6.04.2012

Another Crappy AskMen.com Article About Female Orgasm



From time to time, I like to google "female orgasm" and see what I get. I gotta keep my fingers on the pulse of society's ladygasm knowledge - don't ya know. So, the 2nd link on the first page of my search was this brilliant article on the AskMen.com Love and Dating section.

I'm telling you, it's pretty much the only thing you'll need to read if you want to "Understand the Female Orgasm" which is, aptly, the name of the article in question. As the article says, it, "will help you understand the female genitalia and the female orgasm inside and out."

You will learn things like, "when you tease her, you build up awesome tension, and when she finally orgasms, it will be an explosion of release." OOO - I love awesome tension and explosions of release! "Keep in mind, however, that roughly 26% of women have difficulty reaching orgasm. And usually, it's her own mental block that keeps her from reaching orgasm -- it's not you."

Weeeellllll...it's probably a little you. However, even though this is one of the stupidest articles I've ever read, I won't argue too much with the "it's not you" statement, because honestly, we need to stop blaming men for not "giving" us our orgasms. The truth is, a lot of women know about as much about how to get their own orgasm as men know about "giving" it..and this article does not help that situation at all, my friends. It's just plain bad, and the information presented is just so weird. For instance, here's the explanation in the "What Happens?" section in this article.

When a woman orgasms, regardless of which area of her body you're manipulating, her body physically reacts in the same way. During an orgasm, she feels:

  • stimulation in her clitoris
  • her heart rate, blood pressure and breathing increase
  • tension builds within her pelvis
  • muscles contract throughout her body, especially in the vagina, uterus, rectum, and pelvic floor
  • tension is released upon orgasm

First of all, this is the entire explanation given for what an orgasm is - so I'd say this is not so comprehensive. Secondly, it's like an alien read bits and pieces of Masters and Johnson's  Human Sexual Response (the definitive study on the physical aspects of orgasm) and then gave us its mixed up alien explanation. The list is supposed to be what a woman feels during orgasm, but "stimulation in her clitoris" should really be in a "how to elicit orgasm" section and should really be written "stimulation of her clitoris." Actually, there is no physical reaction in the clitoris during orgasm at all. The clit is more like the receptor and transformer of the sexual stimuli. I mean, I guess she might still be feeling stimulation on her clit because she's still rubbing the hell out of it while the orgasm is happening, but it's not like the orgasm caused her to feel stimulation in her clit.

Okay, yes, she should feel "tension build within her pelvis," but she will feel those during the build up to orgasm - not during orgasm. The orgasm itself is actually the release of muscle tension (and blood congestion) within her pelvis.

All the other things on the list can legitimately be put into the category of what a woman feels during orgasm, so I have no real squabble with those. It's just that this "What Happens?" section, as a whole, is so mixed up. He wrote "During an orgasm, she feels:" but the succeeding list he made is instead more like a list, in no particular order, of some random facts he found flipping through the pages of Human Sexual Response. As opposed to being informative, the author made the well-established facts about the physical aspects of female orgasm even more vague and confusing than they already are to most of the population.

As I said, there are a lot of bad parts, but I'll just go over a few real quick here.

1. Lucky us, the article decides to let us know about the "two areas of a woman's vagina that can lead to the most satisfying female orgasm:" Well, it ends up that those two parts turn out to be the clitoris and the vagina. I hate to break it to you, but the clitoris is not part of the vagina, and the vagina is not a part of the vagina. It is the vagina. I realize the author first uses the word vagina in the slang way - as the whole of the female genitals. However that's not what it actually is. It is the muscular barrel that penises, fingers, tampons, and dildos go into and babies and menstrual blood leave through. This is supposed to be an informative article, so could we at least use words accurately?

2. The following is written in this article about the G-Spot..."Theory dictates that the G-spot can be either a bundle of nerves coming from the clitoris or a gland (or series of glands) that produces lubrication." I have heard a lot of inaccurate shit about the G-spot, and in fact, most of what is written about it is inaccurate, but I think the aliens were again taking over the writing process, because that is a different kind of inaccuracy than I have ever heard. I honestly am not sure where he got that.

I've heard some people say that the G-spot is part of the "clitoris" simply because they have decided to arbitrarily put every part of a woman's genitals that may feel good when stimulated into a big basket and call them all part of the clitoris. I've even heard some theories that the inner parts of the clitoris, the largely not-so nervy, clitoral legs that become very erect during arousal, are indirectly stimulated during intercourse and are what cause "vaginal orgasms." (I see that as pretty unlikely at best  - both that "vaginal orgasms" exist and that if they did it would happen this way, but that idea is for sure out there.) I, however, have never heard anyone say that the g-spot is a bundle of nerves, much less that these nerves are connected to the clit.

I have also never heard anyone say that the G-spot produces lubrication. It's odd. Lubrication does come from the the vaginal walls, so maybe that's where he was coming from. However, maybe it has some weird connection to the most accurate (if I might say so) explanation of the g-spot as being a series of ducts and glands (embryonic-ly related to the male prostate) which can produce ejaculate-like liquid when stimulated. In fact, the prostate explanation is a pretty common one among people who study that kind of thing, and it seems like it should be reflected here. The two explanations this article puts forth are not common and certainly not in the major books on the subject like The G-Spot and Other Recent Discoveries About Human Sexuality. They are, simply, bizarre.

That's kinda hilarious and kinda sad because it just goes to show you that people can say anything at all about the G-spot and readers/listeners just go with it.

3. The article spectacularly ends this way:
Keep in mind that any type of sexual stimulation can lead a woman to orgasm. And although there are some women who can will themselves to orgasm without even being touched, it is rare.

Massage, foreplay, direct stimulation, and even talking can make a woman reach orgasm. Most women, however, find that direct stimulation of the clitoris is the easiest way for them to climax. So use your tongue, your fingers, even rub your penis against it, and she might climax.

Until next time, keep it coming.
 Yes, yes, she might climax, so just try whatever - being sure to keep in mind that any type of sexual stimulation can make a woman come. That is very helpful info. Probably rubbing a woman's belly while merely talking about oral sex will make her explode in awesome-style orgasm...and of course we all know a few women (not every woman - it is rare) who can just will themselves into an orgasm right?

This is truly an ending that makes it very clear that there are no real answers when it comes to female orgasm. It might be clit stim that gets her there, but hey, you might just need to talk dirty to her. I mean, who could understand female sexual response? Lady parts are crazy - anything goes when it comes to ladygasms! Honestly, there may be a person or two out there who has a freak ability to just will themselves into an orgasm without physical stimulation, but why does it seem perfectly normal to include that in an advice article about how to get women off? Including that in an article about how to get men got off would seem ridiculous and laughable.

Yet men and women's orgasms are physically so similar - both the stimulation needed to achieve orgasm and the physical changes leading up to and during orgasm. Somehow, men's orgasms are discussed as if we know what physically causes them and women's orgasms are discussed, as we can see in this article, as if women are strange mystical beings with an unknown and diverse set of genital connections that can react in an infinite amount of ways.


The article does have pieces of good info - like that the penis and clitoris are from the same embryonic structure or that most women do orgasm from clitoral stimulation or that when women get turned on but don't get to come, they can experience discomfort from all that blood congestion accumulated during arousal - just like men can (blue clit - like blue balls). The problem is that, like with so many other articles and books I've read, any good information gets watered down or even negated when it gets thrown into a big pot with all the bad, contradictory information from the same book or article. It would be different if the actual accurate information about what exactly the female orgasm is was common knowledge, but it's not.  The willy nilly pieces of info tossed about, like they are in this article, add to the bullshit idea that female orgasms are mysterious, confusing entities.

As usual, I found a big ol' turd when I googled "female orgasm." Although AskMen.com might seem like an obviously shitty, horrible place to get good information on female orgasm, I doubt that is obvious to everyone. Plus, this article (and ones like it) are excessively easy to find when searching for some female orgasm advice. These kinds of crappy articles are more influential than we'd like to think. People do read them and do take some if not all the info to heart. This is the kind of crap we have to fight against if we ever want the larger cultural understanding of female sexual response to be accurate and realistic. So...if you have any good ideas about countering this kind of stuff at the source, I'd love to hear your thoughts.

No comments:

Post a Comment