There is no faking it. The troubled history of the female orgasm was a hot topic last weekend at a University of Alberta conference.

The theme for this year's conference of the Canadian Society of Women in Philosophy was Sex and Gender: Rethinking Feminist Philosophy. In the keynote talk entitled Coming to Understand: Orgasm and the Epistemology of Ignorance, Dr. Nancy Tuana of Pennsylvania State University discussed the history of the clitoris and the female orgasm, attempting to bring to light the ignorance and hypocrisy surrounding female sexuality.

Tuana described how the clitoris, which is unnecessary in reproduction, has been "historically ignored," mainly because of "a fear of pleasure. It is pleasure separated from reproduction. That's the fear."

She explained that this fear is the cause of the ignorance that veils female sexuality. She then explored the debate about the different kinds of female orgasm, starting with Freud, who asserted that women were capable of two different kinds of orgasm--"the vaginal kind, and its kid sister, the clitoral orgasm."

Freud's belief was challenged in the 1960s by Masters and Johnson, who rejected the distinction between the two types. In their famous studies of sexuality, which included laboratory studies of intercourse, they suggested vaginal orgasm was caused by stimulation of the clitoris during intercourse.

Because of this belief, notions of female sexuality tended to over-emphasize the significance of the clitoris, at the expense of all else. The debate has been opened up again and again, especially with the recent introduction of a third type, the uterine orgasm.

Tuana said the historical study of this issue thus far has been limited, and that there is much more to discover about female sexuality and pleasure.

Unlike the rest of the conference, the keynote was open to the general public. "We had to make the lecture a bit more accessible. I made the keynote into a public lecture so everybody could come along and see what kind of stuff we were doing," said Dr. Cressida Heyes, a professor of philosophy at the U of A. She added that the conference overall was huge success.

"It was absolutely fantastic," said Heyes, also the conference organizer and vice-president of C-SWIP. "I'm delighted how it went with the intellectual content, the social aspects, and the sense of community [it brought to] the U of A that I think we really need."

However she added that topics were not chosen just because they were sexy. "That's not how this was meant to be interpreted, but if that's why people were interested, that's okay. Sex is important."

Related link – internal

The U of A Department of Philosophy Web site: http://www.uofaweb.ualberta.ca/philosophy/

Related link – external

The Canadian Society for Women in Philosophy Web site: http://lmswebs.com/cswip/home.htm