Sex For Dummies. Dr. Ruth K. Westheimer
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if it weren’t for the sex lives of the previous generation. Even if it’s too much to imagine your parents and grandparents having sex, just give ’em a tip of the old hat.
You can have sex many different ways, and yet the outcome of sex, the satisfaction that comes from a sexual encounter, is the goal of each of them. (Of course, if your only aim is to make a baby, then the pleasurable aspects become secondary.) Part of the mystery of sex is why so many paths lead to this one end. Chapters 11, 12, 15, and 16 cover different ways you can achieve orgasms.
It’s also true that some of us are attracted to the same sex, which means that making a baby isn’t possible from engaging in sexual activity. That doesn’t mean that the urge for a gay couple to have a baby isn’t there, and luckily there are other means such as adoption or artificial insemination. Since most of my readers are heterosexual, much of what I have to say in this book is addressed to them, but I can’t help but add that while science hasn’t yet been able to answer many questions about different sexual orientations, each and every one of us deserves the same respect no matter our sexual preference.
So Why Do We Have It?
Ultimately we have sex in order to keep the human race going and to participate in a very pleasurable activity. Throughout most of mankind’s history, the two were almost always linked, but today they needn’t be. Being able to have an orgasm without worrying about creating a baby has changed the nature of sex, though when the two are put back together, sex reaches its greatest potential.
Making babies: A natural outcome
The English language is a rich one because it has borrowed heavily from so many different tongues. As a result, people use a variety of words to describe the same thing — especially if that thing involves sex. (I’m sure you’re familiar with some of these words, but, being polite, I won’t mention them.) What never ceases to amaze me, however, is how often people who engage in sexual intercourse forget that what they’re doing is directly related to procreation, propagation, continuing the species, conception, pregnancy, MAKING BABIES!
Some unlucky couples must go through a great deal of trouble to have a family, and some can’t manage to do it on their own at all, so they turn to medical science for help. But for most people, the process is relatively easy — at least until the baby actually arrives. The man needs only to place his erect penis into the woman’s vagina and ejaculate. A baby may not result the first time — though it can, as many women have learned when losing their virginity — but eventually one of the man’s sperm will unite with the woman’s egg, and, voilà, a baby is conceived.
Because baby making can be so easy, many women find themselves pregnant without intending to be. So here’s my first of many tips:
Yes, I know there are ways of preventing pregnancy from occurring — I talk about them in Chapter 7 — but none of these methods is foolproof. Believe it or not, in at least one recorded case, the man had a vasectomy, the woman had her tubes tied, and she still became pregnant. So remember, the only method that works 100 percent of the time is abstinence.
The facts: Sperm and egg together
The process of making a baby has not changed since Adam and Eve discovered sex: A sperm from the man must meet an egg inside of the woman (test-tube babies notwithstanding). When the sperm and the egg unite, the egg becomes fertilized.
Both the sperm and the egg are very special cells; they have only half of the genetic material (chromosomes) that other cells have. All cells need chromosomes to provide the instructions on how to divide and create an individual.
Fertilization occurs when the chromosomes and genes from both the sperm and the egg combine to form one single cell, called a zygote. As a result, instead of an identical copy of one of the parents (a clone), fertilization creates a unique individual that shares features of both parents. So now you know the reason you have your father’s nose and your mother’s feet: At least once in their lives, your parents mingled their genetic material.
TIMING THE UNION
Female humans differ from nearly all the rest of their sex in the animal kingdom because, rather than wanting sexual intercourse only when they can conceive (that is, when they’re in heat), women can want sexual intercourse at any time (provided they don’t have a headache). Despite this difference, female humans do share with other female mammals the trait that enables them to make a baby, or conceive, only at certain times — in most women’s cases, from one to three days a month.
Unlike a man, who continually makes sperm (more than 26 trillion a year!), a woman has all her eggs already inside her at birth. These eggs — about 200,000 of them — reside in a woman’s two ovaries (see Figure 1-1). About every 28 days, a fluid-filled sac in the ovary, called a follicle, releases one of the eggs. When a follicle releases an egg, many women feel a dull ache, known as mittelschmerz, in the area around the ovary.
Illustration by Kathryn Born
FIGURE 1-1: The egg begins an incredible journey in search of a sperm to produce a child. No wonder sex has been called “making whoopee”!
INTRODUCING THE EGG AND SPERM
Everyone’s talking about what happened last night at Club Fallopian. Mr. Sperm bumped into Ms. Egg, and now they’re really stuck on each other!
Just as people have to meet each other before they can form a relationship, the process of fertilization can’t begin until a sperm gets up into the fallopian tubes and meets the egg. This introduction takes place as a result of sexual intercourse, which is defined as a man placing his penis in a woman’s vagina. When the man has an orgasm, he releases millions of sperm into the back of the woman’s vagina. These sperm bind to the cervical mucus and swim right up through the entrance to the uterus, called the cervix, through the uterus itself, and then into the fallopian tubes — each sperm hunting for an egg. And if an egg happens to be floating along, the fastest sperm takes the prize.