Mary Roach: 10 Things You Didn't Know About Orgasm

Mary Roach: 10 Things You Didn't Know About Orgasm

By Tatyana Dyachenko

Mary Roach is an award-winning popular science author and columnist. Her research and studies have led her through some unusual territories, through the study of cadavers and space theory, and into the foray of science and sex. She's produced a lot of interesting (and humorous) fact and fiction - and has also had sex with her husband inside a giant test tube for science.

Her book Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex is a fabulous foray into the field of forensics, science and sex. Backed by obscure scientific research and evidence, Roach makes some surprising claims about sex and - in her TED Talk - about orgasms too.

Here are then things you didn't know about orgasms. Intrigued and want to find out more? Watch Mary Roach's talk on TED
There is evidence to suggest that you can masturbate in the uterus.

You don't need genitals to orgasm: Mary Roach interviewed one lady who is repeatedly brought to orgasm by eyebrow stroking, and another who can think herself to orgasm within one minute.

You can orgasm when you're dead: orgasm is triggered by a spinal reflex reaction which can be stimulated if it is oxygenated - even if you're legally dead.

Orgasm can cause bad breath.

Sex can cure the hiccups.

Doctors once prescribed orgasms for fertility. In fact, doctors would insist that female orgasm was necessary for conception.

Pig farmers still prescribe orgasms for fertility, and if the farmer is feeling too shy to stimulate his sow, there are special sow vibrators which can help.

Female animals have more orgasms than their male counterparts.

One of the first scientific studies of female orgasms involved an acrylic vibrator fitted with a light source and a camera.

Once scientific evaluation of average male ejaculate speed included 300 men, a measuring tape and a movie camera.