Why Do Guys Get Morning Wood?
Let's talk about boners. Everybody loves a good boner. Except maybe most lesbians. Anyone who has ever been or had a boy can at least relate to the exuberant joy of prancing around the house naked, flip flopping your chubby back and forth, as it slaps against the sides of your belly, singing "Hahaha! Boner!" If you're a lady and your man hasn't done exactly this right up in your face at least a couple of times, there's either something wrong with your relationship or he's totally gay and flopping his boner right up in the face of his secret lover. Boners are awesome, everyone loves boners; straight guys love their boners, straight chicks love 'em too, even some lesbians can totally appreciate the novelty of good wood. And if you've ever wondered why gay dudes are gay? It's because boners are totally awesome!
Boners start en utero (yeah, inside your mom) and continue throughout life. Really. But why does every guy wake up with a kickstand? There has to be a physiological explanation for the pitched tent, right? What's the evolutionary reasoning behind morning wood?
A boner means you want to do it, right? Pop a stiffy and it's time for Jiffy? Or at least a little autoerotic meat beating? Not necessarily. It aint always about hittin the skins. There's two kinds of boners; psychogenic and reflexogenic. Psychogenic boners come from your most prominent sex organ, the brain. You look at porn, you think dirty thoughts, sometimes you're lucky and there's even another person involved. Sometimes people get parahilic psychogenic boners from really weird things like poop and Spock and video games and cars. Here's a woman who wrote in to Dan Savage about how she gets a boner from barf! (yes fellas, women get boners too...and follow that link at your own peril!)
Then there's reflexogenic boners. As any dude knows, sometimes you just get a boner for no reason. It's a reflex that you have for no reason at all. Maybe it's rubbing against your pants or something. Sometimes you're just sitting in class or getting up in front of a crowd of people and blammo! Your pants have suddenly become very flattering in the crotchal region. This is most likely what morning wood is all about.
Reflexogenic boners are caused by a nervous reflex arc between the genital area and the spinal cord.The nerves that control a reflex boner are located in the sacral nerves (S2-S4) of the spinal cord (notice how they're also connected to the rectal, perinial and scrotal nerves? I'm telling you, gay dudes are on to something here).
It is thought that morning wood may be a reflexogenic response to a full bladder. Have you ever tried to pee with a boner? Pretty much impossible, or a least very messy, because a boner pinches off the urethra making it very hard or impossible to pee. The bladder also snugs up nicely right against the sacral nerves. It has been hypothesized that night time boners (Nocturnal Penile Tumescence or NPTs) are an evolutionary mechanism to keep you from pissing the bed, i.e. you get a full bladder, your bladder presses against the sacral nerves, the nerves stimulate a reflex boner and voila! You can't wet the bed. The problem with this hypothesis is that for the vast majority of human evolution we didn't have beds (that was a joke people). That and we have many other mechanisms for not peeing in our sleep. Besides, women get night time boners just like guys do...without it blocking up their pee hole. But still, there's evidence... Either way, peeing with a boner sucks and may require some very creative solutions.
Another hypothesis about morning wood is that your body just deals with most of its important stuff at night. Everybody knows that we really need our beauty sleep, some more than others. We need sleep because many of the major restorative functions in the body like muscle growth, tissue repair, protein synthesis, and hormone release occur almost entirely while sleeping. We do almost all of our growing and healing in our sleep. Sleep is also important for healthy brain function. The plots of some really fucked up, confusing movies like Fight Club, Inception, The Machinist and to some extent Memento play with the fact that you go apeshit fucking bonkers when you don't get enough sleep.
When we are awake, neurons in the brain produce adenosine, a by-product of the cells' activities. The build-up of adenosine in the brain is one factor that leads to our perception of being tired. (Incidentally, this feeling is counteracted by the use of caffeine, which blocks the actions of adenosine in the brain and keeps us alert). Additionally, while you are awake, neurons located in an area of the brainstem called the locus coeruleus release and have a similar buildup of the neurotransmitter noradrenaline (or norepinephrine) which is known to inhibit production of testoterone, thereby constraining the popping of a reflex boner. It's well established that their activity is reduced during REM sleep, allowing testosterone-dependent excitatory neurotransmitters to be expressed, i.e. you can pop really easy boners at night.
So that's the brain chemistry of it, but why would your brain allow your body to get multiple boners while you sleep? They're pretty sure it's doing boner exercises, pumping that shit up and down, up and down to keep stuff flowing properly. Doing sleep exercises actually contributes to the health of your junk. Multiple night time boners cause the erectile tissue (corpora cavernosa) to swell, which in turn oxygenates the tissue. Oxygenation maintains cellular health and viability and helps to prevent cavernous fibrosis, a condition where the blood vessels in your junk become blocked up with plaque and your junk becomes painfully, palpably deformed and you can't get a boner. Cavernous fibrosis is the major cause of physiological erectile dysfunction and sounds kind of gnarly. Literally. Also; Not good for maintaining and perpetuating the species.
Notice that each of these explanations, as in all of biology, rely on an evolutionary adaptive mechanism that benefits survival of the species; keeps you from peeing the bed, oxygentates the cells, prevents broken boner syndrome, etc. So which one is it? The fact is we just don't know. Our brains are pattern seeking little bitches and we have a crazy hunger for explanations, where there sometimes are none. Or many. None of the above explanations are mutually exclusive, and any evolutionary adaptation can be much more viable when it has multiple adaptive functions. However, for scientists it is sometimes much easier to just say "We don't know" than to dive into a long winded explanation of emergent properties or genetic drift or randomness and have people not understand what you're talking about and call you a condescending know-it-all. My own hypothesis? Personally I feel pretty confident that morning boners are a multi-variant, multi-functional emergent property type of adaptation. And what is the strongest, most important function for the long term success of the species? Of any species? Fuckin'. That's right, fuckin'. Morning is the best time for fuckin', it's that simple. You're well rested, reclined, next to your partner. You haven't got off to being busy hunting lions and gazelles on the savannah, women have morning boners too (also know as morning wood chip). Besides, what better way to start your day? It enhances your mood, you feel connected to your mate, you're horny all day, you can't wait to do it again...
So yes, boners are awesome. And they maintain the species. Morning wood is your body's way of keeping everything in good working order while simultaneously sustaining the human race. So the next time your partner complains about your kickstand say "Hey baby, it's just a multi-variant, highly functional emergent property adaptation that perpetuates the species" and then dance naked around the room singing "Hahaha! Boner!" Oh the joy of morning wood.
