Kegels won't make your orgasms better, and 3 other facts about female orgasms everyone gets wrong

Some sex toys are now being marketed as devices that can help women do kegels, an exercise that strengthens the pelvic floor, or the group of muscles in your uterus, bladder, small intestine, and rectum.

Combining a sex toy with a kegel-training device makes it seem like the pelvic floor exercise can help you have more or better orgasms, but there isn't any concrete scientific evidence that suggests this is true, Prause said. 

"Just having stronger pelvic muscles may have no impact on our perception of orgasm quality," Prause said.

She compared kegels to Viagra, saying that although the drug has been shown to get more blood into a woman's vaginal walls so she's biologically more aroused, the woman can't physically feel that change, so it does nothing for her sex life. Kegels, Prause said, are the same in that way.

Kegels can, however, keep your pelvic floor strong, which becomes increasingly important as you get older and the area tends to naturally weaken, INSIDER previously reported.

Read more: 4 ways you could increase your chances of having an orgasm

When people refer to "clitoral orgasms" or "vaginal orgasms," what they're really describing is what part of the genitalia had to be stimulated to reach orgasm, Prause explained. Calling them by different names wrongly insinuates that the orgasm itself is occurring in the clitoris versus in the vagina. 

"The truth is, there is no differentiation between the two," she said, adding that "contractions always occur throughout the pelvis," regardless of whether you're being stimulated from your clitoris or inside your vagina.

According to Prause, the brain also reacts the same way regardless of the method used to help you reach climax.

When you reach climax, your body responds with contractions in the vaginal and anal areas that are about 0.8 seconds apart, Prause said. But those sensations aren't the only thing that characterize an orgasm.

The brain too plays a major role in orgasms. For instance, the experiences make the areas of your brain that process fear and self-control shut off, according to Health.com.

Prause added that when a woman orgasms, it appears that her brain is firing off "excited" neurons that are typically seen when a person has a seizure. In the case of an epileptic reaction, those excited neurons are a bad thing. But when it comes to orgasms, Prause said, the same response doesn't seem to have negative health effects, which was a shocking discovery.

More research still needs to be done to determine what's going on in your noggin when people, and especially women, reach climax.

Read more: 8 of the weirdest sex injuries and the medical explanations behind them

"Arousal is one problem, but climax is a complete different brain issue," Prause said.

She added that the brain functions in different ways when you feel aroused during foreplay versus when you are actually orgasming. Although researchers still don't know why this happens, they do know that the moment a woman climaxes, her brain disassociates, Prause said.

In a 2005 study of heterosexual women, researchers looked at brain scans taken of women as they pleasured themselves. They found that when women reached orgasm, they stopped having any emotional responses whatsoever. 

For this reason, Prause said some women may have trouble orgasming because it's the "state of letting go" they may be struggling with. But letting go isn't easy, especially since getting turned on in the first place requires the brain to be hyper-focused on what's happening in the moment.

That transition from laser-focus to disassociation can be difficult for some people, Prause said, which is why you may be able to get turned on but not always climax.

• Read more:
• 12 unexpected health benefits of orgasms
• 7 G-spot myths you need to stop believing
• 12 things that happen in your brain when you have an orgasm