Science Vs - Mind-Blowing Orgasms: Does the Male G-Spot Exist?

Episode Date: June 20, 2024

We’re hearing stories of people having amazing, cosmic orgasms. So what buttons are they pressing to do this?? Well, it's just one. The “male G spot,” also called the “P spot,” because that P stands for prostate. Word on the street is that if you touch your prostate in just the right way — BAM — one helluva orgasm. But is that really true? And if you don't have a prostate (ahem, me): are you stuck with your garden variety orgasms? To get to the bottom of this, Science Vs surveyed almost 16,000 people about anal sex and masturbation! We also speak with Dr Dan Dickstein, Dr Tom Gaither and Neuroscientist Dr Nan Wise. Have an idea for a Science Vs episode? Let us know! On Instagram we're Science_Vs, Wendy's Tiktok is @wendyzukerman and our email is [e-mail] Find our transcript here: https://bit.ly/ScienceVsMind-BlowingOrgasms In this episode, we cover: (00:00) Absolutely cosmic orgasms (04:47) Anal sex is big right now (08:52) What makes the prostate special (12:02) The hole story. The butthole story. (20:19) How to get a cosmic orgasm (29:19) Tips and tricks for great anal sex (34:54) The real G spot This episode was produced by Wendy Zukerman, with help from Meryl Horn, Rose Rimler, and Michelle Dang. We’re edited by Blythe Terrell. Fact checking by Diane Kelly. Mix and sound design by Bobby Lord. Music written by Bobby Lord, Emma Munger, Bumi Hidaka and Peter Leonard. A huge thank you to Sam Levang for her help analyzing our data. And Professor Caroline Pukall and Dan Dickstein for your help with our survey questions. Thanks to the researchers we spoke to including Dr Devon Hensel. Thanks to Jack Weinstein, Hunter, the Zukerman Family and Joseph Lavelle Wilson. Science Vs is a Spotify Studios Original. Listen for free on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Follow us and tap the bell for episode notifications. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hi, I'm Wendy Zuckerman and you're listening to Science Verses. After today's episode, we're going to take a short break to work on new episodes. So that means that if there's anything that you want us to versus, we would love to know. If there's a diet you're wondering you should try or you're worried about something and wondering, do I really need to stress about this? We want to know what should we make new episodes on? So please tell us. You can find us on Instagram, science underscore VS, or on my TikTok, at Wendy Zuckerman.

There's also an email. We're going to put all the ways to get in touch with us in the show notes. So please let us know what you want us to versus. Okay, time to jump into today's episode. We're pitting facts against... It feels fucking amazing. Go online and you'll hear stories of people having the most amazing orgasms. Felt absolutely insane.

I cannot describe. Massive, multidimensional, cosmic orgasm. Pretty much instantly, he came. Fucking Mount Vesuvius. So how are they doing this? What buttons are they pressing? Well, it turns out, it's just one. The male G-spot.

It was the best orgasm that I've ever had. The male G-spot, also called the P-spot, because that P stands for prostate. The prostate comes with the package of being born with a penis. And if you put, say, a finger around two inches inside your butthole, you'll reach it. And people say that if you do this in just the right way, bam, super orgasm. Men have a prostate, and it absolutely promotes an orgasm beyond belief. Stimulating your prostate,

like that is some next level pleasure. You know, and if you go through your whole life without experiencing that, you're just, damn. Oh my gosh. Okay, that last guy. Oh my gosh, guy. That's Dr. Jamin Brombart, a urologist at Orlando Health in Florida.

We first interviewed Jamin a few years ago for our episode on blue balls. I'm really happy to see that myballshurt.com still brings me to your website. It does. But I should buy myprostatefeelsgood.com too. What do you think? A lot of Jamin's work involves poking around the prostate to check for prostate cancer.

But he told me about this wild case study that he found. About a 63-year-old man that bought a prostate massage device and felt amazing orgasms. So amazing that he became addicted. What? And I'm like, hells yeah. Man, this would be pretty awesome. I think the device I looked up is $89.99. So maybe in the podcast, we can put a little affiliate code on Amazon and then you can get 10%. But seriously, we are looking for sponsors. And also, what is going on here?

Prostate-induced orgasms that are so good you could get addicted to them? Today on the show, we are finding out, is the prostate truly a key to the best orgasms of your life? And if you're a sucker like me with no prostate, are we really stuck with our garden variety orgasms? And in this episode, we have pulled out all the stops. Because to answer these questions and more, we conducted what we think is one of the largest surveys

in the world on this topic. Almost 16,000 of you responded. That's right, almost 16,000 people. This is absolutely bonkers. And then we teamed up with sexual health researchers at Queen's University in Canada to analyse the results. So stick around, because the research is starting to show that we've been thinking about this G-spot

in a completely arse-about way. When it comes to the male G-spot in a completely arse-about way. When it comes to the male G-spot, there's a lot of... Massive, multidimensional, cosmic orgasm. But then, there's science. And a quick note, in this episode, if we say men or male or women, we're talking about cis people, and we'll say when we're referring to trans and gender diverse folks. All right, we're going to crack the case of the male

G-spot just after the break. Bottoms up. Metrolinx and Crosslinx are reminding everyone to be careful as Eglinton Crosstown LRT train testing is in progress. Please be alert as trains can pass at any time on the tracks. Remember to follow all traffic signals. Be careful along our tracks and only make left turns where it's safe to do so. Be alert, be aware, and stay safe. Bumble knows it's hard to start conversations.

Hey, no, too basic. Hi there. Still no. What about hello, handsome? Who knew you could give yourself the ick? That's why Bumble is changing how you start conversations. You can now make the first move or not. With opening moves, you simply choose a question to be automatically sent to your matches.

Then sit back and let your matches start the chat. Download Bumble and try it for yourself. Welcome back. Today on the show, the so-called male G-spot. Can pressing the prostate, let's say a cheeky finger or dick up the butt, really trigger the best, most cosmic orgasms of your life? So, zooming out here for a moment. It turns out that a lot of you are trying butt stuff

and doing what the nerds call receptive anal intercourse, which is basically where you put something up your butthole for pleasure, whether it's a toy, a finger or a dick. In our survey, out of almost 16,000 people, just under half of you had given this kind of thing a go. Including a ton of straight men, by the way. Now, our numbers are a little higher than other research on this topic, so y'all are either more adventurous, more honest, or both.

But still, the general picture shows that this is common. And yet, it's also hush-hush. It's 2024 and it's still like, we're still not talking about anal, receptive anal intercourse. Dr. Dan Dickstein is a resident at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York. And even when I like go to the doctor,

if anal sex ever does come up, it's like we have, they whisper. It's like, oh, anal. It's like, question, question, question. And then they lower their voice. It's like, oh, anal. It's like, question, question, question. And then they lower their voice. It's like, oh my God. It is crazy how taboo anal sex is. Like it is, like even, to be honest with you,

even like as I've been doing all this research and I'm writing Dan Dickstein brackets anal sex. And I was like, oh my God, is this allowed on my work calendar? It is so, it's so taboo. And because we don't talk about it, I would say that this is sort of like, what I'm recognizing is because we don't talk about it, it perpetuates the stigma. And sort of by saying nothing, you're saying something. So today, we're going to say a lot about anal. And our first question is one that Dan's been diving into, and it's this. Why can butt stuff feel so great?

Is the prostate, you know, the male G-spot, driving these sensations? He's actually wondered about this ever since he was in college. He remembered this night where he was sitting in his dorm room in Maine, and, you know, he'd just done some butt stuff. I feel like I just, whatever. And I just remember, like, sitting, like, being on my bed, like, looking up in space, being like, is this normal? Like, I enjoyed it. Is this normal?

Like, why? Like, how? Like, sort of these basic questions. And there I was, like, Googling things, and there was nothing, and I didn't know who to And there I was like Googling things and there was nothing and I didn't know who to ask. I was completely lost. But Dan put these questions to bed for more than a decade. That was until two things happened. So Dan grew up to become a doctor that specializes in radiation oncology.

And one day, he's talking to a patient who had prostate cancer, telling him that treatments like radiation and surgery might affect his erections. And then this patient asks him, well, how does radiation impact receptive anal intercourse? And I was like, oh my God, this patient really stumped me. I was like, I don't know. And let me ask my attending. They were like, I don't know. And my co-residents were like, uh, I don't know. Nobody really knew and nobody really even knew what direction to

point me in. And then pretty soon after that, this prestigious journal was doing a call-out asking young academics to write about issues, kind of like receptive anal intercourse. It was actually a colleague of Dan's who saw it. He was like, oh my God, Dixie, now's your chance. He like screamed in the resident room. It's like he saw it on Twitter. Dixie, now's your chance.

You have to do this. It's like this was a sign from above. You are so right. So Dan goes deep into the research, picking up what strands of evidence that he can from other studies and textbooks to find out, ultimately, when you look at the nerves

and structures in our body, what can make you orgasm from anal? And critically, is the prostate doing the heavy lifting here? And Dan figured that this would then lay the groundwork for understanding if you remove the prostate in a cancer patient, would that ruin the pleasure of bottoming? So he starts reading about how the prostate is this spongy gland that secretes this fluid that goes into your semen.

And that's actually why if you push on the prostate, stuff can ooze out of your penis, which is sometimes called milking. But when it comes to orgasms, what the prostate really has going for it is location, location, location. Yes, exactly. It's literally surrounded by nerves. And these nerves are really important to getting you aroused and erect.

So take, for example, the neurovascular bundle. It's a bundle of nerves and vessels, yeah. And it's literally between the prostate and the rectum. And when we push on that, it goes to the erectile tissues, and that's what causes an erection. In sex education, there's a whole plot line of one of the characters gets a finger up his ass and he's like, whoa, comes immediately. And before that, we had Stifler having the exact same experience. Exactly. Oh, and quick fact check here. This actually happened in the movie

Road Trip when the actor was playing a different character. But once a Stifler, always a Stifler. So what's going on there? Exactly. So yeah, so Stifler, that's happening to Stifler and in sex education because there's this, there's pressure on the nerves that are between the prostate and the rectum. And that pressure is then going to lead

to increased blood flow to the penis. Aha. You see, the prostate sits at the base of your penis. And so putting pressure on that area can stimulate the nerves around your willy, ultimately encouraging blood to flow down there. And voila, erection. We also think that pushing on the prostate, say with a finger or a dick, can stimulate some of those nerves that we talked about so that then they send these feel-good messages up through your spinal cord and to your brain.

So here's how Dan thinks about it. From the trusting and pushing the prostate, the prostate is a physical thing that it's going to hit these other surrounding nerves to also create more pleasure. On top of all of this, in our survey of you guys, we also found this important clue about whether the prostate is really King Dick here. You see, people with prostates

said that they orgasmed more often from butt stuff and also got more pleasure from their anal orgasms compared to people who don't have prostates. All suggesting that, yeah, the prostate is special. I think it's so special. Is it special? I would love, I honestly, I would love a necklace with a little prostate on it. I think it is very special.

That's really, truly. But before Dan totally committed to his prostate necklace purchase, he kept going deeper and deeper on this. And he came across some very curious research, including this one study by this fella. Yeah, it's a little bit out there, I'll tell you that. And I've had a little bit of some people kind of turning heads when I kind of talk about it.

The guy turning heads here is Dr. Tom Gaither, who's a fellow in the urology department at the University of California, Los Angeles. And what's interesting about his study is that while when you look at the nerves around the prostate, it makes sense that it would be a special sex button, Tom wanted to know what happens when you actually talk to people who like anal

and find out where exactly does it feel good. So he and a colleague got 30 people who have prostates and started chatting to them. So we asked them, it's like, where do you feel these sensations? And we try to get to the nitty gritty of like, you know, what does it feel like? What can you describe the sensation to us? And at first, there was a little bit of G-spot chatter. One person said, quote, discovering your G-spot is like the most amazing thing in the world. Another said, quote, ever been touched in the prostate? Incredible. But as these conversations went on, Tom noticed

something odd. What's really funny is that a lot of people have no idea where the prostate is. You say, you know, oh, do you like people like, oh, I enjoy prostate stimulation. It's about five inches in there. And I'm like, you know, the prostate, I can touch your prostate with my finger. I guarantee you that it's about one or two inches in. So what they're experiencing is not prostate stimulation, right? It's something else.

Something else? But what? As part of the study, Tom also showed them a diagram, an anatomy of the tushy. Do you want me to share my screen? Yeah, yeah. Okay, so we showed them this picture, and we said, okay, so here's where the anus is,

basically the butthole, right? And then moving further up your ass, you'll hit the rectum. And here's the bladder and the prostates in front. And while some people did point to the prostate and say, yep, that is really the spot that does it for me. A lot of people were pointing all over the butt. It was so interesting because what we found was that people like different sensations when it comes to receptive anal intercourse. It's

not all the same. And it's not all this, the male G-spot. 100% no. 100% no. I think the thing that was so shocking for me was that the idea that the prostate wasn't the G-spot for everybody. One person said that right at the anus, which is before you hit the prostate, quote, that's just where I get most of my pleasure from. And so anything past that is just useless. Some people described the feeling of their anal sphincters being stretched as relaxing. And then beyond the prostate and into the rectum, other people loved that feeling.

Like one person said it was... Cozy, you know, kind of just like... A lot of people said like it fits like a hand in a glove sort of thing. That it just feels like there's this perfect space for that. And, you know, they find that pleasurable. It's also really interesting to me that you said people didn't know where their prostate was. Because that really makes me feel like this would drive this narrative. It's all the prostate. Oh, yeah.

Anytime anyone's getting butt sex, they're like, got that prostate, hit it, and you're like, you're not hitting it. That's somewhere else. Not at all. They realize that it's actually the anus that they enjoy, or they enjoy that sort of deeper sort of rectal fullness, like way past the prostate. They're loving that sensation.

It's not the prostate at all. Tom went on to survey almost a thousand people with prostates about receptive anal intercourse and again found that loads of them said that the anus and rectum were erogenous zones. It wasn't just about the prostate. And as Dan, you know, Dr. Dan, I want a prostate necklace, Dickstein, kept looking at the anatomy here, he was like, of course the whole butt region can be erogenous and not just the prostate. Because remember all of those nerves that make the prostate such an exciting candidate for G-spot extraordinaire?

Well, nerves are spread over the entire butt region. So if you think about the nerves around your butt, prostate, and penis, like branches of a tree, a ton of them have the same trunk. It's called the pudendal nerve. To me, that's the nerve, like the sexual pleasure nerve. There are branches of it that innervate the penis, but also the anus and skin that's surrounding the anus,

the erectile tissues. So that's sort of like the backbone of that area. Right. Oh, it's my favorite nerve. If you had to ask me what's your favorite nerve in the body, I cannot even believe I have an answer to this. I'm like mortified, but it would be pudundal. It's not vagus? It's not vagus?

I know I used to say trigeminal, but now it's like I moved away from the face. But no, I love like the pudundal nerve. I love it. And now that we know that the prostate is not the whole story here, but it's really a butthole story here. Well, that totally checks out when you think about who else has a butthole and likes anal. Well, I've enjoyed anal sex and it's probably not doing anything for my prostate. This is Dr. Nan Wise, a sex therapist and neuroscientist. So I've enjoyed it tremendously at times, you know, not to be personal about this.

It's not necessarily my go-to, but it can be so much fun. And Nan is not alone. In our survey of you all, people without prostates were orgasming quite a bit while they were doing butt stuff. Like around half of you who said you'd wanked with, let's say, a finger or a toy up the butt, said that you often or always orgasmed from it. And another survey of thousands of women found that around 40% of them said that they enjoyed some kind of anal touch,

which included just touching the butthole to putting a penis up there. But then, of course, some astute listeners might be wondering, if the prostate isn't that special, then why did people with prostates in our survey seem to orgasm more often from butt stuff? Well, this could be for a few reasons that don't have anything to do with anatomy.

Generally speaking, men tend to orgasm more than women, no matter what parts they're pleasuring, and this is largely for kind of socialised reasons. We also know from other research that the more experience that you have from anal sex, the more likely it is that you'll find it enjoyable. This is true for other kinds of sex too. You get to know your body and what you like.

And the thing is that once we controlled for how much experience people had with anal, then there was less of a difference when it came to how often people were orgasming and the pleasure that they got from their orgasms. You know, on top of this, like we said, the prostate is a special hored dog place for some people. It's just not the only chihuahua in town, if you know what I mean. So does the male G-spot exist? No, I don't think it really exists. I think that there are all these different structures and anatomical parts of your body that are involved in pleasure.

I don't think there's like a spot. Bottom line, forget searching for one magic prostate sex button. After the break, if you open your heart and anal sphincter to anal sex, will it lead to the best orgasm of your life? Welcome back. So what we've learned is that people aren't talking out of their ass when they say that they've had great prostate-induced orgasms.

It's just that if you put the research together, cheek to cheek, you'll see that there are a bunch of potential pleasure points in the butt that many people actually prefer over the prostate. But even though there's no male G-spot, clearly anal sex and sexy butt stuff is giving some people really great orgasms. Like remember those folks at the start of the show? Multidimensional cosmic orgasms. So my next question is this. How do I get one of those? Is anal sex truly the key to the best orgasms of our lives? Well, what is clear from the data is that these astral butt orgasms, they're not happening to everyone here.

In fact, Dr. Tom Gaither told me about this one guy who reached out to him thinking that there was actually something wrong. He told him... He was like, listen, can I just talk to you? I really need to talk to you. And I've been trying for years, and I've never been able to experience that. He hears these experiences of other people where it's like,

oh, it's this magical, all these things, and he just doesn't feel that. But there's nothing wrong with this guy, or if this is you. Studies have found that some people have tried anal, and in some cases, a lot of anal, and they just aren't that into it. In our survey of you guys, a bunch of you weren't orgasming at all from putting stuff up your butts. And that could be for lots of reasons. You know, we're all special sex snowflakes. But let's zoom in on the people that were having an amazing time with anal. Because maybe we can learn a thing or two from your ways.

Okay, so of those who were orgasming from butt stuff, over a third of you said that your orgasms from anal were better than your other orgasms. And y'all are having a lot of fun. People said things like, leg wobbly stuff, mind-blowing. And because I'm a nerd, perhaps my favourite is, quote, it's the plus on A+. Now, some of what's going on here might just come down to preferences

or even be physiological. Perhaps the way that you're wired means that you enjoy anal more than other stuff. But drilling into our data further, I could see that there was one big thing going on here and it was something that really helped me explain how people were getting their come to Jesus comes. And it's by looking into research into a part of the body that we haven't really talked about too much thus far. The brain.

So let's go back to neuroscientist Dr. Nan Wise, because she's done this awesome research uncovering how the brain processes sensations from the butt and genitals. Why did you want to do this study? We wanted to do it because it wasn't done. This is a basic science thing. I know this feels like basic anatomy and yet it was published just a couple of years ago? Because it's sex, Wendy. So for this study, Nan got a group of men. Turns out recruiting them was a piece of cake. The word was out for a good time call, Dr. Nan.

We had a lot of people interested in donating orgasms. She got 21 men to hop into an MRI, and the plan was that they would touch themselves in specific areas so then she could see what happened in their brain as they stimulated all these different body parts. And they stimulated all these different body parts. So they started with the penis, gently touching themselves on the tip of the penis.

Then they moved to the midshaft. Then the base of the shaft. Then they moved to the mid-shaft. Then the base of the shaft. Then the scrotum. The left testicle. Right testicle. The nipple. The urethra. Perineum.

Rectum. And then deeper still the prostate. And then how do you like reach into your butthole to like press it? The thing they had to do. Your eyes have lit up. They had to use this acrylic tool to reach behind. So what is it? Does it look like a J-shaped dildo?

What does it look like? It was like a curved thing. So they would open their legs and be able to insert it to stimulate the prostate. And this is particularly impressive because these guys had to poke and prod themselves while keeping their heads extremely still. Head movement can make brain scan images look blurry. And this also meant that Nan had to put something on their heads to make extra sure that they didn't move. It looked like Hannibal Lecter's helmet, you know, did you ever see in the movie, like, so that he wouldn't bite people?

Right, right. Fans of Science Versus will remember this helmet from our orgasm episode where Nan used the same device on women. And then we put it on this, like, neck collar to keep their neck still. Oh, my God. But I will tell you, the people, the staff at the scanner did not like our studies. And at one point, one of the male participants got Vaseline on the button box. Now, that was a big deal. So after all this, what did Nan see?

What clues did she find to getting us the best orgasms of our lives? Well, perhaps like you'd expect after hearing from Tom and Dan. When the men stimulated all of these different parts of their bodies, like the rectum and around the prostate, but also the penis, scrotum, testicles, and nipple, the brain got a little tickle. And it was inside an area called the somatosensory cortex. It's basically the place in the brain that registers touch and pain sensations. But what was cool was that a lot of those sexy body parts, well, they mapped onto slightly different spots within that region of the brain. So it's just different little sections of it. And when Nan looks at all this data,

she thinks that the takeaway to increase the chance of having a cosmic orgasm is to try to touch as many places as you like. So perhaps the penis and the butt and maybe your nipple. When you add more inputs to that genital sensory cortex, you're going to get more of that real estate sort of online, which means that there's probably going to be more sensation. Right. More of that area of the brain gliding up.

More additive sensation. For example, a man who might be having some issues with erection might decide to use a butt plug to get more sensations there that would be in support of his erection. Right. You know, it kind of makes sense, doesn't it? Yeah. Inputs. Inputs.

Just like, you know, you play one or two keys, it's not going to sound so loud. You put a lot of keys together and then you get music. And while Nan's study was in men, she reckons it's the exact same story no matter what your parts are. And in fact, a survey of women also found that pairing anal play along with stuff like clitoral stimulation could make orgasms more intense. And we saw this in our survey of you guys as well.

A bunch of you told us that you actually only got your astral orgasms from anal plus a little paddling your own pink canoes, tugging on your krakens. Inputs. That's the thing that set you over the edge. And then, just quickly, there were a couple of other things going on that could also explain why some anal orgasms are really great. Like, in our survey, some of you told us how anal felt taboo and exciting. Others said that it made them feel vulnerable in a way that felt really awesome. And then says

that all of those things could filter into how wonderful an orgasm is going to be. I think the key is, is that people get into such ruts and routines in their lovemaking, and we forget, like, to kind of go in, like, the playground. So, like, anal sex, it could be something fun to explore, new territory. So now that we found a secret to getting celestial orgasms, there was only one big question left. I went back to Dan. So after listening to this episode,

perhaps a lot of listeners might want to try this for the first time. So what are some... Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God. I'm like, oh my God. I just, oh my God. I did not see that question coming.

I'm like, oh my God. I am sweating. I'm like, my god I am sweating I'm like oh my god because you're gonna be the like anal whisperer I'm like about to be the anal whisperer I'm like so you know I'm like oh my god yeah I mean it's funny because like a lot of our listeners for all I know maybe I'm the most vanilla of all of our listeners and so like, like, actually, maybe they're all like, oh, my God, Wendy, this is painful. 40 minutes of Wendy learning about anal. I love it. I love it. So, whisper away. Whisper away. Yeah, so whisper away.

So, the first thing is communicate. So, I do think communication is, like, very important that, like, if it's painful, like, if it feels off, say something. Like, definitely just say something. Saying, like, ouch, that hurts.. Like you have to, you should say that. And pain is potentially a big thing here. So while many, many, many people have anal sex and it doesn't hurt at all, if your partner doesn't know what they're doing, then anal can actually be really painful.

In one study, almost half the women said that they had to stop having anal sex the first time because they found the pain was too much. Another survey of mostly men who didn't have too much experience with anal found that almost 40% of them described the pain as severe. Researchers also found that some men will keep going even if they know anal sex is hurting their partner and they don't like it. That is a dog move and they should stop. There are things that you can do

to prevent anal from being painful. So here's Dan. So really, the reason it might hurt is because you might be too tight down there. So why might it be too tight? So it might be too tight because you aren't relaxed enough, you didn't have enough foreplay. It might be too tight because you're anxious.

And researchers found that psychological factors play a huge role in relaxing you and your asshole. So things like having internalized homophobia, not being aroused, or not feeling comfortable with the partner that you're with, all increase the chance that anal sex is going to be painful and not great. And actually, in our survey, feeling pressure to have receptive anal intercourse when you didn't feel comfortable with it in some way, it was actually really common. It happened to around 40% of gay men, just under a third of women, and about a quarter of transgender men.

It was very rare for it to happen to straight cis men, by the way. So to loosen up the butthole, try to relax and go slow, stopping at moments, and also using a lot of lube. The asshole doesn't self-lubricate like the vagina can. Now, in porn, you'll often see a guy just plunge his dick into an asshole. But as the porn star Eric Everhart has said, quote, you shouldn't believe that you can crack an ass open without any prep work. Eric has talked about how it can take some 20 minutes to relax an ass enough.

And it's only then that the camera starts rolling. Also, if you're playing around the butt, poo might be a thing that happens. Nerds say that some of the best ways to keep a butt clean are to get fiber in your diet and also clean your butthole during a shower, say. If you're going to douche, go gently and just use water. As Nan Wise points out, while anal might have its distinctive features, a lot of this advice, going slow, communicating with your partner, it's true for all kinds of sex. You don't just take a penis, hopefully, and just shove it into a vagina without some sort of, you know, manipulating the area. You know what? Just start small and slow. Start with a finger. Start with a finger and then call us.

The finger can't go in all that far. You know what I mean? That's why you can't get in too much trouble with a finger. It's not going to get lost in there. Just quickly, there's also poppers, a drug called alkyl nitrate. People say that it can help relax your butt muscles, but the research is actually mixed

on whether it helps with the pain from anal sex finally i don't mean to sound like miss frizzle on only fans here but use a condom which according to studies a ton of people doing anal aren't sure you can't get pregnant but you can get a bunch of STDs from HPV, which can lead to anal cancer, to HIV, to herpes. And with certain STDs like HIV, it's more likely that they'll spread through anal than other kinds of sex. And I really don't want to sound anal here, but even if you're with a regular partner, if you're sticking a dick up an ass, there's bacteria up there. That could give you a UTI. So, yeah, use a condom.

As I was finishing up my chat with Nan, she pointed out that the key to getting a supersized orgasm isn't just about all the buttons that you might press, but it's also about not worrying so much whether you're going to have a super orgasm or not. In fact, just the hunt for the multi-dimensional cosmic orgasm might be the ultimate cock blocker here. When we kind of prioritize focusing on the orgasm, we're missing the point. So it's, I think what makes sex really sensational is to be in the sensation. It depends on where your mind is. Is your mind on the sensation? Or are you thinking about, oh my God, I forgot to file my taxes. You know, thinking about how is the orgasm? Is it a big enough orgasm? Is it

going to be big enough? Is it going to be, is it coming? Am I coming? Is she going to come? Is he going to come? I think it gets us out of the unfolding the sensations. And I think the mind is the most powerful sex organ of all. The mind is the G spotspot. The mind is the G-spot, the A-spot, the N-spot, the X-spot. Yep. That's Science Versus. Hello. Hi, Blythe Terrell, editor at Science Versus. Hey, Wendy Zuckerman. Well, we just finished season 16. Season 16. Our show can drive in America. That's wild.

We did it. And how many citations are in this week's episode? Let me tell you, Wendy. We went a bit bonkers. We did go a bit bonkers. We went bonkers. There are 146 citations on this episode about anal. I did some research because I was curious as to whether this was the most citations of any episode this season.

And it turns out. Right. It turns out it was beat out only by one citation. The intermittent fasting episode had 147. Oh, and this has 146. So to find all of these citations, just go to the show notes and there is a link to the transcript. And some of those citations are more details on our survey results. So if you want to get in there and have a look, please do. And also, I should say that when we say 146 citations, it doesn't necessarily mean that we've read 146 studies on anal. I did read a lot. I don't know how many. I don't actually

count how many. But it just means that every time we say something, exactly, we link to a specific study. And so sometimes we're using the same studies over and over again. And then just quickly, last episode of the season, which means we need to come up with a whole new season. Yes, yes. Please, please let us know what you would like us to versus. You can get in touch with us on Instagram at science underscore VS to tell us what you think we should versus. If you're in the Spotify app, you can write to us. There's a little Q&A feature where you can tell us there what you think we should versus. You can email us at science versus at

givemuchmedia.com. And then you can also let Wendy know on TikTok. My TikTok is at Wendy Zuckerman. And while you're giving us all these topics to versus for next season, there's a lot of fun stuff on Instagram and my TikTok this week. There's some really cute snippets of my interview with Dr. Dan Dickstein. Gosh, we had a lot of fun. We're going to have some diagrams. If you've spent the entire episode being like, wait, where's the anus and the rectum and the prostate? Head to our Instagram.

There's also going to be a photo of the Hannibal Lecter happy helmet. If you want to know what those people were wearing in the MRI, check out our Instagram. I mean, listen, what more could a person ask for? Thank you so much, Vlad. Thanks, Wendy. This episode was produced by me, Wendy Zuckerman, with help from Meryl Horn, Rose Rimler and Michelle Dang. We're edited by Blythe Terrell. Fact-checking by Diane Kelly.

Mix and sound design by Bobby Lord. Music written by Bobby Lord, Emma Munger, Bumi Hidaka and Peter Leonard. A huge thank you to Sam Levang for helping us analyse our data. Thank you so much. Also, thank you to Professor Carolynang for helping us analyse our data. Thank you so much. Also, thank you to Professor Carolyn Pukal and Dan Dickstein for your help with our survey questions. Thanks to other researchers that we spoke to for this episode, including Dr Devon Hensel.

Thanks to Jack Weinstein and Hunter. Thanks to the Zuckerman family and Joseph Lavelle-Wilson. Science Versus is a Spotify Studios original. Listen to us for free on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. You can rate and review us. You can give us five stars. It helps people find the show. And wouldn't that be lovely?

If you are listening on Spotify, follow us and tap the bell icon for episode notifications so you'll find out when new episodes come along. Like I mentioned, we're going to take a short break to research new episodes, but we'll be back in your ears before you know it. I'm Wendy Zuckerman. Back to you soon.