Naomi Wolf: live webchat TODAY, Thursday 6 September, 12pm to 1pm

[RachelMumsnet]

Naomi Wolf is joining us for a live webchat on Thursday 6 September at 12 noon. Naomi's latest book, Vagina - A New Biography, has attracted major media attention this month and we're delighted she's joining us to tell us more about the book and answer your questions. 

Described as 'exhilarating and groundbreaking', Vagina combines cultural history, physiology and personal memoir to explore the role of female desire and how it affects female identity, creativity and confidence.

Naomi Wolf is author of seven books including the bestseller, The Beauty Myth. She travels regularly to speak about gender equality and social justice. She lives in New York and is working towards a doctorate at New College, Oxford University. 

Please post your question to Naomi in advance, or set the date in your diary to join us this Thursday at midday to chat to Naomi 'live'.

[OatyBeatie]

That's good, Hully. If you only get clitoral orgasms you have to do the Quick Crossword, which is literal, mechanical, penile. Only the mystery of vaginal organism breaks your soul through to the mysterious metaphorical relalm of the cryptic.If Freud had realised that, he could have established his distinctions between different kinds of female orgasm much more easily, on the basis of women's crossword preferences.

[MyDogShitsMoney]

Great link Chaya.

Seriously though, why is this so funny?

Why am I clutching my sides at the idea of my flaps pulling faces?

I've been actual lol'ing at the [vadgeemoticons] since yesterday. Am I 12?

[perplexedvagina]

[Hullygully]

This morning I stroked myself for ten minutes and then my vagine did the cryptic crossword in seven!

[chaya5738]

Oh look, Naomi Wolf's credibility as a commentator/authority on Assange allegations questioned again:

samtycke.nu/eng/2012/09/the-assange-case-naomi-wolf-errs-on-facts-and-basic-geography/

[GetOrfAKAMrsUsainBolt]

Wolf gah

[GetOrfAKAMrsUsainBolt]

I LOVE YOU ALL

Deep respect for the intelligent comments and questions asked by so many of you.

I cannot believe the trite, dismissive and plainly unintelligent responses from Wolfe. This reads like a parody. She has made herself look completely ridiculous, which is extraordinary.

[ShiirleyKnott]

That means you will now like me 10% more plus we won't have to argue about the quark thing.

Sorry, my vagina is being sarcastic.

[pofacedalways]

whilst the female insurer was here assessing water leak damage dh metaphorically stroked her for much more than 10 minutes. [cynical vagina]

[BIWI]

Low fat cream cheese
[helpfulvagina]

[ShiirleyKnott]

I can't work out what a quark is.

[IawnCont]

No, not a hat. A fascinator. It's more celebratory. [jollyvadge]

[SuperB0F]

My family planning clinic won't do Dutch caps any more [sadvagina]

[ThisWeekonFancyPuffin]

In all seriousness I'm now very worried that I have a [sadvagina] I need to sort this ASAP.


I think I will buy it a hat

[AitchTwoOhOneTwo]

while my vagine gently weeps...

[FushiaFernica]

This webchat took me totally by surprise. I only knew Naomi Wolf from one book that I read 'Misconceptions' during pregnancy. How out of my depth was I? The Mumsnetters that posed those challenging questions were brilliant. Yesterday I had a look on her performance on Newsnight on 3rd Sept where she discussed the Julian Assange case with Jeremy Paxman, she even attempts to plug her new book at the end of his conversation, it is shocking.

[IawnCont]

Your vagina rarely comes up in conversation? You poor repressed soul... :o

[MyDogShitsMoney]

to be honest my vagina rarely comes up in conversation

please stop, I can't take anymore!

[MySpanielHell]

I do refer to my vagina as a vagina, although to be honest my vagina rarely comes up in conversation. I don't think it makes me less repressed though.

[IawnCont]

I just don't get it. I am probably thick may be in denial, but I really have no issues whatsoever with my vagina. And I don't really get the "let's own the word VAGINA!" I no more use the word vagina than I do call my elbow my olecranon. I don't think that makes me repressed. I know no men who refer to their dicks as penises either.

[NormaStanleyFletcher]

@ garlic

[TunipTheVegemal]

As it happens I used to generally do my best writing after a break-up when I was getting no sex at all. I have never in my life found that orgasms unlock creativity.
If Naomi does that's very nice for her but cherry-picking neurology to try and impose that on everyone else is ridiculous.
I'm all for people writing books about the vagina but it is immensely depressing when people get the impression that this ill-judged unscientific narcissistic twaddle is in any way representative of contemporary feminism - when there is so much politically engaged, outward-looking, well-researched new feminist writing out there.

[MyDogShitsMoney]

personally I'm okay with my vagina. We get on.

Actual roar!

[ShirelyKnort]

" it is more than infuriating to be given a version of the male claim that all I need is a good seeing to"

YES!

[OatyBeatie]

Having read the Levy article I feel quite angry about Wolf's book. She really does seem to claim that if you don't get good enough orgasms you can not be a creative person. I very often struggle to write the things I want to write and it is more than infuriating to be given a version of the male claim that all I need is a good seeing to, even (and perhaps especially) when that male claim is softened by resort to pseudoscience and a bizarre mystification of my body. It is a vast irrelevance, which is bad enough, but it is also such a retrograde and diminishing one.