What is orgasm?

At the moment of the orgasm, the organism "gives itself over" completely to its organ sensations and involuntary pulsations. Therefore, the motion of the orgasm reflex inevitably contains the expression of "giving."

In the orgasm, the living is nothing but a bit of pulsating nature.

In its quickly alternating expansions and contractions, the orgasm shows a function which is composed of tension and relaxation, charge and discharge: biological pulsation.

Thus, the function of the orgasm is expressed in the four-beat: mechanical tension → bio-electrical charge → bio-electrical discharge → mechanical relaxation. We shall call it for brief the function of tension and charge.

--Wilhelm Reich