Dr. Marca Sipski-Alexander, published studies in 2001 and 2006 reporting that about 50% of 45 men and 44% of 68 women -- all with varying locations and degrees of spinal cord injury -- had orgasms in the lab, with the help of adult videos and genital stimulation by hand or vibrator.

The findings show that the normal genitals-to-spine-to-brain route for an orgasm is not the only one. The best explanation may be that a touch unperceived by the brain can still be doing its work, says Alexander, a rehabilitation medicine professor at the University of Alabama at Birmingham School of Medicine.

Alexander thinks that an orgasm, like urination, is a reflex.Both functions can be controlled partly b...

Dr. Marca Sipski-Alexander, published studies in 2001 and 2006 reporting that about 50% of 45 men and 44% of 68 women -- all with varying locations and degrees of spinal cord injury -- had orgasms in the lab, with the help of adult videos and genital stimulation by hand or vibrator.

The findings show that the normal genitals-to-spine-to-brain route for an orgasm is not the only one. The best explanation may be that a touch unperceived by the brain can still be doing its work, says Alexander, a rehabilitation medicine professor at the University of Alabama at Birmingham School of Medicine.

Alexander thinks that an orgasm, like urination, is a reflex.Both functions can be controlled partly by willpower. But just as voiding your bladder doesn't require the say-so of your higher brain, she says, maybe orgasms don't either. Maybe all that's needed is some chit-chat between pelvis and spinal cord.

The brain is surprisingly plastic, Komisaruk says. Witness the curious case -- described by UC San Diego neuroscientist Dr. V.S. Ramachandran -- of the man who had orgasms in his phantom foot.

When the man's foot was amputated, cells in the "foot" part of the brain were suddenly deprived of stimulation. They died, leaving prime cerebral real estate vacant.

Then, like an opportunistic roommate, a neighboring region in the man's brain likely sent sprouts to commandeer the vacated landscape. That region? One that processes input from penis and vulva.

The result: The man felt foot-sized orgasms in a foot he no longer had.

Nothing quite so drastic is expected to occur with a bit of orgasmic n...

The brain is surprisingly plastic, Komisaruk says. Witness the curious case -- described by UC San Diego neuroscientist Dr. V.S. Ramachandran -- of the man who had orgasms in his phantom foot.

When the man's foot was amputated, cells in the "foot" part of the brain were suddenly deprived of stimulation. They died, leaving prime cerebral real estate vacant.

Then, like an opportunistic roommate, a neighboring region in the man's brain likely sent sprouts to commandeer the vacated landscape. That region? One that processes input from penis and vulva.

The result: The man felt foot-sized orgasms in a foot he no longer had.

Nothing quite so drastic is expected to occur with a bit of orgasmic neural training in the lab, Komisaruk says. But the anecdote points out that the brain is indeed capable of some very imaginative tricks.


And I say Amen. I am Out.