This display at the opening party for Betty Dodson's newest book, "My Sexual Revolution," juxtaposes beautifully her devotion to erotic art and education. The illusration is one of her pencil drawings of an erotic scene celebrating female beauty. The video panel is Betty lecturing in Seattle, produced into a DVD titled something like, "My Life of Art and Sex" (and available from www.DodsonandRoss.com. Betty, now 81, is my longest-standing astrological client as well as my devoted mentor. Photo by Eric Francis. Other photos below, and coming later in the morning.
If anyone has a message they want Betty and Carlin to see, I will post it directly to them…confessions, fantasies, gratitude, ideas, whatever —
Betty and Carlins video blogs are fantastic! I have envisioned myself on many occasions “cutting the rug” with the two of them……both of them having such a great sense of humor..truly a gift that not everybody has. Speaking of mothers, I am the youngest of 4 immaculate conceptions, (or at least that is the general concensus between my sisters and I:>) …however I have the overwhelming need of late to actually open up the forum to her well guarded sexual past… My palms are a little sweaty…..but I’m jumpin in! Can I get a life line!!!!! Betty is truly an inspiration! Thank you Eric for the hook up…
anyone else see an amusing/enlightening/thought-provoking synchronicity between eric’s and mystes’s most recent posts and today’s random oracle?
Eric – I do believe that this piece is a pastel drawing of Leda and the Swan, reframed with a contemporary feminist perspective. But you can certainly read it any way you want.
Betty’s first book, Liberating Masturbation, was brought to me as a gift in 1974 by an ex-boyfriend, who said to me, “I know you don’t NEED this, but I thought you would appreciate seeing the work of another feminist artist.” I passed it around to my “sister” artists on campus (I was an undergraduate then), many of whom kept the book for weeks, telling me that it had changed their lives. She has saved countless people…I am certain. St. Betty.
In the late Eighties, I discovered one of her pastels on the walls of a new friend’s home in Ojai, CA. I said, “you have a Betty Dodson piece,” and she laughed and asked me if I wanted to meet Betty. They had been friends for many years. We had an amazing first meeting/dinner several months later, and most of what I remember from that first encounter was raucous laughter.
Betty and Carlin (her biz partner) joined a group of women artists including myself, traveling to Havana in 2008, and Betty and the rest of us were thrilled when the Cuban travel guides called her “La Reina de la Orgasma Feminina” (the queen of the female orgasm). She is definitely the youngest 81 year old you’ll every meet, and the fountain of youth she’s discovered is no mystery.
Hello Mysti,
YAAAAAAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Other as witness – threasholder – space holder – loving participant – sister or brother in conscience.
We are on the same page here, by the way. You may have noticed that. My therapist, well versed and practiced in Tantra, talks about approaching embarrassment as fundamental to sexual liberation: that the real pleasure is behind the scrim of what we think of or experience as embarrassment.
I often joke about no matter who you are, no matter how queer you are, someone is always more queer than you. This is a hedge; you may be weird, but somebody is weirder.
If you are gay, bisexuals are the real queer.
If you are hetero, polys are weird.
If you are polyamorous, swingers are the real queer.
In my sexual philosophy, which I brought TO my first meetings with Betty Dodson and which she helped me refine, the super duper real Queer and therefore real REAL is masturbation; but our cultural programming 1) cuts off the self-knowledge aspect of masturbation and 2) cuts off the relational aspect.
So that Other comes up with extraordinary potency as witness/one who is witnessed (=acknowledged for one’s existence), which is what we are trying to do in relationships in the first place. One who offers the space to let go.
And – the ‘real queer’ is also drawing us toward it at the same time.
And yes. The truly weird sexuality is that of our parents. And this is a code error of cosmic proportions because that sexuality is what created us; and if we have an issue with that we have an issue with existence.
We almost always hold back our sexuality and thus our creativity (or whichever direction the metaphor runs for you) on the basis of “what would my mother/father think?” You’re riding him like a cowgirl on a bucking bronco moaning so loud the neighbors 1/4 mile away or upstairs are shaken from sleep and….what WOULD your mother FEEL if she could see you now…make peace with that because so much neurosis (trapped energy) is held there.
I’ve been pondering where sexuality’s ‘squick’ value comes from. No matter where you find the rationale for healthy sexual expression, that rationale or value is invariably accompanied by a queasiness somewhere.
If you are a lesbian, “breeders” are repugnant.
If you are a heterosexual cowboy, “metrosexuals” are repugnant.
If you are teenager, “adults” in general are repugnant.
If you are middle-aged woman, “cougars” are repugnant.
If you are a queer man, vulvas are repugnant.
Et. Cetera.
The most universal squick factor comes from contemplating your parents sexuality, and classical Tantric literature enjoins the practitioner to do just that: Walk toward the squick, and find out from whence it flows.
I’ve recently been talking with Charla Hathaway about this repugnance – which she refers to as ‘toxic shame.’ My latest thinking is that the squick factor guards the gate of our Origin. Not just our biological origin, but the energy that sponsors in this very moment our existence. As most of our cultural training is for the purpose of *avoiding* that Originary energy, to turn around and move toward it breeches all kinds of psychological safety laws. (And it abrogates the flow of Time within which we are trapped.)
It has been interesting to note that as various forms of liberation –sexual, economic, political, ecological– have been formulated and set into play, there has been a increasing paranoia and penalization around all kinds of pleasure-based experience.
But I am pretty sure that this is another diversion. It isn’t the sex that is so important/dangerous/interesting. Sexuality is just a metaphor for our primordial creativity.
If we want to end-run all of the games played around the shame/pleasure/penalty/transcendence dynamo that surrounds the genitals, don’t suppress the orgasm (qua Western & Asian Tantra), but don’t just drowse there, either. Let it give itself away.
It *is* a key. But the door that it opens is the Other.
I do love Betty Dodson and another woman who is in Dodson’s circle, is my absolute fave, who I had the very distinct pleasure to take class with, Dr. Patti Britton.
Showing up to class at 9 in the morning with erotica on a flat screen tv was the best way to start our Human Sexuality class….
Only been a few weeks since our last class and I already miss it..
Yay for women not afraid to express their sexuality, before, during, and past their peak years.
As Kyle MacLachlan so appropriately puts it….
“Spice is life. Life is spice.”
good call, amanda.
Re Betty’s health habits – she basically takes care of herself. She’s feisty and outspoken and surrounds herself with young people, and is always onto something new.
Not from a bottle – real youth cream/s come from whence that grand swan lays its pearly head.
Betty is the youngest looking 81 year old I have seen in some time…..WOW. I have no idea what her other health habits are, but I’m pretty sure all that Sex is doing wonders for her Joie de Vivre and that glow of her skin!
What an inspiration……
Thanks Eric!
Victoria
hmm —
i didn’t see this in person, so i can’t say for sure. but looking closely at the drawing, it actually looks like the “other being” is a swan, its neck and head resting between the woman’s legs. that would make it a reference to the “Leda and the Swan” myth, where Zeus disguises himself as a swan in order to rape Leda.
but the way it’s drawn here is wonderfully ambiguous; both in the position of the wings (or one of them, at least) and the position of the swan, which seems in submission to the woman, who seems relaxed and yet powerful in her openness.
if this is the case, i like the re-imagining of the myth and its power dynamics.
If anyone has a message they want Betty and Carlin to see, I will post it directly to them…confessions, fantasies, gratitude, ideas, whatever —
Betty and Carlins video blogs are fantastic! I have envisioned myself on many occasions “cutting the rug” with the two of them……both of them having such a great sense of humor..truly a gift that not everybody has. Speaking of mothers, I am the youngest of 4 immaculate conceptions, (or at least that is the general concensus between my sisters and I:>) …however I have the overwhelming need of late to actually open up the forum to her well guarded sexual past… My palms are a little sweaty…..but I’m jumpin in! Can I get a life line!!!!! Betty is truly an inspiration! Thank you Eric for the hook up…
In the meantime… I found this on Bettys site
http://FunnyOrDie.com/m/1u1n
Your mother should know….
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_egWfa5WD_Q
lift up your hearts!
anyone else see an amusing/enlightening/thought-provoking synchronicity between eric’s and mystes’s most recent posts and today’s random oracle?
Eric – I do believe that this piece is a pastel drawing of Leda and the Swan, reframed with a contemporary feminist perspective. But you can certainly read it any way you want.
Betty’s first book, Liberating Masturbation, was brought to me as a gift in 1974 by an ex-boyfriend, who said to me, “I know you don’t NEED this, but I thought you would appreciate seeing the work of another feminist artist.” I passed it around to my “sister” artists on campus (I was an undergraduate then), many of whom kept the book for weeks, telling me that it had changed their lives. She has saved countless people…I am certain. St. Betty.
In the late Eighties, I discovered one of her pastels on the walls of a new friend’s home in Ojai, CA. I said, “you have a Betty Dodson piece,” and she laughed and asked me if I wanted to meet Betty. They had been friends for many years. We had an amazing first meeting/dinner several months later, and most of what I remember from that first encounter was raucous laughter.
Betty and Carlin (her biz partner) joined a group of women artists including myself, traveling to Havana in 2008, and Betty and the rest of us were thrilled when the Cuban travel guides called her “La Reina de la Orgasma Feminina” (the queen of the female orgasm). She is definitely the youngest 81 year old you’ll every meet, and the fountain of youth she’s discovered is no mystery.
Hello Mysti,
YAAAAAAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Other as witness – threasholder – space holder – loving participant – sister or brother in conscience.
We are on the same page here, by the way. You may have noticed that. My therapist, well versed and practiced in Tantra, talks about approaching embarrassment as fundamental to sexual liberation: that the real pleasure is behind the scrim of what we think of or experience as embarrassment.
I often joke about no matter who you are, no matter how queer you are, someone is always more queer than you. This is a hedge; you may be weird, but somebody is weirder.
If you are gay, bisexuals are the real queer.
If you are hetero, polys are weird.
If you are polyamorous, swingers are the real queer.
In my sexual philosophy, which I brought TO my first meetings with Betty Dodson and which she helped me refine, the super duper real Queer and therefore real REAL is masturbation; but our cultural programming 1) cuts off the self-knowledge aspect of masturbation and 2) cuts off the relational aspect.
So that Other comes up with extraordinary potency as witness/one who is witnessed (=acknowledged for one’s existence), which is what we are trying to do in relationships in the first place. One who offers the space to let go.
And – the ‘real queer’ is also drawing us toward it at the same time.
And yes. The truly weird sexuality is that of our parents. And this is a code error of cosmic proportions because that sexuality is what created us; and if we have an issue with that we have an issue with existence.
We almost always hold back our sexuality and thus our creativity (or whichever direction the metaphor runs for you) on the basis of “what would my mother/father think?” You’re riding him like a cowgirl on a bucking bronco moaning so loud the neighbors 1/4 mile away or upstairs are shaken from sleep and….what WOULD your mother FEEL if she could see you now…make peace with that because so much neurosis (trapped energy) is held there.
I’ve been pondering where sexuality’s ‘squick’ value comes from. No matter where you find the rationale for healthy sexual expression, that rationale or value is invariably accompanied by a queasiness somewhere.
If you are a lesbian, “breeders” are repugnant.
If you are a heterosexual cowboy, “metrosexuals” are repugnant.
If you are teenager, “adults” in general are repugnant.
If you are middle-aged woman, “cougars” are repugnant.
If you are a queer man, vulvas are repugnant.
Et. Cetera.
The most universal squick factor comes from contemplating your parents sexuality, and classical Tantric literature enjoins the practitioner to do just that: Walk toward the squick, and find out from whence it flows.
I’ve recently been talking with Charla Hathaway about this repugnance – which she refers to as ‘toxic shame.’ My latest thinking is that the squick factor guards the gate of our Origin. Not just our biological origin, but the energy that sponsors in this very moment our existence. As most of our cultural training is for the purpose of *avoiding* that Originary energy, to turn around and move toward it breeches all kinds of psychological safety laws. (And it abrogates the flow of Time within which we are trapped.)
It has been interesting to note that as various forms of liberation –sexual, economic, political, ecological– have been formulated and set into play, there has been a increasing paranoia and penalization around all kinds of pleasure-based experience.
But I am pretty sure that this is another diversion. It isn’t the sex that is so important/dangerous/interesting. Sexuality is just a metaphor for our primordial creativity.
If we want to end-run all of the games played around the shame/pleasure/penalty/transcendence dynamo that surrounds the genitals, don’t suppress the orgasm (qua Western & Asian Tantra), but don’t just drowse there, either. Let it give itself away.
It *is* a key. But the door that it opens is the Other.
I do love Betty Dodson and another woman who is in Dodson’s circle, is my absolute fave, who I had the very distinct pleasure to take class with, Dr. Patti Britton.
Showing up to class at 9 in the morning with erotica on a flat screen tv was the best way to start our Human Sexuality class….
Only been a few weeks since our last class and I already miss it..
Yay for women not afraid to express their sexuality, before, during, and past their peak years.
As Kyle MacLachlan so appropriately puts it….
“Spice is life. Life is spice.”
good call, amanda.
Re Betty’s health habits – she basically takes care of herself. She’s feisty and outspoken and surrounds herself with young people, and is always onto something new.
Really cool sex issues blog @ http://dodsonandross.com/
VIctoria – I second that emotion!!
Not from a bottle – real youth cream/s come from whence that grand swan lays its pearly head.
Betty is the youngest looking 81 year old I have seen in some time…..WOW. I have no idea what her other health habits are, but I’m pretty sure all that Sex is doing wonders for her Joie de Vivre and that glow of her skin!
What an inspiration……
Thanks Eric!
Victoria
hmm —
i didn’t see this in person, so i can’t say for sure. but looking closely at the drawing, it actually looks like the “other being” is a swan, its neck and head resting between the woman’s legs. that would make it a reference to the “Leda and the Swan” myth, where Zeus disguises himself as a swan in order to rape Leda.
but the way it’s drawn here is wonderfully ambiguous; both in the position of the wings (or one of them, at least) and the position of the swan, which seems in submission to the woman, who seems relaxed and yet powerful in her openness.
if this is the case, i like the re-imagining of the myth and its power dynamics.
— amanda
and speaking wings:
http://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory?id=10707233
Feds Change Rules So Farmers Can Kill Geese Faster*
*but hey? maybe the geese are gonna die from GMO corn anyway.
sorry – not related to Betty Dodson, but dont see a good placer to pass this info along this am. thx.
Go Betty!
I strongly suggest getting the video. And Betty’s book is available from her website as an eBook, good for Kindle and iPad. dodsonandross.com.
And yes those are angel wings; she is also entwined in the body of another being…
I would have loved to have seen this in person. Are those angel wings? I can’t quite discern some parts of this image.
xo
Patricia MoonRose