It's fairly gorgeous in Sonoma County this time of year and the days are getting warmer. This afternoon I rode in my car with my windows down and the radio blasting. The song was Tina Turner's "What's Love Got To Do With It." It doesn't matter as much what song it was as that it is a full-throated, lusty song, one that you have to open up your mouth to sing and open it big. And you have to open up your chest and throat, too.
When we open up to sing that fully, especially songs that have a deep, lower resonance to them, we are triggering and using our vagus nerve. The vagus nerve is a big one. It's long and it branches a lot of times as it snakes throughout our body. It innervates the voicebox, the throat, the upper palate, the heart, the lungs and portions of the digestive system. You can look it up on any resource site to understand it better.
But what those research sites don't often say is that not only does it innervate the throat and chest, it is directly connected to the cervix and uterus. What does this mean for women's pleasure? Beverly Whipple and Barry Komisaruk have investigated the vagus nerve and deep vaginal orgasms in women who have spinal cord injuries. This spinal cord compromise causes them to lack feeling in their lower extremities, thus not allowing them the capacity to feel orgasms by other nerve structures (There are four major nerve pathways to orgasm for women and three for men). The vagus nerve doesn't travel through the spinal cord, however. Deep, penetrative sexual activities that affect the cervix and stimulate the uterus trigger orgasm via this nerve. These women can have and feel the orgasms.
Here is what I am speculating: That opening up the mouth, chest cavity (through slow, deep breathing) and orgasmic capacities via the vagus nerve may lead to powerful orgasms and possibly multiples and female ejaculation. When women emit deep, low sounds from their abdomens and with their mouths wide open this can sometimes lead to longer lasting, powerful orgasms and even female ejaculation. This all makes sense if you consider that the vagus nerve connects all of these functions, throat, chest, cervix and uterus, and that when they are utilized to the fullest extent of the nerve, and all of its endings, the nerve becomes so activated that it produces out of body pleasure that is more than the sum of its parts, so to speak.
I had a direct transmission of this 'action' years ago from Caroline Muir, then of Source Tantra, but I have puzzled over it until I learned about this nerve. During some filming with the Muirs, that my husband and I did, I noticed some deep, moaning sounds she had made during her orgasms and ejaculation demonstration. Her mouth was wide open and the sounds were coming from down deep inside her abdomen. Making these kinds of sounds also causes a 'pushing' down or out, as in childbirth, of the pelvic floor and genitals, giving even better access to the depths of the yoni (Sanskrit for Vagina).
You can even feel this when you are simply singing full-throated songs. The diaphragm pushes downward on the pelvis. I tried copying her sounds, later that night in the privacy of our room, and had an immediate experience of multiple orgasms and female ejaculation that continued unabated for a long time. I was astonished at the simple yet powerful affect this had. I have had my experience corroborated since then by other women.
How and why would these conditions all work together to produce such extremes in orgasmic pleasure? Is the vagus nerve the 'unusual' suspect? Oh, by the way, activating the vagus nerve is being done to treat chronic depression so singing, conscious breathing and orgasms may be the antidote to those 'down' days.
So, any thoughts or similar experiences would be interesting. I don't care how speculative they are, I would love to know other's thoughts on this subject. Though no one is writing about this particular subject, there is a great book sourced above called The Science of Orgasm by Whipple, Komisaruk and Beyers-Flores.
Suzie Heumann is the founder of Tantra.com. She studies, writes, has authored three books and makes films about conscious sex, Tantra and the Kama Sutra. Check out Tantra.com Premium for the most comprehensive tantra training available on the Internet!
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I have to say, the current HP blogs on Sacred Sex are a fantastic, unexpected subject!
If done properly and with properly taught breathing techniques, this chant creates a vibration/ low guttural rumble that can be felt from the base seat through the crown seat w/ a special emphasis on the 5th seat at the back of the throat. It wasn't until I became an EMT and took an anatomy class, that I began to overstand why.
We're taught as EMT's how to clear a person's airway by suctioning. We can only suction an adult's airway for a maximum of 15 secs, because any longer than that and it will stimulate the vagus nerve and raise the adult's heart rate or cause arryhthmias. The vagus nerve runs down the back of the throat and embeds some of it's roots in the heart. So now I overstand why chanting aum properly can help control the flow of blood in the body.
I don't doubt that singing soulfully - meaning singing from diaphragmatic projection, instead of nasal projection (think Barry White vs Bee Gees) could help facilitate orgasm. The big "O" is all about proper blood flow and proper breathing - both of which are necessary for a good sexual experience.
They also recommended deep kissing to help with childbirth.
Why do the crazy hippies always end up right thirty years later?
Several of the standard accoutrement of BDSM, and of bondage in particular, engage the vagus nerve incidentally, but beautifully, while other more exotic practices within BDSM harness the vagus specifically. I'm a generally kinky guy, and do a lot of rope with several splendidly perverse partners (including my wife of 25 years who is, as it happens, a singer). While tight binding may be the, um, dominant mode of my sexual expression, through it I've noticed many salient qualities of the vagus nerve, its responses to unorthodox practices, and its implication in orgasm. I'll keep it to two, one a commonplace in BDSM, the other less so.
Gagging, as in with an appliance used to silence someone, is a run of the mill accessory practice to bondage, but often favored once experienced and often very effective, sexually (effective silencing is actually pretty hard to achieve). Having the mouth kept open and being able to yell or scream full-out and in an *unrestrained* way, almost always amplifies orgasm, and has sometimes made the difference between a partner having an orgasm or not. I'm reminded that in the first edition of The Joy of Sex a female interviewee is quoted endorsing a gag with her bondage: "it keeps the bubbles in the champagne."
(Continued)
Sound does not come from the abdomen. No matter how hard you try.
If you were to look at a trumpet you would probably think that only the bell produces sound, but a trumpet player knows that the entire instrument vibrates and resonates with sound. In fact, if you look at the variety of wind instruments their varying shapes and sizes produce varying sounds and pitches.
In the same way the varying sizes and shapes of humans' anatomy produces varying sounds and pitches, because the entire airway is an instrument - not just the mouth. Proper breathing and sound starts with the diaphragm, which divides the abdomen from the thorax. So even though humans have taught themselves to breath strictly from the chest and upper airway - one look at a new born and you will see that our proper, instinctual, genetically programmed way of breathing expands the belly first and then the chest and then raises the shoulders. So you can produce sound from your abdomen.
An easier way to understand this is to close your mouth and hum - do you hear anything? Now work to lower the pitch of your hum and you can feel the sound and vibration travel from your head, to your throat, to your chest and w/ practice, your abdomen.
***I want to say THANK YOU all for being thoughtful, very well informed, intelligent and active in making comments and posts that get me thinking, feed my soul and let others know the wide range of experiences and knowledge you all have. Much Gratitude!***
Well, Suzy, I want to THANK YOU for enlightening this 68 year old male who had heard Nothing about these phenomena until this reading. Yes, it is sad; I've gone through a nearly complete 'normal' life while effectively 'cheating' all the women I've ever been intimate with. And all the while totally ignorant of my own ignorance. I immediately and instinctively want to point fingers at those responsible for this ignorance but have trouble identifying who they are? This type of knowledge just wasn't available in my part of the South. Perhaps the Old Bible Belt had something to do with it.
The dozens (hundreds?) of times I've left my mates needy is nearly overwhelming to me this morning.
I'm sorry. I had no idea....
Brick
This is very touching. Would more men understood this dimension so lacking in their "performance." It robs us all. Speaking for myself, this has made celibacy my choice, even though I spent years crying over it. It really is a tragedy that ignorance and the willful perversion of something so beautiful and natural by religious authorities has so robbed us and even twisted our lives. We all deserve whole, open, full sexual expression as a means to health of every kind. I miss it terribly but will never compromise so long as I draw breath. It is simply degrading to expose one's self to this much intimacy only to miss the mark by so far, or even to have a partner treat you as "dirty" because of your open and honest sexuality. I'm old now (66) and it isn't so painful as it was, but I grieve for all that has been missed in so many lives, including yours.
OldTart
I think it is great that you are sharing information to help more people become aware of how to use the equipment that they were born with. I have been lucky enough to have a couple of lovers who seemed to have exceptional knowledge or talent at finding the right harmony to satisfy the beast within.
I wonder if there shouldn't be some kind of warning though. This sort of thing could surely be addictive, and lead to aneurisms, or at least nodules on the vocal folds if carried to extremes. I am envious of women, and feel we males got cheated.
RIP Lutha!
"...most of my ladies."
I'm embarrassed for you.