If you can trigger the Lazarus reflex in a dead person, why not the orgasm reflex?

The line exemplifies Mary Roach’s characteristic blend of scientific curiosity and irreverent humor: she juxtaposes a well-known postmortem phenomenon (the Lazarus reflex, a spinally mediated movement sometimes observed in brain-dead patients) with a deliberately provocative question about sexual reflexes. The point is less prurience than methodological: if certain complex-looking behaviors can be elicited without consciousness, it challenges assumptions about what bodily responses “mean” and where they originate (brain vs. spinal cord). It also satirizes the tendency to treat some topics as taboo despite being physiologically tractable, pushing readers to confront how cultural discomfort can limit inquiry.