One major function of the orgasm becomes clearly visible in both men and women soon after it subsides.

Orgasm initiates the release of muscular tensions throughout the body, and initiates the release of blood from the engorged blood vessels.

The first notable occurrence in women during the resolution phase that follows orgasm is the immediate return to normal of the areolas surrounding the nipples.

Indeed, their rapid subsidence gives an observer the impression that the nipples are undergoing a further erection – though they are in fact only becoming more visible as the swelling around them subsides.

The increased prominence of the nipples is a sign that the woman has in fact experienced orgasm. This sign appears so rapidly that it might almost be assigned to the end of the orgasmic phase rather than to the beginning of the resolution phase. Another sign of orgasm is the rapid disappearance of the sex flush in women who have had the flush during orgasm.

Accompanying the disappearance of the sex flush, a filmy sheen of perspiration appears on many women. In extreme cases it may cover a woman’s entire body from shoulders to thighs. In other cases the perspiration may appear only on the soles of the feet and the palms of the hands, and there are other variations.

About one-third of the women have this tendency to perspire following orgasm.

About one-third of men also perspire at this time, but the reaction is more often limited to the soles and palms.

Neither this perspiration nor the sex flush is related to the degree of muscular effort prior to or during orgasm. Yet women often show a marked flush phenomenon over the entire body during plateau and orgasm, and during resolution may be completely covered by a filmy, fine perspiration.

Within five or ten seconds after a woman’s orgasm subsides, several other changes can be noted.

The clitoris promptly returns to its unstimulated position, overhanging the pubic bone; however, five or ten minutes may elapse, or in extreme cases half an hour, before it shrinks to normal size. Soon after this the orgasmic platform relaxes so that the outer third of the vaginal barrel increases in diameter.

The ballooning of the vagina begins to diminish, and the uterus begins to shrink. The cervix descends into its normal position, and the passageway through the cervix enlarges perhaps to make easier the ascent of the sperm cells into the uterus.

These processes continue at various rates for various periods of time; as long as half an hour may elapse following orgasm before the entire female body is restored to its erotically unstimulated state.

If a woman who has reached the plateau phase does not experience orgasm, the resolution phase takes much longer – an hour or so in many cases.

In men the most obvious sign of the resolution phase is the prompt loss of erection of the penis and its shrinkage back to its unstimulated size.

This shrinkage occurs in two stages. The first is quite rapid, but leaves the penis still noticeably enlarged. The remainder of the shrinkage is often a much slower process.

The male sex flush, like the female, rapidly disappears. The return of the scrotum and testes to their unstimulated state may be either rapid or slow. If the male nipples have erected, many minutes may elapse before they return to normal.

In both men and women, the pulse rate, blood pressure, and breathing rate gradually return to normal.

A significant feature of the male resolution phase is the “refractory period” that accompanies it.

During this period. a man cannot again become sexually aroused or have another erection. In some men this period may be quite brief; one young man under laboratory conditions was able to achieve three orgasms in ten minutes, for example. But in most men it lasts for many minutes at least; and it tends to increase in duration as a man grows older.

Women do not have a similar refractory period. Indeed, if effective sexual stimulation is renewed immediately following orgasm, many women can promptly reach a second orgasm.

A series of half a dozen or even a dozen orgasms without intervening resolution phases is not unusual for some women; during such a series, some women do not fall below the plateau level of arousal. This “multi-orgasmic response” is described further below.

No single sexual experience proceeds in precisely the way described, just as no individual human being precisely matches the characteristics of the “usual”, or “average”, or “typical” human being. Thus the above description should not be considered a model or norm toward which men and women should strive.

On the contrary, it is simply a description of what often or usually happens. The sexual responses of any individual man or woman will almost certainly fail to show some of the characteristics described above, and will show features omitted from the description. It is usual and normal to vary from the norm.

The same responses occur, in very much the same order, regardless of the type of stimulation (oral pleasure, masturbation, sexual intercourse) that evokes them.

Some responses, it is true, may tend to occur a little more promptly, or to be a bit more intense, when evoked in one way rather than another. Some individuals no doubt respond more readily to one kind of stimulation than to another. Psychologically, the experiences may feel altogether different. But the basic pattern of sexual responses in the human body remains the same.