The Broken Circle Breakdown - An SSL Review

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The Broken Circle Breakdown

I've seen a bunch of movies lately where we see a lady come from nothing more than a dick moving around in her vagina; the ol' intercourse-only orgasm, aka vaginal orgasm. I mean, these albiet unrealistic depictions aren't uncommon scenes to find in a movie, but I feel like I've had a run on them recently. It started with What's Love Got to Do With It? It's a great movie despite the unrealistic lady-gasm depiction, and you can see that SSL Reviewed HERE. This second one is The Broken Circle Breakdown, a 2012 Belgium movie. There will be more to follow.  

Like I said in the What's Love Got to Do With It? review, which is about a 30 year old movie, these unrealistic lady-gasm scenes can't be blamed on age. Nothing much has changed. The Broken Circle Breakdown was made about 20 years later and has 2 equally unrealistic sex scenes. They will be described and discussed below.

The 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 movie Reviews HERE (and as always you can find all the SSL TV Reviews HERE).

 

Truck sex: orgasming with her feet behind her ears

The first SSL Reviewable scene is in the back of a truck. Didier and Elise are having sex - intercourse specifically. At first she is on top, sitting mostly perpendicular to him and by the sound of it, she's enjoying herself quite a bit. She's not completely bouncy, there's more of a grind to her movements, but her body isn't at an angle to his that would indicate her clitoral area would be making contact with anything but air. As far as hands, we can't see specifically, but there is no indication that either her or his hands are anywhere near her clitoral area. 

From this position they stop the action a bit and talk, and then she tells him to continue. And he does. He flips her over so she's on her back and he's on top of her. He pushes her legs up over his shoulders as he leans down toward her, having her feet almost over her head, and he's pumping into her. Again, there is no indication any hands are down near her clit area, and the angle and folding of her body would not likely allow any contact between his body and her clitoral area. All to say her vaginal canal is getting rammed a lot during this scene, but her clit area, the part a female needs stimulated to orgasm is not getting really anything from this sex. 

Yet in this scene, her verbalizations make it for sure clear what we are to assume happens. She comes with gusto on her back with her feet up around the her head. 

Cowgirl style sex and a cry

In a later scene, the two are on a bed. He is laying on his back and she is on top of him, facing him, straddling him, and perpendicular to his body. She is moving up and down, presumably, on his dick. These are definitely not bouncing up and down movements, but circular hip movements up and down - a bit grindy, but given her perpendicular angle to his body, not in a her-pelvis-grinding-against-his-pelvis way, but in a her vaginal canal moving down in a more circular fashion on his dick as opposed to moving straight down on his dick sort of way. So, like the scene before there was no indication that her clitoral area could have been stimulated and there was also no indication of hands down that way working on the clit area.

As before, she auditorily works up to it and then orgasms. Then she begins crying for reasons related to other parts of the story.

Clits need stimulation to orgasm as much as penises do

Let me just reiterate that. External clitoral area stimulation is as important to female orgasm as penile stimulation is to male orgasm. For real. If you imagine there is good scientific investigation out there that proves physically that women (or even some women) can orgasm from nothing more than a penis or dildo moving inside their vagina, then you are wrong. You're not alone in thinking that, and I couldn't blame you for imagining that is the case in this fucked up, misinforming sexual culture we live in, but it's just not true.  

So on that note, the two scenes above are really no different than a scene where a dude orgasms from rubbing his inner thigh in a very sexual manner. The only real difference is filmmakers don't see any problem making scenes like the two in this movie and viewers don't see anything weird about accepting those scenes as the way things are (or at least could be for at least some women).  On the other hand, a director would not sensibly assume they could create a scene with dude coming from leg touches unless it was comedy or absurdist in some way.

To sum up, we live in a world that basically doesn't get how females orgasm physically...but thinks we do, and basically does gets how males orgasm, physically. It's a problem because scenes like the two above reiterate the misconception that intercourse all by itself should be as orgasmic for women as it is for men. Scenes like these, and there are SOOOO many like this in all types of media, stick in our heads. They inform how we negotiate and play out our sexual experiences. They curve our expectations of female orgasm towards acts that are geared not towards female orgasm, but towards male orgasm, and worst of all, maybe, they make us confused, ashamed, or feel insufficient when the reality does not match our expectations. You know,  maybe even worse than that, they may influence us to fake or twist our experiences to match the expectations so that we are able to feel normal and appropriately sexy/sexual. 

It's messed up really, and no one seems to care or even notice much.

Vulva Rating

These 2 scenes and the scene in What's Love Got To Do With It? are all of the same basic kind. They show intercourse alone, with no stimulation focused on the clit area, as causing a female orgasm. They are all equally ridiculous and equally steeped in deep cultural ignorance and misconceptions about how females physically orgasm. I'm going to give this movie a slightly worse Vulva Rating though. 

It may not be completely rational, but it's because I feel like this movie was trying to be more progressive and failed, while What's Love Got To Do With It? was 20 years older and felt like it was simply trying to make a basic sex scene. It seemed to me in the Broken Circle Breakdown, Elise was meant to be a sexual woman that knew what she wanted and went for it. I think that's why she was often shown on top during sex and as grinding instead of bouncing her vagina over his dick. It aligns to 2 common misconceptions. The first is that banging with a circular motion is more lady-friendly, as if the penis stimulating the inside of the vagina in a circular motion is better than a straightforward motion (which I believe is a misunderstanding and twisting of the idea that grinding the clit against the partner while the penis is inside the vagina is more female friendly - which it is because that type of action acknowledges the need for consistent clitoral simulation in order for females to orgasm) . The second is that a woman simply being on top during intercourse is enough to get her an orgasm - as if her control of how the vaginal canal moves over the penis is somehow more orgasmic than his control of how the penis moves in the vagina. Granted, her control of the intercourse situation might be more fun and may be more pleasurable, but it doesn't change the fact that the focus is still on the penis and vaginal canal instead of where it should be when we're speaking of lady-gasms - on the external clitoral area. 

Anyway, that lady-on-top and the circular motion pumping advice that ignores the real, actual needs of lady-gasms is something that is common in progressive contemporary sex advice, and it annoys me, so that's why I'm lowering the Vulva Rating.

The Broken Circle Breakdown gets a 1 1/2 Vulva Rating.

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Shirley Valentine - The SSL Review

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Shirley Valentine

First off, I recommend this one. It's a fun, sweet, thoughtful movie from 1989. It's also funny and I just really love some of the female to female kindnesses in it...and ya just got to love ol' Shirley Valentine. Honestly, this is the kind of movie I love finding because it's my comfort genre (ya know, the types of movies you can always watch not matter their quality). Plus, it's a well done one in this genre, and I had never even heard of it before I saw it on Hulu. It was a streaming win for me. 

As luck may have it, it also had some content that allows me to SSL Review it, so I'm happy about that. 

The 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 movie Reviews HERE (and as always you can find all the SSL TV Reviews HERE).

This movie is about Shirley Valentine, a house wife from Liverpool with grown children and a rather stodgy husband Joe.  She's actually quite a fun, kind, interesting lady, and well, we get to see her have some adventure. 

The 2 scenes that allowed me to do this SSL Review are below.

 

The First Scene: The Clitoris Generation

Shirley's remembering a time when she was out with her grown daughter and her daughter's flat-mate. They got her started on drinking wine (instead of Rum and Coke, which is apparently out of style).

Shirley narrates:

"Kids. They know everything, don't they?" (looking at the two young women at the bar getting the drinks) "Our Millandra shares a flat with Sharon-Louise."  

(We're back in Shirley's kitchen and she's talking to us while cutting a potato) "They're fascinated by sex. Well, I suppose I'd have been the same if I'd been born into their generation 'cause they discovered it, ya see." (She turns and looks into the camera earnestly). "The clitoris. The Clitoris Kids I call them, and good luck to them. I don't begrudge them a thing. Mind you, it was different in my day."

(We go to an even earlier flashback where Shirley is younger and with a few girlfriends at a pub. They're laughing.)

Shirley: You know, when I was a girl, we'd never even heard of the clitoris.

Friend 1: In those days everyone just thought it was a case of in out, in out, shake it all about. Stars would light up the sky and the earth would tremble!

Friend 2: Hey, the only thing trembled for me was the headboard on the bed!

(They all laugh)

Shirley: You know, when I first read about it, I though it was pronounced clit-or-is.

Friend 3: I think it sounds nicer that way.

Shirley: That even sounds like it could be a name. 'Oh hi Clitoris. How are ya?'

Friend 3: That makes it sound a bit crude somehow.

(they all dismiss it with a good natured - ahh!)

Shirley: Ah, shut up! Plenty of men walk around called Dick!

(They all laugh again)

Shirley: Well anyway, that's how I thought it was pronounced when I first mentioned it to Joe, ya know, sittin' in the front room there. I said, J...(laughs)...I said 'Joe, have you ever heard of the clit-ori-is?' He didn't even look up from his paper. 'Yeah,' he said, 'but it doesn't go as good as the Ford Escort.'

(They all laugh)

This to me is such a sweet, sad, realistic, and poignant scene. 

Sweet because Shirley expresses a real happiness and hope for her daughter and their generation. They would have been born around 1970 just a couple years after Masters and Johnson used physical scientific investigation to learn and tell the world vaginal orgasms weren't a thing and just a couple years before Shere Hite and the other fab 70's feminists took that research and built upon it to tell the world the clit was the organ of female pleasure same as the penis is the male organ of pleasure. It's not explicitly said, but I feel like the insinuation is that Shirley sees them as women that might actually have a chance of enjoying their sex lives. I also think the way Shirley and her friends share and laugh with each other about, well, basically the complete lack of orgasm in their sex lives seems sweet, and kind, and an important part of womanhood. 

It's sad and realistic because imagine men confiding and laughing about how their wives don't even know what a penis is...and not as a dumb joke about wives not putting out enough, but as, like, for real. You can't really imagine it because it's not a thing, but what Shirley and her friends are talking about is a thing. It's realistic, and it is so common a thing that it's in a movie and women all over watching that movie can relate to it. It's also sad because ya know what? These 4 grown-ass women that have had sex and children have also not had an orgasm. You can say that sex isn't about the orgasm all you want, but sex after sex with no orgasm SUCKS. But that's not even the saddest part to me. The sad part is that we know and recognize this reality Shirley and her friends speak of, but we just continue to ignore that clits largely aren't involved in partnered hetero sex. It's sad because that scene is still relevant to people watching 30 years later. Yeah, okay, I think husbands now days generally know of the clit, but do they know where it is and how to use it in partnered sex? Do women even know? 

And that's why it's poignant.

The Second Scene: Where did that orchestra come from?

So, I won't go into the details, but Shirley Valentine is making love on a boat. We don't see anything of the two people except their first naked, laying-down kisses. The camera moves away. We see the waves crashing on the beach, the boat swaying in the sea, and the music swells. It cuts to a close-up of Shirley's face. She's lying on her back. The dude is on top of her in a seeming missionary position, but we really just see the back of his head. 

She looks at the camera and says, "My God! Where did that Orchestra come from!" Then she kinda closes her eyes a bit and says, "Ohhh." The 'oh' could be interpreted in a couple way. 1. She had a soft orgasm when she said 'oh.' Or 2. She had just orgasmsed off camera (during the orchestra swell) and the oh was a gentle little sigh of relief and joy after the orgasm. I tend to think it was the latter, and we were seeing the aftermath of the climax.

The next scene opens with her and a friend talking.

A friend: Oh for God sakes Shirley, you're acting like a stupid teenager.  I suppose the next thing you'll tell me is that the earth moved.

Shirley: Jane, I thought there's been an earthquake. 

I'm a little disappointed that when we got back to the couple on the boat and saw Shirley's face, we weren't seeing the aftermath of cunnilingus. Ideally, if I'd written this, I'd have a certainly had the sex act that caused an earthquake and an orchestra swell be something that would realistically make a lady's loins spasm - a mouth stimulating a clit. Instead, it seemed as though all that ruckus was created by some basic missionary intercourse. Now, if there had been any inkling in that scene that her clit was being added into the intercourse session, I'd have gone for that as well; something like him off to her side with his arm reached down towards her crotch or her hands seemingly down there. However, everyone's hands seems to be above the waist, and there simply wasn't a sense that anything happened except some ol' in out. I mean it's not impossible that she was taking control of the pelvic movements and grinding her clit against his pelvis to orgasm while he was up in there. If Shirley were a real person, I sure hope that's what happened, but unfortunately that's not what the general feel of the situation was, and I'm probably the only one that would consider how she might have held him still and grinded her clit against him until she came, while deftly keeping the dick encased in her vagina. 

It seemed like Shirley had plain ol intercourse that caused her an orgasm. Yeah, the whole situation was more sensual and exciting, and probably slower than I would imagine Shirley was used to, but in the end, it's just a dick moving into a vagina, which on it's own doesn't cause orgasm. Intercourse also doesn't facilitate, on it's own, body movement that one could expect to create enough clitoral glans stimulation to cause orgasm...If it did then it wouldn't be the case that the vast majority of women never orgasm during intercourse at all.

The Vulva Rating

This is a mixed bag, but I'm soft on it because I like it, and  I feel like it's such a kind, lady-centric story. 

On the one hand, I love the the scenes about the clitoris - for all the reasons I discussed above. It's sweet, sad, realistic and poignant. Anytime there is real talk out there from women about the lack of clit and orgasm in their sex lives, it's a win. Truth has power. 

On the other hand, it depicted a woman that had an orgasm from what, if you take all the clues around it (since it wasn't technically depicted on screen), was just a dude on top of her moving his dick in and out of her vagina. So, in the end this movie added onto the giganto pile of other incredibly unrealistic and distressingly common scenes of a woman coming from nothing more than the ol' in and out. These scenes are the most common way a female is depicted orgasming in our media (books, tv, movies, and porn). I don't have any statistics on that, but I would bet every last cent I had on that being the outcome of any study done on the topic. Point being, scenes like that reinforce the already deeply embedded and deeply incorrect sense in our culture that a woman can be banged into an orgasm.

So, although there were some great parts to the sex scene that I didn't talk about, the net affect of it was negative to the world of lady-gasm because it continues to give people the wrong idea about how lady gasms happen, what types of sexual interactions would be orgasmic for ladies, and how ladies' bodies are likely to react to a bang. And all that leads to LOTS more women than men having shitty, unorgasmic sex. 

So, since I really liked one part, really did not like another, and have a soft spot for Shirley Valentine, I' giving this a 2 1/2 vulva rating. 

(!)(!)(!

Shit Sex for the Ladies in Shameless: An SSL Review

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Shameless

I'm on the 9th season of Shameless right now. People had been telling me to watch it for a while , and I finally did, and since me and Charlie are champion TV watchers, we've burned through it pretty damn quick. I believe the last season, season 11 is happening now, or will be happening soon, so we're almost through it. 

Shameless has a pretty fair amount of sex in it, and ya know what? Most, close to all really, of the sex is trash. And by trash I mean trash for the female orgasm. 

A different kind of SSL Review

Normally I do SSL Reviews (reviews specifically of depiction or discussion of female orgasm and/or female masturbation and/or the clit or cunnilingus) by getting deep into each and every instance of those things. I'll detail what happened, how realistic it was (could the physical thing happening while that character came realistically be something that could cause a female to come?), and what part it plays in the larger cultural understanding of lady-gasms and female sexuality. I like the idea of having these detailed discussions of every scene in a show or movie because I thinks it will be cool some day for someone to look back on. 

I got kinda bored with Shameless though, and the idea of detailing out every bang against a wall where the lady-character kinda screamed and vocalized like she probably came made my ass tired just thinking about it. Plus, I think the whole of Shameless is maybe the more interesting story here because I think it so closely parallels how sex, lady-gasms, and female sexuality are depicted in the larger culture - which is unrealistically. 

All vagina-banging no clit

The main takeaway here is that there's a lot of sexual activity in Shameless and most of it is a dude banging his penis in and out of a lady without any hands or vibrators stimulating her clit and also without a sense that her vulva/clit area is even in a position during this banging that would allow her to grind it against his body or anything else. Sometimes in these scenes they both kinda vocalize in a way that one might assume means they both came simultaneously. Sometimes the lady specifically is depicted as coming, and sometimes it ends before the orgasm part. Very occasionally it seems like the dude came, but she didn't. No matter what though, there was never - NEVER - a scene in which there is some kind of stimulation to the clit/vulva area along with intercourse. 

I mean this isn't uncommon. Intercourse in movies, TV and porn, pretty much ignores the clitoral glans vulva area whether there is a depiction of female orgasm in the scene or not. That's just the way it is. A penis moving in and out of a vagina is depicted as enough. It's enough, in and of itself, as a sex act - no matter what happens, but it's often depicted as enough to get a female to orgasm. The crazy part is, though, that it's a bunch of made-up bullshit. 

Women need clitoral glans area stimulations to orgasm as much as men need penile stimulation. These very normal depictions are like showing dudes coming from rubbing their asses without any penile stimulation...and no one seeming to care or even notice how bonkers it is. Seriously, no orgasm caused from stimulation inside the vagina has ever been physically recorded in all scientific literature. Seriously. And it's not like people (and tons of scientists) haven't been desperately trying to prove once and for all that women can be banged into an orgasm for almost a century now. They've pushed the idea of the G-spot and the 'inner clit' as possible reasons that women might orgasm from inner vaginal stimualtion, but never, ever has anyone ever shown that this 'other' 'vaginal' orgasm even exists. So, my point is, all these very common and very absurd depictions of women getting banged into orgasmic ecstasy both reflect our culture's deeply incorrect assumptions about how lady-gasms work and also help to keep those ridiculous assumptions alive and well in our psyche. 

So that's the bulk of what's happening sexually on the show, but I did take a few notes on a couple more specific interesting situations, which I will describe below.

Dear, let me not give you an orgasm for de-stressing purposes

I think this is one of my favorites because it's so stupid. The character Fiona is in bed with her boyfriend. She's stressed out, and so he decides to give her a sexual gift. He starts fucking her, as in banging her missionary. He tells her to just breath and let him do all the work. So she's just laying there, and he's just pushing in and out of her (their bodies are under the covers, but it's pretty clear what's happening) like his dick is a golden orgasm wand, and then she comes, and he doesn't. What a gift! 

Listen, if a dude wants to 'gift' you an orgasm and he starts banging you, then just know the only gift you will be getting is a dick in your vagina and the chance to fake an orgasm so he will stop. Clits do lady-gasms make, people...not dicks. 

For real, though, if that scene was not a crystal clear misunderstanding of how female orgasms happen I don't know what is. I mean even the idea of asking her not to movie is extra looney. If, perchance, a lady is able to get her clit enough stimulation to come by rubbing it against the pelvis of the person fucking her vagina, she's sure as shit gonna need to be controlling the fuck out of how her clit is grinding - the pressure, the angle. The idea that a dude could just fuck on a motionless lady to make her come is truly bananas. 

The lone lady-bation

This one I like for the opposite reason. It's probably the very best scene for lady-gasms in the whole series. The character Debbie is at some kind of commune. I'll skip the details of why, but she is in a tent for women and an older woman gives her a big ol' Hitachi Magic wand style vibrator to use to relax her. Debbie basically says she's never masturbated before, and the woman tells her it's liberating and leaves her alone to do it. Debbie looks at it. The scene cuts, and then later we come back to her laying back, clearly satisfied from a good ol' orgasm. 

It's a pretty basic scene, but I think it's the only time in this show that a woman or girl explicitly discusses masturbation (I'm not 100% on that, but if I'm wrong I'm not wrong by much). There's plenty of ladies in this show that are VERY sexual and various elements of their sex lives are discussed and depicted, but they are all with dudes or occasionally other women. 

In contrast, I believe every single male main character in this show has explicitly had their masturbation habits discussed or depicted more than once. One teen male character is even masturbating in the opening credits that play in front of all 9 seasons so far. One of the male characters was just a boy...maybe early middle school and had multiple shows with numerous discussions and depictions of his masturbation habits. 

Cunnilingus. 

It does happen on the show occasionally, but unless it's 2 women, it is not a staple. Often, it's something that happens at the beginning of a sex act - as a little warm up, and the dude moves up to fuck before any orgasm is had. I've never seen a female character on the show say anything about preferring it. It's more likely to hear a female character talk about interest in a big dick. Listen, I like that it's in the show at all, but just as in the culture at large, it tends to be just a quick side dish when it's there at all.

Cunnilingus. With a splash.

There is one exception. The character Lip has a girlfriend that he's been fucking. After a few episodes of this, we see him coming up as if he just finished eating her out. She says something like, 'that was great. I wasn't sure if you'd be good at it. Are the sheets drenched?' Turns out she ejaculates when she comes. She says  to him that's how she comes sometimes, and he asks her why she never came with him before. She tells him that she can only do it when she's really comfortable with a dude. He loves it. She loves it. His friends are impressed when he tells them about it. 

I like the idea that female ejaculation is depicted - and in a good light. I even think the way it happens is not unrealistic. Female ejaculation, like male ejaculation, is a different thing than orgasm. Squirting stuff out is not an orgasm, but for males, unlike for the vast majority of females, the two happen mostly simultaneously. There's not nearly enough data about female ejaculations, but clearly there are some women that can get them from manually stimulating the female prostate that sits around the urethra which sets on the outside of the vaginal wall, low and toward the stomach. That's just an ejaculation though (unless you were able to stimulate the clitoral glans area at the same time, and get the ejaculation and orgasm to pop off at around the same time, though). 

That manual stimulation of the prostate area seems to be the most common way female ejaculation happen, but from anecdotal stories in books and papers I've seen on the subject. It also seems like there are some women, and it must be fairly rare, where their orgasm triggers an ejaculation similar to what happens for men. This is what I would imagine happens for this girlfriend character, and that explanations seems sensible enough to me given that she was getting a clit licking that ended in orgasm (as it sensibly could) along with ejaculation.

So, that's all good, but I do feel like also there was a sense in this whole storyline that ejaculating was not just a cool-ass rare thing that happens to this woman when she's stimulated correctly, but that it's a symbol of her higher sexuality and Lip's exceptional prowess as a lover. That feels a little gross to me especially because female ejaculation is becoming quite popular in porn as a 'higher level of female sexual pleasure.' It's often faked, but it, like orgasming from nothing but a penis banging one's vagina, is just one more thing that women are expected to do in order to be properly sexual even if it's simply not something their body is capable of.

Bang me, but do it in circles...Screw me...I guess?

Okay - this one I find hilarious too...mostly because it feels like the writers got their sex advise from a 1950's marriage manual. This is the character Lip again, but with a different woman. He hooks up with her at a wedding. She's drunk, and they do it in a closet, standing doggy with her bent over a deep freezer or something. She pukes during it, and he's maybe a little less into it than he normally is this type of thing. Otherwise it's just a normal in-out bang. 

So he sees her again and asks her out on a real date, but she's a complete asshole and tells him to basically fuck off because it was the worst sex she's ever had. (Honestly, what is she comparing it to - other sex she had that also didn't involve her clit and also didn't make her come. What the hell was she expecting from the non-clit involving doggy fuck she was getting into?) 

So, she tells him it was "jabby" and he just kept jabbing, and he should have fucked her hard. (So the answer to my questions is that like far too many women, she doesn't orgasm during intercourse, doesn't seem to understand that's a problem or how to fix it -I mean most dudes don't either so we're all fucked aren't we? - and so she desperately wants something, anything else from the sex to make her feel wanted and excited and as if the sex was worth it...and what better way to feel that than to have the dude fuck your brains out so hard that you don't even know what happened? - for real though I think that's some real shit women feel but don't realize they feel). 

Anyway, for some inexplicable reason he later does end up dating her even though she is still just the absolute worst asshole, and they end up having sex again in her car. She says it was a 6 out of 10. It wasn't jabby anymore, but it was thrusty. Then she tells him he has to rotate. 

Rotate. Seriously. 

I imagine the kernel of truth that is behind this is that if a woman is going to ever possibly come during intercourse without actually manually (or vibratorly...I'm gonna say that's a word) stimulating her clit during it, it's going to be because she is able to get into the right position to grind her clit against his pelvis while his dick's still inside her. And let's be honest, he's probably gonna have to stop moving and stay fucking still so that she can keep the kind of constant pressure against him she likes and grind it how she needs it grinded without him fucking up her movements. This situation is not the ideal clit stimulating situation, so it's precarious, and him trying to move in an out is a straight clit killer...in my humble opinion at least. 

Anyway, that's probably the kernel of why people may have gotten the idea that grindy or rotatey is better than poundy, but here's the deal. Either way we're talking about him doing the movements and about how the dick is moving in the vagina...which is realistically not going to make her come no matter how you do it. What she should have said was, "it sucked because my clit was not even an after thought. You were just getting your dick off in my vagina, and what needed to happen was something should have been diddling my clit, so I could actually come." But because the world has such strange, backward, misunderstandings of lady-gasm, this lady character is out here telling this dude character that he needed to rotate more. 

The other reason this is hilarious to me is that I know specifically that this rotating advice was something popular in marriage manuals of the 1950's because I learned that when I was doing research for my movie. And recently Charlie and I got ahold of some old 70's porn - like the stuff that was real high budget and in the era when there was hope that porn and mainstream cinema could be merged in a particular way...and all those dudes were rotating as they pounded. Like, there was a distinct difference in the way you see dudes generally pound in porn today, and we both thought it was hilarious because it seemed like they were going off that 50's advice they snuck-found in their parent's marriage manuals when they were teenagers. The women were still not getting their clits stimulated and still faking, but...at least the dudes were rotating more?

The Vulva Rating

This was not a traditional SSL Review, but I am still going to give it a Vulva Rating, and it's not a good one. 

This show is chock full of lady-gasms depicted as happening from physical activity that in no way could realistically give a woman an orgasm. Although this is not uncommon, it is a net harm to women's ability to learn correctly about their orgasm and how it can be achieved in partner sex, to feel empowered in asking and expecting activities during sex that stimulate their organ of sexual pleasure (their clit), and in educating men about what a sexual act that is orgasmic for females actually looks like. 

It's also chock full of men and boys masturbating, but not women and girls, which makes it seem like lady-bation is rare, weird, and that sexual women are sexual because they fuck a lot and masturbation isn't really part of it. Those ideas are already strongly out there keeping girls and women (more than boys and men) from exploring their own bodies and theri own orgasms. This show just reinforces it, which sucks.  

Overall, there are some moments where there is genuinely realist depictions of female orgasm...like when a woman goes down on another woman until orgasm, but they are few and far between. Shameless is a very sexual show that, not unlike our sexual culture as a whole, is informed about and focused on male sexual pleasure, fantasy, and orgasm but deeply and arrogantly misinformed about female pleasure, fantasy and orgasm. 

I'm giving this series 1 out of 5 vulvas. I'm feeling nice because there are at least a few good moments in there. Also, I still have more of the series to go. I, arrogantly, don't think my opinion will change, but if it does, I'll update here.

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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

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Landline - The SSL Review

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Landline
This movie was written and directed by Gillian Robespierre - the same woman that did the movie Obvious Child, a movie I really enjoyed. Also, Landline stars Jenny Slate, and I kinda fell in a little bit of love with her as Mona-Lisa Saperstein on Parks and Rec. Her voice in another world might kinda get to me because it edges on baby, but it doesn't bother me on her because I think she's fuckin funny. So that's that.

Why I'm talking about this is because this movie, Landline, has 3 scenes that are SSL reviewable, and it's my pleasure to do that reviewing now.

An SSL Review

An SSL Review, for those that need a little refresher, is a review specifically of any discussion or depiction of female orgasm, female masturbation, or the clit. I critique the realism of the depiction/discussion and also write about what the depiction/discussion says about and/or adds to our cultural understanding of female sexuality and orgasm. I try my best to just stick specifically to those SSL Reviewable moments, so it usually stays pretty focused on those parts of the movie only, but ya know, sometimes I like to digress.

So here we go. I have tons of these reviews btw. You can find all the other movie SSL Reviews HERE and the TV SSL Reviews HERE.

Scene 1: Nature Sex Ain't For Everyone
This is the first scene in the movie. It starts with voices over the titles. The way they are talking seems very casual and familiar. There's no meanness really in these lines, even though just written out they might seem that way.

Ben: Is this good?
Dana: No.
Ben: Sorry, lower?
Dana: Yeah, yes. good. good.
Ben: This is awesome.

We see a profile shot from the shoulders up of Dana (Jenny Slate). She's facing a tree and leaning against it. She's clearly getting fucked from behind, but she doesn't seem all that into it. Not upset or anything, just not really aroused.

Dana: You can come if you want to.
Ben: Okay, I'm about to.
Dana: Good.
Ben: Are you gonna come?
Dana: eh...(ignoring him and looking at a buzzing fly around her face. She swats at it, then startles slightly in concern). Did you hear that?

We see them in a wide profile now. Ben (Jay Duplass) is standing behind her with his pants around his ankles. One hand is around her waist and the other is settled on the front of her thigh. Dana's dress is hiked up and her panties are down just above her knees. Both her hands are against the tree she is facing to support her. Jay is pumping into her, but stops for a second.

Ben: Huh?
Dana: Like a woodland creature pitter patter?
Ben: Okay, (slightly exasperated) the plan was to have sex in the woods.
Dana: yeah...yeah. (trying to settle herself)
Ben: (as he begins to pump again) Okay. Are you okay?
Dana: Yeah.  Mmm Hmm.
Ben: Are you sure? Because I kinda feel like maybe you're not into it.

She screams and moves in the way people afraid of bugs scream and move. They break apart. She reveals it was a bug - a spider. Ben seems a little exasperated and little disappointed, but only slightly. She's pulling up her panties. It's over.

Dana: I'm sorry.
Ben: No. It's okay. It's cool.
Dana: (said in the way one might say, I'm sorry.) I'm not a woodland person.

Ben: Okay. (The give each other a resigned kiss) Do you want me to help you finish or...
Dana: (waving her arm as if to say, nah this is over, let's move on) No. My parents...Let's get in the car.

They finish dressing and begin to head off.

Scene 2: Park Bench Over The Pants Rub-Off
Dana's making out with a dude on the park bench, and we see him reach down towards her clit area over her jeans. The shot moves to a close up of them kissing, and he's presumably working the clit area he just touched. By her face, she seems to like it. She says, "Oh. Oh my god." It doesn't exactly seem like an orgasm vocalization, but definitely like what he's doing is gonna get her there. Then it cuts.

Scene 3: The Eating Pussy Instead Of Popcorn At The Movies
This is a quick scene. She's sitting in a movie theater. We're looking at her from the front. There are rows of seats and people in front of her. She's drinking a coke or something. We see the dude's head pop up from under her and get a drink and then move back down. When he goes back down she clearly gets some sensations she really likes and gasps and smiles and giggles and has to put her hand over her mouth. The scene ends.

Three Scenes And They All Have At Least A Glance Toward Lady-gasm  

The first scene, to me, is a distracted-lady sex scene. 
We as the audience can see that she's never gonna come because she's just too damn distracted. In this case it's because, ya know, bugs and nature and shit. It's one of the best of this genre of sex scene.

1 The guy fucking her actually notices that she's not into it and asks her about it. You don't realize how common it is to depict a distracted-lady sex scene and the dude is just completely oblivious. I don't even call those types of scenes distracted-lady scenes. I like to call them oblivious, shit partner scenes. In fact, I just reviewed a scene like that for The Year of Spectacular Men. It was supposed to be a quirky, awkward distracted scene. However, it was truly a shit partner scene even if the movie never acknowledged that reality. Those scenes normalize things I don't want normalized, well don't want normalized any more than they already are.

Point is, if one partner in sex isn't into it, that should be recognized by the group. That's just manners. But too often it seems like women being 'not into it,' and the partner not seeing it at all, although it's painfully obvious, is just played for laughs. It never seems to focus on how oblivious and shitty the partner was but how awkward the woman and the sex were. It makes it seem like women going through with sex acts even though they are truly not aroused or 'in it' at all is very, very normal, and not something the partner should think twice about.

Granted, I think these scenes are sadly pretty realistic because that's what's actually happening way too often out here in the real world, but it's kinda fucked up if you really think about how shitty and gross a sex act is if you are completely unaroused, and how much you miss by not being in arousing sex acts.

Plus, and let's be honest here, assuming it's fine to not notice if the women/person you're with is not aroused or into the sex you're doing to them is, well, a slippery slope towards rapey-ness. It's bad that women feel they need to keep going, and bad men feel they shouldn't stop and take stock if she's losing interest. All that to point out clearly that I really appreciate that this character even noticed her and asked about her. It's real basic, so basic we shouldn't be applauding it, but sadly - that kind of thing is still worth applauding.

2 Ben asked if she wants him to help her finish. Again, this should be too basic to applaud, but it is incredibly, sadly, still applaud-worthy (Ben's for sure a Good Boy who deserves an Award. Look it up). I mean, usually if a woman is not depicted coming during a sex act, no one bats an eye. It's just the natural way of things because either he finished so the sex is over, or he didn't finish so the sex is over. Period. So, I appreciate that he asks about it. It helps to normalize a situation in which ladaygasm is as intergral to the sex act as the male orgasm is.

However, it's not perfect. Overall, this scene was just a gal getting a penis pumped into her vagina from behind. There were no hands or anything stimulating her clit area, so realistically this situation would not be something one would expect to make a lady come, even if she weren't distracted.

So, although she didn't come (which is realistic in this situation no matter how you slice it, and I appreciate they kept it realistic), and there was the uncommon and lovely to see 'ask' about her ladygasm, it's still quite intercourse-centric. The thing is, why would he even ask her if she was going to come? Ain't nobody working that clit, so the answer is no, Ben.

Seriously there is no physical evidence that stimulating the inside of the vagina, like one does during intercourse,  has ever caused an orgasm in all of scientific literature. So, ya know, expecting her to come by getting fucked from behind is ridiculous...even though people all over expect that to happen all the time because as a culture we're truly ignorant about how female orgasms happen...but I digress. Like I said, it's a good scene -SSL Review speaking - but it's not perfect.

The 2nd and 3rd scene, however are pretty much on point. 
Both are a scene between a man and woman where stimulation to the lady genitals is depicted, but not to the male. Not only that, but where the stimulation is happening - to the clit/vuvla area - is realistically a place where stimulation could realistically bring her to orgasm. Now technically neither of these depict an orgasm, and thus are not technically SSL Reviewable. They both stop before the orgasm. However, I couldn't not SSL Review them because both show that she is likely on her way there. Plus, giving total focus to manual and oral stimulation on a lady is fairly rare in media. I had to.

Scenes like these will help to balance depictions of sex in media by adding weight to the realistic lady-stimulation-for-lady-gasm side. This is incredibly important because the more we see things in the media, the more normalized they become, which makes it seem more like things other people do, which means it isn't abnormal (not weird, maybe even cool), and from that point it places itself into the possibilities of our sex activities. It becomes something people do, and thus something you could do. With enough normalization it might even become something that seems naturally part of sex. It's a long road, but man, if clit stimulation becomes as normal a part of sex as penis stimulation - this orgasm gap thing would be on its way out.

The Vulva Rating
I think those last 2 scenes that focus exclusively on actual sexual interactions that might lead to her orgasm is not only cool and awesomely normalizing of clit-stimulation, but it also makes goddamn sense. She's the main character and why wouldn't the scenes of her exciting sex adventures focus on her?

The opening scene is realistically unorgasmic, but I'm not certain if the intention behind the lack of orgasm was because she was not into it (and so maybe not into diddling her clit while she got fucked because she just wanted to get it over with and away from the bugs) or if it was because she wasn't into it and thus was mentally not able to come from what was happening to her. The first way would acknowledge that the fucking alone with no additional clitoral/vulva stimulation would not realistically be expected to make her come and the 2nd way assumes that with the right mental state, getting fucked that way would realistically make her come. The first way makes sense and the second way is silly, misinformed, and problematic.

Truth is though, I don't know which it is. I could see either way. The dude does ask her at the end, even though he didn't come, if she wants him to help her come. That seems to me like he's talking about manual stimulation and that makes me think he was meant to understand that this is how she comes, but again, I'm making assumptions. I like that he asks, though. It heightens the importance of her orgasm in the sexual encounter which rarely happens for female characters (and sadly actual females). I also appreciate that he notices that she's not into the sex, asks her about it, and discontinues the sex without too much sulking when it's clearly done on her end. So, him even noticing her distraction is rare, and although a bare minimum of considerate human interaction, much appreciated. Oh, the things we could discuss about women's willingness to do sex stuff that sucks and men's willingness to ignore how much it sucks for their partners is huge, people. Huuuge.

All that to say that I like the tone of this movie and it's general direction of noticing and talking about and depicting clitoral stimulation and female orgasm focused sex act. It feels to me like there was real intention to be thoughtful about lady-sex needs. Yes, there is this sense in the first sex scene that maybe getting banged with no extra clitoral stimulation might be enough to get a woman off, and yes, I think most audience members would just take that sense in without question because it is so normal of a thing. But that scene also insinuates other better things too, and it makes me want to be kind with my vulva rating, so I'm giving this a 4 1/2 out of 5 vulva rating.

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Ribbed For Her Pleasure Is Some Next Level Bullshit

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I don't know when the campaign started or which company started it, but at some point in my teens my best friend and I heard or read the "Ribbed For Her Pleasure" condom marketing scheme. To this day, the word 'ribbed' cannot be said in our presence without having to also say 'for her pleasure.' I doubt we're alone in that. We just found it funny - ya know being teenagers and stuff, but the whole thing is really interesting to me now as an adult woman that spends her time writing and thinking about the incredibly fucked up culture around female orgasm.

I mean just out of the blue sky of culture we were fed the idea that the texture of the latex wrapping on a penis would somehow tickle the insides of our vaginas in such a way that it would intensify our 'pleasure' (i.e. orgasm). This idea only makes sense in a world where it is understood as common knowledge that the stimulation a woman gets inside her vagina during intercourse is something that causes physical pleasure and likely orgasm.

 And let me step back here and acknowledge that the marketing line technically says nothing about orgasm. It merely says it'll help with pleasure and really that could mean anything to anybody. If the use of that ribbed condom made the receiving woman a little extra excited because it seemed a little dirtier, a little more risque and naughty, then I guess it did do its part in increasing her pleasure. However, I'm going forward with the assumption that the word 'pleasure' was chosen with the idea of orgasm wrapped within it, and also that when the public hears the word 'pleasure' in this context they too wrap the idea of orgasm in it. Now that's a leap, yes, but I think a small one. The word 'pleasure' is regularly (much too regularly) interchanged with the word orgasm when it comes to women, even though they are different things. I would argue that most people would assume one means the other in the context of ladies and sex without even giving it a second thought, and so to me the tone and insinuation of the marketing campaign is that ribbed condoms can help a woman orgasm, and I'm going to discuss it from that perspective.

Okay, let me say that sentence up there again. This idea only makes sense in a world where it is understood as common knowledge that the stimulation a woman gets inside her vagina during intercourse is something that causes physical pleasure and likely orgasm. To dig in a little deeper here, let's remind ourselves that the ribbed condom is just a thin latex condom that has texture - different kinds of texture, but just texture none the less. For 'Ribbed For Her Pleasuree' to make sense you kind of need to think of the vagina like an inside out penis (as if we were anatomist in the 17th Century). When you think of it that way, it really does make sense. The skin of the penis is full of nerves that when stimulated are related to orgasm, and one might imagine it could feel texture rubbed against it and the person attached to it might enjoy that variety of texture. Relate that to the vagina, as if the inner walls of the vagina are full of sensitive nerves related to orgasm, and yeah, the extra texture rubbed against it might heighten the stimulation of these supposed orgasm-creation-nerves in the vagina.

Big problem here though. The vagina is absolutely not anatomically an inside out penis. Wouldn't it be awesome if it was though? Wouldn't it be easy if the male organ of sexual pleasure stroked and got stroked by the female organ of sexual pleasure during intercourse?...if the lady-orgasm nerve tissue was directly rubbing the dude-orgasm nerve tissue during p-in-v banging? If that were the case, I imagine hetero couple sex would be much more like the hetero sex we see in porn (spoiler alert - a lot of fake ladygasms!), movies, tv, and written erotica -  where sticking a dick in a vag is like orgasm central for the ladies.

But, that's not the case, is it? Only about 30% of women claim to orgasm at all, ever during intercourse.* Think of how much intercourse most hetero women have in their life. That's some sad, unfair shit if you really think about it.

But back to the vagina not being an inside out penis. It's really solidly not, although we as a culture clearly like to think of it that way even if it's kind of a non-logical subconscious way to think of it. The clit is the thing that is anatomically related to the penis, and specifically the clitoral glans and surrounding tissue carry orgasm-related nerve endings like are found in the penis.

So, I'll make this clear, the vagina is not only not an inside out penis anatomically, but very unlike the penis, stimulation to the walls of the vagina don't cause orgasm. I should be more precise when I say that. The vagina does not have any element in it that has been shown to cause orgasm when stimulated and orgasm (which means rhythmic release of pelvic muscle tension and blood congestion brought on by arousal. I'm not using orgasm in the flim-flamsy 'something that feels climaxy to you' way) caused by stimulation on the inside of the vagina has never been physically recorded in scientific literature. So, like, banging a woman to orgasm is a bunch of bullshit, bullshit we women buy into as well but bullshit none the less, and thinking that adding some ribbing will help make a sex act that has no physical reason to cause orgasm, magically increase orgasmic potential is extra bullshit. More info about the anatomy relations between male and female genitals is HERE, and more info about why I am adamant that assuming vag-stimulation will cause orgasm is ridiculous is HERE. And, before you ask, because I know it's the new hot way to try and explain why people claim vaginal orgasm exist when physically there is no sense to that - there is also no evidence and really no anatomical reason to assume that a penis pressing against the clitoral legs that kind of surround the vagina would stimulate orgasm either - and btw even if it did, the ribbing on a condom would have nothing to do with that. Also, stimulation, and really specifically pressure not just tactile stimulation, of the 'G-spot' (female prostate) has been shown in scientific literature to stimulate ejaculation in some women, but it has never been shown to cause orgasm (orgasm and ejaculation are 2 different things just like in men), so don't count on latex ribbing stimulating the g-spot to orgasm either.

All that to say, unless you're using the condom as a glove to rub her clit, the idea that condoms with some texture on them could improve a woman's ability to orgasm is the biggest bullshit. But, the craziest thing is not how scientifically ridiculous the idea is, but how easily that ridiculous notion fits into the ridiculous and deeply embedded narrative of how women 'should' orgasm - from getting banged. Because, even though we might know it's not true, wouldn't it still be nice if the vagina were an inside out penis?  Wouldn't it be convenient for us women to do the sex act men seem to want the most and also be able to orgasm without having to bother our poor partner in any way by making sure the clit, our organ of sexual pleasure, also gets stimulated?


* (I use the 30% number, for amount of omen that orgasm from penetration, but it's not what you think, and it's likely not an indication many women if any at all can orgasm from stimulation of the inside of the vagina. Here's my post about the background of that %. 

Sex And The City S3 E1-3: A Retro SSL Review

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My little segment is back for a another round (Here's the others). It's a modified, lazy version of an SSL Review. It's just me transcribing my notes, page by page, on all of the Sex and the City episodes. I watched them all - not necessarily in order - during 2007 and 2008, and I took notes on the depiction/discussion of female orgasm and female masturbation. It was my early attempt at this type of lady-gasm review stuff. Anyway, I never actually created reviews from these notes, but since they exist, I'd like to get them out there on the interwebs before they get burned in a house fire or something...thus this series.

Ramona and my SATC Notes

The fun of this will be that I will transcribe these as word for word as I can while still trying to make it be a sensible read. I'll post a pick of the notes for your reference. I'll do one or more episodes at a time - from the beginning of the notebook to the end. I may add notes for clarification or add my SSL-Review-style comments.

Hopefully the notes I took privately 10 years ago won't make me look like a dumb asshole. I will add them in the TV SSL Review Master List  (of course you are also welcome to check out the Movie SSL Review Master List as well). Here we go.

Sex and the City Season 3 Episodes 1-3

Season 3 Ep 1
-watching firemen stripping
-Sam gets fucked by fireman. He was banging her (literally rocking her back and forth) he changed her position from (here I draw some stick figure drawings that you can see below. I can't really tell what they mean because I guess I'm bad at drawing).

She got an orgasm hard style

-Sam fucked against firetruck with her legs wrapped around him. He was fucking her  - She wasn't moving - just screamin and cumming. Hew was pumping in and out, but had a little more upgrind to forward motion.

Season 3 Episode 2
-Sam mentioned when discussing Carrie's 'pee on me' guy that she had peed during sex once. "What'd he say?" "I don't think he even noticed."
-Miranda on side with Steve behind her. Cut to them both orgasming - couldn't tell the movement, but both her hands were visible, and his hand that could possibly be touching her.

Season 3 Ep 3
-Miranda's housekeeper found her goody drawer. It had lube, condoms, and a dildo vibrator. She says, "I have a boyfriend, but I didn't for a while. That's why I have that."
-Samantha hears that this hot masseuse goes down, so she booked it...but he doesn't and tells on her.
-lots of naked women.

Modern Day Me Comments
Too much banging without a goddamn reach-around
These 3 episodes were not at the top of Sex and The City's orgasm equality game. In those 3 episodes there were 3 depictions of a ladygasm that happened during a sex act that was highly unlikely to actually cause that ladygasm. All 3 were of women getting a dick moved in and out of their vaginas. There was no body pressure consistently (or really at all) grinding against their vulva areas, and there was also no hands and/or vibrators pressed against the vulva area. Nothing, I say nothing, was working that clit...yet somehow the women came.

Those 3 depictions were the oh-so-common, but anatomically ridiculous scenes of women getting their vaginal walls banged into an orgasm.

Here's the big secret, ya'll. THE VAGINA IS NOT THE FEMALE ORGAN OF SEXUAL PLEASURE. THE CLITORAL GLANS IS THE ORGAN OF FEMALE SEXUAL PLEASURE JUST AS THE PENIS IS THE ORGAN OF MALE SEXUAL PLEASURE.

This whole blog, my movie, and this post I always link to to explain what I mean, are all about how we as a culture just really don't get that point. We just keep cramming the lie into everyone's head that penises in ladyholes holes can make women come. It's as BS as saying banging a man's but makes him come.

Goody Drawer
So those weren't great depictions, but I also wasn't pleased about how Miranda felt like she needed to justify her vibrator by saying she used to be single. I mean, by all means single gals should have a vibrator. It's a fun and simple way to get off that doesn't cause hand fatigue, but it's just as important for a gal in a relationship to have one...especially in a relationship with a penis.

No, you know, it might be more important actually. There's so much PinV ramming going on in hetero sexual encounters that a gal is strongly at risk for constantly getting aroused and rarely coming during sex stuff. There's just soooo much banging without clit stimulation going on. It's what we all grow up learning and thinking we're supposed to do to make both people come...but in reality it only makes him come...and she fakes it, or just says it was good even without coming, or just ignores it, or gets annoyed. Either way over time it's gonna fuck up the her ability to get aroused when faced with the idea of sex, and reinforce his arousal over time when faced with the idea of sex. A vibrator used during the fucking can allow everyone to come without inconveniencing the dude at all by asking him to do anything more than stick his penis in you. Yay...I guess.

The other stuff
As always, I tended to write down things that I don't count as relevant for SSL Reviews anymore. These notes were right at the beginning of when I started SSL Reviews, so I hadn't gotten my rules down yet.. My point here is that the firemen stripping, the peeing during sex comment, and the note about lots of naked ladies are not what I consider SSL reviewable these days. I'm only really interested in discussion or depiction of female orgasm, masturbation, or the clit. However, at the time, I was a bit more interested in things like how often you see naked men vs. seeing naked women in media. It's still interesting ('cause dude - we need to see more man meat - too much Lady T&A in comparison), but it's not where I want to focus. I mean you can't do everything.

That's it. Have a lovely night. I'll try to write more posts.