Hey there, ladies! Still struggling to achieve that elusive “O”? Starting to think outside your box when it comes to cumming? Have no fear: Tristan Taormino’s got your back. And your front.

The Expert Guide to Female Orgasms is exactly what it sounds like. As the viewer, you are placed across a toy-covered coffee table from Tristan Taormino and taught everything you need to know about making a female-bodied person feel good, including:
Phases of arousal in the body
Orgasm diversity
Visual signs of an orgasm
Clitoral stimulation & anatomy
Vaginal & G-spot stimulation (penetration, deep penetration, female ejaculation)
Anal stimulation
Other stimulation (various body parts, thoughts, sensation play, BDSM, breath, energy)
Emotional, psychological, & spiritual elements of orgasms
Lubrication
Overcoming challenges through masturbation & communication
Multiple orgasms

For anyone who is new to Tristan Taormino & Vivid-Ed‘s Expert Guide series, this is a great place to start. I’d previously seen the Guides to Cunnilingus, Anal Sex, and the G-Spot, and Female Orgasms was an extensive review of all that information and more. Watching this DVD feels like having Tristan step into your bedroom and show you exactly what’s going on with you and/or your partner’s body. She covers anatomy without sounding like a textbook, and shares insight on the body’s orgasmic process while still emphasizing how different each orgasm can be.

While Tristan speaks rather objectively about female pleasure, there are ten performers talking about and demonstrating their own orgasms (or their partners’ orgasms) in five sex scenes: Katie St. Ives with Sean Michaels, Evanni Solei with Evan Stone, Madison Young with Jiz Lee, Dylan Ryan with Mr. Marcus, and Adrianna Nicole with James Deen. These sex scenes and interview clips are cut to as examples during Tristan’s half-hour lesson, and then played out all the way through afterward. And don’t be fooled by the workshop format of the DVD: The sex is super hot. If you’re feeling a bit squeamish about the idea of having porn in your movie collection, this is a great secret addition to your whack stack disguised as a purely educational presentation.

The focus on “her” pleasure never acknowledged women who don’t have vaginas or female-bodied people who don’t identify as women, but I’d say that this Guide provided the perfect amount of inclusivity. The tutorial was entirely about how to please a female body, and didn’t reflect any gender assumptions about the partner(s) who would be providing this pleasure. It was great to see genderqueer performer Jiz Lee in the cast, and while I don’t think their gender was noted on the DVD, Tristan has used Jiz’s preferred neutral pronoun when writing about their performance. I think that if the language used had been completely gender-inclusive, the added not-that-this-only-relates-to-women disclaimers would have made the DVD twice as long.

Aside from Jiz Lee’s pairing with Madison Young, everyone performed with an opposite-sex partner of their choice. As someone who is so heavily immersed in queer sexuality, I found it extremely refreshing to see heterosexuality represented in the female-focused context of this Guide. Because sex between a cisgender male and a cisgender female happens so rarely in queer porn or in my social circle (and, due to my transgender identity, never in my own sex life), my primary association with heterosexual sex is still mainstream porn, which, admittedly, makes me a little heterophobic at times. The scenes in this film showed straight sex in a context I could identify with: authentic female pleasure. It was a perfect reminder of the obvious & frequently forgotten fact that penises (particularly penises that are granted screen time) do not exist at the expense of feminism. I’ve heard that they actually co-exist with vaginas rather well.

Overall, this DVD is spectacular. The information is beneficial to everyone, from empowered orgasmic superheroes to those still trying to cum for the first time. The sex scenes are powerful, and each climax demands some serious applause. Plus: bonus features!  I thoroughly enjoyed the featurettes on safer sex and kegel exercises, and the behind-the-scenes footage (my favourite part of any DVD).

My advice:
If you have a vagina or know anyone else who does, you’re going to want to watch this.

Not convinced? Check out a sneak peek of the action on Fleshbot!