How orgasm could dull pain

Their first tests were on how pain thresholds were altered by vaginal self-stimulation in women. “I wanted to know whether it would work and if so, which nerves were involved,” he explains. They used a machine that measured pain thresholds by gradually compressing the fingers, while asking women to masturbate manually. Whipple was in the room with the women, Komisaruk was in a separate room evaluating the data collection on a computer. They found that vaginal self-stimulation more than doubled the women’s pain thresholds.

In a subsequent study, they measured pain thresholds during childbirth. They found a significant reduction in pain sensitivity as the baby started to emerge through the birth canal, a correlation with G-spot stimulus. They speculate that without the pain-reducing effect of vaginal stimulation, childbirth might be even more painful, and that the pain-reducing effect could lessen the stress of childbirth and thereby promote bonding between mother and newborn.

Later, through testing women with spinal cord injuries, much like Komisaruk’s tests with rats (only now with consent, ethics, doctors, and nurses), Komisaruk and Whipple found that earlier medical understanding stating that women with spinal cord injuries would be unable to feel sexual pleasure from vaginal stimulation was incorrect. In testing for pain and for pleasure after paralysis, Komisaruk and Whipple began to map the body from genital to brain.