The female orgasm commanded attention and spoke directly to readers in UConn English professor Gina Barreca’s recent article in The Chronicle of Higher Education.
The article, appropriately title “The Female Orgasm Speaks for Herself,” addresses the notion that the female orgasm is a mystery or illusive. Barreca chose to take this serious topic head on with humor, making it engaging and less daunting.
“Humor helps approach topics that are taboo,” Barreca said. “I think being relaxed and having fun is important to writing.”
Instead of writing a stuffy piece about orgasms or lecturing her audience on her viewpoints, Barreca chose to write as if the orgasm was speaking for herself.
“She would have a wider audience than I would,” Barreca said. “Let her speak for herself.”
“She,” the female orgasm, talks about how she likes to come out in relaxing or intimate situations. She doesn’t need a red carpet or a limo.
“I don’t need a big party, a lot of decorations, too much to drink, or a whole lot of fuss,” she said in Barreca’s article.
She talks about how she does not like to come out in tense situations and does not like pressure. Her biggest pet peeve is when people try to impersonate her.
“I just feel sorry for those people who fall for the bad acting and confuse a terrible performance by a second-rate wannabe for the real thing,” she said.
Barreca said she was inspired to give the female orgasm a voice by a series that used to be in “Readers Digest” called “I am Joe’s…” Joe’s organs would speak about different ailments they were experiencing. She said she always enjoyed reading them.
Barreca was prompted to write this piece in response to blogger David P. Barash in The Chronicle. He wrote a series of posts about the evolutionary history of the female orgasm. Barreca said she wanted to dispel the mindset that it is a mystery.
“It didn’t seem to me like it needed to be on the SciFi channel,” she said.
“Many people think of it like it is big foot. It’s silly,” Barreca said. The same discussion, the same language and the same cultural view of the female orgasm has been around since the 1970s. She said everyone needs to “get over it.”
“If it’s illusive to you, maybe it’s a problem with you,” Barreca said to men who still have trouble understanding it.
This article is written by a student writer from the Her Campus at U Conn chapter.