12.29.2013

Random Hite Report #5



Hello there all! I know you want some more RANDOM HITE REPORT, ya'll! I've been heavy on the RANDOM MALE HITE REPORT's lately, and it's been a while since I gave you a randomly flipped to page out of the ol' Orgasm Equality Movement must-read, The Hite Report. If you want more info on this 1976 book that allowed women to tell the world about their own orgasms, feelings and sexual experiences - in their own words, then please head HERE



The following is from the chapter "The Future of Intercourse?" 

Pg. 534 The Hite Report Dell. 1976.


One woman explained in a long answer how disappointed she was in her husband's lack of interest in anything but intercourse. 
    "I have viewed married love as a growing together in the ability to express love and pleasure, but I haven't seen this growth in my marriage. My husband really doesn't seem to enjoy anything besides intercourse, and that very briefly, and I don't know what to do to change him. I've tried hard.
    "Masturbation is very important for me and I am really sorry I didn't know about it a lot sooner (I started doing it less than a year ago, at the age of 27.) I was interested in my sexuality, but my husband wasn't, so I decided to do something about it. Three years ago I came across the idea of masturbation for adult women in The Sensuous Woman. I cried and cried and cried because I had this romantic idea of having my husband care about and develop my sexuality - a feat for which I would be forever grateful and therefore endeared and close to him. (I had never had sex until marriage.) This was really important to me, so for the next two years I openly expressed my desire to have good sex and to develop my sensuality. Nothing much happened. So I finally said, well, if you don't care about my sexuality, I do! Then I asked him what he thought about masturbation. I found to my surprise that he did it! And that he thought that it would be great if I did it! It relieves him of that responsibility(?) of having to touch, caress, and learn about my genitals(?) Now I've learned to masturbate. And I do enjoy masturbating, but I feel sad that I can't develop my sexuality with my husband. For many women, sex is a union with another person and the cosmic universe. It is a leaving of the body and a disillusion of the self - so that isolation can end. Somehow I can't help but feel that my aloneness is intensified by the fact that my sexual partner hasn't shown the care of my sexuality. In that sense I really wish that I had learned about my own sexuality on my own a lot - being a teenager and learning about your body is different from being a married adult...

12.26.2013

A Good Christmas



Okay, I'm not gonna lie. I'm neglecting this blog a bit. We're in a busy cycle at work; we're doing a lot of home repairs right now; it's Christmas time and I got family and all that, and we're trying to get everything prepared for when the final sound for Sciences, Sex and the Ladies is delivered.

As far as the movie goes, we'll just have to lay the sound over our video and bada-boom, badda-bang, we got a finished movie. However, we still have to create the DVDs for our Kickstarter backers and for our cast and crew. We have to plan the cast showing, send out press kits, etc., etc. It's a whole big thing once the movie is for realz finished, and we really want to have as much done as possible beforehand so we are as prepared to spring into action once we get that sound....which looks like it's going to be really, really soon now. The day before Christmas Eve, we got word that all the music had been mixed and sent over to our re-recording mixer who was already 75% done at that point. So, it was the best Christmas present I got this yeas - the movie that I've been working on my whole adult life, actually fully coming to life. Now that's a good holiday.

I hope the holidays so far have allowed all of you some rest and relaxations, some fun, some friendly faces, and some good food. I'll be back in the swing of things soon, and I have some fun stuff prepared for the blog, so stay tuned.

Since I don't have any pictures of me from this year's Christmas readily available yet, below is a picture of me Christmas 2009 in a sweatshirt I think I stole from my best friend and still wear quite often. anyway, this was about 5 months after we finished shooting the majority of Science, Sex and the Ladies. (April -July 2009). Little did I know it'd be Christmas 2013 before that bitch was finished.


Trisha
Me, Christmas 2009



12.20.2013

Betty Dodson Quotes I Love for a Friday



It's Friday. I'm crazy busy at work, and you're probably busy too. So, I figure you need something quick and fun for this Friday before Christmas. So here you go.

Frankly, my dears, Betty Dodson just don't give a damn about what you think. I love it. She's funny, caring, and as I've mentioned before, she's got the right idea about what we need to do to make things better for women's orgasms. On that note, I've come across a couple quotes that I've compiles here for your reading pleasure. I actually think this might be a fun series. I know there are a million more quotes, I just don't have time to find more now, but when I do, you'll be happy I did. For now, enjoy the few below. They all are funny and rang true to me in some way, so let this 83 year old women tell it.

Betty Dodson taken form DodsonRoss website

"When friends ask if I'm going to have another love affair, my recent answer has been, "I'd love to have someone hold my dildo while I masturbate."- Betty Dodson/Carlin Ross Vlog 
I mean, right?..cause your hands are working on your clit and all, and if you want to stick a dildo up there while you're doin' it, you kinda got your hands full at that point. So yeah, that would be super sweet and relaxing to just have a human dildo holder. Seriously, I'm with her on this...not so much a "lover" as much as someone to assist your masturbation...I'm actually serious about this, it would be kinda awesome.

"Your Sleeping Beauty was awakened by an electric vibrator not by a kiss from a Prince!" - As part of an answer on DobsonRoss website
She was right on when she said this, but it's not just a quippy part of an answer. It's also probably so true for a lot of women. Falling in love with some dude and getting a kiss is easy in this world for women. However, a first orgasm after a lifetime without...now that will wake a lady up for real.
"I consider the 70s to be the youth of old age. So all you women out there who are afraid of getting older, just keep your orgasms in place, eat a lot of vegetables, take exercise, and you'll be fine." - I just found this on a quote website, and it sounds just like something she would say, so i'm going to believe it is a real quote.
If that ain't good advice, then I don't know good advice. Here's to the older ladies!


12.17.2013

Another one about that show



Trisha's crushed at work this week so you get me instead. I've been watching Masters of Sex the Showtime show about the pioneering research of Master and Johnson. If you don't know who that is google it. It will be worth your while.

What I keep thinking is if fictional sex and sexuality in media shapes our cultural sexual norms what effect could this show that is supposedly about how we came to understand sex going to have? Contemplate that while you look at this lovely photo of the real Masters and Johnson and their hollywood counterparts.



12.12.2013

Evan Rachel Wood, Movie Oral, and the Damn MPAA



A quick update on the oral-sex-performed-on-women-in-the-movies front. As you may know the MPAA are the people giving the movies you watch G's, PG's, R's, and sometimes NC-17's - you know if they have any lady-lickin' going on. Cause for real, they do have a history of tacking the box-office killing NC-17 rating on movies that include cunnilingus. Check out the Blue Valentine oral scandal (which eventually got remedied), and if you have about 2 hours, check out the film about how ridiculously subjective and biased the MPAA is in the doc This Film Is Not Yet Rated.



Anyway, this problem of NC-17ing cunnilingus is unfortunate since there's barely any represented in mainstream movies as it is. Penises seem to get a fair amount of oral attention in movies, and straight up P in V sex doesn't seem to have much trouble finding its way onto the big screen without an NC-17 rating, which I guess makes sense if you only really see sex acts that are orgasmic to men as normal and civilized enough for a wide audience.

However, we're a modern society, so this kind of problem with women receiving oral sex is a little stupid. I mean this shouldn't still be a problem actors, actresses and directors still have to speak out about, but it is, and I give Evan Rachel Wood credit for doing so. Her upcoming movie Charlie Countryman got the lady-oral-NC-17 -slap, which prompted the movie makers to cut the cunnilingus out, so she tweeted a rant, which I thought was pretty good. Go Evan Rachel Wood - and I hope you and others raise enough stink that the MPAA starts giving it a second thought before continuing to rate ladies-receiving-oral right out of our mainstream media.

After seeing the new cut of #CharlieCountryman I would like 2 share my disappointment with the MPAA, who thought it was necessary to censor a woman's sexuality once again. The scene where the two main characters make 'love' was altered because someone felt that seeing a man give a woman oral sex made people 'uncomfortable' but the scenes in which people are murdered by having their heads blown off remained intact and unaltered.
This is a symptom of a society that wants to shame women and put them down for enjoying sex, especially when (gasp) the man isn't getting off as well! It's hard for me to believe that had the roles been reversed it still would have been cut. OR had the female character been raped it would have been cut. It's time for people to GROW UP.
Accept that woman are sexual beings … Accept that some men like pleasuring women. Accept that women don't have to just be fucked and say thank you. We are allowed and entitled to enjoy ourselves. It's time we put our foot down …

12.09.2013

Female Masturbation in Cw's Reign!



Reign is a historical fiction series set in the time of Mary, Queen of Scots. It's a new CW series that has just begun in this 2013-2014 season. Now, I don't watch the show, but I know people who do, and I've been filled in on the basics of the plot line. Mary is awaiting her marriage in the French court, and given that she and her ladies in waiting are quite young for our standards of marrying age - it centers around teenagers. It sounds like a fun drama-rific show. However, no one happened to mention to me anything about the whole masturbation scandal I stumbled upon while searching around the internet recently.



Apparently in the show a bunch of the young gals watch through a keyhole as a newly married couple consummate their marriage (apparently a group of elders are watching from inside the room also - as was the custom of the day), and then the girls split up and deal with what they saw. One goes off, pulls up her skirt and starts using her hand to rub around down there - which according to Kate Aurtur on the Buzzfeed staff - was the first teen soap girl masturbation scene since Blair Waldorf in Gossip Girl a few years ago. So it's a fairly big deal, if I might say so myself. I mean we're always hearing about teen dudes masturbating - (you know even in pies and stuff), but it's just not that common to hear about in our media with girls.

However, the scene was cut down a bit between the pilot sent out to critics in the spring and the actual airing in the fall. It's still there but the masturbation part is shorter. And here's the weird part. The King of France happens upon her and takes over for her - replacing his hand for hers. I do like that he took over with the manual clit stim instead of going straight to doing her - which is what one might expect.

Truly, I don't watch the show, so I can't really interpret this scene in context with the characters, so I'm just gonna simply give the show props for even insinuating that masturbation is one way a young gal might react to the exciting situation of secretly watching a sexual act. The scene as aired is reportedly so short one would have to just assume about what is happening before the king arrives, but hey, it's something. I say the more girls feel that masturbation is a normal thing that others girls might do, the better. Show creators Stephanie SenGupta and Laurie McCarthy, I give you a tip of the hat.


12.05.2013

Hey Girl Ryan Gosling - The Orgasm Equality Set



Honestly, I didn't think much about Ryan Gosling a couple years back. He popped up on my radar though, strangely, when the Super Bowl was going on here in Indianapolis. I'm not into football really or the Super Bowl, but it was actually really fun watching everyone here in Indy on blogs and Facebook and stuff having fun hanging around downtown. So, while I was stalking my fun-having friends and acquaintances, I noticed someone shared a bunch of Boyfriend Ryan Gosling memes -Indianapolis Super Bowl edition. Now, I hadn't really even heard of the Hey Girl Ryan Gosling Meme or the Feminist Ryan Gosling memes, but something about these Hey Girl, Indy ones were just plain enjoyable to me. They are very specifically Indianapolis-centric and you probably won't find them amusing at all if you aren't from here - For instance "Hey Girl, You're so hot Paul Poteet gets confused." or "Hey Girl, There's more than corn in Indiana, but all I see is you."

From then I started noticing Ryan Gosling more in movies. I loved him in Drive and in the recently SSL reviewed Only God Forgives. Anyway, he also has a reputation for being a feminist including speaking out on the NC17 rating for Blue Valentine - about how ridiculous it is that we see violent sexual acts done to women all the time on the big screen, but as soon as someone shows an explicit scene with a woman receiving a pleasurable sex act, everyone gets their panties in a bunch.

So with all that, I thought I would do a twist on Hey Girl Ryan Gosling. I present to you - Orgasm Equality Hey Girl Ryan Gosling. Enjoy.







12.02.2013

Only God Forgives - The SSL Review



Okay, this is a slippery SSL Review here, folks. I can say that Only God Forgives  is clearly eligible for an SSL Review. It certainly has a depiction or discussion of female sexual release or female masturbation, so that's why we're here. The tricky part, though, is what to make of it. In this type of review I'm really just trying to asses the impact and significance of said depiction/discussion on our cultural understanding of physical female sexual response.



However, this movie is not straightforward, and critiquing the culture impact of the scenes from within the context of the movie is also not straightforward. So, let me just describe the scenes. They are both basically the same, just at different times in the movie. Julian (Ryan Gosling - who has a pretty good Orgasm Equality History) is seated and he watches Mai (Yayaying Rhatha Phongam), a fully dressed woman, doing what one could only assume is masturbating herself under her skirt. We don't see much of what's going on below the waist, but from arm movement/placement we could, ya know, reasonably assume she is masturbating. It looks as realistic as one could expect. She is putting on a little bit of a show with the whole tilted back open lipped I'm-clearly-pleasuring-myself facial expression, but it's not over the top. I wouldn't call it pornish or anything. The hand seems as if it's making circles on the clit/vulva area, which is certainly a realistic way one might masturbate - I mean it doesn't look like she's doing any of the not-so-orgasmic-but too-often-depicted-ladybation-movements we sometimes see in movies like  ramming anything in and out of her vagina, so it's a good, realistic depiction.

Julian (Ryan Gosling) and Mai (Yayaying Rhatha Phongam) - not one of the scenes I'm describing btw


You might be saying, "Hey Trish, why's this so hard to SSL Review? It's a depiction of Ryan Gosling in a hot suit paying (we assume since it's pretty clear in the movie that she's a prostitute) a lady to masturbate while he watches and doesn't touch (she actually ties his hands to the chair in the first scene)."

And I'd have to say, "You're right, my friend. This is actually the perfect scenario - a man (a hot one too) valuing genuine, realistic, and independent pursuit of sexual release in a woman. I mean that's great. Plus, it's my perfect prostitution job. I could be way into that, but, like I said, the movie ain't so clear cut." There's perspective switches and cuts between reality and fantasy. In fact it's open to interpretation what parts of these scenes are even really happening. There's also issues with the larger context of these two character's relationship - there's a bit of a power dynamic which could taint how you see these scenes. Plus, the movie is super "artsy" and violent and somewhat confusing depending on how you look at it, so I think this lady-bation scene could feel very different to different viewers, and I don't want to get too deep into that.

So, here's my final SSL Review conclusion. While acknowledging all the complications involved with the movie's context, I willingly take these scenes at face value and hereby declare that they are realistic depictions of how a female might physically masturbates, and that's more than most movies who either ignore it (more so than male masturbation) or depict it in an unrealistic way, so I give it 4 out of 5 vulvas!
(!)(!)(!)(!)

P.S. I actually really liked this movie. It's of a certain taste, but if you like to try out varied styles of cinema, I'd give it a chance. There's some crazy shit in this, and it was so strangely pretty...

11.29.2013

New Trailer for Science, Sex and the Ladies!



That's right, we cut a new trailer! Science, Sex and the Ladies is almost a finished movie, and it was time for a newer, fresher one. What's also super awesome about this is that the music is from our score that was recently recorded out in L.A. The only thing left for SSL to be complete is the the final sound sweetening on the last 1/3 last third of the movie.

Ah, this has been a long, long road to get here, and we're so close now. So, please enjoy our trailer. Oh- and please share if it strikes your fancy....and if ya want, you can like our movie troupe on Facebook...or not, I'll still "like" you either way (oh yeah, I stand by that pun - if one could even call that a pun). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pfQW9ozrdWo


11.26.2013

Random Male Hite Report #5



Okay, I've been doing a thing called Random Hite Report. Sometimes it's from The Hite Report on Female Sexuality and sometimes it's from The Hite Report on Male Sexuality. Both simply ask intimate detailed questions of its participants, and we hear their story in their own words. I think that they are both amazingly insightful and important works, but I have a special love for the male version.

Maybe it's because the female version gets most of the attention - granted, it was the first one, the really, head exploding, groundbreaking one, and the one that really made the point that our culture is just plain ignorant about the physical nature of female orgasm. Believe me, I'm so very much behind all that, and thankful for Shere Hite's efforts. I just always like to root for the underdog, and the male version is just that. It seems like it wouldn't be that interesting. I mean, men, sex - we get it, right? Ah, but you are wrong. This book will pull you in. It is so very human and raw. As much insight as the female version had into aspects of female sexuality that our society ignores or misunderstands, the male version has that too. It's just often different aspects than the lady stuff. It also is an incredible snapshot of  men of a certain period in our history. These are men smack dab in the middle of all the cultural changes that accompanied the sexual, civil rights, and women's revolutions, and we are hearing their intimate thoughts about the most intimate parts of their lives. I just think it's beautiful and touching. It's not all pretty, but nothing that's real ever is.

Anyway - in this series, I just flip to a page and the copy it - no more no less- to the blog. Enjoy.

p. 157 The Hite Report on Male Sexuality by Shere Hite
Alfred A. Knoff. NY. 1981


This was in answer to the question, “What was the effect of outside sex on the marriage?” in the “Relationships with Women” section. Now clearly, not everyone had previously answered yes about even having extramarital affairs, but this is part of the breakdown for those who did. These answers from the page I transcribe below page are under the subheading:

The most frequent answer to “What was the effect of extramarital sex on your marriage” from men who had not told their wives, was “no effect”:

     "Married twenty-one years. I can take marriage or leave it. I think of myself as monogamous, but I have one lover, unknown to my wife. It changed my life. Kept me going. Kept me responsible to my family. The best thing that ever happened to me. My lover also has a family. She lovers her husband too, and her children. We have an honest open relationship."
     "Married twenty-six years. Sex is probably the most important part of my life, but there is too little of it with my wife. Therefore, I have sex outside, unknown to her. It keeps me functioning as a member and head of my family - and gives me the ego satisfaction that I need."
     I've had extramarital experiences unknown to my wife. It has made life better for me and easier to stay married. It made me more relaxed as a person, especially in the area of being a father to my children."
     "At first I felt somewhat guilty about extramarital sex, but justified it to myself as being good for me and harmless to my marriage. I think it has been good for my marriage because it allowed me to stop being irritated at my wife for not having as high a sex drive as me. It acted as a tension release."
     "I have had several extramarital relationships. As far as I know, my wife has never known of them - in any event, she has never actually caught me. The effect of my extramarital relationships has been to keep my marriage together. I don't think I could have stood twenty-seven years of an unsatisfactory sex life. If anything, extramarital affairs have improved my marriage, and I have good reason to believe that some of the married women with whom I have had extramarital relationships have also improved their marriages."
     "I have had 'extramarital' experiences unknown to my wife. I'm afraid it helped me as a person in my ego problems and helped me weather the bad times in my marriage. I believe it preserved my marriage, as without these interests and pleasures my marriage would have been over. Instead it continued and survived and improved. I don't need these affairs anymore, but I am glad I had them. They were casual, safe, and always with married women who were horny and who were friends, and some still are.
     "My wife and I had a poor period for many years and we were heading for splitsville when I met a woman who thought I was terrific, a great lover, and a super human being, besides loving to fuck.I became sexually satisfied and it wasn't necessary to force my wife to screw. This helped our relationship."
     "For at least twenty-five of my thirty-five years of married life I have not liked being married. In fact, I never liked the sexual part of my marriage, which has rarely been fulfilling. To the best of my knowledge all my extramarital relationships were so fulfilling that I was a much happier person and could play on my marital roles much better. On occasion, I think my wife suspected something or may have even been jealous, but since our relationship was under strain most of the time anyway, it didn't matter much. I was faithful for the first twenty-five years, and miserable long before starting to 'step out.' As far as I was concerned, the unhappiness could not get worse, nor the deprivation."
     "I have had sex with women other than my wife for many years. My wife knows vaguely about it-she doesn't like it, but as long as i keep it out of our home and don't talk about it (pretend it doesn't exist?), she goes along with it. I also think she knows that sex means more to me than her. The effect...

11.21.2013

Searches People Used To Find This Blog



Um, it's been a while since I've posted any of the searches that Blogger shows as bringing readers to my blog, so here's what I've collected the last few months...

(I didn't know what picture to put with this post, but I figured the theme here is random, so I went with this random picture of me in an apartment in Kansas City sleeping next to my favorite cat, Frank...that is favorite cat that is not one of my own cats)

Me and sweet, sweet, Frank chillin'


saxy movi multal garl - a bad speller looking for sexy girls doing mutual masturbation or someone having a seizure as they typed?

easy clits - Who isn't looking for some slutty clits....am I right? Am I right?

giant vulvas - when normal sized vulvas just don't cut it

clits liking - Do they want to find others who share their "liking" of "clits" or did they mispell licking and want to do just that to clits-plural not just one little ol' clit?

orgasm equality - Yeah, ya'll! It does my heart good to know at least one person out there wanted to google "orgasm equality"

nudey woman and aman - just 1 man please....or was that a prayer with a mispelled amen?

clit boner - I hope after they googled this it said "Did you mean  'binner'?"

"documentary jerk off in your pussy" and "mind if i jerk off in your pussy with my" - I'd like to say these are just weird fetishes about polite men who like to jerk off in pussies while watching astute documentaries, but it's actually a quote from After Porn Endsa doc I SSL reviewed and the search is a quote that I spoke about quite a bit - it's actually pretty poignant.

did mila kunis really give oral to timberlake - You won't find out for sure in my blog. I'm no gossip.

disappointed clits - :(

pornset fights - I actually would like to see some of these.

moms clit - Girl wondering if she likely inherited a clit like her mom's? A person simply wanting to fantasize about their mom's clit? A fetish maybe - the person likes the clits of people who are moms?...or is there a clit style that I don't know about that the kids are calling "mom clit"? Maybe it's like mom jeans. I just don't know for sure.

Alright, I have more, but they'll have to wait till next time.

11.15.2013

Some Friday Fun - Cause I Hate Cosmo/Glamour/Men's Health Sex Advice



I came across this article in Salon.com called 15 "Naughty" Tips to Guarantee Awful Sex by Anna Pulley. Basically it's just a collection of weird, gross, and often food filled sex advice from the "naughty" files of your favorite women and men's magazines. As you know, I hate much of the intercourse-focused, ladygasm ignorant, clit-lacking sex advice regularly and confidently given by these magazines, so I figure why not post a link to this article and give you a laugh at their expense this Friday afternoon.

Enjoy and have a good weekend!

http://www.salon.com/2013/11/10/15_naughty_tips_to_guarantee_bad_sex_partner/


11.12.2013

Guest SSL Review - 12 Years A Slave



Mr. Barnaby Aaron sent me a note last week saying that he had just seen the movie 12 Years A Slave and thought there was an SSL Review in it. As you may know, an SSL review is one that focuses specifically on any depictions or discussions of female sexual release or female masturbation. Obviously, not every movie is eligible for this kind of review, but when one arises, I think it's important to assess how physically accurate and realistic these depictions are - given that there are so many inaccurate and ridiculous images of female release out there. Anyway, I love when other people are thinking about these things while watching movies, and I love when someone's up for writing a post for me, so it was my lucky day when he agreed to write something up. 



I keep vacillating between writing a ten thousand word review of this movie or just cutting right to the relevant scenes. Its hard for me to succinctly put into words what 12 Years a Slave is as far a movie goes. Is it entertainment, I don’t think so. It's more of a historical recreation of the terrible institution of slavery that this country was partly founded on. There are many scenes of brutality in this movie, some might say they are gratuitous because they linger on these depictions, making the viewer unable to escape the inhumanity of the action. Reading about families being torn apart, about whippings, about rape, about lynchings, about the total exploitation and degradation of a human being is not as impactful as witnessing it brilliantly portrayed on the movie screen. These scenes of brutality are inescapable because they are an inescapable part of our history.

What I didn’t expect out of this movie was a compelling and interesting depiction of the female orgasm. In one of the first scenes in the movie, the film’s main character Solomon Northup, played by Chiwetel Ejiofor, is laying on the floor of a crowded slave quarters. He is trying to sleep after a long day of work. He turns over to see a woman staring at him intensely. This woman has a look of wild desire in her eyes. They begin to kiss (I could be wrong about this but I think they did do some kissing).  They then stop kissing and the woman takes Solomon's hand and places it down, off screen, apparently on her genitals. They stare at each other as she works his hand around off screen. After maybe 30 seconds she has an orgasm. While it can’t be definitively confirmed, it did seem like she was moving his hand in a circular motion, as if she were stimulating the clitoris. I did not get the impression that he was entering her with his fingers, especially since it didn’t seem like she removed any clothes. The physical action that led up to this orgasm was clearly something that could realistically lead to orgasm. After the orgasm she turns over and starts sobbing.

I was really pleased by this depiction. When she gave him the look, Solomon didn’t jump on top of her and ravish her. Through this whole scene Solomon remains unmoved by her desires, he finds no joy in the action but participates out of a sense of duty to another slave’s necessary human urges. You could say that maybe the hand job was all Solomon could manage, being that he missed his wife and was tired from a long day at work, but I don’t think so. I think the filmmakers are looking at this woman and her desire as an undeniable part of her being. She has no freedom and this orgasm is one of the only joys she can have in life. She does turn over and begin to sob right afterwards and I think this is equally interesting because there are many ways to interpret this. Is she sobbing because Solomon can’t give her any more than that? If intercourse is commonly seen as the highest form of sex then maybe it's supposed to show that all Solomon did was get her hot and bothered and then slam on the brakes. That could have been the intention but it doesn’t seem fitting. 

I think there are many reasons she cries afterward. The slave society was very religious, a fact they effectively established in the movie. This slave (we never learn her name) might have felt incredibly guilty about having an orgasm or even wanting to have an orgasm because of this religious world that she lived in. However the impression I got from this scene is that she is a person who has needs and that this little moment of pleasure might be the only moment in the whole day that she has for herself. She sobs because she desires the touch of a man who cannot love her and only participates because he knows she needs this release. She sobs because the moment is so fleeting and so over once its done. I give the filmmakers much credit for showing this woman’s humanity through her orgasm. It is depicted accurately and as a real thing that is necessary for her life.

There was also a much more difficult scene in this movie that involved rape, and clearly this wasn't an orgasmic or pleasurable sexual experience for the female, so there is no SSL review of it to be made. I will only say that this rough penetration is properly seen as a type of torture as bad as being whipped nearly to death.The absolute horror that this woman had to live through in this movie is unthinkable, and the reality of her experience lingered with me after watching this movie. This movie is difficult to watch, but you should watch it.

11.08.2013

Wired, The By-product Theory of Female Orgasm, A Twin Study, and Scientists Being Thick



Well, Wired, maybe you should stick to reviewing phone apps and stay out of science articles. I just don't think it's your forte.

Actually, Wired's Female Orgasm Remains an Evolutionary Mystery isn't really any worse than most pop science articles. It's just a bunch of fluff about fluff science that hopes to hook people in with it's edginess, humor, or weirdness, but doesn't actually say anything useful - and more often just misleads. 

Background

I recently reviewed a book (The Case of the Female Orgasm: Bias in the Study of Evolution by Elisabeth Lloyd) that methodically and thoughtfully combed through all the evolution of female orgasm theories out there and all the relevant scientific data. Lloyd then threw out the crap and put forth the best possible evolutionary explanation for the female orgasms from the current state of knowledge. She said that it's most likely the female orgasm arose as a by-product of the male orgasm. Unsurprisingly, it's often called the By-product Theory of Female Orgasm. 

You see, orgasm in males is highly associated with ejaculation, which is necessary for procreation, so they have a strong evolutionary push to keep bodies that can orgasm properly. We ladies reap the benefits.  It's kinda like the way men have nipples because female nipples are so very important to the survival of our species. Lloyd, of course describes all this better than me, and her argument is pretty damn solid. It was actually a really straightforward argument, and some of the most interesting stuff in her book was then discussing why evolutionary biologists seemed to ignore really basic scientific knowledge and basic methodology in most theories on the subject and why the by-product theory gets so much resistance. Anyway, point is - the book is good, and it's weird how the female orgasm seems to make scientists forget logic or something.

The Wired Article

This article is all like..".Uh Oh, ya'll! The by-product theory is in trouble cause this one study (Genetic analysis of orgasmic function in twins and siblings does not support the by-product theory of female orgasm)
 came out!" Anyway, here's the Wired description of the study.
...Zietsch and Santtila devised a test. They surveyed 1,803 pairs of opposite-sex twins and 2,287 pairs of same-sex twins, asking them how often and how easily they reached orgasm. If female orgasm is evolutionarily connected to male, opposite-sex twins should have similar orgasmic function. 
But that’s not what they found. Instead, while orgasmic function was genetically shared in same-sex twins — brother tended to share function with brother, or sister with sister — the relationship vanished in opposite-sex twins, though both share the same amount of genetic material. The underlying genetics, and thus the underlying evolutionary pressures, thus appear to differ. 
“This does not support the hypothesis that female orgasm is maintained only as a byproduct of selection on the male orgasm,” wrote Zietsch and Santtila.

I'm sorry, but a study informing me that females would report "how often and how easily they reach orgasm" more similarly to other females than they would to males...well, that just doesn't really surprise me. The experience of, knowledge of, and culture of males orgasm is very different from that of female orgasm, so yeah, that makes some sense.

 The Study
I went ahead and read this entire study, and there were some pretty glaring problems that the Wired article would have done well to speak of. Firstly, the questions asked men are different than the questions asked women: Here is an excerpt from the Methods section.
Female orgasmic function was assessed by two items: ‘Over the past 4 weeks, when you had sexual stimulation or intercourse, how often did you reach orgasm?’ ... and ‘Over the past 4 weeks, when you had sexual stimulation or intercourse, how difficult was it for you to reach orgasm?’
Male orgasmic function was assessed by two items: ‘How fast have you typically ejaculated after the intercourse (vaginal or anal) has commenced?’ ... and ‘How often have you in your own opinion ejaculated too soon or too late?’ 

I mean...researchers, really?...at least ask your male and female sets of twins the same question so you can be comparing the same thing when you make your conclusions. Oh, and maybe not have one of your questions to the males be a blatant opinion question. Don't you think that maybe a lot more than the genetic influence on ease of and ability to orgasm is addressed in that question? Don't you think maybe that their learned feelings of what is acceptable or not in the society and in their particular sexual relationships might just have a strong influence on that answer? It's a ridiculous question for a study aimed at the heritable qualities of a person's orgasm. It just is. (To be fair, the researchers address the 2 different questions issue briefly in the discussion section, but sluff it off easily, simply saying something to the effect that their conclusions could be affected by this - yeah, they might be).

And the questions for women...the fact that this study about female orgasm is even based on asking women questions about their orgasms and not on actual physical investigation, to me, speaks to the absolute ignorance in our culture about orgasm inequality (I kinda made that phrase up just now). Our culture is ladygasm and clitoris ignorant.  Female bodies are not equipped to orgasm easily during intercourse the way men's are, yet intercourse is still our most important sexual act, and women are still largely expected to enjoy it in much the same way men are. What I'm saying here is that because of this and other deep cultural misunderstanding about female orgasm, women have a strange complicated relationship with their ability to come. We lie about it. We lie to ourselves about it. We don't get it as much as we want or as much as we feel we should have it. We give up on it. We comfort ourselves by believing that we just naturally have less biological ability to get them. It's a wild west of possibilities about how each woman deals with the disconnect between what their bodies know and what our society expects from it. At this point in history, OUR ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS ABOUT OUR ORGASMS ARE GOING TO BE BIASED, UNINFORMED, CONFUSED, AND SOMETIMES STRAIGHT UP LIES - EXPECT NOTHING LESS, RESEARCHERS. 

Okay, so assuming that the answers to these questions were, by some miracle, answered as accurately and objectively as one could expect. That brings me to another huge issue. Should these researchers so easily be making the jump between how quickly one orgasms or how often one feels able to orgasm and the heritable, genetic ability of a person to orgasm? Clearly, the capability for orgasm is a physical, heritable property, but whether one feels able to do it or how fast one does it has oh-so-much to do with very non-heritable variables. Masters and Johnson's book Human Sexual Inadequacy pretty clearly makes a case that the human orgasm is physically available for all healthy bodies to enjoy, but that any number of environmental experiences can suppress it (or make it happen too quickly for one's liking). Everything from the type of partner one has to basic sexual knowledge to experience to feelings about sex to type of sexual activities one normally engages in all have incredibly strong influence over the answers to the questions these researchers were asking. The approach to this study just seems to me to be super naive and ineffective for its goals.


My Conclusions
So, my points here are as follows:
1) This study that Wired thought was important enough to bring to the masses is misleading, problematic, and frankly doesn't have anything actually interesting to say....and 
2)  it certainly doesn't take any chunks out of the by-product theory of evolution.
3) Come on, Wired, there's amazing, important, cool science going on all over the world, and this is all you could come up with? It's sad.
4) Our culture is so back asswards about our understanding of females and orgasm (how it works, how it is experienced, and the cultural context of it) that science investigating the two together are usually ridiculous, useless, and way off base. This study was no exception.

11.04.2013

Sexy SSL Stories...AKA Orgasmic Possibilities for Non-Coital M-F Interactions



I don't usually worry much about offending readers with overly sexual posts, because I mean, it's pretty much a blog about candid discussion of orgasms and female genitals, so my readers probably aren't easily offended. For some reason, though, I got all worried when I had this idea to write some descriptions about non-coitus, male-female-partnered ladygasms. I was all like, "I don't know Trisha, are you here to write erotica or are you here to create thoughtful discussions about the intersection of culture, physical sexual response, and feminism," as if I'm all classy or something. Well, then I realized this blog is really about orgasm equality activism, and there ain't a damn thing gonna change unless 1. real (key word here is real) female orgasms are culturally viewed as hot, and 2. we aren't all so obsessed with and focused on vaginal intercourse as the end all be all of sex. So here's my little contribution to making a change.

Below you will find some ways a lady might get into some hot, wet, nasty, orgasms while enjoying sexy time with a gentleman, but not engaging in vaginal-penile intercourse. Enjoy. Or stop reading. Whatever feels right to you. Also, stimulating genitals until orgasms is pretty unisex, so feel free to use these scenarios, altered accordingly, to meet any same-sex or multi-partner interests you may have.

Grindin' on a dude - This is a pretty self explanatory name. You can choose to grind against whatever part of him you'd like (that he agrees to of course). I'm just throwing out a suggestion. So, maybe you just want him face down on the bed with his tight, round ass cheeks tensed and ready for your slippery lower lips. You could start with gentle little circles pressed into his taut but kinda soft butt - real slow while you grab  his broad shoulders and roughly run your hands up and down that deep ridge in the middle of his back. Maybe, though, while you're whispering in his ear about your dirty long-held LL Cool J fantasies, you get crazy hot and need a little more pressure against your clit, so you slide up and grind hard and steady on the area right near his tailbone with both hands on his shoulders pressing your pelvis hard into him until you come, grinding on until you've exhausted your lady junk and want to watch Parks and Rec or something.

Feel free to imagine LL Cool J while Grindin' on a Dude

Skinny Dipping - Not the naked in a pool one. This is just what I've decided to name a move I'm making up right now. It's like 50% Mutual Masturbation, an SSL favorite, but with other stuff. I'd say it should be a real spread eagle event - naked as hell and sitting up in a bed - against a pillow or something - with legs wide open. That's the lady. The dude is naked as hell too, kneeling in between  her legs facing her and sucking on her neck and shoulders- like real wild style - like when you were in high school and woke up the next morning with an insane amount of hickeys all over you.

He's got one hand full of lube, and he's slow stroking. She's got her own lube, and she's oh so gently grazing her fingers over just the edges of her lower lips - just enough to get the blood flowin'. So, they're just hot and heavy up top and achingly slow down low, getting everything all warm and wet and puffed up. Then they take turns, just for like a couple minutes each. He'll drop down, get both hands under her ass, raise her up to his mouth and start sucking softly on her lips. Then he pops up, stands straddled over her hips and kinda feeds her his dick, so she can give him a real slow, sucky BJ (Assume the lubes edible or something)

Then, they just go on and make their way through all that again and again, each time adding a little more pressure and speed until he's face first downtown with her whole swollen vulva encompassed by his mouth, breathing warm breath on it and making her want to just reach down to the back of his head and start grinding it all over her - but she doesn't, and he gets down to business focusing in on the clit, sucking on it and rolling his tongue around it, rhythmic and steady, and then just before she starts to spasm, he gently pushes one finger in her vag and hold it still in there till she's all tuckered out. It's kinda sweet, really.

Club Jerk - I feel like this is a classic kind of fantasy, but I'm going to replace the banging that is normally there with something that is actually orgasmic. So, it's basically this. It's a dark, crowded dance club. The floor is packed full with nasty, grindy beats coming from the DJ, and there's some dancin' happening - the kind of dancing that is meant for dark clubs if ya catch my drift...that drift being that she's got her ass rubbing up hard against his tented crotch, and his hands are finding their way between her legs. There's kissing, and there's fondling of anything that can be fondled kinda subtly, and it's just getting heated, so they make their way to the wall at the edge of the floor. They've already got each other's pants unzipped, and they both face each other leaning sideways against the wall in a sort of V, so that they've closed themselves off as much as possible from the rest of the dance floor. Then they get real close, kissing and grabbing each other with one hand and with the other hand, well they just rub themselves off frantically until they both come.

I see him as splooging into his free hand - to reduce mess - in case you want to know. After that they're gonna have to go hit the restroom and clean up. They were not caught by bouncers and thrown out.

The Ultimate - I'll make this real simple. Here's what's gonna happen. A guy is going to lay you down and just start working his hands and mouth all over your body. You will have a high quality bullet vibrator with fresh new batteries, and you're going to close your eyes (cause let's just focus heavy on the feelings of pleasure and arousal here - okay), and chill. Duder will pop that vibrator into a condom, turn it on, and slip it up into your vag. Then, he's gonna go back to what he was doing. That vibe is gonna just chill in there sending vibes out all over the vulva, and you'll just hang back and enjoy what's happening. It's probably gonna get pretty wet and swollen down there, so when you feel like you want to escalate the situation, you'll just pop that bullet out, and start vibing on the outer lips, then the inner lips as far from the clit as possible (we're going for a slow burn situation here). Dude's still doing his job. Then you turn it up a notch and rub that vibe bullet wherever you need to to throw yourself over the gasm edge. Then, I guess you just drift off to a satisfied slumber or something.

So that's my contribution to sexifying non-coital, M-F, ladygasms. Please feel free to add your own fave non-intercourse sex in comments. The more the merrier.

10.31.2013

Does Penis Size Matter? Nahhh.



So, my last post was a random Hite Report, and it just happened that the page I turned to was about guys feeling like their dicks were too small (actually, the question asked was about genitals, not penises in particular, and it seemed like a couple of the guys were talking about their balls which seemed strange to me. I really never suspected men worried about them being too small...I mean, is that a thing? Cause maybe it shouldn't be).

Anyway, it got me thinking that I should speak on this whole "does size matter" thing. I'm sure I've made my feelings known on this subject in various places in this blog, but I don't think I've ever written a whole post on it.

Big ol' penises you can find on the Strange Things of Korea website HERE

So in short (no pun intended), the answer is no, size doesn't matter...for bringing women to orgasm that is. As I've pointed out here many times, the penis rubbing in the vagina does not cause orgasm. That means that a fatter one isn't going to create more orgasm pressure in there or any crazy thing like that, and longer ones aren't more able to hit some made-up magically orgasmic spot in the depths of the vag. Those are just shit people say and not based in the physical realities of female genitalia.

Women need clitoral stimulation in order to orgasm, not a penis moving in and out of their vagina. So, contrary to popular belief, men do not need a long, thick or hard cock to bring their woman to orgasm. They don't even need a penis. Top notch oral sex skills and solid manual moves are your best ladygasm-giving moves whether you have a big or a small pole. What I'm saying here is that penises don't cause women to orgasm (unless you're rubbing it in circles on her clit...although honestly, I just don't even think that would work. The pressure wouldn't be right...I mean just use a finger - it's be easier). I don't mean this to sound as harsh as it's going to sound, but I'll say it anyway. Penises don't really matter for women's orgasms so the size of the penis certainly doesn't matter.

That said though, I will acknowledge women may have size and shape preferences and that size may matter a little, but not in the way most people may think.

Possibility 1 
Some women might just like the looks of a big penis. It's a turn on like big boobs or full vulva lips are for some men. Having intercourse with a big dick might also just feel hotter to some women - like they're in a porn or something, and so they like it for that turn-on factor. That's just a matter of taste though and would only really be relevant to a woman's level of pleasure or arousal, not to her capacity for orgasm.

Possibility 2 
The size of a dude's penis may have an effect on particular women's abilities to grind on the dude to orgasm while engaging in intercourse. For instance, she may need her vulva to grind against a particular area on his pelvis while her pelvis is tilted in a certain way in order to get the right clitoral friction against his body so she can get her orgasm. It may be that a longer penis will allow her to get her pelvis where she wants it without the ol' dong falling out. It may also be that the angle of the penis is important to a lady in getting her vulva in the right position to rub against him during intercourse.

Possibility 3 
A certain size of penis may feel more comfortable for some women, and an uncomfortable size could feel as though it inhibits her orgasm. For instance, maybe the easiest way for some ladies to come during intercourse is on their hands and knees going doggy style while using a vibrator on the vulva. Doggie style allows for more of the penis to enter the vagina and can often hit the cervix which can be uncomfortable if not down right painful (am I right, ladies?). Bigger dicks mean more cervix bangin' and that may not sit well with some ladies. In this case, smaller dicks probably work better.

Possibility 4
 Some women may have preferences that relate to causing ejaculation (not orgasms) during intercourse. Although there's not a lot of research on this, it seems that a small number of women do ejaculate sometimes during intercourse, and we know that stimulation of the G-spot (in the front wall of the vagina not too far from the opening), has been known to cause ejaculation in some women. So it makes sense that for some women, the penis moving in the vagina could elicit ejaculation in this way, and it may be that certain penis sizes and shapes, as well as intercourse positions, make it easier or harder to do so. So some women may have preferences based on this, but please note that this is about eliciting ejaculation - which is not the same physiological event as an orgasm. It involves a spritz or spray of ejaculate fluid through the urethra. It is not always described as particularly pleasurable, and from the little that is known of it, it doesn't seem like this kind of ejaculation through intercourse is common at all among women.

So, although some of the small number of women who this is relevant to may enjoy an ejaculation and prefer penises that will help that ejaculation happen, it still holds true that size doesn't really matter to women's orgasms. Besides, the only ejaculations that have been observed in scientific study are ones caused by a finger (not a penis) moving in a "come hither" fashion in the vagina, and that seems to be the most common way sexperts recommend eliciting ejaculation - not through intercourse. So, even for ejaculation, the penis is really not even necessary.

So, preferences for size could vary among women, and size could matter for her ability to orgasm during intercourse or for her ability to ejaculate during intercourse. However, the penis is not necessary for either and isn't even really part of the stimulation to orgasm at all in women. I mean it's not like a penis, big or small, needs to be inside a woman for an orgasm to happen. The penis in vag thing is just something that can, if the couple so chooses, happen alongside whatever other thing is being done to her clit to get her off.

So, my point is don't fret about size. These worries are a holdover from the incorrect idea that men are supposed to use their penises to bang women into orgasms. That simply doesn't work, so stop feeling bad if your penis or your man's penis doesn't size up to porn rods, and stop focusing on intercourse. Whatever the two (or three or four or whatever) of you have available on your bodies can be well utilized, and all parties can enjoy great orgasms no matter what kind of junk ya'll got - that is if everyone takes the time to explore the options.

Also I made a poem.
Cheers to penises tiny and  tall, thick and thin, cherish them all. 
Here's to dicks with bulbous heads and torpedo shapes,
Bald as cue balls and hairy as apes.
Buy a round for poles that point to the ground and lean to the right,
Nads that hang down low and are pulled up tight
Ah, man junk: A tip o' the hat to all ya'll...big and small



10.28.2013

Random Male Hite Report #4



It's time for another edition of random Hite Report: Male Edition. As you know, this is where I flip to a random page in the 1981 Hite Report on Male Sexuality by Shere Hite and simply copy that one page and that one page only into this blog. There are more of these randoms from both the male and female reports HERE.



The following are answers to the question, "Do you think your genitals are beautiful? Do you think your penis is a good size?" These particular answers fall under a section prefaced by:

Most men, in answering this question, wished over and over again that their penis could be just a little larger
Now for your randome page.

p. 391
 The Hite Report on Male Sexuality by Shere Hite

Alfred A. Knoff. NY. 1981

   "Always felt my penis was too small. Ashamed of it."
    "There's always the sneak look to compare sizes. I usually lose. Mine are too small for my liking. But that's part of my general feeling of sexual inadequacy now. When I was 'performing well' they seemed about right."
    "I do not think my penis is beautiful. It sure can shrink to a very short stub. Extended, I believe my penis is medium length but quite thin. Maybe it is long, but it is not what I call powerful. I've seen some powerful penises."
    "I think it is a good size when I'm by myself, but in the presence of other men I feel self conscious as if they all have huge cocks. It is as if I am underdeveloped. Intellectually, I know I am good looking and have average secondary sex characteristics. Emotionally, I feel I am a boy in a world of men."
    "I am small-bone and nonmuscular, therefore I am lucky my dick is as big as it is. When I undress at the gym, it is almost non-existent. Otherwise, 3 inches when flaccid. There's got to be a psychological hang-up about my body and dick."
    "My penis is smaller than average. When nude, if cold it shrivels to an inch or less as it is nearly all erectile tissue. When warm and flaccid it is perhaps as long as 3 inches and 2 1/2 inches in circumference. On erection and full tumescence it is about 5 3/4 inches long and about 4 1/2 inches in circumference. Strictly bad news in the locker-room derby and a source of continuous embarrassment to this day, though now I know that mine works all the time and some of the locker room jocks are impotent!”
    “Sometimes, lately, these past two or three years, I sort of wistfully wish that my penis, at least when erected, were larger or longer in length. To tell the truth, that way I could suck myself off. Isn’t that terrible.”
    “I love the way male genitals look. Although mine are smaller than I’d like.”
    “I feel easily threatened by other men if they are big and muscular or have good body hair (a lot of it, whereas I have poor beard growth and a bald chest). Men with large penises make me feel threatened and inferior. It makes me think that a big cock must work better, and that’s what women really want because even if they don’t say it or admit it, I imagine that a woman with a man is in his company because he has a big cock and can protect her. This is my own paranoia concerning what penises look like.”
    “I think my penis is really beautiful, all of them are. Mine is too small though.”
    “I’m O.K., my balls are not as big as I wish they were.”
    “Well, I suppose everyone wants to be tremendous, so I guess a little larger wouldn’t hurt.”
    “I like the way my genitals look, but like most men (I suppose) I sometimes wish my penis were longer. (It’s average in length, although thicker, I think, than average).”
    “Men check out other men’s penis size and length by glancing in the showers, toilets, clothes, etc. It’s part of being male to check what the other fellow has and see where you stand.”
    “I haven’t thought about my penis being beautiful, but don’t think it’s ugly. It is soft and smooth and in good working order. My grandmother who gave me a bath on occasion when I was a small boy said it looked like a rose, so I guess she thought it was beautiful. Naturally, I think it it too small, but I don’t fret over…