Fear of the Female Orgasm: The War on Sex Toys

Why Are So Many Men Afraid of Women’s Pleasure?

It was 23 years ago when I received a package through UPS. It was full of sex toys for me to review and the UPS dude was curious about what was in the box, so I told him. He was appalled. His buddy had bought his wife a vibrator and, according to my UPS dude, she had lost interest in his buddy’s dick. Clearly, vibrators were and remain a threat to manhood and its ability to get laid.

I faked orgasms long before I had one. That doesn’t mean that I didn’t enjoy sex. Most of it felt pretty good. I just didn’t, you know, cum. But it was the 80s mostly and, really, what woman was cumming on any kind of reliable basis, especially those of us too young to have been caught up in second-wave feminism?

I knew that Erica Jong had written Fear of Flying because I found it sitting around in a house where I was babysitting. But that came long after I’d read an erotic novel that my father had left on his bedside table when I was 10, we lived in Burbank, and he had his own bedroom where the black and white TV I watched Star Trek on was located. I wasn’t sure how things worked but I knew they could do some interesting things when they did.

Before I discovered sex toys as a product, I discovered the shower massage. My mother knew something was up because my showers were lasting longer, and I wasn’t the stressed-out mess that I usually was.

Being the moral Catholic woman that she was and out of an abundance of caution for my immortal soul, she turned off the hot water after 10 minutes. But, wow, when the water pressure and temperature are right, those things really clean and refresh. It’s true, they set a high bar for people with penises to reach but it gives a clitoris owner an idea of what feels good, which is a huge step in the right direction if paired pleasure is a goal.

Sadly, paired pleasure has not always been a societal goal when it comes to, well, much of anything but especially sex. Sin and pleasure have long been linked like symbiotic twins. Pleasure, particularly for women, has been something to be strongly discouraged as self-indulgent, selfish, unnatural, and undeserved. This is not to say that males, especially young ones, have not been literally tortured for attempting to satisfy their healthy body explorations.

As you may or may not remember, the YMCA and Anthony Comstock did their level best to irradicate the plague that was materials they deemed “obscene, lewd, lascivious, or filthy.” This included dildos and butt plugs, along with an assortment of other items designed to result in sexual release. Being all modern and therefore superior to the people of the 19^th century, we assume that silly crusades like that are long gone. Not so.

Women in Zimbabwe are currently fighting against a “censorship and entertainments control” law that makes it illegal to import or possess a sex toy because the government deems them to be indecent and obscene, as well as a danger to public morals. While it’s nice to think that this law is not enforced, that’s not the case. A recent case involves a woman who had an online business where marital aids and information on how to use them were available. Upon conviction, she received a sentence of six years in jail or 640 hours of unpaid community work.

The issue, of course, is that sex toys provide women with an opportunity for pleasure that doesn’t necessarily involve a man. In a country with a history of being colonized, that’s not okay. Sex is for men to enjoy and women to endure in order to become pregnant. Full stop. That could never happen in the USA, though, right?

Well, let me tell you about this little place called Texas.

Thanks to Texas Penal Code 9 (Offenses Against Public Order and Decency), Chapter 43 (Public Indecency), “obscene devices” such as “a dildo or artificial vagina, designed or marketed as useful primarily for the stimulation of human genital organs” can only be owned or sold in limited numbers. That’s right, the Lone Star State gets to decide how many sex toys you can have in one place at the same time. How cool is that?

The law gets applied, too. In 2004 a Passion Parties hostess, mother of three, and a former fifth-grade teacher had a home she was using raided. She was charged with violating the state’s obscenity law for demonstrating and providing instruction on how to use the toys available for sale. In 2007, the lingerie store Somethin’ Sexy was raided after a tip that it might be selling sex toys.

Fortunately, I guess, U.S. District Judge Lee Yeakel explained in 2008 that although the state’s Supreme Court would not take a case challenging the law, all parties involved agreed that it was unconstitutional and unenforceable. Even arguments that some married couples are incapable of having intercourse and can enjoy sexual intimacy together with the use of toys failed to convince the court. A federal judge determined that the right to sell sex toys was not Constitutionally protected.

Weirdly enough, it was determined that the use of “obscene devices” within the privacy of one’s home is legal. The government quickly established that buying sex toys was not, however. Indeed, Texas possessed “police-power interests” in “discouraging… autonomous sex.” That’s right, there was no right to touch our own genitals and experience pleasure as a result. In fact, a legal brief on the subject stated that using a sex toy was the equivalent of “hiring a willing prostitute or engaging in consensual bigamy.”

An appeals court disagreed and brought a breath of sanity to the state’s uptight opinions about women’s non-procreative orgasms. It determined, instead, that “government interference with their personal and private use violates the Constitution.” Thus vanquished, the state decided not to push the case to the Supreme Court. Mississippi and Louisiana, both of which also had restrictive laws, found themselves affected by this decision since they all fall within the appeals court’s jurisdiction.

While these restrictions have certainly affected men and their comfort with and ability to self-pleasure, the preponderance of the damage has been done to women. Repeatedly judged and demeaned for even wanting to enjoy their bodies alone or with another, women in search of orgasm have long had a difficult time finding out how to accomplish that.

And even when, through education or experience, we find some answers, religions, fragile male egos, and their resulting legal obstacles have stood in the way of our ability to enjoy them guilt-free.

My opinion? Fuck that and fuck them. If you use a vibrator or a dildo to accomplish these goals, use as many as you want! The more, the merrier. Then make sure you schedule some time to fuck yourself in a very happy way.