By Diane Walsh / Xtra West

Betty Dodson has spent nearly four decades liberating sexuality and encouraging everyone, and particularly women, to experience the pleasures of their own genitals. Her bestseller, Sex for One: The Joy of Selfloving, has sold more than one million copies in the last 20 years; she is also an artist and a sex educator. Now she is coming to Victoria to present what's being billed as a "frank, funny and fearless" workshop on orgasms at the Erotica Festival of Film and Arts, May 5.

In preparation, she sat down with Xtra West, Canada to talk about sex, the hazards of censoring it, and the revolutionary ideas underlying SM play. Here is an excerpt from that interview.

Diane Walsh: How would you compare the public acceptance of sexuality today versus in the '60s and '70s? Where does the rise of the religious right and the greater acceptance of gay and lesbian rights fit in?

Betty Dodson: I ignore the religious right and they ignore me. While there is a bit more social acceptance of sexual differences today, there's a lot less sexual activity taking place. In the '60s and '70s, the only thing we had to worry about was getting the clap, which could be cured with an antibiotic. Today the list of sexually transmitted diseases has grown, with AIDS at the top of the list. This makes Big Pharma very happy because they have a drug for everything. In the '70s, if you didn't have herpes it meant you weren't getting laid. Now people are taking a pill every day to avoid an outbreak and it doesn't even necessarily work. A bottle of Valtrex costs almost $300. I'd say that's an expensive drug habit.

DW: You've often said that the act of liberating masturbation is a delightful activity and a powerful political concept. Can you expand on this?

BD: Masturbation is our first natural sexual activity and when it's thwarted at an early age by an unenlightened parent, the psychological and sexual damage can leave a child scarred for life. Exploring our genitals and the good feelings they offer us is how we learn about sex, first in terms of ourselves and later on, how we make love to ourselves is what we bring to partner sex. The Catholic Church isn't kidding when it says: "Give us the first five years of a child's life and we've got them forever."

DW: Do you believe that achieving or at least working toward achieving orgasm is one of the keys to sexual liberation for women, queer or otherwise?

BD: Yes. I've been accused of emphasizing orgasm far too much, even by therapists and educators. But just think about it for a moment. A woman who has never had one can't help but either worry or wonder or obsess or feel inadequate or be very angry that something that is raved about, exaggerated, over-romanticized and used to sell everything has somehow eluded her. It's okay to choose not to have orgasms but only after you know what one is. This business about being happy with just the closeness of cuddling is cute, but that's after someone has enjoyed a period or a lifetime of orgasms alone and with partners.

DW: Is there a distinction, in your mind, between sex-positive erotica and porn, or is this a false divide?

BD: That debate successfully divided and conquered America's feminism in the '80s. One woman's erotica is another woman's porn or the other way around. It's all sex art. Some of it is good and some of it is stupid, exaggerated or silly. But hey! If an image or an idea gets you off who am I to pass judgment?

DW: Do you think gay and lesbian porn/erotica has changed the artistic terrain politically?

BD: The artistic terrain got a jolt of some really good images with Mapplethorpe's photos that challenged the censorship of sex art and won after a protracted battle. But I don't think this had made sex art more available. Maybe less so due to fighting public outrage whenever a big or erect dick appears. And Judy Chicago's Dinner Party with her pussy plates wasn't all that well received. My masturbating nudes ended my gallery affiliation but my cunt drawings made it into some sex ed books. I confess I don't watch porn these days, gay or straight. But I did have a phase of getting off on gay male porn. I loved the equal energy of two strong bodies instead of the usual hetero passive female, dominant male with the phony soundtrack.

DW: Do you think the voices of lesbian, gay and queer sexual expression have led to more expansive thinking on the sex-positive movement?

BD: Yes, we helped to move sex beyond the mom and pop image of heterosexual procreation. Hooray! We're here, we're queer, we're fabulous, get used to it.

DW: Have you taken any shit from the right, or been accused of political incorrectness from the left, when promoting women, abundant sexuality and multiple orgasmic expression in the same sentence?

BD: Good question. I rarely hear from the right. Maybe it's because they don't know I exist. My worst critics have been other feminists, both straight and gay. I had a very difficult time in the '70s with lesbian separatists - and this was when I was primarily with women, except for the occasional friendly fuck with a guy. I've made it a point to be diligent about being politically incorrect. The best way to kill off the joy in sex is to determine what's correct. Barf!

Comments on Betty's Interview
"Liberation Starts with Masturbation"

1. Good and Not Good

Masturbation provides freedom to defuse sexual desire, but not everyone can control their passion for sex. The effect of this is psychological - which forces one's mind to masturbate even if the body actually doesn't need to. If one cannot control his/her sexual urges, he/she can never control masturbation.

S., DC, Wash

2. Speaking reason to an uptight society

Betty is great for spreading the word and trying to get us to loosen up. America is truly uptight so it is no wonder we have so much difficulty talking about sex and confronting sexual issues. Instead, we get pent up and make irrational unsafe decisions. This also means we have rampant STDs, HIV, sex abuse, and higher teen pregnancy rates than Europe. You just can't get a handle on things you won't confront openly with reason and facts.

The need to perform sexually is no less important than our need to defecate, urinate, etc. Abstinence denies this and fails to help us. If old men and even old priests can't resist, where do we get off thinking it is a reasonable approach to simply tell kids to refrain. … and if they do refrain and repress, they wind up with sexual dysfunction when they finally do need to perform or worse, prostate cancer. Read the literature. It's not rocket science that if you repress a normal biological function you'll end up with problems. I was abused as a child I was told. He masturbated me often. Since I believed masturbation was bad, I concluded I must have been abused.

Knowing that masturbation is not bad or shameful was like a weight lifted from me. My real shame had come in other's opinion of it, not the actual event! Their ill-informed, negative opinion was the real abuse. I now enjoy it and look back with humor not shame. If masturbation were considered in the same category as other biologic necessities like urination and we attended to it as often, we'd have a lot less pent-up people, less abuse, and a lot less problems.

Go Betty!

T., FL

excerpted from:
"LIBERATION STARTS WITH MASTURBATION Part 2"
Interview By Diane Walsh, Monday Magazine
Xtra West, Canada April 30, 2007