The Principles of Pleasure
快楽の原則 －私たちの歓びを求めて－
Discussed in the Journal
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The whole story, ending included.
Three episodes on the science of women's pleasure, from the body to the mind to relationships and consent, and on how little medicine and schooling have said about it.
The Principles of Pleasure is a three-part documentary series about the sexual pleasure of women, and of trans and non-binary people, and about how little science, medicine and schooling have known or said about it. Directed by Niharika Desai and narrated by the actress Michelle Buteau, it mixes animation and diagrams with interviews: the psychologist Lori Brotto, the sexual psychophysiologist Nicole Prause, the sex educator Emily Nagoski, author of Come as You Are, and women and non-binary people of different races, sexualities and body sizes recalling their first lessons in sex and in shame. Early on, the narrator poses the question behind the series: how would the rest of a life be different if a woman had learned about her body and her desires without fear?
The first episode, 'Our Bodies', goes through the history of sex research and sex education. Brotto explains how women's sexuality was long blamed for their illnesses; the ancient Greek idea of a wandering womb gave hysteria its name. Freud dismissed the clitoral orgasm; a 1948 edition of Gray's Anatomy left the clitoris out; the Australian urologist Helen O'Connell mapped its full structure only in 2005. The episode takes in the orgasm gap between men and women, myths about the hymen and the G-spot, and sex toys. The second, 'Our Minds', turns to the brain, hormones and what makes something feel erotic. The series separates genital response from desire: a body can react while the mind has not agreed. Prause describes research proposals on female arousal and orgasm, her own among them, that were turned down. The third, 'Our Relationships', covers turn-ons and turn-offs, what people look for in a partner, porn, including the films of the Swedish director Erika Lust, and consent. It lands on the thread that runs through all three: pleasure lives in the mind as much as in the body, and everyone deserves it.
Starring
Michelle ButeauNarrator
The actress who narrates all three episodes, carrying the series from its history lessons to its talk of partners and consent.
Emily NagoskiHerself
A sex educator and the author of Come as You Are, interviewed on the science of women's sexuality.
Lori BrottoHerself
A psychologist who traces how women's sexuality was long blamed for their illnesses, and why research on it lagged behind.
Nicole PrauseHerself
A sexual psychophysiologist who defines orgasm by its pelvic contractions and describes proposals, including her own, that were turned down.
Erika LustHerself
A Swedish director and producer of erotic films, interviewed in the third episode about porn made with women's desires in mind.
Why it matters
The Principles of Pleasure makes an argument that sounds mild and turns out to be sharp: that women's pleasure was left out of science, medicine and schooling, and that the omission had causes. The full shape of the clitoris was mapped only in 2005. Researchers describe studies of arousal and orgasm that were never funded, which one critic put down to male discomfort in the science community. The consequences land in private lives: in the gap between how often men and women reach orgasm, in shame learned in childhood, in the confusion between a body's response and a person's consent. The series keeps returning to who has led the conversation so far, mostly white, cisgender and able-bodied educators, and gives time to those left out. Its subject is not technique. It is who has been allowed to know their own body.