Every week we get stacks of e-mails from viewers who have medical questions they're just too embarrassed to ask anyone—except Dr. Oz.
Marcy says every time she has sex, she has multiple orgasms—anywhere from 8 to 18. "My sister can also do this. My mother. My niece. My aunt. It's mostly on my mother's side of the family. Is it hereditary, and is it harmful to have that?" she asks.
First, Dr. Oz assures Marcy that it's definitely not dangerous and tells her she's not alone—15 percent of women experience multiple orgasms. "The bigger problem is not the one that you're sharing with us, but the fact that maybe a third of women have problems [achieving] orgasms."
Dr. Oz says women's bodies are better built for multiple orgasms than men's bodies. "The blood engorges a casing around the male organ and that goes down and doesn't come back for a while," he says. "This is why there's a refractory period—a period when the male can't have another orgasm. Women, although they do have orgasms and they get engorged with blood, don't have that similar mechanism. So they can do it repetitively."
As for the genetic link, Dr. Oz says there is probably a correlation. "We think that probably 40 percent of the likelihood of a woman having orgasms is genetic," Dr. Oz says. "The most erogenous organ in the body is the brain. Your family probably has a very active portion of the brain that controls orgasms, and there is a genetic component to it."
Published 03/14/2008
