10.19.2010

Fast TImes at Ridgemont High - The SSL Review

 



In case you haven't been reading this blog, the SSL review is a review specifically focused on how a movie treats depictions and discussions of female sexual functioning and pleasure. So basically what happens is I watch movies all the time. Lot's of those movies don't ever depict or discuss orgasms, ejaculations or any aspect of female sexual pleasure, but when one does - no matter how old or obscure - I gotta give it the ol' SSL Review. That's why I feel fine reviewing a movie that's almost 30 years old. It may have been reviewed before - but never SSL reviewed. That being said, I watched Fast Times at Ridgemont High on Netflix the other day, and here is the SSL review.

I liked the teen-movie-but-with-grit style. It had all the fun of adolescent hi jinks, but hit some serious topics with all the drama, posing, indifference, and carelessness that teens bring to their lives. Now when it came to female sexual pleasure I think the teen realism continued, mainly because there wasn't really any orgasms but there was some swag.

There are 2 points in the movie where a lady was depicted during a sexual encounter and 2 points in which ladies discussed sexual encounters in a way that eluded to pleasure. Both sexual encounters involved Jennifer Jason Leigh's character, Stacy Hamilton. She, who is supposed to be 15 in this movie, meets a 26 year old stereo salesman, lies about her age, and goes on a date with him to a make-out place - something like a dugout. They make-out for a minute, and then she lays back and they have intercourse - her first time. She is largely passive in the actual act, laying there while he thrusts. We are looking down at her face when she is entered, and we see the sort of pain on her face, and we also see her visual perspective as the sex is happening - the cement above her with graffiti. The scene is good because I think it resonates with a lot of women's experiences - sex as a not unwilling, but passive, confusing, and slightly painful experience. There is also that sense of being unengaged, of remembering what was on the ceiling above you instead of the sensations of the act itself, an act that is always touted as being the most intense, exciting, amazing experience of a person's life.

10.10.2010

Crappy Science Reporting With Their Outrageous, Alarming Titles Piss Me Off


 



A few friends had posted on Facebook a link to a crazy little article from the LA Times titled "Drug May Limit Homosexuality" and the quick overview read "A prenatal pill for congenital adrenal hyperplasia to prevent ambiguous genitalia may reduce the chance that a female with the disorder will be gay." Intriguing? Disturbing? How about misleading? 

The story is about some studies indicating that a drug has been shown (when tested on a few hundred cases worldwide) to limit the genital masculinization of XX (genetically female) fetuses with the condition Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia (CAH). That is the only new facts in this article. Guess how many studies have been done regarding this drug and homosexuality. None. None at all. The article waits to tell you this till the 2nd to last sentence. 

I have a lot of problems with this article. I have done a fair amount of research into studies regarding gender, sexuality and CAH females, and I can tell you that there are some assertions and assumption in both this article and some of the studies it references that are lacking in good logic. However, my main bone of contention for this blog is the outrageous title that exists only because a few scientists thought this drug might also limit homosexuality in CAH females (if someone were actually to study that possibility and if the condition CAH actually has a biological effect that does in fact increase a female's chance of becoming non heterosexual ---- these are my conditional words not these curious scientists' words). 

It sucks. Let me be more specific when I say sucks, though. Too often, a mostly level-headed, peer reviewed scientific study is discovered by the pop media, and we the public get a shock title that either has nothing to do with the content of the actual study or highlights a tiny mention of future goals or related possibilities that the scientists who wrote the study by no means endorse in the study. Generally, the actual text of the articles are more sensible than the shock titles, but still much less sensible than the actual peer-reviewed published studies. 

I mention my hatred of crap science reporting in this blog because it so very often

10.01.2010

Ain't no shame in the bonobos game



I love me some bonobos, and since this blog is about the movie Science Sex and the Ladies...and since bonobos are somewhat relevant to science, sex, and ladies, I thought I'd spend a blog on them.

Who are these crazy bonobos? They're great apes, also called Pygmy Chimpanzees. They, along with the common chimp (the ones we just call chimps), are equally our closest evolutionary relatives; with our paths likely splitting from the bonobos and chimps about 8 million years ago. . Bonobos are endangered and only found naturally in the Democratic Republic of Congo (you know, the rape as a weapon of war capital of the world right now).
I'd hope a lot of people have heard of bonobos, but they don't get the press that the chimp gets. My guess, and I don't think I'm the only one, is that they are just too damn sexy for your family nature shows. Bonobos sexuality, make-love-not-war ways, and matriarchal society are, I'll admit, exaggerated at times, but it can't be denied that they are an interesting species in these regards.