Betty Dodson

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Betty Dodson
BettyDodson2010.jpg
Dodson in 2010
Born(1929-08-24)August 24, 1929
Wichita, Kansas, U.S.
DiedOctober 31, 2020(2020-10-31) (aged 91)
Manhattan, New York City
NationalityAmerican
Known forSex-positive feminism

Betty Dodson (August 24, 1929 – October 31, 2020) was an American sex educator. An artist by training, she exhibited erotic art in New York, before pioneering the pro-sex feminist movement. Dodson's workshops and manuals encourage women to masturbate, often in groups.

Early career[]

Originally from Kansas, Dodson went to New York City to train as an artist in 1950, and lived on Manhattan's Madison Avenue since 1962.[1] In 1959, Dodson married Frederick Stern, an advertising director, with the marriage ending in divorce in 1965.[1] Dodson's quest for "sexual self-discovery" began after her divorce.[1] Dodson held a first one-woman show of erotic art at the Wickersham Gallery in New York City in 1968.[2] In 1987, her Ms. magazine memoir and instructional series, Sex for One, was published. Random House later published the work broadly and it was translated to 25 languages.[3]

Dodson criticized Eve Ensler's The Vagina Monologues, which she believed has a negative and restrictive view of sexuality and an anti-male bias.[4]

Dodson earned a degree from the unaccredited Institute for the Advanced Study of Human Sexuality for her research work on sexuality.[5]

Women's masturbation education[]

Dodson became active in the sex-positive movement in the late 1960s.[6] Dodson used the Hitachi Magic Wand, a powerful main-powered vibrator, in demonstrations and instructional classes to instruct women regarding self-pleasure techniques.[7][8] She recommended women put a small towel over their sex organs in order to dull the sensation of the vibrator and prolong the pleasurable experience.[9] Her technique became known as the Betty Dodson Method.[10] Her sessions were known as Bodysex workshops and featured 15 naked women in supine position, each using a Magic Wand simultaneously to aid in masturbation.[11] She provided a Magic Wand to each woman for these two-hour masturbation sessions.[12] Dodson taught thousands of women to achieve orgasm using this technique.[11]

Later career[]

Dodson published a memoir, Sex by Design, in 2010.[1]

In 2014, she stated that she considered herself a fourth-wave feminist, stating that the previous waves of feminist were banal and anti-sexual, which is why she has chosen to look at a new stance of feminism, fourth wave feminism. In 2014, Dodson worked with women to discover their sexual desires through masturbation. Dodson said her work has gained a support from an audience of young, successful women who have never had an orgasm. This includes fourth-wave feminists – those rejecting the anti-pleasure stance they believe third-wave feminists stand for.[13]

Dodson died on October 31, 2020, from cirrhosis in a Manhattan nursing home.[14][3]

Bibliography[]

  • Dodson, Betty (1978). Liberating Masturbation: A Meditation on Self Love. Dodson.
  • Dodson, Betty (1996). Sex for One: The Joy of Selfloving. New York: Crown Trade Paperbacks. ISBN 0-517-88607-3. OCLC 15696491.
  • Dodson, Betty (2003). Orgasms for Two: The Joy of Partnersex. Potter/Ten Speed/Harmony/Rodale. ISBN 978-1-4000-5203-5.
  • Dodson, Betty (2016). Sex by Design: The Betty Dodson Story. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform. ISBN 978-1-5308-3412-9.
  • Dodson, Betty (2013). Learn to Orgasm in 4 Acts. ISBN 978-0-578-12140-6.

By others[]

  • Muscio, Inga. Cunt: A Declaration of Independence (20th anniversary ed.). New York. ISBN 978-1-58005-664-9. OCLC 1008762930. (Foreword by Betty Dodson)

References[]

  1. ^ Jump up to: a b c d Theobold, Stephanie (May 5, 2014). "Masturbation: the secret to a long life?". The Guardian. Archived from the original on March 18, 2015. Retrieved March 7, 2015.
  2. ^ Allyn, David (May 23, 2016). Make Love, Not War: The Sexual Revolution: An Unfettered History. Routledge. p. 141. ISBN 978-1-134-93473-7.
  3. ^ Jump up to: a b Green, Penelope (November 3, 2020). "Betty Dodson, Women's Guru of Self-Pleasure, Dies at 91". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved November 4, 2020.
  4. ^ Grant, Melissa Gira. "Betty Dodson's Feminist Sex Wars". Truthout. Archived from the original on March 22, 2020. Retrieved March 22, 2020.
  5. ^ "Betty Dodson author biography". randomhouse.com. Random House. Archived from the original on March 30, 2013. Retrieved April 8, 2012.
  6. ^ Love, Barbara J. (2006), "Dodson, Betty Ann", in Love, Barbara J. (ed.), Feminists who changed America, 1963–1975, Urbana, Illinois: University of Illinois Press, pp. 120–121, ISBN 9780252031892
  7. ^ Trout, Christopher (August 27, 2014). "The 46-year-old sex toy Hitachi won't talk about". Engadget. Archived from the original on August 27, 2014. Retrieved August 30, 2014.
  8. ^ Westheimer, Ruth K. (2007), "Savouring solo play and fantasy", in Westheimer, Ruth K. (ed.), Sex for Dummies, Hoboken, New Jersey: Wiley, pp. 204–206, ISBN 9780470045237
  9. ^ Kemp, K. M. (June 2003). "25 ways to have your best orgasm ever!". Marie Claire. Hearst Communications. 10 (6): 233. Archived from the original on February 18, 2017. Retrieved February 18, 2017 – via InfoTrac.
  10. ^ Struck, Pia; Ventegodt, Søren (2008). "Clinical holistic medicine: teaching orgasm for females with chronic anorgasmia using the Betty Dodson Method". The Scientific World Journal. 8: 883–895. doi:10.1100/tsw.2008.116. PMC 5848654. PMID 18836654.
  11. ^ Jump up to: a b Winks, Cathy; Semans, Anne (1997), "Profiles in pleasure: Betty Dodson | Vibrators and partners", in Winks, Cathy; Semans, Anne (eds.), The New Good Vibrations Fuide to Sex, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania: Cleis Press, pp. 102, 154, ISBN 9781573440691
  12. ^ Dodson, Betty (1996), "Making love alone", in Dodson, Betty (ed.), Sex for one: the joy of selfloving, New York: Crown Trade Paperbacks, p. 154, ISBN 9780517886076
  13. ^ Smith, Lydia (May 7, 2014). "Betty Dodson and fourth-wave feminism: masturbation is key to longer life". International Business Times. Archived from the original on May 11, 2014. Retrieved May 12, 2014.
  14. ^ "Orgasme-pioner død". Ekstra Bladet (in Danish). Archived from the original on November 2, 2020. Retrieved November 2, 2020.

External links[]

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