Inside Amy Schumer Season1 Episode 8
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. (She could use some schooling and humbling when it comes to speaking about race though).
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.
Please, my friends, do enjoy more SSL Reviews for MOVIES and TV SHOWS.
Ladygasms: Balance Beams, Oscar Music, and Storage Wars
In season 1, throughout the episodes, we see Amy Schumer doing actual stand-up. In episode 8 she's saying the following thing to the crowd.
Women. We're lucky, aren't we? 'Cause women, we can have multiple orgasms - I've read.crowd laughs
And I swear, that's not me, like, trashing guys. It's not easy to give me an orgasm. It's not fun. It's...I have to have the focus of an Olympic hopeful on a balance beam.She pantomimes being on a balance beam while the crowd laughs.
And I get distracted. If the temperature changes I'm like, "I lost it. I lost it." But women, like sometimes, we have to fake orgasms, right? And that's not us being disrespectful to men. That's just -- that's our way of saying to you, you know..."wrap it up." Right? That's your Oscar-play-off, end-your-speech music. We're saying, I love you. I'm glad we did this. But Storage Wars is on in a minute. Get out of me.
The Review
Here are my thoughts. I'll make it quick.
When she talks about multiple orgasms, she does two thing there that I think are poignant.
1 She gives a nod to the idea that women are like somehow way luckier because we get to have multiple orgasms, but I've always thought the insinuation of that idea is a bunch of bullshit because:
First, men can have multiple orgasms too (it's harder and uncommon, but they just have to hold of their ejaculation).
Second, a multiple orgasm is just, like, a longer orgasm. Like there's an orgasm; you keep stimulating; there's another and it goes on for a few minutes. It's not like women are orgasming for hours on end in a state of nirvana like romance novels and numerous TV and movies would have you believe. That's just straight up BS. So, like, it's just a bit longer experience for a woman having multiple orgasms.
Third, and this is most important. Women barely orgasm at all when we're in bed with a man, so fuck if multiple orgasms are possible. We still in the overall just don't get as many orgasms as men - by far, and to say we're lucky in the orgasm department is a severe misreading of the lady-sex experience. Maybe I'm not speaking for all women here, but we'd take consistent orgasms during sex, partners who have a basic understanding of what we need to orgasm, and a general culture that prioritizes our orgasmic pleasure over some measly multi-orgasm ability any day...especially since men actually could have that ability as well.
2 She adds in 'I've read,' at the end of that statement about women's luckiness and multiple orgasms, and I think it changes a lot. I like it because that add-on gives a nod to the idea that women read and hear stuff all the time about different types of orgasm and ways to get mind-blowing orgasms and all that, but it doesn't actually make sense against what we know about our bodies and our actual sexual experiences (because mostly we hear completely incorrect and often ridiculous things about our orgasms). I think this statement as a whole is realistic and from a woman's perspective...Like, I imagine a woman hearing that and being like - 'yeah! I'm not the only one who hears how AMAZING multiple orgasms are and how I should be having them, but only has like a normal orgasm...sometimes...when he eats me out. I felt kinda bad about not being able to elicit this amazing multiple orgasm I'm supposed to be having, but at least I'm not the only one!'
She jokes about how hard it is to give her an orgasm, and I think it's probably realistic to some degree, but I have 2 conflicting thoughts about it.
1 It adds to the stereotype that women's bodies are just more fickle about orgasms; as if women's innate capability for orgasm is more reliant on mood and environment than men's. There's really, in my humble opinion, no reason to believe that women's bodies are naturally less able to orgasm in this way. There is every reason, however, to believe that women aren't getting the best stimulation for orgasm a lot of the time, and we mistake the trouble women have coming because of that for women's bodies being too persnickety (because we literally don't understand that women orgasm from clitoral glans area stimulation and not from vaginal canal stimulation...and we also don't understand how much normal, everyday sexual encounters are often quite damaging to lady-desire).
2 On the other hand - I think in practice women are more persnickety about mood and environment leading up to our orgasm, but it's not an innate thing. In my, again, humble opinion, it's because we've endured way more sexual assaults, orgasm-less sex, shitty/boring/coercive sexual interactions than men. So, unlike men, we may have a lot of things about a sexual interaction that, from past experiences, don't associate in our mind with arousal, and so we have to be a bit persnickety to find what gets our arousal going enough to get us to orgasm...because so many parts of sex, that are and have always been arousing for men, can become off-putting, unarousing, scary, or just plane gross for women given our past experiences.
So, I do think Amy's coming from a place of realism from a female perspective, but without context and deeper discussion, it also just reinforces a damaging stereotype instead as opposed to open audiences to new perspectives, which at it's best, is what comedy can do.
Then she talks about faking.
It's true that women fake, and I like when people talk about it and put it out there in the open. We as a culture need to confront that fully and completely. Our culture is never going to understand (and be shamed by) how very little consideration is given to women's orgasms until we all get real and stop believing, even kinda-half-believing, that all the faked orgasms out there are actual orgasms. The more we talk about women faking, the more we have to face it, and the more we have to consider that we, our partner, the porn actress, or that character on that show aren't actually orgasming and that mimicking what got them or us to that fake orgasm is not going to magically also be sensible for attaining an actual orgasm.
Also, yes women need to stop faking because clearly it's counter productive. I get that, but I won't put this all on ladies and their "choice" to fake. I think faking is often more complicated than any easy fake/notfake, 50/50 choice. There's a lot to unpack there, but I will say dudes and the culture at large have a huge responsibility in this as well. And one thing that dudes could do is consider that maybe women don't want you banging on them for hours, and maybe that girl (probably every girl that wasn't also explicitly working her clitoral glans area also) that came while you were fucking her, did not actually come and maybe was just done with you fucking her. She was playing the 'Oscar-play-off, end-your-speech music' Seriously. Consider that...and then try to ask, listen, learn, and adjust accordingly with as little judgment and as much consideration as possible.
Vulva Rating
I always love the female perspective, and I like her real-talk about faking so the dude will just stop. I also like the way she turned the multiple orgasm joke from the BS notion that women are sooo much more lucky than men because of multiple orgasms to a point about how women's bodies (or at least her's...and other women can then also relate) don't always seem to respond how orgasm advice says they should.
I again thought the discussion of the persnickety lady-body was realistic in practice, and it probably is good for women who feel their ability to orgasm is not what it should/could be (like why can't we all just orgasm like Samantha on Sex and the City). It's good and healing to know you are not alone (in fact 6you're probably very normal and Samantha in real life would not actually be orgasming doing those things she does most of the time). However, it also just reinforces the bad stereotype that women naturally need more in order to orgasm.
This is a bit of a mixed bag, but overall good. I give this a 3 1/2 out of 5 vulvas.
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