But here is the catch: you can’t will the ANS to do anything. You can’t say to it: “Turn me on.” This is true for other processes it regulates: you can’t will the “letting-down” of your milk, as many new mothers know; you can’t speed up or slow down digestion through your conscious intention, or give birth more efficiently. As many women (and men) know to their frustration, the more you try to will yourself to feel aroused and reach orgasm, the more elusive these states can become.
To enter the transcendental state that takes the female brain into “high” orgasm, you absolutely need to feel safe; safe from “bad stress,” in the sense of knowing you are entering a trance state in the presence of someone who will protect you if necessary at the very least, and not endanger you or put you in circumstances out of your control. The trance state is very nice if you’re in a modern suite at a hotel in the Caribbean, but what about when our foremothers were making furtive love in the brush of the savannah? Obviously, it would have been highly dangerous, and thus not evolutionarily valuable, to enter into this disinhibited trance state in the vicinity of wild animals or aggressors from another tribe, or any everyday natural threats. This biological, evolutionary connection for women of possible ecstasy to emotional security has implications that cannot be overstressed. Relaxing allows for female arousal.
Just as being valued and relaxed can heighten female sexual response, “bad stress” can dramatically interfere with all of women’s sexual processes. I became interested in the role of stress in relation to the “performance” or “failure to perform” of the vagina—and breasts, and uterus—a decade ago, when I was working on my book about childbirth, Misconceptions. It became obvious from the research I did at that time that the uterus, cervix, birth canal, vagina, and perineum were all substantially supported by relaxation in “performing” their powerful ANS tasks in childbirth and lactation. A low-stress environment of soft lighting, soothing music, caring attendants, and the loving presence of family, all actually helped the female body birth a baby, and then feed a newborn, successfully, in clinically measurable ways. Many studies also confirmed that stressful hospital birthing environments, in which women in labor are hooked up to intravenous devices, or to fetal monitors that consistently show false-positive “fetal distress,” cause so much “bad stress” in mothers that the stress itself biologically—not just psychologically—arrests labor contractions, and inhibits lactation.4
In the decade that has passed since I first explored this brain-uterus, brain-breast-tissue connection, these studies have multiplied. Stress can and often does stop the uterus from contracting in childbirth; it can stop the birth canal from drawing the baby toward the vaginal opening; it can stop the muscles from relaxing, that need to open in order to birth the baby without tearing the mother’s perineum; it can stop the milk glands from filling. Ina May Gaskin, famed alternative childbirth educator and author of the enduring bestseller Spiritual Midwifery, has delivered more than five hundred babies at home or even in tents in the woods, with very low rates of complications. She often tells couples to lower lights, play music, have the man stroke the woman, and to kiss and make out during labor, because of how often she has seen that a soothing and even seductive environment supports effective contractions during birth, and supports milk “let-down” for breast-feeding.
“Farm midwives might give a couple instructions on how to kiss more effectively,” she writes. “A loose mouth makes for a loose puss which makes the baby come out easier.” She teaches her midwives to teach the husbands or partners of birthing women to stimulate women’s nipples to aid contractions: “Our group of midwives had known this [about stimulating birthing women’s nipples] and used it as a tool for two or three years before we heard that the medical community, in doing experiments, had discovered that there is a powerful endocrine hormone called oxytocin that is produced by the pituitary gland, which can be prompted to [bring about contractions of the uterus] by stimulation of the breasts. We had been using this in starting labor in the woman . . . or . . . in speeding it up. We prefer to do this by pleasanter means than an IV drip.” As she puts it, the same sexual energy that got the baby in, is best at getting it out.5
If you look at the neurology and biochemistry of childbirth and lactation, you will see that it is not weird at all, really, to maintain that the vagina sends signals resulting in thoughts and emotions, because the uterus in labor and delivery—the breasts in lactation—send signals that result in thoughts and emotions, too.
When a baby passes through the birth canal, the contractions trigger oxytocin in the mother’s brain. Affectionately called “the cuddle chemical,” oxytocin is a hormone well known for its role in birth and lactation in the postpartum period, and in the establishment of mother-infant attachments. It is also released during orgasm in both sexes, and acts as a neurotransmitter in the brain, facilitating bonding and the formation of trust. Hormones such as oxytocin can reduce fear or behavioral inhibition, and promote the expression of social behaviors, such as pair bonding, and sexual and maternal behaviors. Female rats with no prior offspring show maternal behaviors within just thirty minutes of oxytocin administration, and these behaviors can be completely abolished by treating the same rats with oxytocin antagonists.6 Female prairie voles treated with oxytocin pair-bonded faster, and they lost interest in pair-bonding when the hormone was blocked. Anecdotally, some women who have had cesarean sections have trouble bonding, at first, with their newborns. These new mothers were not allowed to labor long enough for “mother love” to be chemically established within them. When a newborn suckles, the sucking reflex also triggers the release of oxytocin in the mother’s brain. The baby is biochemically creating its mother’s love and feelings of attachment.
I experienced some of the “thoughts” of the uterus myself. In 2000, I wrote about how oxytocin had made me gentler, more conflict averse, and basically nicer, when I was pregnant.7 My uterus was doing some of my thinking for me, in spite of my will, and mediating my consciously autonomous, consciously assertive, feminist brain. I also experienced the delayed attachment that cesarean sections can cause due to their interruption of oxytocin production that contractions are meant to generate. It is not a radical idea that biology can condition consciousness; it is well established that the uterus in labor, and the nipples in breast-feeding, can mediate female consciousness. So it should not be odd to say that the biology of the vagina, in the context of sex, can mediate female consciousness as well.
“Bad stress,” researchers have now abundantly confirmed, has exactly the same kind of negative effect on female arousal and on the vagina itself. When a woman feels threatened or unsafe, the sympathetic nervous system—the parasympathetic nervous system’s partner in the ANS—kicks in. This system regulates the “fight or flight” response: as adrenaline and catecholamines are released in the brain, nonessential systems such as digestion and, yes, sexual response, close down; circulation constricts, because the heart needs all the blood available to help the body run or fight; and the message to the body is “get me out of here.” Based on the insights in Meston and Gorzalka’s work, we now know that a threatening environment—which can include even vague verbal threats centered on the vagina or dismissive language about the vagina—can close down female sexual response. (We will explore “good” sexual stress later.)
Don’t take my word for this powerful evidence of the mind-body connection in women’s sexuality. If you have a lover or husband who is willing, try this simple experiment. Wait for a moment after he or she has said something really reassuring or admiring of you as a woman; then let him or her touch your nipple. Watch how quickly your nipple seems actively to seek out your lover’s touch. If he or she keeps talking along those lines, watch how readily your vagina responds to the touch—as the Tantric masters say, it should literally yearn toward and open for the lover’s hand, to draw it closer, or do the same for a lover’s penis. (Again, a similar connection between verbal appreciation and pathways of a
rousal may well be true for men: researchers have found that men’s physiological distress levels in relationship conflicts lower, in response to female words of respect and appreciation.)
Try the experiment another way at another time. If he or she has said something offensive or annoying or disrespectful to you, see what happens if your lover touches your nipple; it is unlikely that you will be able to tolerate his or her touch comfortably, let alone welcome it. Many people don’t like being touched if they are angry, but women seem to have more trouble than men with arousal if they are upset.
The difference in our bodies’ responses may make male-female connection especially tricky in such moments: this one simple difference in female reaction to different ways of being spoken to is one enormously significant reason that so many sexual approaches from men to women in long-term relationships become derailed, to the great sorrow and frustration of both men and women; the woman literally often can’t take an intimate touch if her lover has recently been verbally disrespectful, or has failed verbally to soothe “the Goddess in her” at some point beforehand, priming the release of oxytocin and vasopressin in her body and preparing the parasympathetic nervous system to do its magical work.
In the first flush of courtship, men often treat their female lovers in ways that deeply relax the women, supporting the work of the SNS; that activate their pelvic neural networks; and that trigger delicious hormonal activity in the female brain. But once the relationship is secured, many men tend to scale back those seductive words and lingering, relaxing caresses, or drop them altogether. This is a mistake, but it is not surprising: the “lingering caresses” kind of sex requires a great deal more time than does briefer, more goal-oriented lovemaking. Some might say it requires a good deal more “effort” from men; the Tantric practitioners I spoke with in the course of this journey would certainly say that it asks of men a great deal more “focus.” Our culture even calls these caresses and words a preamble to the real action—the idea is embedded in the very word foreplay—so they are seen as sexual “extras.” A whole set of words, actions, and gestures that women cannot do without, and that I call “the Goddess Array,” are, in our culture, seen as mere invitations to the feast, and not as the feast itself.
But when you understand the role of the ANS in women, which is where the effect of seemingly “nonsexual” touches, seductive or admiring words, and that crucial sense of safety and of being uniquely valued, register, you will see what a terrible error this is. The sympathetic nervous system doesn’t transmit sensations as such. It is part of the ANS that produces effects opposite to “flight or fight.” But it sends out responses to the gentle caresses, words, and so on that I am describing, which affect female arousal as a whole. When it comes to the female brain’s connection to the female body, as the brain mediates the ANS and is mediated by it, it becomes clear that these gestures, touches, kisses, and words aren’t extras. They are integral parts of the activation of the female ANS—and in turn these words and gestures tell the female brain that this is a safe sexual environment. The linear, goal-oriented model of sex that is conventional in our culture makes many women feel frustrated and existentially unhappy over time—even if they are having orgasms. Since orgasms are seen as the “goal” of sex in our culture, this can be confusing. Well-intentioned men might understandably feel baffled as they witness a wife or girlfriend grow irritable and dissatisfied over time, with this kind of culturally perfectly adequate lovemaking.
But men who really want to understand their wives and girlfriends and make them existentially happy will simply need to understand the female ANS, and seek out a deeper understanding of the life of the vagina. Such a man will need to become “more Tantric,” more sensual and romantic in bed, but he will, just as importantly, need to be much more attentive to what the woman wants in her life at any given moment. He will need to totally forget whatever he thought “worked” with his last lover, and learn from the very beginning, following her individual response. He will have to be far more inventive, creative, and attentive than the conventional model of heterosexual sex “scripts” him to be. A male lover of a woman, in other words, has to be far more patient, tactile, and time invested than he has probably been raised to be (and probably much more than he is initially inclined to be, after a long day at work). He must become far more interested in her state of mind, her level of stress or of relaxation, the skin of her whole body, a breath in her ear, a heavier touch and a lighter touch; far more interested in really gazing into her eyes, in light kissing and deep kissing; far more interested in offering stroking and caresses to her that do not feel to the woman as if there is a goal-oriented “agenda.” He must stimulate, sensitively and skillfully, whatever combination of the woman’s clitoris, vagina, G-spot, labia, perineum, rectum, and mouth of her cervix really makes her happy. He needs to be highly attentive to whether she wants soft, lingering lovemaking at that moment or hard, powerful sex or some exciting combination, because at different times of the month—or depending on her mind-state, which affects her body—her wishes may vary. He will need to know the difference between “bad stress” and “good stress.” Penetration may be part of the pleasure nexus, of course; orgasm is part of the pleasure nexus; but there is much, much more.
How exactly does your sexual neural network function? You can see from the Netter image of the autonomic nervous system how the genitals connect to the lower spinal cord, which in turn connects to the brain.8
The Netter image shows a close-up of the spinal cord and the nerve roots that connect the spinal cord’s impulses to the vagina and vice versa. These impulses end up in the female brain. All the neurotransmitters send signals from the clitoris, vagina, cervix, and so on up the spinal cord, and finally they reach the hypothalamus and the brain stem.
The pituitary gland is under the brain, and the hypothalamus right above it. The pituitary is called the “master gland” because it regulates all the hormones in your brain and body—the production, for instance, of oxytocin—the chemical “love factory” that generates feelings of bonding, trust, and attachment. The pituitary gland is where all the emotional action takes place. Here is one place where a dopamine system is regulated that will make you more or less aroused; another, midbrain dopamine system makes you incentivized and focused, before and during sex. Dopamine is associated with arousal and desire. Oxytocin and other emotion-generating hormones, which will make you think your lover’s otherwise annoying habits are really cute, are processed in the hypothalamus. And prolactin, which will make you finally get up out of bed to get some laundry done, or to do some other work, is also processed in the hypothalamus. So it is right to say that the vagina is sending signals to the brain during lovemaking that mediate consciousness.
That skein of living threads in the female pelvis—so intimately in communication through the spinal cord to the brain, with its shifting bath of chemicals—triggers opioids and oxytocin release after orgasm, which, as we will see, makes us ache physically when we have started to fall in love with someone. It is why women go into that disinhibited, out-of-control trance state when they climax that involves different parts of the brain.
Though delicate, that network underlying our clitorises, vulvas, and vaginas is incredibly powerful: the orgasmic pleasure generated there sends our brains messages with power to help regulate our menstrual and hormonal cycles, make us more or less fertile, calm us down at the scent of a lover, or vaginally lubricate when we are praised. By the same token, the brain also sends signals to the clitoris, vulva, and vagina, indicating when it is the right time and situation in which to lubricate, flush with blood, climax, and bond. This network is so influential over all the relevant systems of our bodies that if we are neglected sexually—or if we sexually neglect ourselves if we are not partnered—the messages sent from these pathways up the spinal cord to the brain, and the hormonal reactions in the brain, can lead us into depression, or even heighten our risk of injury or heart disease. This network is cont
inually sending moods, sensations, and emotions to our brains and from our brains to our inner and outer skin; it is not the vagina itself but that network underneath everything that leads us to feel much of what we feel; that leads each woman to shiver differently, in response to a different touch; that leads female consciousness itself to fluctuate, as these messages along these pathways fluctuate—a flux heightened by the cyclical nature of female sexual desire. If femininity resided anywhere, I would say it resides there, in that electric inward network extending from pelvis to brain.
This neural pathway, and other evidence we will look at, explains why our notions of female sexuality are so often wrong. Since Masters and Johnson wrote Human Sexual Response in 1966, which they based on their studies of men and women having orgasms in lab conditions, our culture has accepted the single model of human sexual response they described of excitement, plateau, orgasm, and resolution, which, they argued, is similar for women and men.9 Their summary of the vagina asserts that “it should be stated parenthetically that vaginal (natural or artificial) response to sexual stimuli develops in a basic pattern” regardless of the stimuli’s origin, a view that new science suggests is too simplistic. Even today, our culture tends to present male and female sexual response as analogous or parallel, while acknowledging that some women have more orgasms with less of a “refractory period” rest time in between than men need. That “one model” for human sexuality has even been seen as liberated—it does allow women sexual needs, since it allows men sexual needs—and it fit the Second Wave of feminism’s, and the sexual revolution’s, comfortable idea that women were, sexually at least, “just like men.”