BY RANDI GIBBONS, Online Reporter
Sex Central and Dr. Kimberly McBride presented a screening of “Passion and Power: The Technology of the Orgasm,” in the Student Union Recreation Center theater on Feb. 5. The screening was the kickoff for multiple events Sex Central and Dr. McBride have planned for the up coming months at CWU.
The film illustrated the history behind the sexual vibrator and the waves of female sexual freedom throughout different cultural times.
The purpose of Sex Central is to open the door to conversation about sexual categories people may find intimidating. A box where participants could anonymously insert questions about the movie or general sexual health, were passed around the theater.
Dr. Kimberly McBride, a Public Health faculty member, said the goal for showing the film was to acknowledge the use of vibrators.
“The goal was to bring an acknowledgment of vibrators being part of one’s sexuality,” McBride said.
That didn’t mean things didn’t get a little awkward, at first. Filmgoers filled up the theater with awkward silence before the movie began. The tension left the room when outbursts of chuckles ensued with the films lighthearted feel.
Throughout the film, various women spoke about the troubles females being sexually satisfied, whether it is from cultural restraints or being uneducated on the subject.
A main portion of the film covered places in the United States like Texas, where the selling of vibrators is illegal and can subject a person to a fine and jail time.
An individual cannot own more than five personal vibrators without being accused of selling. The crime is considered an obscenity.
Ryan Freedman, a Central junior studying English, sat in on the screening.
“It is absurd to think a state can have a say in how a person pleases themselves,” Freedman said. “I would think there are more important things than questioning if the woman next door is selling vibrators.”
The feature mentioned that vibrators were first used by doctors to cure women of ‘hysteria’ caused by a lack of use of the woman’s uterus. This notion was widely accepted while women were sexually active purely to bear children and knew little to nothing about a female orgasm.
An important part of the film for senior public health major Shannor Fisher was realizing how culturally suppressed female masturbation has been in the past.
“Recognizing how negative the idea about the women’s body and masturbating was and the shame behind it,” Fisher said.
To banish shame from sexuality is one out of many objectives of the Sex Central program.
