orgasm

Orgasm Inc.

barbara — Wed, 09 Mar 2011 20:00:00 +0000

The orgasm. Feminists laud it, good lovers work hard to give it, pharmaceutical companies make it a business model. The inability to experience an orgasm is thought to be as devastating as the inability to delight in the joy of wine, sunrise, spring flowers, and other wonderment. But this is hardly an overstatement. Last week in London, I had the sheer privilege of attending a hugely popular talk by a doyenne of second wave feminism, Shere Hite. Her most well-known publication, The Hite Report, was a groundbreaking feminist version of the Kinsey report, a comprehensive study on female sexuality in '70s America that overturned all taboos of its day.

Hite contends that the traditional model of sexual intercourse privileges male pleasure and disregards any sense of pleasuring women to the point of orgasm. Not climaxing is tantamount to self-abnegating one self's right to wholeness, and women have long been denying their selfhood by committing to the patriarchal rituals of sex, argues Hite. She does have a point of course about the significance of pleasure, but her assertion that the “lack of sexual satisfaction is another sign of oppression of women” poses serious implications on how women must rethink sex. Woe betide the women who feel inadequate when they have difficulty getting sexually aroused, much less with orgasm during intercourse.

And so the many women who were once frustrated, frigid and unfulfilled are now medically certified as casualties of a new epidemic—female sexual dysfunction (FSD). But in a pill-popping culture such as the U.S., help is at hand and pharmaceutical companies are quick to exploit cultural expectations and women's most intimate insecurities. In Orgasm Inc., by first-time documentary film-maker Liz Canner, we are treated to the dizzying unravelling of pharmaceutical businesses devoted to the “female Viagra” and its role in creating, as it were, female sexual dysfunction (FSD). Canner is initiated into the shams and often shambolic world of drug companies through an invitation to edit an erotic video used during a clinical trial conducted by Vivus, a company dedicated to developing a cream for sexual arousal.

But when Canner delves deeper into Vivus's business plan, some things are amiss. Women on both active drug and placebo appear to be equally aroused when subjected to erotic videos, but Vivus goes ahead anyway pushing to get themselves on the market. Not that Vivus's drug was initially designed to treat male impotence really mattered, as the researchers placed their bets on a hunch that it can turn women on as well. It appears that the business of discovering a cure for the purported female sexual dysfunction is masculinist and penis-centred at best, one that is isolated as a problem related to the sexual organ and a matter of hormonal imbalance. There is little reference to how women get on with their partners in the bedroom, the happiness or lack of it in relationships, history of abuse, and lack of self-esteem. Furthermore, cultural expectations which are mistaken as "universal" sexual norms prescribe that sex without orgasm is a sign of abnormality.

Canner interviews other pharmaceutical companies that have also been founded on dubious science and run by “research” consultants who aren't able to explain in definitive terms what FSD is and react as if they are assailed by trick questions. When promoted by drug company-backed doctors and scientists who frame sexual inadequacies in often obtuse and intimidating language, lay persons beset with perceived medical disorders are like putty in their hands. The stage is thus set for a no-nonsense competition—a race—to win FDA approval and multiple million-dollar glory.

Soon companies dropped one-by-one off the race like flies due to unconvincing science, including a strong contender, Intrinsa, a trans-dermal testosterone patch. It did not, however, stop Instrinsa from being sold in the European Union. Fallacies poised to eternally discredit FSD notwithstanding, very few could stand in the way of the monstrously indomitable spirit of pharmaceutical companies. Like Hite's grand manifesto, much of drug research posit that desire and pleasure are like a switch within an autonomous body. I raised my hand to ask Dr. Hite about women who were unable to experience orgasm yet live happy and fulfilled lives, to which she struggled to offer a coherent answer other than there are no two ways about how important sexual satisfaction through an orgasm is.

Suffice to say, I felt equally dejected by her response and the outcome in Canner's thought-provoking film as the mystery of female sexuality is thrown further into abyss. How helpful is the medicalisation of perfect sexuality when desire, pleasure, and fantasy are made to fit a disease model, a model designed to reinforce crude normal/abnormal typologies? Yet we are besotted by medical science but unaware of its cultural and moral underpinnings that are adept at demonising “bad” bodies. Canner's film peels away much of the objectivity purported by pharmaceutical science, sexology, and medicine, and invites us to reassess the social values of health and happiness in radically new ways.

Written by: Alicia Izharuddin, March 9th 2011

Going Down: The Official Guide to Cunnilingus

admin — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 18:00:00 +0000

Directed by Carol Queen

Good Releasing

Dr. Carol Queen may be a noted sex educator and renowned for her ability to openly address the subject and raise awareness of healthy, pleasurable sexual relations for us all, but she’s a little over-the-top in this video. Displaying slightly better production quality than a basement porn or self-made flick, Queen explains in appropriate detail the elements of desire and orgasm through cunnilingus. Once that mission is accomplished, it’s arguable that this video’s audience is those viewers with some sexual inhibitions, or who are just delving into a comfortable space to talk about new sexual experiences with their partner. More experienced connoisseurs of sexual practices might have a giggle at again seeing the labia pillow, for example.

To the video’s credit, a variety of relationships are portrayed, though each scene is of someone performing oral sex on a woman. Different ethnicities and sexual relationships are presented, making the video lesbian-friendly and less heterocentric. Also to its credit, many scenes of cunnilingus last quite some time—a good example to demonstrate to a partner who is new to oral sex to help them recognize that this stimulation can take different amounts of time in women to result in orgasm or pleasure.

It is disappointing, however, that the variety in body types is simply a range of hair color, tattoos, and piercings rather than significant differences in sizes or even shaved or unshaved vaginas. Though the video purports to use “regular people” as actors, research reveals that a few of the characters performing as a couple learning about their sexuality are actually erotic film stars of note.

The video does weave instructional and frank conversation with long segments of images and action; for those interested in simply the erotic viewing of the lesson, there is no voice over on the scenes. This is perhaps a good video for sexual beginners, or for a couple new to one another to break the ice. Groundbreaking in its filmmaking or lessons this video is not, though it is valuable as a safe, healthy expression of sexuality.

Written by: Dr. Julie E. Ferris, July 29th 2010

Orgasmic Birth

admin — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 10:59:00 +0000

Directed by Debra Pascali-Bonaro

As an aspiring doula and having grown up with a mother who was a licensed midwife, I have seen a myriad of birth videos. I would honestly say, however, that Orgasmic Birth is the best and most enjoyable birth video I have ever seen.

The overall purpose of the film is to encourage women to view birth as an organic process in which they are able to exercise complete control. Stories of several couples are presented to provide proof that this is indeed a possibility. Orgasmic Birth does a wonderful job of including stories and labor experiences that are as intriguing as the title.

The first couple we meet is having their baby in their backyard. In the post-labor interview the father explains how much he enjoyed telling his friends that his baby was born “On the deck, 3:00 p.m., on a Sunday.” I was instantly intrigued.

Although the birth scenes in the film were idealized in that they happened in pleasant circumstances (imagine that), I appreciated that the filmmakers did not hide the reality of the process; it can often be long and, yes, painful. Despite these dynamics, birth is something that most women are capable of.

By this point you are perhaps wondering about the orgasmic connection to the film. While I do not want to ruin any of the particularly climatic portions, I assure you that the title is not just for shock value (as some people I have spoken to have assumed). The professionals in the film tastefully describe the manner in which birth is simply a part of a woman’s sexual life. There is more to this than mere theory; women experience the highest levels of oxytocin during labor, and as a result, twenty percent of women have an orgasm sometime during the birth process.

The film does an extraordinary job providing an alternative perspective to the traditional view of birth in the United States and does emphasize natural home births. However, this is done in a very nonjudgmental way, which is evidenced by the variety of birth professionals in the film, including some hospital practitioners.

As is common in current birth videos and literature, the issue of cesarean sections was thoroughly explored in the film. This is done not so much to criticize specific practitioners or women who have had the procedure, but to promote the empowering ideology on which the film is based. The information given is also clearly meant to educate first time parents, and I found it valuable.

Orgasmic Birth is a groundbreaking film exploring that is sure to not only change the way birth is portrayed in educational films, but also the experience of expectant parents who have the opportunity to view it.

Written by: Janice Formichella, April 10th 2009