Betty Dodson

Betty Dodson (August 24, 1929 – October 31, 2020) was an American sex educator. An artist by training, she exhibited erotic art in New York, before pioneering the pro-sex feminist movement. Dodson's workshops and manuals encourage women to masturbate, often in groups.

Betty Dodson
Dodson in 2010
Born(1929-08-24)August 24, 1929
Wichita, Kansas, U.S.
DiedOctober 31, 2020(2020-10-31) (aged 91)
Manhattan, New York City
NationalityAmerican
Known forSex-positive feminism

Early career

Originally from Kansas, Dodson went to New York City to train as an artist in 1950, and lived on Manhattan's Madison Avenue since 1962.[1] In 1959, Dodson married Frederick Stern, an advertising director, with the marriage ending in divorce in 1965.[1] Dodson's quest for "sexual self-discovery" began after her divorce.[1] Dodson held a first one-woman show of erotic art at the Wickersham Gallery in New York City in 1968.[2] In 1987, her Ms. magazine memoir and instructional series, Sex for One, was published. Random House later published the work broadly and it was translated to 25 languages.[3]

Dodson has criticized Eve Ensler's The Vagina Monologues, which she believed has a negative and restrictive view of sexuality and an anti-male bias.[4]

Dodson earned a degree from the unaccredited Institute for the Advanced Study of Human Sexuality for her research work on sexuality.[5]

Women's masturbation education

Dodson became active in the sex-positive movement in the late 1960s.[6] Dodson used the Hitachi Magic Wand, a powerful main-powered vibrator, in demonstrations and instructional classes to instruct women regarding self-pleasure techniques.[7][8] She recommended women put a small towel over their sex organs in order to dull the sensation of the vibrator and prolong the pleasurable experience.[9] Her technique became known as the Betty Dodson Method.[10] Her sessions were known as Bodysex workshops and featured 15 naked women in supine position, each using a Magic Wand simultaneously to aid in masturbation.[11] She provided a Magic Wand to each woman for these two-hour masturbation sessions.[12] Dodson taught thousands of women to achieve orgasm using this technique.[11]

Later career

Dodson published a memoir, Sex by Design, in 2010.[1]

In 2014, she stated that she considered herself a fourth-wave feminist, stating that the previous waves of feminist were banal and anti-sexual, which is why she has chosen to look at a new stance of feminism, fourth wave feminism. In 2014, Dodson worked with women to discover their sexual desires through masturbation. Dodson said her work has gained a support from an audience of young, successful women who have never had an orgasm. This includes fourth-wave feminists – those rejecting the anti-pleasure stance they believe third-wave feminists stand for.[13]

Dodson died on October 31, 2020, from cirrhosis in a Manhattan nursing home.[14][3]

Bibliography
  • Dodson, Betty (1978). Liberating Masturbation: A Meditation on Self Love. Dodson.
  • Dodson, Betty (1996). Sex for One: The Joy of Selfloving. New York: Crown Trade Paperbacks. ISBN 0-517-88607-3. OCLC 15696491.
  • Dodson, Betty (2003). Orgasms for Two: The Joy of Partnersex. Potter/Ten Speed/Harmony/Rodale. ISBN 978-1-4000-5203-5.
  • Dodson, Betty (2016). Sex by Design: The Betty Dodson Story. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform. ISBN 978-1-5308-3412-9.
  • Dodson, Betty (2013). Learn to Orgasm in 4 Acts. ISBN 978-0-578-12140-6.

By others
  • Muscio, Inga. Cunt: A Declaration of Independence (20th anniversary ed.). New York. ISBN 978-1-58005-664-9. OCLC 1008762930. (Foreword by Betty Dodson)

References
  1. Theobold, Stephanie (May 5, 2014). "Masturbation: the secret to a long life?". The Guardian. Archived from the original on March 18, 2015. Retrieved March 7, 2015.
  2. Allyn, David (May 23, 2016). Make Love, Not War: The Sexual Revolution: An Unfettered History. Routledge. p. 141. ISBN 978-1-134-93473-7.
  3. Green, Penelope (November 3, 2020). "Betty Dodson, Women's Guru of Self-Pleasure, Dies at 91". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved November 4, 2020.
  4. Grant, Melissa Gira. "Betty Dodson's Feminist Sex Wars". Truthout. Archived from the original on March 22, 2020. Retrieved March 22, 2020.
  5. "Betty Dodson author biography". randomhouse.com. Random House. Archived from the original on March 30, 2013. Retrieved April 8, 2012.
  6. Love, Barbara J. (2006), "Dodson, Betty Ann", in Love, Barbara J. (ed.), Feminists who changed America, 1963–1975, Urbana, Illinois: University of Illinois Press, pp. 120–121, ISBN 9780252031892
  7. Trout, Christopher (August 27, 2014). "The 46-year-old sex toy Hitachi won't talk about". Engadget. Archived from the original on August 27, 2014. Retrieved August 30, 2014.
  8. Westheimer, Ruth K. (2007), "Savouring solo play and fantasy", in Westheimer, Ruth K. (ed.), Sex for Dummies, Hoboken, New Jersey: Wiley, pp. 204–206, ISBN 9780470045237
  9. Kemp, K. M. (June 2003). "25 ways to have your best orgasm ever!". Marie Claire. Hearst Communications. 10 (6): 233. Archived from the original on February 18, 2017. Retrieved February 18, 2017 – via InfoTrac.
  10. Struck, Pia; Ventegodt, Søren (2008). "Clinical holistic medicine: teaching orgasm for females with chronic anorgasmia using the Betty Dodson Method". The Scientific World Journal. 8: 883–895. doi:10.1100/tsw.2008.116. PMC 5848654. PMID 18836654.
  11. Winks, Cathy; Semans, Anne (1997), "Profiles in pleasure: Betty Dodson | Vibrators and partners", in Winks, Cathy; Semans, Anne (eds.), The New Good Vibrations Fuide to Sex, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania: Cleis Press, pp. 102, 154, ISBN 9781573440691
  12. Dodson, Betty (1996), "Making love alone", in Dodson, Betty (ed.), Sex for one: the joy of selfloving, New York: Crown Trade Paperbacks, p. 154, ISBN 9780517886076
  13. Smith, Lydia (May 7, 2014). "Betty Dodson and fourth-wave feminism: masturbation is key to longer life". International Business Times. Archived from the original on May 11, 2014. Retrieved May 12, 2014.
  14. "Orgasme-pioner død". Ekstra Bladet (in Danish). Archived from the original on November 2, 2020. Retrieved November 2, 2020.
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