Ditz

Issue date: 2/2/09 Section: Vanities

Disclaimer: The informants mentioned in this article are anonymous due to the personal nature of the topic. Most accounts come from private conversations and all informants are heterosexual and therefore can only reflect heterosexual experiences.

Think about sex for a minute. What comes to mind? Let me guess: you see a man and a woman, a penis penetrating a vagina. Sex "officially" begins with penetration and ends when the man ejaculates and pulls out. Anything that comes before isn't considered sex, but merely foreplay, right? This is the sexual script we are introduced to through discourse*-either written or spoken forms of communication. Somewhere within this script, the woman is expected to have an orgasm - specifically, a vaginal orgasm. Many popular sources of discourse like television, magazines, and even Sigmund Freud, tell us that a vaginal orgasm is possible and, in fact, desirable. If a woman is not able to orgasm during penile-vaginal intercourse, she consults these magazines or websites to find solutions - only to find that the advice they provide leads to nothing more than frustration. Is something wrong with her? Let's stop and examine these sources of discourse with a critical lens, examine why certain discourses have been hidden from us, and most importantly, understand that regardless of whether a woman thinks she is able to have a vaginal orgasm, nothing is wrong with her!

*Note: When referring to discourse, I am making a reference to Michel Foucault's notion of discourse and his critique that the discursive explosion during the sexual revolution has subjugated sexuality more than before.


Statistics: Vaginal Orgasms and the "G-Spot" Controversy

The first well-known survey of female vaginal orgasm was done by Shere Hite in 1981; known as the Hite Report. It revealed that 26% of the 3,000 women who participated in the study experienced orgasm regularly during vaginal intercourse, without other sources of stimulation. A more recent poll done by Glamour magazine in October 2000 with 1,500 women indicated that 28% of women achieved an orgasm from intercourse alone, which shows similar results as the Hite Report. Elisabeth Lloyd, a professor at Indiana University and author of The Case of the Female Orgasm, asserts that only 20-25% of women have had vaginal orgasms during intercourse.

Some medical experts as well as popular media outlets claim that vaginal orgasms are due to G-Spot stimulation by the penis, but the existence and location of the G-Spot have been heavily debated. Some claim vaginal orgasms are due to stimulation to the internal structures of the clitoris (discussed later in this article). In a study released in February of 2008, Doctor Emmanuele Jannini at the University of L'Aquila in Italy stated that he was able to locate the G-Spot using an ultrasound and discovered that the nine women who experienced vaginal orgasms in his study had thicker tissue between the vagina and the urethra compared to the 11 women who could not reach a vaginal orgasm. He concluded that some women might not have a G-Spot. Regardless of who is right about the G-Spot, it does not change the fact that, on average, studies show that eight out of 10 women cannot achieve vaginal orgasms. Why, then, do we hold the expectation that most women should be able to achieve orgasms through heterosexual intercourse alone?


The Medicalization of Sexuality: The Human Sexual Response Cycle

The field of medicine turns many aspects of life into technical, scientific issues, including sexuality. William Masters and Virginia E. Johnson's high-profile study of the Human Sexual Response Cycle (HSRC) in 1966 was one of such initiatives to distinguish normal sexuality from abnormal. The cycle includes four distinct physiological phases: excitement, plateau (prior to orgasm), orgasm and resolution. Although it was informative and revolutionary for its time, this study and source of discourse created two distinct categories: those who fit into the HSRC categories, and those who do not. We're either considered normal, or abnormal. So what happens to the 'abnormal' people who do not experience sex in these four stages?

Not to worry! Other scientists and doctors have stepped up to further define us. You could have one of the nine sexual dysfunctions/disorders identified by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, (DSM-IV-TR): hypoactive sexual desire disorder, sexual aversion disorder, female sexual arousal disorder, female orgasmic disorder, male orgasmic disorder, erectile dysfunction, premature ejaculation, vaginismus and dyspareunia. Here is the critical issue with the medical discourse: when doctors invent categories (normal/abnormal sexuality), they put a whole group of people into a box, putting them in a position to be unjustly stigmatized. What about people who can have multiple orgasms that do not fit neatly in the "resolution phase"? Are they abnormal, too? Everyone in the 'abnormal' category can be potentially stigmatized, particularly women who cannot achieve vaginal orgasms, and these 'abnormalities' are labeled as mental disorders.


Identifying Phallocentrism in Discourse: A Lesson in Human Anatomy

Media Credit: www.the-clitoris.com

Above is a more traditional and typical illustration and diagram of female genitalia. Notice how small the clitoris is portrayed, as a tiny dot that is barely visible - perhaps it is not surprising that some women do not know where their clitoris is located and how stimulation of the clitoris can provide sexual pleasure and a clitoral orgasm. We shouldn't be quick to judge these women as 'ignorant' or 'frigid,' as society often does, because information about the clitoris has been suppressed or framed in a way that privileges the penis while describing the clitoris as small and insignificant. If you had an adequate sex education or a biology class, then you might understand that the penis and the clitoris are homologous structures made from similar tissues.

However, the average length of the penis is six inches, while the average length of the clitoris is four inches. Did you know that doctors, upon birth, decide if a baby's clitoris is 'too large,' or if the penis is 'too small'? Oftentimes, they surgically alter the baby's genitals to fit our normal idea of human genitalia. Some babies even receive such genital reconstructive surgeries without consent from the parents.

Wait, what? Did I say the average length of the clitoris is four inches? Could you tell this from the diagram depicted above? Why don't we look at the second diagram below.

Media Credit: www.media-2.web.britannica.com

Media Credit: www.media-2.web.britannica.com

These diagrams are from Britannica Online - please compare the length of the penis to the length of the clitoris. Where is the clitoris? Isn't it supposed to be four inches? I can't even see it. I am confused. Next diagram please!

Media Credit: www.upload.wikimedia.org

Here we have a less familiar, yet more accurate depiction of the clitoris. The darker red figure-yes, the entire thing-is the clitoris. Until last semester, I would not have known this, and I think many women would be similarly surprised. The next diagram clearly illustrates phallocentrism in discourse.

Media Credit: www.the-clitoris.com

This is from the book Clinical Anatomy Principles (1996). Notice that the diagram does show the entire structure of the clitoris on the bottom right in diagram D, highlighted in pink. However, look at the top two diagrams, A being the penis and B being the clitoris. Remember how I mentioned that the average penis length is six inches while the average clitoris length is four inches? Well, look at the diagram. Does that look like a four-to-six inch comparison to you?!

The proportion depicted is completely misleading. Excuse my outburst, but that was my reaction when I realized I was misinformed for the last 21 years. Phallocentrism was a term coined by Jacques Derrida to describe the privileging of masculinity (the phallus) in the construction of meaning. Clearly, the diagram is phallocentric and the fact that diagrams such as this one are new and unfamiliar to us shows that someone does not want us to know that the clitoris is in fact larger than commonly assumed.

Medical discourse, encyclopedias and diagrams are not the only sources of phallocentric discourse. Movies, magazines, television and other media outlets are another important source. Think back to any PG-13 sex scene and try to recall when the scene ended-most likely it was when the male reached orgasm, not the female. I encourage you to critically examine sources of discourse and to not only discover phallocentrism, but also discover what kinds of messages, implicit and explicit, the discourse is trying to tell you about sexuality with this focus on the phallus.


Pornography and the Rise of Vaginal Reconstructive Surgery

I cannot conclude this article without mentioning the impacts and effects of pornography on the phallocentrism plaguing our society. Although I was unable to find an empirical study that surveys the proportion of female orgasms versus male orgasms in pornographic film, I am going to rely on the knowledge and experiences of my informants. One male informant told me that, in his experience, it is rare to see a pornographic film show a female orgasm. Furthermore, he points out that when the female does orgasm on-screen, rarely does the orgasm ever appear "real." This "fake" orgasm from vaginal sex demonstrated in pornography only increases expectations for both men and women in sexual encounters. This is especially true for first-time partners who haven't yet explored what pleases one another. In a study done by The-Clitoris.com, only 15% of the 461 women surveyed experienced vaginal orgasm during their first experience of vaginal intercourse. In a separate study, female respondents were asked if they had ever faked an orgasm, and if so, why. Of the 435 respondents, 55% of women stated that they had faked an orgasm in the past, for a variety of reasons. These ranged from "I was no longer sexually aroused" to "My partner expects me to."

Similar to other sources of discourse, pornography privileges male pleasure over female pleasure. Furthermore, with exceptions of special fetishisms, pornography's depiction of sex is homogenous and fits the HSRC model. If this is our only visual of 'real' sex, then it limits our experience. Without such a visual/discourse of sex, imagine the possibilities.

Over time, the proliferation of pornographic images has changed our perception of attractive verses unattractive female genitalia. Cosmetic surgeries such as vaginal rejuvenation, vaginoplasty, labiaplasty and hymenoplasty have become quite popular. Doctors often justify these surgeries by saying that women come to them, feeling self-conscious about their excessively large labia and wanting their genitals to resemble those of porn stars. Another reason, according to the surgical websites advertising these procedures, is that a woman's vagina becomes "loose" and sex becomes "less pleasurable" after giving birth; these cosmetic surgeries promise to "tighten" the vagina. Here's a question for you, doctor-who does sex become "less pleasurable" for?

Pornography has a negative impact because it limits our definition of sex; by watching it, our brains develop a schema/sexual script of how sex is supposed to happen and it becomes harder to understand or imagine sex outside this schema. Furthermore, pornography is another source of phallocentrism because it privileges male pleasure by emphasizing male orgasms. This is evidenced by the popular status of "cum-shots," a common term which describes when a porn film concludes with a shot of the male penis ejaculating, often into a woman's mouth or onto her body.

If this is the only representation of sex that we have, what does this mean for female pleasure? The very concept is left ignored, relegated to the status of insignificant. After all, if we are assuming women can orgasm through vaginal stimulation, no special attention is needed to achieve female pleasure. Phallocentrism in discourse only perpetuates this ignorance, and it must be uncovered and resisted in order to shatter the myth of the vaginal orgasm.

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