Crazy Ex-Girlfriend S1 Ep 4 & 8 - The SSL Review

Crazy Ex-GirlFriend

I do quite enjoy this show. It's a wild ride. I respect that. I also love the creator and star, Rachel Bloom. She is an Orgasm Equality advocate, ya'll. She dropped some truth bombs on Twitter, and I loved it. I wrote a post about it and made her an official Orgasm Equality Ally.

 She also drops in subtle accurate, realistic depictions and discussions of lady-gasm stuff in her show, which honestly, is my dream of dreams. If all shows did this, we wouldn't have much of a problem anymore.

Anyway, it's a network show so there's not a ton of orgasm, masturbation, and clit stuff being thrown around for obvious reasons, but there are things from time to time that are SSL Reviewable. 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 focus on that and really only that (unless I want to talk about something else). I'm looking mainly at realism and about how the depiction/discussion plays in the larger cultural conversation about female orgasm and women's sexuality. I have 2 simple ones from Season 1 to talk about here.

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

S1 Ep4 - Dirty Hippie Dudes

Rebecca, played by Rachel Bloom, ends up having a one night stand with this unkempt hippie-style guy. After they have sex, the dude gets up.

Hippie Dude: "What do you want me to do with these 2 condoms you made me wear."

Rebecca: "Uh trashcan in the bathroom"

Hippie Dude: Cool. Hey by the way, you finished right?

Rebecca: Oh yea. I finished a bunch.

The hippie dude is satisfied with that, and she gets him out of her apartment quickly.

She definitely did not come 'a bunch.' She's clearly being sarcastic in this scene. The audience has no idea about what physically happened during the sex, but we can assume that the dude must not have been that interested in her orgasm during the act since he asked as an afterthought. We can also suspect he's not very perceptive since he was fine with her clearly sarcastic answer,. That's real. They probably just banged. He came. She didn't. That's about as typical a hook-up as one can imagine.

So, this scene is not super progressive or anything, but I like how it mirrors the female reality of shit one-night-stand sex that includes intercourse but no lady-gasms...because frankly hook-ups, for a variety of reasons, are just not all that great generally for the clit and thus the female orgasm.

I think the simple act in media of pointing out that sexual encounters are often not orgasmic for women is a small but important task. In order for our culture to begin really caring about actual female orgasm and to embrace the idea of clitoral glans stimulation as main-course fare (as opposed to intercourse as main-course fare), we all need to really get the point that what we tend to do currently in sexual encounters is not working all that well...like we need to really get that. We need to for real understand that a penis moving in the vagina does not a lady-gasm make.

Little pokes like this scene are poignant, and I appreciate that.

S1Ep8 - Frigid 

This is flashback of Rebecca as a kid trying to please her mom. She tells her that her principal said she was the youngest and prettiest of all the moms in her grade. Her mom retorts back,

Mom: Just in your grade?

Rebecca: Oh no in the whole school.

Mom: I don't know why you're even talking about him. He's married...but I heard his wife was frigid. Go on.

Frigid. It's not actually used much these days. It was used a lot from the 40's into the 80's. It is a Freudian word specifically meaning a woman that cannot orgasm from vaginal penetration. She may be able to orgasm from clitoral stimulation, but that was immature. She was frigid unless she orgasmsed from intercourse. In pop culture it also seemed to kind of grow a less specific meaning in that it referred to a woman that was just not able to orgasm at all or was not generally that interested in sex or not easily aroused. It was always seemed to have a derogatory, bad feel.

I'm not sure, off the bat, how to place this scene in the sexual culture. I do know Rebecca's mom is clearly mean and vindictive in this show, and her saying that about another woman shows it to be kind of a shitty and maybe gossipy thing to say. I guess though that bringing up frigidity at all and the derogatory feel surrounding it about a woman's ability to orgasm or to orgasm in the right way, is not real positive - especially if it's left unaddressed. Women's insecurities about our orgasmic capabilities are deep and strong (women's magazines know that...that's why every issue gives us tips about how to be correctly orgasmic), so little mentions of frigidity, even if made by a clearly vindictive character, can add onto the pile of other media mentions that remind and reiterate to that women we aren't orgasming right or enough.

The Vulva Rating

I loved the realism about lady-gasms the show put out there in Rebecca's answer to the hippies question about her 'finishing.' I think that's a solid and intentional schooling on the realities of sexual encounters for females. The frigid statement was just a joke about her mom's vindictiveness, but if I want to be picky (and I do often want to be picky) I do think bringing up derogatory concepts like that without speaking to their ridiculousness leaves them to just fester there with all the other similar mentions in the media we watch. It's an unintentional reiteration of the fears women already have.

So, This will not be a perfect score, but it won't be bad either. I will give this a 3 1/2 out of 5 vulva rating.

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