This watchlist stars women who prioritised their Os over their exes, currents and more
And maybe you should do it too?
“He finished. I didn’t,” and “He couldn’t find it” are guests that drop in on a regular margarita night with the girls, like the work feedback email you were expecting but didn’t want to deal with. You don’t particularly like having that conversation, but a few rounds of peer review never hurt anyone. The clit and the G-spot, two sacred sites of female pleasure, seem as elusive as the mastermind in a Scandinavian crime thriller. As a result, we’re often left far, far from release.
A 2017 study found that only 65% of heterosexual women orgasm during partnered sex as opposed to 95% of heterosexual men. Another says that 59% of women have faked orgasms.
Sex is at the base of Uncle Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, alongside food, sleep, breathing and pooping. The big and small Os are essential to our mental health. But finding pleasure during partnered sex can be tough due to multiple physical, emotional and psychological factors. (If you’re ready to take matters into your own hands, here’s a guide to buying and using sex toys).
For some much-needed motivation, we’ve curated a list of films and tv shows that gave their leading ladies agency. These women want pleasure and are completely unafraid to ask for it. Watch and learn.
Lipstick Under My Burkha
This Alankrita Shrivastava directorial underlines that entering your 50s doesn’t mean your sexual desires have to be shelved. Ratna Pathak Shah plays the role of a middle-aged widow, Usha, who reads erotica and often imagines herself as the book’s protagonist Rosy.
After being rescued from drowning in a pool by a swimming instructor, she fantasises and even has phone sex with him. To the outside world, Usha is slotted as a dowdy matriarch, when in reality, she desires to look beautiful, feel wanted and have her desires fulfilled. Shrivastava creates an interesting contrast between Usha and Rosy, the latter coming to life only at night when there are no expectations or eyes on her. As Rosy, Usha becomes bold, wearing bright colours and patterns and applying lipstick. Through her, we see that desire has no age.
Sex Education
While the main premise of the series centres around horny teenagers, it tackles several important themes, including mature love, taking the lead and vaginismus. One of the characters, Aimee, is advised to explore her own pleasure instead of focusing completely on her partner’s. In an intimate scene, we see her on top of her partner and constantly checking with him about his feelings and the acts he might want to do. His response catches her off guard, saying that her pleasure is as important to him and she should tell him what she wants.
Aimee is visibly confused and confides in a peer, “I don’t know what I want. No one’s ever asked me that before,” she says. Upon his advice, she starts masturbating in an attempt to discover what she likes and wants in the bedroom. The audience watches a fun montage as Aimee tries various positions and techniques in her own bedroom, discovering what works for her. This sequence reflects how women prioritising their pleasure can completely change their experience in the bedroom.
The Year I Started Masturbating
“You are a prime example of how worn your hair and skin get if you don’t masturbate enough,” the leading lady of our film gets told by a concerned friend in one of the scenes. Hanna is a 40-something mother who discovers the power of prioritising her desires after her marriage fails because of her workaholic personality.
It’ll give you flashbacks of the 40-Year-Old Virgin with its parallel storylines of a late bloomer. The Year I Started Masturbating is a Swedish comedy that has plenty of laugh-out-loud humour and a focus on saying yes to your intimate desires with self-love instead of with a partner. After all, it is a natural “amusement park.” If you thought masturbating had an age limit, this movie would tell you, no, ma’am, it does not.
Lady Chatterley’s Lover
If there’s any steamy drama that has caught our eye after Bridgerton, it is Lady Chatterley’s Lover. Ask a reader, and they’ll tell you that the movies never live up to the books, but this comes close to honouring its literary counterpart. Lady Constance Chatterley, Connie, marries and moves into the massive Chatterley estate in London. Shortly after, her husband suffers a war injury and gets paralysed from the waist down. She cares for her husband to the best of her abilities, but the lack of affection and intimacy eventually takes a toll on her.
A tired Connie finds solace and sexual fulfilment with the gamekeeper, Oliver. The story talks of a torrid love affair with plenty of focus on female pleasure, a notion too scandalous for the time for Britain’s rigid class differences. The sex scenes are intense and steamy and will have you gasping every second.
If you haven’t read the book, the thrill of whether or not Connie and Oliver end up together is enough to keep your eyes glued to the screen.
MILF
The title must’ve thrown you off, but the plot goes beyond sharing its name with every pubescent boy’s fantasy after listening to Stacy’s Mom by Fountains of Wayne, we promise. This light-hearted French holiday film talks about intergenerational relationships as much as it talks about prioritising female pleasure. The movie follows three friends, Cécil, Sonia and Elise, in their 40s, who travel to the French Riviera for a holiday and to help Cécil sell her vacation home. While there, the three women start vacation flings with three men in their 20s.
Though the summary might give off an impression of it being a glorified comedy about a sexual kink, it delves into deeper issues in the women’s lives, like their struggle with love, acceptance, family and relationship expectations. The movie may seem like it drags at some point and is only pretty people in postcard locations, but it has teaching moments. Their holiday flings become reflective moments for the three women who come face to face with the emotions they’re struggling to deal with. The curtain falls as all three break free from other people’s expectations that dictate their lives and decision-making when their vacation starts. It’s a cheery depiction of women prioritising their own desires and needs beyond the narrow roles that they might find themselves boxed in, in their daily lives.
Duck Butter
If you put intense emotions and a non-stop raunch fest together, you get Duck Butter. The film hinges on the story of two women who agree to a novel approach to create more intimacy, sex over love. Sergio and Nima, our two protagonists, decide to spend 24 hours together after the initial intoxicating attraction, having sex once every hour as a way to fast forward through the stages of building intimacy in relationships.
The experiment is designed for the two to look at a possible romantic connection through the lens of physical intimacy and pleasure. But what happens when you try to cram the process of dating into a fast burn in a day? The emotions get too real, too intense, way too quickly. Duck Butter is a heavy movie with an intriguing concept. The sex scenes are passionate, and the feelings will ricochet through the screen into your brain.
Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story
The Bridgerton spinoff took the internet by storm with Queen Charlotte and King George’s love story and gave fans yet another fictional man to obsess over. Even though their evolving relationship battle with his mental illness forms the crux of the six-part series, it also gives us a peek into the backgrounds of Lady Danbury and Violet Bridgerton. It is established in the beginning that Lady and Lord Danbury have a significant age difference and a loveless marriage where sex is only a marital duty. Once her husband passes, Lady Danbury boldly but carefully engages in a brief affair with Lord Ledger, Violet’s father, who appreciates her intelligence and treats her as an equal. Despite being in the restrictive London society, with her husband’s family name and her son’s title at stake, Lady Danbury puts her needs first to experience pleasure and love in a way she hasn’t before.
Their intimate scene is filmed to create an apparent contrast between Lady Danbury’s moments with her husband and her time with Lord Ledger. The latter is where her pleasure is also given importance. Years later, in the present-day parallel, she encourages a now-widowed Violet Bridgerton to explore her needs and put herself first when she confides in her of feeling sexually frustrated.
Elisa & Marcela
A Spanish biographical movie, Elisa & Marcela tells the story of the first same-sex matrimony recorded in Spain. Marcela and Elisa are two young women who developed a strong friendship and a romantic relationship during a time when same-sex relationships were not just scandalous but illegal in Spain. To escape scrutiny and be together, Elisa pretends to be a man so that the pair can act as a heterosexual couple and get married.
While biographical, the movie is a beautiful portrayal of two women prioritising their pleasure and love in a difficult environment with a disapproving society and hostile government breathing down their necks, threatening to tear them apart.
Tonight You’re Sleeping With Me
This Polish drama is all about love, desire and sacrifice. Nina is a journalist who is stuck in a marriage devoid of any passion. Her husband dismisses her ever so often, and it seems like there is nothing the spouses can agree upon. Soon, Nina’s ex-lover Janek enters the scene as he starts working at Nina’s company. She doesn’t act on her feelings of attraction to him at first because of her marriage and home life.
When her husband packs off on a solo trip without warning, Nina gives in to her desire and begins a passionate affair with Janek. Through her time with him, Nina is able to break through her duties as a wife, mother and daughter and experience life as a person. With Janek, she isn’t labelled into any roles or expectations, breaking the dull, passionless monotony of her life. And when she makes a decision to pick herself and her desire, an unexpected incident forces her to reconsider everything. This movie is a great portrayal of how women prioritising their pleasure can allow them liberation from ties that hold them back from feeling like an individual.
Nathicharami
There’s not a lot of Indian cinema that speaks outright about female sexuality or women pursuing their desires. But Nathicharami isn’t one of them. This Kannada film talks about a young widow Gowri who struggles with her emotional ties to her late husband’s memories and her biological needs and desires.
Gowri decides to casually date in order to prioritise her pleasures. She finds a partner in Suresh, with whom she finds her desires fulfilled. The movie echoes themes similar to those explored in Lipstick Under My Burkha and Veere Di Wedding but doesn’t go as explicit regarding the portrayal. The movie questions the idea of looking at desire and pleasure only through the lens of marriage. It gives Gowry agency and freedom to arrive at the decision of giving in to her sexual desires while also still being emotionally connected to her deceased spouse.
