Betty Dodson
{{short description|American sex educator (1929–2020)}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=November 2020}}
{{Infobox person
| name = Betty Dodson
| image = BettyDodson2010.jpg
| caption = Dodson in 2010
| birth_date = {{Birth date|1929|08|24|mf=yes}}
| birth_place = Wichita, Kansas, U.S.
| death_date = {{Death date and age|2020|10|31|1929|08|24|mf=yes}}
| death_place = New York City, U.S.
| other_names =
| occupation =
| known_for = Sex-positive feminism
}}
Betty Dodson (August 24, 1929{{spnd}}October 31, 2020) was an American sex educator. An artist by training, she exhibited erotic art in New York City, before pioneering the pro-sex feminist movement. Dodson's workshops and manuals encourage women to masturbate, often in groups.
Early career
Dodson went to New York City to train as an artist in 1950, and lived on Manhattan's Madison Avenue from 1962.{{cite news|last=Theobold|first=Stephanie|url=https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2014/may/05/masturbation-secret-to-a-long-life-betty-dodson-self-love|title=Masturbation: the secret to a long life?|work=The Guardian|date=May 5, 2014|access-date=March 7, 2015|archive-date=March 18, 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150318192158/http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2014/may/05/masturbation-secret-to-a-long-life-betty-dodson-self-love|url-status=live}} In 1959, Dodson married Frederick Lief, an advertising director; they divorced in 1965. Dodson's quest for "sexual self-discovery" began after her divorce. Dodson held a first one-woman show of erotic art at the Wickersham Gallery in New York City in 1968.{{cite book|last=Allyn|first=David|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=eP42DAAAQBAJ&pg=PA141|title=Make Love, Not War: The Sexual Revolution: An Unfettered History|date=May 23, 2016|publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-1-134-93473-7|pages=141|language=en}} 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 into 25 languages.
Dodson criticized Eve Ensler's The Vagina Monologues, which she believed has a negative and restrictive view of sexuality with an anti-male bias.{{Cite web|url=https://truthout.org/articles/betty-dodsons-feminist-sex-wars/|title=Betty Dodson's Feminist Sex Wars|first=Melissa Gira|last=Grant|website=Truthout|date=December 16, 2013 |url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200322041644/https://truthout.org/articles/betty-dodsons-feminist-sex-wars/|archive-date=March 22, 2020|access-date=March 22, 2020}}
Dodson earned a degree from the unaccredited Institute for the Advanced Study of Human Sexuality for her research work on sexuality.{{cite web|title=Betty Dodson author biography|url=http://www.randomhouse.com/author/7172/betty-dodson|website=randomhouse.com|publisher=Random House|access-date=April 8, 2012|archive-date=March 30, 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130330084333/http://www.randomhouse.com/author/7172/betty-dodson|url-status=live}}
Workshops and coaching
Dodson became active in the sex-positive movement in the late 1960s.{{citation|last=Love|first=Barbara J.|author-link=Barbara Love|contribution=Dodson, Betty Ann|editor-last=Love|editor-first=Barbara J.|editor-link=Barbara Love|title=Feminists who changed America, 1963–1975|pages=[https://archive.org/details/feministswhochan00love/page/120 120–121]|publisher=University of Illinois Press|location=Urbana, Illinois|year=2006|isbn=9780252031892|url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/feministswhochan00love/page/120}}
From the 1970s onwards, she organised Bodysex workshops. Bodysex is a practice developed by Betty Dodson to help women connect with their bodies and erogenous zones, heal shames, improve pleasure perception, and promote self-love. In the workshops, women were guided to explore their bodies and masturbate together to learn, with guidance, how to have an orgasm as a woman alone and with a sexual partner.Carlin Ross, Betty Dodson: Betty Dodson Bodysex Basics. Betty Dodson Foundation, 24 February 2017. ISBN 978-0578190723. Her two-hour sessions featured 15 naked women, each using a Hitachi Magic Wand to aid in masturbation.{{citation|last1=Winks|first1=Cathy|last2=Semans|first2=Anne|contribution=Profiles in pleasure: Betty Dodson | Vibrators and partners|editor-last1=Winks|editor-first1=Cathy|editor-last2=Semans|editor-first2=Anne|title=The New Good Vibrations Fuide to Sex|title-link=The Good Vibrations Guide to Sex|pages=102, 154|publisher=Cleis Press|location=Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania|year=1997|isbn=9781573440691}} Dodson used the Magic Wand, a mains-powered vibrator, in demonstrations and instructional classes to instruct women regarding self-pleasure techniques.{{cite news|last=Trout|first=Christopher|title=The 46-year-old sex toy Hitachi won't talk about|url=https://www.engadget.com/2014/08/27/history-of-the-hitachi-magic-wand/|work=Engadget|date=August 27, 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140827183517/http://www.engadget.com/2014/08/27/history-of-the-hitachi-magic-wand/|archive-date=August 27, 2014|access-date=August 30, 2014}}{{Cite book|last=Westheimer|first=Ruth K.|author-link=Ruth K. Westheimer|chapter=Savouring solo play and fantasy|editor-last=Westheimer|editor-first=Ruth K.|editor-link=Ruth K. Westheimer|title=Sex for Dummies|pages=204–206|publisher=Wiley|location=Hoboken, New Jersey|year=2007|isbn=9780470045237}} She provided a Magic Wand to each woman for these sessions.{{Cite book|last=Dodson|first=Betty|chapter=Making love alone|editor-last=Dodson|editor-first=Betty|title=Sex for one: the joy of selfloving|page=154|publisher=Crown Trade Paperbacks|location=New York|year=1996|isbn=9780517886076}} She recommended women put a small towel over their vulva in order to dull the sensation of the vibrator and prolong the pleasurable experience.{{cite magazine|url=http://connection.ebscohost.com/c/articles/9810770/25-ways-have-your-best-orgasm-ever|title=25 ways to have your best orgasm ever!|first=K. M.|last=Kemp|magazine=Marie Claire|date=June 2003|page=233|volume=10|issue=6|via=InfoTrac |url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170218144954/http://connection.ebscohost.com/c/articles/9810770/25-ways-have-your-best-orgasm-ever|archive-date=February 18, 2017|access-date=February 18, 2017}} The essence of her method was to provide vaginal and clitoral stimulation at the same time.{{Cite book|last=Dodson|first=Betty |title=Orgasms for Two: The Joy of Partnersex |date=2003|publisher=Potter/Ten Speed/Harmony/Rodale|isbn=978-1-4000-5203-5}} Dodson taught thousands of women to achieve orgasm using this technique. Her technique became known as the Betty Dodson Method.{{cite journal|first1=Pia|last1=Struck|last2=Ventegodt|first2=Søren|title=Clinical holistic medicine: teaching orgasm for females with chronic anorgasmia using the Betty Dodson Method|journal=The Scientific World Journal|volume=8|pages=883–895|doi=10.1100/tsw.2008.116|pmid=18836654|pmc=5848654|date=2008 |doi-access=free }}
A study conducted in 2007 tested the "Betty Dodson Method" in group therapy with 500 previously anorgasmic women. Of the 500, 465 (93%) had orgasms during therapy, while 35 (7%) did not.Hatim A. Omar, Pia Struck, Søren Ventegodt: "[https://www.hindawi.com/journals/tswj/2008/249805/ Clinical Holistic Medicine: Teaching Orgasm for Females with Chronic Anorgasmia using the Betty Dodson Method]". The Scientific World Journal, Volume 8, 27 August 2008. In a 2021 study, the female techniques for pleasurable vaginal intercourse taught by Dodson ("Angling, Rocking, Shallowing, Pairing") are again described by women.Devon J. Hensel, Christiana D. von Hippel, Charles C. Lapage, Robert H. Perkins: "[https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0249242 Women's techniques for making vaginal penetration more pleasurable: results from a nationally representative study of adult women in the United States]". PLOS ONE, 14 April 2021.
Later career
Dodson published a memoir, Sex by Design, in 2010.
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 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.{{cite news|last=Smith|first=Lydia|title=Betty Dodson and fourth-wave feminism: masturbation is key to longer life|url=http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/betty-dodson-fourth-wave-feminism-masturbation-key-longer-life-1447536|work=International Business Times|date=May 7, 2014|access-date=May 12, 2014|archive-date=May 11, 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140511082917/http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/betty-dodson-fourth-wave-feminism-masturbation-key-longer-life-1447536|url-status=live}}
Dodson died on October 31, 2020, at the age of 91, from cirrhosis in a Manhattan nursing home.{{cite news|url=https://ekstrabladet.dk/sex_og_samliv/kys-og-kaerlighed/orgasme-pioner-doed/8351318|title=Orgasme-pioner død|website=Ekstra Bladet|access-date=November 2, 2020|language=da|archive-date=November 2, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201102223514/https://ekstrabladet.dk/sex_og_samliv/kys-og-kaerlighed/orgasme-pioner-doed/8351318|url-status=live}}{{cite news|last=Green|first=Penelope|date=November 3, 2020|title=Betty Dodson, Women's Guru of Self-Pleasure, Dies at 91 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/03/style/betty-dodson-dead.html |language=en-US |work=The New York Times |access-date=November 4, 2020|issn=0362-4331}}
Bibliography
- {{Cite book |last=Dodson |first=Betty |year=1978 |title=Liberating Masturbation: A Meditation on Self Love |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=fa_BswEACAAJ |publisher=Dodson |language=en}}
- {{Cite book |last=Dodson |first=Betty |year=1996 |title=Sex for One: The Joy of Selfloving |location=New York |publisher=Crown Trade Paperbacks |isbn=0-517-88607-3 |oclc=15696491}}
- {{Cite book |last=Dodson |first=Betty |year=2003 |title=Orgasms for Two: The Joy of Partnersex |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lFImjQcChocC |publisher=Potter/Ten Speed/Harmony/Rodale |isbn=978-1-4000-5203-5 |language=en}}
- {{Cite book |last=Dodson |first=Betty |year=2013 |title=Learn to Orgasm in 4 Acts |publisher=Betty A Dodson Foundation Incorporated |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qpRYAQAACAAJ |isbn=978-0-578-12140-6 |language=en}}
- {{Cite book |last=Dodson |first=Betty |year=2016 |title=Sex by Design: The Betty Dodson Story |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=UCmYDAEACAAJ |publisher=CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform |isbn=978-1-5308-3412-9 |language=en}}
=By others=
- {{Cite book |last=Muscio |first=Inga |authorlink=Inga Muscio |date=March 13, 2018 |title=Cunt: A Declaration of Independence |edition=20th anniversary |others=Foreword by Betty Dodson |location=New York |isbn=978-1-58005-664-9 |oclc=1008762930}}
References
{{Reflist}}
External links
- {{Official website|http://dodsonandross.com}}
{{Masturbation}}{{FilmOut Programming Award}}{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Dodson, Betty}}
Category:21st-century American women
Category:American relationships and sexuality writers
Category:American sex educators
Category:American women memoirists
Category:Artists from Wichita, Kansas
Category:American feminist artists
Category:Institute for Advanced Study of Human Sexuality alumni
Category:Educators from Manhattan