Betty Dodson's blog

Candida Royalle has always been my role model for a good business woman. Her line of vibrators was always a dream of mine, but I promoted the Hitachi Magic Wand back in the seventies simply because it was the best one.  We sell her Liberte in the store and I use it in my practice.  Here she is sweeping the Berlin Feminist Porn Awards:

Candida Royalle, known for her internationally acclaimed line of woman-friendly erotic films, returned triumphant from her trip to Berlin where she was honored for her pioneering work in paving the way for women to create female-centered adult films at the first ever ‘PorYes'Feminist Porn Awards.

This is one of the best ways to show WOMEN how we can participate in creating change. Fashion began as my first true love to become my worst enemy. It's all STUFF we must do to be more acceptable to men? Other women? The society? Or the corporate work place? 

If I would have had Sarah Hrdy's information sooner, there would have been far less sexual guilt in my life. I tried so hard to be monogamous with several different lovers and especially after I got married. The first year of being Mrs., I cheated. The thought of only having sex with my husband was just too depressing especially since we had not managed to make what my therapist called our "marital adjustment". He remained a premature ejaculator while I engaged in compulsive secretive marital masturbation! What a waste of our youthful sexlives. Here's the review of Sarah Hrdy's research straight from Harvard:

Women are naturally monogamous. Men tend to rove.

That assumption is not only part of popular belief, it has also been enshrined by science.

Kate Bornstein is one of my favorite people. She is a transgendered woman who doesn't refer to herself as either male or female. She refers to herself as transgendered. Her book "Hello, Cruel World: 101 Alternatives to Suicide for Teens, Freaks and Other Outlaws" is brilliant and featured in this month's OTI newsletter.  If you know someone who's struggling with gender issues, turn them on to Kate's work.

This video says it all 

I forgive Ralph for being a spoiler. He makes so much sense when he talks about our sick and failing government. He understands and can articulate what we need to learn and put into place in order to save our poor sorry liberal and progressive asses. This interview takes some time but is well worth it, especially to understand what's going on in Washington. Ralph named it "fascism" and I totally agree.  

A new study concludes that carefully crafted informed consent laws, rather than discouraging women to forgo an abortion, have zero impact on the amount of abortions performed in the states that choose to mandate these "scary briefings."  While the purpose of informed consent laws is to educate women considering an abortion, they apparently do little to dissuade them from proceeding.

Those of us who are still around from the early feminist days of fighting for the right to have abortions will have to remind our worthless government once again that women own their own bodies! They do not belong to those sexless old men with white hair in congress.

My friend Margery Coffey is a fine artist who lives on a reservation in Nebraska with the Omaha People. I have been interested in her book co-authored with Dennis Hastings about the history of the Omaha. Due to a lack of understanding by my kin, the fact that I have Native American blood in my family's background was never documented. Therefore I have no idea what tribe my people came from. This has always been felt as a loss by me. As I read this talk, I realized how much we have to learn from the first Americans who honored the land, water, sky, plants and animals as well as each other. There is much we could learn from the American Indians:

After working on the reservation for many years, Hastings - 34 years, and myself - 19, both felt that it was imperative to preserve the history of the Omaha in a written form so that the Omaha could finally understand just exactly what had happened to the Tribe instead of looking through shattered memories.

Call your senators today and tell them to stand up for women's health. And this is the important part: we need you to commit to keeping up our side of the debate by calling once a week until health care reform that protects women is a reality. Click here to call now: http://www.ppaction.org/network/hcr09callvisibility.html?qp_source=hcr09visib_e1_ppol

A subject dear to my heart and clitoris. I have been involved in promoting the diversity of women's sex organs since I showed feminists a vulva slide show at the NOW conference in the early seventies. No woman should ever suffer from feeling there is something wrong with her vulva through lack of positive imagery. See you at the Vulvagraphics Show.

For more years than I can remember, I have either subscribed or donated money to The Nation. It has and will continue to be the voice of reason for liberals. Recently an announcement came through about their upcoming auction to raise money to keep them going. I'm always interested to see if liberal political folks can handle my topic: The importance of masturbation has been rejected by many organizations that I support. So I am happy to announce that THE NATION came through with "Yes!"

Item Donation

Your auction donation you submitted to The Nation 2nd Annual Online Auction has been accepted on Sep 18, 2009 12:08 PM, EDT.

This 80 page booklet was self-published by Betty Dodson in 1974 and became a feminist classic. Only the authors name appears on the cover. The title is Liberating Masturbation: a Meditation on Selflove. There are 15 full page pen and ink drawings of vulvas by the author that was a feminist fist! Dodson personally distributed 150,000 copies which she called a monumental hand job as she took her books in a shopping cart to the PO. She knew she was mailing out orgasms to women across the country. A signed copy is a collectors item! Value $500

Yesterday, my Darling Puppy Phineas moved to Rowayton Ct. He will be living with my dear friend and colleague Dr. Joanna Whitcup who has a private practice there. When my this precious little puppy moved in with Eric and me, I was suffering with an attack of Sciatica and in serious pain. Most of the dog walking and efforts at paper training fell on Eric because I was crippled. Several reality waves hit me as I tried to cope with this tiny but lively addition to my life. Phineas was a furry ball of energy, a constant distraction and also irresistible.

After Carlin and I spent 10 days in Cuba two years ago, we are thrilled to hear the good news that Cuban artists are going to perform in the US for the first time since 2003. We loved the people, the art, the music and especially the strength of the people to survive under extreme hardship and deprivation.

Cubans can teach us a lot about lean times that appear to be just around the corner for many of us. We went with a group of women artists bringing medical and art supplies. It was amazing what they could do with so little while we here in America appear to be expert gluttons who know best how to waste our resources.

JoAnn Wypijewski's article is timely now that we're debating the public option for health care. Sexual health care for women is as simple as redefining heterosexuality by adding a little clitoral stimulation along with vaginal penetration. Many sex professionals including Leanore Tiefer, Becky Chalker and myself have railed against the medicalization of women's sexuality for some time now. To say nothing of all the anti-depressants that supposedly deal with depression but block women's abilbity to have orgasms which is depressing, we all agree that the pharmacuetical companies are out of control.  This is a must read and I've attached JoAnn's entire article below:

Can we please put marriage discrimination to bed and sign the petition to urge Congress to pass the Respect for Marriage Act silencing those rabid right wing nut cases once and for all? The reason they are successful is too many reasonable liberals are enjoying life and don't get involved in politics. I know because that's how I lived the better part of my life.

Please sign the online petition to urge Congress to pass the Respect for Marriage Act.