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.