This Hump Day, we'd like to present you with a song by the same name, from multimedia artist Shanthony Exum. In the video above, Exum appears as her feminist-cum-rapper alter ego, Miss Eaves, to perform a catchy song about the joys of female masturbation.
But it isn't just an earworm — Hump Day's video portrays female pleasure in a playful, yet completely realistic, light. While certain images are tongue-in-cheek (the bursting water balloons, the up-close shots of licked lips), the women featured in the video act out what a climax really looks like, from start to finish. The effect is, to put it lightly, gripping.
Exum told Refinery29 that the song was borne out of a simple brainstorming session with her co-director, April Maxey, after they started playing with the idea of filming "a bunch of different women with different body types and ethnicities showing their orgasm face...and not in a pornographic way, but in a very realistic way." Their goal was to show what pleasure really looks like when women are alone — and comfortable — with their bodies.
While filming, Exum encouraged the women to steer clear of "tropes of what they thought should be sexy," alluding to the types of O faces favored by the male gaze. She told us that, given the fact that the song is about how great it feels to masturbate, she wanted the individual experience to take priority over appearances or any standard of sexiness: "There’s a range of things that arouse people, and a range of ways that people show their arousal...it should be up to you, as far as what you think turns you on and what makes you feel good."
Exum plans to continue using Miss Eaves' voice to talk about the realities of womanhood, from "chub rub" (the so-called sensation of one's thighs rubbing together) to being told to smile. If you ask us, female pleasure was a great place to start. Check out the full video above.
The gap between what we learned in sex ed and what we're learning through sexual experience is big — way too big. So we're helping to connect those dots by talking about the realities of sex, from how it's done to how to make sure it's consensual, safe, healthy, and pleasurable all at once. Check out more here.
The gap between what we learned in sex ed and what we're learning through sexual experience is big — way too big. So we're helping to connect those dots by talking about the realities of sex, from how it's done to how to make sure it's consensual, safe, healthy, and pleasurable all at once. Check out more here.