Chewing Gum S2 Ep3 - The SSL Review

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Chewing Gum!
Like I said in the first SSL Review I did on this, you should check this show out on Netflix. I continue to love the shit out of it in the 2nd season. It's a top-quality comedy that you should definitely watch. It may have a tricky British accent to follow, but turn on the captions and get on with watching it. It's great. It's also progressive in the ol' female orgasm department, and I feel like it has a unique perspective - not just because her gender or color or anything like that, well it is a lot of that, but I don't think the way a writer or director identifies is enough to bring a truly unique voice to a work. It's how they use their craft as well. To me, it seems like Michaela Coel (writer/star) really unabashedly dives into her own perspective and brings things into her story that are new and unexpected. In short, she's just a great creator and people should watch this show.

Michaela Coel - Chewing Gum creator, writer and main actress

And it's SSL Reviewable
This means I will be critiquing only discussions or depictions of female orgasm, female masturbation, or the clit. For these reviews I'm mainly interested in physical realism (like are the things happening to the woman's body actually things that would realistically make a female orgasm?) and about how the depiction/discussion plays in the larger cultural conversation about female orgasm and women's sexuality.

Please, my friends, do enjoy more SSL Reviews for MOVIES and TV SHOWS.

S2 Ep3 - Boy Tracey
There's only 1 SSL Reviewable scenes in here, so I'll describe it and then give you my take.

Boy Tracey is Tracey's (the main character's) male cousin with the same name. They are kinda like childhood BFFs, but then the next time she sees Boy Tracey, he's obsessed with sex and girls...and there's other stuff too I won't ruin for you. Anyway, Boy Tracey is chilling in Tracey's room, and Tracey kinda wants Boy Tracey to talk about a particular thing, but he just isn't, and it's annoying her. Then Boy Tracey randomly says:

Boy Tracey: Do you think girls like stimulation via the clitoris or the vaginal itself? Or are all girls different?
Tracey: [scoffs] I wouldn't know Trace.

She changes the subject - less because it's a weird thing to say to your cousin and more because she's annoyed that Boy Tracey isn't speaking about what she wants him to. So, his question is just kinda left in the air.

My Thoughts 
This is a pretty small scene, and I'm not really sure what it puts out there in the world about lady-gasms. The thing to know is that both Tracey and Boy Tracey are super incredibly sheltered, naive, and inexperienced with sex - Boy Tracey more so, and that's saying a lot because Tracey is pretty damn naive herself.

Clearly, his question carries the baggage of clit vs. vaginal orgasm debates that are still very much alive. The modern form of this debate takes a bit of a different form than it did in Freud's time when he was telling the world that women who cannot orgasm from vaginal stimulation alone are psychologically immature.

Now no one now is saying that women who cannot orgasm from vaginal stimulation are immature...um that's not true. There are people that still say that. In fact a scientist named Stuart Brody regularly gets shitty scientific articles that say that exact thing published in respected peer reviewed journals - seriously  But largely that's not how people think any more. Instead, that sentiment lies in subtleties and subtext.

There is an underlying feeling that if a woman can't orgasm from getting boned, she's missing out. She's emotionally or hormonally broken, or she's just not naturally that sexual, or she's just a bit lesser than. It stems from the long history of glorifying penile-vaginal sex as the ultimate in pleasure, from the vast amount of depictions in our media of P-in-V sex causing orgasm for women with no additional clit stimulation, from the lack of basic anatomical, physiological lady-gasm knowledge in education, sex advice, and even -sadly- a fair amount of sex research. It stems from basically the whole of how our sexual culture approaches female orgasm.

I guess what I'm saying here is that although sexperts today would like to say that our culture is no longer worried about the clit vs. vaginal stimulation debate of Freudian times, they are wrong. We are very much worried about it. We just don't speak about it the same way we used to, but it's definitely in the air of our sexual culture, and I think the fact that the character, Boy Tracey, asks about it means it's something that people still hear about and worry about. Boy Tracey's question carries a lot of baggage, in the show it goes unanswered, just as it does in the sexual culture at large.

Just to be clear though, It's not an unanswerable question. There are answers. Now, I'm not able to answer what any one person 'prefers' sexually, but if Boy Tracey was getting at how he could make a woman orgasm, then clit stimulation is the only sensible and scientifically backed answer. Period. Females need clitoral glans stimulation to orgasm just as males need penile stimulation to orgasm. It's not the popular answer (believe me - I made a movie saying this that straight up pissed a lot of people off), but it is the one backed by scientifically sound evidence.

Vulva Rating
I don't know exactly how to review this because it just put the question out there without comment really. I guess the fact that both the Traceys in this discussion are so naive about sex, sometimes hilariously so, would indicate that the question is a bit naive. And it is. It's a silly question because clearly clits are most important just like it's clear penises are most important to males. Yet it's also a completely sensible and normal question to ponder because we as a culture are so confused and silly about female orgasm.

I guess I kinda like the way this question sits out unanswered and sorta reflects the way that same question sits out there seemingly unanswered in the larger sexual culture. However, it's not progressive, it doesn't really add any scientific wisdom or female-centric insight to that question, but it doesn't add anything incorrect about it either.

I am going to give this episode a completely middle-of-the-road 3 out of 5 vuvla rating because it's a very neutral scene.

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Insecure S2 Ep1: The SSL Review

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Insecure 
I watched seasons 1 and 2 of Insecure last fall and took notes, but haven't gotten to writing any SSL Reviews until now. Turns out the first actual SSL Reviewable moment wasn't until the opening show for the second season. Not that there hadn't been sex on the show up to that point - there for sure had been, but none of it to that point had included an orgasm or any clit action for me to speak about.

Frankly, it had all mostly just been scenes of dudes banging ladies that cut before anyone came - no clit touching involved. That's pretty much the status quo on sex scenes, so not surprising, but I will say I was hoping for more when I started this. Given that the star of the show, Issa Rae, a woman, is also the creator and a writer and that there are often female directors on this show, I was excited for a more progressive, lady-gasm focused depiction of sex and sexuality. It certainly is a progressive show in many other ways and worth watching, just a bit sexually status quo.

It ended up being pretty basic; an occasional go-down or masturbation scene, but the sex is no different than we'd see in porn or any other mainstream media. It's male-gasm centric and mostly PinV-minus-the-clit. I should expect that by now though, it's the same with other HBO shows like Sex and the City and Girls that are touted as being more progressive and lady-sex-centric than your average fare...when really they just tend to show/say more sex, but not more progressive depictions of it.

SSL Reviews
As a quick reminder, SSL Reviews are depiction or discussions of female orgasm and/or masturbation and/or the clit. Only those specific things are reviewed - other discussions or depictions of sex or sexuality not within the above confines are for the most part not of interest to me. In these reviews,  I 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).

S2 Ep1 - Side Sex

I'm going to describe below the one SSL Reviewable scene, but I'm not going to use the character's names. I'm going to call them Lady and Dude because if you haven't watched this show yet, and you are planning on watching it, I don't want to ruin anything for you...and in this instance the characters involved in this scene don't really matter much to my assessment.

So, Dude and Lady are in bed. He's fucking her from behind, but they are both on their sides. We're looking at them from his back. She definitely comes - audibly. We aren't really able to see what's going on with her hands because they are in front of her body, so there is a tiny possibility she's rubbing one out while getting banged, but also, no - because even if we can't see her hands really, it distinctly doesn't look like she's moving her arms or hands around on her vuvla/clit area. She's just got her arms on the bed in front of her probably. His hands are not rubbing on her vulva either.

So, this is a scene where a woman gets boned from behind with no hands or vibe on her vuvla/clit area. She's basically just getting her vaginal canal stimulated by a penis, and that, as I do indeed point out in about every post, is not a way that has caused a woman to orgasm anywhere in all of scientific literature. For real. A penis moving in a vagina with no additional clitoral glans stimulation is simply not a realistic way to depict a woman coming - even though for some godawful reason, it's the most common way to show it.

My Review (enough with the shit sex scenes)
So this does not get a good vulva rating from me. Depictions of woman getting banged into an orgasm without even a touch to the clitoral glans/vulva area is a very, very major part of the orgasm inequality problem. It's incredibly unrealistic, like showing a dude coming only from getting his balls sucked. Yet, we continue to drive this anatomically incorrect nonsense into women and men's heads, and it makes everyone assume that a quick bone should get a woman off as easily as it gets the man off. It's a lie that leads to confusion, shame, faking, and a basic misunderstanding about how the female body works and about how one should approach sex with a woman if one wants that women to orgasm.

I hate scenes like this. They clearly are not progressive in terms of orgasm equality, but they are also not intentionally regressive either. These kinds of scenes are so part of our cultural fabric that I think they get made without much thought...like, they get made because they look like what we think a sex scene should look like. So, I have some softness about these because although I find them incredibly harmful, I also see that they are just status quo and there isn't bad intention behind them usually, just lack of critical thought. This show puts critical thought into a lot of other topics though, so I'm not too mad at the shit sex scenes.

But man, I'd love to see some more female-centric sex stuff in season 3 and beyond. The sex up to this episode has been 100% banging with no clit stuff. I did get excited once in S1 Ep6 where a dude went down on Issa's friend Molly, but she stopped him shortly into it because she couldn't get over that he got his dick sucked by a dude once. I mean first, just get over that shit - who cares (and the show actually did a really nice job addressing that issue), but second, even if you are freaked out, Molly, don't give up your chance for your clit to be sucked into an orgasm. Those chances don't come around near often enough. Come on now, if you can't deal with the dude, then just get yours and get out. SMH

The Vulva Rating
So this episode will get a 2 star rating. It piled onto the massive amount of anatomically incorrect sex scenes out there where women orgasm in incredibly unrealistic ways. These just add to our cultural ignorance of how female orgasm works and causes women to feel shamed and confused about their inability to orgasm in ways that our media makes seem so easy. It ain't a great, but I also don't feel like it's intentionally bad, so I won't take all the vulvas away.
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Random Hite Report #29

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Hello, welcome again to one of my favorite segments on the SSL blog, Random Hite Report! It's simple really. I flip through the pages of the The Hite Report: A Nationwide Study of Female Sexuality  (or sometimes The Hite Report on Male Sexuality) by a one Ms. Shere Hite and copy the contents of the page where I land - no more no less. Anyone who reads my blog will know that this 1976 book is a fave of mine; not only because of its realistic and progressive insight about the female orgasm that is still shockingly relevant 40 years later,  but also because of its very touching insight into the lives of the women who took part in this huge, comprehensive survey. This is an under-appreciated and under-read book if you ask me - I suggest you buy it online (seriously, you can get them for like 1 cent) and read it.

 So, sit back, getcha a beverage, and enjoy a little...Random Hite Report.

The Hite Report: A Nationwide Study of Female Sexuality Dell. 1976.
Pg. 147 From the section Orgasm in the chapter "What do the stages of orgasm feel like."

...with arousal. It is pleasurable for itself, but after a certain point I am left tense and angry and disappointed, and...depressed. Ultimately I have to come and know I will enjoy it."
There were no mixed feelings about how it felt to be on the edge of orgasm, and then have the stimulation that brought you there changed or withdrawn: it felt terrible.    Questionnaire III asked, "If you are just about to have an orgasm and then don't becaue of withdrawal of stimultion or some similar reason, do you feel frustrated?":
    "If my husband comes before I have a chance, I am left shaken and sick to my stomach and resentful and angry."
    "Men often have orgasm and roll over and go to sleep, leaving me in a state of high excitement but no orgasm. This is mentally infuriating and has a terrible psychological effect on me. They can be trained to satisfy me, but most men seem to assume that women don't need orgasm like men."
    "At first I think, oh, it doesn't matter, it was pretty good while it lasted, and then I think, no! why should I settle for that?"
    Frustrated and angry, and potentially violent. It usually happens when my husband decides that his method of stimulating me is not working fast enough and so changes it - without asking first."
    "I feel extremely frustrated. I'm almost doubled over in pain and I'm furious, and would like to kill my partner."
    "I feel frustrated and disappointed and a little hurt and resentful and his work (the next day) should take precedence over me."
    "Frustrated, cheated, angry. Usually he comes to quickly. I sometimes think my husband only cares about his release, like he doesn't think I need one."
    "Yes, very frustrated and sad, and sometimes I cry."
    "Damn, yes. I feel sad, let down, that something is wrong with me."

Crazy Ex-Girlfriend Season 2 - The SSL Review

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Crazy Ex-GirlFriend
I do quite enjoy this show. It's a wild ride. I respect that. I also love the creator and star, Rachel Bloom. She is an Orgasm Equality advocate, ya'll. She dropped some truth bombs on Twitter, and I loved it. I wrote a post about it and made her an official Orgasm Equality Ally She also drops in subtle accurate, realistic depictions and discussions of lady-gasm stuff in her show, which honestly, is my dream of dreams. If all shows did this, we wouldn't have much of a problem anymore.

Anyway, it's a network show so there's not a ton of orgasm, masturbation, and clit stuff being thrown around for obvious reasons, but there are these things from time to time that can be SSL Reviewd. For a refresher, an SSL Review is a critique specifically of discussions or depictions of female orgasm, female masturbation, or the clit. I focus on that and really only that (unless I want to talk about something else). I'm looking mainly at realism and about how the depiction/discussion plays in the larger cultural conversation about female orgasm and women's sexuality. I have 3 simple ones from Season 2 to talk about here.

Please, my friends, do enjoy more SSL Reviews for MOVIES and TV SHOWS.

S2 Ep2 - The Worst
You don't really need context for this, although if you watch the show, you'll probably know what it's referring to. Either way, Rebecca, the main character played by Rachel Bloom, says the following.

"Maybe this dream won't be like my vibrator, breaking when I need it the most."

What's important here, my friends, is that a woman on television mentioned her vibrator, letting us all know that she does in fact own one. And, given that she wants it to work when she needs it, we can also assume that she masturbates. It's as simple as this. The more women we hear of that admit to masturbating without shame, the more young ladies and women will feel it's okay to do so. It helps with slow normalization of lady-bation, and that helps with women knowing what the fuck we physically need in order to orgasm (which, of course, is an essential ingredient in orgasm equality).

S2 Ep 4 - Not on my Chest!
Crazy Ex-Girlfriend is a musical TV show. So...there's musical numbers, and one of them was sung (and tapped out) by 2 dudes that have had sexual relations with the main character. It's kind of a hallucination, and these 2 dudes are kind of playfully taunting her. They're basically describing all the places they tapped that ass (you can check out the video below). Then between the 2 guys they sing,

"Hey, does this ring a bell?"
 (in a feminine voice) "A little to the left. Okay now, a little to the right. Oh, oh, back to the left. Right there, right there. Wait no, you're doing it wrong. I'll do it myself!"

Clearly, the insinuation here is related to her giving instructions to her partner about where to stimulate in order to get her off. We have no idea what exactly and where they are referring to. I'd have to assume it's a hand or mouth on the clit/vulva area, but we don't really know, so I can't speak to whether their discussion here reflects physical realism for how a woman might need to be stimulated to orgasm. What I can say is that when they, even with her instructions, weren't getting her off, she clearly took matters into her own hands, and I give that a big orgasm equality high five. I mean, if they're doing it wrong, then hell yeah do it yourself. That's what a gal's got to do. I like the simple fact that we can clearly see that she desired her orgasm so much she took the time and energy to ensure it happened.

Because she should. Because we all should. Because men mostly do that, and women too often feel they can't or shouldn't and so we often don't.

It's a simple thing, but I like the statement it makes and the example it sets.

On the other side of the coin, it is true they are kind of making fun of her with that line, and her persistence towards her orgasm could seem to the audience more negative than positive. I see that this is possible, and certainly sticking negative connotations on a woman's interest in pursuing her own orgasm is not uncommon (see my review of 40 Year Old Virgin, mkay) and definitely a backward step for orgasm equality, but I don't think that's what's happening. I think they're making gentle fun of her the entire time - this line and every other line. It's, like, just slightly annoying to her that they're singing about any of it. So, I think 'doing it herself' is not exactly put in a positive light, but it's also not really put in a negative light either. It's just there, and that's fine with me. If it's just there, then people can soak it in and get just a little more used to the idea of a woman (themselves or their partner) being assertive about her orgasm, because, hey - if a character in a TV show is, other people can be too.


S2 Ep...

S2 Ep 6 - Eat it
Again, I don't really think you need much context here. In this episode a dude that Rebecca doesn't really care about named Trent asks her if she wants to have sex again. She's like, 'okay,' and then he rolls toward her. As he does this, she pushes his head down and says, "Nope, nope, nope, you gotta pay the toll first." Then from 'down there' we hear him say, "This is my favorite!"

It's lovely in all the ways. Some guy that's kinda desperate for her but that she's not into wants to have sex, and what does she do? Does she get her vag hole out for him to rub off inside of while she does not orgasm (I mean intercourse ain't great for lady-gams)? No, she gets some head and absolutely (well presumably) orgasms. That's what we gals need to do more of - get ours and not worry too much about his. He'll be okay.

The Vulva Rating
Three specific times this season, Rebecca makes it clear that her orgasm is important to her and she pursues it without shame. That's the kind of thing we need to see because we simply don't see that enough. Granted, Rebecca is a bit of a flawed personality which risks giving her sexual assertiveness a negative overall connotation, but then again she's the main character. Even if main characters are problematic, they are our friends in a way, and so the things they do become things that seem possible for people to do, and that's all I'm looking for. I give season 2 a full 5 out of 5 vulvas.

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Inside Amy Schumer S2 Ep3: The SSL Review

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Inside Amy Schumer Season 2 Episode 3
This show makes me laugh, and here's the best part - Amy Schumer tends to bring it when it comes to realism and female sexuality. She brought it in her movie Trainwreck, in The Joe Rogan Podcast, and largely in the other episodes of this show I've SSL Reviewed so far. She has shown a strong willingness to give the clit the glory it deserves, speak some truths about lady sex experiences, rep for actual lady-gasms - all things largely absent in media and also incredibly important to Orgasm Equality. (She could use some schooling and humbling when it comes to speaking about race though - but that's pretty true of a lot of us).

The SSL Reviewable
There is plenty to SSL Review in this show. And for those that don't yet know, an SSL Review is a critique specifically of discussions or depictions of female orgasm, female masturbation, or the clit. I focus on that and really only that (unless I want to talk about something else). I'm looking mainly at realism and about how the depiction/discussion plays in the larger cultural conversation about female orgasm and women's sexuality.

Please, my friends, do enjoy more SSL Reviews for MOVIES and TV SHOWS.

Prom The Right Way
This one will be a really quick SSL Review, and it's maybe not even technically SSL Review eligible, but i think it's close enough. It talks about getting eaten out,and that is close enough to clits and lady-gasms.

This is a skit where Amy decides to go to prom with a kid as charity. You know, like how Ronda Rousey went to prom with that Marine that asked her out online. all you need to know, though about this skit is the following:

She's all dressed up and she opens her cabinet and grabs a bunch of condoms from a basket marked "condoms" and then says, "Wait, he's still in high school." So, she puts those back and grabs from a basket marked dental dams and says, "Well, I hope this kid's ready to eat a shit ton of pussy."

My Thoughts
What can one say about this. Listen, I know it's wrong for adults to take sexual advantage of underage teens. I get that. It's not a laughing matter, but then again, it's joked about all the time with dudes and young gals. Sure, the dudes in these jokes are made out to be skeezes, but the jokes are still there. Like the first thing that pops into my head is Matthew McConaughey in Dazed and Confused. He has a classic line: "That's what I love about these High School girls, man. I get older. They stay the same age. Yes, they do."



So, it's not so bad to have a joke with a skeezy woman lusting after high school boys. It's evening the playing field....which I actually kind of appreciate.

Of course, I would have liked it even better if her first thought hadn't been condoms (insinuating intercourse, obviously), and instead had been getting her pussy ate from jump. However, that she brought the oral in at all is excellent in my humble opinion. Anytime an unabashed desire for getting one's lady-junk licked is put out there in the world, it gets a little more normalized, which I think, leads to more ladies asking for it and more men giving it away freely.

So thanks Amy, you skeezy fuck.

Vulva Rating
There's nothing revolutionary here, and it is a little illegal-ish, so this will get a solid, but not perfect 4 out of 5 vulvas.

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