Designing the Female Orgasm: Situating the Sexual Entrepreneur in the Online Sex-Education Platform Omgyes Nell Beecham, Clio Unger

Designing the Female Orgasm: Situating the Sexual Entrepreneur in the Online Sex-Education Platform OMGYes Nell Beecham, Clio Unger

The Self-Care Imperative Whether one’s goal is to improve sleep, exercise more, or enjoy better sex, the seemingly relentless process of re-skilling or upskilling bodily functions through self-directive innovations is a highly monetized cultural preoccupation of the Western world. The saturation of the market with self-help literature and self- tracking technologies is indicative of a contemporary moment of “healthism”; the consumer gains the opportunity to demonstrate agency and capacity for rational judgment through health-related consumption. In his critique of the privatization of wellbeing, Rob- ert Crawford highlights how health has become the assumed responsibility of the individual through maintenance and modi- fication of lifestyle choices, subsumed under the mantra of “self- care.”1 Individuals, responsible for their personal wellbeing, are compelled to seek and “consume knowledges and technologies that have been normalized and promoted as the appropriate techniques to acquire healthiness.”2 At a time when the privatization of wellbeing coincides with austerity policies forcing the withdrawal of state funding for social support and healthcare programs in many Western countries, the imperative for self-care and its tech- nological implementations demand critical attention.

1 Robert Crawford, “Healthism and the This article analyzes sex education platform OMGYes, as Medicalization of Everyday Life,” an example of how design practices respond to and are situated International Journal of Health Services within the private wellness industry and how feminist design 10, no. 3 (July 1, 1980): 365–88. practices try to offset the often male-oriented consumer products DOI:10.2190/3H2H-3XJN-3KAY-G9NY. of sex and sex education technologies. OMGYes’s focus on female 2 Amber L. Wiest et al., “Training the Body for Healthism: Reifying Vitality in pleasure, thereby working against a gender imbalance in sexual and Through the Clinical Gaze of the technologies, lends itself well to this analysis. In her study on Neoliberal Fitness Club,” Review of sexual and reproductive self-tracking apps, Deborah Lupton found Education, Pedagogy, and Cultural that although most self-tracking apps aimed at men sought to Studies (February 3, 2015): 26. DOI: quantify sex based on male performance (e.g., counting thrusts 10.1080/10714413.2015.988505. 3 Deborah Lupton, “Quantified Sex: A and measuring duration during intercourse), sex technologies Critical Analysis of Sexual and Repro- marketed at women are largely constructed around fertility, med- ductive Self-Tracking Using Apps,” icalization, and risk.3 OMGYes marks a clear departure from this Culture, Health & Sexuality 17, no. 4 (April 21, 2015): 447. DOI:10.1080/ 13691058.2014.920528. © 2019 Massachusetts Institute of Technology 42 DesignIssues: Volume 35, Number 4 Autumn 2019 https://doi.org/10.1162/desi_a_00563

Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/desi_a_00563 by guest on 01 October 2021 perspective, but it remains situated within a political landscape where sex education is largely a private responsibility. In the United States, for example, only 24 of 50 states mandate that schools have to provide sex education, and 37 states require that information on abstinence is provided.4 These statistics and the continued defunding of sexual health services are indicative of the social inequalities operating in the field of sexual education and mark the cultural moment in which OMGYes intervenes. Simultaneously, the market has witnessed a rise in sexual consumer goods aimed at women; 2017 was hailed as the year of “vaginanomics.”5 Rising sales in vibrators and sex toys6 and the 4 Guttmacher Institute, “Sex and HIV emergent field of teledildonics, illustrate the growing market Education: State Laws and Policies,” for sex technology development. Recent studies have illustrated (2018), https://www.guttmacher.org/ state-policy/explore/sex-and-hiv- how women are encouraged to consume these technologies to education (accessed January 19, 2018). work on and understand themselves as confident and active sexual 5 J. Walter Thompson, “What’s in Store for subjects in a neoliberal culture.7 Moreover, with increasing fre- 2017? J. Walter Thompson’s Innovation quency, these products are labeling themselves as feminist, often Group Forecasts the 100 Trends Shaping equating methods of self-optimization with a means to bridging the Future,” (2016), http://www.prweb. com/releases/2016/12/prweb13892316. social inequalities. htm (accessed January 19, 2018). Aimed at exploring and improving the female orgasm, 6 “Global Sexual Wellness Market 2018- OMGYes can be considered part of this “sex-positive retail activ- 2022,” Market Report (Toronto, CA: ism.”8 Founded in 2015, the platform is clear about its feminist Technavio Market Research, June 2018). goals: increasing and distributing knowledge about female 7 Rachel Wood, Consumer Sexualities: Women and Sex Shopping (Abingdon and orgasms. Marketed directly at women and couples, the website New York, NY: Taylor & Francis, 2017); focuses on debunking the “Hollywood myth” that portrays women and Lynn Comella, Vibrator Nation: How as reaching orgasm within seconds of nondescript vaginal penetra- Feminist Sex-Toy Stores Changed the tion; it seeks to expel the equation of complexity and unknowabil- Business of Pleasure (Durham, NC: ity and remedy the lack of concrete descriptive language and the Duke University Press, 2017). 9 8 Comella, Vibrator Nation, 8. paucity of accurate scientific information. 9 OMGYes uses the term “women” and the This article is grounded in interaction criticism10; thus, it pronouns she/her to refer to people with uses visual analysis to explore the performance techniques in vaginas; but the techniques it proposes OMGYes that transmit knowledge and empowerment strategies are intended for all people with vaginas, to its users as a means of “close[ing] the orgasm gap.”11 This theo- and OMGYes creators are clear that they are not trying to equate having a vagina retical framework overlaps with both of our disciplines in per- with being a woman. They also state that formance studies and sociology of design. Interaction criticism they are working on future seasons that allows us to interrogate the object from both the producers’ and incorporate trans experiences. Similarly, recipients’ perspectives of OMGYes’s design practices. Recognizing we have used the term “woman” and the platform’s desire to harness learning from affective design; she/her but note that experiences of womanhood are multiple and cannot an understanding of design which intends to encourage certain all be encompassed on OMGYes, nor in emotional and sensory responses from the user by imbuing the its discussion. artifact with affective properties, this article probes the underlying 10 Jeffrey Bardzell, “Interaction Criticism: choices and logics of design featured on the platform to exemplify An Introduction to the Practice,” Inter- acting with Computers 23, no. 6 (2011): how OMGYes interpellates its users as self-optimizing individuals. 604–21. DOI:10.1016/j. We echo Jeffrey Bardzell in his assertion that interaction 11 Samantha Allen, “Can Virtual Vaginas criticism’s emphasis on change and intervention are likely to pro- Help Close the Orgasm Gap?,” 2015, n.p., vide intellectual tools and groundwork for designers to actively https://www.thedailybeast.com/can- virtual-vaginas-help-close-the-orgasm- gap (accessed January 19, 2018).

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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/desi_a_00563 by guest on 01 October 2021 engage in changing how users experience technologies.12 De- sign is never neutral and is imbued with cultural values; through the critique of design, we can understand both its limitations and its possibilities. We examine the aesthetics of and performances on OMGYes to show how the website presents its data both as generalizable truth and as individual preference, which makes the bodies of its female performers vehicles of the emphasis on personal choice. Taking our cue from Olaf W. Bertelsen and Søren Pold’s call for a critical interaction with interface aesthetics,13 we explore the user interface’s design strategy and contend that the clean layout of the website suggests a medical sterility. This approach decontextual- izes the female orgasm from its physical form, delineating from bodily fluids or corporeal desires and legitimizing and mobilizing it as a tool of self-improvement. We read this practice of self- improvement in conjunction with the emergent neoliberal subjectivity of the “sexual entrepreneur”14 put forward by Laura Harvey and Rosalind Gill to suggest that OMGYes is implicated in a postfeminist critique of retail activism as an individualized approach to empowerment. As such, it risks ignoring wider structures of inequality by relying on a narrative of personal responsibility.

Bodies of Data: Designing the Ordinary Orgasm OMGYes models itself using a set of educational courses; each course is referred to as a “Season” and is comprised of several lessons. Crucially, OMGYes is not a subscription service, but, like a DVD box-set, each season is purchased individually and costs approximately $50. For the purpose of this analysis we will focus

15 12 Bardzell, “Interaction Criticism,” 619. on the twelve lessons of Season One. Each lesson contains a num- 13 Olaf W. Bertelsen and Søren Pold, ber of short films, less than four minutes each. The sixty-two vid- “Criticism as an Approach to Interface eos across the season range in content from introductory Aesthetics,” (2004): 23–32. explanations of technique to masturbatory demonstrations. These 14 Laura Harvey and Rosalind Gill, “Spicing clips are supplemented by short, magazine article-length textual It Up: Sexual Entrepreneurs and The Sex Inspectors,” in New Femininities: Post- descriptions, as well as easy-to-read diagrams and graphs. Most feminism, Neoliberalism and Subjectivity, lessons are accompanied by a hands-on touchscreen tutorial, eds. Rosalind Gill and Christina Scharff which contains a computer-generated model of the demonstrator’s (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011), 52. vulva. Users are encouraged to explore and practice on the vulva 15 At the time of publication, only Season using the mouse or touchscreen function. One, which focuses on external stimulation, and Season Two, which focuses on The creators of OMGYes are keen to stress the research ele- internal sexual stimulation and penetra- ment of the project. Ahead of launching their OMGYes platform, tion are available for purchase. the creators gathered data to help inform the project, partnering 16 The findings of this research are with Indiana University’s famous Kinsey Institute to fund research published in Debby Herbenick et al., into how women achieve orgasm through genital touch.16 For Sea- “Women’s Experiences with Genital Touching, Sexual Pleasure, and Orgasm: son One, this data, comprising 1,055 survey responses from women Results from a U.S. Probability Sample and 1,000 interviews, are presented across the website—for exam- of Women Ages 18 to 94,” Journal of ple, the percentage of women who favor a particular technique and Sex & Marital Therapy 44, no. 2 (August key quotes from participants. 9, 2017). DOI:10.1080/0092623X.2017. 1346530.

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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/desi_a_00563 by guest on 01 October 2021 Acting as demonstrators and lecturers, the fourteen women who make up the cast offer insights into the ways that OMGYes seeks to represent scientific data via the performance of female bodies. These women perform a doubling function, simultaneously standing in for the universal claims of what the collected data rep- resents, while also acting as vectors of personalization that seek to individualize the scientific data. This doubling dramaturgy is achieved using a set of techniques that present the members of the cast as ordinary people who happen to also model the kind of sexual subjectivity that users—wanting to improve their lives through better orgasm—can emulate. Consumers are subtly encouraged to adapt this form of self-presentation, of happiness via physical and sexual confidence, for themselves. The website’s design strategy goes to some length to make the cast seem relatable and approachable. It describes the user experience of the website as “hanging out with really open friends”; and the promotional material assures potential users that the women are funny “so time [on the site] passes quickly.”17 OMGYes stresses these women are not “actresses”; rather, they have a personal stake in “[setting] the record straight.”18 Thus, their participation is presented as a form of activism and emphasizes their relatability to the consumer. A curated ordinariness is employed to induce familiarity and comfort and to support OMGYes’s insistence that the cast members are women who “come from all over the USA—and have diverse careers, fami- lies, and lifestyles.”19 The season shows an apparent attempt at diversity in terms of race, ethnicity, age, and sexual orienta- tion, although a standardized presentation of femininity is also evident across the site.20 Visualizing the data in this way serves two functions. First, it underscores the platform’s assertion of the ordinariness of the female orgasm. Having ordinary or familiar seeming women stand in for the research results suggests that the orgasm, too, is an everyday experience. Second, this representation of a wider set of standardized data through actual bodies personalizes the data. Seeking to avoid the abstract quality of research data, the website justifies the presentation of the findings through the words and bodies of the women on screen. For example: 17 OMGYes, “FAQ,” 2017, n.p., https:// Reading about these techniques and insights is very www.omgyes.com/en/faq. different from seeing the real things, trying them and 18 Ibid. arriving at your own conclusions. When you realize 19 Ibid. something from experience or from a friend’s, it stays 20 All women presented in Season One identify as cisgender. OMGYes has with you. It changes you. It makes it real, not theoretical. announced that later seasons will When you can look someone in the eye and relate to address different topics and include them—and they share their true experience, we take in materials specifically geared toward that information very differently.21 trans and non-binary practices. 21 OMGYes, “About,” (2017), n.p., https:// www.omgyes.com/en/about#/movement.

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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/desi_a_00563 by guest on 01 October 2021 Recognizing that users are likely to relate to the friendly individual more than the abstract data is an important design decision. Understanding users’ motivations, how they view themselves, and how they relate to the “problem” relies on empathic engagement between the designer and users.22 The website uses female bodies to elicit a more engaged interaction with the data that privileges experiential knowledge over theoretical knowledge. Although the demonstrators’ bodies stand in for a larger demo- graphic, the website makes clear that each woman is only describ- ing her method, her likes, her dislikes, and her tips and tricks. The message is that each and every body is different and resists being mapped onto a standardized dataset. Through its approach, the website manages to bridge the seeming anonymity of its wider data set with the claim to the uniqueness of the human body. Despite an understanding of individual experience, the website showcases the science that underpins the creators’ mission in ways that appeal to its generalizability. The methods women use to arouse themselves are collated and assigned a noun, such as “Edging,” “Hinting,” or “Staging.” Naming a technique legitimizes it as a practice, thereby transforming what was previously discur- sively unavailable into a manageable repertoire of behaviors. The project is reminiscent of the research by Hannah Frith and Annie Potts on the “orgasmic imperative,” through which orgasm becomes a requirement of sexual experience.23 Frith and Potts both observe that this “imperative” can lead to a pressure, especially felt by women, to achieve orgasm. Some of the women featured on OMGYes discuss this pressure when recalling sexual encounters. The designers, aware of the dangers of overemphasizing the experience of orgasm, stress that pleasure can result from intimate touch and that orgasm does not have to be a necessary consequence. However, the dramaturgical structure of the first season makes orgasm an inescapable focus. Each technique lesson is accompanied by data regarding what percentage of women stated this technique works for or is enjoyable to them. The homepage displays these numbers promi- nently, with a bold percentage in white text against a darkened background. However, the explanation of the technique is fre-

22 Tim Brown, Change by Design: How quently hidden away within a subsection of the lesson page, which Design Thinking Transforms Organiza- the user must expand. When a percentage is displayed, it sits tions and Inspires Innovation (New York: divided by a thin but clear line of demarcation, separated from the HarperCollins, 2009), https://www.harp- main body of the text. Its font size is much larger and brighter than ercollins.com/9780061766084/change- the accompanying explanation, highlighting the importance of the by-design (accessed January 19, 2018). 23 See Hannah Frith, Orgasmic Bodies: number. This distinctiveness encourages users to view the data as The Orgasm in Contemporary Western objective, provoking a process in which the users compare them- Culture (New York: Palgrave Macmillan selves with the majority. UK, 2015); and Annie Potts, The Science/ Fiction of Sex: Feminist Deconstruction and the Vocabularies of Heterosex (London: Routledge, 2002).

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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/desi_a_00563 by guest on 01 October 2021 The prominence of the data on the OMGYes website prompts users to ask: Am I normal? A biomedicalized society socializes us to measure ourselves in the context of others, fostering a desire for standardization. The ordinariness that OMGYes displays is rein- forced through quantification and is performed by users through comparative measurement. This approach operates as part of the “nudge strategies” of the project overall. Originating in cybernetics, the term “nudge” was popularized by Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein.24 Using methods from behavioral economics and social psychology, the authors explain that positive reinforcement and indirect suggestions can achieve non-forced compliance. The desire to belong and to become represented by the data relies on what we might call a bell curve logic. Essentially, humans generally prefer to be somewhere within the middle of the bell curve; sitting out- side of this range generates discomfort because it is culturally associated with deviance and needing intervention.25 As David Halpern notes, simple changes to presentation of data can influence the outcome of the desired behavior change26; in the case of OMGYes, comparing oneself to the presented data invokes the desired effect for women of being reassured that their behavior is within a sexual norm, encouraging them to explore new techniques. On OMGYes, ordinariness thus becomes a necessary base from which a new form of sexual subjectivity can be sought. The process of normalizing what constitutes an acceptable practice of achieving orgasm is enacted by merging an “everyone can do it” attitude with a subtle practice of comparative self-monitoring.

Untainted: Designing the Clean Orgasm Although the presentation of the cast members relies on a strategy of familiarity and relatability, the user interface, in contrast, suggests a cool and formal professionalism. Each lesson is struc- tured around three main steps: introductory video, demonstration video, and touchscreen tutorial. Between each mini-screen are collapsible sections that include additional diagrams and texts. At the end of each lesson is a “Bringing it to the bedroom” section, listing tips for addressing the most common challenges of a technique. The website draws on the visual language of a glossy women’s magazine for its minimal color scheme: Clear blue, greys, and black are used for the body of the website, and dulled orange tones highlight key information. In addition, the stylized icons for each 24 Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein, lesson and the modern font together create an elegant web design Nudge: Improving Decisions About focused on intuitive usability and a high production value. The Health, Wealth and Happiness videos, too, are shot in modern interiors with stylish furniture and (London: Penguin, 2008). 25 Gina Neff and Dawn Nafus, Self-Track- are succinctly edited. ing, Essential Knowledge Series (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2016), 38. 26 David Halpern, Inside the Nudge Unit: How Small Changes Can Make a Big Difference (London: Penguin, 2015), 309.

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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/desi_a_00563 by guest on 01 October 2021 This focus on professionalism and the clean design under- score the website’s strategy of foregrounding technique. Although the participants occasionally mention wetness or moistness, the corporeal and imaginative by-products of sex are largely omitted. Across the website, no mention of desire, fantasy, fetish, or lust can be found, and bodily fluids associated with sex are absent. The aesthetic mirrors a more general mode of understanding sex and orgasm as primarily a matter of technique. The disconnect from the corporeality of sex is also visible in the medium itself. Although the touchscreen tutorials function as a way of branching out of the predominantly visual domain of web platforms, their use emphasizes, rather than minimizes, the material differences from the corporeal processes of sex or mas- turbation. While the CGI representation of vulvas is impressive, the lack of texture or depth in the touch element is alienating and artificial. For example, Labia lips do move at the touch of a finger on the screen, but they immediately revert to their original posi- tion, even if a user tries to hold them open longer. The alienation of the medium and the cleanliness of the web design contributes to a sterility that pervades the site. This anxiety about unruly bodies, bodily processes, and the omission of any ref- erence to fantasy or desire could be indicative of a shift in the conception of the orgasm. Orgasm has at various points been linked to sublimation, ecstasy, transgression, and even death.27 OMGYes’s conception seems far removed from these possibilities. The very existence of the website mobilizes it as a unifying female experience, thus assigning it a political function. However, the concen- tration on technique reimagines orgasm as a skill to be harnessed rather than an affective experience.28 OMGYes states that orgasm does not have to be the assumed goal of a sexual act, but its insistence on its learnability makes not perceiving it as the ultimate aim of the applied techniques difficult. Although an actual climax is absent from the platform, the dramaturgy of climax can still be traced in the touchscreen tutorials. If 27 Annamarie Jagose, Orgasmology the user does as instructed, a tutorial usually lasts only a few min- (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, utes: Movements are introduced via an onscreen arrow, which pro- 2012), 32. vides the learner with directions to follow using their mouse or 28 OMGYes would likely argue that the conception of orgasm as transgressive fingertip. Instructions on intensifying or appropriately modifying and unpresentable is a convenient the movements are given in the course of the exercise. The tutorial, barrier that serves as a justification voiced by the associated cast member, gets louder and more fre- for not examining it too closely—a quent in affirmation, then fades out on a long sigh, signifying both view we would support, but with the the end of the exercise and the impending climax. Rejecting cur- caveat presented. To the degree that a focus on technique overcomes these rent trends in gamification, the website tries not to offer any barriers to allow discussion, OMGYes rewards for mastering a technique. provides an important corrective. The focus on technique also limits what can be said and presented by keeping affective and “messy” parts of the discussion off limits.

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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/desi_a_00563 by guest on 01 October 2021 This resistance in gamification is an important feminist intervention. As with any interactive interface, the user is encouraged to play: to achieve the stated goal and test the limits of the design. However, the website does not invite users to share results, nor does it encourage methods of self-tracking, as the means to incite competition among users; such features are common among the sexual activity apps that Lupton analyzed.29 Lupton argues that in a hyper-digitized society, self-knowledge is often constructed by collecting and analyzing bodily data.30 The absence of self-quantifying mechanisms on OMGYes is significant and points to an active decision to work against the discursive disposition of the female body as a medical or quantifiable object. Although the website invites identification with the cast members and com- parison with statistics, it resists a more direct comparative, competitive logic. Yet, the teleological aspect of the exercise is revealed when users deviate from the rules of the exercise. For example, perform- ing a movement that the same avatar enjoyed in a previous exercise but that is not prescribed in the current one leads the onscreen voice to offer slight corrections and general encouragement. If one continues to “disobey,” the tutorial ends early, accompanied by “Let’s try another time, honey.” Although the website states that not all stimulation has to lead to orgasm, the climatic dramaturgy of the tutorials denies such an understanding of sensuality; tutorials end, for example, if touch or speed ceases to be adequately strong or fast. The tutorial does not allow aimless stroking or cre- ative experimentation, thereby enforcing a popular narrative of the orgasmic imperative the website otherwise tries to dismantle. This decision to terminate disobedience could be viewed as OMGYes’s attempt to protect itself and its avatars. Design practice is molded by the designers’ personal theoretical and political commitments.31 Given the emphasis on communication and consent across the rest of the platform, breaking the rules becomes equated to ignoring consent, and users who manipulate the site in this way might, in extreme cases, be seen as enacting digital ver- sions of sexual abuse. As noted, OMGYes stops short of showing an actual orgasm, but through its design decisions, it invariably enters into and contributes to narratives of the orgasmic imperative. The use of a clean and minimal aesthetic that emphasizes the objectives of learning and research, in combination with its focus purely on technique 29 Deborah Lupton, “Quantified Sex: and its climatic dramaturgy, figure the female orgasm as a skill to A Critical Analysis of Sexual and Reproductive Self-tracking Using Apps,” be mastered through practice. The consumed pleasure is not aim- Culture, Health & Sexuality 17, no. 4 less but serves the greater purpose of advancing the subject, instill- (2015): 440–53. ing users with yet another competitive advantage in a society that 30 Lupton, “Quantified Sex,” 446. valorizes self-enhancement. 31 Tony Fry, Design Futuring: Sustainability, Ethics and New Practice (London: Bloomsbury, 2009).

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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/desi_a_00563 by guest on 01 October 2021 Upskilling: Designing the Neoliberal Orgasm In this article we have explored how deliberate design choices in the representation of data and the aesthetic features of the user interface encourage practices of self-responsibility and self-disci- pline. This third section draws on discourses around the entrepre- neurial self to illustrate how design is implicated in narratives of liberal individualism. OMGYes has been praised by feminist media for working against pathologizing any form of sexuality or sexual practice and for striving to normalize the female clitoral orgasm. A consequence of this pedagogical demystification is the notion of orgasm-as-skill, which, we argue, maps onto Harvey’s and Gill’s concept of the “sexual entrepreneur.”32 Building on Michel Foucault’s technologies of the self, Harvey and Gill describe the “sexual entrepreneur” as a hybrid figure simultaneously entangled in “discourses of sexual freedom for women” and “attempts to recuperate this to (male-dominated) consumer capitalism”33 Harvey and Gill observe an imbalance in the performance of sexuality between men and women. While men are given clear instruction in how to perform (heterosexual) techniques of sexual stimulation, women must have a range of sexual techniques at their disposal, and these techniques should be performed as a sexually confident and adventurous subject. This discrepancy feeds into a wider discourse that continues to harness female sexuality as a source of male pleasure, remaking female sexual subjectivity as relational to male and thus invokes hetero- normative expectations. 32 Laura Harvey and Rosalind Gill, “Spicing OMGYes marks a departure from this imbalance in its It Up: Sexual Entrepreneurs and the Sex approach to sexual practice. Reframing orgasm as a skill, it allows Inspectors,” New Femininities (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011), 52–67. women to focus on technique specifically designed for their bodily 33 Harvey and Gill, “Spicing It Up,” 52. experience. By releasing women from the expectation that plea- 34 This is not to say that the performances sure needs to correspond to a certain performance of behaviors, of arousal on the website do not corre- the website makes a targeted attempt to offset longstanding sex- spond with a certain cultural repertoire of 34 embodying this experience. Women ual inequalities. moaned, sighed, whispered, and raised However, we must question what the unintended conse- or lowered their voices at appropriate quences of this reformation of orgasm-as-skill are. If orgasm is con- moments. However, these aural indica- ceived as something purely conditional on technique, the idea that tors are part of a wider cultural practice not reaching orgasm or being unable to bring a partner to orgasm and cannot be read as an endorsement to perform by the site. could be attributed to personal failure. Moreover, as the website 35 OMGYes – Season One, “Signaling” reminds users, a skill takes time and labor to perfect. One of the (2017), n.p., https://www.omgyes.com/ featured participants in the OMGYes study says: “It actually took a en/members/signaling (accessed May few months of really focusing and treating it like something to 22, 2019). figure out. It was like a job–a fun job, but it was real work.”35 36 Cast member Lee in first video in 36 OMGYes – Season One, “Signaling” Another described it as a very “fun homework.” This sense of (2017), n.p., https://www.omgyes.com/ hard work and perseverance is evocative of the “new meritocracy” en/members/signaling. The cast member that Angela McRobbie discusses in her critique of postfeminism. is keen to stress that it was an enjoyable McRobbie outlines that within a postfeminist discourse, young task and that she was able to engage in it with her partner, however, the phrasing does show a focus on applying oneself.

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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/desi_a_00563 by guest on 01 October 2021 women are encouraged to illustrate their “self-reliance, individu- alization, self-entrepreneurship, talent, and competition” and are praised for making the “right choices.”37 Although the website goes to some length to stress the enjoyable aspects of the tasks, it also makes clear the effort and time involved. Behind the promise of entertainment, OMGYes portrays its product as an investment in the sexual self and a tool of self-optimization. Failure, then, lies not in being unable to orgasm or being unable to get someone to orgasm, but in failing to devote the time and effort to master the skill, or it lies in not being (sexually) confident or articulate enough to successfully convey learned techniques to a partner. The responsibility here is decidedly shifted toward women seeking sexual pleasure, and its achievement is made conditional on mastering the performance of the sexual entrepreneur. This outlook is particularly salient in neoliberal soci- eties, where recognizing a supposed deficiency and “acting upon it” is praised.38 Although the sexual entrepreneurs that OMGYes coaches are no longer conditioned by the male gaze, as Harvey and Gill originally proposed, the rationale that technique-based approaches create conditions for self-surveillance and optimization is still upheld. Like other actors operating in the sex education and wellbeing industries, the website prompts its users to conceive of their bodies as manageable entities focused on value maximization. The sexual entrepreneur seeks to optimize her performance and experience of orgasm by relying on techniques that simultaneously

37 Angela McRobbie, “Beyond Post-Femi- imbue her with a sense of empowerment and responsibility. She is nism,” IPPR Progressive Review 18, no. 3 accountable for both her enjoyment and her failure to enjoy a sex- (2011): 181. ual experience, including the ones that are self-initiated. By read- DOI:10.1111/j.1744-540X.2011.00661.x; ing her own body through knowledges constructed by medical and and Angela McRobbie, “Postfeminism neoliberal discourses, she experiences herself through the “clinical and Popular Culture: Bridget Jones and 39 the New Gender Regime,” in Interrogat- gaze” of a society that promotes healthism and self care. The plat- ing Postfeminism: Gender and the Politics form provides a space in which the sexual entrepreneur can turn of Popular Culture, eds., Yvonne Tasker this gaze upon herself, scrutinizing her performance and bodily and Diane Negra (Durham, NC: Duke capacity in the spirit of education. University Press, 2007), 37. The performance of self that OMGYes encourages is a per- 38 See Rosalind Gill, “Mediated Intimacy and Postfeminism: A Discourse Analytic formance of sexual subjectivity steeped in the language and logic Examination of Sex and Relationships of self-optimization, personal responsibility, and sexual confi- Advice in a Woman’s Magazine,” dence. The sexual entrepreneur endorsed by OMGYes is thus Discourse and Communication 3, no. 4 caught in the contradictions between profitability and social (2009): 357. change fostered more broadly by a neoliberal feminism. She must 39 Michel Foucault, The Birth of the Clinic: An Archaeology of Medical Perception, navigate the mixed messages of sexual liberation and self-monitor- trans. A.M.S. Smith (New York: Vintage ing of sexual performance, intricately entwined with the cultural Books, 1973), 103. narratives of the female orgasm.

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