Many children of neglect, in their dark, lonely, scared hyperarousal, discover masturbation as a source of comfort, regulation or simply a way to get to sleep. Many are quite young and make the discovery well before they have any idea what they are doing.
They might before very long, get “caught” and reprimanded; or learn in some sort of religious or moral education that it is wrong or bad, or even in some way damaging. Orgasm itself may never be spoken about. Until they are older and learn of it as a mythical power that we should all be able to manufacture, and that makes us “hot”, powerful and sexy.
Originally a source of comfort, it might become a source of shame, pressure and power struggle between couples and a great mystery. And it is another of those taboo topics that no one really wants to be candid around or ask questions about.
Many people outside of the sex therapy field have never heard of woman pioneer Betty Dodson, a heroine worth honoring. In the Bay Area, March has been dedicated to women’s history, and I thought of Betty Dodson and her seminal work, an essential gift to women, and everyone really. She died in 2020 at age 91, healthy and vital until the end.
Many people outside of the sex therapy field have never heard of woman pioneer Betty Dodson, a heroine worth honoring.
Betty Dodson viewed part of her rich longevity to be a result of her viewing regular orgasms, along with sleep, good food and other exercise, as fundamental self-care practice right up until the end of her life.
I “discovered” Betty Dodson at my first sex therapy training in 2000. I was attending my first “SAR” or Sexual Attitude Reassessment. The SAR is something of an initiation, where the clinician is exposed to every imaginable and unimaginable variation of sex and sexuality and challenged to both examine and discuss what they/we think and feel. It is an effort to de-sensitize us so that we will not be shocked or scared by anything that might walk into our offices and also, to unearth what unconscious biases or attitudes we might have.
My first SAR was seven days long, in the Finger Lakes Region of Upstate New York, a spectacular setting for our long days that stretched from about 8:00am to 11:00pm of watching explicit movies, listening to speakers of every sexual ilk, and participating in small group processing after each presentation. We affectionately referred to this intense total immersion experience as “Sex Camp”.
Late one night, I was wandering around after hours, way too wound up to sleep, and I stumbled on one of our instructors watching a video in a classroom. On the screen I saw a circle of women covering a wide range of ages, shapes and sizes, all completely naked, and a leader who was teaching them how to have orgasms. That was Betty Dodson; at the time, she was “only” about 70. She also was wearing nothing but a beautiful pendant. That night, it became a bucket list item for me to attend one of Betty Dodson’s groups. I wanted to learn how to teach women to discover their orgasms.
Betty Dodson became a champion of women’s orgasms in the time period of the burgeoning Women’s Movement of the 1970s. Growing up in the rural American south, she was a gifted artist. Her art is truly spectacular, showcasing bodies in the classical style of Da Vinci or Michelangelo, only later to become exquisitely and (usually) tastefully erotic.
Marrying young, she came to find her marriage unbearably boring and lifeless. Her nice enough young husband was truly uninterested in sex and even less in her sexual pleasure. She came to find respite in long days in her art studio, where she settled into a brilliant and highly productive feedback loop: she masturbated often and found artistic inspiration in her orgasm, and the creation of art turned her on to masturbate, so her solitary days filled in with this colorful, energetic cycle.
She would come home at night energized and exhausted and pretty estranged from her already distant spouse. She was understandably secretly relieved and essentially freed when her deeply remorseful husband revealed that he had fallen in love with his secretary and wanted a divorce. Besieged with guilt, he left her their beautiful apartment in downtown New York, where she stayed until the end of her life.
Meanwhile, the Women’s Movement was gathering steam. Betty Dodson grew increasingly distressed about how overlooked and sidelined women’s sexuality was, and that became a centerpiece of women’s liberation for her. Women were indeed sex objects, expected to be available for men’s sexual pleasure without any value being placed on their own. In the women’s consciousness-raising groups she was involved in, she became loudly vocal about this, subsequently offering groups specifically on the topic.
Betty Dodson grew increasingly distressed about how overlooked and sidelined women’s sexuality was, and that became a centerpiece of women’s liberation for her.
My favorite story is when she wrote an article about women’s orgasm and submitted it to the newly established Ms Magazine, the first real mouthpiece of women’s lib. Up until then, women either read fashion magazines or House and Garden type periodicals filled with recipes and housekeeping tips. Ms being new on the scene, skittishly whittled Betty Dodson’s 18-page essay down to three, which had her understandably perturbed. She convinced the editors to agree to her placing a little note at the end of the published piece that interested readers could send one dollar and receive the uncut version. In the next several weeks, Betty Dodson’s mailbox swelled. with about $30,000 in one-dollar payments. Not bad for a starving artist. Clearly, she had hit a nerve – or a hunger – in many women’s worlds. Thus began her almost 50 years of groups.
In 2018, when Betty Dodson was close to turning 89, I saw an announcement of an upcoming workshop. I knew if I was serious about my bucket list, I better jump on it before it was too late. I made a pilgrimage to New York to attend what was a truly awesome experience. Betty Dodson was a brilliant teacher, even at 89. By now she had a delightful young assistant, Carlin Ross, who stood in for Betty Dodson’s ears and memory when they failed. (For the interested reader, I wrote a lengthy article about the workshop, Coming of Age which is available on my website here).
For now, I will say that I believe Betty Dodson gave countless women the joy and living pleasure of reclaiming their birthright and learning to value and create space for orgasm, both inside and apart from relationship.
Although I never went on to teach the art, not quite knowing how to incorporate that into a rather traditional psychotherapy practice, I found it invaluable to learn how it was done. And certainly, as you can see, how to talk openly about it.
For those dysregulated by trauma and neglect, sexuality is often hard hit. It requires an unusual combination of sympathetic and parasympathetic arousal; both ease, safety and relaxation are required, as well as excitement. Many brain areas are involved, besides the obvious body areas. Shame and anxiety are vasoconstricting, which means veins constrict and blood flow is inhibited. And of course, engorgement and erection are all about blood flow. It is important to me to convey that it is not only sexual trauma that engenders sexual inhibitions, impasses, and dysregulations of all sexual sorts. Neglect and many other traumatic and dysregulating experiences can do so too.
Many couples blame and fight about this misunderstanding. Betty Dodson had the courage to speak loudly on behalf of women’s orgasms and scream louder with pleasure. Let’s honor her by carrying on her legacy with pride and joy!
In the 1990s “Decade of the Brain”, we learned about neurogenesis: that we can produce new neurons. Prior to that, scientists believed that neurons were like ova – you are born with your life’s quota and that’s it. That would have meant that the thousands I killed during my drinking years were gone forever—Oy vey. We also learned that the three best ways to encourage neurogenesis are novelty, enriched environments and physical exercise. I have always been fond of saying that with good sex, we get all three!
One of the heroes of modern neuroscience was a poor soul named Phineas Gage, an affable, well-liked, intelligent and successful young man of 25. While working as a railroad foreman, he was tragically struck by an iron rod that went completely through his head. Miraculously he survived, although he emerged from his ordeal a very different man. He was angry, moody, and extremely hard to get along with. From studying his brain damage, scientists began to learn previously unknowable information about emotion regulation and which brain regions correlate to behavior and personality.
Phineas Gage’s recovery, however, was extremely trying for him. People found it very difficult to like the volatile new version of him. He was lonely, not to mention being faced with the challenge of securing employment. Somehow, he ended up driving a commuter train between Valparaiso and Santiago, Chile. Between the novelty of varying routes and the many languages and ethnicities of the people he encountered, Phineas Gage’s brain healed significantly, and he lived a strong 12 years post-accident. He died of a seizure disorder at the age of 37 (sadly missing out on the possible benefit of neurofeedback). Nonetheless, he was a testament to persistence and post-traumatic resilience.
So what does Phineas Gage have to do with orgasmic health and Betty Dodson? I guess it is all a pitch for persistence and a reminder of the resilient brain. And hope for those in search of an elusive orgasm.
Thanks Betty Dodson! Thanks Phineas Gage!
Each time I write a blog, I always try to think of a song that I love that goes with what I’ve written. Today’s is High Hopes by Bruce Springsteen.
My book “Working with the Developmental Trauma of Childhood Neglect: Using Psychotherapy and Attachment Theory Techniques in Clinical Practice” was published on August 31st. It provides psychotherapists with a multidimensional view of childhood neglect and a practical roadmap for facilitating survivors’ healing.
I recently heard a story where a self-identified Aboriginal woman in Australia learned that she was adopted when she was a teenager. “I always wondered why my mom was so mean to me, treated me differently from the other kids. I did look different from the rest of the family but discovered it was because I wasn’t really ‘hers’.”
A client of mine had the experience of being completely and utterly rejected by her father, who insisted she was not “his.” He brutalized her and her mother too about her being another man’s child. Seeing pictures of them together, she was the spitting image of him, and indeed she felt similarly “spat upon.” Although he eventually appeared to relent in his bitter hostility toward her, it was far too late, and she was profoundly traumatized by the rejection and the abuse.
I have worked with couples who struggled to conceive, and one partner was categorically opposed to adoption while the other was desperate to have a family. What does it mean to raise a family where maybe the genetic material is not (or not all) shared? All this got me thinking further about adoption.
Loss and rejection are threats to survival for species that rely on the pack for not only nourishment but also protection. What is the impact of having those essential needs fulfilled by a “substitute?” And in turn, what is the impact of this loss to the recently pregnant mother?
I remember from second grade Sunday School the picturesque story about Moses, who led the Jews to the Promised Land after their 40 years of wandering in the desert. As the story goes, the Egyptian Pharaoh ordered that all male Hebrew babies be drowned at birth in an effort to keep Jews from becoming too powerful. Jochebed, having recently given birth to Baby Moses, was grief-stricken and kept her baby hidden as long as she could. When she could no longer ensure his safety and her own, she tucked him into a basket and placed it in the reeds on the edge of the Nile. As it happened, Pharaoh’s daughter found the basket while bathing in the river. She took the baby home and raised him: an idyllic adoption story.
What, in fact, is the impact of adoption? Is it an attachment trauma? What if the baby is adopted at birth? What is the impact on the birth mother? All of these and many more questions began to swirl around my mind. Loss and rejection are threats to survival for species that rely on the pack for not only nourishment but also protection. What is the impact of having those essential needs fulfilled by a “substitute?” And in turn, what is the impact of this loss to the recently pregnant mother?
I had a client once who grew up in a fiercely religious community in the American deep south. She partnered with an African American man before intermarriage became legal in 1967, but even before that, she got pregnant as a teenager and was secretly whisked away to an “unwed mother’s home.” Nobody knew where she had gone. Her baby was as quickly and silently whisked away virtually at birth. To my client, it felt like having part of herself ripped away as if her body was ravaged by amputation. I saw her at least 30 years after the fact. She was still torn apart by grief, guilt and shame, both desperate and terrified to find and meet the child that, interestingly, she had named Faith. Every kind of regret was unbearable. She had much other trauma, which we worked with for some years.
Long after she left therapy with me, she finally met Faith. Although they did not appear to establish an ongoing relationship, she was comforted and achieved some sort of closure, if nothing else, than to make the story real for herself and also express her deep remorse and love to her daughter.
I read all the hefty biographies of Steve Jobs, another adoptee. I am a great admirer of his extraordinary genius (admittedly, I have a fascination with very smart, narcissistic and sometimes mean men, probably in the image of my father). Jobs fit that description. His unmarried teen parents gave him up for adoption at birth. A loving couple adopted him, and he described himself as quite harmonious and close with them. Some years later, Jobs’ birth parents had married each other and had a daughter, Jobs’ sister, Mona Simpson, whom he met some years later.
When Jobs was roughly his parents’ age when they gave birth to him, and similarly unmarried, he also fathered a child. Initially, Jobs vehemently denied paternity, even after formal paternity testing confirmed that he was indeed the father. He balked and paid the absolute minimum of child support required by law, even after his early company had begun earning well. Only after many years did he develop a relationship with this daughter (of course, I read her memoir as well.) To me, it seemed like some sort of trauma re-enactment, which would suggest that, at least in his case, being given up for adoption was traumatic.
I have had some adopted clients who seemed terribly dysregulated from being raised by the “wrong” mother. I have seen other veritable “love stories” of adoption. There is research that says indeed it is an attachment trauma. In the words of one researcher:
When working with adoptees, we must consider the possibility that this disrupted attachment may be a cause of at least some of their difficulties.
Belonging and being part of a group are sources of not only identity but safety and equilibrium. Knowing where I am from and where I belong creates a kind of orientation and balance in the world, as well as a place to retreat to under threat or in trying times. Although I am not a practicing or religious Jew, I am very much identified with the “tribe”. I love baking challah and bagels and always insist that my homemade bagels and homemade cream cheese are the “real Jewish Penicillin.” I consider the Holocaust and my parents’ Holocaust trauma very much a part of my identity and have a profound reaction to genocide, racism and segregation which are undeniably wound in with my own ancestral story.
I tend to unwittingly notice Jewish sounding names or other characteristics and feel, even unconsciously, rather kindred. I hope I do not suffer from some sort of racism in that regard. I feel strongly that when a child or adult is removed from their clan, group and often country of origin, the loss is visceral. The world of diaspora that we now live in is rife with such homelessness, which is growing alarmingly worse given the most recent world events. It frightens me, even when countries of refuge are relatively welcoming. It is no wonder that ethnic and country of origin food pop-ups are such a popular source of solace to many immigrants and refugees, at least in the food worshipping Bay Area.
While briefly dipping into the wide subject of adoption, I am reminded of another issue I feel strongly about; reproductive justice.
For same-sex couples, adoption is one of a number of options for having a family, perhaps the least expensive, although adoption also may run into significant outlays. The other avenues to pregnancy can run into many thousands and even tens of thousands, which amounts to discrimination of sorts. Who gets to procreate, and with what support? It would seem to me that the next step after legalizing same-sex marriage would be making same-sex family planning affordable, safe, and accessible.
To close on a happy note, I heard a heart-warming story the other night on one of my favorite wee-hours BBC programs. A young man, adopted at birth, who had a seemingly smooth childhood and upbringing, searched out and met his birth parents in his early thirties. He learned that, like Steve Jobs, his two biological parents had married each other and had several more children who were his full siblings.
He met his younger sister, who was herself several times a mother, and when our young man and his wife were unable to get pregnant, this sister proposed that she might serve as a surrogate and carry their child. They gratefully accepted, and their fertilized egg and sperm were placed inside her. As it turned out, they expected twin girls.
The crowded delivery room included three sets of grandparents: the young mother’s two parents, the young father’s adoptive parents, and his birth parents. It was a wild, unconventional and joyous welcome and family for those two little girls!
Each time I write a blog, I always try to think of a song that I love that goes with what I’ve written. Today’s is It Ain’t Me Babe by Bob Dylan.
My book “Working with the Developmental Trauma of Childhood Neglect: Using Psychotherapy and Attachment Theory Techniques in Clinical Practice” was published on August 31st. It provides psychotherapists with a multidimensional view of childhood neglect and a practical roadmap for facilitating survivors’ healing.