Thanks to Barnaby, who sent me to THIS lovely article, I learned Nicki Minaj got herself interviewed in Cosmopolitan, folks, and she said the following:
"I demand that I climax. I think women should demand that. I have a friend who's never had an orgasm in her life. In her life! That hurts my heart. It's cuckoo to me. We always have orgasm interventions where we, like, show her how to do stuff. We'll straddle each other, saying, 'You gotta get on him like that and do it like this.' She says she's a pleaser. I'm a pleaser, but it's fifty-fifty."
One of the funny things about that quote was that it was under the subtitle "On being high-maintenance in bed:" So, even though Ms. Minaj literally said, "it's fifty-fifty," it's still considered high maintenance?...like as if she had said she demands that men lick her twat for 90 minutes and then go take their blue balls and make her a sandwich? She very specifically said that she believes sex to be something where you both give and get in equal amount - and that seems extreme? Notice that she quite correctly insinuates that for sex to be 50/50 between a man and a woman means that woman have orgasms when they have sex - because, let's be honest, men have orgasms when they have sex. I guess it would all makes more sense if it were true what people seem to believe - that women just can't orgasm as easily as men - as if we ladies seriously need weird extra things that make ladygasms way more high maintenance than dudegasms - like hours of screwing, mixed with a romantic dinner, a foot rub, a week of pampering and maybe the glint of a magic rainbow to get off. However the truth is women just need their clits rubbed, and men just need their dicks rubbed, so not such a big deal really.
Which brings me to another funny thing - that what she said is even a thing that was said in the first place. What I mean is that men don't go around saying things like,"I like to / expect to have an orgasm every time I have sex." Why? Because they don't need to. It's not a thing because an orgasm as part of their sexual encounter is the male default. I mean why are you fucking if not to get your rocks off? Otherwise, you might as well just cuddle, am I right? And at this moment, if you are about to say that maybe women have it right and there should be more to sex than getting off, and that we shouldn't be so orgasm focused, and that we should not put pressure on women to orgasm every time they have sex because women are just different (maybe better than) men...then let me just say, yes, obviously one's orgasm should not be the end all be all of sexual encounters. However, I'd also like to say that I see those types of statements, as well meaning as they certainly are, as ways to smooth over the fact that a variety of cultural factors create an environment where men and women do not have equal opportunity for orgasm during sexual encounters, and that this situation is absolutely and completely unacceptable. Women's bodies are as capable of orgasm as men's are, and when we live in a culture in which both men and women have an equal expectation of orgasm every time they have sex and can freely choose to orgasm or not at every individual sexual adventure, then I will be all for talking about how women (and men) can enjoy sex without orgasm. However, until that happens, we need to focus on acknowledging that women are not yet equals when it comes to orgasm and that this needs to change. We need to live in a world where what Nicki Minaj said would never need to be said.
The final funny thing is that people were shocked with what she said. I already went into the fact that it shouldn't need to be said at all, but I also think it's useful to take a step back and just consider that a woman saying she wants to orgasm when she has sex is like shocking and shit. Let me break this down.
- The first sign of arousal is when blood starts pooling down there. That starts making lubrication seep through the vaginal walls. That lubes makes it so stuff can actually get in the vagina, and so it doesn't burn and hurt like a mother fucker when the stuff does go in there.
- As a female gets more aroused the uterus adjusts a bit and the vaginal canal kinda elongates so that a dick can push up in there and not fuck her whole day up by hitting the cervix and such. Seriously, if a lady is not aroused enough for her vagina to accommodate what is fucking it, it HURTS.
- So in order for the most normal, acceptable type of lady-dude sexual interaction (still Penis and Vagina Sex, unfortunately) to be not painful and burning - which is like the ABSOLUTE LEAST that should be happening for a woman during sex - she needs to be pretty aroused.
- Being aroused means she's lubed and elongated as described above which means that blood pools down in her genitals (as much if not more than the amount of blood that pools in men when they're hard as hell), and her pelvic muscled get all tense (the same thing that happens to men).
- Okay so all that is happening, but, somehow, it's just simply too much for a lady to ask for a little relief. A little reach around is just, ya know, ridiculous. Of course, we put men in the same position, and we'd so hate to leave him with blue balls, but that blue-ball situation is EXACTLY the same physical things happening to a women when she gets aroused enough to have no-pain sex, but doesn't orgasm.
- And, just in case I haven't been clear in this blog so far, let me be clear. Women can orgasm as quickly, easily and reliably as men (HERE and HERE for more info on that). Our bodies aren't naturally more orgasmically fickle than men's. We don't naturally need extra things in order to orgasm...you know like magic, flowers, lightning bolts made of true love, and other such things. We ladies need all the same things men need. We just live in a world that makes those things extra hard to get - in so many ways and starting from when we are very young.
So, just take a minute to consider how f'd up our sexual culture is that we have no problems expecting a woman to get sexually aroused in order for a man to get off inside her vagina, but asking for relief of that arousal is shocking or high maintenance or bitchy somehow.
Connie Trent over at V.Point wrote a good article on this (Thanks for sending it my way Barnaby), and that's where I first learned about this whole thing, so check that one out too. She is on point for Orgasm Equality, so go Connie. Also go Nicki Minaj - you are an orgasm equality revolutionary too!
I am committed to orgasm equality. While I must confess that I occasionally fall short of this aspiration, I will probably die trying to reach this goal.
ReplyDeleteTo this end, I recently learned to breathe through my ears.