4.11.2023

Girls S1E2 - The SSL Review



Reviewing Girls
I put up a post about the overview of the entire Girls series in 2017 - 6 years ago. I just reread it, and I liked it. It did present the feel in that show of female sexuality and orgasm pretty well as I remember it  - a mixed bag of old-timey and contemporary notions and experiences with sex; where the women are overly accommodating yet straightforward, invested yet taking things as they come with a lightness and humor, enjoying it yet having a pretty shitty time. It feels very raw and real in a certain way, and I appreciate it, even if I'm not so sure this complicated relationship to sex is particularly thoughtful and intentional. I suspect it's more likely just written from earnest experiences and it comes off this way because real women are existing in this plane and writing from that point of view. You can give it a read. It's a good starter to these Girls SSL Reviews that I'm finally doing. 

My plan is to do these reviews in categories based on the series as a whole. Like, I'll have a post about all the masturbation scenes and then all the scenes where a girl gets fucked and just doesn't come, and then another where a girl gets banged and "orgasms." However, the sex scenes in S1 E2 spoke to me a bit. It feels to me like they need to be discussed together as their own thing because, well basically, I see them as two sides of the same coin. Women not caring about their own desire and orgasm; men not thinking about anyone but themselves.

There are 2 scenes. The first is with Hannah and Adam - not even really dating - just some hook-ups. Hannah is desperate to please him. Adam is aggressive, says disgusting shit, does whatever he wants. The second is Marnie and Charlie. They are 23 and been dating 4 years. Marnie seems over him. Charlie is gentle, says loving shit, and does things he thinks will please her. What the two men have in common is that neither notice how completely unaroused the woman they're fucking are...and it's pretty obvious. The thing the two girls have in common is that neither has brought their physical sexual desires into the bed. 


SSL Review basic (skip if you already know)
Only depiction or discussion of female orgasm and/or female masturbation and/or the clit are eligible for SSL Review. Nothing else counts, including plain 'ol sex if it doesn't include anything listed above. I specifically critique the realism (for instance, were the physical things happening to that women while she orgasmed things that could realistically cause orgasm for a woman?) and also speak on what the depiction/discussion reflects from and adds to the larger cultural discussion around lady-gasms and female sexuality.

You can see all the SSL TV Reviews HERE (and as always you can find all the movie SSL Reviews HERE).

The Scenes!
Let me explain each scene quickly, and then I'll give the big overview. It'll be very exciting. 

Hannah and Adam
They're on his bed. Adam's pounding her, missionary with her legs pushed up against her stomach. He's way into it and saying all kinds of gross shit. She's in no way aroused and just kind of talking back to him in a very casual way.  He's telling her he found her in the street. She was 11 with a Cabbage Patch lunch box, and he's going to send her back to her parents covered in cum. At first she's slightly confused but nonchalant as he's saying this stuff, but then she starts to catch on that he's role-playing and starts to play along. She's doing that in a way that is not her getting aroused by it, but her understanding what she is supposed to do in the situation and doing it. He flips her around a bit, then pulls out and asks where he should come. She's incredibly nonchalant and still not at all horny in this situation too, and he starts wanking to come on her tits. He's like crazy aroused, and she is absolutely not. He tells her to touch herself. She asks where, and he tells her she knows where. To that, she says that honestly it's a little hard from that angle. He drops it and is continuing to say dirty shit. He goes into telling her she needs to ask his permission to come, and if she even thinks she might come she has to call him. She just says, "you want me to call you?" Then he puts his hand on her cheek and presses her face sideways on the pillow, comes, and rolls off.

She says, "That was really good. That was so good. I almost came." He doesn't care. He just asks if she wants a Gatorade.

Marnie and Charlie
They are on her bed in her and Hannah's shared apartment, in the same position as Hannah and Adam when their scene started. She is also very much not into it, and he very much is, but he's not pounding. He's slow stroking, but not grindy. He's saying sweet things like asking her to look at him so they can look into each other's eyes when they come. First, she's nowhere close to even thinking about coming, and also she's clearly annoyed and looking to the side. She tells him she wants to turn around and do doggy. They talk about how he thought she hated doggy, and then he gets inside her and starts going on and on about how good it feels and how he's going to have to go slow. She clearly just wants him to finish the fuck up so they can be done.

Later we see them arguing in the living room as he's about to leave. He's telling her he doesn't even know how to make love to her anymore. She's annoyed by that and tells him he should just do what you want and go on with his day because that's what guys do. He's annoyed by that. He tells her it's crazy, and asks her if he should just be some dumb abusive sex dude. 
 
Then Hanna gets home and the two gals have a conversation where Marnie tells Hannah that Charlie is too busy respecting her and just looks past her. Hannah points out they've been together 4 years, and it's probably normal if she's just bored. That annoys Marnie in its simplicity, but Hannah holds her ground and says she doesn't buy that Marnie's problem is that she has too good of a boyfriend. Then Hannah tells Marnie that Adam's still on with the gross stuff; the hooker stuff, daddy stuff, a platter of 'stuff'.' Clearly it's a thing they'd previously discussed as gross. Marnie is appalled and tells Hannah that Adam can't do that to her - he's not her boyfriend.  

The Discussion
First, in neither of those sex situation was there anything even slightly involving the clit. There were no hands, no vibrators, not rubbing the pelvis against bodies or bedding. For these ladies, there was just a penis moving in and out of a vagina. That does not an lady-gasm make. Contrary to popular belief, the stimulation of the inside of the vagina has never been shown to cause an orgasm in all of scientific literature (For Real). For the vagina-haver, that is. A penis rubbing into a vagina, on the other hand, has many a time shown been shown to cause orgasm in scientific literature for the penis-haver. That is also true for stimulation around the vulva/clit area. Many a time has that brought about observable, physical orgasm response.

 All that to say that the sex these 2 girls were having might seem different, but they're not. They are both doing what so many a lady have done for ages - having intercourse and not orgasming. It's the most basic it can get. The talking and the style of the two dudes is kind of irrelevant because either way, their partner's bodies are in no way getting the kind of orgasmic stimulation that their own bodies are. And, yeah, one might be saying gross things and one sweet things, but neither of them are looking at their partner and acknowledging what a very, very different experience their lady is having. Both of the dudes, in the end, are authentically and understandably getting incredibly physically aroused by their penis being simulated by a vagina and then, very incorrectly, assuming their partner is feeling similarly. 

Both the women are having sex with a person in a completely unaroused state and are doing their very best to ensure that their partner orgasms while having absolutely no expectation or intention to come themselves. Even Marnie, through her annoyance, is determined to get him off. She absolutely doesn't even want to be there at all. She is annoyed as hell with him, but she doesn't have any intention to stop until he comes. Granted she wants it done fast, but she is letting him use her unaroused body to come, like it's his right or something - just as Hannah is. 

I like these 2 scenes juxtaposed because I see it as examples of how big a part non-physical things become in a sexual relationship when the physical parts are not in the equation. I mean, this must be how Marnie and Charlie have done it for years, right? He seems like he's confused about why her attitude suddenly changed. He says he doesn't know how to make love to her anymore as if he's doing the same thing, and she has changed her attitude about it. He's confused, and she might be to some degree too, but I'm not. It's the oldest story in the book. I highly suspect she never or rarely came while they were making love for the past 4 years, but she was enamored with him - just like Hannah is with Adam right now. We're so fucked up and confused about sex and lady-gasms in this world that she probably just thought that's how things were. That's what sex is like, and she focused on the love and closeness and all that jazz, but when those things drop out, the sex is just a piece of a body poking inside her body. It's not arousing. Charlie, on the other hand, had always come, so even if the feelings leave, at least the orgasm is left. 

Marnie and Charlie have likely been experiencing sex completely differently for the last 4 years, but don't really realize it. The same is true for Hannah. She's the same as Marnie, but early in the relationship and willing to put ups with just really bothersome shit because she likes that he is engaged with her when they fuck. I feel like the extreme sweetness from the long-term relationship and extreme grossness from the new relationship really drives that point home.  

These two scenes feel very real. Like these are situations, give or take some elements and extremeness, that many a woman or her friend have gone through, and don't ya just know, we can, as always, thank a male-gasm centered sexual culture that has very little realistic room for clitoral stimulation and thus very little room for female orgasm. 

Vulva Rating
I have to say, because these scenes struck me as speaking, in their juxtaposition, about the plight of a female sexuality devoid of orgasm across the timeline of a relationship, I'm feeling generous with the Vulva Rating. It feels poignant to me. It's also realistic in its lack of orgasm depictions, because there were simply not physical things happening to these women that could realistically be said to cause a lady-gasm. I, obviously, appreciate that...and further - I appreciate that the lack of orgasm wasn't sort of hidden. It was really obvious neither of these women were even aroused. There was no ambiguity there. 
On the other hand, my hot take on this is a bit in the weeds here. I think it'd be easy for someone to just watch this and see two gross/funny/strange sex scenes. In the end they are in some ways like most sex scenes out there - a woman getting banged. So, it's not really progressive in that it's not modelling better, more lady-gasm friendly ways to go about sexual interactions, and we desperately need scenes like that to make clit-focused sexual interactions seem more mainstream and expected. So, I can't give it a full 5 vulvas, but it gets a super respectable 4 out of 5 vulvas.

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