Inside Amy Schumer S1 Ep5 - The SSL Review

Inside Amy Schumer Season 1 Episode 5

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 - and that is what this blog is all about. (She could use some schooling and humbling when it comes to speaking about race though).

SSL Review

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'm looking at realism (for instance, was the physical thing happening during the depicted orgasm, actually something that would realistically cause a woman to orgasm?). I'm also stepping back and asking how the depiction/discussion plays in the larger cultural conversation about female orgasm and women's sexuality. The TV show or movie might be fantastic and get a bad SSL Review or vice versa.

Please, my friends, do enjoy more SSL Reviews for MOVIES and TV SHOWS.

The Scenes

THE BACHELORETTE PARTY

This skit involves a bunch of female friends at a bachelorette party/ shower. They are all giving the woman of honor her gifts, and it's really a skit about one-upping each other, but they're doing it with vibrators.

Amy opens the first gift and and it's a rabbit vibrating dildo where the dildo can go in the vagina and the vibrating bunny ears are right at the clit (see below).

Gift Giver 1: I use the same one myself. Let me just say, it really knows what it's doing. (As she said that she touched the clit touching rabbit ears).

She opens the next gift and it's another vibrating dildo that looks a lot like the one below.

Gift Giver 2: This one is called the Herminator, and it's the same one I use. It has an alarm clock and voice control. It is the best. no offense (looking to Gift Giver 1)

She opens the third gift and it's a purple vibrating, beaded Rabbit dildo like the one shown below.

Gift Giver 3: It's the good vibration's sweet sensation, and this thing makes my eyes pop out of my head...and become my vagina.

Gift Giver 1: "um, I just found the battery life on those things to be dog shit."

Gift Giver 3:  Um it's actually also a Boingo hotspot, and I know you travel a lot, so I'm just really considerate.

She opens the 4th gift and it's a sleek looking rabbit-style vibrating dildo like the one below.

Gift giver 4: It has GPS. you can download 5,000 songs on it. 

Then they all start one-upping and saying crazy stuff about what their gift vibrators can do - wifi, etc. Then one of them says the following.

Gift Giver 3: I just want you to know that I care about your vagina more than I care about my own and that's the most you can care. If that make sense?

Gift Giver 2: It does make sense, but I also care about your vagina a ton. You know, sometimes too much, I wonder. I do wonder that. You know I just... for me, I just really want your vagina to be on the brink of exhaustion at all times

Last one gives her a homemade vibrator (they say vibrator not dildo). I's made of like macaroni and it has pictures of their trips together. It's the favorite gift.

ASKING ON THE STREETS

This is just a little segment Amy does where she talks to random people on the streets of NY.

Amy: Would you ever get somebody a vibrator a a gift?

Woman 1: Yes, I think it the best gift ever!

Amy: My birthday's coming up 

Amy: Do you own a vibrator?

Friend 1: Uh, I used to, but it broke in college

Amy: What about you?

Friend 1: Mine didn't break - still in use.

Amy: Still rockin' out!  Praise the lord!

AMY GOES DEEP WITH A DOMINATRIX

This is a segment where Amy sits down with an interesting person and asks them whatever she wants.

Amy: What's something that your clients introduced you to that you've incorporated into your own life?

Dominatrix: Oh - vibrator hands down.

Amy: Really?

Dominatrix: Oh yes!

Amy: What kind of vibrator?

Dominatrix: It's a Hitachi - it's that...

Amy: Wait, wait wait a minute. Can I have a pen? No one's afraid of an orgasm on this set.

Dominatrix: That's right  (with a little snap)

My Thoughts

vibrators are vibrators, not dildos

I mean, I love a vibrator episode, amiright? First off, they called them vibrators not dildos, even though many of the vibrator gifts were vibrating dildos. I appreciate that. It gives proper reverence for the truly important part of a vibrating dildo...the vibrations. That, my friends, is what jiggles the ol' clit/vulva area into orgasm. Yes, you can also stick it up inside you, and that's fun too, and good for, you know, the feeling of having something inside you. But stimulation of the clitoral glans area is what causes orgasm in women, just like stimulation of the penis causes orgasm in men.

Most of those fancy 'rabit' style vibrating dildos used as gifts in the Bachelorette skit are specifically created to give clit stimulation, though, and I think they were intentionally chosen because of that, which is awesome and much appreciated. In fact, Gift Giver 1 touched on the outer 'rabbit ear' clit stimulator when she said it "hit all the right parts." I can only assume that was an intentional way to point out that it's clit, not inner vagina, focused. I believe that because Amy Schumer (and probably also the writers and actresses around her) seems pretty cognizant of her role in adding realism to media about the clit being the focus of female sexual pleasure.

Also, if you don't know about these 'rabbit' style vibrating dildos, here's a quick lesson. You stick the dildo part in, get all that subtle inner vibes going (sometimes I think they even move around, like in circles or something - I don't know what that's gonna do, but it sounds fun enough to try out), and then you have a little outer part (could be rabbit ears, could be just a small appendage) that vibrates and hits right on the clit area while the rest is inside. Nice, right?

On an aside...having a dildo vibrate inside, instead of outside, is really quite nice too. I'd say it allows this nice subtle vibration to make its way out to your lips/clit area, and it's like a smooth arousal groove. It's nice. I didn't know about that fun until years into my vibrating life, but it's also a desperate tease. I find it gets me real aroused down there, but it just can't seal the deal. The vibrations are just too subtle, and too not focused where I need them. Maybe there are other women out there who have figured out how to get the vibrations happening inside to make enough waves hit the clit to get over the hump, but I haven't. And that's why I say you might as well have 2 vibrators, so if you want one inside, you can set the other one on top, near the clit to actually get you over the orgasm hill.

Why say 'vagina' when you could say 'clit' and be accurate and more interesting

And that brings us to the next point. All the women were talking about how the vibrator affected their 'vagina.' I don't think the word clit was ever even used. I feel pretty confident that they meant the whole 'down there,' when they said vagina. Honestly, that's a very common use of the word vagina, but in reality the vagina is literally the tunnel, not the outer parts. I tend not to be too much of a critic about people, especially in comedy, using 'vagina' incorrectly because it's the most common word for lady-junk. However, I think in this case, I'm a touch more critical because the vibrators are so dildo-ish and many people might assume they are intended more for vaginal stimulation than stimulation of the clit/vulva area.

Plus, given that so many people don't even know where the clit is, the overall impression of this scene for a lot of people could just be a confirmation of the very common but incorrect feeling that vibrating dildos are great because they vibrate the actual vaginal canal, leading them to further incorrectly assume that the vagina is what needs stimulated to get great orgasms. I don't think that's the intended message from the Schumer writers, but it is what may have happened none the less. Honestly, (unless maybe the show allows vagina, but not clit said, which may actually be the case) saying clit in place of vagina up there would have made as much sense, and probably been funnier in some cases.

Love the Vibrator/Lady-bation Love

As for the women on the street and the badass dominatrix. Hells to the yeah. I love that they enthusiastically endorsed a vibrator, and that the show added to that enthusiasm. This is how we normalize female masturbation. (Even the one whose vibrator broke in college still admitted to having used one at least once...And bitch please, I know she she either still has one or she wishes she did but her partner's scared by them. It's a rare woman who uses a vibrator so much she breaks it and then just settle for her new non-vibrator life. It's insane. She knows how things can be with one. How could she go back?).

And, can I say that I love imagining this Dominatrix, who very likely quite enjoys her job, doing her job. I imagine she's saying and doing shit to dudes (and maybe some women, but I like thinking about doing this shit to dudes) that could be super wierd and fun as shit to do. She's using some improv and acting. She's getting to see intimate elements of strangers one rarely is privy to. She's able to care and heal maybe. She gets to dress in fun outfits, but it's probably not that sexy in the end. Then, one day, wham!, a client brings a vibrator for her to use. She's never tried one before, and as she's trying it, the heavens open and her life, both outside this job and inside, gets a little better, and that's truly a lovely thing.

My Vulva Rating

This is not a perfect SSL Review because I really do think the use of the word 'vagina' instead of 'clit' or even 'vulva' in the gift scene gave an overall wrong impression about how female orgasm works and how vibrating dildos are realistically used for getting a lady-gasm. (However, if an Inside Amy Schumer insider contacts me and lets me know that the word clit was preferred, but could not be used, well, then I might up the vulva rating).

Over all though it was very good, and I feel intentionally so. Like, there was thought put into giving praise for women getting their own in the orgasm department with vibrators. It was not only normalizing of female masturbation and the use of vibrators (because honestly people are still afraid of them and show that in their media - See SSL Review for Love S1), it was also downright enthusiastic about it. This gets a solid 4 out of 5 vulvas

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