As far as problems go, morning wood isn’t the worst one to have.
It can be a bit annoying though, especially if you have roommates. Perhaps some of you have mastered the waistband tuck as you walk down the hallway to the bathroom to brush your teeth, antenna precisely adjusted. Or maybe you’ve found a more labor-intensive method for putting your soldier at ease.
But whatever your tactic of choice may be, have you ever wondered why you so often wake up on high alert?
Well thank god the scientific community has fully investigated the phenomenon, and I fucking love science recently published a thorough report.
How about we take this to the next level?
Our newsletter is like a refreshing cocktail (or mocktail) of LGBTQ+ entertainment and pop culture, served up with a side of eye-candy.
Here are the warm, hard facts:
- The proper name for morning wood is “nocturnal penile tumescence,” and they normally occur three to five times per night, unless you have erectile dysfunction (so be happy if you can’t tame yourself in the AM)
- Believe it or not, NPT begins in utero. So like, baby boners — ew.
- Women also have a similar body response called clitoral erections and vaginal engorgement during sleep. (In related news, this is the first time Queerty has published the term “vaginal engorgement.”)
- NPT is associated with REM (rapid eye movement) sleep, with one school of thought saying that, “during REM sleep, noradrenergic cells (neurons that release the neurotransmitter noradrenaline [norepinephrine]) located in an area of the pons (part of the brainstem) called the locus coeruleus are switched off. It is thought that these cells are associated with the inhibitory tone of the penis; therefore, when their activity is reduced during REM sleep, testosterone-dependent excitatory tones can be expressed which result in an erection.”
- As for why? Well some argue that it’s the body’s way of protecting your junk. Erections oxygenate the penile tissue, and in turn keep it viable and prevents erectile dysfunction.
- Or it keeps you from wetting the bed. When the bladder becomes full it can trigger an erection to keep you from releasing. But that seems to be a less popular explanation.
So there you have it — way more than you ever needed to know about your morning wood. But rather than be annoyed next time, you can at least rest easy knowing that your body is doing what it can to keep your penis happy and healthy.
ted72
Great informative article. Thank you.
reece99
Great! Now show me some.
lcandela123
Interesting story. Personally, I suspect that we get morning wood because our nocturnal dream state is filled with sexual meaning. Some of the other explanations are suspect.
“some argue that it’s the body’s way of protecting your junk”. Maybe, but the causality is inverted. A species whose junk is protected is more likely to survive and procreate. But this would be due to a random mutation that accidentally provided benefit to the species. The body doesn’t purposely “protect our junk”. If this is true, we’d expect to see it in other species, too. Do dogs get morning boners, too? Maybe they are having sexy doggy dreams.
“Or it keeps you from wetting the bed.” Hard to see how that confers an evolutionary survival benefit. Do people die from bed wetting before procreating? Maybe their girlfriends get grossed out and kick them out of bed.
Stache99
@lcandela123:Maybe a pet owner can verify this since allot of them sleep with their owners.
I’ve gotten up in the middle of the night to pee and no erection to speak of.
I think this is more of a thing when you’re younger. When I was a teenager it would get hard at the worst times. Now a days if I do wake up hard it’s due to some great dream.
vive
@lcandela123, maybe, but in my experience sexy dreams have nothing to do with nocturnal erections. I get the latter all the time and hardly ever the former, sad to say.
Dxley
Well, that was anti-climactic.
stranded
I only came here because the guy pictured looks a lot like the regular sized twin from TLC’s Little People, Big World.
DerekR
@Dxley: Said everyone who has ever had sex with you…….
CoachS
@stranded: Best… comment… EVER! lol
lather
@stranded: It does look like him.
NateOcean
Back in my university days, as an engineering grad student, we did a few studies on NPT as part of the sleep studies we were doing (mostly for drug company testing).
We actually had a gizmo, that the guy would slip over their dick before they went to sleep. It would record penile tumescence that could be correlated with REM sleep, etc.
If you are wondering if you have NPT, you can always use the “postage stamp” test.
This works best with the old-school stamps that you lick. Peel off a strip of a half-dozen stamps (or whatever’s needed to go around your dick). Lick as necessary to make a band of stamps around your dick. Snug, but not tight.
Go to sleep.
When you wake up in the morning, if the band has been broken, congratulations: penile tumescence!
ethan_hines
@lcandela123 said ” Do dogs get morning boners, too?”: It seems NPT is not just limited to humans : http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/dream-catcher/201406/the-mystery-rem-related-penile-erections
Danny
I’ll break it down for you guys so it’s easier to understand. It’s a simple functions check and a bio-calibration.
Xzamilio
@Danny: Who the hell asked for your breakdown? Go be self-important somewhere else.
Mikah
Enlightening.
darkanser
I remember years ago –years ago — in sex education when the query posed to the male teacher was ‘why so often when a guy’s bladder is full, he gets a hard-on — what we used to call a “pissed” hard-on?’ The male professor seemed not to know what all of the rest of us were quite familiar with and gave us a rather lame response. Oddly, it was only years later after I learned of the existence of the prostate –there was no mention of it then– that I figured out that vibrations of a full bladder can directly stimulate the prostate — hence the erection.
stranded
@CoachS: that was sweet, thanks! xoxo
Billysees
@NateOcean:
Interesting test….hehehe.
All very interesting comments.
Danny
@xzamilio
Wow, I was just having fun. Too bad you can’t take a joke. I wonder what life like that is like? It’s okay though, I have some special instructions just for you. Get up from your computer desk or television, put your smart phone down, and kindly remove the stick from your rear. I remember your likeness, you’re one of the trolls on here that takes everything too seriously but has no clue what’s really going on. Let’s look around. Yup! Looks like your response didn’t change anything. So have a good day sir!
vive
@NateOcean, “Lick as necessary to make a band of stamps around your dick.”
I’m trying to lick my dick so I can attach the band of stamps but I’m not limber enough. What now?
NateOcean
@vive: “phone a friend” ?
Jon DeLeon
I don’t get it…. Can u show pictures please??
Daniel Luis Ortiz
I don’t really care about the article but may need to blow up this photo and put over my fireplace 😛
John Carpenter
Can we see the front.