As I walked out of the library last Monday night on my way to Kresge Auditorium, I heard a familiar voice behind me. "Lauren McGrath!" she shouted. "Are you going where I think you're going?"
"Oh yeah." I replied.
I was going to the female orgasm.
With a laugh, she replied, "Yeah, me too."
As we made our way toward Kresge, we couldn't help but notice the throngs of Bowdoin students headed in the same direction. Realizing it might not be as easy as we thought to get a seat, we simultaneously broke in to a sprint. We needed this information, and we were going to get in to this seminar one way or another (even if it meant looking like complete fools).
Once inside, it became pretty clear by the packed auditorium that we weren't the only curious ones. People sat on the stairs, and some even took a seat on the stage. Only one thing could provoke such a response at 9 p.m. on a Monday night: sex. More specifically, the female orgasm: how to have one and how to give one.
The room was buzzing with excitement as Miller and Solot took the stage. They got their first set of laughs when they told the audience that it wouldn't be necessary to turn off their cell phones, just "set them to vibrate." Right away, it was clear that Miller and Solot weren't going to be drawing diagrams of fallopian tubes or handing out "say no to sex" pins. Contrary to what most of us learned in our high school health classes, they presented students with a playful, informative, and honest approach to sex and the female orgasm.
According to Miller and Solot, just 25 percent of girls have had an orgasm by the time they reach 15 years old. While they didn't say the percentage of boys who had had orgasms by this age, I'm guessing it's much higher. The pair emphasized the importance for women to be comfortable with their own bodies, as well as knowing what feels good to them before they involve another person. Solot talked about the importance of masturbation as a way to become familiar with the female orgasm. She made the point that many children, especially girls, are taught at a young age that touching your genitals is bad. And then as grown-ups, conscious or not, may still associate touching their genitals, or masturbation, as being a bad thing.
Solot had an interesting theory as to why men are more comfortable with masturbation than women. She believes that because boys have had to touch their penises since the moment they were potty trained, they become more comfortable touching themselves. She countered that if women had to touch their clitoris every time they used the bathroom for their entire lives, they might not be as reluctant to masturbate, or they might feel more comfortable with their bodies. This theory certainly seems to ring true, and in the end, one of the most important elements to achieving an orgasm for a woman is her ability to feel comfortable in her own skin.
Once a woman has figured out how to love her body, according to Solot and Miller, it takes her 20 minutes to orgasm, while it takes men from two to five minutes (on average). Read: Foreplay for a woman is essential. Solot also took this moment to dispel the myths about simultaneous orgasms, telling the audience it's an unlikely happening and that it's perfectly normal not to be having them.
The room really erupted when Solot and Miller showed a clip of the infamous fake orgasm scene from the movie "When Harry Met Sally." According to the educators, 44 percent of men say their partners always have an orgasm when they have sex, compared with a reported 22 percent of women who say they always have an orgasm during sex. Notice a disconnect here? Somebody's not telling the truth?and I think in this case it's probably the women. Women have been faking orgasms since the beginning of time. They fake them because they're bored, because they don't want to disappoint their partner, because they've never actually had an orgasm, the list goes on. What's sad about this statistic is that many women aren't having enough orgasms (or any at all) and feel the need to pretend that they are.
Leaving the auditorium, one girlfriend was making mental notes on the men in the room. She commented with anticipation, "I'm moving these guys to the top of my list because they're going to know what they're doing."
When all is said and done, what I found amazing about this talk was that it was all about women. Its primary focus was women's pleasure. There were older women in the room who confessed they never talked about masturbation as openly as young women. How lucky our generation is that we have the resources to talk about sex and the female orgasm. Times are changing and women are more interested in learning how to please themselves before mastering the "Ultimate Guide to Fellatio" or memorizing "99 Things to do to a Naked Man" in Cosmo magazine. We can read those later, but for now we're going to listen to Solot and Miller and find out how to satisfy ourselves first.