╔═══━━━─── • ───━━━═══╗ The Female Eunuch - Sex ╚═══━━━─── • ───━━━═══╝ Female orgasm has become more and more of a mystery, yet has been exalted as a duty: -young girls are left in the dark when it comes to understanding the vagina *not encouraged to explore and identify genital tissue *not encouraged to understand lubrication and erection -the female orgasm is utterly unfanciful, but men refuse to relinquish the notion, which has turned the nature of the orgasm into a matter of metaphysical speculation Female genitalia modesty stems from distaste: -cunt > the worst name to be called -the best thing a cunt can be is: *small and unobtrusive (penis bigness anxiety is equaled by cunt smallness anxiety) -women obligingly obliterate all signs of normal functions of genitalia in the name of public decency - odor, discharge, menstruation Early gynecology was in the hands of men: -they write about the vagina so lovingly - but these books were not meant to be seen by women *(therefore they never learned of it) -Samuel Collins (1685) describes female erection as something active: "...the Nymphs...being extended to compress the Penis and speak a delight in the act of Coition...The used of blood vessels is to impart Vital Liquor into the substance of the Clitoris, and of the Nerves to impregnate it with a choyce Juyce inspired with animal Spirits (full Elastick Particles making it Vigorous and Tense)...The Glands of the Vagina...being heated in Coition, do throw off the ratified fermented serous Liquor, through many Meatus into the Cavity of the Vagina, and thereby renderth its passage very moist and slippery, which is pleasant in Coition. Ramulets about the sides and other parts of the Vagina, which are so many inlets of blood to make it warm and turgid in the act of Coition." *he assumed that young women were even more eager for intercourse than young men "The Vagina is made so affabre (i.e. artificial) that it can accommodate itself to any penis, so that it will give way to a long one, meet a short one, widen to a thick one, constringe to a small one: so that every Man might well enough lie with any Woman, and every Woman with any Man." -The Anatomy of Human Bodies Epitomized, 1862, p.156 -the notion that orgasm originates in the vagina is a metaphysical interpolation in the empirical observations -Collins took the clitoris for granted; he did not underemphasize the role of the vagina in pleasure Today, we have accepted a notion of the passivity and irrelevance of the vagina: -sex has become another male skill and women are the judges -women do not have an active role in pleasure -linguistic emphasis is placed upon penetration *'fucking' 'screwing' 'shagging' are all acts performed upon the passive female -genuine intersexual words for sex (obsolete): *swive - to have sexual connexion with (a female) - to copulate [OED definition] *ball - [no definition found] -serious attempts have been made to increase women's participation in copulation *A.H. Kegel's methods to overcome bladder weakness have shown to increase sexual enjoyment through the exercise of the pubococcygeal muscles +the thoughts of their mates, however, were not recorded (they don't matter) +incontinence resulted from the suppression of activity that inhibits sexual pleasure *women are unaware of the importance of pelvic help, because the genitalia are distasteful >>>>women will have to accept part of the responsibility for their own and their partners' enjoyment<<<<< The battle can be won if women change their attitude towards sex *embrace and stimulate the penis instead of 'taking' it The substitution of the clitoral spasm for genuine gratification may be disastrous: -men consider clitoral stimulation pre-intercourse as the orgasm -man does the rounds of the erogenous zones, spends an equal amount of time on each nipple, turns his attention to the clitoris (usually too directly), leads through the stages of digital or lingual stimulation and then politely lets himself into the vagina *it is laborious and inhumanly computerized -the implication of a statistically ideal fuck that will result in satisfaction so long as the right procedures are followed is depressing and misleading -real satisfaction is not found in one tiny cluster of nerves (the clitoris) *it is found in the whole person -women's continued enjoyment of sex even after orgasm is not based on the clitoris, but on the general sensual response >>>>>when release is expressed in mechanical terms it is sought mechanically<<<<<<< "Sex becomes masturbation in the vagina" >>>>>>>women must hold out not only for orgasm, but for ecstasy<<<<<<<<<<<<<< "the 'unification' of the various objects of the partial instincts into one libidinous object of the opposite sex establishes genital supremacy. this process achieves the desexualization of the body, leaving most of the rest free to use as the instrument of labor. The temporal reduction of the libido is thus supplemented by its spatial reduction." >>>>>reducing orgasm to one area of the body (spatial) reduces pleasure (temporal)<<<<< Women who find the clitoris as the only site of their pleasure will find themselves dominated by the performance ethic. Society has contained and neutralized sexual drive: -sex has become a mechanical release - increasing human isolation >>>>>>>Sex which can escape the hands of the institution has flourished - group sex, pedophilia, BDSM<<<<<<<<< ****but simple sexual energy is dissipating***** Although we can speak freely about sexuality, this has set up another shibboleth of sexual normality: -the growing dishonesty and kitsch in our speech on sexuality -romance novels depicting women as prudish, passive, selfish and dull who wonder what went wrong when their husband seeks another woman -it is all interpersonal, no mention of genitalia -this common romantic expression of the ideal fuck shows how deeply we believe in male mastery -'waiting for marriage' is women manipulating her mate's colonizing sexual urge until she is ready -this is an illusion of superiority -she only wishes to civilize him into marriage - his love is undervalued - she has no libido to desire him and bring pleasure to him margin notes: margin note: sex is good - it is good to have it often - although I get less attention from men now (good!) than I did years ago, there is room to improve in prudence. margin note: women are blind leading the blind. Why only now at the age of 33, after over 15 years, full of sexual activities, did I learn this? In the Margins: a podcast, but me just reading and explaining the notes I've made in the margins