It’s Friday. Friday holds a special place in the heart of us Medgadgeteers. It’s our excuse to loosen the collar a little bit, and post some content that might not fly on Monday…
We’ll open with the title: “Magnetic resonance imaging of male and female genitals during coitus and female sexual arousal”. That’s right, folks, the old sex-in-the-MRI trick. (Actually, that’s not old, we just made it up). Given that…maybe you could take a closer look at the attached MRI image. Here’s a hint: you can see two spines.
There’s actually some interesting info to be gained from the article as to what’s actually “goin’ on in there” as coitus takes place. This seems to be the first use of MRI for this application, while previous research had apparently used ultrasound or even glass test tubes of an appropriate length and girth.
Of course, we’re all busy giggling like schoolgirls here, so if you want more scientific details, go ahead and read the article in the British Medical Journal, published back in 1999. We’ll just leave you with the acknowledgements…
We thank our volunteers for their cooperation, laughter, and permission to publish intimate MR images of them; those hospital officials on duty who had the intellectual courage to allow us to continue this search despite obtrusive and sniffing press hounds; Professor J Kremer for his encouragement to use the scanner to study female sexology and for his critical reading the typescript; and Professor W Mali for offering the use of equipment at the University Hospital Utrecht. P van Andel does not want to be acknowledged for his idea of using MRI to study coitus. He excuses himself by quoting the French romantic poet Alphonse de Lamartine (1790-1869): “C’est singulier! Moi, je pense jamais, mes idées pensent pour moi.”
More from the BMJ…