“The desire for sexual expression is inborn and natural. The desire cannot, and should not be submerged or eliminated. But it should be given an outlet through forms of expression which enrich the body, mind, and spirit.” — Napoleon Hill (1883-1970)
Sexual Competition and Submission
Aside from humans, chimpanzees are often considered the most violent and abusive species on the planet, despite competing for just one resource. Ordinarily, they do not compete for food because the fruit and leaves they forage are evenly scattered. They compete for sex, and the competition is often violent. In most primates, dominant males restrict sexual access to females. Nondominant males are thus forced to inhibit their sexuality. They are usually attacked if seen approaching a female for sex and are often forced to either be sneaky or abstain from sex completely. Many primate females are similarly traumatized by sexual competition.
Access to sex is determined by rank in many animals that live in groups. This inevitably leads to stress. Status probably also dictated sexual privileges, to varying degrees, throughout human history. Because our instincts were wired in the past, even in modern humans, this age-old competition leads to unconscious sexual self-handicapping. By employing the same rationale and some of the same tools we have discussed thus far, this chapter will explain how to detraumatize your sexuality and pull your genitals out of this melee.
Sexual Subordination in Animals
The sexual subordination response isn’t just found in primates or mammals. There are many examples in the animal kingdom (from vertebrates to invertebrates) of dominant individuals causing the atrophy of reproductive organs in subordinates.1 For example, the resident queens in honeybees, termites, cockroaches, and many other species suppress the ovaries of their workers. In animals from insects to fish, the less dominant males create fewer sperm that move slower. If given the opportunity to become dominant, many fish can reverse this by increasing the size of their testes and the count and motility of their sperm in as little as a few days.
In mammals, especially primates, alpha individuals from both genders attempt to monopolize breeding through intimidation. This causes a dramatic decrease in sex hormones in their targets. Chronic intimidation can be so stressful that it impairs subordinates’ fertility, suppressing the testicular axis in males and halting ovulation in females. This is often called “social suppression of reproduction” or “social contraception.”2 There is an entire body of literature on how conflict in primates creates reproductive disadvantages for the losers.
In many monkey species, the biggest losers are completely celibate. It is common for dominant males to attack or physically displace a subordinate male in the middle of copulation, preventing them from ejaculating. The resulting brain and hormone changes decrease the quantity and quality of the displaced male’s sperm. Likewise, repeated conflict with a dominant female can cause subordinate females to lose the ability to conceive. There is every reason to believe that similar coercion and physical repercussions are commonplace in human society. Indeed, human infertility and sexual dysfunction are both known by medical researchers to be highly exacerbated by the stress hormone cortisol.
Chronically elevated cortisol levels can cause loss of libido and impotence in men mostly by inhibiting the production of testosterone. In women, it can cause severe fertility problems and result in an abnormal menstrual cycle. This antagonism between the cortisol and testosterone hormonal axes is thought to be adaptive because in emergency situations engaging in behaviors that are encouraged by testosterone, such as mating, competition, and dominance is unnecessary and possibly counterproductive.
If you put a mouse in a cage with a more dominant mouse, its testosterone and fertility will decline significantly. Similarly, if you spend time believing that you are inferior or inadequate, your virility will drop. We must avoid sexual bullying and stop ourselves from thinking sexually self-subordinating thoughts. Fortunately, the effects of cortisol on testosterone in both men and women are reversed when the stress goes back down.
You don’t want your body to assume you are a pathetic monkey trying to sneak copulations in hiding. So, you need to send it the right messages. You want to develop a mindset of sexual dominance and disinhibition affirming that you can achieve arousal at any time, have sex anywhere, and be in your sexual comfort zone under any social conditions…as long as it is ethical and legal, of course. This starts with slowing everything else down and making your sexual response a priority. Just as subordination causes us to ignore our shallow breathing and protracted neck, it also causes us to ignore both the tension and the pleasure in our genitals. The best way to counteract this is to learn to “listen” to your genitals.
One of the best ways to improve your awareness of sexual sensations is to stop bracing the muscles involved. This is simply because, if they are constantly strained, they cannot respond actively to sexual stimuli. There is no throbbing in dormant muscle.
Stop Bracing the Muscles Surrounding Your Genitals
Hip or pelvic tension can be a conscious or unconscious attempt to downplay the potency of the genital region and is yet another form of submissive body language. Over time the formation of dormant muscle leads to withered libido, lessened enjoyment of sex, and sexual dysfunction. There are other sources of pelvic bracing. Falling on the bottom, bruising the tailbone, long hours sitting at a desk or a bicycle seat, and all types of physical trauma can lead to tension the area.
Pelvic bracing is linked to medical disorders. Vaginismus is the involuntary contraction of muscles that surround the vagina. The tight muscles make penetration and intercourse painful for women with this disorder. Bracing may also make it harder for some women to orgasm. For a woman to climax, the muscles of her pelvic floor cannot be taut. They must relax during sexual stimulation so that they can contract rhythmically during orgasm. Many researchers believe that various sexual disorders such as male impotence, latency to female orgasm, and vulvodynia (chronic vulvar pain) can be due to excessive bracing of muscles adjacent to the sexual organs.3[i] This seems even more likely when you consider that common preceding events for these disorders include sexual assault, rape, domestic abuse, sexual humiliation, chronic pain, and generalized anxiety.
It is well known that the blood vessels surrounding the external genitalia constrict during sympathetic stimulation and dilate upon parasympathetic stimulation. This means that blood flow to the penis, clitoris, and vulva is impeded by stress and accentuated by relaxation. In fact, the pelvic floor is one of the most reactive groups of muscles during startle. When it contracts it results in a retraction of the clitoris for women and the penis for men. Relaxation of the anococcygeal area is thought to be key in improving the sexual arousal response. As a matter of fact, engorgement of the penis, clitoris, and labia results from the relaxation of smooth muscle. In other words, blood doesn’t flow until these unconsciously regulated muscles loosen up.
We signal sexual submission by straining sex-related muscles in the abdomen and pelvis. These muscles lose their healthy tone after sexual trauma or feelings of sexual inferiority. Thankfully, like all muscles, you can rehabilitate them. Most people have an untapped reservoir of muscle in the groin that has atrophied. The next two sections will show you how to exercise and strengthen it. I believe proper tone in these muscles allows the genitals increased vascular blood flow (vasocongestion), increases the prominence of arousal, and heightens the accompanying sensations.
Exercise Your Urine Retentive Muscles
You have numerous muscles situated between your sitz bones, pubic bone, and coccyx. These muscles support the pelvic organs, contract during orgasm, aid in childbirth and ejaculation, and provide core stability.
Illustration 19.1: A. Side view of female reproductive anatomy. Note the location of the pelvic floor muscles stretching from the pubic bone to the tail bone (coccyx); B. Frontal view of the pelvic floor musculature which is similar in women and men. Several pelvic muscles are depicted including the ischiocavernosus, bulbospongiosus, coccygeus, pubococcygeus, the urogenital diaphragm and others.
In the 1960s, Dr. Arnold Kegel taught people how to strengthen the perineum (the area between the anus and the genitals). He knew that these muscles are often injured in women during childbirth, and he instructed women how to contract them, reinstating their strength, in an exercise that came to be known as “Kegels.” Doctors have prescribed Kegels for many reasons, including treating urinary incontinence,4 ameliorating erectile dysfunction,5 and controlling premature ejaculation.6 Kegels are taught by having the patient repeatedly interrupt their urinary flow. Dr. Kegel recommended urinating a spoonful at a time. Try this in the activity below.
Most of us learned to brace the Kegel muscles intensely as young children when “holding it” for long periods to avoid the embarrassing experience of urinating in public. Can you remember an incident in which this muscle was likely traumatized by being braced heavily during the traumatic scenario of trying desperately to find a bathroom as a child? Not only do the muscles surrounding the genitals seize up in these scenarios, but distressed breathing predominates, making the strain worse. Most people have a strong tendency to hold their breath when performing Kegels,7 and of course, this defeats the purpose. Therefore I recommend pairing Kegels with paced breathing.
The next section will provide you with an exercise that will dilate these areas rather than constrict them. In a previous chapter, we learned how important it is to perform forward bends after backward bends to neutralize the spine. I believe that performing Kegels without exercising the antagonist muscles leads to similar imbalances. For example, there is evidence that performing Kegels can lead to incomplete emptying of the bladder, and this is a risk factor for urinary tract infection and other maladies. As you might have guessed, the counterpose for a Kegel is complete bladder emptying.
Exercise the Muscles that Expel Urine
Interestingly, the Kegel contraction is braced involuntarily during social competition. Kegels result in a retraction of the clitoris, penis, and testicles, potentially making them less conspicuous to a competitor. I believe that, in this, they are submissive and intended to hide the genitalia. It is like the sea slug withdrawing its gill or the snail withdrawing its eyestalk.
Male monkeys and apes are frequently observed hiding their erections from other males, especially from males above them in the hierarchy. They don’t want to be attacked for being aroused. This is why I think genital retraction due to chronic Kegel contraction is an innate defense mechanism protecting subordinates from sexually dominant individuals. It is yet another display equivalent to a collapsed posture. I believe that losing tone and developing partial contraction in the pelvic region is a self-handicapping mechanism that assumes advertising one’s level of sexual arousal is dangerous.
If you have balanced tone in your pelvic muscles, your flaccid penis or clitoris will increase and decrease in size with your arousal level. If you have strain or poor tone, the flaccid organ may remain at its smallest possible size until full arousal is reached. Most people are aware that the penis and clitoris shrink in size when exposed to cold. In fact, penile length decreases by up to 50% in the defensive response to low temperature. I believe men with a history of chronic intimidation and sexual subordination are more likely to exhibit this kind of shrinkage when flaccid. This likely corresponds to the “grower” vs. “shower” dichotomy referenced in popular culture. The growers may be men with a more extensive history of being sexually intimidated. This may be reversible by performing the opposite of the Kegel.
It is easy for both women and men to pinpoint the muscles that expel urine. They speed up the stream. These muscles include the lower abdominal muscles and the bladder detrusor muscle. They aid in the expulsion of urine by increasing the pressure applied to the bladder wall. The stream of urine will cease when the bladder has been voided, but the muscles themselves can still be contracted. If you continue to squeeze the expulsive muscles very firmly after you finish urinating, you will realize you can flex these muscles through their full range.
Most people never use this full range, creating a missing corner of dormant muscle. Thus, it is also a reservoir that you can tap into and rehab. Think of the exercise as an “antiKegel.” As we have seen in previous chapters, sometimes the only way to free muscles from partial contraction is through hard, full contractions.
Urine Expulsion as a Posture and Mindset
You want to incorporate proper tone in these urine-expelling muscles into your daily standing, walking, and sitting postures. The muscles involved include the lower abdominals, so imagine being able to take a small punch to the lowest segment of your abs at any time. This means you need to practice walking around with your lower abs engaged as if you were peeing. I want to encourage you to walk, jog, exercise, and socialize as if you are dribbling urine everywhere you go.
“Listen” intently to the sensations involved. It should feel pleasurable. Imagine spurting rainbows and gushing warm velvet from your urethra onto everything in front of you. Experience everything orgasmically. This should be happening as you look at yourself in the mirror, as you walk around the block, and as you squeeze in that last repetition while exercising. Imagine that your genitals are permanently everted rather than inverted. As you strengthen the retentive and expulsive muscles, muscle memory will develop, and they will come to hold balanced tone automatically. I believe this is highly beneficial for psychosexual health.
I suppressed these muscles during my lifetime through acquiescent, self-handicapping behavior. I have always been averse to dirty jokes and overt sex play, which may have led to less sexualized perineal posture growing up. I believe that I unconsciously allowed my Kegel muscles to strain and my expulsive muscles to atrophy because I was sexually repressive, and anal-retentive. Again, the expulsive urinary and anal sphincter muscles work antagonistically with the retentive muscles, meaning that expulsive qualities may be especially weak in “retentive” people. If you think that you may be anal-retentive, you are probably also urinary retentive. While we are talking about poop, please ask yourself whether combining distressed breathing while straining on the toilet seat during defecation may have traumatized your anal muscles. If so, you might consider using paced breathing while defecating, when constipated, and while contracting the anal retentive and expulsive muscles.
Strengthening the muscles involved in expelling urine will make your behavior more assertive. Activity and tone in this area are associated with approach and the seizing of opportunities that are both sexual and non-sexual in nature. It is difficult to maintain a dominant, self-assured demeanor if the tone in the expulsive muscles is low. You have probably noticed that worry or sudden fear makes your retentive muscles tense and the expulsive ones limp. Similarly, encountering something sharp or experiencing fear of heights does this as well. For example, peering over the ledge from the 5th floor of a parking structure can make your whole pelvis seize up. This happens immediately and involuntarily during startle and fright. Your pelvic floor recoils from threat.
When you take an ego blow or get upset or flustered, the muscles that expel urine similarly drop out of flexion. If your machismo is questioned, but you have the gumption to reassert yourself, you might notice the activity waiver and come back. Activity here “shrivels up” when people get their “balls busted.” For many depressed and anxious people, these muscles drop out of tonicity during social encounters. For sexually assertive people, the expulsive musculature develops a stronger tone when around others they find attractive. For sexually withdrawn people, the tone may actually decrease in these situations. Losing tone and accumulating strain in these muscles leads to emasculation and/or defeminization.
When I first started to engage the muscles that expel urine, I would become afraid of upsetting the bully introduced in Chapter 2. I realized that I was afraid to engage the muscles even when he was not around. When I tried, thoughts, visuals, and a feeling of being in the bully’s presence would intrude into my mind unconsciously. It took me some time to realize that I was bracing these muscles in a restricted range out of fear of “offending” the bully. This bully was muscular, highly charismatic, a felon, and a murderer. On one occasion, I had seen him continue to make fun of and laugh at someone even after that person pulled a gun on him. As many bullies do, he would frequently tell sexually explicit stories describing his sexual prowess in attempts to intimidate other men. This is one of the fundamental forms that sexual toxicity takes.
The man had acquired “pseudopsychopathy,” meaning he had developed criminal, antisocial, and hypersexual personality traits after severe brain trauma. He was catastrophically disinhibited after being fully ejected headfirst through the windshields of two cars he stole on separate occasions. I was subverting my sexuality in an attempt to appease this man. Simply becoming explicitly aware of this subversion was enough to end it. After bringing peace to this context, I realized that there were additional contexts that caused me to brace my genital musculature. What contexts of intimidation sting you in the genitals and keep you stuck in a partially contracted Kegel? Don’t let anyone keep you in a retentive state in which the genitals are retracted or keep you from contracting your expulsive muscles. Rather than being held taut in a restricted range, these muscles should fluctuate naturally between the two extremes of retention and expulsion as you go about your day.
Once you become comfortable fully contracting the muscles that withhold and expel urine, you should notice them quiver involuntarily more frequently. Toning the muscles and stretching them out of partial contraction will increase the range of motion of your orgasms. You may also notice that you experience increased blood flow and heightened turgidity in your genitals. This suggests to me that formal physical therapy centered around exercising these muscles could treat both diminished sex drive and erectile dysfunction. However, most medical experts on the topic assume that these muscles operate autonomously and needn’t be exercised.
This medical opinion is at odds with Ayurvedic medicine and tantric Hinduism, which recognize the base of the spine as a chakra. It is called muladhara, the root chakra, and kundalini yoga emphasizes that it must be used and meditated upon. Additionally, some Japanese Zen meditation practices emphasize the lower abdominal area (dantian or tanden) as a focal point for meditation. I believe the exercises in this chapter can guide you to exert control over and rehabilitate these foci.
At one point, I realized I lacked the coordination to contract my urinary expulsive muscles and gluteus muscles simultaneously. When I tried, I held my breath. Many people have this functional dissociation. When these are dissociated, you are limited to either doing one or the other. However, it is easy to fix. Proper core stability demands that you be able to contract these muscles together actively. Everyone should teach their body to activate both the urinary and fecal expulsive muscles while simultaneously contracting their buttocks.
As with many other examples in the Program Peace system, if holding two dominant displays simultaneously is uncomfortable or difficult, they likely inhibit each other. However, if you can calmly practice them together, you disinhibit them and increase the probability they will arise together on their own.
Walk Confidently as if Your Genitals Were on Display
In Chapter 2, we discussed how submissive animals minimize the appearance of physical assets like horns, claws, and muscles. This includes the genitals. Your everyday posture and mannerisms reveal cues to others as to how comfortable you are naked. Body language evolved during our history as unclothed apes, so even clothed, we often act as if we were naked. Most people conceal their genitals during times of insecurity with their hands, legs, chairs, or tables. When a dominant person makes a power play, it is quite common for other people of the same sex to place their hands in front of their sex organs. The only time you should conceal or protect the genitals is to block a physical blow to the groin.
Most people walk in a way that hides or apologizes for their genitalia. Walking like this involves hunching or crouching of the lower back. Remember the lumbar lordosis and anterior pelvic tilt discussed in previous chapters? We actually use these to withdraw our private parts from view. They obscure the genitals like a dog hiding its tail between its legs. You should do the exact opposite. This means walking around with the back and hips open as if presenting the genitalia. To do this, flex your buttocks. That’s right, gluteal contraction puts your genitals on display by pressing your hips forward, and rolling the top of your pelvis back, as discussed in Chapter 17. It is an entirely different style of standing and walking that comes across as much more sexually self-assured.
If you can imagine being comfortably naked in social situations, you will project higher confidence. The more time you spend naked, the more comfortable it will become, which is why I strongly recommend sleeping naked when possible. If you have never slept naked, you may lose some sleep the first night because of how uncomfortable you feel. But you will relax into it within a week. I also recommend spending time alone in your room in the buff as described next.
Masturbation Trauma
Most of us were petitioned by our parents at a very young age to stop touching our genitals in the company of others. We learned to feel bad for stimulating the area, resulting in a subtle form of trauma. I recommend briefly touching yourself in a sexual/affectionate way at least five times a day. This can be a graze, stroke, or reassuring grope. Some people already do this regularly. To others, it is very foreign. You can do it alone or discretely in public. Even a second of self-comforting can help decrease bracing of the pelvic floor.
I used to worry that frequent masturbation could cause specific forms of cancer until I used pubmed.com to look at the actual medical studies. It does not. There are no diseases linked to masturbation. So, give yourself carte blanche to be completely self-indulgent. However, there are a few important caveats to keep in mind. Masturbating to pornography may desensitize you to real people, potentially leading to sexual dysfunction. Also, masturbating with a lubricant can make it difficult for men to sustain an erection with a condom. Also, consider masturbating while standing up to avoid losing the ability to remain aroused while standing. Definitely consider masturbating while paced breathing. For some people, it takes time and work merely to reach arousal while paced breathing. But the process will steel and gird your sexuality.
Studies have shown that placing tiny vibrators near or on the genitals of mice can increase sexual response, interest, and the production of sex hormones. Studies like these suggest that the external use of vibrators may convince the mammalian body that it resides in some kind of maximally optimal sexual environment and may in turn elicit an optimal sexual response from it (involving changes in gene expression). Keep in mind though that masturbating to orgasm with some sex toys may make it difficult to sustain arousal during regular intercourse.
The fascia and muscles nestled in the pelvis control the responsivity of sexual arousal. Massage and myofascial release are probably beneficial for these muscles; however, there is no existing rubric to help people do this safely and effectively. Moreover, excessive pressure could damage your sexual organs or drastically change the tone of the muscles that regulate blood flow to them. For these reasons, I will not describe a protocol for genital massage here. If you decide to use compressive massage on the areas between your legs, I recommend using only very light pressure. That being said, you should also find that groin stretching and anti-rigidity can be helpful in conditioning these muscles.
Sexual Expressivity
The anti-rigidity exercises for the lumbar spine from Chapter 17 will help free up your hips and lower back, making your sexual expressivity more sensual and enjoyable. Try to incorporate previously dormant muscles into intercourse and use them to explore new movement patterns. Use the next two activities to enhance the coordination of the muscles and joints involved.
Good sex should provide a massage to the pubic bone, and the muscles that surround it, for both partners. The friction between your pubic hair and your partner’s should make rhythmic crackling sounds. Pubic-bone-on-pubic-bone massage increases arousal and is one of the best ways to stimulate the clitoris. Just like the muscles in our lower backs, muscles that surround the pubic bone can take the form of tense cords that form tense cords. Teaching yourself to massage them during the act of sex, along with those of the other person, can be very sexually empowering.
You may want to consider extending the amount of time you spend near orgasm by deliberately delaying it. This is known as “edging,” or orgasm control. Whether practiced alone or with a partner, the idea is to maintain a high degree of sexual arousal for a prolonged period before climaxing. The critical technique consists in building toward orgasm, and then, before it is reached, reducing the level of stimulation to retain arousal, but delay the orgasm. Modulating the pace and pressure in this way can result in remaining near orgasm in a highly aroused state for several minutes at a time. When the decision is made to permit the orgasm to occur, the sensations involved may be amplified.8 There is good reason to believe that extended periods of heightened sexual arousal could lead to several benefits, such as profound partner bonding and higher concentrations of stress-relieving neurochemicals and sex hormones. Obviously, this technique is the polar opposite of what a submissive monkey sneaking copulation does. Take your sweet time during sex. Survey, probe, and investigate your sensual side because the more you use it, the less you will lose it.
Conclusions
After being stuck in a low-level anxiety attack for years, at age 25, I decided to see an endocrinologist and have a blood panel taken. The doctor said that the most apparent result from the panel was very low testosterone. Usually, this problem worsens with time. But, over a decade later, my blood panels show that my testosterone is back in the normal range. I attribute this recovery to the far-reaching benefits of diaphragmatic breathing and the Program Peace exercises, especially those in this chapter.
Many scientists concur that a satisfying sex life may be as important as diet and exercise in promoting health. However, our culture steals our sexuality from us by making us feel sexually incomplete. Due to our infatuation with status, people willingly expose themselves to things that make them question their social standing. Similarly, our instincts for sexual competition cause us to choose to expose ourselves to experiences and thoughts that question our sexual standing. For this reason, marketers and modern media inundate us with content that makes us feel sexually inferior, and that anything less than human perfection is shameful. This not only makes us feel inadequate, but also makes us feel like our partners are inadequate.
Television advertising, raunchy comedians, photo doctoring on social media, the ubiquity of unrealistic pornography, a lover’s thoughtless criticism, and the occasional sexual failure have given all of us sexual inferiority complexes. Most people feel that their sexual endowment or bedroom proficiency doesn’t measure up or that their body is not conventionally attractive enough. It is not your responsibility to brood on these things. Get over any inclination you may have to ruminate about how you compare to your partner’s previous lovers, the times you have been sexually embarrassed, or what it was like to be cheated on. These thoughts trigger our hardwired sexual self-handicapping response. When we dwell on our shortcomings, we reinforce this response. This eventually robs us of our ability to feel horny and relish erotic experiences. Sexual jealousy and worrying cause us to suppress our sex drive, brace our perineal muscles, and start down an early road to sexual decline. This can be enough to push minor penile or clitoral erectile issues into full-blown sexual dysfunction. Do not let this happen to you.
You have nothing (NOTHING) to feel bad about sexually as long as you treat your partner with affection, have good intentions, and are driven to become a better lover. Sex should be hedonistic, fun, playful, and flirtatious without hang-ups, insecurities, or self-doubts. See yourself exuding sensuality and sex appeal. View you and your partner as sexual Olympians. Follow behind them in the market or the mall, staring at their butt, thinking about how you love them, and lusting after their private parts as you contract those urinary expulsion muscles.
Don’t let anything undermine your sexuality. Listen to it. Own it. Magnify it. Celebrate it.
Chapter Nineteen: Bullet Point
- Primates are violently sexually competitive, causing all but the most dominant individuals to become sexually submissive.
- Most people have a submissive urogenital posture secondary to suboptimal responses to sexual bullying.
- Sexual submission involves pelvic floor bracing, which is related to sexual dysfunction, and the regression of psychosexual development.
- Pairing diaphragmatic breathing with exercising both the urinary retention and expulsion muscles can rehabilitate your pelvic floor.
- Spend time focusing on the physical sensations emanating from your genitals, and touch them in affectionate and reassuring ways to reduce bracing.
- When alone, spend time naked. When in public, pretend that you are both naked and comfortable.
- Whether you are nude or clothed, flex your buttocks, push your hips forward, roll the top of your pelvis backward, and otherwise use your body language to show that you are proud to have your genitals on display.
- Don’t obsess over perceived physical or performance inadequacies.
- Get people and media that are toxic to your sexuality out of your life.
Endnotes
- Hermann, H. R. (2017). Dominance and aggression in humans and other animals: The great game of life. Academic Press.
- Sapolsky, R. M. (2005). The influence of social hierarchy on primate health. Science, 308(5722), 648–652.
- Whatmore, G. B., & Kohli, D. R. (1968). Dysponesis: A neurophysiological factor in functional disorders. Systems Research and Behavioral Science, 13(2), 102–124.
- Dumoulin, C., & Hay-Smith, J. (2010). Pelvic floor muscle training versus no treatment, or inactive control treatments, for urinary incontinence in women. The Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, 10(10), CD005654.
- Dorey, G., Speakman, M. J., Feneley, R. C. L., Swinkels, A., Dunn, C. D. R. (2005). Pelvic floor exercises for erectile dysfunction. BJU International, 96(4), 595–597.
- La Pera, G., & Nicastro, A. (1996). A new treatment for premature ejaculation: The rehabilitation of the pelvic floor. Journal of Sex & Marital Therapy, 22(1), 22–26.
- Vopni, K. (2017). Your pelvic floor – the inside story: Education & wisdom from pelvic health professionals across the globe. Pelvienne Wellness.
- Bodansky, S., & Bodansky, V. (2000). Extended massive orgasm: How you can give and receive intense sexual pleasure. Vermilion.