Whiskey Tango Foxtrot - The SSL Review

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot

I like Tina Fey, so I caught Whiskey Tango Foxtrot on some streaming media last year. It was an alright movie. It wasn't a standout, but it wasn't bad either - worth a watch. Anyway, it's about a reporter, Kim Baker, who ends up covering and staying in Afghanistan for a significant amount of time towards the beginning of the US engagement there. I'm not gonna tell a bunch of plot points, but the one thing you do need to know is that the reporters there party hard - like real hard - and there was a sex scene in this movie that mentions orgasm. This is what I am SSL Reviewing today.

The SSL Review Review

Okay, so SSL Reviews. As you might know an SSL Review is a critique of depictions or discussions of female masturbation, female orgasm, 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.

Check all the SSL Review movies HERE and TV SSL Reviews HERE.

The Details

I'm gonna lay out the scene for you first so you can see what happens here. (scene at about 1:02:20 in the movie). Kim has been partying with all the other reporters. Iain is a skeezy, Scottish dude reporter that hits hard on any woman around him, but he's kinda fun to hang with. He and Kim have become friends-ish. They're sitting together at the party. She looks at him...in that way. It cuts and they're making out as they come through the door to her room (they're like dorm rooms). 

Iain kinda picks Kim up.

Kim: Iain, don't carry me around. I'm not a fucking baby.

He puts her down. They're both super drunk and kinda stumble around and mumble things.

Kim:  God damn it. What are you doing?

She shoves and then kisses him. They try to pull her shirt off and mutter about that a little

Iain: Oh god, I'm gonna put it in you so fucking hard. You're gonna fucking get it.

Kim: Shhh. Don't talk.

Iain: I want everything in your mouth.

Kim: Iain, just shut it.

Remember - they're pretty drunk. I used the subtitles to help get this transcript, but it's actually kinda hard to hear. It's soft and slurry, and I'm actually not sure who says the next line. It kinda sounds more like Iain to me, but it seems more like Kim would say it. Anyway, they're sorta being combative yet continuing to kiss and grope - all in that fucked-up after party sort of way.

Iain or Kim?: I'll take you lying down, come on.

Kim: Do you have one of those wierd little penises?

Iain: No, this is how I want to go

He turns her around against the sink, so she's looking into the mirror.

Kim: No, I don't want to see myself. Roll off.

She works her way around so she's facing him again

Iain: Okay fuck it.

He starts kissing her again

Iain: Oh godddd, I'm fucking...ooooh god...

He starts putting his hand on her mouth.

Kim: What are you doing?

Iain: I'm just putting my fucking finger in your mouth

Kim: Shh. no

She's wiping his hand away from her face and he's drunkedly continuing.

Iain: come oooon, just put everything in your mouth.

Kim gags a little still wiping his hands away from her mouth. He stops.

Iain: Do you want me to go? 

She looks at him a little like he's crazy and very clearly says

Kim: no.

They kiss more and fall onto the bed. It cuts to the next morning. He's brushing his teeth. She's looking at him just over the covers, obviously not super excited it happened.

Iain: There's ault like a good shag.

Kim: okay, lets try to be adults here.

Iain: I think we were.

Kim: Obviously, this was just a Kabubble thing, right?...just a fun mistake where one of us had an orgasm.

He squints his eyes at her and leans on the sink as she continues talking

Kim: I mean we're both in a really bad place. And then you punched Nic. I mean, it's endorphines, right?

They never again address the orgasm thing. And she ends up having more drunkin' sex with him...but not that we really get to see depicted like we do this one. There is nothing to indicate if she started getting orgasms during these trysts or not, but they do grow a sort of a mutually caring relationship.

My Review

Seems Reasonable

So, she had sex but no orgasm. Now, we can't say what exactly physically went down during their encounter because it wasn't depicted or discussed after what happened above. But, the truth is, if they had sex in the most normal and accepted way - i.e. intercourse with maybe just enough oral or manual genital stimulation to get the engines revved and nothing more -  then him orgasming and her not makes perfect sense. His dick would have been stimulated perfectly inside her vagina. It's a fantastic situation for a dick wanting the kind of stimulation that would make it come.

Her clit (which is as important to female orgasms as the penis is to male) would probably have not gotten any love because rubbing the clit, for god knows what reason, while we fuck is not that much of a 'thing.' She could have tried to rub her clit up against his body to come while he was inside her, but if you ask me that takes her actively trying to do that and him actively letting her hip movement take precedent over his (so he can't be banging into her) - which seems pretty unlikely given how very on his own agenda and uncooperative the sexual situation had been thus far. Anyway, my point here is that it was probably just her vagina getting stimulated, and that ain't never shown itself to cause orgasm  - not in all of scientific literature.

So her assessment of the sex seemed completely reasonable and realistic. Truth is, women all the time have tons of sex with men and don't orgasm even though the dude they're with does - just like in this situation. 

Calling Out Porn Inspired Sex Stuff

I also wanted to quickly bring up the stuff we did see. I think there was an interesting dynamic there that we don't usually see. Iain in this movie is a known pervy skeez to women, and he continues in that vein during the sex. He talks about how hard he's going to fuck her and how he wants to put stuff in her mouth. He sticks his fingers in her mouth. It's all very porn-inspired. Even the part where he picks her up. To me, it's like he was expecting that type of script for this sexual encounter, because, well, I think men often do: him manhandling her, him moving her into positions he wants, banging the fuck out of her, sticking whatever he wants in whatever part of her he wants. 

Kim resists him the whole time, though, telling him to stop talking and pushing his hands out of her mouth. Yet she actively tells him she wants to still continue having sex with him.

I loved this because in a way it had the raw realism I think a lot of women would recognize. There is no lack out there in the world of shitty sex due to a guy wanting to do things to you that are unsexy, unarousing, unorgasmic, gross, or sometimes downright mean. And, truth be told, a lot of those shitty things are just the normal things we see in porn, movies and TV. It's just kinda how sex often goes, so the truth is in real life a lot of women find it easier to just go with it than having to fight at every step - because honestly that's just not sexy for anyone. I really like that in this scene there was this interesting flip of the switch where Kim did call out all the stuff she thought was gross. It was kind of like her drunkness gave her a free pass to tell him to fuck off with his dumb shit while still easily moving forward in the sex. I mean in the end it didn't help her have an orgasm with him, but maybe the sex overall was less gross because she didn't let it be that gross.

I liked that, and although we didn't see anything progressive in the physical way these two were having a sexual encounter (the assumption is they just had intercourse with a male but not female orgasm - which is pretty status quo), we did see a very realistic situation, and we saw a woman calling out the unarousing, grossness, and unorgasmic reality of that normal situation. 

Now, I'm not saying some women wouldn't like what he was doing, but I am saying that women are depicted as liking/wanting that type of thing more than women likely actually do like it...and that it's refreshing to see it being ridiculed the way it was in this scene.

SSL Review

This scene quite correctly depicted a woman not orgasming from an (assumed) non-clitorally infused boning. (Also she was super drunk, and that's just not a good physical situation for orgasm anyway). It also gently ridiculed a sort of porn-inspired expectation of what a woman should like and want from a sexual encounter. It wasn't the most progressive thing I've seen, but I felt like there was a realism and a fresh perspective in there that should be rewarded. I give this 4 out of 5 vulvas.

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