At the end of the 1975 movie Three Days of the Condor, Cliff Robertson delivers a famous line: "You poor dumb son of a bitch, you've done more harm than you know." He's talking to whistleblower Robert Redford, but the statement could equally apply to the movie's director, Sydney Pollack, for foisting such awful sex scenes onto impressionable young minds. Faye Dunaway trembles under Redford like a neurasthenic Chihuahua to indicate how heavily meaningful the experience is, in a way, we hope, that most sex is not (Pauline Kael described it as "death-rattle sex").
Given that great swaths of society learn how to behave by aping what they see onscreen, that all-too-typical 1970s movie set a bad example, for an entire generation, of what sex - straight sex, at least - could and should be like.
Alas, 32 years later, in massively influential blockbusters such as Judd Apatow's Superbad and Knocked Up, we're still watching people have bad, weird, misleading sex onscreen. In Knocked Up, for example, Seth Rogen and Katherine Heigl, as his pregnant girlfriend, frantically try a number of different positions, but are thwarted by his fear of hurting the fetus, combined with her fear of looking fat.
It is certainly director Apatow's prerogative to present his male point of view, and he is evidently sincere in his presentation of naughty boy-men having awkward, phallocentric sex with neurotic, hormonally imbalanced, ball-breaking mother figures who wear their brassieres to bed, and this may even be how most of the heterosexual world lives. But for a lot of women, that scene, and the entire movie, was not anything we could relate to.
It doesn't have to be this way. Better sex for all, we say! And where else to start than at the movies (and a few TV shows), to see how they've led or misled us through our shared sexual education.
The seventies Klute (1971): Touted at the time as the epitome of the tough, liberated, modern woman, Jane Fonda as a conflicted prostitute fakes it with johns but is unable to "feel" anything during sex. The straight-arrow detective played by Donald Sutherland changes all that in a scene where she seduces him on a trundle bed. But the fascination with "call girls" feels silly, and fear of female sexual power pervades. A few years later, Looking for Mr. Goodbar indelibly equated female promiscuity with death.
Shampoo (1975): Bad sexual politics, good sex. Despite a series of preposterous outfits and a bouffy do, Warren Beatty is believably hot as a himbo who can't be faithful but who genuinely brings women pleasure. With a blow dryer stuffed into his belt, Beatty roams the Hollywood Hills giving women bobs and orgasms.
Lee Grant tells the sexy snipper where to put his hands, and after they have sex, asks for a tissue - a big departure from today's superclean movie sex, where bodily fluids are either absent or considered revolting.
Grant also puts on her bra after sex, reminding us of an era when A-list movie stars didn't have bras and tank tops superglued to their torsos. And Hal Ashby, the film's director, doesn't shoot his sex scenes with a microscope: When Beatty finally beds Julie Christie, we see his pale bum and her gorgeous hair. It's sexy and funny.
To paraphrase his character, Beatty may not love the women he sleeps with, but he does like them.
Network (1976): In this demented 1970s view of equality between the sexes, Faye Dunaway is the soulless (and braless) feminist who screws like a man. "I can't tell you how many men have told me what a lousy lay I am," she tells William Holden. "I apparently have a masculine temperament. I arouse quickly, consummate prematurely, and I can't wait to get my clothes back on and get out of that bedroom."
Later, she does exactly that, burbling about TV ratings as she wham-bams Holden, then collapses.
Oh dear, where to begin. First, we suspect most men would not view this as a "lousy lay," but as a "perfect one-night stand." Second, it implies (as did many movies of that era) that as soon as one person climaxes, that's it, baby, the sex is over - if you can't do it simultaneously, you're out of luck. We shudder to think how many young sex lives were ruined by the pressure of dumb scenes like this one.
The eighties The Big Easy (1987): Dennis Quaid and Ellen Barkin are clothed and petting. It's not clear where his hands are. She says they should stop. He says: "Stop what? That? Or that?" For many women, that was one of the filthiest, most erotic lines of dialogue ever - it took the sex off the screen and put it firmly into one's head, where, for many people, all good sex begins.
When Harry Met Sally (1989): Meg Ryan's fake-orgasm scene is funny, but the trope of women snarling "I faked all those orgasms!" to stick it to men is problematic. It's predicated on the false premise that it's the man's job to give the woman an orgasm, and, conversely, that women can have an orgasm only if they find a man who magically knows what they like in bed.
To state the obvious:
- Both men and women occasionally fake orgasms out of boredom or politeness;
- Anyone who fakes orgasms on a regular basis is cheating themselves, not the other person, out of the experience;
- Everyone is responsible for their own orgasm, whether you ask for help or take matters into your own hands.
The nineties Seinfeld (1990-98) was a show in which people famously took things into their own hands. In an episode called The Contest, for example, when all the characters fail at being masters of their domain, Elaine is just as self-sufficient as the men when it comes to non-faked orgasms. Not that there's anything wrong with faking them - as Elaine freely admits to Jerry in The Mango. Jerry's male vanity is shocked. "What about the breathing, the panting, the moaning, the screaming?" Elaine shrugs it off: "Fake. Fake. Fake. Fake." As adult sex in the movies started giving way to more teen-targeted fare, Seinfeld, in its prime-time acceptable way, broke down taboos about female sexuality.
Sex and the City (1998-2004): Did anyone but strippers think obsessively about their pubic grooming before this show? Sex vacillated on whether bald was beautiful: In one episode, a frustrated Samantha made a lover shave his pubes in retribution, after he complained she was getting "bushy down there." In another, Carrie revelled in the popularity of her new Brazilian. Either way, it was hard to imagine the characters as anything but clear-cut.
Neuroses seemed to beget neuroses in this show. The lesson: You can revel in your sexual freedom, but you're fat and hairy! And why aren't you married?
The Girls Next Door (2005-the present): In this "reality" series set in Hef's bunny hutch, the geriatric pyjama man parades his harem of three before the camera. Each girlfriend has her own room in the mansion, but they coyly congregate in Hef's room for off-screen "sex." The show's tagline is "We call it a fantasy. They call it home." But are we really supposed to believe that a young woman's fantasy is to service an octogenarian in return for room and board in a house with no books? A more accurate tagline would be: "When you're paying your girlfriends, it's prostitution, Hef."
The Sopranos (1999-2007) realistically depicted sexist guys getting laid, but it also offered up surprises. Most notably, the tough, one-legged Russian caregiver who gave Tony her body but not her heart. Then there was the scene in which Janice Soprano moaned on her mother's couch while psychopath Richie Aprile held a gun to her head for fun. She kills him at the end of the season, so you can kind of relate.
The Piano Teacher (2001): Isabelle Huppert's repressed piano teacher sniffs used tissues at a peep show, attempts to molest her mother, and harbours rape fantasies that become hideously literal. Based on controversial Nobel laureate Elfriede Jelinek's quasi-autobiographical novel, Michael Haneke's film is hopelessness incarnate. Watching Huppert (spoiler alert!) literally stab herself in the heart at the end is wrenching. It's facile to say that the movie depicts all sex as Dworkinesque rape; still it's not, shall we say, sex-positive.
The Wire (2002-present): In this HBO series, Dominic West as rebel cop hero couples with various women, reflecting a current cable trend of having the woman on top. It actually looks like great sex between horny equals. Elsewhere, however, when couples "make love", the sex is missionary style and much less raunchy. We wonder: Must true love and dirty sex be mutually exclusive? And can't promiscuous nymphomaniacs be tender with each other too?
Team America: World Police (2004): Many obscene movie comedies have done a great service to boys and girls everywhere by treating sex, that most undignified of human activities, with the irreverence it deserves. In Annie Hall, after Shelley Duvall apologizes for taking so long to "finish," Woody Allen assures her he's fine: "I'm starting to get some feeling back in my jaw now."
In 1977's High Anxiety, Mel Brooks is attacked in a phone booth while calling Madeleine Kahn; she mistook his panting and choking for an anonymous obscene phone call, and lay back on the bed to enjoy it. In 1996's Flirting With Disaster, Lily Tomlin and Alan Alda have liberated hippie sex with chanting and bells. In Team America, puppets do it in every position imaginable.
The Squid and the Whale (2005): Jeff Daniels's narcissistic divorced dad insists his son take a date to see Blue Velvet (1986). Watching a bruised Isabella Rossellini flop across the screen like a zombie horrifies the kids - their budding sexuality simply cannot deal.
Of course, it's hardly as toe-curling as watching Daniels beg Anna Paquin to "put me in your mouth." While his son spies through the door. Especially since it's presented essentially as a moment where the son first perceives his father's fallibility. Even in sensitive, art-house fare, it's hard for women to get any non-symbolic action in the sack.
Match Point (2005): The sex scenes between Scarlett Johansson and Jonathan Rhys Meyers are thoroughly convincing - Woody Allen finally got it right (and thankfully he's not part of a distracting May-December equation this time). Unfortunately, in this movie, as with the director's Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989), the truly loved, lusty woman ends up murdered because her ongoing existence threatens the well-being of the man.
No doubt men can totally relate to this. But for women, being told that our healthy sexuality is a capital crime leaves us a little cold.
The Departed (2006): The seduction scene between Leonardo DiCaprio and Vera Farmiga is pure romance porn. Who hasn't fantasized about a sensitive thug showing up on your doorstep? You're a psychiatrist, he's a troubled cop. After some banal yet charged small talk, you make out in the kitchen like teenagers, then he takes you to bed. Farmiga's and DiCaprio's surprisingly age-appropriate relationship is sexy and the chemistry is hot.
Then Leo peels off Farmiga's pants to reveal self-consciously perfect lace underwear. He starts to go down on her, and she's still wearing her bra! She's positioned and lovely; he's gentlemanly. In a movie ostensibly made for adults, why is the sex still PG?
The Break-Up (2006): Jennifer Aniston gets a bikini wax (the "Telly Savalas") and parades her "blank canvas" in front of a lumpen Vince Vaughn. His eyes bug out like he's never seen a vagina. Later, he plays strip poker with what look like strippers, while Aniston watches her best friend bathe children - a juxtaposition that gave us the creeps. The lesson throughout seems to be: Men like to watch, and women like to scheme and pine. Nobody likes sex. A movie completely sanitized for your protection.
Shortbus (2006): Sook-Yin Lee and sundry others seek self-fulfilment at a group-sex club. There's nudity, explicit sex and a commendably no-nonsense approach. Note also, however, how boring it can be to watch other people bump, grind and flop around during the sex act.
Slightly more artful is Michael Winterbottom's 9 Songs (2004), which is basically an explicit primer on incredibly good heterosexual sex. But even more erotic is Winterbottom's Code 46 (2003), with scant nudity and no penetration scenes. In one scene, Tim Robbins ties down a willing Samantha Morton so they can have sex despite the totalitarian-government-administered virus that makes her body reflexively recoil from his physical touch. Winterbottom seems able to indulge his rape fantasy without objectifying or excluding the female POV, or demonstrating a hateful violence toward women.
The Painted Veil (2006): Naomi Watts has cold, awkward married sex with Edward Norton; then she has dirty extramarital sex with Liv Schreiber; then she has passionate loving married sex with Norton. The film shows how the last one - yep, sex with commitment - can be the hottest.
Away from Her (2006) Elder sex. Get used to it. It's the future.
Californication (2007): TMN's new Showtime series has plenty of girls on top - three in the first half-hour episode - but you get the feeling that blocked writer/sex addict David Duchovny is less liberated than slothful. The POV here is prehistorically male, as charming, witty bad boy Duchovny indulges in an endless supply of "pointless pussy" while showing he's actually a decent guy cuz he pines for his demanding, disapproving ex-wife, Natascha McElhone. It's the rowdy-puppy/old-bitch model of male-female relationships - which makes it slightly boring despite the whip-smart writing and hilariously frank sex talk.
Tell Me You Love Me (2007): The new cable series aptly illustrates how sex is never just sex - it is always charged with the relationship around it. The show also gives equal time to male and female points of view, not to mention anatomy. Unfortunately, it also shows women having orgasms within seconds of being pounced upon and penetrated by their men. If you, sir or madam, are watching these scenes and feeling inadequate, please note: For most women, this is not the case.
Superbad (2007): Notwithstanding our criticism of the bad sex in Knocked Up, we must commend the latest Apatow movie - for making an excellent point about teen sex. As usual, the boys in this film get to be more profane and interesting than the girls. (If only women had lines like Jonah Hill's "Nobody has gotten a BJ in cargo shorts since Nam.") But watching boys (as opposed to grown men) be mystified by women rings true.
And a scene where a virginal but wasted Martha MacIsaac tries to seduce Michael Cera with porny, performative come-ons makes a good point. She's aping "sexy moves" but it doesn't work, because it's all so false. Cera's character is confused instead of turned on by her gyrations.
Some have interpreted this as the character's fear of sex. But maybe it's more that, in pining for sex, he imagined something different. Closing the deal becomes impossible because of what's in the way: a mainstream media that depicts women as either porn stars, frigid bitches or neutered saints.
Who wouldn't be confused? Both the boys and the girls deserve better McLovin'.
Special to The Globe and Mail