"By the later 1960s and 1970s, young women who had been raised and come of age in the newly 'open' culture of sexual hedonism and participated in it both more and less enthusiatically had deconstructed the bedroom and revealed it to be a place of considerable unhappiness for women. Best-selling works such as Ann Koedt's The Myth of The Vaginal Orgasm and Shere Hite's The Hite Report indicated that the penis was not an instrument of endless pleasure for the majority of women, but a fetish for men, in whose gratification female pleasure was very often sacrificed. Feminists called for an end to the double standard in sexual behaviour (based on the maternal/sexual dichotomy), sexual satisfaction for women as well as men, and the same autonomy as men in choice of sexual partners." [emphasis mine]
-Varda Burstyn, "Delivering the Male: Sport Culture, The Mass Media and the Masculinity Market." (1999)
My response to this excerpt, which I am reading for my Mass Communications class:
- I never imagined my penis was "an instrument of endless pleasure for the majority of women". I'd be surprised if it's an instrument of mild pleasure to one woman. Now, as an instrument of my pleasure, that's a different story...
- Sexual satisfaction for women had to be demanded? No wonder early feminists were so angry.
- Note to Vicki: You have exactly as much autonomy in choosing other sexual partners as I do. None whatsoever.
1 comment:
Note to John: Oh, very well.
[dismisses harem of naked bronze men who have, until John spoiled all the fun, been feeding grapes and giving Vicki full-body massages]
There, satisfied?
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