James Goldberg wrote:
> So...metaphorically, it might have been a really interesting scene.
> Realistically? I lived in the dorms my freshman year of college in Ohio.
> Which means I heard more about some people's early sexual lives than I
> necessarily wanted to. I remember one friend coming in very excited to
> where a group of us were talking one day, because for the first time in
> his first sexual relationship (which had been going on for a while), he
> hadn't, uh...finished his physiological reaction before getting to the
> "one flesh" stage. Anyway, I don't want to launch a discussion on the
> mechanics of sexuality, I just wanted to say that there seems to be a
> lot more awkwardness and complexity in early sexual relationships than
> media (or church for that matter), generally indicates.
> And sure, Dutcher could have inserted in an idealized sex scene to make
> things look smooth and beautiful and said something metaphorical about
> spirituality and sex, but I don't think the audience is always cued into
> the metaphor dimension.
What does this have to do with anything, let alone the conversation at
hand? I'm quite certain Stephen wasn't wishing for a graphic view of the
act of sex itself. I'm quite certain he wasn't wishing for a nice,
perfect, erotic scene. He wanted to see the interplay (not the
foreplay!) between the two that brought them to the point of sex. There
must have been extraordinary drama and characterization in that missing
scene. The sex itself would have been mundane after that.
Some Mormons seem to be so obsessed with avoiding that on-screen act of
sex that they don't even pay attention to what a person is really
talking about. They hear that word "sex" and the whole body starts
reacting in a jerky way, not just the knee.
> Film looks so much like it could be life that
> people, especially younger people, tend to subconsciously believe that
> it is. Maybe that's their fault, but I think as an artist you have a
> certain level of responsibility for that.
No, we don't. We have zero responsibility for all the weird ways people
can react to art. Our responsibility is to our motives and nothing more.
We can't control other people's choices, and it's getting real irksome
for people to continue insisting we have responsibility for something we
have no control over.
> Anyway, after recounting
> another tale of an early divorce, one of the women commented to the
> other, "I think one of the problems with these girls is that they expect
> sex to be such a perfect, pristine, fulfilling experience, and don't
> realize that their husbands aren't going to be close to perfect at
> first, because they've never done it before."
> That puts parents, church leaders and teachers, and LDS artists in
> something of a bind: on the one hand, we want to emphasize the
> sacredness and goodness of sex, on the other hand, it's probably helpful
> if people go into marriage with some small dose of the possible early
> reality. We want to give youth and young single adults postive, but not
> impossible and inflexible, expectations.
I have a suggestion. How about we actually talk about sex? How about we
educate our kids about it? How about we speak frankly about it and not
in silly euphemisms? How about we talk about it without stammering and
getting red-faced? How about we not dwell endlessly on the negative side
of sex--like for example, when someone wishes they could see what
brought a Mormon elder and a nonmember girl to the point of sex, we
somehow interpret that as meaning the fellow wanted to see the sex act
itself, thoroughly and in-depth, in some nice, artistic, lovely, perfect
way--as if that had anything to do with good characterization, drama, or
truth.
How about we put into neutral that idiotic knee-jerk emotional reaction
we get every time the subject comes up, and treat it like any other part
of the human experience?
Maybe then our kids will grow up with a healthier attitude toward sex.
> My personal preference is to leave the thorough education to parents,
> teachers, and writers of sex ed books, and leave the references to
> sexuality in my work oblique, whether talking about the positive power
> of it, the complexities, or whatever.
Honestly, did you really think Stephen wanted a sex education moment on
the screen as he watched "States of Grace"?
> I think in the case of Ferrel and Holly, Dutcher made the right decision
> in terms of more than audience sensibilities not to show us their first
> night...because how on earth are you going to show all the complexities
> of it in the tiny space you have left in your plot?
How are you going to show "all the complexities" of any human experience
in the space of a feature-length movie? So I guess we shouldn't show
anything. Let's stop right at the brink of every complex human
experience. Let's have all our references to anything except grocery
shopping be oblique, because we'll never be able to show ALL the
complexities of the amazing range of emotions that human beings experience.
--
D. Michael Martindale
dmichael@???
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