Science Monday (or O, those freaky deaky Dutch)

Here's a little article I came across that I thought was of general interest to the greater public...it's by Schultz, W.W. et al. (a group from the Netherlands), published in 2005 in the British Medical Journal.

Abstract
Objective: To find out whether taking images of the male and female genitals during coitus is feasible and to find out whether former and current ideas about the anatomy during sexual intercourse and during female sexual arousal are based on assumptions or on facts.
Design: Observational study.
Setting: University hospital in the Netherlands.
Methods: Magnetic resonance imaging was used to study the female sexual response and the male and female genitals during coitus. Thirteen experiments were performed with eight couples and three single women.
Results: The images obtained showed that during intercourse in the "missionary position" the penis has the shape of a boomerang and 1/3 of its length consists of the root of the penis. During female sexual arousal without intercourse the uterus was raised and the anterior vaginal wall lengthened. The size of the uterus did not increase during sexual arousal.
Conclusion: Taking magnetic resonance images of the male and female genitals during coitus is feasible and contributes to understanding of anatomy.

Here's Figure 2 from the manuscript, and the relevant descriptive text. Wow!


Figure 2:Midsagittal image of the anatomy of sexual intercourse envisaged by R L Dickinson and drawn by R S Kendall.
The first careful study since the sketch by Leonardo da Vinci is of the interaction of male and female human genitals during coitus was published by Dickinson in 1933 (fig 2). A glass test tube as big as a penis in erection inserted into the vagina of female subjects who were sexually aroused by clitoral stimulation (occasionally with a vibrator) guided him in constructing his pictorial supposition.

Here's a picture of the "boomerang" penis shape described in the abstract