tag:theconversation.com,2011:/us/topics/female-orgasm-23439/articles
Female orgasm – The Conversation
2022-05-24T20:04:40Z
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/183129
2022-05-24T20:04:40Z
2022-05-24T20:04:40Z
‘I want an orgasm but not just any orgasm’: How To Please A Woman shifts the way we depict the sexuality of older women
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/464897/original/file-20220524-14810-6r0yfh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C14%2C4785%2C3168&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Madman</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Australian writer and director Renée Webster’s new film <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt10530838/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0">How to Please a Woman</a> turns much of what we think we know about sexual desire – especially for older women – on its head.</p>
<p>How to Please a Woman features 50-something Gina (Sally Phillips), who hasn’t had sex with her husband (Cameron Daddo) in over a year because he is no longer interested in sexual relations – with her or anyone.</p>
<p>Gina’s main source of intimacy comes from the regular beach swims she has with a group of three women (Tasma Walton, Caroline Brazier, and Hayley McElhinney) and their changing-room conversations that cover everything from peeing on jellyfish stings to the multipurpose use of coconut oil, including as a natural lubricant.</p>
<p>When Gina’s friends rent a stripper (Alexander England) to dance for her on her birthday (a much more intimate present than the two $50 bills she receives from her husband), and he offers to do anything for her (“Anything?” “Totally …”) she asks him to clean her house.</p>
<p>Realising the pleasure she experienced having her house cleaned by a shirtless, handsome man, Gina starts her own male cleaning business and her swimming crew become her first clients. </p>
<p>But they want more than their houses cleaned. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/5ZLv4v4odkE?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<h2>The sexual desire of women over 50</h2>
<p>One of the strengths of this film is the sensitive way it represents the different desires of individual women. After all, the title of the film is How to Please <em>a</em>
Woman not <em>How to Please Women</em>.</p>
<p>For Gina to ensure her clients receive the pleasure they want, she meets individually with them and writes down their preferences. One woman wants to take it slow and start with gin and tonic. Another woman does not want her breasts touched. A third woman wants a very specific orgasm: she does not want just any orgasm that sneaks up on you, but one you ease up to and pull away from, ease up to and pull away from until total annihilation. Another client says that after several bookings with men she is starting to feel all kinds of things, so she wants to book a session with a woman.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/464899/original/file-20220524-14-h6s8xw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/464899/original/file-20220524-14-h6s8xw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/464899/original/file-20220524-14-h6s8xw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/464899/original/file-20220524-14-h6s8xw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/464899/original/file-20220524-14-h6s8xw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/464899/original/file-20220524-14-h6s8xw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/464899/original/file-20220524-14-h6s8xw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/464899/original/file-20220524-14-h6s8xw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Hayley McElhinney, Tasma Walton, Sally Phillips and Caroline Brazier in How To Please A Woman.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Madman</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It is rare to see in popular culture a range of mostly older women being frank about what gives them sexual pleasure and to see how their desire become more adventurous and diverse. Sadly, the sexual desire of women over 50 is often unrepresented, misrepresented, and/or shown as comedic. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/grace-and-frankie-is-the-longest-running-series-on-netflix-and-a-show-for-women-who-dont-see-themselves-on-television-182298">Grace and Frankie is the longest running series on Netflix – and a show for women who don’t see themselves on television</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>The socially transmitted disease of ageism</h2>
<p>According to <a href="https://www.google.com.au/books/edition/Sex_Matters_for_Women/BtX56c0CuMkC?hl=en&gbpv=1&printsec=frontcover">Foley, Kope & Sugrue</a>, </p>
<blockquote>
<p>The greatest barrier to a woman’s sexuality in midlife is the socially transmitted disease of ageism. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Older women are represented as asexual and past it. They are <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cougar_(slang)">“cougars”</a> or ageing <a href="https://ijlls.org/index.php/ijlls/article/view/784">femme fatales</a>, like Blanche Du Bois in Tennessee William’s A Streetcar Named Desire, who set a tone for generations as a figure of fun whose desires are twisted, ridiculed, and ultimately punished.</p>
<p>Older age is by far the largest developmental human period plagued by misconceptions and stereotypes, kept alive by incessant jokes.</p>
<p>And no gender absorbs these jokes more than the female. Sexiness is equated with youth, and <a href="https://theconversation.com/invisible-lives-where-are-all-the-older-women-in-film-and-tv-168012">older women and their sexuality are made invisible</a>. When older women are represented in popular media, their sexuality is <a href="https://womensagenda.com.au/latest/hollywoods-intentional-and-harmful-neglect-of-women-over-50/">often not shown</a> or is aligned with deviance, such as in the relationship between Darlene and Wyatt in Netflix’s highly-acclaimed Ozark.</p>
<p>Depictions in media trivialising desirous or sexually active older women, or women who seek sex outside of loving and steady relationships as abnormal, <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24384365/">contribute to negative stereotypes</a> and to judgemental attitudes about older sexuality.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/464901/original/file-20220524-16-bqkf5b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/464901/original/file-20220524-16-bqkf5b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/464901/original/file-20220524-16-bqkf5b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/464901/original/file-20220524-16-bqkf5b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/464901/original/file-20220524-16-bqkf5b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/464901/original/file-20220524-16-bqkf5b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/464901/original/file-20220524-16-bqkf5b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/464901/original/file-20220524-16-bqkf5b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Alexander England and Sally Phillips.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>And just like that…</h2>
<p>Fortunately, we are starting to see the lives of women over 50 appear more positively in stories on television, recent examples including <a href="https://theconversation.com/frank-unapologetic-and-female-oriented-the-cultural-legacy-of-sex-and-the-city-and-the-lure-of-the-reboot-175061">And Just Like That</a> the reboot of Sex and the City, and the hugely popular Netflix comedy series <a href="https://theconversation.com/grace-and-frankie-is-the-longest-running-series-on-netflix-and-a-show-for-women-who-dont-see-themselves-on-television-182298">Grace and Frankie</a> – and in films like <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1230414/">It’s Complicated</a> and Girl’s Trip.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/frank-unapologetic-and-female-oriented-the-cultural-legacy-of-sex-and-the-city-and-the-lure-of-the-reboot-175061">Frank, unapologetic, and female-oriented: the cultural legacy of Sex and the City, and the lure of the reboot</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>The tone of these stories plays more for laughs, though, while How to Please a Woman balances between comedy and drama. <a href="https://www.theaureview.com/watch/interview-director-renee-webster-on-how-to-please-a-woman-and-finding-the-comedy-in-truth-and-pain/">As director Renée Webster says</a>, </p>
<blockquote>
<p>The best comedy comes from truth and a little bit of pain.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>How to Please a Woman shows older women’s sexual desire as respectful and tender for both women and men, even though it is set within a comedy. </p>
<p>But the women aren’t being laughed at, they’re the ones laughing. This depiction seems new and significant. <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF02701260">Stories impact and inspire relationships</a> and images about ageing and sexuality influence individual behaviour. </p>
<p><a href="https://if.com.au/with-how-to-please-a-woman-renee-webster-puts-the-audience-first/?fbclid=IwAR1sPidra6uO64jjiSbyfbQ069LrZQ8ZBLYUXpX0tdL-7CjE63J1yAtuRks">Webster herself says</a> she is “starting to get unsolicited texts of my friends’ husbands vacuuming the carpet and hearing from people that they took something home from the movie, and it opened up some new conversations for them.”</p>
<p>Female sexuality is seen as part of a rich fabric of women’s lives, not its single orgasmic culmination. As Steve (Erik Thomson) says in the film while eating a croissant, “one is never enough.”</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/183129/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Debra Dudek receives funding from the Australian Government through the Australian Research Council's Discovery Projects funding scheme (project DP190102435). The views expressed herein are those of this author and are not necessarily those of the Australian Government or the Australian Research Council.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Elizabeth Reid Boyd and Madalena Grobbelaar do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Sadly, the sexual desire of women over 50 is often unrepresented, misrepresented, and shown as comedic in culture – the new Australian film depicts a different reality.
Debra Dudek, Associate professor, School of Arts and Humanities, Edith Cowan University
Elizabeth Reid Boyd, Senior Lecturer School of Arts and Humanities, Edith Cowan University
Madalena Grobbelaar, Lecturer, Edith Cowan University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/159543
2021-05-31T20:10:44Z
2021-05-31T20:10:44Z
‘I always get horny … am I not normal?’: teenage girls often feel shame about pleasure. Sex education needs to address this
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/403548/original/file-20210531-21-12j25qo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/side-view-young-woman-looking-away-1196187574">Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Young people have a lot of questions about sex. I answered hundreds of them over 23 years for the <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/310603102_A_quantitative_analysis_of_the_quality_and_content_of_the_health_advice_in_popular_Australian_magazines">Dolly Doctor</a> magazine column, until the <a href="https://www.mamamia.com.au/dolly-magazine-closing/">magazine closed</a> at the end of 2016. </p>
<p>Many questions from girls suggested they needed information about desire and experiences of sexual pleasure. Those discovering sexual arousal and masturbation often seemed ecstatic (pun intended), although, even from a young age, these desires were often seen as problems and silenced. </p>
<p>Somewhere between the delights of sexual self-discovery during early puberty and becoming sexually involved with a partner later in adolescence, I had a sense young women fell into a chasm of sexual repression, objectification and instruments for male pleasure.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/shes-a-slut-sexual-bullying-among-girls-contributes-to-cultural-misogyny-we-need-to-take-it-seriously-157421">'She's a slut': sexual bullying among girls contributes to cultural misogyny. We need to take it seriously</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Is it ‘normal’ to like sex?</h2>
<p>In my analysis of Dolly Doctor questions, I found girls asking about masturbation regularly made up 5-10% of questions about sexuality. For instance, here is a question from the 1990s:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I have a problem; I masturbate ALL the time! Even when I’m in class I ask the teacher if I can go to the toilet and when I get there I finger myself. Can you tell me if there is something wrong with me and how can I stop!?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The concerns expressed about whether this is normal could, of course, signify typical developmental preoccupations with peer comparison: asking whether an observation or experience is “normal” was common regardless of the topic.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/is-it-normal-for-girls-to-masturbate-112393">'Is it normal for girls to masturbate?'</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>But concerns could also emerge because adolescent girls received no information about female sexual desire, so their curiosity was mixed with alarm about the intensity and power of their urges. </p>
<p>Here is another question from the 2000s:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I always get horny! Everytime I see something about sex I get horny! But it feels good! Is this common or am I just not normal?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>My view is that together with a lack of relevant information, these girls had absorbed messages of gendered shaming. Here is a question from from the 2010s:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Ok I need some help, I started getting interested in watching pornography and I used to touch myself while I watch it I knew it was wrong but my body craved it and it was pleasure like I was a magical feeling I cant explain it but I cant talk to my family and I cant talk to my friends. is this normal?? Dolly doctor please help me. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>The shaming of girls’ and young women’s sexuality has been found in studies about diverse topics, such as <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09589236.2020.1825217">sexting</a>, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/13/style/sti-stigma-sexual-transmitted-infections.html">sexually transmitted infections</a>, <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0038038512441281">seeking contraception</a> and <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1077801215576581">sexual violence</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/403496/original/file-20210531-25-50dcvs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Girl covering her face." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/403496/original/file-20210531-25-50dcvs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/403496/original/file-20210531-25-50dcvs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/403496/original/file-20210531-25-50dcvs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/403496/original/file-20210531-25-50dcvs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/403496/original/file-20210531-25-50dcvs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/403496/original/file-20210531-25-50dcvs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/403496/original/file-20210531-25-50dcvs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Girls are internalising messages of shame.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/stressed-scared-female-student-casual-tshirt-1966928503">Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Philosopher, Bonnie Mann, <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/hypatia/article/abs/femininity-shame-and-redemption/8064CD2E02B781636D35C94541335F19">writes</a> gendered shame may be “the mechanism <a href="by%20which">…</a> […] subordination of women across class and race (occurs)”. </p>
<p>Early adolescence marks a critical juncture in young people’s lives, powered by the intensity of puberty which marks the transition from childhood to adolescent sexuality. </p>
<p>Expressions of partnered interactions (such as kissing, sexting, oral sex and intercourse) in adolescence are similar to the way sex is <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23998672/">experienced in adulthood</a> and throughout life for most people.</p>
<p>This makes sex education that empowers young women with the appropriate knowledge about pleasure all the more important.</p>
<h2>Is it normal to feel nothing?</h2>
<p>The questions to Dolly Doctor from young women about sex with a partner were fewer in number — most Dolly readers were quite young adolescents. </p>
<p>A <a href="https://academic.oup.com/fampra/article/26/3/196/511883?login=true">small proportion of these questions</a> were concerned with lack of pleasure or orgasm. Such as this one from the 1990s</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Dear Melissa, I am 17 […] and […] been sexually active since last year and every time I have had sex with my boyfriend I have never had an orgasm and I feel like he is getting all the fun and I get none.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Here is another one from the 2000s</p>
<blockquote>
<p>i have had sex with my boyfriend a number of times but it seems to give me no pleasure. All my friends talk about how good it feels and i dont know this great feeling […] i have talked to my boyfriend and he feels it why dont i? </p>
</blockquote>
<p>And another from the 2010s</p>
<blockquote>
<p>[…] recently with my boyfriend we went to seconds but when he fingered me I didn’t feel anything at all. I have tried doing i myself but I dont feel any pleasure. Is there something wrong with me? What can I do to fix it? Thanks</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Other questions included experiences of painful intercourse (with a male) or fear of pain despite a wish to begin a sexual relationship. </p>
<h2>How can I better please him?</h2>
<p>Questions about oral sex suggested adolescent women were keen to please. For instance:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I am wanting to give my boyfriend oral sex. I was wondering how to do it and for some techniques that he would enjoy and so my boyfriend is pleased.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>and </p>
<blockquote>
<p>How do you give a better blow job? Please help me. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Questions about receiving oral sex (by the young women) were very few in number and were often about girl-on-girl sex that was pleasurable, “She […] gave me oral sex, I liked it and I didn’t stop her”.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/403501/original/file-20210531-21-vconwc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A young couple lying in bed together." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/403501/original/file-20210531-21-vconwc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/403501/original/file-20210531-21-vconwc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/403501/original/file-20210531-21-vconwc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/403501/original/file-20210531-21-vconwc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/403501/original/file-20210531-21-vconwc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/403501/original/file-20210531-21-vconwc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/403501/original/file-20210531-21-vconwc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Girls are often eager to please their partner.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/beautiful-brunette-girl-guy-lying-bed-391662925">Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>There is more analysis that could be done on Dolly Doctor questions that speak to constructions of female sexuality. But the analysis so far has provided me with unique insights about how young women respond to messages about their roles in heterosexual encounters. </p>
<h2>Teachers must be supported to talk about sex</h2>
<p>Good school-based sex education means providing teachers with the training and support they need without fear of backlash. In the <a href="https://apo.org.au/sites/default/files/resource-files/2011-03/apo-nid53187.pdf">first Australian study</a> among health teachers about sex education, less than half had received sex education training during their undergraduate degree and 15.5% had received no training. </p>
<p>The topic areas where teachers felt they needed most assistance related to discussions about behaviour, emotions and feelings. And yet, teaching consent in sexual encounters needs to include truthful discussion on these exact topics. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/sexuality-education-can-counter-what-kids-learn-from-porn-but-some-teachers-fear-backlash-when-tackling-risky-topics-158209">Sexuality education can counter what kids learn from porn, but some teachers fear backlash when tackling 'risky' topics</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Parents, teachers and young people need to find the right language and create safe spaces to allow teaching and learning about sexual consent, which by definition means talking about sex and pleasure in its various forms. This includes the normality, right and importance of female pleasure.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/159543/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Melissa is co-author (with Yumi Stynes) of the book Welcome to Consent.</span></em></p>
Melissa Kang answered hundreds of questions from girls for the Dolly Doctor column. What she found on analysis was a sense of shame when young women experienced sexual pleasure.
Melissa Kang, Adjunct associate professor, University of Technology Sydney
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/151015
2020-12-02T05:47:11Z
2020-12-02T05:47:11Z
4 things about female orgasms researchers actually study
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/372426/original/file-20201202-13-1dpaxbc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=1%2C1%2C997%2C682&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/orgasm-feeling-intense-sexual-pleasure-that-1058194922">Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Cardi B’s song <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hsm4poTWjMs">WAP</a> and the Netflix show <a href="https://www.netflix.com/au/title/80197526">Sex Education</a> place female orgasms on centre stage in popular culture.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1330737950326280192"}"></div></p>
<p>But female orgasms are also the subject of serious academic research.</p>
<p>Here’s a snapshot of what research tells us about female orgasms, what we don’t know, and what researchers want to find out. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/from-reproducers-to-flutters-to-sluts-tracing-attitudes-to-womens-pleasure-in-australia-87852">From reproducers to 'flutters' to 'sluts': tracing attitudes to women's pleasure in Australia</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>1. When women orgasm, what actually happens?</h2>
<p>When women orgasm, their pelvic floor muscles <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2FBF01541570">contract</a> rhythmically and involuntarily. These contractions are thought to help move blood out of erect tissues of the clitoris and vulva, allowing them to return to their usual flaccid (floppy) state.</p>
<p>During sexual arousal and orgasm, women’s heart rate, respiration rate and blood pressure also <a href="https://journals.lww.com/bpmonitoring/Fulltext/2008/08000/Changes_of_blood_pressure_and_heart_rate_during.5.aspx">rise</a>.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/is-it-normal-for-girls-to-masturbate-112393">'Is it normal for girls to masturbate?'</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Levels of <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3183515/">oxytocin</a>, known as the “love hormone”, increase during sexual arousal and are thought to peak during orgasm.</p>
<p>The areas of the brain associated with <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/14681994.2011.651452">dopamine</a>, the “happy hormone”, are activated in men and women. </p>
<p>And in women, other areas of the brain are <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5675825/">activated</a> further during sexual arousal and peak with orgasm. These include those associated with emotions, the integration of sensory information and emotions, higher-level thinking, and motor areas associated with pelvic floor muscles. </p>
<p>The “right angular gyrus” part of the brain <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5675825/">may also be linked with</a> an altered state of consciousness some women say they experience when they orgasm.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/health-check-does-the-g-spot-exist-56491">Health Check: does the 'G-spot' exist?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>What is trickier to determine is how the body and brain relate. We know the frequency and intensity of female orgasms depends on a range of complex <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5087699/#:%7E:text=These%20factors%20and%20capacities%20included,orgasm%20more%20than%20their%20own.">psychosocial factors</a>, including a woman’s sexual desires, self-esteem, openness of sexual communication with their partner, and general mental health.</p>
<h2>2. Not all women orgasm. Is that a problem?</h2>
<p>Orgasms are not a big deal for all women, and that’s completely normal. </p>
<p>And <a href="https://www.aihw.gov.au/reports/men-women/female-health/contents/how-healthy/sexual-health">21% of Australian women</a> aged 20-64 say they cannot climax. From a simplistic biological viewpoint, anorgasmia (the inability to orgasm despite adequate sexual stimulation) is also not a problem. However, women with anorgasmia <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/14681994.2011.649691">often report</a> shame, inadequacy, anxiety, distress and detachment surrounding intercourse and orgasm.</p>
<p>These negative emotions might be related to the <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books/about/O_the_Intimate_History_of_the_Orgasm.html?id=bHY_u_GYyRoC&redir_esc=y">long history</a> of suppression, and now celebration, of women’s sexual pleasure. </p>
<p>For many women, orgasms represent empowerment. Understandably, then, anorgasmia can leave women feeling as though there is something wrong with them. Some might fake orgasm, which around <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/00224490903171794">two-thirds</a> report doing. This is usually to make them feel better about themselves, or to make their partners feel better. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/AxqYgjAftc8?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Many women say they fake their orgasms, as portrayed in the classic movie When Harry Met Sally.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/0092623X.2017.1346530?src=recsys&journalCode=usmt20">More than 80% of women</a> won’t orgasm from vaginal stimulation alone. So if anorgasmia is a problem, trying different types of stimulation might help, particularly clitoral stimulation.</p>
<p>When anorgasmia leads to negative feelings or gets in the way of forming or sustaining healthy sexual relationships, it becomes a problem. But certain <a href="https://omgyes.com">websites</a>, “<a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/au/blog/stepmonster/201808/what-sextech-is-and-why-it-matters">sextech</a>” (technology that aims to enhance female sexual experiences), and dedicated <a href="https://societyaustraliansexologists.org.au/">health professionals</a> can help.</p>
<h2>3. Can you over-orgasm?</h2>
<p>No! While a <a href="https://www.victoriamilan.com/blog/8-out-of-10-women-experience-multiple-orgasms-regularly/">survey</a> run by an online dating site suggests 77% of women have had multiple orgasms, academic research suggests the figure is much lower, <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00224499.2020.1743224">at around 14%</a>. </p>
<p>Some women who have multiple orgasms <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/00224499.2020.1743224">report</a> their second orgasm as the strongest, but ones after that become less intense.</p>
<p>Just make sure you have enough lubrication to last the distance, as prolonged stimulation without sufficient lubrication can lead to <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/00926230590475206">pain</a>. </p>
<p>Around <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/j.1743-6109.2009.01318.x">50% of women</a> in one study said they use vibrators to reach orgasm (or multiple orgasms). Some people say vibrators can decrease the sensitivity of the clitoris, making it harder for women to orgasm through clitoral stimulation that doesn’t involve vibration. However, most research finds any <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/j.1743-6109.2009.01318.x">desensitisation</a> is mild and transitory.</p>
<h2>4. What use is it anyway?</h2>
<p>Evolutionists tend to take <a href="https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674022461">three views</a> on why the female orgasm has evolved: to increase the success of reproduction; to enhance pair-bonding between women and their sexual partner; or the one I consider the most likely, is that women’s orgasms do not serve any evolutionary purpose at all. They are simply a by-product of evolution, existing because the male and female genitals develop in a similar way as embryos, and only begin to differentiate at about six weeks’ gestation. </p>
<p>Just because women’s orgasms do not serve an evolutionary purpose, that doesn’t mean they aren’t important. Women’s orgasms <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books/about/Come_as_You_Are.html?id=i6Z-BAAAQBAJ">are important</a> because for many women, they contribute to healthy relationships and their sexual well-being.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/oh-oh-oh-the-clitoris-certainly-gives-pleasure-but-does-it-also-help-women-conceive-126593">Oh, oh, oh! The clitoris certainly gives pleasure. But does it also help women conceive?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>What’s left to find out?</h2>
<p>For a long time, we’ve assumed details about the female orgasm based on its male counterpart. And it’s only <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S174360951533294X">since 2011</a> that we’ve been able to map what happens in women’s brains during sexual stimulation. So there’s plenty about the female brain during orgasm we haven’t yet explored.</p>
<p>We’ve only recently learned about the true size and function of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-the-clitoris-doesnt-get-the-attention-it-deserves-and-why-this-matters-53157">clitoris</a>. We’re also still debating whether the <a href="https://theconversation.com/health-check-does-the-g-spot-exist-56491">G-spot</a> exists.</p>
<p>Women’s sexuality, desires, likes and dislikes are also incredibly varied. And in this article, we’ve only talked about, and included research with, cis-gendered females, people whose gender identity and expression matches the sex they were assigned at birth.</p>
<p>So we also need more research with gender-diverse people to better understand the complexity and diversity of orgasm and sexuality.</p>
<p>Whether science can explain all these differences in the complexity of the human being remains to be seen.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/151015/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jane Chalmers does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Here’s a snapshot of what research tells us about female orgasms, what we don’t know, and what researchers want to know next.
Jane Chalmers, Senior Lecturer in Pain Sciences, University of South Australia
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/131618
2020-03-20T12:06:56Z
2020-03-20T12:06:56Z
The cervix is sensitive, and surgeons need to acknowledge the part it plays in some women’s pleasure
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/318453/original/file-20200303-66089-ft9ekk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=35%2C53%2C5937%2C3925&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Women and their doctors need to communicate about potential sexual side effects from procedures that involve the cervix. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image/1497465971">RacheeLynn/Shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>“Sexual Response in the Human Female,” popularly known as the “Kinsey Report,”
generated an <a href="https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2004-nov-15-he-kinsey15-story.html">international sensation</a> in 1953, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/00224499809551925">revolutionizing</a>
the way society thinks of sex.</p>
<p>One particular statement <a href="http://www.iupress.indiana.edu/product_info.php?products_id=19796">in the book</a> regarding the cervix, however, has been misinterpreted leading to a misconception that persists today. On page 584, Kinsey states, “All of the clinical and experimental data show that the surface of the cervix is the most completely insensitive part of the female genital anatomy.” </p>
<p>Along with our colleague, physician <a href="https://sexualmed.org/team-members/irwin-goldstein/">Irwin Goldstein</a>, we are specialists in <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=M5zDkkAAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">neuroscience</a> and sexual medicine. We believe Kinsey’s statement has led healthcare providers to conclude, erroneously, that the cervix is devoid of sensory nerves and can be cut or removed without consequence.</p>
<h2>A closer look at the data</h2>
<p>The Kinsey investigators reported when the cervix was “gently stroked” with a “glass, metal or cotton-tipped probe,” only <a href="http://www.iupress.indiana.edu/product_info.php?products_id=19796">5% of 878 women reported</a> they could feel it. This data was the basis of Kinsey’s claim of cervical insensitivity.</p>
<p>However, when the investigators stimulated the cervix of the same women with “distinct pressure” using “an object larger than a probe,” <a href="http://www.iupress.indiana.edu/product_info.php?products_id=19796">84% of the 878 women reported</a> they could feel it. Kinsey’s conclusion did not take into account his own significant finding.</p>
<h2>The sensate cervix</h2>
<p>There is extensive clear data from diverse sources that women can certainly feel stimulation of the cervix. Women commonly report they can <a href="https://www.healthline.com/health/womens-health/bleeding-after-pap-smear">feel the Pap smear</a>
procedure in which tissues are scraped from the cervix surface. </p>
<p>Many women undergoing cervical dilation for insertion of an intrauterine device (IUD) <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31882291">report pain</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/318450/original/file-20200303-66060-zuwgt3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/318450/original/file-20200303-66060-zuwgt3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/318450/original/file-20200303-66060-zuwgt3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/318450/original/file-20200303-66060-zuwgt3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/318450/original/file-20200303-66060-zuwgt3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/318450/original/file-20200303-66060-zuwgt3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/318450/original/file-20200303-66060-zuwgt3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/318450/original/file-20200303-66060-zuwgt3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Cervical, clitoral and vaginal self-stimulation activate the same overlapping region of the sensory cortex, the paracentral lobule.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Barry Komisaruk</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1743-6109.2011.02388.x">functional MRI study</a>, when women stimulated their cervix, the same part of their brain responded as when they stimulated their clitoris or vagina. They also reported they could feel each region distinctly. The contribution of the cervix to orgasm is <a href="https://www.marieclaire.com/sex-love/a12826176/what-is-a-cervical-orgasm/">described in popular media</a> and <a href="https://jhupbooks.press.jhu.edu/title/science-orgasm">some women report</a> cervical-stimulated orgasms as having qualities different from clitoral or vaginal-stimulated orgasms. </p>
<h2>Surgery and the cervix</h2>
<p>Researchers also know the cervix is sensate based on the effects surgery can have on it. While well-intentioned medical procedures are designed to treat significant gynecological problems, in the process, they can cause damage to the nerve supply of the cervix.</p>
<p>According to one study, when the cervix is saved in a “sub-total” hysterectomy, women are significantly <a href="https://doi.org/10.3109/00016348309155779">more likely to continue experiencing orgasms</a> than when the cervix is removed in a “total” hysterectomy. </p>
<p>Another review of recent hysterectomy procedures, though, found <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/14651858.CD004993.pub3">no significant difference in the effects on sexual response</a> between the two types of surgery. However, while the majority of the women reported an improvement in their sexual response, due to the resolution of the problem that necessitated their hysterectomy, in almost every one of the 22 reports reviewed, multiple women stated that their genital <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jmig.2011.01.012">sensations were diminished</a>. The discrepancies in the literature might well be due to different women’s preferred source of stimulation.</p>
<p>Some women undergoing an often-used loop electrosurgical excision procedure (LEEP) for the excision of lesions on the cervix <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1743-6109.2009.01633.x">report sexual side effects</a>. Some women describe a consequent distressing <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sxmr.2019.11.001">loss of orgasm and erotic feeling</a> in body regions including the clitoris and vagina. The procedure, in which a cone-shaped volume of cervix is burned away using a cauterizing wire loop, may be causing destruction of nerve pathways that normally convey genital sensation to the brain. </p>
<p>In another common surgical procedure for treatment of stress urinary incontinence, surgeons insert a mesh “mid-urethral sling” between the vagina and the urethra to produce a slight bend in the urethra, thereby adding resistance to the flow of urine. The sling may damage nerves that carry sensation from the vagina and cervix. Indeed, some women <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.esxm.2016.12.001">report reduced</a> <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.esxm.2016.12.001">orgasm satisfaction</a> after surgery. </p>
<h2>Talk to your doctor</h2>
<p>Doctors should be aware that three pairs of nerves – <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118896877.wbiehs314">pelvic, hypogastric and vagus</a> – convey sensation from the cervix to the brain. If any of these nerves are compromised, it can profoundly affect sexual pleasure. If surgical treatment is necessary, doctors should attempt to avoid the location of critical nerve pathways to minimize sensory damage. </p>
<p>Patients and their health care providers are often reluctant to discuss sensitive issues, such as possible side effects relating to sexual pleasure. At the very least, doctors should inform their patients of the possible detrimental consequences of their proposed treatment. </p>
<p>[<em>You’re smart and curious about the world. So are The Conversation’s authors and editors.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=youresmart">You can read us daily by subscribing to our newsletter</a>.]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/131618/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Sexual health experts say it’s a misconception that the cervix is insensitive, which can have implications for some medical procedures.
Barry Komisaruk, Distinguished Professor of Psychology, Rutgers University - Newark
María Cruz Rodríguez del Cerro, Professor of Psychobiology, UNED - Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/126593
2019-11-08T04:31:55Z
2019-11-08T04:31:55Z
Oh, oh, oh! The clitoris certainly gives pleasure. But does it also help women conceive?
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/300792/original/file-20191107-10973-17vm72t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=5%2C0%2C992%2C598&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The debate about why women have a clitoris has long been shaped by cultural, religious and moral influences.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/sex-pussy-vulva-clitoris-vagina-orgasm-520181782?src=84691814-7a87-48d6-a849-a4bd27a38ebb-1-9&studio=1">from www.shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>New research reported in the media says the clitoris plays an important role in fertility and reproduction, making it more than an organ that exists purely for sexual pleasure. </p>
<p>But some media headlines <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/shortcuts/2019/nov/06/the-truth-about-the-clitoris-why-its-not-just-built-for-pleasure">were</a> <a href="https://www.iol.co.za/lifestyle/family/pregnancy/new-clue-reveals-how-a-woman-can-conceive-and-it-all-comes-down-to-the-clitoris-36744786">misleading</a>, including:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The truth about the clitoris: why it’s not just built for pleasure</p>
</blockquote>
<p>and </p>
<blockquote>
<p>New clue reveals how a woman can conceive, and it all comes down to the clitoris</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The reports were based on a <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ca.23498">controversial review</a> by retired UK scientist Dr Roy Levin published this week in the journal Clinical Anatomy. </p>
<p>He brings together evidence to support a new theory that the clitoris is equally important for reproduction as it is for sexual pleasure, which he first proposed in 2018.</p>
<p>This is controversial as the clitoris has not previously been given a direct role in reproduction. Levin says this is because other researchers have been so fixated on its role in sexual pleasure they have completely overlooked its other role.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-the-clitoris-doesnt-get-the-attention-it-deserves-and-why-this-matters-53157">Why the clitoris doesn't get the attention it deserves – and why this matters</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>How the clitoris has courted controversy</h2>
<p>Levin’s review is the latest development in a long history of controversy about the clitoris. Over the centuries, anatomists have debated its function, a discussion often dominated by men.</p>
<p>As early as 1559, <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18274438">Matteo Realdo Colombo</a>, an anatomist at the University of Padua in Italy, <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20430514">termed the clitoris</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>the seat of a woman’s delight.</p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/300820/original/file-20191108-10910-1twrpda.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/300820/original/file-20191108-10910-1twrpda.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/300820/original/file-20191108-10910-1twrpda.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=629&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300820/original/file-20191108-10910-1twrpda.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=629&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300820/original/file-20191108-10910-1twrpda.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=629&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300820/original/file-20191108-10910-1twrpda.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=790&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300820/original/file-20191108-10910-1twrpda.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=790&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300820/original/file-20191108-10910-1twrpda.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=790&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Over the centuries, anatomists have debated the function of the clitoris.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://wellcomecollection.org/works/dr2zr8te">from Wellcome Collection</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>However, his contemporary <a href="http://clinchem.aaccjnls.org/content/59/11/1687">Andreas Vesalius</a>, known as the “father of modern anatomy”, dismissed the proposition. He said the clitoris was an anomaly and simply <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/15240657.2017.1349509?scroll=top&needAccess=true&journalCode=hsgs20">does not exist in normal healthy women</a>.</p>
<p>Others saw the clitoris as a liability.</p>
<p>In the 1820s, English surgeon and president of the Society of British Medicine <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12278329">Isaac Baker Brown</a> thought the clitoris was a source of “hysteria” and epilepsy. And he <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/647794?seq=3#metadata_info_tab_contents">said it should be removed</a> to cure hysteria and other forms of “female madness”.</p>
<p>And as late as 1905, <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/freud_sigmund.shtml">Sigmund Freud</a> considered clitoral orgasm to be a <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3894744/">sign of a woman’s psychological immaturity</a>. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/health-check-clash-of-the-orgasms-clitoral-vs-vaginal-32732">Health Check: clash of the orgasms, clitoral vs vaginal</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Where are we today?</h2>
<p>Today, most scientists agree the main function of the clitoris is for sexual pleasure. But how did we come to have such an organ and why would we need one?</p>
<p><a href="https://www.pnas.org/content/116/41/20267.short?rss=1">Researchers just last month proposed</a> the clitoral orgasm is a remnant of our evolutionary past that once served to induce ovulation during intercourse.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/is-it-normal-for-girls-to-masturbate-112393">'Is it normal for girls to masturbate?'</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p><a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/114577/the-mating-mind-by-geoffrey-miller/">Another view of the clitoris</a> argues it allows women to discriminate between sexual partners based on who can help them reach orgasm with the right type of stimulation.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5087697/">A third common view</a> is clitoral orgasms lead to stronger bonding between sexual partners preparing them for childbearing and parenting.</p>
<h2>So how does this fit with the latest claim?</h2>
<p>This latest paper argues stimulation of the clitoris activates parts of the brain, leading to multiple physiological changes in the vaginal tract. </p>
<p>These changes lead to <a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/human-sexual-response/oclc/191468">vaginal lubrication</a>, <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/581075">an increase in vaginal oxygen</a>, <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25511503">an increase in temperature and decrease in acidity</a>, so facilitating reproduction by creating the right environment for the sperm. </p>
<p>While it’s <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16681470">not unusual</a> for organs to have two functions, Levin’s view needs further investigation.</p>
<p>Some of the physiological changes he describes occur when a woman is sexually aroused, before her clitoris is stimulated.</p>
<p>For example, women can experience vaginal lubrication and engorgement of erectile tissues <a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/human-sexual-response/oclc/191468">while watching erotic movies</a>, without clitoris stimulation.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/health-check-does-the-g-spot-exist-56491">Health Check: does the 'G-spot' exist?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>He also discusses how female genital mutilation reduces a woman’s fertility, implying this is a result of circumcision of the clitoris. However, he does not cite any evidence for this. </p>
<p>While there is some <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16054938">evidence for a decline in fertility after female genital mutilation</a> it varies <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5052514/">between studies</a>. The link seems to be strongest where not only the clitoris, but <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12117215">parts of the labia are also removed</a> and stitched together during the procedure, narrowing the opening into the vagina. </p>
<p>In these cases, infertility may also be caused by the difficulty in sexual intercourse due to the <a href="https://www.fertstert.org/article/S0015-0282(04)00346-2/fulltext">narrowing of the vaginal opening</a>, <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3410700/">infections or other complications</a> of the procedure.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-rise-and-fall-of-fgm-in-victorian-london-38327">The rise and fall of FGM in Victorian London</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>With this equivocal evidence, Levin’s conclusion that “the reappraisal of the functions of the clitoris as both reproductive as well as recreative are of equal importance is clearly now unavoidable”, could be disputed. </p>
<p>The conclusion is not quite that definite. </p>
<p>However, this does not mean Levin’s theory is incorrect; it just requires further investigation and discussion.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/whats-the-point-of-sex-its-good-for-your-physical-social-and-mental-health-67848">What's the point of sex? It's good for your physical, social and mental health</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>His review highlights that often the science around the clitoris has been heavily influenced by the cultural context — from feminism, through to religion and simply the morals of the time. While cultural context is important, this has diverted attention away from objectively examining scientific evidence. </p>
<p>Perhaps the most important aspect of this review is it may trigger a discussion on the functions of the clitoris and bring that discussion back to science.</p>
<p>As Levin highlights, the two proposed functions of the clitoris as an organ of both “procreation” and “recreation” are not mutually exclusive and can be of equal importance, a proposition worth examining.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/126593/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michelle Moscova does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
New research suggests the clitoris is equally as important for reproduction as it is for sexual pleasure. But the evidence behind that claim is up for debate.
Michelle Moscova, Senior Lecturer in Anatomy, UNSW Sydney
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/112393
2019-02-28T19:14:03Z
2019-02-28T19:14:03Z
‘Is it normal for girls to masturbate?’
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/260626/original/file-20190225-26165-ylqvge.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">It is normal for girls and women to masturbate.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Nina Maile Gordon/The Conversation</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/i-need-to-know-the-conversation-launches-a-qanda-service-for-teens-103432">I Need to Know</a> is an ongoing series for teens in search of reliable, confidential advice about life’s tricky questions</em>.</p>
<hr>
<blockquote>
<p>Hi, I have a question after reading <a href="https://theconversation.com/i-need-to-know-is-it-normal-to-get-sore-down-there-after-sex-111744">a published piece</a> for I Need To Know. Masturbating has always seemed to be acceptable for boys, but less commonly discussed among girls. </p>
<p>Is it normal for girls to masturbate and are there any health consequences? I am a girl who accidentally discovered how to masturbate when I was quite young and continued it on and off afterwards, should I be worried about this? Will this affect my future sexual experience?</p>
<p>Anonymous, 17, Melbourne</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Key points</h2>
<ul>
<li>It is normal for girls and women to masturbate</li>
<li>it was a female Australian surgeon who helped us fully understand the clitoris</li>
<li>there are health benefits to masturbating (including relieving period pain and stress)</li>
<li>there is no right or wrong frequency for masturbation.</li>
</ul>
<p>Hi there, and thanks for bringing up this really important topic. You’ve asked some great questions and I hope the answers will be reassuring! First of all: yes it’s completely normal for girls and women to masturbate. </p>
<h2>What is masturbation?</h2>
<p>Masturbation is when a person touches their own genitals for sexual arousal and pleasure, and often leads to orgasm. It can include touching other parts of your body that feel good, such as the nipples. Many people use their fingers and hands, but some might use objects such as sex toys. </p>
<p>Masturbation is something people do to themselves, although “mutual masturbation” refers to people touching each others’ genitals for the same reason.</p>
<h2>Who masturbates?</h2>
<p>In a large Australian <a href="http://www.ashr.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/sex_in_australia_2_summary_data.pdf">survey</a>, 42% of women said they had masturbated in the past year (compared to 72% of men). This survey included people aged 16 to 69 years of age, and there is no recent information on this topic in Australia on younger teens. </p>
<p>A <a href="https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapediatrics/fullarticle/1107656">study</a> in the US looked only at 14- to 17-year-olds and found by 17 years of age, over 58% of females said they masturbated, compared to 80% of 17-year-old males. So it’s pretty common, and it’s also possible girls and women just don’t like to say they’ve masturbated. </p>
<p>Traditionally, masturbation has been something that is acceptable for boys. It’s only recently we’ve started talking about female masturbation more openly.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/260599/original/file-20190225-26171-veh10r.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/260599/original/file-20190225-26171-veh10r.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/260599/original/file-20190225-26171-veh10r.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/260599/original/file-20190225-26171-veh10r.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/260599/original/file-20190225-26171-veh10r.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/260599/original/file-20190225-26171-veh10r.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/260599/original/file-20190225-26171-veh10r.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">The Conversation</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It’s useful to know for most females the clitoris is the most sexually sensitive part of the body. The Australian study mentioned above also showed when a man and a woman have sex, women were much more likely to have an orgasm when her genitals were touched directly using hands or through oral sex. This is because of where the clitoris is. </p>
<p>It’s a wishbone-shaped bundle of nerves and blood vessels that will swell up and feel tingly and pleasurable when stimulated. The tip of it pokes out above the hole where wee comes out (the urethra) but it extends up to 10 centimetres behind the sides of the vagina. This is why it can also feel good to have an object (including fingers or a penis) inside the vagina pushing against the arms of the clitoris. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-the-clitoris-doesnt-get-the-attention-it-deserves-and-why-this-matters-53157">Why the clitoris doesn't get the attention it deserves – and why this matters</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>For most of history, the clitoris was not fully understood or appreciated. It was an Australian surgeon – and a woman – who <a href="https://www.auajournals.org/article/S0022-5347(01)68572-0/abstract">discovered how extensive</a> it was.</p>
<h2>Health benefits of masturbation</h2>
<p>There are plenty of health benefits from masturbation. Masturbating and having an orgasm <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14681990601149197?src=recsys&journalCode=csmt20">can relieve period pain</a> and stress. </p>
<p>It’s also a great way to explore your body and know what feels good, which will make it easier to communicate to a partner when the time comes. It is also a sexual practice that cannot cause pregnancy or lead to an STI. </p>
<p>You mentioned discovering masturbation when you were quite young. Parents and caretakers <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0891524503001548?via%3Dihub">report</a> observing even very young children touching their genitals because it feels good. Although the body needs to go through puberty before a person can experience mature sexual arousal, it’s clear children also experience pleasurable sensations. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/is-it-normal-to-get-sore-down-there-after-sex-111744">'Is it normal to get sore down there after sex?'</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>You also mention masturbating “on and off”. There is no right or wrong frequency for masturbating – it’s only a problem if a person feels it’s interfering with daily life.</p>
<p>Because sexuality in humans is linked to emotions, thoughts and beliefs, the ability to experience pleasure and orgasm <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00224490902878993">does vary</a> enormously. Negative feelings such as guilt or shame can be associated with masturbation especially if a person has grown up with specific negative beliefs about it. </p>
<p>There has been a long standing double standard about females being able to enjoy sex which, as you have noticed, means it’s not always easy to talk about. So thank you on behalf of lots of young women out there for being willing to talk about this very natural activity!</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/112393/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Melissa Kang does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
It is normal for girls and women to masturbate, and there are even health benefits.
Melissa Kang, Associate professor, University of Technology Sydney
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/87852
2017-12-17T19:22:28Z
2017-12-17T19:22:28Z
From reproducers to ‘flutters’ to ‘sluts’: tracing attitudes to women’s pleasure in Australia
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/196585/original/file-20171127-2038-157mb6r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Titian's 1583 painting Venus of Urbino: historically, pleasure was not the only, or even the main, expectation from sex for women.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>In our sexual histories series, authors explore changing sexual mores from antiquity to today.</em></p>
<p>In our contemporary world, the idea that sex is pleasurable is rarely questioned: pleasure is a key way of understanding what sex is and what it means. Yet this was not always so. Historically, pleasure was not the only, or even the main, expectation from sex for women, and there were significant changes across the 20th century.</p>
<p>When Australia federated in 1901, women were imagined largely as reproducers, rather than lovers. As the prominent Melbourne gynaecologist <a href="http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/balls-headley-walter-2926">Walter Balls-Headley</a> had professed a few years earlier, “the raison d’etre of women’s form” was “the propagation of the race, the production of the ensuing generation”.</p>
<p>Sexual reproduction and pleasure were split. When sex was discussed in the public world, it was rendered meaningful through concepts of family, reproduction and population. Sex was procreation with an emphasis on order, morality and virtue.</p>
<p>That individual women could feel pleasure should have been self-evident. But the procreative model remained powerful, even dominant, because it was tied neatly to the way gendered bodies were culturally, politically and scientifically constructed. White women were encouraged to breed for the good of the new white nation.</p>
<p>Pleasure – if it occurred at all – was to stem from either the reproductive or maternal aspect of a woman’s sexuality, or at the most from her feelings for an individual man. So too, female same-sex desire remained hidden, and lesbians were unnamed.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/196055/original/file-20171123-6020-1ycawso.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/196055/original/file-20171123-6020-1ycawso.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/196055/original/file-20171123-6020-1ycawso.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/196055/original/file-20171123-6020-1ycawso.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/196055/original/file-20171123-6020-1ycawso.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/196055/original/file-20171123-6020-1ycawso.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/196055/original/file-20171123-6020-1ycawso.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/196055/original/file-20171123-6020-1ycawso.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Egon Schiele’s 1913 painting Friendship.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimeda Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Women who felt too much pleasure were suspect, perhaps unnatural. This was a particular risk in the hot climates of Australia: women were believed to reach puberty earlier and more violently, rendering them more open to pathology, even nymphomania.</p>
<p>There were practical reasons, too, why a woman may not have felt pleasure, or attempted to curb her desire. Heterosexual women were constrained by the ever-present fear of pregnancy, a powerful inhibitor against women’s erotic thought. </p>
<p>Ex-nuptial pregnancies and hurried marriage show that many young women did have sex before marriage, yet the palpable shame, fear and scandal of an unplanned pregnancy almost certainly impacted on their enjoyment of sex. For married women, too, the fear of yet another pregnancy – yet another child – meant many avoided sex as much as possible, whatever their desire.</p>
<p>None of this means, of course, that individual women did not enjoy sex, or seek it out for recreation or release, or find comfort in love and sex with men or women.</p>
<h2>Hints of sexual feeling</h2>
<p>The historical record has left us only the vaguest hints of early 20th century women’s sexual feeling. The poet <a href="http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/cross-zora-bernice-may-5828">Zora Cross</a>, for instance, gave voice to a passionate, libidinal woman: here, we find an erotic subject. At the most, she even hinted to orgasm:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I was a little breathing thing,<br>
Half-clay, half-cloud,<br>
Fluttering a feeble wing.<br></p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/196007/original/file-20171123-6044-15juy2s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/196007/original/file-20171123-6044-15juy2s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/196007/original/file-20171123-6044-15juy2s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=839&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/196007/original/file-20171123-6044-15juy2s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=839&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/196007/original/file-20171123-6044-15juy2s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=839&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/196007/original/file-20171123-6044-15juy2s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1054&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/196007/original/file-20171123-6044-15juy2s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1054&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/196007/original/file-20171123-6044-15juy2s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1054&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Zora Cross.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Hers was an active sexuality, a woman who sought and found pleasure. But this record was unusual, and most women left no trace of their sexual feelings, fears, desires, or thoughts on sex or reproduction.</p>
<p>By the 1920s, ideas from the British birth controller <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marie_Stopes">Marie Stopes</a> were well established in Australia, including her promotion of the “companionate marriage”. Increasingly, convention allowed for female pleasure and desire, but only within the bounds of legitimate heterosexual marriage. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/196009/original/file-20171123-6055-14lxdne.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/196009/original/file-20171123-6055-14lxdne.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/196009/original/file-20171123-6055-14lxdne.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=746&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/196009/original/file-20171123-6055-14lxdne.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=746&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/196009/original/file-20171123-6055-14lxdne.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=746&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/196009/original/file-20171123-6055-14lxdne.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=937&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/196009/original/file-20171123-6055-14lxdne.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=937&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/196009/original/file-20171123-6055-14lxdne.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=937&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Marie Stopes.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Before marriage, girls were expected to have no natural, physical sexual feelings (boys, in contrast, were expected to feel desire). But after marriage, as Stopes established, it was expected that a women would not only endure her conjugal duties, but enjoy them. To do so was seen as central to a happy married life.</p>
<p>The second world war momentarily disrupted conventional ideas of marriage and family in Australia. For a brief time, young girls and women sought pleasure before marriage, often with the <a href="https://www.awm.gov.au/articles/encyclopedia/homefront/us_forces">American soldiers</a> who visited Australian shores. There was dancing and romancing, and sometimes sexual encounters. Pleasure took on new forms, and while young women did not always have sex, they flirted, socialised and drank with men in ways unknown to previous generations. </p>
<p>Such fun was, however, short-lived. By the 1950s – perhaps as a response to the freedom of the war years – pleasure was once again relegated to marriage.
<a href="http://www.australia.gov.au/about-australia/australian-story/changing-face-of-modern-australia-1950s-to-1970s">The 1950s</a> was a notoriously conservative decade in Australia. Gendered attitudes to women and sexuality remained strong. Before marriage, society demanded girls remained pure and virginal. Married women, on the other hand, were expected to enjoy marital sex after their wedding night.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/196011/original/file-20171123-6039-p2cnux.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/196011/original/file-20171123-6039-p2cnux.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/196011/original/file-20171123-6039-p2cnux.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=439&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/196011/original/file-20171123-6039-p2cnux.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=439&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/196011/original/file-20171123-6039-p2cnux.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=439&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/196011/original/file-20171123-6039-p2cnux.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=552&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/196011/original/file-20171123-6039-p2cnux.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=552&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/196011/original/file-20171123-6039-p2cnux.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=552&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Family group Everton Park.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Queensland State Archives</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Any wife who did not experience pleasure - and the elusive mutual orgasm from penetrative sex - was seen as a problem: a frigid woman whose lack of sexual response threatened her marriage and the wider social order.</p>
<h2>The pill and popular culture</h2>
<p>Attitudes towards heterosexual pleasure shifted considerably after the introduction of the <a href="http://www.nma.gov.au/online_features/defining_moments/featured/the_pill">contraceptive pill</a>, which reached Australia in 1961. The pill took some time to be widely available, and especially to trickle down to the young and the unmarried. Nonetheless, it went some way to reshaping the sexual landscape, in a time of broader social and sexual revolutions. <a href="http://www.womenaustralia.info/leaders/biogs/WLE0139b.htm">Women’s liberation</a>, <a href="http://www.sbs.com.au/topics/sexuality/agenda/article/2016/08/12/definitive-timeline-lgbt-rights-australia">gay and lesbian liberation</a>, and the increasing libertarianism opened up many possibilities for pleasure for young women.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/196016/original/file-20171123-6072-sdjnra.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/196016/original/file-20171123-6072-sdjnra.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/196016/original/file-20171123-6072-sdjnra.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=488&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/196016/original/file-20171123-6072-sdjnra.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=488&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/196016/original/file-20171123-6072-sdjnra.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=488&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/196016/original/file-20171123-6072-sdjnra.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=613&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/196016/original/file-20171123-6072-sdjnra.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=613&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/196016/original/file-20171123-6072-sdjnra.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=613&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Model of a contraceptive pill, 1970.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The ready availability of the pill meant women were increasingly expected to be sexually available to men. Yet at the same time, the pill opened up opportunities for sexual pleasure. Without the fear of pregnancy, and with social taboos about sex and marriage changing, many women were relatively free to experiment sexually and follow their desires in a range of relationships beyond the bonds of matrimony. Pleasure, perhaps more than ever, was intimately tied to sexual experience.</p>
<p>As this brief romp across the 20th century has shown, ideas of female pleasure are complicated, and often relate more to social and cultural conditions than to experiences of the body itself. We might think of women’s pleasure as static, but it was and is shaped by society and culture. </p>
<p>Today, almost 50 years after the sexual revolutions of the 1970s, young women’s sexual behaviour (and sexual pleasure) is still scrutinised, moderated and open for discussion - in the school ground and on social media.</p>
<p>Young women are subject to multiple and conflicting views on female pleasure: on one hand, popular cultures urges young women to be sexually attractive, willing, and open to experimentation. But on the other hand, they can still readily be constructed as “sluts” and, at worst, vulnerable to rape cultures. </p>
<p>Female pleasure remains at the forefront of the public imagination of teenage girls, but at the same time, young women’s own feelings and desires are all too often stifled. Concepts of women’s sexuality remain mediated by a broader culture that continues to be uncomfortable or troubled by female desire and sexual pleasure.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/87852/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lisa Featherstone receives funding from the Australian Research Council (ARC DP150101798). </span></em></p>
Australian women were once largely seen as reproducers, rather than lovers: sexual pleasure was suspect. Attitudes have changed, yet our culture is still troubled by female desire.
Lisa Featherstone, Senior Lecturer in Australian History and the History of Sexuality, The University of Queensland
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/87746
2017-11-20T03:35:03Z
2017-11-20T03:35:03Z
Del Kathryn Barton explores powerful female sexuality but reproduces the male gaze
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/195341/original/file-20171120-25885-1jg2yfg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Installation view of Del Kathryn Barton: The Highway is a Disco at the Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia, 17 November 2017 – 12 March 2018. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Photo: Tom Ross © Tom Ross</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Powerful female sexuality is the essence of womanhood as imagined by Del Kathryn Barton in The Highway is a Disco exhibition at the NGV Australia. Perhaps best known for her intricate and colourful paintings of women with shape-shifting bodies and cool, detached faces, this exhibition sees Barton work across a multitude of media and explores many facets of female sexuality.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/195325/original/file-20171120-11473-63e8cg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/195325/original/file-20171120-11473-63e8cg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/195325/original/file-20171120-11473-63e8cg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=806&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195325/original/file-20171120-11473-63e8cg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=806&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195325/original/file-20171120-11473-63e8cg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=806&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195325/original/file-20171120-11473-63e8cg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1013&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195325/original/file-20171120-11473-63e8cg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1013&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195325/original/file-20171120-11473-63e8cg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1013&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Del Kathryn Barton, openly song, 2014, private collection, Melbourne.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">© Del Kathryn Barton</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In addition to the paintings, dating back to 2005 but including recent works from 2017, there are works on paper, a series of collages, fabric works, sculpture, and RED, a film starring Cate Blanchett and the artist’s own daughter.</p>
<p>The paintings are visually stunning, painstakingly executed and invite exploration. Spanning over ten metres, sing blood-wings sing is Barton’s newest one and was apparently executed while listening to Peter, Paul and Mary’s Puff the Magic Dragon. Over five panels, five of Barton’s translucent, tight-lipped females sit astride/merge with/copulate with doe-eyed dragons in a pulsating, whirring night sky.</p>
<p>Barton has sometimes been accused of substituting surface for substance in her paintings. The eye is driven in a relentless frenzy around each of the panels, unable to rest anywhere and the viewer is constantly challenged to create meaning from the teeming symbols and motifs. The cool, almost haughty demeanour and elongated gesturing fingers of the women are at odds with their bodily ecstasy. The women of Barton’s paintings live in their own imagined universes of the mind, realms within which they are fully in control.</p>
<p>In contrast to the tightly controlled paintings, the volcanic women series of drawings (2016), elicited in lush, loose, red lines, shows distorted and headless female forms at the moment of toe-curling orgasm, erupting powerfully with the earth’s life forces. This is woman at the moment of transcendence of the rational, merging with the raw convulsing earth.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/195320/original/file-20171119-11439-pcjy4x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/195320/original/file-20171119-11439-pcjy4x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/195320/original/file-20171119-11439-pcjy4x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=393&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195320/original/file-20171119-11439-pcjy4x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=393&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195320/original/file-20171119-11439-pcjy4x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=393&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195320/original/file-20171119-11439-pcjy4x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=494&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195320/original/file-20171119-11439-pcjy4x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=494&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195320/original/file-20171119-11439-pcjy4x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=494&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Del Kathryn Barton, volcanic woman 2016, from the Volcanic women series 2016, Collection of the artist.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">© Del Kathryn Barton</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The collages in the 2017 series <a href="https://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/exhibition/del-kathryn-barton/">inside another land</a> frequently feature the posed female body morphed with orchid flowers inviting the possibility of penetration and fertilisation. The fetishisation of breasts and eyes carries over from the painted works as the bodies, often in suggestive or explicit poses, are de-personalised and exhibited as hybrid specimens.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/195322/original/file-20171119-11477-1w84ozt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/195322/original/file-20171119-11477-1w84ozt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/195322/original/file-20171119-11477-1w84ozt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=851&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195322/original/file-20171119-11477-1w84ozt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=851&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195322/original/file-20171119-11477-1w84ozt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=851&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195322/original/file-20171119-11477-1w84ozt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1070&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195322/original/file-20171119-11477-1w84ozt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1070&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195322/original/file-20171119-11477-1w84ozt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1070&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Del Kathryn Barton, inside another land 2017 (detail), Collection of the artist.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">© Del Kathryn Barton</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The small Louise Bourgeois-inspired sculptures of the penis room are complemented by the large sculpture at the foot of your love, created in response to the terminal illness of Barton’s mother.</p>
<p>A large Huon pine vulval conch shell, appearing deceptively soft and malleable, emits a truncated umbilical rope. This lifeline cannot be reached by the pair of impossibly outstretched hands on the ground. A silk handkerchief, printed with Barton’s collaged images, forms a backdrop, perhaps representing the traditional feminine as well as the tears of grief to be cried over the loss of a mother.</p>
<p>Barton, while rejecting claims to poetic mastery herself, is enamoured of words and their shifting meanings and slippery evocations. In her studio practice, she scribbles words on the walls for inspiration, and handwrites her titles into her works.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/195328/original/file-20171120-11433-1y5x5gu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/195328/original/file-20171120-11433-1y5x5gu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/195328/original/file-20171120-11433-1y5x5gu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=438&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195328/original/file-20171120-11433-1y5x5gu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=438&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195328/original/file-20171120-11433-1y5x5gu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=438&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195328/original/file-20171120-11433-1y5x5gu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=551&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195328/original/file-20171120-11433-1y5x5gu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=551&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195328/original/file-20171120-11433-1y5x5gu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=551&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Del Kathryn Barton, mud monster 2014 (detail), Collection of the artist.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">© Del Kathryn Barton</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Possibly one of the least successful parts of this exhibition is the mud monster series of 2014 in which blood-red words drip and dribble on paper, emerging from a sea of black-and-white bubbles. Hung on a wall of photographic eyes, there is nothing very moving or profound here and, along with the expletives, it has all been done before and could possibly remain a part of the working process.</p>
<p>The 15-minute movie RED, screened in a darkened room with soft red pods for seating, is billed as a highlight of the exhibition and is Barton’s first foray as a film director. While full of striking images that make for great stills and with strong performances by the cast, it works less well as a film and lacks subtlety, clarity and nuance.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/195324/original/file-20171119-11439-swflwo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/195324/original/file-20171119-11439-swflwo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/195324/original/file-20171119-11439-swflwo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195324/original/file-20171119-11439-swflwo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195324/original/file-20171119-11439-swflwo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195324/original/file-20171119-11439-swflwo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195324/original/file-20171119-11439-swflwo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195324/original/file-20171119-11439-swflwo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Del Kathryn Barton, still from RED 2016, Collection of the artist.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">© Del Kathryn Barton</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This curious choice of subject matter highlights cultural ambiguities over female sexuality. The empowered female protagonist, juxtaposed with a female redback spider, shreds her power suit with scissored hands to reveal that she is encased in a blood-red net. She both struggles to release herself from it, and writhes in sensuous agony as she entrances and ensnares her male victim.</p>
<p>The female entices and bewitches a somewhat passive male, controlling the encounter and leaving him dead at its conclusion, as occurs when redback spiders copulate. We are shown that she has taken his seed through somewhat hackneyed images of swimming tadpoles, and a daughter is born.</p>
<p>Two possible take-home messages are that men are only needed for their seed; and that sexually powerful women are predatory, violent and ultimately deadly. In fact, rather than heralding a brave new world of female empowerment, this plays on the anxieties that lead directly back to castration complex, the witch trials, and the suppression of the feminine principle in the world.</p>
<p>Barton is angry, at the very least. Red is the colour of fury, of blood, of sacrifice, of life and of death. In the catalogue interview with Peggy Frew, Barton states:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>RED is my first consciously feminist work, and I have found myself acutely attuned to the revitalised wave of female solidarity flooding the planet at this time. I am not an angry person; I am a lover. I really am. And I am an optimist. But recently I have found myself so fucking angry! Fuck resilience! I want leadership and even supremacy for my sisters! It is our time!</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Although Barton feels that she is working from a feminist perspective, the vision she expresses comes across as personalised, idiosyncratic and inconsistent – not that there is anything wrong with that.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/195329/original/file-20171120-11457-9ha4j8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/195329/original/file-20171120-11457-9ha4j8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/195329/original/file-20171120-11457-9ha4j8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=675&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195329/original/file-20171120-11457-9ha4j8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=675&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195329/original/file-20171120-11457-9ha4j8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=675&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195329/original/file-20171120-11457-9ha4j8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=848&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195329/original/file-20171120-11457-9ha4j8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=848&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/195329/original/file-20171120-11457-9ha4j8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=848&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Del Kathryn Barton, I’m going through changes 2016 synthetic polymer paint and fibre, tipped pen on canvas, 200.0 x 180.0 cm, Collection of the artist.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">© Del Kathryn Barton</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Paying tribute to major inspirations, the French-American artist Bourgeois and Japanese Yayoi Kusama, Del Kathryn Barton uses free association and a personal visual language influenced by Gustav Klimt and Egon Schiele to express her subconscious desires and the rich fantasy life of her unbridled imagination.</p>
<p>Curiously, however, I find that it is the male gaze that is reproduced most often in this exhibition. Women are either de-personalised objects for display, reduced to breasts and genitalia, chilly and detached, or bucking headless cauldrons of destructive passion.</p>
<p><em>Del Kathryn Barton: The Highway is a Disco is <a href="https://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/exhibition/del-kathryn-barton/">at the NGV</a> until March 18.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/87746/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Anita Pisch does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
The paintings in Del Kathryn Barton’s new show at NGV Australia are visually stunning and painstakingly executed. But the women depicted are often de-personalised objects or headless cauldrons of destructive passion.
Anita Pisch, Visiting Fellow, School of Literature, Languages and Linguistics, Australian National University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.