We all know Saturday Night Live, right? I hadn't seen it for a while because it used to be on Hulu, and then it disappeared, but I have access to Peacock now, so I'm checking it out again. As one might expect the one with Amy Schumer as host has a little lady-bation in it, so an SSL Review was needed.
An 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 and/or cunnilingus 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 Watcher (wherein Amy plays a mother that masturbates to Property Brothers)
I'll give you a quick rundown of the lady-bation stuff in this skit, and then give a quick assessment and vulva rating.
This skit is called, "The Watcher," and basically a family (mom, dad, teen son, teen daughter) get a letter from someone claiming to watch them. He describes things they each do in the house, and they all get freaked out. Things people are doing are basic things, but when it talks about the mom, it's stuff she acts like she doesn't do; like eat a whole 2nd dinner after everyone's asleep like a greedy, panicked raccoon. Then it describes what she does as soon as her husband goes out for his morning run.
"She gets a snack, turns on the TV and pleasures herself...to the Property Brothers"
We see her reclining on the couch from afar. She reaches down inside the front of her pants, and then the shot move in to her from the chest up. She's putting a chip in her mouth with one hand and aggressively moving her hand in small circles on what one can only assume is her clit/vulva area. She look wild.
The letter eventually begins talking about the mother having trouble in the bathroom and giving herself pep talks to get herself to poop.
"She gets so frustrated, she'll go downstairs and blow off some steam with one of Property Brothers. Why is she so aroused by that show? Is it the brothers...or the property?"
We see her on the couch again with a shot from the shoulders up, and her head's leaned back and eyes closed. She almost looks in pain, but then we hear a slight gravelly "ahhh" as she's breathing out, and then she tilts her head down in a kind of relief with an 'oooo', seemingly like she came.
It cut back to the family reading the letter, and the son has the remote and is pointing to the TV. He says,
"Oh my god! Mom, someone downloaded every episode of Property Brothers!"
The mom says, "What?!" as if it wasn't her and The Looker is like trying to frame her or something.
Then the daughter goes up to the TV and says,
"And only watched 5 minutes of each one!"
as we see shots of episodes with minutes watched like 5:01 and 4:48.
The creeped out family decided that they should stay at a hotel, but the mom volunteers to stay behind. We see her back on the couch watching Property Brothers, and she says,
"If you're watching, it's the property I'm into, not the brothers."
As she's saying this, we see her from afar on the couch in the same way, but this time she's pantless with her legs wide open and a big blur over her vulva. The shot moves to a close of her face. We hear a click and a buzzing sound and then she gets a goofy, cross-eyed, happy look on her face.
I'm into it
I mean, I am definitely into this. It's a goofy skit, and the things the mom does that The Looker sees are personal, kind of embarrassing things, so it's not like this was a shining light of acceptance and joy regarding masturbation, but it also wasn't like humiliating or shameful. It was just like a dumb joke. It's a skit that probably any other time would have been written about a dad and his masturbation habits. So, to me, this skit is just normalizing ladies masturbating through humor, and I'm into. It also insinuated a vibrator, and I'm very into normalizing that.
Oh - and she clearly masturbates from zero to come in about 5 minutes, and I love that. It's normalizing the idea that women can masturbates as quickly, easily, and reliably as men...because they can - in surveys and in actual lab studies that actually measure and observe physical orgasm. There's an strong idea out there that it takes women longer to come, but that's not true. It just seems true because so much of the time women are not just getting banged, and their vagina is getting stimulation instead of their actual pleasure organ - the clitoris (in the glans vulva area specifically - you know, where the clit nerves are).
Vulva Rating
I'm gonna say this isn't a progressive take on masturbation acceptance, but it is something a bunch of 8 year old girls staying up too late on a Saturday night will see before they even reach puberty, and that is progress. They will see a woman masturbating on regular old TV and their whole life they will know that is a thing, and that's progress. That is not something most of us had available to us, so I'm gonna say fuck yeah to that. I'll give this a full 5 out of 5 vulvas.
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