Parasite - The SSL Review

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Parasite
I do try to watch all the Academy nominated movies every year. 1. I like watching movies. 2. I watch the Oscars with the same friends every year, and although I always come in close to last on guessing the winners, I like to have seen most of them because it feels like maybe I might have some insight on what should win, but actually I think it makes me worse. We talk shit and eat, and it's one of the few times a year I see these friends, so I look forward to it. Anyway, I saw some of the movies, but I didn't catch the winner, Parasite, until a few weeks after. I liked the movie, but I especially liked the sex scene. It's SSL Reviewable, and it will be getting a great Vulva Rating. Top notch situation in my book.

An SSL Review, for those that need a little refresher, is a review specifically of any discussion or depiction of female orgasm, female masturbation, or the clit. I critique the realism of the depiction/discussion and also write about what the depiction/discussion says about and/or adds to our cultural understanding of female sexuality and orgasm. I try my best to just stick specifically to those SSL Reviewable moments, so it usually stays pretty focused on those parts of the movie only, but sometimes I like to digress.

So here we go. I have tons of these reviews btw. You can find all the other movie SSL Reviews HERE and the TV SSL Reviews HERE.

The Scene - sexy couch stuff while watching your kid from afar through a window as he sleeps in a tent 
I wrote that and it seems much creepier than it is. I mean it's a fairly accurate description, but it's not like the sex had anything to do with them seeing their child sleeping. They couldn't even see the kid. He wanted to sleep in a tent in the back yard, and the parents thought they should sleep where they could be in view if he needed them. They were basically on a couch that had a view of the tent their child was inside. They were at least 50 feet apart with a wall of windows in between. The sex was just because they were laying on the couch together and got horny. There was also another reason in the storyline that this sex was an interesting turn of events, but I don't want to give anything away if you haven't seen it.

So, now that I spent a paragraph convincing you it was a weird situation but not in a creepy, kid-related way, let me explain it quickly.

Parasite (2020) sex scene

So the father and mother are laying mostly on their sides on the couch. She is in front of him and he's behind, kind of spooning her. The father must get a horny idea in his head that causes him to reach around and under her night shirt. He's messing with her boobs, and then she starts getting horny too, so she reaches back and starts jerking him off under his pants. We see a brief close-up of this. They both continue to watch outside intently so they aren't surprised if the kid pops in suddenly. Then he takes his other hand, comes in from under the butt and between the legs, and starts rubbing her clit/vulva area over her silk pajama pants. The scene ends before anyone comes, but they are clearly both going at it and enjoying it. I think it's safe to say they are intended to get to that point, and they are likely not going to change positions because they are trying to be discreet and also on the lookout for a kid.

My Thoughts - Fuck yeah, bro. Rub a lady off!
I mean, if you know anything about me or this blog or my movie, you know I'm all in for this scene. It checks all the boxes

• Number 1 here is simply that the sexual thing happening to the woman in this scene is actually something that could sensibly cause her to orgasm. Her organ of sexual pleasure (the clit - more specifically the clitoral glans and surrounding tissue) was being stimulated through her silky pants, just like his organ of sexual pleasure (his penis) was being stimulated. That's no small thing. Usually a couple like this in a movie would have intercourse and nothing would be stimulating her clitoral glans area. Yet, although there is no physical scientific evidence that stimulating the inside of the vagina with things like dicks could cause a woman to orgasm, it is most often depicted as if she does come or will come just from getting fucked. That kind of unrealistic depiction is soooo common, and it gives a completely incorrect expectation for what types of physical stimulation are needed for a female to orgasm. However, this scene in Parasite depicts physical stimulation that absolutely could be expected to get a woman off and thus helps create more realistic expectations in the cultural mind for how women might come.
• Number 2 - This is a sexual interaction between a hetero couple that is something other than penis in vagina intercourse. P-in-V intercourse dominates media so thoroughly that it could easily seem to anyone that this is the ultimate and most acceptable way that a male and female should interact sexually. Every time a scene, especially in a mainstream or high profile piece of media, depicts another way of doing sex, it helps to normalize other ways to fuck. It models other ways that a hetero couple might release horniness, and in doing so helps give cultural permission to ask for and attempt those other sexual options. Moving away from P-in-V dominated sex is HUGE for orgasm equality.
• Number 3 - It's hot. I mean, I thought it was, and it's kind of important for these alternative sexual scenarios to be hot in order to embed themselves in our cultural consciousness as things we might want to be a part of. I will say, however, that the director wanted this to be a very uncomfortable scene more than titillating one because of its relation to the movie's plotline that I'm not going to talk about (I'm trying not to spoil, but you can read about that more HERE if you don't mind a spoiler). But, I think just because he wasn't going for titillation doesn't mean it wasn't. Also, I kind of wonder if the over-the-clothes genital touching was maybe an attempt to keep it more clean - especially in this PG-13 movie in a fairly conservative place like Korea. If that's the case, I think it kind of back-fired because it forced the scene into a less common sexual act and that makes it dirtier in a way. In fact, I think that anytime a scene includes clit stimulation, it really does seem dirtier because it's just a little 'extra'. The truth is we don't see clit stimulation much in media, and frankly/sadly don't actually involve it in real-life sax acts all that much. So seeing it might feel a little "off" - which to be fair may be read as super hot but also as kind of strange/confusing/foreign, or even gross. Either way, it wasn't a bland scene and I like that. Also, here's a bunch of people talking about how awkward they felt during this sex scene (mostly related to watching it with their parents)...and let's be honest, it wouldn't feel awkward if it weren't dirty, amiright?
• Number 4 - It showed manual stimulation of the female genitals, and it focused on the orgasmically appropriate way to finger lady-junk. Unfortunately a lot of depictions of manual stimulation on women involve a finger(s) ramming up the vagina - as if mimicking intercourse, which as we know shouldn't be expected to cause orgasm. So, I'm glad the choice was to show the clit/vulva area getting rubbed against not the vag getting rammed in. 
• Number 5 - It's a sex scene focused on simply 2 people stimulating each other's organs of sexual pleasure. Scenes like this are important because here's the deal. All healthy individuals are born with either a clit, a penis, something related to one of those, or a sort of mix of those, and all of those clit/penis-like organs are capable of being stimulated to orgasm. That means any two people you might put together - cis, het, trans, gay, intersex - in any combination, could have amazing, orgasmic sex together with an activity just like the one depicted in this movie. That is important to know and to see in our media because it's a reminder that orgasm is just the appropriate stimulation of the sex junk. I think some of the discomfort against non cis, het couples out there is related to people not understanding how another type of couple might 'fit' together sexually given that p-in-v intercourse is assumed to be the ultimate way of doing sex. However, the truth is P-inV intercourse is actually a shit way of achieving orgasmic sexual activity (for clits not penises), and alternative sexual activity like in this scene are waaaay better. I like to think that if regular ol' conservative-living folks out there can start getting it in their heads that for a cis, het couple like themselves, the most orgasmic way to fuck is not intercourse but to creatively stimulate each other's junk (and that the clit is the female junk not the vagina), then it's not much of a leap to see that any two people might enjoy that kind of sexual pleasure together as well - that we're all really the same when it comes to sexual pleasure.  - Anyway, I really do think a realistic understanding of female orgasm/the clit and a deep expansion of what hetero sex could/should be would also necessarily broaden appreciation and understanding in the larger culture of all types of couples....and scenes like this help.

Vulva Rating

For all the reason's above, I give this this a 5 out of 5 Vulva Rating!

(!)(!)(!)(!)(!)

"Venkmaning" - Ghostbuster's Most Sexual Predator Moment

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Let's discuss what I'm gonna call "Venkmaning." To do that I'm going to drive a bit out of my lane - my lane being specific discussion of lady-gasms, clits, and lady-bation in our culture, media, science, etc. Today, I'm going to break down a scene in the original Ghostbusters so we can see the purest form of Venkmaning.. Normally I only do these movie scene breakdowns for my SSL Review series and the scenes must include a specific discussion or depiction of clits, lady-bation, cunnilingus, or lady-gasm. This has none of those. Instead it has a textbook manipulation in which a man in power uses that power to strategically trick a woman into trusting his intentions and interest in her until he suddenly flips the switch and tries to do sex stuff with her in a betrayal of the original reasons he portrayed for why he wants to be around her. AKA a dude being actually quite intentionally mean and thoughtless towards a woman in pursuit of sex - all from the most beloved of Ghostbuster characters - Bill Murray and Dr. Venkman.

I hadn't noticed this creeping when I was a child....
I was at work eating lunch in a breakroom with cable TV and caught the first part of Ghostbusters, a movie I've always enjoyed, but hadn't seen in a good while. In fact, the last time I saw it maybe about 8 years ago, I think I had also caught it on TV and missed the beginning.

My boss happened to come in to talk about something, and I said, "Dude, I hadn't realized what a creep Bill Murray (granted, it's his character Dr. Peter Venkman, not actually him) was." He was like, yeah, he's a creep in that, and then we started talking about capital purchases, but I was shook, ya'll. It's not like I was surprised. I have started seeing real creepiness - ranging from straight rapey to just pushy in a lot of older movie I've rewatched. What was weird to me was how blatant it was in a movie that had been at the center of a really huge gender-related controversy quite recently. It truly surprised me with all the talk about how much of a perfect, cinematicly-amazing, utterly hilarious, excellently scripted, utterly untouchable piece of movie genius (I'm paraphrasing but that seems to be the gist of the fan talking points) the original Ghostbusters was, I never heard any hubub about how fucked up Venkman is - which granted could just be because I wasn't engaging much in that stuff.

So, I looked around the interwebs to see if I just missed it, and yes, it does seem there is an acknowledgement that Venkman is a creep (as my boss acknowledged as well), and probably a straight up sexual predator. However, the discussions on this mostly surrounds his interactions with Sigourney Weaver's character Dana - which really is pretty gross and, let's be honest, prevents this movie from being timeless. It is for sure a dinosauric remnant of its time and one that will become a more and more embarrassing piece of art as the years pass - not one that truly holds up over time (fight me). The experiment at the beginning is mentioned some, and it seems it's used sometimes in Psych 101 to talk about concepts like negative reinforcement (what Venkman says his experiment is about) and abuse of power. However, the take away of this scene always seems kinda light - like 'don't hit on your subjects, k?' But, it's more than him hitting on a pretty girl. It's a planned, nefarious, manipulation that really exemplifies a particularly painful way women get fucked over. Let's break this down.

The Scene:
It's at the beginning of the movie. The library ghost situation has happened. The iconic music and 'Ghostbusters' title/logo appears. We see the exterior of a university building - "Weaver Hall Department of Psychology." Then we see the door to a room or office in the building. It says "Paranormal Studies Laboratory" and has all 3 of the Ghostbusters' names on the door, Dr. Egon Spenglar, Dr. Ray Stanz, and Dr. Peter Venkman. It also has,"Venkman burn in hell" painted on it in red. It seems like a legit place, but this clearly is also showing us that Venkman may not be well liked (because the movie does seem to acknowledge he's a creep, albeit a lovable, funny, main-character who gets the girl in the end kind of creep).

We hear Venkman behind the door.

Venkman: Alright. I'm going to turn over the next card. I want you to concentrate. I want you to tell me what you think it is.

We see a star on a card and the camera moved to reveal a male college student with wires attached to his hand. He touches his forehead and nervously says,

College guy: Square.
Venkman: Good guess, but wrong.

Venkman flips the card over to show the star and then flips a switch on a controller in front of him that gives the college guy an electric shock. The college guy seizes a bit and yelps with the shock and we now see a blond college gal, Jennifer, next to him. She recoils too at his pain. Venkman stays steely calm, writes something down, and then looks over at the gal. He drops the steely persona and gives her a little smile.

Venkman: (upbeat) Clear you head.

Jennifer smiles a touch, nods and then Venkman hold up another card.

Venkman: Alright. Tell me what you think it is.
Jennifer: Is it a star?
Venkman: It is a star. Very good. That's great.

It is not a star. It's a circle, but Venkman doesn't reveal that. He just puts the card down and Jennifer smiles and seems excited. Venkman turns his attention to the guy again and holds up another card.

Venkam: Okay. Alright. Think Hard. What is it?
College guy: A circle.
Venkman: (Sucks air through teeth.) Close.

Venkman flips over a square. The guy smiles a little at that, but his mood changes as Venkman goes on.

Venkman: But definitely wrong.

Venkman gives the guy an electric shock again. He shakes so hard his gum flies out of his mouth. The gal looks a bit concerned. Then Venkman again softens and turns his attention to the Jennifer. He holds up another card. It's a plus sign.

Venkman: Okay. Alright. Ready?
Jennifer: smiles and prepares Yeah.
Venkman: What is it?

Venkman smiles again at her. She looks like she is concentrating a bit, and then Venkman smiles again at her and mouths jovially 'come on.'

Jennifer: Figure eight.
Venkman: Incredible. That's five for five. (flirty) You can't see these can you? You're not cheating me?
Jennifer: No, no! (a little giddy) I swear. They're just coming to me.
Venkman: Okay. (turning his attention to the guy and getting more serious) Nervous?
College guy: Yes. I don't like this.
Venkman: You only have 75 more to go. Okay. What's this one?
Guy: It's a couple of wavy lines.

We see from behind that he's correct, but Venkman drops the card without showing it.

Venkman: Sorry. This isn't your lucky day.
College guy: I know. (sadly)

The guys mumbles a variety of 'ums' and 'waits' as Venkman very slowly moves his hand towards the buzzer to electrocute him, all while turning his attention to the gal and smiling, winking. At first the gal looks at the guy in worry but then reacts to Venkman's attention and smiles demurly as he does this.

College guy: I'm getting a little tired of this!
Venkman: You volunteered for this didn't you? We're paying you aren't we?
College guy: Yeah, but I didn't know you were gonna be giving me electric shocks. What are you trying to prove here anyway?
Venkman: I'm studying the effect of negative reinforcement on ESP ability.
College guy: The effect? I'll tell you what the effect is. It's pissing me off (gets up and takes off wire)
Venkman: Well then maybe my theory is correct.
College guy: You can keep the 5 bucks. I've had it.
Venkman: I will, mister!

Venkman immediately gets up, moves to the other side of the table and sits down into the college guy's seam next to Jennifer. He's turned towards her, quite close and puts his hand on her shoulder.

Venkman: You may as well get used to that. It's the kind of resentment that your ability is going to provoke in people.
Jennifer: Do you think I have it Dr. Venkman?
Venkman: You're no fluke Jennifer.

Dr. Raymond Stantz (Dan Aykroyd) comes in. Venkman looks off annoyed.

Venkman: Will you excuse me for a second?
Jennifer: Sure

Venkman jumps up and joins dude behind Jennifer.

Venkman: (forcefully and annoyed but kinda under his breath so Jennifer doesn't notice) I'm right in the middle of something Ray!

Venkman gives him a jumping slap to the head as he says this, then looks over at Jennifer who doesn't seem to be paying attention and settles himself before he speaks again.

Venkman: I need a little more time with this subject.(sort of gives him a knowing eye raise, but Ray doesn't seem to notice) Could you come back in an hour, hour and a half?

Ray pays no attentions and just starts talking in length about the library incident and how exciting and big it is.

Venkman: I'm very excited. I'm very pleased. I want you to get right down there. Check it out, and get back to me! Get right back to me!

Ray tells him something like, 'No, you're coming with, and ends with, We're close on this one. I can feel it!" before he heads back out the door leaving the 2 alone again.
Venkmen looks resigned and mutters quietly to himself "I can feel it. We're very very close" and heads back to Jennifer. (kinda as if he's talking about him and Jennifer, if ya know what I mean).

Venkman: I have to go now Jennifer, but I'd like to work with you some more. Perhaps if you could come back this evening, say at...
Jennifer: 8:00?
Venkman: I was just going to say, 8:00. You are a legitimate phenomenon

Fuck Venkman and his fucked up intentional, calculated manipulation of this woman
Alright, so it's easy to see he's using his position as a professor to creep on this woman and that is clearly inappropriate. That's no secret. People talk about it, but I think that's just the surface of this. How he does it, how sadly common this type of creeping is, and how this kind of creeping affects the person being creeped on is really the story here in my opinion.

Making up a non-sexual interest in her
First of all - how he does it. Venkman creates a big ol' scenario just to make Jennifer believe that she is special and that he is interested in her in a professional capacity. Although from our viewer perspective he's clearly trying to get with her, how can you really blame Jennifer for assuming that his niceness and interest in her is because she's been able to guess all those cards? She's on her own trip in this scene where she's realizing that she has a psychic ability, and why wouldn't the person doing this study be truly interested in her? She's guessing every card correctly. Why wouldn't he want to continue investigating this as soon as possible? Why wouldn't he want to work on this tonight at 8 - as soon as he can get back to it? She can only assume he's as excited to learn more about her abilities as she is - probably more so! Why would she ever assume this grown, professional man doing scientific study into his area of expertise has created an elaborate ruse where he lies to her at every turn. That would be insane, and she would be paranoid for thinking that. She can only assume it's cool and exciting for both of them.

However, this situation is insane and she would be right to go into a deeply paranoid train of thought. What he does here is intentionally misdirect her to think his interest in her is professional - unrelated to wanting to fuck her. He set her up so that she lets down whatever guard she's learned to put up around dudes trying to bother her.

Getting her to feel unguarded with him
But that's not all folks. He also gets her to let down her guard in another way. When she starts this experiment, she's not alone with Dr. Venkman. She gets into the situation in a much safer-from-getting-creeped-on scenario. There's another guy. However, as we know, Venkman does everything in his power through the experiment to piss the guy off and get him to leave. He succeeds and voila! he's got himself alone in a closed room with Jennifer. It's the old get-her-to-a-secluded-place date rape trick. She's not seeing it yet, though. She's already deep in the whole I-might-have-ESP thing and she thinks Venkman is professionally interested in her, plus the guy left on his own. For her, it doesn't add up to Venkman pushing her into a situation where they are alone. It's going as planned - Venkman is intentionally getting her to trust him under false pretenses and specifically getting himself alone with her all while allowing her to think something way different and more normal is happening.

Establishing safe intimacy
Then, as soon as they are alone, he moves across the table to sit very close to her and touches her almost immediately while still speaking to her in a professional capacity. He knows what he's doing. He has planned this out meticulously to keep her open to him and willing to go along with whatever happens. The touch is the first step towards sliding without much notice into pushy sex town. But then Ray gets there.

She never indicates she wants him sexually
Honestly, it seems like Venkman was going to try to fuck her right there in that that room. He asks Ray to come back in an hour, hour and a half. We know he sure wasn't trying to finish that experiment. Which...let's just consider that for a second. Jennifer in this situation doesn't seem to be thinking of fucking Venkman at all. Yeah she smiles at him and stuff, but let us not forget that she's being gaslighted into believing that Venkman is excited about her abilities. When she talks to him, she's talking about her abilities, not about flirty shit, and when she suggests meeting him at 8, it's because she thinks he wants to work with her some more (because that's what he tells her he wants). When he eventually starts getting handsy with her (since, lets be honest, this is the next step given he's trying to fuck within the hour) his intentions, I think, will come as a surprise to her.

I think it's easy to look at this scene and read in it that Jennifer is playing along, being flirty and looking to fuck too - maybe because that's the most palatable read of this situation. The alternative, that she's going to be completely bamboozled, is frankly gross and sad, and maybe that's not the read an audience wants to make on this otherwise light-hearted comedic storyline. But that's is the only really sensible read. He's flirting with her, and she's simply being nice and even a bit giddy about her exciting new abilities.
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What this manipulation does to a person
And that brings me to the other part - how this kind of creeping affects a person. Here's the deal. Do you know how it feels when you are praised for something, or when someone notices something you find interesting or unique or about you, something you take pride in? It feels nice.

Now, how do you think it feels when someone really convincingly and maybe even for a lengthy amount of time pretends to notice or praise those things but then suddenly, is all like, "sike! I didn't give a shit about any of that. I just wanted something else and played you like a fiddle to get at it."

...well, that feels embarrassing, and shitty, and sad.

Lots of people might have felt something like that in their life, but if you are a woman, I bet there's a good chance you have had that rug pulled out from under you when it was revealed the person just wanted to fuck you. You think a person is drawn to you and compliments you because of something you are doing, something you are working toward, something you share in common with them, but then they reveal the real situation. Maybe they drop you cold when they see you have a significant other or when you tell them you don't want to date, or when you avoid a sexual pass they make. Or maybe you just realize it when you think you're talking about something interesting and completely non sexual and they start trying to get with you.

Yeah, sometimes people get in situations where there is uneven interest and an honest misunderstanding takes place with good intention. That's not what I'm talking about here. I'm talking about a person wanting to become sexual with another person and taking intentional steps to misguide their object of desire to build undue trust, and to get them in secluded situations so that the possibility of sex is more attainable. If you are thinking that this isn't always so bad - that this can be part of dating - then that's the problem. That's why this scene, though incredibly mean, kind of seems normal. Our culture accepts that behavior to some degree, but it's not cool.

In fact, to the person that this happens too, it's like a punch to the gut. "Oh, yeah, I'm a fucking idiot. Why would I think this person is interested in me? I guess I'm just some tits and a pussy, and I fell for their dumb method of making me feel comfortable around them." Maybe I don't know exactly how to describe that feeling. Maybe it's different in different situations, but I think it's something like a sinking smack of reality that takes you from a particularly high place to a particularly low place quite quickly. It's mean and it shouldn't be normalized as much as it is.

What we didn't see but can assume from this Venkman scene (amusing on where this fits on the 'rapey' scale)
What's worse, I think, is that this kind of manipulation sometimes works simply because by the time the woman has figured out what the real intention was, she's too confused and embarrassed to actively separate herself from the sexual action that has started happening. I think it's something we don't talk about enough, but saying no is hard, and just going with the flow is sometimes too easy - especially when things just keep pushing forward at a fast pace. Sometimes things just happen so fast that there's not time to really be clear about what happened and what is going to happen.

I think creeps like this bank on the hope that by the time he starts doing things that reveal his real intentions, like taking off cloths or doing something specifically sexual, the woman has been bamboozled for long enough beforehand that she becomes kind of bewildered at that point. Suddenly she's trying to figure the situation out anew, real time while it's happening to her at a quick pace, and all while feeling really dumb that she let it get this far - that she didn't realize that this was about sex. So even if she doesn't want sex, she might feel bad or too silly to stop it with much forcefulness. Don't underestimate how strong a person, especially a woman's, instinct is to NOT make a person upset by stopping sexual things they actually don't want. A creep knows that, like Pringles, if you can get it started - however you can get that to happen - it's hard to stop. A creep is banking that any inkling of a 'no' will be conflicted with enough shame and confusion that it can just be kind of ignored long enough for him to go onto the next move. It's probably not legally rape, but it's for sure rapey, and definitely shitty. Granted, this part was not in this scene, but it kind of is too. I mean I would put money down that this is where this Venkman/Jennifer situation was going. It's there between the lines.  #MeTooGhostbusters, yall.

Don't we think maybe the person(s) that wrote this scene were intimately familiar with this kind of shitty, mean-spirited manipulation, but saw it as just kinda funny (not as deeply cutting and mean) given that they wrote it for the main character it in a kids movie that was meant to be at least a little lovable and redeemable (he ended up with another women in the film he harassed, actually).
All that to say that even with just the part of this we saw (which is minus the part where Venkman really would try to actually fuck her) it's a mean, dirty trick of a scene. It's a thoughtless, hurtful way to treat a person, and it's not something people do to people they respect, but men do it to women so often that it almost seems like a normal part of dating (funny and lovable even). And let me just say that even though this sucks, this mentality is woven so deep into our culture, that it's hard to blame a man for thinking of dating and sex in manipulative terms. I think women even think of it this way (from the opposite direction) to some degree. That is how we see hetero dating and sex in our media and how we talk about it...but that's an even bigger bag of worms...

#Venkmaned
I mean, even now in an era that should be so much more progressive than the world 30 years ago when Ghostbusters was made, the scene in this movie is largely just viewed as a professor abusing his power in order to flirt with a student instead of being seen as the focused, cruel kind of sexual manipulation it actually is. It doesn't pop out to us in that way because this kind of manipulation still happens so much that it seems like normal stuff. That's how far we still have to go.

Because, haven't most of us been #Venkmaned to some degree? I mean the purest form of Venkmaning is when a Paranormal professor megatricks you into thinking you have ESP, gets you alone in a room for 'professional' discussions, and then tries to fuck you. That's probably less common. The harshest type of Venkmaning starts with vagrant lies to gain trust and get you alone, and ends with a forceful attempt as sex. But, there's lots of other levels of Venkmaning that involve various styles of lying, insincere interest, phony compliments, and devious plans all with the sole aim of getting a lady into situations that make it hard, uncomfortable, or too confusing for her to say no to sexual advances.

#Venkmaning

Ribbed for Her Pleasure on the Interwebs: F'd Up Shit

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Last post I wrote about 'Ribbed For Her Pleasure' condoms and how ridiculous it is to believe that the ribbing on those condoms could help out in any way with her orgasm - which I argue is part of what is meant by and understood in the word 'pleasure.' I explain it in the post HERE, but basically the big point is that rubbing and/or pressing against the vaginal wall, like a penis does during intercourse is not something that sensibly seems like it should cause orgasm based on, you know, anatomy ALSO, no orgasm has ever been physically recorded in scientific literature from this kind of stimulation. That's just the truth, and so it's plain bonkers to assert that a little texture on the condom surrounding the penis would somehow increase the non-existent chances of banging the vaginal wall into an orgasm. Like I said, I discuss this (and inside-out penises in case you're interested) more in the original post.

Why I'm writing this post, however, is because I saw some funny/sad/poignant things in a couple of the websites I found while writing that other post. I was just looking around for what kinds of things people were saying about ribbed condoms, and there they were. I would have liked to sprinkle them into the original post, but I also wanted to keep that post short and sweet (which for me is still fairly long and not that sweet).

Anyway, that's why we're here so let me just share a few of these.

11 Ribbed and Textured Condoms That’ll Actually Get You Excited About Condom Shopping
This is a online Cosmo article by Carina Hsieh from June 27, 2019

It's tagged with "You'll never go back to regular condoms after this." You probably will, though. Firstly because ribbed condoms are bullshit, but also because this article is almost completely just a list of different ribbed condoms with a description of what they look like and their prices. There's no testimonials or anything that in any way work to convince you that ribbed condoms are somehow an extra great way to do intercourse. It's like a big advertisement for all the condom companies that advertise on the Cosmo website.

To be fair though, she does lead in with a tiny bit of a generic ad for ribbing in general. It's not enough to convince anyone to buy ribbed condoms, but it is enough to be completely weird and incorrect.

So it's in the very first lines of the very first paragraph of the article. It's the only discussion of ribbing that's not basically just descriptions of texture and the first line is this:

"Since most women orgasm from clitoral stimulation, not penetration alone, every extra bit of friction can only help you in that regard. While ribbed condoms might seem like a gimmick, the texture and added friction on the surface can actually provide some clutch clitoral stimulation to bring you to orgasm."

This is bonkers to me, not surprising or unique or really even backward in relation to other orgasm writing, but still bonkers. So, let's break this down.

THE GOOD
She acknowledged that most women need clit stim to come. Much appreciated, but honestly that is basic. It really should be just baseline knowledge for a sex-writer - particularly in a woman's magazine - because in surveys this is consist, and it's kind of an undeniable truth. Unfortunately, many pieces of writing don't even acknowledge that, but it is customary for any progressive lady-sex writing to mention it.

THE BAD
However, like almost all of, even quite progressive, writing on lady-gasm, the writing up there also leaves that sense that still some women do orgasm from just vaginal stimulation alone (which is not an anatomically or evidence based thought and probably isn't true). It also seems to insinuate that ribbing helps women who only orgasm clitorally to become more orgasmic through penetration alone. It doesn't say how in any sensible way, and thus seems to me to have no actual, concrete idea of how orgasm physically works. That's a problem, but it's also just weird.

THE INCOMPREHENSIBLE
So, how exactly will "every extra bit of friction help you in that regard?" What regard? The regard that I can't orgasm from penetrations?

Also, how exactly is the texture on the condom supposed to provide any "clutch clitoral stimulation?" Condoms work the vagina, not the clit. Is the condom covered dick going to pop out and start rubbing the clitoral glans?

And, riddle me this? If a woman can't come from penetration alone, but the 'texture and added friction' on a condom, which we can only assume will be touching her during penetration is supposed to help her come, is the insinuation that she (and maybe all women) actually can come from penetration alone - but only if she has enough friction?

Is that the regard this is helping us in? And if so, are we ladies supposed to assume that ribbing is some magic thing that somehow gives us the clitoral stimulation we need without actually touching our clit, thus allowing us to have our clit orgasms but somehow magically through penetration? If you think about it at all, it's a confusing nonsensical mess of a statement up there.

THE REASONING, MAYBE?, THAT IS ALSO INCOMPREHENSIBLE
My best guess is that she's referring to the hip new (and scientifically unfounded idea) that women can come from penetration clitorally because the penis sort of presses through the vaginal walls against the clitoral legs that are on either side of the vagina. There are a couple scientific studies on this that people like to reference (with individuals and with a couple), that neither prove orgasms can happen from penetration alone nor prove that pressing the clitoral legs might cause an orgasm at all. However it suggests it maybe, might, possibly, could be the cause of vaginal orgasm (which, let's be reminded, is not even an 'orgasm' that has actually been identified physically) and that's been enough to allow anyone and their mama to believe that clitoral leg pressing through the vagina during banging is the proven way that these 'vag-gasms' happen. This explanation of a 'type' of orgasm that hasn't even been observed has taken over for the g-spot explanation that was equally silly but just as popular through the 80's up until a few years ago.

Point is I don't know what this writer is getting at because even if she has this clit-leg mechanism in mind, texture on the condom ain't gonna help because it's about pressure not tactile sensation. 

The clitoral glans and surrounding tissue (which is what needs to be stimulated for a woman to orgasm) is very much not the inside of the vagina, and that statement up there is very much confused about anatomy and what is physically needed for a woman to orgasm, but it's also not surprising because most people, even progressive sexperts, are confused about that. It doesn't make it any less bonkers though.

BUT, I STILL LIKE COSMO
Now, I know Cosmo is traditionally an easy target for harsh, sarcastic feminist critique. It's seen as dumb and irrelevant (and sometimes hilarious) when it comes to sex advice, but that is not my take. Honestly, I think minus some of the more wildly hilarious position suggestions, it's sensibility is right on par with the larger culture and even the sex-positive culture. You know; Sex is good. You should not fake. Most women need clit stimulation, but coming from getting banged is a thing.

Cosmo is not much different from any sex positive sexpert - even though the progressive sex writers would love to believe they are. None of them really get that there is no reason to believe a 'vaginal orgasm' exists and tend to just (maybe unintentionally) reinforce that vaginal orgasms are attainable and sometimes even desirable. In fact, I would actually say that one of the best clit-focused sexpert writing I've seen is from Jill Hamilton doing Cosmo Sex Position Lists. She gets it and tries her damnedest to point out that women need clitoral glans area stimulation to come. So, I'll go ahead and say I'd like to see better from Cosmo because I know they can do it.

Are Ribbed Condoms Worth It? An Experiment
A BroBible article written by Aimee Porter about 6 years ago

The article was about the writer Aimee seeing ribbed condoms in the pharmacy by chance and realizing that she's been off condoms for so long that she had missed this boom of 'for her pleasure' products out there. She wondered if they really work.

If you’re banging, you know condoms are a necessary evil (use them or get herpes!). And I imagine there are many of you who have been suckered into ponying up for the ribbed stuff in the hopes that it’ll send your girl into mind-blowing orgasms the likes of which she’s never previously known. So, are those orgasms even possible? Right then and there, I decided to find out.

So, for this article, she bought a pleasure pack and enlisted her boyfriend to help her try them out. He wasn't excited about it, but he did it. There were 4 types, 3 ribbed styles and one warming lube. The first ribbed one was so not-ribbed she could barely feel the ribbing with her fingers when she ran them across it, so she didn't even bother. She tried the 2nd, The Sensations, and then during the intercourse switched it to the 3rd, The Intense.

The Intense had even more ribs than the Sensations, but yet, I didn’t get much of anything from it, either. At that point, my boyfriend came, so we tabled the Warming condom for later review. But I couldn’t help but feel extremely disappointed. Would any of these things make me feel something other than just, you know, gettin’ banged?

They later tried the heated lubricant one and it burned her vag - so they stopped.

I was down for the count. I tried to give my boyfriend a handjob as a consolation prize, but after a while he told me to stop. It was clear my heart just wasn’t in it. (Can you blame me? My lady parts had just been pan-seared!)

So, for her this condom test continued her tradition of unorgasmic banging and dialed in somewhere between meh and burned vagina. But how did her boyfriend describe his ribbed condom experience after he busted nut in one up inside her?

And for the record, what did my boyfriend feel? “I felt like I was having sex with a condom on,” he said. “It sucked.”

Really? fucking your girlfriend until you came 'sucked'? Really? That's how this dude would describe it?

Let me just put that into perspective. A woman has sex, ribbed condom or not and unfortunately she still does not "feel something other than just, you know, gettin’ banged?" - i.e. she doesn't orgasm condom, ribbing, or bareback. But, yeah, HIS experience sucked. She gets a penis rammed in her over and over, week after week through a long term relationship and NEVER COMES. EVER. But, he has to put a condom on his dick while he rams it in her, and as it always is, week after week through a whole long-term relationship, it's arousing and stimulating enough the his pelvic muscle spasm in orgasm and his penis spurts out semen in ejaculation, but "It sucked."

That my friends says, so, so much about the male vs. the female experience of sex. How desperately low lady expectations are, how strangely normal it all seems for women to have sex with no orgasm, and how invisible this insanely striking difference is for someone with a penis.

Ladies, we need higher expectations. We deserve our partner to feel so bad after they stop sex before we orgasm because their penis is burning that they come back from the bathroom to give us a half-hearted handie too.