Comment: I just read this article in The New York Times on the death of Betty Dodson (a feminist sexologist and evangelist of self-pleasure) had a major influence on a generation of women in terms of the ability to self-pleasure. Betty Dodson strove to teach women the power of self-pleasure in a society that negatively values female sexual pleasure. Although there have been improvements in this regard, there are many communities and societies that continue to control female sexual expression.
Ms. Dodson was a second-wave feminist making erotic art when she began hosting consciousness raising groups — but with a twist — in her Manhattan apartment. The method involved a genital show and tell, so that women could see that vulvas came in all shapes, sizes and colors; this was followed by clitoral attention with a vibrator. As she refined her teaching, she realized that she had found her calling.
“This masturbation business,” as she liked to say, was a kind of social justice work. If women could learn to pleasure themselves properly, she reasoned, they could end their sexual dependence on men, which would make everybody happy.