Cold Glans

During normal physiologic penile erection, there is increased blood flow to the two erection chambers, the corpora cavernosa via the right and left cavernosal arteries through relaxed helicine arterioles. As the corpora cavernosal veno-occlusive mechanism activates, hardness occurs within the two penile erection chambers with an increased intracavernosal pressure from 6-8 mmHg at baseline to approximately 100 mmHg during erection, and to over 1000 mmHg during the external compression associated with sexual intercourse.

During normal physiologic penile erection, there is also increased blood flow to the corpus spongiosum and penile glans via the right and left dorsal penile and corpus spongiosum arteries through relaxed helicine arterioles. As the corpus spongiosum and glans veno-occlusive mechanism activates, engorgement occurs within the corpus spongiosum and glans with an increased intraspongiosal pressure from 6-8 mmHg at baseline to approximately 20 mmHg during erection, and to approximately 30 mmHg during the external compression associated with sexual intercourse. There are few research studies concerning the physiology of the corpus spongiosum and glans veno-occlusive mechanism. Presumably, there is compression of subtunical venules by expanding spongiosal erectile tissue against the tunica albuginea.

The importance of penile glans engorgement during normal penile erection has not yet been fully physiologically clarified. However, an engineering principle is that to achieve penetration, although the body of the object may be hard, the relevant contact point of the object needs to be hard as well. If the relevant contact point of the object is soft, the object will buckle. Take, for example, a cooking spatula with a long wooden/metal handle and a flexible blade made of soft plastic. If the relevant contact point of the spatula is the hard handle (upside down spatula), no buckling will occur. If the relevant contact point of the spatula is the soft blade (correctly oriented spatula), buckling will occur, since the relevant contact point is soft. It is not well appreciated but penetration for sexual activity requires a firm penis in the shaft and a firm contact point, that is, the glans penis. When the glans penis is soft, it is more difficult for a man to penetrate for satisfactory sexual intercourse.