History of the Female Orgasm: Part 5: Looking to the Future

   Today, I'm finishing my summary and review of Rachel P. Maines' book, The Technology of Orgasm. In her last chapter, which is fairly short, only a little over twenty pages, she looks at more contemporary discussions about orgasm, and looks toward the future.


In doing so, she returns to her original idea about the androcentric model in heterosexual relations- that "real sex" is vaginal penetration, male erection, and then male orgasm, and nothing else (116). She talks about how it's only in the 60s that we began even questioning that model, and even as she wrote this, in the 90s, women who admitted to needing clitoral stimulation were still pathologized, and seen as asking too much of their men, inconveniencing them and making their sexual experience less fun because they couldn't "relax" (112, 113, 115).

 And pressure was- and is- put on women to fake orgasms, in order to make sure their husband didn't feel badly, with seventy percent of women admitting to faking orgasms regularly, rather than to try to explain to their husbands that they needed other stimulation (117-118). It was to the point that faking orgasm was seen as a "common courtesy" for women to do (119). On the other hand, men are expected by society to be automatically sexually talented, which obviously is a lot of pressure, but it also hurts women, in that men therefore often don't actually want to know the truth about whether their girlfriends are enjoying sex, and therefore don't ask, because they don't want to know, or don't question when it appears that maybe an orgasm wasn't "real" (117). It also results in men blaming women for not orgasming, for insisting that there's something wrong with her, not with his method (117).

She also brings up the vibrator again, and discusses the way that though many women do like it, it's also more or less the only socially acceptable means of masturbation for women, and she doesn't think that's unrelated to the way that it's seen as really only a substitute for a penis, or even "the imagined male accompanying every dildo" in the eyes of many men (122).


Men's sexual needs, and egos,  were still clearly elevated above women's, and Maines wants us to ask ourselves why we think that is- it may be clear, given the history she covered in the rest of the book, why this androcentric model would be put forth, but she wants us to question why we actively participate in its maintenance now, through not being honest in our relationships, or faking orgasms.
She sees us at a point where we have a choice- maintain the model through silence, or talk to our partners, communicate, and address this issue.




I think this is a strong way to end, and in general I thought this was one of her better chapters in awhile. Overall, I think this book provided a lot of interesting and important information, and I only wish that it was less repetitive,  and as I've discussed at length in earlier posts, I wish there was greater effort to take into account women's emotional experiences, and emotion in general.