It was indeed Betty Dodson, the author of Sex for One, who gave women permission to possess, love and experience the clitoris. Betty sometimes goes by the name Clitty Ann and does a little puppet routine with her pussy. Imagine this with her friendly Midwestern accent. She has been teaching about sex for quite a while, and she does it every day. You might almost think she was…sent here.
I believe that it will be some time before we collectively understand Betty’s contribution to society. Think of her as a sexual Fred Rogers, helping adults not be so frightened of the subject, and never making it political. Though she is not on public television (apropos of her subject, she is from the self-publishing tradition), many, many people have benefited from her work, and they know it.
Thanks to her, and I am speaking a literal historic truth, the tide of opinion has started to turn toward the legitimacy, beauty and erotic value of female masturbation. By extension, a bit of the fairy dust [i typed ‘dues’] rubs off on the guys, who have learned a lot from Betty about women and who have taken this message as encouragement to get to know themselves. In the spirit of progress, let’s keep that positive vibe going.
Masturbation is the sexual common ground we all share; Betty wrote about this first. It reaches clear across the whole L G B T Q spectrum, and age, and culture, and gender, and how we do relationships. Betty was a pioneer at defying sexual categorization. She may well be the world’s first out masturbator, a gesture of her independence and love of a good time. She was one of the first out bisexuals, too. She feared no person’s judgment and created all her own definitions, breaking every sexual norm at a time when there were strict rules and when feminists didn’t talk about sex.