Lip Service Pleasure Recap
Pleasure Recap · from a conversation between Aleks & Izzy
When is the right time to talk to your partner? And is saying out loud what you want more intimate than being naked?
Those questions and plenty more come up in this conversation between Aleks, a film director and cinematographer, and Izzy, head of content. They took one of afterglow’s best films, Lip Service, and looked at what it teaches us about the art of romantic and sensual communication.
There is very little dialogue in Lip Service. Long stretches pass with nobody saying anything. It’s still a film about communication, and both kinds sit right next to each other in it: the hand on the back of his neck, and her saying out loud exactly what she wants him to do.
Aleks It’s subtle, and in a very short space it catches something real. It starts soft, a smile, almost funny, and then the intensity changes. Still playful, but the air is already charged. This is from the first minutes of the film and it’s already got you.
Izzy Nothing is said and you can tell something is about to happen. That’s how little it takes.
Aleks It feels very intimate because of where the camera sits, watching through the door. That voyeur angle runs through the whole film and it works.
Izzy She’s direct all the way through this film. We hear her say “make circles around my clit” or in another moment “make yourself hard for me”. She knows what she wants and she says it, and there’s something very sexual in her being demanding and loving at once.
Aleks The film is soft on the surface. Slow and unhurried. So her being that direct almost lands as a contrast, because we’re not expecting it. We’re trained to think proper chemistry needs no words. Here it’s her saying it out loud that makes the scene so hot.
Izzy And that’s a consent conversation, just a more explicit one. “Go down on me” is explicit consent. There’s so much talk about consent everywhere that sometimes it feels like people have lost the plot with it. Some of them think it’s too much to keep asking your partner things, just go and do it. This film shows it can be really fucking hot.
Aleks The misconception is that consent is inherently unsexy, that you stop the whole thing to fill out a form. Here she’s in control, she gets what she wants, and she’s giving very enthusiastic consent at the same time. Both things at once.
Izzy We were on set recently with Emmanuel and Jane filming a new piece for afterglow and they told us about a night in a hotel. What he kept coming back to was how sexy it was that Jane told him, out loud, what she wanted him to do. Confidence is sexy. If it’s coming from her and not from a script she learned or heard somewhere, it works.
Aleks I used to think of talking during sex as a kink, either praise or degradation, not something that just happens. Then I was with people who talked a lot and found out how much it turned me on to hear it. Saying it myself took longer. When it isn’t performative, when you say this feels so good and it actually does, it does something back to you.
Izzy Same directness here, and then they both giggle. That lightness is the part I like. I think they were a couple at the time.
Aleks I assumed so, or they’re very good actors. The chemistry and the softness are that tangible.
Izzy It only comes through when people know each other and feel safe. You don’t see much of it in porn. When somebody does show joy it’s usually faked, and you can feel that.
Aleks Same two people, minutes apart, and the energy has completely changed. Still no words. The first clip was anticipation. This is the thing happening. It reaches a climax, but not in the way we usually mean that word. A sensual connection climax.
Izzy They’re in flow. I’ve been reading a book called Magnificent Sex, where they asked a lot of couples what magnificent sex was for them, and what came back again and again was that it felt like a state of flow. Absorbed enough to stop watching themselves. That’s this clip.
Izzy Research tells us that the afterglow stage lasts up to twenty four hours, and when you are in it you feel like disclosing more. That’s a good thing, it means you feel safe. But it isn’t the window for more constructive feedback like “I didn’t like this” or “next time do X, Y and Z differently”. This is the window where you tell your partner what you loved about the encounter. The criticism is useful information. Give it a day.
Aleks It’s a vulnerable state. Very emotionally connected. Criticism doesn’t belong in there.
Izzy And how your partner responds to the nice feedback matters too. If you say something warm and they go “yeah sure” and start talking about the laundry, you’re missing each other.
Aleks Positive feedback is the rarer one anyway. We’re quick to say what isn’t working. Try opening with “I really love when you do this and there’s one small thing I’d like you to do…”, and the whole conversation starts somewhere else.
Izzy Is there such a thing as the right moment to communicate?
Aleks I don’t know about a right moment. There are definitely wrong ones. Not in the middle of an argument. Not on the way out the door. There are better conditions, when you’ve had a nice day and you’re both in a good place. But waiting for the perfect moment is how a conversation gets postponed forever, and the longer you leave it the harder it gets to say.
Izzy The charm is in the small moments. You don’t have to have the biggest conversation of your life on the first try.
Aleks The trope is everywhere. Real chemistry doesn’t need words, talking is awkward, if you’re really compatible you’ll just know what the other person wants. It’s never how it works. Physical exposure got normalised in a way verbal exposure never did. Saying out loud what you want is treated as more intimate than being naked.
Izzy And in porn the negotiation gets cut. Every time. So you’re left with the illusion that it all happened by itself.
Aleks What I find powerful is when an indie film keeps the moment where somebody asks and the answer is no. You almost never see it. Even in my own life it feels awkward to say no.
Izzy People are scared of hearing no. We automatically jump to negative assumptions like “they don’t want me” or “they don’t like me”. It took me a long time to learn that saying or hearing “no” isn’t a bad thing. Now I actually want it, because every yes becomes stronger if you know the person can say no.
Aleks Keep communicating. Keep trying. It will lead to better sex, I promise. Be curious.
the sentence she said out loud was the hottest thing in the scene
Try tonight
Pick the one thing you’d normally hint at and say it out loud instead. In your own words, not a line you read somewhere.