Dr. Betty Dodson & Dr. Susan Block celebrate Betty’s 87th Birthday with The Bonobo Way & Sex by Design. Photo: Sarah Bella

Length 1:36:17 Date: August 20, 2016

by Dr. Susan Block

What a whirlwind 24 hours, swinging from Beverly Hills to Bonoboville LAX to Hollywood and back to Bonoboville, honoring the dead and celebrating the lives of some very special humans as well as having a blast exploring fetish play the Bonobo Way, and the exciting renewal of the Bonobo Way Female Empowerment Outreach Project on DrSuzy.Tv.

Miss Freudian Slit, Madam RavenRae, Dr. Suzy, Hitachi, Nurse Jay, Shannon Coronado. Photo: Jux Lii

Bonobo Betty Dodson: Happy 87^th!

It started with an intimate dinner party for my mentor Dr. Betty Dodson’s 87^th birthday. The “Godmother of Masturbation,” Betty *gave* me my first voluntary orgasm when I was a 19-year-old sophomore at Yale through a shameless and easy-to-follow little pamphlet that I picked up at a women’s “consciousness-raising” center called Liberating Masturbation, later turned into Betty’s classic best-seller Sex for One.

Though she gave me and countless other women one of the greatest gifts ever, the power of self-pleasure, back in the 1970s, we didn’t actually meet until 1994. I was blown away by Betty’s sparkle, her warmth and unvarnished sincerity, and I immediately sat my butt down in her welcoming lap as if I lived there. Though she resides in New York—in an apartment she’s had for over 50 years (longer than most marriages)—our friendship has grown and deepened. Always examining new ideas and techniques, Betty was one of the earliest supporters of The Bonobo Way.

PHOTOS: SARAH BELLA

Sarah Bella zoomed us over to the party early so I had a few minutes alone with Betty to give her signed copies of The Bonobo Way and the 10 Commandments of Pleasure (both of which include references to her profound and inspirational influence on me), plus a crisp new $100 bill from Malcolm Jones and the Bonobo Way Female Empowerment Outreach Project.

“It’s money, isn’t it?” chortled Betty like a little girl, ripping open the envelope as I told her of Mal’s commitment to empowering women of the world like her. Though there is no other woman in the world quite like Dr. Betty Dodson. What a unique and iconic life she’s had. She’s documented that life in a new memoir, Sex by Design.

One woman who was a bit like Betty (though they were not the best of friends), Good Vibrations founder Joani Blank, just passed away a couple weeks ago. So the fact that Betty is still with us—toasting her own health with fabulous friends like Blade Runner star Joanna Cassidy, fellow AASECT sex therapist Dr. Stella Resnick, Sandstone administrator Josi Mariposa and our charming hostess Leslie Sank—is more precious than ever.

Happy Bday Kiss. Photo: Sarah Bella

Maybe I would have figured out how to have an orgasm on my own, without the helping hand of Liberating Masturbation, but who knows? In a way, I literally owe my orgasms to Dr. Betty Dodson. Long may she live and love and go bonobos.

The Emperor Has No Balls

I would have liked to stay longer, but the show must go on, and we had to zoom back to Bonoboville for our live Saturday night broadcast on DrSuzy.Tv.

Back at the Speakeasy Bar. Photo: Unscene Abe

Crossing over from one generation of powerful sex-positive women to another (skipping a few in between), I begin this show with a buzz from my Hitachi Magic Wand, the great self-pleasure “weapon” wielded and promoted by both Betty and Joani, and which none of the cool, sleek, quiet, expensive, modern vibrators have been able to top yet in terms of getting the job done.

Then, as we’re doing on every live show leading up to the election, we confront the grim possibility of a Trumpocalypse, this time with an entertaining new public and pubic art piece entitled “The Emperor Has No Balls” by Indecline, signed by the artist Ginger, sporting the Republican candidate’s signature agent orange-yellow hair, HUUUGE belly, saddlebags of fat, tiny little pink dicklet surrounded by curly blonde pubes and, of course, no balls. New York Parks even got into the act, saying they “stand firmly against any unpermitted erection, no matter how small.” There’s also a mini-Trump buttplug between his feet which Ms. Tara would appreciate. What a comic reminder of the small-minded bullying of wannabe Dick-tator Drumpf.

Mal Award for RavenRae

Then I bestow another “Mal Award” upon our featured guest, Madam Raven Rae, who first joined us for Lupercalia, engaged in intense foot fetish play on Elvis in Bonoboville, and has proven herself to be one of the most charismatic and creative FemDoms on the current scene—in and out of the dungeon.

Madam RavenRae will put her Bonobo Way Female Empowerment award towards her new Female Health Awareness project. Photo: Sara Bella

Who is Malcolm Jones? In addition to being an investor, Mal is an inventor, philanthropist, environmentalist and political activist who has supported the women’s movement for decades. When a fellow male feminist recommended The Bonobo Way: The Evolution of Peace through Pleasure, Mal, already quite a bonobo buff, read the book and found himself stumbling upon his own vision of female empowerment scampering through the jungles of The Bonobo Way. Studies have shown that bonobo females are empowered by the males and other females far more than any other great ape culture, and this female empowerment is intrinsic to the extraordinary bonobo ability to make “peace through pleasure,” keeping rape levels low and murder and war nonexistent in their communities.

In a word, females “rule” Bonoboville, gently but firmly… keeping the males gentle and firm. This was the focus of my recent talk on bonobos as “The Most FemDom Apes on Earth” at DomConLA 2016 where, it just so happens, Madam RavenRae was Mistress of Ceremonies.

PHOTOS: SARAH BELLA

 Teasingly tucking the fresh Ben Frank into her bra (“close to my heart”), Madam RR announces that she will use Mal’s gift to seed the new female health awareness project she is starting up with Goddess Amadahy of Orlando, a very appropriate cause. A female’s got to be healthy to feel empowered, after all.

 Fet Play in Bonoboville

 Also in-studio: Big, beautiful, flame-haired ProDomme Humiliatrix Miss Freudian Slit, (last seen on DrSuzy.Tv in Ms. Tara for President & FemDom Politics the Bonobo Way) looking summery in a black and white polka dot sundress that matches my hat; Jay Toriko (last seen performing auto-fellatio on the ErotiqueTv Olympics); statuesque Speakeasy bartendress Shannon Coronado also in black and white—harlequin-style, plus the return of Handsome Hollywood Jake from his mysterious adventures (no, he didn’t go to Syria!).

With Madam RR just back from Fetcon, Jay dressed up in a slinky latex nurse uniform, Miss Freudian opining Freudianly that all strong sexual fetishes begin in childhood, and since I wrote the definition of “Sexual Fetishes” for the Wiley-Blackwell Encyclopedia of Human Sexuality, we approach the evening’s theme of “fet play” from various angles, and even do a bit of fet-playing, along with roleplaying.

Harlequin Shannon. Photo: Sarah Bella

One of Miss Freudian’s favorite roles to play is the Dom Mom or “Dommy Mommy.” She doesn’t need a costume, as her mammoth, maternal and all-natural 44DDs do the trick, especially when she serves as altar girl in Bonoboville Communion with a new batch of Agwa Coca Leaf Liqueur and lime salt.

PHOTOS: SARAH BELLA

Jay takes first Communion, then in response to popular demand, he unsnaps his latex nurse dress, keeps his/her hat and boots on, pantyhose hovering around his/her knees and demonstrates auto-fellatio for the third time on my broadcast bed. This time, he even does it standing up in high-heeled boots. That’s right, this amiable, androgynous latex nurse makes sucking her/his/their own uncircumcised penis look as easy as taking your own temperature.

Standing Auto-Fellatio. Photo: Hollywood Jake

Though Jay adores medical play, we don’t act it out, unless you count Madam RavenRae grabbing his balls roughly like the evil Nazi-ish doctor of Jay’s youthful fantasies. Raven is feeling frisky since, she explains, she was just “caught” in the act of masturbating by her ex. Talk about kinky! True or not, it’s hot.

Checking the patient’s vitals. Photo: Sarah Bella

Then before we know it, it’s time to go, and so ends another show, but the after-party keeps the kinky going into the Garden and Speakeasy bar.

RIP Dave Bell

After no sex (meaning no sexual intercourse), less than three hours of sleep and about a quart of coffee, I was feeling like a millennial. But I just had to make it to the Sunday morning memorial for the late great Dave Bell, congenial genius and Emmy award-winning producer of my HBO specials, “Radio Sex TV” and “Radio Sex TV: Off the Dial.”

Speaking of special, that’s how Dave always made me and Max feel, and apparently, we weren’t the only ones. A couple of hundred Hollywoodites that Dave made feel special lurched themselves awake enough to make it to the Cinefamily Silent Movie Theater, including the director of my HBO shows and some of my “Real Sex” segments, Shari Cookson, who spoke eloquently of Dave’s profound impact on her life and Emmy-award-winning work in television.

Not only did he help a great many people in Hollywood, including me, Dave Bell was a pioneer in the field of documentary and reality TV. He also mixed a mean martini. He was a real class act in a more and more classless field. RIP Dave Bell.

RiP Dave Bell: 1932 – 2016

© August 20, 2016. Susan Block, Ph.D., a.k.a. “Dr. Suzy,” is a world renowned LA sex therapist, author of The Bonobo Way: The Evolution of Peace through Pleasure and horny housewife, occasionally seen on HBO and other channels. For speaking engagements, call 310-568-0066.