First Stirrings: Cultural Notes on Orgasm, Ejaculation, and Wet Dreams

Abstract

Both the findings and the limitations of numeric milestone research in sexology have a bearing on the pedagogical status of pleasure, as well as the cultural underpinnings of the notion of a psychosexual milestone. An overview is offered of international data pertaining to the chronology of three “milestones” in sexual autobiography: first orgasm (orgasmarche), first ejaculation (oigarche), and first wet dream (nocturnal emission). Methodological problems associated with the measurement of these variables are discussed. These problems are then situated in a culturalist perspective. It is concluded that orgasms are cultural artifacts in terms of their chronological occurrence as well as perceived salience, necessity, and “age appropriateness.”

This research is adapted from materials collected over some years in Janssen (2003-6, I-III). More data than are referenced support this paper. Two full bibliographies are available for inspection on request.

The author wishes to thank Dr. Gudrun Veldre, Dr. Sherry McKibben and Dr. Kerstin S. Fugl-Meyer for their kind correspondence.

Notes

*Male orgasmarche and ejacularche seem equated.

**An idiosyncratic scale was used.

***Age for orgasmarche in coitu = 23.0.

****Mean age of first masturbation = 9.

*Unclear whether this applies to ejaculation or first orgasm.

*SEM = Standard Error of the Mean; SD = Standard Deviation; y = years, m = months.

**Defined as first emission (nocturnal or diurnal).

***Conscious oigarche “by means of self-stimulation.”

Full bibliographies on these issues are maintained in Janssen (2003, III).

Examples include Scott Heim's 1995 novel, Mysterious Skin, and the 2004 movie by the same name, and the 1998 movie Happiness.

As for the comparative record, little appears to be known about nonhuman orgasmarche. However an orgasmic (dry) pattern was noted in infant anubis baboons (Owens, 1973 as cited by Hanby, 1977, p. 466).

In his 2004 Memoir professor Robin Fox insists that “The adult female orgasm is the homologue of the pre-pubertal male masturbatory orgasm.”

Clinical research points out that “azoospermia dominates until the fifth month after the first ejaculation, oligozoospermia from the sixth to the eleventh month, asthenozoospermia from the twelfth to the twentieth month, and normospermia from the twenty-first month” (Janczewski & Bablok, 1985).