PEN15 S1 Ep3 - The SSL REview
PEN15 - Season 1 Episode 3
My sister came to visit me about a year ago. It was a heavenly experience in which only her and I were alone in a house with no responsibilities for about 4 days. We did, like, whatever the fuck we wanted, and it was the best. One of the things we did was watch all of PEN15. She had been watching it with her oldest daughter, and correctly assumed I would also love it. For those who need to know, PEN15 is just like a way to write penis without actually writing it - something someone, say in middle school in the early 2000's, might write in a chat or something. That's relevant because it's a show about 2 best friend, Anna and Maya starting 7th grade in the early 2000's. The very, very special part of this is that it is 2 grown ass women playing Anna and Maya, but the rest of their 7th grade cast mates are actually middle school age. Which could be a bit problematic considering Anna and Maya are always lusting after some of the young gentlemen in their class, but I actually think that this is done thoughtfully and without sexualizing the boys. Also, somehow, you do kind of forget after a while that May and Anna are, in fact, grown ass women. It just works somehow.
Anyway, to me, it's a solid comedy. I highly recommend. It is also a really great story of girls and their inner adolescent life...which we really don't have enough of - especially compared to the stories of boys and their inner adolescent life - which honestly, we have quite a bit of from many perspectives and in a variety of cultural backdrops- particularly about their sexuality. I mean, how often have you come across a scene in movies or TV where a very young teen boy is sexually awakened somehow...I don't know, by any number of things - a Sears catalog, seeing a cousin undress, some porn their friends found, a hot teacher, some panties, a vaguely erotic book they found at the library - I don't know, really anything. It's just very common to see a 13ish year old boy, discovering sexuality and masturbations and generally making everything about sex and this growing need in their young life. It's much more rare to see that happen for a young teen girl. I imagine the issue is that this young adolescent sexual awakening time in a person's life is, well, exciting and meaningful and scary and weird and wonderful and it's just a lot. It's the kind of impactful part of our lives writers want to write about and directors want to direct about, and there's a lot of men out there doing the writing and directing. It makes it seem like this intensity of young sexual awakening is heavily in the domain of maleness and masculinity. As if dudes have this part of themselves that lady-types would never understand.
Well, it's time we ladies put that notion to rest and started sharing the breadth and variety of young sexual awakening stories that we have as well - from a variety of perspectives and a variety of cultural backdrops. Our voices and our experiences deserve the light of day my friends, and this show is a lovely edition. Episode 3 is about masturbations, and I am pleased to SSL Review it.
An SSL Review (for those that don't know about them)
Only depiction or discussion of female orgasm and/or female masturbation and/or the clit are eligible for SSL Review. Nothing else counts, including plain 'ol sex if it doesn't include anything listed above. I specifically 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).
The First Time and the other times: It's a lot
The Ponies started it all
The show opens with Maya playing something like My Little Pony's on the floor in her bedroom, cross-legged in a shirt and panties before bedtime. The ponies are having a conversation and then they start to kiss. The camera pans up to Maya's face as she looks up with a kind of dull inwardly focused expression. She looks back down as the camera pans with her, and we see that under her undies, her vulva is kind of cartoonishly pulsing. The camera pans back up with her eyes until we are looking at her in a bust shot. We see from her shoulders that both arms have moved down to her vulva area and they are moving around as her face goes quite blank, as if she might just drool out of lack of knowledge about what her face is doing anymore...but also with a touch of concentration.
The shot then moves to behind her, seeing her whole body. It's obvious both hands are pressing against her vulva rhythmically as she gets a bit faster, and then we see the slight forward movement of her back curling her torso more into itself as if, well, maybe she is coming. The shot switches back to a close-up of her face, and we see her eyes shut for a hot second and an almost inaudible, guttural 'mmmph' comes from her mouth before she kind of 'wakes up' to the outside world again. At that, the camera moves back a bit to more of a bust shot, and we see her pull her hands up into shot where she touches her thumb to the tips of her fingers and sees the clear vaginal lubrication string between. Then she hurriedly wipes it on the carpet and runs into bed when her mom calls from downstairs about brushing her teeth.
She gets immediately back on the horse
Her second time is almost immediately after her first. After she hurriedly jumps into bed, and her mom comes up to kiss her goodnight, she tell her to leave the lights on and when she leaves, Maya turns down the picture of herself and Anna that is sitting next to the bed, pushes her comforter down to her knees and takes both hands and starts rhythmically rubbing her vulva over her panties. It cuts to the opening credits, so no orgasm in that one.
The ear hole and other sexy things
So that was her awakening to masturbation. She is pretty into it, and it also sort of awakens a sexuality in her - in that she is seeing sexuality in things that she never did before. It's comedy, so those things are kinda weird, but also not necessarily that weird. There's reality in a young person high on the realization that they can orgasm whenever they want exists getting turned on by things that would not turn on a person 20 years later. I also think that since this is a show with adult women and teen boys, that they were careful not to choose shots describing Maya's sexual interests that could also be sensibly seen as showing young boys in a sexually enticing way. I approve of that choice, and I also think it makes for better comedy. Anyway below is a few of the things that Maya focuses on that seem to excite her sexual urges. We know they do because we see Maya look at them with the same dull, inwardly focused look on her face. There is also kinda tribal type music that starts playing as the outer world sounds drown away when her urges start arising, and she also doesn't pay attention to people talking to her and when she answers she kind of mumbles incoherently, like she's an idiot.
At school: The ear (like ear hole), back of the neck at the hairline (these are all, like, ultra close-ups), the eyebrow, the bow of someone's glasses, elbows, the ends of some moussed boy-hair, the Gobi Desert in a doc they are watching
At dinner with her family: (also all in close-ups) fried chicken, sweating cherries, cut fruit, some type of calamary, I think.
Trying it in a bathroom stall at school
Maya tells Anna that she needs to poop, and Anna's ready to go in with her (because Maya usually wants Anna to come with) but she asks to be alone because it's gonna be extra stinky - and asks Anna instead to wait outside and make sure no one comes in. So, she's in the stall, a little nervous about getting caught even though no one is in there, and we are seeing her straight on from the waist up sitting on the toilet. She unzips and puts both hands down her pants, moving them like she did in previous scenes. She has the same kind of dull look on her face, and then closes her eyes a bit, saying quietly, "Sex. Sexual. Sex. Vagina. Vagina."
You know, the kind of dirty sex talk a 7th grader might be into. It cuts to Anna outside who overhears something, so she comes in and talks to Maya through the stall. We again see Maya rubbing quicker, but Anna ultimately bothers her too much, and Maya quits before she orgasms.
After school jerk-off marathon
Maya closes all the blinds, turns off the lights, and goes into her closet, pulls her pants down and yells, "No one come in for an hour, I'm taking a nap!"
She again has both hands rubbing on her vulva as she is standing in her closet tongue kissing a poster of some young dude. It's intercut with Anna on her bed singing to a song - it's actually a pretty good total scene.
Anyway, Maya comes in a very similar way, with the inaudible "mmph" still standing, but with her face pressed against the closet doorframe expressing the same dull, inward look we've seen before. She pulls her pants up.
Then interspersed with scenes of Ana doing things, we see snippets of Maya masturbating in the following ways:
On her knees on the bed with a pillow between her legs that she's pressing with her hands in towards her vulva and also humping
Sitting on the floor, with her legs straddling a wall mirror so she's watching her vulva. One hand is rubbing her vulva area furiously. At this point her mom is calling her for dinner, so she has to stop and pull on her pants before her mom walks into her room, and before her mom leaves, she says, "What's that smell?" to which Maya says she ate sweet potatoes and farted.
Dead Grandpa knows what you're doing, Maya
After dinner with her family, Maya's mother tells her somewhat off-handedly that her dead grandpa is watching over them all the time - even when she sleeps, which freaks Maya out, and she starts seeing him when she's masturbating or thinking about it. That night, she's sitting cross-legged on her bed, with footy PJs rubbing her vuvla area with both hands. Suddenly, her dead grandpa appears in front of her. She freaks out, and says, "
Sorry, I didn't mean to do that. I wasn't doing what you think I was doing. I was just scratching."
Maya's like gross boys
There's another scene where we see Maya's guilt. The 3 boys Maya and Anna eat with at lunch are talking about seeing scrambled cable porn and Maya asks if they are talking about, like, masturbation. Anna says, "Yes, Maya, just ignore them, they're pervs."
Then the boys say they heard about someone that puts peanut butter on her crotch so their dog will lick it, and Anna is totally grossed out and says she could never do that. Maya feigns being grossed out, but clearly gets the picture that she is gross for what she's doing and Anna would not approve.
That afternoon, though, Maya lies to Anna saying they can't hang out because she's doing something out, and goes home and masturbates - A. LOT (that the after school masturbation marathon referenced above). Ana finds out, is mad, and eventually Maya tells Anna that it's not about Anna, it's about herself. She sees dead people - specifically her dead grandpa. So Anna suggests they do Ouija board to see what he wants.
At home on this Ouija board Maya and Anna both place their hands on the planchette, swearing meither is moving it. They call on Maya's Grandpa and he spells out 'clit' and after that, they try again, and he spells out the first part of masturbation before Maya throws the planchette across the room. Soon after Maya's brother comes in, tells them they are idiots because Ouija is just one of them subconsciously moving it and leaves. Maya starts to cry. In the next scene Anna and Maya are sitting on the bed and Anna asks her what's wrong to which Maya says she needs to tell Anna her subconscious. They have the following conversation. Keep in mind - Sam is one of the lunch boys talking about masturbation,
Maya: I'm like Sam, only I'm grosser because I'm a girl, and I'm a pervert, and I really shouldn't be doing what I'm doing. I've been putting my hands down my pants, um, my area down there to feel good. (She's crying as she's sayin it.)
Anna: Um, when I'm in bed, sometimes I put my hands between my legs to feel good.
Maya: Really?
Anna: Yeah. (They both let out a tiny laugh)
Maya: Wait, you mean like this? (Maya holds her hand up, palm facing out. Her 3 middle fingers are together and she draws small, gentle circles in the air.)
Anna: Not exactly, um, sort of
Maya: And you don't feel gross?
Anna: How gross can I feel if you do it too? (she says this with a little breath released at the end as if she's both embarrassed and relieved at the same time.)
Maya: Promise I'm not a pervert?
Anna: (whispering) Promise.
Maya: And swear you won't tell anyone?
Anna: Oh my god. I swear. You swear too?
Maya: I swear, yeah.
Then they pinky swear.
They masturbate on
In the next scene, we see Anna laying on her bed on her side hearing her parents fight, and she takes a breath and moves her arms down to press against her vulva area. It then cuts to Maya, who sitting on her bed, opens a National Geographic to pictures of sandy deserts. She traces her fingers across the sandy dunes that, honestly, do look a bit like a vulva. Then she sticks a hand down her pants. She then looks around, probably seeing if her dead grandpa is watching, doesn't see him, but then pulls the covers over top of her just in case. Then, through the credits, she seems to be humping her hand under the covers.
This, my friends, is a top notch episode for lady-gasms
If you read my blog, it's pretty obvious what I love about this episode.
Normalizing Lady-bation
Firstly, there is the simple element of giving voice to the masturbatory/sexual awakening of the adolescent girl. It's just one perspective of this, but one more than we had before, and that's moving in the right direction. The more depiction in books, movies, and tv of girls masturbating, the more normalized it will become, and the more likely there will be more girls that feel more comfortable trying it...which is a gain for female orgasm.
Because, for the love of all things holy, ya gotta know how to get yourself off before you can have any chance at getting off with another person. I mean this is PARTICULARY true for those with clits and vags. A person with a penis can go into a sexual situation with another person and just do what they've seen in TV/books/porn, and it will be basically the right moves to get off (stick the dick in something, vag, anus, fist, mouth - and move it in and out), so they at least have a good chance.
When the ladies do what they see, read, hear about (get a hole filled with something that moves in and out of it) they have like zero chance because that ain't what makes an orgasm for the ladies (seriously. it's really not a thing even though everyone thinks it is. Seriously. I can't stress this enough. I made a whole movie and over a decade of blogs on this basic premise that people generally, for some reason, really don't want to recognize). Rubbing the clitoral/vuvla area to orgasm is not what one usually thinks of when they think of 'sex,' even if it is often thought of as how women masturbate. But, that is basically what does in fact cause orgasm for the ladies - at least as much as getting the penis rubbed causes it for dudes. But ladies sure the fuck shouldn't count on that clit simulation just happening in a partnered sex situation the ways dude's can count on penis stimulation happening to them in even the most naïve sexual encounters.
All that to say, if the ladies want any good chance at all to come with a partner, we need to know how to come by ourselves, and any media that makes that more normal or enticing is doing The Good Work.
Realism
Also, this was realistic masturbation/orgasm depictions. That's important, because if this were something like girls ramming themselves with cucumbers or something to get off (which is an all too common depiction), it would be ridiculous and unrealistic in a variety of ways.
1 - again, ramming things in holes is not a realistic way the person with the hole gets off - like anatomically and physically it just doesn't make sense and has never been documented in scientific literature (again, seriously).
2 - on surveys about how they masturbate, ladies almost unanimously stimulate the external clit/vuvla area - with hands, shower heads, vibrators, furniture, bedding, while on their back, on their stomach - whatever. Point is, just as was depicted in this show, masturbation for the ladies is usually some form of getting the clit/vuvla area rubbed, and that is an anatomically, physically realistic way to attain orgasm. So, bravo with that PEN15.
I also want to commend the chill nature of the orgasm depiction. Way too often, lady-gasms are depicted as loud, physically overactive, or like, earth shattering in some way. My guess is that's because people are used to women faking orgasms and over-doing the sounds and the movements. With some exception, men depicted orgasming are much closer to how Maya depicted it - maybe slightly louder, but not all crazy vocalizations like we see from ladies most of the time. That, I believe is simply because we're used to seeing men actually orgasm, and actually orgasming has a strong element of being inward and focused, and it's probably not as insanely amazing as media makes it out to be.
I mean, I love me an orgasm, even a little wimpy one, but shattering into a thousand pieces and becoming one with the universe, as one might read in a romance novel or something, is not really how most people would describe most orgasms. My point is, I like seeing women having orgasms that seem like actual orgasms and not performances about how orgasmy they are. Particularly with a young gal like Maya just trying and learning about her orgasm, she's probably at a fast-and furious stage which is good, but it's probably not the strongest orgasm she'll ever have. One day, she may build up that physical arousal more slowly, edge a bit, have a good understanding of what she needs to do when to get the timing right, and probably have a stronger orgasm when she so chooses, but she needs to do a lot more jerk-off experimentation before that happens, and even then, ya know, it's just an orgasm, not an existential rainbow bursting out of your junk. So, I like the subtly here.
Vulva Rating
This gets a full 5 Vulvas. It's depictions are realistic. The actions were sensibly actions that could get a lady off. The vocalizations were not overdone and porny - and actually quite subtle and nice for the 1st orgasm of your life situation. The whole episode normalized lady-bation. It touched on the shame that arises from masturbation, particularly as a girl, and then put it to rest with friends admitting to each other that they both do it. It was also just a funny and sweet addition to the adolescent sexual awakening genre, one that has too few voices from the ladies.
Well Done Maya and Ana.
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