A review of Pleasure Mapping. Directed by Poppy Sanchez. 2019 (20 mins. run time) Review by Nancy Jainchill.
Welcome to Sex School. As the film explains, Sex School is an educational web series, where therapists, sex workers and coaches come together to talk about sex, with the aim to challenge the stereotypes, ignorance, and stigma around sexuality. Two porn stars are guided through the process of pleasure mapping by Mareen, a sexological bodyworker. The message is that mindful touch leads to heightened sensitivity.
Sex School aims to change our definition of pleasure, having us pay attention to subtle sensations and to let go of expectations, which seems to mean that we shouldn’t be driven by the goal to orgasm. It’s moving away from the idea of pleasure buttons that you press, to thinking of the entire body as a pleasure zone. There’s a lot of pleasure that one can experience on the way to orgasm. The process involves being more open and honest with our partners, which will foster increased intimacy, increased trust, and a feeling of safety. All of this might also result in heightened arousal.
Mareen emphasizes the importance of communication–finding the balance between verbal and nonverbal expression, and understanding the reciprocal roles of giving and receiving, which she will guide her two students, Lina Bembe and Bishop, to experience. Beginning with slow kissing, the backdrop of a narration about emotional safety focuses on the importance of consent and communication. Any emotion, Mareen says, can take on a physical form. The couple models this, as the man stroking his partner, gets feedback on what she wants. Saying how you’re feeling brings the two people closer together. The film demonstrates the use of “props” (a feather and a pinwheel) and safe practices–safety doesn’t deny pleasure. At the end, explaining how she felt, she says she was aroused but doesn’t think she could orgasm this way. But as the instructor said ahead of time, orgasm isn’t the focus.
The messages conveyed in this brief film are important–reciprocity, consent, communication, and safety. Who can argue with that? But it felt attenuated. I wanted more. I wanted to see the woman taking on the role of the giver, and I wanted to have them “go further” in their explorations of pleasure. Mareen, herself, seemed uptight. A little humor, some more smiles, would’ve been welcome.
Of interest, is that in the 1980s, Annie Sprinkle produced a film with a similar theme. In Search of the Ultimate Sexual Experience is about a woman who is looking for fulfillment and an Adonis-like guru appears to teach her about pleasure, about spirituality, about reciprocity of intimacy. Porn Ed wasn’t a concept back in the 1980s but Sprinkle’s film achieved what Pleasure Mapping tried to do.
