I would like to first start off by thanking you, the readers, for giving me an entertaining bunch of comments, stories and suggestions to get my ideas rolling. So, with inspiration overflowing, I’m going to begin from the end rather than the beginning for my first exploration into sex and relationships.

What does this mean? Well, the end in this case is the climax — better known as an orgasm. As we enjoy the random pleasures and fits of ecstasy that summer activities and hot weather bring, it’s time to provide some insight into this ecstatic aspect of sex.

I’ll start with a common misconception: Women are supposed to have better orgasms than men, right? Not necessarily. Jena Pincott, the author of an intriguing book titled Do Gentlemen Really Prefer Blondes?, debunked this myth by comparing orgasms to joy in general: “There is no such thing as male joy and female joy. … It’s how you get to the climax and how you feel afterward where a woman and man are likely to differ.”

Pincott bases this idea on a study done at the UW in the ’70s where UW psychologists asked about 50 male and female students to write a description, without mentioning genitalia, of how an orgasm felt to them. A panel of 70 male and female gynecologists, obstetricians and medical students reviewed the descriptions to determine the sex of the writer. One description read, as quoted in Pincott’s book, “An enormous buildup of tension, anxiety, strain followed by a period of total oblivion to sensation, then a tremendous expulsion of the buildup with a feeling of wonderfulness and relief.”

Believe it or not, the panel wasn’t able to determine the sexes. So, all of women’s extra-special nerves do not seem to add much to the final destination in comparison to men — even if the trek there seems to go down two completely different pleasurable paths.

But, let’s not be too technical here: Even though there are many biological and emotional similarities in orgasms, many of us can attest to substantial differences. For one thing, women can have multiple orgasms, and amazingly, some even have orgasms that last up to two whole minutes. In orgasm time, that’s pretty fantastic! Men, in general, have orgasms of about 17 seconds at most.

A female friend was reluctant to admit that she is not quite sure if she’s had an orgasm before or not, and I’m sure she’s not alone in this uncertainty. On the other hand, a male colleague compared the sensation of an orgasm to the punch of the high alcohol content of a shot of Bacardi 151 and Chartreuse. As Pincott puts it: “Some compare the sensation of male orgasm to sneezing and the female orgasm to shivering.”

Now, you can decide if a sneeze is better than a shiver, but either sex is sure to take each orgasm as a sensational, roller-coaster ride of euphoric pleasure — even if it lasts as long as, well, a sneeze.

So, with this newfound knowledge, I hand off the sexual baton to you, and you can put this theory to test. The Daily’s suggestion box is open for you to continue dishing out your thoughts and experiences regarding this, or any interesting fact about sex and the sometimes complicated, sometimes effortless relationships that accompany it.

Reach Copy Chief Parisa Sadrzadeh at features@dailyuw.com.