This, my friends, is a video of Laura Berman giving orgasm advice to a couple (Dash and Kelli). It is stock full of misleading, inaccurate, and frankly, harmful information about the female orgasm. I’m gonna use the word flabbergasted; not at the situation that a popular, mainstream sexpert spit out some shitty info (that’s status quo), but at how popular the sexpert is and how misinformed the sexperting was. I mean Laura Berman is a best selling author of sex advice, she’s a doctor – so she seems credible, plus she was a regular on Oprah and on Dr. Phil. I mean as sexperts go, she’s about as mainstream as one could get. So we can’t just sluff this off as some random YouTube video. This is the status quo. This is the bullshit that is being fed into the minds of a large amount of people; the kind of bullshit that is legitimized by the high profile types of media with which Laura Berman is associated. We should be really...well flabbergasted.
So, in this video Berman advises a couple in which the wife has lost interest in sex. She has been trying to do it once a week, to make her man happy but it's more like every 3 weeks lately. Plus, he's started to turn her down because he knows she's just doing it for him and not really interested. Unsurprisingly, he doesn't find that to be too much fun. Oh - and then we also find out that Kelli can't orgasm with him. She can do it by herself, just not with him.
Berman responds to this in the following way.
Berman: "Only 30% of women reach orgasm during sex, and if they do reach orgasm, it's through other types of stimulation, oral sex, manual stimulation, and so often when that's that case, it's an emotional mental block. Sometimes it's related to messages you got growing up about what nice girls do and don't do.
Kelli: Yeah, absolutely. I was raised Catholic.
Berman: Yeah - so there's some guilt and inhibitions there.So she goes on about that. Then she says...
Berman: The other thing is that I can't tell you how many women have been to OBGYN's and never had their clit looked at or looked at it themselves. Have ya looked? Have you mapped...
Kelli: I feel like mine's...like just from showering in a room with a bunch of girls at massage school...I just feel like mine's all tucked in.
Berman: Right, That's what I'm wondering.
Kelli: ...and some of those girls that are all hangin out. I think they get to have more fun.
Berman: Dash, how's Kelli's clitoris. Does it seem normal?
Dash: Yeah it seems normal, but it's a little hidden.
Berman: Oh okay, does it come out? I mean, does it get bigger with arousal?
Kelli: I don't know.
Berman: Maybe you have a defunct clitoris.
Kelli: I know! I know! That's why I always wanted to come see you, cause I have to figure this out.
Berman: So I think you need a sexual health check-up in that regard.
Okay, from that fantastic exchange, all kinds of genious-ness was insinuated to the watching public.
1. Some poor women have clits that don't work (like those that have trouble coming from sex).
2. There is a "normal" way a clit looks.
3. Most of the women who can't orgasm from sex can't because they have emotional or mental block.
4. It makes sense for a woman to worry about not orgasming from sex.
I call super bullshit on all of this. First off, Kelli can orgasm. She said she could orgasm by herself, so it's highly unlikely that she has a mental block or a defunct clit. And by the way, what the hell is a defunct clit? I think she might have been referring to it not getting erect, like a man who has trouble getting hard, but even if that's the case, not all clits look like they are bigger when aroused. Yes, women get as much blood filling their clit as men get in their penis, but most of the clit is underneath the surface, and you won't see that swell. The vulva lips will swell when aroused, but she was asking about the clit. It's a stupid question for a doctor and sex expert to ask a patient. She should know that the little nub of the clit we see may look exactly the same size as it did before arousal. Berman also asked if the clit looked normal, as if the vulva/clit area of a women all look about the same. I mean that is one of the most diverse areas on the body; size, shape, symmetry, color. That she would expect an answer to that question to be in any way useful is ridiculous. And...to top it off, she didn't correct Kelli after saying she thought the gals with the hangy-out "down-theres" have more fun. Women have long been worried that any orgasm problems they have are due to their anatomy down there; the clit and vagina are too far apart; the clit isn't big enough, you know, things like that. However, scientist have been trying to prove these are issues for a long time but it just doesn't add up. There is not correlation between those types of anatomy differences and a woman's ability to orgasm. Berman really should have set her, and all the viewers, straight about that common misconception.
But back to the fact that Kelli can orgasm. So, Dr. Berman, really? seriously? It's a mental hang-up keeping Kelli from orgasming with Dash? If I say it once, I'll say it a million times, "normal sex" (you might know it as plain ol' intercourse), is great for stimulating the penis, the male organ of sexual pleasure and crap for stimulating the clit, the female organ of sexual pleasure. That is just plain true. I mean, might the problem be that Kelli just isn't getting the stimulation her clit needs during normal sex?
Here's my diagnosis. Kelli, you know how to orgasm. Now, just do that while you are having a sexual interactions with Dash; hell even while you are having sexual intercourse with Dash. Yes, it will be awkward at first because that kind of sexual interaction isn't the kind we usually see in porn, movies, tv, or read about in sexy books, but it is the kind that will allow you both to orgasm.
But, that brings me to the other problem in this video. The whole thing insinuates that women not orgasming from sex is some sort of problem; as if women are just meant to orgasm from nothing more than a man moving his penis in and out of our vaginas. It makes it seem like masturbating with your hand during intercourse or orgasming from other types of sexual interactions are fine maybe, but lesser options; ways to orgasm if the ultimate goal of orgasming from mere penile in vagina stimulation isn't happening. I really think that's how most people feel about it - at least to some degree, but it is crazy to think that. This just isn't a problem. It's just the way it is. The way our bodies are and the way intercourse happens, just doesn't make sense that a female orgasm would occur. The only reason we think it's supposed to is because people and movies and porn and tv all say it should. Putting something in and out of the vagina is simply not a good way to stimulate the female organ of sexual pleasure.
Berman gives really bad advice, people. It is insanely irritating to me to see another example of the sexual status quo reinforcing to women that, because our bodies and our orgasms don't fit nicely into the normal, accepted ideas and expectations of sex, we must be physically broken or incapable - or we are simply not equip mentally and emotionally to get things right when it comes to sex. For once I would love to hear some truly mainstream sexpert say, "Hey ya'll it's not women that are messed up, it's our sexual norms and expectations that are all f'd up." The normal expectations of what happens in a sexual situation could include a variety of things that ensure both partners have orgasms - and intercourse does not have to be one of these.
Stop telling women we need to change. Our bodies work just fine, and our feelings, mental hang-ups, whatever you want to call them, about sex (like when we become uninterested after we've done it for years without having orgasms regularly) make sense within these crap circumstances. Maybe if more ladies had an orgasm every time we got naked and dirty with our partners, the way men usually do, then maybe less men would have to coddle their uninterested partners with romantic presents and candle light dinners in order to spark some interest in allowing a little sexy time. Women and men deserve better sexual lives.
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