I interviewed, when I was working on the book, I interviewed a woman who can think herself to orgasm. She was part of a study at Rutgers University. You gotta love that. Rutgers. So I interviewed her in Oakland, in a sushi restaurant. And I said, “So, could you do it right here?” And she said, “Yeah, but you know I’d rather finish my meal if you don’t mind.”(Laughter) But afterwards she was kind enough to demonstrate on a bench outside. It was remarkable. It took about one minute. And I said to her, “Are you just doing this all the time?” (Laughter) She said, “No. Honestly when I get home I’m usually too tired.” (Laughter)She said that the last time she had done it was on the Disneyland tram.
(Laughter)
YOU CAN HAVE THEM WHEN YOU’RE DEAD
The headquarters for orgasm, along the spinal nerve, is something called the sacral nerve root, which is back here. And if you trigger, if you stimulate with an electrode, the precise spot, you will trigger an orgasm. And it is a fact that you can trigger spinal reflexes in dead people — a certain kind of dead person, a beating-heart cadaver. Now this is somebody who is brain-dead, legally dead, definitely checked out, but is being kept alive on a respirator, so that their organs will be oxygenated for transplantation. Now in one of these brain-dead people, if you trigger the right spot, you will see something every now and then. There is a reflex called the Lazarus reflex. And this is — I’ll demonstrate as best I can, not being dead.It’s like this. You trigger the spot. The dead guy, or gal, goes … like that. Very unsettling for people working in pathology labs.
(Laughter)
Now if you can trigger the Lazarus reflex in a dead person, why not the orgasm reflex? I asked this question to a brain death expert, Stephanie Mann, who was foolish enough to return my emails. (Laughter) I said, “So, could you conceivably trigger an orgasm in a dead person?” She said, “Yes, if the sacral nerve is being oxygenated, you conceivably could.”Obviously it wouldn’t be as much fun for the person. But it would be an orgasm — (Laughter)nonetheless. I actually suggested to — there is a researcher at the University of Alabamawho does orgasm research. I said to her, “You should do an experiment. You know? You can get cadavers if you work at a university.” I said, “You should actually do this.” She said, “You get the human subjects review board approval for this one.”
(Laughter)