ejaculation

"What's the Appeal of the 'Money Shot?'" Opinonz I Haz Them

Posted by figleaf | Tags:
Thu, 2012-01-19 21:38

Photo by Flickr user Universal Pops. Cached as a bandwidth-conserving courtesy
Photo by Flickr user Universal Pops. Used under a Creative Commons license.

So for their regular weekly Wise Guys feature Em & Lo asked for answers to a reader's question: "What’s the appeal of the “money shot?" Although I'm one of their Wise Guy contributors the question didn't pop up in my rotation. But I did leave a comment. Em & Lo were then nice enough to make it their comment of the week this week.

So once again the question was "What’s the appeal of the “money shot?" Here's what I said.

I’m not even stepping into the whole “facial” business. I’ll just point out Charlie Glickman’s thoughts from a post that arrived in my newsreader moments before this one.

Instead I’ll just say I think the “money shot” is a seriously stupid dual artifact of porn. First, in the production of porn it’s just way more convenient to towel semen off skin than out of bodily orifices and therefore it’s more cost effective. This is why, at least early on, it was the low-budget porn shops that did money shots rather than the well-heeled ones. Second, for decades, anyway, porn was primarily an aid for male masturbation and so, I think, money shots are a way to help watchers identify with male actors.

I really think the masturbation element is key. Yes, you’ll occasionally see men’s parters “finishing” them off, but for the vast, vast, vast majority of cases the man essentially stops interacting physically with his partner, steps back a ways, and basically jacks off.

Again, fine if you’re at home alone. But seems to me sort of the whole point of sex with a partner is to have sex with them… not just on them.

Now, that said, don’t get me wrong. If you’re both into it (and increasing numbers of both men and women seem to be) and it’s all good clean fun for both of you then great. Lots of great things about “sex” don’t actually involve sex.

Also, that said, another name for “money shots” is “the withdrawal method.” And while nothing in life is certain, when ejaculation occurs outside a partner’s body it at best reduces the odds of pregnancy and STI transmission and even at worst it evens them out between the semen donor and semen receiver. So that’s ok too.

But at the end of the day, for me, the physical pleasure reduction of orgasm via masturbation rather than with a partner isn’t worth whatever symbolic enjoyment it seems to bring other people.

So, again for me, thanks but no thanks.

Source: Em & Lo

Note: I shared the comment-of-the-week slot with fellow Wise Guy pinch-hitter Mark Luczak, who seems to share my assessment.

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Svutlana's Hilarious But Practical Counterproposal for "Female Ejaculation" Fetishists: a Fetish for Male Anejaculation

Posted by figleaf | Tags:
Mon, 2011-10-03 09:46

Photo by Flickr user Vik Cuban. Cached as a bandwidth-conserving courtesy
Photo by Flickr user Vik Cuban. Used under a Creative Commons license.

Svutlana, in her signature fractured English, turns the tables on a correspondent who's partner "has said she has squirted before, so I know she can"

Oh, thank you too much for squirt question that give Svutlana one more opportunity for address sexual tyrannies that decree ideal female orgasm come with espresso cup of clear fluids and originate with mysterious g-spots.

Imagine for one moments, Mr Squirt, phenomenon of male anejaculations in which minority of mens have orgasm but no ejaculations. By way, orgasm with no ejaculates be true phenomenon and no something Svutlana pull out of ass, but unfortunate male orgasm in absence of ejaculations no be fetishize so that mens can experience taste of tyrannies that many womens experience with squirts.

Source: Svutlana

Nice one! I'd add it would turn the tables in more than one way. The gentleman asking the question reveals what I think is a big source of the appeal of "squirting" when he tells Svutlana "To me, it's a huge turn on and the ultimate way of knowing I've pleasured her."

In other words if he can get her to "squirt" he'll know she's not faking it. This even though the vast, vast, vast majority of "female ejaculators" in porn are just peeing.*

Now imagine the consternation if male actors began faking anejaculation during unbukkake porn? "I know his moans sound real but how do I know he's not faking it?"

As someone who occasionally actually, really doesn't ejaculate** I would of course applaud the fetishization of anejaculation...

...but...

...since most men actually do ejaculate with their orgasms, just like most women don't "ejaculate" I'm pretty sure it would just be as stressful for men who reflexively do as the whole "squirting" thing is for women who don't.

Note: My experience of women who "squirt" when they come is that you mostly have to change not just the sheets but beds before going to sleep. I'm not at all adverse to messy sex (mmm, messy sex) but one rarely hears of hopping out of bed to flip the mattress in lists of favorite after-play activities.

* Incidentally, contrary to popular assumption since roughly the Elizabethan period there's been nothing unethical, immoral, or misleading about actors, you know, enacting in professional contexts. So there's nothing wrong with porn actors enacting moans, groans, or exudations at work.

** My "dry orgasms," when I have them, are perfectly lovely. This has occasionally disappointed my partners, so I'm not without sympathy for men who wish their partners "squirted."  But... when it comes to verifying that one's partner has had an orgasm there's this crazy thing called "trust" that works almost as well as fluid evidence.  The good news, at least for me, is when I have an orgasm but don't also ejaculate I can be "up" for another very quickly.

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About that "Squirting" Thing: What If Women Expected Their Partners to Come in Quarts Like They Do in Porn?

Posted by figleaf | Tags:
Wed, 2011-04-20 21:03

A reader looking for advice at Em & Lo asked

Dear Em & Lo,

So last night my wife experienced one of her orgasms from G-spot stimulation and, as is usual for her, did not ejaculate. In fact, there is never really a detectable increase in her lubrication during orgasm. I was wondering if this means that she is the type of woman who is not a “squirter”? She has asked me several times why she has never “squirted.” Is my wife capable of ‘squirting’? We’ve used fingers, penis, vibe, and even drinking 2 liters of ‘Squirt’ soda to stimulate her G-spot… Any suggestions?

–Squirtless

Source: Em & Lo

Their answer was, of as usual, just great. But here's my reaction anyway.

We'll leave aside the twin questions a) why is he calling himself "squirtless" and b) what makes her think he's any more likely to have answers about her orgasms than she would? Oh, and possibly c) why does he make it it sound like he's got more judgment about it than she does? We'll leave that aside because it's actually a really common question even for more experienced women and more egalitarian men. So...

The last thing on earth I’d ever want to leave a partner feeling was that they were missing something just because they didn’t squirt.

Because while I’m not the worlds greatest expert on g-spot orgasms I do know that the two partners who squirted were never as floored afterwards as some of the other partners who never did.

Plus with the ones who didn’t squirt you don’t have to get up and change the sheets, but that’s a different matter. (If you’re prepared, or else just really casual, then wet sheets aren’t that big a deal.)

But seriously, what if "squirtless" had a partner who expected him to be able to ejaculate all over her neck, chest, belly, and toes the way some men (seem to) do in porn? He's probably say, correctly, “but quantity isn’t really a very useful measure of how much I enjoy an orgasm.”

Well, it’s almost certainly the same for her. (Plus, if he did come that much then, again, he'd have to get up and change the sheets for that too.)

Update: Doesn't it already sound like they are, or at least she is, having really, really good orgasms already?  And doesn't it sound like they've sort of talked themselves into believing there's something else that's so much better that they've talked themselves (or at least talked her) into not really enjoying the ones she is having very much at all?  So add to the list of caveats, above, d) while it would actually be pretty awful if we didn't enjoy our partner's orgasms, our partners orgasms are not performances undertaken for our enjoyment.

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Established but New-to-Me Blogger "Svlutlana of Svlutlandia" Combines Light Humor and Sound Advice

Posted by figleaf | Tags:
Sat, 2010-08-28 12:40

Genuinely interesting sex blogger alert: Svutlana posts from Canada but says she’s originally from a fictional sex-positive island, Svutlandia, in the Baltic Sea. She certainly writes English with a very heavy “Baltic” accent. That said, while her language can be colorful her content is dead-on intelligent, accurate, nuanced, and progressive.

Consider her reaction to the widely circulated headline that Gone With the Wind actress Vivien Leigh was “a serial bisexual adulterer.” (For example see here or here.) Svlutlana begins with warm humor…

Like Svutlana mother always say, if it take only two adjective and one noun for describe your sexual proclivities in headline, you no try hard enough.

She said it here.

and a bit later makes the serious point

In Svutlana opinion, too much be make of how Ms Vivien be bipolar, as if voracious sexual appetite in womens always must be due for mental illness.

She also makes the perfectly accurate point that if the whole point seems to be digging up and passing along scandal why there’s so much focus on allegations of her “serial bisexuality” and not on, say, allegations that she and her one-time director George Cukor would go cruising for “rough trade” male prostitutes together. One would think the latter accusation would be more eye-opening than the former. My guess is that the former better fits dominant narratives about women’s agency

And here’s her take on a recent labioplasty conference and counter-demonstration in Las Vegas

Svutlana says


Here be tale of two Las Vegas hotel. On top be Venetian Cosmetogynosurgical hotel and below be Tuscan hotel where stalwart defender of surgical-unalter labia will stay:

What horse would you bet on—Labia by Nature or Labia by Martha Stewart (with free promotion spreads from billion dollar porn industry)—for win this Canfucky Derby?

Oh, it be Svutlana most fond wish that cosmetogynosurgeon stick finger inside womens for test pelvic floor strength and angry vagina clamp down with all its might and refuse for let finger go! In Svutlana dream this be cautionary tail for all cosmetogynosurgeons.

Read the quote in context here.

And finally, from her first post back in February 2008, her take on the quest for “female ejaculation.”

Hear Svutlana about female ejaculate class at sex shop where everybody get in circle and watch womens squirt with big eye like she be fish that just jump out of sea and wiggle on beach. Nobody know where squirt come from. Is it from little gland inside like female prostate? Is it little bit urine? Little bit fructose? Little bit country? Little bit rock and roll? Who for fuck know?

No care Svutlana one little bit what be inside female ejaculate! Why make sex act like rest of life where peoples have for work and work and work for get credential? Have me multiple orgasm! Have female ejaculate me! Is like have me engineer degree! Have MBA me! Run me Boston marathon!

...

Be Svutlana much more impress when womens say have good sex life that make them happy happy for be alive than womens who say can squirt across room or shoot ping pong ball from between leg or suck up whole banana with vagina.

She said it here.

Reading the whole piece it’s clear she’s not mocking women who do it, or even women who are curious to learn (she mentions exercises you can try.) She’s really unimpressed with the emphasis put on it as something to be performed.

And finally, behind a little light humor her most recent post, Svutlana perform first (and last) semens analysis, is straight-up sex ed.

Pretty lucid perspectives whether she’s really from the islands of the Baltic or the islands of Ontario.

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Un-Selection Bias: A Lot of Sex Research Sounds Whacky Because We're Unwilling to Discuss (or Fund) it Seriously

Posted by figleaf | Tags:
Fri, 2010-08-13 08:11

Via Discover Magazine’s NCBI ROFL blog an Egyptian medical research team has a paper out called An electrophysiologic study of female ejaculation. Here’s the abstract ROFL cited

Opinions vary over whether female ejaculation exists or not. We investigated the hypothesis that female orgasm is not associated with ejaculation. Thirty-eight healthy women were studied. The study comprised of glans clitoris electrovibration with simultaneous recording of vaginal and uterine pressures as well as electromyography of corpus cavernous and ischio- and bulbo-cavernosus muscles. Glans clitoris electrovibration was continued until and throughout orgasm. Upon glans clitoris electrovibration, vaginal and uterine pressures as well as corpus cavernous electromyography diminished until a full erection occurred when the silent cavernosus muscles were activated. At orgasm, the electromyography of ischio-and bulbo-cavernosus muscles increased intermittently. The female orgasm was not associated with the appearance of fluid coming out of the vagina or urethra.

Read the abstract in context here.

Lest one imagine the researchers (led by the late Ali. A. Shafik of Cairo University) were singling out one sex for electromyographic scrutiny they’ve also published Electromyographic study of ejaculatory mechanism.

Cavernosus muscle (CM), seminal vesicle (SV) and vasal ampullary (VA) contractions at ejaculation are said to be reflex mechanisms (ejaculatory reflex), which have been scarcely dealt with in the literature. We investigated the hypothesis that contraction of the CMs, SVs and VA at ejaculation is a reflex action. The electromyographic (EMG) activity of CM, SV and VA during ejaculation was recorded in 28 healthy men. The test was repeated after separate anaesthetization of the glans penis (GP), CMs, SVs, and VA in the pre-ejaculatory period. Latent ejaculatory time (LET) was calculated. CMs showed no EMG activity until rigid erection phase was reached. SVs and VA exhibited resting EMG activity which increased gradually with different stages of erection. At ejaculation, CMs, SVs and VA showed two to four intermittent contractions. The mean LET was 1.3 +/- 0.2 sec. GP anaesthetization led to the disappearance of CM, SV and VA EMG activity at ejaculation, while bland gel did not affect EMG activity. CMs, SVs and VA when anaesthetized in the pre-ejaculatory period exhibited no EMG activity at ejaculation, while saline did not affect EMG activity. Increased EMG activity of CM, SV and VA apparently denotes increase in their contractile activity. CM, SV and VA contraction on GP stimulation and ejaculation are assumed to be reflex actions and are mediated through the ‘glans-cavernosovesicular reflex’ (GCVR) which presumably represents the ejaculatory reflex. Changes in LET or evoked response would indicate a defect in the reflex pathway. The GCVR might act as an investigative tool in diagnosing erectile dysfunction, provided further studies are performed in this respect.

Read the quote in context here.

And I might as well add that Shafik actually authored or co-authored an astonishing number of similar papers dealing with neuromuscular activity of the general pelvis, urogenital area, and lower intestinal tract.

Now when I saw the name it rang a bell and I realized Mary Roach had written about him in her (excellent) book about sex research, Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex.

While Googling to confirm the connection (she did write about him) I ran across an interview of Roach by NPR’s Robert Siegel. Seigel approached the subject matter a little glibly, as mainstream types often feel obliged to do, and after a bit of mocking of Shafik’s self-funding, his seeming remoteness from western medicine (although he was often published in reputable peer-reviewed proctology, urology, andrology, and gynecology journals), and an admittedly goofy-sounding paper studying the effect of polyester on rat fertility, he asked Roach

SIEGEL: Well, after meeting people like Dr. Shafik in Cairo, and you and your husband taking part in a study with Dr. Dang in London and so many other interviews you report on on the book, then what do you come away, what’s the takeaway knowledge you have from having written “Bonk”?

And I think she just knocked the answer right out of the park (emphasis mine.)

MS. ROACH: Well, I think that one of the things that I’m left with is a lingering sense of surprise that there are still a good number of mysteries in the realm of sexual physiology.

You kind of have the sense – as a person who has sex, you figure, well, you know, it seems to work, what else do we need to know, which is kind of a ridiculous attitude. That would be like somebody saying to a person who’s studying, say, the esophageal sphincter, well, we all know how to eat, why do we need to study that?

SIEGEL: Mm-hmm.

MS. ROACH: So, I come against that all the time. People are saying, well, what’s the point of this research, you know? Tell me something I don’t know about sex. We don’t know, for example, the mechanisms of ejaculation, what the trigger is for that. And there’ve been all kinds of elaborate and quite frightening little studies that have been done in that realm, just any number of things that we really should still be looking into, and yet it’s very difficult for sex researchers to get funding for purely anatomical and physiological research these days.

She said it here.

The mild rebuke is well taken. The researchers Roach documented often are a little goofy, they usually are self-funded, they often are from seemingly-obscure parts of the world, and even when much of their work is actually credible when they’re cited in the mainstream press (whether by NPR or Discover Magazine) it’s their whackiest work that gets singled out rather than their more useful work.

I like her useful comparison of attitudes towards sex and food since I’m often taken by the analogies. If our social attitudes were reversed you really might be as difficult to get funding for credible research in the U.S. and western Europe. We might instead be subjected to knee-squeezingly embarrassed radio discussions of the swallowing reflex and other bodily functions above the belt.

Do we really need to know more about the electromyography of ischio-and bulbo-cavernosus muscles in women or the the ‘glans-cavernosovesicular reflex’ in men as it pertains to sexual arousal, orgasm, and/or ejaculation (male or female?) Why as a matter of fact we do.

Because, not to put too fine a point on it, laughing is not the only thing we enjoy doing while rolling on the floor.

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Don't Hold Your Breath Waiting For Evolutionary Psychologists to Gush Over New Ejaculation-Related Male-Fertility Study

Posted by figleaf | Tags:
Wed, 2009-08-26 15:13

Em & Lo of Love. And Everything in Between. have an item up that… ought to warm the cockles of sociobiologists and evolutionary psychologists everywhere but… probably won’t, at all.

The big sexual health news this week was that a guy can increase the quality of his sperm by having sex every day for a week, and thus improve his fertility; he might have fewer sperm on his team when he goes for the gold, but the ones he does have will be stronger players. (In contrast, many fertility experts recommend that guys abstain for a few days before her ovulation to increase sperm count.) Reading about this study brought two questions to mind:

1. We noticed most of the mentions of it, and in particular the AP story on the topic making all the rounds, really emphasized the “sex” part. But as far as we can tell from this Bio-Medicine article (the most detailed one we could find), the 118 Australian participants in the study simply ejaculated daily.

Read the quote and find links to their second question here.

Em & Lo go on to explain exactly why the ambiguity between “sex” and “ejaculation” is particularly important in this context.

Now, we’re all for the term “sex” to encompass the vast array of activities that one can have sexually, be it intercourse or mutual handwork or solo masturbation. But, damn it, we don’t live in that kind of world! (At least not yet.) The collective assumption is that sex means intercourse. So it would be far more accurate, and far more helpful, if the stories on this study made it clear that ejaculation, by whatever means, was the key.

The conflation of “sex” and “ejaculation” strongly favors the cultural biases that lead pop-sociobiologists to treat “males spread their seed” as if it was an axiom instead of an assumption. The Australian article proposes a different but more plausible hypothesis for men’s drive for frequent ejaculation that requires only males refreshing their seed.

Since it’s a lot more plausible you might think sociobiologists and evolutionary psychologists would welcome such a different sperm-deterioration hypothesis that might have driven evolution of a desire for frequent ejaculation. And I’m sure serious ones will. I’m going to guess that the ones you’ll hear about — the ones who get book deals and popular press write-ups (see Sungold’s excellent takedown of one of the worst here) probably won’t.

This doesn’t mean, by the way, that there’s anything wrong with humans desiring multiple partners. It just means the odds of finding the alleged genes that code preferentially, decisively, and specifically for multiple-partner seeking in men (but absent or suppressed women) that sociobiologists insist have to be there just got smaller.

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The Social Construction of External Ejaculation

Posted by figleaf | Tags:
Tue, 2009-08-25 00:09

Via Jessica Valenti (here and here) a couple of post have turned up about “facials” in porn and real life. (One by Tracy Clark-Flory at Salon’s Broadsheet, one by Amanda Hess at Washington City Paper)

The politics of facials in particular and external ejaculation in general are… interestingly complex.

  • On the one hand it’s, seriously, not nearly as physically enjoyable for men to ejaculate outside their own partner. On the other hand there’s this business where men are supposed to enjoy the psychological aspect of “marking” their partner with their semen.
  • On the one hand it’s more “natural” for the man to ejaculate inside his partner’s body. On the other hand external ejaculation drastically minimizes risks of pregnancy and STI transmission.
  • On the one hand so-called “money shots” can be constructed as masturbatory conclusion to sex-with-a-partner-as-porn self-stimulation. On the other hand a very large number of women require manual stimulation to have orgasms when “sex” is defined as intercourse.
    • *On the one hand women are perceived to be the passive recipient of external ejaculation. On the other hand women are very often directly rather than passively involved in the stimulation leading to ejaculation.
  • On the one hand people (men and women) are criticized for being overly fastidious about women’s bodily fluids. On the other hand people are criticized for not being sufficiently fastidious about men’s bodily fluids.
  • On the one hand many women are either unable to register male ejaculation (vaginal intercourse) or to find its taste or texture disagreeable. On the other hand droplets of body-temperature liquid landing on the body is easily felt and, depending on the circumstances, pleasant. (For instance warm oil dripped on the back, face, legs, or torso during a massage is uncommon but feels heavenly.)
  • On the one hand internal ejaculation is just about as (Biblically) Patriarchal as it gets. On the other hand external ejaculation violates virtually every principle of traditional Patriarchal heterosexuality.
  • On the one hand it’s supposed to be very bad for semen to land on a woman’s body. On the other hand during masturbation semen routinely lands on men’s bodies.
  • And so on…

All these different hands leave aside entirely the very real and not necessarily contradictory notions that external ejaculation is demeaning and/or empowering.

My point is that by combing through the very broad range of reactions and responses one can produce (a.k.a. construct) meanings towards which one is predisposed. If one is disposed against it one misses quite a few interesting patriarchy-subverting and risk-mitigating possibilities. If one is disposed in favor one must overlook some deep (lower-case p) patriarchal elements.

If I may sound deeply cynical, if you really object to external ejaculation of any sort, especially in porn, the best way to reverse the trend is to advocate strongly feminist constructions of it. To the extent porn is reflexively anti-feminist that ought to sharply reverse the trend. :-(

As for the porn thing: given that everything in the kind of porn you’re talking about, including use of the words “and” and “the” are presented as subjugating of women I’m unpersuaded by arguments that facials are uniquely degrading because they appear in porn. To give up everything that happens in porn, and that’s presented as subjugating, would be to give up everything. Including elevator rides, pizza deliveries, and masturbation at home alone. That doesn’t mean that porn is hunky dory. It’s very often the opposite. It does mean that just as one shouldn’t rely on porn as a model for appropriate sexuality one also shouldn’t use it as the basis for one’s approval or disapproval.

—-

Note: once again this isn’t an argument for but also certainly not against penetrative sex. Instead it’s a set of observations about the pros and cons of different constructions of non-penetrative sex.

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Facials: A Non-Porn-Based Discussion

Posted by figleaf | Tags:
Tue, 2009-08-25 00:09

_Note: I begin this post with an example of what a lot of people enjoy giving, receiving, or both. But not all people. —fl]

Good rules to live by:

1) If your partner isn’t into roses, don’t bring her roses. Not even if you’ve seen them in 10,000 romance movies. Not even if your last 12 partners loved them. No matter how much you enjoy giving roses.

2) If your partner isn’t into cleaning cum out of her nose/eyes/hair/ears very much, don’t ejaculate in her nose/eyes/hair/ears. Not even if you’ve seen it in 10,000 porn clips. Not even if your last 12 partners thought it was hawtt. No matter how much you enjoy doing it.

And here’s why. It’s not because it’s annoying or aggravating, though it might be. It’s not because it’s disrespectful, though it certainly is. It’s because for your partner to tolerate it he or she must condescend to you… to see you as less than her equal. As someone she might need, and even care for, but not particularly want the way we tend to be wanted by our partners. And, trolling through Cosmo for “to be fairs,” “to be fair” the same can be said for women who check their partner’s email or phone logs or who throw out their partner’s clothes they don’t like. Those activities, like, unwanted facials or roses, or lawn-mowers for birthdays men might give their partners, are not only disrespectful they trigger disrespect. One can “indulge” one’s children, pets, or annoying acquaintances but with indulgence comes lack of respect for the individual indulged.

So there: have I said you shouldn’t come on a reluctant partner’s face because it’s bad, wrong, immoral, or porn-inspired? Not at all. You can continue to defend it on those grounds as passionately as you wish and I won’t dispute you at all. On those grounds anyway. Instead I’ve tidily sidestepped that entirely by pointing out that to do so and be tolerated is to be (deservedly) condescended to. And possibly mocked or otherwise diminished behind one’s back by those most likely to have leverage on your reputation with future partners sexual or otherwise.

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Clarification of "Withdrawal" In the 21st Century

Posted by figleaf | Tags:
Wed, 2009-05-27 17:13


Photo by Flickr user itspaulkelly. Used under a Creative Commons license.

In a recent post about withdrawal I recalled the definition from the days before it was even remotely permissible to let someone know that you masturbate, let alone see you do it, as…

...a brinksmanship-y technique where the man gets as close as he can to orgasm during intercourse and then, somehow, clearheadedly pulls out in such a way and in enough time for his otherwise hands-off ejaculation to occur such that no semen comes in contact with her vulva, let alone is released inside her vagina.

This is but one of a variety of reasons I was a bit leery of the prospect even though I’m a proponent of not coming inside a partner when only low-reliability (annual risk of unwanted pregnancy for “typical” use is greater than 10%) contraception is used.

To which Emily H. of The Clothes That Got Me Laid said in comments (emphasis mine)

WAIT, WHAT? People think the withdrawal method means the guy is supposed to pull out at the last possible second?? & then have an “otherwise hands-free ejaculation”? Well, no wonder people think the withdrawal method doesn’t work. No, no. I’ve never met a pullout method user from back in the day who thought it worked like that, let alone seen a hands-free orgasm of the type you allude to. The way it is supposed to work is, the guy pulls out when he is getting close, then basically finishes up by jerking off (onto his lady companion’s boobs, perhaps). I will defer to the superior wisdom of some guy from Vice magazine on this one: “True pulling out means you have to beat it for, like, 15 seconds.”

I’m just SO GLAD to hear her say that! I think she got the quote from this page. If so I’m not going to vouch for any of the other advice they offer. Just this.

“True pulling out means you have to beat it for, like, 15 seconds.”

Kudos to Vice Magazine. My only quibble (actually it’s a pretty big one) is that, unlike maybe 90% of porn, there are other perfectly lovely ways to give him an orgasm. Fellatio, frottage, friction from hands, toys or other body parts by her — since we are talking mostly about contraception here — in addition to him “beating it being obvious choices.

But, one way or another, yes, 15 seconds seems like a sensible… and also humane/reasonable limit. Any closer and, yeah, the risk of pulling out too late must skyrocket.

One more factor I’m guessing is not taken into account by current research.

—-

Incidentally the other day I mentioned that there are at least two ways men can have orgasms that in terms of pure physical pleasure are more intense than ejaculating inside their partner’s vaginas. Several people asked what those methods might be.

Before I got there here’s a quick clarification: there are different ways to enjoy sex with someone; there are different ways to experience pleasure. And while intercourse is emotionally, delightfully intense for me the actual orgasms are lovely they’re almost never the best part. (This could be because the emotional and non-orgasmic elements are so nice.) Anyway, what I had in mind when I said what I said was plain old genital-orgasm sensation.

And with that clarified two methods that have sent me over the moon have been slow manual stimulation after extended, emotionally and physically intense sexual activity and slow oral stimulation after extended, emotionally and physically intense sexual activity. Where those extended, emotionally and physically intense sexual activities might include, but not be limited to multiple bouts of intercourse in multiple positions.

I might add that whereas the cliché “money shot” in modern porn may have familiarized (and even, evidently, enamored) several generations with the idea of men coming outside their partners body the evident requirement that semen be visibly projected, preferably onto the patiently-presented body of the ostensible “partner” in order to “prove” ejaculation happened and maybe to “mark” the other actor or actress for the behalf of the viewer tend to… limit the available techniques. Also the evident inversion of status in porn means the ejaculating actor rather than his partner produces it himself.

All well and good I’m sure, and I’d be the last to deprive someone else of his or her heart’s delight of porn-style money-shot ejaculations with a partner. But there are other ways to do it.

Someone partner who shall remain unidentified in time or time-zone thinks (or at least used to think) it’s seriously cool to cup one hand on top of the end of a partner’s erection while she got him closer and closer with the other because she likes the feel as he jets up against the palm of her hand and then rains back down over himself. You usually don’t see that in porn but, at the risk of putting a too much I in the TMI, it feels… lovely for the recipient as well.

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The Semiotics of Semen in Porn

Posted by figleaf | Tags:
Mon, 2007-11-05 20:09

Ok, this isn’t really a post about semiotics of semen, at least not in Saussure’s sense of signs deconstructed into signifier and signified. Although I’m sure if I’d just taken that dang course back in 1984 or so, instead of just backyard seminaring with a bunch of roommates who did, I’d be able to take a pretty good crack at the real thing.

Instead I just liked the alliteration in “semiotics of semen.” :-)

But seriously. I keep getting reminded of semen because any time I try to look at pretty much any kind of pornography involving heterosexuality then sooner or later semen’s going to show up. Which people have been remarking upon for going on two decades now.

Not that semen isn’t a perfectly laudable substance but the way it’s presented in pornography is kind of odd. I mean, for one thing it is presented. Placed. Precipitously. In plain sight. (If I may again alliterate.) And that’s the thing. Most of the time if you’re having sex with someone you don’t put semen where everyone can see it because it doesn’t feel as nice.

You know what feels really, really nice? To be locked in a passionate embrace with your partner, sometimes after barely enough time to rip each other’s clothes just loose enough, but preferably after what at least seems like hours of increasingly steamy, turgid, creamy, dreamy kisses and caresses, till your partner’s breath is hot and short against your cheek or ear and at least one of her hands is locked in your hair, pulling your face into the crook of her neck where you’ve been ravishing her throat with lips and tongue and teeth, your own hands less coordinated, yes, but still purposefully able to ruck her hem up to her hips, to crook them under her knees and pull them up and wide somewhere between your hips and her shoulders (a process that she’s perfectly capable of, of course, but you might both enjoy), and then perhaps with her hand, perhaps with yours, she glides your cock deep inside her not in one quick gulp but in sweet, increasingly slickery, increasingly deep sips. And then as your hips surge down into her and hers rise up to meet yours, and you feel her aiming her blood-hard clitoris to bump, bump, bump against your pubis, and her ankles cross against your lower back with one heel in the cleft of your ass pulling you tight, tight into her and the base of your rocks and grinds against her and her inner rings of muscle milk, milk, milk the length of your cock, and as both your pants break down into near-confused oh, oh, oh’s and she bites down hard on the muscles high above your collarbone and from your belly to the cheeks of your ass you feel deep wrenching, clenching squeezing of familiar but no less mysterious for it muscles pumping once, twice, in rhythms older than our species before you first collapse against each other, breath slower but far, far deeper, confused fingers unclenching as self-consciously as they earlier had clenched unconsciously, aftershock quivers against your bellies, murmured mmm’s, and woah’s and the sort of solemnity-breaking giggles that follow before one or the other of you leaps or reaches for a cloth (if there’s upholstery to be rescued) or maybe just wet, splishy wiggles (if there’s still room for two somewhere else on the bed.)

That? That feels great! Really great! As you can imagine. As you might not even need to imagine because, after all, that’s so often how things work out.

Or work out in life…

...but not in porn.

In porn, if you’re a man, you can get maybe to where your partner begins to dip and slip you inside, to where you and your partner begin to badminton your cock back and forth between you, until you and… who knows… maybe even she is on the verge of something warm and close and wet and wonderful happening and… in porn…

you stop! And then, in porn, you remove yourself from where you were and, usually, wait while the camera zooms and refocuses before… using, usually, your own hands you ejaculate. A “money shot,” to be sure, but an orgasm? Meh… and while the camera’s attention is elsewhere your face can reflect your true feelings your partner, her face usually very close to the camera, must continue looking pleased, even eager, for… however long it takes you to do by hand what you’d almost surely rather do some… any... other way.

Yes, indeed one might wonder why, and many, including me, have speculated endlessly.

Here’s a new possibility I hadn’t considered: most hetero porn and quite a lot of gay and/or lesbian porn is made for men, right? And mostly what men do with it is watch while they masturbate, right?

Which brings up an interesting bridge for men between masturbation and porn.

There’s certainly a story about (heterosexual) men’s distaste for looking at other men’s cocks but, unlike women who ordinarily don’t see their own vulvas, or even the vulvas of other women, at at least some points in their lives most men, certainly most American men, see cocks in abundance in lockerrooms if nowhere else and, of course, whenever they masturbate or even pee, see their own cocks, soft and hard, easily a dozen times a day. And when we masturbate, and when we ejaculate, we very often see it spring forth from our bodies whether in dribbles or jets.

And so, perhaps contrary to expectation, I think maybe the appeal of the “money shot” for porn viewers isn’t so much a demonstration that it’s “the real thing” but that one sees in images the reminder, the cue, the proxy for their own masturbation which, being masturbation, must inevitably fall without rather than within.

Maybe so. Or maybe no.

What I do know, though, is that being aware of the agency of actors in porn no less, obviously, than the actresses, is that however much such aerial ejaculations might encourage, or inspire, or comfort, or (if my thesis is mistaken) merely entertain the average customer the leave something to be desired for the actors themselves and thus only distract me with how little I’d like to do that.

Again that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t enjoy masturbating for a partner, of showing her even as, perhaps, she showed me. And if instead it’s she who’s plying me with hands or mouth or other parts of herself then it’s obviously her prerogative to direct my expression wherever she will. But neither of those special circumstances carry with them the relentless inevitability of male orgasm ejaculation semen production in porn.

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