The Favourite - The SSL Review
The Favourite
First off, I love this movie. I saw this bitch in the theater twice. It's lovely and weird and funny and has these rich, meaty lady-stories. It's just goddamn good movie making. Granted, it might not be everyone's taste, but it sure the fuck is mine. Secondly, it had an SSL Reviewable moment, and it's going to get a good vulva rating, so even more respect to this movie.
An SSL Review, for those that need a little refresher, is a review specifically of any discussion or depiction of female orgasm, female masturbation, or the clit. I critique the realism of the depiction/discussion and also write about what the depiction/discussion says about and/or adds to our cultural understanding of female sexuality and orgasm. I try my best to just stick specifically to those SSL Reviewable moments, so it usually stays pretty focused on those parts of the movie only, but sometimes I like to digress.
So here we go. I have tons of these reviews btw. You can find all the other movie SSL Reviews HERE and the TV SSL Reviews HERE.
The Pain!
This will be a quick one. Although there are few sexual scenes in this movie, this is the only one that depicts a ladygasm. If you haven't seen the movie, and you want to, go see the movie first and then read this. I don't think this would spoil the movie as a whole because it's such a rich movie, but it does tell you one spoiler. Your choice though.
Abigail is a servant that gets called in to the queens chambers. It's happened before and she's familiar, even friendly with the queen, but this time is different, and Abigail knows what's up.
Queen: Rub my legs
The Queen is laying in bed, and Abigail sits in the bed next to her. She rolls up the Queen's nightgown to around the knees and begins rubbing her ankle area.
Abigail: Does it hurt a lot?
Queen: coolly, and with an unwavering gaze: They're agony
(It's poignant that she says this so calmly because in past scenes where her legs hurt she is opposite of calm...Queen be fishin' for some other kind of relief...if ya know what I mean).
Abigail start moving up the legs with each massaging squeeze. Her gaze is as unwavering as the queen's. She clearly gets under the nightgown and looks to be in the lady-parts range. The shot moves to the Queen and she makes a face with an intake of air which indicates Abigail is touching a pleasurably sensitive area now. We see Abigail with her hands deep under the gown, still massaging. Her arms are definitely moving as if she's really giving a good massage to that area. We cut back to the queen, and she has closed her eyes, opened her mouth, and dipped her head back. She kind of shifts her body the way one might to get the right angle when one is getting a handie. She's really feeling this vulva massage, ya'll. Abigail continues to massage rhythmically, looking dead at the queen, and we hear the queen begin to moan. It cuts to her, and she is eyes closed, mouth agape, head back, and she says in a burst,
Queen: Oh, the pain!
The scene cuts to another situation and the next time we see Abigail and the queen, they are sleeping nude together.
I actually wouldn't necessarily say that the orgasm was depicted there. To me it felt more like the lead up to an eventual orgasm, so maybe this is a little in the technical gray area for SSL Review eligibility, but the assumption of an eventual orgasm caused by that physical situation seemed clear enough to me, so I'm cool with it.
The Review
I mean, this is a pretty easy one. Although the minute details of what was going on under that gown were hidden, it was clear that there was consistent massage-style stimulation happening in the vulva area, and it clearly didn't look like some porny finger-banging into the vag-hole situation. That's realistic enough for me. You get consistent manual stimulation going on the vulva/clitoral glans area, and by golly, that right there is something that has been shown both in peer-reviewed scientific papers and under skirts around the world, to cause an orgasm. So, the realism is there. The physical thing depicted as happening to the woman is something that could reasonably be assumed to cause orgasm. Not all (not most, really) depictions of lady-gasms are realistic, so I'm very happy about this.
I will say, though, that this was a depiction of 2 females in a sexual situation and those more often than not are more realistic (I mean not in porn - those often are still ridiculous and vagina-hole focused for some godawful reason). I think the fact that there is no penis attached to anyone allows more flexibility to depict sexual acts that don't include pushing a penis in and out of a vagina - which contrary to popular belief is shit for lady-gasms, so more chance for realism. I'm just pointing this out because honestly, I'm more excited when I see lady-gasm realism in hetero sexual situation given realism in those scenes are so much more rare. In the same way, I'm also more disappointed when lesbian interactions are not realistic...so I'm very happy this did not disappoint.
The Vulva Rating
Love the movie. Love the realism. These kinds of depictions help to remind people that the female pleasure organ (the clitoral glans) is on the outside of the body and not deep up in the vag. We need as many reminders of that as we can get to counteract all the BS depictions of women getting boned into orgasm without even a hint of clit stimulation. That kind of dumb shit is what gets into all our heads and fucks with our sex lives. All that to say, The Favourite - I give you 5 out of 5 vulvas!
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