Is it possible to make a penis bigger? What causes nocturnal female orgasms? And how easy is it to get pregnant?
Well over a thousand people packed the Telus World of Science Edmonton Thursday night to learn the answer to these and other questions as part of a special presentation on the science of sex.
(The answers are "yes, temporarily," "dream-related arousal," and "it depends," respectively.)
The talk was part of the science centre's Dark Matters series – an ongoing adults-only event that gives grown-ups a chance to drink, socialize, and learn about science without the crowds of kids that usually pack the centre.
"Sex is still a taboo subject and Edmonton is definitely a conservative city," says Telus staff scientist Marie McConnell, yet everyone wants licence to talk about it.
"We said, hey, why not talk about the science of sex?"
Thursday's event featured a number of talks on sex and sexuality by experts from the University of Alberta, in addition to presentations on sex toy technology and sexually transmitted diseases. Guests got to submit and get responses to anonymous questions about sex (such as the ones mentioned above), learn about bondage and whips, and take in the centre's first-ever burlesque show.
"One of the things that I learned last week that's probably my new favourite fact is that the motor that's in a vibrator that makes it vibrate is the same type of motor that's in your phone," McConnell says.
"It's technology that we all have in our pockets. We just use it for a different purpose."
How scandalous!
There's still much we don't know about human sexuality, says speaker Shaniff Esmail, associate chair of occupational therapy and researcher of sexuality and disability at the University of Alberta. It wasn't until the 1960s that the world saw its first comprehensive study of the subject.
"Even today, when you go out and do sexual research, to get money and funding is very difficult," he notes. American sex researchers couldn't get any federal support under the recent Bush administration unless they studied abstinence, for example.
Young people, meanwhile, continue to get misleading information about sex from pornography and the Internet, Esmail continues. Spreading knowledge about the science of sex should help people make better choices about it.
For example, a lot of people object to certain human behaviours on the grounds that they are "unnatural," says Heather Proctor, a U of A biologist who spoke on invertebrate sexuality at the Telus Thursday.
But when you look at insect reproduction, you find a whole host of freaky stuff going on.
You've got male spiders that rip off one of their pedipalps (genitals) because they're too big, for example, and flatworms that engage in "penis-fencing" – a deadly dance where two hermaphroditic creatures try to impregnate each other without getting jabbed themselves.
You've even got species where the male has an "innie" and the female has an "outie," such as the brown hyena, the female of which has an exceptionally long pseudo-penis for a clitoris.
"There's nothing that's not natural in the world," she concludes.
Esmail discussed the biological mechanisms behind sexual response.
"When it comes to sex, women have men beat," he says – they have more areas with which to detect erogenous sensation, more variety in sexual response and more orgasms per session.
Women also have the G-spot, a sensitive area located about 1.5 inches into the vagina, he continues. While often considered an erogenous zone, researchers now believe it plays a role in childbirth. The back of a baby's head hits this exact spot during childbirth, which may help counteract the pain of the experience.
"If a guy says he's got a 12-inch penis, he's not lying," he continues – although the external portion of it is typically less than six inches, the base of the penis is actually extends far into the pelvic area.
The next Dark Matters event takes place on Aug. 20 and will be on the science of nerd-dom, McConnell says. Visit telusworldofscienceedmonton.ca for details.
