Rejuvenation of the Orgasm Equality Spirit, My People

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Hello out there. As you are aware, and as I point out in pretty much all of my recent posts, my activity on this blog has slowed the last year or so. This is not a lack of interest. It's more a prioritization to accommodate my life in its current form. 

So, I am not here with some sweet (they are sweet to me at least) scientific journal article summaries, even though I would love to be working on one at the moment. There are plenty to read HERE, though, if you are jonesing for one. 

This is also not not an SSL Review  - otherwise known as in depth review of a depiction or discussion of the female orgasm, the clit, lady-bation, or cunnilingus. Although, to be sure, there's a shit ton of past reviews for both TV and Movies if you need some of that in your life right now. Spoiler alert: Slums of Beverly Hills and Diary of a Teenage Girl are in the top tier of 5 vulva rated movies (!)(!)(!)(!)(!), but The 40 Year Old Virgin and The Overnight are some that have a big fat zero vulva rating. :( ...And if you want to know what's currently sandwiching the list, 20th Century Women got the only coveted 5 1/2 vulva rating, while strangely enough, Hysteria, a movie about the invention of the vibrator is trailing the pack with the "-1 vulva rating" - something I made up special due to my utter disappointment in what it could have been vs. what it was. 

This post is not those things. What it is, is me waking up just feeling particularly excited about this work and wanting to post about it. I'm always kind of excited about his. It's truly something I want to leave in this world when I'm gone, but you know, within that there are frustrating times and disappointing times as well as exciting times and vibrant times. I just happened to have a little touch of excitement last night at a sweet sculptural art opening. I talked with a fab artist and cool lady (who has introduced me into a group of fab women and I am incredibly grateful to her for that) along with some other super cool people there, and I was able to engage about this work. 

I'll be honest, talking about my work has been a journey and a struggle full of learning and eye-opening responses. I think I've honed how I speak of it better over the years, but it's still a thing that makes me a little anxious for a variety of reasons - especially to new people. I'm truly a natural bull-shitter. I feel pretty comfortable talking with most people about life and feelings and dumb shit. However, speaking about things I have a real stake in, things that I really want to verbalize correctly is a whole different matter and something I do not naturally do well. All that to say, I really felt good talking to these people, and I really loved their engagement and their thoughts, and it was just an overall good experience that, I guess, upped my overall blogging motivation. 

You know, I think moving to a different city 4 years ago changed my culture around this work and although I hadn't thought of it this way before, maybe was really demotivating. I still had the bad-ass women on line that are in this fight too. They have continued to be great, and I even met a super amazing new one while I've been here too. However, I suddenly didn't have a lot of interactions with people other than workmates, and new co-workers are not the people you want to just start talking about lady-gasms to. Overall it was a struggle to find new friends, and then the pandemic happened, and I just recently started feeling like I'm finding a culture and a social life here, and so last night was nice and rejuvenating, and I'm grateful to those people I was with.

That's what I wanted to say. Be well all my friends out there!

For your extra enjoyment, here are some stills from the OG movie to this blog, Science, Sex and the Ladies.

Science of Orgasm Video

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I kept seeing this Science of the Orgasm video on Facebook, and I finally checked it out. I put it off because I thought it was really long, but it was actually only 2 minutes and 45 seconds, so I probably should have just watched it when I first saw it.

If you want my assessment of this video, and I can only assume you do because you're reading my blog, then fine, I'll give it to you. It's okay, ya know. In general it's not like way off base or anything, but it's also a little too sure in statements it shouldn't be be, and it's also kinda skipping over some stuff I think is important for people to know. Granted, most people get little to no education about the physical qualities of orgasm in our school system, so anything is probably good. I seriously didn't learn about what arousal and orgasm actually does in my body until I was in my 20's and researching for what would become Science, Sex and the Ladies, so I'm not going to knock this.

Here's what I think should be pointed out about this video though:

1 When it says that blood starts to flow to the genitals, it doesn't also point out what that means for ladies. We all know what it means for dudes, but I don't think many people know that the increased blood flow is what makes lubrication begin seeping from the vaginal walls, or that as much blood pools down there for women as it does for men. I just think that knowing a simple thing like that could change an outlook a bit.

2 It describes male orgasm as 3-10 seconds followed by a refractory period, and it describes female orgasm as 20 plus minutes with no refraction period, and it doesn't even hint that there might be variation. In actuality, the best study on this topic (Masters and Johnson's Human Sexual Response from the late 60's), observed male orgasm basically as described, but it described female orgasm in 3 different ways.
A. just like the male type was described
B. multiple orgasms, each lasting a few seconds and needing continued clitoral stimulation for a number of second between each consecutive little orgasm. This last 2, 3 or sometimes a bit more orgasms, and all the little orgasms and stimulation in between could last a few minutes-ish at most.
C. Status Orgasmus...maybe quick multiple orgasms, maybe one long continuous orgasm that would last 20 seconds to a minute, but they found it to be rare.

So I think the ladygasm description on this video was a bit misleading because it was kinda a mix of the last 2 types and it ignored the possibility of the 3rd type. Plus, and it's not common at all, but men can also be multi-orgasmic, seemingly as long as he can manage to not ejaculate along with his orgasm. There was a man in this study who was recorded doing this.

3 This video says that during orgasm, relaxation of the hippocampus and the amygdala "in women further reduces emotion, producing a trance-like state, while in men it dampens aggressiveness." Really, we're sure of that? All women with the trance-like state when we come and all men with the low aggression when they nus? Really? So, there's a deep well of successfully replicated, peer reviewed studies proving pretty certainly that these badly defined and complicated states of being such as "trance state" "reduced emotion" or "dampened aggression" are specifically what's happening to people during orgasm and that it is split straight down the middle this way for men vs. women? I would bet a lot of money that this isn't the case. And if it is, I'd like more info about this because there are a lot of studies out there about what certain hormones or physical events "do" to people emotionally and behaviorally, and they often contradict each other. It's just that I'm awfully sensitive to "sciency" stuff spouting off in concrete ways about complicated, nuanced shit they don't really understand or care to explain fully. That way of speaking about information is irresponsible at best. I'm a bit of a stickler in that regard, so I just wanted to point out this we-will-unabashedly-speak-concretely-about-a-complicated-subtle-topic-even-though-it's-way-overreaching situation that was happening there.

Okay, that's it. Check out the video.