13. Sex in a Wheelchair, for Love and Pleasure

In Chap. 3 we saw that the sensitivity of the penis and clitoris depends on the pudendal nerve and the sensitivity of the vagina depends on the pelvic nerve. These nerves of the parasympathetic system begin in the sacral and lumbar regions in the lower spine, and that is why spinal injuries make genital sensitivity impossible. However, when the injury is not very high, some women can still react to deep penetration in the most profound part of the vagina, because hypogastric nerve fibers reach there from the middle part of the spine. But most surprising was when Barry Komisaruk was experimenting on women with higher injuries, and in theory absolute insensitivity, and he observed that some of them noted very deep stimulation in the cervical region, even reaching orgasm. This had never been described before, and after more experiments Barry proved that the vagus nerve (a nerve that instead of going through the spine travels from the brain inside the body, informing on the state of the vital organs) reached the uterus and could transmit sexual stimuli.