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Again soooo many amazing words on these papers, it’s so hard to pick just one. I chose Betty’s quote on page 283 “sexual energy isn’t male or female, John, it’s already been harnessed by religion and society in general. That’s the problem. We need to learn to release this powerful energy to experience more pleasure.” This quote really stood out for me because in my own experience I have observed that while control has tended to be my coping mechanism throughout life, what I really needed, what healed me, and what created real life for me was releasing. Allowing my emotions, allowing my experiences, releasing the energy that was coupled in those things was truly and utterly meeting myself for the first time. Once I knew me I could love me. And once I released sexual fears and just experienced my own sexuality I could get to know me sexually, I could care for my sexual self, tend to my sexual self, and, cherish my sexual self.
My favorite quotes:
Epilogue: ‘When the time is right, the light will be there to see your way out’ – this is so much about me right now, I love the deepness of it especially in the context of becoming bodysex facilitator.
This is Bertrand Russel comment that Betty quates in her book and I love it as well: ‘Jealousy must be regarded not as a justifiable insistence upon one’s rights but a misfortune to the one who feels it and a wrong toward its object. When possessive elements intrude upon love, it loses its vivifying power. She who fears to lose that which makes the happiness in her life as has already lost it’- great, deep and so much true.. great to have in mind throughout my relationship.
And funny one which gives new perspective for me on sex activities in the chapter Cooking for Orgy: ‘Self sexuality is my daily bread. Partner sex once or twice a week is dining out. Groupsex several times a year is a grand banquet where the table is set with multiple partners, sexual pretzels, a stew of hot visuals for voyeurs, lip-licking audiences for exhibitionists with plenty of people who liked to watch sexual pleasures in every exotic flavour imaginable – something to please everyone’s taste.’
I love when Betty said, “Are you bargaining with sex? What’s the price? What does it cost you?” as well as “Let’s create non-possessive love and sex”
These resonate with me because the questions are bold and require self-reflection. I think these could be great group conversation questions too.
One of my favorite quotes is in Chapter 16 when Betty said “Being a public masturbator was just about as queer as anyone could get.” That is an astute observation, while also being humorous and lighthearted in typical Betty fashion. The quote was said in reference to people asking about her sexuality, and it think it accurately shows that masturbation continues to be more taboo than any sexual orientation.
I like this quote in chapter 16: “I have never been sure about the authenticity of any woman’s orgasm because we are excellent fakers”. I love that she says that. I have never really been a faker (maybe I sometimes faked pleasure, but not orgasms) but I will say that I would be a fantastic faker especially now after having had a serious masturbation for nearly five years. The more real orgasms you have, the better you would be able to fake it.
feeling teary and relieved all the same, last weekend I had some the greatest self love pleasure I had ever had so far in my life. It reminded me of the raw, graphic and honest sequence Betty shares in Chp 30: The End in Sight – … ” What if I could come, pee, fart, shit, belch and sneeze all at once? would be the simultaneous release of my entire autonomic nervous system lead to eternal life? ” It illuminates yet again the power of pleasure, or orgasm and what it can release for us on a somatic level. My release last week dropped me into a new plane of ecstasy, an arrival or pleasure that release more than I knew I could release. This chapter highlights the continuing process of connection to self and the advancement we can make when we own every bit of life.
“At one point I announced that I’d looked up phallus in the dictionary and it referred to both a penis and a clitoris. We were no longer what Germaine Greer called, ‘female eunuchs’ in her popular book. We were the new Phallic Women in charge of our own pleasure, our own lives, and our own destinies.” (173)
I love that one! How we see our sexuality is a matter of perception and this perception can be challenge, think over, and transformed. This is empowerment at best!
I’m listening to the book on audible so the actual quote is escaping me. But when Betty is describing her sexual fantasy of being a sex educator temple priestess and then ending her class with a group orgasm that radiated out into the world it gave me chills. This was what she created with the Bodysex groups. It’s making me tear up just recounting it. She fantasized about it and manifested it fabulously. It was her fantasy but it has radiated outwards to all of us who have been touched by Bodysex and Betty’s life. She said that her Liberating Masterbation booklet was well distributed for what it was but I get the sense that it reached through time and space into the lives of women (and others) and shifted the way our culture thinks about sex.
“Someone had to have the courage to go first” pg. 235
Betty named her business “Bodysex Designs” and she was warned not to put sex in the name because it would be problematic, although in retrospect she said she probably wouldn’t do it that way again. She is so right, nothing will ever change if someone doesn’t go first. Betty had the courage to live her life on the edge and took a lot of grief for being that someone who went first.
I have so much gratitude for your courage Betty and going first. Betty, I can only name two other women who have inspired me, “Golda Mier” and my mom. Thank for this “reboot” to continue to be that someone who has the courage to go first.As a response to being cat called, Betty returned the favor, page 96: “Hey, you’re pretty sexy yourself,” I smiled back. “Have you got a nice big dick?” I moved a bit closer while looking at his crotch and asked “You want to show it to me?” Now that I was standing a few feet from him, he stopped grinning and backed away from me. “Take it easy, Lady.” he whined, “I’m a married man.” I told him in that case, he shouldn’t be such a tease and I slowly walked off smiling.
Betty was able to take any situation, see the situation for what it was, play in the situation and then in an interesting way state her agenda or her value system. I loved that about her.
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