In a world of Cosmo BJ tips, porn sex ed and pre-pubescent pin-up girls, I often lament the dearth of quality articles, research and erotica from an empowered, mature feminine perspective.

It seems like everywhere I turn, I’m hit with another piece on how my sex “just isn’t good enough” and if I am going to “snag Mr. Right,” I had better learn how “handle his manhood,” “cum so hard that he’ll never want to leave” and “sculpt a sex-perfect body” (lest I be outcast from the League of Highly Successful Woman Who Make Six Figure Incomes, Take the Kids to Soccer Practice and Still Have the Energy to Ride Their Husbands Like Jenna Jameson).

Not only is our culture ill informed on the vastness and complexity of female sexuality—so is the medical field. Yes, most doctors know the difference between the clitoris and the labia, but the psychology and more subtle and nuanced characteristics of a woman’s sex are not well documented. Most studies on sexuality either predominantly use males as test subjects, use small numbers of women from a limited cultural or social stratum or are based on opinions and observations from studies done decades ago.

Also, as seen in Liz Canner’s highly successful documentary “Orgasm Inc.,” pharmaceutical companies are pouring billions of dollars into creating the new “female Viagra” as a cure for the so-called “Female Sexual Arousal Disorder” (FSD). The notion that a woman has to orgasm a certain way and within a certain time frame is ludicrous, and the fact that there are companies profiting off of women’s frustration, desperation and heartbreak not only angers me; it also highlights the pervasive misogyny that underlines much of our consumerist culture.

Please. We don’t need pills. We need foreplay and a safe space.

However, Being A Woman Today—a new, five-year project sponsored by Human Innovations, LLC and the Institute for Advanced Study for Human Sexuality—is hoping to tip the scales in our favor. Their plan is to use large-scale, international surveys (approximately 50), online communities and interactive talk shows, as well as bring together some of the world’s leading clinical sexologists and related researchers, to conduct the largest research project in history.

Their goal in launching such a global endeavor (35 countries!) is to educate and empower women and improving the understanding, acceptance and importance of a woman’s sexual well-being.

To help raise capital for the project, The Exodus Trust, a non-profit California trust, has donated over $600K worth of erotic art, much of it previously available only to wealthy collectors, to be used as ‘Perks’ for BAWT’s Indiegogo campaign.

My personal desire for every woman is to know the power of her own hunger and depth of her own orgasm. For me, Being A Woman Today is a much-needed guiding light in a world shrouded in violence, insecurity, misinformation and shame.

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Ed: Kate B.

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