The Multiple-Orgasm Model and the Many Questions It Fails to Answer

I attended a composers conference at Arizona State University in which a couple of paper-reading sessions were scheduled between the many concerts. A composer-author, Deborah Weagel, presented a paper entitled “Monoorgastic and Polyorgastic Climax in Literature, Music, and Homage to George O’Keefe”. The Multiple-Orgasm Model of Composition, which, she posited, was uniquely female and of which, she posited, her piece would be an example. She told us that the single musical climax has been the dominant paradigm throughout Western music history because men wrote, taught and otherwise controlled the musical establishment. Enter the alternative, uniquely female model for musical climaxes – the multiple orgasm. She appeared to offer no opinion as to which would be preferable for the composer or the listener, but the answer seemed obvious: I’ll have the multiple orgasms please! Here it is at last, the poor male’s chance to finally experience, albeit through music, that female wonder so cruelly denied to him from nature! And the ladies could share their vaginal secretions in sound with other ladies and give men a glimpse of (or taunt them with) their erotic joys! Sadly, nothing of the sort emerged in her explanation of the new model either in general nor in her pallid piece.

As I sat there expecting to be enlightened or at least titillated, I wondered if I had written a feminine piece for the conference. My work, for flute and piano, ended with 12 high Cs for the flute as the crests of 12 arpeggios in the piano before a brief codetta in which the music tumbled back down. Were those 12 Cs (unquestionably my idea of the climax of not just that movement, but of the entire set of movements) 12 orgasms, however closely spaced? Or were they a single “male” ejaculation in 12 spurts? Gosh, here I was, the composer, and I had not considered the sexual implications of the end of my work. Oh no – I had not considered the performance theatrics: there would be two men on stage, and one would be blowing into a cylindrical object, and that would contrast sharply with the previous performance in which two women played my instructions (but badly botched the 12 high C passage!). I knew I would have to listen carefully to this presentation in order to be in touch with my musical-gender-political side and be able to properly explain this aspect of the work after the concert to other composers who would be drenched with the sound of sex in the many concerts in the conference.

Her exemplary piece had 2 climaxes (only 2…why not many more?). It was clear that she was proud of the work and also that she felt she had broken some kind of musical barrier and helped bring the woman’s voice (or glands?) into the Western Music vocabulary. The two climaxes were both in the last third of the piece, and they were musically different, albeit traditional climaxes (loud, increased register space, etc.) Perhaps it was my penis trying to suppress this woman’s obvious genius and thrust against the oncoming shift in music history, but I couldn’t help ask a few questions.

1) Given that the climaxes were not musically identical, was I to compare them and decide that one was indeed leading to the other, or responding to the other? She may reply that this was the one-orgasm bias at work, but the brain compares things automatically regardless of your genitalia. Perhaps we are to learn that the second (or first?) orgasm is not as good as the first (or second?).

2) What if the climaxes were musically identical: am I a misogynist for calling the second one a repeat of the first? The brain does this automatically too. The affect, however, may be different for the second. Are we to learn that multiple orgasm feels the same (presumably wonderful) every time, or that it only does on the surface and that the emotional states are heightened (or lessened?)

3) How much time must elapse before the successive orgasm is to be effective and does the preceding structural upbeat need to work harder or not as hard in successive climaxes? Are we talking about a whole evening of music with an extended refractive period, or is it acceptable to jump right back to the build-up?

4) Given that the music was of poor compositional quality to begin with, should I regard the climaxes as the result of a poor love-making session?

5) What about those heterosexual love-making sessions with no female orgasm in which, I’m told, they can be satisfying. Should women also be making pieces with no climax and that just want a good cuddle afterwards, and what would that mean, musically?

6) What about those male homosexual encounters? Are we talking about a new kind of model for climaxes altogether, and one that should be reflected in the music by the homosexual man?

7) What about male multiple orgasm? Yes, it happened a lot more when I was young, but there it was on nights when I had the time. I don’t recall feeling feminine at the time…perhaps I should have. Perhaps the multiple orgasmic musical model should be renamed the “best case scenio young male/best case scenario any age female orgasm model”

8) Haven’t men written music with multiple climaxes? What about the strophic song, to take the most commonplace example? The end of the strophe is some sort of climax, and here it comes again! Are we to hear only the final strophe as being the real climax if a man wrote it, and perhaps a multiple-orgasm model if a woman wrote it?

9) Do we not have models of multiple orgasm on the radio these days? Within 30 seconds and after very little structural upbeat, we are launched into the “chorus” of rock and pop’s versions of the strophic song, and we are to feel some kind of climax. This always happens 3 or 4 times in the song. Is this the result of women’s increased influence on all aspects of society in the latter half of the 20^th century (the same time period in which these multiply-orgasmic songs have flourished)?

10) What of the female listener to the allegedly-male one orgasm model? Is she always disappointed that the music has come to a close when so much more could have been achieved? Have we male composers failed to service their ears, or were we purposely trying to control their sexuality at every turn – even in the masterworks?

11) What of all those sacred works? Are they exempt from this orgasm business? Many of those pieces (i.e. Verdi’s or Brahms’ Requiem) have explicitly climatic moments in each movement. Was the sacred text in fact erotic and the object of worship just another sexual conquest?

Now, of course not all of these questions occurred to me during the Q&A following her presentation, but some did. I didn’t voice my concerns because I found the whole thing ridiculous. The point of my questions should be clear: the parallels one can draw between music and sex are limited and ultimately not very useful. Music is music and sexuality is sexuality. Yes, I am well aware of the sociological connections between the two (esp. with dancing), but the gender musicology always fails because the theories just don’t translate into notes and vice-versa. I’m aware that it is said that music is the most fun you can have with your clothes on (and I tend to agree), but Western art music is ultimately more sublime; its intentions are higher, or at least separate than the physical realm. It is true that J.S. Bach had 20-some-odd children, and he must have enjoyed his bedroom, but the music displays a wide range of affect, only a slice of which could be described as “fleshy/lusty”. It is precisely this which is troubling and made this woman’s theories (she’s not the only one doing this, of course) more than just harmless conjecturing regarding music and meaning. No, these gender theorists are trying to reduce music to something else in order to talk less about music and more about the other thing. It would be one thing all together if composers had a history of discussing their music in sexual terms as the explicit meaning, but that is not the case. For composers, music is in the intellectual/emotional/spiritual realm, 99% of the time. Music is not a surrogate for sex, or power or anything else, it is it’s own beautiful entity and individual works succeed or fail on their own merits, not as some manifestation of a non-musical aspect of human experience. Even if a composer discussed the details of the thrusting and moaning of his music, we may then judge the piece to fail, in all likelihood, in depicting sex well, and most likely fail as a piece of music on its own terms.

I heard my own piece that evening with a degree of distraction when it came to the 12 high Cs. The abstract idea of jubilation was what I had in mind when I wrote that ending, not the idea of ejaculation, but here was the thought, as well as thoughts of the disappointed presentation from earlier in the day. I am still furious at the misguided theories of the fem-musicologist queen with regard to Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, first movement. It is hard for me to enjoy the work without, at some point in the piece, remember her delusions of rape at the recapitulation. Beethoven had something better in mind to say at the very least, but the gender theorists apparently have very little more in mind than genitalia or the hope of writing about music without having to think about the music.

Timothy Melbinger, June 2008