Self Help Literature Review

This article is a review of various sexuality self help books available on campus for students at Clark University. These five titles have been selected based on subject matter. 

Sex matters for women

The book talks about orgasms, discussing the tyranny of the orgasm which is placing the orgasm at the center of human sexuality (Foley and Kope, 304). The book advocates for self-exploration and communication, assessing the benefits of embracing one's sexuality.

“Culture greatly influences sexual learning. Anthropologists [...] have noted that women coming from cultures encouraging sexual exploration and assertiveness experience orgasm more readily and with greater satisfaction than women coming from cultures that encourage modest, passive behavior” (306).

In regards to socialization the book makes an interesting remark when talking about women being too self-conscious to experience an orgasm. The authors suggest women can find it difficult to act outside of their gender. Their perceived and learned passivity might make them refrain from certain behaviors, such as moaning, because the lack of self-control associated with orgasms makes them step out of the imposed behavior for women (307).

Virgin sex for girls, a no-regrets guide to safe and healthy sex

Language is an essential part of cultures across the globe; messages based in language, as well as other forms of communication, carry specific cultural ideas. An interesting point this book makes in one chapter is in regards to our use of language - "since men have so many more phrases for masturbation, it’s obvious that male masturbation is seen as more important and acceptable in our culture for men” (Luadzers,156)

Phrases for women include self touching/loving/stimulation/pleasuring, paddling the pink canoe, rubbing off, combing the clit, vibrating off

Phrases for men include jacking/jerking/beating/getting off, choking the chicken, spanking the money, beat the meat, flog the hog, relieving yourself, yanking the plank, bobbing the dolphin and many others (155).

The book is advocating that women realize their sexual potentials; they are encouraged to explore, to talk to their partners and are told that their sexual pleasure is important and given advice on how to increase the frequency of their orgasms. The male counterpart of this book, the Virgin sex for boys guide also focuses the discussion surrounding orgasms on the (assumed female) partner's pleasure and difficulties in achieving it. This may be because the experts recognize the disproportionately low rates of orgasmic response in females and by drawing attention to this matter they are educating couples on how to overcome this inequality in sexual pleasure.

Hooking up, a girl’s all-out guide to sex&sexuality

The book contains several personal anecdotes which help with connecting the reader and writer and establishing patterns for common experiences with female sexuality in hookup culture, the current cultural trend in young adults. 

The author tackles the issue of gendered shame in regards to sexual self-exploration - “when I was younger, I thought that there was something very wrong about masturbating. Every time I did it, I felt guilty, dirty, and ashamed. [...] when all of my guy friends started talking about how they masturbated, I kept my mouth shut” (Madison,44). 

Madison also hints at the linguistic gap in vocabularies and gendered expressions. “As a girl, it can be hard to talk about masturbation, even though many guys talk about it all the time. Maybe it’s easier for guys to talk about because they have eight thousand cool nicknames for masturbating.” (45) The language differences are reflective of cultural and social normative assertions about male and female sexuality. The society is, as Madison, states reluctant to talk about female masturbation; it is a bigger taboo than male masturbation in our culture (45).

Our reluctance to talk about female masturbation influences our perception of the process. Madison notes that our heteronormative ideas about sex make us believe female masturbation mimics penetrative intercourse (46).

Paradoxically, although female orgasms and masturbation are not socially acceptable, women are still expected to have or fake an orgasm. Most girls do not tell their partners they don't have orgasms because they fear that their partner will be frustrated and made to feel as a bad lover (46).

The good girl's guide to bad girl sex

The book begins with an anecdote of a young girl who is forced to display passive sexuality due to her gender "Do you want boys to think that you're loose? That you're cheap?" (Keesling, 5-6). However, the author proposes the model of the "bad girl", whose sexual pleasure is unbeatable "A fully evolved Bad Girl can have an epic sexual encounter in ten minutes, whereas a woman stuck in her Good Girl can have intercourse for an hour and still be left feeling unfulfilled" (10). The reader would gather from this introduction that the capacity to achieve orgasm under any circumstance is a matter of behavior. This assertion can promote self advocacy for women, but it also places a strong emphasis on always experiencing sexual pleasure. Women having inconsistent sexual experiences may feel as failures if they cannot manage to turn into a "Bad Girl" who is in charge of her sexuality.

The Bad Girl is declared as intensely orgasmic by Keesling (13).

The book continues to put the emphasis of sexual pleasure on women's capacity and responsibility to achieve. A chapter discusses Kegel exercises and explains a few routines. The author concludes by expressing her appreciation of Kegel exercises as they have "helped non-orgasmic women become orgasmic" (41).

One last discussion is on climaxing. The chapter begins with another personal anecdote - of a sexually dissatisfied woman (153). The chapter features 10 exercises with full explanations to maximize the potential for sexual pleasure and orgasms (157). It is interesting to note that 7 of the exercises are for women to practice on themselves and 3 for women to practice on men so that men may achieve orgasm, however there are no exercises any responsibility in the hands of men.

S.E.X., The all-you-need-to-know progressive sexuality guide to get you through high school and college

This work is highly praised by critics for being so comprehensive. Reading the sections on the "popular mechanics" of various sex acts, I decided to compare the sections on cunnilingus and fellatio. Comparing the two sections reveals some gendered ideas assumed by the author.

Firstly, the section on cunnilingus is shorter than than on fellatio. The section on cunnilingus gives specific, objective advice of what most women prefers and techniques (156). The tone is neutral, the information is factual. The section of fellatio is longer, assumes a more familiar tone and language and seems directly addressed to the female reader. While the section on cunnilingus seems to encourage the act, the section of fellatio has a passage addressing the myth that all men love receiving oral sex most of all (157). This specific passage is trying to educate women in thinking of oral sex as a practice that can be enjoyed by any and all genders (157). It is interesting that this note was included in the section with a female audience, while the section with the male audience did not address the gender disparity in performing and receiving oral sex. The general impression of the two sections is that men are not accustomed by performing cunnilingus on women, but most women have performed fellatio.

Reference:

• Corinna, Heather. S.E.X.: The All-you-need-to-know Progressive Sexuality Guide to Get You through High School and College. New York: Marlowe, 2007.
• Foley, Sallie, and Sally A. Kope. Sex Matters for Women: A Complete Guide to Taking Care of Your Sexual Self. New York: Guilford Press, 2002.
• Keesling, Barbara. The Good Girl's Guide to Bad Girl Sex: An Indispensable Resource for Pleasure and Seduction. New York: M. Evans, 2001.
• Luadzers, Darcy. Virgin Sex for Girls: A No-regrets Guide to Safe and Healthy Sex. New York: Hatherleigh Press, 2006.
• Madison, Amber. Hooking Up: A Girl's All-out Guide to Sex & Sexuality. Amherst, N.Y.: Prometheus Books, 2006.

History of Orgasm: Part 4: Vibrator Technology

              I’m continuing my review and summary of Rachel P. Maines’ book, The Technology of Orgasm, for parts 1, 2, and 3 click here:
http://femgasmproject.blogspot.com/2014/11/history-of-technology-and-female-orgasm.html
http://femgasmproject.blogspot.com/2014/11/history-of-orgasm-part-2-hysteria.html
http://femgasmproject.blogspot.com/2014/11/history-of-orgasm-part-3-masturbation.html

This section, like the last one, was unfortunately rather disorganized and very repetitive- much of what was discussed in this section was discussed already in the first one. What’s so strange about this book, is that it’s a pretty short book for such a large topic, so you would think that each fact would only be said once in order to effectively use what little space she has, but instead it seems that the book could have been cut by about a third, and nothing substantive would have been lost. But there is some interesting information here about hydrotherapy, the beginnings of vibrator use by doctors, and the beginning of the use of vibrators in the home.

Hydrotherapy

Apparently an entire journal was devoted to the topic. 

     Bathing has always been associated with sensuality in Western culture, even dating as far back to the baths of Greece and Rome (72). Sick or not, throughout history, wealthy women especially visited “healing” mineral springs, and in the 1830s and 1840s hydrotherapy or “the water cure”, was a major medical fad (73). And of course, it’s use continued well into the second half of the nineteenth century (78). The “water cure”, a bit more aggressive than women simply laying in baths, involved pumping water into the vagina- apparently for any “female complaints”. (74). (I’ve discussed why responding to women’s  problems by “treating” the vagina is not exactly as wonderful as we might try to make it, in far harsher words, in other sections.) Apparently, most women did respond to hydrotherapy, according to Maines, with great enthusiasm, enjoying it immensely, which greatly confused doctors (74).  That women enjoyed these treatments even seemed to upset some doctors, who struggled for an explanation,  with some Freudians, even into the late 20^th century, suggesting that women orgasm from water simulation, because it allows them to pretend to be man, who is capable or urinating and ejaculating like a man (81). She notes that while masturbation with water was once common for women, and has been shown to especially pleasurable for many of us, studies in the 1990s showed that only 2% of women then used water at all, through shower heads or other means. It’s use has actually declined.

Vibrators

Moving out of the doctor's office and into the home. 

    Vibrators were first “medically” used (to treat “hysteria”), in 1878,  in Paris,  and most doctors were happy to switch over to them, due to their dislike of manual stimulation (68, 93). By 1900, dozens of models were available (93). They were, like hydrotherapy, used to treat all problems a women might have, much, I’m sure, to the detriment of many women whose problems stemmed from somewhere other than their vaginas, although Maines doesn’t discuss this (95). Doctors had a hard time, as discussed in previous sections, maintaining their reputation as professionals when it came to vibrators, as everyone from Freud to erotic movies to popular film, was discussing and depicting vibrators as inherently sexual, never mind that they were beginning to be sold to the average consumer (95, 100, 108). By 1908, they were on the shelves, although often with warnings to avoid “excessive use”, or “imprudence”, while at the same time, promoted as being “far superior to the human hand” (103). As we learned in previous sections, eventually this acknowledgement of women’s sexuality and the sexual nature of these “treatments”, stopped the use of the vibrator in medical offices. Soon enough, vibrators were seen as “self-treatment”, as ways for women to take their sexual pleasure into their own hands. (108). 

History of Orgasm: Part 3: Masturbation

For part 1 in this series: http://femgasmproject.blogspot.com/2014/11/history-of-technology-and-female-orgasm.html
For part 2 in this series: http://femgasmproject.blogspot.com/2014/11/history-of-orgasm-part-2-hysteria.html.

    I'm continuing my multi-part review and summary of Rachel P. Maines' oft-cited book, The Technology of Orgasm: "Hysteria", the Vibrator, and Women's Sexual Satisfaction, published in 1998, by the John Hopkins University Press, this time turning the third section of her book, entitled, "My God, What Does She Want?". (A clear reference to Freud's infamous line.) As this section is relatively short, and quite repetitive, mostly going over what was already discussed or implied in previous sections, this will be a relatively short summary. There are some new (if disorganized) facts about the way doctors viewed sexuality, and I'll be listing them here, but the sub-section that does introduce new material in a coherent way, is focused on masturbation, and is very interesting! So I'll spend some time on that.

First, some quick  facts, before I turn to masturbation:

-She reminds us that doctors have historically confused women's reported satisfaction or enjoyment of sex- or even just their willingness to participate in heterosexual sexual relations- with experiencing orgasm, and thus often overestimated women's sexual enjoyment. (51). (This probably comes as no surprise to any woman anywhere.)

-Generally, doctors who did notice that few women orgasmed via intercourse,  believed that most women were incapable of true sexual feeling, and did not care to investigate further. William Hammond in 1887 wrote,  for example, that even 10% of all women orgasmed. Curiously, in ancient times, there was debate about whether women had to orgasm in order to conceive, which means they were aware women (and most women at that, if all mothers must have orgasmed, according to that logic), were capable of orgasm. Perhaps they, like the doctors mentioned in the above fact, equated reported satisfaction with orgasm? In the contemporary period, it was clearly believed that orgasm was unnecessary and even impossible or unlikely in women, and that was largely used as an excuse to not try at all.  (51, 61)

-In Tudor and Stuart England, many works do discuss the clitoris as being very important, which shows that history is not just a single forward progression. Apparently, the clitoris was already discovered, and then buried again. By the late nineteenth century, doctors were giving dire warnings about anyone, male or female, who dared to touch a clitoris. (52, 55)

- In the 1980s, some interesting observations were made about a study of women's orgasms, where masturbation was shown to be overwhelmingly a women's best bet at orgasm.  Women seemed defensive about their ability to orgasm during intercourse and their ability to be pleased in heterosexual intercourse. 80% were not disappointed if they didn't orgasm during sex, 75% felt that their partner's pleasure was more important. 54% said that they happy with sex, with our without orgasm. (64).

Now, about masturbation:

   Masturbation was generally discouraged not only for women, but for men as well (54).

In both sexes it was believed to cause all kinds of diseases and disorders, and it was far from encouraged, but most of the literature and ire and punishment was directed at masturbation in women (56). It was believed that masturbation caused "marital aversion" in women, especially by doctors who were deeply uncomfortable because they thought that women masturbated because they couldn't be properly satisfied through traditional intercourse (56). They tended to diagnose any woman suffering from physical or mental illness with either hysteria, or with a sort of karmic punishment for not only drinking alcohol or caffeine, wearing corsets, or reading "French novels", but especially for masturbation or sexual thought (57). Generally, it was believed (and discussed with panic) that anything that seemed to point into the vagina, from speculums to bikes, which demonstrated not only male doctors' fear and revulsion towards women masturbating, but also their belief, by the nineteenth century, that normal woman really were supposed to get pleasure from things going inside the vagina, not clitoral stimulation (58-59). Maines makes an interesting note here about the present day (or, the late 90s, when this was published): 97% of men and 76% of women reported that they masturbated in a 90s study, but less than 20% of that 76% said that they often used dildos, or any other masturbatory tool that went inside the vagina (59). This is especially interesting, because I observe that now, on the rare occasions in which we ever do talk publically about women masturbating, it's always with dildos, or dildo-like devices. We don't talk about women rubbing their vulvas, or anything like that, which at least in the 90s, was the more common form of masturbation. I don't think this is unrelated to the long-standing belief that women were satisfied with traditional intercourse, and the shaming of clitoral simulation.