A while back we introduced our Women’s Voices from TED series, saying that the TED Talks (short videos on “ideas worth spreading”) are among the most  “provocative, inspiring, breathtaking, and just outright amazing” presentations we could imagine. We stressed how TED “blurs generational lines.”

What we present today is an extremely persuasive case for those claims.

In June 2011, TED released a list of its 20 most-visited Talks to date. On that list was Mary Roach’s stunning and compelling presentation of “The Ten Things You Didn’t Know about Orgasm” (the talk starts with in-utero masturbation).  This is not a prurient or disrespectful discourse. It is, instead, the facts of Life with a capital L made manifest and, equally important, a clear portrait of why humor is a gift to humans.

Here is the first paragraph of Mary’s biography on the TED site:

“Freelance writer and humorist turned accidental science journalist, Mary Roach likes to ask the questions we all wonder about but are usually too polite to mention.”

Women have always been the keepers of, and sometimes doomed by, the notion of being polite. Given that, Mary Roach represents a kind of salvation and her intelligence and generosity of spirit represent a circle in which all can sit in wonder.