Men control womens' lives to avoid emasculation

The common thread between the article titled “The Myth of the Vaginal Orgasm” by Anne Koedt and the article titled “Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence” by Adrienne Rich is the control of women. In Koedt’s article, she discusses the control of women’s sexuality through the myth of vaginal orgasms. She presents inarguable evidence, which even people in our own class might support, rejecting the existence of a vaginal orgasm. Koedt states that, “women have thus been defined sexually in terms of what pleases men” (228). This means that if men are responsible for or have more control of female sexuality, then whatever aspect of female sexuality that pleases them (the vagina in this case) will obviously be the center of focus. Men get no pleasure out of stimulating the clitoris, which contains more nerve endings then the vagina, therefore it is not of any importance. Koedt even presents a counterargument that sides with men, who may argue that they did not know the clitoris provided a lot of pleasure. She then points out that men stimulate the clitoris during foreplay only to “produce the necessary lubrication for penetration” (229). Once again, womens’ sexuality is defined by what pleases men.

She presents six main reasons why men maintain the myth of vaginal orgasms and two of these reason stood out to men: “the penis as epitome of masculinity” and “sexually expendable men.” The commonality between these two reasons is that they produce fear in men who then seek to control female sexuality to avoid their own emasculation. The clitoris is often seen as a miniature version of the penis and that does not resonate well with people who use physical differences as a way to maintain inequality. Because the clitoris is seemed as a masculine feature (231), it is ignored because “mean fear the clitoris as a threat to their masculinity” (231). A women who is masculine is almost never attractive to a masculine man because he won’t feel man enough to be with her. Another idea to consider is the “sexually expendable men.” The belief behind this idea is that if women desire clitoral stimulation over vaginal stimulation, men will not be needed any more, for sexual purposes at least. This leads once again to the belief that men only focus on things that bring them pleasure. It does not even matter if women don’t enjoy vaginal penetration equally, they only “want to get theirs.” The two ideas previously discussed maintain the belief that men only use the myth of vaginal orgasm to control women for their own sexual pleasure.

In Adrienne Rich’s article, she discussed compulsory heterosexuality. Her article analyzes the institutions that use heterosexuality to control women, socially and economically. She pretty much argues that women never really liked men because they “deny women [their own] sexuality … or force it upon them …. command or exploit their labor to control their produce …. control or rob them of their children …. use them as objects in male transactions…. cramp their creativeness …. withhold from them large areas of society’s knowledge and cultural attainments” (348). But heterosexuality is the norm, women accepted it. Like Koedt, she brings up control of sexuality but she identifies lesbianism (through its existence and continuum) as ways of living in a society where men try to control them and constantly subjugate them. Her use of lesbianism (either as an existence or continuum) falls in line with the idea of male control. Attaching lesbian to the different categories conjures up ideas of male expendability and fear of women, based on my own experiences. Lesbians are rejected in society because they don’t follow the norm, mostly the sexual norm of sleeping with men. Men fear lesbians because they believe that these women don’t need them and because they cannot control their sexuality through the myth of the vaginal orgasm. So although the lesbian continuum may actually exist, women and men may both reject it because women don’t want to be rejected by the men that don’t really care about them and men want to be able to control women and have them rely only on men.

Now what I got out of these readings is that the main problem between these two sexes is that we are struggling for control. Women are struggling for control of our lives, from sexuality to education, and men are struggling for control of women’s sexuality and education. To me, these problems will not be solved until women realize that we are not helping the situation by suffering in silence, we must speak our concerns. It also won’t happen until men realize that female empowerment does not men emasculation. Emasculation seems to be the biggest issue. Men don’t want women to even come close to have the same amount of power, economically or sexually, as them. Once men get over their fear of being less than a “man” then we can live in society and have our lived lesbian experiences without even having to call it that because it will be a part of life. I don’t want to call it normal because that word has negative connotations, especially when you are talking about relationships and heterosexuality and homosexuality.