The Broken Circle Breakdown - An SSL Review

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The Broken Circle Breakdown

I've seen a bunch of movies lately where we see a lady come from nothing more than a dick moving around in her vagina; the ol' intercourse-only orgasm, aka vaginal orgasm. I mean, these albiet unrealistic depictions aren't uncommon scenes to find in a movie, but I feel like I've had a run on them recently. It started with What's Love Got to Do With It? It's a great movie despite the unrealistic lady-gasm depiction, and you can see that SSL Reviewed HERE. This second one is The Broken Circle Breakdown, a 2012 Belgium movie. There will be more to follow.  

Like I said in the What's Love Got to Do With It? review, which is about a 30 year old movie, these unrealistic lady-gasm scenes can't be blamed on age. Nothing much has changed. The Broken Circle Breakdown was made about 20 years later and has 2 equally unrealistic sex scenes. They will be described and discussed below.

The SSL Review (for those that don't know about them)

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

 

Truck sex: orgasming with her feet behind her ears

The first SSL Reviewable scene is in the back of a truck. Didier and Elise are having sex - intercourse specifically. At first she is on top, sitting mostly perpendicular to him and by the sound of it, she's enjoying herself quite a bit. She's not completely bouncy, there's more of a grind to her movements, but her body isn't at an angle to his that would indicate her clitoral area would be making contact with anything but air. As far as hands, we can't see specifically, but there is no indication that either her or his hands are anywhere near her clitoral area. 

From this position they stop the action a bit and talk, and then she tells him to continue. And he does. He flips her over so she's on her back and he's on top of her. He pushes her legs up over his shoulders as he leans down toward her, having her feet almost over her head, and he's pumping into her. Again, there is no indication any hands are down near her clit area, and the angle and folding of her body would not likely allow any contact between his body and her clitoral area. All to say her vaginal canal is getting rammed a lot during this scene, but her clit area, the part a female needs stimulated to orgasm is not getting really anything from this sex. 

Yet in this scene, her verbalizations make it for sure clear what we are to assume happens. She comes with gusto on her back with her feet up around the her head. 

Cowgirl style sex and a cry

In a later scene, the two are on a bed. He is laying on his back and she is on top of him, facing him, straddling him, and perpendicular to his body. She is moving up and down, presumably, on his dick. These are definitely not bouncing up and down movements, but circular hip movements up and down - a bit grindy, but given her perpendicular angle to his body, not in a her-pelvis-grinding-against-his-pelvis way, but in a her vaginal canal moving down in a more circular fashion on his dick as opposed to moving straight down on his dick sort of way. So, like the scene before there was no indication that her clitoral area could have been stimulated and there was also no indication of hands down that way working on the clit area.

As before, she auditorily works up to it and then orgasms. Then she begins crying for reasons related to other parts of the story.

Clits need stimulation to orgasm as much as penises do

Let me just reiterate that. External clitoral area stimulation is as important to female orgasm as penile stimulation is to male orgasm. For real. If you imagine there is good scientific investigation out there that proves physically that women (or even some women) can orgasm from nothing more than a penis or dildo moving inside their vagina, then you are wrong. You're not alone in thinking that, and I couldn't blame you for imagining that is the case in this fucked up, misinforming sexual culture we live in, but it's just not true.  

So on that note, the two scenes above are really no different than a scene where a dude orgasms from rubbing his inner thigh in a very sexual manner. The only real difference is filmmakers don't see any problem making scenes like the two in this movie and viewers don't see anything weird about accepting those scenes as the way things are (or at least could be for at least some women).  On the other hand, a director would not sensibly assume they could create a scene with dude coming from leg touches unless it was comedy or absurdist in some way.

To sum up, we live in a world that basically doesn't get how females orgasm physically...but thinks we do, and basically does gets how males orgasm, physically. It's a problem because scenes like the two above reiterate the misconception that intercourse all by itself should be as orgasmic for women as it is for men. Scenes like these, and there are SOOOO many like this in all types of media, stick in our heads. They inform how we negotiate and play out our sexual experiences. They curve our expectations of female orgasm towards acts that are geared not towards female orgasm, but towards male orgasm, and worst of all, maybe, they make us confused, ashamed, or feel insufficient when the reality does not match our expectations. You know,  maybe even worse than that, they may influence us to fake or twist our experiences to match the expectations so that we are able to feel normal and appropriately sexy/sexual. 

It's messed up really, and no one seems to care or even notice much.

Vulva Rating

These 2 scenes and the scene in What's Love Got To Do With It? are all of the same basic kind. They show intercourse alone, with no stimulation focused on the clit area, as causing a female orgasm. They are all equally ridiculous and equally steeped in deep cultural ignorance and misconceptions about how females physically orgasm. I'm going to give this movie a slightly worse Vulva Rating though. 

It may not be completely rational, but it's because I feel like this movie was trying to be more progressive and failed, while What's Love Got To Do With It? was 20 years older and felt like it was simply trying to make a basic sex scene. It seemed to me in the Broken Circle Breakdown, Elise was meant to be a sexual woman that knew what she wanted and went for it. I think that's why she was often shown on top during sex and as grinding instead of bouncing her vagina over his dick. It aligns to 2 common misconceptions. The first is that banging with a circular motion is more lady-friendly, as if the penis stimulating the inside of the vagina in a circular motion is better than a straightforward motion (which I believe is a misunderstanding and twisting of the idea that grinding the clit against the partner while the penis is inside the vagina is more female friendly - which it is because that type of action acknowledges the need for consistent clitoral simulation in order for females to orgasm) . The second is that a woman simply being on top during intercourse is enough to get her an orgasm - as if her control of how the vaginal canal moves over the penis is somehow more orgasmic than his control of how the penis moves in the vagina. Granted, her control of the intercourse situation might be more fun and may be more pleasurable, but it doesn't change the fact that the focus is still on the penis and vaginal canal instead of where it should be when we're speaking of lady-gasms - on the external clitoral area. 

Anyway, that lady-on-top and the circular motion pumping advice that ignores the real, actual needs of lady-gasms is something that is common in progressive contemporary sex advice, and it annoys me, so that's why I'm lowering the Vulva Rating.

The Broken Circle Breakdown gets a 1 1/2 Vulva Rating.

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