A FILM THAT EXPLORES THE CLASH BETWEEN THE POWER OF GENDER POLITICS AND THE EQUALLY POWERFUL IMPERATIVES OF FEMALE SEXUAL DESIRE
"Whatever is unnamed, undepicted in images, whatever is omitted from biography, censored in collections of letters, whatever is mis-named as something else, made difficult-to-come-by, whatever is buried in the memory by the collapse of meaning under inadequate or lying language — this will become, not merely unspoken but unspeakable."
—ADRIENNE RICH, POET, ESSAYIST, FEMINIST
THE DILEMMA OF DESIRE
A feature length documentary by two-time Peabody Award-winning filmmaker Maria Finitzo, produced in partnership with four-time Oscar-nominated production studio Kartemquin Films, the film follows a conceptual artist, two scientists, and an industrial designer who are using their work to shatter the myths and outright lies women have been taught about their sexual desire and their bodies.
THE DILEMMA OF DESIRE seeks to initiate a conversation about female sexual desire that will empower women to embrace and own their sexuality by giving them language to talk about their desire without shame and embarrassment. What’s allowed for men, must be allowed for women - that’s where equality starts and is at the heart of THE DILEMMA OF DESIRE.
"I think it just overwhelmed me that the representations of sex and sexuality almost universally excluded the clitoris as being necessary, and that's just absurd. It's akin to these ideas we used to have in medieval times that the universe revolved around the earth. It's a similar idea of what sex is, that it revolves around the male erection and that's just not true. I was thinking how is it possible that no one is calling bullshit on this?"
—SOPHIA WALLACE
"We are living in arguably the best time and place to be a woman in the history of the world. And yet even that’s not enough to protect women from being labeled sluts if they want to express their sexuality. It’s a little bit heartbreaking to see how little has changed from what my mother describes to me about her own growing up and the strictures placed on women who wanted to express themselves erotically and intimately."
—DR. LISA DIAMOND
"Women have been told that the vagina is the seat of pleasure and that’s completely a lie. It’s completely a lie."
—DR. STACEY DUTTON
"It’s crazy to me that it was only in the late 90s that the full anatomy of the clitoris was actually documented. Parts of it were discovered earlier than that but, it didn’t really enter into textbooks until so much later. I mean we put a man on the moon before we figured out women can experience pleasure. Like how absurd is that?”
—TI CHANG
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