Finally, technology with a point: After decades of waiting (and numerous hints towards its possibility via movies like Barbarella and Woody Allen’s Sleeper) science has taken a bold step forward in sexuality, coming close to controlling the human orgasm.

Dr. Stuart Meloy, a pain specialist in North Carolina, has concocted (be on the lookout for vague sexual innuendos from here on out) the Orgasmatron, a device that can stimulate pleasure through electrodes hitting the right spots. This. Is. Big. News.

From the Los Angeles Times:

The experimental implant — now trademarked by Meloy as the Orgasmatron after the orgasm-inducing cylinder in Woody Allen’s 1973 movie “Sleeper” — rests on the skin just above the belt line. Two electrodes snake into the space between the vertebrae and the spinal cord. A video-game-like remote control allows women (or their partners) to turn electrical pulses on and off and fiddle with timing and intensity.

Electrodes in the right place (determined partly by trial and error) seem to interact with various nerve networks, Meloy says, including nerves from the pelvis that enter the spinal highway near the tailbone. Stimulating those nerves shoots pleasure signals straight up to the part of the brain that processes information coming from the genitalia.

Women who have used the device say they feel as if their clitoris and vagina are actually being stimulated, to quite realistic effect. (”One woman asked me, ‘Would it be considered adultery if I gave the remote control to someone other than my husband?’ ” Meloy says.)

Between underwater cars and orgasm machines, I’m proud to say that we are IN THE FUTURE.

We did it, Earth – we did it.