To understand how the penis can double in size, one has to know something about how the penis is constructed. The penis is like two spongy sausages side by side, or a double-barrel shotgun. It can be filled with blood by the opening and closing of a special form of valve system. When the valve of the incoming blood vessel is opened and the valve on the outgoing blood vessel is closed, a lot of blood is trapped in the spongy component of the penis. The penis becomes turgid and erect. It is estimated that the blood flow in the flaccid penis is 5 ml per minute. At the start of the erection, the blood flow may go up to 100 ml per minute. When the penis reaches a stable turgid state, the blood flow is maintained at about 50 ml per minute. The control of this valve system is not a completely voluntary one. If a man decides to have an erection, even if he desperately wants to, he may not be able to have one. This is because the valves around the spongy part of the penis are controlled by the autonomic nervous system. This system controls various bodily functions, such as stomach movements, and is not directly under our control. Remember the time when you burped in public and were embarrassed? You had no way of preventing the burp, because burping is under the control of the autonomic nervous system.

In fact there are two major groups of activities in the body, which are controlled by two separate systems. These are like the gear changes of our cars—automatic and manual:

* The automatic system is controlled by the autonomic nervous system. This regulates our stomach movements, heart rate, blood pressure, etc. and, of course, male erection

* The manual system is controlled voluntarily by our brain; for example, you can move around or sit still whenever you want.

The only time that these two systems are not under our control is during dreaming. In REM sleep, the manual system is no longer working and the muscles are completely relaxed, even in the most tense people. So when a man dreams, on the one hand the genitalia are doing their compulsory exercises, on the other hand the muscles of the body are having a compulsory rest.

*34\174\4*

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