A Quick Cliteracy Video

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This is a super quick post because, well, life. As always, I have about 100 things in my list that I want to write about, but I'm not getting enough time in one sitting to do it at the moment.

So, that means today you get something fun, important and just darn good activism...Cliteracy.

Sophia Wallace is an artist who created something called The 100 Natural Laws of Cliteracy. I speak about it often because it's speaking the truth - that the clitoris is the organ of female sexual pleasure and that for some god awful reason it's virtually invisible in our culture. We need more people saying this, and so I like to give big ups to Sophia Wallace and this project when I can.

Here's a video of her talking about it. Enjoy.


CLITERACY: 100 Natural Laws, by Sophia Wallace from Charlie Grosso on Vimeo.

The Clitoris Festival!!!!!

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It seems a little town in Spain holds a festival for some green leafy vegetable called grelo - which happens to be a kinda old-timey slang for clitoris in Portuguese. I think you see where this is going. When they advertised their festival they had written it in Galician, which is, I believe, a Spanish dialect and "one of the official languages of the northern Spanish region." But, as you might expect, Google Translate got confused a bit with the dialect, translating from Spanish to English. It's Google Translate after all. One thing led to another, some surmise that the Portuguese meaning got picked out, and wam bam, it became the Clitoris Festival. Here's the article I got my info from.

I actually can't find anything about when this festival actually takes place because all the articles seem to be just re-writes of one original article. None of the ones I found link to the original post, and I'm too lazy to investigate it really at all. Anyway, most of the hub-ub about it was in early November of 2015, so I'm assuming it was around then. It's no big deal, I guess, but I just wanted to tell you all when it was in case you wanted to check off that life-long dream of going to a clitoris festival.

Honestly, a clit festival would be pretty cool. Sophia Wallace's Clit Rodeo would be there (and obviously, The 100 Natural Laws of Cliteracy would be hanging up everywhere. Maybe even a contest for Laws of Cliteracy knowledge - kinda like a weird spelling bee or something.)

Clit Rodeo by artists Sophia Wallace and Kenneth Thomas - Photo found at Huffington Post http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/28/cliteracy_n_3823983.html

We could do a film festival. I'd have to program my movie Science, Sex and the Ladies, because if you had a drinking game for it where you drank on the word clit - you'd be fucked up. There could also be a heavily juried collection of top-notch porn clips - ones that ONLY involved pleasuring the clit TO ORGASM. None of that tickle the clit for a sec and then jam it in bullshit. In fact, if we could just get a series of ladies getting ate the hell out while eating ice cream and watching movies, that would be fantastic. Or while eating giant vats of popcorn at an actual movie theater. Whatever - as long as she is doing something she likes and not paying much attention to the person pleasuring her to orgasm. I just think we need more of that kind of thing - you know to balance things out.


Science, Sex and The Ladies from AnC Movies on Vimeo.

We could also have people making some of those vulva cupcakes - like a vulva cupcake eating contest, a vulva cupcake decorating booth, a vulva cupcake contest where they are judged on both looks and taste.

It might be fun to have a 5K with people dressed in vulva costumes where their face is the clit.

Also, a amateur photo contest where people take pictures of things out in the world that look like clits, vulva and clit combos, or even like the full inner/outer clit situation. It’s up to the artist’s interpretation. Anyway, this whole clit festival was all just a misunderstanding, but maybe, just maybe, a clit festival is the right thing to do.

The Modern Sexual Revolution's Coming

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Let’s start the next big sexual revolution, shall we? Actually, it’s started. It’s a little fragmented still and young, but it’s there. Let’s be honest, sex, sexuality, and feminism are complicated – especially when all rolled together, so there are many intersecting prongs to this revolution that must unite.

Let me first tell you which prong I’m coming from. I’m part of a movie-making team that created a documentary about how very deeply the female orgasm is misunderstood. It’s called Science, Sex and the Ladies, and it came out less than a year ago. However, I’ve been researching for this movie since 2002, and I have been keeping a blog on the subject since 2009.

Science, Sex and The Ladies from AnC Movies on Vimeo.

Orgasm Equality

Here’s the deal. An orgasm caused by stimulation on the inside of the vagina has never been observed or recorded in scientific literature – not one caused by stimulating a g-spot, c-spot, the cervix, the vaginal wall itself, or by stimulating the inner clitoral legs through the vaginal wall (a currently popular way to talk about “vaginal orgasm”).

It’s not as if there just isn’t much research out there, either. There’s a pretty good amount of research focused on “vaginal orgasms,” but in all the 50 years that modern physical research into orgasms has been happening, no researcher has recorded one. There are, however, plenty of recorded and observed male orgasms through penile stimulation and female orgasms through outer clitoral glans area stimulation.

 Let me lay this out. Everyone – male, female, intersex, gay, straight, asexual, trans, cis, you name it – we all are born with an area on our genitals that is something like a penis or a clitoral glans. That thing can be stimulated to orgasm. Period. We can all orgasm, and statistically women do masturbate to orgasm, as quickly easily and reliably as men can. Women’s bodies are not less capable of orgasm, yet as a whole, we orgasm so very much less than our male partners, and our sexuality and sex drive is regularly labeled as less than. It’s not men’s fault. It’s not women’s fault. It’s bigger than that. It is bullshit, though, and it needs to change. I call this prong of the revolution, The Orgasm Equality Movement.

Cliteracy

“FREEDOM IN SOCIETY CAN BE MEASURED BY THE DISTRIBUTION OF ORGASMS” –Cliteracy Law  #31

We’re not the only ones working from this prong, though. Sophia Wallace calls it Cliteracy, and she created 101 Laws of it.

“A MAN WOULD NEVER BE EXPECTED TO GET OFF THROUGH SEX ACTS THAT IGNORED HIS PRIMARY SEXUAL ORGAN” -Cliteracy Law  #44 

“4 MINUTE: THE AVERAGE TIME IT TAKES WOMEN TO ORGASM THROUGH MASTURBATION” -Cliteracy Law  #45 

“THE VAGINAL ORGASM IS A MYTH INVENTED BY FREUD IN 1905”  - Cliteracy Law  #14

I hadn’t seen any other modern person out there speaking so boldly and directly on the cultural disappearance of the clit and its necessity to orgasm. I was immediately a fan. I love her work. It’s great activism, and it’s coming at the same problem we’re working on but from a slightly different angle.

But still, it’s not just us. There were bad-ass women in the 70’s saying this, Shere Hite, Anne Koedt, Betty Dodson and Alix Kates Shulman to name a few. Sadly, their work has been a bit marginalized in pop culture over the years. There are also others out there working this activism – ones I don’t know about and ones who aren’t necessarily focused on this prong, but do incorporate these ideas. I have a big ol’ list of them HERE.

So Many More Prongs

I would argue that this misunderstanding of how the female orgasm works is a fundamental problem that touches almost everything. However,  it in no way holds all the answers or addresses all the problems. There are many important prongs in this revolution. Rape culture and other’s feelings of entitlement over female and queer bodies? Over-sexualization of girls? Sex worker rights? Healing after sexual trauma? Too damn much low libido among women? Shitty sex education? Sexual public health? Hurtful ideas about what ‘sexy’ should mean for different populations? Double standards and slut shaming? Female Genital Mutilation? Craptastic depictions of sex, sexuality, and gender in media?

People are in the trenches working on these too. SPARK  – a bad-ass intergenerational Movement, Bish – Sex Ed website for teens, DodsonAndRoss – Sex Ed for everyone, Clitoraid – for FGM advocacy, UnSlut Project,  Slutwalk, Sex Workers Project, The Feminist Guide to Porn. These are just a tiny sampling. There’s TONS more. If you know more, then by all means,  promote, support, and unite with them.

A Modern Sexual Revolution

Let me put out a word of caution though. We need to stop fighting our mother’s and our grandmother’s battles when it comes to sex. The kick-ass well-intentions, smart feminists of the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s made as much headway as they could on sexual issues, but they also created some traditions that are frankly a little poisonous. Think porn wars; anti-porn vs. pro-sex.  But it’s not just porn stuff. It seems like every time an issue comes up that involves sex and feminism, there are 2 sides that post up against each other with snide-ness and indignation ringing from all over.

Personally, the feminism I see tends to be much more nuanced and level-headed than that, so maybe it just seems this way because…media. Or, maybe the extremists take control of issues, and everyone else just shuts up because it gets too annoying to talk about. I don’t know what the problem is, but it can’t go on if we want anything to really change. Negative “anti  vs. pro” rhetoric on sex issues is a feminist tradition that has been handed down to us, but screw that. The issues are different than they were 40 years ago, and we are different. Let’s make our own traditions and define our own issues, and let’s base them on compromise and collaboration.

So, let us build upon and learn from the women who fought before us. Let us shun no-one. Let us disenfranchise no perspective. Let us not shy from thoughtful debate, but let us work together as feminist scholars, sex workers, grandmothers, teens, scientists, spiritualists, religious folk, kink communities, and traditionalist of every color and sexuality - males, females and intersex.

At the core, we do have common hopes, and we don’t have time to quibble about every detail. So let us work to see eye to eye. Let us swallow pride more, engage more, shut up more, listen more, give benefits of the doubt more, seek allies more, align more, collaborate more, bend more, gently critique more, use kind language more, conversate more, disagree without breaking more, and find points of agreement more – because people are ready for change and we have much work to do.

How are you going to contribute to the revolution? #SexRevUnite

Hey BBC - The Female Orgasm Is Actually Not A Mystery!

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Those of you that have been reading this blog or have seen our movie, Science, Sex and the Ladies, could probably guess where my gripes with the BBC article, "The Mystery of the Female Orgasm." begin - THE FEMALE ORGASM IS NOT A MYSTERY.

Reading that article would lead one to believe that the lady-gasm is incredibly complicated to figure out in the ol' bedroom, that it revolves around the vagina, that science doesn't have a clue what it even is, and that only quite recently have scientists really begun to find any answers. All of that is utterly incorrect. The female orgasm is no more complicated than the male orgasm. It revolves around the external clitoral glans. Science has had this shit pretty solidly figured out since about 1966 - about as long as it's had the male orgasm figured out, and all of the exciting new studies in this article that are supposedly cracking this female-orgasm thing wide open: Well, actually they're better categorized as studies that focus on fringe ideas about female orgasm - speculating about ways of coming that have never been verified in scientific literature.

The 'orgasms' this article focuses on are G-spot orgasms, vaginal orgasm, and orgasm from inner clitoral leg or cervical stimulation. These are just things people talk about. There is no scientific proof that they exist. Seriously, an orgasm caused this way has never been observed or recorded in science, not even in the scientific research this BBC article references. In the same way, for men, spiritual orgasms, orgasms from anal sex, prostate stimulated orgasms, and mental orgasms are just things that people talk about. They are not actual orgasms well documented in scientific literature. The big difference here is that an article about male orgasm would treat these things as the  fringe hearsay that they are, and an article about the female orgasm treats these as what female orgasm is.

I honestly don't want to blame the author of this article or the BBC for this. It's bigger than them. This article flies because it is the status quo. It is what people understand about female orgasm. I will put a touch of blame on the scientists interviewed for this article. I know they have to at least be aware that vaginally induced orgasms have never been physically verified in science, and I know they know that their research does not prove this orgasm exists, but only speculates about how this orgasm might happen if it exists. And if they are not aware of this, may I be so bold as to say that they should probably become a bit more thoughtful about what exactly they are researching?

So, let me re-write this article for you:

Hi Everyone! BBC Future presents: The Female Orgasm - It Ain't Such a Mystery (my re-write)

Lady-gasms?!? What Are Them Things?
Orgasm is the rhythmic release of the pelvic muscle tension created during arousal, and it is caused by sufficient stimulation of the penis or the clitoral glans/vulva area. It's the same for all sexes, all genders, trans people, gay people, straight people, intersex people - you name em' if they got something that is like a penis or a clitoral glans, then it can be stimulated to orgasm. Males generally trigger ejaculation at orgasm, but orgasms and ejaculation are 2 different things and can be experienced separately. It is possible for men to have multiple orgasms if they are able to hold off ejaculation until they orgasm a couple times, although it doesn't seem to be common. They are also able to ejaculate w/o orgasm, sometimes due to prostate (G-spot) stimulation through the anus. It seems some women can ejaculate through direct stimulation of their G-spot, which is the sorta female version of the male prostate that surrounds the urethra that can be felt through the vaginal wall. Although this doesn't seem to be super common either - and it has never been shown to cause an orgasm. Add in some clitoral stimulation, though, with the G-spot stimulation and a woman might be able to orgasm and ejaculate at the same time. Although it is possible for both men and women to ejaculate, it is the orgasm that is that release of muscle tension pent up through arousal.

Now, let's go back a bit. A person first needs to be aroused before he or she can orgasm. Any ol' stimulus can arouse; smell, touch, sound, sight. It's incredibly individual and has everything to do with a person's culture, past experiences, and state of mind (I'd argue our culture creates a lot more barriers to female arousal than to male), but once the arousal happens, our bodies all react quite similarly. An increase of blood flow begins to makes the penis hard and lubrication seep through the walls of the vagina and for the inner clitoral legs swell. Ladies and gentlemen both have a similar amount of blood pooling in the groin. We just see men's more easily. Then if arousal is continued and if there is appropriate stimulation to either the penis or the clitoral glans, an orgasm will occur. The pelvic muscle of men and women alike will rhythmically release that tension. It is recordable, predictable, and no knowledgeable researcher out there would deny that this can be described as an orgasm.

What About Vaginal Orgasms?!?
There is a minority of women who claim to orgasm from vaginal stimulation alone. Although women's claims should never be disregarded, it is important to realize that this type of orgasm has never actually been observed and recorded in scientific literature, and it's possible that at least some of these claims involve the use of the word 'orgasm' to mean something other than the physical orgasm that can be identified through rhythmic pelvic muscular activity. It's actually possible that an orgasm caused only by stimulation inside the vagina is merely a myth made up by Freud. As some Italian researchers pointed out just this year as part of their criticism of the re-naming of female genitals and female sexual response happening in a lot of recent research on female sexual response, "(Komisaruk) ignores the fact that 'vaginal orgasm' has no scientific basis; the term was invented by Freud in 1905, and medical authorities writing in French, German, and English during Freud's time were unanimous in holding that female pleasure originated in the structures of the vulva generally and in the clitoris specifically. No alternative sites were proposed."  (Puppo 291)

In fact, in 1966 researchers Masters and Johnson released Human Sexual Response, a large, groundbreaking study that described arousal and orgasm in both men and women. Their findings are still important and relevant, and they unequivocally said that all female orgasms resulted from stimulation of the clitoral glans, laying to rest Freud's vaginal orgasm. Since the time Masters and Johnson released their work, there have been over 40 year of studies investigating what might cause a vaginal orgasm, but not a one of those studies has actually documented a vaginal orgasm. That's a lot of years that have gone by with absolutely no proof, and it's not particularly hard to get the proof. Recording the rhythmic pelvic muscle activity during orgasm is completely possible to do. It's probably even easier to do now than it was in M&J's time. Studies have done it plenty of times, further corroborating Master and Johnson's findings. Strange that this has not happened for vaginally stimulated orgasm. If these orgasms do exist, they are yet undocumented, and likely even less common than we now believe them to be - certainly a fringe situation.

My Critique From The Beginning of the BBC Article to End

The article begins with anecdotes and metaphors creating a sentiment that can basically be summed up by the picture below.

Then, the article tells us "It's a stark contrast to a man's experience; so long as they can get an erection, a few minutes of vigorous stimulation generally results in ejaculation."

Okay,
1. An erection means a man is aroused, and similarly, as long a woman can get aroused, she too needs only a few minutes of vigorous stimulation in order to come. (Seriously, women can masturbate to orgasm about as fast as men do.)
 2. Ejaculation and orgasm are different things, remember. Since this is an article about orgasm, I think the author probably should have used the word orgasm instead of ejaculation.

So, clearly the article is coming from the premise that lady-gasms are confusing, but it tells us, "recent years have seen a flurry of studies by these real-life Masters of Sex, and they are finally getting some answers."

This is particularly funny to me because these 'real-life Masters of Sex' the article refers to are the scientists interviewed for this article, and they are all working on fringe ideas of female orgasm. The article completely ignores the work of the actual real-life Masters of Sex, Masters and Johnson. These are the people who did the work to actually understand female (and male) orgasm. These are the researchers who lifted the mystery from lady-gasms, but clearly, even with a Showtime series about them, their contribution has gotten overshadowed, skewed, and ignored over the years. It absolutely boggles my mind that an article about the female orgasm from a revered news site like the BBC doesn't even mention Masters and Johnson or their discoveries. It is an appalling oversight, but it is also completely unsurprising and indicative of how far from reality the cultural discussion of female orgasm is, and how few people seem to notice.

After informing us that scientists are just now doing studies that begin to answer these long held secrets of the female orgasm and that fMRI studies basically show that male and female brains are similar during orgasm. (Here's a good 2011 overview of the fMRI research on arousal and orgasm to date btw. It's the full text article - not just the abstract!)
Then things get a little dicey again. We are told that pinning down the anatomy of an orgasm is hard because, "the penis has just one route for carrying sensations to the brain, the female genital tract has three or four."

A point about female orgasmic pathways being more complicated than male orgasmic pathways is being made here, but it's comparing apples to oranges. The penis is the male organ of sexual pleasure and the 'female genital tract' is the clitoris (the female organ of sexual pleasure), plus the vagina, the cervix and uterus, hell they're probably throwing the urethra in too. So, yeah, obviously the female genital tract will have more routes for carrying sensation to the brain than just the penis. However, if we compare the two organs that are able to be stimulated to orgasm, the clitoris/vuvla area and the penis, they both have one route, the pudendal nerve. The pelvic nerve, for instance, does involve itself with inside the vagina and cervix, but for men it is involved with erection and the rectum, so the male genital tracts has more than one route too, but that doesn't mean there are more ways for males to orgasm.

Here's the 1 external clitoral glans portion of the article. Although it is introduced as the "seat of female pleasure," it is only really discussed as one of many instead of the organ of sexual pleasure (the way an article might discuss the penis and male orgasm). There is no discussion about the scientific research that cemented its place, alongside the penis, as where orgasms arise. There is just a brief discussion of when the clit was acknowledged through history, ending with Freud's assessment that orgasm from clitoral stimulation is inferior to vaginal orgasm. The article then tells us, "Between thirty and forty percent of women claim never to have experienced an orgasm through vaginal penetration alone - though many more can have orgasms through clitoral stimulation. The suggestion that the vaginal orgasm is somehow superior has irked feminists. It sounds as if women who don't experience vaginal orgasm just aren't trying hard enough. So should vaginal orgasms be a rite of passage for all women, or just a privileged few? Is it even possible to have an orgasm in the absence of the clitoris?"After that, the article moves directly into discussing orgasm in relation to vaginal penetration. 

There's a few things about this section that bother me. I understand that there was an attempt here to give a nod to the clit and to question the idea that vaginal orgasms are more mature, but I think as a whole, it fails to do that, and possibly gives even more credibility to Freud's backward ideas about vaginal orgasm.

1. The stat here put the amount of women who have vaginally orgasmed at around 60-70%. I don't know where in particular that stat's from, but it's high. I understand how stats can range on this topic because depending on how specific the survey question is about whether additional clitoral stimulation is used during intercourse, the numbers vary (The Case of the Female Orgasm: Bias in the Science of Evolution has a fantastic overview of lots of surveys on this), but the numbers I normally see are only about 30% of women claim to orgasm with only vaginal stimulation.

2. This might be just me being obsessive, but contrasting the stats for vaginal orgasm versus the "many more" that can have orgasms through clitoral stimulation makes it seem like an either/or situation, as if there are some women who are 'wired differently' and have the ability to orgasm through vaginal stimulation but not clitoral and vice versa (and some who can do both). The truth is that there is every indication that all healthy women can orgasm from clitoral glans stimulation, and there is no indication that there are other women who are 'wired' to orgasm vaginally.

3. Why are we still even approaching Freud and his ideas on lady-gasms as worthwhile? He literally just made up that shit. Asking if vaginal orgasms should be a rite of passage or for only a privileged few validates not only that vaginal orgasms are a thing, but that they are something special that should be envied.

4. Saying feminists were 'irked' by the idea of vaginal orgasms being superior sounds trivial, minimizing the egregious nature of Freud's assertions and how ridiculous and harmful they were. The inability to have vaginal orgasms classified women as psychologically damaged by the established medical community up into the 1970's. Feminists in the 70's and 80's were outspoken about this, not just because it 'irked' their feminist sensibilities, but because they were on the side of science. The first actual large scale studies about female orgasm had come out and shown quite clearly that vaginal orgasm was not even a thing, much less some kind of superior thing. They were looking at female orgasm from the perspective of scientific knowledge and what they saw was women being punished for the inability to do something that their bodies actually couldn't do.

The article goes right into research by Barry Komisaruk. He and Beverly Whipple did a study in which women with spinal cord injuries that severed the ability for clit stimulation to get to the brain, were still able to orgasm through vaginal stimulation - likely due to the Vagus nerves that carry sensation from the cervix to the brain without using the spinal cord. Komisaruk thinks maybe this is why women describe clitoral orgasms as more localized and external and vaginal orgasms as more whole-body and internal. He also says of this study, "Women with spinal cord injury who could not feel their clitoris, nevertheless had orgasms from vaginal stimulation. That's probably the best evidence that vaginal orgasms exist."

If this is the best evidence for vaginal orgasm, then things don't look good for the vaginal orgasm. First off, as with all vag-gasm studies, the women merely said they had an orgasm. It was not physically verified. It's just that 3 of the 5 women in this study claimed to orgasm and were taken at their word. Maybe they did, maybe they didn't, but since this is a scientific investigations, and as of yet no orgasm like the one they are claiming to have has ever been observed, it really does need to be verified.
Secondly, nonchalantly calling the stimulation these 5 women were receiving 'vaginal stimulation' is rather misleading. That makes it sound like it was just some in-out of the vagina with a dildo or something, but in fact it was a very specific type of cervical stimulation that involves a pessary, which is kinda like a hard cervical ring that had to be professionally fitted to each woman individually. The pessary has Velcro on it, and a device that ends with a modified tampon with Velcro on the end is inserted in and attached to the Velcro on the pessary. It is controlled by the patient and sort of puts suction-y pressure on the cervix (without really touching the cervix - cause that can hurt like a bitch, right?). It’s not your average vaginal stimulation, so even if this contraption did cause a verifiable physical orgasm in these 3 women with spinal cord injuries, it's not exactly the kind of stimulation that's easily replicated at home.
I go into more detail about this study HERE.

Never the less, that study, which certainly does not prove women can orgasm from vaginal stimulation is deemed sufficient enough for the article to state the following. "So if different nerves can carry sensation from different regions of the female genitalia - and both can trigger orgasm - are some regions of the vagina more sensitive than others? Where should couples go hunting for the elusive vaginal orgasm?"

And the article is still stuck on the false premise that vaginal orgasms are a proven reality.

I described above that stimulation of the G-spot, or more clearly stated - the female prostate, has been shown to cause ejaculation, but not orgasm, in women. However, that distinction is often lost, and the 'G-spot' becomes a way to describe something that doesn't exist - a button in the vagina that causes orgasm. That is where this article ends up in the section on the G-spot. It first describes that studies have shown the G-spot is a bundles of nerves, blood vessels, and remnants of the prostate gland, and then it goes on to say that a minority of women could stimulate it to trigger, "powerful orgasms and the release of a small amount of fluid from the urethra that was not urine," but admits that actual evidence to support or refute the G-spot is patchy.

Of course the evidence for the G-spot is spotty because the word 'G-spot' is sometimes used to mean the female prostate area and sometimes used to mean a mystical orgasm button in your vag. Although there is plenty more research that should go into ejaculation and the female prostate, it's largely evident that there is a prostate-like area around the urethra in women that can be felt through the vaginal wall and that some women can ejaculate when it's stimulated. There is no evidence, however, that stimulation to anything in the vagina, much less the prostate-like area, can cause orgasm. One way of speaking about the G-spot is backed by evidence and the other is not, but in both research and common language it's confused, and so yeah, it makes the research look spotty.

The article next moves to a study with 20 women by a researcher named Jannini that showed there does,"seem to be physical differences between women who claim to experience vaginal orgasm and those who don't." A thicker area of tissue between the vagina and the urethra correlates with women who orgasm vaginally.

It's true. That is what the study finds, but it must be noted that per usual there is no proof that the women who say they can orgasm vaginally can actually do that. I know I harp on this, but the word orgasm, when it comes to women, is used so loosely, and the cultural assumptions about it are so confusing that it is not unreasonable to think that there may be a woman or two out there who says, and maybe even believes, that she orgasms from vaginal stimulation only, but she actually does not. Maybe she just has a psychological or spiritual 'climax.' Maybe she ejaculated. These things might feel pleasurable or satisfying but if she does not exhibit the release of pelvic muscle tension known to indicate orgasm, then scientifically, it should not be categorized as an orgasm. If even 1 of the women in this study were using the word orgasm incorrectly, then that would make a huge difference to the results of a 20 person study like this. Also, even if it were verified that the claims of vaginal orgasm were true, there is no proof that the thickness differences have anything to do with the ability to orgasm this way. It's merely a correlation. In the end this study says nothing about if or how women orgasm vaginally. It is at best merely a starting point for further investigation. I go into more detail about this study HERE.

Jannini conducted another study on 3 women where ultrasound was used to find that moving a lubricated tampon in and out of the vagina shifted both the internal parts of the clit and the tissue around the urethra. When the women just rubbed their external clit, just the external parts of the clit shifted. The article uses this to back up the idea that the inner clitoral legs, stimulated through the vaginal wall, might be the way vaginally stimulated orgasms happen.

Maybe. Or maybe not. No orgasms were observed in this study. This, like the last study, can only really be viewed as a starting point. If vaginal orgasms happen, then this article might be a starting point for investigating the mechanism for how they happen. That's about as much as can be taken from it. I go into more detail about this study HERE.

Pauls, another researcher, did a case study about a woman with incredibly unique genital structure that included a clit positioned closer to the vaginal opening than normal. She claimed to vaginally orgasm every time she had sex (although it was never physically verified that she was able to do this). (I go into detail about that study HERE). The article wondered if this indicated that vaginal penetration may be "stimulating both the external and internal parts of the clitoris." Pauls and her colleagues wondered about this too, and created a study to see if the size and location of the clit made a difference in ability to orgasm. With MRI measurements, the researchers found that for the 30 subjects, "the smaller the pea-shaped glans, and the further from the vagina, the harder they found it to achieve orgasm."

That was the conclusion that came from the study, but I don't think that conclusion is reasonably supported by this study. Out of the ~ 23 measurements of the clit size and distance, only 5 actually show significant differences between the groups. In fact, the clitoral glans area that the authors put forth as a significant difference between the two groups of women is only significant when they measured it from the coronal, but not the sagittal view. Unfortunately, this study also failed at asking the participants the proper questions so that they could be grouped in a way that would create meaning when compared to the clitoral measurements. Statistics are only as good as the understanding that exists of the population it is describing, and I don't think the understanding was good at all. I go into more detail on this study HERE.

"Taken together, these studies imply that there are multiple routes by which women can experience an orgasm, be it through vaginal stimulation, clitoral stimulation, or both at once. "

Or not. These studies taken together show that the vaginally stimulated orgasm has still not been observed, and although there are lots of theories, just as there has been for the past 40 years, as to how this type of orgasm might occur, none are conclusive...particularly because it's awful hard to prove the mechanism that causes vaginally stimulated orgasms, when a vaginally stimulated orgasm has never been observed. Maybe, just maybe, these types of 'orgasms' are so mysterious because they don't really exist, and so investigating them would naturally be tricky.

Komisaruk chimes in a final time in reference to a study he did revealing that, "projections from different regions of the female genitals - and indeed the nipples - all converge on the same general region of the brain, albeit in slightly different areas." (I go into more detail about that study HERE). He says, "There's a good neuroanatomical basis for different types of orgasms and different types of sensations." He goes on to say, "This could account for why combining clitoral, vaginal, and cervical stimulation seems to produce these more intense, complex and pleasurable orgasms that women describe." 

I'll just leave it at this. No, there is actually not good evidence for different types of orgasms. Different types of sensations? Sure. Moving a penis in and out of the vagina feels different than lightly touching the vulva, feels different that sucking on the nipple, and feels different than kissing the back of the neck. I personally like them all, but that doesn't mean they all can cause orgasm. Also, I'd like to know more about these more intense, complex and pleasurable orgasms that women describe. When do they describe them? How are they more complex, intense and pleasurable? And how exactly did he find that these amazing orgasms were specifically related to a combination of cervical, vaginal, and clitoral stimulation?

The article ends with some advice from Pauls and Jannini. I particularly appreciate that Pauls tells us if we don't have orgasms through straight out vaginal penetration, then that's normal. She's absolutely right, but her one statement within an article that focuses almost entirely on vaginally stimulated orgasms is a beautifully perfect microcosm of our sexual culture. Sure we hear now and then that lots of women need clitoral stimulation to orgasm, but as a whole our culture obsesses on the completely un-verified vaginally stimulated orgasm to a point, I would argue, of absurdity.

I honestly don't want to hate on the author of this article. It was certainly not that she was ignorant or terrible at her job. The sources she used and the people she spoke to are top studies and top researchers in female orgasm. What she said in her article is not off-base from things other reporters and sexperts say. I critique this article, but it is more a critique of the sexual culture that stimulates this type of discussion around female orgasm and that allows this type of article to be published by the BBC and that makes audiences accept the misinformation so easily.

What I do want is to open eyes and start tough conversations, and I hope this critique helps to do that.

Extra Info
If you are unsure about my assertions that orgasm can be defined with the rhythmic pelvic muscle activity, or that the clitoris needs to be stimulated to cause orgasm, or that Masters and Johnson really did create important, fundamental and still relevant work in regards to human sexual response, then please check out a debate I had with Edward Clint at Skeptic Ink HERE. I address all those things in detail.

If you want to understand more clearly what I mean when I say vaginal stimulation has never been shown to cause orgasms. I detail that out HERE.

If you want to see more about the affects and reasons for this cultural misunderstanding of female orgasm - Watch Science, Sex and the Ladies HERE.

If you want to see an artist doing bold, important work on the ignorance about and cultural erasing of the clitoris (which goes hand in hand with the ignorance about and cultural erasing of a realistic female orgasm), check out 101 Laws of Cliteracy by Sophia Wallace.

Cited
"Relationships Among Cardiovascular, Muscular, and Oxytocin Responses During Human Sexual Activity" Carmichael, et al. Archives of Sexual Behavior Vol. 23, No. 1 1994

Response to the letter to the editor by Barry K. Komisaruk "re: Puppo V, Puppo G. 2014. Anatomy of sex: Revision of the new anatomical terms used for the clitoris and the female orgasm by sexologists". Puppo V1, Puppo G. Clin Anat. 2015 Apr;28(3):291-2. doi: 10.1002/ca.22500. Epub 2014 Dec 22.

"Relationships Among Cardiovascular, Muscular, and Oxytocin Responses During Human Sexual Activity" Carmichael, et al. Archives of Sexual Behavior Vol. 23, No. 1 1994

The Case of the Female Orgasm: Bias in the Science of Evolution. LLoyd, Elisabeth A.  Cambridge: Harvard University Press. 2005.

Women's clitoris, vagina, and cervix mapped on the sensory cortex: fMRI evidence. Komisaruk BR1, Wise N, Frangos E, Liu WC, Allen K, Brody S. J Sex Med. 2011 Oct;8(10):2822-30. doi: 10.1111/j.1743-6109.2011.02388.x. Epub 2011 Jul 28.

Clitoral size and location in relation to sexual function using pelvic MRI. Oakley SH1, Vaccaro CM, Crisp CC, Estanol MV, Fellner AN, Kleeman SD, Pauls RN. J Sex Med. 2014 Apr;11(4):1013-22. doi: 10.1111/jsm.12450. Epub 2014 Feb 13.

Sexual function in a woman with congenital bladder exstrophy and multiple pelvic reconstructive surgeries: a case report. Vaccaro CM1, Herfel C, Karram MM, Pauls RN. J Sex Med. 2011 Feb;8(2):617-21.

Pilot echographic study of the differences in clitoral involvement following clitoral or vaginal sexual stimulation. Buisson O1, Jannini EA. J Sex Med. 2013 Nov;10(11):2734-40.

"Measurement of the thickness of the urethrovaginal space in women with or without vaginal orgasm." Gravina GL, Brandetti F, Martini P, Carosa E, Di Stasi SM, Morano S, Lenzi A, Jannini EA. J Sex Med. 2008 Mar;5(3):610-8.

Female ejaculation orgasm vs. coital incontinence: a systematic review. Pastor Z. J Sex Med.2013 Jul;10(7):1682-91. 2013 May 1.

Brain activation during vaginocervical self-stimulation and orgasm in women with complete spinal cord injury: fMRI evidence of mediation by the vagus nerves. Komisaruk BR1, Whipple B, Crawford A, Liu WC, Kalnin A, Mosier K. Brain Res. 2004 Oct 22;1024(1-2):77-88.

Human Sexual Response. Masters, W. and V. Johnson. Little, Brown & Co. 1966.

Is Clitoris A Pokemon?: Recap of a Strange Discussion about Sophia Wallace's Work, Cliteracy 101

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It all began 3 minutes after midnight on September 3rd 2013, when HorseCawk created the thread to discuss the "gay chit" that people were posting on FB.

A little background. I googled "Cliteracy 101" a couple days ago and happen to come across a thread on the bodybuilding.com forum about just that...Cliteracy 101. I couldn't help reading the entire thread, and I just really thought you needed to know about it too. These particular body-building folk are what some call miscers. They are people on bodybuilding sites that only post on the miscellaneous non-body-building sections of the site, and they really just post to make the other people laugh or react, so it's usually dumb as shit. It might have enraged me, cause there was a lot of pretty backwards comments, but honestly, who cares. I do think it reflects the underlying current in our culture that keeps us resistant to accepting a realistic understanding of female sexual release, but that's a subject that goes far beyond the shit these dudes were saying. Plus, I was in their space. They didn't take their shitty comments to the source. They kept in their home - their very public home, but home none-the-less.

So, sit back and relax because I'm going to give you a run-down of this awesomely awesome 3 page thread. It was Sophia Wallace's Cliteracy 101 posters that HorseCawk had wanted to discuss. I, obviously, think Cliteracy 101 is on point as "phuck" (HorseCawk prefers phuck to fuck), but HorseCawk felt it was

gay as phuck and says things like "the clitoris is larger than a flaccid penis" women who are into this $hit are just so dense. finding a "cause" and getting behind it!! POwEr in our sexuality! "Penetration Is Not the Only Sex!!" "you shouldn't have to ask a man to rub your clitoris during intercourse!"

He didn't see why anyone would share such things with him.

HorseCawk

DK91 quickly gave HorseCawk props for a strong username (I agree) and a strong post.

I'd like to point out that late in the thread, Nessa1 (1 of 3 women in this thread) came back at HorseCawk with: "You do realize that all of that is correct, right Opie?" to which HorseCawk replied, "its not you stuppid chit. u are misinformed" Bravo Nessa1 - 5 vuvla rating to you (!)(!)(!)(!)(!)

Quickly, everyone then got a bit riled up by the idea that a clit could be larger than a flaccid penis, retorting with things like richard noggin's "brb pulling on my cawk with pliers" and H34T's "4 inch flaccid checkin in. never seen a 4 inch clit before. also this is why I never would degrade myself by licking a snatch."

However, PoliciaLoco (inquisitive mofo) pipes in with the absolutely correct statement: "Most of a clit isn't visible as it extends into the body..." And then Musik85 quotes some internet lit supporting the whole big clit thing and includes links to more info.

HorseCawk comes back though and tells PoliciaLoco

this is debatable. the feminist hipsters promoting this "the clitoris so is vast" view are preaching that the labia minora as well as other pussy tissue is "the clitoris"

That big ol' HorseCawk actually has a point here. There are definitely people out there saying that all the "pussy tissue" should be considered "the clit" because it is all important in sexual pleasure. I, as you can imagine, take the side that organs should be called their correct name, because if they are not, it is both confusing and inaccurate, but that's another story. He is off base in this particular discussion though. I mean the clit really does extend inside the body, and it really is at least as big as a flaccid penis, so not actually debatable, HorseCawk.

HorseCawk's comments to Musik85 are a touch less poignant (and probably false on all accounts, although I don't know the status of Musik85's sexuality), saying:

nice scientific source dumbchit
 your statements are firstly false.
 secondly debatable in scientific literature
 and thirdly you are a homosexual.

On a side note Musik85 comes back at him with: "How many clits have you seen exactly? minus your mums on the way out..." To which HorseCawk jovially replies: "lmao" Sadly, Musik85 loses his earlier steely feminist/real-life leanings and finished up the exchange with "Who gives a fuk anyway? gona get mine then get out... don't care if some stupid sloot cums or not." PoliciaLoco loses his way also and concludes his postings on the 2nd page with: "The artist, Sophie Wallace shows her teddies on her tumbler. Just FYI."

There are also randomly distributed comments relating to one of my favorites of the laws - Cliteracy Natural Law # 14 which says "The vaginal orgasm is a myth invented by Freud in 1905" with richard noggin changing the topic as follows:

I would pay lots of money to see a 4 inch clit lmfao 

but.. girls do orgasm from their vaginas dont they? my girl does? am I a brodcaster status now?

richard noggin's avatar. 

and Stannis saying:

Girls can't orgasm from penetration? Not sure if srs..? I don't think she was faking. (hmm)

and ItsNerfOrNothin with:

Vaginal orgasms a myth? GF is in so much fuken trouble SRS
Gonna fight about this tomorrow wish me luck

Then lui9806 with the following comment and anime-rage gif:

So where just gonna let that "vaginal orgasm is a myth" go unchecked?

 And bossavery with:

are u kidding me? women saying vaginal orgasms aren't real? pretty sure ive got girls off multiple times by fingering/massing that G spot and the girls werent frauding. 

fuk this ghey world

BushrodButtram gets a bit more investigativey on the subject and writes:

All this "women can't climax from intercourse" stuff is greatly exaggerated and is supposed to delegitimize normal sex. Some proponents basically think that all straight sex is basically unpleasant for women and that men like it that way:

BushrodButtram then links a kinda stream-of-consciousness post from a self-described radical feminist in which she talks about the dichotomy that exists for women about wanting too much or too little Penis-in-Vagina sex and the sense that P-i-V sex is THE only type of sex. (Her whole post is  HERE. Granted, it is a too obsessive with terror-of-pregnancy and also too blamey for my taste, and it's written a bit aggressively, but if you shake off all the dirt, it honestly has some thoughtful points....could be good for a future post). Anyway, BushrodButtram is kinda pissed about it and finishes his comment with:

Therefore, from their point of view, of course women should insist on "cliteracy" since women's collective sexual self-interest is best served if men don't want to have intercourse, seeing it as an inferior and ineffective form of sex.

I mean, let's be honest, as lady-gasms go, intercourse is an inferior and ineffective form of sex, but that's neither here nor there. Bushrod clearly has his Buttram in a bunch because the whole issue gives him too much feels. He feels the whole Cliteracy 101 thing comes from some crazy motherfuckers thinking intercourse sucks for women and that men want it to suck for women (and I'm sure Mr. Buttram doesn't actually want sex to suck for Mrs. Buttram - seriously. I really think he doesn't and it is offensive to him to think women would think he does). I hear ya Buttram, I do, but sometimes things must be said that are hard to hear, and we all need to listen - no matter whose fault it is.

Synth1230 chimes in with:

i like how all the slogans are presupposed to make it the man's fault. If you get off on clit stimulation then rub your fuking clit you pleb. Not to mention that going down on these chicks is impossible cos of the 10 coks theyve taken earlier in the day.  

The Quality of Women is going down yet their standards become higher and higher. If youre a good women ill gladly eat you till the cows come home and rub your clit during penetration but you better give me a blowjob when i tell you to.  

 vaginal orgasms are infact real or rather orgasms for simple penetration are.

Simplistic as it may be, Synth1230 has a point about rubbing one's fucking clit - I mean just do it, right? But I suspect he may not quite understand how strangely not easy that is to do in real life...I mean sometime our culture can get aggressively anti-clit...ya know? He is likely wrong about how many cocks the average women who asks him to go down on her has had in the 24 hours prior to asking, but I'm not him, so I won't pretend to know his circumstances. If this is true, then yes, I think a shower would be appropriate before any eating out, but it's not technically impossible. Let's be honest here. No one wants the disease of 10 other men's ejaculate on their tongue or the taste of 10 latex condoms. Plus, she's probably dehydrated at this point and would do well to just go home, take some time off and drink some water....although on the other hand, after taking 10 coks in 1 day - and likely not orgasming (cause Cliteracy Law # 14 is actually pretty accurate), doesn't she deserve a good eating out so she can finally get the fuck off? As for orgasms from simple penetration being real, as you know, I stand by the statement that there is no evidence of that being true.

EDcellent let everyone know about his experience too:

*Finger banged a girl and she squirted crew* checking in. Not a single part of her clit was touched that night. 

Or any other night.

Thanks EDcellent, and true story. Fingerbanging is actually a pretty good way to get a girl to squirt. It's called an ejaculation, and if the clit wasn't touched, definitely doesn't include an orgasm...but maybe EDcellent's girl isn't into orgasms anyway. To each her own.

LikeAMachine didn't like the idea of saying the vaginal orgasm was a myth either:

A myth? lol ok, right 

fukking hipsters rustling jimmies

Two ladies got into the discussion too. Staberella just wanted to get practical:

LOL this is silly. Instead of making a big fukking deal over their man sucking in bed to the world, they should let their partners know what they like in bed. No need to make it public.

It seems she is gently acknowledging that dudes who bang with no clit game suck in bed (even the toughest of body-building chicks like that mouth on that lady junk, am I right?) , but fair enough, Staberella - keep that shit to yourself.  4 vulva rating to Staberella for her subtle insinuation (!)(!)(!)(!).

CallMeOniichan was quick to get to the real issue, though, when he replied back to her, "I don't think the artist is into guys." Classic move CallMeOniichan.

and conceptions, well she didn't really care much about all this, but she was a bit better informed than most of the dudes so far about the vaginal orgasm is a myth thing. She says:

I think that claim comes from the belief that the nerves etc of the clitoris extend into the vaginal walls/g-spot, so they're all clitoral orgasms. No. 4 on the list in one of the pics seems right. I don't get what all the fuss is about.

The Cliteracy Law #4 conceptions speaks of is, "The clitoris is not a button. It is an iceberg" So she's got sense about her in that she's acknowledging that there is an inner, larger part of the clitoris. She's also right that there is a going trend that believes orgasms from penetration are due to the inner legs of the clitoris being stimulated to orgasm during penetration - so that even "vaginal" orgasms are clitoral. However, there is no scientific evidence of orgasm ever actually happening from stimulation inside the vagina, so there isn't really a "vaginal" orgasm to speak of at all, and thus speaking about what causes it is not useful since it doesn't really exist (at least in scientific literature). She gets 4 vulvas (!)(!)(!)(!) on her comment though, cause it's kinda thoughtful at least, and she tried to calm the fire. *No one cared though, I guess, because there were absolutely no comments to what she said.

A few other brave comments worth mentioning...theRealGriNC was just honest:

Does anyone else mess around with the clit or is it just me? I didn't think it was such a big deal.

It is a big deal - because it's not done enough. Thank you, theRealGriNC. Also, solidus2k3 kept his comment simple, but effective with: "Pussy eating crew" Different "crews" are always checking in. For instance, InfraRed407  said "can navigate the clit crew checking in" Yes sir, please do check in.

 Hmmmm. I'll give a final word to richard noggin who added this toward the very end of the 3 page thread:

alright boys lets all just admit it the clitoris is a myth, a made up fairy tale that was conjured up by feminists to scare little boys before bed. Has anyone seen this so called "clit"? no. no one has ever seen one because it doesnt exist. that dangly thing down there is just the bull**** that feminists are full of trying to escape.

Wait no. I want to give the last word to snowyowl, who actually made a top notch 5 vulva rating post  (!) (!) (!) (!) (!).  Bravo to him...and he never said anything super ass-holeish....and he had the hottest pic.

snowyowl's avatar 

 I'd rub my clit all over those abs. Here's his post. It was simply the juxtaposition of the 2 memes below.

101 Laws of Cliteracy Revisited

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Cliteracy! Clit literacy, ya'll!

 I've been thinking lately about artist, Sophia Wallace's Cliteracy Campaign. It's truly on point. I wrote more about it in a blog post when I first heard about it HERE. A big part of it are these posters that have 101 Laws of Cliteracy. She is trying to point out how ignorant our culture is about the main organ of female sexual pleasure - the clitoris, and how much we completely ignore and deny that ignorance. Many of these 101 Laws are exactly the bold, orgasm equality things that need to be said. She is honestly one of the only other people out there saying these things in such a blunt straight-forward manner.

Cheers to Sophia Wallace and The 101 Laws of Cliteracy! Below are some of the posters, but you can check out more of my faves on my first post about this.