A 1954 Theory of Female Orgasm - A Journal Article I Read

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  Welcome back to An Article I Read, where I summarize a scientific article relating to female orgasm (check all the past ones out HERE).  I have a bunch of to-be-summarized articles in a folder, and I was feeling a bit motivated to write some article reviews, so I picked the first one and decided to go for it. It's first in the list because they have the publish year at the front of the file title, and this one was published in 1954.  

So, it's old. You'd think an article this old wouldn't be that relevant, but I think it actually provides a great look into the world of lady-gasm science - a window into why this not particularly complicated science continues to seem deeply tangled and confusing. Specifically, it contains all the same hang-ups and logic circumventing that still exist today surrounding the desperate need to justify and explain the existence of a vaginal orgasm whilst faced with strong evidence against it (and mere hearsay for it). 

Some Considerations Concerning Orgasm in the Female. Marmor, J. Psychosomatic Medicine. Vol. 16 No. 3 (May 1954), pp. 240-245.

MY QUICK SUMMARY

This is an article written by an MD in the height of the Freudian -vaginal orgasms are mature and clitoral orgasms are immature- era. Overall, this doctor agrees with Freud's assessment that the female orgasm does mature over time, but not about the  because of, ya know, anatomy and reality, he also agrees that it couldn't possibly make sense that there are 2 different pathways for the female orgasm or that there is some kind of actual movement of a female's orgasmic sensitivity that begins in the clitoral glans and then relocates into the vagina (as is suggested by Freud and Freudian thinkers). He is a medical professional and knows that 1. the vagina just really does not seem to have the sensitivity or receptors to elicit the orgasmic response; 2. that the clit is homologous to the penis and that sensibly the clitoral glans would react quite similarly to the glans penis when it comes to orgasm; and 3. that the glans clitoris does indeed have the same nerve set up as the glans penis (only packed into a smaller glans). 

So, he asserts that the female does not in fact make an anatomical transition from the clit to the vagina (aka clitoral orgasm to vaginal orgasm) as she matures. Instead he suggests that since that physical transition is impossible, it must be more of a psychological transition. Basically, he grabs onto the idea that during intercourse, the clitoral glans must certainly get a little stimulation too (that's a big ol' MAYBE, but Lordy people cling to the idea of indirect stimulation of the clit while getting banged). This indirect stimulation, he asserts, mixed with the emotional/psychological openness and intensity that a mature woman receives from a loving partner during intercourse is what give this more whole-bodied, deeper, better orgasm we call the "Vaginal Orgasm." 

Without that emotional/psychological openness and intensity that can be achieved during the penis-vagina interlocking, he asserts that a female would need way more direct physical stimulation on the clit. In other words the clitoral glans is always needed for a female orgasm no matter what, but if she gets fucked and is mentally and emotionally on-point, then the indirect stimulation is enough to give her an orgasm. In fact that getting-banged orgasm is even better because the mental/emotional element is so amazing that the orgasm will be more amazing than she could get from directly stimulating the clit. That direct stimulated orgasm doesn't have the closeness of the penis-in-vagina situation, and it's just the boring ol' localized orgasm we know as the "Clitoral Orgasm."

I like this try. So, basically, this man knows (because it's pretty obvious and there's been clear evidence to support for a long time) that female orgasm is based on clitoral glans area stimulations as much as the male's orgasm is based on penile glans stimulation. He's not any stupider about this stuff than anyone in the 60's, 70's 80's or Today. I mean - this was even before Master's and Johnson's research really solidified that knowledge in the scientific community. It's basic and hard to ignore. Yet, he's REALLY trying to logic his way around this to still find his way to there being a vaginal orgasm. He's trying to tell us that it's clear ladies need clitoral glans area stimulation in order to orgasm, but ya know, the thing that's even better than that - is to not stimulate it very much at all, like just VERY indirectly. In fact don't even worry about that too much. Just get over all your sexual psychological hang-ups, be with a loving partner, and then just let his penis fuck your vagina. Everything else will fall into place and actually, you know what? It's actually THE BEST orgasm because of some the undefined psychological/emotional of the excitation. Aaaand...if you can't do it that way, and have to have direct clitoral stimulation, it's cool. You're just too hung-up and inhibited to get it THE BEST way. 

It's beautiful to me because it's the same shit different day. I do believe he has good intentions. I really actually do. He's just of his time. He quite rightly mentions how the culture gives women sexual hang-ups that could block their sexuality in ways it doesn't men (see, we've always known it). And at the end he basically says there's a lot of women worried about not having vaginal orgasms. They may even urge their partners away from their clit for that reason, but they shouldn't. Foreplay is good and important and the clit is needed for the mature "vaginal orgasm" they are wanting during intercourse. So, he's at least giving proper props to the clit. But, in the end, he can't stray from the idea that having a penis move in and out of the vagina is a way that women can orgasm too. Because, let's be honest - it would be soooo convenient if intercourse - the very thing that gave men direct continued stimulation to their glans penis, something that is a bedrock of hetero sex, something that dudes seem to really like - if that thing just magically gave females the same orgasmic possibilities it gave men too? Wouldn't it be easy-peasy for dudes? Wouldn't ladies love it too - to not have the hassle of trying to get their partner to acknowledge and appropriately react to their orgasm needs too? Wouldn't life be easy?

That my friends is the issue. We are stuck on that hope. REALLY stuck.

Same shit different day. This 1954 MD knew how women orgasm, and he knew there's no evidence it was from the vagina getting a good bang, but he clung to the possibility that -'weeeelll, actually it probably does happen, though.' He went with clinging to an undefined level of emotional connection and psychological openness as the thing we're missing.  But, many more have tried. Before this guy (and honestly, well after him too), it was oft said that the walls of the vagina itself were what could be stimulated to orgasm. This was known as nonsense early, but also clung to. This guy's angle was the whole psychological Freudian thing. When those two things went out of vogue, and one couldn't shove that nonsense down women's throats anymore, feminists and their insistence on the myth of the vaginal orgasm had a short, beautiful heyday in the 70's. It was short lived, though. They were quickly minimized. Even today otherwise sex positive progressives will call these women radicals for their over-emphasis on the clitoral orgasm over the vaginal one. Luckily, for the ladies-orgasm-from-a-fuck advocates, the G-Spot hit the scene in the early 80's and that was the new thing everyone clung to. It was a magic button we hadn't previously known about in the vagina that caused 'Vaginal Orgasms' (or whatever popular term was being used for an orgasm from a penis). Strangely the interesting info learned about the ejaculation and the G-spot at that time (and still today) was largely ignored or minimized in service of the idea that it could cause an orgasm. The G-spot as a orgasm button never had any sensible evidence and in the past 40 years has been refuted so many times it finally just recently went out of vogue too, but not before there was a solid replacement. Today, again with no actual evidence, the 'vaginal orgasm' is explained by the 'inner clitoris.' You might hear it as the clitoral complex or clitoral legs or the clitourethrovaginal CUV complex, but it's just the new hope for a newly discovered magical thing in the vagina to convince people women can orgasm from the ol' in and out. Same shit different day.

Anyway, that's what I found most interesting about this article. It shows the through-line of desperate logic circumvention that researchers and 'sexperts' have fed us over the years to justify the idea that banging a woman can make her come. Secondly, though, I found another aspect interesting. It proves to some extent something I see people disregard often - that professionals understood the important basics of female orgasm, the role, extent, and impressive glans nervature of the clit, long before feminists were saying it and way before the contemporary discussion of it. That knowledge, though, (both then and now) gets minimized, ignored, skewed, and smoothed over in an effort to never fully negate the hopes and screw-brained illogical justifications of vag-gasms and their champions.

THE ARTICLE SUMMARY

Some Considerations Concerning Orgasm in the Female. Marmor, J. Psychosomatic Medicine. Vol. 16 No. 3 (May 1954), pp. 240-245.

In these summaries, you can assume that anything I write is a genuine attempt to reflect what is said in the paper - even if it's shortened or summarized. My opinions, if I have any to add will either be inside brackets likes these [me:], or in a section headed in a way that clearly lets you know these are my opinions. All quotes are from this article unless specifically noted.

You can check out the list of all the past 'A Journal Article I Read' Summaries HERE.

Intro

A lot is known about male orgasm but less about female, some likely reasons are that you can see the ejaculation which is related to a male orgasm but it's harder for females themselves or an observer to identify the female orgasm. There's also all the quite harsh taboos women feel about their sexuality. Of women, it says, "One might speculate as to whether their very sensory perceptions of the process, having developed in the crucible of these conventions, have not been affected in such a way as to interfere with the accurate evaluation of their own sexual reactions."

Freud's Concept of Genital Erogenicity

• "...most psychoanalytical concepts about the physiology of the female orgasm date back to Freud's classic formulation in his 'Three Contributions to the Theory of Sex.'" Basically Freud asserted that the erotic genital center for females is at first in the clitoris (an immature phase) but should transfer to the vagina, and so orgasm in the healthy mature woman should be due to vaginal rather than clitoral stimulation. If this sensitivity transfer does not take place, it leads to 'frigidity' or 'anesthesia'. Freud believes this is due to "profuse sexual activities in infantile life."
• Some researchers named Horney [ME: hilarious, am I right?] and Lorand propose it's possible vaginal sensation may be present in childhood, "but the conclusion that clitoral sensitivity must ultimately give way to vaginal sensitivity in the normal female seems never to have been seriously questioned in the psychoanalytical literature."
• This Freud hypothesis was based on common clinical observations. Masturbation in the young female is generally centered on the clit. "Frigid" women who can't come from vaginal stimulation often do seem to orgasm fine from clitoral stimulation. Also. "women who seem to have achieved the greatest degree of sexual freedom and responsiveness are able to have orgasms freely through vaginal intercourse." "most observers" report clitoral orgasm is a localized response and vaginal orgasms "seem to be a more violent, intense, and generalized reaction." [ME: i.e. clit-gasms are immature and weak and lame and only genital. Vag-gasms are amazing, mind-blowingly intense and whole-bodied. I just want to point out that the Freud immature vs. mature theory is relatively outdated, but the idea of vaginal orgasm being better and more whole-bodied is still quite strongly with us. Look around at how modern information often describes it. Also those "common clinical observations" don't have references attached. Miiiiight be a bunch of trash and hearsay.] 
• "Although these clinical observations seem well authenticated [ME: Do they?], recent studies have thrown doubt on their theoretical interpretations, and specifically upon the hypothesis of the transfer of erogenicity from the clitoris to the vagina. Evidence has accumulated in recent years to indicate that in the normal adult woman clitoral excitation by the penis in the process of intercourse is an important factor in the stimulation leading to orgasm." [ME: When they say clitoris in this article, they mean the clitoral glans and surrounding externals tissues. I have to make this clear since people are now way into thinking that the "inner legs" of the clitoris are what actually causes orgasms. Spoiler: We've been lied to. There's no Evidence for that]. One study indicated that a shorter distance from the clit to the vagina (so the penis might have a better chance of touching it while thrusting) is correlated to higher possibility of having intercourse orgasms. Another researcher, Robert Latou Dickenson, disagrees with this assessment, but does believe stimulation of the clit is essential to female orgasm. "In his opinion, the most reliable index to clitoral function is not its location so much as its susceptibility to displacement during intercourse." [ME: you might say he's suggesting that it's more about if that clit can position itself to consistently grind against something during the banging - and I can get behind that idea]
• More evidence, though indirect, of the importance of the clit in sex comes from looking at common sex positions. Some researchers found face-to-face sex, which affords possible clit stimulation is most popular throughout the world. The Kinsey studies found woman on top face to face to be what people considered best for lady-gasms. Another researchers found doggy style [ME: They used the term coitus-atergo, which I had to look up and kinda sounds awesome], is not preferred in any more than 35 societies they studied, and suggested it may be because clit stim is minimal.
• "Most significant of all, however, are histological studies in females of the sensory cells known as the genital corpuscles, which 'are highly specialized end-organs for the perception of this particular sensation (i.e. orgasm) just as the retinal is adapted for the sense of sight and the neuro-epithelium of the nose is adapted for the sense of smell.'10 These histological studies indicate that the genital corpuscles do not occur in the vaginal mucosa and are confined predominantly to the glans clitoridis.10 Some are also found in the areas directly adjacent to the clitoris, notably the labia minor."

Importance of the Clitoris

• This all means the main organ for erotic sensation in females is the clitoral glans just as in males it is localized in the homologous [ME: they arise from the same tissue in the embryo] organ, the glans penis. The penis shaft and the vagina are lacking in these genital corpuscles. There are other secondary erogenous zones of course, like lips, butt, etc. and their importance is well known.
• "There are kinesthetic receptors within the vagina, the stimulation of which by the erect penis contributes to volumptuous sensations to the normal woman. [ME: I have no idea what voluptuous sensations are] There are similar receptors in the bulbocavernous muscles around the lower end of the vagina which contribute a sense of ejaculation during orgasm by the spasmodic pulsations. The contractions of these muscles in the male cause actual ejaculation of semen from the penis during orgasm. [ME: This statement is interesting because it acknowledges a few things 1. that the bulbocavernous muscles - now called bulbospongiosus muscle- in both males and females spasm -one might say contract rhythmically- during orgasm. This was over 10 years before Masters and Johnson released their groundbreaking research on this topic which tells me that basic understanding of orgasm was pretty clear well in the past. It is interesting that they describe that as giving a 'sense of ejaculation' in females but I guess that's just because it's a spasm like the kind that shoot the semen out in spurts. 2. that it recognizes that the bulbocavernous muscles which cover the vestibular bulbs in females. This is of note because the vestibular bulbs are what O'Connell, in her 1998 paper, asserted should be included in our definition of the clitoris - even though it is a different organ and other anatomists would disagree. That paper is what people often assert 'discovered the full structure of the clit in 1998.' It did not. I have a whole thing on that idea and that paper HERE. Anyway, there is a sense that people didn't know about the inner parts of the clitoris or the vestibular bulbs before 1998, but they absolutely did and this is just 1 of many evidence of that.]
• This knowledge of the clit's importance in adult women calls into question the idea of the clit to vagina sensation shift that's supposed to take place, but before discussing that further the knowledge of the male anatomy should be examined
• "It is accepted fact that in the male there is an orgastic spinal center in the sacral segment of the spinal cord. As can be demonstrated from the evidence of neurophysiology, discharges of tension in this orgastic center can be achieved either at a reflex spinal level or by cortical stimulation." In the instance of the 'reflex' stimulation, orgasm is simply achieved by stimulation of the genital corpuscles in the glans penis. In the instance of the 'cortical' stimulation, orgasm is achieved through psychological stimuli - for instance; stimulation of secondary erogenous areas, witnessing exciting events, erotic literature, fantasy, daydreaming - even with no physical stimulation of the penis. In some neurotic men, extreme anxiety or tension has been observed to cause orgasm. [ME: this does not have any references, so take as you will] 
• However, in the normal "from a psychodynamic standpoint" male, both 'reflex' and 'cortical' stimulus are needed. The cortical stimulus (psychological, secondary erogenous zones, etc.) is sufficient for erection but not orgasm. A certain amount of penile glans stimulation, "through the process of intercourse, is necessary. [ME: umm...you can get penile glans stimulation other ways, ya know... but for real - they are obsessed with intercourse. am I right?] This physical excitation is further enhanced in the process of intercourse by the psychological stimulus from the mounting excitement of the partner [ME: aka - this lady's so hot about you climbing on top and jamming it in that it makes you even hotter, baby!]. Under ideal circumstances this crescendo of excitement occurs in both partners simultaneously, and the combination of physical and psychological stimulation finally results in orgasm." [ME: remember this fine assessment of how hot intercourse makes people. This is crucial to their later hypothesis that the psychological hotness of getting banged overcomes the very indirect (you might say barely feel-able) clit stimulation that (maybe) happens during basic in-out sex. the will assert it not only gets a lady to orgasm, but makes her come like a motha-fucka - an amazing, whole bodied, stars falling into your gasping mouth, vaginal orgasm - simultaneously with him, of course].
• "In considering the parallel mechanism of orgasm in the female, there is no reason to expect from our knowledge of anatomy and the physiology that the female has two spinal orgastic centers rather than one. On the contrary, it is fair to assume that the female undoubtedly has an orgastic center located in the sacral segment of the spinal cord, exactly as the male has. From neurohistological evidence, it can be shown that the sensory receptors for this spinal orgastic center are the genital corpuscles, located predominantly in the glans clitoris, just as the homologous sensory receptors in the male are confined to the glans penis." [ME: I want to take a quick moment to point out that it is the glans of the clit and to a lesser degree area directly around it - not the clitoral legs and vestibular bulbs that are surrounding the vagina- that contain all this nervature. People are always seeming to forget that when they act like the inner parts of the clit are somehow supposed to cause orgasm as they are jostled indirectly through the vagina and surrounding tissue]. 
• In case people wonder how the tiny clit could play such a sensory role, they quote from Dickinson's 1933 Human Sex Anatomy. He describes how the amount and size of the nerves in the little clit compare strikingly with those in the penile glans. In fact it's "demonstrably richer in nerves than the male glans, for the two stems of the doralis clitoridis are relatively three to four times as large as the equivalent nerves of the penis." [ME: Again, I just want to point out that the quite large nature of the clitoral nerves were known. Granted there are more detailed anatomy studies today, but I've seen people assert that the striking size of the clitoral nerves was not understood until recently and that is disingenuous.]
• It's suggested this extremely rich nervature of the clit may explain why women have a greater capacity for multiple orgasms. [ME: There are studies with physical evidence that some males have multiple orgasms as well. It seems like it is when they are able to have orgasms without ejaculation. The multiple orgasm session seems to end when ejaculation finally happens...in case you wondered if males could have multiple orgasms]

Orgiastic Impotence

• Even with evidence that females should be as orgasmic as males, they just aren't. One study of 1000 married women showed only 2 of 5 women experience regular orgasms during intercourse, and they say these figures are corroborated by others but don't describe where.
• It seems almost inescapable to conclude that there could not possibly be 2 different pathways for female orgasm (vaginal and clitoral) as many have suspected, so one must assume the problem women tend to have with orgasming vaginally must not be physiological - but rather psychological. [ME: or, and hear me out, maybe it's that expecting a woman to orgasm from ramming a dick in her vagina is like expecting a male to come from rubbing his balls. It's dumb, makes no anatomical sense, and you should stop expecting it. So...ya know, maybe it's not psychological or a physiological issues, but a simple user error.]
• It's noted that the menstrual cycle may play a part in the female libido, but they don't believe it is related to frigidity.
• The psychological factors for females that might affect frigidity are huge - including; "the greater degree of sexual repression and inhibition which our culture imposes upon them, and the envy and hostility to men which stems in part at least from the position of women in an androcentric culture [ME: aka the motha fuckin' patriarchy], are only a few of the factors that interfere with the capacity of women to enter with uninhibited pleasure into a sexual relationship. Fears of being injured by the penis, fears of pregnancy and childbirth, and lack of adequate skill, tenderness, or potency on the part of the male partners..." 
• This paper is less concerned, however, with the psychology of frigidity (inability to have 'vaginal' orgasms through intercourse), and more concerned with how the element of psychology can help explain what a vaginal orgasm really is - since we know it couldn't be some different physiological pathway from the clitoral orgasm pathway. Specifically, it seems that if there are psychological inhibitions holding a female back from the full capacity to enjoy sexual intercourse, she will still usually be capable of orgasming through direct clitoral stimulation (the 'reflex' stimulus). "On the other hand, if the woman has been able to free herself from the blanket of psychological inhibition, she will be capable of responding through the medium of enhanced cortical excitement (that is, through cortical facilitation) to vaginal intercourse." 
• The authors tells us ,"as has been pointed out, [ME: from somewhere. no reference.] some stimulation of the clitoris almost invariably occurs in normal vaginal intercourse and is an important factor in the excitation leading to orgasm. The difference between the so-called clitoral and vaginal orgasms, therefore is explicable not in terms of the different origin or location of the orgastic response, but in the different intensity of it and in the degree to which cortical factors are contributory."
• In other words, the assertion is that frigidity does not come from the body's inability to transfer sensation from the clit to the vagina, because that seems physiologically impossible, but from the mind's inability to overcome psychological inhibitions. These inhibitions can exist for a woman and still allow orgasm, but only by direct clitoral stimulation. However, these inhibitions must be overcome in order to achieve the enhanced 'cortical' (mental/emotional) excitement that makes the indirect stimulation of the clit during intercourse enough to have an so-called orgasm. 
• They assert that in both males and females the intensity of the orgasm relates to the degree of psychological excitation present. In the 'purely spinal reflex,' due to the mechanical stimulation of either the penis or the clitoris, the orgasm is generally experienced as a localized and limited reaction. "On the other hand, in both the male and female, the higher the degree of emotional and psychological participation, the greater the degree of cortical facilitation of the spinal discharge, and the more general and intense the orgastic response is." [ME: So, they know stimulating the penis or clit directly can cause orgasm, right? They say it's a lame, lesser one, but one none the less. So, to get a more intense, whole-bodied one, we're told that males and females just need more psychological excitation (more arousal and intimacy), right? Through lack of inhibition and intercourse, right? So...to get this better orgasm, men still get to give their penile glans really good direct stimulations by engulfing it in a vagina, but females get way less clitoral glans stimulation, maybe barely any at all, but they're saying somehow females still should expect the same results as the males. How's that shit make any sense?]
• The authors think it would be useful to do electroencephalographic studies of the cortical patterns during intense orgasm. 

Extra Genital Orgasm

• There are other reactions in the female similar to those in the male. For instance, women too are capable of orgasming without any local genital stimulation. They quote from Dickenson and Beam's study of a thousand marriages.  "The records contain instances of orgasm obtained from nipple suction, from nursing a baby, from pressing down (fully dressed ) against another [ME: That's called 'cloths burning' or 'dry humping', and that actually does include genital stimulation, amiright?], from a shampoo at the hands of a male hairdresser, from a look, from a kiss, from touching the eye or ear, from a handclasp, and from a picture or flower which contains no figure and no likeness to a person or scene." [ME: Daaaaaamn  - coming from merely looking at picture of a driveway or something. That's a horny motha fucker. Respect if that's you, but I venture to guess one shouldn't count on that doing the trick. And did we ever consider these tales might just be lies women have told their old-timey husbands after they read their wife's diary saying she orgasmsed with Pierre - like 'oh - Pierre's the shampoo boy. I just inexplicably came while he was washing my hair. Strange, huh?' ]
• Those non-genital orgasms are ones based on the cortical excitation only, but normally males and females need both cortical (emotional/mental) and reflex simulation (physical stimulation to clit/penis). Also - "In the normal woman, moreover, as in the normal man, the excitement of the partner, and particularly the setting off of his orgiastic reaction, constitutes an intense psychological stimulus for her and often acts as a trigger for her climactic response." [ME: I mean, just goes to show you that the ol' -him coming made me come- story has been around forever to give both males and females alike a way to justify the otherwise quite unrealistic situation of banging, a sexual act that gives the penis great stimulation and the clit little to none, causing simultaneous orgasms.]
• "Pursuing the logic of this hypothesis, therefore, we may say that strictly speaking there is no such thing as a 'vaginal' orgasms in the female, anymore than we might speak of 'scrotal,' 'anal,' or 'prostatic' orgasm in the male. It seems logical to assume that the actual spinal mechanism of orgasm is identical in all females."
• The variations that take place, however, are due to the level at which inhabitations accompany the physical stimulation. If inhibitions are great enough, they may inhibit even direct clitoral stimulation, and create a total incapacity for orgasm. If it's less inhibition, prolonged direct clitoral stimulation may overcome the inhabition and an orgasm is possible. These are what are known as 'clitoral orgasms.' "However, where cortical inhabitations do not exist, where there is freedom from psychological tension or anxiety in the sexual act, and instead there is a high degree of tender, affection, love, and psychological excitement, then cortical facilitation takes place. The result is an intense orgastic response in which the intromission of the phallus into the vagina is of major importance. This is both psychodynamically and physiologically the optimum type of response, and represents what is ordinarily characterized as a 'vaginal' orgasm." 

Conclusion

The reason all this is important is to help people; women, their male partners, and the doctors and psychologists they go to for help. With this new understanding that the clitoris doesn't give sensitivity up to the vagina as women mature, and that the clitoral glans continues to be important to orgasmic response, will help. Anxious women need not worry if their clit is still sensitive past youth and should know that stimulating it is important in their mature, adult sexual experiences. They shouldn't feel that allowing it to be touched is bad or a sign of immaturity. Men should understand the importance of clitoral foreplay, and the doctors and psychologists can use all this information to better counsel women. [ME: see - I do believe this was created out of good intention - old-timey good intention, yes- but none the less I imagine this, for its time, was forward thinking, and I can appreciate that.]

Summary (in entirety)

"Some considerations have been presented which throw doubt on the popular assumption that genital erogenicity in the female becomes normally transferred from the clitoris to the vagina. There is evidence to indicate that clitoral sensitivity is a continuing factor in adult female sexuality, and the chief difference between so-called clitoral and vaginal orgasm is explicable not in terms of the different origin or location of the orgastic response, but in the different intensity of it and the degree to which cortical facilitation of the spinal reaction has taken place."

A Dirty Story With 7 Realistic Lady-gasms!

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Sorry it's been 2 weeks again. I have a couple post I'm working on, but none are done yet, so I'm going to write a quick one. It's not unimportant though. In fact, I think it's one of the most important aspects of change that need to come in order to get to Orgasm Equality - clit-stimulated orgasms in porn and erotica. 

Clit-gasms!

So, yes, of course you can find orgasms caused by external clitoral glans area stimulation all over porn, romance novels and erotica, but it is a truly rare find to have ALL the lady-gasms in one of these works resulting from clit glans area stimulation. There's usually 1 maybe 2, but then there's also some caused from stimulation inside the vagina - usually from a penis or a dildo. And once you have even one of those B.S. never-observed-or-recorded-in-scientific-literature vag-gasms in there, it kind of ruins the whole thing. 

I mean everyone already knows that diddling the clit-button works for orgasm. That's undisputed. The part that needs changed is the idea that vaginal stimulation should be expected to cause orgasm as well. So, yeah it's nice to see any scene in any erotic work that depicts orgasms from clit stimulation, but as soon as there's another scene in the work that depicts orgasm from vag-stimualtion as well, all progress goes out the window. In the end, the overall message is unchanged from the shit message we're already getting from our sexual culture - that clits AND vaginal canal stimulation will make a lady come. The only way to create progress is for the whole work to be realistic about lady-gasms, not just part of it. 

For Orgasm Equality to get a foothold, we have to acknowledge, once and for all, that females need external clit area stimulation in order to orgasm as much as males need penile stimulation to orgasm. However, the idea of banging a woman into an orgasm, as unrealistic as it might be, is so deeply held and the image such a common one that a belief in it is not going to go away until we stop seeing it our media. We need to start seeing an unequivocal lack of lady-gasms from banging. Otherwise it won't be enough to force people see lady-gasm differently than we currently do.

A good start to that is to depict every single lady-gasm in an erotic work realistically. Every. Single. One. In porn maybe the best way to do that is to do the same that is done for males - allow the female actors to actually come. No faking. But that's a whole bigger, more complicated, socially deep issue that we won't get into today. 

A Progressive ass dirty story

Today, I want to highlight an explicit erotic story about a F-F-M threesome that had 7 female orgasms and every single one was externally clit area induced. Every. Single. One. Not most. Not 6 out of 7. All of them. It's unheard of. I mean, I think. It's rare at least. I have been masturbating to video, photo, and written porn for a couple decades now, and I honestly think this is the first work featuring 2 or more people I've encountered that has this honor. Granted, I don't get into niche, feminist works. I am very basic and mainstream in the venues for which I find my porn, but I fear even in very niche feminist works it wouldn't be too much different - there always seems to be at least one scene of a lady getting banged into orgasm, even in lesbian porn. If you have examples that prove me wrong, please share. I would love to highlight them. 

Okay, so this was a story on Literotica.com - a free erotic literature site. It's called "When Jessica and Yazmin Slept Over" and it's by Estrellita85. It's in the voice of a man named Steve who becomes a friend and then an experimental lover with Jessica. Jessica has another sex partner Yazmin that visits and, well, they have a threesome. Here is a list of the the 7 lady-gasms.

1 The first one was Jessica's. It happened when she was lying on her back, Steve slowly banging her, and Yazmin was sucking and licking her clit. Solid. Full realism on that one. Clit licking will sensibly work to make a lady come...and getting banged while that is happening can certainly add a little spice, so thumbs up. There was a lot of lead-up to that, but ya know, read the story if you're curious.

2 The second one was Jessica again (she was the center of attention at the beginning of this). I mean, basically she was sitting on Yazmin's face getting everything from her clit to her anus tongued, and she done up and came. Again, a mouth on the clit/vulva area is a realistic way one might orgasm. This was all happening while while Steve was also eating Yazmin out, which brings us to the next one.

3 You guessed it. This one was Yazmin. She had a finger in both her holes, Steve's mouth on her clit, and Jessica licking her body when she came. Mouth on clit. Estrellita85 is continuing to keep it real, my friends.

4 Yazmin got a 2nd turn at the bat, and like Jessica before had Steve's penis inside her vagina and Jessica sucking her clit. She came. Again, I'm totally into this - fully support this depiction.

5 Ya'll, Yazmin did it again! This time Steve's penis moved to her ass. Don't worry, there was lube, and she really wanted it.  Jessica was just watching (I'll get to her in a minute). There was plenty of stuff happening before leading up to this. This whole thing is a pretty long story, actually. Anyway, at the time she came, she was on her knees rubbing her own clit. Earlier, before the ass, while Steve was still in her vag, she started diddling herself, then Steve took over, so there had been a fair amount of manual clit play by this time.  I LOVE when there is a depiction of a lady taking her pleasure into her own hands. That should be a much, much, much more common occurrence during intercourse than it currently is. Oh - and Steve finally came during this as well.

6 Now, during the end of this, Jessica was next to them rubbing her own clit, and minutes after they finished, Jessica came as well from her own hand on her clit. Watching and masturbating to orgasm? That's a orgasm-realistic thumbs up from me!

7 So, there was a shower, ya know, to clean off after that, and then the last lady-gasm was Jessica's. After some tongue play on the ol' anus, she got a little Steve up in there. At the same time, Yasmin first licked and then strummed her clit. I mean, that's legit. Oh and Steve came this time too.

Respect to Estrellita85

Seven out of seven, my friends. I am impressed. And it wasn't like this story avoided intercourse or was not hardcore. There was lots of intercourse in more than 1 hole. It's just that, quite correctly, the ladies orgasmed at times when something that actually causes orgasm in woman - clitoral glans area stimulation - was happening to them instead of during times when the only thing happening to them were things that cause males to orgasm - ya know, like ramming penises into vaginas/asses/mouths for instance. 

This is huge. The truth is that we need erotic depictions of realistic female orgasms. Not only does it help people realize how lady-gasms can realistically happen, but it also gives people ideas and cultural permission to approach female orgasm that way with partners. Things we see and know other people do seem so much more 'okay' to ask for and to do than things that seem rare or weird - like stimulating your own clit to orgasm while getting fucked, for instance. Yeah - maybe you've seen that once or twice. Maybe. But, start looking at sex scenes wherever you see or read them, and start noticing what percentage show a woman rubbing her own clit to orgasm during it. It ain't common, and that reflects, sadly, in real encounters as well. 

Point is, I think this writer has a realistic understanding of the lady-gasm and had a point of view to put forth. It's progressive and revolutionary, and it's just what the world needs if we're ever going to achieve Orgasm Equality.

Get it Estrellita85! You are now an official SSL Orgasm Equality Ally!

Inside Amy Schumer - S2 Ep1

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Inside Amy Schumer 
This show makes me laugh, and here's the best part - Amy Schumer tends to bring it when it comes to realism and female sexuality. She brought it in her movie Trainwreck, in The Joe Rogan Podcast, and largely in the other episodes of this show I've SSL Reviewed so far. She has shown a strong willingness to give the clit the glory it deserves, speak some truths about lady sex experiences, rep for actual lady-gasms - all things largely absent in media and also incredibly important to Orgasm Equality. (She could use some schooling and humbling when it comes to speaking about race though - but that's pretty true of a lot of us).

The SSL Reviewable
There is plenty to SSL Review in this show. And for those that don't yet know, an SSL Review is a critique specifically of discussions or depictions of female orgasm, female masturbation, or the clit. I focus on that and really only that (unless I want to talk about something else). I'm looking mainly at realism and about how the depiction/discussion plays in the larger cultural conversation about female orgasm and women's sexuality.

Please, my friends, do enjoy more SSL Reviews for MOVIES and TV SHOWS.

The SSL Review

Season 2 Episode 1: A Car Accident

The end of almost all Inside Amy Schumer shows is her doing a piece of her stand-up to a small crowd. That's where we are for this first SSL Review.

She's telling the crowd that she's jealous of how dudes get to come. It seems fun...and not just because they get to spread their funfetti around. She pantomimes dude spreading their cum around like Oprah giving away free cars. No, it's because they're so ridiculously tired, satisfied, and disoriented after - like they were just in a car accident or something.

Then she ends with, "We're not like that. I need more recovery time after a sneeze than an orgasm." 

My Comments

First off, I just want to mention that clearly her saying this is funnier than reading my description of her saying it. That's a given. Well... I guess I can think of one incident where hearing a detailed description of a thing was way better than the thing itself - and that was when Tosh.0 gave a 25 minute detailed explanation of the movie Human Centipede. I can only find abridged versions of this now, but if you find the full version, I recommend that over the actual movie.

Anyway, Amy's saying this. She's got gestures and an attitude, and it works for humor. I like the visual of calling dudes ejaculating 'spreading their funfetti.' It's good for a laugh. However, I think if you get to the kernel of this bit, it doesn't hold up for me as the kind of humor-through-hard-truth-telling that really excites me about some of Amy's lady-related sex comedy. She's basically coming at this from - 'dudes get all tired/satisfied after an orgasm and women don't.' To me that kernel doesn't feel necessarily true. I mean I feel like a good orgasm can make a lady just wanna flop down and lay there for a while, ya know. 

Also...it's kind of a tired, not-that-perceptive premise for talking about differences  between men and women during sex. I feel like I've heard it a lot. I remember a bit I saw some comic do a while ago...I feel like it was Chris Rock, but I'm not sure...about how men fall asleep after an orgasm and women get more activated and start bouncing off walls and shit. Louis C.K. also did a bit where he basically said that men go to sleep and women don't after sex because men actually came and women didn't. I mean he actually never used the word come, he instead speaks about it in terms of women not being 'fucked well' enough to satisfy them - which is of course problematic because 'fucking' a woman is not what she needs anyway. Vag-banging ain't gonna get her there. A lady actually needs clit stimulation to come, and C.K. completely misses that point. However, his basic premise that women don't get all drowsy and shit after sex like men do because they are actually not physically satiated  (i.e. they didn't actually come) is not wrong. And, it seems to me a bit more in the humor-through-hard-truth-telling realm than Amy's kind of generic dudes-get-all-tired-satisfied-after-an-orgasm-and-women-don't-and-I'm-jealous thing.  

All that to say, I feel like Amy's whole joke here was funny on the surface, and thus not unsuccessful, but also it was kinda stale in that it played on old stereotypes about female sexuality without criticizing or more deeply examining those. I mean, it seems to me that it's worth considering that if a woman isn't as tired-disoriented after her 'orgasm' as her male partner is, then maybe she didn't actually orgasm. Maybe she just faked it or had intercourse (a thing people still very wrongly use interchangeably with 'had an orgasm') and just didn't come. Like, maybe there's a stereotype of women not acting satiated after sex or "having an orgasm" because lots of times ladies literally are not satiated. They didn't come and their male partner did...maybe that's why they seem to act different after. I feel like Amy missed her opportunity to dig into that. And by not digging into that, in essence she reiterated the pretty incorrect idea that women's orgasms are somehow intrinsically different than men's, and completely ignored what I think would be a pretty humor-through-hard-truth-telling avenue of pointing out why that stereotype exists in the first place.

But that's just, like, my opinion, man. Humor is a tricky thing, and I'm being picky. Picky because I respect her comedic work generally on these topics, so really it's just a loving critique to a person who in general does a fab-ass job with this kind of shit. And that's what SSL Reviews are about anyway - being uber-critical...because someone has to be.

The Vulva Rating
So, there is nothing revolutionary or progressive about Amy's joke. In fact it kind of bolstered the idea that women and men are naturally, physically different when it comes to orgasms. At the same time, it's also just neutral. It plays off a tired old stereotype, yet doesn't really make it any worse with extra inaccuracies or anything. It just doesn't question and dissect the stereotype, which does inadvertently reiterate it, but also....what I'm asking is a lot to ask someone to do every time she speaks of lady sex stuff. She does it well most of the time, and I'm heavily appreciative.

So, I'm going to stick to a very neutral 3 out of 5 vulva rating for this episode.

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Cheech and Chong's Up In Smoke: A Retro SSL Review

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This was originally posted August 27th 2014. I'm reposting it because I'm back in Indianapolis from Des Moines  for the weekend working on a dance video shoot, and we just ate at our favorite Waffle House, here. It's Waffle House #420, which is obviously the best Waffle House number you could possibly be....and we're lucky enough to have it right here in Indy. So, I thought that in itself was enough of a reason to repost my Up In Smoke SSL Review. Enjoy, and do visit Waffle House #420 if you ever come to Indianapolis. It's the best.

So, just since I watched Felix the Cat, Netflix suggested I watch Up in Smoke, and I thought why not? I'd never seen it. Cheech and Chong. It's a classic, right? It was kinda funny. It would probably be a lot funnier if it was 35 years ago, ya know? Things lose their bite with age and imitation.

However, it just so happened that the person I found most amusing in the movie was also the one involved in the SSL Review eligible moment. Of course, a movie must depict or discuss female orgasm or masturbation in order to even get an SSL Review (the most coveted of all reviews!), but this one is a little interesting, because it is a completely fake orgasm, and I don't mean it was a woman faking an orgasm during a sex act. It is a woman named Jade (played by Zane Buzby) telling a story of this other woman having sex. Basically, she's giving a vivid account of this woman's ridiculously over-exuberant orgasm noises that go on through the whole sex act, and it's clear that Jade sees it and the woman doing it as silly and annoying. So, I think it's actually pretty right on, because it kinda calls out the incredibly unrealistic porny perma-gasms that are so common in our sexual media. Although my assessment of this lady-gasm depiction is actually a little more complicated, and I'll get into that later. For now, let me set up the scene.

This is the Up in Smoke orgasm scene...before Cheech wakes with a cramp

Jade is supposed to be this like ditzy, free-spirit that is just constantly talking. She's also a drug aficionado and has a case with all these pills and shit in it that she uses and gives to other people. The movie will just cut to her, and she'll be in the middle of telling someone some story that sounds crazy as hell. That's how we get to the orgasm scene, actually. Chong and another girl are sleeping in a van made of pot next to a line of people waiting for a concert. Jade is just calmly sitting there in the van brushing her hair and telling this story to 2 sleeping people. Even when the story gets all heated, it never stops just being a story to her. It's very matter of fact. She's still just brushing her hair and not really caring who's listening. Here's my by-ear transcript of her story. I had to pause and rewind a lot to get this, so at least read it and make it worth my while.

She was like nuts. You could always tell if she was in the hotel Bono(?not sure if that's the right word?) man ya know. Like everyone'd be dozin off and all the sudden she'd start up. First you'd hear it, it'd start up like ya know, ahhh, ahhh (real gentle and slow) but then she'd like really get goin' and she'd be more like ya know uh uh uh (a little rougher sounding) ya know and she'd start going like a motor boat, ya know fuu-uu-uuu-uuck me Alex. His name was Alex. Ya know, Fuu-uuu-uu-uuuck meeeee. fu-uuu-uuck mee-eee-ee fuck me Alex (loud and staccato reapeated about 4 or 5 more time) 

Then Chong wakes up. He has a cramp, and says so out loud. He starts grunting and stuff and moving around erratically in the van trying to work out his cramp. The van, my friends, is a-rockin' and the woman is still just chillin', brushing her hair and telling this story. She's getting louder and wilder sounding though.

yeah, yeah oh, yeah, oh yeah (repeated many times). But she's like this - she'd do this...oh yeah, oh yeah (repeated many times and then winds it down like she's finished up an amazing orgasm)...and then she'd have like 2 tears runnin' down her face...

At that point, Chong's cramp subsides, and he gets out of the van. All the people in the line cheer like wild.

So the complication I mentioned with my assessment is that during Jade's story, people outside the van begin to hear what's going on and think that some crazy wild, highly orgasmic sex is going on. They cheer Chong when he comes out, so this whole joke is done with the understanding that the fake sounds Jade is making (as a way to make fun of another woman's craziness) are still taken as real and as an indication to the crowd outside of what a bad-ass lover the dude inside the van must be. So, it's complicated. Does the crowd's misunderstanding of the situation point out to the audience how ridiculous it is that these over-exaggerated orgasm shows seen in things like porn are taken so seriously? Or does it just add one more instance of an exaggerated porn-gasm for audiences to un-critically take in as possible way women might orgasm. It's probably the latter, but I don't feel I can hold Up in Smoke to that too harshly. In the end, it was just a joke, and it was at least partially based on making fun of the porn-gasm.

I'll give Up in Smoke a very wishy-washy 3 vulva rating.

(!)(!)(!)

Those Ladies Putting On Bravado About Their Orgasms - A Free Flow Writing

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I'm currently in between right now. I'm moved out of my fave Midwest city and won't be moved into the next Midwest city until Friday. I'm living out of an empty apartment save for 3 cats and an air mattress. So, I'm eating breakfast at Panera (my personal opinion is that the bacon egg and cheese on brioche is much nicer with an over easy egg as opposed to a scramble btw) and writing a quick blog before I go do a bunch of things one has to do in these situations.

I was gonna write a quick SSL Review of one of the many TV shows I have noted to write SSL Reviews about. Amy Schumer, Broad City, Chewing Gum, Mind Hunter, Orange is the New Black, The Americans, Girls, Workoholics, SNL, even Bob's Burgers all have SSL moments in one episode or another that I'm behind in writing about. An SSL Review sounded boring to me right now though.

So, then I vaguely looked at Twitter for a hot second, thinking that the perfect, quick n' easy topic would pop up, but it didn't and I got bored again. So then I decided to just free-flow write something.

And that is what I'm currently doing. I'm gonna experiment a bit with this post. I'm going to go over it quickly when I'm done to make sure it's readable, but I'm pretty much just gonna write what comes to my head about ladies and orgasm or any of this stuff. I'll see what happens. It'll be probably somewhere between kinda cool and really boring/convoluted. Let's hope for the best.

Orgasms are hard, my ladies. Clearly, I don't mean they are biologically problematic or fickle for females in a way they are not for males. My whole movie/blog/activism is based in pointing out that they are not, that females are biologically as capable of having orgasm as quickly, reliably, and easily as men. What I'm talking about is all the other shit in life that makes it harder for ladies to orgasm.

I guess I just want to say that if you are reading my posts, and you think I have my orgasm all figured out easy-like, then rest assured, I don't. I still have trouble prioritizing my sexual desire and needs over another person. I still have ideas in my head about what's sexy and what's not and the "sexy" stuff is often stuff that is not giving me the physical stimulation I need for orgasm and sometimes even arousal at all...and I still worry that if I don't focus on the sexy stuff that my partner will have a worse time, or that if I focus on the stuff that intrinsically feels right to my lady parts and my desires that my partner will find it less sexy. I feel like this even when there isn't evidence from my partner to make me think this way right now, and even though I logically know that's a bunch of BS. The images and ideas that shape us as we grow stick deep in us. We have a lot of shit baggage, my ladies.

I also want to say that the place I am with my own orgasm came through a lot of experimentation, self-honesty, and communication work. It was all hard. Experimentations fail often, self honesty is a journey, and clear, genuine communication is hard and needs tended regularly. Orgasm, arousal, and desire is a touchy subject - for both you and your partner(s). I feel like I was pretty lucky in all this too, and it was still hard. I have had a good orgasmic relationship to masturbation since I was a little girl, I have a partner that is kind and willing to let me be honest and experiment, and I have been able to spend a lot of time and energy thinking and investigating female orgasm.

and don't let her tell you she does

So, if you feel frustrated about your orgasm, know that every other woman you know feels that way to some degree as well. Know that we are all struggling with it in some way, even the ones that tell you they orgasm easily and have always just been lucky to have great partners. No - especially those women who put out a bravado about their orgasm abilities. I would put a lot of money down on these women being some of the least self-honest about their orgasms. I'm not saying that in a negative way, for real. I'm not shitting on women who are overly positive about their orgasms. I mean their presence in a group of women can often shut down really vulnerable, honest discussion about orgasm, but it's not intentional, and it's not any worse than all the other things in the world that shut down that type of talk. It's just not necessarily helpful, and I can't blame anyone for that.

What I am saying, though, is that maybe instead of seeing these women as the ideal of lady-sexuality, or as the thing you feel like you, like all women, should be but are not, instead of that, it's probably more realistic to view them as women dealing with the shit situation for lady-gasms in a completely different way than you. Maybe they are just really positive people who instinctively make the best out of situations and also see themselves as very sexual. So, maybe instead of worrying about why they don't experience orgasm from getting banged, they just tell themselves that since sexual women are supposed to come while getting banged, then they must be coming. They do feel something intense, and we can all convince ourselves of a lot of things - especially when the world around us is already trying its hardest to beat that into our heads anyway.

So, I believe that we women sometimes convince ourselves that our relationship to orgasm is more positive than it is, and some of us at certain times do that strongly. Be kind and understanding of those who do that, but don't fall for it. We are all struggling, and the more we recognize that, the better it gets in the long run.

Lady-gasms Are Barely A Thing In Sex, And We All Deal With It In Our Own Way

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I'm sitting here on a Sunday morning, and I thought I'd just maybe get a little bit cazj for this one and just throw some thoughts out there on something I've been thinking about a bit more than usual for the past few weeks or so - the importance placed on orgasm in a sexual encounter, or more specifically a woman's right to say she doesn't care about her orgasm.

The general feel of our sexual culture is that orgasm is important for males but not for females, and obviously I think this is bullshit. Females are able to orgasm. We are biologically as capable as males, but the penis-focused, clit-ignoring norms of sex and all the lady-gasm squashing experiences and learnings that have plagued all us ladies' histories in so many varied ways makes it, quite frankly, hard to eek an orgasm out of many if not all partnered sexual experiences.

So, yes, the fact that we live in a world where the importance of male pleasure (particularly male orgasm) is so important that it encompasses and almost completely overshadows female orgasm without even much thought is sad and appalling and needs to be corrected.

But...and this is really what I wanted to talk about...I get why women often are uninterested to some degree in fighting the power, why we sometimes say something to the effect of, "Orgasm isn't that important to me in a sexual encounter." I get it. I've said it. I've also said stuff like, "I didn't orgasm, but it was really, really good." I've also faked it. I've faked it when I was completely uninterested and wanted to get it over with.

I've faked it when I was crazy hot and into it, but had no idea how I was actually going to come, but knew I had to fake to put the punctuation mark at the end of the experience.

I've 'kinda' faked where I make noises throughout that sound like I'm perma-gasming, as if in a porn but didn't really fake an orgasm even though it could easily be assumed I orgamsed.

I've faked because it was soooo close to getting me there, but I didn't think it was going to happen.

I've even faked many a time where - now that I look back at it - I didn't really probably realize I was faking - at least not in a really conscious way. I think that was the case for a long time. I think I just 'orgasmed' at the height of my pleasure or excitement or intensity and just kinda assumed that's what coming while being fucked felt like. It usually happened while he was also orgasming - not in quotes but actually, physically orgasming.

When I talked above about how the importance of male orgasm can almost completely overshadow female orgasm, that's part of what I meant. I think there is something set up deep in us ladies as we grow and learn about sex that, I don't know what other way to say it even though it sounds kind of insane, makes it feel like when our male partner orgasms it's almost like we orgasmed. It's not even a conscious decision that our orgasm is less important or that his orgasm is enough for both of us. It's more like our orgasm just...I don't know...isn't...or...maybe it is anything and everything.

Maybe it's because the things we learn about our orgasm, about where it should happen and why, just don't make sense when those things are actually happening, so instead of us thinking, 'FUCK! everything I saw and heard about sex and my orgasm was pretty much BS!' (which is what we really should be thinking) we just put this new knowledge together in a different way. We either think we're broken/maladjusted/not doing it right or we adjust our expectations of what an orgasm is. Instead of 'an orgasm should be happening now and it's not,' we say, 'an orgasm should be happening now, so this must be an orgasm.' I don't know - something like that. I think most females having sex have justified the reality of their experience to their expectations of that experience in some combination of those 2 ways. Then again, maybe I'm the only woman out there like this, but I doubt it. No, I don't doubt it - there's no reason for me to be less bold than I feel here. I know I'm not. I've met other women with the same experiences, and my assumption is that these experiences are somewhat universal.

So, when we tell our partners or ourselves that our orgasm isn't really all that important to us, we're not lying. The idea that our orgasm is inconsequential, that it almost isn't even a thing, is so deeply ingrained in us that it's kinda true.

It's also, let's be honest her, hard to figure out, even if we wanted to, how to orgasm to given all this BS, and it takes work and change, and it can make sex frustrating and not fun for a while...maybe a long while. So, yeah, maybe getting the sexual touches and intimacy and romance of sex is more important to you over rocking the boat and losing all that to the work and frustration of chasing an orgasm that doesn't fit into the normal sexual scripts we're all used to. Maybe we don't want to find that our partner doesn't give a shit, because then we have to start facing whether that partner is actually worth shit. Or maybe we have old partners who we've created patterns with before we realized that in the long run when we don't orgasm and our partner does, more and more of our sex acts get tedious and boring and unfullfilling, and we realize how hard it is for both of you to break those patterns...and that sucks. Maybe you have a new or one-time partner that is like every other person in the world and doesn't know shit about lady-gasm, and the work to get the stimulation and attention you need in order to orgasm is just a bunch of work that may or may not pay off....so you just settle for the sexy, lusty other enjoyable parts of sex.

I know for me that after I really truly realized that I wasn't having orgasms during intercourse and that I was starting to lose my desire and to feel bothered by sex, and I decided that I should be orgasming, it was not just a switch that got turned. It was and still is a long road of trying and adjusting. I have more than once thought it would be nice to just go back to the early days where I was young, excited, aroused and just having fun with the sex that was happening, where I was blissfully ignorant that these fun sex acts -minus the orgasms- were also slowly but surely chipping away at my desire while at the same time reinforcing my orgasming partner's desire.

That said, I've overall enjoyed the stupid and crazy journey of trying to make my orgasm a priority, but I also don't blame any female who isn't doing that. If you are in the 'orgasm isn't that important to me right now' camp, I get it. Dealing with our orgasm and the bullshit way it exists in our sexual culture is a special, shitty, burden all us females must deal with in our own way in our own time.

So all that to say I love, without judgement, all you ladies out there dealing with your orgasms in whatever way you are - and to me that includes all *ladies. Don't get me wrong, I am chock full of judgement about how ignorant we are about lady-gasms, but it's toward our culture and history and specific pieces of media, advice, and science. It's never, ever towards the people dealing with the repercussions of the shitty sexual culture...not even the gentlemen.

*When I say ladies I mean whoever this might apply to - those with clits and vaginas, those who identify as women but with other hormones, body parts or chromosomes, and everyone in between that this makes sense to in some small way. I use a variety of words, and I'm working on how to be more consistent and correct, but it's not easy, and my arguments are almost always concerned with the physical body parts in particular. But just know that my intention is to always include anyone that this feels relevant to...for what that's worth.

Become Cliterate With Dr. Laurie Mintz! - An Orgasm Equality Hero

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A post about Dr. Laurie Mintz has been on my list for a few months now - ever since I saw her on Twitter. She has a new book out called Becoming Cliterate: Why Orgasm Equality Matters and How To Get It. Obviously, I'm gonna like this book. First, it actually says the words 'orgasm equality,' which is like my #1 favorite thing to say besides lady-gasm and lady-bation. Second, it talks about being Cliterate which clearly means this book is rightly focusing on the clit in relation to female orgasm, and it also gives an homage to artist Sophia Wallace's badass 2012 Cliteracy project, which we all know I also have mad respect for. I haven't actually read Dr. Mintz's book yet, but I've ordered it, and I will. I will also write about it when I'm done, but judging from her blog, I will be in love.

In fact, from blog content and book name alone, Dr. Laurie Mintz is getting directly added into an oh-so-coveted space in the Orgasm Equality Heroes List. She's doing the good work people..the good work.

So, just to give you a taste of the good work she is doing let me mention a few things.

Her latest blog post at the time I was writing this article was so damn on point. It said pretty much all the things I yearn to hear in an article about lady-gasms. That just plain doesn't happen very often. In even the most progressive articles I read, the details about how fundamental the clit is to female orgasm are too often wishy-washy and easily yield to the scientifically unfounded but culturally omnipresent idea that women can orgasm through inner vaginal stimulation as well as numerous other ways (like, 'the clit is sooo important, but any way a woman orgasms is super valid too!'..I mean whatever you do and like is valid, of course, but sex educators should be real about the fact that there has never been physical evidence in all of scientific literature of a physical orgasm achieved through stimulation inside the vagina), or there isn't usually a clear bold statement about how totally fucked up it is that female bodies are able to orgasm, but that they simply don't very often in partnered situations (particularly with male bodies).

Dr. Laurie Mintz's post does not do that. What it does is say the things we as a culture should be screaming at the top of our lungs.

• Females orgasm strikingly less than men in partnered sex situations (particularly cis hetero ones)
• Female bodies are absolutely able to orgasm as quickly, easily, and reliably as men during masturbation (which means when they have appropriate stimulation to do so)
• When males have intercourse, the stimulation is similar to how they masturbate, for females intercourse stimulation is not similar to how they masturbate, and clearly is a big reason for less female orgasms in so many sexual situations
• The best advice for how a female can orgasm with a partner is for them to get, during that experience, the same type of stimulation they get when they are masturbating on their own.

I mean those are the basics. If you just roll those around in your head for a minute and then really consider how the world describes, teaches, depicts, and experiences sex with females...it's just a little insane how much disconnect there is. It's a bit sad actually, but I believe that every time a person speaks/writes these things out loud (and honestly it doesn't happen that much), it makes someone or hopefully a lot of people have to face a reality that we as a culture are really blind to, and it makes a dent. Her blog and presumably her book are making a dent.

Later she wrote a post as a letter to young women about what maybe they might learn from the Aziz Ansari thing, and again, I was really excited and happy to see that she connected the general state of the sexual landscape for females with the more specific and complicated issues brought up by 'grey area' coercive sex....'cause I agree, at the heart of all this is that as a culture, we don't physically understand female orgasm and frankly don't care much about it. She, oh so rightly says,

The bottom line is that both these grey-zone coercive situations and completely consensual sexual encounters during which you don’t orgasm are both related to the same root cultural problem. The problem is a culture that prioritizes and privileges male pleasure and an erect penis as the center of sex and disregards female pleasure and the clitoris as secondary or irrelevant.

So, BRAVO to you Dr. Mintz! Keep fighting that good fight, and let's get some Orgasm Equality Revolution up in this bitch!

Freudian BS in a Legit, Peer-Reviewed Journal: A Retro Journal Article I Read

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I'll be real here. I'm still focusing on other parts of my life at the moment, and I haven't written anything for this blog yet even though I have many things I would like to be writing on. However, I got all excited because I got an email from a grad student studying orgasm. They thanked me for my December 2016 post below and my Dr. Stuart Brody trashing, and then piled on a bit more well-deserved Brody trash talk, which I ABSOLUTELY loved. Anyway, I thought, why not repost? If you've already read it, sorry. If not, then please enjoy. It's not short though...It's long.

The repost of: Freudian BS in a Legit, Peer-Reviewed Journal: A Journal Article I Read originally posted December 27, 2016.

Welcome back to 'A Journal Article I Read,' a series where I summarize a lady-gasm related journal article in a way that is hopefully both comprehensive and also not too long. You can find a list of all the journal articles in this series HERE.

Here is what I'll be summarizing today.

A woman's history of vaginal orgasm is discernible from her walk.
Nicholas A1, Brody S, de Sutter P, de Carufel F.
J Sex Med. 2008 Sep;5(9):2119-24.

The BS intent of this article - a background from me
This is a unique summary for me because I have a lot to say about not only this article, but also about the author of this article and the background of why this article exists. Spoiler alert: I'm pretty darn disappointed with the amount of bias, the direct link to Freudian BS, the incorrect assumptions about scientific understanding of vaginal orgasm, and the experimental design. 

Let me begin with the quickest summary of my discontent that I can conjure up.
 Freud thought the vaginal orgasm was the only mature way for a woman to orgasm and that ability to orgasm from clitoral stimulation only was a sign of immaturity. He just made that shit up. Like if I just decided to say that for men, orgasm from penile stimulation was infantile, and to gain full maturity a man must be able to orgasm from anal intercourse...and people believed me and acted like it made sense.

Anyway, it was not backed up by reality or scientific investigation and it still isn't. In fact, there actually is still not any physical evidence at all in scientific literature that women can orgasm through vaginal stimulation alone. This is after decades of research into female orgasm - which does btw clearly back up the knowledge that women can and do orgasm from outer clitoral/vulva stimulation just as men do from penile stimulation. Clitorally stimulated orgasms have been observed and physically verified numerous times. Just like penile orgasms, it is fairly clear in scientific literature how they can happen, what happens in the body when they do, and to some extent who can have them...i.e. any intact healthy body is capable of a penile or clitorally (really anything around that tissue even if it's somewhere in between a clit and a penis) stimulated orgasm. Female orgasm is not mysterious or confusing, but vaginal orgasm is because as much as it's discussed, researched, and advised about, scientists have not yet found physical evidence that orgasms can happen though stimulation inside the vagina without additional external genital stimulation.

So, to be real clear, when a person (and believe you me a shit ton of these people are scientists in peer reviewed journals*) speaks about the vaginal orgasm, about what women and/or their bodies are like who have them, about their health benefits, about what they look like in the brain, these people are, if you will, talking out of their ass. If they make no mention that orgasms caused by stimulation inside the vagina, with no additional outer vulva/clitoral stimulation, have never been physically verified, then they are not speaking, and may not even understand, the whole story. We don't actually know if these orgasms can happen. We don't know what is actually happening in the body when the women who say they have vaginal orgasms are experiencing what they call vaginal orgasms. So please tell me how we can make distinctions between women who do and do not have them?

NO RESEARCH ARTICLE YOU'VE EVER READ OR HEARD OF THAT TELLS YOU ABOUT A DIFFERENCE IN WOMEN WHO ORGASM VAGINALLY VS. THOSE WHO CAN'T IS ACTUALLY ABLE TO BACK UP THE CLAIM BECAUSE THEY DO NOT KNOW FOR SURE THAT THE WOMEN WHO CLAIM TO ORGASM VAGINALLY ACTUALLY ARE PHYSICALLY DOING THAT. #RealTalk ya'll. Feel free to go through the existing research yourself. If you find something that proves that wrong. I would LOVE to see it.

So...what exactly pisses me off so much
Incorrectly going about a study as if vaginal orgasms (orgasms caused by stimulation inside the vag only w/ no additional outer stimulation) are a scientifically understood and verified phenomenon is sadly pretty normal for female orgasm studies in peer reviewed journals. Me critiquing that uninformed assumption in these journal summaries is par for the course, so that's not what I'm most worried about in this one. I'm worried about the Freud-was-right-vaginal-orgasms-are-the-only-mature-sexual-climax-a-woman-can-have-and-clitoral-orgasms-make-women-less-mentally-and-physically-healthy agenda this article and this author seem to have. Because I do feel like there is evidence for this kind of agenda.

A little history of clit hate
Freud made that shit up about vaginal orgasm in his whole psychoanalysis deal. Wilhelm Reich was a student of Freud. Alexander Lowen was a student of Reich. All of them had similar feelings about the supremacy of the vaginal orgasm. Reich combined elements of the body into psychoanalysis and Lowen updated Reich's philosophy. It's called bioenergetic analysis. A main tenet of which is "blocks to emotional expression and wellness are revealed and expressed in the body as chronic muscle tensions which are often subconscious. The blocks are treated by combining bioenergetically designed physical exercises, affective expressions and palpation of the muscular tensions." - from Wikipedia.

Stuart motha-fuckin' Brody
Let me also point out that this is an article by a man named Stuart Brody, who is an absolutely prolific writer of scholarly, peer reviewed research articles jocking hard on vaginal orgasms, penile-vaginal intercourse, and even barebacking. He's not the lead author in this particular one, but I see him as a constant player in Freudian BS studies, so I'm picking on him. Please see a list of some of his articles at the bottom of this post - and it's just a few. This dude really cranks these out. But seriously, just take a minute to check out the names of these articles. I think it will help orient you.

The premise of the article
Anyway, Brody was an author on a previous article that claims to show that women who orgasm vaginally use less immature defense mechanisms. Since one must find some type of measurable aspect of maturity in order to prove someone (non-vaginally orgasming women, perhaps?) immature, that study uses a series of self-report questionnaires about personality and psychological defense mechanisms against a questionnaire about their sex lives...and voila, proof that non-vaginally orgasming women are less mature. And do be sure, Brody cites that study several times to back up a variety of statements he makes in his article I will be summarizing below.

This, I would argue, is the first backbone intent in the article I will be summarizing below: Freud/Reich/Lowen were actually right about vaginal orgasms reflecting female maturity! The second backbone intent takes it all a bit further to prove, as Lowen's bioenergetic analysis would tell us, a mental problem (immaturity) manifests itself in us as a physical problem...often tension or 'muscle blocks.'

So, put those together, and we get why the fuck someone (Brody) would even care to study whether a woman's history of vaginal orgasm is discernible from her walk...because immature clitorally orgasming women probably have tension and muscle blocks, and they won't have that swaaang in their walk like the mature vaginal orgasmers...and this article will prove this and Freud and bioenergetics were right all along!!!!!!


What annoys me? Let me count the things.

1. So, the premise here in itself is annoying to me. Freud just made shit up. Just. made. shit. up. There's been decades since then that have shown us he was pretty off base - particularly about female orgasm. Why are people still acting like what he says is worth further scientific investigation?
2. The fact that in this study, and in every other study, Brody and his cohorts assume vaginal orgasms are a verified and scientifically understood entity and that the women in their studies who say they orgasm vaginally are actually orgasming vaginally shows ignorance of the existing scientific data and bad experimental design - and is annoying to me. 
3. That this study bases its data on how some 'experts' visually rate women's body movement instead of using technology to actually take measurements of things like women's hip rotation is lazy and possibly extremely biased - and is also annoying to me. 
4. Maybe the most annoying thing is that this shit is somehow legitimate lady-gasm science. This article's in a respected peer reviewed journal - a lot of his studies are. Brody is legit. He doesn't seem to be an outcast from the mainstream lady-gasm researchers (although he does have critics- thank you Prause and others, he's still getting his work into mainstream journals). He teams up occasionally with some of the most well known scientists in female orgasm research (Komisaruk for example) and gets included in major journal expert reviews on the topic of vaginal orgasm. This article has also been referenced a fair amount in pop culture. It was even used in a quite popular book Vagina by Naomi Wolfe to emphasize the importance of and help prove the existence of vaginal orgasms.  

More proof of Lowen/Bioenergetic asshole-ery
Before we begin the summary, I'd first like to show you I'm not completely making assumptions about how deep into the vaginal-orgasms-are-real-things-and-also-the-best-things agenda this article, this author, and Lowen/bioenergetics has. Below is a quote from a book written by Lowen (the father of Bioenergetic Analysis). This book is cited in this here article I am about to summarize. I repeat. This is not from this Brody article, but from a book that is referenced in this Brody article.

Most men feel that the need to bring a woman to climax through clitoral stimulation is a burden. If it is done before intercourse but after the man is excited and ready to penetrate, it imposes a restraint upon his natural desire for closeness and intimacy. Not only does he lose some of his excitation through this delay, but the subsequent act of coitus is deprived of its mutual quality. Clitoral stimulation during the act of intercourse may help the woman to reach a climax but it distracts the man from the perception of his genital sensation and greatly interferes with the pelvic movements upon which his own feeling of satisfaction depends. The need to bring a woman to climax through clitoral stimulation after the act of intercourse has been completed and the man has reached his climax is burdensome since it prevents him from enjoying the relaxation and peace which are the rewards of sexuality. Most men to whom I have spoken who engage in this practice resented it.    

I do not mean to condemn the practice of clitoral stimulation if a woman finds that this is the way she can obtain a sexual release. Above all she should not feel guilty about using this procedure. However, I advice my patients against this practice since it focuses feelings on the clitoris and prevents the vaginal response. It is not a fully satisfactory experience and cannot be considered the equivalent of a vaginal orgasm.  

-Lowen, A. Love and Orgasm: A Revolutionary Guide to Sexual Fulfillment. New York, Collier Books, 1975. pp.216-217.

THE ARTICLE SUMMARY
So, that's the point from which I'm starting this summary, but I'd like to let you see for yourself. I will summarize below as straightforward as I can - just as I always try to do, and I will only add in my thoughts or opinions in the me brackets "[Me:]" So, please enjoy,

Summary quick-style
This article is actually quite simple. 16 women take a survey with a question about how often they reach vaginal orgasm. 8 said they vaginally orgasm always or usually and another 8 say they vaginally orgasm rarely or never. The ladies then meet the researchers outside and walk for 100 meters while thinking of something nice, and another 100 meters while thinking of a man they are interested in romantically. They are taped from a distance doing this, and then 4 people, "two appropriately trained (in Functional-Sexological therapy) professors of sexology...and two female research assistants" watch the tapes and come to a consensus on whether or not each woman has had vaginal orgasms or not. "The basis for judgment was a global impression of the woman's free, fluid, energetic, sensual manner of walking (with an emphasis on energy flow through the rotation of the pelvis and the spine)."

The raters made a correct assessment for 6 of the 7 women who claimed vaginal orgasm and 7 of the 9 women who claimed not to have vaginal orgasms.

Introduction
I'm going to go over some main points the authors put forth in the introduction with a quick discussion of the studies they cited to support their statements;

This article begins with, "A growing corpus of empirical research has clarified that orgasm triggered by stimulation of the vagina and cervix differs physiologically from climax induced by clitoral stimulation." This is backed up by citations for 2 Komisaruk studies about women with spinal cord injuries having 'cervical orgasms' that are facilitated by the vagus and not the pudendal nerve and also by Brody's own studies about vaginal orgasms being associated with less use of immature psychological defense mechanisms and about there being more prolactin hormone releases after p-in-v intercourse vs. after masturbation.
[Me: Not one of these studies actually verifies that the women who claim vaginal orgasm are having an orgasm, so they're, let's say, not all that convincing. Also, the 'cervical orgasms' in the Komisaruk studies are not only never physically verified as orgasms, but furthermore they are strangely 'achieved' by a method of cervical stimulation that is not something one could do at home or even with a penis during intercourse. These Komisaruk studies referenced here are cited in pretty much any study talking about vaginal orgasms, but are rarely cited, in my opinion, in a way that could actually back up what the authors presume to back up. I detail the main Komisaruk study HERE].

"At a more speculative, theoretical level, the idea that chronic muscle blocks (or excessive muscle flaccidity) impair sexual function by impairing feeling, sexual motility (and perhaps being a tangible representation of corresponding  psychological blocks), and the discharge of sexual tension has it's roots in a theory developed by Reich [11]. His student Lowen [12,13] developed that theory (and safely distanced it from one of Reich's less well reasoned theories later in his life) and the corresponding psychotherapeutic approach of  bioenergetics, which sought to integrate psychoanalytic psychotherapy approaches with direct liberation of chronic muscle blocks. Other body therapies focus more exclusively on the muscle blocks alone. These body therapies and the underlying theory have rarely been subject to empirical evaluation."
[Me: The citations [11-13] are Reich and Lowen's philosophical work including the book by Lowen that I quoted above.].

"However, one study of men found that the Rolfing method of tissue manipulation led to both a decrease in standing pelvic tilt angle and an increase in cardiac vagus nerve tone associated with improved parasympathetic function [14]." [Me: Maybe check out the Wikipedia on Rolfing HERE] There is then a quick discussion of a few more studies, including one that these authors admit does not have clear controls, that relate physical therapy to improved sexuality. The articles cited in this section are pictured below.

"Observation of the characteristics of a person's walk can convey diagnostic information beyond the obvious musculoskeletal an neurological disorders" It goes on to point towards a few studies (pictures below) that illustrate the point.

The Introduction ends with: "The primary hypothesis in the present study is that clinical sexologists appropriately trained in the relationship between personality, sexology, and body movement will be able to differentiate between women with and without a history of vaginal orgasm purely on the basis of observing the women walking. As an exploratory measure, there is also an examination of the association of vaginal orgasm history with specified components of the walk (described below)."

[Me: The introduction of a scientific article, in my opinion, is meant for a few things. It orients the reader to the history of research on the subject thus far. It also sorta justifies why this the experiment being undertaken is a worthwhile experiment and what the outcome of this experiment might mean to the science of this subject. So in many ways, the introduction is an incredibly important thing to read because it gives you a look into the authors' mind. It exposes biases that aren't usually discussed as biases.]

[Me cont: So, to put this in perspective, let me piece together what the authors of this article are trying to do here. They are linking together 1. the Freudian/Reich/Lowen assumption that vaginal orgasm are better for women in the mind, body, and soul. 2. The idea in bioenergetics that psychological/emotional problems manifest themselves in the body, i.e. 'chronic muscle blocks' and 'excessive muscle flaccidity'  and 3. that if a woman were to have these psychological/emotional problems manifest in their body, one might be able to see it in her movement. So, in essence, the authors are going from the hypothesis that vaginally orgasming women are mentally/emotionally/physically  healthier people who will express that health in their energetic movement. Women who do not orgasm vaginally are less mentally/emotionally/physically who will express that unhealthiness in their bad, unenergetic movement.]


Materials and Methods

• Female psychology students in Belgium were asked (by a female researcher) to answer a preliminary questionnaire on sexual behavior.
• Of the women who did the questionnaire and who indicated their willingness to be contacted further, 10 were chosen who responded that they 'always"'or 'often' had vaginal orgasms (vaginally orgasmic) and 10 were chosen who responded that they 'rarely' or 'never' had vaginal orgasms (vaginally anorgasmic). Vaginal orgasms being defined as "triggered solely by penile-vaginal penetration." [Me: Are women who 'rarely' have vaginal orgasms the same as women who 'never' have them? I mean, I'm obviously skeptical of all these answers, given that their ability to have vaginal orgasms is not physically verified (and vaginal orgasms themselves have never been physically verified), but even if one believed these women's answers to be completely true, wouldn't one wonder if they were grouped incorrectly? Maybe women who 'rarely' have them are physically capable of vaginal orgasm and the 'nevers' are not. So grouping them together would confuse the results. The authors don't discuss this as a possible problem. Experimental design, people.]
• The women also reported their ability to have clitorally stimulated orgasms on the questionnaire
• After anonymity and confidentiality were assured, the women were given a complete description of the study although participants "were blind to the experimental hypothesis." Written informed consent was obtained, and they were scheduled individually to meet the researchers in a public place
• 4 participants (3 vaginally orgasmic and 1 vaginally anorgasmic) did not show up, making 16 total participants.
• Participants were asked to walk 100 meters while "thinking pleasant thoughts of being on a vacation beach" and then another 100 meters while "being in the same local but with in the company of a man for whom they had thoughts of love."
• These walks were filmed at a distance and the videotapes were then rated by "two appropriately trained (in Functional-Sexological therapy) professors of sexology...and two female research assistants." 
• "The raters conferred and agreed on a vaginal orgasm status for each woman."  [Me: Why did they confer? Why not let them all rate separately and see if they match each other and match the women's self reports? Did they try it that way first but found it made the results messy as hell, so they had them confer and luckily got better, more positive results? It makes me wonder.]
• "The basis for judgment was a global impression of the woman's free, fluid, energetic, sensual manner of walking (with an emphasis on energy flow through the rotation of the pelvis and the spine)."
• The researchers all also rated each woman's walk (from 0-10) for the extent of their: hip adduction, hip rotation, stride length, arm movement, and fluidity of movement. [Me: this was made in 2008. It was very possible at that time to use video of women walking to not just visually rate these things, but to do actual objective measurements of things like stride length and arm movement. Since the authors are trying to create evidence that the psychological problems from not orgasming vaginally can literally manifest physically as muscle tension and 'blocks' that make the women walk less 'fluidly,' you would think it useful to show that there are real objectively measured limitations in these non-vaginally orgasming women's movement. Yet, all the ratings on the movements are just, like, the rater's opinions, man. I mean, I'd at least like to see the authors acknowledge their choice and give a quick explanation for why they chose to have only subjective ratings of these women's movements. And, in case you are wondering if 2008 was too early for people to be thinking about the technology to do objective measuring from video and the pros and cons of rating movement that way, you're wrong. Here's a 2007 textbook dedicated to analyzing human movement patterns in relation to sports biomechanics.]
• "An additional derived variable reflecting the movement of the leg through the back (sum of ratings of stride length and vertebral rotation) was calculated."
• The correlation between women's reported experience of vaginal orgasm and the researchers' guesses of vaginal orgasm was examined using "chi-square and Fisher's exact tests (a similar analysis was performed for clitoral orgasm history)" 
• The associations between the researchers ratings of the individual components of a woman's walk and her history of vaginal orgasm were examined.

Results

• "The hypothesis was supported, because the trained sexologists were able to infer vaginal orgasm history on the basis of watching the women's walk."
• "Reported clitoral orgasm ability was unrelated to both rated vaginal orgasm ability and to reported vaginal ability."
• The only statistically significant correlation found between history of vaginal orgasm and any of the ratings of individual components of the women's walks were from the data points made from the sum of stride length and vertebral rotation. [Me: it seems a little fishy to me that this combination was the only element of the researchers' individual movement ratings to show correlation with the women's reported vag-gasm history. What actual meaning does that combo number have in the end? Clearly none of the straight-forward movement ratings such as stride length or hip rotation correlated, and it makes me wonder if that lack of correlation led them to start combining the ratings in every possible way until they found one that happened to have a statistical correlation with the vaginal orgasm self-reports. They call it exploratory, so I imagine this is close to the case. that kind of thing is probably not an uncommon practice and not really unethical or wrong, but it sure seems like it's sort of a disingenuous way to make a study show more positive results. To their credit I will say that when they spoke of this correlation in the Discussion section. They said "However, the exploratory nature of the secondary finding implies that less emphasis be placed upon it pending appropriate replication."  So, I think even the researchers don't place much meaning on this combo rating of stride length and vertebral rotation.]
• "Age was unrelated to the sexual variables."

Discussion

• "Appropriately trained sexologists were able to infer vaginal orgasm history on the basis of watching women walk. The sexologists made global inferences about the women's vaginal orgasm history based on the extent to which the women had a fluid, sensual, energetic, free gait. The ratings were unrelated to the women's reports of clitoral orgasm with a partner, and clitoral orgasm was unrelated to vaginal orgasm."
• 6 women who claimed to be vaginal orgasmers were rated correctly, and 1 was rated incorrectly.
• 7 women who claimed not to be vaginal orgasmers were rated correctly and 2 were rated incorrectly.

• "Although the couple of incorrect diagnoses could simply be that, it is also possible that in the case of the two false positives, it might be that the women have the capacity for vaginal orgasm, but have not yet had sufficient experience or met a man of sufficient quality to induce vaginal orgasm." [Me: I'm assuming the 2 women who were rated incorrectly as vaginally orgasming are not ones who marked themselves as 'rarely' vaginally orgasming (since clearly they DO have a capacity for it), because if that were the case, I feel REAL confident the authors would have been real quick to tell us that and make their results look even better.]
• The study goes on to say that these women who were pinned by the researchers as vaginal orgasmers but were not, may not have a man with a '"penis of sufficient length to produce cervical buffeting" or that isn't able to keep his erection (either because of erectile dysfunction of premature ejaculation) long enough. They also note the there are studies saying women are most likely to have vaginal orgasms with men who have signs of greater fitness - like attractiveness. [Me: Can I just quickly mention that 'buffeting' can be defined as 'to strike against forcefully and especially repeatedly; batter.' So cervical buffeting with a big ol' dick sounds to me not like a good way to bring about lady-gasms as these researchers seem to say it is, but like a terribly painful sexual encounter akin to a really long and brutal gynecological exam. This banging the cervix for orgasm thing seems kinda out of touch with reality to me, and it's also not backed up in scientific literature, and contrary to what this article would have one believe, it's certainly not backed by the Komisaruk article they cite here. They cite the same Komisaruk article they cite and I discuss in the Introduction that finds women with spinal cord injuries can orgasm from cervical stimulation, but the conclusion is a stretch of the evidence at best (I detail it here). And seriously, this study does not include buffeting the cervix. It actually uses a make-shift thing that does not actually touch the cervix but creates a suctiony stimulation at the cervix, so even if this study did find that orgasms were created from this stimulation (which it doesn't in any verified physical way), it would not be something that could be replicated by ramming a big dick into a woman's cervix. This is the only study I know of (and there are no others referenced) that can support the idea of women needing cervical stimulation or  'buffeting' to orgasm... and it's not a great one.]
• They point out that "as in any correlational study, a universe of possible unmeasured forces could play a role in the observed findings." They mention that maybe some anatomical features could predispose women to less readiness for vaginal orgasm, and specifically use a recent study correlating more distance between the vagina and urethra to women who claim vaginal orgasm [Me: you can see more on that study HERE. Surprise surprise, there are no actual vaginal orgasms verified in this research, so one should be skeptical of its conclusions] "such characteristics might conceivably influence both vaginal orgasm and pelvic movement directly, whether they are a true precursor of vagina orgasm, or develop as a consequence of developing vaginal orgasm." 
• They also mention that it might be that women who orgasm vaginally might feel more confident or comfortable or have a better relationship and it shows in their walk. [Me: Ooooorrrrrr...maybe being vaginally orgasmic is a thing women covet because of how much women in movies and porn and books are able to do so, and how much it seems that men like it (remember: stimulating the clit is pretty inconvenient and men resent doing it according to Lowen up there), so after saying they can do that on a survey, those women feel all good about themselves, but the women who just had to admit that they are lame and can't orgasm vaginally on a survey feel, well, lame. Ooooooorrrrr...there were only 16 women in the study, and the raters only got about 82% right, so it might be the luck of the draw and their walks are not really different between groups at all.]
• They point out this was a small convenience sample of volunteers so that may "limit the generalizability of these results to older women and to the wider community"
• "The present finding of vaginal orgasm being associated with a more fluid, sensual, energetic, free, unblocked gait adds to the empirical research findings of penis-vaginal orgasm history being specifically associated with the indices of women's better psychological and interpersonal function." 
• They mention that a recent study [their own previous study] associated women who could orgasm vaginally with having less use of immature psychological defense mechanisms - and say that "Two of the specific immature defense mechanisms (somatization and dissociation) that differentiated vaginally orgasmic and vaginally anorgasmic women might be related to aspects of the present finding. Dissociation involves disconnection of the usually integrated psychological (including sensory-motor) functions of the self, and somatizations involves converting psychological problems into physical complaints and impairments." 

Conclusion
The authors say that even with the small sample, the results are consistent with both theory [Me: made-up Freudian and neo-freudian theory?] and previous empirical findings about vaginally orgasming women having better psychological function. [Me: Let it be known the 'previous empirical findings' they cited were all Brody's own previous studies - 4 of them were cited]
They also say the present findings provide some potential support for "theoretical assumptions of a link between muscle blocks and impairment of sexual and character function" [Me: this is cited with 3 works by the neo-Freudians Lowen and Reich - including the book by Lowen that I quote above.]
The authors also say the findings are "consistent with the possible utility of incorporating training in movement, breathing and muscle patterns into the treatment of sexual dysfunctions"

Appendix
*I want to give Dr. Nicole Prause a shout out for being a scientist in the lady-gasm field who speaks out in direct ways against those non-sense assumptions about vaginal orgasm. I talk more about here HERE.]

More Articles By Stuart Brody!
Vaginal orgasm is associated with vaginal (not clitoral) sex education, focusing mental attention on vaginal sensations, intercourse duration, and a preference for a longer penis. Brody S1, Weiss P.
J Sex Med. 2010 Aug;7(8):2774-81.

Slimmer women's waist is associated with better erectile function in men independent of age. Brody S1, Weiss P. Arch Sex Behav. 2013 Oct;42(7):1191-8.

Women's partnered orgasm consistency is associated with greater duration of penile-vaginal intercourse but not of foreplay. Weiss P1, Brody S. J Sex Med. 2009 Jan;6(1):135-41.

Simultaneous penile-vaginal intercourse orgasm is associated with satisfaction (sexual, life, partnership, and mental health). Brody S1, Weiss P. J Sex Med. 2011 Mar;8(3):734-41.

Condom use for penile-vaginal intercourse is associated with immature psychological defense mechanisms. Costa RM1, Brody S. J Sex Med. 2008 Nov;5(11):2522-32.

Immature defense mechanisms are associated with lesser vaginal orgasm consistency and greater alcohol consumption before sex. J Sex Med. 2010 Feb;7(2 Pt 1):775-86.

Vaginal orgasm is more prevalent among women with a prominent tubercle of the upper lip. Brody S1, Costa RM. J Sex Med. 2011 Oct;8(10):2793-9.

Greater tactile sensitivity and less use of immature psychological defense mechanisms predict women's penile-vaginal intercourse orgasm. Brody S1, Houde S, Hess U. J Sex Med. 2010 Sep;7(9):3057-65.

Vaginal orgasm is associated with less use of immature psychological defense mechanisms.Brody S1, Costa RM. J Sex Med. 2008 May;5(5):1167-76.