Inside Amy Schumer - S2 Ep1

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

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

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

The SSL Review

Season 2 Episode 1: A Car Accident

The end of almost all Inside Amy Schumer shows is her doing a piece of her stand-up to a small crowd. That's where we are for this first SSL Review.

She's telling the crowd that she's jealous of how dudes get to come. It seems fun...and not just because they get to spread their funfetti around. She pantomimes dude spreading their cum around like Oprah giving away free cars. No, it's because they're so ridiculously tired, satisfied, and disoriented after - like they were just in a car accident or something.

Then she ends with, "We're not like that. I need more recovery time after a sneeze than an orgasm." 

My Comments

First off, I just want to mention that clearly her saying this is funnier than reading my description of her saying it. That's a given. Well... I guess I can think of one incident where hearing a detailed description of a thing was way better than the thing itself - and that was when Tosh.0 gave a 25 minute detailed explanation of the movie Human Centipede. I can only find abridged versions of this now, but if you find the full version, I recommend that over the actual movie.

Anyway, Amy's saying this. She's got gestures and an attitude, and it works for humor. I like the visual of calling dudes ejaculating 'spreading their funfetti.' It's good for a laugh. However, I think if you get to the kernel of this bit, it doesn't hold up for me as the kind of humor-through-hard-truth-telling that really excites me about some of Amy's lady-related sex comedy. She's basically coming at this from - 'dudes get all tired/satisfied after an orgasm and women don't.' To me that kernel doesn't feel necessarily true. I mean I feel like a good orgasm can make a lady just wanna flop down and lay there for a while, ya know. 

Also...it's kind of a tired, not-that-perceptive premise for talking about differences  between men and women during sex. I feel like I've heard it a lot. I remember a bit I saw some comic do a while ago...I feel like it was Chris Rock, but I'm not sure...about how men fall asleep after an orgasm and women get more activated and start bouncing off walls and shit. Louis C.K. also did a bit where he basically said that men go to sleep and women don't after sex because men actually came and women didn't. I mean he actually never used the word come, he instead speaks about it in terms of women not being 'fucked well' enough to satisfy them - which is of course problematic because 'fucking' a woman is not what she needs anyway. Vag-banging ain't gonna get her there. A lady actually needs clit stimulation to come, and C.K. completely misses that point. However, his basic premise that women don't get all drowsy and shit after sex like men do because they are actually not physically satiated  (i.e. they didn't actually come) is not wrong. And, it seems to me a bit more in the humor-through-hard-truth-telling realm than Amy's kind of generic dudes-get-all-tired-satisfied-after-an-orgasm-and-women-don't-and-I'm-jealous thing.  

All that to say, I feel like Amy's whole joke here was funny on the surface, and thus not unsuccessful, but also it was kinda stale in that it played on old stereotypes about female sexuality without criticizing or more deeply examining those. I mean, it seems to me that it's worth considering that if a woman isn't as tired-disoriented after her 'orgasm' as her male partner is, then maybe she didn't actually orgasm. Maybe she just faked it or had intercourse (a thing people still very wrongly use interchangeably with 'had an orgasm') and just didn't come. Like, maybe there's a stereotype of women not acting satiated after sex or "having an orgasm" because lots of times ladies literally are not satiated. They didn't come and their male partner did...maybe that's why they seem to act different after. I feel like Amy missed her opportunity to dig into that. And by not digging into that, in essence she reiterated the pretty incorrect idea that women's orgasms are somehow intrinsically different than men's, and completely ignored what I think would be a pretty humor-through-hard-truth-telling avenue of pointing out why that stereotype exists in the first place.

But that's just, like, my opinion, man. Humor is a tricky thing, and I'm being picky. Picky because I respect her comedic work generally on these topics, so really it's just a loving critique to a person who in general does a fab-ass job with this kind of shit. And that's what SSL Reviews are about anyway - being uber-critical...because someone has to be.

The Vulva Rating
So, there is nothing revolutionary or progressive about Amy's joke. In fact it kind of bolstered the idea that women and men are naturally, physically different when it comes to orgasms. At the same time, it's also just neutral. It plays off a tired old stereotype, yet doesn't really make it any worse with extra inaccuracies or anything. It just doesn't question and dissect the stereotype, which does inadvertently reiterate it, but also....what I'm asking is a lot to ask someone to do every time she speaks of lady sex stuff. She does it well most of the time, and I'm heavily appreciative.

So, I'm going to stick to a very neutral 3 out of 5 vulva rating for this episode.

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Inside Amy Schumer S3 Ep10 - The SSL Review

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Inside Amy Schumer Season1 Episode 8
This show makes me laugh, and here's the best part - Amy Schumer tends to bring it when it comes to realism and female sexuality. She brought it in her movie Trainwreck, in The Joe Rogan Podcast, and largely in the other episodes of this show I've SSL Reviewed so far. She has shown a strong willingness to give the clit the glory it deserves, speak some truths about lady sex experiences, rep for actual lady-gasms - all things largely absent in media and also incredibly important to Orgasm Equality. (She could use some schooling and humbling when it comes to speaking about race though - but that's pretty true of a lot of us).

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

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

Cave of Wonders

The scene in question here (It's embedded below if you'd like to watch it) is one in which Amy is in bed with a dude - seems like a hook up of some sort.

Dude: My God you're so hot. Let me go down on you please.
Amy: Yeah, but I should give you a heads up. It takes me a while.
Dude: I don't mind. 

Amy: Have at it.

He goes under the covers, and we see him crawling under them towards her junk (This is clearly an exaggerated depiction of going under the covers and making your way towards lady parts). He gets to it, and he's looking at it in amazement. A glow is coming from it.

Dude: (amazed) what the...

Above the covers she's just chill in the bed. We don't see him because he's under the covers. She starts reads a long Russian novel.

Back under the covers, it's like he's walked into her vagina. It's a soft, childish pink cave-like set. He finds a lantern, takes it, goes up to a skeleton holding a map. As he takes the map, the skeleton's head falls off, and he screams.
In the meantime, Amy is eating chinese take-out and complaining to the restaurant about the order on the phone.
We cut back to a shot of the dude with, like, the cosmos flying past his head. He's looking ahead and says,

Dude: My god. It's full of stars.

It cuts to Amy's face. She's breathing out a simple orgasm, then says

Amy: Wooo

 As he's popping up from under the covers, she says

Amy: Oh my god, that was so good. You wanna have sex.

He's aged at least 40 years.

Dude: Hey listen huh, this was great, but I gotta be up early in the morning, so I'll just let myself out.

She's slightly surprised, but says okay and it ends.

The Labor Of Lady-Oral
This skit reinforces incorrect stereotypes
This is a tough one for me to give a clear SSL Review on because it's a bit mixed. On one hand it reinforces all the the somewhat problematic ideas our culture has about about ladygasms and cunnilingus....that it takes a really long time (he ages 40 years), that it is incredibly difficult (people died and turned to bones trying to figure it out in the past), that it's incredibly complicated (he needs a map), and it's a mystical event (I mean, he said it's full of stars...which now that I think of it must be what they're referring to in romance novel lady-gasms where women are shattering into a thousand pieces and becoming one with the universe when they come...right?). It's really none of those things, and the ignorance about the quite normal and not-really-any-different-from-male qualities of female orgasm and female stimulation to orgasm is a huge reason why there is such an orgasm gap.

It also makes fun of them...
On the other hand this skit really exaggerates these things in a way that pokes fun at them. The fascination with the exhausting journey / mysticism of cunnilingus and the female orgasm in this skit is all in the mind of the dude, not Amy. She's just, like, chillin' and shit. It ain't no thing to her. She's just living the dream of eating take-out whilst getting ate out, and when she comes, it's just, ya know, an orgasm. It's not some mind-blowing spectacle like we see in porn, read about in romance novels, or hear about from spiritual /goddess gurus and so many hip sexual advisers. It's just an orgasm. Like, an orgasm is cool and all, but it's no more complicated or awe-inspiring than a male orgasm. Some muscle tension gets released in a rhythmic fashion, and it usually feels pretty good. That's it.

I, in a way, read Amy's casualness with her orgasm in this skit as a realistic counter to the dude's ridiculous fascination; as if to point out how unnecessarily built up the myth and confusion is around lady-gasms and pussy-eating; to make fun of the obscene complications our culture artificially presses on women's ability to orgasm (seriously, it's not physically/biologically more complicated for women than it is for men...except that there's so much ignorance around how it works that it is actually hard for women to get and sustain the physical stimulation they need to actually orgasm).

My point is, I imagine that part of the intention with this skit was to make fun of how unnecessarily scared and ignorant men are of stimulating women to orgasm and how over-dramatic and frankly wrong we all are about the power and spirituality and complicated nature of female orgasm.

...but most people probably only take in the incorrect stereotypes
However, I also think that overall to most people it just emphasizes the already strongheld, but incorrect and harmful assumptions that the female orgasm is complicated, takes forever, and that performing oral sex to orgasmic completion on a woman is like doing brain surgery....a brain surgery that ends in a mystical, elusive, event known as an female orgasm. I just think it puts these ideas deeper into the cultural consciousness.

Which is bullshit because really oral sex for men and women is just like, ya know, getting the genitals aroused and then stimulating the clit area / penis with the consistency and the personally preferred firmness and movement until the muscles release into an orgasm. It's like no big deal, and it is never, ever full of stars.

The Vulva Rating
I am going to give this skit a complete middle of the road 3 vulvas because I think its heart is in the right place, and I like the casual realness Amy displays regarding her orgasm, but I don't think it puts out an overall message that contributes clearly to orgasm equality since it relies so heavily on stereotypes about lady-gasms and lady-licking. I like the skit generally though :)

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wjuIP4BPV6E

Inside Amy Schumer S1 Ep8: The SSL Review

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Inside Amy Schumer Season1 Episode 8
This show makes me laugh, and here's the best part - Amy Schumer tends to bring it when it comes to realism and female sexuality. She brought it in her movie Trainwreck, in The Joe Rogan Podcast, and largely in the other episodes of this show I've SSL Reviewed so far. She has shown a strong willingness to give the clit the glory it deserves, speak some truths about lady sex experiences, rep for actual lady-gasms - all things largely absent in media and also incredibly important to Orgasm Equality. (She could use some schooling and humbling when it comes to speaking about race though).

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

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

Ladygasms: Balance Beams, Oscar Music, and Storage Wars
In season 1, throughout the episodes, we see Amy Schumer doing actual stand-up. In episode 8 she's saying the following thing to the crowd.

Women. We're lucky, aren't we? 'Cause women, we can have multiple orgasms - I've read.

crowd laughs

And I swear, that's not me, like, trashing guys. It's not easy to give me an orgasm. It's not fun. It's...I have to have the focus of an Olympic hopeful on a balance beam.

She pantomimes being on a balance beam while the crowd laughs.

And I get distracted. If the temperature changes I'm like, "I lost it. I lost it." But women, like sometimes, we have to fake orgasms, right? And that's not us being disrespectful to men. That's just -- that's our way of saying to you, you know..."wrap it up." Right? That's your Oscar-play-off, end-your-speech music. We're saying, I love you. I'm glad we did this. But Storage Wars is on in a minute. Get out of me.

The Review
Here are my thoughts. I'll make it quick.

When she talks about multiple orgasms, she does two thing there that I think are poignant.
1 She gives a nod to the idea that women are like somehow way luckier because we get to have multiple orgasms, but I've always thought the insinuation of that idea is a bunch of bullshit because:

First, men can have multiple orgasms too (it's harder and uncommon, but they just have to hold of  their ejaculation).

Second, a multiple orgasm is just, like, a longer orgasm. Like there's an orgasm; you keep stimulating; there's another and it goes on for a few minutes. It's not like women are orgasming for hours on end in a state of nirvana like romance novels and numerous TV and movies would have you believe. That's just straight up BS. So, like, it's just a bit longer experience for a woman having multiple orgasms.

Third, and this is most important. Women barely orgasm at all when we're in bed with a man, so fuck if multiple orgasms are possible. We still in the overall just don't get as many orgasms as men - by far, and to say we're lucky in the orgasm department is a severe misreading of the lady-sex experience. Maybe I'm not speaking for all women here, but we'd take consistent orgasms during sex, partners who have a basic understanding of what we need to orgasm, and a general culture that prioritizes our orgasmic pleasure over some measly multi-orgasm ability any day...especially since men actually could have that ability as well.

2 She adds in 'I've read,' at the end of that statement about women's luckiness and multiple orgasms, and I think it changes a lot. I like it because that add-on gives a nod to the idea that women read and hear stuff all the time about different types of orgasm and ways to get mind-blowing orgasms and all that, but it doesn't actually make sense against what we know about our bodies and our actual sexual experiences (because mostly we hear completely incorrect and often ridiculous things about our orgasms). I think this statement as a whole is realistic and from a woman's perspective...Like, I imagine a woman hearing that and being like - 'yeah! I'm not the only one who hears how AMAZING multiple orgasms are and how I should be having them, but only has like a normal orgasm...sometimes...when he eats me out. I felt kinda bad about not being able to elicit this amazing multiple orgasm I'm supposed to be having, but at least I'm not the only one!'

She jokes about how hard it is to give her an orgasm, and I think it's probably realistic to some degree, but I have 2 conflicting thoughts about it.

1  It adds to the stereotype that women's bodies are just more fickle about orgasms; as if women's innate capability for orgasm is more reliant on mood and environment than men's. There's really, in my humble opinion, no reason to believe that women's bodies are naturally less able to orgasm in this way. There is every reason, however, to believe that women aren't getting the best stimulation for orgasm a lot of the time, and we mistake the trouble women have coming because of that for women's bodies being too persnickety (because we literally don't understand that women orgasm from clitoral glans area stimulation and not from vaginal canal stimulation...and we also don't understand how much normal, everyday sexual encounters are often quite damaging to lady-desire).

2 On the other hand - I think in practice women are more persnickety about mood and environment leading up to our orgasm, but it's not an innate thing. In my, again, humble opinion, it's because we've endured way more sexual assaults, orgasm-less sex, shitty/boring/coercive sexual interactions than men. So, unlike men, we may have a lot of things about a sexual interaction that, from past experiences, don't associate in our mind with arousal, and so we have to be a bit persnickety to find what gets our arousal going enough to get us to orgasm...because so many parts of sex, that are and have always been arousing for men, can become off-putting, unarousing, scary, or just plane gross for women given our past experiences.
So, I do think Amy's coming from a place of realism from a female perspective, but without context and deeper discussion, it also just reinforces a damaging stereotype instead as opposed to open audiences to new perspectives, which at it's best, is what comedy can do.

Then she talks about faking.
It's true that women fake, and I like when people talk about it and put it out there in the open. We as a culture need to confront that fully and completely. Our culture is never going to understand (and be shamed by) how very little consideration is given to women's orgasms until we all get real and stop believing, even kinda-half-believing, that all the faked orgasms out there are actual orgasms. The more we talk about women faking, the more we have to face it, and the more we have to consider that we, our partner, the porn actress, or that character on that show aren't actually orgasming and that mimicking what got them or us to that fake orgasm is not going to magically also be sensible for attaining an actual orgasm.

Also, yes women need to stop faking because clearly it's counter productive. I get that, but I won't put this all on ladies and their "choice" to fake. I think faking is often more complicated than any easy fake/notfake, 50/50 choice. There's a lot to unpack there, but I will say dudes and the culture at large have a huge responsibility in this as well. And one thing that dudes could do is consider that maybe women don't want you banging on them for hours, and maybe that girl (probably every girl that wasn't also explicitly working her clitoral glans area also) that came while you were fucking her, did not actually come and maybe was just done with you fucking her. She was playing the 'Oscar-play-off, end-your-speech music'  Seriously. Consider that...and then try to ask, listen, learn, and adjust accordingly with as little judgment and as much consideration as possible.

Vulva Rating
I always love the female perspective, and I like her real-talk about faking so the dude will just stop. I also like the way she turned the multiple orgasm joke from the BS notion that women are sooo much more lucky than men because of multiple orgasms to a point about how women's bodies (or at least her's...and other women can then also relate) don't always seem to respond how orgasm advice says they should.

I again thought the discussion of the persnickety lady-body was realistic in practice, and it probably is good for women who feel their ability to orgasm is not what it should/could be (like why can't we all just orgasm like Samantha on Sex and the City). It's good and healing to know you are not alone (in fact 6you're probably very normal and Samantha in real life would not actually be orgasming doing those things she does most of the time). However, it also just reinforces the bad stereotype that women naturally need more in order to orgasm.

This is a bit of a mixed bag, but overall good. I give this a 3 1/2 out of 5 vulvas.

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Inside Amy Schumer S1 Ep3 - The SSL Review

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Inside Amy Schumer Season1 Episode 3
This show makes me laugh, and here's the best part - Amy Schumer tends to bring it when it comes to realism and female sexuality. She brought it in her movie Trainwreck, in The Joe Rogan Podcast, and largely in the other episodes of this show I've SSL Reviewed so far. She has shown a strong willingness to give the clit the glory it deserves, speak some truths about lady sex experiences, rep for actual lady-gasms - and those things are incredibly important to Orgasm Equality. (She could use some schooling and humbling when it comes to speaking about race though).

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

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

The Scene
In the segment "Amy Goes Deep," Amy is interviewing a plastic surgeon named Sharon practicing in NYC for about 13 years.

Amy: What did I just hear about getting injections into your clitoris.
Dr. Sharon: It was popular in LA
Amy: I missed it? I missed the clit wave? What happened?
Dr. Sharon: Maybe.
Amy: In your cli......Why? To make it bigger?
Dr. Sharon: Potentially...to make it bigger. It will always make it bigger.
Amy: Everybody wants more everything.
Dr. Sharon: Uh potentially that was to increase stimulation, but it probably accomplished that goal by helping the men more to find their way.
Amy: Oh yeah - let's help the men more.

My Thoughts
What she meant....
This is a quick little exchange, but what I like is that it never really settles into showing the kind of outright, some might say irrational, disgust of any plastic surgery - much less plastic surgery on the genitals- that these types of conversation often seem to fall into. However, it also gives a little type of 'fuck you' that is a bit different from the normal lady-part modification type of 'fuck you.' That's what comedy can do. She basically was like:

'So women are getting shit injected into their clits to make it easier to find even though it's literally in the same place in pretty much every single women that exists. It's like clearly not hard to find in any way, and even if it were, you know the basic area it's supposed to be at, so you're really just fine focusing there. But, hey, whatever, the most important thing is helping out dudes to find shit they should have no problem finding.
'I mean, we should do our best to help them out during sex as much as possible, right? They only have an orgasm like every time we have sex with them, but for sure, since they feel like they need to focus on putting their penis in our vagina instead of actually locating and stimulating the clit (our not-hard-to-find-at-all organ of sexual pleasure) then, well, yes of course, let's do make sure we help them out. The fact that we largely don't have orgasms when they have sex with us is just plain too much of a joy not to try and give back, amiright?'

It's a little statement, "Oh yeah, let's help men more," but I think I've captured the sentiment behind it.

O Shot...
As for the real life thing they are talking about...I'm assuming it's O-Shots where they take someone's own blood, centrifuge it down and inject it into her vagina and clit. There are a variety of articles about these. Google it. But, there is no actual study of results that I can find. The doctor who created them told the The Independent that it could give women "increased ability to have a vaginal orgasm."

So, since I know for sure there was no study done on women before and after the injection that physically documented these women were more able to have an orgasm from nothing more than internal vaginal stimulation, I can say this doctor is talking out of his ass at a least a little bit. I mean no peer reviewed journal article ever has actually physically documented a woman having an orgasm from vaginal stimulation only, so vaginal orgasms are not even a documented thing. A doctor saying an injection will increase the chance of having this thing that probably doesn't exist smells heavily of bullshit because he cannot back that up.

Now, it may make the blood flow better and thus get the vag more lubricated which is a little more fun or whatever, but that in itself I don't think is even backed up by studies. That's my 2 cents. I just wanted to let you know what I assumed they were talking about, since ol' Amy and Sharon don't get into much detail.

The SSL Review
This is a small thing. They didn't go into it much, and I wouldn't expect them to in this format, but I liked Amy's reaction because it just keeps in the forefront of the audiences' mind that men are getting the long straw in sex, and really should be expected to give women the knowledgeable attention, women tend to give men. We ladies really do forget that we deserve that, and often see our sexual backseat as inevitable and normal when it doesn't have to be. We put up with (and men get used to) a lot more than we need to. Humor can help put that in perspective.

I give this 4 vulvas for talking about clits kindly and for male privilege in hetero sex with skepticism.

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