This was released all the way back in 2014. Anything you’d change if you made it now?

I’m glad you asked.

First, I’d not only focus on how there’s no evidence that G-Spot stimulation has ever caused orgasm, but also on the absolute lack of evidence that stimulation of the inner clitoral structure has caused orgasm. Unfortunately, the (unevidenced) idea that one could be banged into an orgasm by stimulation of the inner clitoris through the vaginal wall was just not popular at the time this movie was made. It was largely all about the G-Spot. Point is, one might assume this movie was made before some new evidence or insight came out that showed the inner clit (not the G-spot as had been assumed) was the cause of vaginal orgasms, but one would be assuming incorrectly - neither have been shown to cause vaginal orgasms and frankly a vaginal orgasm has never been physically identified in all of scientific literature. Anyway, if you want a much longer discussion about this type of misinformation being pushed about the inner clitoral structure, I have a blog post for that.

Second, we got a lot of pushback for using a male narrator talking about lady-gasms right at the beginning. It turned a few people off. Honestly, we were just using the actors we could get and arranging them in the movie in ways that best matched their ability and availability. And, actually, the movie originally did start with a musical number led by a woman, but it eventually got cut (and we were all a little sad about it). Anyway, we were a real no-budget operation. We really didn’t even consider it would be a problem, but I think we would think more critically how and where we used a male voice in the movie.

Third, we’ve gotten criticism that the first part of the movie was too forcefully saying that vaginal orgasms probably don’t exist if you look at the scientific evidence. We say it pretty bluntly and more than a few times. I’ve heard that it feels condescending, that it gets boring, that it seems too harsh (from some, but certainly not everyone). I know with hindsight we would probably at least consider approaching it differently, but to be honest I’m still not sure exactly how.

On the one hand, we actually put A LOT of thought and tried a ton of different things for the opening of the movie. We even created focus groups. The choice to go hard on that point at the beginning was intentional because it was integral to understanding pretty much all the other main points in the movie; also because a fair amount of people didn’t seem to get or acknowledge that really integral point unless we drilled it home. Strangely, what we found was that often, even when someone complained we said it too much, they later spoke about or answered something that seemed like they didn’t integrate that piece of knowledge into their understanding of female sexuality. So, basically we had this sense after a while, strange as it may be, that the idea that vaginal orgasms are likely made up is so foreign and so counter to our deepest understandings, that brains seem to just ignore it. So, we figured we’d rather be a bit annoying than not get our main point across.

On the other hand, I do wonder if going hard on that point so early just hardens some people in a way that they couldn’t really absorb information after that. It’s something I think about a lot. In fact, as I’ve talked with people over time these last 10 years, I now have a better grasp on how jarring that statement can be to both men and women. It can touch an incredibly vulnerable and intimate part of a person’s identity as a sexual person. It can make people feel pretty angry. However I’ve also talked to women years after they saw it who told me how angry it made them when they saw it, but slowly realized they had never had an orgasm during intercourse. I don’t honestly know the best route, and I probably would arrange it somewhat different if I did it now, but I’ve come to settle on that I’m happy if the movie gets any reaction at all because it starts a conversations - with others and with ourselves.

Fourth, we wanted the ending of the movie to highlight positive paths going forward - ways someone could counteract these strong cultural misconceptions about lady-gasms within their personal sex lives. They are titled as advise, and looking at it now, I like most of it (like the ‘rub one out’ and ‘it’s okay to be selfish’ scenes), but the last scene feels a bit too advice-y. Especially these days, personal sex advice is very not what I am into and not what I want this work to be about. These advice scenes are also strongly hetero focused, which as a whole I’m mostly okay with (see “Is this movie a bunch of hetero-normative BS?” section below), but I actually think the point I wanted to in the final advice scene might actually be better served if it was specifically un-focused on any combination of sex and gender partnering. I really just wanted to say that everyone has a pleasure organ that is on the spectrum from clit-to-penis, and by sensibly incorporating that organ in the sexual encounter, any combo of people can enjoy a robust orgasmic experience together…aka hetero intercourse (penis and vagina stimulation) is not the pinnacle of orgasmic experiences - even for (and maybe especially for) hetero people.

I tried in many ways in that scene to say a penis is not a lady-gasm maker and that the idea of what mutually orgasmic heterosexual sex is needs to be expanded and flipped on its head. However, I think I was too deep in the massive amount of 2005-2008 magazine, internet and cable tv lady-gasm advice that I was searching through, and I ended up writing too specifically against that incredibly shitty advice. I also used the word ‘nagging’ which I feel like is my greatest regret of the whole movie -lol…but also maybe for real.

Anyway, I’d probably replace the final advice scene to be more concise and more inclusive.

What about those real human vulva close-ups?

Two things.

First, we lost a whole lot of opportunities because of those - particularly at indie theaters, which was incredibly surprising at the time. We were kind of flabbergasted at how scared even seemingly radical and/or feminist locations/festivals were about these vulvas - we had a few specifically tell us that’s why they couldn’t program it. Even so, we took a hard line about it. I felt and still feel like those lady-bits and the showing of arousal was integral to the message, and honestly, it’s educational, people. Is it really that hard to justify? I’ve seen a stationary 9 minute anal rape scene in a theater (thanks? Irreversible), which probably wasn’t even the most offensive part of the movie, and a lot of people loved that shit…but a couple vulvas are too much?

Second, I would have loved to add more vulvas of different shapes and colors but we tried everything just to get the 3 we got, and none of them wanted to be credited. It’s harder than one might think to get people to spread for a close up on an indie movie made by some nobodies…a lot harder than we imagined it might be.

Do you not trust women to understand their own experiences of orgasm?

I mean, no, I don’t…but not in a mean way.

It is true that there are peer reviewed studies showing that a minority percentage of women say on surveys they experience orgasm from nothing more than stimulation inside their vagina. Maybe these survey results reflect reality. Maybe they don’t. My take is that there’s many reasons to be skeptical. There’s an overwhelming lack of physical evidence to support these types of survey results - despite almost a century of research trying to support it. There’s also many reasons why women might say this type of thing on a survey even if that isn’t something they have actually physically experienced.

One of the most important reasons why the scientific method is used to understand the world is because relying on our own personal perception and interpretation is just not reliable. To give one simple example, there are plenty of people who assume what they are feeling is a heart attack when they are actually having a panic attack, and they might continue to believe that if a doctor didn’t tell them otherwise. Their assumptions are not lies or deceit, and it’s not that they aren’t experiencing something significant, but it’s not physically a heart attack. Medical researchers can’t go about understanding all the important things we’d like to know about heart attacks by including in their research anyone who says they had a heart attack - without physically verification. If they didn’t physically verify, and inadvertently included other phenomenon like panic attacks, there’d be a lot of confusing information out there about heart attacks - what they physically are, how the body reacts, how they happen, etc. This is the same situation for orgasms. There is a physical event related to rhythmic pelvic muscle contractions that is widely agreed upon to signify an orgasm. Researching orgasms without physically verifying them leaves the research wide open to incorrectly include all kinds of experiences that are not actually orgasms (like ejaculations, high levels of arousal, mental, emotional, or spiritual climaxes, etc.). It leaves us with a lot of confusing “information” about orgasms…which, frankly, is where we are now (For females. This kind of scientific and cultural nonsense isn’t nearly as prevalent for males).

And if you were thinking that the reason there is no physical evidence for vaginally stimulated orgasms is simply because it’s hard for people to orgasm in a lab situation (because I get that a lot), I have some news. People have had physically verified orgasms with all kinds of lab recording equipment on their bodies (and in their private holes) since about the 1950s. It’s clearly not as tricky as one might think, but even with all those physically recorded orgasms and with what I would regard as a strong interest in proving a lady can orgasm through nothing more than vaginal penetration, still none of the recorded orgasms happened from only stimulation inside the vagina. That glaring lack of evidence says a lot.

On top of that, there are PLENTY of pressures on the ladies to have orgasms caused by nothing more than an inner vaginal bang from a penis or dildo…AND there are insinuations all through our culture that this ‘type’ of orgasm is not only common, but also the best.

Add all that together, and I would (and absolutely do) argue that there’s ample reason to seriously question the existence of a vaginally stimulated orgasm despite some women saying they have them. I know people don’t want to be the evil anti-feminist bitch that tells women they might not actually be having a physical orgasm when they say they are, but ya know, I’m fine with it now. I’m the bitch. It’s me.

Is this movie a bunch of hetero-normative BS?

I’ve had some criticism that this movie focuses on cis-hetero sexuality, and the truth is, it does, kind of. The discussions are definitely hetero-centric, and that’s largely intentional because hetero-culture dominates so many aspects of our world, and that’s where I think the biggest change needs to happen. I would say, though, that the focus is on women, not necessarily cis-women, and easily includes cis, trans, intersex, and some non-binary women that are having penetrative sex with penises.

Here’s the deal: there is an incredibly deep and unrelenting cultural belief that vaginas can be banged into orgasm by a penis (or dildo); and that heterosexual intercourse, in and of itself, is not only sufficient for both parties to orgasm but also an ideal way to do so. The heart of my activism is about debunking this, and the biggest part of that is using the existing science on physical human sexual response to show how absolutely physiologically absurd that belief is.

The ideal outcome of this, for me, involves two things. 1. a cultural understanding that all people have a piece of anatomy on the clit-to-penis spectrum that can be stimulated to orgasm. This can be done in whatever way one sees fit and with any combination of partners - because quite simply that’s just the reality of our anatomy.  2. that inner vaginal stimulation is not a realistic path to orgasm for the person with the vagina; that simply having penile-vaginal intercourse is objectively great for stimulating the penis-bearer’s orgasm and objectively not great for stimulating orgasm of the person with the vagina. All that to say, the hope is to bust up the traditional pillars of hetero sexuality for the betterment of all our sex lives.

I also want to point out that this movie was shot and this blog started 15 years ago. The language has grown more inclusive and nuanced since then. I certainly would have used more inclusive language at times if I made it today, even if there was still a hetero focus. For instance, I have said ‘women’ a lot in here over the past decade(s) with an insinuation that a clit, vagina, and femme gender experience are present together in the same person, but that’s, obviously, not always the case. However, if any one of those apply to you, I invite you to consider yourself one of the ladies in Science, Sex, and the Ladies, in whatever way feels relevant to you. Please take anything that relates to your life or your body when I say women (or ladies) and throw away the rest.

All that said, I am a cis hetero woman, so I absolutely come at this from that perspective. Our human experience is complicated and varied, and any two of us might have areas of alignment or divergence whether we identify similarly or not. I want to be one of the many perspectives talking about the physiological realities of orgasm and how they fit into our cultures and lives. So, that said, hit me up if you have feedback for me, and if you are at all interested, I’d love contributions from people dealing with the world of lady-gasms from a different cultural or bodily perspective than I have. For Real.