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The orgasm is widely regarded as the peak of the sexual excitement. MediLexicon defines it as "the acme of the sexual act." 1 It is a powerful feeling of physical pleasure and sensation, which includes a discharge of accumulated erotic tension. 2
People of all genders can have orgasms and through a variety of different sources. Dr. Alfred Kinsey, the pioneering sex researcher, listed coitus, masturbation, nocturnal dreams, and "premarital petting" as some sources of orgasm for men and women in his studies of 1948 and 1953.3
Overall though, not a great deal is known about the orgasm, and over the past century, theories about the orgasm and its nature have shifted dramatically. For instance, health care experts have only relatively recently come round to the idea of the female orgasm, with many doctors as recently as the 1970s claiming that it was normal for women not to experience them.4
