"The Myth of the Vaginal Orgasm" is a

feminist Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social equality of the sexes. Feminism incorporates the position that society prioritizes the male po ...

essay on

women's sexuality Human female sexuality encompasses a broad range of behaviors and processes, including female sexual identity and Human sexual activity, sexual behavior, the physiological, psychological, social, cultural, political, and spiritual or religious ...

written by American

radical feminist Radical feminism is a perspective within feminism that calls for a Political radicalism, radical re-ordering of society in which male supremacy is eliminated in all social and economic contexts, while recognizing that women's experiences are al ...

activist

Anne Koedt Anne Koedt (born 1941) is an American radical feminist activist and author of " The Myth of the Vaginal Orgasm", a 1970 classic feminist work on women's sexuality. She was connected to the group New York Radical Women and was a founding member ...

in 1968, and published in 1970. It first appeared in a four-paragraph outline form in the ''Notes from the Second Year'' journal published by the

New York Radical Women New York Radical Women (NYRW) was an early second-wave radical feminist group that existed from 1967 to 1969. They drew nationwide media attention when they unfurled a banner inside the 1968 Miss America pageant displaying the words "Women' ...

and was partially based on findings from

Masters and Johnson The Masters and Johnson research team, composed of William H. Masters and Virginia E. Johnson, pioneered research into the nature of human sexual response and the diagnosis and treatment of sexual disorders and dysfunctions from 1957 until the 1 ...

's 1966 work ''Human Sexual Response''. It was then distributed as a pamphlet in its full form, including sections on evidence for the

clitoral orgasm Orgasm (from Greek , ; "excitement, swelling") or sexual climax is the sudden discharge of accumulated sexual excitement during the sexual response cycle, resulting in rhythmic, involuntary muscular contractions in the pelvic region charac ...

, female anatomy, and reasons the "myth" of vaginal orgasm is maintained. Koedt wrote this feminist response during the

sexual revolution The sexual revolution, also known as the sexual liberation, was a social movement that challenged traditional codes of behavior related to sexuality and interpersonal relationships throughout the United States and the developed world from the 1 ...

of the 1960s. The goal of this response is to address both the "myth of the vaginal orgasm", create awareness and education for women and men about female sexual pleasure, and to counter previous thought about the female orgasm. Koedt reflects in her writing, "It was

Freud Sigmund Freud ( , ; born Sigismund Schlomo Freud; 6 May 1856 – 23 September 1939) was an Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis, a clinical method for evaluating and treating pathologies explained as originating in conflicts in ...

's feelings about women's secondary and inferior relationship to men that formed the basis for his theories on female sexuality. Once having laid down the law about the nature of our sexuality, Freud not so strangely discovered a tremendous problem of frigidity in women. His recommended cure for a woman who was frigid was psychiatric care. She was suffering from failure to mentally adjust to her "natural" role as a woman." Koedt breaks societal barriers of what is considered acceptable to discuss and her article played a vital role in the feminist sexual revolution, and draws on research done by

Alfred Kinsey Alfred Charles Kinsey (; June 23, 1894 – August 25, 1956) was an American sexologist, biologist, and professor of entomology and zoology who, in 1947, founded the Institute for Sex Research at Indiana University, now known as the Kinsey Instit ...

, among others, about

human sexuality Human sexuality is the way people experience and express themselves sexually. This involves biological, psychological, physical, erotic, emotional, social, or spiritual feelings and behaviors. Because it is a broad term, which has varied ...

to support her claims.

References

External links

*
The Myth of the Vaginal Orgasm
' digitized by the New England Free Press *
The Clitoris - Animated Documentary
' by Lori-Malépart Traversy (Video), 2016. {{DEFAULTSORT:Myth of the Vaginal Orgasm, The Feminism and sexuality 1970 essays Radical feminist literature Pamphlets Women and sexuality Books about orgasm Women's health movement