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ANNE KOEDT “The Myth of the Vaginal Orgasm” Feminism in Our Time (1994) In his 1910 work, Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality, Sigmund Freud postulated that females have two distinct types of orgasms-a clitoral and a vaginal-and that the latter was preferable to, more mature than, the former. Well-adjusted women, he indicated, repressed clitoral sexuality at puberty and thereafter experienced vaginal orgasms exclusively. Although Freud offered no proof of this theory, it was spread by his disciples and by Freudian popularizers over the next few decades. Those women who admitted that they did not experience the approved (vaginal) sexual response were often labeled frigid neurotics who were denying their femininity and were in need of psychiatric assistance. Many women suffered deeply from a presumed failure to accept their feminine nature. In 1968, feminist activist, artist, and writer Anne Koedt wrote a four-paragraph statement titled “The Myth of the Vaginal Orgasm: A Thesis for Future Study” and published it in the mimeographed feminist paper Notes from the First Year. The brief article had a stunning impact on readers. The vaginal orgasm, Koedt said, does not exist; the clitoris is the center .of female sexual pleasure. It was not so much that her message was news, for Koedt was essentially reiterating the widely publicized research findings of Masters and Johnson, which had been published two years earlier.! It was just that the full implications of these discoveries had yet to be assimilated by women. Even before Masters and Johnson, doubts about Freud’s theory had surfaced. The pioneer of sex research, Alfred Kinsey, ‘William H. Masters and Virginia E. Johnson, Human Sexual Response (Boston: Little, Brown, 1966). [334] reported as early as 1953 that “the vaginal walls are quite insensitive,” and he bluntly termed the vaginal orgasm a “biologic impossibility. Earlier still, Ruth Herschberger wrote in her delightful and amusing feminist book, Adam’s Rib, “In the symphony of love, the lost chord is a small organ lying somewhat north of the vagina.”3 But such was the prestige of Freud that most people had simply accepted the reality of the vaginal orgasm. For example, one of Doris Lessing’s “free women” in The Golden Notebook (1962) speaks of the “real”-that is, vaginal-orgasm as opposed to “the sharp violence of the exterior orgasm.” And in Mary McCarthy’s The Group (1963), the character Dotty remarks that a clitoral climax “seemed to her almost perverted.” Anne Koedt expanded her essay for Notes from the Second Year (1970). She analyzed the social context in which a false, harmful account of female sexual development was produced and perpetuated over decades. Why did men maintain the fiction? Koedt asked. Why did women accept it? How would the truth affect the future of male-female sexual relations? “Koedt’s classic essay,” declared the authors of a 1986 book on changing sexual practices, “was no less than a declaration of sexual independence. “4 The following selection is excerpted from Notes from the Second Year. ‘Alfred Kinsey, et aI., Sexual Behavior in the Human Female (Philadelphia: Saunders, 1953), pp. 580, 584. ‘Ruth Herschberger, Adam’s Rib (1948; reprint, New York: Harper & Row, 1970), p. 30. 4Barbara Ehrenreich, Elizabeth Hess, and Gloria Jacobs, Re-making Love (Garden City, NY: Anchor PresslDoubleday, 1986), p. 70. [335] WHENEVER FEMALE ORGASM AND FRIGIDITY IS DISCUSSED, a false distinction is made between the vaginal and the clitoral orgasm. Frigidity has generally been defined by men as the failure of women to have vaginal orgasms. Actually the vagina is not a highly sensitive area and is not constructed to achieve orgasm. It is the clitoris which is the center of sexual sensitivity and which is the female equivalent of the penis. I think this explains a great many things: First of all, the fact that the so-called<b> frigidity </font></b>rate among women is phenomenally high. Rather than tracing female<b> frigidity </font></b>to the false assumptions about female anatomy, our “experts” have declared<b> frigidity </font></b>a psychological problem of women. Those women who complained about it were recommended psychiatrists, so that they might discover their “problem”–diagnosed generally as a failure to adjust to their role as women. The facts of female anatomy and sexual response tell a different story. There is only one area for sexual climax, although there are many areas for sexual arousal; that area is the clitoris. All orgasms are extensions of sensation from this area. Since the clitoris is not necessarily stimulated sufficiently in the conventional sexual positions, we are left “frigid.” Aside from physical stimulation, which is the common cause of orgasm for most people, there is also stimulation through primarily mental processes. Some women, for example, may achieve orgasm thorugh sexual fantasies or through fetishes. However, while the stimulation may be psychological, the orgasm manifests itself physically. Thus, while the cause is psychological, the effect is still physical, and the orgasm necessarily takes place in the sexual organ equipped for sexual climax-the clitoris. The orgasm experience may also differ in degree of intensity-some more localized, and some more diffuse and sensitive. But they are all clitoral orgasms. All this leads to some interesting questions about conventional sex and our role in it. Men have orgasms essentially by friction with the vagina, not the clitoral area, which is external and not able to cause friction the way penetration does. Women [336] have thus been defined sexually in terms of what pleases men; our own biology has not been properly analyzed.. Instead, we are fed the myth of the liberated woman and her vaginal orgasm-an orgasm which in fact does not exist. What we must do is redefine our sexuality. We must discard the “normal” concepts of sex and create new guidelines which take into account mutual sexual enjoyment. While the idea of mutual enjoyment is liberally applauded in marriage manuals, it is not followed to its logical conclusion. We must begin to demand that if certain sexual positions now defined as “standard” are not mutually conducive to orgasm, they no longer be defined as standard. New techniques must be used or devised which transform this particular aspect of our current sexual exploitation. Freud–A Father of the Vaginal Orgasm FREUD CONTENDED THAT THE CLITORAL ORGASM was adolescent, and that upon puberty, when women began having intercourse with men, women should transfer the center of orgasm to the vagina. The vagina, it was assumed, was able to produce a parallel, but more mature, orgasm than the clitoris. Much work was done to elaborate on this theory, but little was done to challenge the basic assumptions. . . . Once having laid down the law about the nature of our sexuality, Freud not so strangely discovered a tremendous problem of<b> frigidity </font></b>in women. His recommended cure for a woman who was frigid was psychiatric care. She was suffering from failure to mentally adjust to her “natural” role as a woman. Frank S. Caprio, a contemporary follower of these ideas, states: “. . . whenever a woman is incapable of achieving an orgasm via coitus, provided her husband is an adequate partner, and prefers clitoral stimulation to any other form of sexual activity, she can be regarded as suffering from<b> frigidity </font></b>and requires psychiatric assistance. The explanation given was that women were envi[337]ous of men-”renunciation of womanhood.” Thus it was diagnosed as an anti-male phenomenon. It is important to emphasize that Freud did not base his theory upon a study of woman’s anatomy, but rather upon his assumptions of woman as an inferior appendage to man, and her consequent social and psychological role. In their attempts to deal with the ensuing problem of mass frigidity, Freudians created elaborate mental gymnastics. Marie Bonaparte, in Female Sexuality, goes so far as to suggest surgery to help women back on their rightful path. Having discovered a strange connection between the nonfrigid woman and the location of the clitoris near the vagina, it then occurred to me that where, in certain women, this gap was excessive, and clitoridal fixation obdurate, a clitoridalvaginal reconciliation might be effected by surgical means, which would then benefit the normal erotic function. Professor Halban, of Vienna, as much a biologist as surgeon, became interested in the problem and worked out a simple operative technique. In this, the suspensory ligament of the clitoris was severed and the clitoris secured to the underlying structures, thus fixing it in a lower position, with eventual reduction of the labia minora. But the severest damage was not in the area of surgery, where Freudians ran around absurdly trying to change female anatomy to fit their basic assumptions. The worst damage was done to the mental health of women, who either suffered silently with self-blame, or flocked to the psychiatrists looking desperately for the hidden and terrible repression that kept from them their vaginal destiny. Lack of Evidence? ONE MAY PERHAPS AT FIRST CLAIM that these are unknown and unexplored areas, but upon closer examination this is certainly not true today, nor was it true even in the past. For example, men have known that women suffered from<b> frigidity </font></b>often during intercourse. So the problem was there. Also, there is much specific evidence. Men knew that the clitoris was and is the essential organ for masturbation, whether in or adult women. So obviously women made it clear where they thought their sexuality was located. Men also seem suspiciously aware of the clitoral powers during “foreplay,” when they want to arouse women and produce the necessary lubrication for penetration. Foreplay is a concept created for male purposes, but works to the disadvantage of many women, since as soon as the woman is aroused the man changes to vaginal stimulation, leaving her both aroused and unsatisfied. It has also been known that women need no anesthesia inside the vagina during surgery, thus pointing to the fact that the vagina is in fact not a highly sensitive area. . Today, with extensive knowledge of anatomy, with Kinsey, and Masters and Johnson, to mention just a few sources, there is no ignorance on the subject. There are, however, social reasons why this knowledge has not been popularized. We are living in a male society which has not sought change in women’s role. . . . Women Who Say They Have Vaginal Orgasms Confusion Because of the lack of knowledge of their own anatomy, some women accept the idea that an orgasm felt during “normal” intercourse was vaginally caused. This confusion is caused by a combination of two factors. One, failing to locate the center of the orgasm, and two, by a desire to fit her experience to the [339] male-defined idea of sexual normalcy. Considering that women know little about their anatomy, it is easy to be confused. Deception The vast majority of women who pretend vaginal orgasm to their men are faking it to, as Ti-Grace Atkinson says, “get the job.” In a new best-selling Danish book, I Accuse (my own translation), Mette Ejlersen specifically deals with this common problem, which she calls the “sex comedy.” This comedy has many causes. First of all, the man brings a great deal of pressure to bear on the woman, because he considers his ability as a lover at stake. So as not to offend his ego, the woman will comply with the prescribed role and go through simulated ecstasy. In some of the other Danish women mentioned, women who were left frigid were turned off to sex, and pretended vaginal orgasm to hurry up the sex act. Others admitted that they had faked vaginal orgasm to catch a man. In one case, the woman pretended vaginal orgasm to get him to leave his first wife, who admitted being vaginally frigid. Later she was forced to continue the deception, since ob\vously she couldn’t tell him to stimulate her clitorally. Many more women were simply afraid to establish their right to equal enjoyment, seeing the sexual act as being primarily for the man’s benefit, and any pleasure that the woman got as an added extra. Other women, with just enough ego to reject the man’s idea that they needed psychiatric care, refused to admit their<b> frigidity. </font></b>They wouldn’t accept self-blame, but they didn’t know how to solve the problem, not knowing the physiological facts about themselves. So they were left in a peculiar limbo. Again, perhaps one of the most infuriating and damaging results of this whole charade has been that women who were perfectly healthy sexually were taught that they were not. So in addition to being sexually deprived, these women were told to blame themselves, when they deserved no blame. Looking for a cure to a problem that has none can lead a woman on an endless path of self-hatred and insecurity. For she is told by her analyst [340] that not even in her one role allowed in a male society-the role of a woman-is she successful. She is put on the defensive, with phony data as evidence that she better try to be even more feminine, think more feminine, and reject her envy of men. That is, shuffle even harder, baby. Why Men Maintain the Myth 1. Sexual Penetration Is Preferred The best stimulant for the penis is the woman’s vagina. It supplies the necessary friction and lubrication. From a strictly technical point of view this position offers the best physical conditions, even though the man may try other positions for variation. 2. The Invisible Woman One of the elements of male chauvinism is the refusal or inability to see women as, total, separate human beings. Rather, men have chosen to define women only in terms of how they benefited men’s lives Sexually, a woman was not seen as an individual wanting to share equally in the sexual act, any more than she was seen as a person with independent desires when she did anything else in society. Thus, it was easy to make up what was convenient about women; for on top of that, society has been a function of male interests, and women were not organized to form even a vocal opposition to the male experts. 3. The Penis as Epitome of Masculinity . . . To the extent that men try to rationalize and justify male superiority through physical differentiation, masculinity may be symbolized by being the most muscular, the most hairy, the deepest voice, and the biggest penis. Women, on the other hand, [341] are approved of (i.e., called feminine) if they are weak, petite, shave their legs, have high soft voices, and no penis. Since the clitoris is almost identical to the penis, one finds a great deal of evidence of men in various societies trying to either ignore the clitoris and emphasize the vagina (as did Freud), or, as in some places. . . , actually performing clitoridectomy. Freud saw this ancient and still practiced custom as a way of further “feminizing” the female by removing this cardinal vestige of her masculinity. . . . 4. Sexually Expendable Male Men fear that they will become sexually expendable if the clitoris is substituted for the vagina as the center of pleasure for women. Actually this has a great deal of validity if one considers only the anatomy. The position of the penis inside the vagina, while perfect for reproduction, does not necessarily stimulate an orgasm in women because the clitoris is located externally and higher up. Women must rely upon indirect stimulation in the “normal” position. Lesbian sexuality could make an excellent case, based upon anatomical data, for the extinction of the male organ. Albert Ellis says something to the effect that. a man without a penis can make a woman an excellent lover. Considering that the vagina is very desirable from a man’s point of view, purely on physical grounds, one begins to see the dilemma for men. And it forces us as well to discard many “physical” arguments explaining why women go to bed with men. What. is left, it seems to me, are primarily psychological reasons why women select men at the exclusion of women as sexual partners. 5. Control of Women One reason given to explain the. . . practice of clitoridectomy is that it will keep the women from straying. By removing the sexual organ capable of orgasm, it must be assumed that her sexual drive will diminish. Considering how men look upon their [342] women as property, particularly in very backward nations, we should begin to consider a great deal more why it is not in the men’s interest to have women totally free sexually. The double standard, as practiced for example in Latin America, is set up to keep the woman as total property of the husband, while he is free to have affairs as he wishes. 6. Lesbianism and Bisexuality Aside from the strictly anatomical reasons why women might equally seek other women as lovers, there is a fear on men’s part that women will seek the company of other women on a full, human basis. The establishment of clitoral orgasm as fact would threaten the heterosexual institution. For it would indicate that sexual pleasure was obtainable from either men or women, thus making heterosexuality not an absolute, but an option. It would thus open up the whole question of human sexual relationships beyond the confines of the present male-female role system. |
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