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GERVAISE DE LATOUCHE, Jean-Charles. (1748). Histoire de dom B*****. Francfort.
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ROUBAUD, Félix. (1876). Traité de l’impuissance et de la stérilité chez l’homme et chez la femme, comprenant l’exposition des moyens recommandés pour y remédier. Paris.
SMITH, William Tyler. (1858). The modern practice of midwifery: a course of lectures on obstetrics delivered at St.Mary's Hospital, London. New York.
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TUANA, Nancy. (2004), Coming to Understand: Orgasm and the Epistemology of Ignorance. Hypatia Special Issue: Feminist Science Studies, 19, 194–232.
VARLEY, John. (1984). Picnic On Nearside (originally published as The Barbie Murders and Other Stories in 1980). Berkley Books.
VILLARET, Albert. (1888). Handwörterbuch der gesamten Medizin. Stuttgart.
VIRICEL, Jean-Marie. (1798). Mémoire sur l'art de préparer les malades aux grandes opérations. Lyon.
WALTER, Tilmann. (1999). Plädoyer für die Abschaffung des Orgasmus. Lust und Sprache am Beginn der Neuzeit. Zeitschrift für Sexualforschung, 12(1), 25-49.
WARTBURG, Walther von. (1958). Französisches etymologisches Wörterbuch. Eine darstellung des galloromanischen sprachschatzes. Basel.
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ZEDLER, Johann Heinrich. (1731–1752). Grosses vollständiges Universal-Lexicon Aller Wissenschafften und Künste, Welche bishero durch menschlichen Verstand und Witz erfunden und verbessert worden. Halle-Leipzig.
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Annexe
Text inserts
12:17 “highest O complete O real, non-simulated O spontaneous O…” Part one of my compilation of intensifiers (1898–1920), in the words of Albert Moll, Henry Havelock Ellis, Richard von Krafft-Ebing, Iwan Bloch, et al.
13:12 “slow at producing O minature O childish O…” Part two of my compilation of intensifiers (1898–1920), in the words of Richard von Krafft- Ebing, Henry Havelock Ellis, and Sigmund Freud.
17:15 “orgastically ill”: Wilhelm Reich, “orgastically inadequate”: William H. Masters and Virginia E. Johnson. On “disorder, dysfunction”: Both terms are included in DSM-IV (1994), reflecting the ongoing debate about whether the problem is medical (“dysfunction”) or psychological (“disorder”). In DSM-5 (2013), “Female orgasmic disorder” is listed as part of “female dysfunction”, while “Male orgasmic disorder” has been changed to “Delayed ejaculation”. Almost every scientific article emphasizes the high symbolic value of orgasm as an embodied sociocultural event rather than a biological response.
19:19 “the concept of ‘orgasm’ as a cultural agenda is firmly established …”
Part three of my compilation of intensifiers (twentieth and twenty-first centuries), with quotes from science, popular science, porn and popular culture, as well as additions from personal experience.
Images
01:05 The Mercator projection with Tissot's indicatrices:https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/87/Tissot_mercator.png
01:19 Gall–Peters cylindrical equal-area projection with Tissot's indicatrices of deformation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gall%E2%80%93Peters_projection#/media/
03:05 Ernest Klein, A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary Of The English Language. Amsterdam, 1966.
03:19 Randle Cotgrave, A Dictionarie of the French and English Tongues. London, 1611.
03:42 Albert Villaret, Handwörterbuch der gesamten Medizin. Stuttgart, 1888, p.439
04:00 Steven Blankaart (Dutch physician, iatrochemist, and entomologist, 1650-1702), A physical dictionary; in which all the terms relating either to anatomy, chirurgery, pharmacy, or chymistry, are very accurately explain'd. London, 1684, p. 153: “Orgasmus, is an Impetus and quick Motion of Blood or Spirits; as when the Animal Spirits rush violently upon the Nerves.” https://wellcomecollection.org/works/ap67skrn/items?canvas=15
04:16 Walther von Wartburg (Swiss philologist and lexicographer, 1888-1971), Französisches etymologisches Wörterbuch. Eine darstellung des galloromanischen sprachschatzes. Basel, 1958, p. 412 (quoting Cotgrave 1611, Trév 1721 …), https://lecteur-few.atilf.fr/index.php/page/lire/e/12839
04:29 Toussaint Guindant (physician), La Nature opprimée par la médecine moderne, ou La nécessité de recourir à la méthode ancienne & hippocratique dans le traitement des maladies. Paris, 1768, p.392: “Orgasme.Turgescence, gonflement de sucs & d'humeurs.” [“Turgescence, swelling of juices & humours.” my translation]. https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k9685485h
04:38 James Nihell, Traité des eaux minérales de la ville de Rouen, où l'on établit la nature & les principes de ces eaux. Rouen, 1759.
04:48 Jean-Nicolas. Corvisart (French physician, 1755-1821), Essai sur les maladies et les lésions organiques du coeur et des gros vaisseaux. Paris, 1806.https://archive.org/details/essaisurlesmalad00corv/page/n1/mode/2up
05:20 Jean-Charles Gervaise de Latouche (French writer and lawyer, 1715-1782), Histoire de dom B*****. Francfort, 1748. https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k1513537b/f1.item
05:33 Marcantonio Raimondi (c. 1470/82 - c. 1534), Enée et Didon, ca. 1524. The Italien engraver Marcantonio Raimondi created I Modi (The Ways), also known as The Sixteen Pleasures, a famous erotic book of the Italian Renaissance depicting sixteen sexual positions. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Modi
Agostino Carracci (Italian painter, 1557-1602), The Satyr and his Wife, ca. 1590
06:01 Le diable de Papefiguière, illustré par Charles Eisen (French painter and engraver, 1720- 1778), in Jean de La Fontaine (French fabulist, 1621-1695), Nouveaux Contes. First published Paris, 1655, edition 1896. https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/681545
06:35 Jean-Charles Gervaise de Latouche, Histoire de dom B*****. Francfort, 1748.
06:53 Book cover of Jean de La Fontaine, Nouveaux Contes.
07:19 Sammelhandschrift, (Nürnberg?, 1400), ÖNB (Österreichische Nationalbibliothek) Sammlung von Handschriften und alten Drucken. https://digital.onb.ac.at/RepViewer/viewer.faces? doc=DTL_4850105&order=1&view=SINGLE
07:33 Erste Seite aus der Handschrift mit Meisterliedern von Hans Folz (1450-1515). Abb. aus Hans Folz, Meisterlieder, c. 1496, fol. 1r., Historisches Lexikon Bayerns.
https://www.historisches-lexikon-bayerns.de/Lexikon/Datei:Folz_Meisterlieder.jpg, (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0).
08:45 André-Robert Andréa de Nerciat (French novelist, 1739-1800), Le Diable au corps. 1803. https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k1520681f/f1.item
09:03 André-Robert Andréa de Nerciat, Le Diable au corps.
09:21 André-Robert Andréa de Nerciat, Le Diable au corps.
09:40 Pigault-Lebrun (Attribué à), (French novelist, playwright, and Epicurean, 1753-1835), L'Enfant du bordel.Paris, 1800. https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k1520687x/f1.item
10:01 Pigault-Lebrun, L'Enfant du bordel.
Translation by Lynn Hunt with the additional note: “This scene captures the gender-play potential of pornography. Here the male hero is disguised as a woman in order to seduce a lesbian.” Lynn Hunt, Pornography and the French Revolution. In Lynn Hunt (Ed.), The Invention of Pornography. Obscenity and the Origins of Modernity, 1500 – 1800. New York: Zone Books, 1996, p. 337.
A side note: the term “lesbian” did not yet exist at the time of the book's publication and – as Valerie Traub analyses in detail – tribades are not lesbians: they appeared under specific textual and social conditions. Valerie Traub, The Psychomorphology of the Clitoris, GLQ, 2, 1995, 81–113, p.220. For my exploration of the use of the various terms see: Christina Goestl, 'Clitoral Matter. On the Politics of Sexual Pleasures in Western European Cultures’.
10:50 Pigault-Lebrun, L'Enfant du bordel, endpaper.
11:49 adapted from: Barry R. Komisaruk & Beverly Whipple, 'Non-genital orgasms, Sexual and Relationship Therapy', Sexual and Relationship Therapy, 26:4, 356-372, 2011.
12:59 S. Lindner (Budapest?, German paediatrician?), 'Das Saugen an den Fingern, Lippen etc. bei den Kindern (Ludeln). Eine Studie', Jahrbuch für Kinderheilkunde und physische Erziehung, 14. Leipzig, 1879, p. 68. English translation: “The sucking of the fingers, lips etc. by children (pleasure-sucking)”
13:58 Nicholas Edward Kaufmann's Cycling Beauties, ca. 1890.
Nicholas Edward „Nick“ Kaufmann was a US trick cyclist who toured Europe, lived and died in Berlin (1943), and trained roller skaters for vaudeville.
15:17 Masters and Johnson, Human Sexual Response. Boston, 1966.
16:02 Barry R. Komisaruk, Carlos Beyer-Flores, & Beverly Whipple, The Science of Orgasm. Baltimore: The John Hopkins University Press, 2006.
16:00 Barry R. Komisaruk & Beverly Whipple, Non-genital orgasms, Sexual and Relationship Therapy, Sexual and Relationship Therapy, 26:4, 356-372, 2011.
16:25 Anita Yen Chiang & Wen-yu Chiang, Behold, I am Coming Soon! A Study on the Conceptualization of Sexual Orgasm in 27 Languages. Metaphor and Symbol, 2016.
18:17 Georgiadis, J.R. & Kringelbach, M.L., The human sexual response cycle: Brain imaging evidence linking sex to other pleasures. Progress in Neurobiology, 98, 2012, p. 55.
20:00 K-Ming Chang, Bestiary. New York: One World, 2020, p. 68, 74, 75.
20:31 Annie Sprinkle, Models of Orgasm. Illustration by Erika Lopez. On Our Backs, 2002. In early 2000, Annie Sprinkle came to Vienna. Among other events, she hosted a “power orgasm” workshop, where she also distributed a copy of this newspaper article. We, the participants, collectively orgasmed in the dim light of a theater hall. It was a blast! For me, anyway – I've always had a penchant for autoerotic sex in public.
All weblinks: last visit February 2023
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Notes
I wish to thank my English language editor, dan*ela beuren, for her great support in writing this text, and Elke Raab for her expertise on French sources. A big thank you also goes out to my beta testers for encouragement, and my friends for love, inspiration, and warm support.
Christina Goestl, Clitoral Matter. On the Politics of Sexual Pleasures in Western European Cultures. In Emma REES (Ed.), The Routledge Companion to Gender, Sexuality and Culture (p. 145-164). London: Routledge, 2022.
Examples are the Hawaiian language, see Max Kenneth, The Philology of the Orgasm. Nassau Weekly, 2005. http://nassauweekly.com/the_philology_of_the_orgasm/, as well as the Atayal and Seediq languages spoken in Taiwan, see Anita Yen Chiang & Wen-yu Chiang, Behold, I am Coming Soon! A Study on the Conceptualization of Sexual Orgasm in 27 Languages, Metaphor and Symbol, 31:3, 131-147, 2016.
Peter Cryle, The Telling of the Act. Sexuality as Narrative in Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century France. Cranbury, London: Associated University Press, 2001, p. 364.
Cambridge Dictionary: Meaning of orgasm in English, https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/orgasm
Ernest Weekley (British philologist, 1865-1954) An etymological dictionary of modern English, London, 1921, p. 506: “Orgasm. F. orgasme, “an extreme fit, or expression of anger” (Cotg.), from G. òpyâv, to swell, be excited”. [(Cotg.) = Randle Cotgrave]. https://archive.org/details/etymologicaldict00weekuoft
Ernest Klein (Hungarian-born Romanian-Canadian linguist, 1899-1983), A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary Of The English Language. Amsterdam, 1966, p. 1094. https://archive.org/details/AComprehensiveEtymologicalDictionaryOfTheEnglishLanguageByErnestKlein
Walter Charleton (natural philosopher and English writer, 1619-1707), The darknes of atheism dispelled by the light of nature a physico-theologicall treatise, 1652, Chapter VII. Of the Liberty Elective of Mans Will, Sect. III: “Because there are many Virtuous Persons, who having learned and practised that that noblest militia of conquering themselves, can command themselves even in the highest orgasmus and fervour of their passions;”. https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/eebo/A69728.0001.001
Randle Cotgrave (English lexicographer, died c. 1634), A Dictionarie of the French and English Tongues. London, 1611. http://www.pbm.com/~lindahl/cotgrave/678.html
Isaac-Casaubon (Doctor in Physick (as mentioned in the preface), French classical scholar and philologist, moved to England, 1559-1614), Anthropologie abstracted: or The Idea of Humane Nature reflected in briefe Philosophicall, and Anatomicall Collections, 1655, Chapter V., Of Generation: “For Femalls have instruments officiall both to spermification and Emission; are invited to, and act Congression with the same libidinous orgasmus, and pleasant fury, that the Males do: and their Seminary Emissions ahve been discovered to the ocular scrutiny of many. Neither do Male and Female differ in specie, but sexu.”
Walther von Wartburg (Swiss philologist and lexicographer, 1888-1971), Französisches etymologisches Wörterbuch. Eine darstellung des galloromanischen sprachschatzes. Basel, 1958, p. 412 (quoting Cotgrave 1611, Trév 1721 …). https://lecteur-few.atilf.fr/index.php/page/lire/e/12839
Ernest Klein, p. 1094 (also: “violent exitement”); Albert Villaret (German military physician, 1847-1911), Handwörterbuch der gesamten Medizin. Stuttgart, 1888, p.439. https://archive.org/details/Villaret1888Handwoerterbuch
Johann Heinrich Zedler (bookseller and publisher, 1706-1763), Grosses vollständiges Universal-Lexicon Aller Wissenschafften und Künste, Welche bishero durch menschlichen Verstand und Witz erfunden und verbessert worden. Halle-Leipzig, 1731–1752, p.1870, https://www.zedler-lexikon.de/
Helmut Puff calls this book “one of the leading dictionaries of the early Enlightenment”. Helmut Puff, Nature on Trial: Acts “Against Nature” in the Law Courts of Early Modern Germany and Switzerland. In Lorraine Daston and Fernando Vidal (Eds.), The Moral Authority of Nature (p. 232-253). Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2004.
James Nihell (Ecuyer, Conseiller-Médecin du Roi, 1708?-1759), Traité des eaux minérales de la ville de Rouen, où l'on établit la nature & les principes de ces eaux. Rouen, 1759, p. 180, chapter “Expostition de Termes”: “Orgasme. Suspension, irritation, irrégularité en tout sens.”
https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k9766846s/
“Orgasmus des Blutes” (orgasmus sanguinis) in Ludwig Rintel, Versuch über die Krankheiten und organischen Verletzungen des Herzens und der grossen Gefässe. Berlin, 1814, p. 386. https://archive.org/details/versuchberdiekra00corv/mode/2up.
Other sources describe “l’orgasme nerveux”, “l'orgasme vasculaire”, “l'orgasme lymphatique” (Aurelio Finizio, Mémoire sur la grossesse, considérée sous le rapport physiologico-pathologique, … Paris, 1842), “orgasme de l'estomac” (Richard de Hautesierck, François Marie Claude, Manière de connaître et de traiter les principales maladies aiguës qui attaquent le peuple. Paris, 1779), “l'orgasme fébrile” (Jean-Marie Viricel, Mémoire sur l'art de préparer les malades aux grandes opérations, Lyon, 1798).
This expression is found quite frequently, as in Thomas Cooper (English bishop, lexicographer, theologian, and writer 1517?-1594), Thesaurus linguæ Romanæ & Britannicæ tam accurate congestus… London, 1578, part VE: “Cic.The goddesse of wanton loue. ¶Venus. Ter.Carnall lust: lechery. [...] Cic.To be a lechour: to vse carnall ← lust → of the body.” https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/eebo/A19275.0001.001/
Jean Riolan (French anatomist, 1580-1657), Encheiridium anatomicum et pathologicum (Nicholas CULPEPER and William RAND, Trans.). London: Peter Cole, 1665, p. 82. https://collections.nlm.nih.gov/catalog/nlm:nlmuid-2751056R-bk
Giles Jacob (English legal writer, 1686-1744), Tractatus de Hermaphroditis: or, a Treatise of Hermaphrodites. London, 1718. https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/13569
Hans Folz (German wound physician, writer and Meistersinger (mastersinger), 1435/1440-1513), quoted by Tilmann Walter, Plädoyer für die Abschaffung des Orgasmus. Lust und Sprache am Beginn der Neuzeit. Zeitschrift für Sexualforschung 12 - 1, p 25-49, Stuttgart, 1999. The full quote in the original: “Das sexuelle Begehren [...] führt im Idealfall erotischen Einvernehmens aber ein Kontinuum der Lust hinüber zu dem Zeitpunkt, da es den Beteiligten „recht wohl genügt“ (Folz, 2. Hälftel 15. Jh./1961: 26)”. In a footnote Tilmann adds: “[...] this formulation is quite unique in its kind.”
Around five centuries later, in the short story “The Funhouse Effect” U.S. science fiction author John Valery writes: “They didn't actually finish making love; they sort of tapered off, like we used to do before orgasms became a factor.“ John Varley, Picnic On Nearside (originally published as The Barbie Murders and Other Stories in 1980). Berkley Books, 1984. https://varley.net/
“l'orgasme vénérien”, Félix Roubaud (French physiologist, 1820–1878), Traité de l’impuissance et de la stérilité chez l’homme et chez la femme, comprenant l’exposition des moyens recommandés pour y remédier. Paris, 1876. https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k5752711w.texteImage
In X. Jacobus (French army surgeon, 1837-1890), Amour aux colonies. Paris, 1893, p. 100, we find the term “genuine orgasm”, p.238, https://collections.nlm.nih.gov/catalog/nlm:nlmuid-0100771-bk
Another expression is “sexual paroxysm, sensorial orgasm”, used by William Tyler Smith (English obstetrician, 1815-1873), The modern practice of midwifery: a course of lectures on obstetrics delivered at St.Mary's Hospital, London. New York, 1858, p.58: “The sexual ‘paroxysm’ in the female was fully recognized by John Hunter, and is as distinct as that of the male. It begins in the clitoris, and ends in an orgasm or paroxysm of sensation. [...] Of the existence of the sensorial orgasm there can be no doubt, and its absence constitutes impotence in the female.” https://collections.nlm.nih.gov/catalog/nlm:nlmuid-67360110R-bk
Félix Roubaud, Traité de l’impuissance, p. 129, 38, 245, https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k5752711w.texteImage
For more on Roubaud, see: Sylvie Chaperone, From anaphrodisia to frigidity: landmarks in history. Sexologies, 16, 189–194, 2007.
Venus is commonly mentioned in reference to sexual activities, for example by Giles Jacob, Tractatus de Hermaphroditis, or Thomas Cooper, Thesaurus linguæ Romanæ & Britannicæ. On “The dark side of desire—vices such as lust, jealousy, bribery—so visible in the realm occupied by Venus, seems isolated from the well-ordered feelings and behavior over which Nature presides.”, see: Joan Cadden, Trouble in the Earthly Paradise: The Regime of Nature in Late Medieval Christian Culture’. In The Moral Authority of Nature, p. 210.
Peter Cryle, 2001, The Telling of the Act, p. 242.
Peter Cryle, 2001, The Telling of the Act, p. 216.
Peter Cryle, 2001, The Telling of the Act, p. 278. John Cleland (1709-1789), renowned as the “most skillful eighteenth-century English pornographer” and author of Fanny Hill (1748), comments: “Our senses love to be prepared.” John Cleland, Dictionary of Love. London, 1776, chapter “Gradation”.
“Masculine finishing power has the greatest difficulty in overcoming feminine staying power, even when competing, so to speak, on its own terrain, in erotic fiction written largely by men and for men.” Peter Cryle, 2001, The Telling of the Act, p. 19. See also: Peter Cryle, Gendered Time in Erotic Narrative: Finishing Power vs Staying Power. Romanic Review 83, 131–48, 1992.
Peter Cryle, 2001, The Telling of the Act, p. 273.
As many scholars have noted, the understanding of sexuality shifted at the turn of the eighteenth to the nineteenth century from something one does (behaviour) to something one is (identity).
Commonly known as “PIV (penis-in-vagina)” or, in sexual medicine, “PVI (Penile-vaginal intercourse)”.
Ellis also uses the term “detumescence” beside the term “sexual orgasm”. Henry Havelock Ellis (physician, UK, 1859-1939), Studies in the Psychology of Sex. Volume III, Analysis of the Sexual Impulse, Love and Pain, The Sexual Impulse in Women. Second Edition, Revised and Enlarged, 1927.
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/13612/13612-h/13612-h.htm
“Von welchen Umständen beim weiblichen Geschlecht das Gefühl der Befriedigung abhängt, ist schwer zu ermitteln.” Albert Moll (German psychiatrist and, together with Iwan Bloch and Magnus Hirschfeld, the founder of modern sexology, 1862-1939), Untersuchungen über die Libido sexualis. Erster Band. Berlin, 1898, p.14. https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_JZsaAAAAYAAJ
Henry Havelock Ellis, Studies in the Psychology of Sex, quoting “Ferenczi, of Budapest (Zentralblatt für Psychoanalyse, 1910, ht. 1 and 2, p. 75)”. Sándor Ferenczi (Hungarian psychoanalyst, 1873-1933).
Magnus Hirschfeld (German physician, sexologist, sexual rights activist, 1868-1935), Die Homosexualität des Mannes und des Weibes. Berlin, 1914, p. 322.
For a critical reading of Hirschfeld and the early sexologists, see: Laurie Marhoefer, Racism and the Making of Gay Rights. A Sexologist, His Student, and the Empire of Queer Love. University of Toronto Press, 2022; Huw Lemmey and Ben Miller in conversation with Laurie Marhoefer in “The Bad Gays Podcast”: https://badgayspod.com/episode-archive/special-episode-magnus-hirschfeld. Hirschfeld and his contemporaries are also discussed in their book Bad Gays. A Homosexual History, Chapter 8: The Bad Gays of Weimar Berlin, London, Verso, 2022. Highly recommended for all those interested in a thoroughly reflected queer history!
Ferdinand Karsch-Haack (German Zoologist, 1853-1936), Das gleichgeschlechtliche Leben der Naturvölker. München, 1911, p. 16. Karsch-Haack was a member of the Scientific Humanitarian Committee (Wissenschaftlich-humanitäres Komitee, WhK), co-founded by Magnus Hirschfeld, which was the first gay rights group worldwide (Berlin, 1897-1933). In keeping with his time, place and concern, he wrote a comprehensive work on the spread of homosexuality all over the world to demonstrate its universality. For context, see Laurie Marhoefer, Racism and the Making of Gay Rights. Regarding the book's title, she explains that “[t]he distinction between ‘cultural peoples’ (Kulturvölker) and ‘natural peoples’ (Naturvölker) was common among German-speaking anthropologists.”, p. 45.
Wilhelm Reich (Doctor of Medicine, Psychoanlyst, Austria/US, 1897-1957), Die Funktion des Orgasmus: Zur Psychopathologie und zur Soziologie des Geschlechtslebens. Wien, 1927.
https://archive.org/details/DieFunktionDesOrgasmus/mode/2up
Alfred Kinsey et al., The Kinsey Reports: Sexual Behavior in the Human Male. Philadelphia, 1948.
Masters and Johnson’s sexual response cycle paved the way for the pathologization of sexual “dysfunctions” (low desire and lack of desire, lack of arousal, and difficulty orgasming). Subsequently, the concept was further developed and expanded, based on the idea that women's sexual response is more complex than men's: Helen Singer Kaplan included emotional aspects and Rosemary Basson developed a circular model. Masters and Johnson, Human Sexual Response. Boston, 1966. https://archive.org/details/humansexualrespo00will
Since no single empirical measure can be expected to display all the facets of sexual practices, the orgasm per adult is judged to be the best measure among those collected in cross-sectional surveys. More orgasms, better sex; and/or: more orgasms, less unsatisfying sex.
I learned about the expression “correlation proxy” in Wendy H.K. Chun’s thoughtful and highly inspiring talk “Authenticating Figures: Algorithms and the New Politics of Recognition” at the 11the International New Materialism Conference – New Materialist Informatics, 22-25 March 2021, online.
The concept is heavily gendered, hence the talk of an “orgasm gap” between men and women. See for example: Hannah Frith, Orgasmic Bodies. The Orgasm in Contemporary Western Culture. Palgrave Macmillan, UK, 2015, p. 148.
“It is rare to find an account in which sexuality is treated as an autonomous set of functions and activities only partially explained in terms of reproductive functions.” Nancy Tuana, Coming to Understand: Orgasm and the Epistemology of Ignorance. Hypatia Special Issue: Feminist Science Studies, 2004, p. 219.
Tilmann Walter, Plädoyer für die Abschaffung des Orgasmus.
Annamarie Jagose, Orgasmology. Duke University Press, 2013.
With inspirations from, among others, Jonas A. Hamm, Trans* und Sex. Gelingende Sexualität zwischen Selbstannahme, Normüberwindung und Kongruenzerleben. Gießen: Psychosozial-Verlag, 2020; and Robin Bauer, who has extensively researched and published on trans* bodies sexualities in BDSM practices, https://networks.h-net.org/node/6056/reviews/70744/crozier-bauer-queer-bdsm-intimacies-critical-consent-and-pushing#reply-70766. It is also worth mentioning in this context that “[...] the ability to achieve orgasm is generally regarded as the primary indicator of continuing erotic sensitivity of sex organs following hormonal and surgical transition-related medical processes.” Tamar Doorduin and Willy van Berlo, Trans people’s experience of sexuality in the Netherlands: a pilot study, Journal of Homosexuality, 2014, p.18.
Inspired by James P. Carse, Finite and Infinite Games. New York: The Free Press, 2020.
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