“Laurie Mintz’s Becoming Cliterate: Why Orgasm Equality Matters — And How to Get It is a manifesto for today’s orgasmic insurrection.”
“Dedicated to those “who are willing to take the revolutionary steps necessary to make equal opportunity orgasms a reality,” Becoming Cliterate is more down to earth than its rabble-rousing title suggests.”
“Mintz is a practicing therapist and professor of psychology at the University of Florida and the author of A Tired Woman’s Guide to Passionate Sex.”
“She does not aim to teach her readers anything exotic or kinky: she just wants them to come. Despite some cutesy language, like dividing the book into “Sextions” and offering “Tidbits for Your Lady Bits” (credit for her best pun, “cliteracy,” goes to Ian Kerner, author of She Comes First: The Thinking Man’s Guide to Pleasuring a Woman), Mintz is otherwise a straight shooter.”
“Within two pages, she lays out her thesis: “Your orgasm problem is a cultural problem.””
“Mintz cuts to the chase: “There is way too much emphasis on intercourse — the way men reach orgasm,” and this “over-focus on the importance of putting a penis in a vagina is screwing with women’s orgasms.” Compounding the problem is the fact that people are not taught the communication skills they need for good sex.”
“And that’s pretty much it. Clitoral stimulation + good communication = female orgasm. It is not exactly Fermat’s Last Theorem. So why hasn’t it caught on?”
“American sex education, which preaches the dangers rather than the pleasures of sex, and the waxed, cum-on-command alternate reality of internet pornography, is lousy at explaining and representing women’s sexuality”
“From as early as the medieval period, the clitoris (as Thomas Laqueur, Naomi Wolf, Rebecca Chalker, and others have shown) was routinely part of midwifery manuals and medical models, but it began to be erased around the 18th and 19th centuries, when women started to demand political rights.”
“Despite clear knowledge about female sexual pleasure at earlier points in history, “Somehow we keep forgetting these messages.” The cultural amnesia around female orgasm is often downright nefarious.”
“Mintz embarks on a modern consciousness-raising program — but one that is politics-lite — reprising some of the most familiar methods from the second-wave feminist sex education movement of the 1970s.”
“She instructs her readers who have a vagina to hold a mirror between their legs and behold their anatomy. Unlike male sexual physiognomy, which mostly lets it all hang out, female genitalia is more concealed.”
“The hand mirror self-examination was one of the classic takeaways from the landmark 1971 handbook Our Bodies, Ourselves, which encouraged women to do it both alone and in their support groups.”
“Mintz’s program is fairly simple but sensible: get to know your body, figure out how to get yourself off, expand your ideas of what “counts” as sex (that is, intercourse is just one possible event, versus the event), change the way you talk about sex (e.g., women should not be said to “lose their virginity” but rather “make their sexual debut”), and enact a series of “modern-age plays” featuring different orgasmic roles with your partners.”
“The physical technique is easy to learn; what’s harder is “[t]raining the sex organ between your ears.””
“While her general approach is relaxed, Mintz is firm about some principles. Noting that “The most striking thing about female masturbation […] is how little it resembles […] intercourse,” she insists that “[t]he most crucial action needed to orgasm with a partner is to get the same type of stimulation you use when pleasuring yourself.””
“Observing that many women are anxious about how much time it takes them to come, Mintz adopts a zen attitude — it takes as long as it takes — but pointedly remarks that “if a partner spends 20 or more minutes on clitoral stimulation, about 92 percent of women will orgasm.””
“To that end, she appends a Sextion for men that compresses the previous chapters and reassuringly addresses male anxieties about size, staying power, and the aforementioned vibrator stealing one’s thunder.”
“Readers who desire more nuanced orgasm theory should investigate Emily Nagoski’s Come as You Are: The Surprising New Science that Will Transform Your Sex Life.”
“For a more adventurous approach, see Jenny Block’s O Wow: Discovering Your Ultimate Orgasm.”
“That said, Mintz briefly discusses squirting and the A-spot, and she’s quick to refer readers whose curiosity strays beyond her book to her “favorite all-time sex guide, The Guide to Getting It On.””
“Unfortunately, for every valuable, well-meaning contribution like Becoming Cliterate, there are more blatant attempts to cash in on the orgasm gap. As women are told that orgasm is a necessary part of individual fulfillment, self-care, and wellness, it becomes an imperative, something women need to “work on,” a standard they must attain, a compulsory pleasure.”
“That justifies products feeding the perception that orgasm is infinitely malleable and perfectible. Why stop at climax when you can have artisanal orgasm?”
“Becoming Cliterate will help many women reach their orgasm objectives, and that’s all to the good. But if orgasm is defined as the ultimate goal — the gold standard — of sexual experience, then we’re back in the same place of Freud’s vaginal orgasm or the G-spot craze.”
“For most people, orgasm is one of life’s most delicious pleasures, but orgasm equity will not solve the problem of patriarchy, and the dream of gender equality should not rest on a spasm of sensation, however delightful.”
“We need orgasms. Let’s just not make women crazy about attaining them, and let’s not lose our sense of perspective. As one unsung philosopher of the late 1990s put it, “What’s the big mystery? It’s my clitoris, not the Sphinx.””
“Laura Frost is a cultural critic based in San Francisco.”