Eva Longoria, Her Vibrators, and Her Orgasm Equality Awesomeness
This post is an Orgasm Equality shout-out to Eva Longoria, the actress who caught her stardom playing Gabrielle on Desperate Housewives. She has candidly and apologetically said in interviews that she didn't orgasm until 26 - with the help of a vibrator. She's's also boldy touted the importance of women knowing our own bodies before before ever expecting a man to.
It's not common for any woman to speak out so genuinely about her own personal experience with orgasming, especially when she is admitting that orgasming was elusive to her for a good chunk of her adult life. Now, make that person a beautiful, famous actress known for her role as a rather sexy lady, and I'd say that takes some low hangin' lips. Her frankness on the subject helps illuminate the distinction between a woman's sexuality and her sexiness, which is too often lost in a culture that repeatedly assumes sexy is sexual.
The very real truth that women are simply not orgasming as much as men, that this affects our lives, and that we all have struggles to differing degrees with this orgasm gap is just not talked about, so that Ms. Longoria did it is important, brave, and frankly just pretty awesome and bad ass. She speaks the truth not only to reporters, but to her friends, and that's about as much of an Orgasm Equality Soldier as I could expect any person to be.
I think she's probably just a genuine person keeping things real, and likely not saying these things with any sort of specific revolutionary aim, but that's kind of the beauty isn't it? It makes me feel like we're coming to point 1. where we have powerful women who feel more free to speak candidly, 2. where their voices can be heard, 3. where the current culture and their backgrounds have led them to question their experiences of (less) orgasms (than they want and deserve), and 4. where they're investigating solutions and sharing them with other women. That's kind of the goal. We just need even more women hearing and sharing.
Anyway, I loves me some Eva Longoria and her frank, thoughtful words to women about their orgasms. Here are a couple quotes:
In this article at The Daily Mail, Longoria tells Rebecca Hardy:
"I spoke about vibrators and Brazilians in an article about women finding their sexuality. I didn't have my first orgasm until I was 26. That was with a vibrator. And yes, I said that every woman should try a Brazilian wax once. The sex they have afterwards will make them keep coming back. Taken out of context it looks as if I'm running around talking about vibrators. But I hate censoring myself and dancing around things."
Here's a piece of the Q&A from this cosmopolitan interview with Jennifer Graham"
C: You've been quoted as saying that you didn't have your first orgasm until you used a vibrator. Do you think it's important for women to experiment with their own bodies?
E :Yes, because you get better at sex when you know your own body. How are you going to expect a man to know your body when you don't know what pleases you? It's really important to have a healthy sexuality and to be open about it. It's not a taboo. It's normal. By the way, after my vibrator quote was published, I literally got boxes and boxes of vibrators and pocket rockets [free from sex-toy companies]. So I was constantly giving them away. Even before that, I would give them as gifts to girlfriends for their birthdays, and they'd be so excited.