Women’s Sexual Pleasure is Social Justice/The Clitoris is Key

Disclaimer: The following statement pertains to cisgender men and women and focuses primarily on heterosexual sexual encounters. I acknowledge, as a cisgender heterosexual woman, that this excludes those outside of these groups and apologize in doing so, noting that the research to date is limited in its expanse.

In a society that overemphasizes the importance of men’s sexual pleasure, women's sexual pleasure is social justice. While much of our mainstream media, movies, TV, and porn reiterates that male pleasure is superior, women’s pleasure takes the sidelines. Moreover, when female pleasure is given attention, it is usually in a singular narrative that still appeases men’s desires first and/or highlights her submission. According to Dr. Laurie Mintz, author of Becoming Cliterate: Why Orgasm Equality Matters--And How to Get It, this all comes down to the patriarchy. Because intercourse (via penis-and-vagina penetration) is a reliable way for most men to orgasm, people (and shows) assume it’s the most important and only sexual activity for both men and women to do. In reality, 95% of women need clitoral stimulation to reach orgasm. Uncoincidentally, perhaps, a startlingly large number of both men and women have trouble identifying the anatomy of female genitalia, according to a number of studies in recent years. While women can, of course, orgasm without a man or any partner, and can have pleasurable sex without experiencing an orgasm at all, the orgasm gap is alarming. Ninetyfive percent of heterosexual men usually or always orgasm during partnered sexual activity compared to just 65% of heterosexual women. In the US alone, that’s over 52 million women who aren’t orgasming during partnered sexual activity. Mintz explains, “Underlying this false idea is our cultural privileging of male sexual pleasure and our parallel devaluing of female sexual pleasure. [Our society] believes that the way men most dependably orgasm (via intercourse) should be the way that women should most consistently orgasm. And we consider showing intercourse on the screen to be acceptable and showing women’s most reliable route to orgasm—clitoral stimulation—to be obscene.” Perhaps most jarring is just how quickly and how often women reach orgasm on screen. And forget about extended touching, use of toys or foreplay of any kind; onscreen, women seem to always orgasm from penetrative vaginal or anal sex or even from mere touch. (Perhaps this is also unsurprising, in a film industry where fewer than 10% of directors are female). Research suggests that people tend to mirror the sex acts they see depicted in porn. And when it comes to sex ed, 30 percent of teenagers in one study reported that porn was their primary source of sex education. So when most mainstream, easily accessible porn focuses on male pleasure and shows men having 65 percent more orgasms and receiving more oral sex than women, real-life sex starts ignoring female pleasure too. And that’s how sex becomes synonymous with penetrative, penis-in-vagina intercourse, and other sex acts that focus on female pleasure get ignored. Bringing these issues to light, I employ text, utilizing the font, colors, and format of the Guerilla Girls’ work to similarly call out sexism in playful ways. I aim to bring attention to the orgasm gap and contest the topic’s tabooness