A man and woman who had sex in an MRI machine were able to provide some information on what happens to the human body when getting down.
Of all the places in the world to have sex, an MRI machine would not be at the top of most couple's lists given the sterile and clinical nature of the thing is hardly erotic and it's going to be fairly cramped inside.
Much as you might want to pick something more comfortable and cosy, back in 1991 Ida Sabelis and her boyfriend Jupp did have sex in an MRI machine at the behest of their friend Dutch scientist Menko Victor ‘Pek’ van Andel.
That's because Pek wanted to know what happened to the human body during sex, and once they'd done the deed in a spooning position given the lack of space their findings ended up in the British Medical Journal in 1999.
Advert
Ida told the What Was It Like podcast that 'taking the photos took some time' as she and Jupp were told to hold their position for about a minute while images were being captured.
Fortunately for the couple they found it 'hilarious in that sense'.
You're already in the middle of sex in an MRI machine in very cramped circumstances so when someone tells you to 'keep in position' you may as well laugh.
“Jupp and I wriggled into that machine and started doing our thing, it wasn’t romantic, it was more like an act of love and a performance," Ida said of her part in the research.
“Thankfully we didn’t get claustrophobic.”
What they found from the scans was that during sex the man's penis bends to fit the shape of the woman's vaginal canal.
For the previous 500 years people had thought the vaginal canal was a relatively straight cylinder, but having sex in an MRI machine for science helped correct that assumption.
Giving birth in an MRI
Other experiments in an MRI machine have followed to discover more about what's going in in the human body, and in 2010 one of those was about observing a woman give birth.
A German woman agreed to give birth inside an MRI machine with her womb being scanned all the time, allowing doctors to observe how the baby's head changed shape as it moved down the birth canal.
Bringing a snake to an MRI
In an Israeli study on fear and what it does to the brain participants brought a snake with them into an MRI machine.
The serpent, named Nachshon, scared them enough to freak out participants and provide more vivid brain scans for the purpose of scientific discovery.
In another similar experiment people were tricked into believing they were in an MRI machine with a live tarantula, with it flaring up certain portions of their brain.
The brown note
You've seen people have sex inside an MRI machine, but other scientists observed people pooing inside one.
Not for any sense of enjoyment, nobody was having fun in this experiment, but it allowed researchers to learn more about the pelvic floor and point towards potential damage done to their bowels.
Making sweet music
There are other kinds of enjoyment to be had inside an MRI machine besides sex, as another experiment had musicians go inside and perform to see how their brains worked in the moment.
Turns out the musicians best able to improvise could turn off bits of their brains about self-monitoring, so they didn't worry as much if they messed up.
Dinosaur abuse
Testing to see whether people would have the same emotions towards seeing robots being damaged as humans, people had their brains scanned while they watched footage of humans and robot dinosaurs being stroked, tickled, beaten and choked (it's some people's idea of a good night).
It turns out people did feel bad for the dino-bots.
Solo sex in an MRI machine
It gets cramped in there and Ida made it very clear the experience wasn't at all sexy, but some folks have been in an MRI machine masturbating for the pursuit of knowledge.
Researchers wanted to study which areas of the brain get fired up during an orgasm.
Topics: Science
Joe Harker