VIVA LA VULVA
By Marianna Beck

  If an award were being given out for the person most responsible for promoting positive and celebratory female sexuality, it would no doubt go to Betty Dodson, the queen of cuntiousness-raising and a true "vulvalutionary."

  For the last three decades, Dodson has been an indefatigable sex educator running workshops teaching women about masturbation and sexual pleasure. In 1973, when Dodson began her Bodysex workshops, genital show-and-tell became part of a powerful healing process on the road to self-acceptance and sexual growth.

  In her new video, Viva la Vulva: Women's Sex Organs Revealed, Dodson has expanded on the show-and-tell theme by gathering together ten women, ages from 25 to 68, to discuss how their attitudes about their genitals have been shaped-not to mention how their genitals are shaped-by varying cultural attitudes and backgrounds. They go from discussing their inner-most thoughts and pussy pet-names to preparing for their pussy portraits, a ritual that is preceded by a round of serious primping prom-style. Suddenly, one begins to understand what Dodson means by the healing process. The giggling and preening, are a powerful antidote to earlier recollections of negative imprinting. One woman remembers being slapped by her mother every time she touched herself; another, a 50-something nurse, used to shaving patients' pubic hair prior to surgery, reveals that she has never, until now, really looked at her own vulva.

  And then there is Betty Dodson, pointer in hand, extolling with great delight the infinite vulvular variety of those in her group: we get to see a Classical Cunt with its perfect proportions, a Gothic Vulva with its cathedral-shaped arches, a Baroque Pussy with its elaborate drapery and an Art Deco Yoni with its graceful lines. (And here we thought Sister Wendy's TV series on the great masters was giving us a whole new take on art). Dodson's disarming approach also works wonders on eradicating general misinformation, particularly when she dives into general anatomy and carefully points out that the clitoris is not just a pea-shaped nodule of erectile tissue but a whole internal structure complete with legs!

  The light-hearted girlie-group dynamic in Viva la Vulva makes for a spirited and joyful ride especially in the brief excursions involving genital self-massage techniques and the final, celebratory vulva art-project each participant furnishes. In an ideal world, this video would be required viewing in all university sex-education classes.

I could hardly wait to view "Viva la Vulva," Now I can say:

VIVA DODSON!! VIVA! VIVA!
By Leonore Tiefer, Ph.D.

This video by Betty Dodson, Ph.D., is another of her important and beautifully produced contributions to sex-positivity for women. I hope it will be widely viewed and discussed. I am planning to show parts of it to the 2nd year medical students at Albert Einstein College of Medicine.

It is really pleasing that Betty was able to involve women of so many different skin colors and ages. This adds to the video's educational and desensitization message, as well as to it's aesthetic value. I am also delighted that Betty used the material from A New View of a Woman's Body to such good effect. Integrating the "interior" and "exterior" anatomical information raises women's familiarity and comfort level with their sexual potential.

Viva La Vulva adds another dimension to Celebrating Orgasm and her Selfloving Workshop. I can use all 3 of these videos with my sex therapy patients as well as medical and psychology students. The need for anti-shaming educational messages is far from obsolete. Won't it be wonderful to look back from the 22nd century on how we struggled in the 20th to overcome centuries of anti-woman anti-sexual indoctrination? And Betty Dodson will be regarded as a pioneer, a champion, and a true heroine in that struggle.

Leonore Tiefer, Ph.D.
clinical psychologist and sex therapist
author of Sex is Not a Natural Act and other essays
E-MAIL: ltiefer@aol.com

REVIEW

Volume 14, Issue 2, April / May 1999

HANDS-ON
FEMINISM'S BEST JILLING-OFF VIDEOS

Viva la Vulva
WOMEN'S SEX ORGANS REVEALED
(Betty Dodson, 1998)

This is the best thing I've seen in ages-but then, Betty Dodson's been a sexual-pleasure guru for a long time. In the video she describes some of the differences between her work in the early 1970s and the groups she does now; still, the basic story women tell, and the strategy for learning to love your "private parts," transcends the times. Much more obviously grounded in the women's health movement (or, perhaps, minus the cuntspiritualizing of the San Francisco videos), we see a photo session in which a dozen women of most colors and many ages (25 to 55) groom their pussies for a photo shoot. Dodson gets everyone to look at each other's similarities and differences and truly gets everyone to appreciate their woman parts, in some cases to the point of labia envy! Arty in a Judy Chicago style, the whole video is diffusely erotic and ends with instruction in genital self-massage that could, but doesn't have to, lead to "masturbation." Wow! Selfforeplay, and it's really sexy.
Grade: Five Lips (Highest!) Better than sex.

-- Cindy Patton was a founding editor of the erotic lesbian magazine Bad Attitude, teaches lesbian and gay studies at Emory University, and has been extensively involved in feminist and AIDS politics.

On Our Backs, 3415 Cesar Chaves Street, Suite 101, San Francisco, CA 94110, phone 415.648.9464, fax 415.648.4705, staff@gfriends.com

Siren magazine
December/January 20, 1999

VIVA LA VULVA
By Carlyle Jansen

Is your vulva baroque or gothic? More art deco or classical? If you have been pondering these questions, then Betty Dodson's new video Viva la Vulva will shed some light on your particular "style". The video shows various women showing off their beautiful sex organs to the camera while they talk about them and how they feel about them.

Those of you who saw Betty's first video, Selfloving, might be disappointed that this video has less intimacy than the group in Selfloving that shared their feelings about masturbation and being sexual. But if you are open to expecting something different, then you will enjoy the various names they give to, their "private parts" and how they enjoy themselves preparing for a photo shoot of their vulvas, joking, laughing in a healthy way, and showing themselves off.

Personally I prefer gals who are "uncut", that's my bias, so I didn't like how much shaving was going on for the shots. I thought it would have been educational to show how beautiful we are naturally, especially since most of the porn or educational videos we see these days features shaved pussies.

One week after the shoot, the video brings the women together for show-and-tell of what wonderful art they created using the photos of their vulvas. We are presented with an empowering display of a part of our bodies that we are so often told is dirty, smelly, and ugly. What is really great about this video are the drawings and descriptions of what we look like on the inside, how large the clitoris is (something modern medicine is finally realizing!), where the G-spot is and how all of these parts interconnect. The images are taken from a few books, but somehow a video with live explanations seems to come through clearer.

A sweet erotic moment takes place when groups of two or more women are massaging another woman - a conglomeration of bodies in sensual ecstasy. What distinguishes this video from her others is the scene in which all the women sit around in a circle with a mirror in front, while Betty guides them through various hand stimulations of their vulvas. Although I am a vibrator zealot, it is a nice change to see different manual strokes for making ourselves purr. So, overall I say Betty Dodson does it again, pushing the limits on how we educate ourselves and others about our bodies in a way that women find comfortable and entertaining.

REVIEW

BUST Magazine
#12 THE MONEY ISSUE, SPRING 1999

VIVA LA VULVA
WOMEN'S SEX ORGANS REVEALED
Betty Dodson

Your eyes are not deceiving you: Sex for One's Betty Dodson has committed her wisdom to a viewing forum. Watching Betty's tapes is enlightening; she takes you for a walk on the wild side of your inner love muscle, and backs it up with diagrams. For those of you who still don't know where your clit is, what your vulva looks like or how to give yourself pleasure, this is the tape for you. For the rest of you who do, this is for you too, because you can never see enough pussy. She also helps you figure out how to really arouse yourself-pussy petting, stroking your vulva and a couple of other little tricks that you may not even know about!