The Deuce S1 Ep1 - The SSL Review

The Deuce Episode 1 Season 1

The Deuce is a new HBO series, and James Franco is a main character that plays a set of twins, which, you know, is quite a thing. I've actually only seen the very first episode, so that's all I know of the show, but it's supposed to be about the rise of the legal porn industry in New York in the 70's. I actually enjoyed the first episode. I'll be watching more of course. I mean, this show is clearly one that will have lots of SSL Reviewable moments in the future, and I can't miss out on that.

An SSL Review

As always, an SSL Review is the critique specifically of the depiction or discussion of female orgasm, female masturbation, or the clit. I'm particularly looking for the level of physical realism and for how the depiction/discussion fits into the larger cultural discussion about female sexuality and orgasm. Sometimes I comment on other aspects of the movie. Sometimes I don't.

Please feel free to check out all the SSL Reviewed movies HERE and the SSL reviews TV shows HERE.

O Face

So a young woman is doing her professor on a couch. He is laying flat on his back, and she is on him cowgirl style with her body completely perpendicular to his. It's grindy but also up and down (like his pushing up into her and down more than she's using her legs to bounce up and down on him). Despite the grindiness, her body is so perpendicular to his that there's no way her clit or vulva are being stimulated against him, and none of their hands are near her vuvla. Her clit is not being stimulated in this situation. We see a quick long shot of them and their whole bodies when the scene opens, but then it moves and and is mostly a bust shot from then on. Overall it's a quick scene, and starts just before he comes. She clearly does not, and she starts calmly laughing at him right after he does.

Professor: What?

Student: The expression on your face when you came. That look. (scrunches her face up)

Professor: Okay.

Student: If people stopped for a moment an realized what they looked like during sex, they'd lose it. I mean if it wasn't fun it'd be ridiculous.

Motel Sex

James Franco (one of him) is doing a coworker in a motel room. She's laying on the bed on her back. He's standing. Her feet are up on either side of his head - knees about his body width apart, and he's fucking her - like banging into her. It starts with a close just really on his naked butt (which I was cool with). We hear her kinda moan-screams with each thrust. She's kinda like perma-gasming during this whole thing - very porny.

Then the shot moves up to his back and her feet up in the air. He's still banging. We see that his hands are around her knees. They're still banging. She starts adding in a 'yeah' to her perma-gasm sounds. The shot pulls out a bit, and we see one of her hands is gripping his leg and the other is up by her head. Nobody's hands are on her clit. Her clit is definitely not touching his body. It's also unlikely that there's a sorta stimulation thing going on with her legs being pressed together (which could press her pussy lips together around her clit maybe giving it some stimulation) because her legs are actually not pressed together. Her knees are about a foot apart so that's not happening...plus, that Rube-Goldberg legs-press-lips-kinda-stimulate-clit type of orgasm possibility is a bit of a stretch anyway, methinks - even if she did have her legs pressed together.

It ends with them both kinda amping up; his intensity/breathing, her perma-gasming. He collapsed down to the bed and they both lay there panting as if they had both orgasmed.

My Thoughts

Same vagina banging, two different results

Well, there was one scene where a woman was getting the inside of her vagina stimulated without any clitoral/vulva stimulation...and she did not orgasm while the man underneath her did. Then there was another vag stimulation scene with no additional clitoral/vulva stimulation, but this time the woman came simultaneously with the man. The first is realistic (because women need outer clitoral/vulva stimulation to come and stimulating the vagina just can't be expected to get the job done) and the second is some bullshit, but bullshit that we see all. the. time.

Depictions of regular intercourse - just a dude banging a woman where no one uses hands, vibes, bedding or each other's bodies to give that ol' clit/vuvla area consistent stimulation like the penis gets inside the vagina - those oh-so-normal scenes are telling when it comes to female orgasm. The woman orgasms or doesn't orgasm based not on what is physically happening to her. That part is pretty consistent (and consistently not conducive to lady-gasms). It's based on other crap; like her mood or whatever the writer thinks would be a good scene.

Men's orgasms aren't depicted so willy-nilly

It's wierd because that doesn't happen for men. If a man in a regular ol' sex scene doesn't come, it's because the scene was stopped before that part of the sex act, or there is a specific and touched upon reason why he didn't. Maybe it was stress, or he's drunk, or something happens that prevents it, but rest assured it's not just sitting out there without comment that he didn't orgasm. The truth is a vagina is a perfect stimulating device for a penis, so if all else is well, there's no reason a man shouldn't come during intercourse. So, depictions are like that for men, I can only assume, because in real life men do almost always orgasm during regular ol' sex and if they don't it's a 'thing.' Viewers, writers, director and actors all are on a similar page about this.

Ladies have confusing orgasm depictions because people are confused about how women orgasm

However, we can have 2 scenes in the same episode that both are basically stimulating the same parts on the women, but one comes and one doesn't because, well, women don't often (I might say almost never) come during that type of regular old sex. BUT...then again, sometimes we fake it and our partner (maybe even we ourselves), don't realize it's faked. We even sometimes actually come, but it was because we were grinding our clits against him just right, but he (and maybe even we) thought of it as just coming from getting banged.

My point is we as a culture are kinda ignorant about what the fuck makes a woman orgasm, and the real life experiences we have during intercourse just add to our confusion about it. So, unlike men, when it comes to women and orgasm during regular ol' sex, we assume she can because we see it in movies, but we also don't assume she will. We don't always notice or care if she doesn't, and we don't really question it either way. So when we depict it, we just depict it in a haphazard, however-the-fuck-I-want-to sorta way. This is the situation in this episode, and like I said, it's telling about how we view and experience female orgasm in real life.

The Vulva Rating

These 2 sex scenes are just status quo. I may be proved wrong, but I feel like they are done with very little thought or energy. It's just like the scene said 'sex scene' and the creators did it like they think a sex scene should be or how they've seen them done before. The truth is, it takes some particular insight into the female sexual experience and some gumption to make a better sex scene when it comes to female orgasm. This show didn't have that.

I will give it a little boost because 1 of the scenes realistically showed a lack of orgasm during that regular ol' sex...but not too much of a boost, because I think it's less a result of thoughtfulness and more a result of the crap-shoot orgasm/no-orgasm situation that naturally happens in these scenes due to miseducation and confusion about female orgasm in our larger culture.

I give this episode a mere 2 out of 5 vulvas.

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