Broad City S2 E8 (part 1) - The SSL Review

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SSL Review Intro for Broad City S2 E8 (part 1)
I'm continuing to move through Broad City, SSL Reviewing eligible scenes when they arise, and I'm well into my Season 2 rewatch.  So here we are at Episode 8, which has a couple eligible scene to SSL Review. They will be broken into 2 blogs.

An SSL Review eligible scene being those that include depictions and/or discussions of female orgasm and/or masturbation. That's the only thing I care about in these reviews. I'm looking for physical realism (if a lady is orgasming from a mere ass-cheek spank, I will call bullshit on scientific and basic anatomical ground). I'm also looking for what part the scene plays in our cultural conversation around female orgasm and sexuality. So, thems the basics. If you want more TV SSL Reviews head HERE. Want some movie SSL reviews? Go HERE.





Ilana's Masturbation Scene
Well, to be fair, it was more like a masturbation prep scene because it was abruptly ended shortly after it started. I will do this in list form because it seems more fun

Things Ilana did to prep for her masturbation

• light a candle
• put in earrings
• put on sea foam green lipstick
• squeeze lemon into an oyster on the half shell and slide that oyster into her mouth
• turn down a family picture with her parents and brother
• set up her phone with a picture of Abbi on it
• roll out a yoga mat to lay on
• drop her robe so she's wearing only a sparkly bra
• jimmy-rigged a full length mirror, face down, between a bed and a chair, so she could lay on the yoga mat and watch herself do the damn thing
• check how the junk looks in that mirror and give an approving nod to herself
• sexily gesture for her computer to come to her
• find some porn on that computer
• pick up a vibrating dildo placed close to her, and turn it on

Then it begins. She lays back, and we don't see her middle area, but she seems to have the vibrating dildo placed on her vulva/clitoral glans area - which is an incredibly sensible and realistic place for a woman to place a vibrating dildo if she's interested in orgasming.  So I'm all for that. However we don't see more than about 3 seconds of it because she noticed a familiar face in her porn and stops the whole thing.

Ilana's Retraces Her Porn Steps
Later, she's telling Abbi about it, but begins by retracing her porn steps first.

Ilana: I don't watch anything but solo porn because regular porn is like (pounding hand with fist and in a forceful voice) 'Shut up little girl! Wash my feet!' and she's all like, (in a wierd tiny cartoon voice) 'Uh don't tell my dad ok? 'cause I'm just barely legal. I love shaved pubes and tan crispy bellies and tans.' (back to normal voice) It's like ugggk. So I started with Average Sized Penis Jerk. That led me to Twins Squirting, hello!, which then brought me to Frosted Tips Masturbation.
Abbi: Wow. I just Google 'porn' - which is probably why I really, really don't like most of it.

The SSL Review Stuff
So, there was no orgasms in this. This situation was all about lady-bation, and I love a couple things about it.
1 When Ilana masturbated, she touched herself in a way that was a sensible and realistic for a woman wanting to masturbate to orgasm.
2 The pre-work to masturbation was maybe a bit much, but it showed a woman really reveling in and enjoying her masturbation. That's bad-ass because we need to see all masturbation in a better light, but especially lady-bation. The thing is, female masturbation has all the shame associated with it that male masturbation has, but without being something that is alluded to often in media and without a cultural sense that it is a normal, yet maybe funny/pathetic thing to do - a cultural consideration men enjoy but women really do not.
3 It was all done for humor, but the discussion about porn was poignant. I love that the discussion assumed that porn was a fine and normal thing that can aid masturbation, but also recognized that a shit ton of porn is not made for women - and can in fact be pretty straight-up distasteful to women. In a way, I see the message from that scene as something like: watching porn is pretty hot, but only if it is actually hot...but a lot of it is not, and maybe the main reason women seem to  like porn less is because most of the porn out there (and thus most of the porn women see) is shitty, gross, kinda distasteful porn (that I would add - rarely shows an actual female orgasm yet almost always shows an actual male orgasm). That is a nuanced look at porn that is rarely put forth in pop culture, and it's the kind of discussion that needs to take place. I talk a lot about that in the movie Science, Sex, and the Ladies.

Vulva Rating
I think these scenes had a more progressive sense of lady-bation and of women's relationship to porn than we normally see in the media. I also feel good that the masturbation scene was both positive and reflects a physically realistic way a woman might masturbate to orgasm.

So overall this gets an excellent SSL Review - 5 vulvas!
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