@megan
Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
Chico Lecture:
She was so organic about her experience and told her stories with such richness. Her posture was so powerful and you could tell how confident she was in the work, despite this being early in the process of building the workshops. Her art and the Split Beaver slide show was something she was deeply and humbly proud of which shone through in her demeanour. I noticed her care and “professionalism” towards her students and audience that was maybe connected to the unfamiliar academic space. She was still stripped down to brass tacks and straightforward in her delivery. I loved it.
Yale Lecture:
She gave absolutely zero fucks about decorum or expectation and spoke about exactly what she wanted to in the way she wanted to. There was more dynamic exchange with her audience, and I LOVED hearing the questions posed. Her responses were so holistic and strong. You wouldn’t be able to say that anything she said, she felt vulnerable about and I think that probably made more of an impact to those students than anything. I was cackling. I miss her.
What stood out to me is how often I felt that she was saying words and doing her creative process the same way I have throughout my life. The familiarity was spooky and spiritual sometimes. I have tons of journals and sketchbooks all overlapping with ideas and a path from star point to star point, building the constellation of my life, and I saw that same process in her work. It was so stripped down and fuelled by her own drive and passion to share her findings with people who almost seemed to be on a different planet from her. I loved the way she threw everything at the wall to see what would stick. She’d go on lots of side quests to experience more and then dedicate time and energy to finalizing her findings and connecting with instrumental business partners to get it done. She inspires me endlessly, and I’m currently fanatically filling sketchbooks and 2 journals of material while I work through this course. It’s relit a fire that was a smouldering ember from my early 20s when I first met her.
Betty was breaking the fourth wall between each of those women and their own thoughts of divine feminine empowerment that is hidden behind fear. I believe every woman wants to be fully seen, fully rageful and feral. Patriarchal society has done an effective job with propaganda to have people effectively policing themselves and their own minds. Betty combined the hard work of unlearning with the inspiration of her mother’s “native” wisdom. When someone would say: “You can’t do that”, Betty would say: “Watch me!” She represented the desire so many women had to be fully free and give no fucks. That energy is palpable and explosive and her audience would have experienced that powerful action and wanted to be a part of it. I think that is powerful enough to AT LEAST get a standing ovation 😉
I have also experienced similar actions and conferences in communities of the left (humanitarian, civil rights, sex and gender education etc). I think there is such a tone of, again, inner policing and managing nuance and “cancel culture” within that I have seen these initiatives fail because so much effort gets put into a workshop or conference (in topics that are already on the margins) with little to no funding, support or recognition and it becomes a thanksless job that then folks become critical of and the good parts get forgotten. I’ve personally burned out from chairing a non-for- profit organization educating and advocating for the role of Intimacy Coordinator in film/TV, and it’s upsetting to see all that work go into these initiatives to have them implode from inner politics. I imagine that’s maybe what happened here.
Marta, YES! I also loved her sexual fantasy sketches, they are so amazing. I also wish we had more of those. It has inspired me to attempt to draw some of my own!
I don’t feel any resistance to the book or her work as she’s presented it. My feelings of resistance or frustration is directed towards the differences I’m reading about between the world she did this work in and the world we live in now. To remark on how much has indeed been accomplished in terms of support for self-love in the mainstream and acknowledgement that we have become a much more open society in a lot of ways. Simultaneously facism censors and vilifies a world of diverse individuals in the death throes of capitalism. The different but similar challenges that this work still faces in being accepted, despite the advances we’ve made in western culture. My current struggle with wanting to make a living, carving my own path, while being overwhelmed with how I will personally do the work, support myself and do right by the community and women who will be supported by Bodysex
I ended up finding “Liberating Masturbation” online and ended up reading it and “Sex for One” simultaneously. I loved reading the seeds of these ideas and her evolutionary growth of experience and description between the former and becoming the latter.
I’m always struck by her approach for how she would enact an idea, simply making posters and making phone calls to the women in her community, that word of mouth was such a strong tool for outreach and for folks to find her and her work. I’ve always loved and been inspired by her art and the seamless way she translates its impact into her somatic work, which became Bodysex. She exemplified multiple areas of pioneering experiences:
- large and in your face erotic art
- nude, somatic consciousness raising
- masturbation in sacred circle
- leading a dozen men’s workshops
- offering her orgasm to science to prove the connection to meditation
- all manner of relationships and self-designed sexual spaces
She was always putting forward original ideas and trusting herself with the importance of her instincts.
I was touched when she spoke about calling her mother Bessie to ask if she was masturbating to Orgasm and how that deepened their relationship infinitely. I’m proud to recall that both my parents, my sister and my paternal grandmother all have vibrators/sex toys at my introduction and my insistence on a healthy self-love practice. One potentially awkward familial chat at a time!
The throughline and process by which she became Betty Dodson was the main element that stood out to me, as I’m going through a similar process and developing further self-awareness and self-trust to put out what I want to see more of in the world. It’s an amazing feeling to be journeying alongside her in honour of the changemaker she was and the impact she’s had on so many people.
I was tickled to learn about this special group of women in the circle. Admittedly, I’d seen clips and photos from the documentary many times and been in several of my own circles (my first one with Betty and Carlin in, I believe, 2012 or 2013, and then for her birthday retreat at Menla in 2017), but had never seen the documentary. It brought up so much joy, familiarity, sadness at missing Betty, curiosity to meet Sheila and the other brave women who showed up to do this on camera.
I loved the unique aspects of the women’s shares: the pussy farts, the crygasm, the masturbation style of lying on the stomach and humping the vibrator (nostalgic memory of having a similar technique as a younger person). I hold so much pride and excitement for Betty and Carlin in their pioneering work on this documentary, and gratitude for the archive of Betty’s facilitation style for us to witness and study.
I don’t think I have emotional/mental resistance to the work or to thinking of running my own circles, but I definitely relate to Betty’s reticence of the administrative labour that running circles requires 😝 I went through recent burnout from another career that I loved, due to the admin work required and not being able to focus as much on doing the job I loved. That part is certainly something I’ll want to find streamlined and efficient ways of doing it so it doesn’t create a procrastinatory pattern.
Bodysex is a cumming together (pun intended) of sacred sex priestesses sending the magick of empowerment and orgasm into the cosmos to heal and evolve the world. More pragmatically, it’s a ceremonial practice in circle for women and vulva havers to release shame and heal their relationship to their body and free themselves from patriarchal expectations in sisterhood. It’s playful and transcendent, allowing us to celebrate pleasure as a root element of joy, healing, empowerment and creativity. In circle, we bring masturbation and our sexual relationship with ourselves to the forefront, honouring that we are our own longest and most consistent lover.
