By SexHerald Staff

Betty Dodson is the grandmother you always wished you had. Think kind, passionate, laid back, determined, with a tendency to drop an F-bomb here and there, and you've got a recipe for one tough cookie. Her constitution certainly helped pave the way for women to accept themselves as sexual creatures when no one else would educate them how. Her practical approach to aiding women experience pleasure might still be considered "nouveau" today, even though she's been doing it for nearly 40 years.

Equipped with a Ph.D. in sexology, Dodson is more than a masturbation junkie. Responding to a call to action in the 70s (much like Phil Harvey did), she stuck to her current course after several attempts to deviate and has been helping women love themselves-one orgasm at a time.

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SexHerald: The name 'Betty Dodson' is associated with and known for many things. You have been called the Mother of Masturbation, a feminist, a sex pioneer, and an accomplished author and artist. And you're pretty much a fan of all things sex, including S&M. So, is there anything you won't do or try in terms of sex?

Betty Dodson: I haven't found it so far.

SH:> You've done everything on the sex spectrum.

Dodson: Pretty much so. Right now, what I'm interested in doing is documenting some of my experiences. I'd guess you'd say that since I'm in my 70s, I'm kind of focused on my end game.

SH: I'm sorry to hear that.

Dodson: The end game can go to 100!

SH: At 77, you still have a youthful appearance. Is there anything special you do to maintain it?

Dodson: Everybody talks about diet and exercise and drinking a lot of water. We all have that information. The information that people leave out is being happy. I've been talking to a friend of mine recently and she's in her early 70s. She did the facelift, the body modification and the dyed hair, and she goes: 'Oh, you let your hair go natural; it's white.' Yeah, I said: 'I just don't feel the need to try to look young anymore.' There's this huge freedom that comes with that. I'm a senior citizen; I have wisdom. Why wouldn't I be proud of having lived this long and learned this much? Why would I want to look like a foolish young girl?

SH: It's evolutionary biology: Men prefer younger women.

Dodson: Oh, not if you're willing to be a sugar mama!

SH: In your opinion, what's so special about masturbation that you'd create a career in encouraging women to love themselves?

Dodson: The actual practice of masturbation is how women learn about their bodies. The reason I work with women (I have the occasional couple) is because it makes all the sense in the world. If she figures out what works for her, she can tell her partner. Whether that's a man or another woman or a string of lovers, whatever her sex style is, she's now in control of her body so anyone she has sex with will get her information.

SH: May is Masturbation Month. You must be thrilled.

Dodson: I'm exhausted. [both laugh]

SH: Did you participate in the Masturbate-A-Thon?

Dodson: No. Every year, they say I have to come to San Francisco and join them but I'm say, 'C'mon! I started it; you guys carry the ball.'

SH: You have a private practice in New York. Is it a sex therapy practice?

Dodson: I don't call it 'therapy' because I do hands-on sex coaching. I'm a sexologist, not a sex therapist. I make that distinction clear, because sex therapists are licensed by the state, and if touched someone, they would lose their license. For the work I'm doing, there has never been a precedent set so I operate in a gray area.

SH: What's the oldest client you ever had?

Dodson: I had this wonderful woman, she was 80. She didn't look 80, she looked more like 70. I'm coming up on 80, so I want to see more women like her. She'd been buying sex toys for the last five years and couldn't figure out how to use any of them. She had a session with me and was able to enjoy her first orgasm with a vibrator. She was one happy woman and so was I.

In a workshop I ran back in San Francisco one woman was 86 and a Mormon. She was single, never married, and had been a nurse helping people all her life. She had been diagnosed with breast cancer and didn't have much longer to live. She came in and said, 'I want to know what an orgasm is before I die.' I had about nine women in the group. We all got behind her and she did; she had her first orgasm. And, it was an incredible celebration.

SH: How did you get started in helping women reach orgasm in the first place?

Dodson: It was part of my feminist commitment back in the 70s. I really thought I would just run a few workshops for maybe a year or so. Once I started, I couldn't turn it loose; it took me over. They say your spiritual path is never something you choose; it's chosen for you. I tried to get away from running groups but I couldn't. The phone would start ringing and as each woman called in I would go, 'Oh my god, this woman has never had an orgasm. I can't stop now. Alright, I'll do one more round.' I'd do one more year and the same pattern would be repeated. After a while, I just surrendered. I said, 'Okay. I'll do workshop. I'll do one a month for the rest of my life.' And, I did it until I wore out my hip joints in the mid-nineties. Then I had to stop. Now, I have titanium hip joints and they're doing great.

SH: 'Happiness' seems to be the running theme in all of your answers. I take it you're very happy and perhaps it has something to do with the fact you're with someone who's 47 years your junior. Are you married?

Dodson: [laughs] No.

SH: I guess you don't believe in marriage.

Dodson: It isn't that I don't believe in it, it's just that I don't know it's such a good idea for me. Who knows? Never say never. I've been with Eric longer than most lovers and we're going into our ninth year together. Throughout that time, we have not been monogamous. He's taken a lot more advantage of that than I have because I'm very busy doing all these productions that I want to get out there while I can. He's having a wonderful time dating women his own age. He's gotten involved in the poly community and the sex-positive people here in New York. He's been an apprentice and runs my business; I've turned it over to him totally. He's very competent and I trust him completely, which is very rare, and he's very easy to live with. A large part of that is based on our age difference.

It's not the standard, traditional heterosexual romantic love that starts to slowly fade away and you start to worry, 'We're not having that much sex. I wonder if he still finds me appealing. Oh, it's getting harder to have an orgasm. Maybe there's something wrong.' It's that obsession over the quality of the sex you're having with your significant other. We don't have that. We're not in that kind of a space. He does his own thing, I do my own thing. We both masturbate. He has a lot of partner sex; I have a lot of productions. Every now and then when I'm in the mood, I just say: 'Hey, kid, come here.' And of course, he's very, very accommodating.

SH: Do you have any children?

Dodson: I grew up in the 50s when you had to make a choice between being a mother and having a career. I had total clarity that I did not want to be a wife and mother; I wanted to be an artist so I chose a career. And I pretty much held to that even when I got married back in 1959. I made it very clear to my then-husband that I wasn't going to have children; he'd have to be okay with that. He said he was. But the second year, he started saying, 'Aw. Let's have kids.' I said, 'No. That's not the deal.' But, he finally did talk me into it and I miscarried. So, I thanked the divine universe for helping me keep my promise. That was the sign from above, below, wherever, that it was not meant to be. I've birthed a lot of orgasms for women. So, I am a mother. I'm the Mother of Masturbation and now I've been promoted to Grandmother.

SH: What about Godmother?

Dodson: I like that actually best of all. It's got a little power in it.

SH: Were you born and bred in New York?

Dodson: I was born and raised in Wichita, Kansas. I came to New York when I was 20 years old to go to art school.

SH: Where did you go to school?

Dodson: I went to the National Academy of Design and then to the Art Students League. I studied in Paris for a year with Andre Lhote, but mostly, we sat in the cafés and talked about art in Paris. Then I came back to New York.

Moving to New York was my childhood dream. I guess I got it from watching the movies. If there was ever a movie that was shot in New York, I'd see it more than once.

SH: Apart from preparing for your "end game" and documenting all your work, what can we expect from you in the future?

Dodson: I've got a lot of productions cooking. I want to make a series of 15-20 minute downloadables. I'm working on a DVD of me lecturing with my art that I recently did in Seattle. I've decided that I can lecture occasionally again although I hate traveling. Everybody else has managed to get over standing in line, taking off your fucking shoes, and of course I've got metal hip joints so I get wanded each time. I have a memoir that needs to be published. I want to do a really big documentary about my fabulous life. So far I've had many offers and I'm looking for the right one.

excerpted from:
"The Joy of Self-Love:
Betty Dodson on Being the Godmother of Masturbation"
By SexHerald Staff
Sex Herald.com June 2, 2007