Group invites world to come together for Orgasm Day

Correction appended

This year's winter solstice will be hotter than usual, if a Princeton-inspired movement has its way.

The antiwar group Baring Witness is organizing what it calls "Global Orgasms for Peace," an effort to persuade people worldwide to orgasm on Dec. 22 while concentrating on peace. The purpose is to "effect change in the energy field of the Earth through input of the largest possible surge of human energy," founders Donna Sheehan and Paul Reffell say on the movement's web site.

The initiative was inspired by the University-affiliated Global Consciousness Project (GCP), a research project that aims to demonstrate the impact of global consciousness by measuring correlations between international events and the generation of random numbers.

The GCP "is not 'involved' in the Orgasms for Peace movement," GCP director Roger Nelson said in an email. But "we're aware of it and admire the creativity, and hope along with others that it can have a good effect."

Sheehan and Reffell urge everyone to follow through with the project, especially in countries with weapons of mass destruction. Any time on Dec. 22 would work, they say on the website globalorgasm.org, and "[you can have] as much privacy as you choose."

"We hope that a huge influx of physical, mental and spiritual energy with conscious peaceful intent will not only show up on Princeton's [random event generators], but will have profound positive effects that will change the violent state of the human world."

The GCP is an international research collaboration centered in Princeton. Created in 1997, it maintains a network of random event generators (REGs) in more than 50 locations throughout the world that continuously produce a stream of random numbers. Research from the group has shown that patterns in these numbers are linked with events that cause shared thoughts and emotions in millions of people, such as Princess Diana's funeral or the trial of O.J. Simpson. Based on this data, GCP researchers have concluded that the physical world and an individual's mental world are linked in inexplicable ways.

When the leaders of Baring Witness heard of this research, they were inspired to take advantage of it for peaceful ends. They hope that Global Orgasms for Peace day will cause the REGs to deviate from randomness and change the energy in the world, similar to the effects from widely publicized crises like the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and the tsunami in the Indian Ocean. This result, according to the GCP's research, would indicate that the human intent from the participants caused a worldwide effect on matter and energy.

"I will most likely do an informal, exploratory analysis of the GCP data [from Dec. 22], but there is at this point no specified event in our series of formal analyses," Nelson said.

Sheehan and Reffell's organization has sponsored other nonviolent peace events. In 2002, they organized a group to lie naked in the California sand and spell out "PEACE" with their bodies. When they heard that the United States was deploying more antisubmarine technology to the Persian Gulf — implying future confrontations with Iran — they decided it was time to try again. Sheehan and Reffell hope Global Orgasms for Peace will help America and Iran to communicate diplomatically, not violently.

There are about 50 Facebook groups devoted to orgasm day. One quoted an entry from Sheehan's blog.

Get the best of the ‘Prince’ delivered straight to your inbox. Subscribe now »

"Why orgasm?" she asked. "We know that you guys need more sex, not less –– so here's a chance to practice, practice, practice for peace." Correction The original version of this article incorrectly stated that GCP is part of the University and is centered in the Engineering Quad. In fact, GCP is independent of the University, though it is partly an offshoot of Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research, which is centered in the Engineering Quad. The Daily Princetonian regrets the error.