After reading The Myth of the Vaginal Orgasm by Koedt I noticed her feminist qualities come out through her writing. The entire essay, from my perspective, is about women gaining the right to their sexuality and how men treat women who are not as sexually involved as men would like them to be. It merely focuses on the outcome of sex, not the process. What we get out of sex is just an orgasm? In most minds that doesn't fly. Sex is more than just an orgasm. It is the love and desire that the partners have for one another. This essay just picks apart how males treat women genitals.
Do define love and desire in Koedt's essay I would define them in a different sense than usual. Love in this essay is defined as the love for the women and respecting her emotions about sex rather than love between partners. Desire would also be along the same lines as love. Koedt wants the male to desire the females sexual parts as her own and her own way of receiving pleasure rather than being fearful of them. Sex defined in this essay is intercourse between a man and a woman; insertion of penis into the vagina.
The time period definitely plays a large part in this essay. Women are becoming more and more aware of what an orgasm is and how they experience one. Sex is becoming more and more of an equal exchange rather than the vagina is solely used for a man's pleasure. Age is also a factor in this situation that men usually respect women more as they grow older and become more aware of sex.
Lusting for Freedom by Rebecca Walker
The young girl in this essay experiences sex very early on. It amazes me how young she was. She clearly defines sex as love. Sex is something you share with your partner. It is a physical thing that you can keep to yourself or give out to others.
"It gives you someone to hold onto when you can't feel yourself."
I think this quote is how sex can be represented at many colleges. Most of the time, college is the time to experience yourself and figure out who you truly are and at times it can be very lonely. College is also a great time to experience others and make lifetime relationships. Sometimes during college people just feel that they need someone to hold onto when they can't find themselves and are lonely. It is okay.
The desire for sex is not merely just to experience pleasure in a way of an orgasm but also to get pleasure from knowing that there is someone else who would like to experience and enjoy that pleasure with you. Someone to share it with.
This author is much more interested in the opposite sex in a positive way that helps themselves or looks at both partners benefiting unlike Koedt who basically bashes men for only wanting sex for their personal pleasures. Walker takes a different perspective from the females point of view on how they can also benefit from sex and give it as they please. She almost takes sex as a privilege to have and if the female doesn't want to give sex out then that is her choice.
Very thoughtful response. Do you think that Koedt and Walker would get along? As far as feminism is concerned, Koedt would be identified with the second wave of feminism and Walker with the third (that started int he 90s). We can talk more about the differences in class, but I think what you notice about their diferences individually highlights some of the differences between the waves of feminism.
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