Naivety about sex

I was surprised when a friend said she laughed when watching a particularly notorious graphic sex scene in a film. It seemed to me to be very naïve, immature and simple about sex or the act of. Ok, maybe it was because she watched it with her boyfriend and they weren’t really in the mood for something a little more serious than the normal fare. But, knowing her as a person whose had several serious relationships, no stranger to sex, it really shocked me that she couldn’t understand or appreciate the characters and the deeper reasons why people do the things they do.

Most sex on tv/film/media is exploitative and gratuitous. Maybe people are so used to seeing it in the context of shallow, undeveloped characters and stories that it becomes just that, something shallow, laughable and trivial. The film is known and only probably watched because of that scene. It’s sad.

When I first saw it, I didn’t know anything about the film, only that the lead actress won an Oscar and made a cringing acceptance speech. When it came to the scene, it made perfect sense in the context of the characters lives. There was nothing gratuitous or manipulative about it. There’s sometimes a tendency to dismiss the act of sex, and just cut to the morning after, or do it in way that wouldn’t show much. ‘Tasteful’ is the word they use, make it beautiful. This wasn’t, there were moments of ‘ugliness’ and it’s a better film for it. No ceremony, no flattering lighting, god they were even both drunk! Sounds bad doesn’t it. It wasn’t. I surprised myself too…I found it oddly moving. I didn’t see the sex, all I saw was humanity at work. BTW the film was Monsters Ball.

I bow to Mr. Forster for having the balls to do it, and the actors for going ‘there’ and bringing it.