North by Northwestern

“A whole week, you say? Sure, I mean — I’m tenacious. You’re bodacious. Let us fornicate like a Grecian warrior and a goddess of love.”

I see now, though, that Sex Week has nothing to do with sex and everything to do with weak — pretentious intellectualism and abhorrent empowerment. I’ve also noticed that the goddess of love was just Life and Style editor Jessi Knowles, a goddess of love in her own right, but, I mean — that’s her own right.

Not that I don’t love pretension, intellect, abhorrence, power or Jessi. I have the hots for all those things. English Professor Jules Law, in Tuesday’s talk “Modern Sexpots,” let me have my way with each and every one of them — save Jessi.

As with the rest of the week, Law’s lecture reminded us of one thing about sex: It’s not just about what’s fucking attractive and fucking what’s attractive. It’s also about hot and dirty academic analysis. He rattled on about the difference between reality and representation, the relationship between metonymy and synecdoche, and The Matrix — yes, he demonstrated to us just how The Matrix demands heterosexual, masculine lust of its hero before he could become The One.

So, in honor of his analysis, Emily Vaughan and I will now dissect David Cronenberg’s A History of Violence and unearth some surprising findings.

One of these things is not like the other, and that’s the William Hurt scene, and so that ain’t what we’re going to discuss.

The 69 scene, however, fits the bill. It occurs prior to the first act of violence, and therefore captures Tom Stall before he becomes a monster of masculine proportions. It also occurs right after he lies to his daughter, telling her, “There’s no such thing as monsters.”

During the film’s first act, Cronenberg portrays Tom as an emasculated man. When his daughter shrieks after a nightmare, he, not the mother, comforts her first. The mother, instead, drives him to work. There, at his diner, he cooks meals and serves others. He acts like a stereotypical — and I’ll add inaccurately characterized, since College Feminists sponsors this Sex Week — woman, wife and mother.

Cronenberg emphasizes this castrated subservience with the first sex scene. To begin, his wife initiates it, picking him up, bringing him home and donning a tiny little cheerleader outfit to make taming him that much easier. She mounts him and he — without any provocation — goes down on her with expedience and obedience. He’s a sexual scullion. Instead of clawing at her, he paws. Instead of thrusting like an animal, he slides down her like rainwater. He exists to serve.

They position themselves in what the French call soixaunte-neuf, what we call 69, the only sexual position you’ll ever learn from the writing on a bathroom wall. This position, as I hope you know, ensures mutual oral stimulation. It promises reciprocity like no other position ever will. This image reminds the most perverted viewers of a symmetrical, modern family relationship, with a working wife who drives her husband to the office, with a doting husband who has nothing against his own domestication. No intercourse is shown, but you can assume it happens in the most gentle and loving way.

Cronenberg does a fine job positioning his hero as a repressed, obedient eunuch who wears an apron to work and bows to the sexual desires of his keeper.

Not my kind of hero.

But then violence strikes. Out of the ashes rises a mass of savage muscle that smacks of real American heroism, born in the city of brotherly love, the birthplace of America as we know it today — interesting since Cronenberg comes from Canada.

The second sex scene occurs after this transformation. Tom’s wife has learned that he has spent their entire marriage lying to her about his past. She becomes furious and vulnerable all at once, just as Tom becomes the man who should sit at the head of the table — if only she’d let him back into the family.

Of course, Tom must resort to violence. As she begins to retreat to the bedroom after a brief fight, he grabs her. He grabs her by the throat and thrusts her into the wall. She shoves back and they both stumble onto the stairs. He begins to claw at her and the scene screams “RAPE!” with full-voiced fear.

That is, until she digs her nails into the nape of his neck and lunges her teeth onto his bottom lip. They kiss. He crawls at her underwear, and she at his belt. They fuck with disturbing ferocity, as Tom attempts to force his way back into the family. A degenerate would refer to this as double-penetration, as he works his way both into her and into her family. I, however, am not a degenerate.

Here, Cronenberg gives us a conquistador, one who fails. Sex becomes as barbaric and ineffective as violence. She leaves him crumpled at the base of the stairs. She sleeps in her bed that night. He sleeps on the couch.

I never expected Cronenberg, with a filmography steeped in drugs, sex, violence, and venereal, visceral terror, to demand of his hero a family man. But here he goes, positing sex with violence, and rendering both impotent.

No, Cronenberg does not give Tom what he wants until he has baptized himself in a river and sat, once again, at the dinner table. He has his wife here, his kids and his meatloaf. Tomorrow, his wife will drive him to work, where he will wear his apron and serve his food.

Who knows if Jules Law would like this, but I know that Sex Week must love it — a healthy, respectful, caring sexual relationship bereft of barbarism, brutality, and dominance.

Let the history of subservience begin.

Ask any girl: The culmination of every good movie is a passionate sex scene. There’s the heartthrob, and there’s the beautiful woman he’s trying to woo into bed. It’s always the same: two hopelessly gorgeous, toned, sweaty bodies pressed together in a deep emotional embrace, eyes locked (because every good filmmaker knows that the most romantic position is missionary) as they exchange bodily fluids and explore the innermost depths of their hearts. Their interlocking genitals are akin to their interlocking souls. Only such close physical proximity allows two individuals to come together (pun intended) and share a common destiny.

Ask any guy: The best sex scene to watch involves bleached-blonde hair, silicone body parts and perhaps handcuffs… if you’re into that. It’s especially hot when the girl’s on top, or better yet when it’s from behind. It’s that primal thing. Sexy.

Let’s be honest with ourselves, it’s not like anyone outside the cinematic bubble is likely to experience either of these scenarios. Every guy hoping to pull back a red silk curtain and see four women dressed in pirate lingerie ready to fulfill his every sexual desire is in for a rude awakening. And every girl who expects that sex with that extra-special someone will take their relationship to a new level of eternal intimacy needs to stop watching so many Rachel McAdams movies.

Real sex is nothing like it’s portrayed in the movies (we’ve all had our kinky-porno attempts and pseudo-romantic first times). It’s awkward and messy, full of less-than-sexy groaning and mishaps in trying gracefully to trade places with your partner. Someone will come too early. Someone won’t come at all.

“Film takes away all the magic, all the tension, all the mystery and just gives you fantasy,” said English Professor Jules Law, describing a critique of the portrayal of sex in the movies at Tuesday’s talk.

But honestly, who wants to watch real sex scenes? Who wants to see someone’s pants getting stuck around their ankles, a few misplaced thrusts, finally culminating with a sad letdown post-coitus and the less than intimate body contortions to avoid laying in the wet spot on the sheets?

All attempts to recreate real sex just look the way they should: awkward. David Cronenberg’s History of Violence, a gruesome story of an ex-mafioso, is punctuated with ultra-awkward sex scenes. Down-home Viggo Mortenson hops onto wife Maria Bello and twists and rolls into an energetic 69. Mutually satisfied, they resume their daily activities, but not after making the audience throw up in their mouths a little.

This isn’t the experienced moviegoers first foray into the bedroom, but it leaves little of the satisfaction of a passionate scene from Cruel Intentions, or The Notebook for the chick-flick savvy. It’s not a transforming scene. The orgasm doesn’t look any more earth-shaking than normal. It’s definitely nothing like the tanned, boob-jiggling porn. It’s just awkward.

If I wanted awkward I would spread my own legs and crawl between the sheets. The movies are supposed to show you your fantasies. They’re supposed to tell you “sex is this amazing thing that will move planets, take you to the edge of nirvana, and leave you physically exhausted and panting on the sheets in quiet intimacy or relaxed preparation for round two.” Sex in the movies is an untouchable fantasy that few will experience in its full cinematic glory (home sex tapes aside – though really people, hasn’t that been played out?).

The movies are the steroids of reality: enhancing what’s naturally there until it’s much more than it could be alone. So, from all the girls out there: Keep telling us that sex can change our lives, and we’ll keep doing it until it does. And that leaves everyone satisfied.