Welcome to Science, Sex, and the Ladies !
a deep dive into the science and culture of female orgasm
“Visionary and brilliant. This project is iconic and groundbreaking. Period.”
Science, Sex and the Ladies (SSL) is both a 2014 movie (CELEBRATING ITS 10TH ANNIVERSAY THIS YEAR! - learn more) and a blog started in 2009 to document its production. Very quickly the blog evolved into a continuation of and expansion on the ideas, information, and activism presented in the movie - all related to the female orgasm.
This is SSL’s new home after moving the blog from Blogger to this site in March 2024. Look around and please always feel free to write me about anything at all. Click HERE if you want to know about the lady behind all this.
“Science, Sex and the Ladies is saying the things about female orgasm that society needs to hear but continues to resist…[it] is a must see for people everywhere.”
What you’ll find on this site: detailed summaries of scientific journal articles related to female orgasm; lady-gasm book reviews; critiques of depictions/discussions of female orgasm and masturbation in TV and movies; highlights of other orgasm equality activists; plus, arguments and discussions of why our misunderstanding of the female orgasm is harmful to both our sexual culture and to women’s lives in ways that are rarely acknowledged.
Things this site is:
an ever growing collection of lady-gasm related blog posts and an attempt to organize them so they can be accessed by topic
a decade(s) long deep dive into the cultural and scientific depiction, discussion, and study of the female orgasm; creating a large collection of resources that no one asked for but that I dearly hope people (much more influential than me) will find and use.
a pointed, hardline, anatomy-based indictment of our sexual culture’s deep-seeded fixation on penetrative orgasms. Spoiler: There’s no physical evidence for an orgasm caused by stimulation inside the vaginal canal (meaning stimulation to things like: the inner clitoral structure, the G-spot, the vaginal walls, the cervix…) in all of scientific literature; and the unwillingness as a culture to really acknowledge that reality is incredibly harmful. For Real.
an attempt to make the basic anatomical and physiological realities of female orgasm as much a part of our sexual culture, sex acts, sex research, and sex education as the basic anatomical and physiological realities of male orgasm. We’re far from it, but this blog would become irrelevant if we got there - something I very much hope will happen one day.
generally focused on the physical situation of those with a clit and/or vagina and on the cultural experience of anyone that grew up inside a femme experience or any heterosexual (cis, trans, intersex, and some nonbinary) women** that have engaged in penetrative sex with penises. (But there’s a lot of relevant overlap to the rest of the world too.)
a love letter to all the women or people who’ve ever had clits, vaginas, or a femme gender experience; for the unnecessary time and energy spent figuring, without any road map, how to reconcile their real life experiences and bodies with the deeply rooted and wildly inaccurate expectations placed on their desires, arousal, and orgasm. They/we deserve better.
Things this site is NOT:
sex advice
a way to tell anyone what they should personally enjoy, pursue, or find pleasure in.
a short read (hey, ya can’t summarize and speak on a 10 page scientific research article in a few paragraphs…and, I’m also just kinda long-winded)
** This movie was shot and this blog started 15 years ago. The language has grown more inclusive and nuanced since then. I have said ‘women’ a lot in here over the past decade(s) with the assumption that a clit, vagina, and femme gender experience are present together in the same person, but that’s, obviously, not always the case. However, if any one of those apply to you, I invite you to consider yourself one of ‘the ladies’ in Science, Sex, and the Ladies, in whatever way feels relevant to you. Please take anything that relates to your life or your body when I say women (or ladies) and throw away the rest. And if you are at all interested, I’d love contributions from people dealing with the world of lady-gasms from a different cultural or bodily perspective than I have. For Real. Contact Me.
