“Being a Woman Today” Launches 5-Year Study on Female Orgasm

In a world of Cosmo BJ tips, porn sex ed and pre-pubescent pin-up girls, I often lament the dearth of quality articles, research and erotica from an empowered, mature feminine perspective.

It seems like everywhere I turn, I’m hit with another piece on how my sex ‘just isn’t good enough’ and if I am going to ‘snag Mr. Right,’ I had better learn how ‘handle his manhood,’ ‘cum so hard that he’ll never want to leave’ and ‘sculpt a sex-perfect body (lest I be outcast from the League of Highly Successful Woman Who Make Six Figure Incomes, Take the Kids to Soccer Practice and Still Have the Energy to Ride Their Husbands Like Jenna Jameson).

Not only is our culture ill informed on the vastness and complexity of female sexuality—so is the medical field. Yes, most doctors know the difference between the clitoris and the labia, but the psychology and more subtle and nuanced characteristics of a woman’s sex are not well documented. Most studies on sexuality either predominantly use males as test subjects, use small numbers of women from a limited cultural or social stratum or are based on opinions and observations from studies done decades ago.

Also, as seen in Liz Canner's highly successful documentary 'Orgasm Inc.,' pharmaceutical companies are pouring billions of dollars into creating the new 'female Viagra' as a cure for the so-called 'Female Sexual Arousal Disorder' (FSD). The notion that a woman has to orgasm a certain way and within a certain time frame is ludicrous, and the fact that there are companies profiting off of women's frustration, desperation and heartbreak not only angers me; it also highlights the pervasive misogyny that underlines much of our consumerist culture.

Please. We don’t need pills. We need foreplay and a safe space.

However, Being A Woman Today—a new, 5-year project sponsored by Human Innovations, LLC and the Institute for Advanced Study for Human Sexuality—is hoping to tip the scales in our favor. Their plan is to use large-scale, international surveys (approximately 50), online communities and interactive talk shows, as well as bring together some of the world’s leading clinical sexologists and related researchers, to conduct the largest research project in history.

Their goal in launching such a global endeavor (35 countries!) is to educate and empower women and improving the understanding, acceptance and importance of a woman’s sexual well-being.

To help raise capital for the project, The Exodus Trust has donated over $600K worth of erotic art, much of it previously available only to wealthy collectors, to be used as ‘Perks’ for BAWT’s Indiegogo campaign.

My personal desire for every woman is to know the power of her own hunger and depth of her own orgasm. For me, Being A Woman Today is a much-needed guiding light in a world shrouded in violence, insecurity, misinformation and shame.

You’re Right, Lee Aronsohn: There are Just WAY Too Many Women in Television

Lee Aronsohn, Co-Creator of Two and a Half Men

Dear Mr. Aronsohn,

I for one would like to personally applaud you for your cogent argument in last Sunday’s Hollywood Reporter that the time for women in television has peaked. When you said, “Enough ladies, I get it. You have periods…we’re approaching peak vagina on television, to the point of labia saturation,” I felt like pulling out my tampons and waving them in celebration! You’re so right! I am sick of seeing women and their ‘issues’ invading my male-dominated entertainment.

It’s not as if women’s issues are even relevant these days anyway. I mean, who’s really talking about abortion? Or contraception and reproductive rights? And the fact that women only make $0.77 for every man’s dollar in the US (which is so 2009)?  Personally, I’d take a fart joke any day.

Plus, women have their own television network, for chrissakes! When I’m in the occasional mood for vagina in crisis, there’s nothing that boosts my self-esteem more than a pint of Ben and Jerry’s and an evening of Lifetime: Television for Women.

Speaking of having their own channel, I’ve noticed a lot of black people hanging around the major networks these days. What’s say you and me start a rally to corral them back to BET? And the Hispanics! Shouldn’t they be all at Telemundo? Gay people have Bravo. Maybe the Asians could start something called the Oriental Express? And what’s up with that short dude on Game of Thrones?

I mean, it just feels like there’s some sort of invasion against the hetero-normative, white-male-centric sort of television that your show, Two and a Half Men, produces. But as you have stated, those times have peaked. I’m sure we’ll see those bitchy woman and their angry pussies heading back to the kitchen anytime now. Thank God women television writers are a vast minority! It shouldn’t take long to squeeze them out.

And as for bitchy women, I, for one, would like to formally apologize on behalf of all women for feeling angry and having a voice. My heart just ached for you when you said, “We are centering the show on two very damaged men. What makes them damaged? Sorry, it’s women. I never got my heart broken by a man.” I can understand. I mean, it’s not as if men (and people in general) are responsible for the wreckage in their lives. It couldn’t be that your characters are deeply insecure and use women as a way to assuage their pain (only to find out later that the mother/whore they created in their mind doesn’t match the three-dimensional human before them). And I’m sure these men don’t have an ounce of attachment in their relationships, which could be the root cause of their suffering.

No. You’re right. Project all that pain on those f*cking women.

And so, Mr. Aronsohn—sage, visionary, mouthpiece for our times—I raise my sugar-free, virgin daiquiri in your honor and salute you.

Now, if we’re done here, I’m gonna head back to the latest episode of 30 Rock (oh…wait a minute…)