The magic (wand) of Betty Dodson

Betty Dodson is a new role model to me but was the role model to many women for the majority of her life.

Dodson was a feminist sexoligist and loud and proud about one of my favorite topics: masturbation.

“Masturbation will get you through childhood, puberty, romance, marriage and divorce, and it will see you through old age.” she said in “Sex for One” a guide about the sexual taboos of masturbation published in 1987.

Dodson was one of those names that, once I began my deep dive and obsession into understanding my body, I’d see over and over and over. Her recurrent presence in the world of self-pleasure mimicked the multiple orgasms she’d want you to achieve in one of her notable workshops (which she’d host in her Manhattan apartment, mind you).

In the New York Times article celebrating her life and recent passing, author Penelope Green reminds us that the Hitachi Magic Wand was Betty’s go-to vibrator in her personal life and workshops noting, “She called it the Cadillac of vibrators.”

I 100% share Betty’s high opinion of the Hitachi Magic Wand so much so that I performed with her on stage during last year’s Nasty Women Unite Fest, telling the crowd “I trust her so much now I even plugged her into the same outlet of my AC during a heatwave and thunderstorm. That was an exciting night.”

The popularity of the bulky vibrator lives on after Betty’s death and I suspect Betty’s legacy will too. Artists who grew up admiring her or artists, like myself, who discovered Betty later in life, will continue to speak our truths and spread Betty’s mantra of “Better orgasms, better world.”

And hey, not only are we coming, the holidays are coming too. If you want to be a part of the spread, consider purchasing from some of the artists below creating their own Magic Wand inspired art.

Giving it all

Last night I was in the middle of my living room, swiveling on my green chair. I was in the process of flattening out a new rug, putting piles of my heaviest books around the corners. At the top of one of these piles was one of my favorite but silliest books, Having It All.

Published in 1982, the book about dealing with men and women and sex and marriage and career success, wasn’t meant to be silly but in 2020, titles like “Behave Yourself With His Secretary” and “Doing What You Don’t Like During Sex”, can’t be taken too seriously.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg was also someone who, earlier than 1982, dealt with men and women and sex and marriage and career success. However, her words are opinions are far from silly. They are inspiring, they are landmark, they are challenging. Women today are able to have it all because RBG gave it all.

Read: A Five-Decade-Long Friendship That Began With A Phone Call
Watch: RBG
Learn: Ruth Bader Ginsburg's most notable Supreme Court decisions and dissents
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Breaking down with Annie Sprinkle

One pre-Covid weekend not so long ago (but TBH what is time anymore?), I had an interesting Sunday to myself. I had eaten an edible from a dear friend and what was supposed to be a couple hours feeling silly turned into 8 hours of Holy Moly I Am Very High. 

It was neat during my dance class. For two hours, my eyes barely opened, I moved my body in every direction physically possible as what I’m pretty sure every memory I ever had passed through my brain. From a random memory of Wendy’s salad bar (remember those days?) to memories of painful losses, they all made an appearance. 

But even though I danced my ass off (and thought my brain off), afterwards I was still very high. Luckily I had more to do. It was the last day of the ON OUR BACKS: The Revolutionary Art of Queer Sex Work exhibit and I was determined to go. I headed to the Leslie Lohman Museum of Art and despite being real high, was able to enjoy and get excited by the exhibit. Especially the work I saw of sex worker, stripper, actress, magazine editor, writer, film producer (and more!), Annie Sprinkle.

Admittedly Annie Sprinkle first stuck out to me because of her red hair. As a redhead myself (and for any of you about to tell me my hair looks brown, just don’t), I’m always intrigued by the work of redheads more than others. But obviously Annie was and is more than her hue. Annie Sprinkle was a NYC prostitute and porn star who then morphed into an artist, sexologist and champion of sex worker rights. She’s done a lot but it was her work as an artist that drew me in. Annie admitted that while she was content “living as a multi-media whore–making porn films, doing burlesque, nude modeling” her deep, dark, secret fantasy was to be an artist. Remembering her first performance art piece, she described feeling liberated and exposed in a new way and having a lot of creative freedom she wasn’t previously used to.

And after one look at her website, it’s obvious Annie did not take creative freedom lightly.  The titles of her projects as entertaining as their contents: Projects Sidewalk Sex Clinic, The Love Handle, Dirty Sexecology, Bosom Ballet and the very intriguing Public Cervix Announcement. In PCA, Sprinkle invited the audience to view her cervix using a speculum and flashlight, presenting her vagina not as an object of pleasure as “an area of empowering beauty and mystery.”

Annie’s performances remind me of the artists who came before her. I remember in college learning about Carolee Schneemann’s performance, “Interior Scroll” in which Schneemann read aloud from a scroll she pulled out of her vagina, Yoko Ono’s “Cut Piece” that had Ono kneeling on the floor of a stage audience members gradually cut off her clothes. 

Despite being part of a generation that has consistently been ‘putting ourselves out there’, I am still consistently impressed by these performances. They’ve allowed me to convey my own artistic philosophies without shame. By those women putting themselves out there in a way that could do more than get them flagged on Instagram, my comedy, my blog can exist. I think of them often. Especially today. 

For artists like Sprinkle and Schneemann, making their statement wasn’t as simple as posting a photo or going Live. And as the world social distances, I continue to see all the ways my favorite artists and performers, figure out new ways to be the old person they were in a pre-COVID world. Whether we want to or not, almost all of us are being forced to shake the dust off of our comfort zones. To dive deep into our creative toolboxes and reinvent ourselves. This process is not easy and in certain ways feels just as vulnerable as the performances above. Because now, it’s not just a small, intimate gathering watching, it’s the whole world. 

How am I going to put myself under the figurative speculum? I’m not sure. Even though I’d love to come out of this the Quarantine Queen of Creativity, I know I’m just not there yet. I’m still in the process of breaking down my old life. It’s hard for me to turn to this new content, this new normal. I find myself instead turning to the art and music and Sprinkles of my past. It was their work that inspired me to be whatever this artist is I am today. As for whatever artist I’ll be after this? Well, that remains as mysterious as Annie Sprinkle’s cervix. I only hope it’s just as beautiful. 

Modern Role Models

Friends ended in 2004 but in 2019 there has been a Friends renaissance. A Friendsaissance, if you will (Copyright. Trademark. I came up with that shit.). Pop-up events, anniversaries, Netflix, Jennifer Aniston joining Instagram, whether you want em’ or not. Friends is baaack. 

When I was younger, Phoebe was always the ‘friend’ I related to most. She was goofy, a loner, she was creative, and she loved attention. But as I rewatched the show as an adult, it wasn’t her goofiness I related to, it was her sexual independence. Phoebe was by far the most sexually liberated friend despite what ‘How you doin’?’ Joey would have you believe. Phoebe-smelly-cat-singing-Regina Phalange-gave-birth-to-her-brother’s-triplets-Buffay was always in search of satisfaction. And not in the ways we were used to seeing. She was rarely in relationships that lasted more than a few episodes. She dated scientists, firemen, musicians, cops, therapists, cooks, international politicians, stalkers. She enjoyed casual sex and like me, she rarely let a crush simmer before diving in:

Rachel: Phoebe, you had a date three days ago.
Phoebe: That wasn’t a date! That was, that was just friends getting together…having sex.

All of this made Phoebe Buffay’s eventual marriage to Mike (Paul ‘Ugh’ Rudd) extremely disappointing. Not only was it a rushed story line, it didn’t line up to the Phoebe I looked up to. The Phoebe that made my own hunt for independence and sexuality feel normal. 

Fictional figures in popular culture end up being there for us when, perhaps, we don’t have anywhere else to turn. Look at Cathy. From 1976-2010 Cathy Guisewite made a wildly popular comic strip for women entering those “transitional years of American feminism”; when Betty Crocker and Betty Friedan were clashing. The always ‘AACK!’-ing Cathy was a role model for women who were realizing even if they couldn’t always fit into their jeans, they still deserved great things in life. As I question my own great things, my changing definitions of love, intimacy, sex and independence, I’d love to get insight from ‘someone who’s been there.’ But with no Phoebe or comic strip to turn to, finding role models representative of the less conventional love life I am seeking, real or fiction, isn’t always easy. But! They’re out there. 

At the beginning of the year I came across an article about the recently deceased Vogue Fashion Editor Babs Simpson. Not only was I impressed with the longevity of her life, I was impressed with the longevity of her unconventional, 35-year relationship to art collector and writer, Paul Magriel. Instead of moving in together, the two kept their separate apartments in the same building in Manhattan and spent weekends together in Amagansett, New York. She shared that their flawless relationship would’ve been ruined if they lived together. “I didn’t want to be making meals all the time, and that sort of thing. Paul was a very free spirit, and I didn’t want to be pinned down any more than he did. It couldn’t have worked better.” she said. 

Considering the time Babs lived in, I wondered if her arrangement was known to all or kept secret or if that even mattered. Because even if it was a secret, even if she had no one to turn to for advice or support, the end result was her happiness. Hearing stories like Babs’ is important. It’s those real experiences that hopefully influence the experiences of future, fictional Phoebe’s. Or Abbi’s. 

[Girlfriend’s Guide to Divorce spoiler alert!] 

Leading up to the series finale of Bravo’s Girlfriend’s Guide to Divorce, protagonist Abbi and her boyfriend Mike (What’s with Mikes?) started living together. Suddenly their sexy, loving relationship stopped working. Did they break up? No! In fact, not only did they get married, Abbi and Mike decided to live in separate houses! I was thrilled to see tradition take a backseat to something different that worked for these characters.

It’s storylines like this that can bring lesser accepted concepts to our mainstream conversations. So when I and others want to share our own ‘new’ ideas about romance, we don’t have to first prove ourselves as reliable sources. When recently a friend shared with me that he and his wife have been living in separate houses for years, he confessed it wasn’t a fact always easy to share. Early on it made them nervous to tell people. But the nerves that came along with sharing didn’t matter once the success of it was realized. Their living arrangement, while foreign to most, allowed their relationship to thrive. They had date nights, they were excited to see each other and they remained the individuals that each of them fell for in the first place. 

Having a friend or character or comic strip ‘who’s been there’ is helpful. Hearing someone else’s experience can help guide our own. If stories like the above continue to be told, continue to be accepted and continue to get louder, soon everyone will have a pre-Mike Phoebe or a Cathy or a Babs to look up to. Maybe you already are the Babs! If that’s the case, grab a pen, grab a paintbrush, grab a person, grab whatever it is that will amplify your story.  Believe me, someone needs to hear it. 

Meet Carly Pifer

Carly Pifer wants to create a space that inspires those looking for modern, honest, erotic adventures. She is doing that with her site Aurore. The stories written on Aurore are way better than those in your mom’s worn out romance novel. They come from people like you. Their settings are familiar, not ships or castles. It’s a sexual world many of us can relate to, not just those who have been kept as sex slaves on medieval ships (Is that an actual thing?).

I was excited to get into the mind of Carly.

Name Carly Pifer

Pronouns She/Her

Where do you live? Brooklyn

Tell me about your work I am launching a website for true erotic stories, called Aurore (readaurore.com). I think it’s time to update the genre for a smart, sophisticated reader. The stories on the site so far land somewhere between relationship confessional and literary erotica, they’re cathartic, empowering, feminist, queer, and most of them are done by writers who have never dipped in the genre before. It’s a refreshing alternative to porn, and generally juicy reading material.

Favorite sense and why I’m gonna have to go with smell. If someone smells good to me, it’s incredibly comforting. Also ‘butter melting in a pan smell' makes me very happy.

Sexy scene from a book/movie/tv show that sticks out to you A formative sex scene for me was the one in Fear, when Mark Wahlberg fingers Reese Witherspoon on the ferris wheel. They were such a hot couple before he turned into a psycho stalker!

Weirdest thing that turns you on Watching men do household chores really gets me going. My friend suggested we make an Instagram account called Hot Men Doing Chores, it would be like shirtless boys changing light bulbs and scrubbing dishes, taking out the trash. I think this needs to happen.

Who is your go-to ‘Let’s talk about sex!’ person and why? It feels like I am everyone’s ‘let’s talk about sex’ person! But I have definitely gone to my bottom friends for advice on occasion. Bottoms go through physical hell sometimes, respect.

Who do you wish you could talk about sex with more? Actually my mother, as unlikely as that sounds. I have to assume our sexual proclivities are at least somewhat connected to those of our family members. I am much more open and inquisitive with her now than when I was younger, grilling her on her saga with my father; they’re divorced now, and it’s been a historically intense, explosive relationship that I don’t quite understand, but I want to, it humanizes them. I’m also fascinated with speaking to older women about their romantic past, largely because at a certain age society says women are no longer sexual beings, so I like the idea of reminding them they were and they still are. There’s something so wistful about retelling past sexual encounters…something I do often for Aurore.

What is one thing that you wish became more ‘normal’ with sex? We need to destigmatize STI’s. They are so common, and mostly manageable, and it’s the fear of judgment that usually leads to them getting passed.

You can fuck as any animal for one day. What animal would you be? The graceful and savage praying mantis. I want to be every man’s last and most memorable fuck.

Where do you really, really, really want to have sex? Central Park in early spring when it’s not too hot, but it’s hot enough to be half-naked on a blanket, and somehow there are no creeps around, only other beautiful people that watch tastefully, would be really, really nice.

How do you think your sex drive will age? I am already looking forward to dating someone my son’s age, and I don’t even have a son yet.

I highly suggest heading on over and finding a story that works for you. Or hey. Maybe you’ll want to write one yourself like I did.

A Successful Evening with Erotic Filmmaker Erika Lust

I called my grandmom as I took my dog for a walk last Sunday evening. She asked me how my day was.

“Oh, I played with Remy, did some writing and emails. And then I went to this really cool event with this filmmaker, Erika Lust, who creates really cool…porn.”

I waited for a response. Instead, Grandmom reminded me about the new Goodwill opening up in the town over.

I had a feeling there wouldn’t be any follow-up questions regarding my evening with Erika Lust. Sure, maybe it is a bit much to expect my grandmom to embrace the topic of porn. But these kind of events, these kind of discussions, will always excite me. And sometimes, despite the awkwardness, I feel compelled to talk about these things with the people that matter to me most - my family.

Let me backtrack.

Last Sunday evening, in the lobby of The Assemblage NoMad in Manhattan, adult filmmaker Erika Lust and her partner, Pablo Dobner, sat down with Jared Matthew Weiss. Jared is the creator of Touchpoint events. Touchpoint is a town hall where where real people share real stories from their love and sex lives.

The first time I perused Lust's site, I immediately knew, game over. I was never going back to YouPorn or PornHub. I signed up for all the mailing lists and was sent Eat With Me. Eat With Me involves, you guessed it, food and fucking. But it also involves teasing, and intimacy, and a back and forth of lovemaking not found in the cookie cutter porns I was used to watching. Not only did I come, I think I teared up.

Erika, who lives and works in Barcelona, talked about how she got her start in creating pornography. She originally studied political science but then, according to her website, found herself inspired after reading Linda Williams’ Hard Core which analyzed the impact of porn on society. Erika discussed the huge conflict she had between her mind and body as she watched mainstream porn. She watched it, she liked it, but something about it made her uncomfortable. That’s why in 2004 she created her first short, erotic film The Good Girl. The Good Girl uses the classic trope of the ‘pizza delivery guy’ but then continues from the female perspective. The film got over two million (pre-YouTube) downloads in the first few months.

Since then, she and Pablo, (who is her husband as well as the CEO of Erika Lust Films) have worked together creating award-winning, beautiful, ethical porn that represents human sexuality as it really is.

To me, Lust’s career was on par with a rockstar. But as I watched her speak very proudly of her work, I noticed the way she was sitting, left arm draped over her stomach, reminded me of myself. As I saw myself in her; this rockstar, erotic filmmaker, so human, so down to earth, giggling over ‘69’ jokes; I was reminded that the topic of sex doesn’t have to look like the kitchy, outlandish, over-the-top, day at the Comic Con that sometimes surrounds it. Yes, sex can be shocking, but more than that, sex can be accessible and flow naturally out of us.  

Which brings me back to Grandmom. I can tell my family is uncomfortable with the way sex has been ‘flowing naturally’ out of me these past few years in my writing and comedy. My parents came to see me headline a show last year. I did 45-minutes, 30 of which was about my sex drive. After the show my mom told me how well I projected. A positive response, yes, but I wanted more.

Erika spoke of the moment her mom discovered her erotic film on Twitter a year after it had been released. Her mom was mad, told her it was out of line and told her it could destroy the possibility of her having an actual career. But as the endorsements and popularity of Erika’s films rolled in, her mom was able to better understand the importance of her daughter’s work. Crap. Is success the only way I'll break through with my family?

At the end of the interview Jared opened up for Q & A. Even with all my years doing stand-up, I still have trouble forming normal, non-jokey, non-shaky sentences when speaking in front of strangers. Despite all that, I knew I had something to ask.

I asked Erika how her work would have been affected if she never got the metaphorical thumbs up from her mom. Erika responded that as a stubborn woman she would’ve persisted on with her work. Pablo said the two of them becoming parents themselves resulted in a new level of respect, too. But then after a moment, Erika conceded, sharing that there was still some discomfort from her mom towards her career. Her mom might respond very excitedly to something her sister accomplished in her more 'normal' career and be noticeably less excited for something Erika accomplished.

Sometimes I wonder if a television appearance, a book deal, a high-paying job in comedy (do they exist?) would give my family a reason to be more interested and invested in the type of work I like doing, the type of conversations I enjoy having. And then sometimes I think even that wouldn’t matter. Erika’s at the top of her game, hell she is the game, and even she still struggles to a degree. It’s both terrifying and comforting.

I may never get the discourse with my family that I so deeply crave and I may never get the success I crave either. My family's support may not manifest exactly the way I want, but there is support. For that I am grateful. I’m also grateful that, despite all the unknowns, my interest in sex still deepens, and, like Erika, I will keep going, I will be stubborn, and I will persist.