HUMANS are naturally curious beings – and when it comes to sex it seems we just can’t resist knowing more.
At least that’s what these 20-year-old images might have you believe.
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Doctors who carried out the first MRI scans of people having sex have revealed they are still popular with readers today.
The images were part of a Dutch study published in the British Medical Journal (BMJ) at Christmas in 1999.
Eight couples were asked to have sex on the bed inside an MRI scanner while researchers stood in a room next door.
According to the study: “The participants were asked to lie with pelvises near the marked centre of the tube and not to move during imaging.”
Handy key
The images are a little hard to decipher but if you’re struggling, focus on the two spines and it’ll soon become clear.
They also created this handy key: P=penis, Ur=urethra, Pe=perineum, U=uterus, S=symphysis, B=bladder, I=intestine, L5=lumbar 5, Sc=scrotum.
Its main finding was that in the “missionary position”, the penis is neither straight nor “S” shaped as had been previously thought, but is, in fact, the shape of a boomerang.
What’s more, during female sexual arousal the size of the uterus does not increase, as had been previously reported.
Study success
At the time, nobody at The BMJ thought the study was particularly useful clinically or scientifically.
But it went on to become one of the BMJ’s most downloaded journal articles of all time – and has been cited in 130 scientific papers since.
To mark the 20th anniversary of the study, Dr Tony Delamothe, a former editor at the BMJ, has written a new article discussing its success.
It was hardly the medical equivalent of a moon landing, so why did ‘lay’ visitors come flocking in such numbers?
Dr Tony Delamothe
He pondered: “It was hardly the medical equivalent of a moon landing, so why did ‘lay’ visitors come flocking in such numbers?”
Answering his own question, he suggested that the prospect of seeing sex on screen for free was behind its success – even if they were black and white still images.
Dr Delamothe added: “If that’s the explanation, it’s hard to think ourselves back to such an innocent age, given today’s explicit online offerings.
“But it is still making people smile (and laugh), much to the annoyance of author and participant Professor Ida Sabelis.
“She despairs that friends, family, and even colleagues at VU University in Amsterdam – one of the world’s most progressive cities – still find the study amusing.
“Why that’s the case, 20 years after the article’s original publication, is worth a study of its own.”
