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'.

I don't agree that female masturbation is taboo.

It is not MALE masturbation- but who cares? But it is not taboo.

I wouldn't want to walk around with my mates saying "had an amazing wank last night". I'm fine us talking like we do about it. It doesn't empower me to talk in intricate detail about my wank life.

what utter hogwash.

the woman's vagina has been targeted throughout history to stop her getting neurochemical hits that would 'empower' her?

we know why the vagina has been targeted - women's sexuality and reproductive potential is targeted for control because women are the sex class and men want to control them to exploit them in every way possible and build their patriarchy upon their free labour and exploitation.

have you any idea how trivialising and pomo intellectually masturbating this all sounds?

what a sad end.

I will read and write

@mcmooncup

I think there is a phrase "blinded by science". Naomi, this science stuff about how to get yourself off is really diverting from the true problems that women face in their sexuality.

I want to add that these issues are part of how women are kept down in all other ways -- thousands of copies of the book for instance have been ordered for India, where women are punished for being sexual in all kinds of ways. Refugee women in London, I was told by an advocate yesterday, are fleeing sexual abuse and courts don't take it seriously. A book that asserts that our sexuality and what happens to the vagina is very serious and consequential is a political act tied to all kinds of other oppression women face.

'Because it covers up malfeasance and prosecutorial neglect, no one is accountable to rape victims for low conviction rates and rapists go free.'

But anonymity is a completely separate issue from those things. Victims who wish to waive their anonymity to complain about neglect by police and prosecution can choose to do so, and many do.
How exactly is naming of victims supposed to lead to greater accountability? And what prevents it deterring large numbers of victims from coming forward?

Why do men need to read your book to learn how not to be arses and therefore get more sex?

"Because it covers up malfeasance and prosecutorial neglect"

Can you explain that a bit more clearly please? Are you only referring to the American or UK justice system?

You are aware, aren't you, of the strong societal pressures against women reporting rape and the persecution (see the Assange case) of any women who does publicly name their rapist? Surely working, as you have claimed, in rape crisis centres has made you aware of this? How then, do you propose to defend women who do report rape from the societal backlash that she will inevitably suffer?

Dear ms Wolf,
since rapists and other abusive males really are the number one thing that leads to vaginal/female unhappiness, it would be really excellent if you went ahead with your promise to write an official apology for defending Assange.

@mcmooncup

I will read and write

I appreciate that. I want to extend that invitation to everyone here -- it would be wonderful to have this discussion or a followup after you have had the chance to read it, even if you get it from a library....please do contact me with your thoughts, suggestions, opinions...

you may well have found out some interesting brain rewards that come from sex and that women miss out on when having shit or no sex. fine. that could be interesting to some.

but to then make out that it is some universal explanation for women's subjugation is ridiculous! this is an interesting biproduct of women's sexual control NOT the cause of it.

do you really believe this is why the vagina has been targeted as a site for control?

@FastidiaBlueberry

Why do men need to read your book to learn how not to be arses and therefore get more sex?

No one I know knew, for instance, that women's bodies react to being stroked (nonsexually) differently than men's do, so a woman's heart rate lowers and her oxytocin levels rise (making her like the stroker 10% more) after just ten minutes of stroking. So many couples in trouble are trying this rather than arguing verbally and they send me emails saying how much easier it hasd made communication. Many other such science-based findings that help men understand and support women.

Borrow it from a Library?

Chance would be a fine thing. You should have a look at what is happening to the libraries in the UK Naiomi.

so we all just need to have more sex and all be well.

add that to rape apologism and it sounds awfully.... well... familiar.

I'm not going to read it. You don't sound like someone who has women's best interests at heart anymore. It's a shame.

Tantric sex. I mean you couldn't make this shit up.

@swallowedAfly

you may well have found out some interesting brain rewards that come from sex and that women miss out on when having shit or no sex. fine. that could be interesting to some.

but to then make out that it is some universal explanation for women's subjugation is ridiculous! this is an interesting biproduct of women's sexual control NOT the cause of it.

do you really believe this is why the vagina has been targeted as a site for control?

I do, categorically. Dopamine makes women: assertive, motivated, goal-oriented, confident. The multiorgasmic potentail of women makes them uncontrollable if they have good sexual knowledge and are treated well sexually. Female genital mutilation is an excellent illustration of the power of this -- Dr Deborah Coady and Nancy Fish, experts in the pelvic nerve, agree that cutting women in this way lowers the dopamine boost to the brain. Cutting the vagina is a way of controlling the feminist impulses in the brain.

i'm beginning to think feminism should operate like alcoholics anonymous and at the level of press and publication no one should use their real name or be identifiable so fame and being courted by patriarchs couldn't turn their heads.

:o Stroking. When my husband annoys me and I tell him so, he should just say "shhhhh" and start stroking me gently, as if I was a cat. That's so much better than arguing verbally. Just to shut up and be stroked. :o

"Feminist impulse in the brain"?????

Where, in the Flying Spagetti Monster's Name is the site of the brain's "Feminist Impulse"?? And could you please send me links to the research papers that have mapped it.

See, I just find this all really daft. The reason men "target" the vagina isn't because that's where our brains are kept.

it does a fair bit more than effect her neural boosts. trivialising again.

and you don't think reproductive control and ensuring paternity and the transmission of property (including females) was a more immediate and pressing reason for men to control women's sexuality? you think they sat round instead and said these women get awfully uppity when they have orgasms so let's make sure they don't enjoy sex?

I had an episiotomy once. I could have been such an awesome feminist if I hadn't .

Avocats, exercise, pumpkin seeds and bananas increase dopamine levels.