Where Does Touch To the Clit Activate In The Brain - A Journal Article I Read

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Welcome back to 'A Journal Article I Read,' a series where I summarize a lady-gasm related journal article in a way that is hopefully both comprehensive and also not too long. You can find a list of all the journal articles in this series HERE.

Here is what I'll be summarizing today.

The Somatosensory Representation of the Human Clitoris: An fMRI Study 
LarsMichels, UlrichMehnert, SönkeBoy, BrigitteSchurch, SpyrosKollias
NeuroImage 2010 Jan. Vol.49 Issue 1, p.177-184

And lucky you, you can find this full article HERE, so if you're into fMRIs and know some shit about that stuff, you can get the full details there.

Quick Summary
The researchers here are trying to identify where in the brain clitoral stimulation activates. There was a famous study done about 80 years ago that identified where stimulation of different body parts activated the brain. It had a place for the genitals, but there's been a lot of disagreement on that since.  Some more recent studies have used fMRI to identify a different area of the brain related to penis stimulation than that original study, and this study hypothesized the clitoral stimulation would activate a similar area using fMRI. They tested 15 women by putting electrodes on either side of the clit and giving them a gentle electrical pulse while in an fMRI machine that takes particular types of pictures of the brain. For 8 of these women, they also did the same thing, but this time the electrode is on their right big toe (which they refer to as the hallux). They use this as a type of control because in that original old study, foot/toe area was said to activate the brain very near where the genitals were said to. However, these researchers did in fact find that stimulation of the clitoris activated a similar area to where the more modern fMRI study showed activation from penis stimulation. It was also different from the area of activation from the toe stimulation, even though the original study showed the toe and the genitals quite close.

**I will from now on just be summarizing to the best of my ability, what is actually said in the article. If I want to give you my opinion, I'll clearly mark it with a heading or in a [Me:...] parenthesis. Things in quotes are actual quotes from this article.**

Introduction
My quick description of this old study they reference a lot
Okay, so this old study, by Penfield and Boldray from the scientific journal Brain in 1937 which I will refer to from now on as P&B 1937, was about mapping the somatosensory system on the brain. They did the mapping by using electrical stimulation on the brains of people undergoing open brain surgery for control of epilepsy, and continued doing the research for years after. My understanding is that they stimulated areas and asked the awake patients where they felt the stimulation in their body. Through this, they created an incredibly famous and much used depiction of the human body on the brain (the somatosensory homunculus which you can check out below). The size of the body part represents the density of the receptors in the brain for that body part and not necessarily the size of the brain area where the receptors are. Also notice that the genitals are right next to the toes.

homunculus picture from EBN Consult (which is a cool site to get free core medical education information)

Okay, now the actual study intro

• P&B 1937 has been "virtually a standard reference for various somatotopical studies" for the last 70 years.
• P&B 1937 "relied on reported sensation of different body parts after electrical stimulation of the cortex. Assessment of the exact location was generally difficult and sometimes led to conflicting results."
• "The genital region was especially hard to assess due to difficulties with sense of shame." The location of genital sensation has been subject to lots of discussion and conflicting results over the years. Penile representation has been reported from some studies in the mesial wall as expected from the P&B 1937 and in other studies in the lateral surface of the postcentral gyrus using fMRI.
• Though it's fair to assume the clit would be represented in the brain in the same area as the penis given that they are anatomically homologous, little has actually been studied of it. A 1991 study showed the penis represented in the inter-hemispheric fissure, "though they were not able to distinguish it's location from that of the posterior tibial nerve," which these researchers say makes sense because of the low spacial resolution of the type of testing done in this study. There was also a 2006 study (that I summarized HERE) about brain activation during orgasm caused by manual clitoral stimulation that howed the activation area in a somewhat different area.
• Based on recent studies of penile sensation, the researchers hypothesize they will find clitoral stimulation on the lateral surface of the postcentral gyrus (not the mesial wall as predicted by P&B 1937).
• The researchers also believe this is an important line of study because electrical dorsal genital nerve (i.e. dorsal clitoral nerve) stimulation emerged as a promising therapeutic approach for improving neurgenic and non-neurogenic lower urinary tract dysfunction such as sphincter weakness or overactive bladder." [Me: I can't help but imagine that the researchers had to throw in this link to medical relevance for research grant purposes, because, I think, getting money and permission to do research simply for research sake - especially related to sex or genitals, is not a smart or easy bet.]

Materials and Methods

• 15 right-handed subjects (22-34 years old) were tested. Subjects were not pregnant and had no medical, mental, surgical, or drug-related issues that might interfere with the test.
• To ensure privacy, a trained female assistant attached the electrodes to either side of the clitoral glans "so that they were able to stimulate the fibers of the dorsal clitoral nerve," behind a curtain and then the subject wore pants over it and a blanket. They were also alone in the room when the test was taking place, and their names and data were kept anonymous. [Me: I assume they were careful about privacy because they felt a problem with older studies was related to shame over genital sensation. Also note this study happened in Zurich and the truth is orgasm and clit studies almost always happen not in the USA]
• Before the experiment electrical tests were performed to make sure the subject could feel the stimulation directly on their clitoris. The strength of the electrical stimulation was also set specifically for each subject so that it neither was painful nor elicited sexual arousal [Me: But, I mean, it's on the clit, it'd be hard to not feel a little sexual, right????] 
• fMRI images were created using a Phillips Achieva 3.0 MT R Scanner. It lists out the settings, and if you are interested in them, then please do checkk out the full article linked up top.
• The scan began for each subject with 18 seconds of rest then 12 seconds of electrical stimulation. This altering between rest and stimulation happened 10 times, for a total scan of 5 minutes for each subject.
• For 8 of the subjects, a 2nd experiment was also preformed in which the same type of electrodes were put on the right toe instead of the clit. The rest/stimulation altering and scanning were set up the same.
• The researchers also assessed the discomfort and the sexual arousal caused by the electrodes by asking the subjects to use a Visual Analog Scale. [Me: The scale for pain you often see in hospitals is a Visual Analog Scale - see below]. "the scale ranged form -10 (e.g. unbearable pain) to 10 (e.g. pleasure). For sexual arousal, the scale ranged form -10 (strong sexual arousal) to 10 (no arousal at all/sleepiness).
• 2 subjects had too much head movement to use the data, so their data was thrown out of the study, leaving 13 subjects in the final results.
• There's information about the software used and how the images were aligned, etc. Again, if you're interested and know about that, check out the link to the full article up top.
• [Me: Again - a lot of information about how the resulting data was complied and analyzed. I do not have the expertise to relay any information about this to you except copy what was written, so I'll just give the big-picture stuff that I basically understand.] The images during rest were compared to images during clitoral stimulation, and for the 8 subjects who also took part in the experiment with the big toe stimulation test - the images during rest were compared to images during stimulation of the big toe.
• Potential affects of the co-variates (sexual arousal or discomfort) on the brain were assessed statistically as well - in order to see if that may affect activation areas in the brain.

a type of Visual Analog Scale (VAS)

Results

• The median Visual Analog Score (VAS) for sexual arousal was 0 (which is right in the middle of strong sexual arousal at -10 and none at all at 10). The median VAS score for discomfort was -2 (which is a bit closer to unbearable pain at -10 than the rating of pleasure at 10).
• "Electrical clitoral stimulation produced significant activations predominantly in bilaterally prefrontal areas..., the precentral, parietal and postcentral gyri...In addition distributed activations were also seen in the anterior and posterior parts of the insula and the putamen. This activation pattern was seen in most of the single subjects and therefore also on the group activation map."
• "Most importantly, we found no activation on the mesial surface of S1 on either side even when using unconventionally low thresholds. [Me: So didn't find what P&B 1937 found].
• [Me: There are then 2 paragraphs about specific coordinates of activation for both clitoral stimulation and toe stimulation. It's too complicated and technical for me to understand or summarize. That's the truth.]

Discussion

• The P&B 1937 study placement of genital activation in the brain has been more or less unchallenged for over 70 years, and lots of theories have arisen about why it is as it is. For instance, there is an idea that the feet and the genitals as well as the hands and the face are represented in the brain so close together because during development in the womb, the fetus' feet are tucked up near the genitals and the hands are up near the face. Only in recent fMRI studies have the penis representation been shown in another location.
• The researchers used electrical rather than air pressure or touch-with-brush stimulation for a variety of reasons including that it's easily attachable to the clit and it's easier to adjust the stimulation.
• The researchers found stronger activation in the left somatosensory cortex for the clit stimulation, which they found odd because the clit was being stimulated from both sides. They suggest this could indicate a left-hemispheric dominance of clitoral representation in the brain, although they admit they have no convincing explanation for that.
• They found no evidence for clitoral representation on the Mesial wall like the P&B 1937 study suggested.
• The representation of the big toe was along the mesial wall and thus different from the clitoral representation.
• There is overlapping activity in the operculum (O1-O4) regions, which has also been found in other studies. The researchers do not believe this is a result of discomfort or surprise related to the electrical stimulation, but to the stimulus itself

Conclusion

"In contrast to previous studies using SEPs that were not able to clearly discriminate the location of cortical sensory representation of the genitals in humans, we found a significant activation on the convexity of the postcentral and inferior parietal cortex (S1 and S2) for electrical clitoral stimulation. These findings support the assumption that the S1 representation of the clitoral afferents may be different from the somatosensory homunculus introduced decades ago. The distinct activation locations for the central representation of the clitoris and the hallux indicated that fMRI and electrical stimulation can be used to study the specific organization of small body areas and their somatosensory representation in humans. Apart from its scientific interest, the precise location of the genitalia in humans may have important implications for studying cortical reorganization patterns in various urogenital, sexual and neurological disease processes."

5 Good-ass Lady Directed Movies to Watch During a Pandemic

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I started doing this categorized List of 5 movies thing where I showcase movies that were directed by women and that I have actually seen. It all started during the Directed By Women Worldwide Viewing Party in September 2015, and it was pretty fun, so I've continued doing it from time to time.

It's a bit off-topic from my normal fare, ya know, being that it's not specifically about lady-gasms or anything like that, but I think it fits the blog because
1. this blog is also about indie movie-making, and
2. this blog is partially about getting the female perspective of sexuality into our media. So, to me, supporting female voices in our media  means we're creating more room for female voices to speak on all types of things, which sometimes will be sex, orgasms, and sexuality.

You can find all my 5-movie lists HERE.

These are all kinda slightly indie movies I've seen lately that I like. That's it simple as that. 

So, given that there's a worldwide pandemic and none of you should be going out and hanging with friends tonight or tomorrow night or many nights after that, you have time to find these on a streaming service and watch them. Enjoy.

1. Ginger and Rosa - This was directed by Sally Potter. It's from 2012, and I basically found it because I was looking for movies directed by women, and saw a movie, Orlando, she did that I really liked. So, I checked this one out, and I really liked it too. I love a movie about lady friends - but like a gritty interesting one.





2 Hustlers - This was directed by Lorene Scarafia. It's got Jennifer Lopez, Constance Wu, Lizzo, Cardi B. I mean you can't go wrong. Well, you can, but you don't. It had been on my radar for a while, and I'm glad i checked it out. It's a again, a gritty intersting one about lady friends, ya'll, but in a very different way than the last. For real - a well done movie.





3 The Love Witch - This was directed by Anna Biller. Again, just found this searching around  for top lady-directed movies, and there it was. I love stumbling onto shit like that. It's for sure witchy, it's real 60's (but made in 2016) and it's a good watch - I recommend it for your isolation.





4 Mudbound - This was directed by Dee Rees. I actually got to see this in a cool ass Nashville independent movie theater with a friend that had worked on the film and got some backstory on the production which was cool. It's a beautiful film. Check it out.





5 Honey Boy - It was directed by Alma Har'el. I saw this fairly recently at our local Flour Cinema her in Des Moines, and I'll tell ya, I was pleasantly surprised. Like, I really like this movie. I think it's well done as fuck. It's written by Shia LaBeouf during rehab as a form of therapy about his childhood with his father. Ya think, Shia LaBeouf? Are we gonna really get a thoughtful, gentle, raw look at his relationship with his father? Well, pair him with a really on-point lady director, and yes - yes we will. It's a good movie.

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.

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

Masturbation Advice In The Time Of Corona

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Hello from my COVID-19 mostly social isolation.
It's mostly because I manage an "essential" group of workers at my otherwise shut-down-and-work-from-home company. So basically the lab still has to run, and they need people to run it. I've split the team into groups, though, so we only work either by ourselves or sometimes with one other person. We're cleaning our spaces before and after we leave each day. We had a person in the adjoining building test positive for COVID-19, and they closed down to clean for a day, but we're back at it. We are on for 2 days off for 5. The situation I put together is not perfect for social isolation, but it's better than nothing when you're told work has to go on. I'm getting paid and they are letting me create my own team's schedule so it could be much worse, and I'm not complaining in the slightest...and my team is pretty awesome.

I hope all of you out there are making the best of your isolation. I hope everyone that is losing income gets the help they need. I hope you and your people stay healthy. I hope you have access to things you need. If you have to still be out there working I hope you have the resources to be as safe as possible. I hope you are finding kindness, entertainment, and comfort in the people you come in contact with (mostly virtually or from a strong distance). I wish everyone out there the best.

As for me, this has given me a bit more time to write. I have felt a lot less able to make time for writing this blog the last few years for a variety of reasons, and I don't love that because I really love this blog. It would be a dream come true for this blog and this orgasm equality activism to be my full-time gig, but at the same time I also don't want to get my income from this blog or this activism. I want to have nothing tying me to any interests and no pressure to get clicks or to sell anything or to get and keep sponsors. I want to continue doing this exactly how and when I want because I don't really get sick of it when I do that. So, even though I don't always have the time I feel I need, if I'm honest, having a good money/benefits job with this as a side gig (until I become independently wealthy, of course) is actually a pretty good situation. So although I'm kinda complaining, I honestly can't complain too much.

This extra time, though, is extra nice and so I am going to up my game - even if just for the duration of the isolation. I'm going back to my old standard of at least twice a week posts. I'm also just going to try and engage more with people working on this topic in the media. I love to praise people speaking lady-gasm truths and gently point out errors to those that are putting out misinformation. That's my bag.

So, if you're reading this, I assume you're someone that reads my blog, and I hope you enjoy the extra stuff I'll be putting out. Please write me or comment if you have anything at all to say. I can't tell you how much I love that.

by Charles Borowicz

Now for a little SSL substance in this post....masturbation.
I'm not the first, the last, or the only one to say it, but a time of isolation is also a great time to focus on some masturbation. In fact the internet porn site Pornhub has given all of Italy free access to their premium content this month, so like, it's not just me. Other people are assuming there will be a lot of rubbing genitals out there in the world for the next few months.

• As a champion of orgasm equality for the ladies, I'm also a champion of: 
• lady-bation
• non-intercourse focused sexual interactions
• teaching and knowing the clitoral glans is as important to female orgasm as the penis is to male orgasm
• depicting realistic ways of physically achieving lady-gasms in our books, tv, movies, and porn
• accurately understanding and communicating the scientific investigations about how orgasms physically happen and asking for even more and better physical lady-gasm studies
• ladies feeling empowered to ask for the touches they need for orgasm and also feeling as though they deserve an orgasm or at least a solid try at orgasm during a sexual encounter
• and last but not least - the very important fucking up of cultural assumptions that 1.women can be banged into an orgasm and 2. that women's bodies are some kind of deeply complicated widely varied orgasm maze-puzzle

There's other stuff too, like convincing people that Freud's ideas can mostly go fuck themselves, and I do get into all that stuff in this blog, but here I just want to talk about masturbation.

In fact I'm going to throw down some SSL-style masturbation advice. Take it or leave it, but it's all towards the aim of Orgasm Equality.

To those with a clit:
1 Use your goddamn clit and the surrounding tissue down there. Experiment with it. Enjoy it. If it hurts or feels boring, stop doing that and try something else.

Even for people who have taken damage to their genitals or their sexual psyche, the body is a remarkable thing and you may be surprised at what experimenting between your legs, completely in control, on your own, with no pressure can offer you.

Even if your way of getting to pleasure or orgasm isn't quite like you might expect, keep investigating with your body and your mind. There are good feelings, physical pleasure, and orgasms to be had and you are the one that can find them.

2 Don't rely on anyone else to know your body or your desire or to teach you about your orgasm. Like, for real. If you don't know how to orgasm on your own, then you should have no expectation that you will orgasm with another person. None.

If you did happen to orgasm for the first time with another person. Congrats on having that experience. You're lucky. Now take that knowledge and continue investigating on your own. It's probably the only way you can continue orgasming consistently with another person.

If you are sexually active, masturbation is critical.

3 Don't feel bad about masturbating, desiring, or fantasizing. If that's not easy for you, start investigating ways to help it be more easy. I don't have answers for that. I'm sorry someone/everyone/the whole of culture put it in your mind that you don't deserve to use your own body in a way that feels good to you. You deserve the power to make yourself orgasm. All humans do.

4 Know that if the things happening to you during partner sex (getting a penis banged into your vagina, for instance) do not mimic the things you do during masturbation to make yourself come (rubbing your clitoral glans/vuvla area for instance). You or you partner should not be expecting you to come. Period.

5 Don't be afraid to admit masturbation to your partner. If your partner is worried about you masturbating, but you like masturbating. Get a new partner.

6 It is okay to masturbate during times when your partner would like more sexual interaction with you. Your sexual relationship with yourself is precious, and deserves attention.

I think this is particularly important for the ladies because most of us have had at least some damage done to our desire over the years whether it be from sexual abuse, years of sexual encounters that were anywhere from really shitty to painful to boring, a life of sexual encounters that too often or always end only in your partner's orgasm, from the culture squashing female sexuality in all numbers of ways, or lots of other things ladies have to endure with sexuality in this world. This damage is accumulative, largely invisible, and not easy to shake - even when you are with a kind partner that you really love.

We don't talk about it near enough, but sometimes what you need to aid in healing is your own time to be with your own sexual body and sexual thoughts and a partner that respects that and doesn't fucking sulk around if you don't give every ounce of your sexual energy to them.

7 If you are only orgasming during masturbation and not during sexual interactions with other people, know that for clit-bearers that is super normal because the world does not really understand how we physically orgasm...not seriously and practically understand at least.

Also know that it's bullshit, and you deserve to orgasm as much as any man does during sexual encounters.

At the same time know it's not easy for a variety of reasons to get from masturbation orgasm to consistent orgasms with a sexual partner. You have to put in work, have hard conversations, maybe tell a partner or a few to fuck off, try-fail-repeat many times, teach over and over, get creative and bold, and ya know, do a bunch of hard shit penis-owners just simply don't have to do. It sucks, and I'm sorry, and I hope it gets less like this for each new generations, but understand this is where we all currently stand.

Have fun.

For those with a penis:
1 You need to include the masturbation practices of your clit bearing partners in your sexual encounters with them because you have an advantage in partnered sexual situations. The whole world knows basically how to get you off. Yeah, there's individual preferences, but don't confuse your problem of having to tell someone that you personally like shorter strokes and more lube, with a problem of deep seeded incorrect knowledge of your sexual anatomy and orgasm that resides deep inside both yourself and your partner. Read my whole post about this. This disadvantage is fucking real.

Anyway, my point is, if you are not okay with your clit-bearing partner masturbating and including all aspects of that masturbation practice in your sexual encounters, then you need to get over that shit quick. And I mean you need to not just 'be okay' with it, you need to expect it, enjoy it, make extra room for it, and encourage it (without being pushy).

2 Be patient with clit-bearers and masturbation. The truth is a lot of women don't know shit about their orgasm, haven't masturbated and are a bit confused/embarrassed/sad/mad/frustrated/hurt by their relationship to orgasm, masturbation and sexual partners. We can be confused and confusing when it comes to orgasm and masturbation and, well, just deal with it.

Be open and prepared with everything I said up above, but also let your partner do whatever they need. This sexual culture for ladies is a real asshole, and frankly, we get fucked up in it. Getting through the tangle of fucked-upedness is a slow, arduous journey and it's different for every women, so be patient and kind and thoughtful and don't get mad or pushy or patronizing or indignant, or for god sake, sulky. If it's hard for you to deal with, I'm sorry. It's harder for them. If you don't like it, you can always just move on.

3 Don't feel bad about masturbating, desiring, or fantasizing. You deserve the power to make yourself orgasm. All humans do.

That said, remember your ability to see fantasies in porn and other media that include you using another person in ways that are orgasmic and sexually exciting to you, but neither orgasmic nor sexually exciting to the person on the receiving end are like a million times greater than that of a clit-bearer. Even if some people who would be on the receiving end say they like it and in porn and movies most actors act as if they LOVE it, use your goddamn head and put yourself in their place remembering all the stuff in this blog and my movie about how lady-gasms do and do not work and remembering that sex is much, much, much grosser when you are not highly aroused.

What I'm saying here is it's fine to fantasize about whatever, and honestly in this world, with the sexual images that exist for us, it's hard for someone with a penis to not fantasize about things that are somewhere in between gross/painful/mean/demeaning and certainly non-orgasmic for the receiver. I get it. I, even with this clit I have, fantasize about shit when I'm masturbating that is gross/painful/mean/demeaning/non-orgasmic to me. It's not because I want to have that happen to me in real life. That stuff would and has damaged my sexuality and desire in ways I wish it hadn't. It's because it's most of the sexually charged stuff I've seen my whole life. We're in the same boat with that, but remember you have so much more power there.

Fantasize as you will and masturbate all you want to those fantasies, porn and images, but don't get that fantasy confused in your head with how things should go in real life. It's harder than you think to suss out, and even if you're sitting here saying you would never mix fantasy and reality, dig a little deeper, consider harder, switch up your perspective more. I'm certain you do at least to some degree, and you could be better about it.

4 Don't be afraid to admit masturbation to your partner. If your partner is worried about you masturbating, but you like masturbating, get a new partner.

But...also a couple things.

1. Don't be a hypocrite. Don't even think about worrying if she masturbates, or tries to mimic her masturbation during your sexual encounters. Like don't even send out the slightest whiff of it bothering you.

2. Do be thoughtful about how different the cultural education on masturbation is for penis vs. clit people. Masturbation is taboo to a degree for everyone, but it's a whole other level for the ladies and you might want to talk about it realizing her perspective is very different.

5 It is okay to masturbate when you have an available significant other. In fact, probably consider it more of an option.

First off, the truth is any two people in a sexual relationship will not always be on the same page sexually all the time, and you don't owe each other your bodies just because you're together. If you're horny and they are not, go masturbate. If you want a certain type of thing and they want something else, go take care of it yourselves.

And please don't act like masturbation is a consolation prize. Don't sulk about having to masturbate when you have a partner that could accommodate your dick. That's bullshit. If you think jerking your dick is somehow not necessary when there is a pussy around, fuck yourself - literally and figuratively.

Masturbation is awesome and any sexual person should be able to enjoy themselves sexually. It's not a consolation prize, it's just a prize.

Second, the ol' joke about girlfriends liking to have sex and wives not is something people say because there's truth in it. Sex with you has the element of newness with your new girlfriend, but it doesn't with your wife. The truth is that clit people have tons of sex in their life (including their past sex had with you, let's be honest) that just doesn't end in orgasm. However, penis people mostly always end their sex with an orgasm. Because of their life-long compilation of sexual experiences, one of these groups tend to associate the possibility for sex with the physical sensation of orgasm and the other associates the possibility of sex with a much more varied amount of things; disappointment, pleasure but no orgasm, the unaroused perspective of how gross sex is, and maybe occasionally - orgasm. So it's very possible that your sexual desire as a person with a penis has strongly lingered well past the fizzling of newness, emotional excitement, and a strong partner-pleasing desire because, well, sex in and of itself is orgasmic and fun for you, but not reliably for them.

So remember your experience is very likely not the same as your partners and thus their desire will not be the same. Don't underestimate or devalue that difference and understand that sometimes you should just happily jerk off if she's not in the mood and you are. Even if you are a kind person and your partner loves you very, very much, and you have worked hard alongside your partner to make sure her clit is stimulated to orgasm every time you two have sexual relations, it's still likely she has accumulated damage to her desire from past experiences - and that damage does not just go away by itself. So, don't add to that damage by doing what I personally think is one of the worst things you can do to someone's desire; guilt them into having sex by persistence, sulking, or any other aggressive or passive aggressive way.

So, like I said - just jerk off happily if you're in the mood and she's not.

May you also have fun.

Lady-gasm Equality: We Need A Revolution Not More Communication in Bed

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Fuck communication. We need revolution.
I want to flip the perspective a bit today. I've been writing this blog for over a decade and something I hear often, and not just from men but from women too, is that this whole orgasm inequality thing is all about communication.

They might use the opportunity to kinda brag about how much they are dedicated to their lady-partner's orgasm or how so much better at communicating sexually they are than other women, like, "The problem is that women need to speak up about what they want sexually. I always ask for what I want." Or on the flipside, "I am not interested in a sexual experience where it's just about my orgasm, and when women say what they want, then I make sure we have a mutually orgasmic experience." Oh I'm sure you do, you perfectly assertive, incredibly sexually literate woman, and you perfectly kind, orgasm-giving machine of a man.

They also might use it as way to let out their sexual frustration with women, like, "How are we supposed to know what women want if they don't just say it? If a woman was rubbing my balls to try and get me off, I would say, 'hey, ya need to stroke my penis.' I wouldn't sit there and pretend it's good!" In fact Pete Davidson has a whole bit just like that in his most recent stand-up special "Alive From New York."

Most often though, they'll just ignore everything I said and just sum it up with, "Yeah, it's just about communication!" Like they are agreeing with me because they already completely understand everything I just talked about. BUT THAT'S NOT WHAT I SAID AT ALL MOTHA FUCKERS. I have never, ever said it's all about communication.

At a time when a post I wrote critiquing a BBC article on female orgasms was getting a bunch of press, a Philosopher of Science dude that I quite liked read it, wrote a post about it on his blog, and basically said that exactly. It pissed me off.  Like...my whole long-ass, point by point take-down of the cultural status quo and deep misunderstanding of how the female orgasm physically happens that the BBC article espoused - and he's like, "Yeah, exactly. We should all communicate more during sex." Fuck you. I didn't say that at all. This dude's living is based off thinking about science and the culture of science through different perspectives, but somehow his brain couldn't comprehend anything I said except that communication is important? I don't know if my post even said anything about communication. It's just what he was comfortable and familiar with I guess. That's how deep this shit is.

So, what I'm saying is that this orgasm equality problem is not about communication, it's so much more than that. Communication in bed is like the last 1% of what needs to be done to correct this. So, let me put things this way, and I'm gonna speak directly to the people with penises, but it's not like people with clits understand this really either.

Imagine it this way, people with penises (but like also everyone else should flip their perspective too)
Penis-bearers,

You have an advantage in partnered sexual situations with clit-bearers. The whole world knows basically how to get you off. Yeah, there's individual preferences, but (and here's the crux of what I'm trying to say) don't confuse your problem of having to tell someone that you personally like shorter strokes and more lube, with a problem of deep seeded incorrect knowledge of your sexual anatomy and orgasm that resides within both you and your partner. 

It's the difference between you having a person's hand on your penis and having to guide them with your hand to show them what you personally like VS. you having a person fully expecting to make you come with their finger in your ass and having to change the course and momentum of the sex act to tell them that, actually, you need extra to come. You need your dick touched. And then, after all that, having to show them how you like it touched - more lube, short strokes, whatever.

But honestly you're starting closer to zero there because they just haven't seen a lot of examples in porn and movies and shit of people touching a penis the way you like yours touched. I mean do they smack it? They see that a lot in porn...

But, no, it's even worse than that. It's also that the act of them sticking their finger in your ass also makes them come - like really good and reliably, and they REALLY LOVE to do it. It, like, feels pretty fucking good to them. Like sometimes it feels so good it's hard to stop or focus on anything else, ya know?

And also...their last boyfriend was able to come that way...so...

Even if they understand men are all different, and it's okay that you need "extra" (and some of them won't really understand and be nice about it, and you've definitely been with a couple of those, but the one now seems cool with it), they still haven't seen a lot of men in movies or porn that can't come from the finger up the ass, so it's a touch foreign on how to proceed.

Honestly, it would be, like, a lot easier for both of you if you just came from ass fingering, wouldn't it?

And what's also worse is that the attempts to be all nice and give you the "extra" are mostly done in combination with them fingering your ass. Like, fingering your ass, with one hand while they stroke your penis with the other. That way they can still come even though it is clearly splitting the focus away from your penis. You wouldn't want them to not come, right? That's probably like mean or something.

And ya know, it's even worse beyond that because you aren't completely sure that you can't come from ass fingering. It feels sooooo good sometimes, especially if you are really aroused. It's like you could almost come that way. Maybe you even did once??

Also, like, it does seem as though so many other dudes were able to figure out or be luckily endowed with the ability to come from ass fingering, you just feel like you should keep at it, and your partner loves it so much, and you love making your partner happy, and it does feel good. Plus, it's really just kind of a bother to ask for penis stimulation. They usually don't know how to do it well anyway, so you have to teach them a lot and when you try they get a little out of the mood and then so do you, and it's really just not that worth it. And a lot of times even if you are able to teach them, it feels like they forget what you taught them the next time.

Sex isn't all about orgasm anyway, right? It's such a shame to focus only on the orgasm. You truly love the emotional connection and the physical touching. Plus, they usually touch your penis some at the beginning to get you in the mood and that's nice too.

And of course, you can always masturbate later, which most people now understand is manual stimulation of the penis for penis-bearers. Yeah, granted that's nothing like ass fingering, whereas for the person fingering, masturbation is just encompassing and rubbing the finger with their hand or mouth or something, so their masturbation is just like ass fingering...but no on seems to notice that discrepancy - including you. It's not something anyone discusses even though it's so obvious.

Then, ya know, it's even worse than that because you might have never touched your penis much or at all until well after you were sexually active with another person. Most of your partnered sexual experience has been asshole stuff though - especially one-night stands. It's just that people are weird about teen boys being sexual and wanting orgasm, and you also never really hear the word penis, so it's not really what you thought about when you thought about 'sex' or how to relieve your horniness as you were growing up.

And you always imagined as a young person that when the right person fingered your asshole, it would be like the most amazing orgasmic shit, and you had a feeling like you kinda needed another person to give you that experience. And you really did try to have that experience. You read articles and sex advice that told you to be mentally and emotionally open to it and not get hung up on things, and get a lot of penile foreplay before so you were aroused before the ass fingering. You really tried to have the orgasmic experience from ass-fingering, but nothing seemed to work. Maybe you're just one of the guys that isn't wired that way. You are just an unlucky one that 'needs extra.' Although, maybe it did happen once, though? It's hard to remember, but there were really good times.

And you know, it was always about the ass hole when it came to sex, for your whole life. Almost everything you saw. You've definitely heard some men need penis stimulation, but really that never registered much until later when you were an adult and honestly it's hard to figure out how to incorporate it now.

It's, like, some bullshit man - how insanely stupid it is to flip what happens to clits onto penises
Yeah, I know ladies don't come from rubbing their fingers, but I think it's a pretty good comparison to dicks going into vaginas.

Dicks get all the fun and orgasms. What we think of as basic sex (i.e. intercourse) looks like how they masturbate.

Vaginas get a ton of attention and all kinds of things stuck in them with the expectation that it will cause orgasm in that vagina-having person, but it actually won't (Seriously. Like SERIOUSLY).

Clits get ignored. The word is rarely said compared to penis and vagina - even in things like sex ed and even progressive sex advice. I mean, lots of actual women and men don't know where it is. It's rarely a focus in sexual media. Yet, the clit and the surrounding outer vulva tissue are what needs to be stimulated in order to orgasm - just as much as the penis is for males.

And no, ya'll, the "legs" of the clit that go down into the body don't get stimulated to orgasm through the walls of the vagina from penis banging. There's no actual physical evidence of this ever happening. It's just some BS that allows people to kinda vaguely "know" that the clitoris (specifically the external parts of the clit that can be stimulated externally) is the organ for female orgasm but still not question the expectation that at least some women, ya know the really sexually open and/or lucky women, should orgasm from vaginal penetration alone. The clitoral legs idea that is popular now is like the incorrect idea of an orgasm-giving G-spot, they are both stories that help smooth over how incredibly inconsistent the cultural understanding of female orgasm is compared to what the actual physical evidence of female orgasm tells us.

That finger thing would be cool though, right? I'd be sticking my finger up all the dude's asses for real, and sucking my finger a lot too, but not in that order.

But my point is, when it comes to clit-bearers quest for better sex and more orgasms, I don't want to hear shit anymore like, "It's just about communication." Or "Women need to just say what they want." If the playing field were equal it would all be about communications, and yes, I'm all for more of it and for women saying what they want in a sexual encounter.

But don't try and tell me that's the issue we're facing, because it most definitely is not.  We're facing a deep, all encompassing misunderstanding of female sexual response, female orgasm, and female anatomy that affects all aspects of how clit-bearers are understood sexually by our partners, how we understand ourselves, the expectations we have of sexual encounters and how we engage in them, what we see of people like ourselves and our partners in the media, and how much or little sexual satisfaction and orgasm we are willing to withstand.

We can communicate all we want, but until the clit is truly understood as the organ of female sexual pleasure, as deeply as the penis is understood as the organ of male sexual pleasure, and until we as a culture truly understand that intercourse is not a sensible way for a female to come - and I mean like understand it at such a level that it is in our blood and our history and our art and jokes and interactions - then nothing substantive will change for the lady-gasm. Clits will continue to be at a disadvantage to penises in a sexual situation. But this is a tall order. We need a complete flipping of our cultural understanding of how sex works. We need an Orgasm Equality Revolution.

Night At The Roxbury - The SSL Review

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Night at the Roxbury
I've watched SNL through the more and less funny years since before I can remember, so I'm for sure familiar with the Night at the Roxbury guys. I never caught the movie of this SNL skit, though, until last month when I was chillin' at a friends house, saw it was available to watch, and then started it up since none of us had seen it ever. We knew it wouldn't be like great, but ya know, maybe it would have a couple funny lines. It didn't.

It somehow was opposite of funny. It sucked funny out of the room. I mean, SNL movies aren't known for being good, but some of them are. I think Superstar with the Mary Katherine Gallagher character, holds up pretty well.

There was, however, 1 gross noise in this movie that kind of made it worth watching. I believe the foley artists must have slipped it in there just for fun, but I'll get to that in a minute. The reason I'm here on this blog, though, is because there was an SSL Reviewable moment. Spoiler alert, the Vulva Rating will be about as high as what I would give the movie as an overall rating.

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, cunnilingus, 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 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.

The Sex Scene - I-I-I-I-Ikea!
Emily (Molly Shannon) is laying next to Steve (Will Ferrell). They are talking about their family businesses. Emily, who has a head for business and sees their relationship as a way to combine and grow (this all sounds more filled out and interesting than it actually is), decides to emphasize how she sees this happening to the thick-skulled Steve by climbing on top of him and sexing him cowgirl style. She's telling how they are going to do this business plan the whole time she's riding him.

She starts out slow. We only see alternating shots of her from the shoulders up and him from the mid chest up as he's laying in the bed. She is perpendicular to his body, so there is no leaning forward or any way that her clit area might make contact with his body.

We don't ever see her hands. From the look of her shoulders, her arms are down and unmoving. If I had to guess what is actually happening with her hands, I'd say she's pressing them into his stomach to steady her as she's bouncing on him. It's possible that this character could have her hand(s) on her clit area, but if she does, we can't see that she's rubbing anything by the looks of her shoulders. It doesn't seem to me like clit rubbing was intended in this depiction at all.  She's also very clearly bouncing up and down, more so at the end than the beginning.

In fact, it's Molly Shannon, so she gets pretty spastic. She gets to the point of convolutions, throwing her head around and shaking up to the point were she seemingly comes while she's telling him they'll be as big as I-I-I-I-Ikea! Steve is clearly getting stimulation too. When we see shots of him intermittently. He's kinda doing an mouth open thing, in a pleasurable awe sort of way, but he doesn't seem to come. As soon as she comes, though, she rolls off of him, and then he says they're moving too fast (that won't spoil the movie for you - the movie spoils itself). And it's a quickie, ya'll. From the time she gets on him to her Ikea-gasm is a mere 30 seconds.

Same Dumb Lady-gasm Shit
It's an unrealstic lady-gasm, k? And not unrealistic in that she's getting off on the growth of their furniture stores or that it took a mere 30 second (some ladies pop off quick just like some guys do). It's that there didn't seem to be any stimulation of the area a female needs stimulated in order to orgasm - her clitoral glans/vulva area.

Seriously, it's like a scene where a guy comes in 30 seconds from something that is not stimulating his actual penis (no dry humping/clothes burning, not intercourse or even a touch - nothing). That kind of scene might be played in a comedy (probably to show how sexually inexperienced and turned on a guy is), but it would seem like a freak thing, something odd and over the top created for laughs. That his penis was not touched would be a main part of the comedy because we all know penises need touched for a guy to come.

Although it is just as physically ridiculous to assume that Emily would come at all from the stimulation inside the vagina she would get from bouncing on his dick with no additional clitoral/vulva stimulation (much less for 30 seconds), the foundation humor in this scene is not about the ridiculousness of how she is physically orgasming. The humor is in how hot the business talk is making her, how weird and convulsive her orgasm movements and vocalizations are, and maybe even that she finishes before him and doesn't care (How crazy, why I do say! Can you imagine! A woman like that! Putting her orgasm first and giving no shits about her man's orgasm!).

Yes, we can't say for sure she isn't diddling her clit. We don't actually see her hands or lower arms, but if Molly Shannon, the writer, and the director meant the character to be doing that, they didn't leave much clues. They sure as hell made sure we saw that she was bouncing hard up and down on the dick, so my guess is they were focusing on the intercourse as the source of her orgasm and the audience would most likely assume the same as well. I get it, though. It is depicted this way and understood by the audience this way because that's how we still understand lady-gasm in our culture. It's ridiculous and unrealistic to assume intercourse alone would ever bring a woman to orgasm, but sadly, that's the state of our understanding.

And, seriously, there's no reason to believe stimulating the inside of the vagina causes orgasm, but the whole world, even quite progressive sex-positive, sex-informed people, believe this can happen at least some of the time, so really this depictions is not really overly egregious. It's just continuing to normalize a shit understanding of lady-gasm that really needs to go away. Unfortunately, scenes like this help to make sure it stays around. And, I know this movie is over 20 years old, but it's not like that sex scene is out of date. The understanding around female orgasm has not changed in a significant enough way at all to make this scene seem outdated...and well, that's sad.

The Sound
Oh yeah, the sound was a really wet plopping sound at the time when it seemed like she sat on the dick. It was a little outrageous. We took it back a few times. It's definitely there, and like I said, maybe the only thing worth watching this movie for.

Vulva Rating
This depiction of how a lady might physically achieve orgasm is unrealistic, and it works to continue the normalization of the very wrong assumption that a female would orgasm just from bouncing on a cock. Again, it's not taking us backward. It can't because that assumption is where our sexual culture currently stands.  It's just not taking us forward, thus it adds to all the other things out there that are continuing to damage our sexual culture and particularly damaging women's understanding of their own orgasm and women's opportunities for getting off in partnered situations. If this were a better movie, I might be more lenient, but it wasn't so it gets a 1 out of 5 vulva rating.

(!)

The Year of Spectacular Men - The SSL Review

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The Year of Spectacular Men
I caught The Year of Spectacular Men on Hulu. I was interested because it was directed by Lea Thompson, was written and stared her daughter Madelyn Deutch, and co-starred her other daughter Zoe Deutch. What I found was some very interesting sex scenes that I simply had to SSL Review.

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 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.

Simultaneous table-bang orgasm in under 25 seconds (the first sex scene)
So the scene started with Izzy, played by Madylen Deutch fighting with her ex Aaron about T-shirts. Then they sort of stopped, you know, because of all that the sexual tension, and started kissing and grabbing ravenously. He quickly picks her up so she's sitting on a table facing him. He's standing between her legs facing her. They are really getting hot and heavy, and she starts saying they shouldn't be doing this, but is still really kissing him and being into it.Then he says.

Aaron: Shut up. Don't you want to see it again?
Izzy: What?
Aaron: Don't you want to see it again?
Izzy: Who says that?
Aaron: I do.
Izzy: (pauses for a sec and then emphatically) Yes.

At this point they both lick their hands and move them down to their genitals - we can only assume to lube up the fucking that will ensue. And it does ensue immediately. Although we are only seeing them in profile from the chest up, almost instantly we can tell that the dick is pulled out of the fly and put in her vag. We see her kinda get on it with an "umph" sound, and then she starts bouncing up and down. We see them banging occasionally now from a wider shot. Her dress is hiked up, but they are fully clothed. We see how hard they are rocking the table and vases are falling off of it. There's no time skip. We're seeing the the whole sexual experience from beginning to end.

To be honest the mechanics of how she is bouncing up and down on the table doesn't seem quite right from my understanding of how dicks are attached to men. Like, he is pelvis to pelvis to her while she's bouncing, but the bouncing is really very vertical instead of more angled toward him yet also kinda up-down like one would expect from this sitting/standing sex, but whatever. Maybe I'm wrong. The point is she's bouncing.

She's definitely not grinding her hips against him, and both of their hands are clearly visible and not anywhere near her vulva. We kind of hear him breathing, but she is quite vocal with "uhs" and "fucks" and things like that. At timecode 18:05, less than 25 seconds after he puts it in her, we see from behind that he does kind of one last strong thrust, and then they both vocally seem to have a simultaneous orgasm.

Oh, I forgot you were there, but that was the best sex of my life (the second sex scene)
Izzy and a dude named Logan are in a bed, naked, but with covers on. They are kissing and then she says, "we should have sex, we should definitely have sex. Do you have a condom." 

They awkwardly get the condom. She reaches down and puts it on him, and his dick goes in the vagina kinda of all in one fell swoop. Like, it seemed real quick from when she reached down with the condom to when they were fucking, but maybe that's just me. Anyway, he starts pumping into her, and as soon as he does, she asks, "Do you have any lube? It's just, like, so rubbery down there?"

They again awkwardly get the lube and put some down there. Although they are covered up, we see her knees are up around his hips, and he again starts pumping into her. After a few pumps, she asks if she can get on top. And he says something like, 'yeah, let's get on the floor,' for some reason I don't understand. However, when they roll down there, awkwardly of course, she's still on bottom. He pumps a few more times while she gets distracted by his sweat. Then she asks again to get on top again.

He's absolutely into this fucking thing - not at all distracted like she is. However, he's always cool with doing what she asks, so she gets on top. She's stick straight, perpendicular on top of him with her hands pressed against his chest. She is bouncing straight up and down. She keeps doing this but gets distracted by him asking if his dick is big and also by some floor stuff that had gotten stuck to her back. She reaches to her back, asking what's on it and then Logan says, "you should come," to which she says, "Oh no no, you go. you go." And so he definitely does while she, still very distracted and frazzled, is trying to pick the things off her back.

The sex is done. He says it's the best sex he's ever had and we see her raise her eyebrows like, really?

Came in my pants (the third sex scene)
Lizzy and a dude named Charlie are both fully dressed and laying on a bed making out heavily. She starts reaching for his dick, but he starts telling her they should stop. She's confused and asking why (free PSA - just stop if someone says to stop. Ask why later if you need to) until he tells her he just came. He rolls over, embarrassed and also as if the sex is for sure, completely done.

She asks if he wants to wait a few and try again, and he's like no, I'm so embarrassed and all that. There are some mildly funny lines. He tells her it's kind of a compliment because it was a lot, but he needs to take a shower and clean up, but then they can hang. He leaves and they never have more sex.

The Good, The Bad, And The Premature Ejaculation (or maybe just sex minus the lady-gasm)
So here's the deal. There are 3 sex scenes in this movie. In one we see "good" sex. In the second, we see "bad" sex, and in the third we see sex that ends too early because the man could not perform...maybe you could call this "really bad sex, " but I think this is its own particular category of sex we commonly see depicted in media. I can only assume these were all meant to show quite varied sexual experiences, but I suggest that these are all quite similar and very much represented of the female sexual experience.

Scene 1: I meeeaaan, did she come?
That female sexual experience I speak of is, ya know, basically a lot of sexual experiences and very little orgasming. Granted Izzy "came" in the first scene. I mean, I'm pretty sure the intention was that this character was supposed to have come, but like, did she? Does it even make any goddamn sense that she would? Or, and hear me out, did she have a really hot sexual experience where her vagina was filled up but her organ of sexual pleasure (the clit) wasn't touched at all, and instead of actually orgasming, she made the sounds of orgasm at the time when the guy fucking her started to actually orgasm?

Now, I don't know if Izzy would have called that faking or not or even recognized it as faking or not, but what I do know is that assuming a woman would come in that situation is like assuming a man would come in a scene where his balls and nips were being stimulated but his penis was left to chill on its own. We don't see those kinds of scenes often because as a culture we're not ignorant about what physically makes males come, but we are very off base about females. Thus we get scenes like this where a lady character orgasms from something that would be deeply unlikely to make any female come, and why is that? Because it doesn't seem strange or unrealistic since realistically scenes like this happen all the time in real life.

Women make orgasm sounds at times when there is no sensible way that they would physically be orgasming. And why is that? Well, I guess because with the abundance of ignorance and misleading, incorrect information about lady gasm out there, we're all just doing the best we can and way too often, that means lady=gasms get vocalized instead of getting had. (Seriously, I'm not crazy. Orgasm caused by nothing more than something stimulating the inside of the vagina (pure intercourse with no additional clit/vulva stimulation for instance) has never been recorded in all of scientific literature. The clitoral glans area is the orgasm area. Prove me wrong).

Scene 2: Male-centric, shitty sex with two people that are not CLITerate disguised as awkwardly cute, distracted sex with a modern, sex-savvy lady
The second sex scene was meant, I think, to be one where the whole thing was too awkward and distracting for Izzy to come. I definitely also saw it as a depiction of an oblivious, self-involved male lover, and it may also have been meant to be that too, but I don't actually think that was the intention here.

In the next scene she tells her friends (well, sister and brother-in-law) what happened in the sex and how she felt about it, and she never mentioned that it felt selfish or that she didn't come or that his only seeming interest in her orgasm was a half-hearted "you should come," before he happily took her invitation to come himself and then apparently completely forgot that her orgasm even exists. Instead she said it was awkward that the lube exploded (it didn't, though, so must have been cut from the sex scene) and that he sweated on her forehead. She also said the asking if his penis was big was awkward, but the brother-in-law said "That's important to a guy, you just have to lie." The sister said, "I agree" (cue awkward look at each other). They also said the first time is never amazing, but she told them he said it was the best he'd ever had. They all mumbled about that being sad for him. Also, she goes on to date that guy. Point is, that sex scene was meant to show awkward sex not selfishly male-centric sex where the dude is obsessed with the size of his penis and remained completely oblivious to how distracted she became from the moment she asked for the condom to the moment he orgasmed (and the sex ended). She was nowhere close to coming and the dude did not even notice.

All that aside, though, there is still something important to note here. Ain't nobody in this whole scene went anywhere near her clit. How's this dude gonna tell her that she should come when her clit is just chilling alone in the cold? Can you imagine the audacity and idiocy of a woman, looking at a man and telling him he should come, while she's vibrating her own clit and ramming a dildo up his ass - with nothing touching his penis at all? Nah. That dumb shit wouldn't happen. But, like we discussed earlier, our culture is pretty ignorant about ladygasms and how they actually happen.

The truth is that Izzy would never realistically have orgasmed in this scene even if she wasn't distracted by the awkwardness. When he was on top, he was just banging his penis into her vagina. There was no grinding of her clit area onto his pelvis. When she was on top, she was just bouncing on his cock. She was not leaned forward in a way that her vulva/clit area could touch his body and get stimulation, and at no time did either of them use their hands on her clit.

So, from my perspective, this sex would have been trash no matter what, but I think Izzy's verbal initiation of the fucking, her ask for lube, and her continued asks to be on top were meant to show her as assertive and knowledgeable about her own sexual pleasure, even if she was distracted by the awkwardness. I will say I appreciate the attempt in this scene to give her agency in this situation.  Asking for what you need is classically something women don't do in bed, so I'm not mad they wrote that in.

However, I have a thing about women asking to be on top in media. I think it's usually meant as a signal that she knows how to orgasm and isn't afraid to ask, but unfortunately it's also usually written by people that don't actually understand how female orgasm works. They've just heard that getting on top is dominate and better for lady-gasm. 'Getting on top' is a hallow attempt to show female sexual empowerment if the orgasmic power of 'getting on top' is completely missed. The power in the lady-on-top position is that she is able to get the clit stimulation she needs while he still gets to have his dick stimulated by her puss. Either she could just reach down and stimulate her own clit, the dude could reach up and stimulate her clit, or she could position her body so that her clit/vulva area presses against his body. That way she would have the freedom of motion to grind her clit against him any way she needs while the dick's still in there. Alas, that's not what happens in this scene. Izzy basically just got on top to, I guess, exert more effort to do the same thing - stimulate his penis with her vagina while nothing touched her clit. Hell, if he were on top, at least she could just lay there and relax while nothing happened to make her come.

Point is this scene, if you really look at it, was not about awkward sex. It was about shit sex where the dude didn't pay any attention to her arousal level and no one, including Izzy herself, gave the clit any attention. It tried, but it was also not a depiction of a woman who knew how to get herself to orgasm. She was never realistically going to come from the non-clit focused position she assertively got herself too.

Scene 3: Clits don't need dicks to come
In the third scene, well, in this scene it was a bunch of selfish male bullshit. Listen. Just because the dude comes doesn't mean his lady partner is done too. I mean, if a dude starts off by eating a girl out, he's not gonna just be done after she comes. He's gonna expect some head or some puss.

This dude came. Sure it was 'pre-mature' or whatever, but he got to come. So, she doesn't get the same opportunity? She was horny too. It's fucked up. However, it feels kinda sensible, though, because very, very wrongly, we think that women need a hard dick in order to come. We actually don't - at all.

In fact it's probably more likely we'll get a chance to come if the dick is limp. If it's hard, then there's a good chance it's going into our vaginas, and (you should probably know this by now) intercourse is actually one of the worst ways to get a woman off. For intercourse to sensibly have a chance at including a lady-gasm, it's got to be paired with some stimulation of the clit, and in that case, no problem, just skip the in-out and work on the clit. Put a finger or two in if she wants a little razzle dazzle to accompany the clit stim. Point is - fuck that guy for not even considering that his dick might not be the center of that experience and that she might want to come too and that. Not really, though - he's just going by what he knows. You can't blame anyone too much for how this shit sexual culture erases the clit and the female orgasm out of our lives and minds and sexual experiences. She seemed to think the sex was done until he got hard again too. Damn cultural lady-gasm ignorance again! None of us are immune.

All Together: lady-gasm is left in the dust - in this movie and in real life sex 
So, overall we have a scene where Izzy and her partner start and end the process aroused. He comes. She fakes it (i.e doesn't come, i.e. is left without physically taking her arousal to completion). The next scene starts with them both aroused and ends up with him taking it to completion and her losing her arousal. He comes and she doesn't. The next scene starts with them both aroused and ends up with him taking it to completion and her still being aroused. He comes and she doesn't.

See the pattern with orgasm there? Of course women as a whole come during sexual encounters sometimes, but for men as a whole it's more like almost always  or always. I think the sex scenes in this movie were meant to be realistic, but in that attempt, I think they became a kind of poignant look into the reality of the female sexual experience. Because it's not like these scenes weren't thought through deeply. They were. The writer, who also plays Izzy, is Madelyn Deutch. Her mother is Lea Thompson and also the director. Madelyn says of the sex scenes in an interview:

They were incredibly important to us. I mean, me and my mom had a lot of really frank conversations about the representations of consent within the film; the sex scenes, the representation of the scene that was actually happening within the sex scene, why each of them are in there. I feel like it's a bit in vogue right now to just make them inherently miserable. And I'm like, I feel like that's slightly fashionable to be like, this is the worst thing you've ever, literally, ever seen. And that also feels gratuitous to me, just as gratuitous as like, a luscious, perfectly shot, body make-up. To me, they're both at the end of the spectrum and I wanted to do neither of those things. It was really important to me that I try to show that, like, people when they're trying to connect, that I think they are a lot more empathetic towards one another in a sexual setting. That stuff was huge to me.

These sex scenes were not throw-away. They were cared for and written by women. That's why there is clear consent in all of them, and I appreciate that. Lady-gasm, though, was not given the same depth of consideration because our culture does not give it that consideration. These scenes are reflections of our world because they were written and acted by people in our world who were trying to make non gratuitous sex scenes from our world. Lady-gasm was placed in these scenes much like it's placed in actual sex, as an afterthought or an incorrectly understood vague thought. Like too often in real life, the lady-gasms in the movie sex were faked, non-existent or completely ignored after the dude had his.

I love though, how these scenes turned out to be poignant peaks into how little thought is given to the lady-gasm during sex and when there is thought given, how deeply physically incorrect those thoughts are. And most disturbing of all, how normal that all seems. Recognizing that poignancy, however, can only really happen after a lot of analysis. That's not how these scenes exist out in the real world to all the people viewing them casually in a movie though. What happens is people see these scenes without any criticism of the physically unrealistic methods for getting lady-gasms or of the obliviousness to female orgasm in sex. Physically unrealistic paths to lady-gasm, clearly male-centric sex, and a clear sense that sex is over once the dude comes just sit out there for people to take in uncritically. So these scenes act to continue normalizing those already very normal things.


The Vulva Rating
So, this movie doesn't really take us backward in cultural understanding of female orgasm, but it does press us even more firmly into this current cultural mindset that is really quite shit for lady-gasm. So, this isn't getting a good vuvla rating. However, I will be a bit more lenient because I appreciate that the writer created moments to show obvious consent and in sexual ways, which was nice.

So The Year of Spectacular Men gets 2 vulvas out of 5.
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