Insecure S2 Ep1: The SSL Review

Insecure 

I watched seasons 1 and 2 of Insecure last fall and took notes, but haven't gotten to writing any SSL Reviews until now. Turns out the first actual SSL Reviewable moment wasn't until the opening show for the second season. Not that there hadn't been sex on the show up to that point - there for sure had been, but none of it to that point had included an orgasm or any clit action for me to speak about.

Frankly, it had all mostly just been scenes of dudes banging ladies that cut before anyone came - no clit touching involved. That's pretty much the status quo on sex scenes, so not surprising, but I will say I was hoping for more when I started this. Given that the star of the show, Issa Rae, a woman, is also the creator and a writer and that there are often female directors on this show, I was excited for a more progressive, lady-gasm focused depiction of sex and sexuality. It certainly is a progressive show in many other ways and worth watching, just a bit sexually status quo.

It ended up being pretty basic; an occasional go-down or masturbation scene, but the sex is no different than we'd see in porn or any other mainstream media. It's male-gasm centric and mostly PinV-minus-the-clit. I should expect that by now though, it's the same with other HBO shows like Sex and the City and Girls that are touted as being more progressive and lady-sex-centric than your average fare...when really they just tend to show/say more sex, but not more progressive depictions of it.

An SSL Reviews

As a quick reminder, SSL Reviews are depiction or discussions of female orgasm and/or masturbation and/or the clit. Only those specific things are reviewed - other discussions or depictions of sex or sexuality not within the above confines are for the most part not of interest to me. In these reviews,  I critique the realism (for instance, were the physical things happening to that women while she orgasmed things that could realistically cause orgasm for a woman?) and also speak on what the depiction/discussion reflects from and adds to the larger cultural discussion around lady-gasms and female sexuality.

You can see all the SSL TV Reviews HERE (and as always you can find all the movie SSL Reviews HERE).

S2 Ep1 - Side Sex

I'm going to describe below the one SSL Reviewable scene, but I'm not going to use the character's names. I'm going to call them Lady and Dude because if you haven't watched this show yet, and you are planning on watching it, I don't want to ruin anything for you...and in this instance the characters involved in this scene don't really matter much to my assessment.

So, Dude and Lady are in bed. He's fucking her from behind, but they are both on their sides. We're looking at them from his back. She definitely comes - audibly. We aren't really able to see what's going on with her hands because they are in front of her body, so there is a tiny possibility she's rubbing one out while getting banged, but also, no - because even if we can't see her hands really, it distinctly doesn't look like she's moving her arms or hands around on her vuvla/clit area. She's just got her arms on the bed in front of her probably. His hands are not rubbing on her vulva either.

So, this is a scene where a woman gets boned from behind with no hands or vibe on her vuvla/clit area. She's basically just getting her vaginal canal stimulated by a penis, and that, as I do indeed point out in about every post, is not a way that has caused a woman to orgasm anywhere in all of scientific literature. For real. A penis moving in a vagina with no additional clitoral glans stimulation is simply not a realistic way to depict a woman coming - even though for some godawful reason, it's the most common way to show it.

My Review (enough with the shit sex scenes)

So this does not get a good vulva rating from me. Depictions of woman getting banged into an orgasm without even a touch to the clitoral glans/vulva area is a very, very major part of the orgasm inequality problem. It's incredibly unrealistic, like showing a dude coming only from getting his balls sucked. Yet, we continue to drive this anatomically incorrect nonsense into women and men's heads, and it makes everyone assume that a quick bone should get a woman off as easily as it gets the man off. It's a lie that leads to confusion, shame, faking, and a basic misunderstanding about how the female body works and about how one should approach sex with a woman if one wants that women to orgasm.

I hate scenes like this. They clearly are not progressive in terms of orgasm equality, but they are also not intentionally regressive either. These kinds of scenes are so part of our cultural fabric that I think they get made without much thought...like, they get made because they look like what we think a sex scene should look like. So, I have some softness about these because although I find them incredibly harmful, I also see that they are just status quo and there isn't bad intention behind them usually, just lack of critical thought. This show puts critical thought into a lot of other topics though, so I'm not too mad at the shit sex scenes.

But man, I'd love to see some more female-centric sex stuff in season 3 and beyond. The sex up to this episode has been 100% banging with no clit stuff. I did get excited once in S1 Ep6 where a dude went down on Issa's friend Molly, but she stopped him shortly into it because she couldn't get over that he got his dick sucked by a dude once. I mean first, just get over that shit - who cares (and the show actually did a really nice job addressing that issue), but second, even if you are freaked out, Molly, don't give up your chance for your clit to be sucked into an orgasm. Those chances don't come around near often enough. Come on now, if you can't deal with the dude, then just get yours and get out. SMH

The Vulva Rating

So this episode will get a 2 star rating. It piled onto the massive amount of anatomically incorrect sex scenes out there where women orgasm in incredibly unrealistic ways. These just add to our cultural ignorance of how female orgasm works and causes women to feel shamed and confused about their inability to orgasm in ways that our media makes seem so easy. It ain't a great, but I also don't feel like it's intentionally bad, so I won't take all the vulvas away.

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