THE GODDESSES AT STARBUCKS, PART II
In his last posting, the author wrote about his introduction to the Goddess Movement through a group of Goddesses that he had gotten to know at a Starbuck's on Manhattan's Upper West Side. From them he learned that the Goddess Movement was an attempt by women to wrestle back control of the world from men, who had usurped their power 5,000 years ago and, in doing so, had totally screwed up everything. Curious to learn more, he invites one of the Goddesses, the bountiful Vindaloo Lieberman, out for dinner:
I met Vindaloo Lieberman for a roughage-filled vegan meal at the Ayurveda Café on Amsterdam and West 94th. She had on black Roman sandals and was wearing a shawl, flowing pants and a knee-length top made of purple crepe silk, all embroidered with Indian chakra wheels in silver metallic thread. She was also bedecked in so much turquoise jewelry that I thought Arizona had thrown up on her. As it turned out, when Vindaloo wasn't working at her job as a successful fashion marketer in Manhattan, she was attending various Goddess retreats and seminars, and buying jewelry "as gifts for her inner Goddess" in places like Sedona, Santa Fe and Taos.
Over our dossas, uttapams, samosa chat, idlis and other non-violent foods, Vindaloo explained that she, like many of her friends, was a student at and big booster of Mama Gena's School of Womanly Arts. Located on West 88th Street, Mama Gena's is ground zero for all things Goddess in New York. Its mandate is to train women to use the power of pleasure to have their way with the world and its literature extols them to "claim your sexual birthright. Have it your way in bed. Figure out what drives you to ecstasy and then teach him." Mama Gena's offers a variety of 101 courses such as Becoming a Sister Goddess and The Power of Pleasure in Business. The core curriculum seems to be based on the idea that the fundamental relationship a Goddess woman can have is with her sister Goddesses and that men, while still important, are definitely of a lower order, whether in the bedroom or the boardroom. Those men who can't be re-educated to this new power arrangement are fair game for exploitation, which mostly seems to take the form of being flirted to death.
But the course for which Mama Gena's is most renowned, and the one that Vindaloo was most eager to talk about, was DEMO, a course that she felt everyone must take if he or she is at all interested in expanding female pleasure. The acronym stands for Demonstration of an Extended Massive Orgasm. Taught by Drs. Steve and Vera Bondasky, DEMO is a one-hour demonstration of a full orgasm with, according to Mama Gena's catalogue, a "certified doer" manually stimulating the genitals of a "certified woman."
Drs. Steve and Vera Bodansky have turned the female orgasm into a thriving cottage industry, ever since they both got their PhD's in sensuality from an alternative college called More University in northern California in the 1980's. They have published numerous books on the subject and give seminars and lectures on it mostly in California and New York, the two states seemingly with the highest demand among women for extended massive orgasms. I think it's fair to say, after now having read most of their literature, the Bodansky's seminal message is that for sex between a man and a woman to be really pleasurable, the woman has to learn how to extend the length of her orgasm for as long as possible while teaching her man how to delay his for an equal length of time. At first blush, this might seem like a hard sell to a man, but as it turns out, any truly sensitive guy who loves his Goddess will take great pleasure in saying "Oh, baby, yes, yes, yes" for hours and hours on end.
The Bodansky's course had clearly struck a vibrating chord in Vindaloo, so much so that she couldn't stop talking about it. At one point, I interrupted and said, "So a female orgasm is a lot like a soufflé, yes?" "What?" she said. "Well," I said, "if you don't cook it long enough, it won't fully rise, and if you stick a fork in it too soon, it will collapse."
There was a long silence at the table while Vindaloo thought this over. I could tell that she was trying to decide whether I had just been reductive to the point of meaninglessness about a deeply held belief or had said something touching and insightful. Evidently the New Man in me got the high five. Vindaloo fluttered her eyes and said, "Maybe you'd like to come to my yoga class next week?"
In the next installment, the author details his adventures in yoga with the Goddess Vindaloo Lieberman.