The Female Orgasm explodes
Published Feb. 16, 2007
The Female Orgasm exploded on campus Thursday night, grabbing hold of audience members and making them scream.
The long-awaited talk, sponsored by Sexual Health Advocates Peer Education, the Student Health Center and the Missouri Students Association/Graduate Professional Council, featured sex educators and couple Dorian Solot and Marshall Miller.
The event took place in Memorial Union's Stotler Lounge in a room filled with diverse people — excited, scared and curious people along with self-professed sex experts, students, faculty and staff. On arrival, the audience was provided with The Female Orgasm Resource List, detailing a comprehensive list of subject-specific books.
As people rushed in, a playlist of popular songs related to the hot topic played, giving people a hint of what was to come.
The talk began with introductions and a video clip from "When Harry Met Sally," in which Meg Ryan explicitly shows the common occurrence of women faking orgasms.
The film clip created a relaxed environment where people felt able to make contributions to the forthcoming discussions.
Solot and Miller began the talk by discussing masturbation, people's experience with it and the views that were put across to them as children.
Although women told a lot of the jokes and stories, Miller successfully kept the male audience members included by equally relating the significance of the issue to the men. Solot and Miller highlighted projection slides of women and men's magazines that ran stories related to the female orgasm and the accessibility of useful and totally mythical reports available in society.
The group was then split into two, with Miller taking the male audience members to another room to discuss aspects of female sexuality from a male's perspective.
Solot began a more intimate and personal discussion in which women in the audience were encouraged to share their own stories of first experiences and funny incidences. Various exercises were conducted, including thinking about the different ways that could help women have an orgasm more easily.
Some of the popular choices included sex toys, "decent porn" and feeling more comfortable with one's body.
Various gender differences were discussed, such as the difference in time that people take to orgasm.
In many cases it takes two to five minutes for a man to reach orgasm and on average about 20 minutes for a woman, Solot said.
The idea of sequential orgasms were encouraged, rather than stressing the simultaneous situation.
The G-spot was also discussed, with Solot and Miller clarifying the exact location and talking about ways of having first orgasms and improving others' orgasms in future experiences.
The highlight of the evening for many was the discovery that Harry Potter and the female orgasm were more closely linked than most would expect.
The Nimbus 2000 toys, which portray a flying broomstick from the books, vibrated and impressed children and parents alike.
The toy has now been taken off the market.
"Solot and Miller did a great job hitting the important topics and made a great team," said senior Jessica Omoile, who has been involved with SHAPE for two years.
Solot said when she started the program six years ago, she felt a lot of people had unanswered questions about the female orgasm.
"Giving men and women accurate information about sex and providing women with choices to empower themselves to make good choices in their everyday lives is important," she said.
Solot said she was very pleased with the turnout.
"Mizzou is all about the female orgasm," Solot said. "The enthusiasm of the audience is fabulous."
