Betty Dodson with Carlin Ross

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Here is part one of my previous blog on Dr. Louann Brizendine's book, "The Female Brain." On with part two:

This brings me to a very important point when evaluating the results of scientific researchers and how they influence your beliefs about what is and isn’t. Many times a given scientific body or community will agree on something. Many times they do not. Never forget this when you
turn to science for answers. I like science, I’m not saying to ignore it. Science can be exact and perfect and it can also be controversial or worse, trumped up for other motives.

Like I said, the clitoris is given credit in the book as the nexus of female orgasm, which is a step in a good direction, but not the whole story. Dr. Brizendine claims that what amounts to the outer third of the vagina, which is called by women in her circle of experience, “the ring of fire”, is what is primarily responsible for orgasm in addition to direct rubbing or other stimulation of the clitoris. She states:

“…the vagina is connected to the clitoris, and therefore the female orgasm is all from this one organ.”

Here is my position: the vagina is not connected to the clitoris. More on that later. Her explanation is a gross oversimplification that has been within the past decade adopted by the neurology and psychology community after they opted to move away from distinctions between no clitoral orgasm, G spot orgasm, or any other type. That female orgasm is indistinct and comes from somewhere via stimulation of the female sex organs.

This is like saying the best directions to drive from N.Y.C to L.A. is get on a road and drive west. This is the first time I’ve ever seen or heard of a scientific community getting less specific as they go along instead of more specific. If the ring of fire (known in the academic community as the orgasmic platform) was a consistently effective “platform” for female orgasm in the majority of women per their implications, both the scientific and non-scientific sex therapy/coaching/education communities would see ample evidence across the findings of all professionals involved and agree. That has yet to happen.

I assert that the current academic science assertion is both false and worse, detracts from, instead of contributing to, our understanding of the most commonly effective ways to bring about female orgasms through physical sexual stimulation. Furthermore, this explanation deprives the reader of knowledge instead of providing the specific details needed to make the most out of a woman’s orgasmic potential, and by association, the potential for a rewarding sex life for those who love having sex with women. This is another key difference between many psychology-based sex therapists and my brand of sex life coaching.

Female orgasms can be, in my consistent findings and the findings of other colleagues of mine, distinct/different from each other produced only by a given form of stimulation of specific points within the vagina and/or via different forms of clitoral stimulation, which can also produce consistently different and distinct clitoral orgasms as well depending on the individual woman.  I’ve said in my videos that clitoral and G spot orgasms can be layered to go off simultaneously (and also sequentially.) A woman’s bum is also capable of orgasm or contributory to orgasm via stimulation of the rectum and lower bowel enervated by the pelvic nerve, which Dr. Brizendine omitted. I’ve never seen a scientist issue a theory for the evolutionary purpose for the anal orgasm in women, and men for that matter. I realize I may be waiting a long time for that one. But I digress…

In Brizendine’s description of how female orgasm occurs during intercourse, she plots out:

“…And as she grew more excited while he rubbed her clitoris, her brain areas for worries and fear–the amygdala–would deactivate into a calm blue. As she became more excited and pulled him inside her, the amygdala would completely deactivate and the pleasure centers would pulse red until… rapid, pulsing waves of orgasm flooded her brain and body.”

Dr. Brizendine’s description does not indicate if whether or not the proposed couple in her example continued direct rubbing of the woman’s clitoris after coitus begins. We have to assume her “pulling him inside her” is his penis because it could be his finger. Was he rubbing her clitoris with the head of the penis? If so, I applaud for him on sexual skills and creativity, but again, not indicated. Not specific. Not explained.

The implication as I read it is the old information that academia has clung to for too long from Helen Singer Kaplan’s information: that direct manual stimulation of the clitoris up to high arousal which is then stopped and replaced with penile vaginal thrusting alone is effective for the physical side of triggering female orgasm due to the “ring of fire” theory.

In my and my mentor’s experience, the “ring of fire” is not effective as a consistent point of physical stimulation for female orgasm in the vast majority of women. In my mentor’s words, “Why would you suddenly stop direct clitoral stim? Would a man be silent and take it if a woman were to suddenly stop giving him oral sex on his penis and start penetrating his a** and then expect him to orgasm from it?” Men certainly would not be silent according to Dr. Brizendine’s research. But also, according to that same research, women would stay quiet and take it to keep the peace.

Yes, why would you stop direct clitoral stim? In this case: uninformed male ego ignorant of female sexual response. For a man who, for whatever reason, must believe that his mighty penis alone is the only source of her orgasm. Dr. Brizendine references stone age thought throughout her book. This is definitely stone age thought: male ego standing firmly and blindly in the way of the self-actualization of female sexual potential.

The tragedy is, too many psychologists are still guiding clients in their practices so that male ego and lack of sexual sophistication in men is defended at the expense of a woman’s sex life, orgasm ease, strength, frequency, and overall potential. Yes, penile stimulation can trigger female orgasm, but it is not from generalized friction or pressure stimulation in the vast majority of women. There are more specifics involved if a woman is to orgasm in this way.

It is amazing to me that psychologists will be up for the task of sitting alone in a room with the criminally insane, but most still cower from the common, everyday, male sexual ego. The uninformed male sexual ego is one of the most common sources of stagnation in a sex life that includes a man, which costs him time and pleasure too, but I see progress out there and more men are looking hard at the damage their egoes can do to their lives.

Back to neurological wiring: what I tell my clients is, on a neurological level, it is not true that all erogenous zones are connected to the clitoris “tip” with a mainline to the brain, as Dr. Brizendine states. It is that the external genital nerve or pudendal nerve and the pelvic nerve (both branch off from the spinal cord) branches out to and connects to various orgasm-inducing nerve plexus zones and erectile tissue structures that includes the clitoris, G spot, and more.

In conclusion, while I do think this book is worth reading, could help people understand what the brain and hormones are doing to how they feel and their behavior, I must be frank. In the arena of female sexuality, one could logically expect more from a professional who is, according to the book’s back jacket, a neuropsychologist “previously on faculty at the Harvard Medical School and is a graduate of the Yale University School of Medicine, and U. of CA, Berkeley, in neurobiology.”

This statement is to make clear to the reader that credentials from the highest levels of medicine do not, at present, grant you a sophisticated understanding of female sexual function and orgasm. The Female Brain was published in twenty-six different countries and is on the New York Times bestseller list. That’s great in many respects, but if the information about female sexuality contained in it is underdeveloped, and goes out to that many women and men, then it’s my job as a sex life coach to point out its shortcomings as well as its strengths.

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