Anne Koedt: Politics of the Vaginal Orgasm and Female Sexuality

Abstract

Abstract: This paper focuses on Koedt’s main discourse of female sexuality that develops out of the traditional phallocentric assumption in her critical essay “The Myth of the Vaginal Orgasm.” She argues that the centre of female orgasm is the clitoris, not the vagina. The paper examines how the nature of female sexuality is constructed and misrepresented by male hegemonic structure to subjugate and control women. The analysis uses a qualitative methodology in the form of the close reading of the text. It is a multidisciplinary study cutting across the disciplines of lesbian feminism, psychology, physiology, sexology, and psychiatry and attempts to investigate as to how female orgasm has previously been considered in an inadequate way. It tries to vindicate how female sexuality has politically been treated and how there exists a relationship between female sexuality and male domination. The paper also offers a very candid critique of female orgasm, female sexuality, the meaning of sexual pleasure, the vaginal orgasm, the clitoral orgasm, and different other forms of female orgasm. In the postmodern era, the main issue of gender equality is replaced by a category of sexuality. This paper provides an overview that sex in society revolves around the pleasure of men and women’s sexual desire is constructed according to the male interests.  The result of the study reveals that extreme gender bias never lets women speak about their own sex lives. The analysis is intended to create awareness and education for both men and women about sexual pleasure and counter the previous misconceptions and doubts about female orgasm and female sexuality.