Betty Dodson with Carlin Ross

Better Orgasms. Better World.

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I'm just a girl who can't say no. And to further complicate my life, I open and read most of my mail. In 2003 I received an academic paper written in English by a Japanese psychotherapist I'd never met who was specializing in female frigidity. Dr. Michiba* had developed a device that he claimed "cured" women of frigidity. It had been a long time since I'd seen the word "frigid" so I took the time to email him and suggest he use another term for his presentation; such as an-orgasmic, non-orgasmic or my preference, pre-orgasmic. Then I forgot about the incident until two years later when I received the following email from Dr. Michiba:

Dr. Betty Dodson Ph.D.
How are you? I pleasure see you. I see your presentation in the SSTAR when I want to go the Hyatt Regency Cambridge. I will attendance the meeting and I like hear to your lecture its for my studies. And visit your office in New York books, toys, and videos. and If you forgive us your practice trainings. I looking forward meeting me Massachusetts or New York.

I will present you Mr. Warmer (device that home medical instrument. self training machine for frigodoty ) it is patent and newly designed on the Japanese market. May I have arrange air ticket then Please reply for me. Thanks and regards,

Dr. Michiba MD

I responded by telling Dr. Michiba I'd see him in Boston. The Society of Sex Therapists and Researchers (SSTAR) had invited me to speak at their conference for their 30th anniversary meeting. SSTAR is a prestigious organization of thoughtful professionals and I was looking forward to seeing old friends and meeting new ones.

At first, I planned on showing a teaching tape of Sex Coaching but as it turned out, it wasn't far enough along. So I showed a preview of my other new one: Women's Orgasms: 13 Selfloving Divas. This video is one of my favorites because I'm not teaching, I'm learning. Thirteen women come to my apartment to show me, the grandmother of masturbation, how they have orgasms with themselves. I asked a few questions but I didn't direct any of the action. It was a "come as you are in the privacy of your own bedroom" documentary. Very revealing and inspirational.

Over the next few weeks, ten or more emails went back and forth between Dr. Michiba and me. My partner Eric kept saying I was nuts to waste my time on a total stranger who could barely speak English. I explained it was professional courtesy, and besides, I was curious. After all, how many sex therapists are there in Tokyo? While I was acutely aware of our language barrier, I was also willing to share information especially with someone in the field of female sexuality who was treating "frigidity." Gradually I teased out several requests, but the last one was still unclear. It sounded like he wanted me to do a session with a woman patient who was traveling with him.

When I emailed back explaining that a Sex Coaching session took three or more hours, cost $900, and we'd need a translator, Michiba answered by requesting less time. He then referred to the group sessions that I no longer run. He hoped I could arrange to have several women available for him to demonstrate how he used his device to cure frigidity. When he asked if I could make reservations for him and his patient at a nearby hotel in New York, I knew I was in over my head. At that point, I sent him email addresses and fax numbers of three nearby hotels, and said he must make his own reservations. By now, I could feel regret creeping up on me.

Dr. Michiba had turned into a bottomless pit of requests. But I was in too deep now to pull out. I figured there must be a reason why this was happening and I trusted it would be revealed at some point. Maybe the good doctor would look like the handsome Japanese actor in "The Last Samurai" with Tom Cruise and we'd have a brief affair!

On the second day of the conference, I saw a small bent-over Asian man walking through the lobby. He was old and frail with a beautiful young woman beside him who looked like a teenager. They were holding hands. Finally I went up to him and introduced myself. Michiba had a tremor in his voice and damn near no English. It didn't seem to bother him as he continued to chatter away while I kept repeating, "Excuse me." "I'm sorry I don't understand." "Please say that again." After many awkward moments, I got away as soon as I could. Now I'm really stressed out so I start asking around the hotel trying to find a translator in order to deal with him.

The next day, Dr. Michiba cornered me and after a big struggle on both our parts, I finally understood that he wanted me to find him a cheaper hotel in New York. The one he picked was $350 a night and he was running out of money. I called Eric and asked him to get a less expensive hotel. Eric called back saying they had already bought one night at the $350 hotel because of a 24 hour cancellation policy. Then Eric made a two day reservation on his credit card at another hotel several blocks away. Now it was up to me to explain this to Michiba. Again Eric asked me why was I doing this, and this time I said it must be for the exquisite Japanese woman traveling with him. Although we hadn't been able to communicate, I sensed she was his prisoner.

Her name was Yoko. Whenever I looked into her eyes, she returned my gaze unflinchingly for a moment. A fleeting instant of inner strength, yet she was so delicate, so beautiful, like a captive bird. She was always deferring to him, standing a bit behind him at all times. She went everywhere with him while he held her hand most likely to steady himself. How could she be his "patient" when they were sharing the same hotel room? The other people attending the conference thought she might be his daughter or granddaughter. Or perhaps she was his paid assistant.

Several of my women friends at the conference also wondered why I was bothering with this difficult old man. He kept talking to them too, and like me, they couldn't understand him either. But it didn't seem to bother Dr. Michiba. He continued chatting away with his brand of made up words. Several more times I checked with the people at the hotel asking if they knew anyone who could speak Japanese. There was no one. One of my friends put in a call to a Japanese friend living in Boston but she was out of town. It was really exhausting trying to communicate with him. Meanwhile Dr. Michiba just smiled and kissed me on each cheek every time our paths crossed. He was obviously perfectly happy.

On the last day, I had brunch with my Boston friends Don and Cindy who also attended the conference. They are both psychiatrists and dear friends. As I was pouring my heart out about what the hell I was going to do with this Japanese couple once they were in New York, Cindy came up with a win/win suggestion- she's like that. Cindy's daughter went to school in Japan and one of her best friends Tomiko is a bilingual writer living in New York. Cindy said she might even want to write up the experience of me doing a sex coaching session for a psychotherapist's patient from Japan. If that were to take place, Yoko and Tomiko would be alone with me and Dr. Michiba would have to find out what happened from Yoko's report.

That night when I arrived in New York, I talked to Tomiko on her cell phone. The first thing I wanted her to ask Dr. Michiba, when she called him at his hotel, was what exactly did he want from me; an actual session for his patient or just a description? When she got back to me, she said he wanted to "learn" my technique and to show me his "Warmer," the device he'd invented to cure frigidity. He hoped a famous sexologist like me would endorse it. The date was set for the following day at 3pm. I planned on taking all of us out to dinner afterward.

Finally, we were all seated around my coffee table. First, Michiba presented me with a camera and a wooden puzzle box that was difficult to open. Eric eventually figured it out. I thanked him for the gifts. Then he set the box containing his device on the table while I had a tray with the tools of my trade; Massage oil, Betty's Vaginal Barbell, a battery operated vibrator, two electric vibrators, the Passionette and the Magic Wand.

Since he was a guest, I suggested he go first. The device he called Mr. Warmer was a six inch dildo that could expand by pumping air into the rubber sheath surrounding it. There was a folding 90 degree handle to hold it by and a gage that measured the amount of air pumped into the dildo. As I held the shaft of the dildo, Dr. Michiba turned it on and vibrated it from low to high. The only thing for the clitoris was a solid piece of black foam rubber that didn't vibrate.

Instantly, I told him he needed to make a vibrating piece for the clitoris instead of the vagina. He said it was too difficult to fabricate; besides, the clitoris was for immature girls that hadn't transferred sexual sensations to their vaginas. He'd spent 40 years teaching frigid women how to have vaginal orgasms. They were suffering from a cold vagina and that's why his device was called Mr. Warmer.

Dr. Michiba is 78, quite frail with trembling hands. I'm 75, still strong with steady hands albeit a bit overweight. Clearly this was about to be the battle of the century, the Patriarch vs. the Matriarch. Physically, I could have taken him in the first minute of the first round. But most of all I wanted to get through to him, to bring him up to date on women's sexuality.

Tomiko is translating as I explain that we in the west no longer use the word frigid but rather non-orgasmic or pre-orgasmic. I get out my diagrams of the whole clitoris that includes the shaft, legs and bulbs that are all internal. Even so-called vaginal orgasms depend upon some form of indirect clitoral stimulation, I explain. Again, Dr. Michiba insists the clitoris is immature. Women must learn to transfer those sensations to the vagina to cure hysteria. At that point, I jump up, grab him around the neck in a mock chocking position, and everyone laughs.

"Dr. Michiba," I say firmly while smiling, "I'm a mature woman who wants clitoral stimulation during vaginal penetration. I'm warm-hearted and not frigid and I'm rarely hysterical except when it comes to the current administration. For the past forty years I've been teaching women how to include clitoral stimulation along with vaginal penetration so they can enjoy orgasms with their partners."

Tomiko takes a while to translate this one. Meanwhile Michiba, sitting in the chair next to me, has leaned as far away from me as he can but continues smiling his inscrutable smile. Yoko has a veiled look of shock and fury. I was recovering from a time warp while making a grand effort to educate a Japanese Dr. Freud. After Tomiko finishes translating how I teach women about orgasm, he quickly changes the subject.

The good doctor begins discussing Erectile Dysfunction in men and penis size. Dr. Michiba pontificates, telling us that many young men in Japan feel genitally inadequate. But they are cured once a female nurse tells these men that they are normal or average. I concur, saying I get many questions on my website from men asking me if their penis size is normal. Michiba tells me that the "negro" has the biggest penis and I say I've known many African-American men who had regular sized dicks. Then he says Indonesian men have little penises that are very hard. As we discuss penises of the world, the clitoris is left behind in the dust.

At this point, I excuse myself and go into the kitchen to serve wine and cheese. Then I suggest the women go into the other room to talk privately. By now I couldn't wait to get Yoko away from her captor. I knew Eric would entertain Dr. Michiba by discussing his appreciation of the Japanese martial arts.

Moments after the three women sit down around my drawing board table, I discover that Yoko is far from being a teenager, she's 39 years old. For the past three years, she has been a patient of Dr. Michiba who has told her that she has a cold vagina that is not tight and that's the reason she's not married. She had decided not to date men until she could have vaginal orgasms. Yoko described how, twice a week, she has a session with the doctor. He has her remove all of her clothes, lie down on a table and he inserts Mr. Warmer inside her vagina. Then he turns on the vibrator and slowly inflates the dildo. She said she feels something but it's not an orgasm. Each time she leaves his office, she's still frigid.

The first thing I asked Yoko was can she have an orgasm by stimulating her clitoris with her fingers. She answered yes. I tell her she's an orgasmic woman!

"There's nothing wrong with you sexually," I insist. "All you need to do is add clitoral stimulation during intercourse with your partner. If he comes too fast, either one of you can stimulate your clitoris afterward. It doesn't matter how a woman has her orgasm as long as she has one. I like to use an electric vibrator on my clitoris while my boyfriend penetrates my vagina. Once I learned how, I wanted clitoral stimulation with vaginal penetration all at the same time."

Yoko is hearing this information from "the famous New York sexologist" that Dr. Michiba had been pursuing, so I assume my words carry weight. Then I ask Tomiko if she agrees with what I've been saying. She says yes, she doesn't have vaginal orgasms either. Now Yoko becomes more animated and tells us there are at least twenty other women seeing Dr. Michiba for treatments.

At that moment it dawned on me: inserting his vibrating dildo inside these sweet compliant beautiful Japanese women is Michiba's sexlife. I'm not against anyone enjoying their work, but this man was an arrogant, self-centered, pompous, medical doctor who thought he had all the answers. When it came to women's orgasms, he knew nothing. No one had ever questioned him or his archaic Freudian theories about female sexuality until that moment. Clearly he hadn't heard a word I said and he was not about to alter his position on vaginal orgasms one bit. He claimed he'd come to learn my approach, but in fact, all he wanted was "the famous Dr. Betty Dodson" to endorse his bogus invention.

I began reading the paper out loud that came inside the box containing his invention, Mr.Warmer:

"The cold-hearted women often refers to those who suffer from a cold sensation. Their body temperature tends to be low and their personality traits are often characterized by cold-heartedness and hysteria. Their interpersonal relationships are less than desirable and they lack normal social interactions and social adaptability; consequently they are not likely to have desirable professional opportunities or friends. They have difficulty not only in sexual relationships but their professional opportunities are limited. Even it they meet desirable men, their relationship will not last long. Many of these women, even if they get married, end their marriage within approximately 2 years. The reason given for a divorce is either a complete lack of or inadequate sexual satisfaction. The condition is called frigidity. Unless it is cured these women will not achieve marital happiness in the future. For the past 40 years, I have focused my efforts on the treatment of frigidity and succeeded in helping these women so that they may enjoy a happy marriage and have children."
I put down the paper, stood up, and announced, "Bullshit!" Tomiko and Yoko also stand and we spontaneously come together in a group hug as we repeat "Bullshit!" amid laughter. I turn and place my hand on Yoko's heart and pronounce her healed and say the three of us are clitoral, mature, and fabulous orgasmic women.

Tomiko has been translating ninety miles a second. Throughout this time the two women have also talked between themselves. By now, Yoko is no longer shy and retiring. Tomiko has lived in the US for over 10 years and is very Americanized, but even she gets excited watching a traditional Japanese butterfly transform into a tiger who says she must tell his other patients about what she has learned in New York.

Then I described a Japanese woman named Minori who came to see me a couple of years ago. As she entered my living room she announced, "I want to be Japanese Betty Dodson." And I said, "Great. How can I help you?" She now has a sex shop in Tokyo for women only and she is doing very well. My book Sex for One was translated into Japanese and Minori wrote her own book on female masturbation. Just recently, Minori sent me her latest brochure with the address, phone number and email of her sex shop. I tell Yoko she must get in touch with Minori. They can start a sexual discussion group with women only and share the following sex information:

"The clitoris is our primary sex organ. The vagina is a secondary form of sexual stimulation no matter how many men (and a few women) disagree. It's time for women to teach men about our sexuality. To stop allowing them to define who we are, tell us what we like and what we want. Frigid is a man's word for a woman who cannot have an orgasm in the missionary position within a few minutes with the kind of stimulation that's good for him- his penis inside a woman's vagina."

I tell Yoko she can team up with the sex shop women in Tokyo. Back in the seventies, my friend Dell Williams opened the first sex shop for women right after I started running my masturbation workshops. Women bought their vibrators from Dell and I showed them how to use them in my groups. Dell and I started the women's sex positive movement of feminism in New York City. Now Yoko can do the same thing with Minori in Tokyo. When I told Yoko I was 39 when I got involved with feminism and started running these groups, her eyes grew wide. She said she'd just gotten goose bumps all over. At that moment, I too had goose bumps!

Now I completely understood why I'd put up with a stranger who nearly drove me to distraction before, during, and after the SSTAR conference. It was to reach Yoko and free her from Dr. Freud's ideas. I don't know who said this but I believe it's true: "If you save one person it's as though you've saved the world."

Although everyone at the conference was polite to Dr.Michiba, no one was able to talk to him like I did with my interpreter. Although he was old and appeared quite frail, he'd managed to put his Warmer up hundreds of Japanese women's pussies. He also had hopes of me supplying him with a entire group of workshop women so he could vibrate their vaginas too. He even wanted to put his dildo inside my vagina and asked if I wanted to get nude. My response was thanks, but no thanks. When the two men were alone together, Michiba claimed that with 3 moves of his finger on his prostate gland, he could make Eric ejaculate. Like me, Eric smiled and respectfully declined.

That evening, we all went out for sushi at my favorite Japanese restaurant. Tomiko had her Taiwanese husband meet us there. Our waiter was Chinese and we had a Japanese sushi chef. The restaurant is owned by a Korean woman and managed by a young gay American man. I'm Irish, English and Native American and Eric is Irish and English. It was so New York City!

The next afternoon while I was getting a two hour massage to recuperate, the hotel manager called and spoke to Eric. Dr. Michiba had left the hotel and had been missing for three hours. Eric put a call into Tomiko who found out that Yoko and Michiba had an argument and he walked out in a huff. Although I'm still not sure what happened, I'll wager he wanted to administer her weekly treatment with Mr. Warmer and she more or less told him to go shove it up his ass. If that's what happened, I do not for one second feel sorry for that awful little old man. I figured his gift of a camera and puzzle box cost me around $1800 with dinner, hotel, books, videos and a free four hour session plus a pound of flesh in anxiety. But it was a small price to pay for furthering the Japanese, sex-positive, feminist movement in Tokyo.

I told Yoko that when she gets fifty women together who want to learn how to have Combination Orgasms with clitoral stimulation during vaginal penetration, I'll come to Tokyo and run classes. How much fun would that be? I also made new friends with Tomiko and her husband. He does graphic design work and I'll be needing some soon. I love how the universe provides when I keep an open mind and operate from abundance. Yes, life is good. Very good.

P.S.
A word for the minority of women who have vaginal orgasms during intercourse. You're fine. Relax and enjoy yourselves. However, you might want to keep an open mind about incorporating your clitoris into your sexlife.

Just recently I had a client who was vaginally orgasmic and wanted to learn how to have clitoral orgasms at the tender age of 48. A successful psychotherapist on the West Coast, she said when she was angry at her husband, she didn't want to have sex with him. That's why she wanted to learn how to come with her clitoris by herself. Besides, sex with her husband had to be done precisely the same way each time in order for her to orgasm. So naturally it had gotten quite boring.

During her session she was thrilled to see and touch her clitoris for the first time. She said it made her feel whole. After several clitoral orgasms with two different vibrators, she left knowing she was now sexually independent.