What Would Eve Say?

I had every intention of writing today’s blog post about In the Time of the Butterflies.  However, this afternoon, I happened to get into my car and turn on the radio as NPR’s Colin McEnroe Show was beginning, just as it does every weekday at 1:00 PM.  I must confess—normally, I don’t listen.  Today, however, I did, and it inspired me to change the direction of this particular post.  There were just too many connections between the topics of conversation and the messages and purposes behind Eve Ensler’s work to ignore.

Tomorrow (Friday) night, there will be a screening of a new documentary by filmmaker Liz Canner at the Real ArtWays theater in Hartford.  The title of this movie is Orgasm, Inc.  Following in the footsteps of such exposé pieces as Food, Inc. this film seeks to reveal the corporate abuse of female sexuality through the quest, by pharmaceutical companies, to develop the equivalent of a ‘female Viagra.’  The major question that Canner is addressing in her film is whether or not Female Sexual Dysfunction is truly at epidemic proportions, or whether or not the medical/pharmaceutical industries are merely taking advantage of women, their insecurities, and their perceptions about sex and sexual health.

A documentary film by Liz Canner. 2011.

To discuss the film, Colin McEnroe had two guests on his show—Liz Canner, the documentarian herself, and Leonore Tiefer, PhD. of the New View Campaign, a grassroots movement based in New York that is “challenging the medicalization of sex.”  Canner and Tiefer both discussed, with eloquence and clearly well-researched and experienced background, the role of the pharmaceutical industry in sex; essentially, they were in agreement that, in the case of women especially, big business is taking advantage.  Sex, they argued, is being turned into something only biological, devoid of other implications; all problems because of or associated with sex are purely biological as well.  Clearly, this is not the case.  As Canner and Teifer both pointed out on multiple occasions, there are a myriad—an infinite number, really—of other factors that influence sexual health and pleasure.

These two women also talked about the mixed messages that women receive, especially in terms of the reality of sexual function versus the perception of what is normal.  For example, Canner cited a statistic which indicated that 70% of women require direct clitoral stimulation to reach orgasm.  However, the pharmaceutical companies would want women to think that, if they do not reach orgasm during every instance of vaginal intercourse, they are unwell, abnormal, and in need of medical help.  Essentially, Canner and Teifer pointed out, the pharmaceutical companies want women to think that there is something wrong when there really isn’t—this is the only way to draw a market.

Listening to this thirty minute spot, I couldn’t help  but wondering—what would Eve say?  Here I am, listening to National Public Radio at 1:00 PM on a Thursday, and the words ‘orgasm,’ ‘vagina,’ ‘clitoris’ and ‘sexual’ are flying across the airwaves.  In relationship to Eve Ensler’s purpose for writing The Vagina Monologues, this should be wonderfully progressive, right?

Perhaps not so much.  The conversation itself? Sure.  This is good—we are talking about female sexual pleasure and the societal stigmas and perceptions attached to it.  But the manner in which female sexuality has entered the public sphere was likely not exactly what Ensler had in mind.  She wrote The Vagina Monologues and I Am an Emotional Creature with the intention to empower girls and women, share with them that it is okay to be confident in themselves, in their bodies, and that discovering one’s sexuality requires openness, exploration, and love.  Not pills or creams, developed and marketed in a lab, prescribed for a sexual dysfunction that is likely, in many cases, not medical at all. (Personal disclaimer: I am certainly not trying to argue that Female Sexual Dysfunction does not exist for some women.  However, given what is known biologically about orgasm and the settings and relationships that must exist for this to be achieved, the statistic that Canner presented—that 43% of women between the ages of 18 and 45 have sexual dysfunction—seems like it requires A LOT more inquiry.)

If asked, I would answer that this probably makes Ensler very upset and very frustrated.  On one hand, there is a sense of equality about what the drug companies are doing--if men have Viagra, why shouldn't women have an equivalent? And yet, from Canner and Tiefer's research, it is clear that this current drug development research is solely about profits--not about true female empowerment.  (I think Ensler would say that true female empowerment would look a lot more like education about what women need to orgasm.)

However, I also think that she would encourage everyone and anyone to see this movie, to use it as a starting point for conversation, confidence building, and change.  At least, although this modern presence of female sexuality in the corporate and public worlds is not characterized by true embracing of individuality, there is a voice--in the form of Orgasm, Inc.--speaking up for women in the United States, and hopefully, women around the world.

~*~

http://www.newviewcampaign.org/contact.asp

http://www.orgasminc.org/