S&M Sally is a 2015 American comedy-romance film written and directed by Michelle Ehlen. Jen McPherson, Ehlen, and Shaela Cook lead the cast. It is the third installment in Ehlen’s “Butch Jamie” series and follows the continuing relationship of Jamie and Jill as they step into underground S&M clubs—while friends David and Lola run a parallel comic plot about who is “cool” enough to follow through on a threesome. For queer kink viewers tired of Fifty Shades-style straight softcore, the film sells itself as a lesbian romp through flogging, electric play, fire play, and the unglamorous snack-room reality of dungeon life.
Plot: Pseudonym, Roles, and Role Confusion
When Jamie learns that girlfriend Jill has already been exploring BDSM, bedroom insecurity pushes her to propose underground club nights. Jamie adopts the pseudonym “Sally” so she can stay anonymous while still sounding like she is using her real name—an insecurity gag that doubles as title engine. Identifying as the butch half of a classic butch/femme couple, “Sally” assumes she will automatically take the dominant role with Jill as submissive. Jill has other plans. The comedy turns on that misread: orientation toward gender presentation is not a contract for who holds the flogger. What follows is club education, ego bruising, and relationship renegotiation staged as sex-positive farce rather than trauma drama.
Cast
- Jen McPherson — Jill
- Michelle Ehlen — Jamie / “Sally”
- Shaela Cook — Lola
- Scott Keiji Takeda — David
- Adrian Gonzalez — Sebastian
- Dolly Grey — Melina
- Christopher Callen — Mistress Chyenne
- Shaun Laundry — Princess
Production: Kickstarter Micro-Budget Los Angeles
Ehlen raised production money on Kickstarter under micro-budget conditions. Unused funds from the campaign were donated to the L.A. LGBT Center. Principal photography was shot on location in Los Angeles. Core credits include producers David Au and Charlie Vaughn; original music by Johnny Harris; cinematography by Olivia Kuan; production design by David Monster; makeup by Crystal Nardico; and film editing by Michelle Ehlen herself. The DIY pipeline matches the film’s sensibility: community-funded queer comedy about real dungeon spaces rather than a studio erotic thriller.
Soundtrack
Johnny Harris composed the full score. Featured tracks include “Black Lipstick Kiss” (written by Lynx Dean, performed by Random Order—winner of the film’s Best Song award), “Death To Vanilla Sex” (written and performed by Count Boogie), and “Radioactive” (written and performed by Kiirstin Marilyn). The playlist title “Death To Vanilla Sex” is practically a mission statement for the movie’s kink-positive comic tone.
Critical Reception
The Independent Critic raved: “I loved S&M Sally… A delightfully entertaining and awesomely kinky romp through flogging, electric play, fire play, and life in the dungeon snack room,” calling it “about 100 times more entertaining and authentic than the straighter yet far more awkwardly awful 50 Shades drivel.” Sexologist Dr. Patti Britton recommended the film on Facebook for sex coaches and sexologists covering BDSM. Curve Magazine praised a “funny, sexy, genuine romp with minimal gayngst and lots of representation.” The critical consensus that stuck is authenticity over gloss: club snacks, role negotiation, and lesbian humor instead of billionaire red rooms.
Awards
Festival hardware piled up on the LGBT circuit:
- Jury Award (Special Mention) — International Gay & Lesbian Film Festival, Barcelona
- QAward (Best Comedic Feature) — International Gay & Lesbian Film Festival, Fort Worth, TX
- Jury Prize (Best Feature) — International Gay & Lesbian Film Festival, Philadelphia
- Audience Award (Best Feature) — International Gay & Lesbian Film Festival, Sacramento
- Audience Award — Kaleidoscope, Little Rock LGBT Film Festival
- Audience Award — Out Film CT, Connecticut
- Best Screenplay — QFilms, Long Beach
- Director’s Award — Out Film CT
- Best Song “Black Lipstick Kiss” (Random Order / Lynx Dean) — Fetisch Film Festival, Kiel, Germany
For BDSM media maps, S&M Sally is a small, festival-proven corrective: butch/femme dynamics do not assign Top and bottom; dungeon comedy can be sex-positive without becoming instructional porn; and Kickstarter queer cinema can outperform big-budget soft BDSM romance on authenticity alone. Watch it as third-chapter Butch Jamie continuity and as a cheerful argument that kink discovery stories work better when the leads already know how to laugh at themselves in the snack room between scenes. The festival award stack—Barcelona to Kiel—also marks how LGBT film circuits became the natural home for kink-positive lesbian comedy that mainstream distributors still treat as too niche or too explicit.
