Why the gagging reflex switches off during sex

It all makes sense to me now. According to a Scientific American article, sexually-aroused women are harder to gross-out…

Sex can be, well, kinda gross. So how do we have sex?

Once we’re turned on, it turns out, it gets harder for icky stuff to turn us off. Women, anyway. Gross things just don’t seem as gross when gals feel amorous.

That explains a lot of things, doesn’t it?

It explains why that whole sex-with-the-gardener thing in Desperate Housewives and that sex-in-a-carwash-with-a-stranger scene in Ally McBeal are actually not all entirely implausible, and why the gagging reflex does not kick in during certain activities.

Nature is certainly clever. The idea also caused me to pause and wonder about how much of what I consciously think of is really “me” at work. When I was a kid, I’d see a romantic scene on TV and think ewwww. Then puberty came and suddenly the mind’s response changes. Did we literally consciously change our minds with regard to those things when we turned 13? More likely, our body chemistry changed it for us, which brings up the question of whether our minds are really just all confined to our brains alone.

I recall in my younger days when we go on a barkada trip out of town with my college friends. On one hand, we’d not give a second thought to checking into really appalling accomodation and live for several nights in relative squalor while, on the other, splurge time and money on partying, boozing, throwing up on the sidewalk, and getting felt up by pasty guys on a packed dance floor.

All gross-out in hindsight looking back with my new-found “adult” sensibilities.

Priorities are funny. Seems like they are all ultimately biological and geared towards sowing our oats. I read somewhere that reflexes associated with disgust such as grimacing at the sight of the yucky are part of our body’s defense against all those deadly pathogens out there trying to hitch a ride on our upwardly mobile bodies. We instinctively shut our lips tightly, crumple our faces to reduce the size of our nostrils, and recoil when grossed-out.

But then all that goes out the window when we’re all in the mood for a bang.

Nature nga naman talaga. It gets in the way of leading a safe and boring life.

🙂

Kate Natividad

Frustrated artist doing geek for a living.