Sexual dry spells hurt blood pressure, intensify orgasms

What happens after a few weeks of abstinence? Two studies shed light on how a body changes after a sexual dry spell.

Before a big day: A study of 46 men and women in Scotland looked at whether sex affects the body's blood-pressure response to a stressful event -- in this case, a nerve-racking combo of public speaking and verbal arithmetic. The results, published in 2006 in the journal Biological Psychology, showed that people who'd had no sexual activity (no intercourse of any kind, no masturbation) in the two weeks before the stressful day had the worst blood-pressure responses. Those with the best reactions? Folks who'd had penile-vaginal intercourse only. (Those who'd had other types of sexual activity with another person still fared worse than those who'd had vaginal intercourse; masturbation was barely an improvement over no sexual activity.)

Before a big night: A study of 10 German men, published in the World Journal of Urology in 2001, looked at how three weeks of no sexual activity can affect orgasmic responses -- in this case, during an evening of erotic movies and masturbation in the lab. Compared with a similar session before their abstinence, the men were more sexually aroused by the film, and their orgasms were longer and more intense. (They reported that the finale did not arrive any more quickly than usual.) What's more, after the three-week period the men's testosterone levels were elevated, which is known to boost libido -- an effect that persisted throughout the film and even after orgasm.

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Regina Nuzzo