Doctor Discovers the 'Orgasmatron'

While Meloy, an anesthesiologist and pain specialist in Winston-Salem, was putting an electrode into the spine of a female patient with chronic back pain, the woman reported a decrease in her pain and a delightful, but very unexpected, side effect.

"When we turned on the power in this case, she let out a moan and began hyperventilating," Meloy said on ABC News' Good Morning America. "Of course we cut the power and I looked around the drapes and asked her what was going on. Once she caught her breath, she said 'you're gonna have to teach my husband how to do that!' "

Meloy soon realized he may have discovered a device that could help thousands of women who have trouble achieving orgasm.

"The device is the use of a pre-existing device called a spinal cord stimulator," he said. "Instead of treating chronic pain with the stimulator, we're treating orgasmic dysfunction," Meloy said.

In a surgical procedure done in his office, Meloy implants the electrodes from this device into the back of the patient, at the bottom part of the spinal cord. When the electrodes are stimulated with a remote control, the brain interprets the signal as an orgasm, he said. The device is about the size of a pacemaker and can be turned on and off with a handheld remote control.

"Once we found the controls, what caused the stimulation to be greater … more pleasurable, that's when I saw the results. I did have orgasm, and there were a couple of times that I had multiple orgasms because of the stimulator," said the woman, who asked to remain anonymous.

She said it was difficult to part with the orgasmatron when the study ended.

If approved for this use, the orgasmatron device and implantation could cost up to $17,000, but Meloy says he believes some women would be happy to pay that amount to have the orgasmatron permanently embedded in their lower backs. He says the device could be implanted on an outpatient basis.

You know, once you can teach a vibrator to mow the lawn, men will no longer be needed in the world. There have been remote-controlled devices before, but they depend on direct stimulation. Now, through modern science, you can completely by-pass direct stimulation and move on to direct neural input. I'm wondering how many women would pay $17,000 to have the big 'O' on command. How would you get your insurance to pay for that?

Thanks to my buddy Rez for the story.