How a Female Erection Works

it's time to talk more about erections because let's face it they're pretty important for multiple reasons especially from the standpoint of reproduction now much of the discussion about erections will often focus on the male erection and that may be because the male erection is a little bit more noticeable than say like the female erection but make no mistake females very much come equipped with functional erectile tissue but how important is the female erection from the standpoint of reproduction because as we've already alluded to a male erection and the release of sperm cells is pretty important when it comes to successfully completing reproductive intercourse so does that female erection and climax also play a key role in successful reproductive intercourse or is it more of an added bonus to the female for other reasons well we're about to find out as well as just talk about how it works so let's jump right into this reproductive anatomical awesomeness now one thing I want to start with that's very interesting is that male and female erectile tissue structures are surprisingly very similar so throughout this video we're going to reference these things called homologous structures and for our discussion these would be things that develop from the same embryonic tissue so for example the testes and the ovaries develop from the same embryonic tissue and are therefore homologous structures and more importantly for this erection discussion the penis and the clitoris are homologous structures and have the same erectile tissue so let's start by taking a look at the clitoris and therefore the erectile tissue so that we can figure out everything that's going on here so the clitoris is essentially the cylindrical mass of erectile tissue and as you can see it's made up of various parts it arises from two leg-like extensions and the word for ligand Anatomy is crust or the plural version is Kura so these are called the Kura of the clitoris and the chlora are located on the actual ischial and pubic Bones on both sides and as we take a look at this on the cadaver dissection let me first Orient you this is an inferior viewer looking from the Underside and keep in mind to get to this view we also had to remove the external genital structures so we had to remove things like the labia majora labia minora and you can also see some pretty large muscles here these are often referred to as the groin or the adductor muscles just again for another frame of reference but finally we can take a look at the right crust of the clitoris right underneath my probe here the left crust we can't see because it's covered up by some of these tiny and even amazing skeletal muscles that we removed on the other side but these skeletal muscles we'll talk about in just a little while because they get involved in helping to maintain the erection now the crust or the Kura of the clitoris will actually Bend off of the pubic bone and come together and unite to form the body of the clitoris now the body of the clitoris is homologous with the body or the shaft of the penis and you probably already guessed that the cross of the clitoris would be homologous with the crust of the penis but when we take a look at it on the cadaver dissection you can again see here would be the body of the clitoris and again this would also be covered up by external genital structures the only visible portion of the clitoris is the very end or tip of it which is called the glands clitoris shocker homologous with the gland's penis but the gland's clitoris is located at the anterior Junction or where the front of the two labia minora kind of unite or come together and the labia Menorah are these bilateral folds of skin the inner bilateral folds of skin that pretty much surround the entrance into the vaginal canal and if we go back to the cadaver dissection here again there's the body and then going down to the end of the tip this would be the glands clitoris here now the glands is packed with sensory nerve endings so very important for sensation as well as initiating and maintaining the erection so how does the initiation and the maintenance of the erection actually work well we're going to approach this from two different scenarios now these scenarios can happen independent of each other but they can also happen in conjunction or at the same time so the first scenario we'll mention is simply just tactile stimulation or touch of the glands and other surrounding genital structures that'll send a sensation or a signal into the spinal cord through a nerve called the pudendal nerve now if you've watched our previous erection video you know that pudendal translates to that which you should be ashamed of because apparently the anatomists hundreds of years ago were ashamed of their genitals for some reason but once that signal gets relayed into the sacral portion of the spinal cord it will specifically go into the sacral levels S2 3 and 4. and when I was teaching this in college we had a saying S2 3 and 4 keeps the penis off the floor but it also certainly works as this S2 3 and 4 also keeps the clitoris off the floor so it works for both but part of that signal yes will go up the spinal cord to the brain so that you are aware of such tactile stimulation or what's going on down below but it doesn't technically have to this scenario that we're talking about with tactile stimulation actually works primarily reflexively meaning that the signal will go go into the spinal cord but most of that signal will just get kicked right back out of the spinal cord and go directly to the internal erectile tissue of the clitoris I kind of think of it this way as like we're going to give the brain a common courtesy of being like hey there is this signal coming in we're going to let you know something's going on down here but we don't really need your permission to do this we're going to just send that signal right back out to the clitoris and initiate the erection so somebody with a spinal cord injury could technically still get an erection initiated from this tactile stimulation but that doesn't mean the brain doesn't get involved in initiating and maintaining the erection it's just with that particular scenario it doesn't technically need it now we know that the best directions tend to happen with the brain and tactile stimulation working together in conjunction meaning that the brain starts to send signals down from say like you see someone that looks very nice to you you have certain thoughts and imaginations even certain smells can be arousing maybe somebody Whispers something in your ear that excites you in a very specific way and that signal can come down it can initiate an erection if somebody wasn't being tactilely stimulated or if it's occurring at the same time these signals will converge in that S2 3 and 4 region of the spinal cord and send these signals out through certain nerve fibers to go to the internal structures of the clitoris and these nerve fibers will release their neurotransmitters which will then cause nitric oxide to be released within the erectile tissue and this is where the magic happens so if we were to take a cross section or a cut right through the body of the clitoris we would see that there's these two distinct masses of erectile tissue or erectile tissue bodies called the corpora cavernosa now remember the Kura came off the pubic bone and came together to form the body of the clitoris and that's what these things arose from those Quran now we have the corpora cavernosa and this is a vascular cavernous erectile tissue vascular because there's lots of blood that can go in there and cavernous because there's these Hollow spaces or sinuses that are going to to fill with blood so nitric oxide has this powerful effect as being a powerful vasodilator so meaning the blood vessels within will open up and allow for more blood to come into this erectile tissue and also affects these cavernous erectile tissue by relaxing the smooth muscle within so those spaces will enlarge to allow for even more blood to fill now this will enlarge the clitoris obviously not to the same degree as say like an erection with the penis but the clitoris will enlarge compared to its non-erect state nonetheless so back to the question we had at the beginning of how important is a female erection and climax to the successful completion of reproductive intercourse or just even reproduction in general because there are artificial means to also do this now granted the majority of these episodes of consensual coitus or intercourse are not just about creating a baby or reproduction there are various reasons why people participate in Intercourse it feels good stress reliever Bond funding and connections formed between people various other reasons that we could come up with but from the standpoint of purely getting sperm cells from the male reproductive tract and into the female reproductive tract to fertilize an egg how important is that female erection and climax well you probably could have answered at the beginning of the video that it's technically not necessary as long as the sperm cells get into the female reproductive tract it could technically still fertilize an egg now beyond that being just bad business practices to not have the erectile tissue fully engaged with all parties involved that doesn't mean that the female erection in Climax can't help with this process of fertilization now one other structure that we haven't mentioned yet is another erectile tissue Mass that's found on both sides of the vaginal Canal called the bulb of the vestibule now if we take a look at that on the cadaver dissection again we can just reference that crust of the clitoris that we saw earlier but right underneath my probe here is the bulb of the vestibule now we can't see it as well on the left side side because it's covered up with a muscle called the bulbospongiosis muscle which is a pretty good name for a muscle that's covering the bulb of the vestibule but that muscle when it contracts will just help facilitate the function of this bulb of the vestibule which is when it engorges with blood or becomes erect it will narrow the vaginal Canal around the penis and thereby increasing the stimulus and facilitate the climax and the release of the sperm cells now you could make the argument that's just helping the male reproductive tract but if we keep digging a little bit deeper we're going to see some really cool things that happen with the female reproductive tract now one of the things that I need to mention is that it is known that a female inseminated naturally through intercourse tends to be more fertile or have an increased odds of getting pregnant as compared to if the same female were inseminated artificially granted artificial insemination works it's just all things being equal the natural intercourse tends to increase the odds so there's the question of well why is that and it's thought to center around female climax or in other words what happens during female orgasm during female climax some awesome things will occur one of those is that the pelvic floor muscles will start to rhythmically contract and this will help Propel the sperm cells further Upstream towards the uterus the uterine Canal will also dilate or open up which will help facilitate the flow of these sperm cells oxytocin is also released from the pituitary gland oxytocin is a hormone with various functions one of which is to cause the uterus to contract and if there are any sperm cells in the uterus that contraction will help Propel the sperm cells even further getting closer to fertilizing that egg so you can see just from a reproductive standpoint that the climax within the female can help increase the odds of that now we could talk about the odds of successful fertilization from a different perspective or a different numbers game if you will let's say a female had multiple previous Encounters of enjoyable intercourse that included climax said female would probably be more likely to continually engage or more frequently engage in Intercourse and we could make the argument that this would also increase the odds of successful reproductive intercourse now I do want to take a second to say thank you to the sponsor of today's video brilliant brilliant has been a sponsor of ours since nearly the beginning of our Channel and the main reason for this is just simply we believe in what brilliant can do for people's learning it's an amazing online learning platform for stem subjects and one of the best ways to learn math science and computer science one of my favorite things about brilliant is how interactive the lessons are they're also extremely fun yet challenging enough to cause you to up your math and science game pushing it to the next level another reason why brilliant resonates so strongly with me is due to something that happened when I first started teaching Anatomy I had a mentor sit a group of us down and challenge us to lifelong learning and he said I want you guys to learn one piece of new information about Anatomy or the human body every single day that was 15 years ago and I can tell you applying that has paid huge dividends over time and I also apply that same idea to utilizing brilliant utilize brilliant a little bit every single day and that's just going to build and build and build until your knowledge base just increases immensely over time and trust me you'll never run out of things to learn on brilliant as they have thousands of different courses and are constantly adding new content each month like they recently launched a new introduction to algebra course for all you math nerds out there and one of my favorite courses being scientific thinking because we constantly need to improve our ability to think about science apply our logic in order to solve real world problems so if you're interested in joining brilliant and checking them out go to brilliant.org Iha and they'll give the first 200 people 20 off their annual subscription I promise you will not be disappointed in brilliant we'll also include that link in the description below and thanks for watching the video today hopefully you learned some new things about reproductive Anatomy like and sub subscribe if you feel the need and of course we'll see in the next video [Music]

Channel: Institute of Human Anatomy

Views: 20,395,694

Keywords: erectile tissue, corpora cavernosa, female anatomy reproductive organs, how an erection works, erectile dysfunction, female anatomy, erectile tissue in females, reproduction, erectile tissue in the male, female anatomy reproductive system, female anatomy and physiology, nitric oxide erection, brain, spinal cord, nerves, blood flow

Id: iuJz4eWyvEY

Length: 13min 13sec (793 seconds)

Published: Sun Oct 23 2022