Mother Had A Porn Pussy

In 1974, I was at the University of Chicago speaking to a small audience in a very large auditorium, not my favorite venue. No speaker likes to see so many empty chairs. After my talk followed by the vulva slide show presentation, I went for coffee with a group of friends, including Nat Lerman, one of the editors from Playboy magazine. As we were sitting around talking and laughing, Nat mentioned that Playboy was going to run an article about me. He'd commissioned a woman to take my workshop so she could write about it. I was stunned! Playboy had sent a spy to infiltrate my all-women's masturbation groups? Nat said I wasn't going to like the article, but all was fair in love and journalism.

With my brain on red alert, I leaned closer to him and cooed, "Nat darling, I could care less what she's written. Like they say, there's no such thing as bad publicity as long as she spelled my name correctly. Besides I'm curious to read what she wrote."

Seeing how cool I was about him running a negative article, he promised to mail me a copy only if I swore I wouldn't tell anyone. Nodding my head yes, I crossed my heart!

A few days later, the article arrived with Nat's covering letter that explained his position. Janet had written the piece as a skeptical observer, which is the tone an investigative reporter was supposed to have. He hoped I would take a deep breath and turn the other cheek. Although he admitted, "she walked a narrow line," he didn't believe there were any cheap shots.

As I read through her article, I saw nothing but cheap shots. She said the women were mostly swingers, which wasn't true. They were wives, mothers and single professionals. Her distorted view of the Genital Show and Tell ritual said we were a gynecologist's wet dream come true with herpes, gonorrhea, pregnancy, periods, and IUDs which only happened in her twisted imagination. To top it off, she said I'd told a story about getting fucked by a German Shepherd! She was not only a spy, but a flat out liar. I took a deep breath all right, but I wasn't about to turn my other cheek.

The next day, I called my friend Lindsey Rand, a top feminist lawyer. The minute I sat down across from her, I started ranting and raving about the media being out to get me, and how I couldn't understand why editors didn't want to support my efforts to help women become orgasmic. "This article will turn women off from wanting to attend one of my workshops."

Lindsey told me to calm down while she read the piece. When she finished, she looked up and shook her head in disbelief. "As your lawyer, I have to ask this," she said, blushing all way from hot pink to fire truck red. "Is it true you had sex with a German Shepherd?"

"No! That's an absolute lie. It was a Standard Poodle, and the dog only licked my pussy for a moment before I pushed him away. I've never liked German shepherds ever since I was attacked and bitten by one as a small child."

Then I went on to explain what had actually happened in the group while Lindsey listened intently as a look of disbelief played across her face.

"One woman in the workshop had been carrying a load of sexual guilt since childhood because she'd let a puppy lick her ‘there.' To ease her pain, I told the story about Beverly's poodle Minsky and the time the dog briefly licked our genitals after we'd had a lovely threesome. I ended by saying I'd have a dog for a lover- except it would ruin one of my favorite fantasies. Everyone in the group had laughed; including the woman who'd hated herself all those years for her imaginary ‘dark, secret perversion' that was basically harmless kid stuff."

"You have a case Betty, and I'm willing to be your lawyer," said Lindsey regaining her composure. "We can sue for libel and damaging your career. How do you want to handle it?"

"First I want to call Nat and tell him I'm going to sue his ass if they print the article. If that doesn't work, I'm turning it over to you, Sister Lindsey."

The next day I calmly told Nat that I'd given the article to my lawyer, and she agreed it was damaging. He started whining about how I'd promised not to show it to anyone. Since he'd felt free to sneak in a spy, I told him I'd felt free to consult my lawyer. Then I appealed to him as a defender of sexual freedom, reminding him I was one of the few sex positive feminists around, and I needed his support instead of being used as a target to amuse his readers. There was a thoughtful pause, and then he said he'd call me back in an hour.

Exactly sixty minutes later, the phone rang, and Nat said the article had been canceled. He let me know it had cost him several thousand dollars. Besides paying the writer, they'd also commissioned an artist to do a full page illustration of me. I asked him if it was a drawing of me getting fucked by a German Shepherd? He said of course not, but he wouldn't describe what the drawing was like. All he said was I wouldn't have hated it too. I thanked him sincerely and hoped we could do something together in the future, but I never heard from Playboy again.

After we hung up, I sat there in a daze, trembling. Why didn't I feel good? I'd just been successful in stopping a slanderous attack. Then slowly the realization began to sink in: This was only the beginning of a never ending media war. As Public Masturbator #1, it followed that I was going to be Public Target #1 for fundamentalists, right wing zealots, conservative feminists, irate husbands and editors of men's magazines. The article in Ms. had taken ten rounds of edits while they whittled away at my words insisting I say everything in first person. If it was only my opinion, it protected the magazine from having a lawsuit. Good grief! I couldn't believe all this fuss was over the every day garden variety sexual activity of "masturbation."

Whip-lashed between Playboy and Ms., I felt pushed to the limits of my  sanity. Male editors wanted to make me sound lecherous and dirty, while  female editors tried to scrub me clean. I went across the street that afternoon and bought a pack of cigarettes after being nicotine free for  three years. Now I was doubly depressed.   

Not long after my self-published book Liberating Masturbation came out; I took a week off to spend some time with family and friends in Wichita. A unique exchange between Mother and me made up for all the problems I'd had with the damn media that year. One evening we were sitting in the living room as I was describing the steps that I'd gone through to publish the book.

"Betty Ann, I'm very proud of you. I never thought my daughter would end up being a writer and a publisher, but I still want you to go back to your art." Then she paused a moment and continued. "You know those full-page drawings in your book of women's..."

"Genitals," I said, supplying a word missing from the vocabulary of a woman born at the turn of the century.
"Yes, genitals." she repeated. "Well, I was wondering. Since you seem to know so much about that sort of thing, would you look at mine? I think they did something wrong after I delivered my last baby."
"Of course I'll look, I said trying to act casual with my heart pounding from the thought of such incredible mother daughter intimacy. When I asked if she thought they did something wrong during the episiotomy, Mother said she wasn't sure. She always had the feeling she wasn't the same "down there" after she gave birth to Brother Dick.

As I went to get Mother's ivory hand mirror, I mentally I raced back many years to a scene of my curious ten year old self sitting by the window in my bedroom anxiously examining my "tickle" with the same ivory mirror. "Isn't life full of surprises?" I thought, as I was about to run a private workshop for my own mother using the same mirror so she could examine herself.

While she arranged herself on the couch, I moved the light closer and then got behind her so we could look into the mirror together- just like I did in the workshops. One glance revealed her genitals were totally different from mine.

"Mother, this is amazing! I assumed we'd have the same style. You have small, symmetrical inner lips, and mine dangle."

"You mean here?" she said touching the petal of her vaginal flower with her finger while I looked on in awe at her divine vulva- the gateway through which I'd entered the world.

"Yes, those are your inner lips. Mother, your genitals are very pretty." It was true, and I also knew how reassuring a compliment could be. "There's your clitoris right at the top. Do you see it there? Pull back the hood covering it and you'll see the clitoral glans. It's like a tiny pearl."

"I don't think I've ever actually looked at my clitoris before." As she pulled back the hood, her clitoris popped right out, and she laughed, saying, "Is that all we get? It doesn't look any bigger than a pinhead."
"Stop thinking like a Texan, Mother. This is a case where smaller is better. Women seem capable of having more orgasms than men once we get turned on. I've only known one man who was multi orgasmic. Now show me where you think something is wrong."

She didn't know exactly, but she wanted me to look near the vaginal opening asking if that was the way it was supposed to look? I assured her she was perfectly normal and every thing looked fine. Then I asked if she'd ever wondered about my extended inner lips when she'd diapered me as a baby? She said yes, actually she'd been a bit worried about those flaps of skin that seemed out of place. At that point, I moved to the side of the couch to show her my adult genitals. As I dropped my pants and opened the outer lips, my dangles appeared in all their glory.

"Why, Honey, they do look exactly like a chicken's wattle," she said with her Irish eyes laughing. "Are you sure that's normal?"

"Absolutely," I stated with an air of utmost authority. "Most of the women in my workshops have extended inner lips. There's an amazing variation in female genitals just like the differences we see in people's faces: noses, eyes, and mouths."

"Well that does make sense, Betty Anne," she said nodding her snow white head. We both fell silent, perhaps comforted in some elemental way. At that moment my understanding of the power of nonverbal messages given to children by their parents was crystal clear. As Mother washed my baby genitals, she'd unknowingly imparted the nonverbal message that my inner lips might not be normal. Just then, Mother got up from the couch and asked if I wanted to watch Johnny Carson. I said yes, and headed for the kitchen to fix us some herbal tea.

Something sacred had just taken place. Filled with awe, I knew I'd just experienced a lost ancient ritual of mother daughter bonding. Our love for one another had been deepened in a way I would never fully understand other than to know I'd been given a precious gift. I was grateful. I thought to myself, to hell with Playboy and Ms. Magazine and the rest of the fuckless media. Teaching women about their bodies and orgasms was my divine feminist endeavor.

A couple of years later I was walking to the grocery store when a young man stopped me to say how much he'd enjoyed the description of my workshop that he'd read in Rolling Stone. Turned out the Playboy spy had sold her article after all. I never got a copy of the magazine to see if the German Shepard story was still there. If it was, the young man didn't seem to notice. He thought it was great that I was helping women to become orgasmic because he'd just broken up with his girlfriend because she didn't like sex. He hoped for her sake that she'd take a workshop with me some day- so much for an article ruining my reputation.

PS Upon reflection, today I would tell Mother that she had the ideal "porn pussy": small inner lips that didn't extend beyond her outer lips.  What a labiaplasty surgeon referred to as the clam shell look reminiscent of a pubescent girl.  More than half of the women in all of my workshops and private sessions have extended inner lips.  So if this becomes a fad these guys have a cash cow.