OUR SEXUAL BODIES: TYPES OF OUTERCOURSE AND SEXUAL INTERCOURSE

Types of outercourse (foreplay and alternatives to intercourse)

• Masturbation. Masturbation is the most common way we enjoy sex. Partners can enjoy it together while hugging and kissing or watching one another. Masturbating together can deepen a couple’s intimacy.

• Erotic massage.
Many couples enjoy arousing one another with body massage. They stimulate each other’s sex organs with their hands, bodies, or mouths. They take turns bringing each other to orgasm.

• Body rubbing (“frottage”).
Many couples rub their bodies together, especially their sex organs, for intense sexual pleasure. Many are stimulated to orgasm by this “dry humping.”

• Erotic fantasy,
role play, masks. Reading, watching, or telling erotic fantasies with a sex partner can be very exciting. Acting out fantasies can be exciting, too. Masks and costumes may intensify this kind of sex play.

• Sex toys. Sex toys, including vibrators and dildos, can heighten sexual pleasure. They are used to stroke, stimulate, probe, and caress the body.

Types of sexual intercourse

• vaginal intercourse (coitus)—inserting the penis into the vagina

• anal intercourse—inserting the penis into the anus

• axillary intercourse—inserting the penis under the armpit

• interfemoral intercourse—inserting the penis between the thighs

• mammary intercourse—inserting the penis between the breasts

• oral intercourse— inserting the penis into the mouth. Sex play that involves putting the tongue into the vulva is also often called oral intercourse.

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SEXUAL ANATOMY OF CHILDREN. ERECTIONS, SEXUAL FANTASIES. GYNECOMASTIA

Spermarche, Erections, and Wet Dreams

Boys have erections all their lives, starting from the moment they are born. But at puberty, erections occur more often. Many young men think that the occurrence of an erection means that their bodies are ready for sexual activity. This is not true. For example, when a boy or man wakes up from sleep, he may have an erection. This is because his bladder is full. A full bladder may stimulate nerves inside the body near the base of the penis and cause an erection.

Erections normally occur throughout the night during sleep. Erotic dreams cause young men to become aroused in their sleep. Young men undergoing puberty may notice that when they wake up, heir bellies, clothing, or sheets are sticky and wet around their penis. This is because young men may ejaculate in their sleep. The ejaculate, or semen, is the sticky substance found when a young man awakens. Ejaculating in one’s sleep is often called a wet dream. The clinical name is nocturnal emission. Almost all young men will have wet dreams. Boys and men who ejaculate during masturbation or other forms of sex play are less likely to have wet dreams.

The first time a young man ejaculates is called spermarche. Ejaculation can occur during nocturnal emission, masturbation, or sexual intercourse.

Sexual Thoughts and Fantasies

A young woman’s body will begin to respond to sexual thoughts and stimulation during puberty. Before puberty, children and babies touch the vulva only because it feels good. Their autoerotic play is usually not a sexual type of pleasure because it doesn’t involve sexual thinking or fantasy. At puberty, young women may begin to touch the clitoris and vulva for sexual pleasure. They can also be aroused by sexual thoughts or touch. Sexually stimulating dreams may mean that a girl wakes up with her vulva moistened with lubrication.

Sexual arousal—an erection or lubrication of the vulva—may happen without sexual activity. All the sensitive nerve endings that give us sexual pleasure are present from birth in girls and boys. A puberty, young women and men begin to have more sexual thoughts. When they touch themselves in the same way they have done all their lives, but with sexual fantasies while they are doing it, it is more correctly considered sexual activity.

Breast Size Changes in Boys—Gynecomastia

The change in hormones during puberty may cause surplus estrogen to be produced in a young man’s body. This usually happens only for a short period of time. It can mean that his breasts become slightly larger. This condition is called gynecomastia. It happens in 40 to 60 percent of adolescent boys. Young men feel very self-conscious and embarrassed about having enlarged breasts. During puberty, gynecomastia is usually temporary—it goes away within one to two years. I it happens before a boy goes through puberty, or continues after puberty, a health care provider should be consulted.

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MEN’S INTERNAL SEX AND REPRODUCTIVE ORGANS AND SPERM PRODUCTION: VAS DEFERENS, SEMINAL VESICLES, PROSTATE AND COWPER’S GLANDS

Vas Deferens

Mature sperm are pushed out of each epididymis into a long, thin tube called the vas deferens. The vas deferens connects the epididymis to the seminal vesicle. It moves sperm to the seminal vesicle by contracting and pushing them on their way.

Seminal Vesicles

The seminal vesicles are two small organs that are located beneath bladder. It is here that the sperm are combined with a fluid called seminal fluid. This fluid gives the sperm more room to move and also provides nourishment.

Prostate

The prostate is the next important place on the sperm’s journey. The prostate gland is located below the bladder and is very sensitive. Some men like to have it stimulated during sex play. When sperm, combined with the seminal fluid, reach the prostate, another substance is added to the mixture. The prostate produces a thin, milky fluid that is secreted into the urethra at the time of emission of semen. The substance helps give the sperm an environment in which it can swim easily.

A muscle at the bottom of the prostate gland keeps the sperm out of the urethra until ejaculation begins. Then the sperm move through the urethra in the penis and out of the body.

Cowper’s Glands

While the sperm are waiting, something else is happening to make the voyage easier. Located below the prostate are two Cowper’s glands, which are attached to the urethra. The Cowper’s glands deposit a fluid into the urethra before ejaculation. This fluid acts as a lubricant for the sperm and coats the urethra while flowing out the penis.

If there are sperm in the urethra from a previous ejaculation, they will mix with the Cowper’s fluid. This means that sperm can slide out of the penis before ejaculation. The lubricant is often called pre-ejaculate.

Ejaculation happens when the prostate muscle opens and the prostate gland pumps the seminal fluid into the urethra. It then gets pumped out of the body through the urethral opening. When the final mixture leaves the body, it is called semen.

Some men worry that they may urinate instead of ejaculating. This is impossible. When the penis is erect, a muscle closes off the bladder so no urine can pass through the urethra. It is also not possible for semen to mix into urine during urination because the prostate closes when urine moves into the urethra.

If these muscles are not working correctly, semen can be ejaculated into the bladder instead of out of the body. This is called retrograde ejaculation. This does not happen often. It is most likely to happen to men who have had prostate surgery or who have diabetes or multiple sclerosis. Men who have retrograde ejaculation are still able to have fulfilling sexual relationships and orgasms.

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ALL ABOUT SEX: OUR SEXUAL BODIES

Whenever a child is born, family and friends always want to know the child’s gender because most people treat girls and boys differently from the day they are born. Actually, the human bodies of girls and women and boys and men are not that different. All have hearts, brains, stomachs, bones, muscles, blood, and many other commonalities.

The one very important difference between female and male is in the nature of their sex and reproductive structures and functions. The sexual anatomies of women and men are different inside and outside their bodies.

Everyone’s body is made up of many parts. Some of these parts, such as fingernails, scrotum, eyebrows, and vulva, are structures. Some body parts have more complicated functions and are called organs. A leaf is an organ of a tree; an ear is an organ of an animal. Our hearts, ovaries, brains, penises, and lungs are organs.

We have special structures and organs that are a part of our sex and reproductive systems. The parts outside the body are the external sex structures and organs—commonly called genitals. The structures and organs inside the body are the internal sex and reproductive organs and structures. These are linked to the external sex and reproductive organs and structures.

Our sex and reproductive organs identify us as girls and boys or women and men. They are also the source of sexual pleasure in our lives. But they are not the only sexually sensitive parts of our bodies.

“SEXUAL REVOLUTIONS” THAT HAVE AFFECTED OUR SEXUAL NORMS

Sexual norms and gender equality have been crucial concerns of various social and political movements throughout our history. These include the civil rights and antiwar movements as well as the movements for women’s equality and gay liberation. They all have had a major impact on our attitudes toward sex and sexuality today. Here are some of the highlights:

First-Wave Feminists: The Women’s Movement— Suffragists and Abolitionists

Women began fighting for the right to vote—suffrage—20 years before the Civil War. The suffrage movement was born out of the abolitionist movement that fought to outlaw slavery. Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott held the first women’s rights conference in Stanton’s home in Seneca Falls, New York, in 1848.

The suffrage movement split from the abolitionist movement before the Civil War began. Some women found it unacceptable that men in the movement wanted to postpone the suffrage effort until after slaves were emancipated. Many women remained with the abolitionists under the leadership of Lucy Stone. Others formed their own movement under Stanton, Mott, and Susan B. Anthony. They widened the suffrage agenda to include issues such as divorce reform, sexism in the church, and assistance for workingwomen.

Temperance and Moral Reform

In 1874, the Women’s Christian Temperance Union was established to work for moral reform. The union worked toward eliminating prostitution, improving public education, and enacting universal suffrage. Its chief goal, however, was temperance—abolishing the sale of alcohol. Union members believed that drinking was a threat to the American home—that drunken husbands wasted money on liquor and were abusive to their wives and children.

The social purity campaign against prostitution grew out of the temperance movement at the end of the nineteenth century. Its members worked to create a single standard of sexual conduct in the belief that prostitutes were the victims of male vice.

The Sexual Revolution of the 1920s

The soldiers who experienced the sexual norms of Europe during World War I changed the sexual norms of the United States when they returned home. They became much more likely to have intercourse with women for whom they cared than with prostitutes or casual sex partners. Young women and men began to develop equality in romantic relationships and sexual behaviors. The number of women who had sexual intercourse before marriage increased from 25 percent at the turn of the century to 50 percent by the 1920s.

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