Talk:Orgasmic platform

Here's the entire article as it now stands: "The orgasmic platform is the tissues of the outer third of the vagina, labeled by Masters and Johnson. They swell considerably, and the pubococcygeus muscle tightens, reducing the diameter of the opening of the vagina. During orgasm, women experience rhythmic contractions of the orgasmic platform."

I'm familiar enough with the word "platform" in other contexts to wonder how it can be applied to "tissues". Which sort of tissue does this refer to? When do they swell? Obviously, they can't start swelling at birth and continue swelling more and more until death. "Considerably" is rather meaningless; what swelling isn't considerable, and who does the considering? Is the swelling caused by capillary dilation? I take it the pubococcygeus is well defined, but as an adjective referring to the noun "muscle", shouldn't the adjectival form be used, or the word "pubococcygeus" used alone, without "muscle"? "Tighten", I take it, is used to mean "contract". It isn't clear what a "tight" muscle is otherwise. Colloquially, one can refer to one's muscles as "tight" for a day or so after strenuous exercise, referring to a state of prolonged tonus, but in describing the behavior of muscles physiologically, "contract" (or "flex") and "relax" are the conventional terms one encounters in the literature. "Women experience" begs the questions of whether the contractions are voluntary or involuntary, and whether "women" is used to refer only to adults. It's true a diagram ought to help elucidate some of the difficulties encountered in providing a clear description, but it shouldn't be expected to substitute for it. The role of Masters and Johnson in establishing what the term "orgasmic platform" means is excessively vague. Saying they "labeled" it doesn't mean much. Did they coin the term? Did they use it in illustrations as a label? Did they define it? How did they use it? Is "tissues of the outer third of the vagina" to be distinguished from (or identified with) "outer third of the vagina" alone? Unfree (talk) 01:54, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

I remember leafing through an obscure text on Physiology several decades ago in the library of my Medical School that mentioned this "orgasmic platform". If memory serves me right, there was an accompanying illustration of the female perineum to demonstrate this phenomenon. It most definitely wasn't a photograph. The term stayed with me all throughout this time, and today I Googled it to find this Wikipedia entry and discussion. I'll try to pay a visit to my alma mater's library to check if that book is still present in its collection, and to identify that book! It was a text on Physiology that wasn't commonly used by Medical undergraduates. Wargamer (talk) 12:10, 9 November 2014 (UTC)