Have you ever had a coregasm?

It turns out there may be a rather unexpected benefit to working out.

London - Most of us visit the gym to stay fit and battle the bulge.

But now it turns out there may be a rather unexpected benefit to working out.

In a survey, four in ten women said they had experienced what might politely be described as intense pleasure when doing their fitness routine.

Abdominal exercises were most likely to bring it on, followed by using the exercise bike, climbing and weight lifting.

Yoga, running and swimming also caused what researchers have called a “coregasm” because it is supposedly linked to exercising the body’s core muscles.

The researchers asked 370 women aged between 18 and 63 to complete an online survey about their experiences. The average age was 30 and the majority were in a relationship or married.

The study found that 40 percent had felt sexual pleasure or had had an orgasm while exercising on more than 11 occasions in their lives.

Most said they found it rather embarrassing and added that they were not thinking about anybody in particular or having a sexual fantasy – it just happened.

The US researchers found that abdominal exercises were the most common cause, responsible for 45 percent of the gym-based orgasms.

This was especially the case for routines involving the ‘Captain’s Chair’, in which a person puts their weight on their forearms on a special chair with padded arm rests, then lifts their knees to their chest.

Biking and spinning – intensive cycling at different speeds – were next, cited in 19 percent of cases, then climbing poles or ropes (nine percent) and weight lifting or running (seven percent). The rest of the experiences involved yoga, swimming, aerobics and stepping machines.

Overall orgasms seemed to occur after a woman really exerted herself, such as by doing a series of gruelling crunches.

The research, published in the journal Sexual And Relationship Therapy, was carried out by Debby Herbenick, co-director of the Centre for Sexual Health Promotion at Indiana University.

The phenomenon she examined was first recorded by pioneering psychiatrist Alfred Kinsey in 1953. He found that it affected five percent of women, but since then it has remained largely unstudied. Dr Herbenick said her research “may be one way for women to learn more about how their bodies work”.

She added: “We had at least one woman in the study who was a virgin, and she really loved that she could have these experiences at the gym.”

Relationships expert Jean Hannah Edelstein said she welcomed the findings because “sexual pleasure is something that many women still struggle with”.

“Any woman who experiences an orgasm while exercising should not be ashamed, it is a perfectly natural thing to happen,” she said.

“Having said that I would imagine most would be pretty good at concealing it from other people, especially if they are in the middle of a vigorous workout.

“It is never a bad thing to be in touch with your sexuality, even if it does happen in a place you don’t expect.” - Daily Mail

Even Lions fans at Sixers and sevens

In the Unity Stand, a girl with the shrillest of screams, the most piercing of shrieks, did her best “Harry me Sally” pseudo-orgasm impersonation every time the Sydney Sixers scored a boundary.

Perhaps she was mistaken. Perhaps she thought the Lions were the other team in the reddish colour. Her “whoo-hoos” sounded loud in the silence that greeted each Sixers score. The Lions had all but lost this match before they began to bowl and the reaction of the crowd was tied to the way the home side had batted and had been battered by the Sixers. There was desperation and some little hope after the Lions had staggered to a score that was never going to be enough.

The only fireworks they got to see were those set off at inordinate and seemingly inappropriate times by the organisers. You had to be alert to be able to tell the reason for the big bangs going off. It could have been for a six, a 50 partnership, a 50 by one player, a wicket, reaching 100, an umpire’s birthday, the 1000th beer sold on the night or the arrival of one of the Gupta family to the Long Room, the VIP suite. From reports, the Long Room was not full, although this could not be confirmed. Perhaps it was. Who knows. Actually, who cares? It was certainly a bit of a shock to the organisers that no Indian Premier League team made the final, but if it hurt the television figures, as predicted, then it did not stop Joburgers arriving to cheer on their side.

They stayed on after their team had muddled their innings, struggling to get off the mark against the accurate Sixers’ bowling. The Sixers opened with two spinners in Nathan McCullum and Steve O’Keefe, with McCullum not having bowled in the semi-final and gotten a first baller when he batted. Gulam Bodi, who seemed to have come into some form during the tournament, was, in the parlance of the schoolground, six-and-out. He smashed McCullum’s third ball over long-on for six. He top-edged the second to square leg and was done.

The Lions could not find any sort of rhythm after that. They were made to play like visitors on their home turf. The wickets fell quickly. In 30 minutes most of the team were sitting in the dug-out shaking their heads.

Last night they cheered when runs weren’t scored in the Champions League final. At 7.38pm, when Aaron Phangiso came on to bowl to Brad Haddin, hope sprung eternal. Then Bodi dropped a sitter of a catch. The game was already gone, another title had eluded the Lions. At the end, Bodi walked around with a souvenir stump in his hand. Someone joked it was to defend himself from his mates for dropping that catch. In the Unity Stand, the orgasm-shrieker shouted louder, this time for the Lions. It seems those screams were in agony not happiness.

Nocturnal orgasms and how women experience them

With our prefrontal cortexes suppressed, we're not aware that it's all just in our heads. Picture: Pixabay

When you hear the phrase "wet dreams," you usually think of something that happens to men. But they can actually happen to women, too (though they're perhaps not quite as wet), and they're more common than we realise. 

The fact that many of us learn about male wet dreams as early as primary school sex education yet can go our whole lives without learning about female wet dreams just goes to show how sexist the education we receive still is. So, let's get to the stuff we didn't learn.

It might seem seem odd that orgasms can require quite a bit of effort in your waking life yet come so easily (no pun intended) in your sleep. But our bodies don't distinguish between dreaming and waking states. Some people can "think off," but "dreaming off" is much easier. 

With our prefrontal cortexes suppressed, we're not aware that it's all just in our heads. When we have a scary dream, our hearts race, and similarly, when we have a sexy dream, we get wet, and we may just orgasm.

Speaking of which, nocturnal orgasms almost always result from sexy dreams. They're not purely physical reactions. While dreaming of sexual activity, the brain sends signals to our nerve endings down there that sex is happening. So, it reacts as is it really were happening: blood rushes to the vagina, it contracts and pulsates and eventually - ba da bing! You've had an orgasm.

Usually, you'll know it if you've had a wet dream because the intensity of the orgasm - which tends to be just as high as waking orgasms - will wake you up.

Men are more likely to have them when they're younger, while women have more as they get older. You're also more likely to have them between periods, when you're ovulating and your hormone levels lead to a surge in libido.

However, sex dreams aren't all that common altogether. One study found that college-aged men dream about sex just nine times a year on average, and while it isn't known exactly how common wet dreams are, many people don't have them at all. 

When people do have wet dreams, though, one theory proposes that they come from an increase of activity in the dopaminergic system, the brain's reward center, and a suppression of the prefrontal cortex, which normally controls sexual urges.

Wet dreams can also have psychological roots, but don't read too deeply into them. They don't always reflect waking desires. 

Some people, for instance, dream about having sex with someone when what they really want is to be like that person. We most often dream of having sex with someone we would never touch in that way because sex in a dream isn't as much about a physical union you want as it is about a psychological union you need. 

When you dream of someone in that way, there is very likely something about them you need to incorporate into your own life or into your own behavior. Perhaps they are very laid back and never seemed to be stressed about anything. That may be the quality your dreaming mind wants you to "connect" or "unite" with.

A sex dream may also mean you've connected with somebody on some level, though not necessarily a sexual level. For example, you may have recently had a meaningful conversation with the person, or perhaps you united and did a project together for work. 

In these cases, the sex dream sort of "consummates" the successful real life connection or meeting of the minds. If that consummation leads to an orgasm, even better.

Women's party calls for execution or castration of rapists

File picture: Pexels

Rustenburg - The Women Forward political party will fight for the castration of rapists, child molesters and abusers, its leader Nana Ngobese-Nxumalo said on Monday.

"I actually think rapists should be executed, but castration is the second best. Rape is the worst of all crime and at the moment the law's response is pitiful. Being raped is a lifelong trauma that damages every part of your life in more ways than you can imagine," she said.

Ngobese-Nxumalo said criminals give up their human rights when they totally disregard the human rights of others.

"The rapist should not get to go free, they are still a danger. Not everyone rapes so they can achieve orgasm. If that is all they are after, porn and masturbation or normal dating will suffice."

She said rapists perpetrate their acts because they do not care about other human beings.

"They don't care about consent, they don't consider other people to be people. They like to put people in the position of being helpless because they are sadistic or like feeling powerful." 

The party is contesting the May 8 general elections.

Ngobese-Nxumalo was expected to launch the party manifesto in Rustenburg on March 30.

Yes, men fake it too

In the film When Harry Met Sally, Meg Ryan famously showed how easy it is for a woman to fake an orgasm.

London - When his girlfriend began to initiate lovemaking one night, Tom Stevenson wasn’t really in the mood.

He was tired and would have preferred an early night. Reluctant to disappoint, though, Tom accepted her advances and hoped her passion would ignite his flagging desire. He quickly realised it wasn’t working, but rather than tell her he wanted to stop, he chose a more extreme course of action.

“I faked an orgasm,” Tom, an account executive, admits. “I have quite a high sex drive, so am usually in the mood – but this time I was tired.

“It was the first time I’d ever faked it and it felt like a strange thing to do, but it was the only way I could think to bring things to an end without hurting her feelings.”

Who can forget the famous scene in the film When Harry Met Sally when Sally brings a café to a standstill as she pretends to have an orgasm to prove that men can’t tell the difference between true ecstasy and phony passion?

Significantly, you don’t see Harry following suit, perhaps because until now it’s always been assumed that men never feign orgasm.

However, a new book by a Harvard urology professor suggests that increasing numbers of men are – like Tom – faking it.

Dr Abraham Morgentaler’s findings are backed up by a recent study from the University of Kansas in which a quarter of men admitted faking orgasms.

Meanwhile, men’s website Askmen.com’s survey last year of 2 000 men found that 34 percent admitted faking it, up from 17 percent in 2010.

Shattering the myth that men never simulate a climax, Morgentaler’s book Why Men Fake It: The Totally Unexpected Truth About Men And Sex – which draws on his 25 years of experience treating men’s sexual problems – reveals some other surprising truths.

Morgentaler claims men aren’t always “up for it”, as is commonly assumed, but often feel compelled to perform. “Believe it or not, sometimes it is the man who declines an invitation for sex,” he says.

Tom agrees it’s taboo for men to admit when they aren’t in the mood for intimacy.

“While it’s okay for a woman to say she’s too tired to make love, or has a headache – in fact it’s so common there are jokes about it – it’s not acceptable for men,” he says.

“The image is that men are always up for sex, which makes you feel under pressure to perform even when you don’t want to.”

Secondly, men aren’t selfish lovers concerned only with their own pleasure – as is so often depicted in films and books. According to Morgentaler, they are, in fact, often more concerned with wanting to please their partners than themselves – and that’s a key reason why men pretend to climax. By contrast, research suggests, women tend to fake orgasms to stop partners straying. One US study, for example, found that “women who perceived a higher risk of partner infidelity were more likely to report pretending orgasm”.

Morgentaler says: “Most men who fake it do so because they want their partners to feel good about the encounter. In their minds, it’s actually a form of kindness. In a way, they’re letting the other person know that they’ve done a good job.”

This is certainly something Tom, 25, can identify with. Of the time he faked it with a former girlfriend, he says: “Once we’d started making love, I worried that she’d take it personally and be upset if I said I wanted to stop.

“The only way I could see to resolve the situation was to fake an orgasm. It worked. She felt happy, and I got to go to sleep quicker.”

There is, of course, one rather delicate question that needs answering: Just how do men fake an orgasm?

Given the very obvious result when a man climaxes, surely it’s impossible to disguise if he doesn’t ejaculate?

In his case, Tom says that as he was using a condom, it wasn’t difficult to hide the truth. But even in unprotected sex, it seems, most women don’t notice so long as the man makes a sufficiently convincing display of passion.

Feedback from Morgentaler’s patients suggests that in the heat of the moment they are too caught up in their own pleasure and produce enough natural secretions of their own to realise anything is amiss. 

How to intensify your orgasms

Gents, while this won’t sound like it’s for your benefit at first, it really is.

The practice of edging is the art of stimulating the relevant bits, bringing yourself or the other person as close to the edge of orgasm as possible, and stopping before climax occurs.

So you might want to practice this alone first, because it may take a bit of practice to get right.

Set yourself a target of edging a certain amount of times before you climax when you masturbate.

As that target gets easier, set the target higher, until you reach a maximum you’ve set – maybe as high as fifteen or twenty edges.

This is going to achieve two things: first, you’ll last significantly longer and have much better control over your orgasms, and secondly when you do finally release it will be explosive.

Once you’re comfortable doing this on your own, start introducing it in sex, edging yourself as far as possible, as many times as possible.

Once you have control over that, take control and start edging your partner’s orgasms – most women will thank you for it – sincerely thank you for it.

Your new erogenous zone: your earlobe

In NeuroLinguistic Programming, one of the key tools is a process called anchoring – basically we get your body to make an association between a sensation or emotion and a physical movement.

The way it works is that at the peak of the emotion or sensation, you make a specific movement for two to three seconds.

Every time you reinforce this association, the anchor gets stronger, until eventually you can trigger the sensation just by using the anchor. In this case, we’re going to anchor orgasms to earlobes.

We’re using earlobes because they’re usually close to your mouth at the point of orgasm.

Simply put what you’re going to do is, when your partner reaches the height of their orgasm you’re going to suckle on their earlobe for two to three seconds.

Next orgasm, you do the same, on the same earlobe, suckling in the same way.

What this does is twofold: first it anchors multiple orgasm experiences onto that earlobe, so eventually you land up experiencing the sensations of multiple orgasms when the trigger is used.

Secondly, the anchor can eventually be loaded up until you will be able to trigger an orgasm by simply suckling on your partner’s earlobe. Who knew?

Synchronised Breathing

Okay this one’s for the ladies and romantics out there. It takes a bit of practice but yields amazing results when you want to feel more emotionally bonded and connected through sex.

The first thing you need to do is practice a bit of synchronized breathing with your partner – use counting in the beginning, e.g. in, 1, 2; hold, 1, 2; and out, 1, 2. It doesn’t matter if you hold in the middle or how long each in and out breath is, it only matters that the two of you find a rhythm and pace that suits you for the breathing.

Once you’ve mastered the synchronized breathing, you can use this exercise in one of two ways:

Put your foreheads together so that your eyes are a few centimetres apart.

Look deeply into each other’s eyes while you practice synchronized breathing for a predetermined time or amount of breaths.

It feels awkward at first, but once you’re comfortable you can try using a song to time the exercise. Use this to connect emotionally before and after sex.

The other way to do this is to look into each other’s eyes and/or synchronise your breathing during orgasms.

Be warned though that something this intense can cause a release of emotion, so don’t panic if you do it the first (or even tenth or twentieth) time and your partner bursts into tears.

This exercise can make you feel very emotionally vulnerable, but very close and bonded.