Sexologists Can Infer A Woman’s History of Orgasms By The Way She Walks

Amazing how “expert sexologist” Stuart Brody can inject so much subjective propaganda into a “scientific” article. His conclusions read like a man’s wistful yearning for the good old days when men controlled women’s sexuality.

The discerning observer may infer women’s experience of vaginal orgasm from a gait that comprises fluidity, energy, sensuality, freedom, and absence of both flaccid and locked muscles.

The absence of flaccid or locked muscles would in and of itself produce a fluid, energetic, free walk, which Brody is projecting as sensual. What he views as sensual might be exuberance completely unrelated to sex. The presence of flaccid or locked muscles might indicate medical problems, such as nerve or joint impairments. Neither would indicate where a woman experiences orgasm or even if she experiences orgasm.

“Such confidence might also be related to the relationship(s) that a woman has had, given the finding that specifically penile-vaginal orgasm is associated with indices of better relationship quality.”

Such confidence might also arise because she is happy about her career, enjoying her day, or contemplating an upcoming vacation. Perhaps no one told Brody that women who aren’t in relationships can be as confident as women in relationships.

“This could reflect the free, unblocked energetic flow from the legs through the pelvis to the spine.”

Undoubtedly it does. Is Brody arguing that this energy is the cause of vaginal orgasms? If so, why does she need a man? If it is the result of vaginal orgasms, why does the energy radiate upwards toward the vaginal area rather than outward from the vaginal area?

“Blocked pelvic muscles, which might be associated with psychosexual impairments, could both impair vaginal orgasmic response and gait.”

If pelvic muscles are blocked, it is just as likely (if not more so) to be caused by spinal, hip or other injuries. Would anyone assume that a man who exhibits difficulty walking be suffering from psychosexual impairments? Would they not first assume he’d suffered an injury or birth defect that caused the difficulty?

The Journal of Sexual Medicine, which published this article, brags it “…is now also the official journal of the International Society for the Study of Women’s Sexual Health!”

This is more alarming than the study itself. If this journal presumes to analyze women’s sexual health and views its role as teaching doctors and therapists, women need to be wary. Junk science has plagued our medical and sexual well-being for centuries. The tradition in medical research is to rely upon male researchers and to have every study interpreted through male physiology and patriarchal definitions.

Because women’s physiology is distinctly different than men’s, women have suffered in their medical care. Women die from heart attacks at a greater rate than men because their symptoms are different and, until recently, were not taught in medical schools. Even breast cancer research was carried out using only men as subjects until Congress passed laws that demanded women be included in all research that affected them. Articles such as this are bound to adversely affect women too.

“Women with sexual dysfunction should be treated in a multidiscliplinary manner,” concludes Dr. Irwin Goldstein, editor in chief of the journal.

And so we come to the bottom line. By declaring women’s natural clitoral orgasm as unhealthy and dysfunctional, women can be shamed into lining the coffers of those who deem themselves ready to “cure” the “problem.”

It also conveniently shifts responsibility from her lover to herself. Dr. Kinsey, in his infamous report, stated there are no frigid women; there are only inept men. Brody’s claims rebuke that view. If she fails to orgasm via pure penile penetration, she’s dysfunctional rather than he’s inept.

Jezebel zeroed in on a major flaw in this thesis:

“But does that mean penis contact alone, or was additional clitoral stimulation also allowed? Since only about 7 percent of women can always come from P-in-the-V alone, the question is an important one…no data on whether in those P-V orgasms included vibrator or finger assistance. Do sexologists not get that this is important? Apparently not..”

Some sexual positions provide clitoral stimulation during penile penetration. Others do not. Without specifying which sexual positions were used, their results are worthless. To adequately prove their point, they would have to exclude every position that could stimulate the clitoris, even inadvertently. They would also have to insure the female slubjects knew how to isolate a “pure” vaginal orgasm from a clitoral orgasm. This is not easy and is probably impossible. The clitoris has two deep roots, one on each side of the vagina. It’s complex system of nerves are intricately linked to nerves in the vagina, including nerves that are stimulated when the g-spot is rubbed. It is unlikely that any orgasm that occurs, even during penile penetration, would not be the result of clitoral stimulation via its nervous system.

Their sample size presents problems too. Of the sixteen women they observed, they misidentified two as vaginally orgasmic. Given how few women they observed, this is a high error rate. Their denial of their erroneous judgement borders on comedy: “it might be that the women have the capacity for vaginal orgasm, but have not yet had sufficient experience or met a man of sufficient quality to induce vaginal orgasm.”

Isn’t that the common “every man” excuse? If only she met the right lover (meaning themselves), she wouldn’t be lesbian or frigid. Of course, the opposite excuse – if she turns him down – is that she’s obviously lesbian or frigid.

In 1970, Anne Koedt addressed the problem of female sexuality being viewed exclusively through a male lens.

Whenever female orgasm and frigidity are 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.

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….Frank S. Caprio, a contemporary follower of these ideas, states:

“…whenever a woman is incapable of achieving an orgasm via coitus, provided the husband is an adequate partner, and prefers clitoral stimulation to any other form of sexual activity, she can be regarded as suffering from frigidity and requires psychiatric assistance.” (The Sexually Adequate Female, p.64.)

Comparing Brody’s conclusions to Freud’s, it becomes apparent there isn’t a sliver of new ideas between them. Per Brody, women who can orgasm vaginally are less likely to use “immature psychological defense mechanisms….It is possible that women who are focused on clitoral masturbatory stimulation are less attuned to the more interactive and neurophysiologically more complex behavior of penile-vaginal intercourse”

Which is a fancy way of saying a woman who pleasures herself doesn’t need a man to do it for her. Under the guise of scientific research, Brody, like Freud and Caprio, injected his own prejudices against a sexually-independent woman into their conclusions.

Koedt’s article goes on to explain why the clitoris is the primary location of female orgasm:

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 frigidity 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 children 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. The Clitoris is a small equivalent of the penis, except for the fact that the urethra does not go through it as in the man’s penis. Its erection is similar to the male erection, and the head of the clitoris has the same type of structure and function as the head of the penis.

C. Lombard Kelly, in Sexual Feeling in Married Men and Women, says:

“Regardless of what means of excitation is used to bring the individual to the state of sexual climax, the sensation is perceived by the genital corpuscles and is localized where they are situated: in the head of the clitoris or penis.” (Kelly, p.49.)

Shouldn’t an “expert sexologist” be aware of valid medical information that was available to feminists almost forty years ago? Do we really need our natural sexual responses encoded as “sexual dysfunction” if we choose to pleasure ourselves, to be pleasured by another woman or to be pleasured in ways the penis cannot provide? We need to file this one under junk science.

Sister article: The religious agenda behind Brody’s studies

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 30th, 2008 at 7:08 pm and is filed under Body Parts, Junk Science, Research, Sexual politics, Women. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.