Students at the University of Florida prepared for Valentine’s Day by attending a seminar called “Becoming Cliterate with Dr. Laurie Mintz” on Tuesday night.
Accessorized with clitoris-shaped earrings, Mintz, a UF psychology of human sexuality professor, discussed the many themes of sexism including the “orgasm gap” and consent in sexual relationships. Mintz also spoke about her most recent book, Becoming Cliterate: Why Orgasm Matters and How to Get It, which uses data and polling she’s conducted on students in her classes.
“What the ‘F’ is going on?” she asked the group. “The ‘F’ itself.”
As promised, Mintz encouraged attendees to stop faking their orgasms and to insist on pleasure instead.
“Hear from Dr. Laurie Mintz, about pleasure equality, what it is, how to get it, and how it relates to consent,” read an online advertisement.
Mintz presented attendees with four “new plays,” which represented the order in which partners experience pleasure, including: “You Comes First,” “You Comes Second,” “Only You Come,” and “You Come Together.”
According to the UF student newspaper, the Alligator, Mintz told attendees, “Studies have shown that 39 percent of people with vaginas versus 91 percent of people with penises say that they usually experience orgasm in partnered sex.”
Another slide from the event’s powerpoint read: “For People with Clits, The Revolution is Cuming.”
The clitoris-focused speech was part of the UF Sexual Trauma Interpersonal Violence Education’s Cupid’s Consent Week and was cosponsored by the UF Women’s Student Association and Planned Parenthood Generation Action UF. It also featured a question and answer period along with a book signing.
Mintz told Red Alert Politics that the purpose of her speech was to “provide participants with information on the relationship between enthusiastic consent and female pleasure” and to encourage women in the audience to “both say what they want during sexual encounters (i.e., to feel entitled to sexual pleasure) and to say what they do not want.”
Mintz likened the common cultural phenomenon of not speaking up to the now-infamous story of Aziz Asari’s sexual encounter with an anonymous woman named Grace.
Also a part of Consent Week, the school hosted a Consent Fair the next day for couples to attend on Valentine’s Day. There, students could “learn more about consent, communication, and how to have a healthy, fun sex life,” according to an online advertisement. The Consent Fair was complete with a photo booth, improv shows, and “freebies galore, including Valentine’s day cards for bae, consent t-shirts, and other great health promotion tools.”
