By Tess Nissen
Female pleasure both sexual and gastronomic have been systematically and pervasively controlled.
Female masturbation is no longer taboo. When strict lockdowns hit Spain due to the COVID-19 pandemic, projected sales of vibrators increased over 300%. In the United States alone sales of vibrators have increased exponentially and continued to rise during COVID-19 social distancing parameters. Women are feeling more entitled to the pleasure they deserve, encouraged by everything from marketing campaigns for vibrators and lubricants to popular rap songs. Scroll through Instagram with your volume up and you’re likely to hear W.A.P. (Wet Ass Pussy), by artists Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion. On TV, female masturbation has been performed by characters not purely for their own pleasure, but to arouse their male counterparts. The new “woke” version of encouraging female pleasure via pop culture is important, but the discrepancies between male and female pleasure in heterosexual relationships remain.
Women’s justification for faking an orgasm during sex is demonstrative of deeply rooted issues of sexism. TV and movies have historically ingrained in us that sex is completed after the man ejaculates. An example would be the opening scene of Bridesmaids (2011) featuring Jon Hamm and Kristen Wiig. Also depicted are men and women reaching climax simultaneously which only leads to self-doubt and disappointment. Some movies make fun of this act of simultaneous orgasm by portraying fake orgasms, because most commonly women are faking it (Easy A; Forgetting Sarah Marshall). However, in Knocked Up Seth Rogen fakes an orgasm with Katherine Heigl (which he blames on her being pregnant). Even in parody, does this encourage female audiences to perform their pleasure for the pleasure of their partners?
In fall of 2020 I wrote this paper for Professor Amy Bentley’s Food and Culture class. We were introduced to a range of topics: how people use food to define themselves as individuals; we examined food in different cultures by exploring the way that ethnicity, gender, socioeconomic status and religion impact our food choices of preferences. Throughout the semester we wrote three major papers, building off topics inspired by our readings and related to food.
The ability to fake orgasms has always fascinated me, and I remember when a friend confessed to me that she was faking orgasms with her boyfriend. She knew what a real orgasm was (she had a vibrator), but found herself doing it anyway. Her reason was that she didn’t want to hurt his feelings and didn’t know how to reverse what she had done; she had gotten good at it. I wondered if other women I knew were doing this too. If she could successfully experience pleasure alone with her vibrators, but not with her boyfriend, who was at fault? Only in pop culture did I hear references to women performing orgasms. However, when I was introduced to the theory of normative discontent, it was clearly relevant to faking orgasms. Female normative discontent is used to describe the way that women feel about their bodies. Normalized dissatisfaction with our bodies impacts our daily food choices. Although this essay is focused on cisgender women, it is this writer’s opinion that more research is needed on nonbinary or non-gender specific pleasure. In my research I found sources pertaining to people with vulvas who were described (or self-identified) as women who faked orgasm. Pleasure and performances of pleasure, regardless of gender identity or expression, needs more research. Pleasure gaps occur between white Anglo-Saxon women, African American women, Latina, Asian-American and Native American women, as well as in women in lesbian and bisexual relationships. Transgender women experience a disproportionate amount of sexual violence and hate. Research by Becky Wangsgaard Thompson explores how eating problems among women are methods of coping with trauma, specifically among women who identify as Lesbian, African American, Latina, Asian American, Native American, or working class.
In “A Way Outa No Way”: Eating Problems among African-American, Latina, and White Women, Thompson explains the scope in which eating problems and eating disorders have been studied via biomedical, psychological and feminist models. The feminist model points to gender socialization and why sexism may be the culprit for eating problems. This model emphasizes the culture of thinness and defines why “these difficulties are rooted in systematic and pervasive attempts to control women’s body sizes and appetites”. Female pleasure both sexual and gastronomic have been systematically and pervasively controlled. Control as a form and display of power is something that we see in women as they grapple with the constraints that society has placed on them. Women are required to show up in ways men are not required to. We ask ourselves why women are faking their pleasure and if there is a legitimate rationale for faking an orgasm. Where do women go from here?
“Normative discontent is applicable not only to women’s relationship with food but also their relationships with sex and pleasure” (Nissen, 2020). Female normative discontent is predicated on a system that emphasizes performance over pleasure. Faking orgasms and laughing while eating sad salads are both things that are exhausting symptoms of female normative discontent. “Sexuality, desire, pleasure are applicable to academic conversations occurring in the realm of food studies, specifically, among studies of body and consumption as exhibited by popular media and culture positioning consuming certain foods in a way to enhance sex” (Nissen, 2020). Sad salads are a product of provisions of curated eating which advise exclusion of certain food groups from one’s diet. I propose that the pervasive numbers of women who have faked orgasms during sex is akin to the amount of women who fake pleasure related to diets. Women’s historic obligation to provide male pleasure has permeated all areas of our lives from faking orgasms to controlling our bodies through curated eating. By examining the history of the female orgasm, the evolution of the diet scene as curated eating and analysis on female performances of pleasure it is my assertion the correlation is consistent.
History of Female Orgasm
Eighteenth-century notions of chastity became associated with status and thus, a lack of sexual desire became linked with womanliness and social mobility. Nineteenth-century views of women’s sexuality sidelined orgasm as a possible, but not necessarily important, event: “The female is expected to reach orgasm during coitus, but if she does not, the legitimacy of the act as ‘real sex’ is not thereby diminished”. Thus, the Victorian era normalized lack of orgasm and women’s distance from their sexuality. Women were no longer entitled to sexual pleasure, and Angus McLaren wrote in the late 18th century, “the rights of women to sexual pleasure were not enhanced, but eroded as an unexpected consequence of the elaboration of more sophisticated models of reproduction”. Medical professionals of the 19th century got it wrong. According to research, orgasm is linked to stress reduction, curbing appetite, boosting hormone levels, enhancing sleep and heightening one’s sense of smell.
Faking Orgasm
Feminists have asserted women faking orgasms is a sign of male-centered sexuality. In a society that celebrates male sexual satisfaction, women may feel pressured to engage in acts that bring their male partners to orgasm but do not provide them in mutual satisfaction. In 1967, a female discussion group analyzed their motivations for faking orgasms, concluding that faking was in direct response to pressures placed upon them by men. As such the urge to fake an orgasm often sits in the broader context of other problems with sexual repression or male-centered sexuality. Many of the women reported also experiencing feelings such as sexual rejection by their partners, or on the other hand, unwanted sexual attention. Some women were afraid to tell their partners what they wanted, while others said their partners resented being told what the women wanted.
Curated Eating
Curated eating of the 21st century is the evolved version of conventional dieting, which includes calorie counting and reduction. Curated eating is a result of the over abundance of food and a lack of food rules. Food rules alleviate the stress of choosing what to eat and when to eat. Curated eating does not specifically prescribe salads, but encourages the exclusion of entire food groups “no bread” or “eliminate carbs entirely” (keto) to encourage the consumption of more fruits and vegetables. Increased consumption of more produce is not negative, but when the food you have eliminated is the food you desire most it leads to heightened desires and elevated ideations. What you can’t have becomes impossible to ignore. Anecdotal evidence follows the same pattern here, as I observe the refusal of fresh bread to accompany vegan gluten-free soup by women on a daily basis. I observe this at work at East Village Organic. We sell vegan soups that come with a slice of bread. I have never kept a count but women seem more likely to say no to bread than men. And women will say "no, I shouldn't have any bread" whereas men will say "oh yes please" and welcome the slice of bread.
Normative Discontent
Emily Contois’s analysis of normative discontent describes the dissatisfaction most women feel about their bodies, and it is applicable to their sex lives and experiences of pleasure with men. Through a feminist lens it is asserted that theories of hierarchies of taste are applicable to sexual pleasure in heterosexual relationships. This is apparent in that women who have sex with men are at the center of sexual distress, target market for solutions and the largest appetite for sexual recovery. This informs us that male pleasure is positioned above that of women. Contois asserts that “social conventions require women to pursue thinness, control their appetites, take up less space, and embody a state of lack”. She continues, “social conventions seek to constrain women's appetites for both sex and food, demanding chaste morality in and through ‘good’ eating and foods, like sad salads. As a result social expectations for female thinness cause unending feelings for women that one’s body is not good enough”.
Contois argues that the women depicted in images from Hairpin’s “Women Laughing Alone with Salad” are “fused together by a nonessential embrace of lack, in which women do not just consume salad, they do it joyfully in a state of nearly orgasmic unconsumption.” We know that women have been oppressed by nutritionism, and as Fabio Parasecoli demonstrates in "Feeding Hard Bodies”, this same rhetoric in men’s magazines suggests a desire to control their bodies, too: “This rhetoric proposes a strong desire to control not only one’s body appearance, but also to curb one’s desires and appetites”.
Examples of Women Performing Pleasure
For women, curated eating and orgasms both prompt performances of pleasure. Studies demonstrate that women have been faking orgasms for years. In one study, 25 percent of women self-reported faking an orgasm every time they have sex. How often do we see women experiencing pleasure purely for themselves and not to arouse their male counterparts? On TV, in movies and in books we see women experiencing pleasure; Meg Ryan’s fake orgasm at the Katz’s Delicatessen in “When Harry Met Sally,” appears to be authentic, but we know it was only a performance (see image below). Also below is an excerpt from Women Laughing Alone with Salad, a photo-essay from Hairpin features images of women joyfully consuming lettuce. The resemblance between the two is uncanny.
I assert the pressure to fake an orgasm is similar to pressure to control one’s body through curated eating which can result in the elimination of entire food groups or taking on drastic diets (juicing exclusively, raw vegan diets, etc) which assure life-changing magical results much like the promise or the misogynistic phrase of how all her problems could be solved if she could only get laid. When it comes to giving up bread and pasta and faking orgasms, one of these is not like the other. One is casually discussed in public (food avoidance) and one is not (unfulfilled pleasure) but both are components of female normative discontent.
Conclusion
Giving up what you enjoy is the theme here; and for what, exactly, are women giving up? One must wonder the broader implications of a society where women are historically expected to be the symbolic representation of restraint. This restraint forced women to deny their desires for sexual pleasure in order to make room for mens. Women performing pleasure satisfies the male sexual appetite, but what if women no longer had to perform, what if it was a true experience of pleasure that satisfied all? How women experience themselves when performing a “fake” orgasm is what leads to private dealings of normative discontent or dissatisfaction. A shift to a society in which women are giving an equal opportunity to orgasm and a right to enjoy the food they want; that’s not too much to ask for, right?
To continue this research, I would like to interview women about their “performance experiences”. All interview content will be kept anonymous. If you are interested in being interviewed, please contact Tess Nissen at tan319(at )nyu.edu.
References & Further Reading
Allison, A. (1991). “Japanese Mothers and Obentos: The Lunch Box as Ideological State Apparatus” Food and Culture 3rd edition. (via NYUC).
Bentley, A. (2004). The Other Atkins Revolution: Atkins and the Shifting Culture of Dieting. Gastronomica 4:3(Summer 2004): 34-45. Retrieved on NYU Classes.
Bentley, A. (2016). Growing Concerns. Times Literary Supplement, March 25, 2016. Retrieved on NYU Classes.
Bentley, A. (2020) Food and Culture. December 1, 2020. New York University.
Carrington, C. (1999) “Feeding Lesbigay Families.” Food and Culture 3rd edition. (via NYUC).
Contois, E. (2020). “Laughing Alone with Salad: Nutrition-Based Inequality in Women’s Diet and Wellness Media”
Dickson, EJ. (2020). “Thanks to COVID-19, Internet-Connected Sex Toy Sales Are Booming.” Rolling Stone, Rolling Stone, 9 June 2020, www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/teledildonics-remote-sex-toy-sales-covid19-coronavirus-pandemic-975140/.
Fahs, B., Dudy, M., & Stage, S. (Eds.). (2013). The moral panics of sexuality. ProQuest Ebook Central https://ebookcentral-proquest-com.proxy.library.nyu.edu
Fahs, B. (2011). Getting, Giving, Faking, Having: Orgasm and the Performance of Pleasure (33). Performing Sex: The Making and Unmaking of Women’s Erotic Lives.
Gordon, Naomi. “The Creator of Netflix’s You on Why That Female Masturbation Scene Was so Important.” Cosmopolitan, Cosmopolitan, 6 Feb. 2019, www.cosmopolitan.com/uk/love-sex/sex/a25934404/netfix-you-female-masturbation-scene-so-important
Iovine, Anna. (2020). “Sex Toy Sales Are Skyrocketing Because of Social Distancing.”
Mashable, Mashable, 25 Mar. 2020, mashable.com/article/sex-toy-sales-coronavirus/.
Parasecoli, F. ( (2005). “Feeding Hard Bodies: Food and Masculinity in Men’s Fitness Magazines.” Food and Culture 3rd edition. (via NYUC).
“Women in the labor force: a databook” (PDF). US Bureau of Labor Statistics. December 2018. Retrieved 24 August 2019.
Shulman, A. K., (1980). Sex and Power: Sexual Bases of Radical Feminism. Signs, Vol. 5, No. 4, Women: Sex and Sexuality. pp. 590-604.
Thompson, B. “A WAY OUTA NO WAY”: Eating Problems among African-American, Latina, and White Women.
Zimmerman, E. (2011) Women Laughing Alone With Salad. The Hairpin. Retrieved from https://www.thehairpin.com/2011/01/women-laughing-alone-with-salad/
Tess Nissen sells groceries by day and studies intersections of food and culture, pleasure and justice by night.