Characteristics of Human Copulation Discussion

The Process of Copulation:
When intercourse is initiated, there is a sudden flow of blood to the male reproductive organ penis. This helps it to get enlarged & also rises it. This state is known as erection. Erection allows the penetration to be easy & smooth in the reproductive tract of the female.

Sexual intercourse can climax in an orgasm. An orgasm is a process in which a male ejects its semen that comprises of its sperms that can fertilize the egg in the female. The males can produce and eject semen & also be sexually active because of the hormone androgen.

At the time of sexual arousal and intercourse, a pattern of physiological events that occurs in four stages is known to take place in human beings. The four important stages are excitement, plateau, orgasm, and resolution.

The first stage is the excitement stage. In this state, the body is ready for sexual activity as the muscles get tense and the heart rate rises. There is a gush of blood to the penis in the males and it becomes erect while in the females, the vagina becomes and the inner region of it become moist and also the clitoris expands. These are certain physiological changes seen in females.

The next is the plateau stage. This stage is covered by rapid and heavy breathing while the muscles continue to get tense. The glans at the head of the penis swells and now the testes in the male enlarge. The outer vagina contracts and the clitoris retracts in the females.

The third is the state of orgasm. When the orgasm is at its climax, the neuromuscular tension that has arisen in the before stages are released within a few seconds. A pattern of contractions is evident in the vagina and the male penis also contracts in that same pattern and rhythm. This leads to the ejection of semen in the vaginal tract of the female. Semen is a mixture of the sperms along with other accessory fluids.

The fourth & last stage of human copulation is the resolution stage. This is the resting phase. It may take a few hours to achieve this stage. The penis gets back to its normal size as it was before being erect. The vagina and the other genital organs in the female get back to their original shape. In men, there is a refractory period that ranges from a few minutes to a few hours. In this stage, the male is not capable of any sexual arousal. In women, there is no presence of any such refractory period.

Once the sperms get deposited in the vagina, they begin their journey further into the uterus to fertilize the egg. The vagina is like a tract that leads the path for the sperm. The speed of the sperm is several millimeters per second. Their journey to the fallopian tubes is greeted by various muscular contractions of the uterus. An average human’s ejaculation has around one hundred million sperm. Only a few dozen can complete their journey and out of these, only one will successfully fertilize the egg.