Mental Orgasms

I've been re-reading Rebecca Goldstein's The Mind-Body Problem, and I can't get over how many things about this book make sense to me -- how many of the things in this book are me, to be exact. The main character, Renee Feuer, is a grad student in Philosophy at Princeton, and she ends up marrying a guy named Noam Himmel, who just so happens to be a completely famous mathmetician. One of Renee's consistent philosophical musings is something she calls the mind-body problem. My favorite passage reads: "There's been so much serious discussion devoted to the profound question of the vaginal vs. the clitoral orgasm. Why doesn't anyone speak about the mental orgasm? It's what's going on in your head that can make the difference, not which and how many of your nerve endings are being rubbed."

I think this true, beyond words, but it's also not just about what's going on in one's head -- it's about how the mental orgasm can heighten the physical one. I don't think Renee gets that, but I do. Or maybe it's all in my head.