Prof Dr Jan Hindrik Ravesloot (Amsterdam 1961) studied medicine (Leiden University 1986) and did his Ph.D work at Leiden University (1991). After a three-year post-doctoral period at Yale University (New Haven, CT, USA) he became assistant-professor at the Academic Medical Center-University of Amsterdam (AMC-UvA) Department of Physiology in 1993 and was promoted to full professor in 2001. He and his staff conduct research in ion transport processes in cardiac cells. He is actively involved in advancing (bio)medical (physiology) higher education. (LinkedIn)

We are very honoured to have had a conversation with medical professional Prof Dr Jan Hindrik Ravesloot where we discussed assigned female at birth (AFAB) genitalia and debunked some sexual myths.

Conversation:

Sexual pleasure isn't considered a human right, although it could be seen as a derivative of sexual health. I wanted to ask what kind of examples we see in animals and what does this tell us about human sexual pleasure?

Well, from an evolutionary perspective, the highest rewards in terms of hedonistic pleasure is placed on producing offspring. And if you stop and think about it, each and every living organism on this planet wants to feel good, wants to experience pleasure. In my mind, it does not come as a surprise at at some point during an evolution, 3.8 billion years of evolution that somehow producing offspring got connected to the most intense form of pleasure an organism can experience without taking drugs, because that is perpetuating the stimulus for producing new life. Seeking for pleasure is a very common theme in in in humans, but also in animals.

Connecting new life to pleasure is, of course, a wonderful, smart thing to do. But there is, of course, there's no goal in evolution. It just happened at some point that it got connected and our branch, the mammals, have the anatomy for sexual pleasure. Unlike humans, animals do not have an idea what their behaviour is leading up to.

But they do experience pleasure, and they are very adamant. They they wanna have it. I mean, by now you have observed the ducks in your neighbourhood that would otherwise stay in the ponds, but they now enter our neighbourhoods because they're on on the lookout for for females and for bonding. And I don't know about ducks, but they do not have the pleasure anatomy as we know it but perhaps they also experience an intense drive to mate.

And of course, what also must not come as a surprise is that those individuals that experience the most pleasure from, dating and having intercourse are most successful in producing offspring and passing on these genes to their offspring, so we are the sons and daughters of humans or humanoids that started a few million years ago. I mean maybe there have been humans or humanoids or human precursors that that didn't experience any pleasure, they're gone. So what's left is the selection of individuals that intensely have a desire for sexual gratification and pleasure, because we reproduce, the other ones couldn't care less, if I were to put it bluntly.

If pleasure is such a natural thing and we observe it in so many species, why do you think as humans we've created so much social stigma surrounding it?

That is a very good question.

I think the connection is say as of 1950, the second half of the 20th century. Before the second half of the 20th century, having sex was risky because a child could be born. And I think somehow society punishes women without a partner being pregnant, having a baby, because society had to care for the young mother if there wasn't a man around to support that system.

So in many cultures marriage was institutionalised by society to, I guess, to protect society from having the burden of taking care of someone else's child. That's for one. So that that would be the societal angle / lens of it, but there's also a religious lens. So there are many scriptures, not only in Christianity, but also in other cultures, that somehow regulate sexual behaviour, as in it's only allowed within a marriage. And thirdly, there are cultures that are extremely liberal, that allow youth to experiment at liberty.

There are many African cultures, although I cannot quote one. I know of African cultures in which there are, passing rights. Where sexual liberty is endorsed and advocated. So it's a cultural thing. In the UK, in the Victorian age, there was a ban on sexual behaviour. Although the drive is so extremely strong, it cannot be controlled by whatever law, whatever rule you make, it simply cannot I mean, as of now, the drive is so strong. The energy it releases is so intense. It cannot be controlled. Only in very strict individuals. To control young people you have to portray extreme punishment on what they would consider premature sexual activity. So “you're going to burn in hell” or” you're going to have a terrible disease” if you engage in sexual activity before marriage. And earlier generations were raised with these sorts of ideas.

But that's non biological. It's departing from the rules of biology, and what is worse, it also took away, the positive feelings that should accompany sexual behaviour. It already starts at a young age. So for the female infant likes to touch her genital area, an infant boy likes to touch his genital area, and the first thing a mother does is take away the hand.

I've seen it happen time and again in in my family. So young infants, do not feel shame, but touching their genital area is giving pleasure. So they will touch their penis, or female infant will touch her genital area, and it is already at that point that parents intervene. They take away the hand, and if that is not accompanied with a proper sentence like, “it's okay for you to touch your genital area, but do it in the privacy of your own room”, then you already at a young age you start to punish sexual behaviour. I can think of several ways why sexual and negative feelings become connected.

For sure. I also think as well because of this it leads to like a lack of education just surrounding basic anatomy, especially towards women. Like one of the reasons why I started making this website was because I had so many conversations with people who didn't know there were 3 holes instead of 2 holes, and they thought people peed out the vagina, even if they had had sex with people. Sex education is honestly a bit shocking. A lot of people don't know things like that you need to wear a condom to prevent STDs, not just pregnancy.

Unbelievable.

Well, I feel like a lot of sexual education on the Internet right now is sort of overtaken by porn. And for the younger generations this is the first time that people are watching porn before experiencing sex and so that's their sex education.

Yep.

Actually, on this topic, of anatomy, I had 2 questions. Is the g spot a myth?

Yes I think it is. One of the researchers of our departments, Ellen Laan, definitively showed that the clitoris is just the tip of a lot much larger complex that extends around the vagina, around vagina entrance. It's like a v shaped structure that extends into the into the minor labia, and is surrounding the vagina and the clitoris is just the external tip of that system and when you approach that system from the inside, so you mechanically stimulate and enter the vagina with your fingers.

And when you make this movement and you stroke the upper wall of the vagina you will actually mechanically stimulate that clitoral complex.

So the “G spot” is real, but it's not a single spot inside the vagina that is stimulated. It is the clitoral complex that is stimulated. So, yes, it is a myth in a sense that there is a second clitoris, but, no, it's not a myth because the clitoris extends to the inside and surrounds the the opening of the vagina.

So here you have the clitoris, but in fact, it is part of a v shaped, system called the clitoral complex, it extends to the inside and around the opening of the vagina.

All of this is sexual, excitable tissue (clitoris complex). So when you enter the vagina and you stimulate the upper vagina wall, you will stimulate these two legs of the, of the complex.

This knowledge is very recent, I think it's past 10 years or so, and that also tells me that there never has been much interest in female sexuality, female pleasure. Of course, the glance of the clitoris is the most well known spot, but there's much more. And, in defense of the anatomists, this is, inflatable tissue and you really have to work hard with your diagnostic techniques to observe the clitoral complex. It has to be inflated because in post-mortems, in dead bodies, this is, of course, deflated and it can easily be mistaken for non sexual tissue, but I think because of the work of Helen O'Connell, we now know that this is inflatable.

It will, get engorged with blood and, when I read that work correctly, you can stimulate and induce orgasm by stimulating this these legs of the clitoral complex. And, to many this is the scientific explanation for the g spot because we cannot find sexual, excitable tissue in the vagina wall. The g spot supposedly should be in the vaginal wall but it's not there. The Grafenberg spot (G-spot) is an erogenous zone that cannot be found.

But I think many researchers nowadays think that it is a clitoral complex. So in the male, the full length of the penis is erogenous zone. In the female, only the opening of the vagina is an erogenous zone. So here you have the, clitoral complex in more detail (see diagram above). So it's surrounding the opening of the vagina, making this super sensitive to sexual stimulation, but not the remainder of the vagina.

So this is in fact the female equivalent of the length of the penis. It's a ring. And the thing is that this is also a birth canal and if the vagina wall would be an erogenous zone then it would be extremely painful if the baby would be driven out. It's already painful, but if this were to be highly sensitive erogenous zone, then having labor and giving birth would be supposedly even much more painful and this is the solution evolution came up with. It's a ring surrounding the outside portions of the vagina, connecting to the bottom, to the pelvis floor.

Ellen Laan, she passed away prematurely because of breast cancer, 2 years ago. She made her life work of explaining girls that they have a powerful erogenous system at least as powerful as the male penis. So she feared that this little self confidence of women would scale to their size of their sexual organ, namely the clitoris. And she empowered young girls by telling them, you have a mighty sexual organ lying around the very opening of your vagina. At least as powerful as the male penis. I lectured together with Ellen, and I got very much impressed by her, by her motivation to tell women that they should not feel insecure in the presence of the penis. You have a powerful equivalent, and that's what she repeated over and over time again. And the second thing she does is she literally showed her audience how to stimulate the system from the outside.

So she did not shy away from providing very intimate details, on how to get as much pleasure out of the system as possible. And, yesterday there was a newspaper article on the what they call the “orgasm abyss”. So, penis into vagina sex is yielding an orgasm for almost all males, but virtually no females. So males have to work on that and she encouraged her female students to demand sexual gratification.

Not by just putting a penis in the vagina, but, by showing how men should stimulate their clitoral complex.

I think one of the big issues is that because of the lack of education women themselves don't know how to do it, so then they can't communicate it because they don't know.

Exactly. Time and again literature has shown that women who enjoy sex also studied their own genitals with a mirror or by reading about it or by exploring or by experimenting, and that should be encouraged. Sex is about communication.

If you do not communicate, then the penis will be inserted, the male has his pleasure and then gets out and often orgasm, it's a physiological phenomenon that after orgasm, the sexual interest falls to zero. It's gone. He falls asleep or he lights a cigarette or he turns over and if you're lucky, he either satisfies you before he inserted his penis, or he will do his pleasurable job after he had his orgasm so that at the end of the show, it is 1 : 1 instead of 1 : 0. And that's also what I'd like to share with my audience. I would like to empower my daughters to, you know, sex should be enjoyable.

And, I hope your website will be an advocate of positive sex. Too often sexual sexual education is related to a warning. “Don't get an STD”, “don't get pregnant”, all sorts of don'ts instead of do get pleasure, do enjoy it, and enjoy it to the fullest.

Something like, 75% of women experience pain during (penis in vagina) sex (Sex under 25, 2024). I mean, when I heard it, I was like, well, that makes sense to me because based on being a woman and a lot of my friends are women and we speak about these things. But the fact that it's most women. If they're having pleasurable sex, it still coming at a cost of pain, its crazy.

What is the female equivalent of getting an erection? The female equivalent.

So no guy would try to insert a flaccid penis. No guy. It is utterly impossible. So if a guy is not aroused, he will not be able to insert the penis. But a young woman has enough basic lubrication of her vagina to allow access of an erect penis.

Many young women feel pressurised to allow insertion without being fully aroused. The female equivalent of having an erection is being lubricated enough. So enough fluid should have been liberated from the vagina wall to allow easy access and pleasurable non-painful sex. If you tell me sex is painful, to me that signals the vagina is too dry, is unlubricated.

Make sure your partner, be it a male or a female or whatever, is exciting you to the point that you that insertional sex is pleasurable. And when I lecture with sexologists, they always tell me that a large portion of their waiting room is filled with young women that complain about having pain during intercourse. And the answer is always the same. Make sure you are lubricated enough, wet enough, excited enough. So also there is a task for the partner of a female (vulva owner). Make sure there is sexual excitement.

Within this topic, actually, I had another question, anatomically speaking, what is squirting? and is it something that should be expected or is it something that only happens in certain bodies?

Squirting is, a toxic result of porn. And to me, it tells me that porn makers are producing porn from the male perspective.

So female orgasm goes unnoticed unless you watch the subtle signs of a female orgasm. The essence of porn is portraying genitals and what they call an extra corporal orgasm. So (straight) porn always ends in a male orgasm, and the male shows his orgasm by allowing, filming of his ejaculation.

So males, there are many males that always look for that moment because it's looking having seeing another male ejaculate is very arousing stimulating, scene. The female orgasm is only visible when you look at her anal region. So the contraction of the pelvic floor muscles make the anal sphincter twitch at a very high rate. These twitches are synchronised with the pelvic floor muscle contractions and the same pelvic floor muscle contractions squeeze the sperm out.

Now in the eyes of a porn maker, that is way too subtle. So what they invented was squirting. The vagina is a fantastic place to hide all sorts of stuff, including balloons with water. Which can be, you know, when you raise your abdominal pressure, you can break a balloon or whatever and water comes gushing out. To ignorant, stupid males that looks like a female orgasm because if a male orgasm something comes out and now all of a sudden he sees women that showered, that I mean liters of water come out of the vagina with great force, to a man seeing a woman orgasm that is also a very arousing pictorial vision and it will drive him to its own and it will add to his own excitement and his own orgasm.

So squirting is an invention of the porn industry. It is not at all physiological. That does not mean to say that no women can lose fluids during orgasm, but it's very little.

So it is the invention of the porn industry to show to usually a male audience that the woman is having an orgasm because the real orgasm is very subtle. You have to film her anal area to see the vaginal contraction.

If you, by the way, if you go to porn site and you enter female contractions you can see what I'm aiming at. There were times that I showed these videos of orgasming women, but these times are way in the past because everybody can look it up right now. It's very common knowledge, these videos are very easy to watch and I no longer have to show them in class.

So the other the other myth is a facial. Facial is no longer a beauty treatment, but it is having a someone ejaculate all over your face.

So these are the sources of fluid in the female genital area. The vagina wall produces fluids to lubricate the vagina. Then we have the urethral opening, urethral orifice, which connects to the urinary bladder and can hold up to 300-400mls. There is the female prostate. So the prostate gland in males is enlarged to the size of a chestnut. But there's also a female equivalent. Now when you look at the numbers, the scientific numbers, it can produce a few millilitres.

Maybe so a millilitre is about the dice, you know the dice of your monopoly etc. So a dice is 1ml. So when you are sexual stimulated, the vagina will produce about 2 dices of of liquid to lubricate the vagina.

The female prostate will produce at most 1 to 2 ml of a viscous milky fluid. So these are the sources of fluid coming from the vagina. But your urinary bladder can hold much more and in squirting, either the woman voluntarily or involuntarily releases urine from her bladder either because she wants to or she is incontinent, or both. But the stuff is urine.

The stuff is absolutely coming from the bladder. And in porn, it is hidden in the vagina, so the bladder cannot produce enough force to give the enormous powerful ejactal fluid out of the vagina. So I suspect that, and that's what sexologists tell me. You can hide everything in the vagina. And for filmmakers, it's a beautiful way to to fake a squirting orgasm.

But the the fluid is coming from the from the bladder if it's more than if it's more than 3 or 4mls, it's coming from the urinary bladder, or it's coming from a device hidden in the vagina. And I suspect porn makers resort to hiding stuff in the vagina. And if it happens in a in a non porn actress then it may be because of urine, an orgasm can be accompanied by a raise in abdominal pressure involuntarily entering your bladder, that's possible, but it's urine and it is not part of a normal female sexual cycle.

So, this is the conclusion. At most, 5 dices of fluids are coming from the vagina. So higher volumes must originate in the bladder or in some device hidden in the vagina.

Click here to read the rest of the conversation with Prof Dr Jan Hindrik Ravesloot where we discuss how gender, sexuality and love is seen in the brain.

Interested in learning more about AFAB sexual anatomy? Click here