Althouse: Some people sneeze when they think about sex.

December 19, 2008

Some people sneeze when they think about sex.

Sherman the Monkey. What is he thinking?

Anyway... sneezing and orgasms: compare and contrast.

1. Just thinking about sex might make you sneeze.

2. ...

30 comments:

JohnAnnArbor said...: Sounds like a psychologically-based version of the photic sneeze reflex.; 12/19/08, 10:25 AM
dannyboy said...: Anyway... sneezing and orgasms: compare and contrast.

Hell with compare and contrast. I'd be snorting lines of black pepper.; 12/19/08, 10:26 AM
JohnAnnArbor said...: I think you're reversing the (alleged) cause and effect, dannyboy.; 12/19/08, 10:28 AM
Simon said...: Danny - dustless black pepper, presumably.; 12/19/08, 10:31 AM
dannyboy said...: No it's reverse engineering. If thinking of sex causes a sneeze, maybe a sneeze causes an orgasm.

It's worth a try. It's been an unusually dry week for me with the ladies so I'm game for anything.

I blame the economy.; 12/19/08, 10:33 AM
dannyboy said...: Actually let me clarify that last comment about trying anything.

I'm not ready to switch hit and I'm not into sheep no matter what the sterotypes say.

As you were.; 12/19/08, 10:35 AM
JohnAnnArbor said...: Thanks for clarifying that.; 12/19/08, 10:37 AM
Darcy said...: LOL.

So, I sneeze a lot when I wake up in the morning.; 12/19/08, 10:39 AM
Swifty Quick said...: When it happens to the female partner mid-act, the kegels are awesome. I know these things.; 12/19/08, 10:42 AM
Lawyerly said...: I will never forget the day my mom handed me a cartoon book entitled "Where Did I Come From." It basically amounted to a sex-ed comic strip adventure about a portly couple engaging in foreplay and eventually having sex. This was my mom's way of explaining the birds and the bees. I've grown OK with it.

In its most memorable 2-pages, the book likened an orgasm to that feeling you get when you have to sneeze, "only nicer." There was a pair of facing-page animations, one showed the fat dude with his finger to his nose getting ready to sneeze, and the other showed the fat dude in bed on top of the fat lady. In the latter, he was in a something of a pushup position, chin held high and eyes rolled back, demonstrating what I would years later refer to as his "O-face." That night I enjoyed my first ever session of auto-eroticism.

This was nearly 20 years ago, so apparently this whole sneeze/orgasm connection has been around awhile.; 12/19/08, 10:44 AM
David said...: We laugh. It beats sneezing.; 12/19/08, 10:50 AM
Lem Vibe Bandit said...: I sneeze after a few zips of beer.

It’s uncanny.
I’m at the bar, I know it’s going to happen and then it does. Usually twice but sometimes tree times. No – there’s no smoking in NJ and I don’t smoke either. It doesn’t matter where or when I drink the beer – the sneezing is coming.

It’s as if it was voluntary – but it isn’t. other than drinking the beer I have no control over it.

It’s weird. I wonder if because I expected, I have conditioned myself.; 12/19/08, 10:51 AM
Wince said...: I was surprised when I first read there is erectile tissue inside of the nose and on the face adjacent to the nose.

Recently, the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine has had some interesting letters on a theory from times past - the nasogenital reflex theory - that says that the nervous system makes a direct link between the erectile tissue in the genitals and the nose.; 12/19/08, 11:19 AM
JohnAnnArbor said...: Wonder if that can be related to proboscis monkeys somehow?; 12/19/08, 11:22 AM
dannyboy said...: I sneeze after a few zips of beer.

Ouch. Is that a sign of an allergy? I know a guy whose allergic to alcohol. Say's one drink and he feels like he has broken glass in his belly.

I light a candle at mass for him every Sunday.; 12/19/08, 11:34 AM
dannyboy said...: Oh the pepper thing didn't work either. My nose burns like hell now but it was for a good cause.

Should be a decent night at the pub though so I might be able to line up something. There's this one waitress who is a little hot tottie and has been wearing this little Santa outfit that made me spill half my beer earlier this week.

I didn't even care. I might be smitten.; 12/19/08, 11:36 AM
ron st.amant said...: Now we know why Bill Clinton's nose was always red; 12/19/08, 11:37 AM
Anonymous said...: Either way, the tissue industry wins, big time.; 12/19/08, 11:51 AM
Eva said...: I can clearly remember 8th grade's WWWBL class. That stood for What Will We Be Living? It was a Sex and Marriage class What an odd name. Anyway, Sister Rosaria described an orgasm as a "pelvic sneeze". I wonder if she had any first-hand experience....

From the look on her face, and the grim way that she interacted with people, I would have to speculate a "no."; 12/19/08, 12:35 PM
dannyboy said...: It was a Sex and Marriage class What an odd name.

Hey, its funny you say that. I went to Catholic school and they called it Sex and Marriage too.

Although I didn't get educated until my senior year. It wasn't until later that I found out I didn't learn a damn thing and so I had a lot of make up work to do.

Later at one of those alumni reunion things I suggested a replacing the textbooks with a couple of videos and some internet sites that would save future graduates a lot of frustration and embarrasment with potential partners.

I haven't been invited back since. Bastards.; 12/19/08, 12:54 PM
Alan said...: I sneezed when I read Darcy's post.; 12/19/08, 1:16 PM
DaLawGiver said...: I definitely have the photic sneeze reflex JohnAnnArbor mentioned. Sudden bright sunlight makes me sneeze at least three times in a row. On the other hand I no longer get morning wood no matter how much I sneeze.; 12/19/08, 2:00 PM
Joe said...: My wife calls it the horny sneeze as in "was that a horny sneeze?" Though it's not from just thinking about sex and it doesn't always happen, especially when I'm tired.

I also occasionally have a photic sneeze reflex, though the pattern isn't clear enough to know the exact conditions (i.e. beyond full sunlight, how bright it has to be and so forth.); 12/19/08, 2:31 PM
Anonymous said...: I'm afraid I fall into this category. I don't sneeze every time I think about sex, but once in a while, a particular sexual fantasy will set me off. And I don't think a genetic defect is involved - sneezing can be pleasurable, and I guess my libido has become linked with the act as much through Pavlovian conditioning as anything else.

I remember years and years ago, sportscaster Marv Albert was on David Letterman (back on NBC, I think), and Albert claimed that he could sneeze on cue. Considering the trouble Albert got into later, I wonder if he, too, was a secret serial sexual sneezer.; 12/19/08, 3:08 PM
blake said...: Old joke of a couple of patients in the doctor's office, the one noticing that every time the other sneezes, he unzips his pants and wipes off. Curious, of course, our generic joke cipher asks him what he's doing.

"Every time I sneeze I have an orgasm," he says.

"Oh? What do you take for that?"

"Ragweed."

This has been Joke Server 2000(TM).; 12/19/08, 4:59 PM
blake said...: One shouldn't sneeze. It saps one's precious bodily fluids.; 12/19/08, 5:00 PM
AllenS said...: EDH said...
"I was surprised when I first read there is erectile tissue inside of the nose and on the face adjacent to the nose."

That must explain Pinnochio. He wasn't lying, he was sneezing!; 12/20/08, 6:50 AM
Ron said...: The other night on Leno, Scarlett Johannson blew her nose into a kleenex that they are now auctioning off on Ebay for charity!

It's up to $4k!

doubt me?

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=220331665273; 12/20/08, 6:58 AM
Meade said...: I've paid more than that for an empty Althouse coffee cup with lipstick on it.

I keep it in a bank vault in Kansas City.; 12/20/08, 8:27 AM
rhhardin said...: `Speak roughly to your little boy,
And beat him when he sneezes

Kenneth Burke identifies it as meaning farting.; 12/20/08, 12:15 PM