Some Stuff I wanted to Write While On a Layover

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Hey my friends out there in the world. I know it's been about 2 weeks, but I'm still here, and I'm still working on SSL Reviews, and Journal Article Summaries, and all that. It's just way slower at the moment. I've been hoping for probably about 2 years now that things would begin to fall in such a way that I feel fine prioritizing writing in this blog, but things haven't. It will though eventually. It's kinda like life, ya know? You and the stuff around you changes. You change with it. You prioritize how you spend your time accordingly. Sometimes you don't spend a lot of time with your friends or call your family as much as you'd like. Sometimes you don't sleep enough. But...if things are important to you, you get back to it eventually. That's how I feel about this blog. I'll keep trying for a weekly post, but I'm not going to sweat it. I love this shit, and I'll move through all the posts I want to do as I can. One day, I'll get back to spending several hours a week on this. I look forward to that.

So, I have some time at the moment, but not enough to get into anything deep. I'm on a layover in an airport. My left eye is red as fuck (from lack of sleep and dryness, I think??), and I forgot to pack eyedrops. I just ate some really good dark chocolate, sea salt graham crackers. I just want to write something to get it up on the blog so people know I'm alive and still thinking about how to catch the Orgasm Equality Revolution on fire (maybe we could call it the clitolution? or the More-Clit-Less-Vag Revolution? or maybe the What-You-Think-You-Know-About-Sex-Is-So-Fucking-Wrong Revolution? - none of those are good. I'm open for more ideas. Write me).

Here's stuff I'm feeling good about right now

• I'm halfway through a post about the book Come As You Are: The Surprising New Science That Will Transform Your Sex Life. Here's the basics. Highly recommend for those of us (I'm assuming every woman reading this) that has felt or does feel like their desire is problematic or broken. It's kind of like a self-help book for desire issues - great thought exercises to help you understand that you and your body are actually acting completely sensibly to the world around them. HOWEVER - it's complete shit when it comes to acknowledging that regular lack of orgasm during sexual interactions where the partner is not lacking orgasm can be a serious element to desire loss. Also, it's completely bonkers in (and purports to but does not have science to back up) how it discusses and defines orgasms (like, come on, sucking toes has never been shown to cause an actual physiological orgasm and saying so is irresponsible). Luckily, the orgasm part is not that much of the content and there really are important things in this book...just ignore anything she says about orgasm.
• I have a lovely lady that  reads the blog. We talk online and she's passionate about this topic. She's quite a researcher sending me awesome articles and excerpts, and she's helping to keep me motivated right now. Dude, she's awesome, and I so love that she wrote me. I LOVE hearing from readers anyway - like, it straight makes my week when it happens - and then the fact that she's so engaged and helpful and smart is just the best of icing on top.
• I have never watched the Kardashians before. It just happened that way, but I've seen a shit ton recently and there's some solid masturbation mentions. I appreciate that.
• I have a really good system for noting media that can be SSL Reviewed (discusses or depicts female orgasm, female masturbation or the clit) now. I consume a lot of media, and in the past sometimes I would see something and then I completely forget it or I don't catch all the things in a TV series. Doesn't happen anymore...which means I have a huge ass queue of movies and TV that I need to do, but I'd rather that than miss something.
• I'm rereading Human Sexual Response. I talk about it and use it all the time, but it's been about 6 years since I read and took notes on it. I thought it would refresh me and also i might have a new perspective on stuff in it given things I've read and discussed since then. I'd like to do a book review on it after I'm done. I'll be on a lot of planes, so I think I'll have time to read it too.

Okay the planes boarding. Talk to you soon.

Sex And The City S5 E1-7: A Retro SSL Review

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 ***First, sorry for the delay in posts. Day job has taken priority lately. I still love you all though, and I love talking/reading/writing about ladygasms. Does anyone want to fund my life, no strings attached, while I read journal articles about women jerking off in labs and in MRI machines? It's gonna have to be enough to fund my movie theater and popcorn habit and also I don't cook as much as I should. I eat out a whole lot, and I'd also like to travel some, ya know, visit some friends in different cities - that sort of thing. I'm just saying I don't wanna change my lifestyle, but ya know, I would just like for someone else to pay for it. But anyway... ***

My new 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 5 Episodes 1-7

Season 5 Ep 1
---
Season 5 Ep 2
---
Season 5 Ep 3
---
Season 5 Ep 4
-Miranda - guy under covers eating her out - she orgasms. Same guy eating Miranda, but we don't see her orgasm becacuse she's worried about his face glazed with her juices.

Season 5 Ep 5
-Miranda missionary - he's definitely pumping . She's doing nothing - trying to orgasm, but baby cries and he stops.

Season 5 Ep 6
-Sam's "decided to reward herself for her day of R+R but unfortunately her favorite vibrator needed a little R+R." Her vibrator wasn't working.
- She takes "neck massager" vibrator back to Sharper Image. They say they don't sell vibrators. She says whatever - then gives vibrator advice to other 'neck massager' buying women.

Season 5 Ep 7
Miranda - It's times like this when I wish women could go to male prostitutes. Charlotte says women don't go to prostitutes because they don't think of sex that way. Other girls disagree. Carrie going to see Big to get laid.

Modern Day Me Comments
First things first. I am always supportive of and happy to see a female character unabashedly open about masturbating and using vibrators. As I always say, the more women we see that masturbate, the more masturbating seems normal for women, the more women feel entitled to masturbate. The more women actually masturbate, the more they orgasm. The more they orgasm on their own, the more likely they are to figure out how to orgasm with a sexual partner and the more entitled they feel to ask for and expect the physical things during sex that will give them an orgasm. So respect for that.

Secondly, I also like to see a woman enjoying oral sex, and an orgasm from that is physically realistic (unlike the incredibly physically unrealistic orgasms that are so often depicted as resulting from a penis moving in and out of a vagina), so I'm all for that as well. That's a mouth on her vulva/clit area, and that's, well that's, the good stuff. I'm not, however, into the the whole scenario in the episode (because I do remember these episodes) where Miranda doesn't like kissing him after he's done because he's got puss-juice on his face. A lady's got to just get over that. Sex is gross, and you got to take the mess with the cunnilingus. I mean, if you want him to do a quick wipe of the mouth first, I get it, but like, you just can't worry about it so much that you can't enjoy the eat out. That's just sad state of affairs.

Thirdly, and this isn't really related to an SSL review but I want to say it anyway, I too wish there were male prostitutes out there for women. I mean, I know there are, but certainly not as many as there are women out there for men, and probably not very many good ones - I want good ones, and particularly I'd like the ol' happy ending situation that seems to be fairly available to men who are looking for that sort of thing. Like, why can't there be some dudes that will give you a little massage and then throw a glove on and jerk you off, manually or with a vibrator - your choice?...and these dudes should be as experienced and knowledgeable about the clit as most lady-prostitutes are about penises. I think that's a simple thing to ask. So, let'e legalize responsible sex work and also make sure the ladies have sensible, actually orgasmic options, can we? That's all I'm saying.

Fourth, seems I wrote my name 3 times at the top of this page of notes. If I know myself and my hand writing, I'd say I was trying to make my cursive Ts as beautiful as my 3rd grade teacher Mrs. Harvey used to write them. I've been chasing that my whole life and haven't yet succeeded.

Okay, that's it.

Game of Thrones S3 Ep 5-7 - The SSL Review

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Game of Thrones
I watched this whole series. Friends were talking about it a lot, so I started watching it a couple seasons after it started. I liked it. It took me a while to get into it, but once I did, I kept up with it. I'm no super fan, but it had some good stuff - including a few interesting lady-gasm/oral sex/clit/ladybation scenes, which of course I love because that means I can SSL review it. Now, the really interesting ones I'm not going to write about here. I'll hit those up later. For now, I'm going to SSL Review something very simple. In fact, it's barely within my technical qualifications for an SSL Review because it's just a discussion of cunnilingus but not also of lady-gasm. I think it's worth noting though, which is why we're here. First  - a refresher on SSL Reviews.

An SSL Review

Only depiction or discussion of female orgasm and/or female masturbation and/or the clit are eligible for SSL Review. Nothing else counts (unless I deem it counts because I want to talk about it), 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).

Wildling Ladies Like Tongue
So, if you haven't watched this show and are planning on doing so later, there might be some spoilers, but not really important ones - just giving you fair warning.

Season 3 Episode 5
So Jon Snow hooks up with this wildling woman, Ygritte. (The wildlings are the 'free people' in this show). They hook up in a cave. She gets naked, and they stand together making out for a while until he start moving his mouth down her body. When his head moves out of screen to about her groin area, it's pretty clear whatever he's doing down there was surprisingly nice. We see her beginning to enjoy that for a couple seconds and then it cuts.

Later they talk about it a bit.

Ygritte: that thing you did with your mouth, is that what Lord's do to their ladies where you come from?
Jon: I don't know. I just wanted to kiss you there is all.
Ygritte: Hmmm
Jon: You seemed to like it.
Ygritte: Aye, I liked it some. Who taught you that?
Jon: There's been no one else. Only you.

Season 3 Episode 6 
Later Ygritte and Jon are talking about a past boy in her life.

Ygritte: He wasn't good to me the way you're good to me. He didn't do that thing you do with your tongue.
Jon: Can we not talk about that here?
Ygritte: (mocking him) Can we not talk about that here. I'm Jon Snow and I'm afraid of naked girls.
Jon: Did I seem scared the other day?
Ygritte: You were trembling like a leaf.
Jon: Only in the beginning.
Ygritte: (smiling) You're a proper lover Jon Snow

Season 3 Episode 7 
Another wildling is talking big around a fire, giving advice - it's somewhat in relation to teasing Jon and Ygritte about their hook-up.

Most men fuck like dogs. No grace. No Skill. A few dozen thrusts and done. You need to be patient. Give her time. Your cock shouldn't even go near her until she's slick as a baby seal and then you go inside, but slowly. Don't poke it in like you're spearing a pig.

My Thoughts
I love that the sex between Ygritte and Jon Snow focused on him eating her out. That was clearly her highlight of that encounter. I mean, if I didn't know better, I'd think that Jon's mouth got Ygritte straight sprung, and frankly that makes sense to me. Much like the wildling was describing in Ep 7, too much sex (and as it seems Ygritte's past experiences) are nothing more than roughly spearing a vag with a dick. A mouth on the clit/vulva area is not only just a lovely feeling, but it could very possibly cause an orgasm - something getting a dick jammed in you is incredibly unlikely to even come close to. Seriously clits are the organ of female sexual pleasure - not vaginas.

I feel like this whole Jon's mouth situation endorses to all the viewers watching GOT - and there are a lot - 2 lovely things 1. that a proper lover uses his mouth on a lady's naughty bits and 2. that sex girls really like can (and should) be focused on something other than the dick in the vagina.

As for the wildlings calling for some sexual sensitivity and for getting a woman aroused (slick as a baby seal) before poking her, I appreciate that. It's true. If you are going to stick your dick in something - make sure you take the time to get it fully ready. However, it also brings the focus back to intercourse as the central part of sex between a man and a woman - which I don't love. Intercourse is already #1 with no contenders on the cultural sex list. It doesn't need any help, and it isn't a sensible way for women to orgasm. Both those things mean we need more media discussion/depictions highlighting sex acts that stimulate the clit - women's organ of sexual pleasure - to get that clit some more cultural star status.

The Vulva Rating
I love the focus on and praise of cunnilingus within a sexual act. We need more of that - especially in relation to a 'first time.' I thought the dog-seal-pig discussion later brought focus a bit too much back to intercourse though. I'm going to give these episodes a respectable 4 out of 5 vulva rating.

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

The Good Place Season 1 and 2 - The SSL Review

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The Good Place
A few people had recommended this show to me. It didn't immediately strike me as something I wanted to see, so it took me a while to try it out. I liked it though. They were right. I've only seen the first 2 seasons, because they are the only ones on Netflix so far, but I'm gonna get deep into season 3 when it comes out. Anyway, this is a network show, so there's not a ton of detailed sex stuff, but there were a couple of lady-bation comments. They were all from the same character. Point is - I can do an SSL Review.

An SSL Review

As you know, 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).

Mindy St. Claire
I don't want to give away a bunch of spoilers, but I think I can tell you that Mindy St. Claire is in a place similar to purgatory, and she's the only one there. If you haven't seen The Good Place, it's about a kind of heaven-type place, but according to the show the different religions only got about 5% of the afterlife correct, so they don't use 'heaven or hell.' It's the Good Place or The Bad Place.

So, Mindy St. Claire is a lady from the 80's that liked 2 things - making hella money and cocaine. Right before she died, on a coked up bender, she had the idea for an amazing charity, took out all her money to start it and that's all she wrote. Her sister took her plans though and started it. It is an amazing charity, and thus Mindy put both good and bad into the world. She's in The Medium Place.

It has her favorite beer, but it's always warm. Canonball Run II is the only movie. It's a real medium existence, and she's alone. Lucky for us, some characters from the show visit her, and we get to meet this treat of a lady. She's selfish but kind, funny, bold, and also lucky for us, likes to unabashedly masturbate a lot. Let me describe the scenes real quick.



Season 1 Episode 12 
Mindy St. Claire's guests are about to leave after a bit of a stay and she starts taking off her jacket. She says to her guests:

If you'll excuse me, it's my masturbating time.

To which one of the guests says:

When isn't it?

After they leave, she heads towards the couch starting to take off clothes. She shakes out both her wrists like she's preparing.

Season 2 Episode 2
Her house guests are back. She tells them some things about past visits that they have forgotten including a bit about why they have left before:

Sometimes you leave because you walk in on me masturbating. Sometimes you leave because I walk in on you while I'm masturbating.

She Don't Give a Fuck
When I was searching around to find Mindy St. Claire's name (which is a great name) before I wrote this, I came across a fab article by Mur Lafferty about Mindy St. Claire and the lack of male gaze on her in the show. It's a nice article, and if you don't mind show spoilers, check it. She talks about how unabashed Mindy is about owning her time and her pleasure and her sexuality while still being an interesting, generally nice character. It's sadly uncommon in female characters, and Lafferty is correct. Mindy truly is a treat.

On an SSL Review level, I am always supportive of any lady-character that admits she masturbates. That in and of itself does simple and important work. It normalizes the idea of a woman masturbating. And the more lady-bation is normalized, the more ladies will feel entitled to masturbate. The more ladies masturbating, the more ladies are orgasming, and when a woman orgasms on her own, she at least has a fighting chance to later see past the cultural norms out there lying about how we're supposed to orgasm and maybe, hopefully, figure out how to orgasm with a partner. That's important. Too many woman don't figure it out in no small part because women often try to do the figuring while having partner sex in the culturally sensible ways we all assume are orgasmic for men and women alike, but are absolutely not. Our culture gives us shit ideas about how our lady-bodies and our lady-gasms work. The truth is the vaginal canal is not the pleasure organ. The penis doesn't give lady-gasms, and intercourse ain't a great way to lady-come. Seriously, for real, for reals. Point here is that sex and the norms of our sexual culture are not conducive to lady-gasms, but the body-focused, self exploration that the solitude of masturbation affords is. So, truth is if women aren't masturbating then women are unlikely to be orgasming at all - and my movie and this whole damn blog and pretty much all my thoughts and activism are about getting women to the point where the world is equally as hospitable to lady-gasms as it is to guy-gasms. That ain't gonna happen until women feel entitled to masturbate in at least the same way men do. So, way to normalize lady-jerking, Mindy!

All that said, it does kind of matter which female character is doing the normalizing. I will take any mention of women masturbating in media, because we simply need more of it, but when that woman seems like a normal person instead of a freak of nature, it's probably better advertising. Mindy is a little of both really. I mean, that's why she's in The Middle Place. She's not your average lady. She's a no hold barred 80's business lady that likes the fast life. However, she's also just kind of a person, and her unabashed, outspoken adherence to a masturbation schedule makes a lot of sense given she's been completely alone for 30 years and needs to fill her time. So, what I'm saying is Mindy's masturbating isn't bad advertisement for clit jerking and I appreciate that.

I also appreciate that Mindy's love of masturbation is not merely depicted as a sad last resort in place of 'real sex'. Yeah, she hasn't seen anyone for 30 years, but when she does see 2 great looking fit men and an attractive woman in her house, she doesn't drop her old friend masturbation for a chance at partner sex. She might tape them having sex for porn to use later during masturbation, sure, she definitely likes doing that, but she appreciates - no prefers - masturbating, and I say cheers to that.

The Vulva Rating
Mindy's depiction normalizes and even elevates a woman's need to and enjoyment of masturbation. That is major because women need to feel that orgasm is a normal thing for them to do in order to feel entitled to do it, and women need to masturbate if we're ever gonna get to orgasm equality.

Respect to that coked out lady with a great name. I give this show's season one and two 5 out of 5 vulvas.

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Random Hite Report #31

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Hello, welcome again to one of my favorite segments on the SSL blog, Random Hite Report! It's simple really. I flip through the pages of the The Hite Report: A Nationwide Study of Female Sexuality  (or sometimes The Hite Report on Male Sexuality) by a one Ms. Shere Hite and copy the contents of the page where I land - no more no less. Anyone who reads my blog will know that this 1976 book is a fave of mine; not only because of its realistic and progressive insight about the female orgasm that is still shockingly relevant 40 years later,  but also because of its very touching insight into the lives of the women who took part in this huge, comprehensive survey. This is an under-appreciated and under-read book if you ask me - I suggest you buy it online (seriously, you can get them for like 1 cent) and read it.

 So, sit back, getcha a beverage, and enjoy a little...Random Hite Report.

The Hite Report: A Nationwide Study of Female Sexuality Dell. 1976.
Pg. 74 From the section Masturbation in the chapter "Feelings About Masturbation."

...gasm, what I find pleasurable. It has made it easier for me to tell what feels good, has made me like myself more, and given me insights into the depths of me."
    "Masturbation gave me the knowledge I could achieve orgasm. Now I know what it feels like and know I'm normal."
   :It's a way to explore and learn about your body without depending on a man to show you. The first man I slept with assumed I'd never had an orgasm before - that I needed him to show me how. Of course I wasn't supposed to assume such things about him."
   "It taught me a lot, mainly how to reach orgasm. Up until January 1973 I thought it was dirty. Now I know how wrong that idea is. I've learned to enjoy many aspects of sex since then and I feel masturbation helped a great deal."
   "I'm convinced auto-erotic stimulation is essential to most women - it may be the only adequate introduction to their bodies they receive."
   "Through masturbation I can learn how my body can feel and how it wants and likes to feel."
   "It's important in finding the stimulation points of your body, discovering your own body."
   "It's a way to explore one's sexuality without the self-consciousness of having anyone there." 

Some women also felt masturbation helped them have better sex with another person.
   "Masturbation teaches you to know your own body and to gratify it, which leads to increasing you sense of independence and may also increase your ability to relate to someone else; being able to tell someone else what gives one pleasure can do a lot for a relationship."
   "If you feel guilty about touching yourself, you can't be very free in giving yourself to another, or touching someone else."
   "How can you love or satisfy someone else if you can't satisfy your won self?"
   "Masturbation develops one's sexuality, because you learn how to touch yourself and therefore others. Perhaps the danger is that you can make it too good, be-..."

Tame Impala Video - Getting Ate Out Awakens Female Sexuality

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Tame Impala, for those who don't know, is an Australian group that's been pretty popular the last few years. They have a song called "The Less I Know The Better" that has a pretty bad ass video.  I had seen it a while back and really liked it, but when I saw it again a couple days ago, it felt like it had a clearness I hadn't seen in it before. I think the first time I watched it, it was just a lot. I mean there's a lot going on in this video. The second time I was more prepared for what was going to happen and it just sat with me differently.

All that said, I'm not so sure that the intention behind the video is really the intention I'm seeing. Chances are it's not, but I see something in it I really like, and I wanted to write something up quick about it. Plus, it's a fun video - and I appreciate that. I couldn't do an SSL Review because there isn't any actual depiction or discussion of female orgasm, female masturbation or the clit, so this is just a plain and simple talkin'-my-thoughts-out post.

It does have a young woman enjoying some mouth on her clit though.
I mean really enjoying it - not in some loud, showy, porny way - more like in a revelatory way, and that my friends is why we're here. Let me set the scene.

The video starts with a high school girl watching a high school guy in the gym. He's a basketball player and she's maybe a cheerleader of some sort. There's only ambient sound so far - no music. Then the camera moves through the inside of a locker, with vague animal ambient noise, and out into the locker room where the girl is setting on a locker room bench in the same t-shirt and skirt she just had on. Her feet are on the bench with her knees up. She's facing the camera as it's leaving the locker, and the boy is kneeling in front of her with his head between her thighs in that oh-so-special mouth-to-vulva situation. She's breathing quietly and intensely in a way that seems like she's very aroused and allowing it build organically. Her hands are as intense and slow, rubbing through his hair until we see her forefingers and thumbs come together in a heart shape on the back of his head (btw - I like to think the heart is not for him. It's for what she's feeling, but he never gets that).

Then there are a lot of quick cuts. One is guerrilla hands, similar in intensity and motion to her hands, moving on her butt. It's shot from behind her as she's in a sort of kneeling 'child's pose' (like in yoga). Another is her in the same position as in the locker room, but on the basketball court, and it's not his head between her legs but a basketball that she pulls in closer. Back in the locker room, still gripping the back of his head, she lets her head fall back, mouth open and lets out another slow breath that might very well make one believe she's very close to coming. It cuts to the boys face lifting up from between her legs, and he says a little dope-ishly and sincerely in a deep slow-mo voice, "I love you."

It cuts to the girl pulling her head up from how it had fallen back in pleasure and taking a sharp exhale as she looks directly at the camera. The music starts, and we see that this time she is in a wildly colorful cheerleader outfit. She begins to dance and we see other cheerleaders dancing around her with ribbons.

Okay, from there it gets weirder, so let me just quick tell you what that first part felt like to me. It felt like a sexual awakening. It felt like a young woman getting her pussy ate to orgasm for the first time, and realizing that she was a sexual being - that she had a wildness in her that colored her life.

But let me describe further:
At first the boy is happily watching the girl in her bright outfit, dancing around joyfully with the other cheerleaders, but then when she gets thrown into the air, a bunch of dark, animal hair falls from the sky into his hands, and he's bothered.

And that's when a guerrilla comes into the picture. We sees her eagerly and happily jump into a giant guerrilla hand. She and the other cheerleaders have bananas and guerrilla's hands around their waists when they're dancing. It dunks basketballs and does flips down the HS hall. They gleefully writhe against each other and hop around like monkeys do together. She lays luxuriously in a room of guerrilla fur. She swings a guerrilla fur blanket around her and it becomes the guerrilla twirling around with her in his arms triumphantly smiling and waving her hands in the air. She's having a downright joyful time with this guerrilla, and the whole time the boy is watching - mad and sad and jealous.

I mean, it's not completely straight forward. I wouldn't pick the details apart too much, but I felt like this was about a girl that found her sexual joy and wildness (it was the guerrilla ya'll! - that's mothafucking metaphor) and the boy just couldn't keep his shit together about it. Instead of being joyous too, he was hurt and threatened. At one point he goes to the toilet to puke and the puke is red paint, which along with a bunch of other paint colors, covers the statue of a woman in a highly sexualized pose (which maybe represents his feelings of wishing she were a quiet, unmoving sexual object for him and him alone...I don't know ya'll - just throwing it out there). Point is this is a trippy video and he can't deal with her autonomous sexual vibrancy. In fact at the end of the video, the boy angrily throws a basketball at the exuberant guerrilla (her sexuality) and knocks her/the guerilla back, putting a hole in the chest that a bunch of other rainbow basketballs fly out of. Now, I don't know what the rainbow basketballs mean, but I feel like that whole thing was the boy attacking and ultimately damaging the girl's sexual joy and autonomy.

This also might be just a weird, adolescent video (there were a lot of male-gaze, ass-focused shots in here) about Tame Impala's hurt feelings from some girl he got with in high school that hooked up with a dude named Trevor while he thought she should have been with him (The lyrics do have a girl cheating with a guy named Trevor and the Guerrilla's jersey does say Trevor on it).

I like to think it's about what I think it's about though, because I like that shit. I like that this was not a girl getting banged for the first time that got her sexuality sprung (because getting banged don't orgasms make, ya'll) - it was getting ate the hell out (because stimulation on the clit/vulva area does!). I like that she was joyful with her guerrilla/newfound sexuality, because that shit is godamn joyful. I like that the dumb boy looks like a shitbag for dumping on her awesomeness, and I appreciate showing how his inability to cope with her not-connected-to-him sexuality forces him to damage her in the end - because that real life. It happens to women too often - both inside intimate relationships and also to women as a whole in a male-focused sexual culture that doesn't make room for authentic female orgasm.

That's my story of this crazy-ass video, and I'm sticking to it. Watch the video below. Tell me I'm wrong.

The Americans Season 5 - The SSL Review

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The Americans Season 5
As I've said before, I LOVED the Americans. Unfortunately the series is over now. It ended as well as I could imagine though, so it still stands as one of my very favorite TV series. Plus, although not always perfect, it went a bit above and beyond in my opinion with how it depicted female orgasm, sexuality and gender.  Anyway, there were no SSL reviewable scenes in Season 6, but there were 2 in Season 5 - both in episode 5.

As you know, 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 lady-on-top

The scene begins with Philip having sex with a woman. It's spy stuff, so he's just getting the job done. Normally he's pretty damn focused on these types of tasks, but in this we see he's particularly disengaged. We see a bust shot of him above her in missionary clearly pushing his dick in and out of her. We can't see what's going on with their bodies much below the shoulders, but it's clear that there are no hands doing any work near the clit/vulva area.

We also see her as he's banging her. She has her eyes closed and seems to be enjoying it - although I wouldn't say she is being depicted as near orgasm. Philip is looking down on her with such lack of interest in what he is doing that it seems almost robotic.

It then cuts to a memory of him as a child. Clearly he is poor and starving and his dad brings home what appears to be 3 rocks (for real - I really don't know what this food thing is) that his mom heats up and gives to the family to eat.

It cuts back to Philip and the woman in bed, but this time he's on his back. The camera is looking down on him and immediately the woman falls forward into frame with a quick orgasmic yelp as if in the last moment of her orgasm. She then rolls off him and breaths into recovery next to him. Clearly time had passed and they had changed positions during the Russia flashback, and she was riding him cowgirl style when she came.

My Thoughts (the SSL Review)
There is not enough shown to see where all 4 hands were or how she was having intercourse with him. Was she laying so her pelvis was pressed close against him so she could grind the clit/vulva area against his pelvis while he was inside her? Was she or he using one of their offscreen hands to rub the clit? I don't know. Now, Philip does still look very disengaged the moment before she slumps forward in orgasm, but if you know his character, he doesn't need to be engaged with this kind of thing to be doing the right thing to get the right results (stimulating her clit to make her come). There's no indication he was doing that, but no indication he wasn't either.

Anything could have been happening. In one way I appreciate that this was not a depiction of a lady-gasm during intercourse that was clearly unrealistic. It wasn't a classic scene where a woman just gets banged, where we see for sure there was no additional clit/vulva stimulation - either through hands/vibrators or deliberate close grinding of the clit/vulva against something. So I can't knock the scene. There truly could have been clit/vuvla stimulation we didn't see.

On the other hand, nobody in the world thinks as deeply and rewatches scenes like this so closely for that kind of information except me. Most people probably just see this scene as a woman that came while bouncing on top of a dude, and that's not exactly the progressive lady-gasm depiction I hope for.

And honestly, people have a weird idea about lady-on-top intercourse because sexperts, and especially feminist ones, often say that lady-on-top is the best sex position for the female orgasm because she can control the movements.

That's kind of true, but it misses the point. Getting an orgasm during intercourse is somewhat about being in control of the movements, but only because the heart of it is that the clit/vulva area gets consistent, appropriate stimulation and being in control of the movement helps achieve that. That very integral part of why a woman needs to control the movement is left out and so it is confusing, and I think sometimes misleading. People often think about it as the woman being able to control how the penis moves inside her against her vaginal canal - and that's maybe nice for her comfort and fun, but stimulation inside the vaginal canal - however you're doing it, is not going to cause orgasm. Point is - because as a culture we simply don't get that a woman needs clitoral/vuvla stimulation to orgasm and think that a penis moving inside the vagina can cause a woman to orgasm - it's sensible to assume that a woman on  top during sex can 'get her orgasm' by controlling the way a penis moves in the vagina. However that's unrealistic BS.

What we should really be saying is that any sexual position that allows a woman to control how and when her clit/vulva is getting good, consistent stimulation, is a good position for female orgasm during intercourse...you know, to be clear about what's really going on.

The Vulva Rating
I'd love to give this a better rating because I love this show and because I want to give it the benefit of the doubt based on past depictions, but I shouldn't. In reality this was a depiction of a lady-gasm with very little context of how it happened except that they were having intercourse and she was on top. It's not bad, but it's also not good. There is nothing progressive from this depiction and if anything it just reinforces basic cultural assumptions about women being able to come from intercourse alone.

I'm giving this a 3 vulva rating for keeping it status quo, but with no ill intent or depictions that were specifically unrealistic.

(!)(!)(!)

Comparing Measurements of Female Sexual Dysfunction - An Article I Read

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Welcome back to An Article I Read. In this series I read a peer reviewed journal article that relates to female orgasm, and then I write a summary of it for you. I do my best to be thorough, but I also try to make it shorter and more comprehensible than reading the actual article. I do way too much googling and re-reading in my attempt at achieving that, but still this is by far my favorite series in this blog. I wish I had more time for these. I will also give you my opinion about the article, but when I do, it will be clearly marked under a heading ('My opinion' for instance might be one such heading) or I will put them into these brackets [me: ] so that you know it's my opinion and not something in the article. Otherwise, everything I write will be as best a summary of something said in the article as I can do, and all things quoted are from the article.

What is the "true" prevalence of female sexual dysfunctions and does the way we assess these conditions have an impact?
Hayes RD, Dennerstein L, Bennett CM, Fairley C. J Sex Med. 2008 Apr;5(4):777-787.

My opinions about why this is being studied
Female Sexual Dysfunction (FSD) has a history of being a bit of a contentious thing - from hysteria to Freud's clitoral vs. vaginal orgasm ridiculousness to modern concerns about if drugs can help with FSD. The particular contentiousness I want to point out in relation to this article, though, is one that's gained a lot of traction in recent years. I'll summarize it as I understand it:

Are we defining Female Sexual Function based on our understanding of male (and not female) sexual functioning? Particularly, are we assuming that the sexual response cycle of desire - arousal - orgasm - recovery that's been used for years is as accurate for females as it is for males when it may not be?

some background
Now this article I'm summarizing is really about seeing if the way we measure the percentage of women suffering from FSD will change depending on the method that is used. However, I think the interest in researching this (outside of simply being a fabulous and I would say necessary type of scientific investigation into anything one is studying) is that there has been a slow push in the field to consider that maybe women are just naturally not going to "automatically" have desire pop up that induces physical arousal the way men are. There is a growingly popular idea out there - that some people's (but mostly women's) sexual cycle tends to be different, where desire more arises from physical arousal than the other way around. There's a whole book on this that people love, but the gist I'm getting at here is that if women aren't really going around with a bunch of sexual desire and arousal the way men are, then maybe that's not dysfunction - maybe that's normal.

So in this article I'm summarizing here, one of the ways that the researchers use to determine FSD is with a questionnaire that only classifies a woman as having FSD if she has low sexual function and sexual distress. So whereas traditionally questionnaires (and all the methods tested here to look for FSD in these women are types of questionnaires) tended to look merely at low sexual functioning (i.e. not feeling sexual desire, not being able to get wet, not being able to orgasm, sexual pain during sex), they included one that found out if a woman also had distress about the lack of desire, wetness or orgasm or pain during sex. If she wasn't distressed about it, she wasn't classified as having Female Sexual Dysfunction (SFD). When that extra criteria is added, and the American Psychiatric Association does now say that criteria should be added, the % of women identified as having FSD is much less.

It's a little subtle, but important. If women aren't distressed by their sexual functioning, why would we call it a dysfunction at all? Why doesn't it make more sense to adjust our understanding of FSD than to force women into dysfunction who don't feel dysfunctional (think how psychiatrists used to think about gay people. It was a dysfunction because they said it was - not because it necessarily felt dysfunctional to the gay person).

I'm just giving you some background and context as I understand it because I think it's interesting. I actually like the thinking out of the box here that this type of consideration brings. I think we should continue to deeply consider in what possible ways women's sexuality and sexual function is being measured and researched and judged based more on our understanding of male experience as opposed to the reality of female sexual functioning.

but....
That said, I also want to throw in that I worry a little about settling with the idea that a lot of women's desire tends to be 'different' from a lot of men's in that it doesn't happen quite so often or spontaneously and that desire often follows physical arousal rather than preceding it. I applaud backing away from tagging women that don't meet our traditional understanding of how and when desire arises as dysfunctional if they don't feel dysfunctional. However, I do think it's worth considering more deeply why there might be this tendency in women.

I think stepping back a bit and saying, 'why might women's desire tend to follow this pattern and men's tend not to?' is important. If we don't step back and consider that, I think it'd be easy to assume it's just a innate biological difference, and I imagine that is what a lot of people believe at least to some degree. I also imagine there is comfort in believing it is an innate difference because it seems non-problematic if it's 'just our nature.' However, there's lots of reason to assume that how women experience our sexual culture deeply affects how we express and understand our desire, arousal, and orgasm.

I mean, it's a cold hard fact that women don't orgasm during sexual interactions nearly as much as men - and not because women's bodies are less capable of orgasm than men (They are not. Women can orgasm as quickly and reliably as men during masturbation). So, that really simple reality alone gives me pause about attributing female desire patterns to our innate qualities. I mean, clearly many past experiences of sexual encounter + orgasm (a lot of male experiences) are WAY better at training you to be aroused when considering the possibility of a future sexual encounter than sexual encounter + NO orgasm (a lot of female experiences). Also just consider for hetero folks how much more common it is to see a woman sexualized vs. a man. Life itself is just kinda less sexy for hetero women in general.  My point is, I don't want this very important inquiry into how we define sexual dysfunction in women to also act as a way to cover and sanitize a very nasty reality; that female orgasms are at a disadvantage in our culture and the effects of that ripple out and negatively affect all aspects of sexual culture  - including women's ability to feel desire.

In short, lots of women have particular patterns of desire and arousal different from men and it doesn't mean we are lesser or wrong, but it very well might mean that we were forced to develop our desire in the way we do because we existed in a shitty sexual culture that ignored our clit for our vag-hole. We ladies are making lemonade out of lemons, but maybe we can use this knowledge to just give the next generation of ladies pre-made lemonade instead of giving them lemons and telling them it's just as good as getting the lemonade already made.

So that was a lot of background. I think it's interesting though, so I wanted to touch on it before I summarized the article. BTW - enjoy the summary below.

Introduction

• The true prevalence of  Female Sexual Dysfunction (FSD) is contentious. Studies have tracked it at anywhere from 8% to 55%. Although these differences could be due to the different populations studied, it also very well may have to do with differences in how FSD is studied.
• For instance, when researchers ask for only longer lasting difficulties in studies, FSD rates tend to be lower
• Also "the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorder fourth edition stipulates that both low sexual function and sexual distress need to be present in order for a diagnosis of FSD." However validated measures of sexual distress were only created recently and a lot of previous studies don't include it, so there is a problem with lack of standardization in FSD rates.
• Previous research indicates incorporating sexual distress measures in these FSD surveys shows a lower prevalence of FSD.

Aims
To compare in detail the results of 4 different surveys on the same group of Australian women in order to determine if the differences in the surveys help explain the differences in FSD rates. The surveys used will help determine the impact of multi-item instruments (meaning questionnaires), simple questions, different recall periods, and the inclusion of a sexual distress component.

Method

• The questionnaire used for this study was the 2005-2006 Australian Study for Understanding Women's Sexuality and Health (ASUWSH).
• Self-administered questionnaire to collect information on sexual function and sexual distress along with demographic and risk factor data
• 1002 randomly selected women ages 20-70 with basic English literacy, and registered to vote (in Australia 98% of people are registered) received a package with a cover letter, participant info sheet, the questionnaire, brochure about related medical services, and a return slip.
• Participant details were included on return slip but not questionnaire, and they were returned separately so that the questionnaires remained anonymous but researchers could identify who completed a questionnaire
• Participants had option of receiving a cinema ticket and/or a report of the study's final findings
• Those that didn't wish to participate indicated on the return slip and were not contacted further
• If they didn't receive a return slip within a month a 2nd package was sent. For 100 women who hadn't responded to 2 packages a 3rd was sent, but the return rate was so low, they didn't send a third to any others that were not heard from
• Packages sent to 102 randomly selected women also included a delivery confirmation to see how many packages did not make it to the destination.

Main Outcome Measures
The survey included a variety of sub-questionnaires with question styles that are typical of questionnaires in previous FSD studies. These are the styles included in the Survey (followed by the reasoning for including it in parenthesis)
1. Questions asking participants to report sexual difficulties that happened within the previous month (to represent simple questions where respondents are asked to report 'problems' or 'difficulties' within a recent period of time)
2. Questions asking participants to report sexual difficulties that happened for at least a month within the previous year (to represent simple questions where respondents are asked to report 'problems' or 'difficulties' but within a longer time frame)
*both 1 and 2 asked if participants had experienced any of the following for each of the time frames
lacked interest in having sex
had trouble with vaginal dryness
were unable to come to orgasm (a climax)
experienced physical pain during intercourse
3. Included an 18 question abbreviated version of the Sexual Function Questionnaire (SFQ), a "validated, self-report, multi-item scale that employs a cut-off scale to determine if women have experienced low sexual function in the previous month" (to represent a multi-item scale questionnaire used to measure sexual functioning that classifies those scoring low sexual functioning as having FSD)
4. Included the Female Sexual Distress Scale (FSDS) questionnaire, a "validated, multi-item scale that employs a cut-off score to classify women with sexual distress experienced within the previous month." (This combined with the SFQ, together they call it SFQ-FSDS, represents questionnaires that only classify women experiencing both low sexual functioning and sexual distress as having FSD.)

The SFQ was first in the survey, followed by the FSDS, and then the two versions of the simple questions. Demographic and risk factor questions were dispersed throughout.

Analysis

• The SFQ employed both arousal-sensation questions and arousal-lubrication questions, but the sets of simple questions only included vaginal dryness questions in relation to arousal disorder. So, the arousal-lubrication questions in the SFQ were used for comparison and the arousal-sensation questions were ignored.
• All women were asked to answer all sections of the questionnaire even if they had not had any sexual activity (sexual activity includes masturbation) during the period in question.
• Women with no sexual activity during the period could be classified as having a desire problem but could not be classified as having arousal, orgasm or sexual pain problems. The exception to that is women who had no sexual active because of sexual pain worries. These women (if they didn't have desire or pain problems) were kept in the study and classified as free of FSD instead of being classified as missing data points.
• prevalence estimates (the percentage of women displaying these FSD sub-catagories) and 95% confidence intervals produced by each questionnaire style for the following: hypoactive sexual disorder disorder (HSDD) aka low sexual desire, female sexual arousal disorder (FSAD) (using vaginal lubrication answers as indicators), female orgasmic disorder (FOD), and dyspareunia aka sexual pain problems.
• The SFQ-FSDS results (results that used both low sexual functioning and sexual distress to classify a woman with SFD) were compared to the other styles of questioning in all the above categories. The SFQ-FSDS was used as a 'gold-standard' to compare against because it has been well validated and also reflects the current recommendations for diagnosing SFD.
• If a question related to one of those categories was left empty on an otherwise completed questionnaire, it was simply not used, which lowered the answer rate for some categories, but never lower than 95% of the total number of questionnaires included in the study.
• The 2 types of simple questions, each employing a different recall time range, were also compared
• In addition, the previous month recall version of the simple question was compared with the SFQ (which also employed a month recall). Both of these did not include questions about sexual distress

Results

• The researchers were able to estimate the number of women that did not ever receive their packages (due to out-of-date address, lost mail, or recipient being deceased), by investigating the package fate for the 102 random women that were chosen to have Postal Service Delivery confirmation. From this, it was estimated that 756 women actually received their package 
• Based on above estimate, 45% (356) of respondents completed and returned the questionnaire 
• The table below (table 2) shows the results for prevalence estimates (%) among the respondents across the 4 types of questionnaires for each of the different sexual dysfunction types studies: hypoactive sexual disorder (HSDD) aka low sexual desire, female sexual arousal disorder (using vaginal lubrication answers as indicators), female orgasmic disorder (FOD), and dyspareunia aka sexual pain problems. 
• It also shows the 95% Confidence Interval in the parenthesis next to the Prevalence % 

• The SFQ-SFDS questionnaire showed lower prevalence % estimates than the other types of questionnaires for all 4 types of sexual dysfunctions. 
• Comparing the 2 versions of the simple questions indicated that questions asking to recall if something occurred during the previous month showed lower prevalence % estimates in all 4 of the sexual dysfunction categories than if asked to recall if something occurred for 1 month or more from the previous year. 
• Comparing the simple set of questions with a 1 month recall vs. the multi-item scale questionnaire (SFQ) which also had a 1 month recall, the multi-item scale showed higher prevalence % estimates for low sexual desire, low arousal (lubrication), and female orgasm disorder, but not for sexual pain. 
• In total, 32% of women with low desire, 31% with low arousal (lubrication), 33% with orgasm difficulty, and 57% with sexual pain were also sexually distressed. 
• [Me: the researchers also report kappa statistics, negative and positive predictive values, specificity and sensitivity statistics when employing the SFQ-FSDS as the gold standard questionnaire against the other types of questionnaires. I don’t feel knowledgeable enough about stats to speak much on them, but you can check it out in Table 3 below.]    

Discussion

• "This is the first time that this range of instruments, frequently used for assessing FSD has been compared directly in the same study."
• Including "sexual distress" as a necessary element for diagnosing Female Sexual Dysfunction (FSD), as in the FSQ-FSDS questionnaire, reduced the prevalence estimates of FSD by 2/3 or more for all 4 categories. "In additions, these results indicated that only a portion of women with low sexual function (31% -57%) experienced sexual distress."
• "Changing the recall period from the previous month to one month or more in the previous year approximately doubled the prevalence estimates of all sexual disorders investigated."
• When comparing the FSQ-FSDS, the questionnaire that incorporated both low sexual function and sexual distress with the other questionnaires, the FSQ-FSDS "displayed a broad range of sensitivities and specificities across the different domains of FSD."
• "positive predictive values indicated that less than 60% of women classified as having FSD by alternative instruments [me: questionnaires] were experiencing FSD according to our gold-standard instrument (FSQ-FSDS)."

Limitations of the study

• The true gold standard of FSD is a clinical diagnosis, but with these anonymous surveys, that could not happen.
• The FSQ-FSDS was used as the gold-standard because it's well validated and reflects current definitions of Female Sexual Dysfunction (which includes having sexual distress). However, "the FSQ-FSDS is based on a current models of FSD," and "debate regarding which model best represents female sexual response and what constitutes FSD continues in scientific literature."
• The FSQ was validated on women age 19-65 but the abbreviated version (used here) was only validated on women age 19-49. 
• The FSDS has not been validated on Australian women with FSD.
• "The America Foundation of Urological Diseases divides FSADs (Female Sexual Arousal Disorders) into genital, subjective, genital combined with subjective, and persistent sexual arousal subtypes. [me: see Puppo's take on the naming of persistent sexual arousal disorder] In our analysis, we only included the genital lubrication aspect of FSAD (as opposed to subjective arousal or the arousal sensation domain of the SFW). This was performed to allow us to make valid comparisons between instruments [me: questionnaires] as the simple questions we investigated (that were based on the questions from a frequently cited study by Laumann et al.) only asked about this particular aspect of sexual disorder. Not including subjective sexual arousal is a deficiency of both that earlier study and the present comparative analysis."
• "A further limitation is that the order of the instruments [me: questionnaires] used to measure FSD was not randomized. As all the instruments we investigated were included in one questionnaire, it is possible that participant's response to one instrument may have influenced their response to another. This may have artificially increased the correlation between instruments. Consequently, the true difference between these methods of assessing FSD may be even greater than our results indicate."
• Response rates for sensitive topics always tend to be low and seem to be decreasing over the years, but the overall response rate and prevalence estimates for FSD using the simple question section was comparable to previous studies of Australian women using the same simple question survey.

Strengths of this Study

• There was a variety of questionnaire types used that showed the impact of question type, recall period and inclusion of the sexual stress component on prevalence estimates
• The population was randomly sampled and the questionnaires employed have been extensively validated.
• Included all women in the sample, not just women who were currently sexually active
• These types of comparative studies for FSD diagnosis questionnaires are rare. 

Learnings

• Previous studies show that prevalence estimates are lower when the time period for a sexual difficulty is raised (for instance asking about a particular sexual difficulty that lasted for at least a month vs asking about that same sexual difficulty but only if it lasted for at least 6 months). "Our data indicate that in addition to the duration of sexual difficulty the length of time over which women are asked to recall sexual difficulties also affect reported prevalence."
• That the inclusion of sexual distress in an FSD diagnosis has an impact on prevalence estimates is supported by previous research.
• The type of questions, the recall time employed, and the inclusion of things like sexual distress in the questionnaires that researches decide to use have important impacts on the results. "Consequently, reported associations between risk factors and FSD may also change depending upon the instruments researchers employ to measure FSD."
• "The absence of a standard, generally accepted, convention for determining the presence of FSD represents a major limitation in current research." However, there is still a lot of debate about what constitutes FSD and how to appropriately diagnose it, and researches would do well to keep this all in mind for future studies and as the definition of FSD evolves over time. 
• "We envisage that this investigation will alert future authors to bias that may be introduced by the instruments they employ when conduction their own research. Also, we would like to make clinicians and researchers aware of the impact of instruments used to assess FSD when drawing conclusions based on published literature in this area."

Conclusion
Everything said in here was basically also said in the discussion.


[ME: As always, I'd like to point out something that should be way more obvious. Some (I'd venture to say most) Female Sexual Dysfunction (FSD) probably has to do with the fact that people don't truly realize that the clitoral glans area, and not the vaginal canal, is the female organ of sexual pleasure, just as the penis is for the male. And, because of that, way, way too many females are literally not getting sexual stimulation focused on the correct area of their bodies (like if males were mostly getting ball, not penis, stimulation) *and btw any penile or clitoral related organ on a body is the organ of sexual pleasure, so it's really no different for intersex folks that carry an organ more in between clit/penis.* Also, I'm just gonna throw this out there too - maybe some women don't describe themselves as distressed about their lack of orgasm, arousal, or desire because they live in a shit sexual culture that tells them and demonstrates to them all the time in all the different ways that women are less sexual, less capable of orgasm and harder to please - and maybe those ideas get internalized to a point where a woman might think that's just the way things are, so she settles into it...again, making lemonade out of lemons.]

Inside Amy Schumer S2 Ep7 - The SSL Review

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

As I often say, being a particular thing is only a first step in creating content that expresses a fresh and unique perspective of that thing. Just because she or anyone else is a woman doesn't mean that they automatically bring a thoughtful and unique lady-perspective to their work. I mean there's plenty of women that just regurgitate male-centric understandings of lady stuff as actual lady insight because, hey, I mean male-centric understandings of lady stuff gets soaked deep into all of us. It's hard to bring a new voice to the world when the world tries hard to define your voice for you. It takes something else in a person to parse that out and something even more to express the parsing and the unique perspective in an entertaining/relateable/interesting way. She has all that, and I think her voice has probably helped a lot of other ladies out there pull their own unique voice from below all the shit we soak from the culture we grew up in. To be fair though, I must say she could use some schooling and humbling when it comes to speaking about race though - but that's pretty true of a lot of us.

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

All that said, this scene doesn't quite fit the SSL Reviewable criteria. However, it does make an insinuation about orgasm that I think is worthy of addressing.

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

Mine is Doggy! S2 Ep7

I'll describe this (kinda murky) SSL Reviewable scene and then discuss it a bit. 

This is the final scene of the show and as in many of her shows it's her doing stand-up in front of a live audience. She has a container of questions from the audience, and she's reading one.

Amy: What is your favorite sexual position?
(crowd laughs) 
Amy: Okay. Actually like eight people wrote the same one. But before she lets me answer, she wants me to know. 'Mine is doggy style, hits the G-spot!'
(crowd hoots and hollers and Amy points toward the crowd like she's answering back to something someone said out there) 
Amy: I know!
(Crowd continues to laugh)
Amy: This is what happens when you're a pretty girl. Everyone, like tells you what you say is interesting and important and you get really confused. No one ever did that to me. O, my favorite sexual position.  Well, I'm lazy, so it's usually I'm laying there like - like an actual slug.

Then she goes onto another joke.

My Thoughts (aka - fuck a G-spot)
The reason I'm doing an SSL Review on this scene is because the audience member's comment (let's call her Katelyn) insinuates that a penis hitting the 'G-spot' causes an orgasm. Granted, she didn't say it caused an orgasm. She just said she liked it because it hit the "G-spot." But, I mean, it's sex. Why would your favorite pozish not include an orgasm? Why would ol' Katelyn bring up the G-spot if not to insinuate that it made the position orgasmic to her? I mean maybe she's just saying she likes the g-spot hitting as an extra bonus, like saying you like 69 because you get to have something in your mouth - we can assume that's just a bonus to the best (and orgasmic) part- which is getting ate the hell out.

Cool, but either way Katelyn is still telling us she orgasms during doggy style - whether it be because of the G-spot hitting or because of the additional G-spot hitting during the basic situation of intercourse (i.e. getting a penis rammed in and out of your vagina). And to Katelyn I call bullshit - not on it being her favorite position, but on it being orgasmic. Straight up truth is that stimulation inside the vagina, whether it be basic ol' penis banging, specific G-spot stimulation (which I will define here as the female prostate which can be felt through the wall of the vagina), cervix stimulation, stimulation against the inner legs of the clit through the vagina, or anything else that sexperts might say gets stimulated in the vag - NONE OF THAT HAS EVER BEEN PHYSICALLY SHOWN IN SCIENTIFIC LITERATURE TO CAUSE ORGASM. It just plain hasn't. Go through the literature (here's some to start with). There are scientists who claim those things cause orgasm because a small percentage of women claim that it does, but even after half a century of physical testing for orgasmic response, not once has any scientist been able to prove it physically, and it's not like it's that hard. Women and men have been having physically recorded orgasms caused by penile and clitoral glans area stimulation pretty easily since the mid century.

Yet still, there are women who claim to orgasm from a good ramming - with no additional outer clitoral stimulation. They could be telling the truth. They could have physical qualities that other women don't have ...that are almost impossible to detect in scientific inquiry (because these 'special' qualities that cause 'vaginal/G'spot' orgasms absolutely have not been detected in scientific inquiry)....or, and hear me out, they aren't having orgasms from getting banged. There is no G-spot that exists as a mysterious spot in the vagina that causes orgasms when pounded on. Maybe, just maybe, a percentage of women say they orgasm this way because they wish they could, they think they are orgasming but are not, or they speak about pleasure sans orgasm during sex the same as orgasm - all of which are related to how confusing the information is around female orgasm.

I believe Katelyn's favorite pozish is doggy style. I also believe that all the sexpert advice out there telling women (without scientific basis) that g-spot stimulation is the ultimate in orgasm and that doggy-style can make it happen - influences us women and can twist our understanding of our orgasm and pleasure. Truth is G-spot stimulation (female prostate stimulation) has been shown to cause ejaculation in some women, but ejaculation and orgasm are different events - even in men where they tend to happen at the same time. It has not been shown to cause orgasm. So, maybe Katelyn likes to ejaculate. Maybe she's getting a reach-around on her clit that she's not speaking about. I can get behind all that.

I imagine though that her comment was really quite simple. She likes getting banged from behind because it 'hits the g-spot,' and she 'orgasms' hard from that - which to me is like a dude saying he gets banged hard in the ass with no reach around and comes hard from that. It's just not physically sensible.

I think Amy Schumer saw it in a similar way I did. I think when she said pretty girls think everything they say is interesting and important and they get confused, she was really saying, 'Fuck a fake-ass G-spot. That's some silly, naive shit this Katelyn just said.' That's the way I took it at least. 

The Vulva Rating
Just as it is, this scene showed a woman being excited about G-spot stimulation in a way that makes one assume that it caused orgasm for her. Although me and my minutely critical orgasm eye saw Amy's response as a criticism of Katelyn's G-spot hype, I don't think anyone else would have. So, realistically, Katelyn's statement just stands on its own and adds to the already strong pile of shit that is women and sexperts hyping of the G-spot as an orgasmic spot in the vagina. It's scientifically baseless, but the more women and men see other women and men hyping it, the more it seems like it should be real.

So, overall this scene increased the misinformation out there about lady-gasms. However, it was not really Amy's words. It was another person's, and this show's only sin here is that it didn't challenge it enough (although I kinda thought Amy made a small attempt to poo-poo it). Maybe if Amy had made mention of the G-spot doing nothing for her or the unlikeliness of the G-spot's reality - all of which she's done before, I would give this a high vulva rating, but she didn't. I'm not giving it a low one either. To me this just kinda stood in the middle holding the status quo. I give this a very average 3 out of 5 vulvas.

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Chewing Gum S2 Ep5 - The SSL Review

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Chewing Gum!
Like I said in the first SSL Review I did on this, you should check this show out on Netflix. I continue to love the shit out of it in the 2nd season. It's a top-quality comedy that you should definitely watch. It may have a tricky British accent to follow, but turn on the captions and get on with watching it. It's great. It's also progressive in the ol' female orgasm department, and I feel like it has a unique perspective - not just because her gender or color or anything like that, well it is a lot of that, but I don't think the way a writer or director identifies is enough to bring a truly unique voice to a work. It's how they use their craft as well. To me, it seems like Michaela Coel (writer/star) really unabashedly dives into her own perspective and brings things into her story that are new and unexpected. In short, she's just a great creator and people should watch this show.

Michaela Coel - Chewing Gum creator, writer and main actress

And it's SSL Reviewable
This means I will be critiquing only discussions or depictions of female orgasm, female masturbation, or the clit. For these reviews I'm mainly interested in physical realism (like are the things happening to the woman's body actually things that would realistically make a female orgasm?) and about how the depiction/discussion plays in the larger cultural conversation about female orgasm and women's sexuality.

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

Pillow Riding
As the show opens, Tracey (Michaela Coel) is on her knees with a pillow between her legs on her bed. It's up against her junk. She's got a laptop on the bed in front of her and she's watching porn. We bounce at first between seeing the porn scene and having Tracey talk directly to the audience.

Porn guy: (drives up to lady on the street) What are you doing on the curb? Shouldn't you be in college?
Porn gal: I was waiting for you to drive me to your house and play with all my tight holes.
Tracey: pfff, but why are you just waiting on the curb??...and how did you know that he'd be there, first thing?
Porn guy: I even got a daughter that looks just like you.
Tracey: Okay, well that's just 100% disgustingness, isn't it?
Porn gal: My feelings are so intense.
Tracey: 'Feelings are so intense?' You just met him and now you go and get feelings? My mum is away for the first night since I was like born, and this is what - pft. Nah, man. I can't watch this stuff no more, you know, because one day I was like, 'Rah, hold on. If there's a camera that close to her face, she must know it's there. Hold on. What does this mean? There's some kind of acting or something. And from the time I realize that, yeah, me and my pillow are losing interest. See, my mind, yeah, is woke. I don't even think they're actually having sex. It's some kind of motion graphics or something. And it's good as fake, yeah, 'cause she ain't even ugly. She look like that blonde chic from Homeland. Why is she messin' with this tired and retired brokeback, man? pffft. This more comedy than sex.

Gettin' Banged
Tracey's sister, Cynthia (Susan Wokoma) has decided to lose her virginity and in Cynthia fashion makes a plan and executed it.

We see her  is in a towel on her bed with the laptop out. She googles "becoming sexual" gets to a site that says 'masturbation.' She reads the first bullet point aloud to herself.

Cynthia: Make sure you lubricate the finger / fingers.

She pours a lot of oil on her hand, kinda leans over to squat on the floor in front of her bed and puts her hand up her towel. There's a quick montage of her really getting that hand up there. It looks to me like she's really just trying to get her fingers deep inside her. It doesn't really seem sexual, and she looks much more like she's concentrating and really making an effort to get her hand up there rather than this being sexually pleasurable. Then she queefs and laughs before the scene ends.

She finds a dude out on the street, brings himhome talks to him for a short time and then they are in her bedroom standing and talking. He's a little cautious and wierded out by the whole experience so far.

Dude: Right, so you want to do sex? You're just going to give it to me.
Cynthia: Well, I'm not giving it to you, we're sharing it.

She hands him a condom.

Dude: This ain't a set-up? There ain't no cameras here?

Cynthia shakes her head no.

Dude: Alright.
Cynthia: Oh, great!, Well, I broke my hymen in preparation, so, I'll lie down...

She lies down as he's starts rapidly taking of his clothes

Cynthia: and you...

He hurriedly runs over kneeling between her legs

Cynthia:  at my pace please!

He's opening the condom, still kinda frantically

Cynthia:  Okay, and now just put it around my knicker area.

We are only seeing head shots of both of them, but it seems like he is following instructions.

Cynthia: Okay, you may now enter the dome, with your penis.

We see a shot from behind with the dude's bare butt on top of her missionary style. Then we get a close on his face again. He's starting slowish but strong pumps into her. We also see a close of her and she's fairly expressionless. She taps him on the shoulder.

Cynthia: Are you enjoying it?
Dude: Yes, but if you keep talking it will go down.
Cynthia:  Is it tight?
Dude: Okay, well, you can say stuff like that.
Cynthia: (straight) Is it tight?
Dude: yeeeaahh.

He smiles and continues pumping

Cynthia:  Let me tell you something Ryan. It's all a myth. Virgin tightness has been scientifically debunked. Intercourse does not stretch the vagina. Well, it does, but it just shrinks it down to what it was before. So that means if we do this again, we'll be having the exact same experience we're having right now.
Cynthia:  How do you think this is going ryan?
Dude: I'm gonna come! I'm gonna come!
Cynthia: (straight) I'm not coming at all.
Dude: I'm gonna come! I'm gonna come!I'm gonna come!

He starts coming, and she seems to take it as a cue awkwardly. She start moaning, but clearly trying to figure out how at first, and then starts screaming, but not sexy, almost scary, and he looks a little wierded out. Then she starts laughing, and he gets off her and falls down beside her on the bed.
Still laughing she says

Cynthia: (still laughing) I did a big come. My toes have gone all numb.

He takes his condom off, and she points to it.

Cynthia: Oh, do you mind if I give it a once over?
Dude: You're not supposed to let girls have your--

I need to check for holes because I don't want children right now. Oh, great. Tidy. Hmm. There's nothing there. Shouldn't you have...Then again girls don't always squirt, so the same must be true for boys. Good work, Ryan.
She puts the condom down and exhales.

Dude: Do you mind if I take a nap?
Cynthia: Why?
Dude: I just came, and also there is something very exhausting about you.
Cynthia:  Okay, I guess. but you have to stay here in my sister's room

The SSL Review

Tracey's Treatise On Porn
I LOVED her riding the pillow while fully dressed in her pajamas.

Firstly, it's not a style of lady-bation that often gets depicted. It's much more common to see a vibrator, shower head or hands/fingers directly on the vuvla/clit area. Those are fine and all, but you know what's quick and easy and awesome? Grinding against a pillow, that's what. You don't even need to take off your clothes. Just lay down, put a pillow under you, grind for a hot minute, come, fall asleep directly where you are. Perfect, and underrepresented. Thank you Chewing Gum.

Secondly, she speaks some truths of the female experience in a way. She stops masturbating because she's realized how gross and fake porn is. It turned her (and her riding pillow) off. In this show Tracey is incredibly naive, so the rather obvious recognition that porn is kinda 'fake' is a true revelation for her, and kinda funny for the audience.

I like this depiction of Tracey's naivety because I see it as a way to point out something a bit deeper and more universal. It seems like an obvious thing that porn is fake, but at the same time, I think her observation is not as obvious as we'd like to imagine, is it really? I mean, they are actually having real sex in porn -that's what makes it porn and not just a movie with sex in it. It's easy, I think, to know that the sex in porn is not like real life sex, but it's also really easy to just absorb the images in it and allow them to be a template for what sex is like...especially since few of us get to view actual people having sex in their bedrooms through a secret peephole. AND, even if we were able to do that I'd venture to say that 'real' sex might look more like porn than it should because porn images influence movie sex, TV sex, book sex, and ultimately how we all perform sex to some degree. So, my point is that I like Tracey's revelation and her point about it being a turn-off to her that it's so fake and silly.

I don't think all women come to it or express it the way Tracey did, but I imagine a lot of women have gone through a time when the initial newness and dirtiness of most porn wore off and revealed something that was a bit distasteful. So, in that way, I think Tracey's speech was both funny and poignant about women's actual experience with porn, and I appreciate that.

I'd like to take a sec and go a little further with this line of women getting a distaste for porn because I think there's more to it, though, than porn not being like 'real' situations or 'real' sex. I think porn's greatest sin against ladies' sexual sensibilities is that it's acutely focused on male fantasy, desire and orgasm and not much at all on ladies'. The truth is the fakest part of all about porn is the fake-ass female orgasms. The stimulation of the inside of the vagina  (i.e. a penis banging into the vag without any extra clitoral glans stimulation) is not a way one would expect a female to physically orgasm (seriously), but for fuck sake if it isn't just about the only way women orgasm in porn. Ladies watching ladies fake orgasmic pleasure during sex acts that are actually orgasmic for penises but not for us might not be something we consciously find appalling (because honestly that type of faking is so common it might not even seem weird), but I truly believe we must feel the absurdity and unfairness of that deep inside and it must at least be a piece of the type of distaste we see Tracey displaying.

Thirdly, as always, I simply appreciate seeing a female character acknowledge that she masturbates and that she likes it and is not ashamed. It helps to normalize jerking it for the ladies. Women overall are super susceptible for not giving masturbation a try or feeling overly destructive guilt if they do and that sucks because: hetero partner sex sucks for lady-gasms, the cultural knowledge about lady-gasms is the worst (it's the clit, ya'll not the vagina), and the only way a lady is really going to get orgasms on the regular when she's having partnered sex is if she figures out on her own how to get herself off. Thems just the truths, and so it's nice to have anything in our media that helps women get past hang-ups about masturbating.

Cynthia's wierd-ass first time
Okay, I'm pretty into this scene.

1. It's so Cynthia. You'd have to watch the show - which I highly recommend - but the strange mix of straightforward as fuck, naive, uber-determined, and wanting to fit-in is perfecto in this scene.
2. I wasn't sure exactly what she was intended to be trying at when fumbling around her junk with her oiled fingers. Was it actually masturbation? I mean maybe, but when later she said she already pre-busted her hymen, that seemed more like what the outcome of all that would be. Either way, it clearly wasn't pleasurable to her - at least not sexually or orgasmically pleasurable, and so even if her character was attempting masturbation, she was not depicted as doing it well. She was just trying to ram her finger(s) up her hole, and that does not an orgasmic masturbation session make. I appreciate that the writers didn't act like that was actually good technique.
3. During the sex act, there was just a dude pushing his dick in and out of a pus-hole, no hands touching the clit, no grinding her clit against him...like, she was completely still. It was in no way a sex act that would be expected to make a woman come, and indeed it did not. As he said he was coming, she quite clearly and calmly says, "I'm not coming at all." She wasn't coming, but she did fake one, and I feel pretty confident in saying that it was written as being her specifically faking it because of how she so awkwardly moved into it as soon as he started coming.

But saying she faked it is a little too simplistic, I think, and I like that about this scene. It's real in a way we don't often see. Cynthia does some research and she thinks she's got this. She tries to act as if she's knowledgeable and in charge, and in a way she is. She gets to lose her virginity like she wants and she does control what is happening, but she doesn't actually 'got this.' She is very unclear about how this all should work in relation to her body, her pleasure, her arousal or her orgasm. In the end, the dude is the only one that gets to come. And like so many feamles before her, instead of seeing that this intercourse thing isn't all it's cracked up to be, she simply makes do. She adjusts her perspective, moving from "I'm not coming at all" to screaming like she's seen women are supposed to do at that moment in sex and saying she "did a big cum" and that ever so stereotypically her "toes have gone all numb." I'd go so far as to say she kind of believes it, and I'd go further to say that story is not uncommon. Faking happens for a lot of reasons, and one of those, I think, is because we don't know what's happening exactly so we make the sounds and motions we believe we should be making and feel okay believing in retrospect that was an orgasm.

Vulva Rating
Here's the things I thought reflected our sexual culture or female orgasms realistically, put out into the world things that positively affected our cultural understanding of lady-gasms, or helped create a world where female orgasms were as prevalent and understood as male orgasms:

• The PJs on pillow grind type of masturbating, which is a physically legit way a woman might orgasm, was depicted. It says to the world - women can masturbate unabashedly and and that grinding in the vulva area is key to masturbation/orgasm (not getting poked in your holes).
• Tracey's porn speech both normalized a woman's interest in using porn for masturbation and also pointed out how fake it is. Both are important because women deserve good porn and lots of masturbation (AmIRight, yall?), and when porn depicting authentic female fantasy, pleasure and orgasm is as hard to come by as it currently is, it's problematic for everyone. 
• The sex Cynthia was having was physically unlikely to ever bring a female to orgasm - no clit stimulation and all pumping into a vagina....which is bullshit for lady-gasms, and I appreciate that she wasn't shown actually orgasming from it.
• When Cynthia did fake, I felt like it was clearly acted and written to be fake, and I appreciate that. 
• The way Cynthia faked was interesting yet, I believe, incredibly realistic. It didn't seem to be malicious or premeditated in any way. It seemed to me like she thought she should do it, then did it, then stuck to her guns that it was an orgasm. She's naive, but I'd say not much more naive in that department than any of the rest of us.

For the realistic depictions and overall positive impact on our cultural understanding of lady-gasms, I give this episode a 5 vulva rating.
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