Sex and "The Kids"
Aug. 8th, 2010 01:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lillibetJason and I recently saw The Kids Are All Right, Lisa Cholodenko's film about the children of a lesbian couple finding the sperm donor who is their natural father. We really enjoyed it--it's one of the best depictions of marriage that I've ever seen on screen and the acting is fantastically unstudied.
As it happens, we had just watched one of Cholodenko's previous films, Laurel Canyon a week earlier. One of the things I noticed in both movies is that while the flirtations have a lot of chemistry, the actual sex scenes are frenetic and pretty joyless.
I think the problem with them is that they are very realistic. There's no soft lighting, the camera doesn't avoid the physical truth of aging bodies or the awkwardness of fitting all those arms and legs in one bed. There's not a lot of gasping and moaning--except for breath. The oral sex scenes are hidden by blankets, but they don't shy away from the potential for tedium. This is what sex really looks like.
And isn't that a good thing? Maybe the expectations that the media create are so unrealistic that it's good to have scenes that show how un-sexy sex can be. I haven't spent much time watching other people have sex--with rare exceptions I've followed Zero Mostel's timeless advice "Say 'oops!' and get out!" I've never been interested in filming myself in action, but I'm sure I don't look any better than Julianne Moore.
So why do these scenes feel so strange and wrong? Have I just swallowed the kool-aid and come to believe that sex is--or at least can be--a heart-stoppingly sexy thing? I think the problem is that what these scenes are showing us is only what it looks like. No, there aren't fireworks going off overhead, nor shooting stars (with one memorable exception) but when I have sex, my mind envelops the act in sexiness. It's magical because I believe in the magic. It doesn't matter what it looks like; in order for it to be believable, it needs to convey something of what it feels like. Otherwise the sex scenes end up ruining the mood.
As it happens, we had just watched one of Cholodenko's previous films, Laurel Canyon a week earlier. One of the things I noticed in both movies is that while the flirtations have a lot of chemistry, the actual sex scenes are frenetic and pretty joyless.
I think the problem with them is that they are very realistic. There's no soft lighting, the camera doesn't avoid the physical truth of aging bodies or the awkwardness of fitting all those arms and legs in one bed. There's not a lot of gasping and moaning--except for breath. The oral sex scenes are hidden by blankets, but they don't shy away from the potential for tedium. This is what sex really looks like.
And isn't that a good thing? Maybe the expectations that the media create are so unrealistic that it's good to have scenes that show how un-sexy sex can be. I haven't spent much time watching other people have sex--with rare exceptions I've followed Zero Mostel's timeless advice "Say 'oops!' and get out!" I've never been interested in filming myself in action, but I'm sure I don't look any better than Julianne Moore.
So why do these scenes feel so strange and wrong? Have I just swallowed the kool-aid and come to believe that sex is--or at least can be--a heart-stoppingly sexy thing? I think the problem is that what these scenes are showing us is only what it looks like. No, there aren't fireworks going off overhead, nor shooting stars (with one memorable exception) but when I have sex, my mind envelops the act in sexiness. It's magical because I believe in the magic. It doesn't matter what it looks like; in order for it to be believable, it needs to convey something of what it feels like. Otherwise the sex scenes end up ruining the mood.
