Question 1: What would you be doing if you weren't doing what you're doing now?
Oh, that's interesting. I would probably be in law. I was in the Civil Rights bureau of the New York State Attorney General's office before I started working with Betty. I've always wanted to do something more on an international women's rights platform. So I probably would be working with some NGO, and I love the idea of empowering women with, like, legal tools. Because that changes everything.
I mean, that's why I became a lawyer is because you know you can talk a good game but when you know the law, and you can say Hold on a second, you can't discriminate against me that way, or oh you're refusing treatment that I'm asking for, you know, at my doctors’ office, "Can you note that that refusal in my file?" and all of a sudden things change. They give you what you want. It's like the ultimate empowerment, that's probably what I would be doing. And, as you know, women's rights around the world still have left to be desired.
Question 2: The Sexual Health Alliance is centered around providing provocative dialogue and radical collaboration. What does radical collaboration look like to you?
Haha, Betty was so radical. If you called her anything else, you know, she would be upset. I think her methods, her work is completely and totally subversive, and I'll tell you why. Because as a woman, when we make the choice to use our bodies for our own pleasure, it's the most feminist revolutionary fuck you act that you can do. To have an orgasm on your own terms? There's nothing more subversive.
So that's what I think the conference for me is going to be about how I took her methods virtual on Zoom. What I learned and how people can take that and employ it in their own practices. I am continuing and modernizing her methods - now we have technology that enables us to communicate in ways that didn't exist in the 70s and 80s when she was practicing full time. Everything was paper flyers and phone calls!
Question 3: So tell me about a guilty pleasure of yours, what do you do to unwind and de-stress.
Oh, that's interesting. I don't think guilty pleasures. I never think of anything as a guilty pleasure for me. Um, I do love to garden and I spend entirely too much money on plants and bushes, and I'm always like, at it with a big shovel in the backyard digging up something, replacing something. It's an addiction.
They know me like at my local nursery on a first name basis. I have things delivered constantly - I'm talking like trees. When I lived in the city. I just had terrace, and I had pots. I thought when I moved into my house that it was like so much property, and now I'm lusting after like an acre, with a golf cart, where I'm driving around it. I want to cutting garden and a moon garden... So that's probably my guilty pleasure when I look at my credit card statements and how much money I spend on it. Some women like handbags and shoes, I love dirt on my fingernails, and I'm touching and talking to my plants...
Question 4: What would you recommend to young educators or therapists, wanting to follow in your footsteps?
What I recommend having orgasms in a group. And when I say group I don't mean sex party, because I think it is different. I've been to a ton of sex parties and are a ton of fun, don't get me wrong, there's something different about sharing masturbation in a group. I'm having pleasure and non-romantic context. It's so empowering because it becomes complete joy and fun, and I don't have to be physically desirable. I don't have to be beautiful and we're all together, we're inspiring each other. You hear a woman having an orgasm or a person coming up on an orgasm. And yours just popped out it doesn't matter what your orientation is. It just happens.
The unity and that feeling of community and sisterhood and that group dynamic, I mean that's what Betty took from the sex parties in the 70s, and took that in that piece of that into body sex, and to have 12 people you've never met before and we all come to all 12 coming together. When we can get to that place, it's pretty magical.
It's addictive, you know, Betty said her best orgasm was in the circle. When we're in a romantic context or even sometimes sex parties it's more performance piece. Betty would always talk about the Bodysex effects. When women would take circles, you know afterward they would gain a few pounds, and we always felt so good about that because it's kind of like, yeah, I can relax and have that piece of cake. Because it's pleasure and I enjoy it and it doesn't matter if my body's perfect it's like the insecurity, to kind of shake that off. We were always so proud of that.
Question 5: Betty left the planet, almost a year ago - would you mind sharing what you miss most about her?
Oh my gosh, that's good. That's a hard one. I think what I miss most, you know, and at the end, I was, I was doing so much custodial care and when someone is 90, 91, you lose pieces of them, and I think that made it easier, because if she just like it was over, it would have been so much harder...
What I miss is that I could call Betty, and say the most horrendous over the top, like thing you can. And we had some horrendous things that we would make fun of. And we would laugh and laugh and laugh and there was just no judgment. You know? Think of your relationships, the relationships where there's no judgment, you can just say what you're thinking. Say what you feel and laugh about it. We crossed swords plenty of times, but even that was so honesty-based. We respected each other that at the end of it we got someplace better.
So maybe that's what I miss most - the honesty and the laughter. We had a ball! We really did - we traveled the world as experts in our field, and Ab-fabbed our way. And just had a great time.
Question 6: What is your favorite sex toy?
Whoo... Well it's interesting, since I had my son, I mean, it will always probably be the rechargeable Hitachi Wand. It is my go-to vibrator. I always start with my hand, though, and then I switch them out. I think that's really important to always start kind of finished with your hands.
But after having my son - and he was a C section - my vagina is super sensitive. I call my "mother's bonus". Because my vagina is super sensitive and so is my perineum. So my favorite dildo right now - it was on Betty's mantle, was in her collection there.
One day we were short barbells in a workshop because that's what we use, and I'm like, I'll just grab a glass dildo and the one I grab, it's kind of like a half-circle, curved, and then at each end, it looks like a little mushroom cap. I like to play with my perineum, on the outside with it, and then kind of hook it on my urethral sponge and that's probably my favorite right now.
I can get my first orgasm with clitoral stimulation and probably my second, too, and then I can pull everything off and just use my, my hook dildo action and keep going.
Question 7: Do you have any hobbies outside of work?
Hmm. My gardening... what else do I like to do? I really like home design and stuff like that, and I'm always kind of hanging off a ladder painting something, and my husband will come around and be like, everything's different. I'm always hanging something, and I'm always like picking up something from the store so I do like that kind of, I guess feathering the nest kind of thing, and changing stuff all the time, and then I find myself framing pieces of Betty's art constantly because it's here, and I feel like okay if I frame it behind museum glass, that's an investment. So I hung everything that she had framed. And I framed some things that I liked. And then the old frames didn't look as good as the new frame so then I sort of refreshed. And now, there's no space on the walls, like it's all covered so I don't know what I'm going to do over the winter, I gotta think of projects.
Question 8: Who is your sexuality role model?
I mean, it's Betty. She is my role model in so many ways. I learned so much from her, and I learned from her mistakes as well. I learned so much when we got together, she was 80, and so we spent 80 to 91 together.
When someone's at the end of their life, they're very circumspect and they can see their patterns and they can see how things played out it's very... it would have been very different, I think if she was 50 or 60 when I met her.
We would have these long discussions about choices that were made, and what she learned from them, and then by going through things like publishing your memoir, and adding the stories and traveling with her to meet her, you know see her family and her brother Dickie before he died. I just studied her life.
It's not often that you get to study the life of someone who's an iconoclast with them, you know, right there. We had so much time together. I wouldn't be who I am today without her.
Question 9: What inspires you to do the work that you're doing?
Women. I don't know what it is, but I am endlessly compassionate about women. For women, I will sit in this chair for two hours as a woman builds up to an orgasm, I never checked my phone, it's never boring to me. Women amaze me: their strength, their tenacity, the resilience, no matter what happens, we get knocked down and we all get up again. There's so much wisdom and there's something noble about the feminine energy. I work every day because I want to unleash it fully.
Bonus question: Do you think that's a product of the culture and of the patriarchal influence?
Well, of course. If we didn't go those, the beauty myth, and shame, and the virginity myth, and slut stigma, and the constant repression, and the objectification, and it's never on our terms. It's a problem.
I watched the Britney Spears documentary last night and I am violently angry at the legal system for what happened to her. We should all be enraged because it's a woman who's using her talent, her sexuality, and it's okay to make lots of money for other people. But as soon as you make any kind of decision for yourself, "Oh, I have to be your conservator, I have to make decisions for you because you can't make decisions for yourself." It wouldn't have happened to Justin Timberlake.
We were obsessed with her and that's what we do: we're obsessed with women, we're obsessed with their bodies, but only to dominate and possess. What if we just change that model? I think men would be happier. I know women would be happier. And we're so close.
Question 10: What would you change, and what would you keep the same, about the way you experienced sex education in childhood?
Oh I had none. I was raised in a religious cult. Young women and girls were seen and not heard - there were no rights.
Take whatever we have a culture now, and society at large and just chop it all off. I mean, it was ridiculous but it was a good experience because that's what galvanized me, because I didn't understand. I would look around and go, "Why, why is this the big taboo? Why are women treated like this? What is going on?" Sex education - it's so simple.
We all have a phallus, either a penis or a clitoris. Very simple. We touch ourselves, in private, and it feels nice. When you have an orgasm, you're not a virgin anymore. Young women should penetrate the vagina is the first time themselves. I think then women would enjoy penetration a lot more if they did.
Betty and I had this in common: she used to jump rope handle, and I used my Barbie doll leg, out of natural curiosity. I think kids need more time to develop, and then some basic concepts about consent and bodily integrity. Teach about the heavy outercourse. Let's teach kids how to get each other off without penis/vagina penetration. And this is all leaning hetero-normative, but the majority of people who are fucked up are heterosexuals, so I'm just gonna start. Sex is more than penis/vagina penetration, so let's broaden the definition of sex.
Let's teach conscious masturbation. Let's teach sexual fantasy. Let's teach you to take 30 minutes, an hour to touch yourself and see how far your body can go. Let's take the edge off. Everyone's so repressed, and they're right in front of orgasm and they're ready to pop off at any second.
It's so nice to be around sex-positive people where everyone comes from abundance, isn't it? To be in a room full of that? It's that feeling of, "I have found my people." Oh, it's such a joy. It's so relaxing. Sex is not manipulation - I think that's why most women don't like sex. It's always a manipulation in our culture.
Bonus question: It was almost 30 years ago that Jocelyn Elders suggested that we that we tell kids about masturbation as a viable safe sex option. Do you think much has changed?
In the last six years I had a child. And what was interesting is you talk to parents at the park, and little kids have their hands down your pants, all the time, which is completely healthy and natural. As soon as the diapers off, the hands go down. If they're happy the hands dow,n if they're sad, if they're nervous, the hands, well, you know.
So you talk with other parents, and it is interesting to see how well it is handled. It's different. The kids are masturbating and parents say, "Okay, that's okay, just go do that in your own room." There wasn't that same shame of, "Oh my god, they're touching their genitals!"
Most parents I know believe that masturbation is healthy. I do think something has shifted in that respect now. Even now, in Suburbia. I see parents being much more open and progressive about it. Parents want are more aware of it. I think that we're a little more open and progressive about it.
Question 11: What is the most important thing about sex that you want all providers to know - people in helping professions?
I think that an orgasm is the basis of our humanity. I firmly believe that the more I work one on one with women all over the world, it's... You know, Betty and I would debate this. We'd get high, and I'd be like, "Okay an orgasm is everything. You could live your whole life without it. It's not necessary for survival. It's not like air or food or water, or any of these things." And we always got to, it is the most important, because it's a sense of self.
An orgasm is an autonomic body reflects it resets your central nervous system. And in my opinion it pushes out the trauma and the stress. That goes back to Wilhelm Reich - Betty's biggest influence - that you can look at someone and most behavioral issues are blocked orgasm energy and I think it's true.
I feel like if you're having orgasms on a regular basis. You can't fear. And you can't hate. Because when you're cycling that energy on a regular basis. You feel connected to yourself and everything in your environment and that's what life's about, that's what we're all seeking connection. And it starts here.
So what we do is we look outward; it's all about our partners, and the myth of the prince and I'm going to find the right person and then I'm going to be happy. But when you do it first here, for yourself, with yourself, you're happy and then you're going to attract the right person and then it's going to make sense.
I think many of us have this void they're trying to fill that you can't fill with romantic love. It has to start with self love and when I think of Betty's work, I don't think of masturbation. That's a tool. I think about self-love.
I've been getting to know her more and more since her death. I've read all her journals, from 1943 to 2018. She was kicked around an awful lot: betrayed disappointed, broken hearts piled up. What she learned was how to love herself, more than anything, or anyone. That's why she's still an inspiration.
She could have just had a good life, loved herself, all set up in her Manhattan apartment, you know, and had a great time. But she decided to share what she learned with the world, which is this act of generosity that still amazes me. To have that ability to open and share, and I think it comes from that place of the orgasm energy. I think it's quite important to how we function as a society.
Oh, I actually missed the second part of that question - what would you want them to incorporate into their practice in working with other people? The one thing is vulva massage - or genital massage for all types of people. It wasn't something that we did in the workshops, and when I started doing the virtual work, I wanted to give them homework in between the weeks and I was like, should I give them vulva massage or penis massage? Massaging the sex organ. To connect and feel the parts, no orgasm, no goal, taking the goal off the table is so powerful, and most of my clients will say that the vulva massage was the hardest part.
Touching for the sake of touching to enjoy good feelings. Taking the goal of orgasm off the table is so freeing and liberating and the more we touch, the more we feel. Nine times out of 10 my clients reported, "Oh my god was amazing! The first day didn't really feel that much. The second day, not much but a little more, but by the third or fourth day I was feeling everything."
Touch releases trauma. So when we do the sexual history, sometimes they can't share yet they're not ready. It all comes down the vulva massage. I have them penetrate their vagina and touch their cervix when they do that all the trauma comes out, the cervix holds a lot - any kind of past trauma we're not remembering, miscarriages, birth trauma - it all comes out, and they'll say, "Oh I've done therapy, I thought I was over it," but the body holds the score.
So that's why I think orgasm is so powerful - because you can't hold on to anything in the body. You're letting the body lead. So I would say that is like the most important tool that I use with clients and it's simple. And it's certainly something that anyone can employ even. Yeah, I would say you can't screw it up, right? You get some oil on your hands, you pop on the vulva massage podcast and just as I say to touch everything you touch everything. It keeps them touching themselves for 22 minutes every day. And then when I say don't orgasm, sometimes I'll get on a session and they go, "I know you told me I wasn't supposed to, but I did have an orgasm..." Great, that's the whole point.
Question 12: What has been your favorite place to travel for work, and why?
Norway. I love it, I love Oslo, it's a great city and I must have been either a Viking or a slave in a previous life. Because when Betty and I went to Oslo and went through a few times. I knew every nook and cranny of that city, whenever we had to be someplace because we always had like be here for an interview or there for a TV whatever or meet someone for dinner, and within a few moments of being there I knew where everything and even Betty was astounded.
So I really love that city I could see and the North is fantastic, the light, the fjords, the natural beauty is spectacular. And I'm not a shopper. So, it would never be Paris or Milan for me.
Question 13: What books are on your nightstand?
Well, I have to say I'm not a big reader because I have a young child and I'm always tired at the end of the day.
You could actually change that to like podcast or audio book or, you know, however you ingest information.
I ingest information by watching documentaries, I will watch any documentary about a woman. So I just watched the documentary about Rose Marie, who was like the Shirley Temple before Shirley Temple, and then had this huge unbelievable career. And I remember her. She was the first comedian. And she was a powerhouse, and she lived till she was like 89 and they did the documentary, you know as women we don't know our history.
Yeah. So for me it's like that's how I learned. I want to know about the stories because women have accomplished so much that stories are powerful so powerful and so last night I watched Brittany and that was bad because then I couldn't sleep because I was pissed off.
Question 14: Alright, what are your top three unaccomplished items on your bucket list.
Oh my bucket list... Well, I feel fortunate because so many things have achieved and I am achieving in the moment. Next up is I want to do a video series targeted towards men, and how to learn women's bodies. I have always had no interest in working with men.
I'm seeing now that I have a son, that there's no information. I mean feminists were really good about "Our Bodies, Our Selves" and getting information out to women. We actually have a lot of information and support so I'm thinking of that as kind of a new angle to take the same information but package it for a male audience.
So I see that really focusing on that part of things, and then taking a lot of the work and putting it in multiple languages. I see that as a big effort. And I think we can do it. And so as I'm working with clients that information tools that I use, taking those and creating little branded modules in every language and kind of replicating that and then putting it out there for free. Because at the end of the day if you want things to change you can't come at it with a profit motive of I want everyone to pay me. So whether you're an individual or a practitioner. I would love nothing more than getting ripped off and have people all over the world doing methods, saying they're running Bodysex. I think would be fantastic. I would die happy. How's that.
Question 15: Looking back, is there anything you change about your career path.
The only thing I would change is, I would be more aggressive financially at a younger age in the respect of getting what was do I probably would have been more aggressive in that respect, and I tend to be like Betty, like we were very similar that way, very generous and money is also a tool. But at the same token, you know, we both lived in New York City. We had a great time we went out to dinner all the time so you know what else would you need and want, but I feel more like in my legal career.
I wasn't paid equally, and that does bother me. And it kind of undermines my self-esteem at times. And I feel kind of angry about that but you know I let partners or let you know male executives, kind of bully me a little bit. I was very vocal. But then there we go is women, blaming ourselves right. I was more vocal and it was like I was 26 and I was General Counsel of a fortune 500, like I was busy. But I think if I pushed more. It would have been better for me.
Question 16: SHA (Sexual Health Alliance) utilizes social media to reach our members as well as to define new sexuality content and research. How do you think social media has influenced our culture's sexuality?
Well there are positives and negatives right with everything. So negatively. You know, I think, whenever I watch an old movie. I'm always shocked at how like the women in the movies have like regular looking bodies regular like we're so into the manufactured, coiffed, surgically enhanced body and face, that now the expectations are so much greater that you just see people it's like oh, they're just a person.
You know, there's no feature that you're like, Whoa, how did they get those cheekbones or how did they get those lips. That's the creepy part to me is that they're like to that but they're enhancing themselves to look like. Exactly like somebody else, kind of, like, that's why I love watching foreign shows because you see real faces and real teeth. There was a time that people didn't have Chiclets where everything is perfect and super super white. They just have teeth. I feel like it's distracting like I can't watch a post-apocalyptic show like these perfect she's, like, I can't lose it.
So I think that, you know, it's become so hype or whatever I think it's becoming a joke, but I think as a young girl I can't imagine looking at those images and looking at my face in the mirror. I mean, it was hard enough for us with the airbrushing on the cover of fashion mags, And now you have video on tiktok whatever so I think that's kind of all the filters. Nothing's real things are real. Nothing's real, and it's a lie and I think there's a part of that fucks your head up.
On the other side, it's community.
I mean that's what we saw with #metoo started by a woman of color, just saying, Hey, this is what happened to me. Me too. And then everyone came on board and it really changed. I mean, it took decades right? Look at the rape shield laws, the fact we had to fight fight fight fight. And now with the power of like, I'm not alone.
I'm not isolated it's not me, we can't blame ourselves as much and I think that is very unique. I love the female gymnast that came forward and testified for her I have never been prouder of young women because they're risking their endorsements and their reputations to go on the line and call out a system, not a man. Because when you sexually abuse 500 people, everyone knows. Okay, it one or two people maybe they kept it a secret. It's systemic abuse of girls. And when they were calling them out and they stood there was sitting all together. I was like, this is a moment, like I cried. I was never so proud moments like that.
You know, we're out in the light. And we're vocal and people like Reese Witherspoon with her own production company making movies for women and Gwyneth Paltrow, you can say what you want and you can criticize her but she put it on the line and she got an orgasm out there in pop culture, mainstream culture, where it's already over. I think everyone's trying to hold on, like, a what, it was kind of interesting is the two things you're talking about are kind of like the the pendulum swing right when when change happens right so culture is changing, and the reaction the over like the over correction is this real focus on looks and, you know, conformity to that. So it's you know it's all part of the same thing. Well, because if you're trying to hold on to the established mores then women who live up to that are rewarded handsomely, and they are they're making millions and billions of dollars. And you know what, I'm cool with that, just take some of those hard and and follow it support other women to go out and achieve. Yep.
Question 17: What are the two most important things you do every day.
Well, I mean, being a mom, trying to raise a sex-positive boy, you know, that's confident and happy and thoughtful and kind - I say kind a lot. That's always my first role because it's simple. If we liberate women who are the mothers, and then they raise six positive kids we can really change everything in one generation. It was kind of like our hippie moment of. So I thought very seriously. And then I love meeting a new client, always exciting always thrilling, getting to know them because I'm establishing trust. And it's different for every client. So I don't see them as the same I don't put them in categories.
Everyone's unique, everyone has their own process, everyone will get there on their own time, everyone has a different preference. I'm a support system, and with each client, I learned something about myself. I think if you do the work the right way. Every time you do the work you get better. And it's how I felt about workshops, and how I feel about the one on one. And I'm learning. And I was thinking about them like how long way to do this like am I, years old, it like Betty.
I think what keeps you going what keeps my interest is that human sexuality is so deep and so vast and female sexuality is that on steroids. We're just scratching the surface, and there's so much more to learn. And every time I have a new challenge, a new client the new situation. I learned so much.
I always take a piece of that into my personal life. So it's hard to give up. So there aren't many times in life that you can be a renaissance woman, right? So, information you gather on your clients and when I see information it's not about who they were having sex with. It's just like how is sex handled in the home. Did they touch themselves as children? Was there a trauma? Okay, do they touch themselves now? Okay, what worked, what was the process? Was it direct clitoral stimulation? Was it on the shaft? Was it the vaginal opening? What was the response? Was it all of that? And then what's their orgasm build up? And how long did it take, you know? And if you document that it's incredible.
Question 18: What is an area of study or focus within the field of sexuality that you think has been ignored? And what do we do to change that?
So I understand why everyone goes to the advanced stuff. I get it, you know, and everyone's teaching like email classes and we go to the you know the trans movement and all those things are wonderful, necessary. You know, we're writing novels, and people can't read it so it's like, let's teach them all how to be orgasmic and so sexual, let's teach them how to take that into partner sex. And then once that's like in the culture and everyone knows that, then we can move forward with all the advanced stuff.
Because I think the advanced stuff like if you're someone who isn't having an orgasm on a daily basis and when you seek out sex information, it's. There's so much that comes at you that it's overwhelming. Betty always said keep it simple.
I think that's why she was so compelling. She bottom line to everything - just keep it simple. I think that's the argument for sexuality professionals too is that we're kind of the translators of information because there is so much, and there's so much bad inaccurate information out there.
Question 19:What is your favorite story to tell?
Oh, there are so many good stories I like to tell!
It's going to be a Betty story, but there's I'm trying to select so there are a couple so I always tell clients that I love is, um, you know Betty's perception right perceptions are so powerful of everything was an orgasm.
So when she was in her mid-50s, early 60s, she was talking to a friend, "Oh, it's so wonderful I have these new heat orgasms! I'll be walking down the street and all of a sudden I break out and sweat. My heart is racing, and I have this little mini orgasm, I put my hand on my crotch…"
And her friend looked at her and said, "Dodson you're having a hot flash. You’re in menopause."
I love that because we all think menopause-like everything stops sexually, but it's such an opening. Women actually have a higher desire, higher libido, because they have higher testosterone because the estrogen goes down. If the lining of your vagina thins out, you get a little cream, but the clitoris is evergreen.
And you could have orgasms to the day you die, and 50-60s when all of a sudden we can like scrape fertility off the plate.
The kids are usually raised and movin’ out on their own…
Yes, you can have sex with someone because they look good in jeans, like the bar is so low that you can actually have a really great time. Betty and I always remarked how women in their 50s and 60s were prime time.
Oh, I know! I’m livin’ it!
In your 20s and 30s you don't know what you're doing, you're trying to figure it out, you're still hooked on romantic love, and you're super fertile so you're freaked out about getting pregnant.
You're very insecure, typically…
Well because they make you insecure right and that's when you look your best, right, you're the firmest and the thinnest and everything-est. But I love when I work with clients you know if I work with a woman in our 20s or 30s it's harder, because they still believe all the myths right, give me a woman postmenopausal, divorced. They're like, I know it's bullshit and I'm ready.
Question 20: Alright, final question. And we've covered some of this, too, so you have to let me know if there's anything new, tell the world what you're working on, what would you like everyone to know or check out?
Okay, so I... This is a good question, but I'm not...I haven't inked a deal yet. And so I'm very superstitious about this.
So, what do I want people to know? There will be a beautiful project that honors Betty's legacy and tells the complete Betty Dodson story, in the largest way possible. And that's what I'm working on and I'm keeping it very hush hush and because you never know what these things and that's the lawyer in me, but that's what I'm working on.
I'm quite excited about it and I'll be consulting on the project. I always feel closer to her when I’m doing the work or working on a project. I feel like she’s an unsung hero, and I want to sing the song.