Woo-hoo! Real science can be a lot of fun!

[onager]

Stolen from Pharyngula. Linked directly to the comments because they are a hoot:

A team of neuroscientists has made the coolest nerd porn film ever. They gave 16 women vibrators and asked them to bring themselves to orgasm while they made a movie of their brains, using an MRI scanner...

"In women, orgasm produces a very extensive response across the brain and body," said Barry Komisaruk, professor of psychology at Rutgers University in New Jersey, who oversaw the research.

"In one experiment we asked women to self-stimulate and then raise their hands each time they orgasmed. Some women raised their hands several times each session, often just a few seconds apart," Professor Komisaruk said. "So the evidence is that woman tend to have longer orgasms and can experience several of them."

On that last sentence...I thought the evidence was in on that LONG ago. The brain-scan part is pretty neat, though.

"Science in the service of humanity," hell yes!

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2010/11/the_new_pick-up_line_i_have_a.php#comments

[realisticphish]

1. This is the culmination of this guy's career

He came up with the idea in undergrad while smoking pot, and has been waiting to find a sympathetic IRB since then :D

[TZ]

2. "culmination of this guy's career"....ROFL

:spray:

[realisticphish]

3. bonus joke

:D

[onager]

4. Yeah, shouldn't that be "climax" of his career?

n/t

[lizerdbits]

5. 'Produces a very extensive response across the brain and body'

I assume the point of the research was the 'brain' part. All they had to do was ask and some of us would say 'why yes, I can't really move my legs for several minutes after that'. And yes, we can do it repeatedly in a short amount of time.

However, I don't care how high the level of stimulation is, there is NO WAY I could do that in an MRI machine knowing people were observing my response. I would have a complete mental block.

[Warpy]

6. Maybe they were disinhibited with a few cocktails first

Get a good enough buzz on them, they'd lose all the inhibition that would keep them from orgasming inside the machine with a bunch of scientists watching their brains.

[realisticphish]

7. as obvious as it may seem

that's science :shrug:

If you don't have numbers, you can't be sure...

[onager]

8. The part that got me; "Raise one hand when you have an orgasm."

:rofl:

"Sorry, I was using both hands at the time..."