By Crystal Hederson

Staff Writer

In a very special Valentine’s Day tribute, the documentary “Orgasm, Inc.: The Strange Science of Female Pleasure” by filmmaker Liz Canner was screened on campus as a way for students to explore sexuality.

 The Health and Wellness Center and the Academic Affairs’ Linked Learning Community teamed up to bring this provocative film about the cultural, social and business aspects of women’s sexual problems to campus. Before the event, Professor Virginia Rutter said, “The approach of the film is to look at the way the pharmaceutical industry has taken interest in female sexuality.”

The event was not just a documentary screening, but a panel of speakers as well. The panel included Rutter, Wellness Center Health Educator Pam Lehmberg and History Professor Bridgette Sheriden. Sheriden and Rutter both teach classes concerning sexuality. It also included Framingham State students Keyona Bell, a senior history major and participant in Hilltop’s “Vagina Monologues,” Dan Jalonski, a senior English major and former adult video store employee and Angelique Bouthot, a freshman sociology major who takes part in sociological research.

The panel’s discussion, which took place after the screening, facilitated conversations about genuine health problems which interfere with pleasure, and the way that sexuality and pleasure are treated in people’s lives.

Rutter stated that this event was “organized to raise awareness of physical health and sexual health, and also to raise awareness about the kinds of social pressures and programming that we have on something so seemingly private as pleasure and orgasms.”

The focus of the film is what is referred to as Female Sexual Dysfunction, or the inability to achieve orgasm during intercourse. The film argues that the pharmaceutical companies use the fear of being abnormal to get women to search for a “quick fix” solution.

A survey from the early ‘90s, which was broadly covered in the news, stated that 43 percent of women had a sexual dysfunction. At the time, women feared that they were part of that 43 percent.

Later, the survey conductor came forward, saying the majority of those women who were reported as having sexual dysfunction were perfectly normal. which was reported by the survey conductor.

According to the film, women often seek out medical solution to treat their perceived abnormality, not realizing that trials funded by pharmaceutical companies have a 60 percent chance of steering women toward drugs, regardless of the women’s actual needs.

Rutter said, “The topic of pleasure gets neglected. In the past, sex was for procreation. Now, we have a well understood separation between sex for pleasure and sex for procreation. It’s great to have big, open discussions where we discuss how pleasure is discussed.”

Lehmberg, one of the event’s panelists, was “thrilled to be on a panel about pleasure, because I usually discuss the negative effects of sex.”

She also said there are some medications and some medical issues that can cause a change in libido, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that a woman has a sexual dysfunction.

Bouthot wanted to view female sexual dysfunction as a social problem.

“Problems don’t speak for themselves, so what makes us care about female sexual dysfunction … wasn’t that more women were suddenly suffering … [it was that] somebody told us that there was a problem,” she said.

Bouthot also pointed out that within the film, Leonore Tiefer, who fought against pharmaceutical companies at an FDA approval hearing, said sexual dysfunction is not necessarily a problem, but is natural.

Bell captured the underlying statement perfectly, saying, “The sense of what is normal, and I think that’s a question, is just like the question of sex and pleasure that no one truly openly talks about. It’s something that is behind closed doors.

“Tonight we are going to openly talk about it which is what we need to do.”

Jalonski said there is “definitely a consumer-driven, bargain-driven aspect to promoting these pills and these creams.” He said the adult video store at which he worked had college-age customers who would come in and buy products for treating sexual disfunction, and did not believe that they necessarily needed them. In discussing adult movies, he said that “It’s not necessarily how things are done in the real world, and it’s not necessarily normal.”

After the panel, the audience participated in a discussion with the panel members, which lasted nearly 20 minutes.

[Editors note: Dan Jalonski is a member of The Gatepost editorial staff]