Vintage SSL: Pleasure and "Choosing" to Have an Orgasm

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***Here's a blog post I wrote back in February of 2011. i thought is was worth a little dusting off and reposting. I changed it's wording a bit in a few places, but it's the same sentiment. enjoy the blast from the past.***

This article got me thinking
I read this post on BlogHer entitled "The Orgasm Gap: Are Women Faking It?" It and the comments for it, started me thinking more about the words "pleasure" and "choice." These are common words used in discussions about the female orgasm, and I think they are often used sloppily. But to get into that, let's first answer the question posed...do women fake? Of course the answer is yes. Lots of women fake it. The author points to a study of about 6000 people where 85% of men claim their woman climaxed in their last encounter and only 64% of women claimed that they orgasmed in their last encounter. This discrepancy is nothing new. One could find a number of surveys showing that there is a chunk of women out there faking orgasms. Since men don't seem to fake nearly as much as ladies do, she wonders if women are just too used to pleasing without return or too tired with work, kids, and home to make the time for getting turned on. (Maybe faking quick helps you get more shut-eye without feeling like you are always saying no to sex). Then she goes on to wonder the following:  

Or could it be something even deeper. Right now, I’m on a book tour for my new book, What’s Up Down There? Questions You’d Only Ask Your Gynecologist If She Was Your Best Friend Just today alone, I got these questions:

• What does an orgasm feel like?

• How do I know if I’ve had an orgasm?

• My boyfriend is bummed if I don’t look like I’m having fun, but sex hurts me. What should I do?

• I don’t really know what I like in bed. How can I find out?

What this tells me is that many of us honestly don’t know what gives us pleasure. Many of us don’t even know what an orgasm IS! 

Pleasure is one thing, but let's not confuse that with orgasm here
I think she's oh so right. Although I would make a small distinction. I think it is not pleasure that women are uncertain about. I think it is the orgasm in particular. Pleasure is easy, and we understand pleasure. We eat for pleasure, talk for pleasure, read for pleasure. We ladies really can tell if we like something or we don't  - and that is no different in sex. We can find pleasure in all sorts of sexual activity; the sensation of kissing, the emotional closeness, the intensity of rough touching, the high of risking someone catching you, the freeing feeling of being naked, the calming nature of romantic candles and scented oil, even the pleasure of having sex without someone trying to make you have an orgasm you feel you'll never have...I could go on forever. In our notion of what is pleasurable, we as people can be diversely unique. And sometimes, those unique personal pleasures can also cause physical sexual arousal or orgasm.

Ways of experiencing pleasure are as diverse as we are. Ways of experiencing orgasm are not nearly as diverse.
The orgasm, however, that could result from the pleasure and physical arousal is not so diverse. It is not so diverse because the female orgasm is a specific physical reaction that results from clitoral stimulation (however that stimulation happens to come about). This is in the same way that male orgasms are a specific physical reaction that results from penile stimulation. Although women's orgasms are often discussed as if they are more diverse, unique and mysterious, there is no good scientific reason to believe that. Lady-gasms are only as unique, diverse, and mysterious as male orgasms - which means they ain't that big of a mystery.

But lady-gasms are harder to figure out given how our culture teaches, discusses, and depicts them
The thing is; how to physically have an orgasm is are not so obvious for us ladies as it is more the gentlemen because we are constantly misled about how we should attain orgasm. The depictions of women orgasming that we see, the advice we get, the discussions that take place, the jokes that are said, the sexual education we receive in school, and the types of sex that are considered normal all point to women's orgasms resulting from vaginal stimulation through intercourse. Yet, there is simply no good scientific evidence that this is ever the case. Although there may be a woman out there who can have an actual physical orgasm through vaginal stimulation alone, she has not yet been recorded as doing so. The scientifically recorded orgasms out there come from clitoral stimulation - indirect or direct. That's just the truth, and that disconnect between how women actually orgasm and how everyone seems to think we orgasm makes real-life attaining of lady-gasms more problematic than dude-gasms.

Which brings us back to pleasure vs. orgasm 
So, we need to make a distinction when we talk about "pleasure" because due to all the confusion/misinformation around how women physically orgasm, "pleasure" is too often used as interchangeable with "orgasm" when it comes to women. We aren't confused as a culture about how men physically orgasm, so there is not the same problems with inappropriately mixing the use of "pleasure" vs. "orgasm."

The truth is, when sexperts say, as they often do, that achieving pleasure in sex can be done in a large variety of ways that are vastly unique to each woman (anal, vaginal, clitoral, backrubs, fantasizing, etc. I've heard much crazier - believe me), it is essentially saying orgasm can be achieved in a variety of ways - and that is just plain not true. Not making the appropriate and fact-based distinctions between what can cause orgasm and what can cause pleasure continues to perpetuate the myth that female orgasm is fickle, mysterious and deeply varied from one woman to the next - and confuses the fuck out of women trying to figure out how they might have orgasms in their own sexual experiences.

So, take for instance the most common of things 2 heteros do when they are having a sexual interaction - vaginal intercourse. Yes, it may be quite pleasurable to a woman, but that doesn't mean it is orgasmic. This is important. The ways of attaining pleasure can be as unique as the people themselves, and men and women can both find all kinds of pleasure in sex, but the ability to orgasm during vaginal intercourse is way skewed towards men.  Basic ol' PinV sex is PERFECT for penile stimulation and not great at all for clitoral stimulation, so the hard truth is that men, way more often than women, also often get an orgasm along with that pleasure.

Why is it that female sexual pleasure is so equated with female orgasm?
We as a culture know that women don't orgasm as much as men, and thinking (as incorrect as it may be) that the female orgasm is more fickle and mysterious than a man's is an easy way to sweep that blatant and unnecessary inequality under the rug. But another way to do that is to assume men naturally just care more about orgasm, and women just naturally have less inclination to care about orgasm. If we believe we ladies are just as satisfied to have pleasure during sex as we are to have orgasms during sex, than everyone's off the hook for actually putting effort into making sure women have orgasms the way we do for men. And indeed, this is often the story we tell ourselves. In fact, the comments added to the post I wrote about above show plenty of women saying that they aren't worried about orgasms too much; saying there is plenty of other things to enjoy about sex; that we're all just too damn obsessed with women orgasming; that they have never orgasmed and don't see why it's such a big deal; that they enjoy sex just fine without one...that pleasure during sex is just as good as pleasure and an orgasm. In a way these women are right, because there is a lot to enjoy about sex besides the big O.

Do we really choose pleasure of orgasm, though?
However, this isn't just a matter of women choosing to either have an orgasm during their sexual encounter or not. It's not as if when women get down and dirty in that one-night stand or the midnight sex with their husband, they get to a point and say, "You know, I'm going to not have an orgasm. I haven't just sat back and really enjoyed the feeling of a naked body against me or reveled in the pride of giving a man pleasure without asking for anything in return in a while." 

I mean, that is a valid choice in a sex act, and one that maybe men should feel is more legitimately available to them, but this is not what is happening for most women. Women are lacking orgasms largely for a simple reason - because they don't know how to with a partner. Women and men are both led to believe that orgasm should happen for women through intercourse, and that intercourse is the ultimate in sexual contact, yet that is not how women orgasm - except in porn, movies, tv, comics, jokes, etc... Women need the appropriate amount and type of sustained outer clitoral stimulation and men need the same on their penis. Problem is, status quo sex and our basic cultural knowledge of sex makes that easy for men and an uphill battle for women - if either of them even knows which hill to battle up. So, to speak about women's orgasm as if it is a choice whether to have one or not is bothersome to me.

Once we get to a situation where we have a generation who grows up understanding how males and females physically orgasm, and who sees depictions and discussions of sex accurately portraying the actions involved in both male and female orgasm during partnered sex - then I will concede that whether to have an orgasm during a sexual interaction is a choice. It is not a choice for most women*, and focusing on the other pleasures of sex is really their only choice. While acknowledging that women can enjoy and find pleasure in sex without orgasm, we should also be working to make the choice to have or not to have an orgasm an actual viable choice for women - the way it is for men.


*Thanks to some constructive criticism,  I'd like to point out "most" refers to the approximately 2/3 of women who claim they do not have orgasms always or most of the time they have sex. This is a pretty consistent finding, but specifically can be found in the 1976 book The Hite Report on Female Sexuality by Shere Hite. Besides her own survey, she documents at least 3 others that are consistent with her own.

Mozart in the Jungle Seasons 1 and 2: The SSL Review

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Mozart in the Jungle
This show's gotten a lot of hype the last couple years, won some Emmys and all that. So, we decided to give it a try. It's real symphonic music geek focused, and I like that. I appreciate a show that tips its hat to the deep interests of a particular group - even if it's just enough for non-geeks to notice but not be turned off. Overall, I like it okay, and the episodes are shorts so it's an easy binge. It's actually pretty PG-13ish, so there's not much sex shown, but there have been 2 moments so far that gave me a reason to SSL Review.

If you're new to this, I only critique discussions or depictions of lady-bation or lady-gasms. A movie doesn't get an SSL Review if it doesn't have one. I largely 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? Was she masturbating in a way that is unlikely to cause orgasm?). However, I also like to talk about the larger picture of how the depiction/discussion fits into the cultural discussion around female orgasm 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 SSL Review details
I'm going to start chronologically backwards and lump these two  together a bit, but I first need to describe them in detail. (Also, as not to spoil anything too much, I'm not going to use the character names because I can get the point across without the names or revealing too much about the character.)

Season 2 Episode 2: The Hippie Instagasm
A woman and a man meet. The man is a main character, the woman is an extra with lines and she's a drum-circle type hippie chic. We see them start to make out, and they go into his room and jump in bed together, both fully clothed. She rolls on top of him. Their pelvises haven't come near each other in this situation until this point. She's straddling him. She does one little hip thrust right as she gets on, but then her hip area stays pretty motionless. Immediately, she starts making uh, uh, orgasm noises. We hear her say, "Take it off." and he indeed unties her bikini top.

At this point the camera is moving slowly away out through the high rise bedroom's glass walls and into the night sky. As the camera moves away, the sound continues as if we were still in the room, and we hear her really going at it with the orgasm sounds. She's saying (I think) "Go, Go, Go." It sounds like a woman orgasming in porn.

From the moment she is on top of him to the point that the camera moving out to the sky no longer sees them is 7 seconds. Nine seconds after that, she's already gone into full orgasm sound mode and the scene cuts off. And both are still wearing their pants. If she was getting any sort of friction against her clitoral / vulva area (which is as important to lady-gasm as penis stimulation is to guy-gasms), then it was only for that total of 16 seconds from her getting on top to the ending cut, and she was somehow able to come within that time. So, if this lady did pop off as her voice would have us believe, she's like some teenage boy in some random lose-his-virginity-teen-movie that comes in his pants from nothing more than a brush against his dick - and the scene should have acknowledged that. But it didn't. This was just played as a normal sex scene. I deem this, my friends, as some high-end BS.

Season 1 Episode 9: The Passionate Instagasm
This is the same guy from above only this time he's with a woman with which he has an eccentric and insanely passionate history (both in love and hate). So, he goes into this tent to see her, and there is another woman outside the tent who was asked to wait there for 2 minutes in case something goes terribly wrong.

Inside the tent, it takes over a minute of talking to turn to the couple kissing, and as soon as that happens, it almost immediately cuts to the woman waiting outside. We see she can hear the orgasm sounds of the woman in the tent. It sounds like a straight up porn star. We also see the waiting lady checking her watch as she did when she was first instructed to wait 2 minutes and then she gets up to leave - making me think, 'wow, only 2 minutes have gone by and this tent lady is already coming??' But then I'm like, 'Okay, maybe some time has passed between the kissing inside and the orgasming heard outside, and that time passage will be revealed in the next cut.'

But, then no. It cuts back to inside the tent, and no time seems to have gone by.  They really are just kissing...and fully clothed. And not only that, but we quickly learn she's also wearing a chastity belt. The couple kinda rolls backward to a laying position with him on top and her with her legs wrapped around his waist. Just as they lay back, he says something like, "What is going on down there." And she reveals the chastity belt she has put on as a measure to preserve her passion. I can only assume that this dude asked about the chastity belt pretty much as soon as his body touched anywhere near her private parts - given that the metal chastity belt covers her whole crotch area, and he probably would have noticed it.

So, if she orgasmsed first, and then his body gets near enough to her crotch to feel the belt, how the hell was she orgasming before? This makes me assume her pelvis area was not getting any friction during the time she was making porn-gasm sounds. I mean, I guess she could have been rubbing her vulva up against the inside of the metal chastity belt, but still, it was only a whole 10 seconds in the show from the time they kissed to the time he found the belt (with the porn-gasm in between)...and even if there was time in between cuts, it shouldn't have been longer than 2 minutes given the woman was still waiting outside. Either way, it just doesn't make sense that she was getting sufficient clitoral/vuvla stimulation in order to orgasm in this situation. Yet, she was depicted as orgasming anyway.

Enough with Insta-gasms
I think the thing that bothers me most about these scenes is how unremarkable they are, yet how incredibly fanciful they are when considering actual physiological realities of orgasm...specifically female orgasm. Both these women orgasmed within about 10 seconds from having their private area close to another person...and actually it really doesn't even seem likely that the chastity belt woman even had her junk near the dude at all while she was orgasming.

The whole thing with these scenes is just wierd - like a 13 year old boy's dream of what orgasmic lady delights he might impart on a woman if he started making out with her. Yet, at the same time, neither scene stands out. It's simply not abnormal at all to see women orgasming, even perma-gasming, immediately upon the start of anything sexual. It's easy to find this in porn, and it's not so hard to find in TV and movies as well.

Imagine if you saw a man in a movie roll on top of a woman, fully clothed, and he immediately started making orgasm sounds. It would take you out of the sexuality of the situation. It wouldn't be just a normal sex scene. It would clearly be viewed as a scene meant to be funny or sad or something. It would be of note in a way that a scene where a woman doing the same thing is not.

Technically both a man or a woman could orgasm this way. He or she could have been sooooo very turned on that just a quick stimulation of his dick or her clit through through the pants could send him or her over the edge. But I dare say that's not what was meant in these scenes. These scenes were meant to show passionate women with a passionate man having passionate interactions...and in attempting this, they had a man who, quite realistically, did not come immediately and women who despite facts of reality, did.

The female orgasm is not something other. It's as real and physical as the male orgasm. 
These scenes normalize the idea that female orgasm is something different, something beyond the boring physical reality of male orgasm. These scenes tell us that passionate women orgasm easily and loudly from anything and everything - even non-physical things (which in all seriousness, there is no physical evidence of in scientific literature - at all). The idea that women's orgasms are somehow mystical, and wild, and disassociated from realities of the physical body is normalized.

On the other hand, the man in these scenes is supposed to be uber passionate just like the ladies, but his orgasm is not forced into a false mold to do this. As a result, these scenes reinforce the idea that men and women have distinctly different 'orgasms.' This leads the audience to rightly assume that even for passionate men, their penises must still be appropriately stimulated to orgasm, but wrongly assume that women can orgasm from passion alone and that their clits have very little to do with the situation.

Or maybe...faking
Or maybe we are supposed to assume both of these women were faking...'cause if you think about it in realistic terms, they sure seem to be. I really don't think that's the case, though. I think the orgasms were used in these scenes to show the passion of the situation and passion of the characters. But for real, isn't it a little crazy that I have to seriously wonder if a lady-gasm scene was intended to be a faking scene or if the creators of the scene just depicted it ridiculously because they don't know how it works or don't care? That's how miseducated and confused this culture is about the female orgasm and how it physically happens. This BS doesn't much happen for scenes with male orgasm. Why? Well, I think it's because people actually know how male-gasms works and actually give a shit about them.

Vulva Rating
So, these scenes being the only actual SSL Reviewable scenes in seasons 1 and 2, I give the first two seasons of Mozart in the Jungle 2 vulvas. These scenes were just straight up unrealistic...you might even say bat-shit ridiculous. They add to the normalization of female orgasm as a rather non-physical mystical entity and further separate how people think of female vs. male orgasms. (and really, people, it's the same shit...find something that is penis or clitoris like, and stimulate it how feels good until coming ---the. same. shit.). I almost gave it one vulva, but I appreciate that even if the scenes were unrealistic, they weren't unrealistic and involved women orgasming from penis-in-vagina intercourse with no additional outer clitoral stimulation, and that's something different!

(!)(!)

SSL Review - Seinfeld S5 E1 "The Mango"

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A Seinfeld SSL Review
Charlie's been randomly watching old Seinfelds during his lunch lately, and I happen to be around during a particularly SSL Reviewable episode, Season 5 Episode 1, "The Mango."

As my most of you already know, an SSL Review is a critique specifically of a depiction or discussion of female orgasm and/or masturbation. 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 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 MANGO" DETAILED SUMMARY
I usually take each scene containing depiction/discussion of lady-gasm one by one and discuss them that way, but this whole episode is about lady-gasm, particularly the faking of, and it is better discussed as a full piece. So, I'm going to give you an overview of the episode with transcripts of key parts (from my ear to the paper, so forgive any misspellings and such). Then I'll discuss at the end.

Scene #1 - Cafe Lady-gasm Discussion and Discovery of Orgasm Faking
So it begins with Jerry and George eating at the diner and George is talking about his new girlfriend, Karen. He thinks it's all good except one part which Jerry guesses correctly is something sexual. George begins to explain.

George: I've never really felt confident in the...ah...one particular aspect.
Jerry: Below the equator?
George: yeah.
Jerry: Nobody does. You know, nobody knows what to do. You just close your eyes 'n hope for the best. I really think they're happy if you just make an effort.
George: I..I..I don't know. Last time I got the tap.
Jerry: You got the tap?
George: You know, you're going along, you think everything's alright. Then all the sudden ya, ya get the tap. You know it's like,  '(he whistles) Alright that's enough. You're through.'
Jerry: The tap is tough.
George: It's like the manager coming out and asking you for the ball.
Jerry: Yeah. Well, maybe she just wanted to move on to other business.
George: Nah, no this wasn't moving on. I got the hook. I wish I could get a lesson in that.
Jerry: It's a very complicated area.
George: You could go crazy trying to figure that place out.
Jerry: It's a hazy mystery.
George: Anyway, I think everything else is okay. Unless of course she's fakin'.

(Elaine comes in and sits down)
Elaine: Who's fakin'?
George: Nothing.
Elaine: Fakin' what?
George: Nobody's faking.
Elaine: Ahhh! orgasm?
George: She's not faking.
Elaine: How do you know?
George: I know, I can tell. It's one of my powers. Why? Did you ever fake?
Elaine: Of course.
Jerry: Really?!
George: You faked?
Elaine: On occasion.
Jerry: And the guy never knows?
Elaine: No.
Jerry: How could he not know that?
Elaine: 'Cause I was gooood.
Jerry: I guess after that many beers he's probably a little groggy anyway.
(Jerry and George laugh)

Elaine: You didn't know.
Jerry: What?
Elaine: You didn't know.
Jerry: Are you saying...with me?
Elaine: Yeah.
Jerry: You faked with me?
Elaine: Yeah
Jerry: You faked with me?
Elaine: Yeah.
Jerry: No.
Elaine: Yeah.
Jerry: You faked it?
Elaine: I faked it.
Jerry: That thing, that whole production? It was all an act?
Elaine: Not bad, huh?
Jerry: What about the breathing, the panting, the moaning, the screaming?
Elaine: fake. fake. fake. fake.
Jerry: I'm stunned. I'm shocked.

(Elaine shruggs her shoulders)
Jerry: How many times did you do this?
Elaine: Uuumm.....All the time.
Jerry: All the time! I thought I was so good.
George: I'm sure you were.
Elaine: Listen Jerry. it's not you. I just didn't have them back then.
Jerry: She faked...maybe they've all been faked.
Elaine: I'm sure they're not.
George: Maybe Karen is faking

Scene #2 - Jerry Goes Home And Talks To Kramer About It
Jerry tells Kramer he doesn't understand why she would lie. He says it's like sexual pejury.

Jerry: How'd she do it? She's like Meryl Streep this women. And I know how to work the equipment! I'm not unskilled. I'm in the union! How did she do it? I mean if she could have at least told me I could have done something about it.
Kramer: Yeah - I could have helped you out.
Jerry: What could you have done?
Kramer: Well, I could have given you some pointers. I know how to press those buttons, buddy.
Jerry: Well I'm feeling very inadequate about the whole thing.

Then Elaine calls because they are supposed to see a movie later. He's all upset and says he doesn't want to do anything with her, but then he does anyway.

Scene #3 Elaine's Office After The Phone Call To Jerry
Elaine: Renee, can you come here a second. Let me ask you something. Ummmm...have you ever, you know, faked it?
Renee: Yeah sometimes.
Elaine: Really, like when?
Renee: Like if we went to Broadway show, if we had really good seats. Well, and you know, if it's enough already and I just want to get some sleep.

Scene #4 George And Karen On A Date
They are eating dinner. After she finishes her risotto, she kinda ooo's an ahh's and moans all orgasmy-ish and lights up a cigarette. George is freaked out and tries to cryptically ask if she orgasms with him by asking if she feels the same way about the risotto as she does about him. He never gets any kind of answer and is just more freaked out.

Scene #5 Jerry And Elaine At Dinner - He Asks For a 2nd Chance
Jerry can't stop talking about the faking thing and Elaine keeps trying to tell him to stop worrying, but then Jerry blurts out:

Jerry: Give me another shot.
Elaine: What?!
Jerry: Another shot. I want another shot.
Elaine: You mean? No - I don't think so.
Jerry: Come on. One more shot. I can do it. I know I can do it.
Elaine: Jerry, we're friends. We can't do that. We're friends. It would ruin our friendship.
Jerry: Oh friendship sminship.
Elaine: No - that's important to me.
Jerry: Oh - we won't ruin the friendship.
Elaine: Yes we will.
Jerry: Elaine!
Elaine: It is out of the question. No Jerry. You know what sex does to a friendship. It kills it.
Jerry: A half hour. Give me a half hour.
Elaine: No.
Jerry: Okay, 15 minute. I guarantee you 15 minutes, and I can make it happen.
Elaine: No!
Jerry: You're worried I'll be able to do it, aren't you?
Elaine: What? No. It doesn't matter. Jerry, I don't caaare.
Jerry: That's it. That's it. You like having this on me. You don't want me to do it.
Elaine: That is so ridiculous
Jerry: Come on Elaine!.
Elaine: No!
Jerry: Elaine!
Elaine: No!

Scene #6 George And Karen In Bed After George Couldn't Get It Up 
They are laying face up next to each other looking up forward. He looks animated and neurotic, going over stuff in his head, and she looks unsatisfied. He tells her it was Jerry's fault, and she replies:

Karen: Oh I don't care. George, really it's alright.
George: So you feel okay?
Karen: Well, it's not like after the risotto.

Scene #7 Jerry, George, Kramer, and the Introduction of the Mango
They are all 3 at Jerry's apartment. George is basically telling them that he couldn't get it up with Karen, and he's thinking it'll never work again. Jerry had been calling ex girlfriends asking about if they had orgasms when they were together. He gets ahold of one and she says yes, and then he immediately calls Elaine to tell her other girls have come with him.
Then George eats some mango that is really good and starts to feel a tingling in his man junk, so he leaves triumphantly.

Scene #8 George In Aftermath Of Sex With Karen
They are both sweaty, and Karen is giving little aftermath moans like it was good. George starts talking in a little bit of an arrogant way.

George: Thanks. It's not necessary.
Karen: What's not necessary?
George: The little extra moan you threw in there. Laying it on extra thick aren't we?
Karen: What are you talking about?
George:What am I talking about? Come on. You really think I bought all that?
Karen: What?
George: You're very good. You're very good with the moaning and the gyrations and all of that. You really had me going there for a minute
Karen: You think I was faking?
George: Come one. Oh George! Oh George! Come on. Not that I don't appreciate the effort that was put into it.

Then she kicks him out.

Scene #9 - Jerry's Other Shot
Elaine comes by to give Jerry some of his stuff from her apartment since Jerry can't get over it and the friendship can't go on. But, just before she leaves, she gives in and says she'll give him another shot. He's giddy, and they go into the bedroom.

It cuts back to them and they are next to each other in his bed. Elaine's on her side reading a magazine. Jerry's freaking out because he clearly couldn't get it up, and he's lost his 'other shot'. He says it's all George's fault. Then Elaine says, "You know, I'm a little hungry. You wouldn't happen to have any of that mango left?"
And there my friends is the punch line - Jerry's eye's widen at the thought of some mango giving him a boner again just like it did for George.


THE REVIEW
I'll try to keep this quick, so let me bullet point the things I want to say:

• Jerry, I'm not sure if you're an idiot or an asshole. You wanna make Elaine come so bad? You wanna prove you can do it? EAT. HER. OUT. News flash: you don't need an erect penis to do that. You don't need a penis at all really. No mango required.
• The fact that there was not even a nod to the fact that he could have used something other than his dick to make her come is quite telling. I would be blamey towards him for not knowing that most women (and probably even more than we currently acknowledge) don't orgasm during intercourse, but it's actually not surprising and ya almost can't blame someone for that. With the media and sex ed and every other part of our sexual culture insinuating that ladies come from penises moving in vaginas, one probably never hears the cold hard fact that there is absolutely no physical record of an orgasm caused by stimulation inside the vagina in all of science. Clits need to be stimulated, people. Clits.
• I'm not trying to harp on this, but...listen, they spoke at the beginning of the show about going down on the ladies, so I know they know it exists, and I also know they can find ways to speak about it in the show and still get by censors. So, you tell me why there was no discussion or attempt by Jerry to orally get at Elaine's clit. You. tell. me!
• I'm gonna side with George on one thing. She probably was faking...because the situation was about him being able to get it up....which means he was able to fuck her hole with his pole, which means he probably did nothing but stimulate her vagina...which means she probably didn't come.
• Jerry's comment about women simply being happy that a man would make an effort at eating her out: Man, fuck you. Yeah, Jerry, we don't want to come. We just like to be aroused and then NOT come - kinda like the blue balls situation you dudes like so well. We are just happy you gave us an opportunity to help you come. Yeah, I know this is a joke line, and it fits the notoriously thoughtless style of Seinfeld characters, but this type of sentiment from men is too real to just be a joke. It acts equally as a reinforcement and normalization of that viewpoint, and sadly it isn't much different now, 20 years later. See this lady who gave up BJ's due to men all too often giving about as much fucks or less than Jerry did in that statement.
• George's wishes that he could get some lessons on the ol' oral were nice, cause at least he's thinking about it, but it just reminded me how very much porn teaches us ladies about dick sucking and how little it teaches about clit sucking. Seriously, porn cunnilingus is showy, often painful looking (at least to me - those dudes do some rough shit sometimes), and rarely takes the lady to orgasm. I actually do feel more sorry for guys in that department. Ladies, if you can't figure out how to suck some come out of a man from watching porn, then you aren't great at learning. That said...it's still not that hard to do the ol' cunnilingus. If a dude puts in the time, he'll figure it out just fine. Lots of men have done it. It's not rocket science.
• Why they gotta be straight up saying that the female orgasm is a mystery? It ain't. I'm not surprised it was said. That's an incredibly common sentiment, but it's BS. Female orgasm is a mystery in the way making a PB&J without the peanut butter is a mystery. You need the P for a PB&J and you need the clit for the female orgasm. Banging a woman usually doesn't include the clit. Women don't walk around tickling guys balls and being surprised at the mysterious nature of the male orgasm - we know that won't work, so men shouldn't walk around stimulating our vaginas and being surprised at the mysterious nature of the female orgasm - they should know that doesn't work, The lady-gasm isn't mysterious. You just stupid.
• I call bullshit on Elaine telling Jerry it wasn't a big deal that she didn't orgasm with him. She says she just didn't have them back then. Let me tell you a story; Jerry never ate her out or touched her clit. That's why she didn't have orgasms with him. It's not like at 30, her body just evolved like an x-rated Pokemon, suddenly going from no orgasm to orgasm power even though she was doing the same shit she'd been doing before. That's ridiculous. Okay, to be fair maybe she didn't have orgasms back then, but it was probably because she has since started advocating for her orgasm. She dates dudes that go down and she makes sure her clit gets rubbed when she's fucking. So, just 'cause she didn't come back then doesn't mean it's fine and Jerry is a fine lover. He's still probably a selfish, clueless, penis centered lover. It's just that now Elaine either avoids, educates, or rubs her own junk despite those types of lovers.
• All the stuff about women faking is unfortunate, but true. And it's true partly because of everything we talk about above. Lady-gasms are not prioritized, depicted correctly, and not a natural part of the 'normal' flow of a sexual encounter (ie. some, but not enough, foreplay to the clit and penis, then intercourse until the male orgasms). We women do the best we can to navigate a sexual culture that is very much not conducive to female orgasm and very much unwilling to admit it is not conducive. Sometime our best option is to fake. If people don't want women faking, people need to create a sexual culture where it doesn't make much sense to. Don't hate the player, hate the game.
• Notice how the problem was framed as poor George and poor Jerry feeling like they weren't able to bring any woman they wanted to orgasm. It wasn't that poor Elaine had a bunch of sex with Jerry and probably other men without any orgasm at all. Take a minute and think about how much that sucks and how much a guy would think that sucks if that was his experience. It's a perfect reflection of how very little the female orgasm is valued as part of a sexual encounter and how not problematic it seems for a woman to go through all the work and grossness of sex without that lovely final orgasm that makes it all worth it.
• Yes, I know these are pretend characters on a TV show 20 years ago. I'll talk at them like they are real anyway. The thing is though, pretend people that we hang out with over a period of years pull strong influence on us with what they do, how they dress, and what they say, so I think critique, even nit-picky critiques, are important.

THE VULVA RATING
So, this whole episode is a reflection of some of the worst aspects of our sexual culture when it comes to lady-gasms.
There is a reinforcement and normalization through humor of:

1. The female orgasm and female genitals being confusing and mysterious
2. The idea that to get a woman to orgasm, one needs an erect penis to put in and out of her vagina
3. The sense that women don't need orgasms and that it's no big deal if she doesn't get to have orgasms when she has sex
4. Male sexual pride, not the pleasure of the female is the most important loss when a woman doesn't come or fakes coming during sex
5. Completely ignoring the clit and stimulation of the clit when it comes to sexual encounters and to making a woman orgasm

All of that adds up to a backwards step for Orgasm Equality and a ZERO VULVA RATING.