"It sounds to me like you're just in a state of orgasmic joy."
Molly Shannon, the legendary former cast member of Saturday Night Live and the brilliant woman who brought us the armpit-sniffing Catholic schoolgirl Mary Katherine Gallagher, really likes going to the airport. No, really. Last night, Shannon went on Conan and regaled us with a tale of her most recent trip when, while being pat down by the TSA, she experienced intense head orgasms. Shannon has ASMR — Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response, of course — a pseudoscientific term to describe deeply pleasurable head tingles and physical sensations caused by everyday stuff, like people whispering, bags crinkling, or in the case of Molly Shannon, airport security going through her luggage.
"I love when they put on the plastic gloves and have to go through each item methodically," Shannon explains, saying her ASMR is triggered pretty much all the time — while traveling, at the store, whenever an amateur photographer explains his technique in a soft voice. "Is this sexual?" a confused Conan asks, understandably. But Shannon, like me, has fielded this question before. "It's not sexual. Both men and women get it by a man or woman. It doesn't matter." As a woman also living with the sensational ability to experience these rare and gratifying brain orgasms, I say amen, Molly Shannon. Keep on going about your normal routines experiencing bliss-inducing, orgasmic tingles. Keep on making airport security that much more bearable. You're only going to make us love you more.
