A raunchy striptease video made by two women purporting to be British Airways stewardesses has become an internet sensation.

At first, the sex was good," says Sarah. "But she always wanted more than what I could give. One day she came home with a strap-on; if I loved her, she said, I would allow her to use it." Sarah wasn't interested. "It was just something that I didn't like and didn't want," she says. She declined for months, her partner repeatedly pressuring her, until one night, Sarah's partner assaulted her with the strap-on. "Even though I was crying the whole time, she never stopped," Sarah recalls. Dyer says even the victim is offering little help right now. "When people go through that kind of situation, they're not as likely to provide as much information as we'd like," he said. "But that's normal somebody that's been victimized to that degree. So we're continuing to work with her."The fluorescent-soaked paint party, which ran from 2am to 6am, was only 30 minutes old when the DJ chanted over the mic: “Get your t*** out for the lads” while a drunken girl gyrated on stage. Then he led the crowd in a chant of “Maga, Maga, Maga-f******-luf”. Ever since Director Sebastián Lelio's Disobedience premiered at TIFF in 2017, it's been the talk of the town among the five queer women who care about this kind of stuff. The film tells story of Orthodox Jewish lesbians in London: Esti (Rachel McAdams) caught in a loveless relationship with a Rabbi, and Ronit (Rachel Weisz) trapped in a series of meaningless heterosexual hookups. When female victims of female assaults do pursue legal action, gender bias can severely hinder their ability to accurately report sexual violence. "Oftentimes, women in abusive same-sex relationships tell us that even when they do call the police, they are treated dismissively," recounts Kauffman. "'Women aren't violent.' 'This is just a girl fight, this is a waste of our time,' is a common attitude." According to the 2015 report by the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs, of LGBTQ individuals in Ohio who did report intimate partner violence, 21 percent experienced "indifferent" reactions from police. Another 28 percent experienced hostility. They also need help finding the other people in the video, like a guy in a red shirt who appears to be recording the assault as well. In the meantime, Langenderfer-Magruder asserts that language can be a powerful place to start correcting this oversight. Omitting the standard "he" as perpetrator and "she" for victim in laws, educational materials, and even just general discussion encourages awareness. "Research has clearly demonstrated that intimate partner violence does not happen in a solely heterosexual context—and the way we discuss it should reflect that," she says.

Over 10 years later, same-sex rape on college campuses is just starting to be quantified on a national level. Haven, an online sexual assault and awareness program that logs sexual assaults directly from students, works with self-reported data from over 800 colleges and universities. Haven had never compiled a report on undergraduate women who have been assaulted by women, but teamed up with MarieClaire.com to reveal new information: While the number of reported sexual assaults by women was low compared to assaults overall (only about 2.5 percent), the most striking difference came down to the likelihood of survivors to report the incident: 30 percent of women assaulted by another woman told no one, compared to 25 of women who didn't report an assault by a man. Shakedown pulled up stakes in July 2004. The club where it was housed at the time just wasn’t working out any longer. It bounced around some, but hopes of a space to call its own never materialized. There’s little wonder then that the doc ends with a mix of the melancholy and the triumphal, the mournful and the boastful. The filmmaker makes very few on-screen appearances. More often she remains a casually probing interviewer or a gentle guide encouraging a star dancer to read old promotional flyers or the concluding voiceover narration.Okay, maybe a spit-take feels warranted: an adult entertainment online depot and a cinephile hub, really!? The overlap likely says something worth teasing out about the Venn diagram meeting of the two, but it doesn’t take long into the movie to see how “Shakedown” can comfortably occupy either space. One onlooker said: “She seemed very ­intimidated.” The man later persuaded the woman to remove his shorts before he ended up naked as the DJ cried “off, off, off” while Donna Summer’s Hot Stuff blared from the speakers. The worst thing I’ve seen is a girl sitting on a sink plunger while performing oral sex on the DJ. Then there are gangs of Eastern European men looking for drunk British girls. There is a constant risk of assault and rape. The doorman spoke out anonymously in fear of reprisals from commission-only club promoters he says are to blame for the out-of-control “anything-goes” culture.

A British Airways spokesman said: “We’re aware of the video. Investigations continue to establish their identity.” Most Read For young lads, the risk comes from prostitutes who lure them onto the beach at night and steal wallets and mobiles. Most worrying is the culture among some holiday reps of preying on young girls. Many are in contests to bed the most.” The eight-minute video, entitled Sexy Two Air Hostesses in Uniform has no words just music, but has been viewed more than 115,000 times on YouTube.But it might be time for the protagonists to hit the runway, as their employees have failed to see the funny side. Survivors are trapped in a cycle that delegitimizes their experience: first by downplaying the likelihood that it could happen at all, then by not validating it once it happens, and finally by not analyzing the data—and therefore creating awareness—after it does. The star of the show then proceeds to strip to her underwear, sliding off her skirt and blouse with a little help from her female accomplice. Footage of crowded nights is often rough-hewn, the lighting a mix of dim and dimmer with slices of stage beams or the arc of a spotlight. Perhaps aware their antics are pushing the boundaries, the pair return to the more mundane activity of washing hair until the cameraman (or woman) decides to call it a day.

Performance is at the heart of “Shakedown,” one of the reasons it’s rich fodder for brainy considerations of LGBTQ identity and gender. Miss Mahogany talks about the importance of establishing a fantasy from the jump, from before the clothes come off. A later interview finds dancer Egypt and her girlfriend at home. “Egypt is a fantasy,” says the Shakedown star of her hardcore-dance, feminine persona, repeating the line for effect. Lounging next to her on the couch, her girlfriend talks about going from “psycho fan” to romantic partner. What she once craved, well, she tells the director, “I can’t wait till she get home, take the makeup off, put on regular clothes. She Aisha again.” More information is needed at all levels—government, collegiate, and otherwise. All the experts we spoke to point to an overall dearth of research on intimate partner violence in queer female communities as the biggest obstacle in developing more accessible resources for survivors. One hitches up the other's skirt to reveal a pair of sexy suspenders, then rubs soaps ALL over her body. Here the “hood” is celebrated. Which doesn’t mean its patrons aren’t taken to task occasionally. In one scene, all swagger and sweetness, Ronnie-Ron lectures a panhandler on managing his finances. In another, she chastises her patrons: “The one thing you can say about Hispanics … they all get along.” Whether that’s unequivocally true is another matter. Her point: Act right, you all. During a set, Egypt schools the room about Shakedown etiquette, “If you straight, you don’t need to be in the front.”I'm not about to put Kissing Jessica Stein in this category, because it's too weak of a queer film to be even considered. There's also Mulholland Drive, which had some very brief hot queer moments relative to its era (2001). Heavenly Creatures (1994) served the queer goth community particularly well. Sadly, that community is relatively small. Besides being a genuinely considerate movie with some thoughtful meditations on religion and culture, it has the added thrill of having super erotic sex scenes, made possible because: This seems like it shouldn't be a victory. And yet, the list of movies who've accomplished the same feat is painfully abbreviated. Don't talk to me about Blue is the Warmest Color, a movie made famous for its extended, impractical sex scenes and allegations of harassment by its director, Abdellatif Kechiche. Kechiche reportedly bullied the two female protagonists as well as his staff, forcing them to work 16-hour workdays under extreme pressure. Critics further accused the director of creating "voyeuristic" sex scenes intended to solicit the male gaze.