Spy Time - The SSL Review

Spy Time

We were scrolling through Netflix looking for something to watch, and some foreign movie called Spy time popped up. The name was incredibly appealing. Say it as if there's 3 exclamation marks at the end. It's awesome. Anyway, from name alone and the quasi-James Bond cover, we decided to watch it. The choice was not regretted, even though I assumed it would be. I quite enjoyed this quirky, Spanish spy movie. It was what I will call a fun romp. (It's original title is Anacleto: Agente Secreto)

There was also a sideways SSL Reviewable moment in there. As you know an SSL Review is a critique of depictions or discussions of female masturbation and/or female orgasm and/or the clit. I only discuss those scenes - not the movie as a whole (unless I feel like talking about more), and I try to focus on the realism of the depiction/discussion and also how it fits into a larger cultural discussion of female orgasm and sexuality. This movie did not discuss or depict female masturbation directly, but it insinuated it, and so I'm calling it eligible.

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The Dildo vs. Toilet Brush Fight

I won't ruin this gem of a movie for you, so I'm going to describe this without giving too much away. A man (Adolfo) is in an apartment with his girlfriend. He's sleeping on the couch. She's on the bed. A hitman comes in the apartment and starts trying to kill Adolfo. a fight ensues that leads them into the bathroom. Looking for a weapon, Adolfo quickly and randomly finds a dildo shaped vibrator and he uses it against the hitman who has now found a toilet brush. Eventually, Adolfo shoved the vibrator in the hitman's mouth and then pushed it in hard, but that actually didn't kill him. He dies another way.

Adolfo, then suddenly wakes up the next morning finding everything has been cleaned up and no sign of the dead body. He's trying to tell his girlfriend all about the fight the night before, but she doesn't seem to believe him. To help his case as he's explaining, he goes into the bathroom and gets the vibrator and tells her he used this. Then offhandedly as he's continuing to explain, he says something like, "how long have you had this vibrator, by the way." At that point she takes it from him, without remark, puts it away, and they both move on with the discussion.

My Thoughts

So there you have it. Man fights another man with a dildo shaped vibrator. Man realizes he didn't know his girlfriend even had a vibrator. Like I said above, there was no direct discussion or depiction of female masturbation, but it's kinda assumed Adolfo learns of his girlfriends masturbation in this scene.

The whole part about the fighting is just some good old fashioned fun with common household items combat. I don't have much to say about that. The other part, the part where we as an audience member realize that Adolfo didn't know that there was a vibrator in the apartment is the part I'm interested in. In general I feel pretty neutral about this.

On one hand, I like anytime there is a depiction of vibrators or any insinuation that women masturbate. It normalizes the idea that women masturbate (Every lady does it!) and anytime we can normalize that, it's good. It gives women permission to do that without feeling as much like a freak, and it gives men permission to feel comfortable that their wife or girlfriend masturbates. And, by golly, when women masturbate, they orgasm, and when they can orgasm through masturbation, they have a much better chance of figuring out how to do it with a partner. You might thing figuring that out would be easy, and it is for most men, but it's not so much for women because the most normal accepted thing to do during a hetero sexual encounter is intercourse, and intercourse only stimulates the male organ of sexual pleasure (penis) and only very rarely the female organ of sexual pleasure (clit). The vagina just doesn't make lady-gasms, sorry to say.

On the other hand, the fact that Adolfo's girlfriend kept her vibrator, and we might assume her masturbation habit, secret makes it seem like her having a vibrator is kind of a bad thing. There is a long history of men being threatened by vibrators, as if women using them is a statement about how her man can't satisfy her, so it's a valid read into the scene. In fact, something I didn't mention before was that she just broke up with him, so the secret vibrator might be an attempt at humor - as her having that was just another blow to his ego. Anyway, I think this scene could be viewed in a way that actually continues to stigmatize women's use of vibrators.

The Vulva Rating

I'm giving this 3 out of 5 vulvas. Largely this was just a fun scene, but digging down into it, I'm not sure how this scene plays into the larger cultural discussion about female masturbation. I like that female masturbation was touched upon, of course. However, I think it is very possible that for some viewers, this scene just reinforced all their worries about female masturbation with vibrators being seen as inappropriate within a relationship or actually a way to demasculinize their male partners. So, this isn't exactly progressive, but it's also not necessarily bad. Thus 3 out of 5.

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