Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center's Barbara Fildes and Nurse Practitioner Brenda Woodward held a discussion with the attention-grabbing title of "Let's Talk About Sex! The Mechanics of Pleasure" last night in Filene Auditorium.
Fildes began by speaking about the anatomy of sex, detailing such matters as the causes and effects of orgasms. She also attempted to dispel stereotypes concerning the effects of age, gender, religion, disability and other factors on sexual desire.
"Some people that are very religious and politically conservative and might attempt to shut this sort of program down report the highest rates of orgasm per sexual contact," Fildes said.
Throughout the evening, Fildes emphasized that acceptance of various sexual behaviors and techniques are highly personal issues dependent on culture and the individual's history and values. A phrase she frequently repeated last night was "anatomy is not epiphany."
Woodward and Fildes then handed out index cards and asked each member of the audience to write down a question about the mechanics of sex. The remainder of the time was devoted to the discussion of these questions.
Some of the questions addressed included, "can you have an orgasm without physical contact?," "can men have multiple orgasms?," "why does my girlfriend say 'I'm too tired, maybe tomorrow?'" and "is it true that piercings and tattoos can open up new nerve avenues for pleasure?"
The talk was the first of a three part series sponsored this term by the health resources of the College Health Center and the Women's Resource Center. According to the College's Director of Health Services Gabrielle Lucke, the idea for this series came last spring when various student programmers requested more opportunities for sex education.
"We're paying attention to what students are talking about and what questions they are asking -- and it's nice to do fun, productive stuff for once rather than just dealing with rape and diseases," Lucke said.
The remaining two parts of this series, "The Pursuit of Pleasure" and "Dressing for Pleasure," will be held on February 5th and March 5th respectively.
