Originally published March 15 2011

How can one study human sexuality without observing a woman being penetrated with a ‘fucksaw’ until reaching orgasm on stage? According to J. Michael Bailey, Professor of Psychology at Northwestern University, it is an indispensable aspect of academic study.

Following his class on sexual arousal, Bailey offered his students the chance to stay behind for an optional lecture on ‘Networking for Kinky People’, in which there would be a live demonstration of the female orgasm. Students were fully aware of what would ensue and warned about the explicit nature of the ‘kinky’ acts that would follow, yet the demonstration has caused an brouhaha from the media who have branded the demonstration as ‘disturbing’.

Disturbing this lecture is not, given the full consent of the participants and audience members, but what exactly Bailey’s purpose was remains rather murky. Bailey’s research is notoriously controversial - and in my opinion scientifically unfounded - for example, he famously refuted gender dysphoria in his book, The Man Who Would Be Queen, claiming that transsexual women were either homosexuals or ‘autogynephilic’, that is, men who get off on making their bodies female. Bailey’s sexual arousal demonstration was equally lacking in scientific discourse. One student’s response to the lecture was: ‘I was like, ‘Ok, she orgasmed on stage’... What’re we supposed to take away from that?’

According to The Daily, Northwestern University’s student newspaper, Bailey explained his motivation for consenting to the sexual arousal demonstration as, ‘I think that these after-classes are quite valuable. Why? One reason is that I think it helps us understand sexual diversity.’ Other lecture series have included Q&As with gay men and transsexuals, which, I believe, provide a humanised view of non-normative genders and sexualities that are often portrayed from a heterosexist and transphobic perspective in academic discourse. What must be interrogated is why the female orgasm and sex toys fall into this ‘sexual diversity’ category in need of visibility.

Despite a century and a half of sexology and the (re)discovery of the clitoris in the 1960s, the female orgasm remains elusive and, to a certain extent, a dinner-party conversation taboo. So a demonstration on how to make a woman orgasm with a DIY vibrator is just what scientific research needs, right?

On the one hand, yes. Scientific research needs to stop thinking with its cock and cease viewing sex as reproduction. It needs to produce research into sexual pleasure that will debunk the prevalence of sex-negativity, to produce a discourse, especially for women, which does not associate sex with shame, but with mutual pleasure.

On the other hand, no. Sexology must stop viewing women’s bodies as vehicles, who can reach orgasm at the touch of a button, or in this case, a ‘fucksaw’. Sexology is plague with reductionist thinking, which is what Bailey has, or should have, been trying to counteract in his ‘kinky sex seminars’. I cannot help but feel that this particular demonstration did just the opposite. Everyone attains sexual pleasure in different ways; no-one’s genitals are an exact replica as another’s, nor do two people have, or enjoy, sex in the same way. So what does one woman getting off from a sex toy teach one about the female orgasm? Well... not very much.

Sexology should stop trying to reduce human sexuality to a theory; sexuality is interesting because it is indefinable, even to one’s self, and always susceptible to change. As such, sexology should take a more pragmatic approach to sexual pleasure. It should break the taboos surrounding talking about sex, encourage people to explore their bodies, and coin a discourse that illustrates the plurality of sexuality. Bailey’s sexual arousal classes may be valuable for ‘pleasure’s plight’, if only he discarded the demonstration in favour of exploration.