The Function of the Orgasm

This book describes Reich's medical and scientific work on the living organism from his first efforts at the Medical School of the University of Vienna in 1919 to the laboratory experiments in Oslo in 1939 which revealed the existence of a radiating biological energy, orgone energy.

The subject of "sexuality" is basic to this work, and Reich shows clearly its importance for human life and its relevance in understanding the social problems of our time.

‘The subject of "sexuality" virtually cuts through all scientific fields of research. In the central phenomenon, the sexual orgasm, we meet with questions deriving from the field of psychology as well as from that of physiology, from the field of biology no less than from of sociology. Natural science offers hardly another field of research that is so well equipped to exhibit the fundamental unity of everything that lives and to guard against narrow, fragmentizing specialization. Sex-economy became an independent discipline, having its own methods of research and its own body of knowledge. It is a natural-scientific, empirically rounded theory of sexuality. Now it has become essential to describe its development. In doing so, I am very happy to be able to take the opportunity to clear up what I can claim as my own contribution, how my work is related to other fields of research, and what is concealed behind the hollow rumours about my activity.’

- From the Introduction