Wanderlust S1Ep1 - The SSL Review

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Wanderlust

This is a British TV series, but I caught it on Netflix. I really liked this show, and bonus, it involves a long-time married couple's sex lives, so there are things to SSL Review. Overall this show was on-point about ladygasms. There are maybe a few imperfections, but definitely better than I would expect from a show in general. The first episode got me excited about its treatment of female sexuality, masturbation, orgasms, etc. and this episode is what I'll be reviewing today. Go check out this show. I recommend it.

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 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 First Scene: sorry, but this sex is trash

Joy is standing at the foot of the bed looking at her husband Alan. She has a cane and some kind of brace on her arm. It's clear from this and some intercut scenes that there had been a bike accident in her past. It seems like maybe this is a scheduled first attempt at sex after the accident.

Alan: Ready?

Joy: As I'll ever be.

We then see the two in bed, under the covers missionary style. He's pushing in and out of her slowly.

Joy: sloooowwww (softly to him)

Allen nods and continues the slow fucking, but then Joy scrunches her face up in pain, and Alan stops.

Alan: what?

Joy: No, it's good. (unconvincingly)

Alan: Good?

Joy: You know what I mean

Alan: Surely you want it to be better than good?

Joy: You're telling me pal! (with a laugh)

Alan: Joy, come on. (annoyed and a bit exasperated)

Joy: No, I'm sorry, sorry sorry. I'm just. I'm in a lot of pain and I'm really self conscious.

Alan: That makes 2 of us.

Joy: Well if you just, I mean, more of technique to kinda get in that way. (kind of angling her lower body)

Alan: Sorry? Technique? (pissed)

Joy: You know what I mean. (exasperated, but softening)

Alan: Nooo. No, I'm not sure I do, actually. I'm not the one with the problem, Joy. So don't try and needle

Joy: I'm not trying...

Alan: away at my craft

Joy: (smiles - trying to lighten the moment) ...Your craft?..I'm sorry skilled woodsman. You're right. We really need to work on it. (laughs some more)

Alan: You know what? instead of making jokes...

Joy: No -alright, all right (becoming more serious and trying to pacify the situation).

Alan: ...I'd like to finish, please. (Gets off her) I think you've been using all this as an excuse.

Joy: What? (incredibly offended)

Alan: And I think you have been for months. I don't think you want to have sex with me, Joy.

Cuts to alarm ringing in the morning. 

Alan gets up and goes to shower. Joy opens her eyes and reaches down under the covers, obviously masturbating. Her son suddenly opens the door and asks where his shoes are. As one might expect, She stops abruptly. They talk for a second. He's maybe a little weirded out from the what he maybe might have kinda thought he walked into. Then he leaves and the scene ends.

The Second Scene: once or twice a week

Tom, Joy's son, is walking to school with Michelle, who seems to be a close friend.

Tom: Here's a question. How often do you masturbate?

Michelle: Nice.

Tom: I'm interested.

Michelle: Why?

Tom shrugs.

Michelle: Once or twice a week

Tom: You're kidding. I'm at once or twice a day at this point.

Michelle: Well, you're nothing if not thorough

Tom: I think I walked in on my mom having a wank.

Michelle: Shit. I think that means the world has to pretty much explode now.

Tom: I'm just saying...

Michelle: She's allowed to masturbate.

Tom: But I thought old people were supposed to go off sex. It's like Darwin and shit.

Michelle: Your mum isn't that old.

Tom: She's pretty old.

The Third Scene: wanking in office bathroom stalls

So turns out Alan works at a school, and he's talking with Claire, his friend and coworker, who had just that morning walked into an office and found another male coworker with his pants down having an early morning jerk-off session.

They are discussing it and Claire says, "You know. The crazy think is, I don't know why he doesn't just use the disabled toilet like the rest of us."

The SSL Assessment

All the Lady-bation

So, I think the first and most obvious observation is a clear overall insinuation from these 3 scenes that women do in fact masturbate. All the women we're introduced to, all different ages - Joy, Michelle and Claire - we watch them admit through words or actions that they wank (if we're going with the British theme here), and without any real shame depicted in association. I mean, granted Joy's son walked in on her and stopped her cold, but that's just not wanting to rub off in front of your son -  not really a show of shame. Otherwise, from the look on her face, she had been clearly enjoying the masturbation. 

The ladybation admission is important because there is still a stronger, harsher stigma on female masturbation. Masturbation itself doesn't exactly have a stellar rep for anyone, but for boys and men, it is so seen in our media, and it's often depicted as an inevitable part of manhood and maleness. This is not true for the ladies, which is really sad because we ladies need to know that masturbation is a valid part of femaleness, that it's something other women do and that it's not bad or strange. We really, really, really, need to know this specifically because masturbation is a lady's best bet at orgasm in this sexual culture. Of course, masturbation for anyone is the best way to learn what one likes and how to get to orgasm. I mean, of course we should all be our own first partner. 

It's just that for females there is a double whammy of masturbation. First, it's less normalized/seen/accepted which translates to less women doing it, particularly at pre-sexually active ages. Second, masturbation for females is even more important for learning to orgasm than for males because the odds of a lady just stumbling into an orgasm blindly during partnered sex, without having previously taught herself how to get there, ain't great - ain't great at all. I mean, if a boy has basic ol' hetero sex before he ever masturbates, all the correct stimulation should still be there to get him to orgasm. All he or his partner needs to know is that the penis moves in and out of the vagina. They get that right, and that's great orgasm stimulation on the penis. A girl in that same situation, however, does not get the stimulation on her organ of sexual pleasure, the clitoral glans. All she gets in this scenario is stimulation on her vaginal walls, and contrary to popular belief, an orgasm caused by just that has never ever been physically recorded in all of scientific literature - and that's with over half a decade of research trying to prove females can come merely from a penis moving in their vagina. Unfortunately, getting banged into an orgasm simply doesn't seem to a real thing (seriously - like for real, for real). 

So not only do ladies live in an environment that is less conducive for masturbation, but they also have sexual interactions that are less conducive for orgasm...so the ladies get fucked twice, and the boys get a leg up twice. It's not an even playing field, so anything that helps lady-bation feel more possible and normal will up the odds a lady will masturbate, upping odds that she will have orgasmed at all, which should then up the odds she will know how she might orgasm again - possibly even in a partnered situation (spoiler alert: how she might orgasm again in a partnered situation is just by doing the things that made her orgasm alone...but incorporating another person into it).

Sex vs. masturbation: orgasm matters

Okay the other thing I want to point out relates to that first scene. I mean, the high level takeaway from it is that Joy, for whatever reason, wasn't into the sex with her husband, but she was into masturbating. 

The question is why? There's more later in this show that speaks to this, but just from what we saw, one might think that, yeah, she doesn't want to have sex with him, just like he said. One might think that maybe she's being a bitch because she's depriving her husband of the sexual interaction he really desires, but not because she's not into it, but because she's not into it with him...since she does it on her own.

Okay, maybe...but actually no. The only way one could really see it that way is if one were under the incredibly incorrect assumption that him simply moving his cock inside her was in any way equivalent to her masturbating, and they are not. I could forgive someone for seeing it that way because as a culture, we do hold strongly to a stupid and unsupported idea that intercourse is the same type of  orgasmic event for the penis person as it is for the vagina person. It's patently not. It's a sex act that does all the right stuff for getting the penis off and very little if anything for getting the clit off. 

So, let's just put this in a clearer view. A woman that has been injured and has pain, is opening her legs so that her partner can masturbate his penis inside her vagina to orgasm. She is not getting orgasmic stimulation in this situation and she is feeling actual pain. She is having a shit time and he's getting the possibility for orgasm. And that mother fucker gets mad at her? for not being excited enough? for putting her 2 cents in for how it could be more enjoyable? For allowing him to rub his penis inside her even though it's painful? Fuck that guys's face to the moon. He can fuck right off. And, yet she feels bad. When he gets mad, she tries to comfort him and tell him it's fine. I mean really. 

Take this exchange:

Alan: Surely you want it to be better than good?

Joy: You're telling me pal! (with a laugh)

Alan: Joy, come on. (annoyed and a bit exasperated)

Joy: No, I'm sorry, sorry sorry. I'm just. I'm in a lot of pain and I'm really self conscious.

Alan: That makes 2 of us. 

Really Alan? That makes 2 of you? You're both actually in pain, and you're both getting your organ of sexual pleasure ignored because you have a hole that your partner wants to wank into? Nah. Alan, if you want to see something close to what it's actually like to be in the same boat as Joy, then you need to be getting a dildo up your inexperienced ass (no reach-around included) while you vibrate your partner's clit. Then take time and energy to placate her when she gets offended and mad after asking her to be patient with you, telling her an angle you'd prefer, and expressing your pain. Do all that knowing from experience that she's on the road to orgasm and you are not.

I have more to say, but before I move on, I want to dig into the pain part here a touch more.  Joy was doing this even though she was in actual pain. What fucking sense does it make to pursue orgasm while the thing happening that's supposed to cause you orgasm is instead causing you pain? (I swear ya'll better not @ me about S&M stuff). Why would she even try to keep going? I mean, the real deal is she wasn't doing it for an orgasm. She could jerk off if she wanted that. She was doing it to be nice to Alan; to allow him her body in his pursuit of orgasm. Even though we as a society act like we think a basic fuck is a mutually orgasmic experience, I think deep inside we all also know it's not. That's why women push through all kinds of pain during intercourse; from shitty first times to being too dry to getting your cervix excruciatingly banged. We know it's not really about us. It's about that dick getting off, and the person attached to the dick also knows it. It's a secret unspoken agreement that we don't even want to think about. And when Alan gets mad, it's not just about her 'making up the pain.' It's also about her unwillingness to endure whatever pain or bother to get him off inside her, something one can only assume he had been previously accustomed to (and I am aware they are character, not real people). 

Too many sex acts, too little orgasms

But moving on, I really like this Joy / Alan scene because it feels super rich and poignant to me. It hits at the heart of the female experience of sex, particularly in a long-term relationship. The simple, physical truth is that basic intercourse is great for male orgasm and absolute shit for female orgasm. So, please just imagine how many sex acts involve a man coming and a woman not coming. That's a hard pill to swallow, but stick with me here, because now imagine a wife avoiding sex or trying to speak up about other things she'd rather do, or different ways to have sex. It can seem incredibly odd if not completely fucked up of her to do that if one assumes (and we all do to some extent ) that intercourse for her is as exciting and arousing and orgasmic as it is for the person ramming their penis in her vagina. Why would she ever want to avoid that pleasure? Is she fucking crazy, or physically cold and dead inside, or mean and withholding, or dumb? I mean, that's another level in why Alan got pissy and why she got all sorry about it...because her actions don't feel sensible.

But. They. Are. So. So. So. Sensible. It makes complete sense. Ya wanna know why she wasn't into fucking her husband but was into masturbating the next morning. Because she wanted a goddamn orgasm. Given how deep our incorrect assumptions about intercourse are, she, like many a woman out there, may not be able to verbalize that, but that's the real deal. If we open our eyes and see clearly how often women are in sexual situations where they are expected to find orgasmic pleasure, but no way sensibly could attain that orgasmic pleasure given the physical nature of the sex, then so many of women's ambivalent or negative reactions to partnered sexuality make All. The. Sense. In turn, men's negative reactions to women's ambivalent or negative reactions can be seenvas desperately selfish.

Anyway, that's what stuck out to me about that scene. Joy had an actual injury with pain, maybe, but even if she didn't, that interaction was a version of a category of interactions that many a female has had with their long-term male partner. And the roots of those interaction are in the multitude of scars and twists and misunderstanding brought about by thinking ladies can get banged into an orgasm.

Vulva Rating

Clearly, my top SSL highlight in this episode is that it helps in normalizing lady-bation in the culture - and in ladies of a variety of ages. That is well received at this blog, and is helpful to the cause of Orgasm Equality.

I also love the depiction of the couple's sexual interaction because there is some rare intimate long-term couple realism that I appreciate. Although I break this scene down above in a way that probably most viewers would not have any reason to consider, I think there is still some value in an uncritical viewing.  For instance, I think it is certainly played in a way that the husband's reactions, particularly his resistance to adjustment, are not simply set before us without any culpability. 

Overall, we see the words that are said. We see the reactions they elicit, and the viewer takes what they will. A woman might see herself in Joy masturbating after shit sex. She might also see herself in Joy's complete offense at Alan blaming her for not pushing through painful sex. She may also see a woman that she deems negative and unaccommodating to a well-meaning husband. The men watching may also identify in different ways with the couple in this scene. It's hard to know exactly how this scene fits into our communal understanding of ladygasms and female sexuality; how it might change or solidify a person's assumptions and opinions. However, I give it props for just existing, because I think the responsible thread in this scene, despite what any individual may take from it, is that there is realism in how these people act and react in this very intimate situation. 

As for me, I see a depiction of a woman that may not be so excited about getting fucked, but is excited about making herself come...and that's cool enough, my friends.

This gets 4 out of 5 vulvas

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

How The Stanford Letter Reminds Us Ignorance Of Female Orgasm Easily Becomes Lack Of Sexual Empathy For Women

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A beautiful letter about the harm of sexual assault and rape culture
I noticed a few postings about a Buzzfeed article that piqued my interest, and so I read it. It featured a letter written by a woman who was sexually assaulted while unconscious on the Stanford campus. She read it in the court room, largely directly to the man who assaulted her, after he had been convicted of the crime and then sentenced to only 6 months with probation. This happened very recently, and her letter was moving and thoughtful, and I highly suggest you go read it. It's not short, but it's worth it.

The man was a Stanford freshman with a promising swimming future, and that element of his life seemed to play heavily in the surprisingly gentle sentencing. She was a grad student and accompanying her younger sister to a frat party that night. She ended up black-out drunk, unresponsive behind a dumpster with this dude on top of her. Luckily this situation was interrupted when two Swedish students on bikes saw what was happening, chased the dude down after he ran, and called the police. He was also drunk that night, clearly not as drunk as her, but even though he was caught in the act, he never really admitted to doing anything worse than getting too drunk and to the "promiscuity" that naturally happens when you're drunk.

That seems to be what really saddened the writer of this letter. This dude never really acknowledged what he did, and that part, plus the leniency of his sentence, seems to make it clear how not so seriously our culture takes sexual assault. She speaks eloquently about how fucked up the whole situation was from his actions that night, right through the trial and sentencing (although she had only lovely things to say about the police and hospital staff that were with her in the direct aftermath).

How female orgasm is involved
I won't do her words justice, so again, read it. There is a lot to chew on in what she wrote. There is all kinds of important discussion to be had around topics like 'rape culture,' the experience of victimization, our legal system and so much more. I'm sure many people out there are tackling those things beautifully. Me, I like to keep my writing here focused on the female orgasm - how it is culturally (mis)understood, and how its misunderstanding affects us, and strangely enough female orgasm does creep into this, in, I think, a poignant way. So, this is just one small consideration within a very complicated and serious situation, but I think it's worth mulling over a bit.

So, as I was reading the letter, this part caught my attention:

On top of all this, he claimed that I orgasmed after one minute of digital penetration. The nurse said there had been abrasions, lacerations, and dirt in my genitalia. Was that before or after I came? 

Why cultural ignorance about lady-gasms matters here
Here's the thing. That she would orgasm in this situation is ridiculous, and not just because she was being touched against her will and being hurt in the process. There is a level of common sense and basic physiologic knowledge of female arousal and orgasm that is missing here, and I think that ignorance causes more harm that we realize.

Now I fully understand that arousal is complicated and that not everything is exactly as it's supposed to be or how we understand it in the scientific literature, so I guess in a larger view anything could happen I guess. However, the orgasm claim from the defendant and his lawyer was very likely a bunch of BS used to put out a sense that there was consent and that she was actually enjoying herself (because since she had no memory of it, they were able to define the narrative). I honestly don't think the defendant and his lawyer would have even thought to create a story like this if the person were a male, because, frankly, it just wouldn't be as buyable. It would seem too desperate and outrageous. I mean it looks that way as is, but sadly not desperate or outrageous enough for the lawyer to think...'hmmm, we shouldn't say that.' I think there is a special problem with cultural ignorance about physical realities of female orgasm that we don't have for male orgasm. I'll show you what I mean with a little exercise.

What if it were a male in the situation instead?
Imagine if the victim in the case were a male - let's call him Ray. Imagine Ray was very, very drunk at the time of the incident. Now imagine the defendant saying that after fingering Ray's anus for a literal minute, Ray orgasmed. I think most people would
1. cringe at having someone finger their unconscious butthole and
2. call bullshit -just from instinct and common knowledge - on Ray orgasming.

I really don't think we have that same instinct about female orgasm, which is unfortunate because what really is the difference between these two scenarios on a physiological kind of level? Let us count the similarities.

Male vs. Female incident - the similarities

• Stimulation inside the vagina has never been shown in scientific literature to elicit orgasm (Seriously. I don't want to go deep into this now, but check HERE and HERE for more explanation) and neither has stimulation inside the male anus (*I'm actually much less sure of the anus one because I don't study that much, but I feel pretty certain....although less certain than the vagina statement). 
• Stimulation inside the male anus and also inside the vagina could both stimulate the prostate/g-spot and illicit ejaculation, but that seems to be a minority experience for both men and women, and it's never been shown to cause orgasm. 
• There is anecdotal evidence for both vaginally stimulated orgasms and male anally stimulated orgasm, but again neither have been physically verified in scientific literature even after over 50 years of research into it..and even the anecdotal evidence would put both these as a minority experience (I have no data on the anal, but women claim vaginally stimulated orgasms on surveys at around 20-30%, although I would argue it's much less) 
• There are tons of people who find fingers in their vaginas or butts very pleasurable...In fact male butt play is way on the rise!
• This one is my favorite and should be the most obvious. Neither situation involved stimulation of the organ of sexual pleasure - the penis and/or clitoral glans. Seriously, the clit should be as synonymous with orgasm as the penis is.  
• In both situations the person being fingered was really drunk, and frankly the more drunk a person is (and this is absolutely as true for females as it is for males), the less blood flow they get to their genitals (which causes erection in men and lubrication of the vagina in women - and yes males and females will each have a similar amount of extra blood flow down there during sexual arousal - men's is just easier to notice), the less their body will be able to physically arouse (even if they are mentally aroused), which means they will be less likely to orgasm because orgasm in all people is the release of physical sexual arousal through a series of rhythmic pelvic muscle contractions. If there is no physical arousal, then there can be no orgasm because there is no physical arousal to release...So in both situations, the level of drunkness in itself makes an orgasm unlikely.
• In both situations, the hole that is being fingered is probably not very lubricated, so it should bring to mind, well, pain, not pleasure. I mean, the anus doesn't really make it's own lube so there's that, and the vagina sure as hell doesn't make much, if any, lube when you're black-out drunk (even if the woman was mentally aroused). So OW! on both accounts. 

Lack of knowledge = Lack of empathy
Point is, I think this lack of basic understanding about physical female arousal and orgasm makes us all less empathetic to females and sex than it does to males and sex. I think that believing women can orgasm through ways that are super unlikely (if even possible at all) like stimulation to only the vagina, anus, nipples or through fantasy alone, and the sense that the female orgasm is somehow beyond physical limitations and extremely unpredictable is quite harmful. It makes us all a little more open to seeing sexual situations for women that are actually quite unarousing and painful, as possibly more arousing and pleasurable than they sensibly could be.

This woman had abrasions and lacerations in her genitalia. If a man came out of an incident with abrasions and lacerations on his penis, would a court still be going about things as if it were sexual? It would be some masochistic shit indeed. For women, though, it seems pain and genital injury is assumed par for the course. Take the 1st time of sexual intercourse, for instance. It's assumed women will have pain, even though there is no physiological reason that this is inevitable. Baring any injury or illness, it merely means there is not enough arousal, lubrication and comfort, but ladies are expected to power through. If intercourse was hurting a man's penis, I guarantee the intercourse would stop. And what did the defense lawyer say about the significance of this woman's abrasions? (from the woman's letter about the defense lawyer's arguments)

To say, yes her nurse confirmed there was redness and abrasions inside her, significant trauma to her genitalia, but that’s what happens when you finger someone, and he’s already admitted to that.

The lawyer didn't say that injury to the genitalia and inside the vagina during fingering is normal because he was assuming people would completely disagree. He said it because he knew it would kinda ring true - because to some extent we expect there to be injury to women when they have sex.

I think this kind of ignorant blind eye to female sexual pain and boredom, and the easy way we can allow ourselves to transfer those types of experiences into narratives of possible pleasure and orgasm is beautifully paralleled in oh-so-many erotica stories and porn. How often in those stories do we find a woman initially not wanting the sexual aggression and even being initially hurt my his/their penetration and body manipulation, but ending up coming sooooo hard, soooo many times? There's clearly a whole element of women-actually-like-rape narrative in erotica like that and in stories like the one the defendant above told, and it is something people who talk about rape culture talk about often.

However, I think it is often overlooked that at the center of that narrative is a willingness and a cultural permission to believe women can realistically have orgasms from things that just straight up would never cause orgasms in a woman; things that are utterly unarousing, things that ignore her organ of sexual pleasure, things that are painful, and things that simply don't take a realistic and accurate understanding of the body into account...things we don't associate so easily with male pleasure and orgasm.

So, although there are lots of problematic things that should be considered about our culture after reading this woman's letter, I would like us not to forget that the defendant in this case and his lawyer thought it sensible enough to try and insinuate this woman's consent and enjoyment of the encounter by claiming she orgasmed from 1 whole minute of digital penetration while she was black-out drunk...and they thought it was sensible enough to say, because, well, in this world it kinda is -and there is a big problem in that.

How Our F'd Up Sexual Culture Slowly Breaks Us Ladies And Our 'Gasms

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So, as you know, the movie I made and I are both proponents of clearly understanding that the clitoris and not the vagina is responsible for ladygasms, and we're also a proponent for ladies jiggling their own junk in order to get off - either while alone or with a partner. I think a cultural mentality that took those two things into consideration could do very well for the state of female sexuality in general. However, individuals are a different story. I want to remind everyone from time to time that I am not saying and would never say that these things I advocate through the movie and the Orgasm Equality Movement are some kind of cure-all for what ails each and every woman sexually. My focus is really on changing how our culture depicts, teaches, and understands female orgasm - and hoping that makes a better environment for all women to explore and experience their individual sexuality.

On that note, I was talking with a friend recently about their sense that even though in research studies women reliably orgasm as quickly and easily as men during masturbation, it seems off somehow. It seems like women really do have a little more trouble and take a little more time orgasming with a partner than men do - even if women are stimulating themselves during the act. It seemed to my friend that my movie may be overlooking something else in the nature of women that makes it harder for them to orgasm. I think this is a really interesting point to consider, and below is a sort of altered version of my thoughts on the subject I wrote back to that friend. I hope you enjoy. 

P.S. Thanks to that friend for letting me talk so much. Cheers to all the ladies out there  (and frankly, I think that includes all of us) who have been broken in so many small ways by our sexual culture, and thanks to the men out there who really try to listen and understand where we are coming from, because honestly, I think this is one thing that is probably pretty hard for a dude to fully comprehend. 

My thoughts to my friend....

I know different women have worries and problems that go beyond simply lacking the knowledge and permission to actually stimulate the area of her body (the clitoral glans area) most likely to cause orgasm during a sexual act with her partner(s). However, this lack of knowledge and lack of empowerment is an incredibly huge problem, and the one the movie focuses on. So, I do really believe that giving women the knowledge and permission to "rub one out" makes a lot of sense. Masturbating (however she does this) oneself to orgasm is the most reliable way for a woman to orgasm while with a partner. Intercourse isn't a good bet, and having another person orally or manually stimulate is pretty unreliable - especially at first.

There simply is no reason to believe that women are somehow naturally less capable of orgasm. The evidence just doesn't point to it. However, I don't disagree that there is something else there that makes it harder for women to orgasm in partnered sexual situations, but I think there is a deeper more insidious issue that comes into play more than one would hope. I don't imagine most people have thought about it the way I'm going to speak about it, including many women, but I think it needs to be considered. 

I will bet my life that every single adult woman in the world has been subjected to at least one of the following (but probably many of them) : 

• formative years full of incorrect anatomical information
• media images (most of them actually) that depict female orgasms causes by things that would never actually cause orgasms for women - these mislead and mis-educate both us and our future partners. 
• shaming
• countless (I mean countless) mediocre, unorgasmic acts of partnered sex 
• rape, assault, or grey area rape-ish behavior from a dude 
• physical pain during sex (and not the oh- I got a cramp or my hair's under your arm kind - the this shit hurts my vagina/cervix/asshole and I'm in pain - not pleasure at all- but I'll just bear it so he will finally finish kind of pain) 
• lots (and I mean lots) of sex acts that start out arousing but end up disappointing 
• situation where faking orgasm seems like the best bet...so he'll finish...so I don't take too long...so it'll be sexy for him, etc 
• dudes who try too hard to "make us come" but just make us feel bad, annoyed, or obligated to act pleased or please them during sex
• dudes who compare our sexual capabilities to other women during sexual acts
• dudes who passive-aggressively or even kinda aggressively nag us until we take part in a sexual act we aren't really interested in (seriously, the amount of sexual nagging a woman gets is ridiculous - even from sweet, well-meaning husbands and boyfriends that we love)
• generally just too many sexual situations where we know we're supposed to be and expected to be aroused, but we're not...yet we do it anyway, 
• and so many other craptastic little kicks to our sexual selves.

Do these really happen to women? Yes, all the time. More than you can imagine. Do partners we love contribute to it? Unfortunately, absolutely, even with the best of intentions. Does it train us in various, very personalized, very deep ways to ignore/shutdown/agonize over our desire and arousal? You bet. Does that ignoring/shutting down/agonizing over our desire and arousal affect our ability to orgasm? Of course.We women get broken in various degrees and various styles concerning our sexuality and in ways that men are not - and probably can't fully understand. 

I know I sound very morbid and negative right now, but I know there is also a lot of joy and awesomeness in female sexual lives too. I actually think that the female sex drive and capability for orgasm is quite strong given the shit we collectively put up with while continuing to find ways of orgasming and enjoying our sexual experiences. 

I'm just being honest about the fact that women have way more sexual experiences where an orgasm happened only for our partner, where we weren't aroused, where we expected something much, much better than what actually happened. and/or where we, for whatever reason, felt more obligated to be a part of it rather than really desiring to be a part of it. The more of those we have, the less sexy the possibility of sex seems, and our desire and ability to become aroused is affected. 

So to me it makes a lot of sense that often women in partnered situations tend to need "more" to become aroused (which directly affects her ability to orgasm) than men do. Another person + sexual situation does not say to her body's memory "oooh arousing," quite as forcefully and easily as the male's. Depending on the situation and the woman's unique sexual history, it could actually bring up specifically un-arousing feelings even if it seems like it should be opposite..

However, masturbation (and by this I mean a sex act completely free of another person's presence and pressures), I think, can be a very different story. There is no expectations placed on us by another person. There is no doing it when you don't want to. There is no allowing it to be physically painful. There is no feeling unsafe (well at least I assume there is way way less of those things), and thus a woman's body more associates this situation with arousal, and if arousal is more readily available, so is the orgasm. So, without a partner involved, I imagine most women orgasm quicker and easier, and that may be why scientific studies of ladies masturbating to orgasm seems to not match what people see or experience in bed with women.

All that said, it is still true that women's bodies are not less capable of orgasm and that "rubbing one out" (however she does this) is still a quite sure-fire bet for orgasm with another person. All the ways we ladies get broken over the years uniquely complicates our relationship with orgasm, but it doesn't negate those points. We women, that already have all these small sexual breaks, have to continue on our personal paths of finding ways to fully enjoy our sexual lives. However, my biggest dream is that the knowledge and empowerment that I hope the movie gives will spare younger females many of the craptastic aspects of partnered sex that have broke us older folks.

"10 Surprising Facts About Orgasms" Mini Series #1

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Googling around about female orgasm, I quickly found an online Woman's Day (of a-magazine-I may-have-flipped-through-while-waiting-to-pay-for-my-groceries fame) article called "10 Surprising Facts about Orgasm." 

As you may know, I'm lean towards the practical, particularly when speaking about orgasm, so some of the stuff on this list was way too squishy for me, but ya know that's the way of magazine lists, I guess. They gotta try to make their list seem interesting, and keep you on the page to sell advertising or whatever they do for money. That's cool. I respect the hustle, but this was a mixed bag for me. There were some parts of the list that made me rage inside my head a tad, and there were also some things that seemed just a touch progressive.

So for a fun little series, I'm going to share my thoughts on each of these 10 items - 1 for each of the next 10 days. I don't usually blog every day, but this seemed fun and do-able, so here you go, the first of ten...

"1. Orgasms can relieve pain."

Okay, yes, they are right, orgasm releases the hormone oxytocin, which, among lots of other things is associated with reduction of stress and reduction of pain, but let's not get ahead of ourselves. 

a. It's a hormone, and hormones are not so black and white about how they affect us. It would be better to describe them as usually having tendencies in most people. 

b. If you're having a migraine, I doubt an orgasm is going to fix it. If you are feeling a touch ick while getting over a cold...maybe. But then again, you might just feel better because you put your mind on something else for a few moments. 

c. Hugging, looking people in the eye while talking, petting your animal, and doing something moderately stressful with other people (like tandem skydiving) are also ways that are said to release oxytocin, so if any of those are good at relieving the kind of pain you want to relieve, then orgasms are a good bet too. Oh yeah -  and you know the other thing that releases all kinds of oxytocin - the process of childbirth. Oxytocin has real practical physical purposes there, and if it also reduces pain, let's just say it doesn't take care of it all. 

Seriously, I have nothing against speaking the positives of orgasming. Having plenty is probably generally better for you than not having them, I'd guess. I'm just saying, let's not get this whole orgasm reduces pain thing out of perspective. 

Check out the full article HERE and check back tomorrow for more.