“I don’t know how graphic you can be with this thing,” he said over the phone, pausing mid-story to ask me about the Guardian’s policy on discussing orgasms. “But the next afternoon, she came to see me, and her orgasms came more quickly – very strong, ejaculatory orgasms. The passion, the thunder, the sounds that she was making …”

He sighed at the memory.

“That’s when I thought: I should try this on my patients.”

And just like that, the O-Shot was born.

The non-surgical treatment that aims to facilitate and improve orgasms in women, which Runels trademarked in 2011, can only be performed by him or one of the more than 500 certified practitioners he’s trained over the years. It has two steps: first, he extracts PRP, or platelet-rich plasma, from a woman’s blood (usually taken from her arm). He then re-inserts it into the clitoris and the ceiling of her vagina with a syringe. The infusion of white blood cells, according to Runels, increases lubrication and sensitivity, allowing the patient to reach climax easily.

Today, more than 20,000 women have had the procedure done, and Runels estimates an 85% success rate. In the mainstream medical community, however, the O-Shot is controversial; its findings are viewed as inadequately tested (it’s not FDA approved) and some question whether its effects boil down to nothing more than placebo.

For Runels, the ability to have good orgasms is essential to a woman’s overall wellbeing
But Runels insists the procedure changes lives. He also claims it can cure incontinence and pain during sex caused by anything ranging from scarring after childbirth, to post-radiation dryness and even female genital mutilation (FGM). For Runels, the ability to have good orgasms “empowers” assault victims and is essential to a woman’s “overall wellbeing”.

In others words, this is a man obsessed with making women come.


As I listened to him describe the procedure and his philosophy, I wondered: who was this man who’d dedicated so much of his life to helping women orgasm? What was behind Runels’ fixation? Was he a feminist revolutionary? Or a total creep?

I booked a flight to Alabama to find out.