Pre and Post Coitus

Many people – particularly those couples trying to conceive – have requested a pre and post male ejaculate photos.  So, in the interest of home science – and not so much for romantic pleasure :) – we took this series. We are not trying to conceive, which is why we chose this day of my cycle to experiment with.

Both photos are taken on the day before I began bleeding – you can see some fresh blood at the os.  The first is pre-arousal.  The second is taken about an hour later, after both male and female orgasm.  You can see a pool of seminal fluid on the bottom.  The cervix was much farther back in the vagina during the second photo shoot due to the ballooning of the vagina during arousal.

The sperm retention theory describes the cervical contractions and dipping in and out of the vagina as an evolutionary advantage of female orgasm.  This theory posits that the rippling muscle contractions of the uterus and vagina during female orgasm shift the pressure in the uterus also causing the cervix to gape and suck (imagine a turkey baster if you rhythmically squeeze it).  If the male has already ejaculated at this point, the dipping, gaping, and sucking movements of the cervix will help draw in the semen that is present in the vagina into the os and uterus (particularly if there is fertile cervical fluid present).  I imagine that if the speculum weren’t opening the vagina, the os would be sitting in a pool of semen.

Some say this theory is a myth.  Check out this article about other scientific research on the role of the female orgasm.

cervie-pre-coitus

Pre-Coitus

Pre-arousal

Some fresh blood at os

cervie-post-coitusPost-Coitus

Lubricated vaginal walls

Pool of seminal fluid below and covering os

Cervix deeper in the vagina than pre-arousal

Photo taken approximately 7 minutes after male and female orgasm

78 thoughts on “Pre and Post Coitus”

  1. Wow, thank you so much for this learning experience! Congratulations on this wonderful project, and thanks again for teaching us about our beautiful bodies.

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  2. Wow, girl. Thanks for that educational experience. It’s amazing to me that you can photograph your vagina and cervix. I’ve just finished a pre & perinatal psychology course. Quite profound. And I’m interested in the work you are doing now. Where are you living? Is it true you’ve become a midwife?

    Katie

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  3. These pictures, and your whole website, are so great and informative! I’m sending this to everyone I know. You should publish a short book of photographs!
    Thanks for your time and effort!

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  5. “I imagine that a woman with a non-retroverted uterus, whose cervix points more midline or posterior might have her os sitting in a pool of semen.”

    I imagine yours would be sitting in the pool of semen too if it weren’t for the speculum stretching it open. Just a note, in case women trying to conceive think that the semen isn’t getting close enough. This just takes a little visualization, obviously, because there isn’t really all that space in there that we see in these pics.

    Thank you for this site. It’s been very helpful for me in learning all I can about my fertility as my husband and I are trying to get pregnant!

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  6. thank you for this site, it is neat to see what is going on down there! i would love to see a pregnant womans cervix and the changes during pregnancy!!

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  8. Fantastic!
    These photographs provide more information than books on the subject of anatomy and sex. None of see our vagina or cervix so to see this in some detail is amazing.
    There is evidence of the vagina having swollen during coitus but you haven’t mentioned this but maybe your head was still spinning afterwards.

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    krish Reply:
    November 1st, 2011 at 9:59 am

    yes you are right ,,i am a male but i understand what you meant

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  10. As a guy who loves anatomy/the human body and loves women, I cannot thank you enough for these pictures. Very illuminating.

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  11. Please take more pictures pre and post coitus during different phases of the cycle. Excellent job. We would certainly like to see the cervix post coitus and post orgasm near ovulation. Thanks.

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  12. We are NOT trying to conceive, so we will not be having unprotected sex during ovulation for the sake of this project, but if anyone else wants to participate in this way, they are invited to do so :)

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  13. Thank you very much for these pictures. So many sites have pictures of males ejaculating but not what happens when a women ovulates. It was very informative, and helped a lot to answer my questions that I cannot seem to find anywhere else. Please keep up the good work, for the medical community and the public as well.

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  14. These are very educational and it is wonderful to have them. Thank you for doing these pictures. Have you considered shooting some pictures during pregnancy?

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    krish Reply:
    November 1st, 2011 at 9:59 am

    yepo they are

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  15. do you know were i could view a cervix at various stages of pregnancy please me and my husband are trying to concieve and your pictures have been amazing in helping us thank you so much xx

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  16. I too had a retroflexed/tipped uterus. I found laying on my stomach post-coitus to be more conducive to conception for precisely the reason you mention above. Every woman should have a speculum and should be empowered to know her own body. The most empowering internal exam I ever had, the midwife told me to put the speculum in myself. What a profound shift in the power dynamic!

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  19. Thanks so much for “sacrificing” some romance to do this! Helps so much to understand my body better. I am seconding the requests for pictures of pregnant cervix. My ob/gyn told me today I might be pregnant since my cervix looks “pink”. (can’t test for a few days) I say “great” beacause we’ve been trying for a year but then I just had to scratch my head – what does that mean exactly? If you know of another resource to help me with this puzzle please do tell? Thanks again for the blessing of this site.
    E

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  21. whao!!!,this is one great work of dedication and passion.i am greatly impressed,especially living in this area of the world,where little or nothing is known about cervix examination and even when known little information is given.I really do love this site and thank you so much.

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  22. Hi, magnificent pictures !!!

    Very educative without doubt.
    I’d like to know (even if that topic might be becoming boring for certain men, let alone women) if a man with a 10 inches penis fully erect wants to have intercourse with a woman having a vagina of 3 inches before arousal, how is it posssible to avoid discomfort or even bleeding of the cervix?

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  25. This is a wonderful website, truly a work of love I can see. However, in this page you repeat a myth about the uterus as if it is fact. The uterus does not work like a turkey baster and it doesn’t suck up semen during orgasm. This is a very popular idea that happens to be incorrect.

    Think about how a turkey baster works. If you stick it in the dripping, but don’t squeeze it does anything come into the baster? Nope. One had to squeeze the air out of the bulb (the uterus) of the baster to create a vacuum when pressure is released to suck whatever into the baster. There is no air in the uterus and prior to orgasm the uterus doesn’t contract and expell something so that there could be a suction if the uterus expands during orgasm. Of course the uterus doesn’t expand during orgasm, it contracts so if anything the uterus would expell whatever is inside of it during orgasm. This is why women experiencing orgasm during their period often experience a gush of new blood at orgasm. The physics works in exactly the opposite direction as described.

    This common misconception can be found in the scientific literature. It’s a nice story, but that’s all it is, a story. It’s not true.

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    cb Reply:
    June 13th, 2011 at 6:20 pm

    She isn’t saying the uterus works as a turkey baster. She’s saying the cervix dips rhythmically into the seminal fluid (if the male has ejaculated before the female orgasm) once the female orgasms. In my opinion, this author is simply using a turkey baster as a mental image that most of us can easily understand. There is literature to back up this theory and I’ve personally seen video. I really wish i could cite the exact film to back up my statement. And this post does specifically say that it is ONLY a theory as far as she knows, and does not claim this to be fact. But I have to say, it is, at the very least, encouraging to the couples who have been trying to conceive without luck. That is one of the most emotionally stressful and exhausting things to endure and any glimmer of hope, whether fact or theory, can completely recharge a couple.

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  26. Wow thinks for showing me what is happening when I start having spastic convulsions in mt vagina. That is a great illustration with out all the vulgarity hype.
    Natasha

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  27. Your site it amazing! I would’ve never thought we’d be able to see a cervix in this light. And kudos to you and your bf for having the gusto to take post-coital pics. I’m off to look at more photos and sharing this site with all my mommy friends! Thank you so much again and good luck with your project!

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  28. beautiful cervix.com is a great site I am in a TEEN LIFE class in COOP HS and WE needed this to answer a lot of our questions just like the Pre- and Post picx. So much is being learned everyday in our classAbstain is a fariytale and always has been let’s be real and live productively intelegent.

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  29. Kim Wallen : HI
    Teen Life class of Co0p High. We understand the idiogram of the turkey baster, We know it only takes a nano gram of semen to rush into the follical of the Fall-open tubes[te he ha ]so the Sucking would accually be just what ‘klings’ to the edges of the cervix as it becomes Enlivened and that is enought to put it down under the blanket of friendly environment.actually osmosis in a ,loose way, thru the contracting orffice. An Historic reference here is to ‘cervix plugging’ with the dried skin of kelp leaf skin, after coitus it would swell and fall out.
    Though male contraception was intrals of animals/Fish/birds. The skin of Slick skined fish[catfish]and even Trout with the tiny micro dot scales left intact. preverved in fish oils not rolled l1ke those of today. BUT we do have lamb skins that are still ‘tied on with a small closure string at the base after erection.

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  32. About the sperm retention theory – if you watch “The Human Animal” it was a documentary you can see it in action. They recorded the cervical action of dipping into the semen.

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  34. I second the call for more pictures on this line of inquiry.

    Namely., with yours;
    1. Pre-arousal
    2. Post-arousal (when you’re “ready” :-) )
    3. post-orgasm if he has not ejaculated yet
    4. post-ejaculation (the sooner after, the better)

    plus, and additional set, from another woman willing to submit the same series of pictures who does not have a retroverted uterus, so as to demonstrate the conditions and physical relationship between all of the fluids in vast majority of women.

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  37. Ground-breaking. Throughout the late 20th century, students and others interested in medical science, human biology, and related sciences were relegated to pen and ink renderings, or at best, artistic color graphic illustrations. In the early 21st century near real-time, digitized photo recordings provide a far more visually accurate biological depiction of the human reproductive system at its origin.

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  43. this theory is not a myth= it has been filmed.!!! Also at ovulation time the secretions are like water with a tide!!! all designed to enhance the possibility of fertilisation to occur! the body is a magical beautifully designed wisdom!!! thank you= this is a wonderful informative educational site for all women of all ages!! brigitte

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  45. Thank you so much for this sight..my husband and I have been trying to conceive, and this actually answered a lot of questions that I have had!

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  46. hi great informative website.

    maybe i can offer some helpful info to women trying to conceive.

    the orgasms i had with my x husband were never as gd as when it was just me and my vibrator.

    and when i was trying to conceive after sex i wld use my vibrator and have a ‘proper’ toe curling orgasm :) and going off what you have said about the orgasm causing the cervix to suck up the sperm, i guess what i was doing was just that.

    i now has a beautiful 2 yo daughter and think it only took a week to concieve after going off the pill and using the method i discribed.

    hope this helps someone

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  48. Cervical Orgasm a very delicate topic.

    I am convinced (for myself) that we have brainwashed women thinking it hurts to be pushed by the penis in our vagina (and that menstruating is a hurt for many years) and that our genitals don’t include our cervix and uterus. Here is why I want to share what happened to me:

    I do not want to discard facts that many women have endometriosis and other difficulties or who had to go through hysterectomy and oophorectomy, although I want to address my plea to all women who still have healthy uterus and cervix (and ovaries) and to men who still wonder about the use of that vagina of ours…

    In the early 90s, I was living in Nova-Scotia and had a cyst on an ovary.
    My family doctor sent me to a gynaecologist, and he, (without proceeding with a vaginal exam), proposed me to have hysterectomy and oophorectomy in order to avoid future cancerous internal organs.

    I explained to both that my sexual response (climax) had been cervical most of my married life with simultaneous orgasms. They had never heard of such thing…

    I phoned many professional gynaecologists, and nobody could validate my sexual response. I felt privileged rather than abnormal and continued my search;

    I started doing research and found the “HERS Foundation” (Founder Nora Coffey an ex-nurse). She suggested asking my gynaecologist to try to save my cervix if my uterus had to be removed.

    Finally a gynaecologist (in reproduction and fertility) from Quebec city, took me over the phone as his patient. He, later, only removed my cyst and my ovary (laser surgery) and wondered why they wanted to remove everything when my uterus and cervix and ovaries were healthy.

    So I had so to drive 13 hours from Nova-Scotia to Quebec province to save my internal sexual organs.

    I am not saying some women do not need these procedures but there is an obvious ignorance from women alike to think their uterus and cervix do not serve any purpose but for a crib (uterus) and the cervix being only a passage for the baby. Please take time to watch this video on these topics at:
    http://www.hersfoundation.com/anatomy/index.html

    Can we really think that God created women with a vagina with no other purpose but to create a passage for babies?
    The only one time I have heard a woman on TV talk about cervical orgasm was a few years back from a prostitute invited at the Joan Rivers show. That was the very first time I felt validated with the kind of orgasm I thought “normal” for me and thought “known” from professionals…men and women…well not so…
    To me it is a pure “castration of women done on a large scale.
    I could not imagine deep penetration of my partner/husband penis stomping on walls of skin, deep in my vagina, once my cervix would have been removed…

    This brave woman prostitute also said that before menstruations the cervix raises up to a position ready to let the menstrual flow come out where the rest of the month it curves in. I checked that out for myself and it was the same for me.
    There is a website where you can see the cervix picture daily and it is a most incredible site. (www.beautifulcervixproject.com)

    The cervix (that I really do compare to the gland of the penis) is indeed fragile, sensitive (that is probably why women are sensitive to the speculum while having a vaginal cytology…men would probably react the same way if a speculum would be surrounding their gland….) and that peak feeling when, once the cervix is thrust by either a finger or a penis, needs to be pushed even more and with greater intensity.

    I realized that most women I have talked to knew only about their clitoris and did not care to have had hysterectomy and removal of their cervix…
    From the experts I read on the web, it seems to be that most women (around 80 pourcent) do not get an orgasm during the coït. A few friends my age, I spoke to just do the star fish and ask their partner to get it over with…

    Most sex information I read, talk about the penis pleasuring the woman only (and most sites explain that) because in fact, the clitoris rubs on the pubic or penile area of the man…so man cannot and never will know that the existence of his phallus is more than to just pleasure himself (and feeling guilty about it) and can also be utile only so woman rubs her clitoris on it while being penetrated while men must feel ashamed to have this protuberance called a penis.

    I remember Mme Janette Bertrand (in Quebec, Canada)in a sexuality book saying the cervix was insensitive like the tip of one nose…

    There is a site I discovered which is inspiring:
    http://www.beautifulcervix.com/

    I also wish gynaecology (and sexology) department in Universities would mention the role of the cervix and uterus as being part of our genital. It seems to the contrary that those books talk only about abnormalities of the cervix and uterus with rather scary images of those abnormalities. And even now they have a vaccine to protect the cervix from human papillomavirus (HPV), a prevention cancer vaccine. Would men need to protect their gland as well with such a vaccine since the cervix and gland to my knowledge equal the same thing?

    There is a couple of great websites about sexual education or human sexuality that I want to share with you and it is not pornographic at all:
    http://www.orgasmarts.com/introduction.htm (by JasonJulius)
    http://inandact.blogspot.com/2009/09/le-deep-spot.html (by David Shade)

    Why has this topic been so difficult to talk about? From health professionals, for parents and educators? For women and men and even sexologists?

    It is the very first time I express my views on this most important topic and I am proud to share it with you. I want to add I do not believe the cervical sexual response must be mandatory although find it very sad that even the best sexologists, if they never experienced a cervical orgasm, themselves or with their partner, may not know about the real purpose of our cervix, not to mention our uterus waving during climax.

    I indeed sent this text or a similar one, on my behalf, to all the sexologists from UQAM last Spring 2010, and one of them phoned me and told me that even among themselves, women sexology teachers are very uncomfortable addressing this topic!

    She suggested me an editor and to send my texts to her and translate it after in English to forward to Oprah Winfrey!

    And those sexologists who did experience cervical orgasm abstain, omit or are ashamed/shy (maybe afraid to be judged) to talk openly about it because it is not yet written in books and officially proven that the cervix is very sensitive sexually or responds beautifully sexually. Even the best sexologists or/and gynaecologists on Oprah never talked about it.

    ‘Les monologues du vagin’ that a few Quebec women artists presented on stage, motivated me to write about this topic…

    The discovery of Dr William Reich, (orgonomy.org) who died in prison because he studied the sexual human energy or orgasm phenomenon brought me also to get involved in writing. USA government burnt his books. 

    I am ready to discuss this topic with anyone, professionals (gynaecologists who were first men into this profession), doctors, women, etc.

    Regards, and thanks for reading my text,
    Claire Longpré

    Thetford Mines, Québec, Canada
    Email : clairedelune@hotmail.ca
    Phone: 418-755-1498

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  50. Keep up the fantastic work. I’ve been researching, orgasms and yours is one of the most informative websites I’ve found. Your readers may also be interested in a very unique video I came across about the orgasm. I’ve only seen it the one place, http://www.cool-neatstuff.com/Medical . It’s free I just had to do a quick survey for security reasons :)

    I am in the process of making an orgasm related website. I will be sure to link to you on there :)

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