The Pubococcygeus (P.C.) Muscles
Just as the husband has shown an effort of sacrifice and love in gaining complete ejaculatory control, so the wife can also contribute to the relationship by attaining full control and strength in the pubococcygeus muscles, which surround the lower third of her vagina, in order to experience a much more intense sexual stimulation.
Before we discuss this important muscle group, I should point out that most of what researchers have called “orgasmic dysfunction” in women is not caused by a physical dysfunction. Most failure in achieving orgasm is related to the wife’s attitude and thoughts. The next chapter will discuss this in detail. However, by undertaking these specific exercises to build up certain important muscles, the wife can usually begin to participate in and enjoy sex. These physical exercises, along with the restructuring of attitudes about sex, have had great success in treating “orgasmic dysfunction” in women.
Exercising to strengthen the P.C. muscles can be undertaken effectively, though other factors still may inhibit the wife’s orgasm. While it is always desirable to treat the entire person—body, mind, and spirit—still, an improvement in just one area will improve the whole person to some degree. In fact it may be the one “missing link” that will trigger a satisfying sexual response. Even if the husband is uncommunicative and unwilling to share in the total improvement of sexual relations in marriage, the strengthening and toning of the P.C. muscles is done with exercises that the wife can perform by herself. This can be an encouragement to him and shows him that she really desires to help improve their sexual relationship.
Other important benefits of improved P.C. muscle control are:
1. Improvement of support of pelvic organs.
2. Improvement of urinary control.
3. Reduced extent of childbirth injuries to the mother.
4. Shortening of length of time in labor and delivery.
5. Increased safety for the baby during the birth process.
6. More effective natural childbirth. (The exercises are included in the YWCA classes for natural childbirth and in the International Childbirth
Education Association programs of instruction, as well as in the Lamaze Method.) In the early 1940s, Dr. Arnold H. Kegel, a surgeon and professor of gynecology at the University of Southern California School of Medicine, made a discovery about women who had trouble controlling their urine flow when coughing, laughing, or sneezing. It was found that this problem, referred to as urinary stress incontinence, could be helped by exercising the pelvic muscle group called the pubococcygeus muscles or P.C. muscles. In medical school anatomy books they are called the levator ani muscles.
The P.C. muscles are located above the legs and extend from the pubic bone to the coccyx (tailbone) in the back. They are like a sling and form the floor of the pelvis, also supporting and surrounding the outer one-third of the vagina, the neck of the bladder, and part of the rectum.
Dr. Kegel found that repeating specific exercises strengthens the P.C. muscles, with resultant stoppage and control of urinary stress incontinence. The exercises he prescribed to strengthen the P.C. muscles are called the Kegel exercises.
Pubococcygeus Muscles
Further study by Dr. Kegel revealed that fewer than one in three women have adequate P.C. muscle tone. However, women who have poor muscle tone do not necessarily have urinary leakage. The strength of the P.C. muscles seems relatively unrelated to general muscular development of the woman. Since the P.C. is suspended between two solid nonmoving bony structures, its strength is unaffected by the use of other muscles. Therefore, a female athlete can have poor P.C. musculature, and a weak, inactive woman may have strong P.C. musculature.
The stretching that occurs during childbirth weakens the P.C. muscles. Uncontrolled urinary leakage most often appears after a woman has borne children, since much of the support for the bladder comes from the P.C. muscles. The urethra, or urinary passage, penetrates and is also supported by the P.C. muscles. When these muscles are weakened, poor urinary control often results. Under ordinary circumstances, even weak muscles can hold back urine; but under a stress like a sneeze, laugh, or cough, urine is sometimes allowed to escape. In less than two months most of the patients who followed Dr. Kegel’s exercises were able to control their urine flow. Today these exercises are a standard technique for learning to establish urine control, and when these muscles are strengthened, there often is no need for surgical repair.
Note the extent of the P.C. muscles, as they form a primary part of the support for the reproductive organs, bladder, and rectum. Weakness of the P.C. can result in chronic pelvic discomfort or leakage of urine. Refer back to figure 1 in chapter 4, to better visualize the location of the P.C. muscles.
For many patients, the Kegel exercises strengthen and build much better pelvic support than a surgical operation.
One patient reported to Dr. Kegel that for the first time in fifteen years of marriage she had orgasm in intercourse and suggested this welcome event might be connected with the exercises she had been doing. After following the exercise program, other women also volunteered the information that they experienced more consistent orgasm during intercourse or had orgasm for the first time.
Dr. Kegel finally concluded that strengthened P.C. muscles resulted in increased sexual satisfaction. This information, though new to our culture, had been observed by primitive and oriental peoples, as well as other cultures, who also noted the lessening of sexual satisfaction after childbirth. Certain “secret” sex practices in some primitive cultures depend on controlling and strengthening these muscles around the vagina.
Since Kegel’s early efforts, research has revealed that sexual stimulation in the woman’s vagina is much more related to pressure sensitivity than to frictional sensitivity. This stands to reason, because the P.C. muscle group is well supplied with pressure-sensitive nerve endings (called proprioceptive nerves) which do wot respond to light touch or light friction. Thus, a strengthening and tightening of the P.C. muscle group around the outer one-third of the vagina can produce much more sexually stimulating pressure sensitivity for the woman during intercourse.
These pressure-sensitive nerve endings of the P.C. muscles are actually around but outside the vagina. A firm squeezing pressure on the penis within the vagina is needed to give greater sexual stimulation. A vagina that makes poor contact with the penis affords little sexual stimulation for the wife. It has been found that a larger object introduced into the vagina does not help increase sexual sensitivity, since sensitivity depends on contraction of the muscles— not stretching. Therefore, the size of the penis has no relationship to the wife’s sensitivity. When the vagina is tightened to a firm channel by a strong P.C, however, thrusting of the male penis will also press and push the P.C. and give more satisfying stimulation to the wife. More stimulation results in reflex contraction of the vagina, which is part of the pattern that leads to orgasm for the woman.
In a woman who does not experience orgasm during sex, the P.C. muscle exercises can contribute to providing relief of pelvic congestion and muscular tension, which is a very frequent cause of low-back pain. The exercises are easy and not fatiguing—in fact if you tire while doing them, you are not exercising the right muscles.
Some women can easily contract the P.C. muscles when they first learn of their existence and may experience orgasm for the first time when they learn to use these muscles during intercourse. However, if the muscles are weak (as they are in so many women), action will have to be added to knowledge. The woman must learn exercises that can help her to both strengthen and control the P.C. muscles.
Posted in Solutions to Common Problems
To Ed Wheat Sr. and Gladys Gibson Wheat, whose commitment, devotion, warmth, generosity, and integrity stood for fifty years as a beautiful picture of genuine agape love.