Sex Uncovered......somewhat.

Art Form: Film
Type/Genre: Documentary


So, I've been increasingly become nocturnal this summer. What I try to do every night to prevent this spontaneous stretch of insomnia that I'm enduring is watch films. Unfortunately, watching/studying film happens to be a passion of mine and for me, the hour of the day does not coerce me to get some "shut eye" instead of seeing an interesting piece of art that may me woo me so much, that I'll feel compelled to blog/write about it. And so, the next great piece of work that I saw that evoked some concretized rhetoric out of me was film director, Chris Arnold's, The O Tapes. And as you should be asking, what pray tell is The O Tapes and what does it have to do with that picture? Well, the image to the right of this paragraph is actually very pertinent to the documentary and this blog entry because it depicts one part of what the documentary was about: The Vagina. Though, saying that it was solely about the vagina is too reductive. The documentary was a juxtaposition of conducted interviews of only women, answering questions about their sexuality and sexual experiences. The documentary also incorporated a historical perspective with relevant information to each question that was asked (although you never hear the inquiries because that's an intricacy of documentary style editing) and commentary by professors and doctors. There were also a few animated satirical cartoons which I found amusing, but all of them had very good points. Now, I tried to watch something about women purporting information about their sexuality before... The Vagina Monologues. I couldn't do it; it was too much to take. But after being in a women's studies class for four months, I found myself genuinely interested in the film, even though it was at 4 in the morning... Ok, enough of my ramblings, and now to the content.

Orgasms
What I learned (yes, learned) from the film about female orgasms is that they're extremely rare. I really thought that they happened fairly often and that seldom did a woman not have one because it was a natural part of sex. On the contrary, most women do not have orgasms regularly and in fact, many women go decades without having one and possibly not even knowing what it is. Something else that I picked up from the film was a significant distinction from vaginal and clitoral orgasms. The distinction being, vaginal orgasms are much more intense than clitoral orgasms. According to the film, antiquated philosophies of the two orgasms entailed that clitoral orgasms were immature-which was a philosophy of Sigment Freud- and that the only true orgasm was a vaginal orgasm, which is the product of penetration. And here lies the androcentric view of the nuances of the female body. That philosophy allowed for men (pre-Sexual Revolution) to cajole women into believing that having clitoral orgasms was sign of insolence. That mentality only ripened the ego's of men because they believed that they should be the only entities that invoked orgasms in women. This philosophy also discouraged masturbation because clitoral orgasms were a product of masturbation. One doctor in the film said, masturbation is extremely beneficial to women because it allows them to gain an understanding of what their bodies are like. "Back in the days", men used religion, law and philosophy to discourage women from this behavior so that they could sustain that physical and mental hegemonic control over their bodies. Figures... Yay for the Sexual Revolution for knocking that one and many others out of the park.

I knew some of the historical parts of this because of my women's studies course and what I remember the most was Simone De Beauvoir's instrumental contribution to the Sexual Revolution. I remember reading an article she wrote about women who fake orgasms and why faking orgasms counters the sexual liberation of women. She argued that faking orgasms only fattened the psychological strangle men had on women because allowing men to believe they were the sole source of women's pleasure even though they were completely dissatisfied, only led to an evermore swelling ego of the man. Beauvoir said any woman that fakes an orgasm is doing the entire populace of women a disservice because that woman is accepting and embracing sexual bondage in an effort to secure a man's machismo. Any woman who is dissatisfied should communicate with their partners, accost them honestly and if they refuse to or cannot handle the truth, she should be done with them. I agree.

Women are Men......just the other way around.
Another interesting archaic theory given in the film was that women are men turned inside out. Incredible. So I guess Eve was the antithesis of Adam? Right. One of the ideas behind the theory was that the both men and women secrete seamen. However, men omit from their testicles, which are outside, and women from their ovaries, which are inside: hence, the idea that women are men turned inside out. Another idea underlying the theory was that the clitoris was a modified version of the penis. Seems like the philosophers were fishing with this one. So breasts are the asymmetrical versions of pectoral muscles? Hmmm.... I wonder why our eyes, noses, mouths, ears, faces, arms, legs, torso, and feet are all in the same places. I guess if the knees of women were to be the inverse of the knees of men then they'd be horses. And that's not good for humankind.

Sizing 'em up
Definitely one of the more interesting questions and probably one of the more popular ones: Does size matter? The answer to this question is probably relative, depending on the preference of the woman, but, there seemed to be a census from the interviews of the women in the documentary. Almost all said that size actually doesn't matter that much, but, there are certain exceptions. For example, what I got from the film is that "short and thick" beats "long and thin". Also, larger penis' tend to force contact with "G Spot" more often than smaller ones . Interesting thing about the G Spot, most women don't even know where it is. And I get to dispel the myth that men were the only ones ignorant about the mysterious "G Spot" . It's a tissue found 3 quarters of the way through the vagina that swells when it has incurred enough abrasion. For the curious folk out there, what I got is that thickness is more important than length. But if a guy is too big, it hampers the sexual pleasure for both partners. And we already know what the result is of a guy who's too small. Funny, all of them women said that if a guy was too small, they could make up for it by expanding their sexual prowess to compensate for the "shortcoming". I tend to think telling someone that, is as equally discouraging as visually seeing a woman being displeased because of your anatomy.

Maintaining the Position(s)
Yeah, the question was asked of all the women, what is your favorite position? Another question with a relative answer as it applies to the world at large, but I got some interesting facts. The "Doggy Style" position allows for the most penetration out of all the ones you may have seen in the heralded PalmaSutra. Another census amongst the women was the answer to the question, which positions allows for the most intimacy? All said the "Missionary" position because of the angle and the eye to eye contact. Hmmm..., quick digression here, I think eye to eye contact is one of the easiest ways to tell if someone likes you. And I also think there's a direct correlation between casual eye to eye contact and eye to eye contact in sex (when you begin to talk about "making love").

More interesting though, was the answers to the succeeding question. What kind of raunchy sex have you had? The retorts were unbelievable. Even though I knew some of them existed, it was shocking for me to hear a fair amount of women profess them as if that kind of sex is common. And if it is, I'm just glad human beings are creative. I also hope that they're safe. Here's the list of the types of 'raunchy sex' that I jotted down while watching the film:
Orgy/Manage Twa
Role Play
Public Sex
Dirty Talking
Sex Toys
Impulsive Aggression

I had to throw a red flag on the last two: Bondage and Strangulation
Are you kidding me? Isn't that against the law in about............48 conterminate states plus two more! Shocking...

(Be)Fore[we begin to]Play
The film is about sex, so of course they asked the women about foreplay. And most of them said, interestingly enough, foreplay is the most important part of achieving an orgasm. Now, after I heard a few of them say that, I was pretty shocked. But, I was only astounded because my purview of foreplay was very limited. The women said that foreplay could be anything. One said that honest conversation is a form of foreplay for her. While I thought foreplay was exclusive to kissing and touching, I was missing the essence of what foreplay was, which was clarified in the film. It's what happens that stimulates the desire to have sex. So, foreplay could really be anything. From having dinner, discussing politics, to watching a woman try on outfit's.... anything could stimulate that potential desire.


What I also got from the documentary was that foreplay for men and women work very differently. While the need for foreplay for men is minimal, it's absolutely necessary for women. One woman exclaimed in the film, that a man's sexual organ is outside of his body and because of that, it's always rubbing against his pants or boxers or what have you, and he's constantly reminded of his sexuality while a woman is "folded up inside" and cannot manipulate herself the way or as easily as a man can. That's why for almost all of us, foreplay is necessary. True.


Fighting the Sexual Fight.......I mean, the good fight.
One woman mentioned in the film was Ida Craddock who authored The Wedding Night. The book advised married couples to appreciate their bodies as a part of nature and they should be respected by both parties. This book was authored many centuries ago, and as it comes as no surprise, the power hungry men of the era did not take too kindly that Craddock was telling men to respect the bodies of women. Check this, they arrested her , charged her, and found her guilty of "distributing garbage through U.S. Mail". Un-freakin'-believable. Was the control of women's bodies really that serious? I guess it was. Well, Ida didn't give the judicial system the satisfaction and she committed suicide. That's a shame. She was put in a corner for not only fighting for what she believed in, but for something that is always right; equality. She was and forever will be touted as the first hero of the Sexual Revolution, and rightfully so.

My Thoughts
I thought the documentary was very informative, funny and beneficial. I learned a lot from it. But knowing this stuff kind of confuses me, because, by knowing some of these things, does it make one more hesitant to engage in sexual behavior or more confident? It could probably go either way. What I do know, is that as a male it was good to actually learn some of this stuff. And I'd say for any debutante or just, all women to actively pursue information about their bodies, especially when it comes to sexual behavior. Men need to learn these things as well. Like my man Common said on the commercial, "Knowing is Beautiful".

Here's a few interesting quotes and one fact I thought I'd share from the film:


"If we don't teach women about their bodies, and their male partners, it would be like playing with toys that we didn't read the instruction's manual to."


Approximately 20% of women ejaculate about 20% of the time.


"I've actually been suspended by my breasts" (answering question about raunchy sex)


"Men need to learn about us, so that we can help them and then everybody can be happy"


"You know, there's a four letter word that is relevant to sex and ends with the letter K.................and that word is= Talk"


Parting Thoughts:

I cannot wait to begin to work.
A New Refutation of Time and Space is one of the best albums I've ever heard.
"Why I gotta have religion if I believe in God?"-lyric from Common's verse of Jadakiss' Why?
I've begun to listen to electronic music. And after paroosing through my music library, I've found that I really like jazz fusion and rock.
I'm going to start reading Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man in a few days. I've read that there's some rhetoric about Karl Marx in the book. Ralph's already got my vote.
Why doesn't Hillary just give up already? Sheesh.


Over and Out.


Oh yeah,
Nappy/natural hair is nothing to be ashamed of. Somebody tell these corporate a**holes to get a clue.