Plan B Forum

MEADVILLE – Allegheny College’s Ford Memorial Chapel was transformed into a boudoir of sorts Wednesday night, as professional sex educators advised students in attendance how best to touch themselves and their partners to reach orgasm in what was billed as an educational seminar.

The chapel, built and dedicated in 1902, is where Catholic mass and non-denominational services are conducted every week at the private liberal arts college in northwestern Pennsylvania. But all that took a back pew to Wednesday’s festivities, dubbed “I Heart the Female Orgasm” and hosted by a variety of student groups on campus.

The two sex educators, Marshall Miller and Kate Weinberg, talked students through a variety of masturbation techniques during the event.

“Sometimes it can be difficult finding your G spot by yourself, because it involves inserting a finger or fingers inside the vagina into the front wall of the body, and that kind of results in an awkward, kind of clawlike hand position,” Weinberg said, demonstrating with a pawing motion as the audience giggled. “Obviously, there are better ways you can position your body. Or if you’ve got a partner, you can get your partner to insert their finger or fingers inside your vagina in the front wall of your body in a sort of a J curve.”

Miller also weighed in, noting “some (women) find that if they change the angle or position, they can find some way of rubbing against their partner’s body, against the base of his penis or pubic bone, and with rubbing to have enough stimulation to orgasm in intercourse.”

In statements to The College Fix, the college’s chaplain defended the event’s location, calling its theme “responsible,” and a campus spokesperson said it offered a “great message.”

While the chapel is hosting services in conjunction with Lent, on Wednesday the building turned into a sexual marketplace of sorts, as student groups sold buttons, t-shirts and hats bearing the program’s name inside the chapel itself after the event concluded. They also sold the book written by program coordinators Marshall Miller and Dorian Solot titled “I Heart Female Orgasm: An Extraordinary Orgasm Guide.”

Meanwhile, the sex educators had also told students masturbation is not a sin.

“Some people figure out masturbation and orgasm as teenagers, some people figure it out later than that,” said Weinberg, describing her lifelong fascination with pleasuring herself. “And some people figure it out earlier than that. Like preschool age. I was part of that last category.”

Weinberg also weighed in on a portion of the Book of Genesis in regard to masturbation.

“So this primary anti-masturbation story is about this guy, Onan. … And Onan refused to sleep with his brother’s wife, so he spilled his seed on the ground — that’s how it’s defined — and for that, God struck him dead,” she said.

But Weinberg said she believes that because Biblical scholars debate the exact meanings of many portions of the Bible, it permits a wide variety of sexual activity.

“A lot of Bible scholars say that’s the primary anti-masturbation story, but I don’t really see it,” she continued. “Onan wasn’t struck dead for masturbating. He was struck down for not sleeping with his brother’s wife. So the masturbation wasn’t the sin. So obviously, you know, the Bible is something that is interpreted in a lot of different ways.”

During the event, Weinberg and Miller played the famous fake orgasm scene from “When Harry Met Sally” on a projected screen, and also displayed different anatomical diagrams depicting women’s genitals.

“If you’ve got a vagina, your genitals are tucked pretty neatly inside your body. It’s a pretty handy place to keep one’s genitals, really. But because of this, many heterosexual women have never seen another woman’s vagina or vulva,” Weinberg said. “If you’ve got cool dangly parts down there, if you’re voluptuous, if one side’s longer than the other, if your va-jay-jay’s got some character, some personality, it’s not a sign that you’re abnormal and deformed. It’s a sign that you’re a healthy adult woman.”

Weinberg later held up two books titled I’ll Show You Mine and Petals, encouraging students to flip through them after the program: “We’ve got two amazing books up here with pages and pages of art photographs of vaginas and vulvas.”

The event was hosted by Allegheny’s student government and Allegheny College’s Reproductive Health Coalition, along with Young Feminists and Queers and Allies. It was funded by student activities fees.

Student reaction to the seminar was mixed.

One Christian student, Shannon McAvinchey, 20, said the school’s student government supported Christian groups on campus and were not trying to intentionally offend Christian students by hosting the event in the chapel. At the same time, however, she said some students’ attitudes towards Christians troubled her.

“I guess what frustrates me most is when you say you’re a Christian, your views are automatically not so much disrespected as dismissed,” McAvinchey said.

Other students, however, were excited on their way to the chapel, chatting and laughing happily.

“I have needs!” one girl said.

“I have condoms! Jesus!” her friend shrieked.

Officials at the college took a blasé attitude toward the event.

Chaplain Jane Ellen Nickel, who conducts non-denominational Christian services each Sunday and manages the office of Spiritual and Religious Life, said in an email to The College Fix that she saw nothing wrong with the event, and hoped students would feel comfortable attending a religious service there later.

“I don’t have a problem with it being held in the chapel. The program advocates responsible, respectful decision-making regarding sexual behavior, and includes the option waiting for marriage, a message that resonates with many students of faith. While the name may have some shock value, the event itself is consistent with our policy of opening the building to campus groups. We would love it if students at such an event experience the chapel as a welcoming space, and then feel encouraged to attend a religious service or program.”

Another campus administrator told The College Fix he had no problem with the event’s location.

“They have a great message about caring relationships,” said Dean of Students Joe DiChristina in an e-mail. “I appreciated their approach.”

Fix contributor Katie McHugh is a student at Allegheny College.

Big RR wrote:I fail to see the problem; a university building was used for a university sponsored event.

Gob wrote:It wasn't so much the building used which surprised me, but that students needed instruction in how to wank and screw. I thought that was the main activity at college, it certainly was for me.

RayThom wrote:
Or maybe an oral exam?

If the high volume of answers in the negative to the question “Is foreplay necessary?” from straight men on dating site OkCupid are any indication, there are still a helluva lot of dudes out there who don’t really know how women work.

Consequently it’s often been up to women to take matters into their own hands, as it were (we all remember the “massage wand”-shopping episode of Sex & The City: “That will burn your clit off” “Even with underwear?” “Even with ski pants”).

Time and time again, studies like the Durex Global Survey indicate a lack of satisfaction when it comes to sex: not long enough, not enough orgasms, and so on. If it’s not due to men’s lack of nous, it’s chalked down to women’s lack of awareness of their own capacity for pleasure.

Heartening news on the latter front, then, comes - ahem - to us from the University of Minnesota, which is the latest campus to offer a course entitled “The Female Orgasm”.

Lest that bring to mind this classic image (safe for work, unless your work has a problem with stern looking scientists in lab coats), the free short course is open to all interested students, and promises to maximise, well, it should be obvious.



Hosted by sex educators Sex Discussed Here (aka Marshall Miller and Kate Weinberg), the course description calls for “Orgasm aficionados and beginners of all genders [...] to come learn about everything from multiple orgasms to that mysterious G-spot”.

And lest you write it off as some sort of Joy Of Sex-era love fest with lots of sensual massage, Miller and Weinberg’s course rundown impressively adds that they offer “An emphasis on individuals making sexual decisions that are right for them, including whether to use the information now or when married or in a serious relationship” and note that “people who are well-informed about sexual topics are more likely to make healthy decisions about the risks associated with sex. The program is inclusive of people of all genders and sexual orientations.”

I hope I’m not alone in applauding the fact that universities are hosting sex education events like this.

We should by now be well versed in the dangers of abstinence-only sex ed, which has gained a foothold in many schools and institutions worldwide, not to mention the looming spectre of the church in those schools that do offer “normal” sex ed. With that in mind, it’s perhaps not surprising that university-aged people might feel the need to learn more about female orgasm. It’s also vitally important from a health perspective.

As TheVine’s Alyx Gorman wrote last year, “While male contraceptive pills are still a while off, the armies of unsheathed members that bang against young women’s doors are not. [...] There’s no doubt we’ve made great strides towards equality, but women are still socialised to be passive. The idea that our egos should be bound to our ability to keep men happy is also reinforced in the media we consume, and frequently, the conversations we have amongst ourselves. This makes that old chestnut ‘If it’s not on, it’s not on’ doubly hard to say.”

Then again, it’s important not to see the emergence of courses such as Sex Discussed Here’s as existing solely to answer a lack of education; despite the best (worst?) efforts of their school system, young people - shock, horror - are interested in sex and how to do it safely.

Australian students have already expressed a desire for more (and better) sex education to be offered earlier in their school careers; similarly, there has been a push for sex education to be added to the National Curriculum.

Whichever way you look at it, I hope that courses like The Female Orgasm spread like wildfire - and then maybe one day we can finally even out the old “Average length of time it takes a woman to have an orgasm: 20 minutes. Average length of time it takes a man: 2-5 minutes” stats.

As TheVine’s Alyx Gorman wrote last year, “While male contraceptive pills are still a while off, the armies of unsheathed members that bang against young women’s doors are not.

Gob wrote:This sounds like fun....

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Hosted by sex educators Sex Discussed Here (aka Marshall Miller and Kate Weinberg),