Orgasm and EEG in 1976 - 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).  As always, I have a bunch of to-be-summarized articles in a folder that I would so love to get through, but the main ones I'm into are too dense to get out quickly, so I picked a quick(ish) one that was published in 1976. *side note - I lied. This wasn't quick, but I did kind of enjoy working thorugh it - but definitely not quick*

Honestly, by necessity, I can't pontificate on this particular article too much simply because I don't know shit about EEGs. Not that I, like, know everything about the technology in the other articles I review. In fact, as you might assume, I usually know very little about any of them. However, in other articles, there's usually a bunch of assumptions and experimental design choices that I do understand and that I have a lot to say about regardless of the technology. This article isn't really full of that kind of thing for me. It's much more focused on the discussion of the EEG results, and frankly, I'm just gonna relay most of that info to you and you can do as you will; find the full article and read it yourself, ask someone who knows about EEGs, read it and move on with your life, look at it and know there is an article like this out there for future reference. Ya know - whatever you need from this. 

Electroencephalographic laterality changes during human sexual orgasm. H D Cohen, R C Rosen, L Goldstein. Arch Sex Behav. Vol. 5 No. 3 (May 1976), pp. 189-99.

MY QUICK SUMMARY

These authors took 4 males and 3 females, and checked their brainwaves while resting, then mentally (sexually) arousing themselves, then physically stimulating themselves to orgasm, and then resting after the orgasm. They were interested in brain activity and particularly a switch in laterality (the dominant side of the brain) at orgasm - because that's something that happens on psychedelic drugs and on the switch from REM sleep, etc., so they thought it might happen for orgasm too. As a means to take away variables like which hand you use or if a fake orgasm can be discerned, one participant switched hands for a 2nd try, and one participant faked an orgasm first before she then reported an actual orgasm. 

The authors believe this study shows the significance an EEG reading has to indicate orgasm since previous research had mostly focused on involuntary muscle contractions and blood vessel changes (vasomotor changes). They seem to be trying to assert that there is some type of 'central event' of orgasm that lies within the brain, and are sort of poo-pooing the idea that physical things are central enough to orgasm - including the rhythmic involuntary muscle contractions that were then and still are the only real agreed upon physical method for identifying an orgasm. They reported data for this, but it was a small messy set of data and couldn't support that belief.

The authors also monitored the blood congestion changes in the genitals as a means to control for actual orgasms. Although they said that this measurement was used to verify arousal and orgasm in the subjects, they only cited references that identified that type of blood congestion data as confirmation of arousal - not orgasm. In fact, I know of no studies that show blood congestion can discern between high arousal and orgasm - so that's fishy to me. In fact they did not even report the data they got from the blood congestion measurements at all - which is even more sketchy to me. Honestly, I feel like these authors were somehow trying to throw shade at Master's and Johnson's contribution to the understanding of orgasm - maybe in an attempt to stand out from the crowd and get published - that seems like a thing, although that's completely speculative on my part. But, they did intentionally ignore M&J's contribution to orgasm in a, what I might call, science-catty way that is super subtle, but would be pretty obvious and blatant to other researchers in the field. All that to say, their claims of verifying orgasms are not to be believed, and I think they knew that which is why they didn't report that data. I mean, would have been cool if they did - just to see what or if there were any correlations to what was happening in the EEG and what was happening in the blood congestions before, during, and after orgasm - even if it revealed the blood congestions measurements were not great at specifically detecting orgasm - still would have been good knowledge to have.  

Anyway, I don't know much about EEGs and whether they are seeing what they purport to, so I'll take their word. What I do know is that it seems like there was some sort of peak at the timing some of the participants claimed an orgasm, but it wasn't significant for 2 males and 1 female...and there were only a total of 7 participants, soooo....this is, ya know, kinda interesting, but can't be seen as much more than a dipping of a toe in the EEG and orgasm situation. Nothing conclusive at all comes from this, and it also doesn't offer up any info about how the brainwaves relate to the physical blood and musculature related indicators of orgasm. Do they happen at the same time? One in front of the other? Does one happen sometimes when an orgasm is claimed, but the other not? When and why might that be the case? Those are crucial questions that would need to be answered before EEG reads could be understood as a marker of orgasm. Clearly this paper doesn't bring us anywhere near that conclusion. 

Overall, it's a cool start that needs MAJOR follow-up.

THE ARTICLE SUMMARY

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.

Introduction

• Previous studies to measure physical changes associated with orgasm have focused largely on our non-consciously controlled bodily functions as well blood flow changes and muscular contractions as crucial elements of orgasm. "There is no doubt that some peripheral measures reliably correlate with the early stages of sexual arousal (Zuckerman 1971), but such changes may have little bearing on the role of central events during orgasm." 
• [ME: I'm honestly not sure what the authors mean by 'central events' here. After a few reads of this intro, I'm kinda thinking they are generally discussing orgasm as if the involuntary muscle contractions and release of blood congestion is maybe sort of a possible side effect of the "central" thing - which they are seeming to say is what happens in the brain. I also am confused because they site a Zuckerman review paper about arousal (not orgasm) to site that blood flow and muscular changes are a part of early arousal - which is undoubtedly true and uncontroversial even in 1976, but they also seem to be using it to say that it may not have much to do with the "central events during orgasm" - something that paper can't really speak on since it's about arousal not orgasm. It seems these authors are saying boldly that the previous work about the central role of involuntary muscle contractions and blood flow during orgasm that Masters and Johnson described less than a decade earlier is just not worth much - but don't say why - except for that the measuring of those things may be more qualitative than quantitative (as you'll see below), but to me that seems to be more about better measurements than throwing it out. Also, this paper at best is barely scratching the surface of maybe finding a correlation between EEG readings and orgasm - and is not showing us at all the relationship between the EEG readings and the physical blood and musculature related events that have been used to indicate orgasm in the past (and that these authors say may not have much to do with 'central events' of orgasm). Point is if something is going to tell us that brain waves are a better, more accurate marker of orgasm - this certainly ain't the paper that's gonna do it.]
• "The research of Masters and Johnson (1966) represents a major advancement in the knowledge of the process of sexual arousal." [ME: see - I feel like they are throwing shade at M&J here. They only mention arousal, not orgasm, in their list of M&J's advancements. I indeed believe the general sense, especially at that time, is that M&J lent great advancements in the understanding of the physical aspects of orgasm as well, but clearly these researcher's ain't about it]. 
• M&J had a substantial sample size, but data was more descriptive than quantitative [ME: Fair criticism - It's a weakness. M&J could have used a lot more specific quantitative data. However, researchers have since done studies that grew on M&J's work in more quantitative ways that reinforced and improved upon, but largely did not contradict what M&J had shown. (and I would LOVE to see more studies re-trying their work with better measuring tools) Just pointing out it's a good criticism but in no way a nullification of their work. Those things are often confused - especially in the trashing of Masters and Johnson I see from time to time.] 
• M&J described the release of blood congestion and involuntary pelvic muscle contractions but did not give quantitative evaluations of these observations. Even for direct measurements like heart rate and blood pressure, M&J didn't provide things like ranges and standard deviation of response. [ME: They're not wrong. Most of the evidence M&J used for recording of the involuntary muscular contractions at orgasm was super slow-mo, close up, color film recordings where one could count the visual contractions. Some were done with a specially created dildo camera where you could see the contractions from inside the vagina.]
• Bartlett's study (1955) focused on heart and breathing rate during orgasm during intercourse [ME: and you know I'm already skeptical here because it's fucking bonkers to use a sex act that is great for male orgasm and shitty for female orgasm (but a common time women fake orgasm) to measure both male and female orgasm. It's ripe for getting bad data]. However, it's messy to measure heart and breathing during a sex act that is so active and might in and of itself cause changes that couldn't be discerned from orgasm. The authors prefer M&J's method of using masturbation for testing orgasm. It not only eliminates a lot of the moving, but also M&J found that (especially for women [ME: probably because they are less likely to fake during masturbation - amiright?]) masturbation orgasms appeared equally, if not more, intense than during intercourse.
• A study 20 years prior (Mosovich and Tallaferro, 1954) attempted to record EEG on 6 humans during masturbation. The ability to analyze was not great back then, but through visual inspection of the EEG records, it showed a general slowing of electrical activity along with voltage increases during orgasm.
• (Heath 1972) used deep and surface electrodes to measure a M/F couple having intercourse. "He reported finding consistent spike and slow-wave activity in the septal region during intercourse." However, the readings were super messy because of all the physical activity, the dude in it had bad epilepsy, and Heath also found the spiking activity in other non-sex related things, so it's to be taken lightly.
• There is also experiential reports that orgasms put a person into a unique state of consciousness.

Method

Subjects

• 4 male and 3 female subjects; range in age 21 to 33; all good physical condition; all sexually active (5-10 orgasms a week; at least 2 masturbations per week)
• One female left handed all others right handed; one male strongly homosexual (Kinsey scale 5)
• Participants were paid and the experiment and the reasoning behind it were described to them

Choice of EEG Measure: The Significance of Interhemispheric Amplitude Relationships

• Recent data seems to show that the different hemisphere's of the brain are "involved to different extents in cognitive abilities (Dimond 1972)" So, in right handed people the left hemisphere seems to deal with verbal activities while the right seems to deal with "visual, spatial, musical, and emotional inputs (Harnard 1973)." This shows up in EEGs as "amplitude asymmetries." Reversals of this asymmetry has been found in average people when doing things like switching from verbal to visual tasks, going from REM to non-REM sleep, and while on hallucinagenic drugs. So, orgasm may also be associated with an extreme change in cerebral activity like those other activities, and the researchers thought it would be worth checking for a quantifiable reversal of this amplitude asymmetry during the orgasm. 
• [ME: So, best I can understand, I believe this means that the EEG from one side of the brain is stronger than the other and then when the activity change occurs (REM to non-REM sleep, not orgasm to orgasm, etc.) the opposite side becomes stronger during that time. I truly don't know enough about EEGs or brain activity, and couldn't find much easily accessible info on the web, to know if this situation is more complicated.]

Recording Methods

• There's a description of the EEG and recording equiptment. There were separate measurements taken from the left and right side.  
• The values attained from right and left side were each plotted against time
• Ratios of the Right/Left readings were calculated for each epoch [ME: in EEGs, and epoch is a time interval at which the readings are taken from the continuous signal. Table 1 in this paper later says the epoch intervals were 1 sec] 
• Then for each phase of the experiment (there are 4 - see below) an average of those epoch ratios was created.
• "Statistical significance of the changes was ascertained on the basis of the two-tailed t test" [ME: I'll be honest, I'm a bit confused about what exactly they are checking. Which are the 'changes' they are referring to? My best guess is that they are talking about the change from one phase of the experiment to the other of the average Right/Left reading that was calculated, but I'm not completely sure. I looked up some different sites about two tail t tests (because I ain't no expert in statistics - that's for sure) and I'm still not completely sure, so take that for what you will]
• Males placed a gauge at the base of the penis to measure penile tumescence (blood congestion - or basically level of erection).Females placed a "relative blood flow transducer mounted on a diaphragm ring" inside their vagina for the same purpose. This was used to continuously monitor during the experiment the blood flow changes that are known to accompany sexual arousal.
• "For both sexes, these data provided verification of the subjective report of arousal and orgasm. The effects of manual stimulation, for example, were clearly apparent on the polygraph tracing which recorded penile tumescence."   [ME: Alright, this statement is heavily overreaching. Clearly the blood congestion info would give indicators about physical arousal - not controversial in the slightest. Any person of medicine would know that straight up - of course the results of penile masturbation would show up - unless he's jerking on a limp dick that really isn't into it and stays completely and utterly limp. BUT, they also go further and say it provided verification for orgasm as well. How? What results of blood congestion monitoring will uniquely indicate an orgasm and not just high levels of arousal? Or a loss of arousal (without orgasm) after arousal? Where is the studies that indicate what this blood congestions related marker of orgasm might be? These authors certainly don't cite anything like that. They are only citing arousal - not orgasm- related studies. They have to know better, so it's a little suspect that they are just trying to slide that little orgasm line in. That's sketchy, bro. It makes me think they are really stretching to make the orgasm connections in this study that they were hoping to.] 

Experimental Procedure

• For anonymity each subject was assigned a code and that code and the subsequent data were analyzed blindly.
• Subjects were taken into a lab where the recording equiptment was connected. They were told to lie on their backs with head resting comfortable on a pillow.
• The were told their eyes should be either constantly open or constantly closed throughout the experiment. Only one subject said they could not maintain that. 
• The experimenter left after the subjects were settled and did not return until after the experiment, so the subjects could have privacy.
• The EEG and genital blood congestion changes were monitored during 4 stages
• 1 - "An initial adaption period, during which the subject had been instructed to refrain from movement and to breath regularly"
• 2 - A period of approximately 15 minutes signaled to begin when a selection of rhythmic music began. The subjects were to fantasize sexual imagery without any physical simulation. "Two subjects were shown erotic films and pictures in order to enhance sexual fantasy"
• 3 - "Each subject manually masturbated until one or more orgasms were attained. In order to signal orgasm, the subject was instructed to depress a switch at the onset of the climax and to release the switch as soon as the orgasm was completed."
• 4 - 15 minutes of rest post- climax 
• Each phase was approximately 15 minutes, so the total sessions were about 1 hour. After the recording equiptment was removed each subject was "required to fill out a questionnaire, reviewing their subjective response to the experience."

Stimulation Methods

• "All subjects used manual stimulation to attain orgasm. A specially DC-operated electric vibrator (Panabrator) was also used by three female subjects and one male subject." [ME: so ALL the female subjects and 1/4 of the male subjects].
• Masters and Johnson demonstrated masturbation is the most reliable and consistent methods for orgasm in lab and also the large motor functions during sex make EEG reading difficult. "Self-stimulation, particularly when vibrator assisted, can be managed with minimum overt bodily movement, making possible analysis of relatively artifact free EEG records."

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

[ME: I'm going to report this in a bit of a different structure than how it's written simply because it feels more understandable to me. I'll report all the specifics about each subject under their code number. You can see them in the table below - some will have more than 1 instance of experimentation. Then I'll add other comments, etc. from the results conclusion in bullet points]

0813

0817

0816

0814

0812

0811

0504

Table 1:

• Each experimental instance (7 total subjects, 12 total instances) is listed. 
• The average ratio of Right/Left readings for the successive 1-second epochs for 3 periods - preclimax, climax and post climax - are listed alongside the Standard Deviation (SD) for that average.
• N - indicates the number of epochs (or 1 sec intervals of Right/Left ratios that were used during that time period to create the average for each of the 3 phases). Not all epochs in each phase were used, however.
• "Only those portions of record during which the EEG appeared from visual inspection of the tracings to be most stable and artifact free" were used
• "The postclimax measurements were taken soon after orgasm. However, in several records, especially for male subjects, orgasm was followed by a short period of unrest, manifested on the recording as muscle movement." So only after EEG became stable were the postclimax readings used. 
• "Determination of the beginning and end of the period of orgasm was based on the subject's signal (press on a switch) and genital measurements." [ME: it mentions genital measurements here, but it never releases the data from those, and doesn't even tell how the genital measurements were used to determine the climax period....or why it was used. What difference did the genital measurements make on which epoch were used? It's weird to me that they just drop that in and don't follow up on it at all.]
• Those experimental instances marked with a superscript 'a' after the SD in the Climax portion are those in which the researchers found significant difference between the Right/Left ratios versus the ratios pre-climax. In other words, these are ones in which there seemed to be an indicator of orgasm related to the change in right versus left EEG readings. Specifically except for (0811), who was left handed, the change consisted of a large amplitude increase in the right and much smaller in the left. This occurred regardless of the pre climax ratio (those both above and below 1).
• Some comments from the post experiments questionnaire are included in the last column

More Results:

• All subjects reported successfully achieving 1 or more orgasms
• Except for (0811) and (0813) who reported orgasm felt somewhat "less intense" all subjects said orgasms felt typical
• Because the baseline EEG ratios were so variable between subjects, it was not possible to combine data from different subjects. The analysis was done on a subject by subject basis [ME: in other words, you could not just use the total info from this group of people to predict how any one person's EEG might read at orgasm - you would need to get their individual baseline and then it might indicate what orgasm EEG could look like for them and them only...but also, this study is not even enough to predict that on an individual basis, it's just kind of a possible start to looking more into that possibility.]
• There is necessarily a smaller time duration in climax compared to pre-climax. This difference in amount of epoch ratios (N) used for pre-climax and climax could seem problematic for testing significance of the ratio change between the two, but the authors feel the robustness of the resulting statistical significance calculations indicated that this is not a problem.
• To ensure that the motor movement of the hand being used for masturbation wasn't the reason for seeing the Right/Left amplitude ratio switch at orgasm, one male subject (0817) did this experiment once with his right hand and then another with his left. In both cases the ratio change from preclimax to climax was deemed statistically significant and both instances showed similar [Me: their emphasis not mine] shifts at orgasm.
• To test whether a faked orgasm would look similar, a female subject (0811) produced a fake orgasm prior to her real one in the same experimental session. "The 'faked' orgasm involved the same pattern of overt movement and muscular contractions, but without the subjective experience of sexual climax." [ME: umm - I think what they meant to say was that the subject reported mimicking the same muscular qualities of orgasm. We don't know if she did because that wasn't actually recorded. The particular way the pelvic muscles involuntarily contract during orgasm has been indicated in more than a couple studies as dissimilar from voluntary muscle contractions, and is seemingly the best way yet we have to mark an orgasm and discern it from high arousal or faked orgasms....So saying that the muscular contractions were the same is 1. not verified by the researchers themselves and 2. not a trivial thing to assert in a study about orgasm.] 
• There were not significant amplitude ratio changes during the faked orgasm. "It should also be pointed out that there was no increase in vaginal blood flow during the pseudo orgasm, contrasting with the marked increase which took place during the real orgasm." [ME: I'm interested in this because they didn't check pelvic muscular activity, which is clearly in the literature as a marker of orgasm and the only real unique marker I've seen in literature. They were checking the blood congestion. I don't know how their equiptment reads - is it about how quickly blood flow changes or is it about the level of blood congestion? Anyway, was it just indicating increased blood congestion which is related to increased arousal? or was it showing a specific and unique change that they are saying indicates orgasm? If they did, I'm pretty sure that's a novel discovery. I have never seen studies that show measurements related to blood giving a unique reading that aligns to orgasm - only readings aligning to arousal. My guess is it's not a unique reading that indicates orgasm - it's just showing arousal and like so many researchers, they seem to just willy nilly throw around words and ideas related to orgasm that are really related to arousal and don't give a shit. That's probably related to why we aren't seeing the data for the genital checks they did. They aren't good at indicating orgasm, so they aren't convenient results to share. I mean, that's my take at least.]
• 2 male participants didn't have discernable changes in EEG. The researchers hypothesize that this is because participant 0813 masturbated an hour before showing up for this masturbation experiment [ME: bad form, my dude.] and that participant 0816 "reported being devoid of 'mental activity' during the recording period and also judged the orgasm as low intensity. Furthermore this subject reported keeping his eyes open during the entire period of masturbation, and it may be that laterality changes are less clearly apparent under conditions if alpha-blocking"

Figure 1 :

• shows "the clearest segments of preclimax, climax, and postclimax records obtained from subject 0817." There is a visual clear difference in Right vs. Left amplitude ratio - which was also calculated and confirmed quantitatively
• There was also a visually noticeable frequency change - which for this study was only noted through visual inspection. These apparent frequency changes were noted in 5 of the 8 experimental instances in which right/left amplitude ratios were found to change during orgasm.

Conclusion

• The researchers thought the quality of the EEG changes at orgasm might be different from the other types of "amplitude asymmetries they were seeing in the literature. "Thus it is a qualitatively different kind of interhemispheric change unrelated to other changes described so far in the scientific literature. This appears to be better interpreted as indicating a dissociation between the right and left EEG, with a change in the right of such a nature and magnitude that it clearly suggests a predominant change in the hemisphere."
• Their final words: "This study has demonstrated that the computation of hemispheric amplitude relationships provide a viable methodology for quantitative assessment of orgasmic response. In fact, the amplitude ratio changes observed were even greater than those recorded under states of sensory deprivation or hallucinogenic drugs (Goldstein et all., 1973)" [ME: I don't think this provides a viable methodology for quantitative assessment of orgasmic response. I think it provides some tools for possibly looking further into the future creation of a viable brainwave-related marker for orgasmic response, ya know?]

5 Comedies My Dad Would Be Into #DirectedByWomen

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I'm saying this a lot lately, but I apologize for the almost month delay in the posts. I was already a bit behind, and then my dad got sick, so I traveled back to Indy and have been living at my sister's house. I've certainly gone through the whole hospital/doctor/grave diagnosis thing before but this is the first time anything has happened to my dad since my mom passed. It's just me and my sister now, and it's just a lot of things to do and places to be. People in the hospital system need an advocate with them - at least that's my take after many a time being with a patient going through it. There are great people in healthcare but a lot of the time there are just systematic breaks in communication and a lot to think about and remember, and frankly a sick person isn't the best person to be there for themselves. Plus, we both want to be with my dad and make sure he's not feeling alone thorugh as much of this process as we can be. All that to say, that's my priority at the moment. Well that and ya know, work, but also, I want to keep up on this blog and let it be known I'm still at it. 

So, as I often do I'm going for a quick post, and as you might have noticed, the 5 Movies series is a fairly easy one for me to get up, so here we are. That said, I also really like this series because I LOVE movies and I truly believe in getting a variety of lady voices behind our media.

Okay, so to the movies. I wanted to do a list dedicated to my dad, and frankly my first choice at this point in his life would be Westerns - because I don't know, he's a 70 year old man that doesn't have cable and watches mostly the Grit station. However, not a lot of old Westerns in my list for various reasons including that I don't watch them, and there weren't a ton of women directing them back in the day. My second choice, for dad, would be comedies - because my dad sure do be loving a comedy.  So that's where I landed. These are 5 Comedic movies directed by women that I have actually seen and that I believe or know my dad would like.

A Little History of These Lists

I started doing this categorized List of 5 movies thing where I showcase movies that were directed by women and that I have actually seen. It all started during the Directed By Women Worldwide Viewing Party in September 2015, and it was pretty fun, so I've continued doing it from time to time.

It's a bit off-topic from my normal fare, ya know, being that it's not specifically about lady-gasms or anything like that, but I think it fits the blog because
1. this blog is also about indie movie-making, and
2. this blog is partially about getting the female perspective of sexuality into our media. So, to me, supporting female voices in our media  means we're creating more room for female voices to speak on all types of things, which sometimes will be sex, orgasms, and sexuality.

You can find all my 5-movie lists HERE.

So, here friends, are 5 Comedies directed by women that my dad would like (and that I've actually seen). I had to go back and pull some that I've already posted about because my current list of options I haven't yet written about is a little light on this type of movie. 

So, like ol' dad might have done back in the day - order an Aunt Polly's pizza, get a generic cola from Marsh, make some jiffy pop, and laugh your ass off to these movies.

The Movies

1 Fast Times at Ridgemont High - This was directed by Amy Heckerling.  I saw this on TV at some point in my youth with my sister. I kinda think we were babysitting together somewhere and the kids were asleep, although we didn't babysit together much. Anyway, it seemed cool and funny and super edgy, which I liked, and I watched it later as an adult, and knew the actors better, so that was fun - and I did an SSL Review in 2010 about the dugout sex. Also, I can't be certain my dad would like this, it was after his time, but he likes generally this kind of stuff, so I'm going with it.

2 Shrek- This was directed by Andrew Adamson and Vicki Jenson - I saw this in the theater with some of my nieces and/or nephews. I honestly can't remember which ones, but it was 2011, so it had to have been the older ones. Anyway, I liked it and thought it was a solid kids movie. Top notch really. My dad does indeed like this one. I know that for certain. It's his level of dumb comedy.

  

3 Speed Racer - This was directed by Lana and Lilly Wachowski. I also saw this at the theater with Charlie, and I think Barnaby. I thought it was done really well, and thinking about it it makes me want to watch it again. Anyway, my dad liked the Speed Racer cartoon, and I believe he liked this revamp of  it.

4 Wayne's World  -This was directed by Penelope Spheeris. I think I first saw this on VHS with my BFF Leslie. We were already fans of the Wayne's World SNL skit, so, obviously we loved it, and I also believe I had the Soundtrack tape for it. My dad liked it too I believe - mostly because it's dumb. 

5 National Lampoon's European Vacation - This was also directed by Amy Heckerling. I definitely first say this in my childhood living room on VHS. I believe that there was another family there with us when we were watching it, but honestly that seems weird because we had a tiny living room, and I don't remember having other families over to do things like watch movies, but I also kinda feel like it was our across the street neighbors who had the exact same size living room, so maybe it was fine and we were all used to being packed in tight. The thing I most remember about this movie, though was when the German gal exposes her boobs to the son in this. It was reeeaaal dirty, and I was into it. My dad would clearly love this because it's the people and comedy of his era and all that. It's his vibe for sure.

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."

The Best Scandanavian Female Orgasm Book You Never Knew About - I Accuse! by Mette Ejlersen

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Mette Ejlersen. I Accuse! Tandem, 1970.

Listen. This book, people. It's ON POINT. So, that badass SSL friend that is always sending me amazing tips, sent me a link to a book called "I Accuse!" by Mette Ejlersen. It's Scandinavian, first published in 1969. I read the description and was instantly intrigued. I was actually starting a road trip vacation at that moment, but I NEEDED it, so I ordered it, and 2 weeks later found it waiting for me at home. I finished it in 2 days. 

I'm often reading descriptions of books, getting excited, and then realizing upon reading that it's really just like everything else out there with all the terrible misconceptions about lady-gasms that, well, do something between pissing me off and making me sad. This, my friends, was not the case here. It's soooo rare to find something that is bold and poignant and doesn't throw out unverified claims about how the inner parts of the vagina cause orgasm too, but when I do find one, it's usually from the 60's or 70's - so I have a special love for the oft-described radical feminists that write them. 

I have been looking into this lady-gasm shit since about 2002, and I've never heard of this book. It's crazy to me. In fact you can't really even find the book unless you Google both the title and the author, and even then it's not many entries and not a lot of copies available. The book says it's a Scandinavian Best Seller, and the one I have is the 1970 reprint. It also seems like it was also called Sexual Liberation, but that title is even harder to find. Anyway, much like The Hite Report which is also a banger that everyone should read (although created in the US 7 years after this one), this book seems to have kinda dropped into relative obscurity...which makes sense because as a culture, we've pretty much disregarded, minimized and/or glossed over all the truths and wisdom these radicals were slinging at us in these books, but I'll get into that later.

A BOOK OVERVIEW

To give you a quick overview, I Accuse! starts from the 'widespread superstition' that women orgasm from simply getting fucked (that's a maybe more crude and simple way to say it, but that's about it), our badass author Ejlersen calls BULLSHIT on that. She speaks about how so many women don't get what they thought they would get from sex -aka intercourse- (an orgasm or even much pleasure) and don't know what to do it about it. Some just pretend that they are getting it. Some fret and seek professional help. Some understand that they aren't getting the (clitoral glans area) stimulation they need, but don't know how to speak about it to their partners or have tried to and it doesn't work. Some are lucky enough to work together with their partners and incorporate the clitoral stimulation they need into their partnered sex lives.  And pretty much everyone feels like some kind of freak about it. Mothers don't talk to their daughters about it, and so each girl and woman has to navigate this striking difference between orgasm expectation and orgasm reality pretty much all on their own. 

This book aims to let women know they are not alone or weird or different really at all from the other women around them. It also has the beautiful intention of speaking these truths out loud so that both men and women alike can finally understand that ladies need clitoral glans area stimulation to come (at least as much as dudes need penile stimulation) and  intercourse is not a realistic road to female orgasm. It further hopes this knowledge can stimulate people to adjust partnered sexual activity accordingly so that everyone can get a chance at orgasm. 

MY BIG DOWNER RANT ABOUT HOW THIS BOOK IS AMAZING BUT IT WON'T BE TAKEN SERIOUSLY

The Naivety of Lady-gasm Activists

It's a nice hope. Shere Hite also had that hope when she wrote The Hite Report in 1976 (and clearly was disappointed in what change had happened by 2011) I also had that hope when I made Science, Sex, and the Ladies in 2014. What I know now is that we were all naïve. The idea that if people simply knew the reality of this situation then the world and the people in it would adjust accordingly, simply hasn't come to fruition. The myth of the vaginal orgasm, the idea that intercourse should be as orgasmic for the vagina-haver as it is for the penis-haver is unfortunately so deeply engrained that even when we know it's not true, we still don't really believe or act as if  it's not true. As much as I wish we were and as much hope as I still have for the future, we're just not there yet.

Also, I think in these 60's and 70's writings, there was an additional naivety because it was all new. There was new scientific evidence from Masters and Johnson that negated the vaginal orgasm and confirmed the clitoral glans as the organ of female sexual orgasm (in the way the penis is the organ of male orgasm). Women themselves were speaking up clearly and boldly about the lack of clitoral glans area stimulations (and thus orgasm) in their sex lives. I mean it was exciting, and why wouldn't both men and women use this opportunity of permission and knowledge to change their perspective about what a sexual interaction should be, to assure everyone having sex was also getting the physical stimulation they needed? Well, I don' know why we wouldn't adjust (I mean I definitely have a lot of theories), but by and large we didn't. You'd think in the 2000's when I was making this movie and starting this blog, I would have been less naïve, given that I saw how little had changed since these radical feminists and their wild idea hit the world 50 years ago. I mean making the argument that sex should not be equated with intercourse and that 'foreplay' should be considered the whole meal and not just an appetizer, is not necessarily uncommon to hear today, but it's a progressive stance, and it still needs to be said because by and large it's not the way of things. And, there doesn't seem to be less women and girls today desperately searching for advice about ways to orgasm during intercourse - and worried they're lesser if they can't...so yeah we're basically still treadmilling on the same big issues now that these radicals spoke on 50 years ago. Even with that, though, I was naïve -  wide-eyed and hopeful. 

What none of us really considered was how much people desperately want to believe that banging a penis into a vagina not only is great for dude orgasms, but also will make the person attached to the vagina come too. Easy peasy. We also, I think, underestimated how much we women are a part of keeping the vaginal orgasm lies alive - and for a variety of fairly sensible and understandably human reasons. I mean, first, still to this day information about what a female orgasm is remains intensely (and unnecessarily) contradictory and confusing. In a sexual culture not set up for the ladies, to just happen upon an orgasm during partnered sex is very unlikely, and with all the wild misinformation around regarding what an orgasm is for women, identifying when you orgasm can be strangely difficult and can easily lead to believing orgasms are happening at times when they actually are not but are 'supposed' to be happening. There's also like 100 reasons to straight up fake it - from getting things over with to making the partner feel good to wanting to seem normal or desirable or sexy. 

There's just a lot more to unpack on this issue that's deep under the surface. What my older self realizes now is that just speaking sense and facts isn't going to change it. In fact, there's a lot of junk info that's piled up the last 50 years on top of the already problematic junk info that existed when this book was written. That all must be counteracted before sense and facts (and info like in I Accuse!) even get a fair chance to be taken seriously at all.

Sexpert books Then vs. Sexperts books Now

In this book Ejlerson talks to a variety of people; mothers, teens, prostitutes, a few married couples, Medical doctors and a variety of women to get their take on the topic of lady-gasm. It's actually a lot like many lady-gasm related books of today in that it's an author going around asking people and reporting on their opinions and experiences. All in all, I don't have a ton of love for that style, because asking regulars ol' people about shit neither they nor experts really have a handle on and taking a person's interpretation of their personal experience as truth just leads to more misinformation. However, it works better in the 70's than now - just because of the newness of the topic. 

Back in the late 60's and 70's there was scientific data showing for really the first time that the clitoral glans area is as important to female orgasm as the penis is to male orgasm. It also showed there is really no evidence that the vaginal canal can be stimulated to orgasm. To counteract that, there was already also a lot of pretty sexist and looney opinions about female orgasm and specifically 'vaginal orgasm' that are silly and outdated to the contemporary eye (Freud and the immature clitoral orgasm is but one). So although these reporter authors of the 60's and 70's got some ridiculous answers from the experts and a few women that answered, those answers probably feel to the modern reader as ridiculous as they actually are. That's not quite the same in contemporary discussions.

The current scientific evidence still indicates the same thing about clits and vaginal orgasms that it did in the 70's - basically. There has since been some important research about female ejaculation, but that is not orgasm. In both males and females ejaculation and orgasm are different physiological events that can sometimes happen at the same time.  However, one couldn't be blamed for assuming we've learned all sorts of stuff about lady-gasms. Since about 1980 there's been "scientific evidence" that either the G-spot (now actually kind of out of vogue among sexperts as an orgasm button but not as it relates to ejaculation) or the 'inner clit' or the cervix are able to give women orgasms through the stimulation of the vaginal canal during intercourse. I put "scientific evidence" in quotes, because there is NOT scientific evidence, there are only studies that are related but do not in fact make those conclusions. None the less these are used in both "science" reporting and in popular media as if they do, and these ideas are so pervasive, they have become canon of contemporary, educated, progressive sexual educators and advisors. It is deeply ingrained in the culture of sex. 

So, today when these reporter authors talk to experts and some women, there is certainly an acknowledgement that the clit is important (That's progress. Thank you for that, feminists of the 2nd wave!), but it is almost always counteracted by making sure we know there is oh so much more to the female orgasm and often reference or allude to the "many different types of orgasms" women can have as if there's decided science behind it that can give you actual information about what these different orgasms are, how they can be stimulated, and how they physiologically occur. There is absolutely none of that information, but it seems like there is because at this point in history, their non-scientific assertions that they pass off as scientific don't feel as ridiculous as they did in the 70's. 

For instance in I Accuse! a medical doctor tells us there are 3 orgasms: clitoral, vaginal and Uterine. They go up in intensity and difficulty. Of the Uterine orgasm he says, "Consciously or subconsciously the woman is seldom herself for many minutes afterward. A man can never reach the same height in a climax as this type of woman, because the woman's wish for a child is always far deeper than a man's. A man never achieves an orgasm too overwhelming to prevent him smoking a cigarette immediately after intercourse. This, these women cannot do. They are miles away - lost for a long time." That feels like a crazy town thing to say. 

However, today, 'experts' regularly say things that are as, if not more, bonkers, but somehow get away with it and are still touted as progressive feminists sexperts. I think maybe this ability to pass goes back to a few things. Unlike the 70's experts, contemporary experts saying bonkers things are often women. They are also usually credentialed in some type of science or sexology (which doesn't make them correct, just aligned with the sadly erroneous norms of contemporary 'knowledge' on ladygasm), and maybe most importantly they tend to be liberal and progressive. They don't seem like the sexist arrogant white male up there talking about women blacking out from 'uterine' orgasms because they are baby-crazy. These contemporary 'experts' are well intentioned in every other way, just really incorrect about the science that exists on the physical realities of lady-gasms without realizing they are incorrect. Look at this quote from Emily Nagoski's very popular and progressive tending 2015 book, Come As You Are (I write about this book HERE. Although I have strong criticism regarding her assertions about orgasm, the book does have a lot of worthy, important elements):  

Here's a small sample of the highly pleasurable orgasms women have described to me: orgasm from clitoral stimulation, orgasm from vaginal stimulation, orgasm just from breast stimulation, orgasm from having her toes sucked, orgasm when her partner penetrated her well lubricated anus with a finger while pinning her to the bed with her hair (the most erotic sensation, she specified, was his warm palm resting gently on her butt cheeks), orgasm when her partner slowly and gently stroked fingertips on her outer labia again and again and again (she said what started out as an appetizer turned into the main course), orgasm without any genital stimulation while she was giving her partner oral sex (she was so closely attuned to his arousal that when he came, she did too).

She came from stimulating his dick with her mouth??? His orgasm made her come? Are we not going to have any skepticism about that?? Doesn't seem off or problematic or fucked-up or anything??  We're just gonna let that sit with no comment?? Really??? Granted, this is a woman 'expert' relaying a woman's experience as a source of knowledge about female orgasm rather than a man talking about the female experience, so it feels less gross, I guess...but does that make it any less bonkers or any more true and worthy of being in print? The blowjob-gasm is looney, yes, but to go a little deeper, the vaginal stimulation one is too. There is still no physical evidence in all of scientific literature (I'm taking that stand, prove me wrong. please.) that stimulation inside the vagina with no additional outer vulva stimulation has caused an orgasm (again ejaculation is another thing entirely and if the author was referring to ejaculation, not orgasm, she should be clear about that because they are different physiological events). For real.  Yet, in that book it seems like there are women that can just come from getting their vaginal canal stimulated (a good bang, perhaps?). There is no sense anywhere in that book that this would be an incredibly rare situation if it is possible at all. It just stands as a possible way women could orgasm. That matches the larger public perception around vaginal stimulation, but it doesn't match the science that exists. Granted, I Accuse! is no pillar of scientific integrity. It's more journalism than science, but its assertions about lady-gasm match the science that exists today WAY more than books like Come As You Are that are also more journalism than science, but tout how scientifically minded they are.  

Another point about the bonkers quotes from experts (an interviewed medical doctor in I Accuse and the PhD wielding author in Come as You Are) in these 2 different books is that in I Accuse! the doctor's bonkers quote was there along with a variety of other doctors' take on the matter as a way, I believe, to show where the medical establishment was on the topic. I don't know if it sounded as bonkers then as it does to us now, but the book in general does not condone it, and actively works against that kind of mystical, incorrect thinking. Come As You Are (and so many other books like it - it's truly not unique in that sentiment by any means), however, is not only condoning that insanity, but actively pushing it as the accurate, scientifically backed, progressive reality of lady-gasms. 

And this is why I really love reading these books from the late 60's and 70's. They were the first (and really only) to strongly call bullshit on the vag-gasm agenda. There's a purity and excitement to it. A real sense of revolution on the horizon. More contemporary works, in a way, can't exist like that. Too much has happened; too much pushback against these radical feminist ideas; too much desperate research to prove women can orgasm from a good banging has been published. They're shit science that proves nothing of the sort, but damn if they didn't have great PR and a receptive audience. Sexperts today have to exist in a world where this shit science is taken seriously and fed to them in whatever sexpert training they may have gotten. It's mainstream. It's as if today, the message that vaginal orgasm doesn't or probably doesn't exist, is merely some old and incorrect radical feminist-agenda from the 60's and 70's and cannot be returned to seriously because it was proven wrong - even though it has not in fact been proven wrong at all, and in fact the 40 plus years since have actually just reinforced how correct this 'radical feminist agenda' was because nothing in those subsequent years has given any recorded scientific information that a vaginally stimulated orgasm has ever occurred. But to know that, one would need to dig deeper in the primary scientific literature. It's all there, but the way it's summarized and perceived and taught is clearly skewed in a significant way. Sexperts often speak as if they are informed about lady-gasm research, but if I may be so bold, they clearly are not because too often and too seriously, studies that do not prove or indicate vaginal (or a variety of other kinds of) orgasms are incorrectly touted as concluding that they do. 

All that to say, we've had 40 years of progressive, liberal, well-intentions, often educated and credentialed sexperts, many of whom are women, reinforcing the idea that science has shown us that -very basically and crudely - *whatever you do to a lady, eh, could probably make her orgasm, you know - if she's into it* So as a whole are we women and our partners really any more informed, grounded, or supported in our sexual endeavors than we were in the Freud vag-gasm times...oooorrrr do we just have a new set of confusing shit, different day?

I recommend this book...if you take it as it is and don't act like it's left behind by new science

All that ranting to say that I really, really want to scream from the rooftops that everyone should read this book, but I also know that it won't be understood as it should be. It will be seen as a relic of another time when we didn't know as much as we know today. People will read it and say something like, "it was a really empowering book back in the 60's when women were just learning about the female orgasm. The radical feminists of the time were (rightly so) pushing the pendulum away from Freud and his obsession with vaginal orgasms and towards the Clitoris. Of course we now can see that this push towards the clitoris and away from intercourse was a bit too far, as science has now shown us that there are so many more aspects to the female orgasm than that tiny button - including the inner clitoral legs that we now know are likely responsible for what used to be called 'vaginal orgasms.'" 

I mean on first read that seems like a sensible assessment. It's been 50 years. We should certainly know more about lady-gasms shouldn't we?  

Well, sorry to break it to you, but we don't really. They had it largely correct back then.  What about the Gspot? the inner clitoris? Those are all new discoveries in ladygasm science, right? Wrong. There, of course, has been new info since the 60's that refined, adjusted, and expanded knowledge about both male and female orgasm (female ejaculation, male orgasm sans ejaculation, male multiple orgasm for instance), but largely subsequent scientific inquiry work has strengthened the basic physical knowledge of orgasms that the studies of that time revealed. And since that time, contrary to what we all tend to hear, there have been no studies that significantly indicate lady-gasms and how to get them are any different than this old-ass book describes. Not inner clit (I have a whole post about that shit HERE) not the G-spot, not nothing. 

This 1969 book, if you look at the scientific research from then until this very day, is still basically as accurate as it was then. In fact please don't read about female orgasm from most contemporary 'experts' because they will reinforce incorrect ideas from incorrectly interpreted and/or wrongly summarized scientific studies that give people the sense that women can orgasm in ways that are unrealistic and rare at best. They will, unknowingly and with the best of intentions, carry on the oldest of traditions in which sexperts gloss over (if not outright ignore) the very simple and obvious but inconvenient truth of how women orgasm and give crazy advice that continues the confusion, misunderstandings, pretenses and shame that dominate our cultural and personal understanding of female orgasm. You are at risk of getting Freuded like our ladies of old, but with a sweet bow on top like it's something new and useful.

So, although I'd love to recommend this book as a revolutionary mind-opener for the world, I know it won't be helpful because it won't be taken seriously and won't erase all the current bullshit being said about lady-gasms because that current bullshit feels like it's not bullshit but instead 'new knowledge,' and that's sad to me. It's also maybe poignantly descriptive of the biggest hurdle of orgasm equality activism, but I digress.

HIGHLIGHTS FROM I ACCUSE!

As if this post isn't long enough, I still want to give a few highlights from the book, so here they are  below. And just to be clear, even after that whole rant, I do still recommend this book. It's a great read and it says important shit. Just know you should take it seriously. 

The ABZ of Love -Vonnegut's fave

There was a marriage/sex advice book heavily touched on in I Accuse!. It was called The ABZ of Love, a 1961 book authored by Danish couple Inge and Stan Hegeler. The author brings this book up early because one reason she decided to write I Accuse! was that a friend confided in her that she did not know how to talk to her own teenage daughter about the sex situation - meaning that the mother wanted to tell her daughter that intercourse wouldn't do much for her and that she needed to include her clitoris in the act and all that. It was simply too personal a thing to discuss even though other elements like birth control were easier and more widely discussed in the public. The author decided to write what would become I Accuse! and began looking through the current resources. The only book she found that gave the kind of sensible (not intercourse orgasm obsessed) advice she was looking for was The ABZ of Love. 

Interestingly, around 2012 a new book of letters from Kurt Vonnegut was released and in it, he tells his wife about this book. He calls it 'really lovely' and tells her she can find it on his bookshelf if she is as interested in sex as she says she is. So although it's not an easy book to find, it comes up on the internet quite a bit as Kurt Vonnegut's favorite sex book. Anyway, this author couple writes a lovely approving letter at the back of   Accuse! Although in it they do add in some of their own spins and advise, including a questionable bit saying one should not tell a man straight up about having lied about orgasms for years. Instead, given men's vanity in the bed, the Hegeler's say, 

The only way out of this particular pretense is to pretend that it has become more difficult to be satisfied: to hint that trying something different - something new, unusual and more imaginative surely isn't to be sneered at - and then just hope that the bungler will understand the hints. p137

That's probably just a recipe for a dude to lament his lady's loss of the easy vag-gasms and push all kinds of cure's and professional help on her to 'get it back,' but you know times were different, I guess.  Otherwise, the Hegeler's letter is pretty forward and thoughtful. At the beginning of  I Accuse!, the author, quite excited that she has found allies in this couple and a book that might be given to her friend's teenage daughters, quotes the Hegeler's from  The ABZ of Love in an incredibly forward statement (this book seems to have been published in 1963 - 3 years before Master and Johnson's Human Sexual Response was published. Although papers by M&J's research had been published).

"Every woman's orgasm is a clitoral orgasm, usually direct and less frequently indirect. It is very important to realise this, if one is to understand the true nature of an orgasm. An orgasm is felt over practically the whole body; in the muscles of the vagina, which contracts during orgasm. An orgasm does not originate inside the vagina, nor thumps against the mouth of the womb, as many believe. It is the lustful excitation of the clitoris, either directly or indirectly, that culminates in an orgasm.

It has long been superstition, a misunderstanding , that a vaginal orgasm is finer and nobler than a clitoral orgasm. But the vaginal orgasm does not exist. What is believed to be a vaginal orgasm is in effect an indirect stimulation of the muscle fibers and nerve-endings at the entrance to the vagina. This and other forms of indirect clitoral orgasms are quite rare, whereas direct excitation of the clitoris is comparatively common"

A Top Notch Dis Session

Another book they delve into is a book called The Marriage Art by John E. Eichenlaub M.D. published first in 1961. I googled it and found it on a delightful blog called Hersteria - where Miss K. LaMoine finds and briefly discusses somewhat insane sexual, marriage, femininity training type books from the 1880's to the 1960's. She says of this book, "Even though it’s one of the more recently published books in my collection, Dr. Eichenlaub’s advice is often more archaic and misogynist towards women than my books from the 1920s and ’30s." 

Ejlersen and a 29 year old woman read The Art of Marriage, and take a chapter to dis on it in I Accuse!, which I love and it's frankly well deserved. Their fuck you to this guy is definitely worth a read.

An Actual Equitable Sexual Relationship

There's a great transcript of a woman and her husband that met with the author to be recorded talking about their journey with her orgasm. Basically, she had kinda accidently gotten a hand on her clit from a former lover, realized, 'oh shit - that's what this is all about.' Then when this current couple had their first few sex sessions and it, well, sucked for her, she finally decided to tell him what's up - thinking he'd probably break up with her. Well, he was into it, and now they are both real clear that intercourse ain't the way for it, and they work together to, ya know, do something wildly radical like stimulate the clit as much as the penis so all have equal opportunity to orgasm. 

That woman's experience was not a common one.   

Interviews: Drunk Girl-Talk and Straight Prostitutes'-Talk

There's also a lot of intimate, introspective quotes from women answering questions about their sex life as it has to do with orgasm. There is also another great transcript from a woman who sent in a recording she made of her and her drunk middle-aged gal-friends at a celebration. They all realized sex kinda sucked as far as orgasm goes for everyone else too. 

The author also talks about the absurdity of famous books like Fanny Hill and how unfortunate it is that people will read the ridiculous reactions Fanny Hill has to the sex acts and believe that is the way things should/could be. She also interviews a few real-life prostitutes. A snippet from one of the interviews: "'Men!' she says, with a little smile. 'Men are naïve and stupid. The bigger the performance you put on, the more they're convinced it's not acting.'"

Faking To Get Her Married Man: A Story

There's also this story from one of the women she interviewed. I like it because, well, I think it's poignant - about the pressures women have regarding their orgasm, about the reality of navigating relationships and sex, about one of many possible reasons a woman might proclaim she orgasms vaginally and why a man might say he's seen it happen, and about the messiness of all this. This is about 50 years old and might seem old-fashioned, but if you ask me this is as relevant now as it ever has been - even though we'd like to think otherwise. p96-96

Twenty-eight year old civil servant, formerly married to a businessman, now divorced

   I met a married man and we fell in love with each other - wildly in love - with the inevitable result. Not that I didn't fight against it for a long time. I had a terribly guilty conscience because of his wife. So when it eventually happened, he was so eager and in such a state that he had a climax straight away. Afterwards he was in despair and asked me if I'd got something out of it too. He would always blame himself if he hadn't satisfied me especially as it was the first time we'd been together. 

   His happiness was my happiness - his despair my despair. So, I reassured him. I told him that all was well, 'Of course I had been satisfied.' But of course this wasn't true, and I doubt whether any woman could have reached her climax during that half-minute's furious intercourse. But I thought to myself, 'My God, how I love him! It doesn't matter at all. Little by little I'll teach him what it's all about.' 

   Then he said something that made me abandon this idea immediately. He said, almost with gratitude, that he thought it was a miracle that I felt that way. He had known a woman who could only be satisfied if he touched a certain spot. I knew immediately what the spot was, and I also knew that he was talking about his wife, though he didn't say so both for her sake and mine. He went on to say that he sometimes had cramp in his hand because she insisted on having it that way - and that it was wonderful that I was 'normal!'

    I know my reaction will look utterly unscrupulous in black and white, but I think it was what most women would have done if it was a question of holding onto a man they couldn't live without. So, I expressed great surprise that any women should want to have it that way, even though I fully sympathized  with her and, only a few moments earlier, had been thinking of teaching him to do the very same thing. I actually sympathised with him: it must have been terribly strenuous, I said. How had he been able to stand it? And a lot more of the same sort of thing.

   It was disgraceful, I agree. But I felt it had been worthwhile when he said that he couldn't stand her, because I knew then that he would be able to stand her less and less the better I performed my little act. How many women would throw away their strongest weapon in the battle for the man they really want? Not many, I think. But eventually, they will smart as I am now smarting. Because I got him, and now I am trapped in this sexual quagmire I created for myself. So, I cannot emphasize strongly enough that we women have got to look at this business in a wider perspective; only when all men know, and all women frankly admit the truth about their sex lives are we on equal terms, both woman to woman and sex to sex, and only then will we reach the stage where the right to have climax will be the right of both parties.