What's Oxygen Got To Do With It?

My current fascination involves a deeper understanding of the workings of our bodies related to orgasm, pleasure and the possible ways of increasing both of those. You’ll hear more in the future about the relationship between pain and pleasure, oxytocin, love and bonding and brain functioning and orgasm in this column. This one is about oxygen and blood flow for optimum sexual functioning.

It’s been said that the clitoris has 8,000 nerve ends. I read that fact in Natalie Angier’s Woman; An Intimate Geography. She’s a great writer, by the way. These nerve endings, or neurons more precisely, use oxygen when they are excited. The more ‘excited’ they are the more oxygen is required to keep that excitement up. This is a feedback loop that suggests that the more oxygen you can give the blood to genital delivery system the more bang you might get for your effort. What happens to the blood supply as it is coursing through the body during sexual arousal is that it gets depleted of oxygen as the blood supplies the genital region with more and more oxygen. Certain factors work to relax the walls of the blood vessels, in the genital region, as arousal builds. This relaxation also helps increase the supply of blood and, therefore, oxygen. One of those ‘factors’ is probably nitric oxide, which the supplement L-arginine helps produce in the body.

Back to the subject: How does one supply an increasingly large amount of oxygen to the clitoris, labia and G-spot area? This is the connection that deep belly breathing has to pleasure and orgasmic response. Many women actually stop breathing when they get really turned on. On a scale of 1 to 10 at about the 7 or 8 level a woman will often simply stop breathing. They hold their breath and tighten their bodies. That puts an immediate stop to any new oxygen that is needed for the pelvis and yoni (Sanskrit for Vagina) neurons. Many women report that they get to a certain stage of arousal and then, for reasons they just can’t figure out, they slow down and often fall back down the building curve to orgasm. Their bodies will relax and they will naturally start breathing again only to have the same thing happen, again. It’s a frustrating situation that isn’t easily discovered naturally.

What she really needs to do is breathe faster and harder to supply the critical oxygen needed to sustain and build her turn on such that she brings herself to orgasm. This is where practicing breathing every day, until you have mastered it, will really pay off. There are benefits far beyond orgasm but let’s stick with the big ‘O’ for now. Practice deep breathing every morning before you get up and every night before you go to sleep. Five minutes will do. By placing a hand on your belly and softly forcing your hand up on the in breath you’ll know you are doing it right. Have your lover remind you to breathe when you are making love. If you are self-loving make a little sign to remind yourself to breathe. Practice breathing faster, too. Pant for about 15 breaths and then let it out slowly through pursed lips. Use this faster breath when you are at that 6, 7 or 8 level to consciously ‘drive’ your arousal. Play with these techniques and you’ll notice that the science is working to bring you closer to your goals!


Side note: The two books I am currently reading are How to Know Go(o)d by Candace Pert and The Science of Orgasm by Beverly Whipple, Barry Komisaruk and Carlos Beyer-Flores. Beverly Whipple brought us the first book on the G-spot along with John Perry almost thirty years ago. She has been researching orgasm (and primarily women) at Rutgers University for many years. Candace Pert is the eminent researcher on the molecules that drive our emotions.