatomy of the female, are factors which may determine the roles which the two sexes assume in coitus. The female may find psychologic satisfaction in her function in receiving, while the male may find satisfaction in his capacity to penetrate during coitus, but it is not clear that this could account for the more aggressive part which the average male plays, and the less aggressive part which the average female plays in sexual activity. The differences in aggressiveness of the average female and male appear to depend upon something more than the differences in their genital anatomy.

5.    The vagina of the female is not matched by any functioning structure in the male, but it is of minimum importance in contributing to the erotic responses of the female. It may even contribute more to the sexual arousal of the male than it does to the arousal of the female.

6.    The perineal area provides a considerable source of stimulation for both the female and the male. In the male, nerves located among the perineal muscles may be stimulated through direct pressure on the external surface of the perineum or through the rectum; in the female, the area may be stimulated in exactly the same fashion or through vaginal penetrations.

7.    Because female breasts are larger, they may appear to be more significant to the female than male breasts are to the male. But since most males are aroused by seeing female breasts, and because most females are, in actuality, only moderately aroused by having their breasts tactilely stimulated, female breasts may be more important sources of erotic stimulation to males than they are to females.

8.    The mouth, which is one of the most important erotic areas of the mammalian body, appears to be equally sensitive in the female and the male.

9.    Tactile stimulation of the buttocks and of the inner surfaces of the thighs may play a significant part in the picture of sexual response. Responses to such stimulation seem to be essentially the same in the female and the male.

10. All of the other body surfaces which respond to tactile stimuli seem to function, as far as the specific evidence goes, identically in the two sexes.

11.    There are no data to indicate that there are any differences in female and male responses which depend directly on the senses of sight, smell, taste, or hearing.

12.    In brief, we conclude that the anatomic structures which are most essential to sexual response and orgasm are nearly identical in the human female and male. The differences are relatively few. They are associated with the different functions of the sexes in reproductive processes, but they are of no great significance in the origins and development of sexual response and orgasm. If females and males differ sexually in any basic way, those differences must originate in some other aspect of the biology or psychology of the two sexes. They do not originate in any of the anatomic structures which have been considered here.

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