Continuing a Feminist Conversation at Saint Olaf

Orgasm Inc

Orgasm Inc: All in the Pursuit of the Female Orgasm

by Stacie Elliott

Women’s orgasms. Something my family would call a “not dinner time appropriate conversation.”

But… when is the appropriate time to discuss the female orgasm? Director Liz Canner found out the appropriate time to discuss the female orgasm when pharmaceutical company Vivus reached out to her, asking for help in developing an erotic film to show participants in a Female Sexual Dysfunction drug study. This interaction triggered an idea, to document the race for the first FDA-approved ‘female Viagra’ in seasoned documentary-maker Canner, and almost 10 years after that initial interaction she released “Orgasm Inc. The Strange Science of Female Pleasure.”

Vocab Time!

Before diving too far into the content and implications of this ground-breaking documentary, a quick vocabulary lesson will be helpful:

Orgasm: “With enough stimulation of or around the clitoris—and, for some women, pressure on the cervix or other sensitive areas such as the G-spot—a woman may build up to a peak, or orgasm. This is the point at which all the tension suddenly releases in a series of involuntary and pleasurable muscular contractions. Contractions may be felt in the vagina, uterus, and rectum. Many women experience orgasm as a total-body contraction and release.” 1
Female Sexual Dysfunction: “Persistent, recurrent problems with sexual response, desire, orgasm or pain — that distress you or strain your relationship with your partner — are known medically as sexual dysfunction.” 2
Erectile Dysfunction: “Erectile dysfunction (impotence) is the inability to get and keep an erection firm enough for sex.” 3
Clitoris: The only organ in the female body specifically for pleasure
Intersectional Feminism: “a movement recognizing that barriers to gender equality vary according to other aspects of a woman’s identity, including age, race, ethnicity, class, and religion, and striving to address a diverse spectrum of women’s issues” 4
Medicalization: “Medicalization refers to the process in which health conditions and behaviors are labeled and treated as medical issues.” 5

Whew! Now that we are all on the same page, let’s get into it!

Quick Overview and Premise

“Orgasm Inc.” all started when Vivus, a pharmaceutical company, contacted documentary maker Liz Canner for help with clinical trials of their new ‘orgasm cream.’ After Canner began working with Vivus, she was thrust into a whole new world of pharmaceutical trials, ‘orgasmatrons,’ and female sexual dysfunction (FSD). In “Orgasm Inc.” Canner explores the various experimental methods of treating FSD, people involved in the fight against and for FSD, and the overall landscape of women’s bodies and sexuality in the 21st century. Her goal, though never openly stated, it to make you the viewer question the medical establishment’s, and even your own, views about female sexuality.

Context

At the time of this documentary, Viagra was red hot and brand new! In 1996, the Food and Drug Administration approved Viagra as the first oral treatment of erectile dysfunction. Pfizer, the company that produces Viagra, was set to make 1 billion dollars by 1999. Ever since the commercial success of Viagra, pharmaceutical companies set out to make the first ‘pink Viagra.’ In came “Female Sexual Dysfunction,” a term coming from the Journal of the American Medical Association article in 1999 titled “Sexual dysfunction in the United States: prevalence and predictors.” With a relatively boring title, this article claimed that 43% of American women suffer from sexual dysfunction. After the publication and sensationalization of its content by the media, pharmaceutical companies jumped to be the next Pfizer, to make even more money than Viagra!

New View Campaign Poster

The news of a ‘female Viagra’ drug being developed made waves in the sexual health community. Two distinct sides developed, one supporting the development of these drugs and the other side demonizing the drugs in development. “Orgasm Inc.” investigates both sides of the story, interacting with the Berman sisters, the “faces of FSD,” and their high priced, luxury sexual health clinic. The Berman sisters, both doctors, push the agenda of FSD and approve of the medical approach to treating women’s sexual problems, appearing on popular television shows like Oprah to spread their message. Canner also visits Dr. Lenore Tiefer and the Kinsey Institute, who are working to ‘demedicalize’ sex and women’s sexuality. Dr. Tiefer, a sex therapist and former NYU medical school psychiatry professor, even creates the New View Campaign, which pushes for a more holistic view of women’s sexuality.

Orgasm Inc. and its Relationship with Intersectional Feminism

On the surface, Orgasm Inc. can seem one dimensional. Most of the people interviewed are upper-class white women, and the whole issue of sexual health can seem frivolous when general healthcare isn’t available to all women.

Female sexual health is important and intersectional. This documentary shows the various ways that for-profit medical institutions prey off our society demonizing all women’s bodies and sexuality. One example is the misconception of the ‘normal’ ways women achieve orgasm, a misconception held by Carletta, an older patient in an FSD device clinical trial. TV and movies have portrayed almost all women climaxing simply from penetrative sex, which is just not the case. “Orgasm Inc.” reports that 70 percent of women need direct clitoral stimulation to orgasm. Another form of oppression is the lack of sexual education for women in America. Canner shows snippets of a Colgate University Women’s Studies class discussion on sex ed, where women of all ages, races, and socioeconomic backgrounds express that their sex ed was abstinence-based and most of the sexual advice they got was from their peers.

Antique vibrators from Good Vibrations

“Orgasm Inc.” breaks through the walls of shame and awkwardness around women’s bodies by openly discussing female sexuality. Vibrators are shown openly and pornography is discussed free of stigma, something still radical in the 21st century. One of the main figures in the film is Kim Airs, sexual health expert and pornography shop owner, who crashes a pharmaceutical conference to give a workshop on holistic female pleasure. Her goal is to help women become comfortable with their bodies and sexuality, even when it goes against Big Pharma and the status quo.

Feminists have been having conversations for years about women’s sexuality and the sexist history behind many medical practices. bell hooks’s book Feminism is for Everybody, chapter 15 “A Feminist Sexual Politic” discusses the unburdening of women’s sexuality and how a healthy sexual agenda involves removing sexism from sexuality. Marge Piercy’s “The Turn On” would be a weapon in the New View Campaign’s arsenal, examining in detail the relationship between the social, emotional, and physical aspects of sex for women. The Boston Women’s Health Book Collective published its first edition of “Our Bodies Ourselves,” lovingly referred to as OBO, in 1970, with the specific goal of spreading accurate information on women’s sexual and reproductive health. In 2011, the most recent edition of OBO was published, involving discussions around FSD and promoting “Orgasm Inc.”

The Takeaway

Overall, “Orgasm Inc.” is one of the most engaging, entertaining, and educational looks into the current medical and social landscape around female sexuality. Liz Canner asks you to take a deep look at your own values related to sexuality and examine where they come from. She propels herself into the space of Marge Piercy, bell hooks, and Naomi Wolf as a leader in the conversation about female sexual health. “Orgasm Inc.” achieves the goal of taking complex medical and social information and turning into digestible entertainment!