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.