Sex: A Horizon Guide Page #3

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to accommodate a variety of sizes

of penis,

and sexual satisfaction didn't seem

to depend on penis size.

By understanding

the physiology of normal sex,

Masters and Johnson hoped to help

those with sexual problems.

Science was starting to get to grips

with sex -

to understand how our bodies carried

out this important function.

But although their findings

were detailed,

those sexual pioneers

lacked the technology

to get the whole picture

of how we made love.

In particular,

they couldn't see what was going on

inside the human body during sex.

Reproductive physiologist

Dr Roy Levin

has struggled with the technical

limitations of studying sex

for decades.

we didn't really

have the apparatus

to allow us to do the measurements,

and there was a long period of time

when you could only guess

what was happening

from the external appearances

of men and women in coitus,

so you couldn't really tell

what was happening inside

because you just can't see.

Our understanding of sex

hasn't moved on much

since Leonardo da Vinci

first started dissecting corpses

and studying them over 500 years ago.

The Queen holds this drawing

by Leonardo

in her very own private collection.

The machine Dr Levin's come to see

is this fMRI scanner.

It's basically a camera

which uses magnetic fields

to penetrate human flesh.

Today, in the interests of science,

Michael DeGroot

and his girlfriend Liz Leahy

are going to attempt to have sex

in its cramped confines.

Well, this is the machine.

As you can see inside

it's got, like, two doughnuts,

those are the very large magnets,

and in between is the space that

you'll lie down in and have coitus.

So, it's been specially adapted,

that means just a single board

has been put down

and you'll lay in between

the two magnets,

and hopefully that will capture

the images of what's going on

during sexual intercourse. OK.

Dr Levin is well aware of the

problems that need to be overcome

if this experiment

is to be successful.

It's not the easiest thing

in the world to maintain an erection

and have intercourse

in terms of this particular set-up.

They're brave people

that go into these machines.

I'm interested to see how

we're going to manoeuvre ourselves

in there, because it looks like

a pretty constricted space.

I know they want us

in one certain position,

so I hope that we're able

to situate ourselves

so that they get the images

that they want.

That's my main concern.

The scanner takes a picture

every three seconds

and produces images of the body

from top to bottom.

This is the first time

that such images have been seen

on British television.

You can sort of see the penis here,

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