Betty Dodson
Encyclopedia
Betty Dodson is an American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 sex educator
Sex education
Sex education refers to formal programs of instruction on a wide range of issues relating to human sexuality, including human sexual anatomy, sexual reproduction, sexual intercourse, reproductive health, emotional relations, reproductive rights and responsibilities, abstinence, contraception, and...

, author
Author
An author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...

, and artist
Artist
An artist is a person engaged in one or more of any of a broad spectrum of activities related to creating art, practicing the arts and/or demonstrating an art. The common usage in both everyday speech and academic discourse is a practitioner in the visual arts only...

. Dodson held the first one-woman show of erotic art at the Wickersham Gallery in New York City in 1968. She left the art world to teach sex to women. She is widely known as a pioneer in women's, and to a somewhat lesser extent men's, sexual liberation, having sold more than 1 million copies of her first book, Sex for One. Much of her fame has come from her work not only advocating masturbation
Masturbation
Masturbation refers to sexual stimulation of a person's own genitals, usually to the point of orgasm. The stimulation can be performed manually, by use of objects or tools, or by some combination of these methods. Masturbation is a common form of autoeroticism...

, but conducting workshops for more than 30 years in which groups of about 10 or more women (and at least once a group of men) would talk, explore their own bodies, and masturbate together. She hosted a Public-access television
Public-access television
Public-access television is a form of non-commercial mass media where ordinary people can create content television programming which is cablecast through cable TV specialty channels...

 cable television
Cable television
Cable television is a system of providing television programs to consumers via radio frequency signals transmitted to televisions through coaxial cables or digital light pulses through fixed optical fibers located on the subscriber's property, much like the over-the-air method used in traditional...

 program in New York City in the early 80's, and conducted her workshop - a dozen or so nude women discussing and practicing masturbation - on TV.Her website called "Betty Dodson's Genital Gallery" shows many films of masturbation and intercourse, with close-up views of genitals.

Dodson's books include Liberating Masturbation, a self-published book that became a feminist classic. Sex for One: The Joy of Self-Loving and Orgasms for Two: the Joy of Partnersex. She also produced four videos: Selfloving: Portrait of a Sexual Seminar, Celebrating Orgasm: Women's Private Selfloving Sessions, Viva la Vulva; Women's Sex Organs Revealed and The Orgasm Doctor": Two Private Hands-on Sex Coaching Sessions.

She is a founder of the pro-sex feminist movement, having left behind the more traditional feminist movement because she considered it banal, antisexual and over-politicized. Dodson considers too much is made of sexual labels and embraces them all by calling herself a heterosexual, bisexual lesbian. She looks forward to the day we can all be just "sexual." In recent years she has criticized Eve Ensler's
Eve Ensler
Eve Ensler is an American playwright, performer, feminist and activist, best known for her play The Vagina Monologues.- Personal life :...

 The Vagina Monologues
The Vagina Monologues
The Vagina Monologues is an episodic play written by Eve Ensler which ran at the Off Broadway Westside Theatre after a limited run at AFRICA in 1996. Ensler originally starred in the production which was produced by David Stone, Nina Essman, Dan Markley, The Araca Group, Willa Shalit, Mike Skipper...

, which she believes has a negative and restrictive view of sexuality and an anti-male bias (Dodson, 2001).

Dodson has a degree from the Institute for the Advanced Study of Human Sexuality for her research work on sexuality.

Dodson maintains a private practice in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

 and has an active website. In an article on her website about hands-on sex therapy, she explains her choice against pursuing a degree in psychology
Psychology
Psychology is the study of the mind and behavior. Its immediate goal is to understand individuals and groups by both establishing general principles and researching specific cases. For many, the ultimate goal of psychology is to benefit society...

 and licensing as a therapist since it would have prevented her from continuing with the types of sex workshops and counseling for women that she had been doing for decades. While she doesn't presently offer her Bodysex Workshops, she is available for private individual and couples coaching.

Dodson appeared in a Season 4 episode of Penn & Teller
Penn & Teller
Penn & Teller are Las Vegas headliners whose act is an amalgam of illusion and comedy. Penn Jillette is a raconteur; Teller generally uses mime while performing, although his voice can occasionally be heard during their performance...

's Bullshit!
Bullshit!
Penn & Teller: Bullshit! is an American documentary television series that aired from 2003 to 2010 on the premium cable channel Showtime. In Canada, the series aired on The Movie Network and Movie Central.- Overview :...

 that dealt with abstinence
Sexual abstinence
Sexual abstinence is the practice of refraining from some or all aspects of sexual activity for medical, psychological, legal, social, philosophical or religious reasons.Common reasons for practicing sexual abstinence include:*poor health - medical celibacy...

. She was also on The View, and has appeared in numerous sex documentaries.

Most recently, Dodson has partnered with Carlin Ross and created a sexuality portal for women under the brand Dodson and Ross. Together, they're launching an online video series "Basic Sex Skills: The New Porn.

Sexuality

"Some people haven't figured it out yet," she said of their sexuality. "When it comes to sex, all women are gay. Some men are holdouts."

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
x
OK