Sex and Bodily Fluids

Have you ever given a thought to the fact that in Hollywood movies, women never need to wipe off the male ejaculate that's bound to run down their thighs after sex? They just hop out of bed or get up from the floor, or wherever they've had intercourse, and jump into their clothes again; or they kiss, cuddle, and then go to sleep.

So it's perhaps not so strange that in Hollywood movies, female ejaculate is completely extinct. But what about in porn?

In Great Britain, feminist porn maker Anna Span, who at the Feminist Porn Awards in 2007 received the award for Indie Porn Pioneer, has fought the British law’s prohibition of porn featuring female ejaculation. -- Which it defines as urination and therefore obscene to portray according to the British Obscene Publications Act. After initially submitting her DVD Women Love Porn to the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC), Span received requests to remove the female ejaculation section.

With support from female ejaculation expert Deobrah Sundahl, Span presented the BBFC with evidence in support of the actress’ ability to ejaculate. Sundahl is the author of Female Ejaculation and the G-spot (2006) and the producer and host of a line of videos titled the Female Ejaculation Sex Education Series, including Female Ejaculation for Couples (2004). With more than two decades of experience in the field, including through lectures and workshops around the world, Sundahl is an acknowledged resource on the topic of female ejaculation.

After Span pushed for a hearing with the Video Appeals Committee, the BBFC finally backed down. While Span claims this as a landmark victory that sets precedence for future cases, the BBFC maintains that their position remains unchanged, but that the amount of “urolagnia” in this film was not sufficiently significant to ensure a successful prosecution under the Obscene Publications Act.

Women Love Porn, which Span produced in 2006, premiered at VENUS in Berlin October 2009.

Most recently, Good Releasing--the sister-company of Good Vibrations, one of the first female-friendly sex shops in the US--released Gush: The Official Guide to the G-Spot & Female Ejaculation (2011) from their Pleasure-Ed Series. Written, directed, and hosted by Good Vibrations' staff sexologist Dr. Carol Queen, Gush features real life couples, adult stars, and first time performers demonstrating sex with female ejaculation. The film was recently honored by PorYes, the Feminist Porn Award in Europe with an "Oyster Award," which will be presented on October 15 in Berlin.

The work done by feminist porn maker Anna Span and sexologists Deborah Sundahl and Carol Queen to educate about female ejaculation is an important step in the process of legitimizing bodily fluids during sex. Perhaps once wiping away ejaculate after sex, be it male or female, has become a mainstream thing to display; wiping away menstrual blood will be the next roadblock to conquer.

There are at least some signs that the display of menstrual blood in the media are becoming less taboo. -- This week, the NYC advertising copywriter who blogs at Copyranter spotted an American ad for sanitary napkins that radically (?!!) depicts a pad stained with a red substance rather than blue laundry detergent:

NO, you don't understand, this is a historic advertising moment, people! OK, it's just a dot (or a "period," if you will) that's representative of menstrual blood, BUT STILL. After years of TV spot after TV spot using that ubiquitous blue liquid, Look! Red! In French ads, Tampax has already acknowledged the monthly presence of blood. As has o.b. in Switzerland with this creepy vampire ad. Meanwhile in America, it's dumb ad after dumb ad.