Cunt (14 page)
Authors: Betty Dodson Inga Muscio
I’m setting my imagination free to roam here, but if I were a man, and had no
biological
idea what it was like to have such a complex orgasm mechanism as a cunt—with
so many
intricate, endless and fascinating possibilities for achieving pleasure—I’d be pretty
nervous making love to a woman. And I might find millions and billions of ways to
camouflage my nervousness, rather than be like Jesus and just humble myself.
Aristotle opted to obsessively devote his life to the creation of an elaborate belief
system based on total cuntfear, rather than simply face reality. That seems like pretty
nervous behavior to me. Ditto Sigmund Freud—the Rush Limbaugh our society actually
takes seriously.
You might as well throw pretty much all male politicians, military leaders, industrial
revolution kings, mafia dons, bankers, artists and executives in there too.
After all, if Rockefeller, for instance, knew how to please a woman, he’d hardly have
transferred so much nervous sexual energy to proving his virility—in the guise of
Standard Oil—to every woman, child and man on the planet.
In this culture we preserved the words, laws, codices, artwork, religions, music and
mergers of a bunch of nervous, insecure lovers. Evidently, there is no shortage of
them. Then we went and hailed them as Geniuses of Our Time. Men have gone to exorbitant
lengths to camouflage—rather than reckon with—their cuntfear for thousands of years.
The naked female form is idolized, obsessed over and blamed for any maltreatment it
meets. There is a veritable surplus of references that state how sinful, impossible,
miraculous or wrong it is for women to experience sexual pleasure.
Retarded male sexual power is expressed in maneuvers people have come to look upon
with unerring respect, such as warring, ruling or becoming heads of production companies
in Hollywood.
In offense to women who positively
refuse
to remain silent, some women are placed on pedestals in poses of righteousness for
holding our tongues (no pun intended) in religious, political, artistic, economic
and legal arenas. The women on the pedestals, then, provide a twofold service: a)
presenting physical evidence that men have no interest in holding us down, and b)
serving as a point of reference for other women who want to be “heard” in this society.
This isn’t to say there aren’t countless numbers of women fighting our hearts raw
in all of the aforementioned arenas. If we’re vocally pro-woman or speak in favor
of healthy human sexuality, our silencing (i.e., the end of our careers, à la the
brilliant, courageous, stunning Dr. Jocelyn Elders) is imminent.
Since we are invalidated for speaking our truth, or worse, mute from the get go, men
never face how amazing our cunts are, and further, never reckon with the infernal
jealousy they have that we can come in so many ways, so many times in succession.
We young women of Arabia recognized that the men of our land would never pursue social
change for our sex, that we would have to force change. As long as Saudi women accepted
their authority, men would rule. We surmised that it was the responsibility of each
individual woman to ferment desire for control of her life and other female lives
within her small circle. Our women are so beaten down by centuries of mistreatment
that our movement had to begin with an awakening of the spirit. (Sasson, 1992, 75-6)
Things
are
gonna change, and cuntlovin’ ladies all over the world
are
gonna make it happen. Just as soon as we accept the fact that our cunts are the Holiest
of Grails, the Hopefulest of Diamonds, the Goldenest of Medals.
Claire Cavanah is one of the owners of Toys in Babeland, a woman-positive sex paraphernalia/erotic
multi-media store with branches in Seattle, Washington, and New York City. I interviewed
her about women’s fears of our own sexuality:
A lot of straight men come into the store because their partners won’t come with them.
I guess a lot of women can’t imagine a place where there’s so much freedom and peace
involved with finding out what they want and then getting it. Getting what you want
sexually is a huge achievement, and it seems to frighten a lot of women. They’re afraid
that if they see how much fun and pleasure they can experience by incorporating a
vibrator or dildo into their sexual activities, they won’t need their partner anymore.
They’re afraid to be free. It seems many people have this weird desire to
settle.
It’s hard to keep growing, to constantly find out more. For some women, the desire
to grow stops even before they learn how to come.
Obstacles such as these would not exist in a society that required students to read
Audre Lorde’s “Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power” in high school.
The erotic is a measure between the beginnings of our sense of self and the chaos
of our strongest feelings. It is an internal sense of satisfaction to which, once
we have experienced it, we know we can aspire. For having experienced the fullness
of this depth of feeling and recognizing its power, in honor and self-respect we can
require no less of ourselves.
It is never easy to demand the most from ourselves, from our lives, from our work.
To go beyond the encouraged mediocrity of our society is to encourage excellence.
But giving in to the fear of feeling and working to capacity is a luxury only the
unintentional can afford, and the unintentional are those who do not wish to guide
their own destinies. (Lorde, 1984, 54)
Let’s, shall we, go ahead, drop all the bullshit and get down to the nitty-gritty
reality that you and your cunt are the Cuntlovin’ Rulers of Your Sexual Universe.
Because I have no idea what turns you on, what (if any) sexual hang-ups and/or fetishes
you may have, whether you come via penetration, clitoral stimulation, a G-spot massage
or by tickling your bellybutton at 1:18 p.m. with a redorangeyellow sunset rose in
full bloom, I’m gonna skip all the guesswork and go right to sources. You answer all
your own questions, make all your own guesses and explore your own sexual expression.
If you have a really hard time letting go of cultural mindsets you have learned about
sex, I highly suggest opening up a dialogue with your women friends or family members.
Find out what the women in your immediate community have been taught and how they
process and deal with negative shit. Refrain from focusing conversation on your
lover(s).
Keep everything real nice and personal.
I could underscore the point until profits from the feminine hygiene industry were
placed in a college fund for young women and
still
, I don’t think I’d do justice to precisely how
profoundly
exchanging stories, fantasies and problems with women has improved the quality of
my life.
I know of seven absolutely woman-positive sex stores in America. A woman-positive
sex store is
not
a porno shack with twenty-five-cent semen-encrusted peep booths in the back.
I’ve been in three of the seven: Toys in Babeland in Seattle, Good Vibrations in San
Francisco and It’s My Pleasure in Portland. All three are owned by women who are
fucken full
on
dedicated
to redressing sexual stereotypes that keep women down. The atmosphere in each of
these stores is: “Come on in and browse at your leisure, ask questions, take a vibrator
for a test drive in our private boudoir. Most importantly, enjoy yourself.” All three
are stocked with state-of-the-art sexual apparati, beautiful, informative and erotic
books, videos, calendars, comics, photo-journals. Every staff member is patient, sensitive
and totally helpful.
The women who work at these stores are hired for their ability to be fully supportive
to women who manage to shove aside their embarrassment and shame to ask, “Where the
fuck is my G-spot and why should I care?”
The five remaining stores are Eve’s Garden and Toys in Babeland in New York City,
A Woman’s Touch in Madison, Wisconsin, Ruby’s Pearl in Iowa City, Iowa, and Grand
Opening! in Brookline, Massachusetts. Claire Cavanah told me about these stores, and
since she and co-owner Rachel Venning are double-handedly responsible for providing
many, many women in their community with information and the means to come our brains
out, even though I haven’t physically investigated these stores, I’m willing to wager
they’re equally cool.
That covers the Midwest and the east and west coasts. Pile all your girlfriends into
a car and barrel ass to one of these stores. Plan a trip! Whee! Spend the weekend
contemplating, discovering and achieving your orgasmic potential.
What’s that you say? You live in Kansas? You’re tied to a job in Tennessee? Well,
these ladies got you covered, too. All six stores have mail-order catalogs and/or
websites.
The women who work at these stores are warriors in their own right, and have dedicated
themselves to freeing women’s sexual, erotic nature.
They love you!
They want you to come and come and come.
Write or call and order a catalog. Phone numbers and addresses are listed in the Cuntlovin’
Guide to the Universe at the end of this book.
A number of exceptional books and videos are available. They teach everything you
could ever want to know about vibrators, dildos, G-spots, female ejaculation, eroticism,
Kegel exercises, Ben Wa balls, butt plugs, S&M, pubococcygeal muscles, the clitoris,
female erogenous zones and the supportive culture of expressive female sexuality.
Some of the more immutably germane include:
A New View of a Woman’s Body: A Fully Illustrated Guide
[ISBN 0-9629945-0-2], by the Federation of Feminist Women’s Health Centers, illustrated
by Suzann Gage, photos by Sylvia Morales, Feminist Health Press, 8240 Santa Monica
Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90046, (323) 650-1508. This book is
invaluable.
Did you hear me?
Priceless. You must have this book.
It includes not only a complete list of every woman-positive health center in the
country, an awesome glossary, a reference bibliography and breathtaking illustrations
and photographs, but it covers every aspect of cunt care imaginable. Explicit descriptions
of self-exams, reproductive anatomy, analytic tests, common infections, birth control,
menstrual extraction, abortion care, menopause, surgical procedures, home remedies,
female ejaculation, the clitoris and universal health problems of women. The full-color
photo spread of variations in the cervix throughout a woman’s monthly cycle alone
are worth the mere twenty buck investment.
Buy this book.
Femalia
[ISBN 0-940208-15-6], edited by Joani Blank, Down There Press, 938 Howard St. #101,
San Francisco, CA 94103, (800) BUY-VIBE, goodvibes.com/dtp/dtp.html.
Femalia
is a collection of full-color cunt photographs. The ages and races of the subjects
vary tremendously. “[O]utside of ‘men’s’ magazines [writes Ms. Blank], where the women’s
genitals were often powdered and half-hidden, and the images often modified and airbrushed,
women had no resource for photographic representations of vulvas.... Some might wonder
how such knowledge benefits women. My many years of doing sex therapy and leading
women’s sexuality workshops have taught me that without such information a majority
of women believe to this day that, in one way or another, their genitals are not quite
normal.”
The Playbook for Women About Sex
[ISBN 0-940208-04-0], by Joani Blank, Down There Press (See address above). “This
is a sexual self-awareness book for every woman.” Remember those spelling workbooks
from the fourth grade? Well, this is very similar, but instead of spelling, you learn
about what you want sexually, who you are, what does and does not turn you on. It’s
very candid, very fun and highly insightful.
Down There Press and Good Vibrations are sisters, both founded by the seemingly tireless
sexuality valkyrie Joani Blank. You can get a free Good Vibrations store catalog (which
contains Down There Press’s books as well as videos, toys and other sexuality products)
by calling their toll-free number (above) or emailing [email protected].
Herotica: A Collection of Women’s Erotic Fiction.
Volume I [ISBN 0-940208-11-3], Volume VI [ISBN 0-940208-25-3] and the forthcoming
Volume VII are published by Down There Press (see address above); Volume II [ISBN
0-452-26787-0], Volume III [ISBN 0-452-27180-0], Volume IV [ISBN 0-452-27181-9] and
Volume V [ISBN 0-452-27812-0] are published by The Penguin Group, Penguin Books U.S.A.,
Inc., 375 Hudson St., New York, NY 10014. A collection of erotic short stories written
by women, for women. Major, major turn-ons in these books. The only drawback to reading
any given volume is it takes a long time to finish because you keep having to put
it down to masturbate.
My Gender Workbook: How to Become a Real Woman, a Real Man, the Real You, or Something
Else Entirely
[ISBN 0-415916-73-9], by Kate Bornstein, Routledge Inc., 29 West 35th Street, New
York, NY 10001. According to the publisher, “gender isn’t just about ‘male’ or ‘female’
anymore . . . if you don’t think you are transgendered when you sit down to read this
book, you will be by the time you finish it.” An amazing resource for discovering
your individual gender identity and reaching whatever spot you desire on the
gender continuum.
Cunt Coloring Book
[ISBN 0-86719-371-9], by Tee Corinne, Last Gasp, 777 Florida Street, San Francisco,
CA 94110, (415) 824-6636. This Christmas, buy a
Cunt Coloring Book
for every woman on your list. This book is so fucken cool. It was first published
in 1975, so there’s no excuse for it not being handed out in human sexuality classes
in high school. Says the insanely talented Ms. Corinne, “I first published [these]
drawings in a coloring book because a major way we learn to understand the world,
as children, is by coloring.”
Exhibitionism for the Shy: Show-off, Dress Up and Talk Hot
[ISBN 0-940208-16-4], by Carol Queen, Down There Press (See address above). A totally
awesome, informative and inspiring book. From the back cover: “[D]emonstrates how
to turn sexual modesty to your erotic advantage, whether you’re single, partnered
or in-between. To discover a new world of erotic experience, you don’t have to shed
your inhibitions, just exploit them creatively.” This is yet another cultural gift
from the multifaceted goddess we all fell in love with in the “Whores” chapter.
The New Our Right to Love: A Lesbian Resource Book
[ISBN 0-684-80682-7], edited by Ginny Vida, Touchstone Publishing, Rockefeller Center,
1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020. I can’t bee-leeve this book is only
fourteen dollars. It is so packed with information! “The Spectrum of the Lesbian Experience”
includes essays from Lakota, Latina, Jewish, Black, Asian Pacific, young, mid-life,
old lesbians, incarcerated lesbians and lesbians with disabilities. There is a fully
precious directory of national lesbian organizations, a stunning bibliography, and
the chapters cover topics ranging from relationship problems specific to lesbian couples,
to lesbians and the law. I
highly
recommend this extremely sensitive, forthright book.
Sex for One: The joy of Selfloving
[ISBN 0-517-88607-3], by Betty Dodson, Crown Publishing Group, Inc., 201 East 50th
Street, New York, NY 10022. From the back cover: “Confronting one of our last and
most deeply rooted taboos—masturbation—noted sex expert and pro-sex feminist Betty
Dodson, Ph.D., takes the shame out of selflove by creating a straightforward and appealing
guidebook that reveals masturbation as a satisfying, vital form of sexual expression.”
Chapters cover topics including masturbation stories, sexual fantasies, masturbation
as meditation, orgasms beyond reckoning and making love alone. You simply cannot resist
a book with a dedication that reads, “This book is dedicated to me. Without my selflove,
it could not have been written.”
Sacred Pleasure: Sex, Myth and the Politics of the Body—New Paths to Power and Love
[ISBN 0-06-250283-2], by Riane T. Eisler, HarperCollins Publishers, 10 East 53rd
Street, New York, NY 10022. This book is about sex and culture and it’s by one of
the biggest geniuses of the 20th Century, Riane Eisler! Here’s Gloria Steinem’s eloquent
blurb:
“Sacred Pleasure
makes the links between sacralizing pain and justifying war, between child abuse
and sado-masochism, between patriarchy and the war of the sexes, between the intimate
and the political. Only by sacralizing pleasure can new links be forged to peace,
equality and sexuality.” Fucken ayy. There’s only one woman on earth who could
possibly
articulate all of this, without losing sight of the sexuality of the
individual
woman, and that woman is the woman who wrote this book: Riane Eisler.
(I included ISBN numbers because they make it easy to order a title from your local
independent bookstore, if for some reason you don’t want any of these books delivered
to your house.)