Tell Me Pleasure Recap
Pleasure Recap · from a conversation between Izzy & Megan
In most porn a hookup is shorthand for something quick, impersonal, and over before there was any connection or true enjoyment. Tell Me shows us a story of a hookup that happens across three days and it’s very intimate, playful and honest. Izzy, the head of afterglow’s content watched it back with Megan Wallace, writer, speaker and sex educator, here is how they experienced it.
Their conversation, trimmed for length.
Megan It feels very giddy, really sensual, teasing. Very evocative of external, clitoral stimulation. There’s almost this whole-body feeling that I really loved. There are points where it feels like every part of their body is touching, and it’s very slow and tender. And the two performers have a really natural, easy chemistry.
Izzy The story is that it happens over three days. It’s a hookup that later turns into something more, and they develop feelings toward each other. When you said slow, this is the one I thought of. It’s just so beautiful.
Megan He’s asleep, so it’s really vulnerable from his point of view. His guard is completely down. And she’s still naked, but so at ease in her body, without any kind of shyness. To me that spoke to an understanding, an intimacy. She just curls into the nook of his body. They fit really well together. It’s evocative of a really, really good hookup, where you feel safe and you don’t have to perform.
Izzy I’d always thought about hookups as something quick, very much on the surface, where you have to keep your guard up most of the time. This feels so different.
Megan What really struck me is how much eye contact there is. Normally the default is just to close your eyes, and I think that’s a sign you’re maybe not fully present. Part of you retreats into fantasies about other people, or other experiences you’ve had. These two seem so embodied. A hookup is also often the place where you try riskier sex you wouldn’t do with someone you were worried might judge you, so it tends to be a bit more aggressive. Here it’s a different pace, but also a different depth.
Izzy They are there to enjoy each other, and no other world exists for those three days. It shows that even if a connection with another person is short term, it can be meaningful. You can still be there with that person.
Megan It deconstructs the idea of what meaningful sex is. We’re told all the time that sex is meaningful if it’s attached to a relationship. But sex doesn’t always happen in the context of relationships, so why should those experiences be less meaningful? It can be something that connects you with your body. If not emotionally meaningful, then physically meaningful.
Izzy You mentioned eye contact, and this is where it got me. At first I thought she was recording a video on his phone for him to watch later. Then afterwards I realised it’s meant to be his point of view, and that was so fucking cool.
Megan I really like the angle of her gaze to the camera, to his eyes. It’s really direct. A lot of POV videos are quite degrading, or there’s a power exchange going on. A jerk-off instruction, or a dominant woman, or the woman in a submissive place. That can be fun, that can be part of it, but here she’s just looking at him really directly and teasing him. The gravity of the scene sits with her, and it still feels like a mutual energy flow.
Izzy It’s for his gaze, but it feels powerful on her end.
Megan A lot of it is at her pace. It’s a mutual exchange, but a lot of the weight is placed on her enjoyment. She doesn’t feel like she needs to look away. She’s confident in her sexuality, in his attraction to her, in their mutual attraction. And I loved the sound of the bed sheets rustling. It really gets the viewer feeling like they’re in the scene.
Izzy How did you experience this one?
Megan I loved how slow and careful he is getting her shoe off. There’s a real sense of care, and because you’re not rushing to get the clothes off, you get anticipation. How delicate he is with her shoe and her foot is almost a promise that he’s going to take that much care with the rest of her body, and do things in a really thorough way. I found that quite erotic. It establishes the tone of their rapport, their sexual dialogue. And it’s mutual. He takes off a shoe, then she takes off her top. It’s a game, lots of back and forth.
Izzy It is a game. He does something for her, then she does something for him, but I think also for herself. She’s so confident taking her clothes off, and I think that gives her something too – the agency. And with the shoe, they take their time, and you feel like something is going to happen, but you still have to wait for it a little bit.
Izzy The film cuts between them having fun on the bed, eating lunch, talking about funny things, and then the sex scenes. It’s a nice way to show it happens over a longer period, that it’s not only two hours. How did you experience those moments in between?
Megan They make the dynamic feel very lived in, which really helps with the sense of intimacy. There are points where things are so slow that it almost feels like lazy early morning sex, when you’re still hazy and you kind of fall into it. And you get a sense of her charisma, which I don’t think you normally get in a lot of porn. I love her laugh. It’s very uninhibited. At one point she’s wearing his t-shirt, which speaks to not needing to be dressed up. You also hear more from him in those moments. Elsewhere in the film she’s a bit more dominant, so I liked seeing him switch out of that dynamic.
Izzy Their intimacy is built in the moments in between. All those moments of laughter and conversation are also moments of creating intimacy, and sometimes even building up to another round.
Megan One of the notes I made for the cuddle scene was that porn doesn’t tend to show aftercare. But you could see this as a kind of aftercare. Talking, doing something non-sexual together. It’s like the way consent is handled in this film. Aftercare isn’t an obligation or something sterile and unsexy, it’s woven into the fabric of it, and shown as something that enhances connection. They’re working on not having an emotional jet lag between the intimacy of the sex scenes and the intimacy of knowing each other outside them.
Izzy Emotional jet lag. I love that phrase. Tell me more about that.
Megan You can have really amazing sexual chemistry with someone, have sex for hours, have some pillow talk, and then the second your clothes go back on it feels like you’ve switched to a different mode. It can feel really awkward, and shy, or embarrassed about how much you’ve revealed to that person, how vulnerable you were. You don’t need to know someone well to have sex with them and have it be good. But sometimes you might be really shy and just not know how to be around someone unless you’re having sex. These two are showing that they’ve worked it out. The consistency of their bond runs across the sex and across those down moments.
Izzy It’s just this heavy breathing, and it completely captures my attention.
Megan Usually when you’re being penetrated from behind there’s a huge disconnect, and it’s the harder, faster move. Here I love how slow it is. The way he’s kissing her back, the way she arches and leans back into him. Their bodies feel so connected. It’s a subversion of what we’d expect from that position.
Izzy In porn it’s usually a very quick, mechanical bang, bang, bang.
Megan The fact that her face is up, I thought that was really nice. It’s so sensual. They’re moving like a wave, their bodies in one fluid motion. Really great choreography.
Izzy He’d left the room and she stayed alone, which is a cool thing about this film. We don’t only see them together, we see her pleasuring herself. And when he comes back there’s no shame in it. It’s come and join me.
Megan The solo moment inverts the porn script where we all climax together. It’s true to how a male partner might finish while you haven’t reached climax yet. And she has no issue with it. You get the sexual charge of what came before, she’s turned on by it, she wants to finish, and she doesn’t need to wait for him. Then she’s non-verbally beckoning him over. Consent and communication are part of the play, not something sterile, so there’s still this flow. And when she laughs, she’s not giggling because she’s shy about what she’s doing. She’s giggling because you can tell he looks turned on, and she’s getting a little turned on by her own sexual power in that moment.
Megan I also liked the bit where he asks if he should come inside her. Consent isn’t you giving something up, or someone asking if it’s okay to take something. It’s collaborative, both parties are so enthusiastic about it, and it’s also dirty talk, verbalising what’s happening in the scene.
Izzy This film shows that asking for consent doesn’t have to be dry, or a checklist-like. It can be sexy, and part of the act.
the intimacy is built in the moments in between
Try tonight
Don’t get dressed straight away. Stay in bed, or go make food, and talk about something that isn’t the sex. That gap is usually the bit that gets skipped, and it’s where the closeness actually gets built. Sometimes it turns into another round. Sometimes it just means you’re still there with each other.