#amiee

For my analysis, I have chosen the Netflix Show, “Sex Education,” and I will be arguing that, in this case, film produced by women does result in female sexuality being represented in a liberating way. The entire series is written by women, and in my opinion it is a feminist show. I would like to focus on the character Aimee and how her sexuality develops throughout the show. Her first sex scene, which is in the pilot episode, was directed by a man. I’m pointing this out because in the scene she is naked, which is normal for sex scenes, but not always normal for teenage sex scenes. And in later episodes directed by women, Aimee is not shown naked or topless when having sex.

During the scene, Aimee is asking Adam what he likes about her body, if he likes what she is doing, and what he wants to do. Adam fails to climax, and Aimee later confides to a friend that she “does not know what she is doing wrong.” The idea of a woman being solely responsible for a man’s sexual pleasure has undeniable roots in the male gaze, as the woman is seen as the object that the man gains satisfaction from. It can be argued then that the male gaze plays a role in teaching women how to perform sexuality. To quote Raeann Ritland, “a patriarchal worldview dominates much mainstream film, television, media, and popular narratives.” As we understand the role media plays in teaching us about the society we live in, then according to the dominant ideologies in the mainstream, there are very limited, yet specific ways a woman can express or not express her sexuality. It would appear that there isn’t much to learn.

Susan M. Shaw and Janet Lee say on this, “We perform sexuality just as we perform gender and other identities. Sexual scripts are guidelines for how we are supposed to feel and act as sexual persons. The focus on these scripts is meant to emphasize the ways we create our understanding of, ‘normal.’”  Aimee has adopted a rather pornographic script to represent her sexuality, and gathering everything I’ve just mentioned, this isn’t surprising. A lot of media, largely mainstream comedies, sell the idea that a woman being sexually liberated means a woman who caters to the sexual desires of men. When Aimee’s new boyfriend isn’t a fan of the way she acts during sex, and asks her what she really wants, Aimee is at a loss. She books a session with the show’s main character, Otis, who is running a secret sex therapy business at his school (hence the title of the show). 

Otis recommends that Aimee “find out what she likes.” Initially, Aimee is reluctant to do so. In fact, her response is, “Ew. I don’t do that.” This reaction is another consequence of our society. Teenage boys are literally encouraged by doctors to masturbate, but there is no conversation for girls. In Peggy Orienstein’s ted talk on young women and sexual pleasure, she relates that the girls she interviewed, “expressed a sense of shame around their genitals. A sense that they were simultaneously icky and sacred.” This is from a very recent study done by Orienstein, and it is a disappointing and confusing consensus. The part of a woman’s body that our society obsesses over, that our society teaches heterosexual men to chase after, is the body part that the majority of young women ignore.