Monday, August 16, 2010

Women's Pleasure is Radical but Big Penises Aren't

I'm not much of a tv person, and am far from participating in anything like fan culture, but there is this one show that I have begun to really enjoy. Hung. On HBO after True Blood (which I thought was disgusting and will never watch again). But I like Hung. It's about a guy who used to be a sports hero, but now he is washed up in his 30s, his wife left him, his house burned, he's living in a tent in his backyard and in danger of losing his job as a high school coach. The only thing going for him is that he is Hung. Add a disorganized hippie woman pimp who is surprisingly courageous in an awkward way and a bitch of a wanna-be pimp, and it's a good show.

I think what I like most about it is the fact that it shows women genuinely enjoying sex. There is usually a sex scene, and at least in the first season, they were pretty hot. The women just have orgasm after orgasm. I don't know that I have ever seen much (non-porn) media at all that focuses on a woman's straight up pleasure. No agenda, no judgment of manipulation or sluttiness, no bones about it other than the fact that she is CHOOSING to have sex and is REALLY REALLY enjoying it.

The correlating criticism here is the explicit story that large penis size is crucial to a woman's pleasure and therefore bigger penises=superior men/sex/pleasure for women. And the show is even clear about the fact that he doesn't start out as any kind of super-lover, he is just an average joe with an exceptionally large penis. And honestly, the whole bigger-is-better myth is just harmful. Far more important is appropriate size for the orifice. Just saying.

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