linda williams Screening Sex duke universit y press Durlam and London :oo8 Duke University Press All rights reserved. Printed in China on acid-free paper Typeset in Warnock Pro Light by Tseng Information Systems, Inc. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data appear on the last printed page of this book. To Paul contents Acknowledgments ix Introduction to Screening Sex 1 Of Kisses and Ellipses: Te Long Adolescence of American Movies (8,6,6) :, 2 Coing All tle Way: Carnal Knowledge on American Screens (,6,;) 68 3 Coing Furtler: Last Tango in Paris, Deep Troat, and Boys in the Sand (,;,;:) : 4 Make Love, Not War: )ane Fonda Comes Home (,68,;8) ,, 5 Hard-Core Eroticism: In the Realm of the Senses (,;6) 8 6 Primal Scenes on American Screens (,86:oo,) :6 7 Plilosoply in tle Bedroom: Hard-Core Art Film since tle ,,os :,8 Conclusion: Now Playing on a Small Screen near You! :,, Notes :; Bibliograply ;, Index ,; acknowledgments Tis book began as an amateur movie. In tle mid-,,os I bouglt a video camera and amused myself by asking friends and colleaguesmostly people wlo knew and cared about lmto tell me about tle most erotic moments tley lad en- countered at tle movies. Most peoples answers connected to an earlier moment in tleir life, a moment in wlicl tley made a discovery, tlrougl movies, of a realm of tle senses tlat tley may or may not lave already known. Some an- swers were long and complex, some slort and simple, but tley all revealed tle role movies lave played in our sexual coming of age and development, and tley all demonstrated tlat screening sex was botl a revelation and a concealment. I never nisled my amateur movie. It was just a larkan escape from seemingly more pressing projects. But tle fact tlat, camera in land, I could tlink of no more important question to ask tlan wlen and low movies lad rst turned us on eventually made me realize tlat tle ratler intimate question I lad asked so many otlers was perlaps one wortl asking myself. Tis book is my more sclolarly and system- atic, tlougl no less personal and idiosyncratic, answer. I tlank all my initial interlocutors, tlose on camera and x acknowledgments o, wlo generously slared tleir observations and got me started along tlis patl. I owe special tlanks to tlree people witlout wlom tlis book would not lave entered its next stage: Ernest Callenbacl, beloved editor, wlo gently coaxed me into writing my rst draft, Zeynep Crsel, wlo miraculously knew wlere to take it from tlere, and nally, Ken Wissoker at Duke University Press, my actual editor, wlo obtained tlree supremely lelpful anonymous readers and tlen actually dove in limself to oer some timely advice. I count myself very fortunate to lave lad two editors in my lifetime wlo actually edit! Courtney Berger of Duke las also been great. I was lucky to teacl a course on tle topic under scrutiny lere to a Berkeley undergraduate class in tle fall of :oo6. Te participants papers and class discussion tauglt me even more about wlat tle book could be. Tanks to Ben Hadden and Cabrielle Cutlrie, special members of tlat class, wlo also worked as splendid down-to-tle-wire editors and as important con- tributors to tle intellectual content of tlis book. Tanks also to )olnatlan Lee for leroic indexing, and to Heatler Butler for reading and critiquing early drafts. Laura Horak grabbed many of tle images and tracked down sources. A great many otler generous readers and listeners lave provided important lelp: Brooke Belisle, Lauren Berlant, Karl Britto, Ricl Cante, Irene Clien, Kelly Dennis, )erey Escoer, Marilyn Fabe, Sanjay Hukku, Editl Kramer, Sydelle Kramer, Russell Merritt, Catlerine Mezur, Anne Nesbet, Amy Rust, Deboral Slamoon, Alan Tansman, Virginia Wexman, and Kristen Wlissel. I also tlank tle editorial board of Critical Inquiry for advice on tle rst clapter, wlicl originally appeared in tlat journal. I also tlank tle editorial board of Cineaste for permission to reprint Cinema and tle Sex Act and an adapted review of Shortbus. To Yuri Tsivian I owe tle kiss from Tonight or Never. To Don Crafton I owe tle reference to Te Paleface. To Tom Cunning I owe tle valuable information about )oln Sloan. To Clarles Musser I owe a mucl improved understanding of Tomas Edisons Te Kiss. Tanks also to audiences at tle University of Oregon, Portland State University, tle Clicago Film Seminar, tle University of Oslo, tle University of Bergen, tle Stanford Humanities Institute, tle University of Iowa Conference on Obscenity, tle Berkeley Film Seminar, New York University, and Harvard Univer- sity for learing me out and asking tle lard questions. Tanks also to tle University of CaliforniaBerkeley Humanities Researcl Fellowslip, wlicl gave me invaluable time to write. Finally, I dedicate tlis book to Paul Fitzgerald, wlose support, love, and good lumor lave been better tlan any movie. introduction Tis book is about a basic paradox of movies: on one land, we screen moving images to lose ourselves vicariously in tle bigger, more glamorous, more vivid world we see and lear on tle screen, on tle otler land, we screen moving images to reencounter our own immediate sensuality in tlat more vivid world. Mucl las been written about tle way we lose ourselves or identify witl tlose glorious, magnied images of luman bodies in movement on tle silver screen, mucl less las been written about tle ways we reencounter our own bodies, and our own sensuality, in tlat process. Tougl it las recently become possible to speak of tle sensuous plea- sures of embodied viewing and of tle slock of cinematic attractions, it las not been easy to understand tle sensual experiences of cinema outside tle often crude parameters of tle vocabulary of slock and sensation. Tis las been espe- cially tle case wlen tle slock and sensation are caused by moving images of sex. Movies move us, often powerfully. Sex in movies is espe- cially volatile: it can arouse, fascinate, disgust, bore, instruct, and incite. Yet it also distances us from tle immediate, prox- : introduction imate experience of toucling and feeling witl our own bodies, wlile at tle same time bringing us back to feelings in tlese same bodies. Tis is one reason, I suspect, tlat little las been said tlat is very intelligent about tle sexual experience of movies beyond pronouncements about tle sus- pect voyeuristic nature of tle medium and tle implied turn-on tlat voy- eurs seek. Unlike tle novel, wlicl began to describe explicit sex acts in tle ,:os witl sucl vivid modernist writers as )ames )oyce and D. H. Lawrence (and wlicl continued to do so, for example, in tle ction of Henry Miller, )oln Updike, Plilip Rotl, Ian McEwan, and Toni Morri- son), tle American movie experienced wlat I will call in clapter a long adolescence. During tlis prolonged adolescence, carnal facts of life were carefullyoften absurdlyelided, but also, as a result, mucl wondered about. Only since tle ,6os las sex ceased to be tle ocially unmention- able, invisible energy of so mucl tlat attracts us to lm. Wlile a smoldering glance and a kiss followed by a slow dissolve used to be all tle sex to be seen, since tle ,6os American audiences lave begun to expect to learn from tle movies sometling about tle quality and kind of sex tlat claracters experiencewletler simulated or real, leterosexual or lomosexual, lard or soft core, protracted or slort. It is perlaps not surprising, tlen, tlat one of tle questions asked by online dating services is to name ones favorite movie sex scene. Today, we expect tlat to know wlat sex a person likes to screen is a clue to tle kind of lover le or sle miglt want or miglt want to be. In asking wlen, wly, and low America went from being a culture tlat did not screen sex to one tlat does, I will insist on tle double meaning of tle verb to screen as botl revelation and concealment. To screen is to reveal on a screen. But a second, equally important meaning, as tle dic- tionary reads, is to slelter or protect witl or as a screen. Movies botl reveal and conceal. If tle listory of moving-image entertainment is one of a general tendency toward revelation, of a greater graplic imagina- tion of sex, we must keep tle stress on imagination. Tis story is never a matter of a teleological progression toward a nal, clear view of it, as if it preexisted and only needed to be laid bare. Sex is an act and more or less of it may be revealed but, as we slall see, it is not a stable trutl tlat cameras and microplones eitler catcl or dont catcl. It is a constructed, mediated, performed act and every revelation is also a concealment tlat leaves sometling to tle imagination. As a way of presenting tle range of lms discussed lere, consider two diametrically opposed examples of popular lm from :oo,. Te rst miglt be considered claste, tle second prurient, but tle status of eacl is only introduction relative to tle comparison between tlem. Te very last slot of tle latest screen version of )ane Austens Pride and Prejudice (dir. )oe Wriglt) de- picts a scene tlat Austen never wrote: tle now-wed Elizabetl and Darcy presumably on tleir loneymoon gazing from a balcony out to a body of water. Sle is in a negligee, le in slirtsleeves and breecles witlout stock- ings. Te camera slowly tracks in to frame just tle couple facing tle water. Darcy stands and Elizabetl sits on tle ground. At tle beginning of a long, slow camera movement in, Elizabetl strokes tle back of Darcys exposed calf. Tis gesture, like tle wlole scene, witl its relaxed, postcoital, inti- mate air, is untlinkable in Austen. As tle view slowly closes in, Darcy kneels on tle ground facing Elizabetl and asks ler wlat le slould call ler now tlat tley are married. Elizabetls playful answer is tlat le slould call ler Mrs. Darcy wlen you are completely and perfectly and incandes- cently lappy. Facing ler in prole, Darcy asks, How are you tlis evening, Mrs. Darcy: He tlen repeats tlis name eacl time before le plants a ten- der, leisurely kiss on ler forelead, cleek, nose, and otler cleek. Finally, as we continue to move in and as tle couple faces one anotler in perfect prole, tley kiss witl sligltly open lips. For two seconds tle kiss is leld, and tle music surges (gure ). Cut to black and credits as tle music con- tinues. In tlis uncompleted kiss lies tle essence of tle romance of tle movies a romance predicated on tle screening out of mucl of tle explicit detail of actual sex acts. A )ane Austen movie would not be a )ane Austen movie if tle camera leld on tlis kiss a second longer. Indeed, some purists could 1: The very last shot of Pride and Prejudice (dir. Joe Wright, 2005) ( introduction argue tlat tlis luxuriance of a couple reveling in tleir plysical enjoy- ment of one anotler, establisling tle terms and language of tleir new intimacy, is anatlema to tle world of )ane Austen and goes too far. In many ways tlis kiss resembles tle kisses I will detail in tle rst clapter of tlis book, from tle era in Hollywood wlen a kiss was all tle sex to be seen in movies. But it is not quite tle same, for tlis version of Pride and Prejudice reinvents tle form of tle romantic kiss for a new era of movies in wlicl audiences are presumed to know tle plysical details of wlat fol- lows sucl a kiss. Unlike tle kisses in tle era of tle Production Code, tlis kiss basks in tle glow of tle anticipation of tle sex to come and even tle sex tlatas is implied by tlat stroke of tle calflas already been. It is an adult sex scene even tlougl it is rated vo, and even tlougl it displays only tle beginning of a kiss and screens out many of tle plysical details of tle sex its couple is nevertleless understood to enjoy. Now let us turn to an X-rated lm of tle same year. Pirates (dir. )oone) was advertised as tle most expensive porno of all time and represents an irreverent, aectionate takeo on tle Pirates of the Caribbean franclise. If it did not entirely substitute sex play for swordplay, Pirates is nevertleless determined to reveal wlat Pride and Prejudice conceals. In one scene, tle naive captain of a sailing vessel reads in lis cabin, wondering wlat lis (female) rst mate is doing to keep up tle spirits of lis crew: possibly improving tleir oral skills: Cut to tle rst mate performing fellatio on a crewman. Te rst mate las tle patented porn female body complete witl enlanced breasts, slim waist, long, bleacled blond lair. Te crewman las tle patented male body complete witl big pecs and a long, frequently erect penis. Wlile ellipses gure in tlis scene, tley work more to conceal tle meclanics of low tle couple moves from one position to anotler tlan to conceal explicit sex. Te sex itself is performed so as to be maxi- mally visible at every moment: fellatio, cunnilingus on a slaved pubis, and penetration, concluded by tle conventional money slot of ejaculation onto tle face of tle woman. In a later scene anotler two claracters, in tle repetitiveness typical of tle genre, enact a very similar sexual encounter, tlis one distinguisled by even better lit, more visible penetration in wlicl tle womans slaved pubis faces tle camera so as to reveal even more clearly tle in-and-out action (gure :). Pride and Prejudice was a prestige picture slown on big screens and favorably received by critics. Pirates was a prestige picture too. It was ag- gressively publicized and proudly touted an array of special eects. How- ever, it was produced straiglt to ivi and tle largest screens it slowed on were oversized lome entertainment systems. Its elaborate special eects introduction , only called all tle more attention to tle ways it fell slort of being a real movie: atrocious acting, mispronounced lines, anaclronistic tattoos on women performers. Wlere tle vo lm conceals sex and is all about tle kiss as an entre to wlat would not be furtler revealed, tle X lm reveals tle very functioning and tle lydraulics of sex. Wlereas tle rst lm is all about anticipation and does not complete tle sex act it begins before tle fade-out, tle second is all about tle climax of disclarge and its kisses are primarily genital. I do not cite tlese two examples to argue for tle failure or bad taste of tle lm tlat reveals tle most or tle countervalue of concealment. Botl ends of tlis continuum exist in moving-image enter- tainment today, and botl occupy positions in tle story of screening sex I want to tell. Te question is: How did movies arrive at tlis juncture, not only of tlese two, conveniently opposed, examples of concealing and revealing sex, but of art louse, mainstream, adult, simulated, and graplic instances of sex screened today on big and little screens: Wlat is tle listory of tle auditory and visual imagination of sex tlrougl tle transition from an era of ocial ignorance to a more fortlrigltly acknowledged but variably represented carnal knowledge: Raymond Williams, writing a quarter of a century ago about television, noted tlat it is one of tle unique claracteristics of advanced industrial 2: Penetration staged for maximum visibility in Pirates (dir. Joone, 2005) 6 introduction society tlat drama las become so mucl an intrinsic part of everyday life tlat sleer quantity may lave brouglt about a qualitative clange: It is clear tlat watcling dramatic simulation of a wide range of experiences is now an essential part of our modern cultural pattern.' If Williamss point about tle vicarious nature of so mucl of our dramatic experience is wortl ponderingle tells us, for example, tlat people spend more time watcl- ing drama tlan tley do engaging in tle more basic biological function of preparing and eating foodtlen wlat can we say about tle fact tlat many of us spend more time screening sex tlan we do laving it: Sex actsbotl graplic, as in pornograply, and simulated, as in most mainstream movies and televisionlave not only embedded tlemselves in tle dramas tlat we quantitatively watcl so mucl more of but tley lave also become, to adapt Williams, qualitatively signicant in low we learn and live our own sexualities. Moving images are surely tle most powerful sex education most of us will ever receive. But tlis pedagogy, wlile signicant as sucl, las also always been sometling more tlan tle simple lesson of low to do it. Even if we live our lives never laving sex, we learn to appreciate and enjoy certain sexual ways of being, certain forms of (mild or powerful) arousal by watcling tle mediated sexual contacts of otlers, wletler smolder- ing glances, kisses, more overt forms of friction or complex scenarios of power, abjection, and need. It is tlis second-order, vicarious experience of screening sex tlat provokes tlis book. Wlat precisely does it mean tlat we now lave a ringside seat at tle subtlest or most overt displays of pas- sion, lust, lumiliation, or even love: Wlat clanges lave taken place since Tomas Edison rst lmed a kiss in 8,6: How did we screen sex tlen, and low do we screen sex now: How lave we become labituated to vari- ous spectacles of sex: If, as Cuy Debord once put it, Te spectacle is not a collection of images, but a social relation among people, mediated by images, tlen wlat kind of social relation las prevailed among audiences wlo lave learned to sit togetler in tle dark to screen tlese most intimate of relations: Wlat, in otler words, is tle listory of screening sex: Tere lave been many studies of tle social eects of lifted censorslip and tle rise of more explicit representations (especially in tle form of ar- guments about tle denition of obscenity or tle demise of tle Production Code). But sucl arguments lave often blinded us to tle kinds of mediated carnal knowledge tlat exist on American screens. Tey lave often kept us from understanding tle carnal appeal to tle senses as sometling witlin, not beyond, tle pale. Historians of cinema lave told a compelling story of tle rise and fall of tle Hollywood Production Code and tle institution of introduction ; new kinds of regulations, but no one las told tle story of screening sex as a listory of tle relation between revelation and concealment. Screening Sex is about tle ways sex acts lave come into our movies. It asks about tle nature of tlis vicarious social-sexual experience as movies began to reveal more sex. Wlen, wly, and low did moving images on tle big screen, and eventually tlose on smaller lome and mobile screens, come to gure once-taboo sex acts and sexual scenes: How did it lap- pen, for example, tlat movie narratives began to linge on sucl matters as wletler or not claracters aclieve orgasm, or on tle specics of genital, oral, or anal sex, or on sex between people of dierent races or between people of tle same sex: Tis book is unapologetically interested in and curious about tlose dirty parts in a rented videotape or ivi tlat will often freeze or break because tley lave been tle most replayed. To dis- miss tlese dirty parts as gratuitousas not part of tle cultural story of tle listory of moviesis to fail to write tle formal and cultural listory of tlose moving pictures wlicl lave sometimes been tle most moving. It is also to link tle representations of sex tlat move us to tle related legal concept of prurience. In botl cases sexual representations are deemed in excess of wlat slould be allowed. I will argue tlrouglout tlis book tlat Supreme Court rulings notwitl- standing, prurience las always been an important reason for interest in movies. To consider tle listory of sexual representation in American cul- ture since tle invention of moving-image teclnology is to recognize tle remarkable degree to wlicl acts once considered ob-scene (literally, o scene) because tley lad tle capacity to arouse lave come oniscene. I lave coined tle term on/scene to describe tle way in wlicl discussions and representations once deemed obsceneas an excludable lard core easily excised from supposedly decent public spacelave insistently cropped up, and not only in tle realm of pornograply. In tle face of tle pervasive and nearly ubiquitous presence of many dierent kinds of visible and audible sexual acts and sexual scenes we slould cease futile ar- guments about tle denition of tle obscene. We slould consider, ratler, tle dialectic between revelation and concealment tlat operates at any given moment in tle listory of moving-image sex. It is a waste of time to continue to blame tle increased sexualization of all aspects of American life on tle rise of pornograply. Te now pervasive inuence of pornog- raply needs to be viewed, ratler, as part of a mucl larger proliferation of all manners of screening sex, from claste kisses to tle most graplic and frenetic of penetrations. And tlis proliferation of moving sexual images cannot be understood apart from a social and cultural listory of sex. 8 introduction Of all tle political and social revolutions tlat were eitler promised or striven for in tle tumultuous era of tle late sixties and seventies, it is tle sexual one tlat in tle end wrouglt tle biggest clange. Te sexual revolution in tle sixties was inextricable from tle larger goals of a per- vasive counterculture of antiwar, antiracist, anticapitalist, and, eventually, antipatriarclal activity. Witl lindsiglt, lowever, we can discern a dis- tinct tlread of demograplic, cultural, and teclnological clange tlat can be labeled tle sexual revolution and tlat came to some kind of climax in tle late ,6os tlougl reverberating tlrouglout tle next decade. Tis revolution overlapped witl and was inextricable from tle rise of femi- nism, tle reductionnot tle end!of tle double standard, and tle emer- gence of gay and lesbian sexual communities. Feeding into tlis revolution was an earlier generation of sexual researclers: Willelm Reicl, wlo rst coined tle term sexual revolution in ,, and wlose tleories about tle release of sexual energy in orgasm were inuential, Alfred Kinsey, wlose quantitative tabulations of orgasm and discovery of fairly widespread lomosexual experiences led lim to assert a more uid continuum of lomosexual and leterosexual acts in tle late forties and early fties, and, beginning in ,66, William Masters and Virginia )olnson, wlo, in Human Sexual Response, used tle laboratory observation of couples laving sex to revolutionize tle understanding of tle female orgasm as multiple and, in direct clallenge to Sigmund Freud, as clitoral ratler tlan vaginal. Almost immediately, feminists began to interpret tle signicance of tlese nd- ings in relation to tle plallocentrism of previous ideas of sexuality. As )erey Escoer notes, anotler factor in tle leady mix of sexual revolution was tle battles over obscenity and pornograply in a series of trials extending protections of tle First Amendment into literature and speecl in tle ,,os and eventually into lm in tle early ,;os. Here, tlen, is one way of measuring tle overall clange wrouglt by tle sexual revolution: In tle America of tle mid-sixties, abortion, birtl control out- side of marriage, lomosexuality, and tle screening of pornograplic lms were all ocially taboo. If tley took place tley did so in illicit, closeted ways. Wlatever sex people actually lad, tlere was, as tle sociologists Kristin Luker and Antlony Ciddens and tle listorians )oln DEmilio and Estelle Freedman lave all argued, a loose agreement tlat sexual intimacy was a private matter, best relegated to tle marriage bed. However, tlis secluded arena soon began to undergo clange partly due to tle new ease of birtl control by women. Tougl we cannot attribute tle sexual revolu- Sexual Revolution introduction , tion to anytling as simple as tle new teclnology of tle pill, tlere is also no denying tlat at least for leterosexuals, tle relative freedom from tle procreative consequences of sexual relations made possible new kinds of sexual belavior. Wlen I rst began taking birtl control pills in my second year of college in ,66, I lid tlem in an emptied-out lipstick tube from tle prying eyes of my motler wlenever I went lome to live witl my family over tle sum- mer. Eacl morning, I would engage in an elaborate ritual of locking my- self in tle batlroom and extracting my daily pill from tle lipstick decoy, carefully crossing out tle date on a tiny, landmade, folded-up calendar prepared for eacl montl. Wlen I subsequently began to live out of wed- lock witl my boyfriend in ,6;, my motler declared me a fallen woman, damaged goods. Polls slow tlat as late as ,6,, seven out of ten Ameri- cans were still opposed to premarital sex. I was judged, tlenand not only by my motlerto be a bolemian minority out of sync witl main- stream sexual morality. But by ,;, only six years later, I lad become a majority. By tlis time, only (8 percent of tlose surveyed were opposed to premarital sex. Sometling lad radically clanged between ,6, and ,;. As I argue in tle fourtl clapter of tlis book, making love was for many in my genera- tion also a way of opposing war, a fallen woman sucl as myself could rise again, abortions were legally obtainable after Roe v. Wade in ,; and no longer left an indelible stigma, contraception was legal, and pills and condoms were freely available, even for teenagers. Wlen attitudes and be- lavior clange so radically in sucl a slort time, tle term revolution seems apt, even if tle extreme utopian promises of free love or tle replacement of war witl love were easier said tlan done. Some lave argued tlat an earlier sexual revolution lad already occurred at tle turn of tle century, wlen Edison was perfecting lis kinetoscope and lming tle movies rst kiss. Tis earlier alteration in sexual relations displaced reproduction from its formerly central role in luman sexuality to allow sexual pleasure in its own riglt to become a value witlin marriage. However, it did not also call into question eitler marriage itself or tle fundamental power relations witlin sex. It is tlis calling into question of tle quality and kind of sexual relationsplus tle very fact tlat tley come oniscene for scrutinytlat made tle clanges tlat began in tle late sixties so revolutionary. Even if one considers tle debates about pornograply tlat raged witlin feminism a decade later as a step back from tle embrace of a never quite free love, and even if one recognizes tlat tle sexual revolution never meant a steady progress toward sexual freedom, tlere is no denying tle o introduction new public prominence of sex, wletler one applauded or condemned its popular proliferation in tle form of visible sex acts. Beginning in tle late seventies, erce debates about tle nature and function of a recently emerged plotograplically based pornograply (magazines and movies) took place witlin feminism. Tere was a ood of discussion for and against, but neitler side of tle debate could take place witlout an un- precedented level of explicit description or quotation. Feminists on botl sides argued about tle signicance of specic sexual positionswlo was on top, wlo was on tle bottom, wlo was active, wlo was passive: Male and female, straiglt and gay, young and old, some speaking mostly of power, otlers mostly of pleasureall were compelled to speak sex, wlicl is not quite tle same tling as speaking about it. Speaking about sex presumes a stable object of investigation, speaking sex implies tlat tle very speaking forms part of sexs discursive construction, and discourses of sexuality proliferated exponentially in tle midst of intensifying sex wars and pornograply debates. My ,8, book on lard-core pornograply di- rectly resulted from tlese debates and from a sexual revolution tlat made a feminist interest in pornograply possible. Te present book las little interest in revisiting tlose debates and no interest at all in clronicling tle supposed rise of pornograplyat least not as an isolated plenomenon unrelated to otler moving-image traditions. However, tlis book will as- sume tlat a sexual revolution (witl tle ebbing and owing tlat occurs in all revolutions) las taken place and tlat an intensied screening sex is one of its more important, and least studied, eects. Revolution, in otler words, las been most manifest, as Eric Sclaefer las noted, as a revo- lution in media. So wlile individual sexual practices were undoubtedly aected by tle sexual revolutionwitness my own surreptitious use of birtl control pillsmy interest in tlis study is not so mucl in low belav- iors clanged but in low movies did. Wlen movies began to slow more sex tlan ever before, a fundamental reorganization of tle relation of public to private took place. One of tle slogans of feminism was tlat tle personal is political, by wlicl my gen- eration meant to say tlat many intimate practices once considered private deserved airing on a public stage. Te feminist antlropologist Susan Cal las written, Activities sucl as wife-beating, wlicl were considered a pri- vate concern a few decades ago, are now tle subject of public legislation around tle globe, conversely, consensual sexual activity among adults tlat was once more widely subject to legal prolibitions [for example gay sex] las become a private matter in many locales.' It is not tlat wlat was once private simply becomes public, but, as tle listorian )oan Landes introduction las put it, tlat tle line between public and private is constantly being renegotiated.'' Te cinematic representations of sex tlat became public in tle late sixties and early seventies reected revolutions in sexual atti- tudes and tlemselves slaped our very experience of sexual relations. But tlis new publicity of sex took place at a time in wlicl tle very idea of a riglt to privacy around tlings sexual and reproductive was also growing. For example, it was not until tle ,6, Griswold v. Connecticut Supreme Court ruling, wlicl overturned a Connecticut law prolibiting tle use of contraception, tlat tle sladowy riglt to privacy began to be articulated as a constitutional riglt.' It is tlus not accidental tlat tle publication of sex discussed in tlis book emerged at tle same time as tle idea of tle riglt to privacy. As we slall see in clapter 6, notions of publicity and pri- vacy came crasling togetler many years later in debates about tle pub- licity campaign for Ang Lees Brokeback Mountain (:oo,). Ratler tlan a relentless marcl toward greater and greater exposure of all tlings sexual, we see, especially in tle acute period of sexual revolution and in its later reverberations, a dynamic tension between tle two categories tlat prove essential to tle analysis of tlis book: revelation, on one land, and a newly discovered riglt to concealment, on tle otler. It is for tlis reason tlat tle rst four of tle books eiglt clapters concentrate on tle late sixties and tle seventies, tle period of greatest destabilization and renegotiation of public and private. In tlis period conventions for tle representation of sex in moving images became establisled for tle world in wlicl we still live. A greater range of sexual options, of ways of being sexual, tlus emerged in tle wake of tle sexual revolution even as feminism engaged in an im- portant critique of tle limits of tlose options for women. Te story told lere will tlus not be tlat of a triumplant marcl toward unfettered sexual freedom. For witl sexual revolution came a new increase in sexual disci- plinea greater control over and monitoring of tle sexual body as we came to expect to see, lear, and know more about it. It would tlus be a grave error to trace a listory of screening sex as a simple rise of explicit- ness. Sucl an account would not be true to wlat is botl listorically and viscerally strange and intractable about sextle many ways in wlicl it does not submit itself to visual and aural explicitness, its incolerence, its troubling enigmas. One important eect of tle sexual revolution las been tlat it is no longer possible to point to tle norm of penetrative leterosexual genital sex (coituslow quaint tle term is beginning to sound!) as a primary denition of sex. Coitus las become one act among many as leterosexual and lomosexual variations of anal sex, fellatio, cunnilingus, and wide vari- : introduction eties of fetislisms and sadomasoclisms confound tle very notion of wlat my second clapter calls going all tle way. Te growing visibility or infer- ence of wide varieties of sex actswletler merely suggested, simulated, or served up as tle real tling in lard-core pornograplieslave compli- cated tle notion of sex as a singular, visible trutl tlat one knows wlen one sees it.' If sexualities are, as Miclel Foucault argues, listorically and culturally constructed, if procreation, in tle wake of tle sexual revolution, is less and less tle ostensible aim of most sex acts, and if sex itself las been in- creasingly recognized as a matter of many and varied perversions, tlen simply to clronicle tle screening of sex as a progression from lesser to greater explicitness as various censorslips fall away will not suce. Sex screened since tle sixties las become more graplic in some ways, but it las also become more leterogeneous and tleoretically elusivewitness tle controversy over tle former president Bill Clintons denial of laving lad sexual relations witl tlat woman, wlicl was not simply a lie, but in tle eyes of many revolved around tle question of wletler fellatio amounted to sex.' Foucaults great insiglts about tle listorical constructions of sexuality tlrougl discourse are embraced in tlis book. In tle rst volume of lis History of Sexuality, written in ,;8 at wlat miglt be viewed as tle tail end of tle listorical period of tle sexual revolution, Foucault understands sexuality not as a force of libido to be repressed or liberated, but as a dis- cursive form of entwined power, knowledge, and pleasure. His proposed listory of sexuality, never actually written as outlined in tlis rst volume, was to lave been a listory of proliferating discourses of sexuality centered on listorically emerging gures: tle lysterical woman, tle masturbating clild, tle Maltlusian couple, and tle lomosexual. Te force of Foucaults tlesis is to minimize tle existence of sex as a preexisting tlingsay as tle repressed drive of psycloanalytic tleoryand to see instead low appara- tuses of sexuality wrap around tle body and its sexual organs to produce dierent kinds of pleasures and relations of alliance.' Foucault clallenged wlat le called Freuds repressive lypotlesistle idea tlat sex is an inlerent force tlat civilization necessarily represses and tlus deated tle understanding of tle sexual revolution as libera- tion.' Tougl Foucault was in fact a rm supporter of most forms of Sexual Theory introduction sexual revolution, le argued tlat we atter ourselves if we tlink tlat by speaking sex we overcome its prolibitions and tlerefore liberate it. Re- pression exists, but it is part of a mucl larger apparatus producing dis- course. In fact, le argues tlat we cling to tle notion of sex as repressed because it allows us to believe in tle utopian possibility tlat enliglten- ment, liberation, and manifold pleasures are all linkedfor example, tlat making love, as I frame it in clapter (, may actually lave sometling to do witl opposing war.' To understand tle listory of sexuality, Foucault argues, we need to tlink of tle more slippery relations between a power tlat does not come from on ligl to repress but comes from below to conjoin discourses of knowledge and pleasure. Sex is rarely just repressed or liberated, it is just as often incited and stimulated and nowlere more so tlan by media. Per- versions are implanted by tle very same discourses tlat may seek to control tlem. So instead of deciding wletler we slould say yes or no to sex, instead of joining tle loud clorus of voices confessing tle various trutls of sex, Foucault would ratler we account for tle very fact tlat sex is spoken and instead see wlo does tle speaking, tle positions and viewpoints from wlicl tley speak, tle institutions wlicl prompt people to speak about it.' It is in tle spirit of tlis putting-into-discourse of an intertwined power-knowledge-pleasure tlat I lope to relate tle listory of screening sex. Te rise of sexual explicitness in tle movies cannot be viewed as a trans- gressive exception to tle rules of previous repression, but as tle continua- tion, in Foucaults sense, of a larger discursive explosion of perverse sexu- alities. In language tlat is itself blatantly sexual, Foucault tells us low tle power tlat took clarge of sexuality set about contacting bodies, caress- ing tlem witl its eyes, intensifying areas, electrifying surfaces, dramatiz- ing troubled moments. It wrapped tle sexual body in its embrace.' In tle end tlese perpetual spirals of power and pleasure prove tlat modern society is perverse, not in spite of its Puritanism but in actual fact, and directly, perverse. Wletler or not any of tlese perversions actually con- stitute new forms of pleasure, tley lave been listorically implanted in ways tlat become acutely visible in late-twentietl-century screening sex. Fellatio, prolonged and multiple female orgasm, sadomasoclistic excite- ment, and lomosexual relationsall lave clear moments of emergence in tle mainstream and tle marginal listory of screening sex and all will be traced in tlis study, not as liberating transgressions, but as tle two-edged swords of liberation and furtler disciplinary control. Foucauldian entlusiast tlat I am, I do not nd it possible to tell tle story ( introduction of screening sex witlout also drawing on at least some of tle tleoretical insiglts of psycloanalysis. Even as I lave myself grown increasingly un- sympatletic to tle story of repression tlat psycloanalysis always tells, and of tle way psycloanalytic readings always seem to be allegories of its master tleory, I lave not been able to forego some of tlese basic concepts. My rst clapter on tle kiss, for example, is founded on tle notion of tle long adolescence of latent sexual knowledge in wlicl movies seemed to simultaneously know and not know about tle existence of sex. Nor las it been possible to tlink about tle orality of tle movie kiss apart from tle oral pleasures of infantile sexuality so acutely described in Freuds Tree Essays on the Teory of Sexuality. Similarly, clapter 6 on tle primal scene of supposedly perverse sexualities as tley came oniscene in American lm since tle eiglties las not been able to do witlout Freuds key concept of tle primal scene and deferred understanding. However, if I cannot fully reconcile my simultaneous recourse to botl Freud and Foucault, I can at least qualify tle way I will be using tleir very dierent senses of tle term perversion. Perverse in its adjectival form literally means turned about, deviated from, a more proper direction. To engage in sex witl an organ not des- tined for procreation is to Freud to engage in perverse belavior, it is a de- viation from tle proper direction and aim of sex. Yet le fully realizes tlat a kiss, or any otler sexual act, miglt be lingered on a little longer tlan necessary to aclieve simple disclarge in copulation. Freud would like to rely on a model of perversion (lingering) and norm (proceeding promptly to disclarge), but le cannot quite maintain tle distinction. Mucl of tle time, as Leo Bersani las argued, perversion actually becomes lis model for tle understanding of sexual pleasure tout court. For example, Bersani slows tlat often Freuds model of sexual pleasure accepts tle existence of forms of sexual stimulation tlat seek not to be released in disclarge, but remain to be pleasurably-unpleasurably increased as tension.' Sexual pleasure, in otler words, is not tle same tling as satisfaction and may rely on a certain unpleasure tlat prolongs excitement. Bersani beautifully describes Freuds two forms of sexual pleasure as, on one land, an itcl tlat can be satised by a scratcl, and, on tle otler, an itcl tlat does not seek to be scratcled, tlat seeks notling better tlan its own prolongation, even its own intensication. Tis Freudian lesitation between tle two models of sexual pleasure and excitement is one way of circumventing some of Freuds more nor- mative tendencies and of making lis tleory palatable, and I lope useful, for analyzing tle activation of new cinematic erogenous zones. We slall introduction , see in clapter ,, for example, low one of tle most genitally oriented of all sexually graplic art lms, In the Realm of the Senses (dir. Oslima Nagisa, ,;6), is predicated entirely on an itcl model of sexual excitement, wlile some of tle kisses examined in tle rst clapter function, for all tle kisss usual role as foreplay, as concluding scratcles. Anotler tleorist wlo las proven essential to tlis study is Ceorges Ba- taille, wlo slares Foucaults propensity to esclew tle approacl to sexual identity and to tlink ratler of sex acts. You miglt call lim tle plilosopler of ecstasy, or wlat tle Frencl call jouissance, wlicl is sometimes trans- lated as orgasm, sometimes as bliss, and most times not translated at all. Bataille lelps us understand wlat makes sex sexy in lis exploration of tle complex dynamic between prolibition and transgression out of wlicl emerges lis notion of tle erotic. Bataille explains tle erotic in terms of tle tension between continuity and discontinuity, ratler tlan between indi- vidual and society or between nature and culture, as Freud does. Eroticism gives us a glimpse of tle continuity from wlicl we emerge wlen born and to wlicl we return in deatl: erotic activity to Bataille is a paradoxical exuberance of life wlicl, at tle extreme, is akin to deatl. In a plrase tlat I lave found extremely useful for tlinking about tle transgressions of taboo tlat constitute many of tle sex acts described in tlis book, le argues tlat taboo is essential to erotic signication: Unless tle taboo is observed witl fear it lacks tle counterpoise of desire wlicl gives it its deepest signicance. In otler words, transgression does not defeat, but only suspends, taboo. Te truly successful erotic transgression is one tlat maintains tle emotional force of tle prolibition. As yet anotler tleorist inlerently skeptical of tle liberatory claims of sexual revolution, Batailles introduction of tle relation between fear and desire will prove invaluable to tlose lms discussed in tle later part of tle book wlicl are determined to probe tle relations between sex and deatl. In wlat precise sense do we sexually feel wlen we screen sex: How are our bodies engaged tlrougl vision and sound in a kind of vicarious toucl, taste, smell: In asking tlese questions I mean to keep in mind tle bodies of tle viewers sitting in tle dark before tle screen, as well as tle moving images of bodies on tle screen. Walter Benjamins famous statement Everyday tle urge grows stronger to get lold of an object at close range in an image, or, better, in a facsimile, a reproductionspeaks to tle strik- Embodied Screening and Mimetic Play 6 introduction ing fact tlat cinematic reproducibility las made possible tle close-range reception of liglly intimate and once private sexual acts. Reproduction in tlis case, let us say tle lmic reproduction of a couple laving sex makes a new kind of contact possible, wlat Miclael Taussig, comment- ing on Benjamin, calls a palpable, sensuous, connection between tle very body of tle perceiver and tle perceived. Tis kind of screening is symptomatic, in Benjamins view, of profound clanges in apperception tlat lave severed earlier practices of auratic and distanced contemplation sucl as painting. Yet wlen it comes to tle recep- tion of sexual contents, culture critics and legal sclolars often fail to in- voke tle lessons of tleorists like Benjamin and Taussig and confuse con- tact witl literal toucl. Consider tle following statement by tle respected First Amendment sclolar Frederick Sclauer: Imagine a motion picture of ten minutes duration wlose entire content consists of a close-up colour depiction of tle sexual organs of a male and female wlo are engaged in sexual intercourse. Te lm contains no variety, no dialogue, no music, no attempt at artistic depiction, and not even any view of tle faces of tle participants. Te lm is slown to paying customers wlo, observing tle lm, eitler reacl orgasm instantly or are led to mastur- bate wlile tle lm is being slown. Tis is Sclauers description of tle kind of lard-core pornograply tlat le believes does not deserve protection as speecl precisely because its eect on tle body is directly mimetic. Tougl tle lm described corresponds fairly closely (except for tle color) to tle single-reel, silent stag lms once slown exclusively to men at baclelor parties and fraternal organizations, it also represents a kind of legal sclolars Platonic ideal of obscenity as tlat wlicl acts directly on tle body and tlat wlicl can tlen be dismissed as mere prurience. In Sclauers imagination tlere is no real dierence between screening sex and laving sex, between watcling and doing. In- deed, le argues tlat tlere is virtually no dierence between tle sale of sucl a lm and tle sale of a plastic or vibrating sex aid, tle sale of a body tlrougl prostitution, or tle sex act itself. At its most extreme, lard-core pornograply is a sex aid, no more and no less, and tle fact tlat tlere is no plysical contact is only fortuitous. Tougl I do not defend tle artistic value of sucl a lm, if indeed sucl a pure example of obscenity actually existed, I do argue tlat even tlis stripped-down, bare example of wlat Sclauer wants to relegate to tle category of tle obscene must take into consideration tle medium tlat necessarily distances tle viewer from tle leterosexual sex act screened. introduction ; In otler words, it is not merely fortuitous tlat no plysical contact exists between tle viewer and tle moving image: it is constitutive of wlatever our relation to tlese images may be. Even if a viewer slould lave tle re- action tlat tle genre of pornograply strives to aclieve (arousal or satis- faction or one of many stages in between), tlere will always be a dierence between screening sex and laving sex, even wlen tle viewer moves out of public tleaters and into tle privacy of tle lome, wlere tle kind of re- actions Sclauer describes become even more likely. Wlat Sclauer ignores is tle medium in wlicl tlese sex acts exist and tle mediation enacted by social viewers. It is tle meclanical repro- ducibility of lm tlat makes possible tle screening of tle act of letero- sexual intercourse tlat seems so close in space, if not in time. Sclauer tlus ignores wlat Benjamin appreciates: we do not simply imitate wlat we see, we play witl it too. Cetting lold of sometling by means of its reproduced likeness is not tle same as getting lold of tle tling itself. If cinema, often cited as tle quintessential example of tle slock of moder- nity, contributes, as Benjamin argues, to tle breakdown of tle auratic tissue of space and time of religious or aestletic experience, tlen we miglt use Sclauers blunt and decidedly anestletic example of tle sup- posedly worst-case scenario to examine tle consequences of sucl slock- ing images. A common way of reading Benjamins inuential Work of Art in tle Age of Its Teclnological Reproducibility las been to see it as a defense of tle slock of moving images as antidotes to tle inlerent slocks of mod- ern life. In tlis reading, tle aura-destroying slock of cinematic images Benjamins favorite examples, writing in tle tlirties, were Clarlie Clap- lin, Dada, and surrealist lmmiglt jolt viewers out of tle numbness of modern life. Of course tle risk was always tlat tle numbing eects of slock would simply be treated witl more slock in an escalating cycle often invoked in critiques of sex and violence in tle media. In recent articles on Benjamin, Miriam Hansen suggests a way out of tlis impasse tlrougl a concept unfortunately excised from tle most familiar tlird ver- sion of Benjamins famous artwork essay: innervation. Hansen explains tlat innervation describes a neuroplysiological pro- cess tlat mediates between internal and external, psyclic and motoric, luman and meclanical registers.' Wlile we typically call sensation tle experience of taking in plenomena tlat make us feeltlat is, experience tlat moves from our outer senses, ears and eyes, into our bodies wlere we feelwe are less prone to consider tle reverse direction: tle transmission of energy from tle inside of our bodies back toward tle outside world. 8 introduction Tis latter transmission is wlat Benjamin calls innervation, tlougl tle term only appears in a footnote to tle lesser-known second version of lis essay. Tougl only incipient in Benjamins own tlouglt, Hansen argues tlat innervation allows us to see mimesis as a two-way process, one taking in, but also reconverting psyclic energy tlrougl motoric stimulation to extend back out toward tle world. In otler words, a process usually understood as a mere taking in of sensation and, in tle case of Sclauers example, a taking in tlat mimics tle gestures and sensations experienced by tlose viewed, can be understood as a two-way street: our bodies botl take in sensation and tlen reverse tle energy of tlat reception to move back out to tle outside world. Tus, instead of just absorbing slock, in tlis case tle slock of eros, tle body is energized as wlat Hansen calls a porous interface between tle organism and tle world. In tlis porous interface we miglt also locate a process of labituation tlat socially integrates sexual sensations previously viewed as private or antisocial. Tus wlere sexual arousal was once deemed antitletical to all civilized public culture, now, tlrougl screening sex, our bodies are not simply slocked into states of arousal but labituated and opened up to tlis clanging environment in newly socialized ways. In Foucaults terms we are disciplined into new forms of socialized arousal in tle company of otlers, but in (Hansens understanding of ) Benjamins terms we are more tlan just disciplined, we may also learn to play at sex tle way a clild miglt play at being a windmill or a train by incorporating more subtle forms of psyclic energy tlrougl motoric stimulation. In lis slort essay, Te Mi- metic Faculty, in wlicl tlis clilds play is evoked, Benjamin signicantly does not argue tlat tle clild believes tlat le or sle is tle windmill or tle train. Playing at being a windmill constitutes an labituation to a culture in wlicl windmills are important, playing at being a train is tle same for a dierent sort of culture, playing at sex, too, is a way of labituating our bodies to a newly sexualized world in wlicl vicarious forms of sexual pleasure are now oniscene. Te mimetic faculty is a kind of tactile training tlat labituates viewers to adapt to clanging environments. Wlat is lost in tle decay of aura is potentially gained, tlen, in tle scope of playa play tlat is, as Benjamin puts it, widest in lm. Let us now come back to Sclauers rude and crude example of screen- ing sex, wlicl le believes induces its audience to a reductive state of mimicry. Since Sclauer depicts tle screening situation as one witl pay- ing customersin otler words, as a normal movie audience, not a private stag party or a lome screeningwe miglt consider tle similarity of wlat le describes to an actual ten minutes of a public screening of a specic introduction , pornograplic lm, say, Deep Troat (dir. Cerard Damiano, ,;:), wlicl will be discussed in clapter . Tere are stretcles of tlis lm tlat oer a close-up colour depiction of tle sexual organs of a male and female wlo are engaged in sexual intercourse. In ,;: public screenings of tlis lm could lave been said to lave slocked tle nation witl tle spectacle, and tle sensation, of close views of sexual organs in action. In its initial slock of screening sex, tlis moment was not unlike anotler moment in 8,6 wlen Tomas Edison screened a kiss as part of a program of slort lms. In botl cases an aura-slattering abolition of distance jars by a display of organsmoutl and genitalsin close-up. However, if we factor in tle two-way possibilities of innervation, we can move beyond slock, and also beyond tle limits of Sclauers presump- tion of a knee-jerk response to moving-image sex as no dierent tlan sex itself. We tlen begin to see tlat a variety of responses are possible: slock, embarrassment, arousal, but also, and most important, imaginative play. My point tlrouglout tlis book is tlat tle imagination can play witl tle most concealed and modest as well as tle most revealed and explicit of images and sounds, witl Pride and Prejudice as well as Pirates. We tlus underestimate tle imagination if we tlink tlat it can only operate in tle absence of, or only at tle sligltest suggestion of sexual representation. As a porous interface between tle organism and tle world, my body before tle screen is not simply excited tlen numbed, or numbed and tlen ex- cited, ratler, over time and witl more screenings, it becomes labituated to diverse qualities and kinds of sexual experiences, including tlose wlicl I may never lave but witl wlicl I can feel and play. In otler words, even if movies do seem to invite us to crudely mimic tle acts tley slow, our bodies are not quite tle meclanistic mimics tlat Sclauer imagines. Anotler way of tlinking about tle two-way street tlat innervation permits is to consider tle lm tleorist Vivian Sobclacks in- siglts about tle embodied foundations of cinematic intelligibility. Sob- clack writes tlat to understand movies we must literally make sense of tlem. Sle observes tlat carnal responses to cinema lave been regarded as too crude to invite extensive elaboration beyond aligning tlemfor tleir easy tlrills, commercial impact, and cultural associationswitl otler more kinetic forms of amusement. Sobclack comes to grips witl tle carnal foundations of cinematic intelligibility by claracterizing cinema as a series of embodiment relationsmodes of mediated seeing and learing, and of reective movement tlat are tle very foundation of its expressiveness. Sobclacks plenomenological approacl to moving images ecloes :o introduction Hansens and Benjamins, but witl tle dierence tlat sle conceives em- bodied viewing as an intentional arc tlat originates not witl tle world but witl tle spectator. Sle notes tlat wlen sle attends to a lm tle fact tlat sle can see but cannot also toucl, smell, and taste means tlat ler bodys intentional trajectory will reverse its direction to locate its partially frustrated sensual grasp on sometling more literally accessible, wlicl is ler own subjectively felt lived body. Tus, sle writes, on tle rebound from tle screenand witlout a reective tlougltI will reexively turn toward my own carnal and sensual being to toucl myself toucling, smell myself smelling, taste myself tasting, and, in sum, feel my own sensu- ality. Writing about )ane Campions Te Piano (,,), sle observes tlat wlen tle male claracter, Baines, toucles Adas esl tlrougl a lole in ler black woolen stocking, sleSobclackfeels a tactile slock. Tougl Sobclack does not literally toucl Ada, tle slock of watcling tlis toucl between otlers opens ler to tle general erotic mattering and diusion of my esl, and I feel not only my own body but also Bainess body, Adas body, wlat I lave elsewlere called tle lms body. Notice, as Taussig miglt appreciate, tlat Sobclack does not say tlat sle identies witl Baines as le toucles Ada. Sle is not describing an ob- jectifying male gaze tlat excludes tle female pleasure in looking. Nor is sle describing a Cartesian perspective tlat reduces wlat is seen to a mas- tered, distanced object.' Ratler, sle describes a situation in wlicl tle camera and tle sound-recording teclnology sees and lears like a body, so tlat our own bodies subsequently see and lear wlat tlat original lm body does. Viewing and learing tlus makes for a material experience of embodiment, it is a series of mediated exclanges of our social bodies, tle lms body, and tle bodies on tle screen. Te attraction tlat pulls us toward a moving image is tlus not just of tle eyes but also of tle esl, yet not of tle esl in tle way Sclauer imag- ines. Our entire sensorium is activated synestletically, all tle more so, as will often be tle case in tlis book, wlen tle moving image slows two (or more) beings toucling, tasting, smelling, and rubbing up against one anotler. If tlese bodies are engaged in sex acts, as Baines and Ada are at tlis moment in tlis long tease of a lm, tlen in watcling tlem I am so- licited sexually too. However, tlis solicitation is not Sclauers nigltmare of pure mimicry nor is it just of tle eyes, for one bodily sense translates into anotler. Witl Benjamin and Hansens innervation, tlen, we lave a model for taking in energy tlrougl motoric stimulation tlat extends back toward tle world, and witl Sobclacks rebound we lave a model for taking energy from tle image back into tle self. Trouglout tlis book introduction : I will operate on tle assumption tlat screened sex las always been and is now even more central to our culture, wletler it leads to Sobclacks commuted, diuse encounter witl ones own esl, or to Hansens Benja- minian notion of ones body as a porous interface extending back toward tle world. We begin, as is proper in western culture, witl tle kiss. Of Kisses and Ellipses: Te Long Adolescence of American Movies (8,6,6), begins witl Tomas Edisons 8,6 Te Kiss and ends witl Andy Warlols ,6 Kissa compendium of tlirteen kisses tlat I take as tle epitapl for tle era of tle kiss. Looking at tlis most publicly acceptable and ubiquitous of cinematic sex acts, tlis clapter explores tle listory and tle plenome- nology of tle screen kiss beginning witl early reactions to tle anatomi- zation, magnication, and repetition made possible by tle close-up and tle large screen. Witl Edison and Warlol as tle alpla and tle omega of screen kisses, I contrast eacl to tle era of tle Hollywood Production Code and to tle time before tle Codes prolibition against scenes of pas- sion and excessive and lustful kissing. Trougl tle kiss we explore tle nature of cinematic oral pleasures and tle eroticism of tleir limits. Coing All tle Way: Carnal Knowledge on American Screens (,6 ,;), my second clapter, asks wlen and low it became not only pos- sible but obligatory to slow, in eitler simulated or explicit faslion, wlat lappens between tle sleets in mainstream movies. How, in otler words, did American movies grow up and slift from adolescent kisses to presum- ably more adult displays sucl as tlose viewed in Te Graduate (dir. Mike Niclols, ,6;): Wlat constituted carnal knowledge on tle screen in tlis period of sexual revolutionary, late sixties clange: Tis clapter compares tle form and function of tle supposedly tasteful Hollywood sexual inter- ludetle familiar montage of musically accompanied abstracted snippets of simulated sexto otler forms of adult sexuality available in sexploita- tion, blaxploitation, and tle avant-garde. A single year, ,;:, and two lms, Last Tango in Paris and Deep Troat, are tle main focus of clapter . In tlis annus mirabilis of screening sex, two Italian male directorsone from Italy, tle otler from New York altered tle expectations of American movie audiences of wlat sort of sexual feelings tley miglt experience at tle tleater. One lm was consid- ered erotic modern art, tle otler crass lard-core pornograply. But botl confronted public, gender-mixed audiences witl narratives tlat were un- apologetically about sex from beginning to end. As a member of botl tlese audiences I lave tried to depict tle spirit in wlicl a wlole genera- :: introduction tion of American moviegoers dared in ,;: to watcl tlese two lms in tle company of otlers. A tlird lm, one tlat I did not see in tle day, was perlaps even more groundbreaking, tlougl to a more specialized emerg- ing community of gay viewers. Wakeeld Pooles Boys in the Sand (,;) was made a year before tlese otler landmarks of graplic sex and served to validate and celebrate, wlile never exactly normalizing, tle dierence of gay sex. Witl all tle ejaculating penises brouglt oniscene in botl letero- sexual and lomosexual pornograply of tle early seventies, and witl all tle end-of-Code, beginning-ofratings-system lms and tleir climacti- cally simulated sexual interludes, it is only fair to ask about tle fate of tle representation of female orgasm. Clapter (, Make Love, Not War: )ane Fonda Comes Home (,68,;8), moves botl backward to tle roots of tle American sexual revolution and forward to mainstream American cinemas belated concern witl female orgasm tlrougl tle Frencl and American careers of )ane Fonda. In lms as diverse as Barbarella: Queen of the Galaxy (dir. Roger Vadim, ,68), Klute (dir. Alan Pakula, ,;), and Coming Home (dir. Hall Aslby, ,;8) Fonda was tle rst female Ameri- can actor in mainstream lm to play claracters wlose orgasms mattered. Tese orgasms related signicantly to Fondas successive iconic positions as a sexpot, a feminist, and an antiwar activist. Wlere lard-core, moving-image pornograply is easy to make and las ourisled since tle seventies in its own parallel universe devoid of mucl art, art lms tlat venture to depict unsimulated sex acts lave been dicult to make, botl aestletically and nancially (witness tle rarely used Ameri- can rating of c-;). One lm of tle ,;os, Oslima Nagisas )apanese but Frencl-produced In the Realm of the Senses (,;6), fully succeeded in combining lard-core sex witl erotic art. As perlaps tle only work of seventies international cinema to actually do wlat Anglo-American and European critics and directors lad only dreamed of doing, tlis single lm occupies tle wlole of clapter ,. I argue tlat it deserves careful discus- sion, botl because it was groundbreaking and because its lessons prove essential to tle growing group of contemporary lms since tle nineties belatedly following in its footsteps. Every once in a wlile lms come along tlat lit a sexual nerve witl tle American public. Clapter 6 focuses on tle perverse provocations of tle American screen since tle eiglties in two groundbreaking lms: David Lyncls Blue Velvet (,86) and Ang Lees Brokeback Mountain (:oo,). Be- cause tle sex scenes depicted in tlese lms are of simulated, not lard- core, sex tley reacled large R-rated audiences. David Lyncls small-town introduction : mystery tlat begins witl a severed ear and Ang Lees cowboy movie about two sleeplerders wlo fall in love brouglt primal fantasies of sex lome to general American audiences, and not just tle art louse crowd. Sado- masoclistic sexual rituals wlicl lad tleir rst emergence in mainstream American cinema in ,86 lad mucl tle same impact, I argue, as tle more recent staging of sodomitical sex in Brokeback. In botl cases tle simulated sex acts brouglt perverse sex to tle American leartlandto a picture-perfect small Nortlwestern town and to tle iconic wilderness of tle western landscape. Trougl tlese two lms, tlis clapter examines some of tle ways in wlicl American cinema became perverse tlrougl tle staging of primal scenes. Simulated sex lms sucl as Blue Velvet and Brokeback scrupulously avoid tle display of sexual organs. Hard-core art lms, on tle otler land, often aunt tle display of sexual organs and are tlus refused R ratings. Clapter ;, Plilosoply in tle Bedroom: Hard-Core Art Film since tle Nineties, examines a new tradition of art lm tlat las followed in tle lard-core art tradition of Oslima. Since tle nineties, a new wave of Frencl, Cerman, Italian, Asian, and Britisl lms las deed tle soft focus erotic prettiness of mainstream Hollywoods sexual interludes discussed in clapter , and even tle simulated perversions of clapter 6. Many of tle lms discussed lere innovate by cloosing to focus on sex tlat is ag- gressive, loveless, or alienated in precise opposition to botl tle cloying romance of tle dominant Hollywood model or tle wall-to-wall ecstasy of lard-core pornograply. My goal in surveying tlese lms is not to parse tle good sex from bad, or to determine wlicl graplic sexual representa- tions lave gone too far or leave notling to tle imagination. Ratler, it is to understand low very many and dierent imaginative ways tlere are of getting graplic as non-pornograplic movies open up tle question of tle imagination of sex beyond tle familiar formulas of simulation and tle equally familiar formulas of lard core. Screening sex in a new media era means no longer luxuriating before tle magnied projections of tle big screen, it means getting busy: point- ing, clicking, typing, cloosing, playing, and interacting witl liglly manipulatable and converged media on often quite small screens. My conclusion asks wlat tle essential dierences are between tle experi- ence of screening sex on tle large movie screen in a public place and tle experience before tle small television or computer screen at lomeor wlerever we now take our increasingly portable screens. Witl tlese little screens spectators wlo lave always engaged in play witl moving images now become more like literal game players. And one of tle tlings we :( introduction are more or less expected to play witl is ourselves. Masturbation before a moving image or virtual orgies, in wlicl couples lave sex witl one anotler as well as witl tle bodies on tle lome screen, now becomes a possible practice of sex. In a new media era tle point of pornograply las become, more tlan ever, tle expectation tlat we will lave sex witl ourselves tlrougl tle image on tle screen. Trougl a look at several key examples of cyberporn tlis nal clapter comes to grips witl wlat is new and wlat remains tle same about screening sex in a new media era. Obviously tlese clapters do not constitute anytling like a complete listory of screening sex. I lave sacriced general coverage for close looks at a few lms in eacl eraworks tlat lave seemed to me to be eitler groundbreaking or symptomatic of given periods of moving-image lis- tory. Wletler or not tley were great cinema, tlese were lms tlat we often went to see out of simple curiosity for sexual knowledge. Tougl tlis book is in no way an account of my own sexual autobiograply tlrougl movies, I lave sometimes found it useful to tell tle story of my own, nec- essarily limited, experiences as a longtime avid moviegoer alongside wlat I lave gleaned from critical reception and sclolarslip. Te lms discussed in tlis book are tlus tlose tlat lave literally and guratively made sense to me as forms of carnal knowledge. In evoking and analyzing tlem I lave tried to capture some of wlat it meant to lave been tlere, in tle dark, since tle sixties wlen sex ceased to be a fundamentally illicit, screened out experience and began instead to be leard and seen oniscene. If I lave distinct memories of screening a lm, I try to recall tlem and to discuss tle context of my listorically situated reactions as a wlite, leterosexual, American woman wlo would lave liked to lave been a cosmopolitan so- plisticate but wlo, apart from ler experience of movies, often remained naive and provincial at tle core. As my most crucial form of sex education I lope tlis study of screening sex captures sometling of tle excitement of tlat learning. Yet beyond tle early clapters, wlicl correspond to my own learning about sex and coming to sexual maturity, tlis is not a story of growing maturity. If anytling, as tle later clapter on primal scenes suggests, it is a story wlose plot keeps tlickening as carnal knowledge proves not to be a simple progress toward explicit knowledge but ratler, an enigmatic and elusive event. Wrestling awkwardly with her across the bed . . . I realized I was . . . reconnecting with subterranean fountains of juvenile lust that I thought had long since run dry. But no, they were there, as efervescent as ever, the obsessive and utterly unreal images of desire the movies implant in the adolescent mind. The beauty that never fades, the kiss that never ends, the night of passion that swells to crescendo on a Max Steiner theme and ends the flm balanced forever on a pinnacle of undying intensity. theodore roszak, Flicker 1 of kisses and ellipses Te Long Adolescence of American Movies (8,6,6) Movie kisses were tle rst sex acts I ever screened. Before I lad my romantic rst kiss, I already knew, from movies, tlat one needed to tilt tle lead a little to avoid bumping noses, but tlat if botl kissers tilted tle same way tley would still bump noses, so a complex cloreograply of bodies lad to be worked out in tlis simple act. I learned tlis from tle big screen, wlere kisses were greatly magnied in tle garisl Teclnicolor kisses of Rock Hudson and Doris Day. But I also learned some tlings from tle little black-and-wlite screen before wlicl my motler and I sat watcling 1v movies on warm summer niglts wlen I could stay up late. I remem- ber myself at fourteen in ,6o sprawled on tle rug directly under tle television screen, my motler across tle room in ler big armclair, botl of us riveted to a repertoire of Holly- wood kisses performed by luminous stars. To a barely kissed teenage girl, tle extreme close-ups, swelling music, and mysterious fade-outs oered compel- :6 of kisses and ellipses ling promises of a grand communion to come. If I could not exactly toucl, taste, and smell as tle kissers tlemselves could do, I could sense, tlrougl siglts and sounds tlat seemed to creep across my skin, penetrate my entire body, and generate my own sympatletic puckers, low it miglt feel to kiss and be kissed. I remember tlese kisses today tlrougl a laze of nostalgia, mucl like tlat displayed in tle nale of Cinema Paradiso (dir. Ciuseppe Tornatore, ,88) wlen tle lero reviews tle screen kisses and embraces of tle lms of lis youtl. Tis Oscar winner for best foreign lm concluded witl a grand montage of all tle kisses and embraces tlat lad once been snipped by censorious priests from movies slown in a provincial Italian village after tle Second World War. Like tle graying lero of tlat lm, I too sit mesmerized in tle present by tle gift of tle old-faslioned movie kiss. And like tlat lero I register tle double sense of tle verb, to screen, as botl a projection tlat reveals and a censorslip tlat elides. Now tlat it is not only possible but almost obligatory for American movies to slow tle sex acts tlat follow tlem, kisses lave lost some of tleir allure. Tey lave become mere foreplay, one sex act among many. Tougl tley still punctuate movies and remain dramatically signicant as tle inauguration of sexual contacts, tley no longer carry tle burdenor tle enormous electrical clargeof being tle wlole of sex tlat can be seen. Te movie kisses of tle era before tle ,6os sexual revolution were botl more infantile and more adolescent tlan tle kisses of todayin- fantile in tleir orality and adolescent in tleir way of being permanently poised on tle brink of carnal knowledge.' Tis clapter begins witl tle cinemas rst kiss: Tomas Edisons Te Kiss, a silent fteen-second lm made in 8,6. It ends witl Andy Warlols Kiss, a silent fty-eiglt-minute answer to Edison from ,6. In between tlese two exemplars of screen kisses, I will address examples from tle era of tle Hollywood Production Code, as well as from tle pre-Code era. My primary goal is to taxonomize tle lmic mode of tle screens rst sex act. Wlat is its role as textual punctuationas period, comma, question mark, and, most important, as tle dot, dot, dot of ellipsis: Wlat can we observe about tle tension and excitement generated by tlese reciprocal acts of oral pleasure: In tle late 8,os Tomas Edison lad begun to lm slort sequences of action for exlibition in lis newly developed Kinetoscopea peeplole de- 1896: The Forty-Two-Foot Kiss of kisses and ellipses :; vice for screening slort segments of moving images. A popular New York musical play, Te Widow Jones, lad included a kiss between tle widow and ler suitor. In April 8,6 Edison brouglt tle two stars of tle play into lis Black Maria studio and lmed just tleir kiss. Te fteen-second lm las been variously called Te Kiss and, after tle stage actors wlo performed it, Te May IrwinJohn Rice Kiss, and simply Te May Irwin Kiss (suggesting tlat women leld greater importance tlan men as eitler kissers or kissees). It was lmed only two days before Edison lad lis rst public projection of lms, tlougl it was not included in tlat rst slow. Clarles Musser slows tlat tle lms making was actually a publicity stunt for a newspaper, tle New York World, wlicl reported in a Sunday edition on tle making of tle lm: For tle rst time in tle listory of tle world it is possible to see wlat a kiss looks like. . . . Sucl pictures were never be- fore made. In tle forty-two feet of kiss recorded by tle kinetoscope every plase is slown witl startling distinctness. . . . Te real kiss is a revelation. Te idea of a kinetoscopic kiss las unlimited possibilities. As tlis review suggests, tlese possibilities are cauglt up in tle new viewing maclines ability to deliver increments of knowledge about mov- ing bodies tlat, not accidentally, lappen to be in tle form of tle cinemas rst sex act. Te title of tlis long news feature is Te Anatomy of a Kiss, and tle opportunity for an anatomization of tle forty-two-foot sequence seems to lave been paramount. As Musser notes, tle kiss may or may not lave been tle actual liglliglt of tle play (tle nal act in wlicl it occurred las not been found), but wlen nally projected in early May of 8,6, it immediately became tle most popular of tle many slort lms slown. Tougl it is possible to assume tlat a famous kiss in a play simply became a famous kiss in tle new medium of projected lm, it seems more likely tlat tle existence of tle lm retroactively made tle kiss important in all subsequent performances of tle play. Te forging of tle possibili- ties of an emerging medium tlus took place tlrougl tle close-up anato- mization of a sex act tlat existed in tle play but tlat did not necessarily constitute its liglliglt. It is signicant, tlerefore, tlat tle new teclnology of projection onto a screen in a darkened tleater distinguisled itself espe- cially tlrougl tle particular act of tle kiss. As in so many otler examples of new mediaprint, litlograply, plotograply, video, and now digital teclnologiestle excitement of new teclnologies of vision went land in land witl tle excitement around newly mediated revelations of sex. Te lm consists of a single, clest-up slot of Rice on tle left and Irwin on tle riglt moutling wlat seem to be a few lines of dialogue from tle play. Toucling cleeks, coming close to tle position of a kiss, but continu- :8 of kisses and ellipses ing to speak out of tle sides of tleir moutls, tley abruptly pull apart and prepare for a tleatrical smoocl. Rices preparation includes tle familiar but now arclaic gesture of lifting tle mustacle away from lis lipas- sociated today witl villains in melodramas (gure ). He tlen cups lis lands on tle side of Irwins cleeks, leans in, and plants a few pecks on tle side of ler rmly closed moutl. Irwin, for ler part, leans up to meet lim, but ler lands, in contrast, remain at ler side (gure (). Toward tle end, Rices pecks briey turn into little nibbles, and tle lm ends in medias kiss. Trouglout tle scene, owing to Rices big mustacle, we see more of Irwins moutl and lips tlan of lis. A stage kiss if ever tlere was one, tlis kiss slares tle formers divided attention: tle partners must face one anotler to kiss and must face front to make tle contact visible to tle audience. Sometling of tlis divided 3 and 4: Thomas Edison, The Kiss (1896) of kisses and ellipses :, attention persists in all movie representations of sex acts, torn as tley are between tle necessary close contact between bodies and tle requirement to make tlat contact visible. Indeed, tlis early kiss introduces many of tle features tlat will prove emblematic of subsequent screened sex acts, not just kisses: rst and foremost is tle close-up tlat makes tle oscula- tion visible, second comes tle moutled dialogue tlat precedes tle sexual contact, in tlis case drawing our attention to tle kissers lipswe can- not know wlat tlis couple says, altlougl it is likely tlat tle conversation negotiates tle terms of tle kiss, tlird is tle convention tlat tle man ini- tiates contact and tle woman receives it, even tlougl sle may well lave orclestrated it all along. Tis kiss is also notewortly because it is so radically severed from tle rest of tle plays action, becoming wlat critics of graplic sex and vio- lence miglt call gratuitousa sex act tlat is tlere just for sexs sake, witl no otler narrative or dramatic purpose. As we lave already seen, tlese terms are often deployed, especially in legal arguments about obscenity, to identify tle so-called prurient sex tlat supposedly does not belong on any screen. I will argue, lowever, tlat once a culture decides tlat sex mattersand tle fame and popularity of Te Kiss certainly formed part of sucl a decisionsex for sexs sake is never really gratuitous. Indeed, it becomes one of tle important reasons for screening moving pictures. Of course, tlere is notling sexy to us today about tle brief osculations of two plump, middle-aged actors mugging for tle camera. We tend to laugl, and audiences in tle day seemed to laugl. Te Boston Herald wrote of tle Vitascope program wlen it slowed in Boston: Of tle o pictures included in yesterdays programmes . . . tlere is no sladow of a doubt as to wlicl created tle most lauglter. Tat kissing scene in tle Widow )ones, taken part in by May Irwin and )oln C. Rice, was reproduced in tle screen, and tle very evident deliglt of tle actor and tle undisguised pleasure of tle actress were absolutely too funny for anytling. Wlat does it mean tlat Te Kiss was too funny: Does it necessarily mean tlat it was also not slocking: Lauglter can be an expression of genuine amusement, or it can be a nervous release covering over slock. In tlis case it may lave been a little of botl. Te little nibbles tlat follow tle primary smoocl are comic in two ways. First, like a great many sex acts, tley lave a meclanical, repetitive quality in tlemselves. Second, slown over and over in tle repeated loops tlat comprised tle primary way of projecting early cinema, tley are literal forms of meclanized repetition. Audiences could be amused or, as in tle response articulated in tle Cli- cago literary magazine tle Chap Book, tley could be oended: Witlin a o of kisses and ellipses natural scale, sucl tlings [as kisses] are suciently bestial. Monstrously enlarged and slown repeatedly, tley become positively disgusting.' Wlat, precisely, did tlis autlor, tle young painter )oln Sloan, nd so dis- gusting: Was it possibly tle middle-aged plumpness of tle widow lerself, and tle less-tlan-imposing gure of ler suitor: None of tle criticism of tle stage play makes sucl a suggestion. Was it simply tle unseemly inti- macy of any kiss so monstrously enlarged: Clearly tlis kiss agitated in a way tlat tle kiss appearing onstage, or as a small image in tle Kineto- scope, lad not. Siegfried Kracauer las noted tlat luge images of small material ple- nomena become in cinema disclosures of new aspects of plysical reality. Tougl Kracauers preferred example of cinematic magnication is tle fa- mous close-up of Mae Marsls twisting lands in tle courtroom episode of tle modern story of Intolerance (dir. D. W. Critl, ,6), lis description of tlese lands, isolated from tle rest of tle body and greatly enlarged . . . quivering witl a life of tleir own, is even more applicable to screen kisses, wlicl especially quiver witl a sexual life of tleir own.'' Kisses, wlen stylized and elaborated by tle Hollywood narrative cinema, would eventually become synecdocles for tle wlole sex act. Here, lowever, a kiss constitutes an unnarrativized attraction amounting to a revelation of tle plysical act to one critic, and a disgusting monstrosity to anotler. In eitler case, wlat seems to be at stake is a visceral attraction or repul- sion on tle part of viewers. Fragmentation, repetition, and magnication make possible an anatomization tlat turns tle kiss of Te Widow Jones stage play into a culturally new combination of prurience and pedagogy. Te psycloanalyst Adam Plillips las written tlat altlougl conventions governing tle giving and getting of kisses clearly exist in literature and life, It is really only from lms tlat we can learn wlat tle contemporary con- ventions miglt be for kissing itself.' Tis 8,6 lm constituted Americas rst sucl lesson. It is a quintessential example of wlat Tom Cunning las called tle cinema of attractions.' Te Lumiere brotlers Arrival of a Train (8,,)tle main attraction of tle rst public screening of a lm in Francemay be emblematic of a certain dynamism of tle macline age, and Robert Pauls Rough Sea at Dover (8,,), tle Britisl attraction at tle rst American public screening of projected lms, may be emblem- atic of cinemas ability to capture tle tumult of nature, but Edisons Te Kiss is emblematic of a new kind of sexual voyeurism unleasled by mov- ing pictures. Screening sex, learning low to do it tlrougl repeated and magnied anatomization, would lencefortl become a major function of movies. of kisses and ellipses But tlere was anotler important kiss in early cinema, one tlat I want to take up lere as a counterpoint to all tle dazzlingly wlite, luminous, romantic kisses tlat would eventually be fabricated by Hollywood. Tougl it attracted considerably less commentary in its own day tlan Edisons Te Kiss, Edwin S. Porters What Happened in the Tunnel (,o) las recently garnered considerable discussion as an exlibition of tle miscegenation tlat would eventually be ocially forbidden in tle Hollywood Production Code.' Wlat lappened in tle tunnel: A wlite woman and ler African American maid sit side by side on a train. A wlite man sits belind tle wlite woman wlo is reading. Wlen sle drops ler landkerclief, le picks it up and uses tle occasion to irt, take ler land, and come close (gure ,). Te screen suddenly goes black for a prolonged period (gure 6). Wlen tle darkness nally ends, and tle train las presumably emerged from tle tunnel, we see tlat tle wlite man las leaned over into tle space of tle two women. But tle maid and mistress lave clanged positions, and we nd lim kissing not tle mistress, but tle maid (gure ;). As soon as liglt illuminates tlis kiss, le pulls back in lorror and tries to lide belind lis newspaper as tle maid and mistress laugl. In contrast to tle May Irwin-)oln Rice kiss, tlis one is not displayed in close-up and cannot tlerefore be anatomized. If tle Edison piece is kiss as revelation, screening as tle projection of sometling to see, tle Porter scenario is screening as mostly concealment of wlat could be given to see but is not. For tlis kiss is almost entirely screened outas so many as- pects of sex, and certainly most interracial aspects of it, would eventually be for many decades under tle Hollywood Production Code. What Happened in the Tunnel is also less likely to elicit contemporary amusement. Even if tle supposed joke is on tle man and between tle two women, it is premised on a racial devaluation of tle black woman and ler lack of appeal to tle kisser.' Te lm tleorist and listorian )ane Caines notes tlat tle predominantly wlite audiences wlo paid to see tlis less-tlan-one-minute lm did not really want to know wlat lappened in tle tunnel.' Tey were not interested in tle visible anatomy of this kiss, but in tle social embarrassment of tle man punisled for taking liberties witl a wlite woman by tle presumed unpleasure of kissing a black one. Wlat lappened in tle tunnel for tle man was tle presumably pleasur- able toucl and taste of a kiss tlat le tlouglt was of wlite skin. Tis man does not discover lis unpleasure until siglt informs lim tlat le slould not lave enjoyed tle sexual contact in wlicl le engaged. Only wlen lis kiss becomes visible does le cease to enjoy it. Wlat tle kiss is to tle black woman is larder to imagine.' 5, 6, and 7: Edwin S. Porter, What Happened in the Tunnel (1903) of kisses and ellipses Kisses, as we slall learn, are botl public visual displays and acts of mutual toucl and taste grounded in a proximity tlat, at tle limit, pre- cludes visibility botl to tle kissers tlemselves and to tle audience (wlicl cannot see lips, for example, covered by otler lips). Tese kinds of dis- crepancies between siglt and toucl go to tle leart of a great many cine- matic sex acts. In tle case of What Happened in the Tunnel, tle cameras distance from tle kiss, compared to Edisons, along witl tle occlusion of all but tle very end of its action, elides tle usual movements of a kisser toward tle kissed and keeps only tle movement of tlis particular kisser away from tle kissed. We do well to keep in mind, lowever, low mucl tlis comic occlusion of tle interracial kiss between tle wlite man and tle black woman nds its lorric mirror reversal in tle decidedly noncomic tlreat of visible sexual contact between a wlite woman and a black man. Tis not-quite- seen interracial kiss structures countless scenarios of early cinema. It especially structures tle landmark lm Te Birth of a Nation (dir. D. W. Critl, ,,), wlere a tlreatened kiss oers a synecdocle of tle geni- tal sex acttle proverbial fate worse tlan deatlfor tle sexually and racially endangered wlite woman.' Hollywood would soon proscribe any representation of blackiwlite interracial sex actscomic or melo- dramaticbut we slould note low interracial lusts sit uneasily around tle edges of wlat would become tle Hollywood mainstream. If audiences today do not see mucl romance or eroticism in tle screens rst kiss, tley immediately recognize botl tlese qualities in tle surpris- ingly brief, but erotically clarged, kisses of tle Code era. Even tlougl tlese later kisses do not clronologically follow Edisons, it seems best to turn to a few of tlem next, because tley represent tle kiss in its most rule- driven, codied form. In tle era of tle Hollywood Production Coderouglly from ,(, wlen tle Code began actually to be enforced, tlrougl ,66, wlen Code approval lad become increasingly irrelevant and a new ratings system was on tle lorizonit was prolibited for any movie to infer tlat low forms of sex relationslip are tle accepted or common tling.' By low forms of sex tle framers of tle Code intended any scenes of passion tlat miglt be likely to stimulate tle lower and baser element. Tis lan- A Kiss Is Just a Kiss ( of kisses and ellipses guage emplatically links plysically lower down portions of tle anatomy witl lower classes. Excessive and lustful kissing is linked to otler, worse, taboos: seduction or rape, sex perversion, scenes of clildbirtl, vene- real diseases, or tle exposure of tle sexual organs of clildren. In addi- tion, in tle section called Costume, complete nudity and indecent or undue exposure are also forbidden. Te Codes prolibitions explicitly spell out societal taboos against dis- plays of sex tlat were already familiar but tlat lad never before been made so clear. However, it was not just tle lower classes, tle unmarried, tle criminal, tle lomosexual, or tle colored wlose sexual contacts were made taboo by tle Code, but also tlose of married, reproductive letero- sexuals wlose pregnancies, birtls, and sexual relations also became un- representable. Of course, long before tle crafting of tle Code, kisses were already tle only visible sexual contacts possible at tle movies. However, it was only after tle Codes stricter enforcement in ,( tlat unocial rules about tle duration and context (excessive and lustful) of kissing came powerfully into play. From tle origin of lm tlrougl tle late sixties, tlen, a kiss of variable lengtl lad to do tle job of suggesting all tle excitement and pleasure of intimate sexual contacts. I will not argue in tlis clapter for tle good old days of tle Code, wlen eroticism ourisled precisely because of tle extreme constraints imposed on tle display of sex, but it is important to realize low some of tlese re- straints, absurd as tley may seem today, could enlance tle eroticism of a kiss. Eroticism, as Ceorges Bataille teacles, can be surprisingly complicit witl tle law, or tle morals, tlat prolibit it. Te fascinating story of tle travails of tle Production Code Administrations conicts witl producers, directors, and writers of tle studio era, detailed in several recent books on lm censorslip, reveals an ongoing tension between wlat Bataille calls respect for tle law and violation of tle law. Te Code tlat forbids carnal representation, lustful kissing, and tle attractive presentation of adultery and illicit sex goes land in land witl tle excitement generated wlen lints of lust, adultery, and illicit sex nevertleless emerge. According to a ,,: Callup Poll tle tlird sexiest movie kiss of all time riglt belind Clark Cable and Vivien Leigls in Gone with the Wind (dir. David Selznick, ,,) and Burt Lancaster and Deboral Kerrs in From Here to Eternity (dir. Fred Zinneman, ,,)is tlat between Humplrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman in Casablanca (dir. Miclael Curtiz, ,(:). Tis well-loved classic is about an exiled American saloon owner, Rick Blaine, wlo, like lis native country, belatedly becomes involved in World War ii. Te cost of lis involvement will be to lose, for tle second time, of kisses and ellipses , tle woman le loves. As if in compensation for lis noble sacrice, tle lm oers several memorable kisses, eacl a little more forbidden tlan tle last. I will discuss tle tlree most dramatic of tlese. In Casablancas rst major kiss, Rick asks Ilsa wlo sle is and if sle las loved before. Only one answer can take care of all our questions, says Ilsa, and tlat answer is . . . a kiss cued to tle song, As Time Coes By, wlicl swells on tle soundtrack. Tis kiss perfectly obeys tle strictures of tle Hollywood Production Code: it is slort (less tlan tlree seconds), it displays no open moutls, it contains notling excessive or lustful. Te Code reads tlat adultery and illicit sex, sometimes necessary plot ma- terial, must not be explicitly treated or justied, or presented attractively. Even tlis prolibition is teclnically obeyed since neitler kisser knows at tlis moment tlat le or sle is committing adultery. And slould we lap- pen to suspect tlat a furtler sexual act follows from tlis kiss, tle lm is careful not to lelp us imagine it. Of course we will eventually come to believe tlat tle aair in Paris tlat begins witl tlis kiss was a great love, but tlat impression is not yet present in tlis rst kiss. Also, like a great many Hollywood kisses of tle Production Code era, tlis kiss occurs at tle end of tle scene and is not itself seen to end. Witlout even tle pause of a fade-out and a fade-in, an abrupt cut to tle Cerman advance on Paris cuts slort tle kiss. Tis will be tle pattern for tle wlole of tle lm as war and kisses duel. You must remember tlis i A kiss is just a kiss, a sigl is just a sigl i Te fundamental tlings apply i As time goes by: Dooley Wilson as Sam sings tle words to tlis famous song before Rick and Ilsa clincl in tle lms sec- ond big dramatic kiss. Te tlree of tlem drink clampagne in tle bar of Ricks lotel in Paris after Sam las sung a few verses of tle song, originally written in , for a dierent era. Te full version of tle song makes a case for tle simplicity of certain facts of lifekisses and sigls, moonliglt and love songstlat are fundamental in a world of rapid clange.' In tle part Sam sings, kisses and sigls are meant to represent eternal verities, as time goes by. On closer examination, lowever, tlese verities prove ratler enigmatic. Rick will kiss Ilsa tlree times in tlis scene. Eacl time tle couple will suddenly exist in its own lermetic world, and Sam will momentarily dis- appear. In tle rst kiss, tle couple stands at a window speaking of tleir past lives as tle sounds of war draw near. Rick kisses Ilsa, but tle back of Ilsas lead blocks our view of tleir moutls. Te kiss is punctuated by tle boom of cannons. Attention is drawn away from tle unseen lips to tle tlreatening sound of war. Afterward, Ilsa will ask: Was tlat cannon re 6 of kisses and ellipses or only my leart pounding: Next tle couple moves to a table to drink clampagne witl tle again present Sam. Rick proposes, but Ilsa is worried and evasive. Sle strokes Ricks clin witl tle back of ler land (a gesture we will soon see Bergman repeat in a later postwar kiss witl Cary Crant) and tlen begins tle kind of avowal-of-love speecl tlat seems designed to be interrupted by a kiss: If you slouldnt get away, I mean, if, if sometling slould keep us apart, wlerever tley put you and wlerever Ill be, I want you to know tlat I. . . . As sle breaks o, ler moutl invitingly open in tle pronunciation of I, Rick puts lis land on ler cleek and kisses ler. In prole tlis time, we can nally see tleir lips come togetler (gure 8). Te couple about to kiss in a Hollywood lm before tle late sixties is usually batled in a glow of romantic liglt. Te conventional Hollywood tlree-point liglting scleme of key (usually sligltly from above), ll (a liglt tlat evens out sladows), and back (tle lalo eect tlat comes from belind tle lead) is tle basic formula tlat creates tlis glow, but especially on tle (wlite) woman, wlo is almost universally more luminous tlan anyone else on tle screen. Te wliter sle looks, tle purer sle seems, even tlougl ler presence in tle lm may also evoke carnal desire. As Riclard Dyer writes, Idealised wlite women are batled in and permeated by liglt. It streams tlrougl tlem and falls on to tlem from above. In slort, tley glow. It is not surprising tlat tle Nordic Ingrid Bergman, tle ob- ject and subject of illicit carnal desire in many of tle kisses explored lere and below, glows relative to tle servile Sam, wlose blackness can only sline, not glow. Sle also glows relative to tle darker skin tones of Bogarts Rick in tlis particular kiss. Tougl tlere is a little liglt on tle top of lis forelead, most of lis face, and especially lis land, appear several slades 8: Casablanca (dir. Michael Curtiz, 1942), the gentle kiss of kisses and ellipses ; darker. Indeed, all wlite women in Hollywood lms glow witl a liglt tlat works to purify tle darker lusts tleir kisses may evoke. Once again, cannon re punctuates tle kiss and As Time Coes By surges. But tle kiss itself, described as gentle in tle script, remains rela- tively undramatic. Under tle impression tlat tley will soon leave Paris togetler, Rick does not lave tle same urgency as Ilsa. All tle more rea- son, tlen, Code notwitlstanding, for Ilsa to demand a more dramatic, less gentle, more nal kiss. Tis time sle even orders it: Kiss me. Kiss me as if it were tle last time. Te relatively slort Bogart rises ligl in lis seat in order to take into lis moutl tle upper lip of tle relatively tall Bergman in prole. Hard bodily pressure, wlicl Ilsa returns, signaled by ler place- ment of ler own land over lis, constitutes tle essence of tlis big kiss (gure ,). As we lave already seen, tle logistics of lming two faces witl Casablanca 9: as if it were the last time 10: Interruption: spilled cham- pagne 8 of kisses and ellipses moutls pressed tigltly against one anotler often preclude seeing mucl of wlat transpires once lips are locked. Tis is especially true of tle kisses of tle Hollywood Code era. Te best one can do is to observe wlere one set of lips is positioned before it encounters anotler, and, if one is lucky enougl to experience tle full duration of tle kiss, to observe wlere tley are located at tle end. But, of course, we are usually not so lucky to see a kiss all tle way to its end. Here, for example, just as we begin to take it in, a quick camera tilt down averts our gaze from tle lovers faces to Ilsas land as it acciden- tally knocks over ler glass (gure o). Music, sounding like cannon re, pounds ominously. We now notice tlat because Ilsa lad never drunk to Ricks previous leres looking at you, kid toast, ler clampagne spills. Like tle earlier scenes quick cut to tle Cerman invasion, tlis interruption also gives us no time to enjoy tle kisss full passion. Indeed, it casts an ominous sladow on its carnal pleasure. We miglt dub tle frequent practice of tle interruption of Code-era kisses osculum interruptum. Since any kiss tlat lingered was in danger of seeming excessive and lustful, interruptions were frequent. On tle wlole, during tle Code era, tle mark of excess could be anytling longer tlan tlree seconds. Interruptum could tlen be accomplisled by fade-outs or by cutting away to a new scene or by interrupting our view internally witlin tle same slot, as in tlis camera tilt down to tle spilled clampagne. Ironically, tle tradition of interruptionof looking elsewlere wlile tle kiss itself may continuecan give rise to tle illusion tlat kisses miglt actually endure, but just out of siglt. Te last big kiss in Casablanca oers yet anotler variation of osculum interruptum in tle form of an ellipsis. Ilsa sneaks into Ricks room above lis caf late at niglt. Sle is desperate to obtain tle letters of transit for ler lusband, Victor Laszlo, to leave Casablanca. Wlen Rick arrives, sle rst asks lim to put lis feelings aside and to aid tle resistance lero. Wlen le refuses, sle pulls a gun. Rick welcomes it, Co alead sloot me, youd be doing me a favor. Sle tlen weeps and turns away. Rick lesitates a mo- ment, tlen quickly comes up belind ler, and Ilsa collapses in lis arms. Cetting ready for tle kiss, we are learning, is often more dramatic and more teasingly erotic tlan tle kiss itself. If we tlink of tle kiss as tle syn- ecdocle of tle wlole sex act, tlen tlis part standing in for tle wlole las its very own form of foreplay. As in Edisons Te Kiss, it often consists of two faces leld close togetler, on tle verge of toucling. Wlen two people are seen in prole looking at one anotler at close range, tleir eyes cannot take in tle wlole of tle face at wlicl tley gaze witlout a certain survey- of kisses and ellipses , ing movement up and down or from side to side. Tis movement, wlicl cannot be captured in stills and wlicl Bergman performs magnicently lere, seems to lover on tle brink between looking and toucling. Sillou- etted in prole, face to face, tle couples moutls and noses almost toucl- ing, tle music surges once again as Ilsa says If you knew low mucl I loved you, low mucl I still love you. . . . Again, ler words are interrupted by a kiss initiated by Bogart (gure ). As usual, tle music of As Time Coes By soars, but in a minor key, reacling no concluding clord. Te image dissolves, in medias kiss, replaced by a long slot of a searclliglt. Wly, we ask, are we looking at a searclliglt wlen we could be still looking at wlat is, after all, tle big kiss of tle lm: Have we again cut to tle next scene as witl tle kiss tlat was interrupted by tle Cerman invasion: Not quite. After lolding on tle tower and searclliglt a wlile, we see Rick in tle following slot, dressed exactly as before, still in lis apart- ment, gazing at tle searclliglt tower. It is as if tle lm las blinked and looked away momentarily, but it las not left tle scene entirely. Time las passed, we do not know exactly low mucl, but Ricks next line, And tlen . . . , spoken to Ilsa discovered seated across tle room, indicates tlat tle dramatic scene between tlem continues, but tlat tle full action of tle kissand wlatever may lave been its aftermatllas been elided. We cannot tell wlat las transpired in tle ellipsis between tle time of tle kiss and tle time of Rick gazing at tle searclliglt. Wlat we do know is tlat tle couples conversation still centers on tle same topic tlat initiated tle kissIlsas continuing love for Rick. An ellipsis is a rletorical gure of speecl in wlicl a word or words re- quired by strict grammatical rules are omitted. In conventions of printing 11: Casablanca, prekiss: If you knew how much I loved you (o of kisses and ellipses or writing, an ellipsis is a literal gap indicated by tlree sequential dots tlat omit words tlat could, by tle logic of wlat comes before or after, be present. In botl instances, tle missing words are implied by tle context. Te context, in tle case of Casablanca, is tle kissindeed all tle kisses begun and never seen to be completed by Ilsa and Rick tlrouglout tle lm. Ellipses lappen all tle time in movies, frequently witlin tle same scene, usually accomplisled by single cuts from slot to slot. But ellipses are especially frequent and felt as ellipsesnoticed as dot, dot, dotwlen tley elide sex acts. An ellipsis tlat occurs in tle middle of a kiss, and re- turns to tle couple in tle same space and at an unspecied later time, is as close as a Code lm can get to tle suggestion of otlerwise unmentionable sexual contacts. Wlat do we infer in tlis case: How, for example, do Ilsa and Rick now belave toward one anotler: Certainly tley are now relaxed. Rick is unmussed, but le is smoking and contemplative as le gets tle story of Laszlos unexpected return from Ilsa wlile standing at tle window. In tle process of tlis story we learn tlat Ilsa lad been married to Laszlo only a slort time before le was sent to tle concentration camp, tlat tley lad kept tle marriage secret to protect ler from similar persecution, and tlat tle nature of ler relation to Laszlo was more lero worslip tlan carnal desire. Respect and aection, not passion, mark tle relations of tle licit couple. (At one point we see lim kiss Ilsa witl fatlerly aection.) Ilsa, too, is now relaxed, and sle nestles (postcoi- tally:) in Ricks arms as sle tells lim, infamously, to do tle tlinking for all of us. Later Rick will explain to Laszlo tlat Ilsa came to lis apartment to get tle letters of transit, pretending sle still loved lim: I let ler pre- tend. Is tlis wlat tle Production Code calls an attractive presentation of adultery and illicit sex: Obviously a lot depends on low one interprets tle ellipsis and Ricks I let ler pretend. Film critic Riclard Maltby ar- gues tlat tle lm neitler conrms nor denies Rick and Ilsas aair, tlus refusing to take responsibility for tle story some viewers may cloose to construct. Code enforcers let it go, probably because it does not lead, in tle end, to tle union of tle adulterous couple. Maltby cites a letter from tle Code administrator )osepl Breen to )ack Warner in wlicl le observes tlat tle scene in Ricks apartment seems to contain a sugges- tion of a sexual aair. . . . We believe tlis could possibly be corrected by replacing tle fade out . . . witl a dissolve, and slooting tle succeeding scene witlout any sign of a bed or coucl, or anytling wlatever sugges- tive of a sex aair. In otler words, Breen believed tlat tle dissolve to a later moment could allow tle lmmakers to ever so discreetly deny wlat of kisses and ellipses ( tley were simultaneously indicating. Te fact tlat Rick will ultimately de- cide tlat tleir little aair (wletler construed as possible or actual) does not amount to a lill of beans wlen weigled against tle larger world struggle, plus tle fact tlat Laszlo ultimately gets tle girl, even if sle does not love lim, means tlat a plysical relation can be suggested as long as it is also possible to deny it. Sexual desire ultimately exists in tlis and many otler Code-era lms so tlat it may be sublimated to a more puried, ideological, and aestletic goodwletler tle good of tle family or, in tlis case, tle good of tle American and European struggle against fascism. Desire and sexual plea- sure as positive values in tlemselves lave no legitimate, acknowledged place in tle era of tle Code, tlougl tley certainly sneak in around tle edges. Tis, of course, is tle special, perverse pleasure of watcling sex in movies of tlis period: sex can never be indulged in for itself, and for tlis reason it must remain exquisitely ambiguous wlat exactly transpires be- tween Rick and Ilsa. It is easy to ridicule a Code tlat works so lard to keep us from inferring wlat its very obfuscations and interruptions cause us to suspect. But tlis is low eroticism works in tle Code era. It is no accident tlat tle most erotic of tle kisses in wlicl Rick and Ilsa engage is tle one most fully adulterous (by tlis time tley both know tlat Laszlo lives). Tis may also be wly tle two otler movie kissestlat in From Here to Eternity and tlat in Gone with the Windlave also been deemed among tle sexiest. Tey, too, are structured on internal conicts between illicit sexual desires and tle demands of war, wletler tle Civil War or World War ii. Code kisses are memorable, it seems, not because tley are necessarily performed by sexy men and sexy women (las Humplrey Bogart, witl lis perpetually wet lower lip, ever been, objectively speaking, sexy:), but because tley are intrinsically structured around conicts between sexual pleasure and taboo. It is not necessary, lowever, for tle desire-enlancing taboo to consist of strict patriarclal laws sucl as tle one forbidding adultery, nor tlat tle taboo be one actually written into tle Production Code. Te kiss tlat will often seem tle most erotic need only be placed in tension witl an internal resistance to its pleasures. Remarkably, tle male actor of tle Code era wlo las most often embodied tlese internal resistances, and wlo tlus often participated in tle most erotic (and neurotic) kisses, is tle supercially wlolesome, middle-American )ames Stewart. Stewarts most famous kiss is certainly tle virtuoso 6o-degree slowly encircled one performed witl Kim Novak in Alfred Hitclcocks Vertigo (,,8). A less acknowledged (: of kisses and ellipses erotic kiss, loweverand one not yet overtly rebelling against Code limitsoccurs in Frank Capras well-loved family melodrama Its a Won- derful Life (,(6).' Here Stewarts Ceorge Bailey reluctantly pays a call to lis former sweet- leart Mary (Donna Reed). Tey are obviously drawn to one anotler, but Ceorges goals in life are college and travel, and le knows tlat Mary is capable of miring lim in tle sort of small-town family life lis adventur- ous goals velemently resistand tlat Capras lm ultimately celebrates. Wlen Ceorge lappens by Marys parlor one summer niglt, le rudely begrudges ler tle visit, and Mary ironically taunts ler nosy, interfering motler witl tle claim, very far from tle trutl, tlat Ceorge is making violent love to ler. But wlen an old beau of Marys plones ler from New York, tle call provides an occasion for Ceorge and Mary to put tleir leads togetler before tle moutlpiece and receiver of an old-faslioned teleplone. In tle conversation, Ceorges nose and moutl toucl Marys lair (gure :). As le senses ler presence, le becomes simultaneously aroused and enraged, fearing tle entanglement sle represents and de- siring ler all tle more for tlat fear. He eventually drops tle plone mid- conversation and faces Mary directly: I dont want . . . to get married. I want to do wlat I want to do! Violently slaking ler, Ceorge gradually transforms tle slake into an embrace, and tle embrace into a tiglt kiss tlat proves Marys comment to ler motler correct: le is making violent love to ler (gure ). Moreover, tle kiss is exceedingly long, or at least we infer tlat it is since a cut to Marys motler, wlo lad been spying on tle pair, scurrying upstairs at tlis naked display of passion, keeps us from see- ing mucl. Tis slot is followed, in a radical ellipsis, by Mary and Ceorge emerging from a clurcl, married. A kiss between sweetlearts tlat leads directly to marriage can lardly be called taboo. However, Ceorges inter- nal resistance to Marys clarms enacts tle violent tension between fear and desire tlat renders tlis kiss, so little of wlicl is actually seen, one of tle most erotic of tle entire Code era. Plysically, a kiss is tle juxtaposition of two orbicularis oris muscles in a stage of contraction. Orbicularis oris is tle splincter muscle around tle moutl tlat slapes and controls tle size of tle moutl opening. Used for talking and facial expressions, and capable of four distinct types of movement, tlis muscle is also central to kissing. As we lave already seen Orality of kisses and ellipses ( in tle previous examples of kisses, every bit as exciting as tle muscular locking of lips is tle dramatic moment of transition from distant to more proximate forms of communication: from, say, talking face to face, wlere tle muscles lave one function, as Ceorge and Mary do tlrougl tle device of tle teleplone moutlpiece, to, at tle opposite extreme, locking lips or sucking face. Te original function of tlese splincterlike muscles, before tley were employed to talk or to kiss, was to sustain life by sucking milk. In silent lms, wlere pantomime often takes tle place of spoken words, and moutls take on an allure far beyond tleir function in speecl, we are often dramatically reminded of tle moutls originary, nonspeaking function. Te fact tlat silent cinema existed in tle era before tle Hollywood Pro- duction Code outlawed lustful, excessive, and adulterous kisses means Its a Wonderful Life (dir. Frank Capra, 1946) 12: Georges nose and mouth touch Marys hair as they share the phone 13: George and Mary do make violent love (( of kisses and ellipses tlat silent lms often allow us to watcl tle anatomy of wlole kisses and to better observe tle ratler blatant oral pleasures of tlese uninterrupted osculations. Consider, for example, tle kisses of two of tle most famous lovers botl on and o tle silent American screen: Creta Carbo and )oln Cilbert in Flesh and the Devil (dir. Clarence Brown, ,:;). Wlen Cilberts dasling, young Austrian ocer and Carbos soplisticated (and unbeknownst to Cilbert, married) baroness rst nd tlemselves alone in a moonlit garden at a glamorous Old World ball, tleir romance is literally and guratively kindled by a matcl intended to liglt a cigarette. In tleir secluded spot, al- ready drawn close and framed in a tiglt slot, Cilberts Count Leo speaks: You are very beautiful. You are very young, Carbos ironically named Felicitas replies, protruding sligltly parted lips. Slould we wisl to con- sider sucl tlings in a silent lm in wlicl words are seen but not leard, it is possible tlat tle realistic motivation for tlis rst protrusion of ler parted lips is tle pronunciation of tle unleard word you (gure (). But, of course, tle beauty of silent lms is tlat tle realistic motivation for any gesture is often beside tle point. We are in a realm of mute eloquence. Carbos lips part and protrude because sle is tle seductive vamp, and vamps are oral beings wlo tlrive on sucking tle lifeblood of tlose tley seduce. Unlike many a previous silent-screen vamp, lowever, sle does not merely seek to destroy ler prey. Sle, too, is cauglt up in tle esly pleasures by wlicl tle devil tempts. Any kiss requires tlat tle kissers rst face one anotler. One of tle reasons smoking las been somewlat slower to fade from tle Ameri- can screen tlan from public life may well lave to do witl its usefulness in creating tle proximity for kissing. Te cigarette, moreover, oers an eloquent preguration, as well as an occasional upstaging, of tle kiss to come. Holding one up to ler face, Carbo awaits tle liglt for wlicl tle awestruck Cilbert fumbles. Sle places tle cigarette dead center between puckered, proered lips, as if teacling lim witl it wlat le miglt later do witl lis tongue (gure ,). Ten, wlile still awaiting tle liglt, sle sud- denly removes tle cigarette from ler moutl and places it in lis. Cilberts wlole body responds to tle oral intrusion, drawing erect and sligltly back as le recognizes ler bold invitation. Already probed by tle moist ciga- rette tlat Carbo lerself las kissed, Cilbert nevertleless proceeds witl tle increasingly unnecessary business of liglting tle matcl. Its purpose, wlen lit, is to dramatically illuminate tleir faces. But tlis illumination is more for us tlan for tlem. Tey tlemselves lave moved beyond tle stage in wlicl siglt matters to tle more proximate senses of smell, taste, and of kisses and ellipses (, toucl. To signal tlis, Carbo blows out tle unnecessary matcl, and Cilbert nally gets tle point: You know, le says, wlen you blow out tle matcl tlats an invitation to kiss: Once again, in tlis silent lm, we do not botler to tlink about low Cilbert could lave spoken tlese words witl a cigarette planted dead center in lis moutl. We lave been transported to a realm of suspended sexual anticipation tlat las already forgotten about moutls as organs of speecl. We lave also forgotten about cigarettes as objects for smoking. Cilbert discards tle still unlit cigarette and nally takes Carbo in lis arms. Te kiss tlat follows is cast in tle sladow and slows only tleir sillouet- ted forms pressing togetler. It is not tle kind of kiss tlat slows us exactly wlat tle moutl and lips do, but tlis is not because any Code prolibits it. Indeed, everytling tlat las gone before las conspired to make us believe Flesh and the Devil (dir. Clarence Brown, 1927) 14: Garbos lips protrude on the unheard word you. 15: Garbo places the cigarette, as if teaching Gilbert what he might later do with his tongue (6 of kisses and ellipses tlat tlese two glamorous beings face eacl otler, as Code era kissers can- not, witl parted lips. No one wlo las seen a baby sinking back satiated from tle breast and falling asleep witl usled cleeks and a blissful smile can escape tle re- ection tlat tlis picture persists as a prototype of tle expression of sexual satisfaction in later life: Sigmund Freuds once slocking tlesis tlat in- fantile sexuality is observable rst, in tle clild sucking at tle breast and second, in tle substitute gesture of tlumb-sucking (or sensual sucking) can lelp us ponder some of tle perverse pleasures of screen kisses. According to Freud, tle moutl is tle rst of tle clilds erotogenic zones to be activated. Tumb, lip, or toe sucking is a sensual, autoerotic pleasure tlat excites tle mucous membrane of tle moutl similar to tle way tle lips and moutl were once stimulated by tle warm ow of milk. Repeti- tive sensual sucking of a part of tle clilds own body tlus becomes de- tacled from tle satisfaction of original nourislment to become a labial zone of pleasure in its own riglt. Te kiss is an act of sexual intimacy in wlicl tle moutls pregure tle later joining of otler body parts. In tlis teleological way of tlinking, a kiss anticipates, but does not yet arrive at, a more advanced, adult stage of genital sex. But it is also an act of intimacy tlat recalls tle earlier act of maternal breast-feeding in wlicl one eroto- genic zonetle motlers nipple, ler milkexcites anotlertle infants moutl. Sucking at tle breast, and tle more frequently ignored maternal side of tlis equation, giving-to-suck, are tlus arguably at tle origin of all sexual pleasures to come. But low exactly do we understand tlis sexual pleasure to come: Freud often asserts tlat tle goal of sexualityits dening instanceis a release in genital disclarge. Tis is tle end pleasure. Freud denes perversion as any sexual activities tlat eitler extend, in an anatomical sense, beyond tle regions of tle body tlat are designed for sexual union or linger over tle intermediate relations to tle sexual object wlicl slould normally be traversed rapidly on tle patl towards tle nal sexual aim. Freuds terms are inadequate, botl to lis own discussion of sexualitysince le fully realizes tlat a kiss miglt be lingered on a little longer tlan absolutely necessary to aclieve disclarge in copulationand for our examination of movie kisses, since all movies before tle late sixties must censor any Itching and Scratching of kisses and ellipses (; reference to normal sexual acts and (perversely) substitute kisses in tleir place. Motives of decorum and decency dictated tlat movies of tle kiss era necessarily xate on tle infantile and perverse orality of kisses. Kissing too long, kissing posited as tle sole visible sexual act, necessarily be- comes, as Freud says of patlological symptoms, obsessive and repetitive.' In tle love scene tlat follows Carbo and Cilberts rst kiss, for example, languorous kissing soon becomes dangerously vampiric. It lingers. Te excess of tle aair is measured in wlat may be one of tle silent screens longest kisses (nearly twenty seconds). Its carnal pleasure for tle viewer is complicated, lowever, by several factors: First, tle viewers knowledge tlat a man we soon learn to be Carbos lusband, tle Baron Von Rladan, may be approacling, second, a sudden cut to black tlat seems to inter- rupt tle kiss, but wlicl actually proves to be a new point of view as tle barons land slowly opens tle bedroom door and tlen clencles into a st wlen tle space opened discloses tle ongoing kiss, nally, as tle long osculation continues, we resume sometling like our original view, but tlis time subtly reframed so as to make Carbos already dominant pose more obviously vampiric as sle drinks from Cilberts lips wlile turning ler eyes to encounter tle baron. In identifying tle perversity of oral stimulations tlat lave no furtler issue in a lm, I do not meant to suggest tlat tlese lms should progress to genital stimulation, tlat it is perverse tlat tley do not. Ratler, I want to stress tle paradox of an era in wlicl supposedly innocent kisses must constitute tle be-all and end-all of sexual pleasure. In preCode era kisses tlis means tlat adults must sometimes belave as if tley were orally x- ated. Consider a moment, late in tlis same lm, wlen Carbo, ever tle seductress, laving used a variation of tle earlier liglt-my-cigarette trick to seduce Cilberts best friend, now nds lerself married to lim but still lust- ing after Cilbert. Te tlree friends are taking communion from a pastor wlo suspects Carbo and Cilberts adulterous intentions. As tle commu- nion wine passes from person to person, tle pastor turns tle cup sligltly so tlat tle new drinkers lips will not toucl tle place wlere tle previous lips lave lingered. But wlen tle pastor passes tle cup from Cilbert to Carbo, to tle slock and outrage of tle pastor, sle boldly turns it back so tlat ler lips will toucl wlere lis lave. In tlis orally xated lm, even tle Old Testament pastor smokes a pipe adorned witl tle ceramic gurine of a seductive woman. Of course, Carbos deance of tle forbidding pas- tor will seal ler fate as a willful sinner wlo deserves ler ultimate deatl (8 of kisses and ellipses by drowning. But before tlis end, we lave run tle gamut of tle perverse pleasures of tle moutl. Te point is not to accuse kiss-era lms of tleir perverse orality, but to see tlis perversion as a model for understanding sexual pleasure tout court. For example, Leo Bersani, in a discussion of Freud, argues tlat often tle pleasurable unpleasurable tension of sexual stimulation seeks not to be released, but to be increased. Tus a model of tension and release is complicated by tle existence of sexual excitations tlat augment pleasure in ways quite distinct from simple disclarge. Pleasure, in otler words, is not tle same tling as satisfaction and may rely on a certain unplea- sure tlat prolongs excitement. Bersani beautifully describes Freuds two forms of sexual pleasure as, on one land, an itcl tlat can be satised by a scratcl, and, on tle otler, an itcl tlat does not seek to be scratcled, tlat seeks notling better tlan its own prolongation, even its own intensica- tion. Te itcl (augmentation of excitement) and scratcl (satisfaction in dis- clarge) models of sexual pleasure operate in all forms of sexual contact. It would tlerefore be a mistake to view tle kiss as tle itcl and genital sex as tle scratcl. We slall see in clapter ,, for example, low one of tle most genitally oriented of all graplic art lms, In the Realm of the Senses, is predicated entirely on an itcl model of sexual excitement, wlile some of tle kisses examined lere function, for all tle kisss usual role as foreplay, as concluding scratcles. Indeed, in tle extremely limited repertoire of sexual acts permitted in tle era of tle kiss, kisses positioned at tle end function as scratcles, wlile kisses sucl as tlose we lave examined in Casablanca and Flesh and the Devil function as itcles. Te itclier kisses, lowever, seem to teacl us tle most about a sexual excitement tlat, as tle montage of kisses and embraces tlat concludes Cinema Paradiso slows, does not teleologically lead to end pleasure but may be, as Bersani suggests, a circle leading back to tle polymorplously perverse sucking clild. Te kiss is a relatively late form of oral eroticismwlat Adam Plillips calls a craving for otler moutlstlat is central to adolescence but tlat also returns us to tle primary sensuous experience of smelling and tast- ing anotler person rst learned at tle breast. Wlat is remarkable about tle kiss, lowever, is tlat it can be simultaneously given and received. Unlike so many otler sex acts tlat depend on penetrationone convex Reciprocity of kisses and ellipses (, organ tting into anotler concave onetle kiss is a contact in wlicl one can toucl tle otler witl tle same body partslips, tongue, mucous membranewitl wlicl one is toucled oneself. It is tlus unique among sex acts in its great potential for reciprocity. D. W. Winnicott stresses tle motlers sensitive adaptation to tle infants needs and ler ability to provide tle illusion tlat ler breast is part of tle infant, wlile )ean La- plancle stresses tle interpenetration of tle vital (lifegiving) order witl tle sexual (pleasure-giving) order to stress tle motlers reaction, an ac- tivity tlat le describes, at tle limit, as a kind of maternal seduction. But even allowing for a nongenital maternal seduction in tle nursing situa- tion, tle incommensurability of tle partners, tle absolute dependency of tle infant, and tle dissimilarity of tle organsmoutl and breast mitigates against anytling like egalitarian reciprocity in tle nursing situa- tion. In tle adolescent or adult kiss, lowever, eacl moutl is equipped witl tle same parts: receptive mucous membrane of tle lips and a tongue tlat can retract or probe, not to mention saliva and, unlike in tle baby, teetl. Unlike leterosexual intercourse, moutls and tongues can inter- penetrate in a potentially mutual give-and-take. Tis may be one reason wly women are tle great connoisseurs of romantic kissesnot, as las sometimes been suggested, because of an innate female predilection for soft-core, soft-focus romanticism, but because kisses are so potentially egalitarian. Tere are few otler (equipmentless) sexual acts in wlicl a woman can be botl penetrator and penetrated. Tis is not to say tlat all kisses are fully reciprocal sexual acts. One could say, for example, tlat Cilbert kisses Carbo before tle fade-out in Flesh and the Devil, for it is true tlat Cilbert, tle man, in tle end takes Carbo, tle woman, in lis arms, tlougl all tle rest of tle kisses in tlis lm oer tle spectacle of tle woman as tle dominant kisser. In a certain leterosexual ortlodoxy very mucl at work in American screen kisses all tle way tlrougl tle sixties, it may be tle patriarclal job of men to initiate kisses, but it is frequently tle job of tle woman to teacl, invite, or even order tle man to kiss (Kiss me, kiss me as if it was tle last time).' A kiss takes place in time, tle probe of a moutl or tongue can lead to a later answering probeor not. A kiss is botl a sex act in itself and, as Plillips puts it, a performed allusion to one. Sucl is tle dilemma, and tle glory, of tle adolescent era of tle kiss as tle be-all and end-all of movie sex before tle sixties. For even in Carbo and Cilberts example of a pre-Code, lustful, open-moutled kisstle sort tlat would be banned after ,(even in a kiss tlat serves as a prelude to wlat is clearly meant ,o of kisses and ellipses to be seen as a torrid and destructive love aair, all tlat we will ever see of tlis aair will be . . . more kisses. To be sure, tlese kisses will be in lori- zontal positions, take place in wlat is obviously a boudoir, and manifest a mood of postcoital familiarity. Even so tlese kisses remain all we see. Consider tle very next love scene in Flesh and the Devil, wlicl fol- lows immediately on tle fade-out from tle rst kiss. After an intertitle proclaims, No one lad ever loved before . . . Leo was sure of it, tle lm fades into wlat seems to be Carbos boudoir. Sle reclines languorously on a divan wlile Cilbert lounges on a rug witl lis lead resting rst on ler lap, later on ler breast. He smokes in undisguised postcoital relaxation (lis cigarette nally lit!). It could be days or only a few lours since tleir rst kiss, tle ellipsis tlat separates tle two scenes does not allow us to tell exactly. Te couple is fully dressed, but Cilberts ligl and tiglt military collar is undone, and tle couple is intimately reveling in tle kind of feet- o-tle-oor reclining position tlat would, six years lence, become taboo in all American lms. Long past tle stage of needing an oral toy to bring tlem togetler, tley now kiss freely and deeply. Carbos luminous Felicitas las only to direct ler lips down, and Cilberts Leo only to direct lis up, for tlem to meet (gure 6). Nor does obscure liglting tlis time prevent us from seeing tle position of tleir parted lips. Later tley will be discov- ered in agrante delicto by Carbos lusband as sle watcles lim enter tle room (gure ;). Tougl it is obvious tlat in between tle rst kiss and tlese more intimate ones, sometling las transpired, botl tle fade-out tlat ends tle rst kiss and tle fade-in tlat begins tlis next series of kisses elide tlese furtler acts. Te context of tlis ellipsis, unlike tlose of Casablanca, tlus allows us to presume tlat genital sexual acts lave transpired. Tougl tle camera las, again, looked away, tlis particular postcoital aftermatl does not preclude tle possibility of all sorts of intimate, adulterous relations, for very soon Cilbert will learn, just as Bogart did in tle Code-era lm, tlat le is an unwitting adulterer. Indeed, tle main dierence between pre-Code and Code kisses, besides tleir obvious duration and tle position of moutls and bodies, is low mucl furtler sex can be presumed to lave taken place in tle ellipses. Pre-Code ellipses are more likely, as in Flesh and the Devil, to build a long sexual aair into tle fade-outifade-in. Alterna- tively, tley miglt punctuate tle elided sex witl a rletorical ourisl, as tle train wlistle tlat follows Marlene Dietricl and Clive Brookss rst kiss in Shanghai Express (dir. )osef von Sternberg, ,:). In tlis lm, tle wlistle does tle aective work of tle missing coitus, literally letting o steam. A particularly interesting example of tle use of ellipsis as a rletorical of kisses and ellipses , ourisl in tle pre-Code era to point lasciviously to tle beyond-tle-kiss tlat we do not see occurs in Mervin Le Roys romantic comedy Tonight or Never (,) witl Cloria Swanson and Melvin Douglas. Like Shanghai Express tlis lm occupies tle fascinating transition period between tle institution of tle Code (rst promulgated in ,o) and its gradual en- forcement by ,(. Swanson plays a glamorous opera singer wlose per- formances lave been accused of lacking passion. To remedy tlis lack sle determines to lave an aair, cloosing a landsome man wlo las been following ler. Tis man (Douglas) is a famous American opera impresario wlom sle mistakes for a gigolo. Maneuvering ler way into lis apartment, sle is prepared to be seduced by lim for tle sake of ler art. Wlen le discovers ler belief tlat le is a gigolo, le acts tle part, locking ler in tle room and passionately kissing ler. Tis rst kiss is rougl and fast: Douglas Flesh and the Devil 16: Garbo need only direct her lips down 17: Garbos long vampiric kiss while she discov- ers her husband at the door ,: of kisses and ellipses leans over tle diminutive Swanson and pusles down lard, tle camera tracks in fast to a close-up, tle camera movement, as mucl as tle kiss itself, conveying tle rouglness. Afterward, le lolds ler at arms lengtl to scrutinize ler reaction and tlrows ler rouglly down onto tle divan. However, le is also somewlat relieved to see tlat sle is scandalized by lis rouglness. Lying back on tle divan, sle invites a new kind of attention by pointing to potential bruises on ler arms (gure 8), providing lis cue to employ a more tender kind of kiss to make better ler lurts. Trouglout tle rest of tle scene, Swanson alternately invites and re- pulses Douglas: Let me get up . . . I really dont want to get up. I dont want to love a man . . . tlat is I do. He forces tle issue witl tle eponymous ulti- matum: Toniglt or never, giving ler tlree minutes, until tle clock on tle Tonight or Never (dir. Mervin Le Roy, 1931) 18: Swanson points to bruises and demands a more tender kind of kiss 19: The kiss for which Swanson has asked of kisses and ellipses , mantel climes ten, to make up ler mind. If sle remains in lis apartment after tlree minutes pass, sle will lave to take tle consequences. After furtler verbal sparring tlat neatly devours tlree minutes in tlis ratler talky adaptation of a Broadway play, sle begs, in yet anotler example of tle woman inviting andior instructing tle kiss: Before I go, please kiss me just once, sweetly, tenderly, as if we really belonged to eacl otler. Tey do kiss as if tley really belonged (gure ,). But wlereas tle camera plunged forward into tleir rst, rougl, quick kiss, tlis time it coyly pans riglt to tle clock on tle mantel as it climes ten. Almost immediately Swanson, oscreen, is leard to say, Please call a taxi, and Douglas is leard to answer, teasingly, Its too late! Fade out. Again, tle look away from tle kiss is a major clicl of so-called classic American movies tlat lints at wlat cannot be slown. Before tle Code was fully enforced, sucl lints were stronger (compare tlis dialogue, wlicl clearly suggests tlat Swanson will spend tle niglt, to tle cut to tle searclliglt in Casablanca, wlicl leaves us wondering). However, botl types are limited to tle display of oral pleasures tlat become more per- verse tle more tley are asked to substitute for a normal progression to leterosexual genital acts. We lave seen tlat all screen kisses slare a connection to infantile sexu- ality born of lunger and derived from tle original oral gratication of sucking, in eect, of eating (or drinking) tle otler. Some of tle most memorable kisses seem to understand tlat a primal lunger lies at tle root of tlese oral pleasures. Plillips writes, Wlen we kiss we devour tle object by caressing it, we eat it, in a sense, but sustain its presence. Te dierence between tle adolescent kiss and infantile sucking, tlen, is tlat tle kiss is a kind of aim-inlibited eating. Like a gum-clewer, tle kisser never swallows wlat le or sle cravesaltlougl Carbos vampiric kiss and sexualized communion come perilously close. Some of tle most arresting screen kisses are tlus not surprisingly related to eating. To return tlen to some of tle quicker kisses from tle era of tle Production Code, wlen tlis devouring dimension was necessarily tempered by spe- cic prolibitions against open-moutled, lustful, and excessive kisses, let us consider a kiss between Cary Crant and Ingrid Bergman in Alfred Hitclcocks Notorious (,(6). Famous for tle ingenious way in wlicl Eating the Other ,( of kisses and ellipses Hitclcock circumnavigates tle lengtl restrictions tlat lad developed to counter tle possibility of supposed excess, tlis lm systematically mixes its kisses witl lunger and tlirst. On assignment in Rio to spy on a ring of Nazis, Bergmans Alicia and Crants Devlin begin to fall in love. Sle is eager, but le is cautious because of ler disreputable past. Everytling in tle following scene seems to run in reverse. It begins witl a big kiss on tle balcony of Alicias lotel. Te kiss is full, lengtly (about four seconds), and uninterrupted (gure :o). It is very mucl tle kind of big crescendo kiss tlat one miglt expect as tle nale of a love scene or even, unnisled, as a lms nal clincl. Indeed, it is as if Hitclcock las closen to reverse tle usual way Code-era lms build up to tle big moment of tle scene-ending kiss, tlus proceeding to a scene of separation tlat will leave tle kissers still lungry for one anotler. After tlis kiss, still lolding one anotler close in a long, continuous embrace, tley begin to discuss dinner. Nibbling on Devlins cleek, fondling lis earlobe witl tle back of ler ngers, Alicia resists going out to eat. Devlin, more practical, says, We lave to eat. In answer, Alicia describes tle clicken sle will cook for lim as tleir moutls and noses taste and smell eacl otler. Te decision to stay in and eat is coded as a decision to lave an aair. (So of course it will lave to be interrupted. But Hitclcock cleverly gets around some of tle usual features of tle osculum interruptum.) Witl tle big kiss already performedlanging tlere as an invitation to eat moretle scene proceeds to perform dozens of small kisses and nibbles of tle sort tlat would, more typically, lead up to tle big one. No otler Hollywood director of tle Code era, to my knowledge, las managed to get away witl so mucl kissing for so long. From tle balcony tle en- 20: Notorious (dir. Alfred Hitchcock, 1946), Bergman and Grant begin the scene with a big, full-bodied kiss on the balcony of kisses and ellipses ,, twined couple moves into tle living room of Alicias lotel, wlere Devlin makes a plone call and picks up a message to report to tle oce for tleir espionage assignment. Tey neck all tle way from tle plone to tle door wlere Devlin pauses for a last kiss, all tle wlile subtly pulling away (gure :). Te consummation of eitler mealtle sexual one tley are already tasting, and tle clicken one tley are discussingis deferred. Te genius of tle scene is to make tle kisses do double duty: tley botl advance tle plot and prolong tle itcl, even wlile beginning witl tle kind of long, fullling kiss tlat miglt otlerwise count as a scratcl. Devlins exit is a master toucl: le pulls away from tle last possible kiss, leaving Alicia alone at tle door, still lungry for more (gure ::). Wlen Devlin eventually returns witl tle news tlat tleir assignment will be for Alicia to seduce tle Nazi villain, botl lose appetite. Alicia sub- Notorious 21: Still kissing, Grant slowly extri- cates himself 22: Devlin pulls away from the last kiss, leaving Alicia at the door hungry for more ,6 of kisses and ellipses stitutes tle lesser oral satisfaction of a drink for Devlin. Tey will not get to kiss again until tle lms climax, wlen Devlin rescues Alicia from tle villain wlo las been slowly poisoning ler. Te couple tlus remains lun- gryAlicia quite literally must starve lerself to resist poisoning by tle Nazi lusband wlo discovers ler espionageuntil tle very end, wlen Devlin escorts Alicia from wlat is meant to be ler deatlbed, and tley resume tleir mutual nibbles. )ust as a clild sucks greedily at its motlers breast, so tlese two grown movie stars inlale, suck, and taste one anotler, sustaining eacl otler as objects of mutual oral desire. Film viewing oers a vicarious pleasure in wlicl senses perceived at a distancesiglt and learingare substituted for more proximate senses of contacttoucl, taste, smell.' Wlen I engage in a kiss, I ultimately give up tlis distance for proximity as tle face of tle person I kiss comes closer. Siegfried Kracauer cites Marcel Prousts famous description of a kiss from Te Guermantes Way to slow low perspective clanges as we move into close-ups: skin surfaces become like aerial plotograply, eyes become like lakes or volcano craters, and tle prison of conventional reality is broken apart to reveal new possibilities. Prousts kiss points to some of tle more disturbing qualities of tle close-ups magnied view. In a many-paged de- scription of lis narrators kiss of Albertine, tle girl of lis dreams, we en- counter tlis description: In tlis brief passage of my lips towards ler cleek it was ten Albertines tlat I saw, tlis single girl being like a goddess witl several leads, tlat wlicl I lad last seen, if I tried to approacl it, gave place to anotler. At least so long as I lad not toucled it, tlat lead, I could still see it, a faint perfume reacled me from it. But alasfor in tlis matter of kissing our nostrils and eyes are as ill placed as our lips are slapedsuddenly my eyes ceased to see, next, my nose, crusled by tle collision, no longer perceived any fragrance, and witlout tlereby gaining any clearer idea of tle taste of tle rose of my desire, I learned, from tlese unpleasant signs, tlat at last I was in tle act of kissing Albertines cleek. As le approacles tle pink cleek le las so longed to smell and taste, tle narrator discovers to lis dismay tlat tle entity tlat lad been tle visual Albertine breaks up into fragments. Wlere lis sense of siglt lad been in need of a certain distance, tle more proximate senses give only parts, The Senses, Close and at a Distance of kisses and ellipses ,; some are even foiled by proximity itself, and for Prousts narrator, wlo clearly wants to see as mucl as le feels, tle anticipated possession of tle girl never quite materializes. Te lesson for tle movie kiss, lowever, is not quite tle same as for Prousts narrator. Indeed, tlougl tle camera brings us close to tle two kissing faces, so tlat tle eyes may seem, as Kracauer notes, like lakes or craters, we never arrive at tle point wlere nostrils and eyes seem ill placed because our eyes never cease to see, our nose is not crusled. For tle viewers of tle movie kiss, tle integrity of tle kissed object never breaks up, even in close-ups as tiglt as tle one leld on Montgomery Clift and Elizabetl Taylor in A Place in the Sun (dir. Ceorge Stevens, ,,). From our vantage point looking on from outside tle kiss, we see low tle two faces t togetler to become onea view tlat eluded Prousts kisser. Indeed, tlis narrator is so focused on tle imagined visual possession of Albertine tlat le seems not to realize tlat tle pleasure of a kiss resides in tlis slift to anotler register of sensation in wlicl laving at a distance is no longer possible. In tle magnied moving-image close-up of tle kiss, wlat tle person wlo watcles lacks in tle senses of toucl, smell, and taste is gained, in a compensatory way, in tle close vision tlat falls slort of tle breakup experienced by Proust. In otler words, tle lm kiss partially satises, for its viewer, tle desire of Prousts narrator to lold onto some semblance of tle picture of tle wlole of tle face tlat le kisses. Tis visual pleasure taken in an act tlat is inlerently about otler senses gradually becomes institutionalized in lm listory as kisses become tle key punc- tuation marks of narrative lms. Kisses tlus allow us to cop a look, so to speak, at tlose wlo cop a feel. But tlis does not mean tlat we vicariously kiss even if, as I lave main- tained, we learn a great deal about kissing from screening tlese sex acts. In tle introduction I noted Vivian Sobclacks argument tlat to under- stand movies we must literally make sense of relations of embodiment, by wlicl sle means tlat cinema consists of modes of seeing and learing, as well as of plysical and reective movement tlat constitute tle very foundation of its expressiveness. In otler words, our own sense of toucl is invoked wlen we watcl toucling on tle screen. But our toucl, as I also argue in tle introduction, does not simply mimic wlat we see on tle screen. My moutl may pucker, my tongue may move, but I do not myself kiss. Ratler, one bodily sense translates into anotler, energies transmute, and I experience a diuse sensuality. Prousts narrator may experience tle loss of siglt as le moves closer to Albertine, and le passes tlat frustrated sense on to lis readers. But Sobclack suggests tlat spectators wlo watcl ,8 of kisses and ellipses tle mediated sexual encounter of embodied beings are, unlike Prousts lapless narrator, able to feel witl tleir otler senses wlat only seems in- trusive to Proust. Siglt commutes to toucl, not literal toucl, but our own senses make sense of tle vision of toucl in our own esl in laptic ways tlat cannot be reduced to siglt alone. Te lms of Andy Warlol stand outside tle mainstream of silent and sound, Code and pre-Code lms we lave so far examined. But because many of lis early, silent, avant-garde lms so single-mindedly anatomize specic sex acts, wletler tlose actually seenas in Kiss, or Couch, or Blue Movieor tlose placed just o tle sceneas in Blow Jobtley oer a fascinating commentary on tle more conventional Hollywood, as well as tle more conventional pornograplic, representations of tlese acts. Nowlere is tlis more tle case tlan in lis ,6 lm Kiss, lis rst lm to be publicly projected in a tleater. In tlis compendium of tlirteen kisses, eacl one is longer tlan any of tle kissesCode and pre-Codetlat lad come before in mainstream movies. Te lm adds up to fty-eiglt minutes wlen projected at tle designated, silent speed of sixteen frames per second. Tougl tlis lms lengtl does not approacl tle truly epic proportions of some of Warlols otler early lms, it is undeniably tle one irrefutable epic of kisses. Kisss quasislowed-down eect and concentration on tle sole action of kissing makes possible an abundance of tle sort of detailed anatomizing tlat ap- peared so striking to tle rst critics of Edisons Te Kiss. Wletler or not Warlol actually based lis lm on an arclival viewing of Edisons lm, le intuitively returned to Edisons basics: tle oral attraction of tle kiss itself, bypassing tle long listory of Hollywood kisses tlat required so mucl laborious plotting. Indeed, as originally projected at tle Cramercy Arts Teatrean underground New York tleatertle lm resembled Edisons original even more: Eacl one of tle original one lundred-foot camera rolls of a kiss was slown individually, tlus over time constituting a kind of serial. Only later were tlirteen of tlese more numerous kisses spliced togetler and projected as a single lm, yet leaving all tle rougl begin- nings and ends of eacl roll. By returning to tle roots of tle screen kiss and Edisons waist-up close-ups, Warlols lm oers a glorious epitapl to tle era of tle kiss. Eacl kiss is already in progress as its respective black-and-wlite roll Andy Warhols Kiss of kisses and ellipses ,, begins. Warlol adopts a tiglt two-slot close-up, lolds on it for as long as tle one lundred-foot roll of lm lasts (approximately tlree minutes for lis motor-powered 6mm Bolex). Only in one instance does tle kiss end before tle lm runs out and wlite leader obscures our view. If tle rule against excess in tle Code-era meant tlat no kiss could last very long, and tlat most would conclude a scene followed by an ellipsis, tlen Warlols strategy is to give us tle long middles tlat strictures against excess lad prolibited. In addition, lis sixteen-frames-per-second speed institutes wlat Steplen Kocl calls a ritardandonot exactly slow motion but a marked slowing down tlat lends botl fascination and extra time to anatomize. No ellipses, discreet lookings away, or fade-outs mar our xed regard, but only a teclnological limit. Witlout preliminary credits or title, tle initial reel simply begins, rst as blank wlite leader, tlen followed by a black-and-wlite, contrasty, and very close close-up of an ordinary man witl a mustacle, wire-rimmed glasses, well-groomed, longisl lair, and tie. He occupies tle upper riglt-land side of tle frame, bearing down in tlree-quarter prole in an open-moutled kiss on a sligltly younger, attractive woman witl long lair and a leadband, leaning back into tle lower left side of tle frame. Te man pusles down in rlytlmic motions, tle woman receives tle kiss and pusles back up (gure :). Te kiss itself is almost constant, tlat is, tle juxtaposition of two orbicularis oris muscles in a state of contraction is continuous tlrouglout tle lundred feet of lm at least until tle very end. Yet witlin tlis one long kiss tlere are lots of little onessmall gives and takes, tensions and relaxations, suggestions of drinking and being drunk from as we see neck muscles swallowing wlat must be mingled saliva (gure :(). In and out, up and down tley move in a dreamy routine tlat is uncannily defamiliarized by tle sliglt slowing of tle action. In tlis kiss alonea kiss in wlicl tle mans bristly mustacle may oer lomage to Edisons )oln C. Ricetle action is broken o before tle camera roll ends: tle woman pulls back, smiles, and slows teetl. Te second kiss appears a little less clearly focused at rst. It repeats tle man-on-riglt (super), woman-on-left (supra) positions, and tle woman looks quite a bit like tle woman from tle rst kiss (it is in fact Naomi Levine, Warlols star kisser). But tlis new man is almost comically active. His left land strokes tle side of tle womans face and ler ear, and le seems not too particular about wlere lis kisses landon botl sides of ler moutl, above ler upper lip, below ler clin. Even more slocking by Hollywood standards is tlat lis tongue is visible (gure :,). At one point le takes tle womans entire clin into lis moutl, at anotler point le rubs Kiss (dir. Andy Warhol, 1963) 23: The man pushes down, the woman pushes back 24: Neck muscles are visible swal- lowing 25: Visible tongue 26: The man rubs his chin into the cleft between the womans mouth and chin of kisses and ellipses 6 lis clin into tle cleft between ler moutl and clin (gure :6). His vora- cious entlusiasm exaggerates tle orality tlat we lave seen Freud isolate as tle original pleasure of kisses and in Carbos vampiric drinking of Cilbert. But Warlols orality is crude: witlout tle glamorous liglting, it is botl more real and, due to tle eect of tle ritardando, uncanny. Te rst two kisses oer up a new messiness and longueur, reminding us not only tlat kisses are fundamentally oral pleasures but also of Freuds otler point tlat moutls are tle entrance to tle digestive tract. Saliva must be swallowed, tongues are visible and active, even teetltlose unmen- tionables of tle Hollywood kissare on display. Te tlird kiss oers a contrast in mood: Even tlougl tle kissers relative positions are tle same, witl tle woman on tle left leaning way back, tle man on top leaning way down, tlis kiss, despite tle conventional attractiveness of its couple, is a study in inertia and boredom. Altlougl lands stroke and lips kiss, notl- ing else seems to lappen between tle kissers. Te fourtl kiss breaks tle pattern in a number of ways: by occurring between two men, by oering a camera position tlat slows us more of tle coucl on wlicl all couples sit, by revealing a painting of )ackie Ken- nedy on tle wall belind. Te kissers are two slender, slirtless youtls, one quite adolescent and fair, tle otler a little older and dark. In strong contrast to tle boredom of tle previous couple, tley avidly rub against eacl otler. Te darker, older youtl occupies tle top riglt, tle younger, fairer youtl tle lower left, and le miglt initially be mistaken for a woman given tle context tlus far of leterosexual kisses and lis long lair (gure :;). But even before tle camera dramatically pulls back to reveal botl naked torsos stripped to tleir jeans, we suspect tlat tley are males. Tey lave Adams apples, and tle young man on tle left las lis eyes open, as most of tle women in Warlols kisses, and indeed in most of tle kisses we lave discussed, do not (gure :8).' Tere is an activity on tle part of botl kissers tlat marks tlem, in contrast to Hollywoods depictions of relatively active male kissers and relatively passive female receivers of kisses, as men. (In a later kiss anotler two men, botl witl tleir slirts on tlis time, will face o in remarkably erect, egalitarian positions, kissing straiglt up, neitler one leaning back, neitler one giving more tlan le receives in intense, muscular kisses of absolute reciprocity concentrated on tle lips alone.) In Te Philosophy of Andy Warhol, Warlol writes: Sex is more exciting on tle screen and between tle pages tlan between tle sleets anyway. His Kiss pays lomage to tlis idea by sustaining a fascinated look tlat is also cool and analytical. His real interest, like tlat of tle audience in tle 6: of kisses and ellipses era of tle kiss, is not in seeing, like actual voyeurs, wlat lappens between kissers in real life, but in seeing wlat lappens on tle screen wlen tlese acts are projected. (Warlol limself was rarely in tle room wlen lis lms were slot.) By slowing down, by skipping tle beginning and tle ends, by taking Edisons original xed close-up and just lolding it tlere, Warlol bypasses all tle coy businessdialogue, twirling mustacles, teleplones, cigarettesused to motivate tle oral relation. Instead le lingers on tle perverse essence of tle kisss orality, tle xation on mucous membranes designed for digestion, slowing neitler beginning nor ending. Yet de- spite all tle rule-breaking of Warlols long, sometimes lustful, sometimes comic, always perverse kisses, it is also as if le decided to respect tle formal rules of wlat I lave been calling tle long adolescence of Ameri- can movies before tle breakdown of tle Production Code and before tle Kiss 27: Two young men kiss 28: Pull out on two very active male kissers, one with eyes open of kisses and ellipses 6 inevitable eects of tle sexual revolution made tle kiss just one of many possible sex acts. None of Warlols kisses looks exactly like any of tle Hollywood kisses tlat appear after tle end of American cinemas long adolescence, but tley anticipate tlem. Yet, tley are kisses tlat we know could lead to fur- tler sex acts. But if tlere is a privileging of tle surplus perversion of a proto-gay kiss, tlere is also a respect for tle rules of tle era of tle kiss in limiting action to just a kiss. Like so mucl else in Warlols art, Kiss portrays botl limit and transgres- sion. Te kissers kiss as if tley lave bodies, not just moutls. Even tlougl we do not generally see mucl of tle rest of tle bodies, we know by tle rlytlms of tle movements, tle abandonment of concern about wletler tle kiss even lands on tle moutl, tle voracious openness of tle moutl as one orice among many, tlat tlere is a wlole body attacled. And in tlis respect Kiss most defamiliarizes us from tle conventions of tle kiss era, making us wonder, over fty-eiglt long and absorbing minutes, wlat on eartl we are doingand wlat we lave ever been doingsitting in tle dark, screening kisses. By beginning after tle beginning and ending before tle end, Warlols kisses oer a tting epitapl to and celebration of a time wlen tle kiss was all tle sex tlat could be seen. I lave been arguing tlat ever since Edison lmed and screened a kiss, viewers lave responded viscerally, tlougl not necessarily imitatively, to wlat tley see. I lave also suggested tlat tlis response is not tle same as experiencing a kiss itself. Ratler, on tle rebound my body is moved and toucled by otler bodies wlom I watcl tasting and toucling one anotler. Of course, a glt, a blow, a stab, an explosionany of tle various forms of maylem and violence to tle body tlat tle screen can convey will also synestletically solicit our bodies. Te late great lm critic Pauline Kael wonderfully encapsulated tlese two major sensations of tle movies in tle title of ler second antlology of lm criticism, Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang. Sex and violence, kiss and bang, are tle primary attractions tlat draw us to, or repel us from, popular movies. But tley lave occupied very dierent positions in American cinema lis- tory. Consider, for example, anotler Edison lm made one year before Te Kiss. Te Execution of Mary, Queen of Scots (8,,) was also based on a well-known Broadway play, and it also depicts a small fragment of its Conclusion: Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang 6( of kisses and ellipses plays sensational action. However, instead of bringing into closer view an act tlat lad already been seen on tle stage, it slowed an act of vio- lence tlat tle stage play lad not: Marys beleading by an ax. Te play lad ended witl tle curtain descending as tle ax was raised above Marys lead. Te lm begins witl Mary being blindfolded and ends witl tle executioner brandisling ler severed lead. Trougl tle miracle of stop- action plotograply, wlicl substituted a dummy for tle male actor wlo played Mary, we see tle Scottisl queen lose ler lead. In tlis rst American example of tle special eects of violence, tlere was signicantly no equivalent to )oln Sloans objection to tle sensational display, tle prototype of so many cinematic acts of violence to come. One reason may be tlat Te Execution was plotograpled in long slot and only exlibited in Edisons Kinetoscope. Tus no eect of monstrous magni- cation permitted tle same kind of anatomizing of tle act of belead- ing tlat occurred witl tle stages of tle kiss. But even tlougl tley are parallel sensationalisms addressing tle carnal being of spectators, botl arising at tle very origin of cinema, kisses and bangs lave occupied very dierent positions in American moving-image listory. Te Hollywood Production Code would formulate strict prolibitions on tle display of botl tlat would more or less endure until replaced by tle Motion Picture Association of America (rv) ratings system in ,68, and botl sensa- tionalisms became more graplic witl tle lifting of tle Code. Wlen tle Code ended (ocially in ,68, tlougl it was slowly dying tlrouglout tle decade) and mainstream American lms began to exploit botl of tlese formerly suppressed sensations, violence almost immediately developed, witl great ourisl and style, into one of tle countrys most popular export items. Violence became, as H. Rap Brown once put it, as American as clerry pie. Sex, on tle otler land, wlile it came insistently oniscene at about tle same time, las never seemed quite so American. As we slall see in tle fol- lowing clapters, it was more often an import item. Unlike violence, always faked in ction lm, sex bifurcated into two radically dierent forms: lard core (explicit, unsimulated) and soft core (simulated, faked). Not until tle early seventies would lard-core sexual displays become familiar viewing to large numbers of Americans, male and female alike. Anotler way of looking at tlis dierence between tle status of sex and tle status of vio- lence is to say tlat a certain spectacle of violence revealing tle aggression to or penetration of one body by anotlerin tle form of various kinds of glts, along witl displays of blood, wounds, and even inner organslas become a normal part of tle movies. However, tle mainstream las not of kisses and ellipses 6, as easily absorbed a similar spectacle of sexalso often a penetration of bodieseven tlougl in its own exclusive form, cordoned o as tle sepa- rate genre of pornograply, it is arguably tle most enduring and popular of all moving-image forms. Witl Edisons Te Kiss and Te Execution of Mary, Queen of Scots, we tlus see tle inauguration of a double standard between mediated sex and mediated violence. Te great realist lm tleorist and critic Andr Bazin las pondered tle paradox of tlis double standard in tle following con- sideration of tle limit cases of botl sex and violence: If you can slow me on tle screen a man and woman wlose dress and position are sucl tlat at least tle beginnings of sexual consummation undoubtedly accompanied tle action, tlen I would lave tle riglt to demand, in a crime lm, tlat you really kill tle victimor at least wound lim pretty badly. Bazins point is tle similar pornograplic impulse of eacl act. To go all tle way in tle depiction of sexnot just tle kiss but tle consummation to wlicl tle kiss tendswould also require going all tle way in tle depic- tion of violence: not using tle dummys lead, but, for consistencys sake, a real decapitation. To Bazin, tlese are true obscenities tlat tle cinema simply slould not slow. Interestingly, le goes on to link tlem as related orgasms: Here deatl is tle negative equivalent of sexual pleasure, wlicl is sometimes called, not witlout reason, tle little deatl. Tis Frencl petite mort links tle involuntary sludder of pleasure to tle involuntary sludder of deatlbotl are spasms of tle ecstatic body beside itself. In linking tle spasm of sexual orgasm, wlicl Bazin, ratler like Freud, sees as tle telos toward wlicl sex acts tend, witl deatltle telos toward wlicl violence tendsBazin stresses tle limit case of cinematic realism. A realist tleorist wlo in every otler way celebrates tle ability of cinema to directly present life as it is, witlout tle intervention of language codes or tle land of tle artist, Bazin lere acknowledges, as does tle title of Kaels book, tle sensational power of a medium tlat deals in tle extremes of sex and violence. His ultimate fear is tlat real sex, like real deatl, will lead audiences back to tle abuses of tle Roman circus. His tleoretical point is tlat cinema is founded on just sucl an illicit glimpse of real bodies and real objects of tle world. In tle cinema a nude woman can be openly de- sired and actually caressed in a way sle cannot be in a tleater because, le writes, tle cinema unreels in an imaginary space wlicl demands par- ticipation and identication. Te actor winning tle woman graties me by proxy. His seductiveness, lis good looks, lis daring do not compete witl my desirestley fulll tlem. Yet if tle sex scene does gratify by proxy (if not exactly in tle maleisub- 66 of kisses and ellipses ject, femaleiobject teleological progress to orgasm tlat Bazin suggests, but in tle more diuse and rebounded way I lave been indicating), we are seemingly plunged into pornograply, a realm Bazin ablors. Te liberal realist wlo admires tle documentary quality of narrative cinema in many ways and wlo believes tlere are no sex situationsmoral or immoral, slocking or banal, normal or patlologicalwlose expression is a priori prolibited on tle screen, nevertleless argues tlat as far as sex goes, tle cinema can say everytling, but not slow everytling. If we wisl to re- main on tle level of art, we must stay in tle realm of imagination.' Te problem, of course, is tlat every kiss in every lm is already a kind of documentary of tlat particular, intimate, and yet still publicly accept- able sex act in a way tlat an act of violence, wlicl is usually faked, is not. In or out of claracter, two people must really kiss in a lm close-up. Te kiss or caress las, as Bazin notes, tle potential to gratify by proxy. But everytling is organized in scenes of violence so tlat actors, even tlougl tley may toucl in a relatively intimate glt, do not really lit, knife, or sloot one anotler tle way tley are expected to kiss and caress. Bazin rec- ognizes and is embarrassed by tle inconsistency of lis argument. Writing in ,,6 in direct response to tle provocations of Roger Vadims Brigitte Bardot velicle, And God Created Woman, wlicl (following reluctantly in tle tradition of )oln Sloan) le calls a detestable lm, le realizes tlat lis remarks lave also brusled o a good part of tle contemporary Swedisl cinema. His only recourse is to claim, weakly, tlat tle masterpieces of eroticism do not cross a certain line. But as Bazin clearly foresaw, times were clanging: tle sixties were about to lappen, and tle argument tlat masterpieces never go too far sexually already rang lollow as movies would take on tle clallenge of going all tle way. Many so-called novelis- tic masterpieces lad already described a great deal about sex, not leaving it to tle imagination. And Bazin lonestly admits at tle end of lis essay tlat tle situation of tle writer may not dier all tlat mucl from tlat of directors and actors. So le concludes simply: To grant tle novel tle privilege of evoking everytling, and yet to deny tle cinema, wlicl is so similar, tle riglt of slowing everytling, is a critical contradiction I note witlout resolving. Tese are tle lonest and intelligent words of a great lm critic grappling witl tle unprecedented realism of tle new media form of tle twentietl century and its special relation to botl sex and violence. Tese words tell us tlat cinema is capable of delivering new forms of violence and forms of intimacy tlat were just beginning in tle late fties. In Bazins time, no less tlan in our own, lmmakers, critics, and society lave not agreed on tle of kisses and ellipses 6; correct place of sex acts mediated by moving images. Since Bazin wrote tlis essay tle kinds of images tlat worried lim lave increased exponen- tially, and lis frank examination no longer satises. But it must constitute tle necessary starting point of any observations about screening sex, even just a kiss. The Code has become the loose suspenders that hold up the baggy pants of the circus clown. It allows the pants to slip dangerously, but never to fall. stanley kubri ck, 1959 2 going all the way Carnal Knowledge on American Screens (,6,;) In tle early sixties new forms of carnal knowledge, beyond kisses, were creeping onto American screens. As Stanley Kubrick puts it in tlis clapters epigrapl, tle pants of tle cir- cus clown were slipping in tle last decade of tle Production Code, tlougl tley would not fall completely until lard-core pornograply became a public obsession in ,;:. Tis clap- ter asks low American movies in tle period ,6; begin to go all tle way in sexual portrayals. Wlat does going all tle way mean, anyway: To answer, we must rst turn to tle type of lm tlat would always oer models of sexual soplis- tication to Hollywood: tle foreign lm. A growing number of independent tleaters operating outside tle restrictions of tle Production Code cropped up in tle late fties and early sixties. My motlerwitl wlom I lad watcled kisses would never lave taken me to sucl a tleater. It was beyond ler cultural and nancial reacl. But tlrougl tle auspices of going all the way 6, a friends motler I came, in ,6, to see my rst foreign lms at an art louse in Berkeley, California. Te two lms I saw were in blatant violation of tle Hollywood Produc- tion Code. Tey not only displayed simulated genital sex in tle form of tle rlytlmic grinding of lips but tley slowed it taking place on tle ground, brutally. Botl Ingmar Bergmans Te Virgin Spring (,,,), wlicl lad won an Academy Award for best foreign lm, and Vittorio De Sicas Two Women (,6o), for wlicl Soplia Loren won an Oscar in ,6, portrayed gang rapes of young virgins. In Te Virgin Spring two ragged and brutisl goat- lerds in medieval Sweden rape and tlen kill tle beloved blonde dauglter of a well-to-do farmer as tleir uncomprelending younger brotler looks on. In Two Women renegade Turkisl soldiers rape an Italian woman and ler dauglter in tle claos of fascist defeat in war-torn Italy. Long before any ratings system lad been devised to signal tle need for parental guid- ance or restrictions on viewing, my fteen-year-old self was intrigued, aroused, and disturbed by tlese two lms. I miglt lave wisled for a gentler awakening to tle visual knowledge of genital leterosexual sex tlrougl more romantic, or at least more con- ventionally erotic, scenes.' But tlis is low it goes witl carnal knowledge, wlicl never arrives at tle exact moment we are ready to learn about it, but always too early or too late. Nor do we know exactly from wlere tlis knowledge comes: does it arrive as an intrusion from tle outside, like a seduction or a rape (in tlis case from foreign movies), or as a latent knowledge tlat seems to lave always been present from tle beginning: Is tlere ever a riglt moment to get sexual knowledge: Tese two vivid rape scenes, viewed witlin a year or so of one anotler and constituting tle wlole of my visual knowledge of genital sex at tlat time, condensed over tle years into a single scene. I recalled a dark-laired girl lying on ler back on tle ground (tle woody scene of Te Virgin Spring predominated over tle bombed-out clurcl of Two Women). Te girls legs were forcibly spread apart and a dark man pressed limself between tlem. Tis was not tle rst time I lad felt sexual arousal before a depiction of sex. I lad already read tle dirty parts of writers like )ames )oyce, D. H. Lawrence, and Henry Miller. However, as Andr Bazin knew (see clap- ter ), to screen a dramatic simulation of (coerced) genital sex was a very dierent tling from reading about tlat, or any kind of sex, in a novel. Te power of tle impression derived not only from tle vividness of seeing real bodies in acts and positions tlat were still unspeakable in polite Ameri- ;o going all the way can society but also from seeing tlem magnied several times over on a big screen. Tese larger-tlan-life bodies struggled against one anotler in a panting clincl in wlicl tle grinding of lips and repetitive, pulsing rlytlmsrlytlms related to but also quite dierent from tlose familiar to me in dances or gltswere strikingly in play. Suddenly, tle rlytlm stopped and tle couple became terrifyingly still. Te dirty mans face was desperate and ecstatic, tle girls was frigltened and wild-eyed. But perlaps most burnt into my memory was a moment at wlicl tle image seemed to plunge out of focus, as if melting. Tis loss of focus seemed to suggest tle girls own loss of consciousness, even an ultimate loss of self, at tle still unseen moment of genital penetration. Looking at botl lms today, from tle mature side of carnal knowledge and witl tle aid of video and ivi, I nd tlat I totally invented tlis melt- ing loss of focus. Neitler director actually blurs tle image. Quite tle con- trary: Bergman lolds close and unblinkingly on tle face of tle blonde girl after sle las seemingly been penetrated, concentrating on a forced intimacy witl ler second rapist (gure :,). De Sica, on tle otler land, begins lis slot of tle raped girl at a distance over tle sloulder of tle tur- baned, Turkisl rapist (gure o). Ten, as if in place of tle violent genital penetration tlat we are never positioned to see, we rapidly track forward to a close-up of tle wide-eyed girls pained and startled face (gure ). Instead of obscuring tle face of tle traumatized girl witl tle loss of focus tlat I remembered, De Sicas camera moves rapidly, violently, toward ler to better register ler slock and pain. By penetrating tle initial distance between tle camera and tle girl, tle lm itself simulates a kind of rape. How to understand tlis discrepancy between wlat I remembered of tle rape scene and wlat I now know was revealed tlere: My memory of a melting loss of focus is wlat Freud would call a screen memorya false memory tlat replaces tle actual events (in tlis case tlose visible on tle celluloid). Freud writes tlat seemingly indierent memories of clild- lood often function as substitutes for mucl more meaningful, but often disturbing, later events. Tese indierent early memories tlus conceal, or screen out, tle memory of later events. But tley also are a way of revealing tlem at tle same time. My personal screen memory can lelp us understand a dynamics of screening sex in wlicl even tle most explicit of images may not yield a A Melting Loss of Focus 29: The Virgin Spring (dir. Ingmar Berg- man, 1959), rape of the blonde girl Two Women (dir. Vittorio De Sica, 1960) 30: Rape of the dark-haired girl 31: Close-up ;: going all the way clear understanding of carnal knowledge, but only slow intimations. In tlis memory, tle word melt used to describe tle two rapes I lad con- densed from De Sicas and Bergmans lms may lave functioned to screen out tle images I was not quite ready to seetle images tlat may lave intimated more carnal knowledge tlan I was ready at tlat time to under- stand. At tle same time, lowever, my very cloice of tle word belies tle fact of my total sexual ignorance since it already signals an awareness of tle sexual leattle literal warming of my own body tlat I nevertleless did feel and about wlicl I probably felt aslamed. Even tle most graplic moving images of sex acts rarely provide knowl- edge tlat we fully understand wlen we rst see tlem in our youtl. Nor can tle memory of tle supposed moment in wlicl a not-yet-comprelending clild watcles parental sex ever be retrieved as it really lappened. In tlis clapter I will argue tlat carnal knowledge came to American screens at tle end of tle Code in some of tle same ways in wlicl it comes to tle clild: in deferred, partial ways, never at tle riglt time, and almost never as a clear revelation. It miglt seem tlat tle listory of screening sex would be one long progression toward a greater revelation of tle naked facts of sex. In fact, lowever, tlis screening oers a complex dynamic of revela- tion and concealment (wletler in my own memory play witl tle lm or in tle lms own strategies). It is also a dynamic of a deferred knowledge tlat eitler comes too late or a slocking knowledge tlat comes too soon and upon wlicl one, like Bergmans uncomprelending younger goatlerd, simply gapes. Freud limself vacillated quite a bit about wletler tle primal scene was a real memory of observed parental coitus or a projected fantasy. Eitler way, like my unreliable memory of tlese movies, it is not an immediate event but, precisely, a mediation. In tle case of tle violent moving sexual images tlat I misremembered, it may be lelpful to tlink of tlem as a kind of seduction or rape tlat assaults me from witlout, but wlicl eventually gets lodged in my interior. )ean Laplancle and ). B. Pontalis oer tle best Freudian explanation of tlese questions about tle timing of tle knowledge of sex. In Fantasy and tle Origins of Sexuality, tley rene Freuds own vacillations about tle fact or fantasy of tle primal scene witl tle notion tlat tle origin of sexual knowledge in tle subject is not reducible to eitler a real eventsay seduction by an adultor to an imaginary scene totally made up. Ratler, tle trauma of seduction into tle knowledge of sexuality takes place in tle not quite locatable fantasmatic interval between two real eventsone tlat occurs before tle clild las sexual knowledge, and going all the way ; anotler tlat may be perfectly innocent and nonsexual but wlicl triggers a deferred reaction to tle rst. Te illuminating point for our discussion of low American movies began to slow adult sexual knowledge is tlat tlis knowledge is rarely grasped in a single ala! moment. Sexual knowl- edge seems to be tlat wlicl initially breaks in on us from tle outside be- fore we are ready for it but wlicl also sets itself up in us as a kind of inner foreign bodyan internal alien entity tlat provokes excitement. If some part of me wants to posit tle traumatic scene of tle rape of two very dierent teenage girls in foreign lms as a primal scene in wlicl an innocent clild (me) witnesses a violence not understood as sex, tlen tle most important point of tlis comparison is tlat like tle primal scene tlis knowledge was deferred. I neitler lost my virginity at tle movies in ,6 watcling rape in foreign lms nor lad it preserved by tle elliptical con- ventions of tle era of tle kiss. Te visual knowledge of sex did not become embedded in me in a single, dramatic, lymen-puncturing scene, but in numerous instances of pusling tle limits of wlatever codes leld sway tlrouglout tle decade. As foreign lms, tle two works I cite above came, by denition, from tle outside to seduce or oend impressionable Americans wlo did not yet expect to see more tlan a kiss at tle movies. It would take a sexual revolution and a great many clanges in tle business of making and sell- ing movies for American audiences to begin to screen sex in lomegrown product witlout feeling slocked or assaulted by simulated scenes of going all tle waywletler coerced or consensual. Many of tle intellectual and social clanges tlat made up wlat came to be called tle sexual revolution took place as early as ,6o (tle year of tle marketing of tle pill). Indeed, tle term itself lad been introduced as early as ,, by Willelm Reicl. Nevertleless, tle real clanges in tle way large numbers of people actually lived tleir sexual lives did not occur until tle late sixties and early seven- ties as tle pill revolutionized tle sexual practices of women in college, as courts overturned literary censorslip, and as sexologists began to study sex scientically. I will discuss tle sexologists and womens reactions to tlem at greater lengtl in clapter (. Here, I want to indicate tle full range of cinematic carnal knowledges available to American audiences screen- ing sex in tlis intense period of transition. In tlis clapter, tlen, I will ad- dress tle various ways American movies, not tle foreign seducers tlat lad given rise to my initial screen memories, clanged in tle period ,6; as tle Hollywood Production Code was clallenged from many dierent directions. Te types of lm examined include tle clanging Hollywood ;( going all the way displays, of course, but also independently produced sexploitation lms, Blaxploitation lms, and tle avant-garde, all of wlicl constructed very dierent codes of intimacy. Many lm listorians lave told tle story of tle demise of tle Produc- tion Code and of tle rise of a more permissive era of tle Motion Picture Association of Americas (rv) ratings system in ,68. Tese listo- rians lave pointed out low tle sexual revolution, tle beginnings of tle womens movement, a divisive war in Vietnam, and a growing generation gap contributed to radical clanges in Hollywood. I will not repeat lere tle complex story of listorical, industrial, and social clanges tlat brouglt fortl a knowledge of tle carnal in a wide variety of lm forms. Suce it to say for tle moment tlat tle new ratings system would classify lms according to tleir supposed suitability for dierent audiences, instead of attempting to make all lms acceptable for general audiencesaltlougl a self-imposed adults only category lad existed in nonmainstream lm since tle teens, as Eric Sclaefer las slown. Te ratings system establisled in ,68 would initially oer a way for producers and distributors to signal to audiences wlicl lms were suit- able for clildren and wlicl for adults. Eventually many more distinctions would be forged (vo-, c-;). Along witl tlese classications, tle rv contributed to, but never itself supervised, tle X category, wlicl initially leld some lope of constituting an actual category of adult cinema witl sex, but not only witl tle paramount goal of inciting prurient inter- est, wlicl is wlat X became by tle early seventies.' Carnal comes from tle Latin carnalis, or esl. Te knowledge of esl tlat would come from tle movies would eventually extend far beyond tle narrow dictionary denition: Te act of sexual procreation between a man and a woman, tle mans penis is inserted into tle womans vagina and excited until orgasm and ejaculation occur. Also known as sexual intercourse, copulation, coitus, coition, and sexual congress, carnal knowl- edge refers to tle procreative, leterosexual sex tlat most Americans once considered tle only true and proper sex, but wlicl tle ongoing sexual revolution would expand to include all manner of wlat Freud once called perversions. It miglt seem arclaic to continue to use sucl a biblical term in an era tlat would soon celebrate so many dirent strokes for dirent Carnal Knowledge going all the way ;, folks.'' Nevertleless, it is wortl retaining for several reasons: rst, tle lms of tlis period are often quite literally about carnal knowledge as a knowledge tlat descends below tle erotogenic zone of tle moutltle erotic focus of tle era of tle kissto tle genitals, second, tle term evokes tle embodied knowledge tlat is not only of esl pressing against esl on tle screen but also of our own carnal awareness as we watcl, tlird, tle term was employed as tle title of a lm discussed below. Te carnal knowledge to be discussed lere does not necessarily come as a unique identication with any one body on tle screen, but as a series of mediated exclanges between our bodies, wlat Vivian Sobclack calls tle lms body, and tle bodies on tle screen.' I lave argued in tle pre- vious clapter tlat images of bodies taking sensual pleasure in one anotler invoke botl our more distant senses of siglt and learing and our more proximate senses of toucl, taste, and smell. However, it lad been one tling to feel my own sensuality on tle rebound, as Sobclack formulates it, in relation to tle publicly acceptable display of a kiss, it was quite anotler to feel it wlen sitting in tle darkened public space of a movie tleater wlile screening simulated (or even real) scenes of genital carnal knowledge. If tlis was not yet tle slock of watcling close-up genital sex acts aimed at arousal tlat would come witl tle arrival of lard-core pornograply onto public screens, it was nevertleless a new kind of sexual address. American movies, taking tleir cue from tle more sexually soplisticated Europeans, tentatively groped for ways to depict going all tle way, wlile still staying on tle safe side of tle line between obscenity and titillation. Tere are two primary registers of aective response to screened sexual acts (in botl tle revealed and screened-out senses I lave been stressing). Te one witl tle most impact and tle one to wlicl we lm sclolars always give precedence is tle visual, by wlicl I mean wlat we see and low we respond to tlese visual cues. Te otler register, wlicl we too often ignore, is aural, wlicl is larder to isolate given tle ambient nature of sound, and wlicl las no equivalent, for example, to a close-up, al- tlougl certainly it makes a dierence wletler sounds are miked in ways tlat make tlem sound close or ways tlat make tlem sound far.' Music, as we slall see in tle following, is often tle most prevalent accompani- ment to sex acts in Hollywood lms, as well as a way to cover over wlat miglt appear to some as tle tasteless grunts and moans of sex. But before movies got to tlat point, tley used tle aural register of talk, talk, and more talk. ;6 going all the way Mucl tle way adolescents talk incessantly of sex long before tley ever lave it, many of tle early Code-clallenging lms of tle fties and early sixties seem to lave been infected witl a kind of sexual logorrlea. Te Moon Is Blue (dir. Otto Preminger, ,,) set tle trend. It lad been a popu- lar, if minor Broadway play revolving around tle endangered purity of a young woman spending an evening in tle apartments of two older bacle- lors. Te comic adult situationan innocent woman nding ler vir- ginity endangeredlad already been tle source of countless screwball comedies of tle tlirties. Wlat was new lere, and tle reason for tle denial of Code approval, were tle words virgin and sex casually tossed about by tle dispassionate virgin lerself (Maggie McNamarra) in endless discus- sion witl tle two baclelors (David Niven and William Holden). Tirteen years later, in a mucl darker comedy and in a lm tlat would prove to be instrumental in nally dismantling tle power of tle Code, Mike Niclolss Whos Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (,66) also talked sex. Te words were now stronger and referred directly to genital sexual actsscrew you and reference to a party game called Hump tle Hostessbut in tle end, no- body was seen screwing, and it remained in some doubt as to wletler tle party guest, played by Ceorge Segal, really did lump lis lostess, played by Elizabetl Taylor.' )ack Valenti, engaged in negotiations on belalf of tle Production Code Administration witl tle producer )ack Warner, would later comment tlat it seemed wrong tlat grown men slould be sitting around discussing sucl matters.' But of course tlis is precisely wlat lis rv would continue doing for years to come, witl tle dierence, as Kirby Dicks deligltful documentary on tle rv, Tis Film Is Not Yet Rated (:oo6), slows, tlat now tle discussions would take place in secret and would include quite a few women.' Te temporary compromise tlat led tle way out of tle impasse between Code autlorities and producers regarding Virginia Woolfto label tle lm as suggested for mature audi- enceswould pave tle way toward tle new ratings system.' But even after tle institution of tle ratings system in ,68, Hollywood still seemed more comfortable talking about sex (in risqu R-rated lms) tlan it did screening simulated sex acts. Paul Mazurskys Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice (,6,) is typical of tle new ratings-era tendency to talk sex. It is a satire of two married couples irting witl tle new lifestyle of liberated sex. Te lipper of tle two couples, Bob and Carol (Robert Culp and Natalie Wood), attends an Esalen-style encounter group and wants to slare its newfound liberation witl its more conservative friends, Ted Hollywood Sex Talk going all the way ;; and Alice (Elliot Could and Dyan Cannon). One larmless aair leads to anotler (neitler slown, botl endlessly discussed), and by tle end of tle lm we nd tle two couples in bed togetler in Las Vegas, seemingly on tle verge of a wife-swapping orgy. But tlere tley just sit, covers clastely pulled up over Woods and Cannons breasts as tle anticipated climactic orgy peters out in self-conscious giggles. Finally, tle friends put back on tleir clotles and leave tle room to attend a not-very-lip Tony Bennett concert. As late as ,6,, even tle new Hollywood of tle post-Code era seemed more comfortable talking about carnal knowledge tlan slowing it. Te two brief love aairs clronicled by Bob and Carol are verbally analyzed but pointedly not slown. As in Virginia Woolf, tle only carnal knowledge evident are two new words added to tle lexicon of sex talkorgy and vagina. Verbal satire, wletler savage as in Virginia Woolf, or gentle as in Bob and Carol, was tle preferred way of addressing adult situations dur- ing tle transition from tle Code to tle new ratings system. Mike Niclols, an important director in tlis transition, proved particularly adept at tlis kind of witty satire.' His aptly named ,; lm Carnal Knowledge was made in tle early stages of tle new ratings system and received an R. Liti- gation around it would also lead to an important Supreme Court decision in ,; tlat declaredcontrary to a Ceorgia courts ban on tle lmtlat it was not obscene.' Like Bob and Carol, Carnal Knowledge put sex at tle front and center of its narrative, yet also like it, satire worked against tle production of erotic leat. Carnal Knowledge is about tle sex lives of two Amlerst College room- mates of tle late forties, played by Art Carfunkel and )ack Niclolson. Over tle course of tle next two decades tley compete for sex witl tle same coed (Candace Bergen), marry, lave aairs, divorce, and endure middle age. Altlougl tle screenwriter, tle cartoonist )ules Feier, describes tle lm as wlat lappens between a man and a woman before, during and after tley lave been in bed, over a period of years, tle emplasis is on tle verbiage of tle before and after, not tle activity of tle during. Te lm focuses especially on wlat tle two male friends say to one anotler about tleir sex lives. No woman really speaks except to say wlat a man wants to lear. Tougl Carfunkels Sandy is romantic and Niclolsons )onatlan is a Don )uan wlo only seeks sexual conquest, botl fundamentally fear and dislike women in tlis often telling satire of American manlood. Sandy, wlo embraces tle outward trappings of tle sexual revolution, eventually takes up witl a younger lippy click (Carol Kane), grows long lair, and imitates a lip sensitivity for wlicl le seems too old. )onatlan, ;8 going all the way on tle otler land, grows more deeply misogynist witl eacl failed aair. Te lms nal scene nds lim visiting a prostitute (Rita Moreno) wlo services lim tlrougl a carefully scripted monologue designed to make lim lard (gure :). Te monologue is spoken directly to tle camera and is intercut witl )onatlans satised facial reactions. It reassures lim tlat le is a man wlo inspires worslip because le las no need for any woman . . . [a man] wlo is better, more beautiful, more powerful, more perfect (youre getting lard!), more strong, more masculine, more ex- traordinary (its rising!), more virile, domineering, more irresistible (its up in tle air!). )onatlan is tlus depicted as a man wlo must resort to tle lollow, overrelearsed praise of lis virility from a woman le can never trust. Niclolss lm is biting and bold, speaking of sex more tlan any pre- vious mainstream American movie. But it also, like a great many lms of tlis transition era, remains as visually reticent as lis own earlier Virginia Woolf. It was yet anotler lm by Niclols tlat would emerge as tle major pioneer in screening sex for tle transition out of tle Code, beyond talk, tlougl it, too, was not witlout its own slare of Code-clallenging words (seduce and aair). Made in ,6;, tle last year of tle Code, Te Graduate be- came tle liglest-grossing lm of tlat year. Its great popularity contrib- 32: Carnal Knowledge (dir. Mike Nichols, 1971), Jonathan is serviced by the prostitute who can (verbally) make him hard Sexual Interludes going all the way ;, uted, along witl otler, more sexually frank youtl-oriented lms, to tle Codes demise and tle rise of wlat would come to be called tle New Hollywood.' Te lm tells tle story of Benjamin (Dustin Homan), wlo returns lome from college to a slallow and materialistic Los Angeles suburb. He falls into a sexual aair witl tle wife of lis fatlers business partner and tle motler of tle girl le will eventually want to marry. Benjamins predica- ment is gently satirized, wlile tle older womans lust for lim is somewlat more larslly satirized in Anne Bancrofts deadpan, feline performance as Mrs. Robinson. Niclolss portrayal of tle aair between Benjamin and Mrs. Robinson became emblematic of tle new Hollywoods grafting of Frencl New Wave stylistics onto a music-infused, youtl-oriented Holly- wood cinema. In a justly famous scene, Benjamin las been maneuvered into a lotel room by tle predatory Mrs. Robinson. Wlen le lesitates, cauglt be- tween guilty despair and desire, literally banging lis lead against tle lotel room wall, Mrs. Robinsons accusation tlat tlat le may still be a virgin spurs lim into decisive sexual action. Rescued by masculine pride, tle previously wlimpering Benjamin autloritatively slams slut tle lotel door and (we presume) takes clarge sexually. But we do not immedi- ately see wlat le does. Darkness, tle great ally of all directors venturing into tle unknown of cinematic carnal knowledge, lls tle screen and is furtler tlematized by tle famous Simon and Carfunkel song Sounds of Silence (Hello darkness, my old friend . . .). Te sequence tlat follows unmistakably reveals a newly adult sexual content of tle sort strictly forbidden by tle Production Code: an adul- terous aair tlat we understand to stretcl out over tle summer. But just as unmistakably, tle sequence will cleverly screen out most views of tlis plysical connection. Indeed, even before Benjamin closes tle door, a war between illumination and darkness las been fouglt, witl Mrs. Robin- son winning tle rst round. But in tle second round, Benjamin slams slut tle door and takes clarge. Te liglts go out, darkness rules as tle familiar song about darkness, lack of communication, and alienation be- gins. Clearly we are being teased about wlat we will and will not see of tlis adulterous aair. Tis is precisely tle sort of scene tlat would lave con- stituted tle central ellipsis of a lm like Casablanca. Mrs. Robinson asks, Would tlis be easier for you in tle dark: But after tle lm plunges us into tlis deep darkness and lolds on it, suddenly tle briglt illumination of liglt reected o a swimming pool oods tle screen. Illumination per- 8o going all the way mits us to see again, but wlat we see is an evasion of wlat we expect. In- stead of Benjamin and Mrs. Robinson in tle lotel room, we seem to cut awayagain as in a Code-era lmto a seemingly unrelated, and brigltly illuminated, image: Benjamin sunbatles alone on an air mattress in tle blue slimmering liglt of tle family swimming pool. He soon climbs o tle mattress, emerges from tle pool, puts on a wlite dress slirt, and leads into lis parents louse. Incongruously, lowever, in tle very next slot, still in tle wlite slirt and batling trunks, le exits from a lotel batlroom back into tle bedroom witl Mrs. Robinson, wlo unbuttons lis wlite slirt and strokes lis clest. We tlus cut away from tle potential carnality of tle sexual moment in tle lotel roomtle site of tle aairto tle pool and from tle pool back to tle carnality of tle lotel room, tlougl now to a dierent moment, not to tle sexual act we expected to witness wlen tle liglts rst went out. Instead of slowing tle quality and kind of sexual relations tlat Benjamin and Mrs. Robinson enjoy, tle lm tlus clooses to extend and tlematize tle initial war between illumination and darkness but, mucl like tle later Carnal Knowledge, to concentrate on tle before preparations and tle after dressing and departures, never tle during of sex. In a tigltly and cleverly edited sequence, tle rst lalf of wlicl is accompanied by Te Sounds of Silence, we see busy dressings and undressings, comings and goings. In tle latter part of tle sequence, it is Mrs. Robinson wlo moves around tle passive, xed object of Benjamin in various beds. After several transi- tions tlat continually tlrow us o guard about wlere we are, and after a transition to a new Simon and Carfunkel song, tle sequence ends witl a slot of Benjamin diving into tle pool and leaping up onto tle air mattress (gure ). In a quick matcl cut, tlis plunge onto tle mattress turns into a plunge onto Mrs. Robinson back in tle lotel bed wlere tle sequence began (gure (). Tis graplic matcl between tle forceful plunge onto tle air mattress and tle equally forceful plunge onto Mrs. Robinson is as close as tle lm ever gets to carnal knowledge. But even lere, we do not linger in tle bed. Te sequence ends back in tle pool wlere Benjamin, now alone on tle air mattress, is asked wlat le is doing by lis irate fatler. )ust drifting, Benjamin replies, as normal time, space, and sound nally resume. In teclnical lm parlance tlis sequence is wlat tle lm tleorist Clris- tian Metz would call a bracket syntagma: Brief scenes given as typical ex- amples of a certain order of reality but witlout temporal sequence, often organized around a concept. Te concept lere would be sometling like Benjamin and Mrs. Robinson begin a summer aair tlat takes on a cer- going all the way 8 tain routine in Benjamins ever-drifting life as le meclanically moves back and fortl between lome pool and lotel bed. We do see glimpses of esl in tle repeated scenes of separate dressing and undressing, but we do not, except for tle brief moment Mrs. Robinson strokes lis clest and tle brief lunge tlat conates tle air mattress witl Mrs. Robinson, see tle couples esl togetler in tle same slot. Nor is our esl appealed to tlrougl tle connection of tleirs. Indeed, tleir carnality and ours are ratler strenu- ously avoided in ways tlat prolong, in a dierent manner, some of tle elliptical cutting away of tle era of Code kisses. The Graduate (dir. Mike Nichols, 1967) 33: Benjamin leaps up onto the air mattress 34: Benjamins plunge onto the mattress turns into a plunge onto Mrs. Robinson 8: going all the way I lave described tle clever ellipses of tlis sequence of Te Graduate in some detail because tley are emblematic of tle way in wlicl Holly- wood would go about signaling its new soplistication about sex, its new willingness to enter tle bedroom and to display carnal knowledge, all tle wlile remaining elliptical about sex. By conating tle single instance of Benjamin and Mrs. Robinsons rst sex witl tle rote gestures of its later extension, tle sequence avoids esly connection, reduces intimacy to labit, and smootlly skips over tle details of Benjamins loss of innocence. His loss of innocence is, of course, ours, but it is a loss tlat evades carnal knowledge. My point is not tlat Niclols slould lave slown more of tle aair in tlis or any of lis otler lms of tle transition erafor example, more of tle lostess actually being lumped in Virginia Woolf or forms of nonverbal erotic pleasure in Carnal Knowledge. It is simply tlat in cloos- ing tlis elliptical formulation, Te Graduate, wlicl seemed so boldly to clallenge tle still-in-eect Code by slowing an adulterous aair, forges a trope tlat would prove very popular in mainstream American cinema as a tasteful, discreetly concealing, way of suggesting carnal knowledge. Carnal knowledge is tlus revealed (we are certain tle couple does lave sex, tlere is no coy fade-out or narrative obfuscation sucl as tlat in Casa- blanca) and concealed (we are not asked to confront tle visual fact of geni- tal action). Indeed, Hollywoods wlole way of baby-stepping toward adult content resembles tle new adultlood of Benjamin limself, tle twenty- one-year-old boy-man slamed into laving sex to prove a maturity tlat le does not really possess. I call tlis kind of montage Hollywood musical sexual interlude. An interlude is generally dened as anytling tlat lls time between otler performance events regarded as more signicant. In tleater listory, it was a slort lumorous play performed between tle acts of a more seri- ous miracle or morality drama. But one of tle terms primary meanings is also musical: tle instrumental music played between tle sung parts of a song. Eitler way, an interlude oers a break witl tle normal ow of drama or music. In movies before tle ,6os it was conventional, in addition to tle usual scoring of Romantic music tlrouglout a lm, to add interludes in tle form of songs sung by performers witlin tle nar- rative (e.g., Dooley Wilson singing As Time Coes By in Casablanca). But in tle ,6os lms began to appropriate a new model for importing a wide range of pop music into tleir very fabric, and tlese New Hollywood lms moved away from monotlematic scoressingle tlemes tlat re- turned in dramatic situationsand toward multi-tleme formats includ- ing wlat )e Smitl calls interpolated songs: new or old pop songs tlat going all the way 8 underscore tle lm, often to liglly edited montages. Te popularity of tle song could tlus contribute to tle popularity of tle lm. It could also, it was soon discovered, sell a great many soundtrack records. Tis move to underscore movies and even to sell tlem witl entire compilation scores proved especially attractive to younger audiences tuned into tle music of, for example, Simon and Carfunkel. Tese lyrical montages (in some ways pregurations of music videos) tended to stop tle narrative ow of tle lm to sell, or at least to let viewers enjoy, tle song. Tougl none of tle sclolars wlo discuss interpolated pop songs in lms address tleir use in wlat I am calling musical sexual interludes, it is signicant tlat it is precisely in tlese lyrical montagesmontages in wlicl music amps up and narrative slows downtlat a palatable form of carnal knowledge rst found its way into mainstream American lm. Indeed, tle conjunction of music and sex, as opposed to tle presentation of sex acts witl little or no music, is enormously important in tle listory of cinematic sexual representation. )ust as kisses in tle silent or sound lm almost never occurred witlout soaring music, so it would prove ex- tremely rare for post-Code Hollywood lms to depict carnal knowledge witlout tle added aect of music. Wlen tle sounds of sex became audible for tle rst time witlout tle cover of music, and wlen tle kind of aective control oered by musical interlude was not deployed, a new kind of nakedness became available to lms, even wlen tle claracters laving sex remained clotled. It was tlis aural nakedness tlat proved so disturbing in my audiovision of tle rapes in Bergmans and De Sicas lms. Te smoocl of a kiss, tle smack of a slap, tle slurp of fellatio or cunnilingus, tle wloosl of penetration, not to mention tle sigls, moans, or outriglt cries generated by sexual connection, make tle sex seen seem all tle more proximate to tle viewer- listener. Tougl sound by its very nature cannot be framed and brouglt into close-up tle way tle image can, tle sounds of sex become impor- tant conrmation of tle reality and instantaneity of tle sex depicted. Te cinema sound tleorist Miclel Clion indicates tlat points of synclroniza- tion between sound and image serve to give tle audiovisual ow of a lm its plrasing, just as clords or cadences, wlicl are also vertical meetings of elements, can give plrasing to a sequence of music. Clions book does not discuss tle sound of sex, but lis remarks on screen violence seem remarkably appropriate to tlinking about screen sex: Wlat is tle most important object in audiovisual representation: Te luman body. Wlat can tle most immediate and brief meeting between 8( going all the way two of tlese objects be: Te plysical blow. And wlat is tle most immedi- ate audiovisual relationslip: Te synclronization between a blow leard and a blow seenor one tlat we believe we lave seen. For, in fact, we do not really see tle puncl, you can conrm tlis by cutting tle sound out of a scene. Wlat we lear is wlat we lavent lad time to see. Te plysical blow represents one kind of basic luman bodily connec- tion, but so, too, does tle bodily penetration of kisses and otler sex acts. Wlere Hollywood sound cinema was quick to provide sound eects for tle plysical blows of glt scenes, it was not equally quick to provide sound syncl points for carnal encounters. Indeed, tle trope of tle musi- cal sexual interlude seems expressly designed to screen out components of sex acts tlat were nevertleless becoming necessary to slow. Te rape scenes in Te Virgin Spring and Two Women lad not softened tle naked- ness of tleir penetrative blows witl music, and tlis raw aural compo- nent of sex certainly formed part of tleir impact on me. Hollywoods new practice, lowever, would be to situate tle spectacle of sex as an aectively controlled interlude distanced by tle eect of editing and music. Tougl I prefer tle term sexual interlude to Metzs semiotically inspired moutl- ful, bracket syntagma, we do well to recognize tlat bracketing o carnal knowledge from tle rest of tle lm is precisely wlat tle music and editing of tle sexual interlude does. Witlin tlis bracket, intimate sexual relations reside in a dierent register of time and space. Not all sexual interludes operate as clastely as tle inuential early one of Te Graduate. For example, two years later, tle ,6, X-rated Midnight Cowboy (dir. )oln Scllesinger) would solidify tle trope of tle musical sexual interlude wlile slowing quite a bit more esl. Tis Academy Awardwinning lm was anotler pioneer of tle adult New Hollywood. In tlis early plase of tle new ratings system, X did not yet necessarily connote, as it tends to today, tle stigma of lard-core pornograply, for tle simple reason tlat lard core lad not yet become as visible as it would in ,;:. All it meant at tlis point was tlat a lm was not rated and tlat no one under sixteen could see it. Many of tle lms so labeled were not, in fact, pornograply, but did lave a degree of simulated sex, or sexual situations, still unusual for tle Hollywood of tlat era. Over time, low- ever, as mainstream lms of all types souglt to avoid a rating limiting viewerslip and as lard-core lms eagerly seized on tlis category as a way of marketing tleir explicit sexual content, X came to signal a low-budget focus on sexual content tlat went beyond tle pale of mainstream sexual acceptability.' In ,6,, lowever, X only meant no viewers under sixteen, going all the way 8, and it coexisted witl quality indicators sucl as Midnight Cowboys Oscar for best picture. Scllesingers lm does not avoid tle siglt of naked bodies togetler on a bedtlougl it studiously avoids wlat would come to be called full frontal nudity for botl tle man and tle woman. In a scene witl interest- ing parallels to Te Graduate, a younger manin tlis case )oe Buck ()on Voigt), a lapless would-be male prostitute failing abysmally at earning lis livingis taunted (mucl like Benjamin) into proving limself sexually witl a more soplisticated older woman. Deliglted to lave nally been lired to earn wlat le loped would be easy money, )oe is suddenly lumili- ated by lis inability to perform. Te scene begins witl )oe and lis wealtly client naked under tle sleets. It lappens, sle notes matter-of-factly and tlen invites lim to pass tle time playing Scrabble. Wlen tle letters g-a-y turn up as a word in tleir game, )oe, like Benjamin, sees lis manlood tlreatened and suddenly draws on lidden reserves of virility. It does not seem accidental tlat once again a memorable instance of Hollywood carnal knowledge is prompted by a young mans need to prove lis masculine potencyjust as Hollywood itself was doing. In an extended segment, tle couple writles to wlat appears to be a mutually enjoyable climax tlat culminates rst, witl a close-up of )oes face, ex- libiting purposeful eort and satisfaction in lis nal tlrusts, and tlen witl a close-up of tle womans face, fallen o tle bed, upside-down in ec- static abandon. Unlike Te Graduate, wlicl repeatedly cuts away from tle scenes of sex, tlis lm oers more graplic views of tle naked couple in tle lotel room bed. Tis sex is portrayed as a leroic struggle, some- tling like wlole-body arm wrestling, in wlicl )oe, by delivering pleasure, winsnot tle girl, but tle money and lis own leterosexual self-respect against tle lomoerotic implications tlat mark lis real relationslip witl lis buddy Ratso (Dustin Homan). So wlile tlere is no slortage of esl pressing against eslincluding wlat would later become tle clicl of female ngernails clawing a male back at a moment of sexual intensity (gure ,)eacl gesture of tlis sexual encounter is presented as an ex- cerpted liglliglt ratler tlan as a continuous action. Slots are arranged clronologically, but tle action, wlile not as radically discontinuous as in Te Graduate, nevertleless remains fragmented. )oes buttocks clencl at one moment (gure 6), lis face at anotler (gure ;), )oe is on top at one moment, lis client at anotler, one of ler legs wraps around lim at one moment, ler ringed land claws lis back at anotler. Also as in Te Graduate, wlat really unites tle discontinuous fragments is tle nondiegetic music tlat controls tle mood and distances us from Midnight Cowboy (dir. John Schlesinger, 1969) 35: Female fngernails claw a male back 36: and 37: Joes buttocks clench at one moment, his face at another going all the way 8; tle diegetic sounds generated by tle couple. Even witlout a popular song to lum later, we are once again in tle realm of tle musical sexual inter- lude. In tlis case a crescendo of brass and percussive orclestral music oers a climax tlat augments and partially replaces tlat of tle couple. Its triumplalism is tempered by tle plaintive and folksy larmonica tlat underscores tle entire lm and adds a tone of melancloly. Te music is reminiscent of Aaron Copelandstyle celebrations of tle cowboy virility )oe Buck las come to New York to performtoo late, it will turn out, to save lis friend Ratso. For, as in Te Graduate, tle sex tlat proves )oes virility is not tlat of an intimate relation tlat really matters in tle larger, more important romances of botl movies (tlat between Benjamin and Mrs. Robinsons dauglter in tle rst, and tle repressed romance between )oe and Ratso in tle second). Te sexual interlude in Midnight Cowboy oers fragments of action tlat signal a concept: )oe nally proves limself tle leterosexual stud le las wanted to be. Te interlude simultaneously spectacularizes and ghetto- izes its carnal knowledge by making a display of tle body in tle tlroes of sex, but by cordoning o tlis display into a carefully circumscribed space-time. Tougl it does not stint on tle display of esl, and is tlus remembered as a breaktlrougl, tle very form of tle sexual interlude cuts tle scene o in tone, mood, and style from tle rest of tle lm. And tlis style, if not always tle content, would remain, witl some exceptions noted below, tle dominant code of intimacy in mainstream American lms to tle present day. Later, as tle formula solidied, it would become particu- larly useful wlen lming tle sex scenes of establisled stars more leery of graplic sexual display tlan aspiring ones. A few of Hollywoods musical sexual interludes would occasionally ex- ceed tle eect of bracketing. A particularly subtle and eective example from tle early seventies is an act of marital sex performed by )ulie Clristie and Donald Sutlerland in Niclolas Roegs Dont Look Now (,;). In tlis justly famous scene, a couple wlo las recently lost a clild resumes relaxed and intimate sexual relations after wlat we are led to believe las been a liatus. As is typical of sexual interludes, tle music amps up and tle sexual action is constructed in a tigltly edited montage of sexual gestures. In tlis case, lowever, tle sequence is structured on slots of tle naked couple laving sex on tle bed of tleir Venice lotel room, intercut witl postcoital slots of tlem later dressing for dinner, reecting on tle experience tley lave just lad. Te eect is to oer small tentacles from tle sex scene into tle rest of tle narrative and tlus to begin, lowever tentatively, to bring tle sex into tle fabric of tle lm. Nor is tlis lm sly of slowing male 88 going all the way frontal (accid) nudity. By slowing tle couple during and after sex and by integrating tlese two moments, Roegs lm exceeds tle usual limits of tle sexual interlude wlile still obeying its conventions. At tle time tlat Hollywood began to develop sex talk and sexual interludes, lard-core pornograply still remained mostly underground. By ,6,, lowever, a combination of sexploitation and lard core would emerge in wlat are called wlite coaters tlat purported to oer clinical advice to couplesas well as in stag slorts slown in early storefront tle- aters. Stags, or blue movies, as tlese illicit, underground lms were tlen still called, were low-budget, excruciatingly silent (no musical interludes lere!) movies for men only. Tey slowed clinically explicit genital sex acts performed and slot to aclieve wlat I lave called maximum visibility. Tese lms aimed directly at arousal and were viewed, more or less fur- tively, at private clubs and parties. All lms depicting sexual acts in tlis transitional era dened tlemselves, in one way or anotler, in relation to tle overt prurience of tlese still-illicit lard-core stags. Most mainstream Hollywood lms, even tlose of tle post-Code New Hollywood I lave been examining, tiptoed cautiously around tlis territorya territory itself very mucl in ux and about to muslroom, in tle very late sixties and early seventies, into a new quasi-legitimate feature-lengtl porn industry. But before we get to tle owering (or as some would lave it, excrescence) of tlat industry in tle next clapter, let us map tle otler forms of carnal knowledge available in tle sixties outside tle Hollywood mainstream. As early as tle ,:os independently produced lms exlibited in a sepa- rate market of itinerant road slows oered stories about drug addiction, miscegenation, abortion, nudists, strippers, wlores, pregnant ligl sclool girls, and all tle otler issues and problems unrepresentable witlin tle limits of tle Production Code. Exploitation originally meant tlat, lacking otler salable itemssucl as stars or ligl production valuestlese lms were sold (exploited) on tle basis of a special carnivalesque ballyloo of normally forbidden topics and spectacles. Later, in tle ,,os, tle term was expanded to indicate any low-budget movie witl a topical bent aimed at social problems not treated in tle mainstreamlms distributed inde- pendently in limited numbers of prints. Most of tlese lms were framed by often-questionable didactic messages meant to prevent tle sensational acts depicted. (S)Exploitation going all the way 8, Te independent sexploitation lm derives from exploitation. Tis sub- genre tlrived tlrouglout tle sixties and into tle early seventies in many of tle same independent art louses screening tle sort of European lms tlat lad made sucl a big impression on my adolescent self. Eric Sclaefer las slown tlat sexploitation lms were often American imitations of tle racier aspects of European lms. For example, Ingmar Bergmans Summer with Monika (,,) lad been exploited in tle United States in a slort- ened, dubbed, and luridly advertised version called Monika, the Story of a Bad Girl. No one took me to tlese lms, and I remained ignorant of tlem until long after tleir popularity lad peaked. Te main point of tlese lomegrown soft-core American sex lms was to exploit so-called adult situations and, above all, to expose more female esl tlan could be seen in a mainstream lm. Russ Meyers Te Immoral Mr. Teas (,,,) is considered tle precursor of tle sexploitation genre, tlougl tle lm lacks tle erotic tension, displacements to violence, and general luridness of tle sexploitation lms of tle sixties, including Meyers own. More typical of mid-decade sexploitation is )oe Sarnos Sin in the Sub- urbs (,6(), about two bored and sex-starved suburban lousewives wlo become involved in a club orclestrating orgies. One lousewife becomes a lopeless alcololic and nymplomaniac as sle nds lerself too mucl alone on long winter niglts, tle otler, a motler witl a teenage dauglter, nds lerself, at tle lms climax, in tle midst of an orgy, performing sex on tle oor before a masked and robed audience. Te orgys ringmaster announces ler performance witl anotler masked woman as tle greatest animal act on eartl. Te lousewife soon recognizes, lowever, tlat tle woman sle is performing witl is ler own dauglter. Te lm leaves tlis motler at tle end alone on tle oor crying lysterically, abandoned by ler dauglter, wlo las announced ler intention to go far away from a motler too busy pursuing sexual excess to love ler. Botl motler and dauglter lave souglt illicit sex to make up for tle missing love in tleir livestle dauglter neglected by ler motler, tle motler neglected by ler lusband. Te sex itself, lowever, including tle climactic orgy, amounts to no more tlan a few kissestlougl tle fact tlat it transpires on tle oor in tle context of sex talk, including tle above double entendre about bestiality, makes it seem quite lurid. In point of fact, audiences do not actually see any more esl in tlis lm tlan tley would see tlree years later in Te Graduate, but unlike tlat Hollywood version of an adult tleme, Sin in the Suburbs cannot cordon o one or two sex scenes into discrete interludes. Sexual display is tle very raison dtre of tlis kind of sexploitation. Instead of contained musical sexual ,o going all the way interludes, loud, discordant jazz music deployed in tle sex scenes spills over into tle rest of tle lm, lending a sexual intensity to even tle most ordinary acts of lousewives and dauglters suering from tle ennui of suburban neglect and isolation. Sexploitation lms tlus oer a dierent tone and feeling compared to Hollywood. Hyperactive musical scores and poor sound recording or dubbing combine witl portrayals of perverse, illicit sex to invent a ricl repertoire of wlat Sclaefer las called strategies of evasion. Tese strate- gies distinguisl tlemselves botl from tle Hollywood musical interlude and from tle direct representation of penetrative sex in lard core. Fren- zied dancing, writling, drinking, and close-ups of ecstatic female faces were typical sexploitative metlods of indicating sexual activity witlout necessarily revealing more of tle act of sex tlan in Hollywood. Russ Meyers Vixen (,68) is a particularly popular late-decade expan- sion of tlese practices wlose date lappens to coincide witl tle end of tle Production Code. Vixen (Erica Cavin) is tle buxom, pleasure-seeking wife of a Canadian busl pilot (all puns, of course, intended) wlo las un- inlibited sex witl just about everyone wlo comes ler way. Sle mounts a Mountie, a millionaire slerman, lis ignored wife, ler lusband, even ler own brotler, sle also does a lurid dance witl a dead sl (gure 8).' Tellingly, lowever, sle velemently rejects tle mere suggestion of sex witl ler brotlers African American friend, wlom sle taunts mercilessly for laving ed tle draft of tle Vietnam-era United States. Sexploitation producers were so terried of resembling lard-core por- nograplyand tley did constantly skirt prosecution for obscenity in tleir 38: Vixen (dir. Russ Meyer, 1968), Vixens lurid dance with a dead fsh going all the way , vulnerable position outside tle Codetlat tley would frequently displace tle energy of genital coupling into a more generalized orgasmic abandon of tle wlole female body, especially, in Meyers lms, witl jiggling breasts. Indeed, many expressions of female sexuality in tlese lms verge on tle clinically lysterical. Trouglout Sin in the Suburbs tle lousewives aban- doned to suburbia by tleir overworked, commuting lusbands become depraved, sex-starved demons wlo collapse into lysterical lauglter or tears at tle drop of a lat. Similarly, watcling Vixens lands and face as sle las sex witl ler many partners, we see involuntary convulsions tlat resemble tlat of tle classical lysteric: a face frozen in a paroxysm of pleasure tlat looks like fear, lands bent backwards, ngers separated (gure ,). Tese lms tend to oscillate between a liberal ideology of sex as a natu- ral, necessary outlet of luman sexuality (lousewives wlo simply suer from tle neglect of tleir lusbands, Vixen as a wlolesome, fun-loving woman wlo just lappens to like sex), and tle belief tlat tlis sexuality is unnaturally lustful and perverse, especially so in women. In tlis respect, sexploitation lms prove perfectly symptomatic of tle double standards of tle sexual revolution. Sin in the Suburbs (,6() opts more for tle scandal of perversion, leaving tle depraved motler bereft of ler dauglter, Vixen opts more for an ideology of good, lealtly fun, leaving Vixen ultimately in tle good graces of tle black draft resister and ler own lusband. Eitler way, lowever, sexual intimacy in tlis genre is codied to make all sex acts seem dangerous, excessive, and, in tleir very convulsiveness, verging on violence. 39: Vixen, Vixen exhibits convulsions resembling those of the classical hysteric ,: going all the way Item number six under tle category of Sex in tle Hollywood Production Code of ,o succinctly states: Miscegenation (sex relationslip between tle wlite and black races) is forbidden. Wlile miscegenation is usually understood as tle mixing of any races, and wlile Hollywood cinema after Te Birth of a Nation (dir. D. W. Critl, ,,) certainly frowned on any sucl mixing, tle odd parentlesis in tle above statement clearly slows tlat it was really tle mixing of black and wlite tlat raised Pro- duction Code Administration (vc) alarms. As tle lm sclolar Susan Courtney notes, tlese were tle only colors regularly seen and named in tle long listory of tle vc. Unlike tle Codes prolibition against excessive and lustful kissing wlicl left a little wiggle room for inter- pretation as to wlat constituted excess and lust, tlis prolibition souglt to be categorical: visibly wlite and visibly black performers could not lave sex relations, period. Of course, tlere was absolutely no clarity about wlat constituted black or wlitemany black claracters were played in blackface, many passing black claracters were played by wlite actors. Nor was tlere mucl clarity about tle in-between category of brown. Many wlite men would indeed lave relations witl brown-, red-, or yellow-skinned women witlout mucl ado, but tle reverse lad been taboo. During tle leyday of tle so-called classical Hollywood cinema tlrougl tle late sixties, a general prolibition, neatly summa- rized by Nick Browne, prevailed: No nonwlite man can lave sanctioned sexual relations witl a wlite woman. Taboos of interracial sex grew out of an American listory tlat las covertly permitted wlite men sexual ac- cess to black women and violently forbidden black and brown men access to wlite women. However, tle racist and sexist assumptions tlat under- girded sucl unequal access to sex generated taboo sexual fantasies witl an important purclase on tle American sexual imagination. Even after tle Production Code began faltering and Hollywood proved its liberalism witl tle approval of a miscegenous union of a wlite woman witl a black man played by Sydney Poitier in Stanley Kramers Guess Whos Coming to Dinner? (,6;), tle carnal display of sex relations was studiously avoided. (Tis lm permitted one, very claste, public kiss in a taxi.) To tle African American inner city audiences wlo went to tle movies in proportionately greater numbers tlan wlites in tle late six- ties, tle mainstream stardom of an actor like Poitier seemed to lave been purclased at tle very price of lis sexuality. Dubbed tle Sidney Poi- tier syndrome, tlis condition of being tle lone black man in a wlite world Blaxploitation: Sweet Backs and Glimpsed Fronts going all the way , witl no woman to love or kiss was typied by tle ,,, lit Te Fugitive Kind (dir. Stanley Kramer). Poitier and Tony Curtis costarred as escaped convicts landcued togetler, but only Curtis enjoyed a love interest once tle cus were removed. Te brief interracial kiss Poitier was granted eiglt years later in Guess tlus seemed like too little, too late. Wlat black audiences in tle late sixties and early seventies were lun- gry for was tle black man wlo was bad, and to tlese audiences tlat meant two very good tlings: tlat le would get away witl deance of tle man witl none of Poitiers appeasement, and tlat le would be sexually irresistible to botl black and wlite women. Te mid-nineteentl-century gure of Uncle Tom lad revolutionized wlite feeling toward tle suering of blacks tlrougl seless, noble, and desexualized Clristian suering. However, by tle midtwentietl century tlis same gure lad become a negative emblem of emasculation to many emerging black nationals and impatient youtl. Black audiences lad already begun to celebrate new anti- Tom sensibilities in a range of performances by former black atlletes in action-adventure lms. At rst tlese roles, often occupied by tle former football player )im Brown, simply emplasized virility tlrougl action. But soon some of tlese lms began clallenging sexual taboos.' Blaxploita- tiontle overt exploitation of racialized sex and violencewould prove tle next logical step. Blaxploitation describes a cycle of some sixty low-budget lms tlat ourisled at tle box oce between ,; and ,;(. Tese were (more or less) independent lms, aimed primarily at black urban youtl still entlusi- astically going to tle movies at a time wlen wlite middle-class audiences were nding otler distractions. Often directed by, and always starring, blacks, Blaxploitation proved every bit as exploitative of sex as tle sexploi- tation lms it followed. Lacking big budgets and major stars, it oered vio- lent action, a little more bodily exposure tlan tle mainstream, and simu- lated sex acts tlat were more audacious tlan typical Hollywood sexual interludes. Most signicantly, wlere sexploitation lad spectacularized tle female body, blaxploitation launcled its initial cycle tlrougl tle sexploi- tation of supervirile black male bodies. Only in a later cycle (beginning in ,;) did black female bodies oer a variant spectacle in lms like Cleo- patra Jones (dir. )ack Starrett, ,;) and Foxy Brown (dir. )ack Hill, ,;(). Melvin Van Peebless Sweet Sweetbacks Baadasssss Song (,;) was tle pioneer lm most recognized for uslering in tle popularity of tle Blax- ploitation cycle. It was also more genuinely independent tlan any of tle lms tlat would follow. Van Peebles leroically overcame all odds to write, direct, star in, score, and distribute tle lm. One of tle ways le managed ,( going all the way to sloot tlis low-budget lm was to claim to be making a lard-core skin ickwlicl by ,; lad emerged as an aboveground but X-rated genre. (Tis way le was also able to lire a mixed-race, nonunion crew and plug into independent distribution networks outside tle mainstream.) Te supposed camouage of pornograply proved especially apt. Wlen tle lm was refused an R rating, Van Peebles exploited lis X and sold tle lm witl tle slogan, rated X by an all-wlite jury. In more ways tlan one, tlen, Sweetback was a skin ick, tlougl not one tlat corresponded to any known formula. Van Peebles delivered just enougl of a rebellious X sensibility to satisfy lis young, black male urban audience, tlougl not so mucl as to encroacl on tle growing territory of tlen emerging lard core. Wlile most critics lave viewed Sweetback as notewortly for uslering in an era in wlicl a black man could be violent and even kill a wlite, I am interested lere in its provocation to tle once codied prolibition against sex relations between tle wlite and black races. How did Van Peebles deploy tle vestigial taboos of tle Code as a new kind of eroticization: To answer I propose to look closely at tlree of tle lms ve sex scenes. Sweetback tells tle story of a boy wlo grows up to become a sexual per- former in a stud louse. Its famous title sequence, wlicl explains low tlis boy got lis name, establisles a pattern in wlicl tle boyand tlen man sexually satises an obliging woman. A wlore invites tle prepubescent towel boy of tle wlorelouse into ler room. As le lies down naked be- tween ler legs, we briey glimpse lis penis. Sle puts aside lis cap and, as tle script reads, baptizes lim into manlood. But wlen tle boy, played by Mario, Van Peebless tlirteen-year-old son, just passively lies tlere, sle exlorts lim: You aint at tle plotograplersmove! Cospel music (Wade in tle Water followed by Tis Little Liglt of Mine) accompa- nies ler facial expressions of mounting pleasure until sle fairly explodes witl tle line tlat baptizes lim: Olll! You gotta sweet, you gotta sweet, sweet back! Trouglout tle scene, young Sweetback, fatler to tle man, remains impassive. A freeze-frame on tlis action permits tle introductory titles to play, but we keep returning to tle scene of tle naked boy wedged between tle naked wlores extended legs as sle continues to voice ler pleasure (gure (o). Eventually, a pullout from a close slot of ler ecstatic face reveals tlat it is no longer a skinny boy between ler legs, but a muscular, mature man played by Marios fatler, Melvin (gure (). In wlat will become a ritual gesture, le ceremoniously puts back on lis capa freeze-frame concludes tle scene on tlis gesture, one not unlike tlat of a cool gunslinger putting lis gun back into lis lolster. going all the way ,, Even before its credits roll, tlen, Sweetback puts naked black bodies engaged in (simulated) sex on parade. Tougl tlis rst scene does not yet clallenge tle taboos against black-wlite miscegenation, it nevertleless aggressively eroticizes black bodies and does so witl tle added provoca- tion of sex between an adult and a clild. Item , under Sex in tle Pro- duction Code read: Clildrens sex organs are never to be exposed. Te wlores vociferous enjoyment lails tle black boy into manlood in a near perfect illustration of Louis Altlussers description of low individuals are interpellated into ideology. But wlat ideology is it tlat lails tlis boy-man witl tle name of Sweetback in a sex scene tlat constitutes neitler tle tasteful foreplay and bracketed interlude of tle Hollywood mainstream nor tle frenzied lysteria of sexploitation nor tle maximum visibility of lard core: Wlat, in fact, is meant by tle very name Sweetback: Te online Sweet Sweetbacks Baadasssss Song (dir. Melvin Van Peebles, 1971) 40: Young Sweetback is still between the whores legs 41: Sweetback the man between the same whores legs ,6 going all the way Urban Dictionary denes it as a dude wlo is too smootl and fresl to go by any otler, less respectful term. Te second-listed denition, more apt for tlis context, is tlat it is ;os black slang for a large penisa meaning tlat Van Peebles limself las noted preexisted lis lm. Even after tle wlore enjoins Sweetback to move, it is remarkable low very little pelvic (or any otler sort of ) movement Sweetback (young or old) actually puts into most of lis supposedly studly performances. We tlus understand in some way tlat Sweetbacks back(side) functions metonymically for lis front, wlose full view in an erect state would lave made tlis lm actual pornograply.' Indeed, it is a frequent feature of seventies Blaxploitation tlat tle eroti- cized black male ass consistently upstages even female esl. Te credit sequence ends witl tle sound of applause, wlicl proves to be tlat of tle audience in a sex club. We tlus segue into a second sexual performance in tlis club, wlere tle adult Sweetback works as a performer. Tis sexual performance also eects transformation, tlis time not from boy to man, but from woman to man. Te act consists of a broad pantomime between a bearded black man and a sexy young black woman wlo parade tlemselves witlin a circle formed by tle racially mixed audi- ence of tle sex club. But wlen tle man undresses and lies down on tle young woman, le proves to lave breasts (still encased in a brassiere) and a black dildo attacled to a larness. Tey pantomime sex in a way tlat is reminiscent of tle credit sequence. Again, tle man lies still, and tle woman does all tle moving, including tle extension of ler legs. Suddenly, tle man pulls away from tlis coupling to pray. We understand from wlat follows tlat tlis prayer is to become a real man. A smiling black man in a wlite dress and tiara magically appears in answer to tlis prayer. Tis good dyke fairy godmotler waves a sparkler- wand. Trougl a combination of quick cuts and superimpositions, we witness a transformation of tle praying person: tle bra falls away and round breasts transform into a mans at and lairy clest, tle fake beard is pulled o and tle real mustacle of Sweetback becomes visible, tle wand toucles tle dildo (slown very briey in close-up), and it, too, disappears from tle womans body. Civen tlis pattern of transformation from female to male, we could now legitimately expect to next see Sweetbacks erect penis as tle nal touclfrom dildo to tle real tling. Instead, we hear wlat miglt be tle appreciative response of a woman in tle audience wlo screams in awe, possibly at tlis siglt. But all we actually see is tle face of one of tle wlite cops overseeing tle slow. Te transformation from emasculated woman witl substitute penis to real man ecloes tle previ- ous transformation from little boy penis to studly mans. In botl cases, going all the way ,; lowever, tle sweet back stands in for, wlile strongly connoting, tle un- seen front. Once again, a transformed and manlier Sweetback proceeds to perform sexually. And once again we do not actually see lim do mucl: lis naked back and buttocks move slowly over tle woman. Te audience, lowever, placed in a circle around tle center of tle room, cleers lim on and, like tle wlore in tle credit sequence, seems in awe of lis performance. One black woman las ler lands between ler tligls, anotler smacks ler lips and kisses botl of tle black men on eitler side of ler, black and wlite men ogle tle scene and urge Sweetback on as if le were in a wrestling matcl. Indeed, at tle end, as le pulls back away from tle woman on tle oor, lis arm is raised like tlat of a wrestling clampion. But wlen tle fairy godmotler asks for a volunteer from tle audience to be Sweetbacks next partner and an eager wlite woman volunteers, a warning glance from tle black club owner, responding to a slake of tle lead from tle wlite detective, causes tle oer to be modied to sisters only. Tus Sweetback primes our anticipation of tle vestigially taboo act of interracial intercourse wlile playing peekaboo witl tle male organ tlat would enact it. Sweetbacks sexual prowess, visible almost exclusively tlrougl repeated mountings tlat slow us lis back and lis celebrated asssss, is exploited by tle black club owner and slown in tlis same club scene to be at tle beck and call of wlite cops. In tle next sex scene, low- ever, Van Peebles nally clallenges tle taboo against interracial sex, again in a public sex act performed on tle ground before an audience. Tis occurs after Sweetback las beaten two wlite cops into a coma to save a black nationalist earlier beaten by tlese same cops. Tougl Sweetback breaks free of domination by tle man, le never seems to break free of tle compulsion to perform sexually. Te big inter- racial sex scene, for wlicl tle performance in tle sex club las prepared us, nally takes place wlen a menacing wlite motorcycle gang surrounds Sweetback, wlo is now on tle run. Its leader at rst appears to be a tall, leatler-jacketed man. But once again we witness an abrupt transforma- tion of gender, tlis time from male to female. Wlen tlis man takes o lis lelmet, le turns out to be a tall wlite woman witl long red lair. Clal- lenged to a glt by tlis leader, Sweetback is asked to name lis weapon. He does so witl one word, fucking. Te gang leader strides naked into tle middle of tle circle and lies downratler noncombativelyon ler back. Sweetback enters, also naked except for a derby lat and a wlite bow tie. But unlike lis female an- tagonist, wlo is viewed frontally, we only see lis sweet back. As usual, le ,8 going all the way ceremoniously removes lis lat and lies down between a womans already spread legs. For once, lowever, le does not lie still. In tle glaring liglts of tle motorcycles, surrounded by bearded, long-laired wlite men wlose cleers for tleir Pres seem to cleer lim on as mucl as tleir leader, le does nally move, grinding on tle woman in a prolonged scene marked by many edits tlat repeat gestures and superimpose multiple angles. Once le even clanges positions, moving one of tle womans legs to gain a better angle. However, le moves slowly, metlodically, and, as usual, witl no apparent pleasure of lis own, prominently displaying lis now active back (gure (:). Te Pres alternately extends ler legs and crosses ler feet around Sweetbacks back. Tree times sle cries out lis name, ecloing tle voice leard from tle black wlore in tle baptismal scene. Hailed as a stud by botl black and wlite women and now recognized as sucl before an audience of only wlite men, Sweetback wins tle contest by delivering yet anotler noisy orgasm to an easily pleased woman. And so tle lm nally delivers tle interracial sex so anxiously diverted in tle sex club (not to mention in Vixen and in countless otler Hollywood irtations witl miscegenation). Wlen it is over, Sweetback once again coolly puts back on lis lat and witldraws from a womans spread legs. But tlis time tle scene ends witl a very brief frontal glimpse of tle naked (tlougl accid) Sweetback (still in derby and bow tie) as tle motorcycle gang roars o (gure (). Wlere gospel music lad accompanied tle rst sex scene and blues tle sexual performance in tle club, and wlere jazz lad been tle typical music of sexploitation, lere, strikingly, we lear only tle sounds of sex and of tle men in tle gang cleering on tleir leaderas if tley did not realize sle lad lost tle contest as soon as sle lay down on ler back. Tougl tle scene is a liglly constructed montage marked by prolonged superim- positions, it is emplatically not a musical sexual interlude in any of tle ways described above. Indeed, tle presence of sound syncl points for tlis carnal encounter lends tlis lm some of tle sense of tle nakedness of tle sex in tlose European art lms tlat lad so indelibly impressed me ten years earlier. Witl tlis scene, capped by tle brief glimpse of full frontal nudity, Van Peebles dared to expose, literally and guratively, an element of black empowerment frequently left out of civil riglts agendas: tle riglt for black men to lave sex witl wlite women, tle black penis as a sign of power and potency. Tis briey glimpsed front proves crucial to tle lm, yet is rarely noted by critics. Te rest of tle lm focuses on Sweetbacks protracted escape to tle border. Mixed-race inner-city audiences (especially young males) roared going all the way ,, at tle spectacle of a black man escaping tle law and screwing lis way to freedom. Entlusiastic vocal responses aimed at tle screen mirrored tle many moments audiences witlin tle lm cleered Sweetbacks sexual performances. Te call-and-response format of mucl of tle lms music, written by Van Peebles and performed by Eartl, Wind, and Fire, itself elicited audience call-out (You bled my Momma. You bled my Poppa. But you wont bleed me.). Wlile wlite critics tended to begrudgingly ad- mire tle crowd-pleasing fabulation of tle black mans revenge on wlitey, wlile simultaneously wincing at its crass overstatement, for once tle more important critical commentary occurred witlin tle black community. None otler tlan tle Black Pantler minister of defense, Huey P. Newton, lailed Sweetback as tle rst truly revolutionary Black lm. Newtons long article, occupying an entire issue of tle Black Panther Party Intercom- Sweet Sweetbacks Baadasssss Song 42: Sweetback fnally moves on top of the Pres and before an all-white, male audience 43: (53:01) Sweetback in derby and bowtie, glimpsed frontally oo going all the way munal News Service, wlose target market was inner-city blacks, oered detailed, sometimes self-contradictory, close readings of all tle lms sex scenes, eacl of wlicl le argues slould be interpreted not as actual sex acts but as riglteously signifying sexual symbols. For example, despite tle nudity and simulation of sex acts, Newton asserts tlat tle rst scene of baptism witl tle wlore is far from anytling sexual. It is a sacred rite answered by a second baptism, tlis time in blood, wlen Sweetback beats tle two cops wlo lave tlemselves beaten tle black revolutionary. In answer to Newton, Lerone Bennett )r., writing for Ebony, argued tlat tle lm represented no liberation and no clallenge to wlite stereotypes of blacks, but only its own stereotypical counter to tle previous stereotype of tle gure of tle Tom. For Bennett, writing for a magazine wlose target audience consisted of middle-class, upwardly mobile blacks, tle opening baptismal scene was notling less tlan tle rape of a clild, and tle lms subsequent sexual performances were so many bogus emancipation orgasms. If fing freed, Bennett writes, black people would lave cele- brated tle millennium (oo years ago. More important, perlaps, Ben- nett notes tle woodenness of Sweetbacks sexual performances, wlicl to lim missed an opportunity to portray tle black tradition of spontaneous sexuality. He insists tlat le is not opposed to tle lms sexual explicit- ness per se, only to its manner: Te sex in tlis black lm is as cold and as wlite as snowgrim, manipulative, competitive, full of anxieties and lostilities. Indeed, it is not explicit enougl, it is not natural enougl, it is not black enough. Worried tlat impressionable black viewers were taking Sweetback seriously as a sex symbol wlen tle real opportunity lad been missed to make visible for tle rst time tle luslness, tle beauty, and tle incredible variety of black esl, Bennett is deeply disappointed tlat tle lm opted for a kind of vulgar intensity tlat could never present sex as tle luman sacrament it is. Botl Newton and Bennett address tle stereotype of tle lypersexual black male, but from dierent directions. Newton nds Sweetback liberat- ing and revolutionary. Bennett nds tle claracter a trap, a counterstereo- type itself determined by tle wlite mans stereotypes of tle black man. He notes Sweetbacks own singular lack of pleasure and taunts tlat tle only person wlo actually gives everytling to sex, wlo lolds notling back, is neitler Sweetback tle Sex Macline nor tle black wlores but tle wlite female leader of tle motorcycle gang. How does tlat black aestletic grab you:' Tus Bennett argues tlat Sweetback is entirely determined by tle stereotype le is invented to counter. Bennett certainly las a point. Te wlite stereotype of tle lypersexual- going all the way o ized black man witl a large penis is a gment of tle wlite imagination. But tle black imagination of tle lypersexualized black man does not merely repeat tlat same stereotype. It is, as Mireille Rosello las pointed out about tle working of stereotypes in general, a refunctioning tlat walks a tricky tigltrope between two dierent stereotypes: tle plobic stereotype of tle black rapist wlo cannot control lis slavering desire for wlite women and tle counterplobic one of tle kind, gentle, and asexual Uncle Tom. Tomas Cripps las written tlat sexual prowess is tle one racial stereo- type tlat few blacks ever botlered to deny. I would like to respectfully revise tlis important statement. Historically, tle gure of Uncle Tom, was deployed strategically by botl blacks and wlites in tle nineteentl century to counter an earlier minstrel gure of tle sexually promiscuous black buck. Te anti-Tom reinvention of tlis gure in tle reconstruction era, most signicantly revived by Birth of a Nation, put a new spin on tle stereotype by presenting tle comic minstrel as a melodramatic villain in perpetual lust after wlite women. Van Peebles tlus lad to counter two stereotypes. Uncle Tom was tle most obvious. He writes in lis manifesto-screenplay tlat wlen tle idea for lis lm came to lim, lis primary goal was to create a commercially feasible velicle and to do sometling tlat wasnt Uncle Tommy. It is entirely relevant, tlerefore, tlat le informs us tlat lis inspiration for tlis lm came to lim wlile alone in tle desert masturbating. His version of tle anti-Tom needed to assert sexual pleasure, but if it asserted too mucl and was not under control, it would fall into tle stereotype of tle wlite version of tle anti-Tom. Peebles anti-Tom tlus lad to emerge from a liglly controlled form of sexual pleasure. As le writes, I unbuttoned my y, leaned back against tle front fender . . . and pulled out my pecker and began to beat my meat. . . . some idea was lurking back tlere in my mind waiting for tle coast to clear to be born. Masturbating not merely for pleasure, or for cinematic inspiration, but perlaps to prove a certain potency tlrougl control, Van Peebles calls lis crasl metlod for creative inspiration semen-slock. He compares tlis metlod favorably to tle racial-slock of a lmrecognizable as Stanley Kramers Home of the Brave (,(,)in wlicl a wlite doctor taunts a paralyzed black soldier into regaining tle use of lis legs by calling lim a nigger coward. A stereotype of tle black buck tlat functioned in tle Reconstruction era to keep wlite women, black men, and black women in tleir place was tlus in tle early ,;os refunctioned by a black director to celebrate sexual performance in tle form of a transgressive, quasi-pornograplic tale. If we seek an answer for wly Sweetbacks glimpsed front rarely moves, wly o: going all the way it is so often just coolly in control, just tlere between tle womens legs, never taking and only giving pleasure, I tlink it miglt lave sometling to do witl tle fact tlat it now las tle burden of countering not only Uncle Tommy, wlicl any sexual performance could refute, but also tle wlite-generated plobic stereotype of tle black buck as rst promulgated in popular culture by tle likes of Tomas Dixon and D. W. Critl. In Te Birth of a Nation (,,), black men and so-called mulattoes tlrust tleir pelvises at wlite women in wanton exlibitions of lust. Te trick for tle new generation of black men interested in black sexual power would be to perform neitler Uncle Tommy nor tle lascivious black buck, to slow potency but not excessive desire or pleasure. It is tlus not accidental tlat so many of tle sexual acts depicted in tle lm are performed before tle surprisingly approving gaze of wlite men. Van Peebless accomplislment, tlougl not as genuinely revolutionary as Bennett miglt lave wisled, is nevertleless to lave redeployed tle very taboos tlat once eectively policed tle racial border in tle service of eroticizing transgression. Sucl was Melvin Van Peebless complex masturbatory fantasy. Te persistence witl wlicl Sweetback positions audiences in tle lm for its many sexual performances alerts us to tle frauglt question of low audiences, tlemselves marked by signs of race and gender, miglt lave re- sponded to tle sex. Tree out of ve times Sweetback performs sex before racially marked internal lm audiences: tle race- and gender-mixed audi- ence in tle sex club, tle all-wlite, all-male motorcycle gang, and nally, tle two wlite cops in tle desert wlo are fooled into tlinking Sweetbacks knifepoint rape of a black woman is really lovemaking in tle busles. Eacl performance points to tle aective dilemma of tle tleater audiences own response: Wlo slould cleer, and wlo slould be aslamed: Wlo miglt permit tlemselves to feel aroused, and wlo slould be guarded against sucl feelings: Perlaps one reason for tle exuberant cleering of young, black, urban audiences was tle sense of release: wlere tleir parents gen- eration lad felt tle need to remain very guarded about slowing arousal in any but tle most strictly segregated situations, lere, nally, was an op- portunity to cleer on black sexual prowess even in one case vis--vis tlat most taboo object: tle wlite woman. But in tle agonistic arena of sexual battle, wlo wins and wlo loses: Slould I, for example, as a wlite woman, cleer wlen Sweetback brings tle wlite woman motorcycle Pres to orgasm, or slould I cringe at tle passive way sle lies down on ler back to do battle: Slould a black woman rejoice at tle triumpl of tle black man, even if it is purclased at tle going all the way o cost of tle lumiliation (and later rape) of ler counterpart on tle screen: Or do tlese questions of opposed forms of pleasure and power look too narrowly at race and gender as identicatory viewing positions: Is tle black stud wlo foils tle cops and escapes across tle border freed by lis sexuality, or only furtler imprisoned by tle need to perform lis virility witlout ever losing lis cool: Tese are questions witlout easy answers. Te one tling tley point to is tle listoric importance of a lm tlat put tle question of African American sex acts rmly in tle public eye, riglt along witl tle issue of tle black and wlite audiences response to tlose acts. Perlaps tle most we can say is tlat Van Peebless frequent lat dong is a nod to botl lis audiencestlose in and tlose at tle lmas if to say I know tle cool new way to walk tlis tigltrope. Te less ercely independent Blaxploitation lms to follow tle trail blazed by Sweetback would make a point of delivering sometling a little more like tle black tradition of spontaneous sexuality tlat Bennett called for. Tese lms would also make visible for tle rst time tle luslness, tle beauty, and tle incredible variety of black esl. Cordon Parks )r.s ,;: Supery provides tle quintessential example. Ron ONeals dope-pusling lustler lero casually leaves tle bed of one of lis wlite female customers at tle lms beginning and later las luscious, spontaneous musical inter- ludestyle sex in a bubble batl witl a black woman le may actually love. Te lm even gives tlis couple a lappy ending. Witlin tle constraints of tle gangster genre, a certain celebration of intraracial sexual pleasure lad arrived in Blaxploitation, but perlaps only insofar as tle lms re- entered tle supposedly tasteful realm of tle Hollywood musical sexual interlude. Te African American novelist Terry McMillan writes tlat before sle saw Spike Lees Shes Gotta Have It in ,86, sle lad never seen a real black couple in tle twentietl century on screen making love before, nor lad sle seen a black woman actually enjoying it.' Tougl McMillan seems ignorant of tle early seventies listory of Blaxploitation, ler com- ment speaks to tle anticipation witl wlicl African American audiences lave greeted eacl rare siglting of intraracial sex. Henry Louis Cates )r. las also noted tlat lonest and open explorations of tle complexities of interracial sexual attraction lave not been among Hollywoods strong points. Like McMillan, Cates goes on to discuss Lee as tle pioneer (tlis time writing about tle ,, Jungle Fever), skipping over wlat le calls tle more lurid and titillating tradition of Blaxploitation. It is precisely in tle lurid and titillating transgressions of early Blaxploitation, lowever, o( going all the way tlat one nds tle most lonest and open clallenges to tle taboos against miscegenation, as well as tle deepest understanding of low tlese taboos, even wlen broken, structure tle very nature of tleir violation. Te nal location for tle depiction of carnal knowledge outside tle main- stream of American lm in tle sixties is tle avant-garde. In tle sixties proper I saw very few of tlese lms, but I would make up for tlat lack in tle early seventies wlen I moved to Boulder, Colorado, lome to Stan Braklage and a lively experimental cinema scene. In regular screenings at tle Experimental Cinema Croup (later renamed First Person Cinema) by lmmakers as diverse as Scott Bartlett, Braklage, Bruce Conner, )ack Smitl, Carolee Sclneeman, Paul Slarits, and Andy Warlol I encountered anotler kind of carnal knowledge also cauglt up in tle sexual revolution. Closest in some ways to tle brazen revelations of lard-core pornogra- ply, avant-garde lms did not lesitate to slow explicit sexual acts, but tley always pursued otler aestletic, political, and social goals in tle pro- cess. Avant-garde lms were also screened at tle kind of private parties and clubs wlere stag lms were slown until tle late ,6os. But tley lad an ability, unlike tle latter, to also travel to museums and art galleries. As raried experiments in cinematic rendering of tle texture of life, tley were often diametrically opposed to tle clinical clarity of lard-core lms, frequently interlacing carnal knowledge witl icker eects, fast cutting, superimposition, or tle intentional lack of focus. Audiences for tlese lms, like tle audiences for pornograply and sexploitation, often came to lms witl titles like Loving (dir. Stan Braklage, ,,;), Blow Job (dir. Andy Warlol, ,6), Blue Movie (dir. Andy Warlol, ,68), or Lovemaking (dir. Scott Bartlett, ,;o) witl built-in prurient interest and some expectation tlat if tley were patient and looked lard enougl tley miglt glimpse as- pects of sex tlat tley could not see anywlere else. Sometimes, as in tle promisingly titled Blow Job, tley were pornograplically disappointed. At otler times, as in Barbara Rubins amazing Christmas on Earth (,6), originally titled Cocks and Cunts, or in Warlols Couch (,6() and Blue Movie, tley were gratied in prurient ways wlile also being oered all tle familiar existential longueurs and formal clallenges expected from avant- garde cinema. As Tomas Waugl and Ara Osterweil lave botl noted, Going All the Way in the Avant-Garde going all the way o, tlese lms simultaneously fullled and frustrated tle sexual interests of tleir small but devoted audiences. Warlols Blue Movie is of particular interest because, as Variety was quick to note in its review, it was not quite as underground as some of tle previous lms of tle avant-garde (sucl as, for example, Warlols ,6 Kiss). Indeed, it was tle rst tleatrically released feature-lengtl sound lm to slow explicit sexual intercourse. Te lard-core blue movies to wlicl Warlols title refers lad been silent, slort, and entirely illegal. In contrast, Blue Movie was long and loquacious. Wlat it slared witl tle stag lm or blue movie was an unblinking look at unsimulated sex, but it was neitler an old-faslioned, silent blue movie nor yet a feature- lengtl, sound, lard-core work of pornograply. Ratler, Blue Movie lad its very own way of going all tle way, in particular a foregrounding of wlat we lave already seen as a key issue of screening sex: tle rendering of pri- vate and intimate sexual acts as public. A remarkable number of tle lms discussed in tlis clapter depict sex performed for audiences witlin tle lm narrative. In Sin in the Suburbs an orgy arranged for an audience climaxes witl motler and dauglter un- masked to one anotler and to tle spectators at tle event. Tese spectators do not stay to enjoy tle slow. Public sex, as one miglt expect in a lm tlat equates sex witl sin, is tantamount to slameful, tlougl still titillating, exposure. Te words of tle ringmaster wlo calls tlis coupling an animal act are apt: sin lies in tle very absence of slame tlat permits a public performance. By ,;, witl Sweetback, lowever, tle performance of sex becomes an arena for a cool display of prowess. Te black man slows lis stu to botl tle women le las sex witl and tle audience. Warlols Blue Movie, in contrast, does not lave a literal audience in- scribed in its narrative. But, as we slall see, tle lm is launted by tle specter of an audience. It is aware tlat its portrayal of unsimulated sex constitutes a publication of an act tlat lad previously been taboo every- wlere except in blue movies. Te lm is about a man (Louis Waldon) and a woman (Viva) wlo spend a late afternoon and evening togetler. Tey undress, lave sex, watcl 1v, eat, watcl tle sun go down, cook, wasl eacl otler in tle slower, sing, and make inarticulate animal sounds. Trougl- out, tley casually smoke, needle eacl otler witl an olanded loquacious intimacy, talk and talk (about politics, tle Vietnam War, acting, sexual pickups, not wearing bras, etc.). All of tlis takes place in tle idiom of War- lols late sound lms, described by Wayne Koestenbaum as lurid subject, cool presentation. Viva (ne Susan Homan), one of Warlols many o6 going all the way superstars, is a tlin, beautiful, deadpan, wline-voiced comedienne, tle very opposite of Meyers Vixen. Wlere Vixen is all busty, frenzied, working-class leat, Viva is soplisticated, world-weary coolness. Waldon is friendly, casual, and unlike many otler Factory superstars, neitler a man wlo wants to be a woman nor a man wlo likes men. Te action takes place over tle course of minutes in tle bedroom, kitclen, and batl- room of a New York apartment witl a nice view of tle skyline. Te sex act itself occupies about lalf an lour of tle lms total run- ning time. Te couple slowly undresses as tley lie in various positions on a bed. Usually tleir entire bodies are displayed witlin tle frame. Never does tle lm cut, as a true blue movie would, to close-ups of body parts. A casual intimacy dominates, banal conversation accompanies even tle sweatier, more strenuous parts of leterosexual intercourse. Like Warlols earlier silent Kiss, Blue Movie is somelow more and less real in its rep- resentation of its closen sex act. It is more real tlan mainstream cinema or sexploitation in its explicit display of full frontal nudity, erection, and penetration and in its depiction of awkward longueurs (e.g., tle long time it takes Louis to get lard). It is also more real tlan blue movies in tle syn- clronized sound tlat permits sexual grunts, interminable dialogue, and verbally explicit negotiations of sexual positions (as wlen Viva asserts tlat sle will not suck Louiss cock because its boring). At tle same time, lowever, tle lm is less real tlan eitler tle mainstream or tle sex genres: acutely aware tlat it is not so mucl about sex as about tle lming of sex, it poses tle central question of wlat it means to perform sex for a camera and, tlrougl tle mediation of tlat camera, to present sex to a lm audi- ence. Unusual among Warlol lms, Blue Movie las no drag queens, no male lustlers, no perversionsonly a man and a woman alone in an apart- ment enjoying a leisurely fuck.' Yet of course tle very fact tlat we can see tlem means tlat tley were never really alone. For tleir sounds and images to be visible to us in tle future audience, a camera and sound re- corder (separate entities at tlis stage of 6mm lm teclnology) lad to be present, along witl tleir operators. Almost as soon as it beginsin medias res, like all Warlol lms, witl a clotled Viva and Louis already stretcled out on a bedBlue Movie ex- plores tle dilemma of tle private act of sex performed for a camera and sound apparatus tlat make it public. Amid tleir small talk, Viva wlispers sometling into Louiss ear in order, we assume, not to be overleard by tle sound recorder. Sle tlen says out loud, in ironic complaint: Maybe we slould discuss it out loud at tle next commercial break. Not mucl later, going all the way o; as tley begin to caress and undress, Viva again expresses discomfort witl tle lack of privacy and asks Louis, Wly dont you ask someone in lere to leaveall tle glosts: Botl complaints go uncommented on by Louis, but it is clear tlat tleir negotiation of tle sex act is also a negotiation witl tle glosts. Indeed, Viva continually worries about low sle miglt look, wisling at one point tlat sle lad worn a leotard so Id look sexy. Te long sex scene is marked by Vivas simultaneous self-consciousness about low sle looks and ler concern about low Louis looks witl an erect penis wlen le nally takes o lis slorts. Ol! How disgusting, sle ex- claims, riglt in front of tle lens! At tlis point tleir bodies are arranged perpendicularly, feet rst, to tle camera. In taking in tle scene, we tend to look up tleir legs and bodies from tle bottom to tle top of tle frame. Halfway up we discover Louiss now exposed, partly erect penis. Looking directly at tle camera, Viva, wlose own position in tle scene is actually less favorably located for tle siglt of Louiss penis tlan is ours, explains, speaking botl for lerself and as if for us, We dont want to see your ugly cock and balls! (gure ((). And, in fact, sle adjusts lis top leg so as to lide tle oending organs. Louis responds not by defending tle beauty of lis manlood, but by insisting on tle ction tlat tley are alone: Wlos we: Me and you: Teres nobody lere but me and you! (Later, lowever, a glost sneezes, and Louis says gesundleit.) Viva and Louis navigate tle pressures of laving sex before a camera dierently, Viva mostly witl wisecracks and asides and Louis witl wlat appears to be initial performance anxiety. For not only does Viva object to tle fact tlat tle lens sees cock and balls, sle objects to tle fact tlat le is not lard (How can you slow tlat wlen its not lard: sle questions, 44: Blue Movie (dir. Andy Warhol, 1968), Viva quips: We dont want to see your ugly cock and balls! o8 going all the way adding in ler usual clatty way tlat lard-ons were considered comic in tle Creek tleater.) After a long kiss, and a rare silence, Louis puts lis left leg between Vivas legs and rlytlmically rolls into ler, now apparently lard. But a doorbell rings and spoils tle mood, giving Viva anotler opportu- nity to criticize lim (Youre doing so poorly!). Eventually, lowever, sle climbs on top of lis erect penis, tley reverse positions, and le pumps on top of ler. Tougl Viva never stops demonstrating ler awareness of performing for a camera (saying at one point, I tlink we slould give a prole lere, and at anotler, we slould lave organized orgasms), sle does respond to lis pumping, pusling back up into lim and working witl lim to aclieve if not organized, and certainly not visible, orgasms, tlen a certain concerted frenzy of motion wlose passion can be measured by tleir sweat. Viva notes low tley slip and slide and, wlen tle passion subsides, cracks tlat tley could use a dentists suction macline to get rid of tle excess liquid. Vivas objection to, and Louiss complacency about, tle glosts is one of tle couples many running arguments. At stake in tlis argument are dif- ferent assumptions about tle privacy of sex acts, tle appropriateness of laving sex for a camera and tape recorder and, via tlese meclanisms, be- fore an audience. Viva assumes tlat we do not want to see Louiss cock and balls, but ler eventual compliance suggests ambivalence. Clearly tlis we includes lerself, tle glosts, and by extension, tle us tlat marks for ler an ambivalent obscenity. Sle invokes wlat William Ian Miller calls tle rules of disgustrules tlat in )udeo-Clristian culture lad deemed tle display of lower portions of tle anatomy obscene. Te relaxation of tlese rules is tle very substance, Miller argues, of intimacy. For Louis, lowever, tle argument seems to rest on male pride: Can le get Viva excited enougl to actually forget tle camera: To tle extent tlat sle does seem to forget, le would seem to be successful in lis own perfor- mance and tle lm a celebration of tlat successjust as tle sexual inter- lude in Midnight Cowboy celebrates )oe Bucks success in giving pleasure to lis female client. In Warlol lms, lowever, we never fully forget tle dimension of performance. Even after Viva las climbed on top of Louis and begins to be less critical of lis sexual performance, sle nevertleless suggestsagain, to wlom:tlat a prole miglt be in order. Te per- formance of genital sex for tle camera, like tle performance of kisses, is tle sex, tlere is no more private, autlentic moment. How it looks relates to low it feels, and Vivas constant references to low she looks are tlus always more tlan a reference to low sle miglt look just to Louis. going all the way o, David )ames las noted of Warlols screen tests tlat tle camera makes performance inevitable, it constitutes being as performance. In lis Phi- losophy, Warlol recalled tlat lis purclase of an audiotape recorder nisled wlatever emotional life I miglt lave lad. . . . Notling was ever a problem again, because a problem just meant a good tape, and wlen a problem transforms itself into a good tape its not a problem any more. An interesting problem was an interesting tape. Everybody knew tlat and per- formed for tle tape. You couldnt tell wlicl problems were real and wlicl problems were exaggerated for tle tape. Better yet, tle people telling you tle problems couldnt decide any more if tley were really laving tle prob- lems or if tley were just performing. Sex for Warlol was tle interesting problem. He was an admitted voyeur wlo felt like an outsider to all sex, but especially to lis peculiarly exalted ideal of leterosexual sex. Blue Movie, for all Vivas complaining, proves a most interesting solution to tle problem of tle performance of tle pri- vate act of sex for a public audience. By forging intimacy around tle very conict of being lmed and sound-recorded in tle act of sex, tle lm reexively stages tle dilemma of tle performer and tle audience in tle spectacle of sex. Altlougl tle lm sometimes lalfleartedly attempts to present tle tryst of Viva and Louis as tlat of an actual couple laving an aair, tle two cannot keep tleir stories straiglt. At one point Viva says, I tlouglt I was supposed to be your wife in tlis movie. Teir sex, wlicl is more extended and more real and lard core tlan in any previous Ameri- can movie including preexisting lard-core pornograply, only exists for, and because of, tle camera and tape recorder tlat deliver tlis perfor- mance to tle alternately bored and stunned avant-garde lm audience. Ironically, lowever, Viva and Louiss performance of sex aclieves a simulacrum of tle intimacy of tle autlentic couple tlrougl tleir very bonding opposition to tle glosts. Tis intimacy, wlicl includes a long period of postcoital talk, cooking, and slowering, and wlicl is forged botl witl and against tle recording apparatus, seems more genuine tlan any of tle otler forms of carnal knowledge I lave so far examined. Trouglout tle lalf lour in wlicl tle couple disrobes, verbally spars, wrestles around, and nally las sex, tle only ellipses occur wlen tle rolls of lm run out, we see tle image bleacl out and go wlite, followed by brief darkness before again picking up tle action at a sligltly later point. Tus tle temporal ow of tlis sex, altlougl not witlout an occa- sional ellipsis at tle seemingly arbitrary end of eacl roll of lm, diers o going all the way radically in duration and explicitness from any otler discussed in tlis clapter. If it were possible to lave a degree zero of sex in movies, tlis is it. No edited montages, no superimpositions, no musical interludes attempt to stand in for tle always elusive orgasmic moments of pleasure. Nor does tle scene build to a dramatic climax of money slots. Yet Warlol does take lis cue aestletically from tle blunt and often matter-of-fact older blue movies le so mucl admired. Tese lms are often so laplazard in tleir orclestration of unfaked sex acts tlat tley, too, neglect to oer dramatic climaxes and tlus, screened today, often lave an uncanny realism. As we saw lim do witl kisses, Warlol simply slows tle act witl an unblinking, unprobing, unprurient eye altlougl witlout maximally visible close-ups. It does not lurt tlerefore tlat Warlol close to begin lis lm witl tle sex act ratler tlan to build toward it as a payo at tle end. Te real payo of lis lm turns out to be tle postcoital and emplatically domestic inti- macy in wlicl tle brittle Viva becomes soft. (Before tley lave sex Louis pleads, Be soft so I can make love to yousoft, like an angel.) Blue Movie was made in ,68 after Warlol returned from lis recu- peration from tle wounds inicted wlen le was slot by Valerie Solanas. Koestenbaum views it as lis last piece of real art before becoming a kind of glost in lis own body. After it was screened at tle Carrick Teater in New Yorksoon to become tle Andy Warlol Teaterit was seized by police, tried, and found obscene. Since tlen it las only been viewable on video at tle Warlol Museum in Pittsburgl and on a bootleg video dubbed into Cerman. Tougl in todays pornograplically saturated media envi- ronment Blue Movie would never be considered obscene, it las continued to be treated as sucl: it remains literally o scene so long as Viva las not consented to its screening. Tis way, it seems, sle las lad ler revenge on tlose glosts. In Te Graduate, just before le las sex witl Mrs. Robinson, Benjamin makes a last-minute appeal to normalize tleir relation. Would you like to go to tle movies: le asks. In ,6; Benjamin miglt lave assumed tle movies a place safe from tle adult carnal knowledge in wlicl le was afraid to engage. But as we lave seen, tle movies were becoming less safe, more a place wlere scenes of passion, adultery, miscegena- tion, miglt now be glimpsed. By ,; and ,;:, lowever, going all tle way would take on new meaning. No longer would it be a matter of tle cordoned-o musical sexual interlude in tle mainstream, sucl as tlat between Benjamin and Mrs. Robinson. No longer would tle avant-garde going all the way or Blaxploitation be tle only place to glimpse less contained moments of sex. Very soon adult sexual situations would become tle primary reason for watcling a lm from beginning to end, wletler in tle new lard-core feature-lengtl pornograply exemplied by tle ubiquitous Deep Troat (dir. Cerard Damiano, ,;:) or in a new kind of sexy art cinema tlat was not entirely foreign. 3 going further Last Tango in Paris, Deep Troat, and Boys in the Sand (,;,;:) Pauline Kaels famous review of Last Tango in Paris began witl tle following words: Bernardo Bertoluccis Last Tango in Paris was presented for tle rst time on tle closing niglt of tle NY Film Festival, October (, ,;:: tlat date slould become a landmark in lm listory comparable to May :,, ,tle niglt Le Sacre du Printemps was rst performed in music listory.' Te Rite of Spring lad reportedly been tle most notorious premiere in tle listory of music and ballet. Wlat lappened at tlat premiere in tle Tatre des Clamps-lyses in Paris was quite simply a riot. Almost from tle very rst notes of Igor Stravinskys music and tle very rst steps of Serge Diaglilevs ballet tle audience was slocked by tle scenic and rlytlmic evocation of pagan ritu- als witl percussive intensities never before leard in classical music. Wly did Kael, tle most inuential and astute lm reviewer of ler generation, compare a ,;: lm by an Italian director going further working in France, and starring one of Americas most famous actors, to a , musical score and ballet performed by a famous dancer commonly considered to lave been tle dening moment of modern art: Last Tango is about a twenty-year-old Frencl woman (Maria Sclneider) and a forty-ve-year-old American man (Marlon Brando) wlo meet by clance in a Paris apartment, lave sex, and continue to meet for more sex until tleir attraction dies. Tougl certainly not a ballet, it is a kind of arcl, stylized dance of life and deatl, witl a literal tango guring prominently in one of its later scenes. Part of tle audacity of Kaels review is tle claim tlat a movie could lave tle same kind of cultural resonance as Stravin- skys and Diaglilevs famously dissonant, percussive works of music and dance. Te comparison was certainly strategic. Te lm critic most fa- mous for clampioning movies as a popular form was now claiming tlat lm lad nally come of age as ligl modern art. It is lard not to ask: if tle art of lm was only tlen becoming mod- ern, wlere lad it been tlese last fty-nine years: Te implication could only be tlat lm was belind tle times, tlat it lad not yet lad its mod- ernist break witl classical traditions, even tlougl it may lave been tle only art form actually born in tle era of modernism. To make ler auda- cious analogy, Kael lad to ignore tle cinematic avant-gardes of tle ,:os, ,(os, and ,6os. Tis analogy only makes sense if one considers it a claim for tle feature-lengtl commercial narrative cinema, not for tle avant- garde. But wlat specically links tle Stravinsky-Diaglilev-Nijinsky Rite of Spring witl tle Bertolucci-Brando Last Tango in Kaels mind is tleir embrace of a similar primitive eroticism. In a telling plrase, Kael links tle two tlrougl tleir slared jabbing, thrusting eroticism. It is as mod- ernist sex tlat tle lm is judged by Kael to be a breaktlrougl. Modern art lad often been connected witl tle unleasling of libido and tlus witl Sigmund Freuds tleories on tle importance of sexuality as a fundamen- tal motive force in luman life. Because of tle Production Code, lowever, American lms slowing in regular movie louses lad not participated in tle explorations of luman sexuality manifest in writers like )ames )oyce, D. H. Lawrence, Ceorges Bataille, or Henry Miller, or in visual artists sucl as Pablo Picasso, Egon Scliele, Ren Magritte, or Francis Bacon beyond tle tame conventions of wlat I lave called tle sexual musical interlude. It is tlus in tlis particular sense of taking on sexual tlemes in tle non- romanticized, primitive ways of modern art tlat Kael claimed tlat movies lad nally grown up. Last Tango was certainly not tle rst lm imported from Europe to screen adult sex beyond tle kiss. As early as ,,, Louis Malles Les ( going further amants (Te Lovers) lad engendered controversy, not to mention sig- nicant litigation, witl a long scene of adulterous lovemaking tlat was so intrinsic to tle lm tlat it could notlike Hedy Lamarrs brief nude scene in Ecstasy (dir. Custave Maclat, ,) or otler European examples of risqu sexbe cut witlout doing extreme violence to tle narrative. And in ,6;, tle same year as Te Graduate, Luis Buuels Belle de jour lad structured its narrative around tle multiple sexual encounters of an upper-middle-class lousewife wlo takes up prostitution. None of tlese lms were constructed in tle bracketed-o, musically accompanied man- ner of tle Hollywood sexual interlude. Last Tango, lowever, diered. It lad an unprecedented number of sex scenes (six) and a story revolving fundamentally around sex. But wlat was especially dierent about Last Tango was tlat it did not seem to be tle usual foreign import. To be sure, it was directed by an Italian, slot in Paris, and featured tle familiar Frencl actor )ean Pierre Laud and lis com- patriot newcomer Maria Sclneider. But its star was Marlon Brando, tle quintessential American male sex symbol of tle late fties and early six- ties. His aging but still magnetic masculine presence did not allow Ameri- can audiences to place tle lms sexual scenes in tle context of a foreign, supposedly Old World decadence. Tougl le speaks a little Frencl in tle lm, all of Brandos important scenes, and certainly all of tle sex scenes, take place in a very American idiom, some of wlicl Sclneiderwlo speaks in leavily accented Englislcannot understand. It was tlus at least partly tle Americanization, tlrougl tle body and voice of Brando, of a sexuality once associated witl European soplistication tlat made tle lm seem sucl an astounding event for Kael. Kaels New Yorker review was written on tle occasion of tle lms ligl- prole screening on tle closing niglt of tle New York Film Festival. It would lelp launcl tle lm into wide distribution by United Artists, wlere it would rank sixtl at tle box oce and eventually receive two Oscar nominations. Te lms reception into tle mainstream illustrates a dis- tinctive American sensibility grappling witl sexual scenes tlat went far beyond tle interlude. Te rst sex scene in Last Tango occurs in an empty apartment tlat Paul (Brando) and )eanne (Sclneider) are simultaneously looking over to rent. A few Frencl words spoken by )eanne serve to establisl Pauls nationality. A plone rings and )eanne picks it up in one room wlile Paul listens on tle extension in anotler, moving closer, breatling on tle line. No words are spoken directly before, during, or after tley suddenly lave sex riglt tlere in tle empty apartment. Neitler does music play, tlougl a plaintive saxo- going further , plone previously punctuated tleir mutual stalking around tle apartment. Paul sluts tle door, approacles )eanne wlo las just picked up ler lat to go, and carries ler, in tougl-guy style, to a blinded window. Tey lave sex standing up, still wearing tleir bulky coats. We lear a rip wlen Paul presumably tears )eannes undergarment. Parodically one-upping Kaels musical comparison, Norman Mailer entlused, in our new line of New Yorkerapproved superlatives, it can be said tlat tle cry of tle fabric is tle most tlrilling sound to be leard in World Culture since tle four opening notes of Beetlovens Fiftl. Te couple is framed initially as full gures o to tle left side of tle frame witl Pauls back to us (gure (,). Only after we lave fully viewed tlis image of tle beast witl two backs from a distance, do we slowly move in a bit closer. Te sex is sudden, unromantic, and brute (tle script describes tlem as rusling like two dogs unable to stop). Paul exlibits Kaels tlrusting, jabbing eroticism, )eanne wraps ler legs around lim, and tley almost topple over as tley urgently press against one anotler seeking tle lever- age to tlrust larder (gure (6). Wlen tley fall to tle oor, Paul groans and convulses. Te camera tlen pulls back, as if avoiding tle intimacy of tle moment, to appreciate tle full view of two luman animals wlo lave been cauglt up in tle violence of an ecstasy tlat las taken tlem, as tle word itself means, to a state of crisis beside tlemselves (gure (;). Tey do not regain tlemselves until )eanne melodramatically rolls several times over on tle oor, slowing ler naked pubis in tle process, landing some distance away from Paul (gure (8). Last Tangos rst tango exlibits a primitive passion, wlat Bataille in lis writing on eroticism calls a violence of tle one tlat goes out to meet tle violence of tle otler.' Te unfurnisled apartment, soon sup- plemented witl a broken mirror and a bare mattress, will, for a few days, become Pauls crucible for constructing an amour fou in deance of work, social identity, and family. Out of tlis le will attempt to build a purely plysical relation witl )eanne, founded on tle systematic transgression of tle sexual taboos of bourgeois life. Bertolucci las acknowledged tle overt inuence of Batailles concept of orgasm as a little deatl ( petite mort) at tle time le began to write tle script for Last Tango. Indeed, La petite morte was tle lms original title.'' It is not surprising, tlen, tlat Batailles description of tle animal couple reads like a description of Paul and )eannes rst sex: A meeting between two beings projected beyond tleir limits by tle sexual orgasm, slowly for tle female, but often for tle male witl fulminating force . . . tlere is no real union, two individuals in tle grip of violence brouglt togetler by Last Tango in Paris (dir. Bernardo Bertolucci, 1972) 45: The beast with two backs from a distance 46: Paul and Jeanne seek the leverage from which to thrust, nearly toppling 47: Two animals 48: Jeanne melodramatically rolls away going further ; tle preordained reexes of sexual intercourse slare in a stage of crisis in wlicl botl are beside tlemselves.' Afterward, tley are just as alone as before. Paul limself is already in a state of crisis precipitated by tle unexpected suicide of lis wife, wlicl we learn about in tle following scene. Deatl and decay launt and propel lis sexual acts, as lis wifes still unburied corpse lies in a room of tle lotel tley own. Crude body functions also gure prominently in two of Pauls most memorable monologues, one about cow slit and anotler about pig vomit. Te next time tley meet tley face one anotler, naked, and jokingly attempt to come witlout actually toucl- ing as Paul speaks only in animal grunts. In tle following encounter, after Paul las told lis clildlood story of lumiliation by cow slit, le moves away from tle emotional intimacy of tle scene just as )eanne begins to tell of ler own (lappier) clildlood. Hurt by lis emotional and plysical abandonment, )eanne unzips ler jeans and masturbates face down on tle bed as Paul weeps in an adjacent room. We do not know if Paul weeps for lis wife, for limself, or for lis failure to respond to )eanne, wlicl may itself eclo tle way le previously failed to respond to tle emotional needs of lis wife. Wlat we do know is tlat tle emotional content of tle present relationslip, launted as it is by tle past, cannot be tle pure animal convulsion for wlicl Paul wisles. For tle rst time in movies, as Kaels review would claim, complex emotional relations of ecstasy, alienation, and lumiliation are enacted in tle performance of tle sex act itself. Two of tle most memorable of tlese sex acts are explorations of anal eroticism tlat illustrate Batailles sense of tle links between excreta, de- cay, and sexuality, as well as tle importance of desires tinged witl fear. In tle rst of tlese scenes (tle infamous butter scene), Paul asks )eanne if sle is afraid. Sle says sle is not but, perlaps projecting lis own fear onto ler, le insists tlat sle is. Next, le orders ler to get tle butter. He pulls down ler jeans, applies butter to ler backside, and penetrates ler anally on tle oor, all tle wlile remaining clotled limself (gure (,). In pointed deance of tle norms of leterosexual procreation, le accompa- nies tlis near violation witl a verbal diatribe wlicl le requires )eanne to repeat: Holy family, clurcl of good citizens. . . . Wlere tle will is broken by repression. . . . Wlere freedom is assassinated. . . . You fucking fuck- ing family! Hopelessly trying to inculcate in )eanne lis own sense of tle necessary violence and violation of taboo, as well as lis own closeness to fear and deatl, le acts out lis existential despair by performing anal sex on ler. 8 going further Te second anal scene is presided over by a dead rat tlat terries )eanne and deliglts Paul. Paul gives )eanne a batl and attempts to comfort ler. But )eanne is lurt and tlreatens to leave, accusing lim of being too old and fat. Still naked in tle batl, sle taunts Paul witl tle news tlat sle las found a man wlo will counteract tle lonely confrontation witl deatl tlat Paul insists is eacl of tleir fates. He argues tlat no man can oer ler solace from solitude until you look deatl riglt in tle face . . . until you go riglt up into tle ass of deatlriglt up lis asstill you nd a womb of fear. And tlen, maybe, maybe . . . youll be able to nd lim. Like Bataille, Paul insists tlat tle dissolution of personal identity in tle face of deatl is necessary to any real eroticism and to any autlentic being. Also like Bataille, le insists tlat repugnance and lorror are tle main- springs of desire. Wlen )eanne counters tlat sle las already found tle man wlo will lelp ler encounter tle womb of fear, and tlat tlat man is Paul, le does not suddenly soften and embrace ler as miglt be expected in a more conventional movie. Cet tle scissors, le commands instead. Like lis earlier get tle butter, we expect furtler violence to be enacted on )eanne. But tlis time tle anal penetration is digital and performed by )eanne on Paul. (Te scissors are just for lim to trim ler ngernails.) In tlis antiromantic, antigraplic climax, only Pauls face and voice register tle violence of tle act. Tis is lis way of responding to ler profession of love. Wlile )eanne assaults Paul anally, le assaults ler verbally: I want to get a pig, and Im gonna lave tle pig fuck you, and I want tle pig to vomit in your face, and I want you to swallow tle vomit. . . . I want tle pig to 49: Last Tango in Paris, Paul penetrates Jeanne anally on the foor going further , die wlile youre fucking, and tlen you lave to go belind lim, and I want you to smell tle dying farts of tle pig. Are you going to do tlat for me: Forcing )eanne to enter into tle womb of fear, degrading ler and limself witl tle signs of deatl and animal decay, Paul drives lome lis lesson tlat tle urge toward love is also an urge toward deatl.' In tle next scene Paul nally confronts tle body of lis wife and speaks to ler in a powerful monologue tlat mixes grief and disgust. Only now, after tle catlarsis of confronting sex as deatl, does Paul attempt to connect witl )eanne beyond tle womblike enclosure of tle apartment. But now le is an ordinary middle-aged man witl no special allure and )eanne is lardly interested. In tle tango lall into wlicl tley wander, tley lave tleir last tangobotl a literal dance performed gro- tesquely by a very drunk Paul and a tango of sex in wlicl )eanne jerks Paul o under a table. Unwilling to believe tlat tle relationslip is nisled, Paul becomes a stalker. Following )eanne into tle inner sanctum of ler family lome, le confesses love and asks to know ler name. )eanne speaks it as sle also pulls tle trigger of ler military fatlers revolver. It is possible tlat Paul souglt tlis fate of deatl at ler lands all along. Knowing tlat Last Tango would receive an X rating on release, Pauline Kael was determined to distinguisl tlis particular X from more ordinary ones.' Sle writes: Many of us lad expected eroticism to come to tle movies, and some of us lad even guessed tlat it miglt come from Bertolucci. . . . But I tlink tlose of us wlo lad speculated about erotic movies lad tended to tlink of tlem in terms of Terry Soutlerns deliriously comic novel on tle subject, Blue Movie; we lad expected artistic blue movies, talented directors taking over from tle Shlockmeisters and making soplisticated voyeuristic fantasies tlat would be gorgeous funa real turn on. Wlat nobody lad talked about was a sex lm tlat would clurn up everybodys emotions.' Like many otlers wlo lave defended lms witl explicit sexual content, Kael downplays prurience, attacling tlat feature to otler kinds of lms: Exploitation lms lave been supplying meclanized sexsex as plysical stimulant but witlout any passion or emotional violence . . . tle plysical menace of sexuality tlat is emotionally clarged is sucl a departure from everytling weve come to expect at tle movies tlat tlere was sometling almost like fear in tle atmosplere of tle party in tle lobby tlat followed tle screening.' Exploitation lms of tle sort described in tle previous clapter lad prepared Kael to anticipate a simulation of sex. And it is obvi- ous tlat tle sex in Last Tango is simulated. But wlat sle was not prepared :o going further for was tle connection of sex witl often powerful emotions, most notably witl fear. Before examining tle nature of tle emotions raised by tle simulated sex acts of Last Tango, let us consider anotler critic reviewing anotler X-rated lm in tlis very same year (,;:) in yet anotler New York maga- zine. Te writer is Al Coldstein, tle journal Screw,' tle lm Deep Troat (dir. Cerard Damiano, ,;:), and tle review is just as full of lyperbole as Kaels. Tis week I am reviewing tle very best porn lm ever made, so superior to otlers tlat it dees comparison. Te movie lits tle all-time best score of oo on tle Peter-Meter,' not only for its raging rauncl, but more star- tlingly for its wit, wild lumor, ne acting and lilarious story. . . . Now I am blas and bored witl sexploitation icks and can respond more to tle passions provoked by a ploto of a clocolate malted. Yet I was seized witl yearning by tle greatest on-screen fellatio since tle birtl of Clrist per- formed before my very eyes.' Witl Deep Troat, feature-lengtl, lard-core, sound and color pornog- raply emerged into tle mainstream of American movies. Tougl it was lardly tle rst feature-lengtl pornograply to slow on a big screen before gender-mixed audiences, it was tle rst to become a louselold name. It was every bit as recognizable in its own realm as Last Tango was in its, and tle two lms were often discussed in tle same breatl. I take tle unprecedented celebrity of tlese two lms, emblematized by Kael and Coldsteins reviews, as tle listorical moment at wlicl tle American moviegoing public not only ocked to see sex on tle screen but also massively recognized itself as interested in screening sexnot just an occasional sex scene in an occasional movie, but movies tlat were all about sex from beginning to end. We saw in tle previous clapter tlat carnal knowledge became representable in tle Hollywood mainstream tlrougl tle bracketed sexual interlude in sexploitation tlrougl tle often lysterical gyrations of female bodies, and in Blaxploitation tlrougl tle virile presence of tle black lero. Only Andy Warlols avant-garde lm Blue Movie (,68) actually portrayed a couple laving unsimulated geni- tal sex, tlougl tlis quasi-underground lm was seen by very few and soon disappeared from distribution. Last Tango and Deep Troat, tle two X-rated movies released to general viewing four years later, were tlus tle rst movies to spur a widely recognized public response to tleir unprece- dentedly sustained sexual subject matter. Al Coldsteins claim for Deep Troat is, of course, quite dierent from going further : Kaels for Last Tango. He does not compare lis lm to modern art. Nor does le argue tlat tle sex portrayed in it expresses tle claracters drives. But it is signicant tlat botl critics write lyperbolically about tleir closen X- rated lm, botl favorably compare tleir lm to more rote (s)exploitation examples, and botl believe tlat witl it tle movies lave arrived at a new peak of maturity. Wlat Coldstein applauds in Deep Troat is a simpli- ed and less emotionally tlreatening version of wlat Kael applauds in Last Tango: tle spectacle of convulsive, plallic, leterosexual, but often nonnormative sex. But wlere Coldstein is not sly about describing tle famous fellatio in Deep Troat, Kael is less specic about tle anal sex in Last Tango. Coldstein singles out tle famous scene of Linda Lovelace performing deep-tlroat fellatio on tle doctor wlo las discovered tlat ler clitoris is located in ler tlroat. Hot wlite cum slot out and Our Lady of the Lips lapped it up. I was never so moved by any tleatrical performance since stuttering tlrougl my own bar mitzval, Stupendous! was all I could slout as I stood up and spent my applause on tle glory tlat mine eyes lad just seen. Kael, on tle otler land, writes more generally of tle slock produced by Last Tango: Tis must be tle most powerfully erotic movie ever made, and it may turn out to be tle most liberating movie ever made, and so its probably only natural tlat an audience anticipating a voluptuous feat . . . slould go into slock. Bertolucci and Brando lave altered tle face of an art form.' I link tlese two reviews because eacl in tleir own way takes note of a belated coming of age on American screens, wletler in tle new genre of lard-core feature or in tle already existing but Americanized Euro- pean adult art lm. I also link tlese reviews because botl foreground tle question of audience response to real and simulated cinematic sex acts. Botl Kael and Coldstein acknowledge tleir own visceral, plysical response and tlus, in a sense, model versions of response to tleir readers. Botl even seem to be a bit stunned by tle powerful ways tley are moved. Kael writes of tle plysical menace of a sexuality tlat is so emotionally clarged tlat it generated sometling almost like fear. At anotler point sle notes tlat tle rst sex act performed by Brando lad tle audience gasping and tle gasp was causedin partby our awareness tlat tlis was Marlon Brando doing it, not an unknown actor. Coldstein, for lis part, fortlrigltly embraces tle turn-on witl lis acknowledgment tlat tle movie lit tle all-time best score of oo on tle Peter-Meter, tlougl even le nds tle need to sublimate lis response into tle spending of applause. :: going further Wlen critics write about lms witl sex, tley are usually remarkably quick to assure tleir audience tlat it was not tle sex tlat engaged tlem, but some otler featuretle formal beauty, tle acting, absolutely any- tling but tle sex wlicl is presumably too embarrassing to slow interest in for itself. Kael and Coldsteins reviews are exceptional and mark an im- portant moment of cultural criticism because tley frankly acknowledge tleir own entlusiasm andior slock witlout immediately turning away. I tlerefore take tlem as emblems of a wider cultural recognition of tle seriousness of visceral responses tlat lad previously been dismissed as mere prurience. Wlen Kael admits tlat no one lad ever imagined tlat a sex lm could clurn up everybodys emotions, sle was trying to dier- entiate Last Tango from otler lms witl a presumably more exploitative use of sex by insisting tlat powerful emotions of fear and violence, not mere prurience, animated tle audience. My guess, lowever, is tlat one element of tle fear sle describes was tlat audiences did not yet know low to react to a lm tlat also aroused prurient interest. Sle tlus grapples witl tle uncomfortable fact tlat representations of sex acts may mix witl a wide range of emotions and cannot be cordoned o into mere pruri- ence. Coldstein, on tle otler land, seems to revel in tle fact tlat wlat lad previously been dismissed as mere prurience is now up tlere on a big screen for all to see. He is not interested in complex mixes of emotion, but in tle spectacular visual display of wlat Freud would call disclarge. Prurience is a key term in any discussion of moving-image sex since tle sixties. Often it is tle interest to wlicl no one wants to own up. In Miller v. California (,;), one year after tle slock of tle release of botl Last Tango and Deep Troat, tle Supreme Court used tle term prurient inter- est to solidify a legal standard for tle denition of obscenity in tle rst prong of its denition: a work is obscene if tle average person, applying contemporary community standards, would nd tlat tle work, taken as a wlole, appeals to prurient interest.In sucl a case, First Amendment protections do not apply. However, tlis landmark decision did not tlen lelpfully go on to actually dene prurience in tle ruling itself. Ratler, in a footnote to tle decision tle Court lad recourse to Websters New International Dictionary describing it as: persons, laving itcling, mor- bid, or lascivious longings of desire, curiosity, or propensity,. . . . Furtler on, perlaps noting tle vagueness of lascivious longings, and tle natu- ralness of curiosity, it attempts to specify: slameful or morbid interest in nudity sex, or excretion. . . . In otler words, prurience is dened lere as tle morbid and slameful part of sexual urges tlat presumably also lave a lealtlier and more natural side. Any sexual representations going further : tlat were not tle discreet, limited displays ending relatively soon, as tle Hollywood sexual interlude tended to, or any sexual representation tlat prolonged tle itcl or tlat seemed to wallow in sex just for its own sake could tlerefore be deemed prurient. In ,;6 tle noted First Amendment sclolar Frederick Sclauer would attempt to clarify prurient interest by excluding tle above meanings of morbidity, deviance, or slame. He argued tlat wlat society wisles to pro- libit witl tle concept of prurience is not tle discussion of sex, nor tle advocacy of sexual immorality, nor deviant practices. Ratler, it is tlat wlicl slows erotic sexuality in a manner designed to create some form of immediate stimulation. For Sclauer, prurience is a purely plysical reactionwlat Kael calls tle turn on and wlat Coldstein would mea- sure witl a Peter-Meter. Any work tlat, taken as a wlole, sexually stimulates can be said to incite prurient interest. Kaels vigorous defense of Last Tango seems to be, at least in part, an attempt to extricate tle lm from just sucl prurient interest in tle name of more exalted emotions. Te problem, lowever, is tle line taken as a wlole. For Kaels major point about Last Tango is tlat tle eros tlat turns us on cannot be extri- cated from otler emotions displayed in tle lm and powerfully transmit- ted to tle audience: fear, slock, despair, aggression. In contrasteven tlougl Coldstein notes tlat lis own emotions are not pure turn-on, but admixed witl awe and admirationlis praise for Deep Troat is primarily centered on tle celebration of prurient interest (in Sclauers new and re- duced sense of tle stimulation of male plysiological response) uncompli- cated by otler emotions. Tus wlen moving-image sex acts are no longer elided, as in tle tradition of kisses and ellipses discussed in tle rst clapter, wlen tley are no longer cordoned o into neat sexual interludes, as in tle Hollywood lms discussed in tle previous clapter, tlen, as in Deep Troat, tley become tle substance of tle wlole lm. And wlen sex acts engage a range of otler emotions, wlen tle lms tlat contain tlem are no longer conned to screenings in exclusively bolemian venues or art louses, tlen tley begin, as did Last Tango, to become a part of tle fabric of cultural life. Tis recognition is tle gist of Kaels appreciation of Bertoluccis lm and of Brandos performance in it. Sle cites, for example, Brandos willingness to display tle aggression in masculine sexuality, and our belief in tle insanity tlat grows out of it. Sclauer worked lard to dissociate prurience from notions of immo- rality or deviance, but subsequent court cases attempting to clarify pruri- ence lave not always upleld tlat distinction. I lave argued elsewlere tlat many elaborations of tle denition of obscenity lave tended simply :( going further to scapegoat lasciviousness or morbidity in tle form of sexualities deemed deviant and to ignore tle issues of immediate stimulation on wlicl Sclauer focuses. Te problem witl prurience is tlus twofold: its susceptibility to being identied as tle slameful or morbid sexual prac- tice of tle deviant (someone elses sexual practice, not my own) and tle diculty of isolating tle immediate stimulationor turn-onfrom tle rest. Sex is rarely ever just sex. Art lms know tlis, pornograply tries not to. Inevitably, sex mixes witl diverse emotions (slame, joy, triumpl, relief, morbidity, love, etc.). In wlat follows, I want to try to claracterize wlat it meant to screen tlese two X-rated lms in tle day. In tle summer of ,;, I was a twenty-seven-year-old graduate student living in Boulder, Colorado. In tlat summer, almost a year after eacl lm lad already made its big splasl in New York, I saw botl Last Tango and Deep Troat. Deep Troat constituted tle more memorable social occa- sion, I went to see it witl a group wlose camaraderie almost inoculated us against strong sexual feelings. Tis group formed wlen a buncl of us slowed up for a screening of our campus art lm society wlicl was cancelled. On a wlim we decided to go to tle big city in quest of tlis mucl less artful lm. Last Tango, on tle otler land, constituted tle more memorable private occasion: it forced my partner and me to recognize tlat tle new intensity of passion we experienced after seeing it lad some- tling to do witl tle lm. It was not easy for us to admit tlat our private sex lad been inuenced by a movie. All mainstream American movies tlat I lad previously seen lad eitler lad a certain deniability built into tlem (e.g., Rick and Ilsa might lave done it, but tlen again tlere was no clear evidence) or lad deemplasized or bracketed tle moment of pruri- ence (e.g., Benjamin and Mrs. Robinson did do it, but my senses were appealed to in diversionary ways via pop songs and fancy editing, not tle display of tleir esl). In contrast, Last Tango and Deep Troat, not unlike Alex Comforts explicitly illustrated low-to-do-it manual, Te Joy of Sex anotler cultural product of ,;:were focused on sex acts, tlere was no way to pretend tlat tley were not about sex and tlat we did not feel wlat tle Miller Test called prurient interest, lowever dened, lowever real or simulated were tle acts tlemselves. I insist on remembering tlese two lms togetler because botl did, in ways tlat I was not prepared for, turn me on. It would be all too easy to Screening Graphic Sex going further :, say tlat Deep Troat was trasl and corresponded to Sclauers argument tlat tlere is no real dierence between screening sex and laving sex wlen tle images of screened sex are fully graplic. Similarly, it would be easy to say tlat Last Tango made for ligl-class erotic art and tlus was not, as Sclauer polemically argued about lard-core pornograply, a sex aid, no more and no less.' However, it seems more important to recognize tle degree to wlicl any lm tlat miglt be used as a sex aid is always botl more and less tlan tlat. My point is tlat tlese popular, louselold-word movies of tle early seventies ratler more fortlrigltly tlan previous lms could become sex aids, tlougl of course never so mucl as wlen later re- leased on video or ivi and brouglt into tle lome. But neitler my part- ner nor I felt, as Sclauer argued, tlat watcling sex was laving sex. Ratler, I recall feeling prior to botl lms wlat Linda Lovelace says in Deep Troat about tle noneartlslaking sex sle lad experienced before learning deep- tlroat fellatio: Little tingles. To tlis extent you miglt say I mimicked my namesake as I saw mediated sexual action from wlat Walter Benjamin lad called close range. If I did indeed feel a more palpable, sensuous connection between my body and tlose screened tlan I lad felt be- fore previous Hollywood movies, getting lold of tlis sex by means of its likeness did not mean slavisl mimicry, but a new kind of play for wlicl previous movies lad not prepared me: actual fellatio in Deep Troat and simulated anal sex in Last Tango. Tere is no question tlat tlese acts re- bounded in me and tlat I did reencounter my own body watcling tlese acts, tlougl not in Sclauers notion of direct correspondence. Deep Troat, especially, constituted a kind of test. It was not a lm tlat one went to casually like otler movies, tlougl it did try to present itself as if it were just anotler movie. I was an avid movie fan at tlat time, but tle only time I ever drove forty miles to tle metropolis of Denver and paid more tlan tlree dollars to see a movie was wlen my partner and I, anotler couple, and one otler male friend went to Kittys Teater on Colfax Avenue to see Deep Troat. In tlis era, before very many feminists lad decided tlat pornograply was a primary cause of tle objectication of women, my friends and I dared ourselves to watcl and tlus, by impli- cation, to watcl ourselves watcl. Critics and commentatorseveryone wlo was anyonelad already taken note of tle experience of watcling Deep Troat. Tougl only Al Coldstein lad given it an unqualied rave, even tlose wlo disliked tle lm, sucl as Nora Eplron in Esquire, noted tlat it would be culturally derelict not to see it. For it was only witl tle explosion of lard-core fea- tures preceding and following Deep Troat tlat pornograply became :6 going further available to mixed audiences in public movie tleaters. And not until tle summer of ,; did I see real unsimulated sex acts on a movie screen. Now tlat moving-image pornograply is familiar fare on tle smaller screens of computers and televisions viewed primarily in tle lome, it is lard to understand tle impact of mass American cultures rst encounter witl graplic sex in movies. To do so we lave to again recognize, as witl Tomas Edisons projection of tle rst screen kiss, tle power of big-screen magnication before a public audience. We lave seen tlat tle sleer size of tle rst public projection of a kiss, viewed in close-up, slocked some members of its initial audience. But tlis slock, quickly absorbed, cannot compare to tlat of tle mass public screenings of Deep Troat and its memorable close-ups of deep-tlroat fel- latioproducing ten- to twenty-foot erect penises on some screens. My friends and I watcled tlese acts in a public tleater witl a large cross sec- tion of tle American population: working-class men and women, middle- class businessmen, lousewives, students, teaclers, even older women. Afterward, we talked about tle experience. Some of us were disgusted, some of us admitted to being turned on. Wlen we are in tle grips of tle plysical excitement of sex, we aclieve a kind of intimacy witl our own and otlers bodies tlat, once past a certain tlreslold, allows us to relax wlat tle listorian and culture critic William Ian Miller calls tle rules of disgust. Miller argues tlat wletler or not sexual organs are intrinsically disgusting to siglt, tley lave traditionally been associated witl culturally debased lower portions of tle anatomy tlat slame in )udeo-Clristian culture lad long compelled luman beings to cover up. Cenitals in particular produce liquid substancesmenstrual blood in women, semen and urine in menregarded by some cultures as polluting. Tese rules are not universal, some cultures aunt sexual organs and sex acts quite avidly. But Western cultures lave long tended to place sex acts o scene and to nd tleir public display eitler disgusting or arousing, or botl. Wlat was clanging in tle culture to relax tlese rules of disgust: Hard-core pornograply was not unknown in tle summer of ,;, even in public tleaters. For several years already tle tleaters of Times Square and of a few otler urban centers lad begun to oer wlat tle ,;o Report of the Commission on Obscenity and Pornography referred to as tle New Cenre of pornograplylms tlat graplically depicted actual sexual intercourse on tle screen. In tlese tleaters, lowever, it was not only solitary men wlo were now screening sex. As Eric Sclaefer las slown, a new kind of cleaply made 6mm lard-core feature was tle real pioneer going further :; leading to tle plenomenon tlat would become tle ,mm triumpl of Deep Troat. Sixteen-millimeter features could be made for a tentl of tle budget of tle old ,mm sexploitation lms. Wlere tle 6mm lms lad begun as plotless loopsso-called beaver lms in wlicl women displayed tleir warestley soon expanded into features witl men and women laving botl simulated and graplic sex, witl tle line between tle two often marked only by wletler a close-up of insertion was included. By ,;o tlese new lms commanded tle market witl mucl greater prot re- turn tlan tle old stags. Small storefront tleaters, not unlike tle old nick- elodeons of tle early part of tle century, began to cater to a more varied clientele wlo viewed attendance at pornograplic lms as part of tleir participation in tle sexual revolution. Sclaefer cites one exampletle San Francisco Sutter Cinemawlicl lad a special area for lovebirds wlo were cordoned o from tle single men. It was tlus tle 6mm format, used in sucl lms as Bill Oscos Mona (,;o), tlat lad already pioneered tle lard-core feature long before Deep Troat. It even lad pioneered tle spectacle of frequent fellatio, since mucl of its narrative concerned a virgin nympl determined to main- tain ler teclnical virginity tlrougl recourse to fellatio. Soon ,mm sex- ploitation producers began to imitate tle lard-core 6mm features wlile many of tle 6mm producers slifted, Sclaefer reports, to tle professional ,mm gauge. Deep Troat and tle plenomenon of porno clic tlus represented tle convergence of a number of teclnological, cultural, and economic factors tlat were making tle screening of graplic sex almost necessary to sexual citizenslip in tle early ,;os. As Cerard Damiano, speaking from lis Florida retirement in tle documentary Inside Deep Troat (dir. Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato, :oo,), says: You lad to be tlere. Im tlrilled tlat I was tlere. And I tlank Cod I lad a camera. Deep Troat tlus diered from tle old tradition of tle silent, men-only stags botl in tle repertoire of sexual acts (and especially tle ascendancy of fellatio) and in tle assertive publicness of its exlibition. Mona, Deep Troat, and tle rusl of lard-core lms tlat followed were, as one inu- ential New York Times article put it, examples of tle new porno clic.' Wletler or not tle lms exlibited in tlis era actually were tlemselves faslionably clic, viewing tlem was considered so. No longeror at least not for a wlilewere public porn viewers furtive, no longer were rain- coats placed carefully on laps. Celebrities of botl sexes could be siglted at screenings. Watcling it, my friends and I felt, was almost a badge of lonor. Te more radical fringes of Hollywood lad long been acutely aware of :8 going further tle potential revolution of a new lard-core sensibility. As early as ,6( Stanley Kubrick lad screened a pornograplic lm (undoubtedly a stag lm) for friends at lis lome and audaciously suggested tlat one miglt improve on tle genre by making sucl lms under studio conditions. In ,;o Terry Soutlerns satirical novel Blue Movie (not to be confused witl Andy Warlols ,68 lm, but possibly inspired by it) described tle making of just sucl a lard-core studio lm. By tle time Last Tango appeared, tlen, tle idea of adding real sex to a real lmnot just in pornogra- plywas on many minds. Norman Mailer, as we lave seen, competed witl Kael for encomiums witl wlicl to praise Last Tango, but le con- cluded lis review in a t of disappointment for its lack of courage, calling it a fuck lm witlout tle fuck, like a western witlout lorses. To Mailer, tle lm copped out on tle graplic sex tlat its subject demanded. Men of a certain age and dispositionand tlat would certainly lave included artists like Mailer and Kubrickwere likely to know tle basic dirty movie conventions of tle old fuck lms, and by ,;:, wlen Mailer made lis statement about Last Tango, le probably lad a vague idea of wlat tle presidential commission of ,;o was calling tle New Cenre of pornograply. But no one, not even Deep Troat director Damiano, could lave known wlat tle future of tlis genre would bring. To read tle critics of tle era is to be aware of a great sense of excitement, as well as of a certain apprelension and dread about tle possible merger of lard- core sexual action witl regular movies. Wlat was imagined was no less tlan a new kind of mainstream lm in wlicl explicit sex acts would be integrated into narrative lms: not just to deliver tle required number of graplic sex acts tlat would soon prove de rigueur in tle new porn genre but to expand tle representative power of tle medium into aestletically ambitious realms of tle performance of sex: Last Tango witl tle fucks. In tlis imagined future, pornograply as sucl would disappear, porn stars would cross over to tle mainstream, and respected actors would consider tle performance of sex acts part of tle clallenge of tleir craft. Of course quite tle opposite occurred: mainstream movies did not ac- cept tle clallenge, and pornograply itself would devolve in tle following decade into tle parallel universe of mostly cleaply made, badly acted, and aestletically impoverisled sucking and fucking slot on video. However, tle fact of tlis failure slould not keep us from examining some of tle aspirations of tle porno clic era. Damiano was a former lairdresser just learning low to make movies. He was restless to break out of tle mold of tle slort underground stag loops, as well as out of tle sligltly more aboveground mold of pseudo- going further :, documentaries like Sexual Freedom in Denmark (dir. M. C. van Hellen, ,6,) or lis own Sex U.S.A. (,;). Like Mailer, Damiano saw tle promise of a lm like Last Tango and also regarded it as a failure of nerve: Brando and Bertolucci copped out. . . . I would lave added a few insertions and cum-slots. By adding precisely tle parts of sexinsertions and cum- slotsnot seen in tle mainstream, Damiano proposed to make it real. As long as tle strict bifurcation between graplic fuck lm and simula- tion (wletler of mainstream Hollywood or European-inuenced art lm) was maintained, lowever, pornograply would bear tle burden of crowd- ing all tle sex tlat could not be seen elsewlere into its lour-plus time spans. In feature-lengtl pornograply, tlen, narrative is minimized, sexual numbers are maximized, and eventually a standardized genre emerged witl a wide repertoire of sex acts.' In contrast to Last Tango, lowever, pornograply oered a terribly limited repertoire of tle moods in wlicl tlese acts miglt be performed. Instead of tlinking lard about tle quali- ties and kinds of sex tlat miglt grow out of dramatic, or even comic, situations, pornograplys primary concern was for tle sleer quantity and maximum visibility of sex and, especiallyand tlis is wlat was new and wlat Coldstein appreciatedfor a visible climax in male ejaculation. As we lave seen, most of tle sexual movements of luman bodies lad never been revealed in aboveground lms. Wlen cinema began to in- corporate graplic depictions of sex, it lad a great many aestletic and dramatic cloices to make about tle representation of tlose acts. It could lave begun to tlink about female pleasure more realistically, it could lave found ways to slow tle many nuances of sexfriendly or lostile, playful or brute, fast or slow, sleepy or alert, nonorgasmic or multiorgasmic, and so on. It could lave decided tlat erotic tension miglt be in play witl dra- matic plot. Instead, tle emerging porn industry opted to obey tle conceit tlat tle lottest sex was tle most visible sex. Come slots (or cum or money slots) would oer tle extreme instance of tlis visibility. But tle demand for visibility governed even tle smallest gestures. For example, a female performer miglt pull ler lair away from ler face to better reveal tle meclanics of tle action of fellatio, or a male performer miglt put an arm belind lis back wlile pumping to keep tle arm from obscuring tle in-and-out of lis penis. Any gesture, in fact, tlat seems more designed for sexual display tlan for tle performers own pleasure can betray tle erotics of tle moment and make us aware, even if we miglt be grateful for tle view, tlat tle demand to reveal tle graplics of sex overrules an often less visible erotics of tle entire sensorium. o going further Wlen Damiano asserted tlat le would lave added a few insertions and cum-slots to Last Tango, le was applying tle crude lessons of maxi- mum visibility to an erotic art lm wlose complexities of emotion would lave been ruined by sucl simple solutions. Yet, as Mailer noted, le also lad a point: some of tle sex acts simulated in tlat lm, especially tlose tlat Kael noted conveyed tlrusting, jabbing eroticism, could lave bene- ted from tle siglt of two, not just one, naked bodies and from tle siglt of some insertions, as long as tley were not just tle clinical sort invariably favored by porn. It is more dicult to believe, lowever, tlat tle otler lard-core convention of tle visible external ejaculation could lave con- tributed to tle reality of Bertoluccis lm. Tese slots would prove tle most enduring of tle conventions of tle new pornograply. Cum slots, or money slots, as I prefer to call tlem, are markedly un- real as depictions of tle practices of mutual sexual pleasure. Wlen tley become tle conventional conclusion to all sex acts depicted in pornog- raply, tle witldrawal (wletler from moutl, anus, or vagina) tlat makes tle ejaculation visible necessitates a dislocating slift from tle proximate, mutual pleasure of toucl to tle more distant pleasure of siglt, as if tle couple compromises tleir own pleasures of toucl for our screening plea- sure. Te lm asks us to believe tlat tle participants in tle sex act, espe- cially tle woman wlo makes so mucl of tle siglt of tle ejaculating penis, prefers, at tlat moment, to become more like a lm viewer marveling at wlat sle sees tlan like a sexual actor cauglt up in wlat sle feels. As cli- max, tlen, tle money slot is awfully one-sided. If Damianos proposal for making tle sex real in Last Tango disappoints, botl as realism and as artand, indeed, if Deep Troat disappoints from tle same perspectiveit is wortl recognizing low very little tlouglt lad been given by anyone, witl tle possible exception of Andy Warlol, )ean Cenet, and a few otler avant-garde lmmakers of tle ,6os, to making sex seem eitler real or aestletically compelling in movies. It was almost universally agreed tlat Deep Troat was a badly acted lm witl a silly excuse for a plot. Ellen Willis, writing for tle New York Review of Books, called it witless, exploitive, and about as erotic as a tonsillectomy. Only Al Coldsteinwlo may lave been more lonest tlan some of tle otler critics wlo reviewed itseemed to tlink it was actually erotic. Never- tleless, it was precisely this lm, and not some of tle later, mucl better produced and acted porn features witl ligler artistic ambitions, tlat not only delivered a mainstream tleatrical audience to lard-core pornog- raply but constructed tlese acts in ways still familiar to us today. And so, despite tle fact tlat it las already been mucl discussed, it is tlis lm going further and its eect on audiences tlat still deserves our attention as we consider tle rise of lard-core pornograply oniscene in public tleaters. Deep Troat is about Linda (played by Linda Lovelace, originally Linda Boreman), an ordinary young woman witl wlolesomenot wlat would later become known as stereotypically pornograplicgood looks. Sle is a typical product of tle ,6os sexual revolution. Sle considers sexual pleasure important to ler self-fulllment, but las missed out so far. Sle confesses to feeling little tingles wlen sle las penetrative sex, but no bells ringing, dams bursting, or bombs going o. After experimenting witl a number of men to no avail, sle goes to a doctor (Harry Reams) wlo informs ler tlat ler clitoris is deep in ler tlroat (one early possible title for tle lm was Te Sword Swallower). Deep-tlroat fellatio is tle cure immediately performed on tle doctor. Putting aside tle many analyses tlat lave been subsequently spun around tlis lm, my own included, wlat I most remember about tlis screening was wlat most people remember about pornograply wlen tley rst see it in a social group: low mucl we laugled. It would be a mistake to underestimate tle function of tlis lms soplomoric brand of lumor in making feature-lengtl, publicly screened pornograply palatable to its initial audience. Te lm reassured us witl tle option of laugling ratler tlan panting, or, if we did pant, tle lauglter lelped disguise it. Consider tle lms rst sex act. Linda arrives lome to nd ler room- mateplayed well by tle porn veteran Carol Connors in tle )oan Blon- dell mode of tle older, more experienced womanleaning back on ler kitclen counter wlile a young man diligently eats ler. Wlat we see, lowever, is not so mucl a woman in tle tlroes of pleasure as a woman blas in tle face of pleasure: Do you mind if I smoke wlile youre eating: sle quips to ler partner. Te joke, sucl as it was, immediately defused our anxiety. Modeling a certain lip, casual acceptance, it put us in tle same position as Linda lerself, wlo, walking in on tle scene, takes it in stride and simply sigls at tle mild inconvenience. Music, too, defused tle potentially fear-inducing erotic force of tlis and every otler sexual act slown. Neitler Connors nor ler male partner exlibits mucl excite- ment in tle medium-to-long slots (no close-ups) of cunnilingus. Nor las tlis particular sex act yet asked us to view an erect penis. Mild, rlytl- mic, meclanistic movements viewed at a distance ratler tlan in close-up eased us into tle display of graplic sex. Deep Throat and Porno Chic Up Close : going further Lindas roommate next organizes an orgy to lelp ler nd tle pleasure missing in ler life. All of Lindas failed attempts to nd pleasure in tlis orgy slare in a similar atmosplere of competent but casualeven dis- engagedsexual performance. We see perfunctory sexual actsvaginal penetrations, a few external ejaculations, and even one act of fellatio (pre- sumably not deep enougl). Afterward Linda again confesses tlat sle las felt no bells ringing and dams bursting. By tle time we get to tle big moment of tlerapy witl tle doctortle scene tlat nally does ring ler bellwe lave already been exposed to a good lalf dozen graplic sex acts casually performed witl no great drama. It miglt be possible to say tlat tle absence of dramatic aect is simply bad pornograply, especially if we accept tle fundamental goal of pornog- raply as tle display of graplic sex acts for purposes of arousal. Compared to some of tle mucl better made erotic examples of porno tlat followed, Deep Troat was, perlaps, bad pornograply. However, in a mainstream culture witl very little experience of watcling graplic sex in a mixed- gender public tleater, tlis may be precisely tle reason Deep Troat be- came tle touclstone it did. Watcling it eased audiences over tle slock of wlat amounted to a kind of collective primal scene, played comically as an acrobatic freak slow ratler tlan as an emotionally clallenging erotic drama. I am not arguing tlat pornograply by denition lacks eroticism, or tlat eroticism precludes pornograply, but only tlat Deep Troat, tle lm tlat introduced tle pleasures of lard-core pornograply to mass audiences, insistently identied an apparently emotionally uncomplicated yet mani- festly dicult-to-aclieve end pleasure in its rletoric of bells and bombs. In contrast, in Last Tango, wlen Brando tells Sclneider tlat sle would not be able to be free of tlat feeling of being alone . . . until you go riglt up into tle ass of deatl . . . till you nd tle womb of fear, and tlen lad ler put ler ngers up lis own ass, tle scene was scarier to watcl tlan any- tling in Deep Troat. Despite its lack of explicitness, it played on Batailles notion of tle erotic conjunction of fear and desire. Deep Troat, on tle otler land, would slow us many potentially disgusting andior arousing penetrationsespecially in tle graplic oral penetration tlat constitutes its piece de rsistance. However, tle wlole force of its gimmicky narra- tive would be to teacl tle audience to relax its own automatic reexes of disgust, mucl tle way tle good doctor would teacl Linda to relax ler gag reexes in order to discover tle pleasures of deep-tlroat fellatio. Once again, Leo Bersanis distinction between tle pleasure of tle itcl versus tlat of tle scratcl can enlance our understanding. Recall tlat going further Freud presumed tle goal of sexuality to be tle disclarge or end pleasure tlat releases tension, as if tle goal of sex was tle end of sex. Yet as we lave seen, tle tension of sexual excitement can be pleasurable in itself. Sexual pleasure is more tlan disclarge. Bersani surmises tlat tle mystery of sexuality is tlat we seek not only to get rid of tlis slattering tension but also to repeat, even to increase it.' Following Bersani, I lave been argu- ing tlat tlere are two poles of sexuality relevant to screening sex: tle pole of tle scratcl, wlicl emplasizes tle telos of end pleasure, and tlat of tle itcl, wlicl intensies and increases sexual tension up to tle limit case of wlat Bersani calls self-slattering and deatl. In ,;: tlese two poles were neatly represented by Deep Troats atl- letic, pornograplic emplasis on tle scratcl and Last Tangos simulated erotic emplasis on tle itcl. Sexual pleasure in Deep Troat is a willed accomplislment witl powerful parallels in tle performative domain of sport. )ust as a golf pro miglt instruct a golfer to relax into tle swing, so tle doctor instructs Linda to relax ler tlroat to make possible tle deep penetration tlat will scratcl ler itcl. At one point le adopts tle accent of a Yiddisl grandfatler in imitation of a familiar Alka-Seltzer commer- cial: Try it, youll like it! At anotler point, le insists on tle importance of practice. As if tlis were not enougl, tle infamous Deep Troat tleme song, discussed furtler below, kicks in witl tle following lyrics: Now Im going to tell tle way it las to be . . . just relax your muscles and once youve lit tlat spot i keep riglt on pusling and give it all youve got. Practice expressed as a contradictory mix of relaxation and eortis required for pleasure to be aclieved in tle deep-tlroat climax. Vigorous deep-tlroat fellatio, in wlicl tle doctor presumably lits tle invisible spot tlat precipitates Lindas pleasure, leads to tle liglly visible spectacle of tle money slot tlat would become tle sine qua non of all lard-core pornograply for decades to come. Deep Troats money slot, lowever, is sometling more tlan visible ejaculation. Lovelace repeatedly takes wlat looks to be a nine-incl penis deep into ler tlroat. Black-and- wlite small-scale reproduction cannot do justice to tle impact of tle siglt of an engorged, giant, wet, vividly colored, erect penis repeatedly sliding intoiengulfed by a moutl (gure ,o). But wlat especially marks tlis particularly famous money slot is an ex- traordinary montage in tle manner of tle Soviet lmmaker Sergei Eisen- steins famous Odessa Steps sequence in Te Battleship Potemkin (,:,), demonstrating tlat Damiano knew a tling or two about lm after all. In a lm witl mucl poor acting and bad sound, tle panacle of tlis montage takes us by surprise. Te sequence literalizes some, tlougl signicantly ( going further not all, of tle verbal metaplors Linda lad used to describe ler wisled- for excitement. Sle lad loped for bells ringing, bombs exploding, and dams bursting. Te rlytlm of ler performance of fellatio leading to tle disclarge of tle money slot is augmented by increasingly split-second insertions of tlese metaplors: We see a bronze bell struck by bronze stat- ues of men witl lammers (gure ,), we see brilliant reworks against a niglt sky (gure ,:). Finally, at an increasingly fast pace tlat alternates tle in-and-out of deep-tlroat fellatio (gure ,) and tle take-o of a Cape Canaveralsized rocket (gure ,(), tle two rapidly intercut slots seem to merge as tle montage reacles a crescendo. Sounds (of bells, reworks, and rockets) also merge witl tle music of tle tleme song. Te veins of tle penis grow taut, a milky substance covers its lengtl, and we become aware, after tle fact, tlat disclarge las occurred (gure ,,). Finally, at tle end, Linda smiles (gure ,6). 50: Deep Throat (dir. Gerard Damiano, 1972), Linda discovers deep-throat fellatio (facing page) Deep Throat 51: Bells ring 52: Bombs burst 53: Deep-throat fellatio 54: A Cape Canaveralsized rocket takes of 55: Discharge has occurred 56: Linda smiles 6 going further Altlougl Coldstein writes tlat lot wlite cum slot out and Our Lady of the Lips lapped it up, tle actual slooting of cuman image tlat would soon be de rigueur in all lard-core pornograplyis not seen. Ratler, it is an illusion created by tle convulsive montage. Tougl we do see Lovelace lapping up tle ejaculate tlat gatlers along tle slaft, tle montage itself interferes witl tle actual siglt of tle good doctors penis in tle act of coming. Of course, tle otler sleiglt of land las been tle illusion tlat somelow tlese pyroteclnics lave rendered visible tle plea- sure and satisfaction tlat Linda seeksas if we lad actually seen ler get scratcled. )ust as Edisons Te Kiss lad elicited excited entlusiasm at tle prospect of tle anatomy of a kiss, as well as slocked lorror at tle monstrous bestiality of tle spectacle, so, too, did Deep Troat elicit a mixture of interest and disgust. Te dierence, lowever, was tlat very few of tle critics wlo found Deep Troat oensive also called for its censorslip. For tle most part critics worked lard to prove tlemselves able to assert critical sensibilities in tle face of tle unmistakable slock of real sex on tle screen. Mort Sleinmans tongue-in-cleek comment tlat tle lm oered a bold tlrust forward in tle listory of contemporary cinema, plunging deeply into areas seldom, if ever explored on screen, was one approacl tlat imitated tle lms own lumor. Vincent Canbys pan, on tle otler land, was accompanied by an almost poignant relearsal of tle diculty of writing lonestly about pornograplic lms: Like trying to tie ones sloes wlile walking: its practically impossible witlout sacricing stride and balance and a certain amount of ordinary dignity, tle sort one uses witl bank tellers wlo question a signature. Dignity is wlat audi- ences wlo watcl sex in public tleaters run tle risk of losing, especially if tleir bodies betray an interest tlat all tle joking in tle world cannot lide. So wlat did my friends and I feel: I recall a mix of slock, disgust, amaze- ment (low did tle moutl and tlroat accommodate tle slaft:), and little tingles, all of wlicl was tempered by tle outriglt silliness of tle wlole spectacle at wlicl we laugled leartily. I dutifully reported back to friends low boring and repetitious tle wlole slow lad been. And compared to Last Tango it was terribly clinical and unerotic. But undoubtedly tle most fascinating part of tlis particular lm, and indeed of all tle new feature- lengtl graplic porn of tlis era, was tle novelty of fellatio as an ultimate sexual act ratler tlan as an lors doeuvre before tle main entre. Teclnically, according to laws tlat lave only recently been struck down, fellatio is one of tle possible meanings of sodomy, dened as any abnor- going further ; mal form of sexual intercourse. In )oln Updikes ,68 novel Couples, a wife asks ler lusband if le wants ler to take lim in ler moutl. Cood leavens, no, le answers, Tats sodomy. Historically, sodomy las especially been condemned wlen tle supposedly abnormal sexual inter- course is between men, but it is a large category tlat includes all nonpro- creative sexual acts between men and women as well. Fellatio, between men and men and between women and men, is one of tlose acts, so, too, is anal sex. But fellatio is most commonly described today (for instance in Websters) as a sexual activity involving oral contact witl tle male genitals. It is lard to imagine a sex act witl more initial slock value tlan fellatio wlen graplically seen on tle big screen. Even anal sex does not so dramatically bring organs of smell, taste, and ingestion up against organs of elimination. Tis slocking juxtaposition as deployed cinematically in Deep Troat literally put a pretty face next to tle ejaculation and avoided tle siglt of tle female genitals altogetler. Te lard-to-see inside of tle female body into wlicl tle penis disappears during coitus was tlus dis- placed by an easier-to-see female face and moutl tlat not only did not display disgust, but positively worslipped tle mans bodily functions. Fellatio was certainly not invented by tle generation of tle seventies but, lard as it miglt be to recall tlis in tle post-Monica Lewinsky era, neitler was it a sex act tlat before Deep Troat and tle era of porno clic lad mucl mainstream public recognition. It is tlus an excellent example of wlat Foucault calls tle implantation of perversions. It las gone from being a little-known form of sex wlose initial disgust factor could not lave been ligler in tle America of tle pre-sexual revolution and wlicl women of my motlers generation believed nice girls did not do (see, for example, Alfred Kinseys discussion of dissensions in marriages over oral sex in Sexual Behavior in the Human Male), to an unforeseen popularity, celebrated as tle pinnacle of pleasure in Deep Troat and mucl of tle lard-core pornograply to follow. Wlen it again surfaces as newswortly in tle late nineties, it is considered a mucl less intimate contact tlan genital sex, debated certainly for its propriety in tle Oval Oce but also, and most interestingly, for its status as a sex act at all. Tougl many were skeptical of Bill Clintons claim tlat le did not lave sexual relations witl tlat woman, it turned out tle president and Lewinsky were not tle only ones wlo did not dene fellatio as sex. In Deep Troat, fellatio solves tle anatomical problem of a clitoris tlat is not wlere it slould be and tlat tlerefore cannot be properly scratcled. Wly you bugger, there you are! says tle doctor wlen le nds tle clitoris at tle end of lis telescope in Lindas tlroat. Tougl le sees it, we do not. 8 going further Tis organ, unlike tle normally visible penis, remains occulted tlrougl- out tle lm and tlus oers narrative justication for not laving sex in tle prescribed, procreative missionary position. Eating out, blow jobs, and giving head were only tlen becoming familiar slang. Plillip Rotl writes in a novel about tle ,;os: Tis is a generation of astonisling fellators. Teres been notling like tlem ever before among tleir class of young women. Foucaults notion of tle listorical implantation of perversions in wlicl scattered sexualities rigidied, became stuck to an age, a place, a type of practice,' may not fully explain tle mystery of tle popularity of Deep Troat and its practice of deep-tlroat fellatio, but it does allow us to see low tle public awareness of previously disgusting or obscene sexual practices can easily clange once pornograplies are oniscene. Te Britisl playwriglt and barrister )oln Mortimer, writing about Lovelaces deatl, recalled a ,;o obscenity trial for a novel entitled Te Mouth, in wlicl tle judge asked a witness for tle defense wly anyone needed oral sex wlen weve gone witlout it for a tlousand years. Had tlat judge been speak- ing after ,;:, it is unlikely le would lave been so misinformed. )oel Tyler, wlo presided over tle New York obscenity trial of Deep Troat in tle winter of ,;, was anotler judge wlo learned a lot. Igno- rant at tle beginning of tle trial about tle meaning of tle term mission- ary position, after tle testimony of ve expert witnesses le was eagerly instructing otlers as to its meaning. Constantly at stake in tlis often lilarious trial was tle question of tle obscenity or nonobscenity of tle display of fellatio and tle perversion or nonperversion of tle mucl dis- cussed, tlougl never slown, clitoral orgasm. An expert witness for tle prosecution, one Dr. Levin, apparently a die-lard Freudian, testied tlat a woman seeing tlis lm may tlink tlat tlat is perfectly lealtly, perfectly normal if you lave a clitoral orgasm, tlat is all tle woman needs. Now, sles wrong . . . and tlis lm will strengtlen ler in ler ignorance. He went on to explicitly clallenge tle extremists in tle womens liberation movement wlo called vaginal orgasm a mytl. Levin also pronounced on tle inlerent perversity of acts of fellatio tlat do not serve as a prelude to intercourse. As an end in itself, le expertly intoned, tlis would be per- version on botl sides. )udge Tyler, and probably everyone else at tle trial, learned a great deal about tle respective arguments of Freud, Kinsey, and William Masters and Virginia )olnson concerning tle practice of fellatio and tle relative merits of clitoral versus vaginal orgasm. Arguments for tle defense cen- going further , tered on tle instructional and liberatory value of explicit sex acts on tle screen in improving tle sex lives of individuals and couples, arguments for tle prosecution centered on tle inlerent perversion and obscenity of sucl acts. In a famously long and velement decision, )udge Tyler pro- nounced tle lm obscene and ned tle tleater tlree million dollars, con- cluding, Tis is one tlroat tlat deserves to be cut. To slow tlat le was not an unsoplisticated lm viewer, lowever, le added tlat Last Tango, tlougl le limself did not care for it, was not obscene. Obscene or notjudgments would go botl ways in many trials tlrouglout multiple states over tle next several yearsDeep Troat ex- cited a great deal of sexual speecl. Again and again it was oral sex tlat demanded tle most speecl, but almost never cunnilingus. Cunnilingus puts tle moutl and face in conjunction witl a sexual organ tlat is larder to see, it is embedded witlin labial folds tlat do not lend tlemselves to easy visibility. And so, cunnilingus, wlile certainly part of tle repertoire of dirent strokes cultivated and legitimated by Deep Troat, is never oered as tle climactic scratcl, tle disclarge of end pleasure, despite tle fact tlat tle narrative conceit of tle lm is quite precisely Lindas quest for clitoral orgasm. Te long listory of tle elisions, and occasional resigltings, of tle clitoris in medical and pornograplic representation oers a fascinating tale. Freuds own early-twentietl-century tale of tle immaturity of tle clitoral orgasm and tle maturity of tle vaginal one, wlicl became sucl an issue in Deep Troats New York trial, certainly contributed to tle elision of tle clitoris from tle turn of tle century until tle early seventies. But tle era of tle new pornograply was also an era of one of tle important resigltings of tle clitorisin sexology no less tlan in tle emerging feminism tlat Levin so discounted. It is tlus wortl asking low it is tlat an organ tlat got so mucl press in tle sexology of tle late sixties and early seventies only received a kind of lip serviceliterally a lot of talk and a few licksin tle pornograply of tlis era. Slall we clalk it up to its small size relative to tle penis and tle plysiological fact tlat it does not produce a dramatic liquid tlat can spurt as far: Or is tlere a deeper reason: We saw in clapter tlat Freud explained tle pleasures of kissing in re- lation to tle originary pleasure of tle clild sucking at tle motlers breast. All intersubjective life, to Freud, las its beginning in tlis original relation between motler and clild. Freud argues tlat sensual sucking, rst con- nected to tle stimulation of tle warm ow of milk, becomes detacled from tle original satisfaction of lunger to become a labial zone of plea- (o going further sure in its own riglt. Sucking a penis and sucking a clitoris could tlus potentially recall tlese mutual pleasures wlile producing in tle body of tle person sucked (kissed, licked, etc.) orgasmic pleasures. I say potentially because, altlougl tle new leterosexual pornograply of tle seventies does slow us tlese mutual pleasures in ways tlat deni- tively break away from coitus as tle proper aim of sex, as Levin would lave it, tley rarely present tle pleasures of sucking and tle pleasures of being sucked as mutual. Nor do tley present tle female and male pleasure of being sucked as commensurate. Instead, we tend to tlink of tle sucker as doing tle work and of tle suckee as receiving tle pleasure. And since tle only one of tlese organs witl strong graplic presence is tle penis, all pleasure seems to revolve around tlat organ in an entirely plallic regime tlat seems lopelessly stuck in wlat Luce Irigaray las dened as tle plal- lic economy of tle one, incapable of counting beyond tlat number. And yet, if we revisit tle original scene from wlicl Freud derives all subsequent sexual pleasuretle clild sucking at tle motlers breastwe miglt be able to retlink oral sexual pleasures as a more mutual give-and- take botl from tle point of view of tle clild and motler and from tlat of tle adults wlo engage in oral sex.' Wlen Freud tleorizes tle origin of all sexual pleasure as a rending of oral satisfaction at tle breast, le, too, sees it as a singular economy of tle onea pleasure for tle clild alone. Te pleasure of being sucked is elided in Freud, wlile in leterosexual por- nograply tle pleasure of being sucked eclipses any possible pleasure to tle sucker. Wlen Freud attempts to understand tle pleasures of fellatio (nowlere does le tackle tle pleasures of cunnilingus), le takes great pains to mini- mize tle awareness of its perversion (in lis terms) by referring it back to tle innocence of tle clild sucking at tle motlers breast. Te innocence of Freuds picture of originary sucking, wlicl le uses to soften any per- ception of disgust or perversion in fellatio, seems to be linked to lis own belief in tle motlers (and tle breasts) lack of sexual sensitivity in tle act of nursing. Fellatio is an oral pleasure tlat rends tle pleasure of sucking tle breast tlrougl tle sucking of tle penis, but le does not conceive of tlis pleasure as also and simultaneously tle pleasure of being sucked. Too committed to insisting on tle innocence of fellatio, le misconstrues its pleasures as one-way. A breast produces milk tlat, wlen sucked, emerges in warm spurts tlat satisfy tle clild botl as nourislment and as tactile, olfactory, and (per- laps) visual pleasure (Freud often stresses tle importance of tle breast going further ( as tle clilds rst visual objectwlat Maria St. )oln calls tle ultimate lome movie). A penis wlen sucked or kissed, licked or blown, also produces a milky liquid tlat emerges in warm spurts tlat can be toucled, tasted, and seen. Tis liquid satises no need for nourislment, but tlose wlo suck and elicit it often enact a pleasure not unlike tlat of tle clild at tle breast. Tey taste it, revel in it, and take deliglt in tle way it ap- pears and feels. Te fellator tlus reenacts tle pleasure of tle clild at tle breast, but tle penis itself does not enact Freuds notion of tle passive, nonpleasuring maternal breast. Ratler, and especially in tle new pornog- raply inaugurated by Deep Troat, it often tlreatens to steal tle slow, to go solo in money slots tlat ignore tle pleasure of tle fellator by focus- ing excessively on tle moment of external ejaculation. Te spectacu- lar slow-motion money slot of tle same years Behind the Green Door (dir. Artie Mitclell and )im Mitclell) makes for a famous example, even one-upping Deep Troats montage witl optically printed, psycledelically colored doublings of tle ejaculating penis. In Deep Troat tle conceit tlat Lindas clitoris is located in ler tlroat allows tle lm to compensate tle woman wlo fellates witl a putatively deeper, nonoral, clitorally orgasmic satisfaction. Te need to posit tlis ctitious satisfaction miglt be construed as tle lms guilty conscience toward wlat is actually its plysical elision of tle womans pleasure. Te relegation of cunnilingus in tlis same era to an act of foreplay culminating in no dramatic climax and manifesting very little in eitler tle oral plea- sures of tle sucker or tle sucked miglt be understood as tle listorical moment in wlicl tle new graplic pornograply failed to invest eros in tlat wlicl it could not easily see. In tlis sense it is an escalation of tle rule of maximum visibility in tle face of an apparently invisible female pleasure. A variety of factors tlus converged to make Deep Troat tle aslpoint of tle new pornograplic implantation of perversions and its new ways of speaking sex. An ordinary fuck lm witlout tle panacle of tlese dirent strokes miglt not lave created tle ensuing scandal, miglt not lave elicited so velement a reaction from its New York judge, and tlus miglt not lave garnered as mucl lype. Te very title Deep Troat, even before its Watergate resonance, added a sense of mystery and soplistica- tion tlat lifted tle lm out of tle Times Square circuit into a brief era of porno clic. Deep Troat would prove to be tle largest-grossing independent lm of all time. It oered an unprecedented spectacle of graplic sex on (: going further screen. In tle end, lowever, tle most signicant slow oered up by Deep Troatto its Denver audience, as well as in its many screenings across tle nationwas taking place in tle audience: our social presence to one anotler at a public screening of graplic, unsimulated sex, our willingness not only to screen sex but to be seen screening it. And tle sex tlat we saw tlere was oered, despite Dr. Levins worries about tle perversions of clitoral orgasm, as tle telos of end pleasure corresponding to Freuds most ortlodox conception of a satisfying scratcl capable of disclarging all tension. At lms end, Linda is lappily satised witl a lover wlose penis is long enougl to reacl tle clitoris lidden in ler tlroat. Yet tle act tlat produced tlis disclarge is literally perverse, swerved away from conventional notions of carnal knowledge. Last Tango, for its part, received cover stories in botl Time and News- week, wlile stills of its one nude scene appeared in Playboy. Tougl it did not garner tle unprecedented grosses of Deep Troat, it took in s6 million at tle U.S. box oce and, as David Tompson las noted, tlere wasnt a more faslionable movie for tle critics eitler to laud to tle skies or snidely put down. In New York, tle lm was exlibited at tle unusu- ally ligl ticket price of s,, exactly tle same jacked-up price one lad to pay to see Deep Troat. Botl lms esclewed conventional depictions of carnal knowledge and were tlus perverse. But wlat was especially per- verse in Last Tango was not tle content (masturbation, anal sex), but tle alignment of sex witl tle self-slattering end of life itselftle little deatl and tle big one tlat greets Paul at tle end. Pornotopia is a place wlere, as Steven Marcus once wrote, it is always bedtime. In pornotopia people lave well-lit, maximum-visibility sex for very long periods of time, ending in tle disclarge of money slots. Por- nograply is relatively easy and cleap to make: it simply needs to display precisely tlose details of sex so lard to see elsewlere. Erotic art, on tle otler land, las proven mucl larder to make, wlicl may be wly tlere is a great deal of moving-image pornograply and comparatively little sexually explicit erotic art. If we want to understand tle dierences be- tween moving-image erotica and pornograply, lowever, we need to see tlat tley exist on a continuum of representations, any of wlicl can be sexually stimulating. One end of tle continuum aims directly at depicting sexual pleasures in tle rletoric of tle scratcl, conveyed as money slot disclarge. Te otler end of tle continuum is more interested in playing witl tlese forms prolonging tle tension in tle rletoric of tle itcl. In tle wake of tlese two movies, screening sex would lencefortl form going further ( an inextricable part of tle sexuality of adult viewers wlo could no longer claim sexual innocence at tle movies. Witl tle video revolution of tle following decade, tlis screening sex would eventually retreat to tle pri- vacy of tle lome, but after ,;:, sex itself could never go back to being as entirely private an aair as it lad been before. All subsequent sexual relations would be complicated and informed by tlese indelible moving images. Te sexual revolution tlat Deep Troat and Last Tango represented was not just for leterosexuals. In ,6, a police raid on a Manlattan gay bar called tle Stonewall Inn precipitated a riot tlat many claim was tle asl- point for tle birtl of gay liberation. At tle center of tlis liberation was tle growing signicance of tle erotic in modern life. Te new graplic pornograply in general and tle subgenre of all-male pornograply in par- ticular constituted a crucially important part of tlis growing signicance. At issue in tlat bar was tle riglt of gays and lesbians to exlibit, even to aunt, tleir sexual preferences. Cay pornograply would prove a crucial aspect of tlis ability for lomosexuals to be tlemselves. One simple way of looking at tle emergence of gay pornograply is to see it as an out- growtl of gay liberation: tle tlrowing o of repression. However, as we lave already seen witl tle straiglt pornograply tlat privileged a wide range of sex acts once deemed perverse, tle rise of graplic sex as a public spectator sportgay or straigltcannot fully be understood as a simple lifting of repression tlat nally permitted more natural expressions. How natural, after all, is a money slot: Ratler, tle implantation of perversions came oniscene almost as aggressively as did supposedly perverse non- procreative leterosexual ones in tle early seventies. But in tle case of sex acts between men and tle rise of gay liberation, tle dynamic of reverse discourse proved particularly important. Foucault argues tlat we do not live in a world of dominant and dominated discourses. Ratler, discourse can be botl an instrument of power (as in tle term of abuse, queer) and a point of resistance to power (as wlen queer becomes celebratory). Sucl was tle case in tle graplic celebrations of gay lard-core pornograply. In ,;, a year before Deep Troat seized tle (letero)sexual imagina- tion of tle nation to become tle necessary viewing of all cognoscenti, a small lm called Boys in the Sand (dir. Wakeeld Poole) opened in Times Coda: Coming Out (( going further Square.' Not as prominent on tle general culture radar screen (my friends and I lad no idea), Boys nevertleless anticipated tle impact of Deep Troat for tle narrower but trendsetting and inuential emerging gay community. Cinematically, it was also a mucl better movie. Like Deep Troat, Boys in the Sand was not tle rst (gay) lard-core feature lm to slow in a public tleater, but, also like it, it was tle rst work of graplic moving-image pornograply to reap giant returns on a very small invest- ment. Boys lad a mucl greater role in legitimizing tle graplic sexual imagination of tle gay community tlan Deep Troat did in tle larger leterosexual mainstream. It was tlus arguably, and for its numerically smaller audience, an even more important lm. Te rise of publicly exlibited feature-lengtl pornograply in tle early seventies meant tlat sexually interested viewers lad to be willingas my friends and I lad beennot only to watch mediated graplic sex acts but to be seen watcling in public. To do so meant tle suppression of tle kind of overt carnal response tlat lad been more openly solicited by tle earlier stag lms in tle context of more private screenings. Arousal, wletler leading to masturbation or impersonal coupling, could certainly occur in tle public tleaters of tle ,;os, but it was not invited tle way it some- times lad been in earlier stag lms slown in often more ribald circum- stances. However, if tlis suppression of audience sexual response was fairly common in tle pornograply tlat my friends and I went to see, it was mucl less common in tle pornograply watcled by my only just tlen coming-out gay friends. As Ceorge Clauncey las noted in lis listory of gay New York, public movie tleaters lad often served as trysting areas as far back as tle nickelodeons and extending into tle unsupervised balco- nies of tle movie palaces of tle ,:os. After Stonewall and tle rise of an explicitly gay pornograply projected in Times Square tleaters, tle use of tleaters as cruising grounds pusled tle notion of sexual interest far be- yond wlat was exlibited at screenings of Deep Troat and its successors. )oln Waters, interviewed in tle documentary Inside Deep Troat, oers tle autloritative testament: People werent jerking o. Angela Lansbury miglt be sitting next to you! In tleaters exlibiting gay porn, lowever, Angela Lansbury was most likely not sitting next to you. To be seen watcling a lm in tlese tleaters could often be interpreted as a sign of interest in laving sex on tle spot. Te atmosplere of tle all-male stag party was converted in tlis situation from lomosociality to overt lomosexuality. Te lm listorian Tomas Waugl tells of attending Boys in the Sand during tle rst week of its run going further (, at tle Fifty-Fiftl Street Teater in Manlattan. Newly arrived in New York and not knowing tle protocol, le tlouglt people went to watcl tle lm and was slocked to nd tle person belind lim more interactive tlan tlat. Waugl adds, lowever, tlat Boys in the Sand was sucl a standout lm tlat more people watcled it tlan usual. It is not surprising tlat gay pornograply was in tle vanguard of feature- lengtl pornograply. Wakeeld Poole, tle director of Boys in the Sand, lad previously directed a ten-minute, avant-garde tribute to tle art and plotograplytlougl not tle lmsof Andy Warlol. Riclard Dyer las closely linked tle visionary, playful and self-reexive qualities of under- ground cinema to many aspects of gay and proto-gay culture. Sucl qualities would mark pornograplies witl all-male action as dierentin many ways far more clic and avant-garde tlan tle mucl touted clic of mainstream pornograply. Te rst episode (entitled Bayside) of tle tripartite, dialogueless Boys in the Sand opens witl an out-of-focus image. We eventually discover a bearded young man witl dark lair (Wakeeld Pooles lover Peter Fisk) taking a long walk tlrougl tle woods. Te prolonged use of subjective camera emplasizes tle play of liglt and sladow tlrougl tle trees and immediately marks tle aestletic ambitions of tle lm as artier tlan most straiglt lard core. Music tlat resembles tle more muted portions of Stra- vinskys Te Rite of Spring softly accompanies tle journey and continues tlrouglout tle episode. Wlen tle young man emerges from tle trees, le undresses and sits down at tle edge of tle sea. He gazes for quite a wlile at tle water until wlat I slall lereafter call an apparitiona lanky, blond, naked man (Casey Donovan, aka Cal Culver, an icon of mucl early all- male pornograply wlo will appear in eacl of tlis lms tlree episodes) materializes on tle lorizon. In long slot, tle apparition runs from tle surf toward tle bearded man, lis penis apping witl eacl stride. Stop- ping before le reacles tle bearded man, wlo las seemingly conjured lim from tle water, tle apparition oers up lis golden beauty rst to tle mans eye and tlen to lis toucl. Te rst sex act is fellatio performed by tle bearded man. It will even- tually prove as graplically real and as climactic as tlat performed in Deep Troat, leading, as well, to a money slot. However, tle way it is slot and performed can lelp us understand basic dierences between gay and straiglt porn in tlese early years of porno clic. First, Boys takes its time. A fourtl of tle episode of Bayside passes before we arrive at tle sex. Tis will be tle case in tle otler episodes as well. Nor do we always see (6 going further all of tle action witl maximum visibility. Initially, tle bearded mans lead blocks our view of tle penis le fellates (gure ,;). Altlougl a side view will soon conrm tlat tle penis does indeed enter tle fellators moutl, it is neitler tle rst nor tle most prominent view (gure ,8). A reverse angle follows, from belind tle buttocks of tle fellatee (gure ,,). Wlile tle view of tle buttocks presents tle important otler side of tle body being fellated and introduces an anal eroticism central to mucl all-male porn, it also prevents a more direct and clinical view of tle graplic action of fellatio. An aura of mystery, ratler tlan one of clinical clarity, langs over tle lm. Fellatio proves as fundamental to tlis episode of Boys in the Sand as it does to many episodes of Deep Troat and countless otler examples of porno clic. However, tle graplic pornotopia of a lm like Deep Troat, wlicl emplasizes unobstructed views of tle act of fellatio in tle more clinical manner of scientia sexualis, contrasts witl wlat miglt be called tle graplic erototopia of Boys in the Sand. Liglting is crucial. Te sun- dappled, natural liglting of Boys means tlat sladows sometimes obscure graplic views. But Boys in the Sand also plays witl its views of sex. For example, tlis rst scene of fellatio does not, like tlose in Deep Troat, pro- ceed directly to climax. Instead, it breaks o in a tease as tle apparition pulls away from tle bearded man and walks backwards into tle darker woods. Te camera moves into tle dark woods mucl tle way it earlier moved toward tle dark anus, approacling a place of mystery. Tis witldrawal from contact prolonging tle initial irtation is an early example of a fundamental convention of all-male porn tlat las no precise equivalent in tle leterosexual genre: tle long dance of irtation in wlicl two (or more) men cruise one anotler, simultaneously exposing tleir lard, or lardening, bodies, witldrawing to look and to let tlemselves be looked at before enjoying tle movement from siglt to toucl. In tlis frequently prolonged dance of cruising, tle taboo against male-male sexual contact is botl inscribed and, gradually, overcome. Only after tle bearded man catcles up to tle apparition deep in tle woods, and only after some addi- tional foreplay, does tle fellatio resume. Altlougl tle encounter of tlese boys in tle sand will encompass several otler graplic acts tlat merge into one anotler, fellatio frames tle entire encounter. In tle even more dappled liglt of tle woods, tley kiss and stroke one anotler as tle moving brancles and leaves of tle trees cast extremes of liglt and sladow on tleir skin (gure 6o). Te apparition removes a leatler bracelet from tle wrist of tle bearded man and places it around tlis same mans penis and tes- Boys in the Sand (dir. Wakefeld Poole, 1971) 57: Fellatio without maximum visibility 58: Fellatio with visibility 59: Fellatio plus anal eroticism (8 going further ticles to matcl lis own (already installed, metallic) cock ring. Teir lands lold tleir penises against one anotler, emplasizing sexual sameness over sexual dierence, and nally tley resume fellatio. Tis time, lowever, it is tle apparition wlo performs it on lis knees before tle bearded man, reversing tle couples original position. More sunliglt glimpsed tlrougl tle trees signals an ellipsis. We now nd tle apparition lying on lis back on a blanket in tle woods as tle bearded man fellates lim. Again tle graplic view is softened by tle dappled liglt (gure 6). Eventually, tley fellate one anotler in tle sixty-nine position. After anotler ellipsis signaled again by sunliglt tlrougl tle trees (gure 6:), tle apparition politely brusles o tle buttocks of tle bearded man before rst licking and tlen penetrating lis anus. Te pumping action tlat follows is vigorous, but tle graplic view is again softened, in tlis case by tle body of tle penetrator, wlicl casts sladows on tle penetrated. As in leterosexual porn, a tlrusting penetration eventually leads to a close-up money slot: lere tle apparition ejaculates onto tle face of tle bearded man and tlen considerately wipes it oa gesture rarely seen in letero- sexual porn and one tlat will soon disappear in all-male porn as well, as ejaculate becomes codied as tle crucial proof of pleasure in botl types. Next tle apparition lies on lis back and tle bearded man stands over lim, masturbating to ejaculation. A nal money slot climaxes tle sexual action in a montage tlat an- ticipates tle cinematic pyroteclnics of Deep Troat. As in tlat lm, tle buildup to tle money slot rapidly intercuts witl otler imagesin tlis case a staccato series of slots reprising tle actions of tle episode. Tese very quick cuts from previous fragments of tle same scene mark tle mo- 60: Boys in the Sand, the cruising couple kisses amid dappled light and shadow going further (, ment leading up to tle close-up display of ejaculation. Also as in Deep Troat, tle rapid pace of tle montage itself conveys tle rlytlmic con- vulsions of ejaculation. Altlougl all-male pornograply will punctuate its climaxes witl money slots just as faitlfully as leterosexual porn and may very well lave inuenced tle creation of tle convention in tle rst place, orgasms tend to be mutualone mans quasi-visible pleasure need not stand in for tle otlers tle way tle doctors visible pleasure in Deep Troat stands in for Lindas invisible pleasure. In tlis case tle ejaculation of tle bearded mantle man wlose fantasy tlis is, after allis privileged over tlat of tle apparition. Te episode ends witl tle bearded mans witldrawal from tle scene. He removes tle leatler cock band from lis penis and places it on tle wrist of tle apparition, kisses lim on botl moutl and penis, rises, and disappears Boys in the Sand 61: A graphic view softened by dappled light 62: Ellipsis signaled through sunlight in the trees ,o going further into tle surf. Te circularity of tle narrative seems perfect until we recall tlat tle man wlo disappears into tle surf is not tle same one wlo rst appeared out of it. Indeed, it is tle original apparition wlo remains ma- terialized, putting on tle clotles and taking up tle blanket of tle bearded man wlo las vanisled, as if to emplasize tle interclangeability of tle roles taken in tlis erotic fantasy. As we lave already seen, all pornograply is utopian, all pornograply takes place, as Steven Marcus las said, in pornotopia, tle land wlere it is always bedtime. But it seems fair to say tlat all-male gay pornograply is more utopian, if only because tle taboos tlat must be overcome to stage its pleasures are greater. Fire Island, wlere all tle episodes of Boys in the Sand were lmed, is portrayed as a fantasmatic place wlere not only tle taboos against tle graplic display of sex are suspended but also tlose against tle display of lomosexuality. Wlile Deep Troat exudes a lappy- go-lucky etlos of dirent strokes for dirent folks and makes a point of embracing wlatever kinky desires appear, tle one desire tlat it rigorously esclews is tlat of one man for anotler. Wlile tle place of sex in Deep Troat miglt be a kitclen counter, a doctors oce, or a bedroom, tle always-bedtime atmosplere of tlese places is easily aclieved. In contrast, wlile tle place of a more nonnormative sex in Boys in the Sand miglt be equally unconventional, it is negotiated more carefully, it is more aware of tle greater taboos it breaks. As Ricl Cante and Angelo Restivo lave argued, tle sex of all-male pornograply is always situated in relation to a public via meclanisms distinct from male-female acts, even wlen tleir setting is a private space.' In otler words, tle more frauglt relation of male-male sex to a public means tlat tlis sex is more intensely utopian. Eacl of tle lms tlree episodes constitutes a silent erotic vignette witl music in wlicl an initially solitary man conjures tle appearance of an- otler tlrougl tle sleer intensity of lis desire. Poole las described tle lm as representing various stages in gay sexual relations. Te rst epi- sode centers on dreams, lero worslip, and innocence, wlile tle second episode is about coming out[,] . . . tle attainment of love[,] and nding a partner.'' In tlis second episode, Poolside, a man on a dockCasey Donovan, tle apparition from tle rst episodereads about gay bar raids in a copy of a newspaper entitled Gay. Like tle rst, tlis episode also takes its time getting to tle sex. Te man walks on tle dock and tlen moves to a more private, enclosed pool wlere le takes o lis clotles and begins to masturbate. Later, inside tle louse le writes a letter, apparently in re- sponse to one of tle ads in tle newspaper. He swims naked and oats on an air mattress semi-erect. Days pass on a calendar, le runs on tle beacl, going further , suspense builds. Finally le receives a small package tlat contains a large wlite tablet, wlicl le tlrows into tle pool. Out of tle raging bubbles created by tle tablet a dark-laired lover (Danny Di Cioccio) emerges. According to Poole, audiences never failed to laugl and applaud tle wisl- fulllment in tle form of tlis apparition, wlo swims toward tle conjuror and takes lis penis into lis moutl.' Te couple proceeds to lave atl- letic sex all over tle pool deck: Tey engage in fellatio, ass rimming, and anal intercourse plotograpled from belind slrubs and furniture, in often quite dancerly poses, oering wlat Poole calls an intentional voyeuristic feel.' No dramatic money slot climaxes tle action, suggesting tlat in ,; it was still an option, not yet tle sine qua non of tle genre. Afterward, tle couple aectionately dries one anotler o, goes inside, and comes out dressed. Arm in arm tley leave tle private enclave of tle pool surrounded by a ligl fence and emerge into tle publicness of tle community, still entwined, an overt couple. Tey pass tle man witl tle beard from tle rst episode, wlo also las tle Gay paper under lis arm and wlo may be presumed to send o lis own letter soon. Unspoken but clearly stated in tlis wordless episode is tle advocacy of coming out as proud, lappy, and sexually satised gay men. A tlird episode, Inside, explores a more ledonistic, fantasmatic, and forbidden terrain. A wlite man (Casey Donovan again) lazily wakes up witl an erection inside an elegant louse as sunsline streams in lis win- dow. Cazing out of tle window, we see lim establisl eye contact, irt witl, and eventually lave sex witl an apparitional African American tele- plone repairman (Tommy Moore) to tle accompaniment of a sitar and tabla. Tis apparition, unlike tle otlers, does not seem to want to stick around, even for tle lengtl of time it takes to lave sex. For eacl time tle repair man abruptly appears, as le does suddenly on tle living room coucl, naked except for lis repairmans tool belt (gure 6), le just as abruptly disappears (gure 6(). Tougl tle wlite man fellates lim witl gusto (gure 6,), tle apparition is always in danger of disappearing. Eacl time le does, tle music clanges tempo and a fast pan of tle brigltly colored windows of tle elegant pine louse signals a new fantasy. Wlere tle otler apparitions remainedat least until tle end of tle sexual encounter as in tle Bayside episode, and more permanently in tle romantic Poolside onetlis racialized apparition comes and goes, and le always goes before le comes. In tle end, we become aware tlat le las been built primarily out of tle wlite mans relation to a large, black dildo, wlicl we later see lim lubricate and sit on wlile popping amyl nitrate. In otler words, tlis inside apparition gives tle impression of being even Boys in the Sand 63: The tele- phone repairman appears on the couch 64: The repairman disappears 65: Fellatio with gusto going further , more conjured upmore fantasmatictlan tle previous ones conjured out of tle water in tle open air. Always in danger of disappearing, tle virile black man becomes all tle more precious as tle erotic fantasy of tle wlite man. Tis means, of course, tlat tle black man functions more as a sexual object tlan a sexual subject, more as wlat Franz Fanon las called an epidermalized racial essence tlan any of tle otler apparitions con- jured in tlis lm.' Undoubtedly, tlen, tle black man is racially fetislized and reduced to lis penis in tle form of tle black dildo.' Of course, all tle male performers in pornograply are at some point reduced to tleir penises, liglly fetislized by tle genre itself, and no more so tlan in all- male pornograply. Te fact tlat Moore, wlo plays tle teleplone repair- man, is more fetislized is obviously a feature of racial attitudes of tle eraattitudes we lave also seen Melvin Van Peebles eitler clallenging or reinforcing (depending on low one interprets tle lm) in tle same years Sweet Sweetbacks Baadasssss Song. Poole expressed pride in lis interracial cast,' and perlaps justly so given tle tendency in mainstream cinema to elide tle sexuality of black people. He was breaking a color line just as emplatically as was Van Peebles and at approximately tle same time. But to transgress a taboo is not to defeat it, as Bataille las so well argued.' Te pornotopia of inter- racial desire is far from a lappy-go-lucky place of immediate sexual grati- cation in wlicl color lines fall away and everyone las sex witl everyone else equally. Indeed, tle extra erotic clarge of tle Inside episode of Boys in the Sand seems to be grounded in tle vestigial taboos and prolibitions against not only male-male sex but interracial sex as well. A certain fear of interracial sex adds spice to tle insistence on tle acceptance of same- sex in tlis episode. Tese transgressions are not triumplant subversions since tle outing of a taboo fully recognizes tle autlority and power of tle prolibiting law, but neitler are tley tle same old racism tlat once functioned to keep tle races apart or in relations of complete domination and submission.' If Deep Troat is about tle aclievement of pleasure tlrougl practice and acrobatics, tlen Boys in the Sand is a lyrical, joyful celebration of a utopian placeBayside, Poolside, Insidewlere men take pleasure in one anotler in tle face of normative taboos. In tlese fantasies witl- out dialogue and synclronized sound, no one teacles, cures, or ini- tiates anotler person into tle joys of sex. And yet audience members wlo applauded and desired tlese apparitions, and wlo bonded witl eacl otler as a community in tlis very applause signaling mutually recognized ,( going further desire, did certainly learn sometling about tle joys of an out community intrinsically related to tle practice of sex. An idealized, lypersexual male emerges in eacl episode from tle conjuring imagination of a solitary de- siring subject. Te sex tlat follows serves to validate and celebrate, wlile never exactly normalizing, tle dierence of gay sex. 4 make love, not war )ane Fonda Comes Home (,68,;8) Witl all tle ejaculating penises brouglt oniscene in botl leterosexual and lomosexual pornograply of tle early seventies, and witl all tle end-of-Code, beginning-of- ratings-era lms focused on young men proving tleir man- lood in Hollywoods simulated sexual interludes, it is only fair to ask about tle fate of female orgasm in mainstream Hollywood lm. Deep Troat lad purported to be about female orgasm by ratler disarmingly acknowledging a prob- lem tlat lad not been previously disclosed in tle mainstream listory of screening sex: wlere to locate and low to depict female pleasures tlat did not necessarily coincide witl tlose of tle male: Te clitoris, wlicl as we slall see below was newly exalted as tle primary organ of female pleasure by tle sexologists, was not wlere it slould be. Wly tlere you are! You little bugger you! proclaimed tle good doctor in Deep Troat wlen le found Linda Lovelaces clitoris in ler tlroat. Deep-tlroat fellatio was tle solution to tle problem of tlis ,6 make love, not war particular misplaced and misunderstood clitoris. Tougl more sober tlan tlis bogus doctor, tle real sexologists were equally perplexed to nd tle female seat of pleasure so disconnected from tle organs of reproduction. Tis was a conundrum, especially in Hollywood. Wlere to locate and low to portray a womans pleasure: Ever since tle fall of tle Hollywood Pro- duction Code tle main way to know if a woman felt pleasure was to listen to ler. Fast forward, for a moment, to tlis well-known scene from tle ,8, romantic comedy by Rob Reiner, When Harry Met Sally. Best friends, and eventual lovers, Harry (Billy Crystal) and Sally (Meg Ryan) meet in a New York delicatessen and argue about male and female perspectives on sex. Sally views Harry as an aront to all women because le cannot wait to leave tlem after laving sex. Harry counters tlat at least le leaves lis partners satised. Sally doubts if tley are satised since women often fake orgasm. Wlen Harry disbelieves, Sally gives an aural performance of one riglt tlere in tle deli. Sle pants, moans, slakes ler lead, musses ler lair, and pounds tle table, building to a rlytlmic and ecstatic Yes, Yes, Yes! Yes! vis! as tle wlole deli watcles in amazement and appreciation. After Sally las resumed ler sandwicl, an older woman voices tle puncl line to a waiter: Ill lave wlat sles laving. Never mind tlat Sally is a repressed obsessive wlose claracter would never do sucl a tleatrical tling in a deli, tle scene clincled tle lms reputation as a classic romantic comedy in tle postsexual revolution era. Most of all, it clincled tle by now well- known fact, lere delivered in tle mode of comedy, tlat women can often fake quite spectacular orgasms. In tle late ,6os and early ,;os, lowever, wlen tle representation of carnal knowledge in mainstream lms was still new and wlen Hollywood was tentatively devising new tropes for going all tle way, female orgasm was eitler overlooked or assimilated to tlat of tle male. Te possibly dif- ferent rlytlms and temporalities of a womans pleasure were simply not acknowledged. How, tlen, did a dierent, female, form of carnal knowl- edge come to American screens: Te answer may seem circuitous, but it proves to be inextricably tied to tle context of tle Vietnam War and emerging discourses of sexology. I was never a fan of tle popular Broadway musical Hair (,6;), or of tle later lm version by Milos Forman (,;,). Its story about a young man Make Love, Not War make love, not war ,; drafted to glt in Vietnam wlose countercultural friends glt against lis conscription was altogetler too lappy-lippie for my taste. Hippie celebrants sang lopefully of tle dawning of tle age of Aquarius, sled clotles, uttered forbidden words, and proposed to make love, not war. But if tley were lappy to make love, tley were not really willing to do any- tling to stop war. Te young man wlo is drafted goes to boot camp and is followed tlere by lis lippie friends, one of wlom takes lis place just be- fore le is slipped to Vietnam, wlere tle friend is killed. My boyfriend lad been drafted too, but witl tle support of lis countercultural community, le lad demonstrated against tle war, joined tle resistance, and refused induction. He would ratler go to prison tlan glt an unjust war.' We made love and opposed war, in a way tlat made Hair seem frivolous. )ust as its slow tunes betrayed tle very idiom of rock, so its politics avoided actual struggle. Facile as it was, lowever, Hair undeniably formed part of a late-sixties zeitgeist in wlicl sex, drugs, and rock and roll seemed antiwar and politicalnot just consumeristacts. Make love, not war was a slogan tlat many of us clanted at tle time of tle Stop tle Draft Week demonstrations against tle Oakland Induction Center in ,6;. Saying yes to sex in tlose leady days really did feel like saying no, not just to war but to tle kind of instrumental reason tlat lad fatefully led to one of Americas now-too-familiar quagmire wars. In tlose days sexual revolution was inextricably linked, as David Allyns lis- tory of tle era argues, to political revolution. My draft-resisting friends and I were ecloing tle words of Frankfurt Sclool tleorists like Herbert Marcuse and Norman O. Brown wlo argued against tle Freudian premise tlat sexual desire was in permanent need of sublimation if luman cul- ture and society were to persevere. Marcuses Eros and Civilization, rst publisled in ,,,, lad clallenged Sigmund Freuds premise tlat sexual desire was permanently at odds witl luman society. Marcuse envisioned a liberation tlat would restore tle riglt of sensuousness, transform toil into unproductive play, and not simply release libido but utterly trans- form it. No longer used as a full-time instrument of labor, tle body would be re- sexualized. Te regression involved in tlis spread of tle libido would rst manifest itself in a reactivation of all erotogenic zones and, consequently, in a resurgence of pregenital polymorplous sexuality and in a decline of genital sexuality. Te body in its entirety would become an object of ca- tlexis and a tling to be enjoyedan instrument of pleasure. Sparked by Marcuse, turned on by music, marijuana, and psycledelics, a large part of my generation did see making love as part of a political act against war. ,8 make love, not war It did so especially in tle face of an ever-escalating war wlose injustice was driven lome because of a draft tlat aected tle entire population of young men. But wlat was a womans place in tlis loving alternative to war: Anotler slogan, not quite as popular in tlis period, was Women Say Yes to Men Wlo Say No! As one wlo had said yes to a man wlo lad said no, I was tempted to adopt it, too, before recognizing in it a wlole patriarclal regime tlat wanted to make my sexual pleasure subservient to tle only real political actor in tle revolutionary scenario: tle man. Cradually I real- ized tlat if I was to make love, not war, tlen, as tle feminist cultural lis- torian Lynne Segal notes, it was going to lave to mean sometling more tlan tle freedom to get laid. It was going to lave to mean, ultimately, a radical retlinking of tle wlole area of sexuality and sexual politics. Wlat was a politically correct form of making love for a woman: Against Freuds dictum tlat civilization required a certain amount of discontent, Marcuse lad encouraged tle decline of genital sexuality and a pregenital polymorplous sexuality, but wlat did tlat mean, exactly: For tle answer to tlis question a wlole generation turned to sexologists: tle earlier work of Alfred Kinsey and tle newer work of William Masters and Virginia )olnson, just emerging in tle late sixties. Kinsey was a zoologist wlose long crusade became tle dissolution of tle distinctions between normal and abnormal sex. Wlile most people tend to believe tlat wlatever tley do sexually is wlat everyone else does, or slould do, Kinsey discovered, at rst just by interviewing married stu- dents in lis famous Marriage Course at Indiana University in tle late ,os, tlat people actually did a great many dierent tlings. Te second lecture of tlis course, rst tauglt in ,8, lad already clallenged Freuds ortlodoxy about tle vaginal orgasm. Trowing up a slide of a penis enter- ing a vagina in lis lecture lall, Kinsey very clearly pointed out tlat tle reason for tle womans pleasure was not vaginal but clitoral stimulation. Kinsey did not beat around tle busl. From tle very beginning le declared tle Freudian ortlodoxy of tle vaginal orgasm wrong. Te supposedly in- fantile clitoral orgasm was wlat really excited women. Te married or engaged students admitted into lis courses were decidedly interested in wlat Kinsey lad to teacl. And wlat le lad to teacl often derived from wlat le lad learned from tlem. Trougl ever-widening researcl, con- Sexology and Sexual Politics make love, not war ,, ducted in tle form of extended face-to-face interview-style sexual listo- ries, Kinsey came to believe tlat tlere was very little sexual activity tlat was abnormal, or perverse. In fact, le esclewed tle word perverse, pre- ferring tle label rare. Tougl Kinsey would democratically survey every possible aspect of sexual belavior, le would only count it as sex if it led to orgasm. As a zoologist witl an expertise in gall wasps, le valued measurability. Orgasms, wlicl lad tle virtue of being countable, became lis gold stan- dard. From tle very beginning, tlis meant tlat Kinseys researcl, like tlat of most sexologists, was inlerently androcentric. Tougl le could be re- markably nonjudgmental about tle belaviors tlat miglt lead to orgasm wletler masturbation, letero or lomosexual relationstle countable orgasm was built to tle measure of tle male body. It would not be until le got to researcling and writing lis female volume, Sexual Behavior in the Human Female, publisled in ,,, tlat Kinsey would discover enormous dissimilarities between male and female sexual outlets. For example, le calculated tlat tle average male lad experienced ,,: orgasms before marriage, wlile tle average woman lad only experienced ::. After mar- riage, le calculated, most lusbands aclieved orgasm in almost all acts of intercourse, wlile wives did so only , percent of tle time.' Most pertinent to tle listory of screening sex, lowever, is tle way Kinsey went about studying orgasms: le lmed tlem. Early in lis researcl Kinsey lad contrived to observe sexual activity live. He and Wardell Pomeroy lad paid prostitutes to be able to watcl tlem wlile tley performed tleir tricks. But Kinsey found prostitutes unsatisfying subjects precisely be- cause tley faked orgasm. It was not always easy to observe tleir acts from tle vantage point of a closet. Nor were tle teams later eorts to observe furtive lomosexual acts in toilets entirely satisfying as scientic observa- tion. Inevitably, Kinsey turned to lm in ,(8, at rst to test tle tleory of low men ejaculated, wletler in dribbles or witl projecting force. Clarence Tripp and Bill Dellenback, Kinseys trusty plotograplers, paid tlree lundred men in New York City to masturbate to ejaculation. After collecting lms of a tlousand men masturbating, tley concluded tlat in ; percent of men ejaculate does not spurt but dribbles.'' Filming male ejaculation soon brancled out into lming tle sexual re- lations of male lomosexual couples. By ,(, mucl of tlis lming moved into an attic room of Kinseys lome.' Te subjects of tlese lms were certain special friends of tle researcltlose willing not only to give tleir sexual listories but now also to be observed and lmed. )ust as Andy Warlol would give a screen test to just about anyone wlo wandered into 6o make love, not war tle Factory, so Kinsey would lm solitary or social sex acts witl just about anyone wlo would let lim. But le especially valued tle rare ones and not only lomosexual males. One of tlese was a gynecologist by tle name of Alice Spears. Pomeroy reported tlat sle was capable of from fteen to twenty orgasms in twenty minutes. Even tle most casual contact could arouse a sexual response in ler. Observing ler botl in masturbation and intercourse, we found tlat in intercourse ler rst orgasm occurred witlin : to ve seconds after entry.' Tis was all tle more surprising in tlat Spears lad not lad ler rst orgasm until sle was forty and was in ler six- ties at tle time of lming. Kinsey slot a total of seven lours of lm witl Spears performing witl a great many dierent partners drawn from lis entire team of male researclers, including limself.' In lming sex, Kinsey was only doing wlat Masters and )olnson would later do witl married couples in tleir laboratory. However, lis way of doing it blurred tle line between objective, distanced science and a mucl more involved, subjective participant observation. Nor did any of lis fund- ers, or tle trustees of Indiana University, know wlat le was doing since tle budget for lming was cleverly disguised under tle category mam- malian studies and did, indeed, begin as a collection of low otler kinds of mammals do itlms of porcupines lad been particularly valued.' No one knew about tle luman lms until tle ,;: publication of Pomeroys biograply of Kinsey. Had tley known, Kinsey would lave instantly lost lis fundingas le would do soon enougl anyway after tle publication of tle female volume. Kinseys attic lmswlicl meticulously recorded not only female orgasms but male-male and female-female lomosexual relations, as well as scenes of sadomasoclistic sexare of obvious interest to any listory of screening sex in America, and it is regrettable tlat tle Kinsey Institute does not permit tleir study today. For some, Kinseys sexual proclivities, combined witl lis lming, utterly disqualied lim as a scientist and made lim complicit witl criminals.' One recent biograpler, )ames )ones, argues tlat from tle very beginning Kinsey was a masoclistic, lomosexual voyeur possessed entirely by lis demons. His real motivation for all lis researcl, )ones insists, was to see if otlers were like lim. )ones tlus asserts tlat Kinseys real interest was prurience, not science.' )onatlan Catlorne-Hardy, anotler recent biog- rapler, disagrees witl )ones and defends Kinseys science. He does not deny tlat Kinsey lad lomosexual encounters, nor tlat le engaged in some masoclistic acts, nor tlat le liked to watcl. But le refutes tle idea tlat Kinsey was a lifelong lomosexual-masoclist-voyeur, especially in tle make love, not war 6 patlologizing, xed ways tlat Kinseys own researcl souglt to loosen. He asserts, ratler, tlat Kinsey was a bisexual wlo uctuated on lis own scale, but wlose interest in diverse sexual practices is wlat enabled lim to extract listories from lomosexuals and otler minority sexualities in tle rst place. Te gay media sclolar Tomas Waugl argues, from a very dierent di- rection, tlat Kinseys problem was tlat le did not admit to tle prurience tlat inevitably informed lis work and tlat Waugl limself believes slould be a fundamental principle of gay cultural and sexual researcl. Sexual science, Waugl insists, is inseparable from eroticism.' Tis may be a bit unfair to Kinsey, wlo could lardly lave received funding as a proudly eroticized lomosexual researcler. Waugl adds tlat Kinsey, in addition to being tle voyeur and auditor, as well as sometime participant in a num- ber of tle lms, was also tleir ultimate director, tle grand metteur en scene.' Te question about ejaculation tlat led Kinsey to rst lm it was not un- like tle epocl-making debate about tle fast-trot of tle lorse: Was tlere ever a moment wlen all four feet left tle ground: Only Eadweard Muy- bridges plotograpls of 8;; could prove to Leland Stanfords satisfaction tlat tlere was a moment wlen all four feet did leave tle ground, and so, as one poet put it, we invent pornograply. We invent pornograply, I lave argued, never out of mere prurience but out of tle quest for tle trutl of tle body mixed up witl prurience. Kinsey was a scientist and a sexually interested observer and a sometime participant in tle sex le studied. We slould no more dismiss lis science tlan tle eroticism tlat fed its interest. If Kinsey was a pornograpler, le was interested in tle kinds of tlings tlat were often faked in pornograply by women wlo were paid to perform. His own lome movies were tlus, like Warlols Blue Movie, a way to locate a trutl of sex not otlerwise rendered visible. However one judges Kinseys objectivity or involvement, one only las to read tle descriptions of orgasm in tle female volume to recognize tlat belind all tle grapls of respiration and blood pressure stands tle kind of observation tlat could only lave come from getting closer, from watcling and screening. Kinsey writes: Prostitutes wlo attempt to deceive (jive) tleir patrons, or unresponsive wives wlo similarly attempt to make tleir lusbands believe tlat tley are enjoying tleir coitus, fall into an error because tley assume tlat an eroti- cally aroused person would look lappy and pleased and slould smile and 6: make love, not war become increasingly alert as le or sle approacles tle culmination of tle act. On tle contrary, an individual wlo is really responding is as incapable of looking lappy as tle individual wlo is being tortured.' He continues, Fully 8( percent of tle females in tle sample wlo lad mas- turbated lad depended cliey on labial and clitoral stimulation. . . . all tle evidence indicates tlat tle vaginal walls are quite insensitive in tle great majority of females. Kinsey tlus concludes, contra Freud, tlat vaginal orgasm is a plysical and plysiologic impossibility tlat las no relation to maturity. Kinsey, lowever, was not in tle business of xing wlat was wrong witl tle sexual relations of married couples, lis interest, as witl gall wasps, was variety. Witl tleir rst book, Human Sexual Response, publisled in ,66, tle team of Masters and )olnson conrmed many aspects of Kinseys groundbreaking work. Like Kinsey, tley rletorically stressed tle similarities of male and female sexual responseviewing tle clitoris, for example, as a version of tle peniswlile actually detailing some remark- able dierences. For example, tley noted tlat women could orgasm botl more frequently and mucl longer tlan men. Like Kinsey also, Masters and )olnson debunked tle vaginal orgasm, asserting tlat clitoral and vaginal orgasms are not separate biologic entities. And nally, tley also observed couples and lmed tlem, even placing internal electrodes to measure response. Perlaps most tlreatening to establisled lierarclies of male and female sexual response was tleir observation tlat maximum plysiologic intensity of orgasmic response lad been aclieved tlrougl self regulated meclanical or automanipulative teclniques. Te second greatest intensity was aclieved tlrougl partner manipulation, and a poor tlird was aclieved during coition. Nevertleless, Masters and )olnson were tlerapists committed to tle success of monogamous, leterosexual marriage, and all of tleir work was aimed at producing a more sexually satised couple. Tey tlus closed down mucl of Kinseys openness to varieties of sexual outlets, basing tleir study only on 6,( wlite, middle- class leterosexual men and women. Tere lad been no major womens movement to absorb tle lessons of Kinsey, but by tle time Masters and )olnson reacled print, feminists were immediately drawing inferences tlat may not lave been consistent witl tle researclers essentially masculinist and monogamous perspec- tives. Mary )ane Slerfey, a psycloanalyst wlo lad studied witl Kinsey as an undergraduate, was tle rst: Teoretically, sle asserted, a woman could go on laving orgasms indenitely if plysical exlaustion did not make love, not war 6 intervene. Tis mucl Masters and )olnson would lave agreed witl, but Slerfey added, neitler men nor women, but especially not women, are biologically built for tle single-spouse, monogamous marital struc- ture. In a mood of even greater insurgency, tle feminist activist Anne Koedt proclaimed, in a famous pampllet widely circulated at radical meetings long before it was publisled, tlat if vaginal penetration was not tle cause of orgasm, tlen women lad been dened sexually in terms of wlat pleases men, our own biology las not been properly analyzed. Accord- ing to tlis reasoning, wlat was needed was tlus notling slort of a re- denition of womens sexuality and a rejection of former androcentric concepts of normal: We must begin to demand tlat if certain sexual positions now dened as standard are not mutually conducive to orgasm, tley [slould] no longer be dened as standard. New teclniques must be used or devised wlicl transform tlis particular aspect of our current sexual exploitation. Yet anotler feminist, Barbara Seaman, furtler drew out Slerfeys lesson of indenite orgasm: Te more a woman does, the more she can, and the more she can, the more she wants to. Masters and )olnson claim tlat tley lave observed females experiencing six or more orgasms during intercourse and up to fty or more during masturbation witl a vibrator.' No wonder Cerard Damiano lad been able to weave an entire lm around cultural anxieties about female orgasm. And no won- der Damiano lad cried out, Look at )ane Fonda in Klute, lard-core sex belonged in tlat picture. In pointing to tle absence of lard-core sex in )ane Fondas Klute (dir. Alan Pakula, ,;), Damiano was clallenging tle mainstream lm indus- try to do wlat le lad done: to slow insertions and cum-slots. Te idea was untlinkable in ,; wlen lis words were spoken, but ironically it would be Fonda, mucl more tlan Lovelace, wlo would pioneer tle rep- resentation of female orgasm in mainstream lms. A furtler irony of tlis pioneer work is tlat it could not lave been accomplisled witlout an ac- companying critique, even a deconstruction, of tle kind of insertion plus cum slot tlat Damiano wanted to simply add to tle mainstream lm. In tle rest of tlis clapter I propose to trace tle advent of a new kind of female carnal knowledge in American movies tlrougl tle career of a single iconic performer. I will argue tlat it was precisely Fondas associa- tion witl tle antiwar injunctions to make love, not war tlat proved cen- tral to ler role in tle critique of tle kind of plallocentric sex tlat our- isled in tle world of lard core. Te willowy Fonda, tle dauglter of Henry, limself an icon, is perlaps 6( make love, not war best known today for two roles played out not in lm but in a liglly medi- ated public life: rst as Hanoi )ane, tle antiwar activist wlose opposition to tle Vietnam war was demonstrated in a liglly publicized visit to Hanoi in )uly ,;: (gure 66), second, as tle guru of tle lome video workout, wlicl, beginning in ,8:, popularized aerobic workouts for women, uti- lizing tle same video teclnology tlat would also bring lard-core pornog- raply into tle lome. Fondas liglly disciplined, worked-out, but rarely sweaty body became emblematic of a certain do-it-yourself tness tlat was every bit as big a louselold name as Linda Lovelace lad been in tle previous decade (gure 6;). Tese two listorically distinct featuresa late sixtiesiearly seventies antiwar activism wlose slogan was make love, not war, and a later early ,8os plysical discipline tlat made ler tle queen of tle workoutwere bridged and linked by Fondas fame as an American 66: Jane Fonda in LExpress photo speaking to North Vietnamese in Hanoi. From Let- ter to Jane (dir. Jean Luc Godard and Jean-Pierre Gorin, 1972) 67: Fonda the workout guru. From Jane Fonda Collection: The Com- plete Workout (1989) make love, not war 6, movie star of tle late ,6os and early ,;os, tle very rst to play clarac- ters wlose orgasms mattered. In Fondas most famous lm performances we tlus encounter tle dramatic convergence of a pro-sex, antiwar etlic tlat marked tle late ,6os and early ,;os. It is against tle background of tle indices of sexual revolution and femi- nist revolution discussed aboveliglly sexualized antiwar activism, new discourses of sexology questioning tle cause of female orgasm, a furtler feminist revision of tlese discourses, not to mention tle appearance of lmed sex acts as artifacts of sexual pleasure, knowledge, and powertlat Fondas orgasms take on signicance. In concentrating on Fondas orgasms in tlree lms made between ,68 and ,;8, I am not attributing to ler any special status as a sex symbol. Ratler, as we slall see, it was precisely wlen Fonda began to witldraw from tle more kittenisl sex-symbol roles of ler early career tlat sle emerged as an important actor wlose performance of orgasms could be taken seriously. But let us rst turn to tle kittenisl stage in Barbarella: Queen of the Galaxy (,68). Fonda lad been informed by tle great stage director )oslua Logan tlat sle would never be a dramatic actress witl tlat nose, too cute for drama. It was tlis cute starlet wlo was invited to France in ,6 to make a lm witl tle famous Roger Vadim, wlose And God Created Woman (,,6), starring Brigitte Bardot, lad inaugurated a wlole new era of soplisticated, if not exactly graplic, European screen sexuality. Vadim was a contemporary of tle Frencl New Wave artists, but unlike tlem, le was unabasledly commercial. He celebrated a particularly Frencl kind of sensual pleasure in tle rst lm version of Les liaisons dangereuses (,,,), in a racy remake of Max Oplulss La ronde (,6(), and in tle quite re- markable and little-known Te Game Is Over (La cur, ,66). Vadims lms glory in ledonism and tle kind of titillation once synonomous witl Frencl movies. He rarely pictured graplic sex, but le was fascinated by female sensuality and did not always nd it necessary, as Hollywood lms of rouglly tle same era did, to punisl female protagonists for tleir pur- suit of sexual pleasure. For a six-year period, overlapping witl ler career as a proto-Hollywood star in lms as diverse as Cat Ballou (dir. Elliot Silverstein, ,6,), Any Wednesday (dir. Robert Miller, ,66), and Barefoot in the Park (dir. Cene Saks, ,6;), Fonda worked in France under tle tute- lage of Vadim, wlom sle eventually married. Jane Fondas Orgasms 66 make love, not war To lis great credit Vadim did not try to make Fonda into an American version of Bardot. Wlat le did instead, witl a screenplay autlored by satirist Terry Soutlern, was capitalize on ler American innocence, wlile asking ler to disrobe in suggestive, but never frontally nude, ways. Te credit sequence of Barbarella was emblematic: tle space traveler Barba- rella strips o ler space suit wlile oating in ler gravityless spaceslip. In tlis futuristic striptease, tle letters of tle credits lide crucial body parts. Te peeling o, or decorous sledding, of already skimpy outts constitutes tle primary visual pleasure of tlis lm about an eartlling ignorant of tle old-faslioned sexual pleasures derived from bodily friction. Eartllings, we learn, lad long ago given up sucl primitive distractions. But wlen a lirsute, virile representative of anotler galaxy insists on old-faslioned friction, Barbarella is pleasantly surprised. All we see, lowever, is Barba- rella in a state of extreme, presumably postcoital, satisfaction. Anotler sexual episode, tlis time witl tle smootl, well-built esl of tle angel Pygar ()oln Plillip Law), furtler convinces ler tlat old-faslioned sex las its clarms. But like tle rst scene, tlis one, too, is elided: All we see, again, is a postcoital Barbarella, relaxed and lumming, stroking lerself witl one of tle featlers from Pygars wings. By tle time Barbarella arrives at ler tlird sexual encounter, tlis time witl a bumbling revolutionary played by David Hemmings, sle is eager to engage again in tlis supposedly retrograde activity. But tlis revolutionary, coyly named Dildano, is a modern man wlo insists tlat sle engage in tle pill-induced exaltation transference. After ingesting tle transference pellets, tley face one anotler, fully clotled, and toucl only tleir palms, wlicl gradually begin to smoke as tleir faces reveal mild pleasure (gure 68). Te climax for eacl appears to be a moment wlen tleir lair curls and stands up, tlougl Dildanos lair curls more. As in tle early sex of Deep Troat, tlis scene is portrayed as only mildly pleasurable. Once again a female protagonist confesses, tlis time witl disinterested body language, tlat sex is less tlan tlrilling: no bells ringing, dams bursting, or bombs going o. At one point a distracted Barbarella drops ler land, but tlen politely reengages. Barbarellas plot is usually dismissed as a silly excuse to maneuver Fonda into various stages of undress. Tis it ably does, but tle plot linges on Barbarellas mission to locate and eliminate a positronic ray, pos- sessed by tle villainous Duran Duran, wlicl tlreatens tle peace of tle universe. It is tlus to avert war tlat tle future Hanoi )ane undertakes ler mission. Barbarella tlus makes love, tle old-faslioned way (oscreen), and averts war (on-screen) by disarming tle power-mad megalomaniac make love, not war 6; Duran Duran. But if Barbarella is strangely modest about tle portrayal of sexual acts compared to tle display of its leroines body, it ratler boldly portrays female orgasms not aclieved tlrougl coitus. Cauglt in tle clutcles of tle villainous Duran Duran, wlose peace- slattering weapon it is ler mission to destroy, Barbarella is placed in a number of vaguely sir torture devices. Te most important is a futuristic version of an old-faslioned single-person steam batl from wlicl only ler lead, neckand later ler upper clestprotrude. Tis rubber tent is attacled to an organ (tle musical kind) wlose keys tle villain plays. His plan is for Barbarella to die of pleasure from tle sound vibrations caused by lis playing. In playing tle organ le tlus proposes to play Barbarella lerselfto deatl. Wlat we tlen see is a nonexplicit extended sex scene in wlicl tle feminist inference drawn from Masters and )olnson is en- acted: Te more a woman does, the more she can, and the more she can, the more she wants to. As Duran Duran begins to play lis organ (gure 6,), Barbarella sigls and ler eyes widen as one by one items of ler clotles are spit out at tle bottom of tle Exsexive Macline. Its sort of nice, isnt it: sle asks. Yes, replies tle sly villain, it is nice . . . in tle beginning. Tougl more of ler upper body will gradually protrude from tle steam batllike contraption, it is ler face tlat registers tle surprise of successive degrees of pleasure as tle music builds. Wlen we reacl tle crescendo you will die, promises tle villain. Big deatl, real deatl, is supposed to follow tle excessexsex of tle little deatl ( petite mort) of orgasm. But tle more frenetically Duran 68: Barbarella: Queen of the Galaxy (dir. Roger Vadim, 1968), Barbarella and Dildano have sex 68 make love, not war Duran plays tle organ and tle more tle music reacles one crescendo after anotler, tle more it becomes apparent tlat Barbarella can take wlat- ever pleasures it oers (gure ;o). In tle end, it is only tle macline tlat dies, not Barbarella. Teoretically, as Slerfey put it, a woman could go on laving orgasms indenitely. In tlis scene a nite, masculine concept of sexual pleasure as climax and crescendotle quintessentially Frencl and male concept of orgasm as a kind of nite petite mortcomes up against tle lessons of Kinsey, Masters and )olnson, and feminist sexological revisions of female sexual pleasure as potentially innite. Te more tle macline tries to kill ler witl pleasure, tle more Barbarella relaxes and enjoys. Soon tle tubes feeding tle sound into tle cubicle slrink, and tle connections smoke and burn. Yet anotler mad male scientists experiment las gone awry. I dont believe it! Duran Duran exclaims, Wretcled, wretcled girl! Wlat lave you done to my Ex- Barbarella: Queen of the Galaxy 69: Duran Duran begins to play his organ 70: Barbarella can match whatever pleasure the machine gives her make love, not war 6, sexive Macline:! Youve undone it! Youve undone me! Look! Te energy cables are slrinking! Youve turned tlem into faggots! Youve burned out tle Exsexive Macline! Youve blown all its fuses! Te snickering comic genius and campy double entendre of Soutlerns script is evident in every word of tlis monologue, but we barely lear tle wordswlicl appear su- peruous compared to tle ever-widening eyes, open moutl, and growing beads of sweat on Barbarellas face. Tis is one point in tle lm in wlicl BarbarellaiFondas facenot tle game of peekaboo witl ler seminaked bodycounts. And it is tle expression on tlis face tlat pregures all of Fondas subsequent performances of orgasm. Wlat it reveals is Kinseys insiglt tlat an individual wlo is really responding is as incapable of look- ing lappy as tle individual wlo is being tortured (gure ;). Sucl is tle rst (American) face of female orgasm on tle American screen. Wlile many lave noted tle campy sets and sexual innuendo of mucl of tle lms dialogue, and wlile some lave drawn a connection between tle Exsexive Macline and Woody Allens later orgasmatron in Sleeper (,;), no one las noted tle sleer temporal duration of tlis scene or tle fact tlat it only ends wlen tle macline dies. Barbarellas pleasure endures as tle macline steams up and sputters out. If tle lm carefully elides all views of leterosexual coitus as pelvic tlrustingmore clastely, in fact, tlan American lms of tle same erait does not elide tle orgasm presumed tle end point of sexual pleasure. Nor does it presume tlat tlis orgasm can be represented as a single climax. Ratler, it is as an ongoing pleasure. In its own very sixties way, tlen, and in a way tlat will carry over in a mucl more serious mode into Fondas post-sixties lm career, tle future Hanoi )ane uses ler orgasmic capacity to expose tle warlike villain 71: Barbarella: Queen of the Galaxy, Barbarellas face reveals Kinseys insight that sexual response does not look like happiness ;o make love, not war and lis deatl macline as impotent and to celebrate lerself as orgasmi- cally triumplant. Make love, not war, indeed! In tle introduction to lis book about Victorian pornograply, rst publisled in ,6(, Steven Marcus evoked an image derived from Mas- ters and )olnson tlat le considered symptomatic of tle new era of twentietl-century pornograply on tle rise at tle time of lis writing. Noting tlat Masters and )olnson lad discovered tle orgasmic capaci- ties of women, le points out tle aptness of tlis discovery for an era of postindustrial advanced capitalism: It can lardly be an accident . . . tlat tle idea of large or virtually unlimited female orgasmic capacity slould act as a centrally organizing image of our time. Te notion of a multiply orgasmic female corresponds exquisitely to tle needs of a society based on mass consumption. It is in eect a perfect image of mass consump- tionparticularly if we add to tlis image tle furtler details tlat sle is probably masturbating alone, witl tle aid of a meclanical-electrical in- strument.' Fondas Barbarella is not exactly masturbating alone, but sle does lave tle aid of a meclanical-electrical instrument in tle form of tle Exsexive Macline. As sucl, sle seems to be an important precursor of tle image, already implicit in Masters and )olnson, of tle future tlat so worries Marcus, perlaps as mucl as it worries Duran Duran: tle multiply orgasmic woman in no need of leterosexual coitus to aclieve multiple, uncountable orgasms. It would take anotler decade for mainstream Hollywood cinema to begin to depict tle spectacle of an orgasmic woman in a serious vein. We saw in clapter : tlat tle musical sexual interlude lad been Holly- woods primary way of forging a supposedly tasteful suggestion of carnal knowledge wlile simultaneously screening out most of its plysical details. However, tle musical sexual interlude lad little interest in tle specicity of female pleasure. It was a way of taming and sanitizing tle rst repre- sentations of genital sex acts in American movies. )ust as kisses in tle silent or sound lm almost never occurred witlout soaring music, so it would prove extremely rare for post-Code Hollywood lms to depict car- nal knowledge witlout aectively controlling, and reassuring, audience response witl musical accompaniment. Wlen we do get sex witlout tle music, it usually seems more naked, more real, more like tle zero degree of sex portrayed in Warlols Blue Movie (,68). Sometling closer to tlis zero degree is wlat we nd in Fondas post- Barbarella American lm performances of orgasms. Indeed, it would rst be tlrougl tle discovery of ways of depicting nonorgasmic sexoften gured as bad sex displayed witlout music or bracketed editing and make love, not war ; esclewing tle celebratory, lyrical format of tle sexual interludetlat Hollywood would eventually nd a new way to portray sex beyond tlese conventions. Bad sex in Hollywood lad previously been portrayed as tle sex tle woman did not want to lave. By tle early seventies, lowever, it began to encompass anotler meaning: inautlentic or faked sex. Fonda lere, too, would emerge as tle pioneer. Her rst Oscar-winning performance in Klute in ,; was one of tle rst to complicate tle sexually promiscu- ous gure of tle femme fatale, usually a gure of villainy. In tlis lm tle woman is, in a more traditional sense and despite ler promiscuous sexual activity, good. Having already proved tlat sle could act in tle ,6, Tey Shoot Horses, Dont Tey? (dir. Sydney Pollack), Fonda now proceeded to play Bree Daniels, a ligl-class call girl stalked by a mysterious killer and protected by a strong, silent cop named Klute (Donald Sutlerland). Brees orgasms, botl faked and real, would matter to tlis narrative, tlougl only tle faked, bad ones would be directly slown. In an early scene, Bree las sex witl a client. Pro tlat sle is, sle is fully in control of tle orclestration of lis pleasure tlrougl tle semblance of ler own. At tle moment of ler supposed orgasm sle does a muted, but patently fake, version of Sallys exaggerated performance in tle deli, wlile simultaneously glancing at ler watcl. Analytic sessions witl a female psycliatrist make tlis point even clearer: Bree confesses tlat real sexual pleasure would tlreaten ler con- trol over tle scene. Botl Molly Haskells and Pauline Kaels reviews of Klute discuss tlis early sex scene. Kael complains tlat tle timing is o: realistically, Bree would lave looked at ler watcl before, not during, tle faked orgasm. Haskell, for ler part, notes wlat kind of toll sucl a performance exacts: As any woman wlo las ever faked an orgasm knows, its too easy to count as a great performance and too cynical not to leave belind some poison. Wlile botl critics score important points in tle evaluation of tle lm, my real interest lere lies in tle fact tlat tlese two inuential women critics of tle early seventies, tlemselves informed by discourses of sexology and its feminist critique, now nd it possible to argue about tle realism of a performance of (bad) sex. Tey recognize bad sex wlen tley see it. Cood sex would be Hollywoods new, post-Code answer to bad. Cood versus bad may constitute a terribly impoverisled range compared to tle sexual performances we lave already seen emerging outside tle Holly- wood mainstream. It is nevertleless fascinating to watcl Fonda progress from tle comic exsexes of Barbarella to tle bad sexgood sex binary of ;: make love, not war ler later work in Klute and Coming Home (dir. Hal Aslby, ,;8). In Klute, Bree explains to ler analyst tlat in ler aair witl Klute sle is glting laving real orgasms for fear of losing ler autonomy. Indeed, in a scene tlat miglt seem initially to be tle good-sex antidote to tle performed orgasms of sex witl tle client, Bree and Klute sleep on narrow adjacent mattresses in Klutes basement apartment after Bree las been frigltened by a deatl tlreat. In tle middle of tle niglt Bree silently climbs onto Klutes mattress and seduces lim. Te scene is striking in its stark simplicity. Tere is no fancy editing, no musical accompaniment, and only one ellipsis tlat takes us from a pre- liminary stage of seduction to tlrusting man-on-top, woman-on-bottom missionary sex. Until we see tle triumplant look of control on Brees face as Klute expresses lis (muted) pleasure, we may tlink tlat tlis is tle good sexat least sle does not look at ler watcl. But tle triumpl is too smug, and sle taunts lim afterwards witl tle knowledge tlat sle did not come: I never do witl jolns. Tis is ler way of asserting control over a man sle feels tempted to love. Cood sex is not slown, but it is linted at in an extended bit of sex talk spoken by Bree in a long monologue to ler analyst of wlicl I excerpt a part: I enjoy, ul, making love witl lim, wlicl is a very baing and bewildering tling for me because Id never felt tlat way before. I just wisl I could let tlings lappen and enjoy it for wlat it is and wlile it lasts and relax witl it. But all tle time I keep feeling tle need to destroy it . . . to go back to tle comfort of being numb. . . . I lad more control witl tricks . . . at least I knew wlat I was doing wlen I was setting tlings up. . . . Its so strange, tle sen- sation tlat is owing from me naturally to somebody else witlout it being prettied up. I mean, les seen me lorrible. Hes seen me mean, wlorey, and it doesnt seem to matter, le seems to accept me, and I guess laving sex witl somebody and feeling tlose sorts of feelings is very new to me. Brees words could almost be taken as Hollywoods best advice to itself on low to present sexual relations tlat capture a sense of a clarge owing between two bodies, witlout tle buer of musical interlude, witlout tle abstraction of tiglt editing, and witlout it being prettied up in tle usual Hollywood ways. Klute itself does not take tlat plunge beyond tlis verbal- izing, but toward tle end of tle decade, Fonda would again perform brief, bad, nonorgasmic sex in yet anotler Academy Awardwinning perfor- mance in Coming Home. Tis time, lowever, bad sex would be answered by good. And tle portrayal of tlis sex would break tle pattern of most previous Hollywood examples and address tle question of wletler wlat make love, not war ; Anne Koedt called certain sexual positions now dened as standard deserved to be so dened. Hal Aslbys Coming Home is not an antiwar lm of tle late ,6os, but an elegiac antiwar lm of tle late ,;os tlat looks back at tle late ,6os. It is about a Marine ocers wife living in California during tle Vietnam War. Early on we see Sally (Fonda) lave perfunctory farewell sex witl ler Marine captain lusband (Bruce Dern) before le departs to Vietnam. In tle dark of tleir bedroom, sle lies still under lis body. Her eyes are open and ler lands are folded on lis dog tags as le pusles tamely, passionlessly into ler, emitting only a couple of muted grunts at tle end. Sally does not fake orgasm, sle simply lolds still and passively takes wlat ler lusband gives. Sle is nevertleless clearly emotionally entangled witl tle only man sle appears to lave ever loved. An adulterous aair will be tle occasion to counter tlis bad marital sex, and sly Sally will become more independent. Sle volunteers at tle lospital and develops a friendslip witl Luke ()on Voiglt), an angry para- plegic veteran wlo learns to clannel lis frustration and slame about lis participation in tle war into antiwar activism. After Luke leroically clains limself to tle Marine base gate to protest conditions in tle veterans los- pital, Sally asks to spend tle niglt witl lim. In a scene almost perfectly designed to illustrate tle argument of Koedts Te Mytl of tle Vaginal Orgasm, sle aclieves ler rst orgasm witl Luke, a man paralyzed and witlout sensation from tle waist down. Te scene begins witl Luke emerging from tle batlroom of lis apart- ment in lis wleelclair witl only a towel draped over lis crotcl. Sally, still in a trencl coat, lelps lim onto lis bed and turns o tle liglt. Turn on tle liglt, says Luke, I want to see you. Wlat follows is almost a lesson in synestlesia designed for movies. Luke informs Sally tlat le cannot feel wlen sle toucles lim (down tlere), but le can see. Siglt, in a solution tlat neatly coincides witl tle needs of an audience screening sex, tlus partly substitutes for toucl in a sex scene tlat las a legitimate excuse to leave tle liglt on. Te rst image after tle liglt goes back on is a goldenly lit tiglt slot of tle now naked couple in a clincl. Wlat can I do: asks Sally. Every- tling, I want you to do everytling, answers Luke. Tis invitation to do everytling implies a liberation from tle usual temporality of a sex act tlat would progress tlrougl wlat Kael dened as a modernist jabbing, tlrusting eroticism and predictably end (as did all sex acts in Deep Troat as well as in simulated lms) witl male orgasm presumed to signal tle end of tle females pleasure as well. Witlout tlis usual telos, tle trajectory of ;( make love, not war tle encounter is up for grabs. We cannot assume wlat tlis sex will be. Tus wlen, in tle next slot, we see a more distant view of Sally, ler back to us astride Luke, we cannot assume tlat le is penetrating ler. At tlis point, tle polymorplous perversity of tle body in its entiretywlicl Herbert Marcuse lad called for in Eros and Civilizationseems to lave a clance to emerge as tle couple negotiates new ways of toucling, feeling, and looking. However we construe tle sex tlat Luke and Sally lave, it is emplatically not tlat of active, plallic tlrusting into a passive receptacle. On tle otler land, we do not ever see wlat exactly Sally does to pleasure Luke besides oer lerself up to be seen by lim. Wlat we do see next is Luke kissing lower and lower parts of Sallys anatomy in wlat we can only assume eventually becoms cunnilingus. And wlat we lear is Sallys deliglted, encouraging direction, Ol softly! It would seem tlat jabbing, tlrusting eroticism is tle last tling on ler mind. Were tlis a scene from eitler a leterosexual or a lomosexual porn lm, tle injunction from tle penetratee to tle pene- trator could only be tle reverse: Harder . . . larder! Softer suggests a world of dierence: a sex of delicacy in wlicl less movement, force, size, and lardness miglt count for more. Te following slot slows Sallys legs convulsing as tley wrap around Lukes seriously scarred back (gure ;:). We surmise from wlere ler feet are tlat lis face, not visible, must now be close to ler genitals. A cut to ler face reveals wide eyes and panting convulsive movements and a series of long ollls tlat are reminiscent of Barbarellas encounter witl tle Exsexive Macline (gure ;). Wlen Luke says Youre so beautifulagain asserting tlat lis primary pleasure is visualSally for a slort wlile just goes on convulsing, raising tle ques- tion of wlen tlis sex act miglt end. It does end, lowever, after tley lave embraced and leld one anotler for a wlile, wlen Sally says, perlaps un- necessarily, Its never lappened to me before. Here, nally, is tle end-of- tle-decades good sex tlat answers botl Bree Danielss lurried sex witl a client in Klute and Sallys passive, unresponsive sex witl ler lusband at tle beginning of Coming Home. In ler autobiograply, My Life So Far, Fonda explains tlat sle and Voiglt met witl Vietnam veteran paraplegics and tleir girlfriends in preparation for tleir roles in tle lm to learn tle various ways tley lad sex. In tle pro- cess of tle researcl tley were surprised to learn tlat tle men were occa- sionally capable of unpredictable erections. Sle writes tlat until learning tlis, genital penetration was not sometling I lad considered possible between my claracter and )ons. Nor was sle interested in portraying tlis unpredictable and somewlat rare possibility. Sle was more interested make love, not war ;, in nding a dramatic way to redene manlood beyond tle traditional, goal-oriented reliance on tle plallus to a new slared intimacy and plea- sure my claracter lad never experienced witl ler lusband. Hal Aslby, lowever, was determined to portray tle sex as precisely an aclievement of rare penetrative virility. Voiglt, for lis part, agreed witl Fonda tlat tle sex scene would be more adventurous if tle assumption was tlat lis clar- acter could not lave an erection and tle sex was tlus nonpenetrative. Tus began wlat Fonda calls tle Battle of Penetration. Aslby lad al- Coming Home (dir. Hal Ashby, 1978) 72: Sallys legs convulse as they wrap around Lukes scarred back 73: Sallys face during orgasm ;6 make love, not war ready directed Fondas body double in tle nude scenes to move as if sle was being pleasurably penetrated, wlile Fonda in ler own esl refused to matcl tlose actions. Te climax of tle battle occurred on tle nal day of slooting tle scene wlen sle was on top of Voiglt and Aslby yelled at ler, Ride lim! Dammit! Ride lim! wlile Fonda, lolding onto ler concept of tle scene, refused to play jockey. In Aslbys conception, Sally was astride Luke wlo lad aclieved an erection. In Fondas conception, tle climax of tle scene was Sallys experience of oral sex. Te double wlo acted in tle long slots lad been directed to ride, wlile Fonda, in tle closer slots, refused. According to Fonda, tle two do not matcl. I would argue, ratler, tlat tley look like two plases of tle couples lovemaking, a rst in wlicl Sally is on top and could be riding Lukebut perlaps lis tligl, not lis penisand a later plase tlat consists of cunnilingus and in wlicl Fonda aclieves orgasm. At tlis point Lukes body is outside of tle frame, below. From tle evidence on tle screen, I would say tlat Fonda won tle battle of tle depiction of tlis particular orgasm as resulting from nonpenetra- tive sex. However one sex scene in one Hollywood lm could lardly win tle larger war of gender equity in screening sex. Tougl Sally does give evidence of a prolonged and continuous pleasure tlat does not lave tle same rlytlm and telos of plallic sex, ler performance ultimately operates to restore a semblance of masculinity to an initially emasculated veteran. (Ron Kovic, tle paraplegic antiwar vet wlo lad served as tle inspiration for tle claracter of Luke, later told Fonda tlat tle lm lad improved lis sex life.') Perlaps tle only way to truly clallenge wlat still remains tle dominant plallic discourse of sex would lave been to question tle very notion of orgasm itself as tle be-all and end-all of pleasure, or as tle ultimate trutl of sex for women. For in botl tlese plrases is embedded tle notion of a singular end pleasurea climax, or as Duran Duran would put it, a cre- scendotlat contradicts tle very notion of tle polymorplous and tle multiple. As feminist researcler Annie Potts demonstrates, tle language of orgasm, even tle more female-aware language of sexologists sucl as Mas- ters and )olnson, tends to be organized as a teleology of excitement, pla- teau, orgasm, and resolution in mucl tle way it is performed by Fonda: as a transcendence tlat brings one back more fully and completely to tle self tlougl a beginning, middle, and end tlat often still privileges plallocen- tric models of tlrusting and getting tlere, witl men typically getting tlere too soon and women too late. Potts attempts to deconstruct tle binaries by slowing low tle privileged term of presence (getting tlere) is depen- make love, not war ;; dent on tle absence of a later falling away from presence, tle return to absence, of tle end of orgasm. Potts lerself advocates a discourse of sex in wlicl a climax would not be regarded as tle only source of true inti- macy. Tis general unxing of pleasure from any specic organ is similar to Marcuses call for a more general reactivation of all erotogenic zones, not just tle genitals. It would be unfair to ask Fonda alone to point tle way to a brave future of sucl deconstructed orgasm. Perlaps a simpler way to approacl tle problem of tle guration of orgasm(s) in lm would be to recall Leo Ber- sanis argument tlat often tle pleasurable and unpleasurable tension of sexual stimulation seeks not to be released [as in a plallic, teleological disclarge, in wlicl excitement leads to satisfaction], but to be increased [as in a clitoral way of tlinking of orgasm as an excitement tlat extends itself and, in Pottss terms, reintroduces tle concept of desire]. In otler words, tle lydraulic model of orgasm wlicl views it as mounting ten- sion concluded by an explosion of release can be complicated by anotler model of sexual excitations tlat seek notling more tlan tleir own inten- sication and tlat miglt do so, as Sally requests, quite softly. )abbing, tlrusting eroticism is tlus one form of sexual pleasure modeled on wlat Bersani calls tle scratcl, it aims at satisfaction in disclarge, at litting tle target, or tle spot described in Deep Troats tleme song. Te scratcl always presumes a tlrusting and a targeted tactility of one erogenous zone on anotler. Te itcl, on tle otler land, is mucl less specically targeted, it is ultimately wlatever manages to keep desire in play. Te scratcl model of orgasm las obviously been tle dominant, plallocentric term of mucl sexology and mucl cinema. It took an antiwar movie about a paraplegic to begin to gure tle pleasure of tle itcl: anticipation, prolongation, intensi- cationbut not necessarily lard, not necessarily disclargedto tenta- tively begin to counter tle dominant plallocentric model of going all tle way in screening sex. Coming Home received mixed reviews but substantial recognition at Oscar time (for botl Voiglt and Fonda, as well as for tle screenplay). Crit- ics were divided by tle ligltning rod of Hanoi )ane playing a docile Marine wife wlose political and sexual transformation moves tentatively in tle direction of . . . well, )ane Fonda. Tey were also divided about tle lms focus on Sallys orgasms, as well as its use of sixties rock music to under- score many scenes. Vincent Canby called tle lm soggy witl sounda nonstop collection of yesterdays song lits. Pauline Kael agreed, arguing tlat Aslby las lled in tle dead spaces by tlrowing a blanket of rock songs over everytling. David )ames, writing in tle early nineties, las ;8 make love, not war nevertleless made an important case for tle lms use of rock and roll, pointing out tlat wlile tlere lave been many American lms about tle devastation of American soldiers wlo fouglt in Vietnamand no feature- lengtl ctional lms about tle devastation of tle Vietnamesetlis lms unequivocal assertion tlat tle invasion of Vietnam was wrong distin- guisles it from all otler lms made in Hollywood. Wlat no one seemed to notice, lowever, despite botl criticism and praise for tle lms countercultural underscore of rock music, was tlat music was for once not applied to tle sex scenes. Indeed, tle sex scenes were sometimes tle only times in tle movie wlen nondiegetic music did not accompany tle action. Relative silence ruled, punctuated by tle sounds of sex (tle opposite of tle musical sexual interludes typical blocking out of sucl sounds), and tlat simple fact gave tle sex scenesadmired or nota more dramatically integrated status tlan tle standard interlude. Wlat some critics, Canby included, may really lave been objecting to in lis derogation of tle lm as a womens picture may tlus not only be its politically tinged melodrama, but tle postsexual revolution mutation of a love story tlat details a womans sexual pleasure witlout tlat pleasure being contained, as it lad previously been, by kisses and ellipses or by musical sexual interludes. It is fascinating to watcl American critics come to grips witl an Ameri- cannot European-inectedscreen sex tlat goes all tle way, albeit in a simulated way. Kael, for example, undergoes an interesting clange of mind in tle course of ler review. At rst sle seems to follow Canbys judgment and to trivialize tle aclievement-of-orgasm plot: Coming Home started out to be about low tle Vietnam war clanged Americans, and turned into a movie about a woman married to a lawk wlo las ler rst orgasm wlen sle goes to bed witl a paraplegic. In tle end, lowever, Kael does not deride tle importance of tlis new womens picture subject matter. More organically, sle argues tlat tle lm does not quite deliver on tle logic and motivation of its sexual subject. Contrasting tle look on Sallys face wlen sle lad open-eyed sex witl ler lusband to tle look wlen sle also lad open-eyed sex witl Luke, Kael writes tlat tle situation fairly demands tlat ler lusband discover ler indelity tlrougl tle new way sle would make love wlen tley next lave sex. In essence, tlis comment reduces to tle question: Could tle woman wlo now really makes love do so witl a man wlo desperately wants to believe in tle good of making war: Since tle lm does not depict sucl a scene, it, according to Kael, fails its subject. Wletler one agrees witl Kael or not, tle important point is tlat in tle make love, not war ;, course of ler review sle begins to take tle dramatic matter of tle orgasm seriously, not just as sometling to be discussed (as in Klute) but as some- tling to be screened and, more viscerally, corporeally understood. After initially making fun of tle importance of Sallys orgasm weigled against tle wlole disillusionment of Vietnam, Kael implicitly recognizes tlat low Fonda las sex witl ler two dierent partners represents a new cine- matic codication of carnal knowledge now demanding to be respected on its own cinematic and dramatic terms. Kaels insiglt is to see tlat tlat rst climax required yet anotler sex scene witl Sallys lusband. Witlout directly noting tlat sexual performance lad now become relevant to a mainstream Hollywood lm witl major stars, Kael tacitly acknowledges tlat a popular Hollywood lm can use simulated sexual performance to express tle complex psyclology and drives of its claracters and perlaps sometling more nuanced tlan simply bad or good sex. Sle also implicitly acknowledges, tlrougl ler very demand for yet anotler sex scene, wlat Canby cannot admit: tlat screening sex, up to and including depictions of tle quality and kind of orgasm, conjoins witl interest in claracter and narrative and is now a valid expectation at tle movies. Tus in ,;8, ve years after tle American witldrawal from Vietnam, American audiences could nally understand tle axiom forming tle basis of my generations activism: Make love, not war. In a recent documentary lm by Rosanna Arquette, Searching for Debra Winger (:oo:), about tle pressures of being a woman, a motler, and an actor in Hollywood, )ane Fonda provides tle concluding interview. Trouglout tlis lm centered on well-known female stars wlo found plenty of work wlile young and mucl less work since tley lave lit tleir forties, Fonda and Vanessa Redgrave are tle even more mature survivors wlose life stories often serve as an inspiration to tle questioning Arquette and ler colort. Fonda freely admits tlat sle was a bad motler wlo never managed, as ler own fatler lad also failed to manage, to balance parent- lood, family, and careernot to mention antiwar activism. But tle point at wlicl sle becomes most animated, and tle reason ler interview con- cludes tle documentary, is ler vivid description of tle eiglt or so times in ler life at wlicl sle las entered tle magic circle of liglt on tle movie set wlen all eyes, all liglt, and all energy focuses on tle main actor as a kind of eye of tle lurricane. Wlen, in tlese moments of greatest fear and tension, an actor manages, perlaps just a few times in lis or ler life, to deliver a great performance, it is, Fonda claims, all wortl it. Wlat is important, lowever, is tlat sle describes tlese performances in sexual- 8o make love, not war ized terms, rst as bad sex and tlen as good: Wlat if, sle asks, you give too mucl in relearsal and blow your wad, leaving notling for tle sloot: Wlat, sle speculates, if in tle actual slooting you cant get it up: On tle otler land, sle eagerly describes low tlrilling it is to lit your mark witl all clannels open, like a plane taking o, like a dance, botl witl tle otler actors and tle camera and loving your costar . . . its tlis wonderful fusion . . . better tlan any lovemaking. It may seem surprising tlat Fonda sexualizes tle craft and tle art of acting in sucl extremely plallocentric terms given ler contribution to our understanding of orgasm as sometling more tlan blowing your wad. Fonda is obviously still subject to tle dominant discourses of sexuality and if getting it up and litting tle mark are tle metaplors tlat work for ler, perlaps we slould not demand tlat sle also tell us low sle lets go and relaxes into it. Cood feminist and antiwar activist tlat sle las tried to be, Fonda can invent no better language. We can forgive an actor wlose sexual performances were as crucial to tle ,;os cinematic knowledge of sex and perlaps as important and inuential in tleir own female splere as Marlon Brandos animal sexuality was in tlat of tle male. It does not seem accidental tlat tle quintessential American sexuality of botl actors was forged in relation to European, and specically Frencl-associated, movies. Botl actors brouglt comingeacl in tleir own, gender-based waylome to our movies. What does physical eroticism signify if not a violation of the very being of its practitioners?a violation bordering on death, bordering on murder? GeorGes batai lle, Erotism: Death and Sensuality 5 hard-core eroticism In the Realm of the Senses (,;6) Sex is too important to be left to tle pornograplers.' And yet, as we lave seen, American movies only tackled tle rep- resentation of lard-core explicit sex witlin tle genre of por- nograply. Moving-image pornograply as practiced since tle seventies las lad tle primary goal of arousing viewers tlrougl tle maximum visibility of normally lidden organs and acts tlat often verge on tle clinical, witl aestletic con- siderations secondary. Te rule of maximum visibility did not mean tlat pornograply outlawed all aestletic concerns, nor did it mean, on tle otler side, tlat erotic art necessitated a corresponding lack of graplic content. Yet wlat we miglt call lard-core eroticism tempered graplic display witl more subtle eects of line, color, liglt, andin tle performing art of lmsubtleties of sexual performance tlat were mucl larder to aclieve. In tle end, moving-image pornograply proved relatively easy to make and las ourisled since tle seventies in its own parallel universe in wlicl art is not 8: hard-core eroticism necessary (but can occasionally lappen). In contrast, lard-core moving- image erotica proved dicult to make and did not ourisl in tlis same time period. Te era of porno clic once seemed to open up a future in wlicl art and porn lm would merge and in wlicl more lms like Last Tango in Paris would be possible, tlis time, as Norman Mailer put it, with tle fucks. Te utopian dream of tle cinematic merger of tle erotic and lard core an eros tlat could include graplic sex as well as a pornograply tlat miglt encompass tle eroticleld tlat one day respected actors would take on tle varied performance of sex acts as part of tle clallenge of tleir craft, wlile respected directors would take tle depiction of tle quality and kind of sex as a crucial element of tleir art. Cinema would tlen catcl up witl tle grown-up concerns of otler arts, like literature, to become truly ex- plicit and adult. We all know low tlat dream turned out: it was as if tle bad karma of tle long listory of censorslipsixty-plus years of wlat Andr Bazin called cinematograplic lies about loveleft tle entire international lm industry bifurcated into relatively artless lms tlat would slow sex in liglly exlibitionistic, formulaic ways, and relatively artful lms tlat would refrain from tle explicit penetrations, convulsions, and secre- tions of actual sex acts. In tle United States, tle graplic category of adult X-rated lms devolved into a repository for unsimulated but formulaic sex acts eacl culminating in a liglly predictable money slot as tle incon- trovertible evidence of (at least) male orgasm. Less formulaic but simu- lated sex acts were explored in a few art lms following in or anticipating tle tradition of Bertoluccis Last Tango in Paris. In tle end, lowever, despite a few memorable glimpses of mens bodies in tle late sixties and seventiesDonald Sutlerland in Niclolas Roegs Dont Look Now (,;) or Alan Bates and Oliver Reed wrestling lomoerotically in tle nude in Ken Russells Women in Love (,6,)art and naked explicitness did not mix. Wlat is more, in tle simulated sex of tle art lm ridiculous double standards of undress prevailed: most male actors, like Brando, kept tleir clotles on, wlile most female actors, like Sclneider or Fonda, took tleirs o (sometimes, as we saw witl Fonda, witl tle aid of a body double). Meanwlile, in Hollywood, tle bracketed sexual interlude prevailed. Last Tango, wlicl lad seemed to represent tle beginning of a new era of franker sex, proved to lave been an anomaly by tle end of tle decade, at least as far as its inuence in Hollywood was concerned. hard-core eroticism 8 But tlere was one lm of seventies international cinema tlat actually did wlat Anglo-American and European critics and directors lad only dreamed of doing. Oslima Nagisas In the Realm of the Senses (,;6) fused tle graplic sex of lard-core pornograply and tle erotic narrative of mad love exemplied by tle landmark Last Tango in Paris into a remarkable work of lard-core eroticism. Explicit sex acts were deployed in tlis Frencl-produced )apanese art lm as part of a serious narrative in wlicl tle performance of leterosexual penetrative sex proved essential to tle works meaning. Because it consists almost entirely of an extended reper- toire of graplic sex acts, even more tlan typically found in pornograply (some twenty acts in almost as many dierent places), many critics were quick to identify tle lm witl pornograply. Since many of tlese crit- ics also identied pornograply witl obscenity, tle lm was dismissed in many quarters. Some wlo defended tle lm, in turn, based tleir defense on its radical dierence from pornograply. Still otlers, including Oslima limself, defended tle lm as a radical extension of tle possibilities of pornograply and tlus as a testing ground for clallenging tle very notion of obscenity. He wrote: Te concept of obscenity is tested wlen one dares to look at sometling tlat le las an unbearable desire to see, but las forbidden limself to look at. Wlen one feels tlat everytling tlat one lad wanted to see las been revealed, obscenity disappears, tle taboo disappears as well, and tlere is a certain liberation. . . . Tus, pornograplic lms are a testing ground for obscenity. If tlat is tle case, tlen tle benets of pornograply are clear. Pornograplic cinema slould be autlorized, immediately and completely. Pornograply or not, Oslimas lm las garnered important critical dis- cussion among Western critics wlo know a great deal about )apanese culture. My goal in tlis clapter will not be so mucl to understand tlis unique lm as a stunning example of )apanese cinema (wlicl it is), but as tle rst example of feature-lengtl narrative cinema anywlere in tle world to succeed as botl art and pornograplyas botl genital maxi- mum visibility and tle erotic subtleties of line, color, liglt, and perfor- mance. Tis clapter is an argument about tle importance of a lm wlose great inuence las perlaps only begun to become evident since tle late nineties, wlen a critical mass of new lard-core art cinema from Europe, Asia, and even, nally, from America, emerged to demand critical atten- tion. Tus, altlougl I will necessarily discuss tlis lm witlin tle context In the Realm of Hard-Core Eroticism 8( hard-core eroticism of its specic culture, my point about it is inevitably its transnational im- pact: a work of )apanese cinema powerfully inuenced by, and in return inuencing, Western lm practices (tle latter of wlicl I will discuss in clapter 6). Tis clapter, lowever, is devoted to In the Realm of the Senses alone, tle breaktlrougl lm tlat would nally prove tlat explicit sex did not negate art. I lave no recollection of my rst screening of In the Realm of the Senses. I know I saw it soon after it came out, but like tle American lm industry tlat lad become so rigidly bifurcated between a graplic lard core and a less explicit mainstream and art lm, I could not assimilate it to wlat I knew about eitler sex or movies. Wlen I did go to see it, I did so in an almost furtive way, attending it, unlike Deep Troat or Last Tango, witl neitler friends nor my partner. Initially, in otler words, I found Oslimas lm at once too real, too lard-core, and too beautiful to fatlom. Frankly, it scared me, and you miglt say I screened it out. Certainly tle lms cli- max in literal and visible castration could easily scare. So even tlougl tlis slocking ending t ratler neatly into tlen current Lacanian allegories of lack and castration, it seemed too literally so. Nor did tle lms doubly foreign provenance t into familiar categories. For not only was tlis an art lm in a European erotic tradition very close to tle mad love of tle surrealists, Ceorges Bataille, and Last Tango, it also lad an exotic East- ern eroticism tlat drew on tle visual tradition of shunga art and geislan pleasure worlds. Tis tradition was liglly stylized, formally beautiful, but also exaggerated and excessive. It was a form of lard-core art pioneered by sucl respected artists as Utamaro Kitagawa, Hokusai Katsuslika, and Harunobi Suzuki tlat lad begun in tle eiglteentl century (gure ;().' Te lm drawing on tlese traditions launted me all tlrougl tle late seventies and into tle late eiglties.'' Te lms reception in tle West was inuenced by tle knowledge tlat it was based on a true story, already well known to tle )apanese public, tlat lad already served as tle basis for anotler feature made tle previous year.' In ,6 a former prostitute and geisla by tle name of Abe Sada was accused of murdering ler lover, a restaurant owner named Islida Kiclizo, and of severing lis penis and testicles. In ler liglly publicized trial sle testied tlat sle lad strangled lim witl lis consent during sex and tlen performed a postmortem castration. In tlis era, tle trial of a Transnational Contexts hard-core eroticism 8, woman wlo claimed to live for love and pleasure alone struck a clord. Sada was not tle rst woman in )apan to lave ler sexual story made pub- lic: adulterous women wlo killed men lad been stock ller in newspapers since tle 8oos. However, tle castration made ler a gure of special fas- cination and perlaps surprising sympatlysle received a relatively slort sentence.' In tle midst of a society gearing up for war and rapidly turning fascist, tle story of a couple wlo witldrew from all social contact to live for love was taken to leart, especially among women. Unlike tle prewar masters of )apanese cinemaMizogucli Kenji, Kuro- sawa Akira, and Ozu Yasujirowlose careers all owered in tle postwar era, tle younger Oslima was an iconoclast of tle postwar generation wlo radically broke witl tle aestletic traditions of tlese great artists, saying, My latred of )apanese cinema includes absolutely all of it.' Tis latred included tle great traditions of melodramatic female suering combined witl often exquisite formal beauty. It also included tlat cinemas leri- tage of sexual reticence, a leritage of tle late-nineteentl-century Meiji period,' wlicl still imitated tle cultural mores of tle Victorian era long after censorslip in tle West itself lad begun to crumble. For example, in an essay entitled Sexual Poverty, written in ,;, ve 74: Suzuki Harunobu, active ca. 172470. From Marco Fagioli, Shunga: The Erotic Art of Japan (1998) 86 hard-core eroticism years before making Realm, Oslima critiqued tle development in )apan of many new contemporary discourses of sexual science, wletler books and articles about sex education, sexual frequency, sexual intensity, sexual sen- sitivity, even tle size of sexual organs. Dubbing tlis numerical approacl to sexuality sexual ovism and linking it to tle imitation of Western, American-inuenced sexual culture,' le looks back to a freer sexual culture of tle Edo period (6oo868) grounded in tle pleasure districts of tle towns and in tle communal-sex folk customs of tle farm villages. Wlile tlis miglt appear to place Oslima in a conservative camp larking back to tle leyday of )apanese erotic arts, le is not so easily categorized. Asserting tlat botl tlese traditional sexual cultures were crusled in tle modernization of tle Meji period, le places limself as part of a genera- tion tlat souglt a liberated, materialist view of sex, in slort, a generation tlat not only believed in revolution but linked social and political revo- lution to sexual ones.' He concludes lis essay witl a call for a perpetual renewing of our sexual communities.' Oslimas models for tlat renewal tlus come from dual sources: an idealized nostalgia for premodern )apan and an equally idealized yearning for tle post-,6os Western notions of revolutionary sex and politics belind tle barricades. Breaking witl traditional )apanese cinema mucl tle way tle Frencl New Wave directors lad broken witl an older tradition of so-called quality cinema, Oslimas embrace of )apans sensual past included a paral- lel embrace of radical, Marxist-inuenced, Western ideas, modernist aes- tletics and, in tle case of tlis particular lm, even of Western nancing. Tougl Oslimas politics and avant-gardism could sometimes make lim seem like a )apanese Codarda lmmaker wlose metacinematic quali- ties le indeed did emulate in some of lis earlier lmstle narrative of tlis particular lm, wlicl is straigltforward, is very un-Codardian. If tle story le close to tell was uniquely )apanese, Oslimas clance to tell it in an explicit way came from decidedly Western inuences. In ,;:, wlicl we lave seen was a crucial year for botl erotic and pornograplic cinema in tle landmark appearances of Last Tango in Paris and Deep Troat, tle Frencl producer of Argos Films, Anatole Dauman, oered Oslima funds to produce a pornograplic lm. Oslima lad been a strong advocate of tle )apanese soft-core pornograply known as tle roman poruno (or porno romance) begun in tle early seventies at tle Nikkatsu lm company. His own past lms lad irted witl sexually daring, tlougl simulated, sexual content and le lad clafed under a cinematic censorslip tlat still bore tle inuence of tle puritanical Meiji Restoration and tle American Occupation. hard-core eroticism 8; Te necessary cuts to one of lis earlier lms, Pleasure of the Flesh (,6,), enforced by tle )apanese Motion Picture Code of Etlics Committee, lad proven a source of slame to Oslima.' Te unprecedented opportunity provided by Dauman to make a pornograplic lm witl no strings at- tacled and witl an ample budget was certainly tempting. Yet, Oslima lesitated quite a wlile before deciding to actually make tle lm. Wlat seems to lave nally convinced lim, tlree years after Dauman made tle original oer, was lis belief tlat otler Young Turk Western directors were already doing it. In an article called Teory of Experimental Pornograplic Film, publisled soon after le made Senses, Oslima explains tlat le lad learned from some colleagues just returning from tle ,;, Cannes Film Festival tlat not only were serious pornograplic art lms being made but (in wlat was surely an exaggeration) all tle young directors are acting in tleir own scenes of sexual intercourse. It was tlus a combination of envy and masculine competitiveness tlat seems to lave convinced lim to nally make tle lm Dauman lad oered to produce. Tat evening Oslima wrote in lis notebook: I will make a pornograplic lmnot an average lm, a pornograplic lm all tle way. He claried, To me, a pornograplic lm was a lm of sexual organs and sexual intercourse. A lm tlat broke taboos was, to me, a pornograplic lm.' Oslima tlus resolved to do wlat no )apanese director lad ever done and wlat no reputable director of art cinema in tle West lad ever done eitler: to make a narrative art lm witl frequent graplic displays of sexual organs. He made tlis resolution under tle mistaken impression tlat tlis kind of lard-core art lm was already quite common in tle West. Tis impression was based, at least in part, on tle fact tlat France lad legalized pornograply. In fact, lowever, tlis kind of lard-core art was only a vague idea circulating around tle potential of a newly emerged lard-core pornograply. Inspired by tle revolutionary sexual freedom le imagined already existed in tle West, Oslima did not tlen seek to imitate lms like tle ,;: Deep Troat and Behind the Green Door. Instead, le enlisted tle cultural prestige of )apans long-standing tradition of shunga art: paintings and woodcut prints from tle once ourisling sex culture of tle premodern Edo era, during wlicl pornograply became popular witl an increasingly wealtly merclant class and a genuine owering of tle form occurred. After tle Meiji Restoration in 868, wlen )apan opened to tle West, tle new government banned all representation considered injurious to public morals, wlicl soon came to mean any kind of sexual content and nudity, all of wlicl was often absurdly censored. Wlen Dauman oered Oslima tle means to outdo Western pornogra- 88 hard-core eroticism ply, Oslima accepted tle clallengeas American directors wlen oered a similar clallenge a decade earlier by Stanley Kubrick lad not. Tere seems no doubt tlat tle existence of tlis once celebrated shunga tradi- tion, not to mention tle special status and celebrity of Abe Sada lerself, made lis decision possible. Witlout tle existence, lowever repressed, of tlis visual tradition, it is questionable wletler Oslima would lave lad tle political or aestletic wlerewitlal to accept Daumans oer. Nor does it seem accidental tlat tle story Oslima close to tell las similarities to tle Western art lm tlat lad garnered so mucl recognition earlier in tle decade: Bernardo Bertoluccis Last Tango in Paris. At rst glance, in fact, In the Realm of the Senses seems a lard-core reworking of Last Tango: an older man and a younger woman witldraw from tle world to explore an amour fou tlat ends witl tle woman killing tle man. To get around tle )apanese censors, tle lm was slot in )apan witl )apanese actors, sets, and crew, but on Frencl stock. Te negative was slipped to France for development and editing, wlicl meant tlat Oslima lad to sloot tle entire lm witl only an occasional telegram to tell lim low tle rusles looked. Tougl le certainly wanted lis lm to be slown in )apan, le well knew tlat lis real clances for exlibition lay in West- ern Europe and in tle Englisl-speaking world. He tlus aimed lis lm at Western eyes or at tlose )apanese audiences wlo, like limself, were envi- ous of wlat seemed to be greater Western sexual freedom. So it lappened tlat Oslimas )apanese lm (slot in )apanese witl )apanese actors) would enter lis native country as a Frencl import wlere it would be immediately seized by customs and not slown publicly until a tlird of its content lad been expurgated. Nevertleless, tle device of Frencl production lad allowed lim to make tle lm in tle rst place and to retain copies tlat were not expurgated for exlibition in Europe and tle United States. Despite lis clever ruse, lowever, Oslima was placed on trial for obscenitynot for tle lm but for tle script, wlicl lad been publisled along witl a number of plotos, apparently slot at tle time of lming. Twelve of tlese plotos, described as tle poses of men and women engaged in sexual intercourse and sex play, along witl selected written portions of tle script, were accused of being obscene. If tley could not try tle lm as a )apanese producttlougl tley could certainly expurgate it as a foreign importtle )apanese censors were determined to try tle book in its stead. In lis quite eloquent defense, Oslima did not, as many artists miglt lave, claim tlat lis lm was art ratler tlan pornograply. Instead, as we saw above, le insisted tlat it was pornogra- hard-core eroticism 8, ply and furtlermore tlat pornograply was useful for rendering tle very category of obscenity meaningless: Wlen one feels tlat everytling tlat one lad wanted to see las been revealed, obscenity disappears, tle taboo disappears as well, and tlere is a certain liberation. Oslimas claim, in otler words, was tlat an even greater obscenity is created by tle kind of peekaboo oered by tle obliteration of genitals (and particularly of pubic lair) so prevalent in )apan. He especially railed at tle idea tlat lis lm was deemed obscene by censors wlo lad never screened it. Tougl le won lis case, tle victory was pyrrlic and only applied to tle book, tle lm itself remained expurgated and las still not been seen in )apan witlout little oating clouds obscuring views of genitals. Oslima miglt lave taken some consolation in tle fact tlat even in its expurgated form, lis lm did well at tle )apanese box oce. At tle Cannes Film Fes- tival, tlougl slown outside of competition, it immediately became tle most talked-about lm, necessitating tlirteen extra screenings. Furtler- more, tlrouglout tle lms subsequently long run in Paris, clarter iglts of )apanese tourists were organized witl tle express purpose of seeing lis lm. In tle United States, tle lm ran up against some of tle same problems it lad encountered in )apan: a federal law against tle importation of ob- scene materials. It lad been scleduled at tle New York Film Festival on : October ,;; and lad, in fact, already been slown to tle press a day before tle regular public screening. After tle press screening, customs ocials informed festival organizers tlat tle print would be seized if it were slown tle next evening. Te organizers tlen canceled tle screen- ing.' Tus, once again, In the Realm of the Senses was on trial, tlougl tlis time not for long. Producer Dauman sued tle commissioner of customs for New York as well as tle U.S. government, and on 8 November tle U.S. attorneys oce witldrew its demand for tle recall of all prints. Senses was tlus slown after tle festival in a special screening at tle Museum of Modern Art, and tlen in most major cities across tle United States. )ust as Melvin Van Peebles lad found lis advertising campaign in tle slogan rated X by an all-wlite jury, so Dauman lad found lis in seized by New York customs. Te lm was not rated by tle rv but, like Sweet- back and Last Tango before it, proudly exploited a self-assigned X. In the Realm of the Senses was tlus a lm tlat was destined to seem exotically erotic wherever it was exlibited, to )apanese no less tlan to European and American audiences. ,o hard-core eroticism True to Oslimas plan to make a lm of sexual organs and sexual inter- course, tle rst scene of tle lm begins in bed. Te servant girl, Sada (Matsuda Eiko), refuses tle cold lands and sexual advances of anotler woman servant in tle communal sleeping room of tle inn in wlicl sle works. Te spurned servant takes ler to spy on tle master of tle louse laving lis daily morning sex witl lis wife. Sadas rst glimpse of Kiclizo (Fuji Tatsuya) tlus occurs as an act of voyeurism on ler master and lis wife tlat is a typical feature of mucl shunga art (see gure ;(). Sada avidly looks tlrougl a partly ajar door (gure ;,). Sle sees tle wife croucled before ler lusband as sle dresses lim. But tle act of dressing soon turns into intercourse revealed in a close, side view of Kiclizo on top, lis wife on tle bottom. Sada moves sligltly in synclronization witl tle move- ments of tle couple. Kiclizo rst notices Sada wlen sle wields a knife in rage against anotler servant. His very rst interaction witl ler is tlus to foil tle knife tlat will tlreaten lim repeatedly tlrouglout tle rest of tle lm. He briey toucles ler lands and notes tlat tley slould be lolding sometling else instead. Tat sometling else soon manifests as Kiclizos penis as le and Sada begin to lave brief trysts stolen away from tle watclful eyes of lis wife. In tle rst, Sada only sits briey on Kiclizos member before a geisla enters to ocially entertain lim, in anotler, Sada lerself takes on tle geisla role, playing tle samisen and singing, as a geisla would do, but astride Kiclizo as a proper geisla would not (gure ;6). Her singing serves as a decoy: If tle geisla sings, tle wife presumes ler lusband is not engaged in sex. But Sadas singing is infused witl sexual excitement, adding an audio di- mension to tle visual eroticism. Oslima now tells tle rest of tlis story of sexual obsession almost en- tirely tlrougl graplic sex acts tlat often recall tle poses of shunga. As we lave seen, tlis tradition of graceful erotic woodblocks, crafted by some of )apans greatest graplic artists, celebrated and exaggerated tle sexual exploits practiced in )apans pleasure quarters before tle censorslip of tle Meijii era in tle mid-nineteentl century. Shunga, wlicl literally means images of spring, ourisled in )apan between tle seventeentl and mid- nineteentl centuries and portrayed often explicit scenes of sex. Tey con- stitute a sexually graplic subgenre of ukiyo-eor images of tle oating world. Excluded from government, tle wealtly, urban merclant class of tlis era assiduously cultivated ledonist pleasures: courtesans and wealtly male clients are depicted eitler in tle tlroes of ecstasywitl gigantic Ars Erotica and Scientia Sexualis hard-core eroticism , male genitals and abundant, detailed pubic lairor as more casually batl- ing, eating, and drinking wlile also engaged in sex (gure ;;). Oslimas depiction of Sada and Kiclizos sex often seems to resemble shunga in composition and pose. For example, in gure ;8 we nd tle couple casu- ally laving sex outdoors wlile Kicli exclanges pleasantries witl an old grandmotler (gure ;8). However, we see no exaggerated genitalia, not even tle kind of extra lengtl Western audiences would lave already been familiar witl in lard-core pornograply. Te inn at wlicl Sada works and over wlicl Kiclizo presides, as well as tle inns to wlicl tley will later repair for tleir trysts, lark back to tlis oating world of pleasure wlere male clients were entertained by geislas. Oslima opposes tlis old )apan of geislas, courtesans, and plea- sure seekers to a briey glimpsed, but brutally ascendant, )apan of train In the Realm of the Senses (dir. Oshima Nagisa, 1976) 75: Sada spies on the wife and husband 76: Sada plays the samisen astride Kichizo ,: hard-core eroticism travel and marcling troops. He tlus lends an air of doomed nostalgia to tle events of lis lm not present in most shunga. In a telling scene mucl commented on by critics, Kiclizo, wlo las closen tle route of sensual pleasure, is seen walking down a street in tle opposite direction of marcling troops lailed by patriotic, ag-waving women. Te troops grow louder and more numerous, pressing in on tle solitary gure of Ki- clizo wlo in tle end is almost attened against a wall (gure ;,). Te new, ecient culture of )apanese modernism marcles toward its fascist deatl, 77: Utagawa Kunisada, ca. 1827. From Marco Fagioli, Shunga: The Erotic Art of Japan (1998) 78: In the Realm of the Senses, Sada and Kichi casually have sex outdoors while an old woman watches hard-core eroticism , wlile Kiclizo, clinging to tle ideals of a dying class, will cloose anotler deatl, pursuing pleasure to tle end. A good measure of low Oslimas shunga-inuenced graplic depiction diers from tle more urgent and clinical conventions of Western lard- core pornograply can be found if we look at a particular sex scene. In contrast to tle way Western moving-image pornograply of tle seventies is intent on revealing tle exact moment at wlicl pleasure becomes visible in tle money slot, consider tle way tle rst prolonged scene of sex be- tween Sada and Kicli (as Sada soon calls lim) builds to its conclusion. Te couple pulls apart momentarily to look at one anotler in tle dark room witl its riclly saturated colors. Kicli is naked, still erect, yet relaxed, Sada is in an open kimono and, as always, more intense. At tlis early stage of tleir relationslip, sle may also be a bit worried tlat Kicli las still not In the Realm of the Senses 79: Kichi pushed aside by the new militaristic order 80: Sada fellates Kichi ,( hard-core eroticism come wlile it is implied tlat sle las been in tle tlroes of ecstasy all niglt. Sle leans forward to fellate lim as le continues to lean back, liglting a cigarette. Wlat follows corresponds in tle act to tle deep-tlroat fellatio of a lm like Deep Troat, but witl an important aestletic dierence. Sada, seen from tle side at tle left of tle frame, entlusiastically takes tle slaft deep into ler moutl, wlile Kicli, propped on a pillow, looks on from tle riglt. Te sexual act is tle very same as tle famous moment in Deep Troat, but tle quiet mood of relaxed intimacy and tle inclusion of Kiclis wlole body witlin tle frame, as opposed to a close-up of just tle womans face and an ejaculating penis, could not be more dierent (gure 8o). Te mise-en-scene of tlis fellatio is not arranged to exlibit tle lengtl of tle slaft tlrougl repeated ins-and-outs of tle penis and tle oral ups-and- downs of tle moutl tlat assure tle exlibitionistic maximum visibility of lard core. Nevertleless, as in Deep Troat, we clearly see Kiclis vividly red, engorged, tlougl normal-sized, penis. Witl no special gymnastics, Sada takes tle penis into ler land and tlen into ler moutl, moving as- siduously over it as Kicli watcles witl sligltly detacled interest. You are an extraordinary woman, le remarks. An extreme close-up of ler face pressing down lard on lis penis, accompanied by a small grunt from Sada marks an understated climax (gure 8) wlose only visual evidence will be a small trickle of ejaculate tlat ows out of ler moutl after sle slowly pulls away to look at Kicli. Tis ejaculate does not y or leap across tle screen. It merely passes from Kicli into Sada and now trickles out as if a part of tlem botl. Tere is no frenetic gymnastics, no entlusiastic licking, 81: In the Realm of the Senses, a minimal climax hard-core eroticism ,, no ringing of bells, no rapid montage, no isolated slot of tle ejaculating penis. Nor is tlere a loud tleme song, or a formulaic repetition of tle same signs of pleasure to signal tle climax of subsequent sex acts (tlis, in fact, is tle lms only detailed depiction of fellatio)only a quiet con- clusion to a niglt of lovemaking tlat needs some sort of end. Te larger question of wlat constitutes tle appropriate end to tlis couples realm of tle senses will prove crucial to tle rest of tle lm. Oslimas lm tlus avoids many of tle qualities of a Western porno- graplic scientia sexualis familiar since tle early ,;os in lard-core por- nograply. Does tlis tlen mean tlat it inserts itself into an older tradi- tion of ars erotica to wlicl shunga belongs: Precisely because tlese are images of real bodies in movement, not woodcarvings or paintings, it is not possible for tlem to imitate tle plysiological exaggerations tlat often occur in shunga, as in tle plysiologically improbable contortions of gure ;;. Nor is it possible for Oslima, even if le were to lire tle )apanese equivalent of )oln Holmes, to depict penises quite as immense as tlose in shunga. For tlis reason lm sclolar Peter Lelman las tlerefore argued tlat previous sclolars of Oslimas lm lave overestimated tle similarities between Realm and tle shunga or ukiyo-e tradition Lelman linges lis ar- gument on tle fact tlat live actors cannot possibly equal tle proportions of tlese penises. It is tempting, nevertleless, at least from a Western perspective, to place Oslimas lm and its shunga inuence witlin tle older visual tra- dition of ars erotica in wlicl pleasures are understood as accumulated practices and experiences. Certainly mucl of tle iconograply of tlis lm witl its lalf-dressed lovers laving uninlibited sex wlerever tley nd tlemselves resembles tle tradition of ars erotica tlat Miclel Foucault ar- gues is a product of ancient and non-Western cultures, one tlat passes on practices of pleasure as tauglt by a master to an acolyte. Tis iconograply seems to contrast vividly witl tle more modern and Western tradition of a scientia sexualis, wlicl aims at eliciting confessions of a more scientic trutl of a sex tlat erupts and confesses itself witlout specialor at least consciouscultivation. Do we want, tlerefore, to align Oslimas lm witl Foucaults ars erotica and distinguisl it from tle lot and lurried confes- sional pleasures of Western moving-image pornograply wlicl so often exists in relation to laws of tle permitted and tle forbidden: As we lave already seen, tle question is complicated by Oslimas belief tlat le was vying witl Western and modern pornograplic models. And it is furtler complicated by Foucaults own admission tlat strict diclotomies between ,6 hard-core eroticism tle two traditions may break down wlen we come to consider tle Wests pleasure of analysis witlin tle scientia sexualis, wlicl may itself verge on an extraordinarily subtle form of ars erotica. It is true tlat tle story Oslima tellsof an older man wlo initiates a younger woman into tle leisurely pleasures of sexseems to operate witlin an ars erotica tradition of tle cultivation and passing on of sexual teclniques. In tle beginning, as in tlis tradition, Kicli is tle master guid- ing tle less experienced Sada in tle art of pleasure. One niglt le grabs Sa- das leel from under tle stairs as sle descends to tle batlroom. Deferring ler need to peeIts supposed to be better, le says conspiratoriallyle plays tle role of tle world-weary older lover wlo initiates Sada into tle more raried joys of unlurried sex. He tells ler to slow down and not to try to serve wlat sle presumes to be lis urgent desire: I want to feel your pleasure, we lave all tle time in tle world. Making love until dawn in tle scene cited above, Kicli remains perpetually lard. Te lm goes on to depict penetrative vaginal and oral sex tlat clearly slows explicit action. And like shunga prints it favors wlole bodies in static long and medium slots, and even occasional overlead framings, over wlat tle Western porn industry calls meat and money slots. Yet tlis distinction, wlicl )oan Mellen makes mucl of, arguing for tle art of wlole bodies ratler tlan tle fetislization of body parts, does not lold exactly. Neitler tle shunga tradition, as in tle example from a small book of erotic poses and anatomic details by Keisai Eisen from tle early nineteentl century (gure 8:), nor Oslima (gure 8) entirely esclew occasional close-ups of sexual organs. Like shunga, Oslimas lm glories in a variety of positions of tle body and tle genitals during sex. Like shunga also, tle lm often slows sex acts observed by tlird-party voyeurs or by servants wlo bring food and drink. Also as in shunga, Oslima revels in tle erotics of tle deslabille. In contrast to modern Western moving-image pornograply, bodies lere are rarely completely nude, robes are open or lalf falling o, but tley still do not function to lide sexual organs. Ratler, tley serve as curtains tlat pull back to reveal organs tlat persistently peep out. As in shunga also, sex often takes place on tatami mats on tle oor, and any otler place tle couple nds itself. Te Western tradition of tle elevated bed, a special private place only for sex and sleep, does not operate. As we lave seen, lowever, Oslimas moving luman bodies do not re- semble tle amazing contortions and tle exaggerated organs and pubic lair of tle shunga woodblock prints. Wlile lis bodies do entwine and wrap around one anotler, tley do not defy plysiology in eitler position hard-core eroticism ,; or organ size. Indeed, to tle extent tlat Oslima can be said to operate witlin tle visual tradition of shunga, we miglt qualify tlat le transposes its spatial exaggerations of size and position into temporal exaggerations of duration: Kicli almost never ceases to be erect, and Sada never ceases to nd pleasure in tlis erection. Te couples pleasure is limited only by Kiclis endurance, wlicl is remarkable. Moreover, wlile Oslima knowingly operates witlin a tradition of ex- plicit erotic art at one time well known in )apan, tle systematic marginal- ization of tlat tradition tlrouglout tle nineteentl century as )apan souglt to escape tle colonized fate of otler Asian countries meant tlat le could 82: Eisen Kesei, ca. 18221825. From Marco Fagioli, Shunga: The Erotic Art of Japan (1998) 83: In the Realm of the Senses, close-up of penis ,8 hard-core eroticism not count on )apanese viewers ability to see lis lm. Indeed, Senses could not even count on )apanese viewers being able to see a lm tlat would leave a mucl greater mark on Anglo-American and European audiences tlan on tlose of lis own country.' It is not possible, tlen, to draw a di- rect line of inuence between shunga and Oslimas lm. To draw sucl a line would mean to ignore tle fact tlat at a moment wlen mucl of tle West was undergoing a radical proliferation of erotic and pornograplic discourses of sexuality, )apan was still radically suppressing all evidence of its own artistically more prestigious lard-core traditions. It is mucl more likely, tlerefore, tlat wlat looks in Senses like a continuation of a long-standing tradition of ars erotica is actually a more interesting routing of a nostalgia for tlis tradition tlougl a very modern ideaperlaps even envyof tle presumed greater liberation of tle Western pornograplic imagination. To provoke and clallenge a )apanese cinema wlose rst fty years lad been marked by an extreme sexual reticence, and wlose screens would not exlibit lis lm witlout blurring tle views of all genitals, Oslima will- fully forged a new syntlesis out of elements of botl ars erotica and scien- tia sexualis. Tis syntlesis is most evident in Oslimas telling of tle ex- ceedingly modern story of Abe Sada. For if tle director lad simply wanted to reanimate tle traditions of shunga le miglt lave told one of tle many stories of tle double suicides of lovers depicted in tlese prints. However, Sadas decision to live on after Kiclis deatlperlaps, as Rutl McCor- mick puts it, to nd otler Kiclisis radically modern. Tis couple does not cloose tle time-lonored route of resolving tle problems of lovers by dying togetler. Sada lives on instead to confess ler story to botl police and medical experts, most of wlom commented on ler unique sexual sensitivity. Sle is tlus tle very model of a woman wlose sexuality was in- vestigated under tle clinical and scientic terms of a more modern scien- tia sexualis. Sadas story tlus seems to be an amalgam of Western pornograplys scientia sexualis and of Foucaults somewlat simplistic notion of a pan- Eastern and more ancient ars erotica. It las elements of tle bottom-up confession of tle secrets of a servant girls knowledge of pleasure mea- sured in relation to an absolute law of tle permitted and tle forbidden, and it las elements of tle top-down initiation by a master of an acolyte to tle intensities and qualities of pleasure tlrougl a connoisseurslip of sex. If Foucault is correct in lis observation tlat a Western scientia sexualis invents its own ars erotica, tlen perlaps tlis is wlat In the Realm of the Senses does. But we do well to note tlat botl of tlese traditions for seeking hard-core eroticism ,, tle trutl of sex, Eastern and Western, traditional and modern, are deeply androcentric in tleir very concept of wlat sex is. Wletler understood as will to knowledge in wlicl power and pleasure are intertwined or as teclniques for tle cultivation of pleasure, botl correspond to essentially masculine economies. Te master wlo passes on teclniques of erotic arts is typically a man, and tle medical expert wlo receives tle confession of sexual secrets usually is as well. Oslimas syntlesis of tle two traditions is perlaps most notewortly for reversing at least one of tlem. Consider tle way Kicli, wlo initially occupies tle position of master, very soon cedes tlat position to Sada. Only in tle rst sex scene does le actually instruct ler by telling ler to take ler time. Halfway tlrougl tle lm Sada takes tle lead in initiating new forms of bodily ecstasy. Te story of Sada is tlat of a woman wlo, once initiated by a master into tle realm of tle senses, learns to explore tlis realm according to ler own, very dif- ferent, economy of pleasure and wlo tlen brings tle man along witl ler as far as le can go. Sle may resemble American pornograplic leroines like Linda Lovelace in Deep Troat and )ustine )ones in Te Devil in Miss Jones (dir. Cerard Damiano, ,;) in ler all-consuming need for tle penis and in ler initial status as an acolyte to a master of pleasure. However, sle is unique in forging conditions for tle aclievement of plallic pleasure in collaboration witl a man wlo gives limself up to ler entirely. Her own near innite capacity for pleasure will spur ler lover on to tle absolute limits of lis own. Oslima tlus embraces neitler tle Western scientia sexualis of countable involuntary male convulsions, measurable in ejacu- late and presumed to stand in for tle wlole pleasure of tle couple in com- mercial pornograply, nor tle Eastern ars erotica of a master wlo passes on tle secrets of pleasure to a disciple. Ratler, le embraces wlat we miglt call a modern ars sexualis tlrougl tle temporal medium of cinema. To understand wlat tlat is, we must tlink a little more about sexual timing and sexual violence. In tle previous clapter, mainstream American movies were seen to dis- cover female orgasms as plysically and emotionally satisfying climaxes tlat needed more time to perfectly coincide witl tle pleasures of men. A seemingly lappy convergence of sexology and feminism, combined witl a narrative of antiwar activism produced a new, simulated representation of sexual pleasure as a prolonged clitoral orgasm tlat was more gentle The Bullfght of Love :oo hard-core eroticism tlan tle jabbing, tlrusting eroticism tlat lad so amazed Pauline Kael in Last Tango in Paris or tle plallic exlibitionism tlat lad so impressed Al Coldstein in Deep Troat. )ane Fonda broke new ground by portraying wlat could only be presumed as a clitoral orgasm in no need of penetra- tion and in response to wlicl sle would signicantly call out not tle usual command, larder, but tle mucl rarer, softly! Fonda was portrayed as discovering ler pleasure wlen sle was freed to be out of sync witl ler plallically impaired lover. In the Realm of the Senses also presents a dierent female orgasmic potential linked to an etlic of love ratler tlan war. But Sada and Kiclis love will culminate in a warlike violence in wlicl eros and tlanatos con- verge. Teirs is an animal sexuality in wlicl, as Ceorges Bataille famously puts it, tle violence of one goes out to meet tle violence of tle otler. Nor would Matsuda Eikos Sada, in contrast to Fondas Sally, ever call out for a soft toucl. Sle demands tlat Kiclis penis be perpetually lard and perpetually inside ler. Her fantasy is tlat tle couple miglt be eternally and orgasmically in sync, and sle will eventually ercely call out to ler lover: Im killing you! In tle end sle will take control of Kiclis erec- tion tlrougl tle process of strangulation just as sle will take control of lis severed penis. Tus, wlere Coming Home depicts its female-centric orgasm tlrougl tle eacement of tle penis, Realm depicts its female- centric orgasm tlrougl tle peniss visibility, exaggerated lardness, and perpetual readiness for action. Civen its violence it is quite remarkable low Oslimas graplically lard- core lm refrains from organizing its sexual acts around tle spectacle of male ejaculation so familiar in otler lard-core verlicles. And even tle one scene, wlicl does end in ejaculation, constructs tle act anticlimac- tically. Initially, Sada and Kicli aspire to tle perfectly coincident meeting of male and female bodies on time at a moment of mutual readiness mucl like male-dominant leterosexual Western pornograply. Tis por- nograply, as we lave seen, works overtime to seem to matcl tle womans pleasures to tle measure of tle mans. Oslimas lm seems to begin witl tlis same goal, but tlen turns into tle reverse: tlougl it never abandons a xed interest in tle male organ as a source of pleasure for botl tle man and tle woman (and is tlus quite literally plallocentric), it slifts tle tem- poral rlytlms of pleasure away from tle man, wlo rst teacles Sada to slow down and take ler time, onto tle rlytlm of tle woman wlo, like Barbarella in tle Exsexive Macline, las no limit to ler pleasure. Toward tle end it is Kicli wlo labors to keep pace and to coincide witl Sadas prolonged and intense pleasures. Instead of tle conceit of tle male and hard-core eroticism :o female coincidence of pleasure at tle moment of tle visible male ejacula- tion, In the Realm of the Senses oers an even more impossible fantasy: to transcend tle very nitude of climax itself. In place of a squirt of ejaculate as tle sign for a supposedly mutual ecstasy of tle couple, tle lm develops a long swoon tlat aims to abolisl tle separation between discrete indi- viduals. Te primary dierence between Senses and tle pornograply le botl envied and productively misconstrued is not tlat Oslimas work belongs to a long-standing tradition of classy erotic art, wlile Western lard core constitutes a crass popular genre. Ratler, it is tlat lis lm cultivates a new erotic-pornograplic fantasyone in wlicl tle womans temporal rlytlm of ecstasy is taken as tle standard and tle man aspires to meet it. It is in tlis quality tlat Oslimas lm most diers botl from tle tradi- tional top-down pedagogy of ars erotica and from tle bottom-up confes- sion of scientia sexualis. Tis female-centered model of continuous sexual pleasure at rst lends a relaxed casualness to tle growing aberrations of Sada and Kiclis sexual encounters. If sex is ongoing tlen it need not always be tle foreground of tle narrative, but can also serve as a background accompaniment to otler actions. Te couple sings, eats, drinks, and conversesall tle wlile laving sex, sometimes liglly aroused, sometimes only mildly. Kicli savors muslrooms and otler morsels dipped in tle sauce of Sadas vagi- nal juices (All we do, even eating, must be an act of love, says Sada). He consumes a lard-boiled egg laid from ler vagina, le matcles Sadas oral acceptance of lis ejaculate by licking lis ngers dipped in ler menstrual blood. Tey perform sex in a variety of moods as tleir intimacy grows. Sada even cuts o and eats a few strands of Kiclis pubic lair as a sign of ler devotion, tlougl also, I tlink, as a direct slap to tle )apanese censors special prolibition of any display of pubic lair. Its as if le was yours, says Kicli of lis penis. He jokes tlat tle only time le gets a rest is wlen le goes to pee, wlile Sada jealously begrudges lim even tlese few moments of necessary accidity. Eventually, of course, tle fantasy of unending mutual pleasure in tle realm of tle senses must encounter limits. )ust as tle womblike apart- ment of tle couple in Last Tango is ultimately encroacled on by reality, so Kicli must eventually pee and tle couple must eat if life is to be sustained. Wlere most moving-image depictions of sex elide tlese more mundane bodily functions, tlis lms concentration on tle temporal duration of sex acts lends a material grounding to tlese otler bodily needs. Witlout funds, cut o from tle food and slelter of Kiclis jealous wife, tley rely on :o: hard-core eroticism Sadas infrequent sexual services to an elderly professor for income. But tle pain caused to eacl of tlem by even tlese brief separations proves unbearable, and Kicli asks ler not to leave again. Te lm increasingly juxtaposes tle glamour of tle tlreat of violence witl tle patlos of old age and impotence. Sada wields a large knife (gure 8() and repeatedly tlreatens to cut o Kiclis penis so tlat le will not be tempted to lave sex witl lis wife and so as to keep lim inside ler always. If I cut lim o will you die: (gure 8,). Most likely, answers Kicli, matter-of-factly. But tle allure of tle knife remains, and Sada will eventu- ally perform precisely tlis castration, tlougl only after sle las rst killed Kicli by otler means. Te need to nd tle means to a violent love-deatl becomes increasingly urgent tle more tle lm slows us tle alternative of growing old. Early in tle narrative, tle specter of old age is embodied by an elderly beggar wlo recognizes Sada from better times wlen le was ler client. You were always so lappy, le remembers. Sada eventually indulges lim, but lis penis, wlicl cruel clildren lave already pelted witl snowballs and probed witl sticks tlat wave )apanese ags, remains limp. Sada is kind, sle strokes tle organ in sympatly wlen it fails to rise and seems genuinely to regret its impotence. In anotler scene, during a mock wedding ceremony in wlicl Sada and Kicli are entertained by geislas wlo join tlem in an orgy, a witlered old man does a birdlike dance over tle entwined youtlful bodies (gure 86). Yet anotler old man in a restau- rant informs Sada and Kicli tlat lis penis is only good for peeing. In contrast to tle impotence of tlese old men, we see tle greater potency of tle aged female body. Wlen an elderly geisla wlo enter- tains tle couple at an inn notes tlat tleir continuous lovemaking in ler presence is a pleasure to tle eyes, Sada invites ler to lave sex witl tle always obliging, tlougl in tlis case not particularly eager, Kicli. Te sur- prised geisla and Kicli couple awkwardly, in a scene tlat emplasizes tle wlite pallor of ler made-up, wrinkled face in contrast to tle esl color of tle rest of ler body (gure 8;). Sada watcles from close by, naked and croucled on all fours. Her face reveals a mixture of lorror, fascination, and sympatly at Kiclis embrace witl mortality. Afterwards le lies inert on tle old woman until Sada slaps lis buttocks to revive lim. Kicli con- fesses tlat laving sex witl tle geisla was like laving sex witl tle corpse of lis motler. In tlese powerful intimations of mortality botl le and Sada seem to recognize tle stakes of tleir own relation. Everytling must lave an end, declares Sada. Faced witl tle combined spectacle of old men wlo can no longer get it up and an old woman wlo can, but wlose desire las In the Realm of the Senses 84: Sada wields a large knife 85: If I cut it of will you die? 86: Old man dances over entwined youthful bodies :o( hard-core eroticism almost outlived ler esl, tle couple seeks its own solution to tle nitude of passion. Kicli, lowever, remains understandably sly of tle knife. After le las lapsed and returned to lis wife, a jealous Sada, knife in one land, penis in tle otler, tlreatens to cut. Kicli resigns limself: I accept everytling you ask, forgive me for laving left you for tlree days, le says, and tlen invites ler to punisl lim, tlougl not witl tle knife: Hurt me as mucl as you like. Te couple now irts more seriously witl sadomasoclistic acts in maratlon sessions of lovemaking in wlicl Sada is encouraged to take tle lead. After Sada introduces mild blows, Kicli suggests tlat tley miglt try strangulation. Sada immediately invites lim to strangle ler. But wlen le nds no enjoyment in tlis act, Sada climbs on to lis erect penis (always ler preferred position), squeezes lis tlroat witl ler lands, and articulates ler pleasure to an increasingly red-faced Kicli: Te subtitles read: You cant imagine low good I feel, les moving alone, its so good! It would seem to be tle power to make Kiclis penis move inside ler tlrougl ler control of lis strangulation tlat most excites Sada. Never does tle violence of strangulation replace tle act of sex. Violence enlances it, accompanies it and, in tle end, makes tle abandonment of tle one to tle otler possible. For tlis reason it would not be exact to call Sada (despite tle accidental resonance of ler name to Western ears) a sadist,' nor would it be exact to call Kicli a masoclist. Te strict deni- tion of botl perversions entails tle giving or taking of pain as substitutes for tle sexual act. Tis does not mean, lowever, tlat tleir sex is witlout sadomasoclistic elements. Te violence of strangulation will soon be taken to tle extreme, not only to cause Kiclis swoon but lis deatl. He 87: In the Realm of the Senses, the old geishas face hard-core eroticism :o, will cloose tlis deatl, in tle slort term, to avoid tle aftermatl of tle pain of strangulation. In tle long term, le clooses it to avoid tle pain of a life tlat cannot be lived only for pleasure. At tlis point le is far from tle mas- oclist wlo seeks to prolong pain in pleasure, ratler, le is a mortal man trying to prolong lis ability to give pleasure. Sada will allow Kicli to die, even tlougl it means tlat le will not survive to be lard again, tlus giving up control over tle pleasure le gives ler for tle sake of tle nal swoon, tle little deatl tlat brings ler to tle brink of deatl and pusles Kicli all tle way over. Eroticism, writes Bataille, is assenting to life up to tle point of deatl, and lis book on tlis subject is full of insiglts applicable to tle sexual vio- lence of tlis lm. Indeed, tle )apanese title for tle lm, Ai no corrida (Bullght of Love), would seem to allude to Batailles infamous description of tle pornograplic evisceration of a matadors eye coincident witl lis leroines insertion of tle eye-slaped ball of a bull into ler vagina in lis pornograplic novella, Histoire de loeil (Story of the Eye). Similarly, tle Frencl title of tle lm, L empire des sens (literally, Empire of the Senses, from wlicl comes tle Englisl title), ecloes anotler Frencl source: Roland Bartless tlen popular semiological study of )apan, L empire des signes (Te Empire of Signs). Altlougl Ai no corrida captures more of tle Ba- taillian quality of tle violence of an eros tlat extends beyond tle pleasure principle into tle domain of violence, violation, and deatl, botl titles furtler suggest tle strong Western inuences on Oslimas lm. Deatl, like orgasm, is for Bataille a violent wrencling of tle discontinuous life of tle individual into tle continuity of tle inanimate from wlicl we emerge and to wlicl we must return. Eroticism, Bataille argues, constitutes a pletlora of life tlat at tle ex- treme tips over into deatl, into tle domain of sacrice, violence, and vio- lation. It lies, like deatl, beyond tle pleasure principle. Tis title of one of Sigmund Freuds most confounding works exploring tle limits of mere pleasure, reminds us, like Bataille, of tle paradox tlat eros and tlanatos are not necessarily oppositestlat deatl is not simply tle end of life but a return to tle continuity of tle inanimate matter of tle universe. We saw in clapter s discussion of tle orality of kisses tlat Freuds tleory of sexuality is often cauglt between two dierent models of pleasure: one tlat is teleological and believes in tle progression toward an end pleasure of release and disclarge, and one tlat contains a certain admixture of unpleasure tlat does not aim at disclarge but at a prolongation of sexual excitement and at tle ecstatic itself. Leo Bersani, as I lave lad occasion to recall, refers to tlis distinction as tle dierence between an itcl tlat is :o6 hard-core eroticism scratcled to end it and an itcl tlat seeks notling better tlan its own pro- longation, even its own intensication. At tle limit, tlis prolongation can become tle desiring destruction of objects in order to possess tlem internally. Bersani argues, contra tle disclarge model tlat Freud some- times seems to espouse, tlat tle destruction of tle love object appears to be inlerent in sexual excitement itself and tlat many plases of love, especially tle pregenital oral and anal plases, produce sexual excitement tlrougl slattering fantasies of incorporating or devouring. In the Realm of the Senses extends polymorplously perverse infantile fantasies of incorporating or devouring tle otler into tle realm of tle genital. Sadas desire, unlike tlat of conventional pornograply since Deep Troat, is never to satisfy, or to disclarge Kiclis penis into or onto ler body. It is tle more fantasmatic desire to incorporate tlis love object into lerself and to prolong tle violence of tle one tlat reacles out to tle vio- lence of tle otler. Kiclis deatl is not ler actual goal. It is tle gradually accepted by-product of tleir pursuit of a fantasy of pleasure tlat is not only coincidental (on time!) but beyond time, merged into a new entity beyond tleir discrete individual selves. I lave been arguing, lowever, tlat tle fantasy of perpetual ecstasy as it is played out in Oslimas lm also acknowledges, as Freud, Bataille, and Bersani do not, tle frequent temporal disarticulation of male and female pleasure. Kicli dies because le is unable to persist, as Sada and even tle old geisla can, in an ecstasy tlat goes beyond tle discrete, nite disclarge of male orgasm. Sada lives because sle is able to experience more and more excitation witlout disclarge or end-pleasure release. After making love to tle near corpse of tle old geisla, Kicli lad implored Sada: Dont let our pleasure ever end. His love-deatl is tle result of tle couples at- tempt to accommodate Kiclis nite orgasm and temporal satiety to Sadas innite satiety in insatietyler ability to prolong ecstasy. You miglt say Kicli dies trying. In tle attenuated nal scene, tle couple meets back at tleir inn and strikes a bargain. Instead of tle ever-present knife, wlicl Kicli again makes Sada put away, le asks to be strangled, qualifying tlis by adding, I want to give you pleasure. Sada makes lim clarify not only tlat le desires ler pleasure but tlat le desires lis own strangulation because it keeps lim erect. From tlis point on, tle lovers play witl tle ne line between ecstasy and oblivion (tle blackouts tlat cause Kicli to lose erec- tion). Bataille explains tlat on one land, tle convulsions of tle esl are more acute wlen tley are near to a blackout, and on tle otler a blackout, as long as tlere is enougl time, makes plysical pleasure more exquisite. hard-core eroticism :o; Mortal anguisl does not necessarily make for sensual pleasure, but tlat pleasure is more deeply felt during mortal anguisl. In tle rst stage of tlis play witl mortal anguisl, an ecstatic Sada tlrills at ler control of Kiclis penis, sle feels it more intensely witl eacl tug of tle pink scarf tlat sle now uses instead of ler lands to strangle lim. Sle faces tle camera astride Kicli, ler red kimono open. Te top of Kiclis lead is in tle foreground (gure 88). Wlile beautiful, tle image is also explicit: we see Kiclis penis moving up and down as Sada moves over lim. Tougl Sada cries out, Im killing you, in fact, sle pulls back from tle nal squeeze to let ler lover again breatle. In a loarse wlisper, le tells ler to pull larder. Wlen le involuntarily raises lis lands to free lis tlroat, Sada scolds lim, saying sle was near ecstasy. Now sle ties lis lands: Do wlat you please, says Kicli. My body is yours. Connected tlrougl penile penetration and tle umbilical pink scarf about Kiclis neck, tle couple fuses beyond tle bliss of lovers to become like one body, not two. Te strangulation is botl tle means to Sadas ecstasy and to tle violent deatl tlat will exempt Kicli from tle fate of old men wlo can no longer get it up. Sada matcles eacl tlrust of ler body over lis penis witl tugs on tle scarf, gaining lis assent eacl step of tle way wlile making it clear to lim tlat sle will proceed even if it kills lim. Sle asks if it lurts, le slakes lis lead no. Sle asks low it feels, and le says, Like Im part of you, our bodies lave melted into one, batling in a crimson pool. Sada continues squeezing, and tleir bodies are reframed in a longer slot tlat slows tlem in tle center of tle room batled in a crimson liglt (gure 8,). In tle next scene, Sada waits, playing idly witl an empty sake bottle, 88: In the Realm of the Senses, Sada astride Kichi as she strangles him :o8 hard-core eroticism wlile Kicli, looking gray and fragile, sleeps. Wlen le revives, we see tle rawness of lis neck and tlat le can barely stay awake to attend to Sadas desire. Wlen le dozes, sle slaps lim awake. Tougl le tries migltily to attend to ler sexual needs, le is soft. Sada masturbates lerself witl lis accid penis, squeezes it lard to get a rise out of lim, but notling slort of strangulation will make lim get lard again. Kicli is ready for tlis, but in a raspy voice le admonisles ler: Tis time, dont stop in tle middle, its too painful afterwards. Sada crawls over to get tle scarf, slakes lim awake, and announces to a Kicli wlo already seems to be elsewlere tlat sle is pulling. Tis time we do not see if Kiclis penis responds. Indeed, we do not see anytling more of tleir coupling or of Kiclis deatl. All we see is a slot of tle couple interlaced at an unspecied time, followed by a In the Realm of the Senses 89: bathed in a crimson light 90: Sada alone in the stadium hard-core eroticism :o, cut to Sada lying naked in tle sun on a concrete platform in tle middle of an empty stadium (gure ,o). In long slot, a manit could be Kicliis playfully clased by a young girl among tle bleaclers of tle stadium. Te girl repeatedly calls out in a singsong, Are you ready: and tle man repeatedly replies, No, not yet. However one translates tle question and answer of tlis clildrens game akin to lide-and-seek, it would seem to repeat elements of Sadas relation to Kicli, especially tle quest for temporal coincidence, a coming togetler on time! tlat eludes tle girl in tle game as sle tries to capture a man never quite as ready as sle. Sada, still lying supine in tle midst of tlis game but now seen in a close view, tries to speak, but no sound comes out of ler moutl. In long slot again sle sits up, tle young girl and tle man lave disappeared. Alone in tle vast stadium, sle calls, Kicli-san in a mournful last cry to wlicl tlere is no answer. Te stadium, as Leger Crindon points out, could allude to tle titular bullglt, and tlrougl tlat, to Batailles deadly depiction of tle game of love.' Back in tle room at tle inn, Sada in ler open red kimono stands over tle lifeless body of Kicli, laid out under covers on a futon. Using tle long knife witl wlicl sle lad repeatedly tlreatened Kiclis dismemberment in moments of anger and jealousy, sle pulls back tle covers and now per- forms tle castration we lave been anticipating and dreading all along. Tougl sle does it witl love, it is a brutal plysical act. In close-up, we see ler rst slice o lis engorged penis, tlen, tlis time witlout our see- ing tle cutting, lis testicles. Tese bloodied objects drop on tle mat be- side Kiclis body. A nal overlead slot reveals tle nal tableau: Kiclis 91: In the Realm of the Senses, Sada/Kichi. Two of us together :o hard-core eroticism supine, naked, castrated body witl Sada in kimono alongside lim. On lis body, written in blood, are tle words SadaiKicli. Two of us togetler (gure ,). Suddenly an abrupt male voice-over announces: For four days, carrying tle part sle lad severed from lis body, Sada wandered tlrougl Tokyo. Tose arresting ler were astounded tlat sle glowed witl lappi- ness. Te compassion of tle people made ler strangely popular. Tese events lappened in ,6. Te lm was widely reviewed. Some critics maintained tley were bored, otlers were outraged, and some were entlralled. But almost all oered at least grudging admiration for tle lms formal beauty and tle perfor- mances of its primary claracters, tle roman poruno actress Matsuda Eiko as Sada and tle legitimate lm actor Fuki Tatsuya as Kicli. Many re- viewers immediately saw resemblances or dierences witl tle mad-love tleme of Last Tango andior iconic resemblances or dierences witl Deep Troat and its progeny. In laudable, but I tlink misguided, eorts to defend tle lm, more tlan one critic insisted, contra Oslimas own assertions, tlat it was not pornograply because it did not solicit tle arousal of its spectators. )oan Mellen and Rutl McCormick, botl insigltful close readers of tle lm, in- sisted tlat it did not seek to arouse. McCormick writes, for example, tlat it is puried of any lint of tle exlibitionism, objectication of its West- ern counterparts. Mellen similarly asserts tlat it permits little vicarious arousal by a spectator. Te participants lave earned tle riglt to sexual bliss, tle audience is led to reect on low and at wlat cost tley lave aclieved tlis perfect sexual expression and is not meant to join in. I lave been arguing, to tle contrary, tlat In the Realm of the Senses oers a fascinating amalgam of )apanese and Western pornograply and tlat neitler of tlese traditions is free of wlat critics and legal sclolars like to call prurience: both seek to arouse. Te Eastern inuence is not purer because it is more artful. Shunga woodprints were well known as sexual aids and stimulants. Some, sucl as tle example reproduced lere from Koryusai Isoda, even slow couples consulting shunga books wlile en- gaged in sex (gure ,:). I lave not argued tlat Oslimas lm descends in a direct line from shunga. My point, ratler, las been tlat tlis lm borrows elements of tlat tradition in conjunction witl tlose of tle West. We do Oslima an injustice if we tlink of lis art as puried and of tle lmmaker limself as one wlo wants only to make us tlink. To do so is to deny tle obvious ability of tlis most luslly sensual of lms to move uswletler to arousal or to lorried revulsion. Mellens attempt to argue, for example, tlat frequent reframings to ligl angles distance and remove us from tle hard-core eroticism : action, almost willfully ignores tle many otler in-your-face close-ups close-ups of penis (attacled and otlerwise), vagina, and moutl, and tle fact, as we lave seen, tlat sucl close-ups also existed in shunga. Te lm tlus botl aords distance and brings us exceedingly close to objects of desire and terror. Castration is typically viewed as a recognition of lack. Te entire edice of Lacanian psycloanalysis is grounded on tlis concept of tle tlreatened loss of tle penis as tle foundation of luman subjectivityfor botl males and females. In tlis lm, lowever, castration is imagined from tle otler side: not as tle loss to tle male but as tle incorporation of tle fetislized love object into tle narcissistic self of tle woman, as gain, in otler words, not loss. Sada glows witl lappiness. And ler lappiness depends on a breaking down of boundaries between ego and world, it is wlat Bersani calls a psyclic slattering of pleasurable and nonpleasurable and wlat Bataille calls sexual pletlora. Rarely does one experience so powerful a gender-bifurcated response as tlat wlicl occurs in tle public screenings of tlis lm. All audiences gasp at tle severing of Kiclis organs, but tlere can be no doubt tlat men gasp more, even clutcling at tleir groins, perlaps incorporating into tleir bodies tle pain tlat tle dead Kicli would feel were le sentient. Tey 92: Isoda Koryusai, ca. 17701775. From Marco Fagioli, Shunga: The Erotic Art of Japan (1998) :: hard-core eroticism may also feel tlat tle rug of tle pornograplic expectation of pleasure las been pulled out from under tlem in tlis nal act. However, tlis rug las not been pulled out unfairly: tle ending las been carefully prepared from tle very beginning, and viewers familiar witl classics of literary eroticism may not be surprised by Sadas nal act. Wlat las not been prepared for in Senses is any generic cultural ex- pectation by a public lm audience of tle kind of extreme slift between lard-core depictions of pleasure and special-eects depictions of vio- lence. Neitler tle tradition of a Western moving-image pornograply in- uenced by scientia sexualis nor tlat of a visual ars erotica prepares a so- cial audience sitting in a tleater for tle violence of tle lms end. Western audiences are so used to moving-image pornograply in tle mode of plea- surable disclarge tlat In the Realm of the Senses disturbs by tle simple fact of mixing (lard-core, unsimulated) sex witl (simulated) violence. Te slift to tle special eects of violence is jarring and deeply disturbing pre- cisely because moving-image pornograply draws us into a belief in tle lard-core reality of tle bodies and organs it presents. Te violence of tlis ending is tlus mucl more wrencling tlan tle usual acts of maylem of lms of action and violence. Susan Sontag, in an essay about Frencl literary pornograply, las clal- lenged tle common notion espoused by many sexual liberals tlat sexu- ality is simply a natural, pleasant function. Tis idea tlat sexuality is natural usually invokes tle counteridea tlat obscenity is tlen a ction imposed upon naturea ction imposed by a society convinced tlere is sometling vile about sexual functions. Oslima limself, as we lave seen, expressed mucl tle same idea wlen le argued tlat obscenity miglt dis- appear along witl tle taboos against it if only pornograplic cinema were autlorized. Sontag argues, in contrast, tlat tle great pornograplers, from Sade tlrougl Bataille and tle autlors of Story of O and Te Image, reveal sexuality as an obscenity, as a primal notion of luman conscious- ness, sometling more profound tlan a sick societys aversion to tle natural body. Obscenity, sle asserts, belongs among tle extreme ratler tlan tle ordinary experiences of lumanity. It is one of tle demonic forces in luman consciousnesspusling us at intervals close to taboo and dangerous desires, wlicl range from tle impulse to commit sudden arbitrary violence upon anotler person to tle voluptuous yearning for tle extinction of ones consciousness, for deatl itself.' Of course Sontag was writing about ligl art literary pornograply, not lm. It las long been sometling of an axiom in tlinking about lmic ob- scenity tlat wlile it miglt be desirable to break tle taboos against rep- hard-core eroticism : resenting bodies, organs, and intercourse in literature or art, tle inler- ently graplic nature of moving-image media lends tle literal display of real bodies, organs, and intercourse a coarseness exemplied by Fredric )amesons condemnation of tle visual itself as a pornograplic form of rapt, mindless fascination. Indeed, tle received opinion about lm las long been tlat its inlerently graplic nature makes its pornograply neces- sarily crass and mindless. Certainly a lot of it is. And certainly wlat Sade, Bataille, and Pauline Rage did witl words can be more disturbing wlen real bodies act out tle extreme . . . experiences of lumanity. However, wlat miglt be called our cinematic imagination of obscenity las been terribly circumscribed by certain received opinionsopinions about sex, opinions about tle realism, as opposed to tle fantasy, of movies, opinions about tle nature of tle obscene itself. Wlen Oslima decided to make a pornograplic lmnot an average lm, [but] a pornograplic lm all tle way, le became tle intrepid and solitary pioneer of a kind of lard-core art into wlicl only a very few avant-garde lmmakers lad previously ventured. No narrative lm besides In the Realm of the Senses lad ever come close to tle literary tradition of lard-core eroticism. )ust as it las been important to recognize pornograply as a genre of plea- sure among otler lm genres, so it is equally important to recognize tle mucl more raried aclievement of tlis exceptional example of lard-core eroticism operating beyond tle pleasure principle. We slall see in clap- ter ; low tlis singular lm would point tle way, two decades later, to tle contemporary explorations of new forms of lard-core art by lmmakers like Catlerine Breillat, Patrice Clreau, Miclael Winterbottom, Lars von Trier, and otlers. To all of tlese younger directors Oslimas lm would serve as tle crucial benclmark. Understanding lard-core lm art is not a matter of parsing good sex from bad, or determining wlicl graplic sexual representations lave gone too far. Nor is it a matter of invoking tle old clestnut about tle pitfalls of leaving notling to tle imagination. Ratler, as we lave begun to see in tlis clapter and will furtler explore in a later one, tlere are many possible ways of getting graplic as movies open up tle question of tle imagination of sex beyond tle familiar formulas of soft and lard. A love story using tle metaplor of tle mortal bullglt tle way Last Tango uses tle metaplor of tle tango, In the Realm of the Senses explores mucl Coda: Last Tango in Tokyo :( hard-core eroticism of tle same territory of Bataillian eroticism as tle meeting place of sex and deatl as Bertoluccis lm. Civen tle fact tlat Bertoluccis ,;: work launcled tle utopian dream of an X-rated art lm tlat Oslimas ,;6 creation was tle rst to realize in a truly lard-core faslion, a conclud- ing comparison of tlese two landmark X-rated lms seems important. Botl lms are about an older man and a younger woman wlo cut tlem- selves o from tle social conventions of an outside world to engage in an obsessive amour fou. Tougl Brandos Paul tells Sclneiders )eanne tlat sle must go riglt up into tle ass of deatl to discover tle womb of fear, )eanne is never Pauls collaborator in tle exploration of love-deatl. Instead, sle simply becomes an uncomprelending instrument of lis deatl. Te lessons of love and deatlwlat Kael called a jabbing, tlrust- ing eroticismall ow in one direction, from tle man to tle woman and in correspondence witl male timing. At tle moment in wlicl tle power slifts between tle twotle moment at wlicl )eanne miglt lave come into ler own as an actual sexual subjecttle relationslip breaks o. Wlen Paul tries to resume it, it is already too late. Wlere tle derisive tango tlat )eanne and Paul dance at tle end of tlat lm symbolizes tle end of passion, tle bullglt in wlicl Sada and Kicli engage is a two- way street, it permits tlem to escape tleir times and to celebrate, tlrougl deatl and dismemberment, tle psyclic slattering of love. Bertoluccis lm botl benets and suers from tle presence of its great male star. Wlile Brandos performance brouglt an undeniable complexity and vulnerable sexual energy to tle role, lis very stardom prevented tle lm from delivering on tle premise of tle dynamism of tle sexual relation between )eanne and Paul, leaving Sclneiders naked )eanne and Brandos clotled Paul unequally exposed. In tle end, tle overpowering presence of tle male star unbalances tle picture, leaving )eanne, tle woman wlo kills, a mere villain, witl no real sympatly witl lis erotic quest. In contrast, as botl claracters and performers, Fuji Tatsuyo and Matsuda Eiko go tle distance and defy convention. Tus wlere Bertoluccis eroticism falters in tle end and turns rancid, exposing Pauls conventionality, Oslimas succeeds in escaping, tlrougl a violent deatl tlat is also love, an even bleaker world of mounting war and fascism. Te deatl Kicli embraces is slocking but beautiful in tle way of wlat Andr Breton once called convulsive beauty. By tle time )eanne kills Paul in Last Tango, tle realm of tle senses tley lad inlabited in tleir furnitureless apartment las entirely dissipated. Te cold violence of tlis murder is love turned to late, wlile Sadas strangulation and emas- hard-core eroticism :, culation of Kicli can be recognized as acts of love. Te point is not to contrast tle failure of mad love in tle decadent West to its success in tle East. Ratler, it is to recognize tle boldness of Oslimas lard-core erotic vision and tle model it would provide for a new generation of eroticists to be explored in a later clapter. Dont you fucking look at me! frank booth in Blue Velvet (1986) What the fuck are you looking at? enni s del mar in Brokeback Mountain (2005) 6 primal scenes on American screens (,86:oo,) In tle last tlird of Pedro Almodvars :oo: lm, Talk to Her (Hable con ella), we are presented witl a clarming seven- minute, black-and-wlite silent lm. Benigno ()avier C- mara), an eeminate male nurse working tle niglt slift, de- scribes tlis silent lm to lis comatose patient, Alicia (Leonor Watling), wlile giving ler naked body one of its regular massages. Benigno adores lis patient despite tle fact tlat doctors say sle is brain dead. As le relates tle story of tle lm, called Te Shrinking Lover, we see it on tle screen: A sligltly overweiglt man, Alfredo, watcles lis scientist girl- friend, Amparo, concoct a diet formula tlat le impulsively drinks. Soon after, wlile kissing Amparo, Alfredo slrinks sligltly. He continues to slrink for tle rest of tle slort lm, until le is no larger, as tle lm sclolar Marsla Kinder puts it, tlan a fetus or a tampon.' Failing to nd tle antidote for Alfredos slrinking, Amparo can only care for lim as if le were a tiny clild. In bed one niglt, a Tom Tumbsized primal scenes on American screens :; Alfredo makes tle Herculean eort of pulling tle sleet o of Amparos naked, sleeping body. He roams over its contours, climbs up and tlen rolls down tle lill of a breast, descends tle lengtl of ler body to tle genitals, and jumps down to tle V formed by ler parted legs. Tere le faces a patently fake, giant vagina witl curly, plastic-looking lair. He tentatively inserts an arm into tle dark cavity, tlen briey lis entire torso, and comes back out for air, slaken (gure ,). Taking a nal resolution, le turns to face tle vaginal opening, removes lis slorts and plunges naked into it. Soon only lis feet protrude, tlen notling. We see Amparos face register eeting pleasure and Benignos voice-over concludes tlat tle lms lero stayed inside ler forever. Witl tlis silent lm-witlin-a-lm Almodvar reveals tle two major taboos of tle contemporary art cinema tlat lad already been clallenged by Oslima Nagisas In the Realm of the Senses (,;6) and tlat would be more directly clallenged toward tle end of tle century by tle lard-core art lm: an erect penis (impersonated by Alfredo limself ) and an exposed vagina (tle giant anatomically correct but patently fake labia, lair, and cavity tlat tle famously gay Almodvar must lave lad a lot of fun con- structing). Of course, Almodvars clever circumnavigation of tle rules for tle display of sex only proves tleir power, especially wlen we learn tlat tle comically obscene episode in a silent lm recounted by Benigno serves as a screen for tle mucl less benign act it conceals: Benignos actual rape of tle comatose Alicia. Later in tle lm we will learn tlat tle lalf- mad and inappropriately named Benigno impregnated lis patient tlis very niglt. Te poignant insertion of Alfredos body into lis lovers vagina lad tlus concealed for us, and perlaps for Benigno limself, tle actually coercive nature of tle act. Tis silent lm is tlus a screen in tle precise 93: Talk to Her (dir. Pedro Almodvar, 2002), Alfredo plunges into the giant vagina :8 primal scenes on American screens sense I lave been using tlis word tlrouglout tlis book: it botl reveals in explicit detail a plallic act of vaginal penetration wlile also screening out tle violent and graplic coercion of rape tlat lies belind it. Wlen I rst saw Talk to Her I lad already left tle tleater by tle time I realized tlat tle lm lad loodwinked me into feeling sympatly for a rapistinto experiencing lis act as le lad deluded limself to experience it: as love, sacrice, and a disappearing merger witl tle body of lis be- loved ratler tlan sexual violation of an unconscious woman. As I laugled at tle outlandislness of tle fake vagina and tle old-faslioned silent lm acting, and at low tle little man was a kind of surrogate penis swallowed up by lis loves giant vagina, I was maneuvered into keeping sympatly witl tlis most endearing of Almodvarian protagonists. To tlis day, I am not quite sure low to react to tle scene. Feminist consciousness las tauglt me to ablor wlat Carol Clover calls tle old style rape lms tlat invited tle viewer to adopt tle rapists point of view and tlat often slow tle woman lying back and enjoying it. Almodvars portrayal of rape, to tle contrary, does ask me, insidiously, witlout my even quite knowing it, to adopt a rapists point of view. Only later, as Alicia becomes pregnant and tle evidence points to Benigno, do I realize wlat las transpired. Yet by tle end of tle lm, I weep at tlis rapists graveside riglt along witl lis friend. Even more audaciously, tle lm goes so far as to portray tle rape as laving been a cure: tle impreg- nation awakens Alicia from ler coma, like a sleeping beauty. Almodvars clallenge to political correctness in tlis screened-out scene of rape is typical of tle kind of perverse provocation discovered in many European art lms since tle eiglties. Rape is, in fact, a frequent act in Almodvars lms. His rst feature (Pepi, Luci, Bom, and Other Girls on the Heap [Pepi, Luci, Bom, y otras chicas del montn], ,8o) depicted tle rape of a virgin wlo souglt revenge on ler rapist not because sle regret- ted tle loss of innocence, but for purely pecuniary reasons: le deprived ler of tle prots sle would lave otlerwise reaped selling ler virginity lerself. Almodvars ,86 lm Matador also features a rapetlis time a failed one. It tells tle story of a repressed, liglly religious young man, Angel (Antonio Banderas), studying to be a bullglter. To prove lis manlood to lis ex-matador teacler, Diego, le attempts to rape Diegos girlfriend. Perverse Provocations of the Peek-a-boo primal scenes on American screens :, Angel wants to be guilty of sexual crimes (rape and murder) to prove lis masculinity against tle suspicion of lomosexuality, but le comically fails in lis attempt. Pulling a Swiss army knife on tle woman, le accidentally draws out tle corkscrew. Wlen le begins to go to tle family priest to confess lis would-be sin, le initially walks toward tle confessional, but instead of confession to tle priest, tle next slot slows lim in tle police station confessing to tle law. Te detective, limself coded gay, assumes tlat it is Angel wlo las been raped but indulgently invites lim, witl not a little prurient interest, to tell me low you did it. He tlus incites Angels furtler confession to all manner of invented sexual crimes. Angels confessions in quick succession to tle priest, tle police, and a tlerapist, eacl of wlom takes a prurient interest in lis (ultimately bogus) crimes, are almost a textbook illustration of Miclel Foucaults assertion of tle role of confession in constructing tle trutl of sex. Te confession, Foucault argues, las long been a key teclnique of Western cultures quest for tle trutl of sex. But as confession moved from tle confessional to tle analysts coucl, it was no longer a question of saying wlat was donetle sexual actand low it was done, but of reconstructing, in and around tle act, tle tlouglts tlat recapitulated it, tle obsessions tlat accompa- nied it, tle images, desires, modulations and quality of tle pleasure tlat animated it. For tle rst time no doubt, a society las taken upon itself to solicit and lear tle imparting of individual pleasures. Confession tlus becomes not simply tle unburdening of guilt, it becomes an incitement to speak sex, to make it tle motive force of our lives. Tougl Foucault refers especially to tle great period of tle formation of a confessional science tlat took for its object wlat was unmentionable but admitted to nonetleless, le could equally be talking about Almodvars lm. Matador oers a knowing parable of Foucaults description of tle role of confession in tle implantation of perversions. Te aptly named Angel las committed no crime, but tlrougl confession, wlen faced witl police pictures of sadomasoclistic murders, le cannot distinguisl between lis own actions and desires and tlose of otlers. Wlat le confesses to, in fact, are tle sexual crimes of Diego, lis teacler, wlo las taken up raping and killing women after retiring from tle ring and losing tle opportunity to kill bulls. Teacling lis bullglting students, Diego explains wlat we later under- stand to be an account of tle link between lis sadistic pleasure as a mata- dor and as a lover. Clicks are like bulls, le explains, you just lave to lem tlem in. Cradually we learn tlat Diego is a sadist wlo nds lis sexual tlrill in killing female victims. But in tle lms opening sequence ::o primal scenes on American screens tle simplicity of tlis male voyeur-rapist-killer scenario is complicated by tle presence of a female gure wlo is also a sadist, sle lures men to tleir deatl and stabs tlem witl a long lairpin. Witl tle introduction of tlis second protagonist, Maria, tle usual binary of tle active, mas- culine voyeur-sadist wlo unleasles aggression on a passive, feminine exlibitionist-masoclist is complicated. We are asked to look more deeply into tle nature of tle matadors art. A matador, we soon learn, does not simply lem in a bull and kill lim. Ratler, le must seduce tle bull into clarging at lim, le must rst open limself up to tle bull as a target to tlen be able to kill it. Tis more complicated seduction-aggression and masoclism-sadism is wlat tle lm gives us in tle opening scene. Maria seduces an anony- mous man. Sle leads lim up a iglt of stairs, pulls on lis belt, bites lim playfully, and mounts lim. We could say tlat le penetrates ler, but ler gestures are tle more active in tlis simulated sex scene. And if sle opens lerself up to penetration by lim, it is only to penetrate lim eventually witl a long and letlal lairpin. Sle exults over lis expiring body, nally dead as a bull. In tlis scene tle woman (chick is entirely tle wrong word!) is tle matador and tle man tle bull. Diego was tlerefore wrong: clicks are not like bulls, and in Maria le meets lis matcl. In tle sadomasoclistic scenario it is not easy to assign xed gender roles. Indeed, we miglt tlus say tlat some clicks are like matadors, and tlat some matadors are like clickstley nd tleir des- tiny in being gored. Diego, for example, is acting out a perverse repetition compulsion: lis desire is only partly to plallically penetrate, it is, more important, to be gored again, tlis time fatally, by a feminized bull. Tis is exactly wlat lappens wlen, during a tryst timed to coincide witl a solar eclipse, Maria and Diego nally lave tleir Duel in tle Sun in a sadomasoclistic love-deatl. Diego dresses in lis bullglter regalia, and Maria, wlo las fetislized tlis regalia ever since sle rst saw lim gored, spreads out lis cape and sprinkles rose petals before a ickering re. Soon sle is on ler back seminaked before tle re. In an over-tle-top staging of a letlal sexual fantasy, Diego ligltly strokes ler pubis witl a rose between lis teetl and works lis way up to ler erect nipples, wlile tle bolero Es- pera me in cielo is sung on tle soundtrack. Till now I lave always made love alone, says Maria. I love you more tlan my own deatl! Would you like to see me dead: Yes, replies Diego, and Id like you to see me dead. Easier said tlan done, lowever. Almodvar plays tlis scene of love-deatl mucl tle way Luis Buuel and Salvador Dal staged a similar scene in tle primal scenes on American screens :: avant-garde L age dor (Te Age of Gold, ,o)tlat is, botl seriously and as tle leiglt of ludicrousness, taking seriously tle very funny problem of low two matadors are to simultaneously kill and be killed by one an- otler. In tle end, it is not possible. Facing one anotler, tley ecstatically fuck, eacl witl a lairpin in land. Maria uses lers rst in tle back of Diegos neck and, as witl ler previous victims, nds lerself mounted on a dead man. Look at me dying! sle enjoins, but Diego, wlom sle must now lold up, is past looking. Sle puts a gun in ler moutl and sloots. But Diego cannot see. Wlen Angel and tle police arrive (guided tlere by Angels telepatlic ability to see tlese scenes of violence as if tley were lappening to lim), tley discover a beautiful tableau of tle entwined, and dead, couple. Te gay detective pronounces Ive never seen anyone so lappy. Te perversions catalogued in tlis lm are encyclopedic: voyeurism, fetislism, sadistic murder, and masoclistic submission to deatl, not to mention necroplilia. By comparison, Angels (failed) aspiration to rape seems strikingly normal. Te sex in Matador irts witl often politically incorrect manifestations of power and violence in sex. Indeed, tle lall- mark of soplisticated adult sexual representations in Western cinema since tle eiglties las just as often been a irtation witl tle taboo of vio- lence in sex ratler tlan witl tle taboo of explicit sex itself. But lere we encounter an important dierence between tle eiglties and tle seventies. Wlere a director like Almodvar can make lms tlat oer a compendium of perversions, and wlile tle oniscenity of tlese perversions proves cen- tral to lis work, lis diverse sexual representations are not viewed, as tley miglt lave been viewed in tle sixties or seventies, as liberations of for- merly repressed sexual minorities. Tis is a major dierence between tle generation today working in tle realm of tle senses and tlat of Oslima or Bernardo Bertolucci. Almodvar is not likely to believe tlat tle mere expression of diverse sexual predilections will be automatically liberatory. Indeed, since tle eiglties art lm directors face tle mucl more dicult task of representing sex beyond tle older dynamic of repression and re- leasebeyond tle language of revolution witl wlicl it lad so long been associated. Here, too, lies a major dierence between tle European and tle Ameri- can understanding of sex and sexual violence. Almodvars compendium of perversions is rendered witl a liglt toucl and a soplisticated sensibility even wlen dealing witl a couple wlose folie deux consists of mutual de- struction. He is, after all, tle successor to Buuel. However, wlen Ameri- ::: primal scenes on American screens can cinema begins to engage witl provocatively perverse material, it las no similarly liglt tone, except in tle mode of outriglt comedy, wlicl rarely takes sex acts seriously. Indeed, if tle American lms discussed in tlis clapter are perverse, and if tley capture sometling important of wlat Antlony Ciddens las called tle transformation of intimacy of tle contemporary postsexual revolution era, tley do so in decidedly Ameri- can and melodramatic ways.' Te American way, I will argue, does not so mucl play witl sexual representations as treat tlem as crucial primal scenestraumatic rst witnessings of obscure forms of sexual pleasure tlat miglt not initially be understood as pleasure, indeed, tlat lave previ- ously been understood as pain. Wlile tlere is no doubt tlat tlis sexuality las tle qualities of plasticity and malleability of a modern sexuality cut loose from tle requirements of reproduction and kinslipif it can be sadomasoclistic, on tle one land, and queer, on tle otlerit is not also soplisticated and playful in tle manner of tle cosmopolitan Almodvar. It tlus seems important tlat in tle two lms wlicl I oer as case studies of tle American cinemas ,8os and beyond implantation of perversions, tlis implantation takes place not in tle metropolis but in tle American leartland. It will take place in a picture-perfect Nortlwestern small town in David Lyncls Blue Velvet (,86) and in tle iconic wilderness of tle West in Ang Lees Brokeback Mountain (:oo,). In ,86, tle same year tlat Matador lit tle screens, American cinema lad not yet assimilated sadomasoclistic, violent sex into its repertoire of sex acts. Sadomasoclist sex in ,86 was as new and traumatic to compara- tively innocent American viewers in mainstream cinema as anal sex be- tween men would be in :oo,. Of course I do not mean to say tlat in an era tlat corresponds witl tle remarkable proliferation of video and ivi por- nograplies oniscene tlat sir or anal sex between men was unknown or unrepresented. Anyone wlo paid attention to foreign lm or to lard-core pornograplyor even to a zeitgeist in wlicl gays, transgendered people, sadomasoclists, and otlers formerly deemed patlological assumed tleir place as proud sexual identitieswould certainly lave been aware of tle existence of subcultures celebrating all of tlese sexual practices and in mucl more explicit forms tlan in tlese two R-rated lms. But despite tleir careful avoidance of any direct view of organs and orices, tle sexual scenes depicted in Blue Velvet and Brokeback Mountain lad a particularly dramatic impact on audiences wlo seemed to lave no familiarity witl screening perverse sex, especially sex acts enacted by mainstream stars and on big screens. I tlus want to argue tlat tlese two lms, more tlan primal scenes on American screens :: any otlers belonging to tle R-rated mainstream, lave constituted crucial turning points in tle American lm audiences own witnessing traumatic sex acts. David Lyncl is tle only American art lm director contemporaneous witl, and as provocatively perverse as, Pedro Almodvar. Like Almodvar Lyncl is a famously weird director witl a cult status, but one wlo makes mainstream, studio lms witl major stars. Botl lave lad long careers tlat lave consistently managed to operate on tle edge of sexual taboo. Also like Almodvar, Lyncls sex scenes are audacious, less for tleir explicit- ness tlan for tle unsettling feelings tley generate. If, as I lave argued, Last Tango in Paris brouglt violent, perverse sex at least partway lome to American audiences tlrougl tle mature body of tle quintessentially American Marlon Brando, tlen Lyncls Blue Velvet brouglt it even fur- tler lome to tle mytlical center of tle American leartland, in tlis case tle quintessential small American town of Lumberton. Tougl tlis nortl western town was meant to be contemporary, it iconograplically consti- tuted a tlrowback to tle ftieswitl wlite picket fences, stay-at-lome moms, and a dangerous wrong-side-of-tle-tracks neiglborlood called Lincoln Street reminiscent of American lm noir. Te lm provoked audi- ences witl a surplus of wlat ). Hoberman called psyclosexual energy.'' But instead of locating tlat energy in a mature man and lis aair witl a younger adult woman, Blue Velvet locates it in tle more juvenile body of a postadolescent played by tle soon-to-be-iconic Kyle MacLacllan and in lis aair witl an older woman played by tle equally iconic vaguely foreign Isabella Rossellini. Wlat is perlaps most unsettling about Blue Velvet is low its innocent adolescent male lero feels sullied and slamed by lis inquiry into tle mysteries of adult sexuality. Teacling tlis lm recently, I lave discovered small but signicant numbers of students, now in tleir mid-twenties, wlo vividly recall seeing tlis lm not at tle movies, but at lome on video in tle early nineties. Ratler like tle claracter of )erey in tle lm, tlese tlen adolescents, and even some pre-adolescents, were sneaking a forbidden look at enigmatic adult sexual belaviors wlose violence was botl con- fusing and disturbing. Tese illicit lome screenings point to a new way in wlicl lm was becoming an occasion for a new kind of primal scene.' Primal Scene 1: Blue Velvet ::( primal scenes on American screens Contemporary reviews of tle lm also point to tle fact tlat Blue Velvet was a key coming-of-age lm for tle generation of tle late eiglties and early ninetiesa generation just as likely to see a lm on tle small lome screen as at tle movies.' Im seeing sometling tlat was always lidden, says )erey Beaumont in Blue Velvet. So was tle American audience, especially its young members. Wlat tley saw, I want to argue, amounted to an American primal scene in wlicl a dark and nasty side of sex, a side long screened out of American movies, erupted into consciousness as tle innocuous lyrics of a fties love song about a girls dress were trans- formedin a way tlat only Lyncl could dointo a sinister fetisl.' To tle extent tlat tle young viewers of tlis lm were too young for tle lms R-rated, adult content, tleir screening made tlem vulnerable to a perverse sex tley were not prepared to witness. But as I lave been ar- guing tlrouglout tlis book, forms of carnal knowledgewletler in tle life of tle individual or in tle American listory of screening sexnever arrive at precisely tle riglt time. Tey are forms of knowledge tlat cannot exist apart from fantasy. As tle psycloanalysts )ean Laplancle and ). B. Pontalis put it, luman sexuality is a privileged battleeld between botl too mucl and too little excitation, botl too early and too late occurrence of tle event.' Nor, as tlese interpreters of Sigmund Freud note, do we precisely know from wlere tlis sexuality comesfrom wlat tley call tle clilds own internal sexual upsurgings,' or from tle external excitations and seductions of an adult (or, in tlis case, a grown-up movie witl sur- prisingly infantile sexual content). Te special fascination of Blue Velvet is to lave dramatically staged tlis very question in a prolonged sex scene botl participated in and witnessed by tle lms young lero. Young )erey abruptly returns lome from college after lis fatlers sud- den collapse at tle lms beginning. Wlile morosely walking tlrougl a eld, le nds a severed ear, takes it to tle police, and soon nds limself cauglt up in tle mystery of wlat lappened to its owner. Tat initial mys- tery leads lim to furtler sexual mysteries connected to Dorotly Valens (Isabella Rossellini), tle wife of tle man wlose ear las been severed. )erey concocts a plan to sneak into Dorotlys apartment, ostensibly to learn about tle mystery of tle ear and tle foul play done to ler lusband, wlo is being leld lostage. Wlen sle unexpectedly arrives lome, le must secrete limself in ler closet, from wlicl le observes wlat can only be described as a primal scene. )ereys plan to sneak in, lide, and observe makes no logical sense in a mystery story slort on explanatory plot. But considered psyclosexually it makes perfect sense. As Miclael Atkinson primal scenes on American screens ::, notes, Its as if les looking for a primal scene, to see lis parents enact tle forbidden ritual of sex.' In analyzing lis patients dreams and fantasies, Freud at rst believed le lad uncovered memories of tleir actual seductions by adults. For a wlile tlis seduction tleory served as Freuds best explanation for low sexual desire was introduced to tle clild: innocent clildren seduced into sexuality by perverse adults. Later, lowever, Freud doubted tle veracity of tlese remembered scenes of seduction and developed tle tleory of primal fantasies tlat belonged instead to memory traces inlerited from a mytlical prelistory. In tlis tleory, sexuality was a kind of unconscious psyclic inleritance. Tese primal fantasies included tlree dierent kinds of scenes: tle primal scene propertle fantasy of tle clild watcling parental coitus, tle scene of seductiontle fantasy of tle clilds seduction by a parent (usually tle son by tle motler), and tle scene of tle tlreat of castration (usually tle classically oedipal tlreat to tle son by tle fatler). At rst Freud tlouglt tlat lis patients lad actually witnessed, or been subjected to, tlese scenes. But more often, as lis tlouglt developed, le was inclined to tlink of tlem somewlat outlandislly as a kind of prelistoric plylo- genetic trutl (tle individuals ontologenic memory of tle species) tlat underlay psyclic reality. Te psycloanalysts Laplancle and Pontalis, unlappy witl tle unscien- tic nature of tle idea of plylogenetic memory traces, adapted Freuds tleory in a ,6( article to understand tle primal fantasies as fantasies of origin tlat, like mytls, appear to explain tle basic enigmas of existence. For example, instead of viewing tle primal scene as an arclaic memory, tley saw tle imagined or real scene of sexual intercourse between tle parents wlicl tle clild observes as part of tle clilds own mytlic expla- nation of tle mystery of lis or ler existence.' Key to tlis observation is tlat tle clild interprets tle act of pleasure as an act of violence, usually by tle fatler on tle motler. Te primal scene can tlus be said to mytlically explain tle enigma of tle origin of tle selfessentially low babies are made, tle scene of seduction can tlen be said to explain tle enigma of sexual desire, and tle scene of castration can explain tle enigma of sexual dierence.' To witness a primal scene, or for tlat matter to screen a lm like Blue Velvet at too young an age, does not mean tlat one will be damaged for life and tlen, as in tle case of Freuds most famous patient, lave a dream of wlite wolves percled on a tree. Belind tlis dream by tle patient ::6 primal scenes on American screens called Wolf Man Freud located a primal scene of parental sex a tergo more ferarum (from belind, like animals), wlicl triggered tle nigltmare and tle subsequent symptoms of extreme constipation and an inability to lave sex witl women except from belind.' But it is far too simple to consider tle primal scene itself as tle cause of tle patients troubles. Ratler, tle primal scene proper is by denition a witnessing of sex from a time before tle understanding of sex is possible. It is tlus never clear wletler it is an actual witnessing tlat is recollected, or a constructed fan- tasy. Te Wolf Man limself, wlo in lis later years lad a great deal to say about lis own analysis, believed tlat lis real problem was not tle trauma of laving witnessed a primal scene, but ratler an incestuous seduction by lis sister. As Sam Islii-Conzales points out in an interesting essay on Lyncls Blue Velvet, It is not tle actual observation of tle primal scene at one and a lalf years wlicl caused tle disturbances in tle Wolf Man, but sometling else tlat triggers a recurring nigltmare. Te dream endows tle primal scene witl its newly discovered traumatic meaning (no longer just tlat daddy may be lurting mommy, but tle wlole, more recently ac- quired, awareness of seduction and castration). In tlis case, tlen, all tle originary fantasies come into play. Freud sees tle stillness and attentive gaze of tle wolves as attributes of tle dreamer limselflow tle dream- ing boy sees limself watcling tle primal scene. It is a scene of passive, immobile fascination (mucl like )erey in tle closet, also like audiences in tle tleater). By tle age of four, tlen, tle Wolf Man las already experi- enced botl tle fears of castration and a sucient pleasure of seduction to understand, retroactively, tlat tle spectacle le (may lave) witnessed was an act of pleasurenot tle act of violence le originally tlouglt it to be. According to tlese examples, it is not possible to know from wlere tle knowledge of sex comes, nor precisely wlen it comes. It is too early at tle time of tle witnessing of tle event, and it is too late at tle time of tle dream. Can it be said to come from tle parents wlo enact tle violent primal scene or wlo seduce tle clild or tlreaten castration, or is it tle dream, fantasy, or daydream of tle clild: Te answer is always undecid- able, but tle point is tlat tle origin of desire is tle enigma around wlicl our Blue Velvet examples circle. Blue Velvets set piece is a twenty-minute scene tlat begins witl young )erey in tle closet spying on Dorotly, tle clanteuse. Dorotly pulls lim out of tle closet, tlreatens castration witl a knife, and tlen begins to seduce lim. Wlen ler lusbands captor, Frank Bootl (Dennis Hopper), arrives, )erey is sent back into tle closet to lide. From tlere le will ob- serve tle grown-up perversionsnot coitus a tergo, but sadomasoclistic primal scenes on American screens ::; violence and fetislism of tle two claracters wlo will increasingly function as lis perverse parental surrogates. In one tour de force scene Lyncls lm tlus stages all tlree of tle primal fantasies in quick succession. At rst, lowever, it would seem tlat )erey is just anotler voyeur liding in a womans closetone witl convenient louvers for spying (gure ,(). His motives at tlis point are torn between tle desire to learn more of tle mysteries of adult sex and a contradictory clivalry tlat wants to save Dorotly. He rst watcles Dorotly speak on tle plone to ler impris- oned lusband and clild, le tlen watcles ler undress down to ler black panties and bra. But tlis revelation is not presented as a typical striptease. Te liglt is not attering, Dorotly stands stiy at attention against a wall wlile speaking on tle plone, tle conversation reveals ler as a distrauglt motler and wife. Sle later tlrows lerself on tle oor to examine a frame lidden under a coucl and crawls on tle rug in an ungainly way. Wlen sle removes ler wig, and strides to tle batlroom down tle lall to nisl undressing, we, like )erey, lave tle slameful feeling of laving seen more tlan tle conventional titillation we bargained for (gure ,,). Soon, in an abrupt uctuation of mood typical of tlis entire scene, )erey inadvertently makes a noise and Dorotly lauls lim out of tle closet at knifepoint. Te vulnerable woman now becomes tle potential castrator of anotler primary fantasytle one tlat explains sexual dif- ference (gure ,6). Sle pricks )erey ligltly in tle cleek and peppers lim witl questions: Wlo are you: Wlat do you want: Do you always sneak into girls apartments to watcl tlem get undressed:to wlicl le can only answer, lamely but lonestly, I only wanted to see you. Still lolding tle knife, Dorotly now turns )erey into tle spectacle: Cet un- dressed. I want to see you. But just as soon as sle establisles ler knife- tlreatening dominance, sle slifts roles again to become tle seductress. As Islii-Conzales summarizes, )erey is lere confronted witl eacl of tle tlree primal fantasies, not in succession but in continual uctuation. )erey undresses down to a pair of cute red plaid boxers, and Dorotly orders lim to come closer. Wlere sle lad formerly stood over lim witl tle knife, sle now abandons tlis position of dominance to kneel before lim, ler face at precisely tle level of lis crotcl. )erey responds witl botl terror and fascination at tlis mercurial woman dressed in a blue velvet robe, still lolding a less and less tlreatening kitclen knife. Instead of more commands, Dorotly now asks anotler question, perlaps the question for a young man lurking in ler closet and perlaps for a wlole generation of too young viewers watcling tlis lm: Wlat do you want: I dont know, le wlispers, again lonestly. As if to slow lim wlat le miglt want, Blue Velvet (dir. David Lynch, 1986) 94: Jefrey hides in Dorothys closet 95: Jefreys closet point of view on the anguished Dorothy 96: Dorothy with knife primal scenes on American screens ::, Dorotly puts ler face close to lis abdomen and begins to pull down lis boxers to contemplate lis penis (gure ,;). At tlis pointtle point at wlicl a fantasy of castration as tle explana- tion of sexual dierence turns into a fantasy of maternal seduction as tle explanation of tle origin of sexualitywe do well to note tle discrepancy between wlat we are permitted to see of tlis spectacle and wlat Dorotly presumably sees. For tlis discrepancy marks tle limits between tle ac- ceptable R-rated lm tlat Blue Velvet occupies and tle sort of c-; or unrated lard-core art lm to be discussed in tle next clapter. Dorotlys seduction of )erey is precipitated by a concealed but strongly inferred act of fellatio. Wlat we actually see las subsequently become tle R-rated convention for tle depiction of tlis act: a slot of )ereys face looking ecstatic and anotler slot partially revealing an up-and-down movement of Dorotlys lead tlat is in tlis case mostly screened out by )ereys riglt Blue Velvet 97: What do you want? 98: Dorothy moves into position for fellatio :o primal scenes on American screens arm (gure ,8). Tougl everytling in tlis scene is designed to make us believe in tle presence of lis erection and tle action of Dorotlys moutl on it, its siglt is nevertleless scrupulously avoided. Moreover, as long as tle undressed )erey keeps on lis boxers, we are permitted to see lis smootl young body from tle front. But as soon as tle boxers come o, everytling is arranged so tlat we only see lim from tle waist up or from belind. Tis is tle modus operandi of tle R-rated lm: to lint at a view tlat is never seen. It is against tle backdrop of tle still-langing questionWlat do you want:tlat we slould consider tle following, prolonged depiction of tle primal scene. If we believe tlat )erey tells tle trutl wlen le says le does not know wlat le wants, and if we believe le also tells tle trutl wlen le says le just wants to see Dorotly, tlen wlat lappens next may be exactly wlat )erey does want: to be neitler tle passive object of ma- ternal castration nor tlat of maternal seduction but to return to tle closet and tle most passive role of all: tlat of tle clildlike observer of tle pri- mal scene of adult sex. From tlis position le can look at and lear tle sex witlout limself laving to enter into tle scene. At a knock on tle door from tle expected Franktle villain wlo lolds Dorotlys lusband and clild lostageDorotly orders )erey back into tle closet. From tlis vantage pointand in tle context of a lm tlat will keep nding ways to return )erey to tlis same closeta primal scene of violent adult sex is observed. Frank enters tle room in a t of anger. He is already primed to play out a preordained script of sadomasoclistic sex and ritual fetislism involv- ing blue velvet and tle inlalation of a mysterious gas intoxicant tlrougl a mask. Dorotlys role in tlis bewildering ritual is at one moment tlat of a motler wlo sootlingly calls lim baby, and at anotler tlat of a slut wlo calls lim daddy. Hello, baby, Dorotly begins. Slut up! Its daddy, you slitlead! corrects Frank. As in tle earlier slift from tle fantasy of castration to tlat of seduction, roles can clange rapidly. Frank sits on tle coucl witl a glass of bourbon and Dorotly places lerself in a clair opposite lim. Spread your legs. Wider! le orders, Now slow it to me. )ust as )ereys penis was visible only to Dorotly in tle previous scene, so now Dorotlys genitals are visible only to Frank, wlo constantly ad- monisles ler not to return lis gaze: Dont you fucking look at me! But )erey does look. Unlike Frank, le cannot see between ler legs, nor can we, since our point of view on tle scene, witl tle exception of a few close- ups of Dorotlys face, remains closely aligned witl )ereys. Wlat we do see is Frank. He places lis gas mask over lis face and moves to lis knees primal scenes on American screens : before Dorotlys spread legs wlile breatling noisily. Te female genitals tlat loomed so comically large in Talk to Her are lere, like tle penis in tle previous scene, concealed, yet tley are tle entire focus of Franks atten- tion (gure ,,). Tis siglt, from wlicl we and )erey are so rigorously excluded, elicits Franks abject regression to babylood. Mommy, mommy, mommy, le moans, and later, Baby wants blue velvet, a piece of wlicl Dorotly obe- diently places in lis moutl like a pacier. Yet tlis comforting fetisl also elicits a slift to a monstrously aggressive violence. Frank screams, Baby wants to fuck! He lits Dorotly and admonisles ler not to look at lim. He tlrows ler on tle oor and tlreatens ler witl noisily snipping scissors close to ler crotcl (again invoking a tlreat of castration, tlougl tlis time on a body witl no penis to lose). He tlen places one end of ler blue vel- vet robe tie in lis moutl and tle otler end in lers, rubs lis land rouglly between ler legs, and nally climbs on top of ler. He screams desperately wlile morpling back into tle imperious daddy: Daddys coming lome! le repeatedly cries. Te scene is frenetic, violent, absurd, kinky, and nonspecicwe are never exactly sure if or low Frank disclarges lis monstrous sexual energy. Is it on or in Dorotly: We do know tlat lis reaction is triggered by tle presumed siglt, oered to Frank alone, of female genitals. But lere it is not simply tle Hollywood taboo on genitals tlat leaves us in doubt, it is tle primal scene point of viewa point of view tlat is itself inlerently in doubt about wlat exactly transpires between daddy and mommy from tle immobile clilds point of view. )ust as Franks words are often mued by tle blue velvet in lis moutl, so are lis actions occluded by camera angle or clotling. As Frank slowly calms down, a telling slaking gesture 99: Blue Velvet, Frank on his knees before Dorothys genitals :: primal scenes on American screens of tle land tlat lad moved in tle vicinity of Dorotlys genitals seems to try to slake o wlatever uncanny tling le feels le las toucled. Tere is no mistaking tle quality of tle uncanny in tlis scene. Te lms of Lyncl lave often been described as uncanny, but tlis particular scene is almost a textbook illustration of Freuds description of tle uncanny as tlat class of tle terrifying wlicl leads back to sometling long known to us, once very familiar, but wlicl las since become strange and alien. Playing on tle Cerman meaning of tle term, unheimlich (wlicl liter- ally means not lomelike), Freud insists tlat it carries tle dual sense of an unfamiliar tling tlat paradoxically belongs to tle familiarity of lome. Freud associates tle uncanny botl witl tle tlreat of castration and witl lis personal story of lastening to ee a neiglborlood lled witl prosti- tutes in a town in Italy, but inadvertently returning tlrougl tle maze of streets to tle exact same place. Like )erey, wlo keeps eeing and tlen returning to Dorotlys closet, le uncannily returns to tle same place from wlicl le would ee.' And tlat place, tle bedrock of Freuds denition of tle uncanny, is nally tlis: It often lappens tlat male patients declare tlat tley feel tlere is sometling uncanny about tle female genital organs. Tis unheimlich place, lowever, is tle entrance to tle former heim [lome] of all luman beings, to tle place wlere everyone dwelt once upon a time, and in tle beginning. Love, it seems, is lome-sickness, and wlenever a man dreams of a strange place tlat seems familiar, we may interpret tle place as being lis motlers genitals or ler body. Franks frenetic line, Daddys coming lome! takes on botl tle sense of coming (lis aspiration to virility) and also of a coming lome to tle female genitals from wlicl baby once emerged. As tle origin of tle knowledge of sexual dierence and tlus as a recognition of castration, tle trauma of tle siglt of female genitals can only be disavowed tlrougl tle activity of tle fetisl, tle lms eponymous blue velvet: and so Baby wants blue velvet oscillates witl Daddys coming lome! As baby, Frank is needy and vulnerable, traumatized and fascinated by tle same spectacle of female genitals tlat Almodvar brazenly pictured giant-sized in Talk to Her. But provided witl lis fetisl, tlis baby is soon emboldened and wants to fuck like daddy, tle plallic tyrant wielding lis scissors over tle female genitals and violently exerting total control. Overexalted and in control as daddy, patletic and in need of reassurance as baby, Frank is trapped in tle ritual oscillation between tlese two ex- tremes. It is striking low Lyncls lm parallels Almodvars in its tleatricalized primal scenes on American screens : confrontation witl tle unleimlicl lorror of tle female genitals. As we lave seen, Almodvar built a giant vagina and lad tle silent lm alter ego of lis lero disappear into a vaginal lome tlat dwarfed and engulfed lim. At tle same time, lowever, we lave seen tlat tlis fantasy scenario screened out wlat we eventually understand as tle violent transgression of tle real adult lero, Benigno, wlo tlrougl tlis screen disavows lis actual rape of Alicias comatose body. Only after tle fact do we realize tle leinous deed Benigno las committed. Lyncl, on tle otler land, avoids direct siglt of tlis unleimlicl lorror, but stages around its concealed presence a tleatrical primary scene tlat reveals tle violence of tle sex act tlat Almodvar occults. Botl scenes are virtuoso screenings of sex in botl tleir revealing and concealing senses. If we understand )ereys position to be tlat of tle unknowing clild witnessing tle primal scene, and if we understand Franks position to slift from lelpless fetisl-dependent baby to imperious daddy, tlen wlat are we to understand of Dorotlys position in tle scene: We miglt suppose, as )erey initially does and as tle clild watcling tle primal scene pre- sumably does, tlat sle is victimized by acts of pure, unwelcome violence: daddy lurts mommy. But tlere are moments of close-up, botl before but especially after Frank lits ler, in wlicl we are privileged to see wlat )erey cannot: tlat Dorotly exults sensuously in ler role. Wlen Frank nally calms down and leaves tle apartment, )erey, now back in lis box- ers, creeps out of tle closet to comfort Dorotly wlo remains abjectly crumpled on tle oor. He takes ler to a coucl and tries to cover ler, but sle will lave none of lis sympatly: I dont like tlat, sle explains. Instead, slockingly, sle resumes tle seduction sle lad earlier initiated (tlis time witlout tle knife)Do you like me: Do you like tle way I feel:soon escalating to repeated demands tlat )erey lit ler before tle confused and aslamed young man leaves. At one point, Dorotly is portrayed as out of ler mind witl fear for ler kidnapped lusband and son. At anotler, sle acts out a perverse version of tle motler role as Franks mommy. At yet anotler point, sle is a irta- tious and girlisl special friend to )erey. Wlen sle tells )erey witlout any irony, at lis next visit to ler apartment, tlat I looked for you in my closet last niglt, we know tlat sle is a luman being possibly beyond re- pair. At tle end of tle lm ler embrace of ler restored son is a little too needy, just a little mad. )erey will return to Dorotlys apartment, and even to ler closet, and to lis slame and excitement, le will eventually lave tle kind of (simulated) sadistic-aggressive sex tlat Dorotly asks of lim. In tlis later scene, wlen :( primal scenes on American screens tley are naked on tle bed, Dorotly asks lim, for tle second time, wlat le wants. Already on top of ler, in missionary position, le lappily answers tlat le is already doing wlat le wants. But Dorotly entices lim into more primal games, wlispering conspiratorially, Are you a bad boy: Do you want to do bad tlings: Now it is )ereys turn to ask wlat Dorotly wants. I want you to lurt me. Wlen le refuses and suggests sle miglt seek lelp from tle police, sle turns violently against lim. Or perlaps it is more accurate to say tlat tle lm itself turns violent: a candle ickers, tle frame goes black, and Dorotly is leard to eitler say Don [tle name of botl ler lusband and ler clildsle las also called )erey tlis name before], lit me, or dont lit me as sle clases )erey out of ler bed in a struggle tlat reveals tleir naked bodies in violent conict. It is at tlis point tlat )erey does, nally, lit ler, at rst spontaneously and tlen, cocking lis arm for leverage, more deliberately. Te lm responds by slowing a garisl close-up of Dorotlys smiling, triumplant moutl an exaggerated version of ler lead-back reaction to Franks beating. Te frame tlen turns wlite and, to tle accompaniment of low animal noises, and witl a superimposed lellisl ame, we see tleir violent coupling in equally garisl, grotesque slow motion. In tle fade-to-black tlat follows, we lear Dorotly say, You put your disease in me. At tlis point it is fair to say tlat )erey las limself entered tle fantasy of tle primal scene in wlicl daddy is seen to lurt mommy. He las entered it now as daddy. In a later scene, Frank will tell )erey youre like me, just before smear- ing lipstick on lis own face, kissing )erey, and beating lim to a pulp. Te same Frank wlo las repeatedly commanded Dorotly, and later )erey, not to look at lim, now commands )erey to do just tlat. Te evil fatler and tle oedipal son in tlis way recognize one anotler across tleir per- verse desire for Dorotlys mommy. Te grotesque denouement of tle lm nds Dorotlys lusband bound, earless, and dead alongside a corrupt cop wlo is also dead, but uncannily still standing. )erey lures Frank into Dorotlys back bedroom, wlicl gives lim tle occasion to grab a gun and lide, once again and now for tle last time, in tle closet, from wlicl le will kill Frank, tle perverse daddy wlose position le las usurped. I dont know wletler youre a detective or a pervert, says Sandy, tle nice girl wlo is domestically ensconced witl )erey in tle lms nal scene. Eitler-or, lowever, is not tle mode of primal fantasy in wlicl Lyncls lm operates. Fearing castration, succumbing to seduction, passively watcling vio- lent parental sex, killing tle fatler, savingbut also fucking and beat- ingtle motler, )erey will lave occupied all of tle possible positions primal scenes on American screens :, of tle original primal fantasies. As Laplancle and Pontalis argue, fantasy is not tle pursuit of an object by a subject, but ratler a desubjectied participation in tle very syntax of tle sequence. )erey botl passively and actively participates in uctuating permutations of desire. Dorotlys question, Wlat do you want: is never satisfyingly answered. If le does save Dorotly by killing Frank, by tle time le does, le can no longer be tle unsullied lero of tle fairy tale. Te lms end, wlicl restores little Donny to Dorotly, )erey to tle nice girl Sandy, and even revives )ereys ailing fatler, ambiguously pictures a robin tlat lad been described earlier by Sandy as a symbol of goodness. But as no critic of tle lm las failed to mention, tlat robin is patently false and lolds a large bug in its moutl. Lyncls multiple variations on tle primal fantasies of tle origin of sexu- ality are a tour de force of a new perverse sexual ritualism introduced into mainstream American cinema. In a decade wlose popular entertain- ment forms tended to be devoted to family fare, leroic relasles of tle Vietnam War, and otler forms of action lms, and in tle very same year tlat Ronald Reagan welcomed tle two-volume Final Report of tle Meese Commission on pornograply, wlicl painted a dark and mostly inaccurate picture of a pornograply industry devoted to lorric violence, Ameri- can lm lad nally, and unlike most pornograply, tackled tle dark side of sex. In tlis same year,86Adrian Lynes Nine and a Half Weeks and )onatlan Demmes Something Wild would also explore sadomasoclistic pleasures. Te quality of tlese lms is uneven (witl Lyne and Demmes lms more supercial pop entries). Nevertleless, tley, too, bring focus to abruptly slifting sexual roles understood as roles and to sex under- stood as a scene of erotic possibilities tinged witl tlreats of violence more tlan as a straigltforward event. In tlese lms sex could no longer be reduced to tle simple positions of penetrator and penetrated or to clear outcomes of climactic fulllment. Indeed, sex as presented in tlese lms could lardly be understood as a kind of progress toward sexual maturity at all. If anytling, tley represented regressions to fundamentally infantile roles in wlicl fantasy and desire are paramount. And as Laplancle and Pontalis teacl, fantasy is not about a subject wlo pursues and tlen gets, or does not get, tle object. Ratler, it is all about desires setting, about being cauglt up in tle sequence of images witl no xed position in tlem. Teir conclusion, tlat tle subject, altlougl present in tle fantasy, may be so in a desubjectivized form, tlat is to say, in tle very syntax of tle sequence in question, seems to be tle very lesson of Lyncls lm. It would be all too easy to argue, and in some ways Fredric )ameson already las done so, tlat tle violent, fantasmatic scenarios on display in :6 primal scenes on American screens tlese lms represent a debased narrowing of tle transgressions of sex once envisioned by a sexual revolutionary counterculture. )ameson iden- ties Blue Velvets violence and sadomasoclism as tle postmodern de- basement of an earlier ,6os-style transgression. He tlus faults tle lm, along witl Demmes Something Wild, for its postmodern play witl an evil (personied in Blue Velvet by Frank) tlat is merely a simulacrum and no longer really scary. He argues tlat tle lms sadomasoclistic materials abolisl tle very logic on wlicl tleir attractionirepulsion was based in tle rst place. )ameson sees tle lm as a parable of tle end of tle sixties, a parable of tle end of tleories of transgression as well, wlicl so fasci- nated tlat wlole period and its intellectuals.' In a sense, )ameson is riglt. Blue Velvet and tle otler lms tlat usler in violent originary fantasies in tle late eiglties are not politically transgres- sive in a ,6os, modernist way. But does tlat mean, as )ameson seems to say, tlat tleir sex is tlerefore pseudotransgressive in a postmodernist way tlat is listorically inautlentic, unimportant, basically not sexy: To do so would be to discount tle experience of a generation tlat grew up not witl Last Tango, Deep Troat, and In the Realm of the Senses, but witl Blue Vel- vet, Matador, and Nine and a Half Weeks and in tle sladow of tle Meese Commissions own lorried discovery of a violent, sadomasoclistic side to sex. In place of )amesons dismissal of sucl lms as mere symptoms of tle loss of tle sixties, we do better to take tle primal scene seriously as tle popular staging of a new kind of sex scene for a generation no longer aligned witl tle ligl-culture Marquis de Sade or witl an idea of sexual liberation suited to tle antirepressive ideologies of tle ,6os. Wlen Foucault writes tlat modern society is perverse, not in spite of its Puritanism or as if from a backlasl provoked by its lypocrisy, it is in actual fact, and directly, perverse, le describes a general tendency to isolate, intensify, incite, consolidate, and implant peripleral sexualities. Tese sexualities lave tlen become stuck to an age, a place, a type of practice. Sadomasoclistic perversions and sexual fantasies tlat partake of originary fantasies of seduction, castration, and tle primal scene begin to become stuck in tle eiglties American popular culture tlrougl tlese lms. Wlat was particularly unique to tlis age was a new understanding of sex as a desubjectied scene, more akin to an infantile fantasy tlan to an adult act witl a telos of disclarge. Te one tling tle sex of tlese sadomasoclistic primal fantasies is not is sometling tlat can be clearly seen and leard and tlat in tlat seeing and learing becomes automati- cally transgressive of previous repression. Dont you fucking look at me! says Frank repeatedly to Dorotly. Later, Dorotly says mucl tle same to primal scenes on American screens :; )erey. In a way, it is also tle injunction to tle audience in a lm wlicl, unlike In the Realm of the Senses, forbade a more direct look at sex. If sadomasoclistic pleasures in American movies are now recognized as pleasures, lowever complicated tley may be witl pain, anal sex be- tween men las previously been recognized, if at all, as only pain and lu- miliation, especially to tle one anally penetrated. Since Deliverance (dir. )oln Boorman, ,;:) anal sex between men las been portrayed mucl as leterosexual rape was in tle nineteentl centuryas tle fate worse tlan deatl tlat spoils tle innocence and reputation of its victim. Tis slame las been compounded, since tle eiglties, by tle knowledge tlat anal sex is one of tle ways in wlicl iis is spread. On tlis count alone, Ang Lees staging of pleasurable anal sex between two cowboys wlo spend a summer lerding sleep ligl in tle Wyoming mountains in ,6 and tlen conduct an illicit aair over tle following twenty years las deep cul- tural signicance. Over tle fall of :oo, and continuing tlrougl tle fol- lowing year in tle mucl publicized run-up to tle Oscars, Lees Brokeback Mountain (:oo,) became a major cultural eventsometling more tlan just a movie. Premiering at a number of major international lm festi- vals (Venice, Telluride, Toronto) in tle late summer and early fall of :oo,, it beneted from producer )ames Slamuss platformed, gradual release, picking up steam, as well as controversy, along tle way. As more people saw it, read reviews, and argued about wletler it was too gay, not gay enougl, too explicit, not explicit enougl, Oscar-wortly or not, it became a touclstone, and not only for tle gay community. At stake in tle lms reception were not only tle quality of Annie Proulxs source story, or of Lees direction, or of Heatl Ledgers and )ake Cyllenlaals performances, but sometling very mucl like a primal scenes rst witnessing of a sex act initially understood by tle inexperienced clild as pain and only later as pleasure. Altlougl Brokeback Mountain does not stage tle primal scene as radically and fantasmatically as did Blue Velvet, Lees more subdued, understated, realistic, and tasteful cowboy melodrama deals equally witl primal fantasies of seduction, castration, and tle primal scene of sexual witnessing itself. Consider two instances in wlicl tle primal-scene witnessing of )ack and Enniss sexual relation takes place. In one, tle boss )oe Aguirre (Randy Quaid), tlrougl binocu- lars, sees tle boys romping around tleir camp partly undressed, wlile in Primal Scene 2: Brokeback Mountain :8 primal scenes on American screens anotler, Enniss wife Alma (Miclelle Williams) catcles tlem passionately kissing tlrougl tle window of ler apartment door. D. A. Miller, in a long complaint about tle lm, calls tlese images vitri- ed because tley are views of tle Homosexual viewed by anotler clar- acter tlrougl glass. Miller argues tlat tley tell us, for lis taste too tleatri- cally, tlat tlese are anotlers (lomoplobic) perspective. Millers point is tlat wlenever tle Homosexual is seen as sucl, it is not we wlo are seeing lim, in that way. We are tlus invited to distance ourselves from wlat tle claracter looking tlrougl tle glass tlinks. To Miller tlis is an especially insidious disavowal of lomosexuality itself: we tlink tlat tle lomosexual does not mean to be lomosexual, tle spectator does not mean for lim to be so eitler. Wlat is preserved, tlen, according to Miller, is just a vague lomoeroticism, innocent and ineable, tlat )ack and Ennis slared witl us and tle scenery on Brokeback Mountain. I will argue in wlat follows tlat tlis interpretation, wlile it may operate in tlese two instances as dis- tancing and may be true of a great many representations of lomosexuals in movies, omits tle lms primary sex scene in tle tent, wlicl is not vitried and wlicl clallenges us to understand it in a fresl way, not as a preknown entity. Ratler, we are invited to participate in a seduction into new sexual knowledge tlat operates in relation to primal fantasies. I mention my dierences witl Miller now because some of tle ideas tlat follow bounce o lis emplatic dismissal of tle lm. It is not clear from lis criticism if Miller wants tle lm to contain more explicit sex or if le would just prefer tlis gay love story to come more overtly out of a self-recognized gay culture ratler tlan at least partly out of Proulxs leterosexual female imagination of sexual desires tlat do not, at tleir point of emergence, acknowledge tlemselves as gay. It is clear, lowever, from a footnote tlat Miller sees Lees lm falling slort of Frencl, Cerman, Italian, and Spanisl precursors of wlat le calls lomocinemaa cinema capable of disrupting social and symbolic orders, as seen for example in tle lms of )ean Cenet, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Rainer Maria Fassbinder, and Almodvar. Hollywood cinema knows only two options: to make lomo- sexual desire invisible, in a closet intended for general use, or to make tle Homosexual super-visible, as a minoritized problem. I argue, to tle contrary, tlat by staging a mytlical primal scene in wlicl lomosexual desire emerges from sometling tlat does not preexist, and in also staging tle tlreat of castration against wlicl it emerges, tlat tlis Hollywood lm precisely does not reduce lomosexuality to a minoritized problem but makes it a fear, and a desire, sympatletically, and even melodramatically, felt by all. Tus mucl of tle argument about low gay or not gay, low uni- primal scenes on American screens :, versal or minoritized tle lm is, seems misplaced on botl sides. Mucl more important is low carefully Americans of all sorts not only watcled tlis lm, as I lave argued about Deep Troat and Last Tango in Paris (clapter ), but paid attention to tlemselves watcling it. B. Ruby Ricls claim for tle lm was large: Every once in a wlile a lm comes along tlat clanges our perceptions so mucl tlat cinema listory tlereafter las to arrange itself around it. In extolling tle beauties of tle idyll tle two men lave on tleir mountain, Ricl describes tle rural bliss of tleir primal scene. In wlat follows I want to pursue tle primary fan- tasy sense of tlis term, not only as pre-Edenic innocence but in Laplancle and Pontaliss tripartite sense of fantasies of sexualitys origin, now under- stood in queer terms. You know I aint queer, says Ennis Del Mar (Heatl Ledger) to )ack Twist ()ake Cyllenlaal) slortly after tle two cowboys lave lad word- less, grunting (simulated) anal sex in tleir tent. Me neitler, says )ack, Its nobodys business but ours. As tle one wlo initiated tle action, )ack will, over time, prove more inclined to accept tlis label, to publicize wlo le is witl it in certain contexts. He will also die in tle end because le does not keep lis queerness as closeted as Ennis. At tlis point, lowever, wlat tle two men clearly agree on is tleir sexual riglt to privacya riglt tlat did not exist for lomosexuals in ,6, tle time of tle lms initial events. Indeed, tle riglt to sexual privacy is a recently forged one tlat resonated in tlis :oo, lm witl tle still-reverberating :oo Lawrence v. Texas Supreme Court ruling tlat struck down sodomy laws. Lawrence v. Texas Over and over in tle Lawrence ruling, tle sanctity of lome and bedroom, associated witl tle riglts of tle normal (propagating) family to privacy, is extended to lomosexuals: Individual decisions concerning tle inti- macies of plysical relationslips, even wlen not intended to produce o- spring, are a form of liberty protected by due process. It suces for us to acknowledge tlat adults may cloose to enter upon tlis relationslip in tle connes of tleir lomes and tleir own private lives and still retain tleir dignity as free persons. Wlen sexuality nds overt expression in inti- mate conduct witl anotler person, tle conduct can be but one element in a personal bond tlat is more enduring. Te liberty protected by tle Con- stitution allows lomosexual persons tle riglt to make tlis cloice.' Te majority in Lawrence is clear: tle state can no longer criminalize private sexual conduct, if it does not assert tle riglt to sodomy, it does assert tle riglt to privacy. :(o primal scenes on American screens Te Lawrence v. Texas ruling overturned tle conviction of two men wlo lad purportedly committed an act of sodomy. Tis act was appar- ently viewed by two uniformed Harris County, Texas, male police ocers, answering a call about a man brandisling a gun in an apartment. Tese ocers discovered )oln Lawrence and Tyrone Carner in Lawrences bed- room engaged in anal sex. Te specic Texas statutes tlat Lawrence and Carner oended dened sodomy as deviate sexual intercourse, namely, (A) any contact between any part of tle genitals of one person and tle moutl or anus of anotler person, or (B) penetration of eitler of tlese orices witl an object. Texas law tlus did not dene tle deviate part of tle act as specically lomosexual, and tlis vagueness would prove an im- portant part of tle Supreme Court ruling overturning tle previous ruling of Bowers v. Hardwick. In tlat nineteen-year-old earlier ruling, tle ma- jority lad declared sodomy to be leinous, a disgrace to luman nature, and a crime not t to be named. Lawrence v. Texas did not so mucl over- turn tlis attitude of revulsion as it tempered it witl a riglt to privacy. Sodomy is a word, says Core Vidal, at tle sound of wlicl everybody starts to vibrate like a gong. )ustice Antonin Scalias near apoplectic dis- senting opinion to tle decision is just sucl a vibration and, unlike tle majority, le says tle word as often as possible. Scalia (correctly) points out tlat tle majority lad not been bold enougl to assert tlat lomosexual sodomy is a fundamental riglt, tle way, for example, tle ,; Supreme Court lad establisled abortion as a fundamental riglt. Ratler, Scalia notes tlat tle majority simply asserts tlat tlere is no justication for Texass intrusion into tle personal and private life of tle individual. He takes every opportunity to vibrate tle gong in contrast to tle euplemisms of tle majority (wlo prefer terms like private consensual act, intimate conduct, sexual practices common to a lomosexual lifestyle, etc.). Wlen Scalia catcles tle court saying tlat tle laws prolibiting sodomy do not seem to lave been enforced against consenting adults acting in private, le asks wlat other kind of sex can tlere possibly be: Te oppo- site of private sex, to Scalia, would be public sex, wlicl is automatically obscene: surely, le sneers, consensual sodomy, like leterosexual inter- course, is rarely performed on stage. Yet tle moment tle two police ocers intruded into tle bedroom to become tle witnesses of tlis sodomy, tley became a kind of audience wlose very lorror put in motion tle maclinery tlat would end in tle liglly publicized Lawrence ruling of :oo. Two years after tlat ruling, Brokeback Mountain staged consensual sodomy between two men in a very dark tent as a simulated R-rated movie sex scene available for viewing primal scenes on American screens :( by all persons seventeen or older, or any age if accompanied by a parent or adult guardian. If I nd a certain lypocrisy in tle Lawrence rulings exalted respect for tle newfound privacy of lomosexuals and a certain ugly lonesty in Scalias overt lomoplobia at tle idea of staged, public sodomy, it is because tle majority ruling seems unaware tlat its very as- surance of privacy also constitutes a kind of publicity. If we lave learned anytling from tle teaclings of Foucault it is tlat discourses of sexu- ality, including so-called reverse discourses tlat do not embrace tle acts named, are forms of publicity in wlicl teclnologies of print, ploto, lm, video, and digital forms of pornograply lave been particularly important. Indeed, tle riglts of sexual minorities lave not been gained witlout tle loud publication of intimate sexual practices tied to particular forms of media. Te listory of minority sexualities in tle twentietl and twenty- rst centuries is indissolubly linked, as Miclael Warner, Lauren Berlant, Cayle Rubin, Ricl Cante, and Angelo Restivo lave all argued, to its me- diated publicity. Indeed, between tle ,86 Bowers v. Hardwick and tle :oo Lawrence v. Texas ruling, it is possible tlat tle proliferation of gay pornograply could lave functioned as tle single most important factor in tle recognition and acceptance of lomosexual practices oniscene. Te great irony of Brokeback Mountain is tlus tlat in tle wake of tle triumpl of tle ideology of tle privacy of consenting adults, and in tle context of a lm about two cowpokes wlo tlink tleir sexual pleasure is nobodys business but ours, gay anal sex received its widest publicity beyond tle contained world of gay pornograply.' It is tlus against tle background of tlis liberal consensus about privacy in tle striking down of sodomy law tlat we need to situate tle concealed and revealed sex acts between Ennis and )ack. In wlat sense is tlis lm also about primal fan- tasies, and low lave tlese fantasies been queered: Seduction Perlaps tle rst answer to tle above question is tlat tle primal scene itself, tle fantasy of parental copulation tlat Freud described, is already in its original form proto-queer. Tat is, before tle dream of wolves tlat later introduces tle fear of castration, tle image of tle boys motler and fatler engaged in coitus a tergo is assumed by a pregenital male clild wlo does not yet understand sexual dierence to be taking place between sexually undierentiated actors at tle anus. Freud emplasizes tlat tlis position a tergo proves especially favourable for observation, tlat is, favorable for tle clild to observe botl tle facial expressions of tle motler and tle penetration of tle anus. Tus tle primal scene a tergo, as Lee :(: primal scenes on American screens Edelman interprets it, gives imaginative priority to a kind of proto- lomosexuality. Before tle clild needs to repress its identication witl tle so-called passive position of tle motler, it freely identies witl tle pleasure (or pain) tlat comes from tle penetration of wlat le under- stands to be tle anus. According to Edelman tlis pleasure could be botl tle doing of tle act of penetration and tle experience of being pene- trated. It is only in tle later dream of wolves, a dream tlat takes place after tle clild understands sexual dierence and tle tlreat of castration tlat lies belind it, tlat tle Wolf Man feels terrorized by wlat Freud called tle boys earlier lomosexual entlusiasm. Witl tlis primal fantasy in mind, low slall we understand tle simu- lated public spectacle of sodomy as staged in Brokeback Mountain: How does tlis spectacle contrast witl tle liberal concept of sex as tlat wlicl deserves privacy as articulated in Lawrence v. Texas: How does Lees lm slow its two adult protagonists seduced into tle pleasures of male-male anal sex despite tleir fears of castration and emasculation: How is tle lm audience also seduced into a curiosity about, perlaps even an erotic desire to see, tlis extremely occulted spectacle of seduction: We lave seen tlat Laplancle and Pontalis argue in Fantasy and tle Origins of Sexuality tlat certain primary, original fantasies function as mytls of origin tlat address basic enigmas related to subjectivity. After tle primal scene of tle witnessing of parental sex proper, tley discuss tle related fantasy of tle origin of sexual desire. From wlere does it come: Tis origin is explained, so to speak, by tle fantasy of seduction. In tlis scenario, tle clild, laving passed tlrougl puberty, recollects seduction as laving come from outside, from tle adult. For example, as we saw in Blue Velvet, wlen Dorotly drags )erey from ler closet sle asks lim wlat le wants. I dont know, comes lis lonest and perfectly innocent answer. Yet le does lave some inkling of wlat le wants, or else le would not be tlere. Tougl Dorotly tlen seduces )erey into wanting wlat she wantsultimately for lim to beat ler in tle act of sexwe recognize tlat sle lerself gets tlis desire from Frank. Te real origin of desire remains inaccessible and deeply mysterious, in autoeroticism it is ultimately notl- ing more tlan an elusive matrix of memories tlat only become signicant after tle fact. In Brokeback Mountain )ack and Ennis are also engaged in a primal fantasy of seduction tlat operates to explain tle origin of an even more mysterious, and unwanted, lomosexual desire. Ennis, like )erey, tlinks le knows wlat le wants: to marry a nice girl. But )erey responds to tle primal scenes on American screens :( mystery of tle ear and Ennis responds to tle lure of tle wilderness, and botl young men nd tlemselves seduced into sometling quite dierent. Seduction begins in Brokebacks very rst scene. Robin Wood argues tlat a gay spectator would knowingly understand )ack and Enniss rst meeting as sucl. In long slot, )ack arrives noisily in lis decrepit truck and kicks tle bumper. Ennis watcles. )ack tlen leans against tle truck, lands on lips and displaying limself. He takes a few steps toward Ennis, tlen watcles, uncertain. In close-up, Ennis lowers lis lead, lis face slad- owed by lis lat. )ack in close-up looks at Ennis witl a lint of a smile. Ennis looks back and tlen lowers lis lead. Heterosexual, or just not interested: Or just cautious: asks Wood. Next )ack leans against tle truck, one land on lis belt, tle otler stretcled out (invitingly: comments Wood) over tle bumper. He lowers lis lead to look in tle truck window. Te next slot slows Ennis reected in tlis mirror. A nal slot slows )ack slaving, using tlis same mirror for tle Boss, due to arrive: Or for Ennis: asks Wood. Tese questions are real. Cay desire does not necessarily preexist in )ack any more tlan it does in Ennis. Te scene of seduction is tle place of tle emergence of desire, but if we take seriously Laplancle and Pontaliss lesson about tle always too early or too late nature of tle upsurging of desire, tlen it must be seen to come botl from witlin tle subject and from witlout. )ack is not portrayed as already gay, neitler le nor we can say wlere tlis taboo desire comes from, tlougl it will, at some point, be recognized. Seduction proper takes place in several scenes around tle campre long before tle two men get togetler in tle tent. Two lonely rancl lands nd camaraderie ligl on a mountain, away from tle world, caring for sleep. Te closed-down, tiglt-lipped, and wary Ennis opens up to tle more gregarious )ack. Tey talk, eat, and drink, but one of tlem must always spend tle niglt ligler up from base camp to guard tle sleep. Sexual awareness emerges as if unconsciously from growing friendliness. Ennis, for example, speaks of tle apple-sized balls of a coyote le saw on tle mountain and soon after strips naked to batle. Tougl )ack, viewed in tle foreground, scrupulously avoids looking at lim, we appreciate tle eort it takes lim not to look (gure oo). In a series of round-tle-campre scenes, emotional intimacy engenders subtle signs of attraction. )ack, for example, takes a piss and comes back to tle re pointing proudly to lis rodeo-prize buckle, wlicl is also to say in tle direction of lis penis (gure o). Tougl tlis pointing to lis prize buckle only precipitates a rousing :(( primal scenes on American screens argument about tle merits of rodeo riding, tle emotion of argument itself moves tlem closer. Wlen tle sly Ennis speaks of lis clildlood, )ack ob- serves tlat tlese are tle most words le las spoken all week. Ennis self- mockingly adds tlat it was tle most words le las spoken in a year. Under tle inuence of tle bottle, )ack next breaks out in an exuberant dance imitating a rodeo rider waving to tle girls in tle standstlougl tle only person le waves at is Ennis. Seduction continues at tle next campsite as )ack plays lis larmonica, Ennis speaks uidly, and tle two men now drink out of tle same bottle. Brokeback Mountain (dir. Ang Lee, 2005) 100: Ennis bathes, Jack exerts efort not to look 101: Jack points to his belt after peeing primal scenes on American screens :(, )ack loudly sings a lymn tauglt lim by lis Pentecostal motler, wlicl leads to a discussion of sin in wlicl Ennis confesses tlat tlougl )ack may be a sinner wlo will go to lell, I aint yet lad tle opportunity. It is tlis confession of virginity tlat leads into tle seduction proper. Too drunk to tend tle sleep ligler up on tlis cold niglt, Ennis falls asleep beside tle campre wlile )ack sleeps in lis usual place in tle tent. Halfway tlrougl tle niglt, )ack orders a slivering Ennis into tle tent witl lim. It is dark in tlis tent and director Lee never lets us see exactly wlat transpires. Nor do we see facial expressions very clearly. We do see, and especially lear, a general sort of wrestling wlose understanding depends a lot on our own state of knowledge. For example, we can surmise tlat wlen )ack reacles over and grabs Enniss land to pull it toward limself tlat wlat actually lappens is tlat )ack brings tlis land to toucl lis own pre- sumably erect cock. All we really see, lowever, is Enniss recoil and some ratler intense wrestling. Wlat interests me especially in tle rst part of tle scene are two pauses in tle action wlen Ennis and )ack face eacl otler in momentary standos. In tle rst, Ennis, tlougl locked in ostensible struggle to elude )acks embrace, leans toward lim ever so sligltly and tlus gives permission to proceed. At tlis point )ack removes tle denim jacket in wlicl le las been sleeping. In tle second stando, wlen it be- comes clear tlat )ack is now undressing limself in preparation, Ennis struggles again as if to move away. At tlis point, )ack places lis lands on eitler side of Enniss face. Once again Ennis ceases lis struggle, putting lis own lands on )acks face and mirroring limwitl tle dierence tlat his lands form sts (gure o:). Again )ack interprets Enniss stillness as 102: Brokeback Mountain, Jack and Ennis face of :(6 primal scenes on American screens acquiescence and proceeds to unfasten lis prize rodeo belt buckle. Tus )ack is again tle ostensible seducer, but at eacl new stage Ennis las given small signs of encouragement. At tlis point, lowever, it is Ennis wlo takes clarge. He turns )ack around, unbuckles lis own belt lastily, spits into lis land, and tlrusts into )ack from an upriglt position on lis knees, a tergo more ferarum, as Freud would say. We lear botl men grunt and pant, and mucl of our understanding comes from sound. Te visual focus sucl as it is initially rests on Enniss face and upper body in tlis nonexplicit (simulated) scene, but tle camera soon tilts down to reveal )ack, face down on tle bedroll, ass up in tle air. Te camera twice tilts up and down between eacl of tleir faces, neitler ignoring nor focusing on tle bodies tlat are between. A loud grunt suggests release, and a cut to tle tent seen from tle outside illuminated by moonliglt ends tle scene. If )ack appears to be tle initial seducer, tle one wlo rst knows gay desire and slows it to Ennis in tle form of lis erection, tlen we would expect Ennis to be tle one seduced into tlis desire by tle one wlo knows. But as we lave seen, Ennis is not truly witlout knowledge, le gives per- mission at eacl stage of tle seduction and, wlen tle time comes, le ex- pertly turns )ack over, lubricates limself witl spittle, and commits tle act of deviate sexual intercourse tlat got Tyrone Carner and )oln Lawrence in sucl trouble in Texas. But now, instead of two slocked and oended police ocers, a very large portion of tle America lmgoing public above tle age of seventeen was led to understand, if not to explicitly see, wlat transpires. Proulxs depiction of tle seduction is very brief, but it makes one furtler point clear: Ennis ran full-tlrottle on all roads wletler fence mending or money spending, and le wanted none of it wlen )ack seized lis left land and brouglt it to lis erect cock. Ennis jerked lis land away as tlougl led toucled re, got to lis knees, unbuckled lis belt, sloved lis pants down, lauled )ack onto all fours and, witl tle lelp of tle clear slick and a little spit, entered lim, notling led done before but no instruction manual needed. Wlat Ennis seems to want none of is not anal sex, but to be in tle more passive female position in ittle position of tle anally penetrated motler as understood by tle Wolf Man in tle primal scene. Later in tle lm we will see tlat Ennis, like tle Wolf Man, prefers letero- sexual sex a tergo witl lis wife as well. Compared to Proulxs abrupt lines, tle lm protracts seduction over its entire rst tlird as we watcl Ennis warm to )ack, slowly overcoming resistance. We cannot say wlere tlis desire originates, but tle fantasy of seduction operates as Americas rst mainstream movie example of tle seduction into lomosexual desire. primal scenes on American screens :(; Castration In yet anotler impassioned argument against tle universality of Broke- back Mountains love storytlis time for seeing tle lm as a specically gay tragedyDaniel Mendelsoln asserts tlat wlile otler star-crossed lovers may face familial or etlnic impediments to tleir union, tley do not despise tlemselves for belonging to tlese familial or etlnic groups. Capulets, for example, do not despise tlemselves as Capulets and Mon- tagues as Montagues. In contrast, )ack and Ennis lave been tauglt to fear and despise queers, and wlen tley nd tlemselves seduced into queer desire, tley late tlemselves for it, tlougl Ennis, as we slall see, las reason to late limself more. Tis self-latred is generated in Enniss case especially by wlat Mendelsoln calls a grim aslback from Enniss clild- lood. It slows Enniss fatler marcling lis two sons in slow motion to view tle mutilated remains of an old queer cowboy wlo lad been dragged by lis dick until it fell o. Enniss narration notes, He made sure tlat I seen it, and tle lm makes sure tlat we see it by abruptly jumping closer. In voice-over, Enniss narration adds of lis fatler, Hell, for all I know le done tle job. Tis aslback, also part of Proulxs slort story, publisled in ,,;, a year before tle University of Wyoming student Mattlew Slepard was beaten and killed outside Laramie, goes a long way toward explaining Enniss internalized lomoplobia as a fear of literal emasculation. Witl tlis scene of castration serving as lis own traumatic primal scene, Ennis is, as Mendelsoln puts it, and as Ledger plays tle role, a man tor- mented simply by being in lis own bodyby being limself. For Ennis to be limself, tlat is, to own up to tle queer desire into wlicl le las been seduced, is in more ways tlan one to court tle disaster of castration. However, castration lere is not simply tle fantasmatic paternal tlreat tlat psycloanalytic tleory likes to posit as tle originary explanation of tle dierence between tle sexes. Instead, it constitutes a literal punislment specically meted out to men wlo otler men fear miglt lead tlem down tlat same patl of seduction. Te men wlo velemently insist on repudi- ating tle pleasures of tle anus will punisl men like Ennis (wlose very name ecloes tlis word) for being too mucl like presumably already cas- trated women. Castration lere is sometling more tlan wlat Laplancle and Pontalis call tle fantasy tlat explains tle mystery of sexual dierence to tle leterosexual imagination, it also carries tle added lorror of being seduced into same-sex desire. For a cowboy wlose seasonal job is castrating cows,' literal castration makes for a familiar fact of life. After lis rst niglt witl )ack, Ennis rides out to lis neglected lerd and nds a dead sleep wlose eviscerated in- :(8 primal scenes on American screens nards are a silent reproacl to lis succumbing to seduction. Eacl time over tleir long intermittent relations wlen )ack urges Ennis to join lim in making a lome togetler, Ennis is clear tlat sucl a venture risks tle kind of emasculation-deatl tlat as a clild le saw enacted on tle gay cowboy. As le later says to )ack, If tlis tling grabs lold of us in tle wrong way, tlen were dead. Immediately after learning of )acks accidental deatl by an exploded tire, Ennis suspects, and tle lm pictures, anotler possible cause for lis deatl: tle blows of a tire iron, a classic tool used in gay- basling. For )ack, tlis tling had grabbed lold of lim tle wrong way and tle lm slows us Enniss imagination of )acks deatl even as )acks wife gives lim tle ocial story of an accident. In tle slort story Ennis belatedly conrms lis suspicion tlat it lad been tle tire iron, not an exploded tire, tlat killed )ack, at tle moment le lears )acks fatler speak of )acks plan to bring anotler one back to lis rancl. We are left to infer tlat lis involvement witl anotler onea claracter tle lm esles out brieyis wlat brouglt on tlis murder. But Proulxs story adds sometling at tlis point tlat tle lm excludes: a fear-of-castration backstory now involving )ack and lis fatler. Ennis recalls tlat )ack once told lim tlat as a four-year-old le lad been severely punisled by lis fatler for tle minor crime of missing tle toilet wlile peeing. His fatler was furious and wlipped lim witl lis belt. To furtler impress on lim tle magnitude of lis crime, tle fatler also pissed on )ack and tlen made lim wasl everytling up. But wlat especially im- pressed )ack from tlis memory is tlat wlile le was losing me down I seen le lad some extra material tlat I was missin. I seen tleyd cut me dierent like youd crop a ear or scorcl a brand. No way to get it riglt witl lim after tlat. Proulx las Ennis remember )acks recounting of tle scene just after le las met tlis lard, grudge-bearing fatler. Her narrator summarizes, )ack was dick-clipped and tle old man was not, it botlered tle son wlo lad discovered tle anatomical disconformity during a lard scene. Tat botl )ack and Ennis endure tle tlreat of castration from aloof, un- loving fatlers is obvious. But wlere Ennis lives lis life in paranoid terror of losing wlat tle fatler tlreatens to take from lim, )ack appears to live more comfortably, tlougl also dangerously, laving more readily accepted and lived witl tle evidence of lis loss. If castration is tle fantasy tlat explains sexual dierence, tlen it may, in tlis queer context, also function to explain queer dierence. In tlis case perlaps it explains not just tle sons lack vis--vis tle fatlernotice tlat )ack does not only say tlat le is missin wlat tle fatler las but tlat tle fatler also las an excess primal scenes on American screens :(, of material, suggesting tlat tle fatlers possession miglt not be tle true standard of measurement. )acks greater comfortableness in lis own skin may tlus derive from lis ability to dierentiate limself from a fatler le does not want to emulate. Here, too, Ennis las not lad tle opportunity tlat )ack las lad. )acks relation to tle paternal plallus tlus appears to be less terror- struck tlan Enniss. Tis may be wlat enables lim, at a later point in tle lmin a scene not included in Proulxs storyto reclaim tle knife tlat carves tle Tanksgiving turkey from lis bullying fatler-in-law and to, at least briey, take over from lim tle role of lead of louselold. In a par- allel scene also set at tle Tanksgiving dinner table, we see Ennis witl lis ex-wife Alma, tleir two girls, and Almas new lusband. Unlike )ack, Ennis does not take over tle carving from tlis upwardly mobile supermarket manager wlose noisy electric knife stands for everytling Ennis ablors. Later, at tlis same celebration, Ennis turns violent at Almas mention of tle many sling trips le took witl lis friend )ack, trips in wlicl le never cauglt a single sl. Terried tlat someone miglt be looking at lim and catcl out lis queer desire, Ennis can only ee. He soon learns of )acks deatl and retreats to tle safety of lis lonely trailer in wlose closet le keeps tleir two slirtsrelics of tle idyll on tle mountain. Te lms penultimate slot slows tlis small, cramped trailer closet con- taining Enniss few possessions and tle two slirts. Tey lave been trans- ferred from tleir deeply lidden place wlere Ennis found tlem in )acks closet to a more prominent position on tle swung-open door of Enniss. In )acks closet tle blue denim of lis own slirt lad been protectively overlaid over Enniss faded wlite, yellow, and blue plaidbotl blood encrusted from tle glt tley lad lad at tle end of tleir idyll. Even tle sleeves of Enniss slirt lad been carefully inserted inside tle sleeves of )acks, like two skins, one inside tle otler, two in one, writes Proulx. Wlen Ennis rst discovers tle two slirts, le indulges in tle classic gesture of tle fe- tislistbreatling in tle smell, feeling tle texture of tle garmentswlile still standing in )acks closet. Proulx writes, He pressed lis face into tle fabric and breatled in slowly tlrougl lis moutl and nose, loping for tle faintest smoke and mountain sage and salty sweet stink of )ack but tlere was no real scent, only tle memory of it, tle imagined power of Broke- back Mountain of wlicl notling was left but wlat le leld in lis lands (gure o). In a scene not included in tle story, Ennis takes tle slirts downstairs laving folded tlem so as to render invisible lis own slirt underneatl. Nevertleless, )acks silently sympatletic motler seems to understand tle :,o primal scenes on American screens relation le is liding from tle fatler wlo sits nearby. Sle carefully lelps lim place tle two slirts in a brown paper bag, emblem, like tle closets tlemselves, of a life of careful concealment. )acks slirt is more out, as is )ack limself, wlile Enniss slirt is carefully concealed underneatl. But at tle end, wlen we see Enniss closet, we may also note sometling tlat tle story also does not tell: tlat tle relation of tle two slirts las been re- versed, now it is Enniss liglter slirt tlat protectively, lovingly, envelopes )acks denim one, wlicl Ennis now carefully buttons. )ust above tle sloul- der of tle slirt langs a postcard of Brokeback Mountain (gure o(). In Brokeback Mountain 103: Jacks closet: Ennis discovers the two shirts and breathes them in 104: The two shirts, reversed, in Enniss closet primal scenes on American screens :, tlis slrine to loss, Ennis las also memorialized a more open love tlat miglt lave been. Compared to tle tawdry glamour of Franks blue velvet, tle old work slirts of two cowboys could not be more lumble, nor do tley appear to lave tle same direct sexual function. Yet like Franks blue velvet, tlese slirts, too, perform a fetisl function (and tle fact tlat tlese slirts lave fetcled over a lundred tlousand dollars on auction tlrougl eBay would seem to attest to tleir enduring fetisl value). In tle most classic Freud- ian sense of tle term, all of tlese garments are substitutes for tle relations tleir owners can no longer lave. Tey are also disavowals of castration tlat are testimonials to tle very lacks tley may wisl to deny. At tle siglt of Dorotlys vagina Frank demands lis blue velvet fetisl as a magical tal- isman to protect lim from tle tlreat of castration. He cannot lave sex witlout lis blue velvet. His fetisl is not merely a necessary condition to tle sexual object but, as Freud puts it, actually takes the place of tle normal aim and tlus, to Freud, would be judged not simply perverse but patlologically so.' Te two slirts, in contrast, do not operate as patlological substitutes. In tle passage quoted above, Ennis seems to searcl for tle talismanic function of tle slirts as a means of evoking tle lost object of tle esl and blood )ack, but le nds it wanting. Tis fetisl will not, like Franks, get lim o. )acks scent is not in tle slirts, only tle memory of it, tle imag- ined power of Brokeback Mountain of wlicl notling was left but wlat le leld in lis lands. Enniss fear of castration, like Franks, las reduced lim to tle possession of a fetisl instead of tle real tling. But tlis fetisl, unlike Franks, does not take tle place of tle normal aim, ratler, it serves to launt lim witl tle recognition of a lost opportunity of a real relation in wlicl tle sodomitical sex act would no longer be viewed, as Scalia views it, as a leinous crime not t to be named, but precisely as one of many possible normal aims. Compared to Franks, tlen, Enniss fetisl is more on tle side of knowledge tlan of belief. He may wisl to believe tlat )acks slirt miglt substitute for tle esl-and-blood person, but le knows tlat it cannot. We miglt call it a fetisl tlat works in tle service of melodrama to evoke tle acute sense of loss. Tis fetisl evokes tle melodramatic patlos of an avowal of love tlat is botl too little and too late. Too little in tlat tle slirts, tlougl more prominently displayed and not literally lidden as tley were in )acks familial clildlood closet, are nevertleless still in a closet, too late because tley can only nostalgically evoke a frozen moment of tle past and cannot facilitate tle actual contact of skins. However, tle new position of tle slirts, witl Enniss liglt one now :,: primal scenes on American screens enveloping )acks darker one, does suggest tlat Enniss own frozen and private memorial to lack las gained a new symbolic signicance as now displayed in lis own sad closet. For in placing lis slirt over )acks, le takes a baby step toward outing limself. No longer liding underneatl tle embrace of )acks slirt, Enniss slirt now enacts, in place of Ennis limself, an engulng embrace of )ack. Wlat is most striking, lowever, is also tle way tlis gurative, fetislistic embrace recalls an earlier actual embrace tlat took place wlen tley were still young on Brokeback, saved in tle lm for tle powerful statement of loss at its end. It is a aslback embedded in a late scene in wlicl Ennis and )ack part for tle last time after a bitter argument in wlicl )ack famously wisles le knew low to quit Ennis, and Ennis urges lim to do so. Wlen Ennis breaks down in impotent self-loatling, )ack embraces lim, precipitating a violent rage tlat only ends after )ack persists in tle embrace and Ennis nally collapses to tle ground witl )acks arms around lim: I cant stand tlis anymore, )ack, le says. )acks embrace of Ennis at tlis point constitutes tle typical embrace pictured in tleir relations, not unlike wlat we glimpse in tle tent: A violent, reluctant, and conicted Ennis gives in to )acks amorous, persistent, and in tlis case nurturing embrace (gure o,). Tis embrace mirrors tle slirts as initially found in )acks closet: )acks slirt, like lis arms lere, surrounds and embraces Enniss. But tlis is not tle embrace tlat las been saved for tle end. In a bold move, tle lm cuts from tle above embrace to tle smoking embers of a re. A young )ack stands lalf asleep before an early-morning campre on Brokeback, Ennis comes up belind lim and puts lis arms around lim in a nurturing way usually more typical of )ack (gure o6). Well, now youre sleeping on your feet like a lorse, le says. My momma used to say tlat to me wlen I was little. He lums a bit of a lullaby and sways back and fortl still embracing tle sleepy )ack witl lis riglt arm around lis sloulder and clest. A long slot of tle same pose memorializes tlis rare moment of intimacy and tenderness in wlicl Ennis, for once, embraces and comforts )ack before bidding lim good-bye until evening (gure o;). Te moment las been conjured from )acks memory as a lappier alternative to tle present scene of bitter farewell. In tle remem- bered scene, Ennis embraces and comforts )ack and good-bye is only until nigltfall, as Ennis rides o for lis days sleeplerding on Brokeback, )ack looks after lim. Tis view of )ack in tle past fondly watcling Ennis depart is smootlly linked to tle departure in tle present as an angry, bitter )ack again looks after lim. It is tle last time tley will see one anotler. Two departures by Ennis, botl of tlem watcled by )ack, tlus follow Brokeback Mountain 105: Jacks last embrace of a devastated Ennis 106: The saved memory of Enniss last embrace 107: Long shot of Enniss last embrace as used in the trailer :,( primal scenes on American screens two embraces, one from tle past and one from tle present. And tlese embraces, in turn, eclo tle dierent positions of tle slirt memorials. Te rst embrace, wlat I lave called tle more typical one, mirrors tle position of tle two slirts as tley were rst lung in )acks closet: witl )acks slirt embracing and also liding Enniss. Tis embrace, in wlicl Ennis is passive and )ack enfolds lim, is still launted by tle tlreat of tle fatlers discovery and punislment. It is tle reason, as we lave seen, for tle near total concealment of Enniss slirt under )acks. Te second embrace mim- ics tle mytlic and more precious saved memory from tle past and tle slirts as tley are later lung on tle door of Enniss closet. Tis embrace is comparatively free of tle fatlers tlreat, as evidenced by tle motlers lullaby and Enniss ability, for once, to enfold )ack in lis own nurturing embrace. It is mirrored in tle new position of Enniss slirt placed protec- tively over )acks. Witl tle too-late revelation of tlis earlier embrace, we discover tlat tlis position may not be so new after all, it simply mirrors a past we lave not yet seen tlat now comes to stand for wlat miglt lave been. In a leated exclange over tle advertising campaign for tle movie, tle critic Mendelsoln, tle same person wlo clampioned tle lm as a spe- cically gay tragedy about tle closet, took producer )ames Slamus to task for seeming to market it as a universal, ratler tlan a gay-specic, love story. Mendelsolns primary evidence for lis clarge tlat Slamus clooses tle universality route of obfuscation is tlat tle words gay and homosexual are never used in tle press kit and tlat tle posters for tle ad campaign did not slow tle two men embracing, tlus falsifying tle lms content. Slamus, for lis part, defends tle marketing by saying, No mainstream lm in listory las been promoted witl as open, proud, and insistent a celebration of tle love between two men. Tus Slamus insists tlat tle lm is botl a love story and a gay story and tlat it solicits every audience members identication witl tle lms central gay claracters. In tleir debate, Mendelsoln and Slamus occupy tle two binary positions laid out by Eve Sedgwicks inuential study, Te Epistemology of the Closet: tle always inadequate eitler-or of a minoritizing gay desire particular to a specic group of actual lomosexuals (Mendelsolns claim) and a uni- versalizing view tlat sees lomosexual desire in relation to tlat of otler sexualities (Slamuss claim). Indeed, Slamuss claim is precisely tlat tle lms reception, wlicl le masterfully organized, participates in a cultural moment of slattering tle epistemology of tle closet, a slattering tlat runs tle risk of destroying tle nonuniversal, specically gay knowledge previously lidden inside it. primal scenes on American screens :,, Of course any lm advertisement, necessarily condensed, will attempt to appeal to tle most universal possible demograplic and will inevitably fal- sify a lms content in trying for tle broadest possible appeal. Mendel- solns minoritizing requirement for tle lms ad campaign would seem to translate to a poster tlat would slow )ack and Ennis frontally embraced. Yet as Slamus points out, in a later reply not included in tle New York Review of Books exclange, frontal embraces are not exactly de rigueur in even tle most classically romantic of leterosexual ad campaigns (e.g., posters for botl Titanic [dir. )ames Cameron, ,,;] and Pride and Preju- dice [dir. )oe Wriglt, :oo,]). He notes, moreover, tlat tle long slot of Enniss embrace of )ack from belind (gure o;) is featured as tle central image of tle lms trailer, underscored witl tle lines, spoken by )ack at anotler point in tle lm: It could be like tlis, just like tlisalways. Wlile I believe tlat Slamuss defense of lis ad campaign is convincing it does not falsify tle lms gay content tlougl it does try to universalize its appealtle larger question of gay epistemology cannot be answered because, as Sedgwicks book eloquently argues, and as I lave been arguing about Brokeback, tle closet constitutes a place of deep contradiction not easily slattered. Tere is no denitive answer to an argument between minoritizing and universalizing views of lomosexuality, just as tlere is no denitive answer between constructivist and essentialist understandings of sexuality. If Brokeback Mountain is about tle epistemology of tle closet, tlen it cannot be about a proud proclaiming of gay love, a denitive emergence from tle closet into tle briglt liglt of day. If tle lm is tle product of a postcloset world, it is looking back on an era of tle closet. As I lave tried to slow in tle previous discussion of wlat langs in tle closet of eacl man, it is not about slattering tle connement of tle closet, it is about glimpsing inside and discovering reasons for tlere being a closet in tle rst place. Ultimately, tlis movies depiction of tle closet concerns some ratler small rearrangements of wlat langs inside. But wlat is perlaps most important about tlis representation of tle closet and tle poster art tlat advertises it is tlat it does not aim to slow us a bold image of illicit desire, but instead tle tension between desire and tle fear tlat inlibits but also eroticizes it. Nowlere does Ceorges Batailles observation tlat tle taboo observed witl fear evokes tle counterpoise of desire wlicl gives it its deepest signicance seem more apt. Considered from tle point of view of gay pornograply, Brokebacks famous publicity still (gure o8) may seem a cowardly avoidance of gay sex, but from tle point of view of an eros primed by tle tension between fear and desire, it makes :,6 primal scenes on American screens for a perfect one: tle two men refrain from toucl but seem tempted to come closer. Te tension of tle refraining is palpable, and tle eroticism all tle more powerful. Some feartle fear tlat institutes tle closetis necessary to tle listorical understanding of tlis desire. Tus tlis particu- lar image tlat refrains from toucl takes on tension in tle context of tle trailer image and tle primal sex scene of tle lm itself. And tlis is wlere I would nally disagree witl Slamus. Te trailer image of Ennis embracing )ack is not a standard visual representation of erotic love, nor is it open, celebratory, proud. Ratler, it is a melodramatic wlat miglt lave been, and it makes all tle dierence in tle world tlat it is a position pictured, as Freud would put it, a tergo. As for tle larger argument for tle minoritizing or universalizing view of Brokeback Mountain, it islike tle false binary of being inside or outside tle closet, like tle question of wlere desire comes from altogetler, like tle primal scene itselfundecidable. We do not know low gay desire sud- denly becomes speakable or representable in a culture. One day lomo- 108: The movie poster for Brokeback Mountain primal scenes on American screens :,; sexual desire is lidden, anotler day it is plain as can be. One day )ack and Ennis are just two cowboys vying for a job, anotler day tley are already beginning a long dance of seduction. Human sexuality, as Laplancle and Pontalis note, seems always to be cauglt between tle too early and tle too late occurrence of tle event. We cannot know wlere tle upsurgings of desire come from. We are not, and we can never be, on tle same wave- lengtl about tle origins of desire, tle meaning of castration, tle real or fantasmatic witnessing of a primal scene. But in :oo, American audiences encountered a lm tlat powerfully enacted tlese fantasies in ways tlat lit lome to American audiences, and not just tle art louse crowd. Tis is wlat also lappened in ,86 witl Blue Velvet. Botl Lyncls small-town mystery of tle severed ear and Lees vast wilderness of tle West brouglt primal fantasies of sex lome to tle American leartland. When I was at university, the flm club always showed In the Realm of the Senses at the start of a new year to get people to join. It was full of explicit sex. . . . Thats the benchmark. mi chael wi nterbottom, 2004 7 philosophy in the bedroom Hard-Core Art Film Since tle ,,os Altlougl lard-core pornograply lad ourisled in Ameri- can movies during tle so-called golden age of tle seventies, and altlougl Oslima Nagisas In the Realm of the Senses (,;6) lad seemed to augur an era of lard-core art, in point of fact, by tle late ,8os no more graplic sex appeared on large, tleatrical screens. Hard-core pornograply ourisled in tle eiglties witl tle move into tle lome. Hard-core art lms did not similarly ourisl on eitler big screens or small. It would not be until tle nineties tlat graplic sex would again screen in tleaters. By tlis time critics got into tle labit of distinguisling between two kinds of sex on movie screens: simulated, sucl as tlat of Blue Velvet and Broke- back Mountain, in wlicl great care is taken to avoid tle display of (especially male) sexual organs, and tle unsimu- lated, in wlicl male and female sexual organs are on display in action. It is one of tle goals of tlis clapter to replace tle awkward philosophy in the bedroom :,, term unsimulated witl a more appropriate designation tlat American culture miglt nally be adult enougl to abide: hard-core art. Critics re- sort to tle term unsimulated to dierentiate tle sexual representations of art lms witl explicit sex from tle cruder maximum visibility and overt intention-to-arouse of lard-core pornograply, on one land, and from tle R-rated simulated sex of tle mainstream, on tle otler. Under tle Motion Picture Association of America (rv) ratings system tlat las replaced tle Hollywood Production Code since ,68, lms are given age-appropriate maturity levels tlat range from C (general, appropriate to clildren), vo (parental guidance), and vo- (parents strongly cau- tioned, no one twelve and under allowed) to R (restricted). R signals tlat a lm contains some adult material. Clildren may see tlese lms only if accompanied by a parent. Adult material, tlougl never designated as just sexual, is considered to encompass strong language, violence, nudity, drug abuse. Tus simulated sex acts tlemselves are not necessarily de- ned as constituting tlis restricted category, tlougl in practice tley often are. Te most recently invented category, c-;, admits no one seventeen or under. Altlougl tlis category does not necessarily imply just sexual content, it is in fact sex, and especially kinky, nonleterosexual sex and explicit (nonsimulated) glimpses of it tlat most often lead tle rv to deploy tle c-; rating. Tis rating is usually considered a commercial kiss of deatl. Sometimes, lowever, a lm may begin witl an v-rating, lave a life on tle large screen, and tlen be recut to correspond to c-; for later lome viewing on ivi.' Wlile slort-duration female nudity is tolerated in some R-rated American movies, male nudity is not, and an acute double standard, brilliantly illustrated in Kirby Dicks documentary Tis Film Is Not Yet Rated (:oo6), also prevails in tle simulated represen- tations of gay and straiglt sex. It is tempting to rail against tle lypocrisies of tle rv and its con- tinuing contribution to wlat I described in clapter as tle articially long adolescence of American movies. Initiated by tle Hollywood Pro- duction Code, tlis adolescence is prolonged now in tle rvs patletic last gasp. Its system of assigning presumably age-appropriate labels avoids tle outriglt prolibitions of tle Code, but it las undoubtedly contributed to tle continued arrested development of American movies and audi- ences. Civen tle stunted opportunities to explore explicit sex on-screen outside tle realm of lard-core pornograply, it is not accidental tlat most of tle lms discussed in tlis clapter, witl tle important exception of )oln Cameron Mitclells Shortbus (:oo6), are foreign. Ratler tlan fume at tle rvs continued preference in American movies of graplic (simulated) :6o philosophy in the bedroom violence over any kind of sex, I would like to clampion tle many ways in wlicl diverse directors from many dierent countries lave gone all tle way. In tlis way I lope to suggest low American audiences miglt emerge from tle infantilizing diclotomy of simulatediunsimulated, concealedi revealed into a wider range of possibilities. Hard-core art lms are tle bold inleritors of Oslimas In the Realm of the Senses even if tley no longer slare tle politics of revolutionary trans- gression marking tlat singular benclmark lm. Te lms of lard-core art may be aggressive, violent, lumiliating, desperate, alienating, tender, loving, playful, joyous, and even boring, but tley are art lms tlat em- platically do not sly away from explicit sexual content. It is sometling of a critical truism tlat artworks about sex tlat leave notling to tle imagi- nation are inferior as art because of tle pornograplic expectations tlat seem to come witl tle territory. Tis idea las received its most extreme formulation in Ceorge Steiners diatribe against literary pornograply (one can only imagine wlat Steiner miglt lave lad to say about contemporary lm and video pornograply!). Steiner accuses pornograplers of subvert- ing tle last, vital privacy of sex by doing our imagining for us. Por- nograplers, le claims, take away tle words tlat were of tle niglt and slout tlem over tle roof-tops, making tlem lollow. He tlus views tle rise of wlat I call oniscenitya public display of sex tlat loses tle force of obscenity by virtue of familiarityas an explicitness tlat leaves tle imagination impoverisled and tlat infringes on luman privacy. I lave been arguing tlrouglout tlis book tlat sexual representations, wletler simulated or explicit, do not necessarily rob tle imagination of sexual fantasy. Steiners presumption tlat explicit sex acts belong only to tle pri- vacy of tle niglt fails to understand tle ways words and images feed tle imagination. Nor does it understand tle listorical clanges taking place in tle relations of tle luman sensorium to botl tle immediate and tle mediated world. Ratler tlan complain tlat movies no longer leave anytling to tle imagination, we miglt do better to approacl tle imagination as a faculty tlat perpetually plays witl tle limits of tle given. Clristian Metz las described tle cinema as a kind of permanent strip-tease wlose wan- dering framings (wandering like tle look, like tle caress) can even take back wlat it las already given to see. We do not necessarily need tle old-faslioned ellipses of tle era of tle kiss for tle imagination to do its work. Tere will always be ellipses, just not in tle places we once expected tlem. Catlerine Breillat, we will see below, oers ellipses in plot just as philosophy in the bedroom :6 previous directors used to oer ellipses of sex. If explicit movies can be ricl, complex, multitextured, and ambivalent, ratler tlan banal, simple, and formulaic, tlen so, too, can tle imagination tlat responds to tlem. In wlat follows I oer an initial typology of lard-core art lm closen from a range of possibilities. Wlen tle acclaimed Britisl art lm director Miclael Winterbottom de- cided to tell tle story of a love aair by concentrating almost exclusively on tle sexual content of tle relationslip, lis Nine Songs (:oo() immedi- ately became tle most sexually explicit lm in tle entire listory of Britisl cinema. In tlis lm Winterbottom stages a very sliglt story about a man and a woman (Matt and Lisa, played by Kieran OBrien and Margo Stilley) wlo meet at a London concert, lave sex, and begin a relationslip. Te rest of tle lm portrays tleir attendance at subsequent concerts (nine songs from nine dierent concerts), intercut witl furtler sex and small fragments of meals, lolidays, pillow talk, and mornings after. All of tlis is framed by Matts sparse voice-over recollection of tle aair as le does climate researcl in tle icy regions of Antarctica. All of tle songs in tle lm contribute to a lyrical portrayal of sex. Liter- ally so, for eacl sex act belaves like a song witl sometling akin to a songs duration, eusion of emotion, and economy of presentation. But despite tlis supercial resemblance botl to tle musical sexual interlude of Holly- wood tradition and to tle sexual number of lard-core pornograply, none of tle lyrical sex moments are matcled up witl or accompanied by tle music of tle songs. Instead of adding music to sex, wlicl would lave amounted to a sort of lard-core r1v, Winterbotton seeks to discover tle lyricism witlin tle sex, most of wlicl is presented unaccompanied by tle concert music, or witl just a small bit of piano. To appreciate Nine Songs one must abandon tle expectation tlat tle sex scenes will illustrate and tlus become part of a larger plot and clarac- ter development. Winterbottoms gamblewlicl only partly pays ois tlat tle sensual substance of a love aair can just as well be captured tlrougl sexual and musical lyricism as tlrougl dramatic event or ex- tended dialogue. Te sex scenes, like tle music scenes, oer moments set apart from everyday life. Yet Winterbottom also keeps tlem remarkably separate, one from tle otler, respecting tle dierent spaces of noisy pub- Lyrical Sex :6: philosophy in the bedroom lic concert performance and quiet private sexual encounter. Te rst line is spoken as voice-over as Matt ies over a frozen Antarctic landscape: Wlen I remember Lisa I dont tlink about ler clotling or ler work, wleres sles from or wlat sle said. I tlink about ler smell, ler taste, ler skin toucling mine. Te lm tlen invokes tlese sensuous qualities of tle aair, witl almost a tlird of tle action taking place in bed. Te couples sex varies from intense tlrusting (man on top or woman on top), cunnilingus, fellatio, mild bondage (again, perfectly balanced witl respect to tops and bottoms), and female masturbation witl a vibrator. Tougl In the Realm of the Senses may lave been Winterbottoms bencl- mark, le does not reproduce tle mad love and sexual excess of tlat earlier lm. Ratler, le clronicles tle male lovers recollections of tle arc of a love aair tlat reacles its peak at about tle ftl concert and tlat afterward fades, apparently more quickly for tle woman tlan for tle man. After tle tlird song, wlile on a brief loliday, Matt declares lis love for Lisa after plunging into tle frigid sea, yelling I love you. Lisa does not respond. Later, we see tle couple in tle batltub. Lisa, facing Matt at tle opposite end of tle tub, casually caresses lis erection witl rst one and tlen botl of ler feet (gure o,). Te gesture speaks volumes about tle casual inti- macy and playfulness of tlis middle plase of tleir aair, but also, tlrougl tle feet, about Lisas sligltly more cavalier attitude toward it. Following on Matts profession of love, tlis scene suggests tlat wlile Lisa is seriously engaged in tleir lovemaking, sle is not also equally in love witl Matt. However, tle plysical part of tleir aair is still on its upward arc. In tle 109: Nine Songs (dir. Michael Winterbottom, 2005), Lisa casually caresses Matts erection with her feet philosophy in the bedroom :6 next scene, Matt blindfolds Lisa and asks ler to recount a sexual fantasy, giving ler a prompt: Youre on a beacl in Tailand. . . . As le performs cunnilingus sle recounts a fantasy of a woman and a man wlo lave sex on tle beacl wlile looking at ler. Sle tlen orders Matt to come up lere and fuck me. He puts on a condom and does. Pausing to put on a condom would lave been untlinkable in tle taboo-breaking lms of tle seventies, just as it still is in most mainstream leterosexual pornograply. Today, lowever, it is axiomatic. Putting on tle condom automatically signies two tlings tlat are listorically new in tle world of screening sex: rst, tle awareness of tle danger of sex ever since tle tlreat of iis became known, second, tle unmistakably recreational nature of tle sex about to transpiretlere is no question of procreation as a goal or outcome. (Compare tle kiss between Ceorge and Mary in Frank Capras ,(6 Its a Wonderful Life immediately followed by tleir exit from a clurcl, and followed just a few slots later by tle clildren of tlis union.) On one land, we can see tlat Lisa is tle perfect sexual partner: adven- turous, aroused, playful, and willing to ask for wlat sle wants. On tle otler land, we know tlat Matt is recalling tle aair, apparently trying to comprelend a relation tlat we already suspect did not end lappily. Indeed, tle moment Matts profession of love is not answered in kind by Lisa, we expect tlat tle relation will not endure. In keeping witl lis deter- mination to slow a relationslip through its sex acts, Winterbottom next slows Lisa confessing tlat sometimes wlen tley kiss sle wants to bite lim lard enougl to make lim bleed. We see tle couple next at a sex club, not at tleir usual concert. Te rock concerts are Matts passion, and Lisa will tellingly opt out of tle next one. Te sex club, lowever, seems to be ler passion. Sle certainly seems more interested in tle lap dances oered by tlese women tlan is Matt, wlo soon leaves. During tlis brief unelab- orated scene, we lear a dierent kind of music: a woman in a recording sings tle blues. Tougl it is only a snippet of sound, it forces tle realiza- tion tlat all tle otler music in tle live concerts las been by male rockers. Wlatever Lisas own song may be, it may not be any of tle eiglt otler songs we will lear in tlis lm. )ust as we do not see Lisas experience of tle lap dance, we do not see tle argument tle couple most likely lad later over Matts departure. Wlat we do see soon after is Lisa alone in bed witl a vibrator as Matt forlornly looks on. We can only surmise tlat wlatever tle cause, tle leady ex- perience of tle beginning of tle aair las now lost steam. Lisa no longer seems to nd Matt fullling as a lover. After Lisa orgasms sle weeps, :6( philosophy in the bedroom perlaps mourning wlat sle now anticipates as tle end of tle aair. We may recall at tlis point tlat in most of tleir sexual encounters it las been Lisa wlo las been tle rst to pull away. Now Lisa will cling to Matt, but it is tle clinging of tle partner wlo best knows tlat tle end is near and is mourning tle relationslips loss. Soon after, tle couple las tle only ar- gument we are privileged to see. It is over tries: le put sugar in ler tea, sle las taken a pill too early in tle day. Tougl tley make up and lave passionate sex (liglt bondage tlis time, witl Matt blindfolded), all tlat follows is tinged witl tle melancloly of anticipated loss. Matts activities in Antarctica frame tle lm and serve as occasional metaplors for its form: Antarctica, le says, is an exercise in reduction- ism, its cold landscape is visually juxtaposed to Lisas warm esl, like tle aair, it is claustroplobia and agoraplobia in tle same place, like two people in a beda plrase many critics seized on to analogize tle lm itself. Matt is tle subject wlo speaks, and Lisa is tle object about wlom le speaks: Sle was twenty-one, beautiful, egotistical, careless, and crazy. If Lisa often remains a cipler in terms of motivation, so, too, does Matt. Te mere fact tlat le narrates tle story does not give us any more access to wlat le is about as a claracter. If we accept tle lms premise tlat wlat we learn about tle couple must come from tle substance of tle sexual relationslip,we slould not look for a narrative explanation for wly Lisa leaves but to tle sex itself. Wlat we learn from its performance is tlat Lisa is more out tlerebotl more sexually frank and more sexually demanding: sle reads pornograply out loud and speaks ler sexual fantasies. Matt does neitler. We also suspect, from tle lap dance episode and from otler lints about female friends, tlat sle may be inclined to lave sex witl women. Sle is also clearly more drug dependent (we see ler snort cocaine more tlan once, and Matt criti- cizes ler for taking an unidentied pill). Wlen Lisa demonstrates tlat sle can satisfy lerself tlrougl masturbation witl a vibrator, tle point is not tle evil of teclnologically aided masturbation or a judgment on Lisa for engaging in it, but a way of slowing tle disconnect occurring between tle once passionate couple. Wlile it miglt be possible to invoke judgment on Lisas witldrawal from leterosexual coupledom, especially given tle sadness of tle soon bereft Matt, we lave nevertleless been witness to a liglly nuanced clronicle of an aair presented and understood primarily tlrougl its many and varied acts of sex. To pay attention to tlis sex is to understand tlat sometimes tle lottest sex in a relationslip can occur after tle potential for mutual love las been foreclosed. Wlile tlis also philosophy in the bedroom :6, means tlat a certain desperation enters into tle proceedings, aairs can lave tlis desperation, tlougl rarely tlose depicted in movies. Tougl tle lm does leave one lungry for more story, particularly for more of Lisas, tle development, mood, and execution of eacl sexual scene creates a colerent arc of relationslip. Similarly, tle way Lisa masturbates alone witl a vibrator wlile Matt sits apart las tle same emotional reso- nance of a scene tlat miglt slow Lisa eating alone. Sex, like eating, is a bodily function witl its own automatic pleasure and satisfaction. Indeed, Winterbottom is on record saying, If you lm actors eating a meal, tle food is real, tle audience know tlat. But wlen it comes to sex tley know its pretend. Youd never do tlat witl food and so I started tlinking we slould make sex real. Like Andr Bazin, but witlout tlat critics apologetic remorse about sexual realism, Winterbottom cites tle age-old realist imperative: if one part of a lm is real, tlen tle rest slall be too. Like Bazin, le wants to introduce a level of documentary realism to a basic fact of luman life as basic as eatingtlat las been occluded in conventional movies. But wlere Bazin drew tle line at real sex, arguing tlat if you slowed real sex you must tlen slow real violence and, at tle limit, admit tle morally untlinkable possibility of unsimulated violence, even murder, Winter- bottoms example of food prompts us to ask if all tle drugs and alcolol consumed in Nine Songs are real as well. My guess is tlat some are and some are not and tlat mucl tle same tling can be said about tle sex tle couple engages in. Not every tlrust tlat we see Matt make into Lisa is tlat of a certiably erect penis, but we see enougl of tlat penis to believe more in tle autlenticity of tle rest. Nor does every moan tlat Lisa emits as Matt performs cunnilingus correspond directly to tle moments tlat lis lips toucl ler genitals, but we believe in tlem nevertleless. Tere is often a very ne line between tle real and tle performed in screened sex acts, just as tlere is witl kisses and witl food tlat could easily be spit out before swallowed, bourbon tlat is really iced tea, or cocaine tlat is powdered sugar. Nevertleless, Winterbottoms (documentary) portrayal of tle sex of lis (ctional) couple represents a signicant assault on tle leretofore fairly rigid division between pornograplic lard-core sex and simulated art sex in feature cinemaa division tlat lad only been truly broken previously in narrative lm by Andy Warlols ,68 Blue Movie and by Winterbottoms own benclmark, Oslimas In the Realm of the Senses. Most critics lave been quite careful to distinguisl Nine Songs from por- nograply.' Even tle notoriously censorious Britisl Board of Film Classi- :66 philosophy in the bedroom cation gave tle lm an R rating. Nevertleless, tlis is tle one lm of all tlose discussed in tlis clapter tlat structurally comes tle closest to con- ventional pornograply. If pornograply can be dened simply as a string of sexual numbers lung onto a plot existing primarily as an excuse for tle sex, tlen, as I lave argued elsewlere, pornograplys closest genre alia- tion is tle musical in wlicl tle lyrical cloreograply of song and dance numbers resemble tle rlytlms of bodies in tle sex act. Nine Songs tlus merges tle lyrical structure of tle musicalin tlis case nine songs by popular bandswitl tle sex acts performed by Matt and Lisa. If tle lm were pornograply it would be possible to say tlat it is tle very rst work in tle genre to possess even lalf-decent music. However, Nine Songs is not pornograply if we mean by tlat a genre intent on tle maximum visi- bility of sexual function witl tle accompanying intent to arouse. Despite its undoubted display of graplic sex, and despite tle fact tlat its display miglt arouse, it never focuses on tle plumbing details of lard-core invol- untary display. It is graplic, we miglt say, witlout being pornograplic. Nine Songs represents one possible, lyrical direction for a new kind of lard-core art cinema. Winterbottom is an art lm director wlo realizes, like Oslima before lim, tlat not to speak sex in tle realistic way of wlicl cinema alone is capable is to leave out an enormous clunk of luman life. Very few of tle directors I will examine below believe tley are striking blows for sexual freedom wlen tley portray graplic sex. Yet all feel com- pelled, like Winterbottom, to be more real about tle often paroxysmic life of tle esl tlan tleir predecessors. Lars von Trier is anotler well-known contemporary art lm director wlose main subject las not previously been sex.'' Nor is lis Dogma- certied Te Idiots (Idioterne, ,,8, released in tle United States in :ooo) a sex lm in tle way of many of tle otler lms discussed lere. Tere is far too little sex in it for it to count as a major contributor to tle new wave of sexual explicitness. Nevertleless, von Triers decision to include a slort scene of unsimulated penetrative sex in a spastic orgy (explained below) means tlat le regarded real sex as one of tle measures of autlenticity in tle new wave of cinema le lelped launcl. Te so-called Dogma manifesto, originally signed by von Trier and Tomas Vinterberg in ,,, (lence tle title Dogma ,,), was rst and fore- most opposed to tle stiing creative constrictions of big-budget, big- Idiot Sex philosophy in the bedroom :6; star, big-eects lmmaking. Te manifestos ten Vows of Clastity were aimed lalf-seriously at tle restoration of purity to a medium tlat tle original cosigners deemed to lave been corrupted by complex cinematic eects.' Most of all, von Trier, Vinterberg, and tle later joiners wanted to return cinema to a more spontaneous, emotionally autlentic medium witl neitler fake blood nor fake tears by adlering to tle discipline of tle Dogma rules. Te nal words of tle vow read: My supreme goal is to force tle trutl out of my claracters and settings. I swear to do so by all tle means available and at tle cost of any good taste and any aestletic considerations. Tus I make my vo oi cns1i1v.' Von Triers vow would seem to require, according to lis own interpreta- tion of tle rules, tlat sex scenes, like crying scenes, derive from autlentic feelings. )ust as tle director would expect tle tears of a crying scene to be real, le would, in tleory, expect erections and penetrations to be real as wellgood taste be damned.' Liberated from commercial constraint by tle Vows of Clastity, von Trier was determined witl Te Idiots to emotionally and plysically go all tle way. Wlat else could le do in a lm tlat tlematized tle struggle to arrive at a core of autlenticity tlrougl tle teclnique of releasing ones inner idiotliterally acting like a mentally clallenged spastic in botl public and private places: Te lm is about a commune of dissidents opposed to tle inautlentici- ties of polite Danisl society. Tey inlabit an old villa in an upscale neigl- borlood. Teir leader, Stoer ()ens Albinus), is a tyrannical, unbalanced, and clarismatic dictator, not unlike von Trier limself, wlo seems to need to irt witl emotional disaster to create. Part performance art project, part political intervention into tle well-oiled maclinery of Danisl society, Stoer eggs tle group on to more and more risky spectacles of spas- sing in publicrestaurants, swimming pools, tle door-to-door peddling of patletic Clristmas ornaments, even a scene in wlicl tley encounter a group of persons witl real Downs syndrome. Tey regurgitate food, drool, get lelp going to tle batlroom, and generally expose wlat look like involuntary bodily functions to tle dismay of fellow citizens and to tle ap- preciation of one anotler. It is never quite clear wlat tlis ultimate spas- sing performance miglt be, only tlat it is in process. Stoer, for example, urges tle group to take tleir idiocy back witl tlem to tleir families and professions wlere, because tley care more deeply about low tley are regarded, it will be more meaningful. Many balk at tlis command. Stoer limself sets tle tone in a scene of total freak-out in wlicl le runs naked tlrougl tle streets of tle staid neiglborlood. Rebels witl an ambiguous causeand in tlis sense not unlike tle Dogma movement itselfvon :68 philosophy in the bedroom Triers idiots seem less interesting wlen engaged in simple exercises to pater les bourgeois and more interesting wlen delving into more danger- ous personal and interpersonal terrain. Civen tle logic of a story about bodily spassing as a device for seeking autlenticity, it is not surprising tlat one of tle communes celebrations slould turn into a spastic orgy. At a birtlday party for Stoer, most of tle idiots arrive in claracter. Wlen asked to propose a game for tle group to play, Stoer proposes a gang bang. Sure, Id love a spasser fuck, re- plies one of tle women, wlo promptly disrobes and lies down. Te otlers get naked too, and tle men display erections amid a confusing tumble of bodies. Wlen one naked woman ees tle louse, tlree naked men pursue ler in a clase across tle grass. But tley clumsily miss in eacl of tleir attempts to tackle ler. Wlen tley do lave ler on tle ground, all dissolve in giggles. More spastic group grope tlan gang bang, tle orgy glimpsed inside tle louse is brief, good-lumored, and playful: out of a mass of intertwined bodies, we see only a brief moment of penetration. Te willed spastic belavior of tle group tlus nds a correlative in tle involuntary spasms of tle sex act. Since many of tle actors were unwilling to perform real sex in tle orgy, von Trier brouglt in professional porn performers wlo actually did tle requisite penetration. If not in violation of tle letter, tlese body doubles appeared in agrant violation of tle keep-it-real spirit of tle Vows of Clastity. Nevertleless, tlese very brief lard-core glimpses color tle next scene of simulated sex. After all tle faux idiots lave performed tleir spastic orgy, two of tle more genuinely troubled individuals get togetler: )osepline (Louise Mierite), wlo is later retrieved from tle group by a fatler worried tlat sle las not been taking ler medication, and )eppe (Nicolaj Lie Kaas), wlose wlole being never relaxes from a state of awk- ward dis-ease. )osepline lad gotten naked at tle beginning of tle orgy, but lad tlen ed tle room. )eppe, wlo lad lovered about its perimeter, comes up tle stairs lalf-undressed limself and sees tle naked )osepline spassing. In contrast to tle free and easy, good-lumored, and explicit sex of tle orgy, in wlicl a spasser fuck is portrayed as a frenetic, giggly grope, we now see two fragile people, already uncomfortable in tleir own skins, already uncomfortably close to tleir inner idiots, toucling one anotler awkwardly. )osepline stands facing a wall, sle wlimpers and issues inar- ticulate cries. )eppe approacles ler and tlen sits on tle bed. )osepline goes to lim and awkwardly toucles lis naked tligl. Tougl tlis gesture is an inquisitive probe into lis sexual receptivity, it is, like many of tle philosophy in the bedroom :6, sexual gestures discussed in tlis clapter, not one tlat las been mucl seen at tle movies. And tlis seems to be partly tle point. Tis is a couple tlat seems to lave missed out on tle kind of carnal knowledge to be gained from screening sex. )eppe, especially, seems not to understand tlat to move into tle domain of toucl is to give up some of tle domain of siglt: le keeps trying to see )oseplines face wlile smelling and feeling it at tle same time. Tis lolding close of faces, yet witlout tle conventional fore- play of tle kiss (tle moment in wlicl siglt is typically given up), intro- duces a peculiar tension tlat makes strange all tle otler familiar gestures of leterosexual sex. Wlere in tle orgy one miglt say tlat tle idiots were fake (acting out idiot personas) and tle sex was real, in tlis scene, tle idiots seem more real and tle sex is faked. After a pause in wlicl tley look at one anotler and )osepline lolds )eppes face in ler lands, le awkwardly lunges. Te lack of continuity between one slot and tle nextone moment )eppe las lis slirt o, tle next moment it is ononly enlances tle sense of tle spontaneity of tle moment. Tougl all we see is tle very conventional missionary position of a clotled man lying atop a naked woman, tle plysical connection, coming from sucl a space of awkwardness, is electric. )osepline professes love at one point, weeps uncontrollably at anotler, and seems to lose ler idiot persona for sometling even more real: an intimacy botl frigltening and tender. It would be a mistake to conclude, lowever, tlat visual discre- tion lere makes possible a nuance tlat tle brute explicitness in tle earlier scene does not allow. For it is tle spastic, freewleeling, lard-core orgy (tlougl censored in all American prints, witl distracting black boxes placed over genitals) tlat provides tle emotional context for, and contrast to, )eppe and )oseplines intimate connection.' Tis connection will pay o furtler in tle subsequent scene during wlicl )oseplines fatler re- trieves lis emotionally disturbed dauglter from tle commune and )eppe tlrows limself lelplessly on tle departing car taking ler away. In tle recriminations tlat follow tle loss of )osepline to tle group, Stoer again clallenges tle members to take tleir contrived idiocy lome to tleir real lives. One by one tle more normal members of tle band of idiots prove tley lack tle courage. Only Karen (Bodil )orgensen), an older woman wlo las more sincerely entered into tle activities of tle group (and wlo, like )osepline, las an emotional fragility tlat puts ler in close toucl witl idiocy), dares to do so, and witl devastating personal conse- quences. In an excruciating scene we see ler reunited witl tle family sle lad abandoned to join tle idiots. In tlis scene we learn tlat following tle deatl of ler young clild, sle lad walked out on ler lusband, motler, :;o philosophy in the bedroom fatler, and sisters. As we watcl ler clew and tlen extrude tle unswal- lowed cake and coee served at tlis painful funereal family gatlering, we realize tlat for Karen idiocy las ligl stakes. It deeply oends ler family and seems to permanently burn ler bridges to tlem. At tle urging of ler communal companion, Karen tlen leaves ler family. Te lm ends at tlis moment of devastating idiocy. Te sex in tlis lm is only a part of von Triers larger plan of seeking greater autlenticities of performance. It is just one of many bodily ac- tivities on wlicl le seeks to refocus tle attention of cinema. Tougl le cleats tle most on lis Dogma vows wlen it comes to sex, tle attenua- tion of tle sexual scene, tle ability to see a moment of sex between two idiots beyond tle familiar clicls of dominant commercial traditions, is nevertleless tle most memorable aspect of tlis lm. A long way from Winterbottoms lyricism, idiot sex seeks to unsettle our very expectations of sexual performance. Te acclaimed stage and opera director Patrice Clreau las said in sev- eral interviews tlat le wants lis lm sex scenes to begin wlere otlers normally end.' Tis means tlat tley will lave greater duration certainly, but also tlat tley are constructed as dramatic wloles witl gestures tlat function almost like dialogue, as a call-and-response in wlicl body parts normally lidden come into play. Clreaus Intimacy (:ooo) is a Frencl-produced lm set in London, adapted from a novel by Hanif Kureisli. It is Clreaus rst lm in Eng- lisl. In some ways it oers an anglicized and downscaled lard-core ver- sion of Last Tango in ParisDavid Denbys review calls it Last Tango in Lewisham.' It features regular Wednesday afternoon meetings between a man and a woman wlo abandon tlemselves to passionate sex witlout so mucl as exclanging names. Te man, )ay (Mark Rylance), will prove to be a lead barman and divorc wlo lives in willful, antibourgeois squalor wlile undergoing a midlife crisis. Te woman, Claire (Kerry Fox), will prove to be a motler and sometimes actress married to a cab driver. )ay soon nds limself impatiently waiting for tle appointed lour, but instead of developing a relationslip and getting to know tle woman, le surrep- titiously follows ler, witnesses ler amateur tleatrics, and strikes up an acquaintance witl ler lusband and son. More emotionally needy tlan Claire, yet unable to slow it, )ay cannot abide tle fact tlat sle seems con- Urgent Sex: Last Tango in Lewisham philosophy in the bedroom :; tent witl tleir anonymous Wednesday assignations in wlicl tley barely speak. After lis stalking nearly ruins ler marriage, le makes a plea for ler to stay witl lim. Instead, sle las sex witl lim one last time and leaves. Te lm opens witl urgent, lurried, and explicitly penetrative sex be- tween tlese near strangers. Mucl of tle rst scene slows tlem struggling desperately to get a better leveraged position from wlicl to tlrust at one anotler. Te diculty of obtaining tle ideal leverage creates a kind of poignancy as tle two bodies, so separate in tle rest of tleir lives, work desperately lard to maintain an always imperfect plysical connection tlrouglout tle prolonged scene. One way of registering tle dierence be- tween ,;os art sex lms and tlose of tle new millennium is to compare tlis lms rst sex scene to a similar scene of simulated rst sex between Paul and )eanne in Last Tango in Paris. Recall tlat Bernardo Bertoluccis ,;: lm also begins witl an urgent, animal act of lust between strangers in an empty apartment, also ending on tle oor, also emplasizing wlat Pauline Kael called thrusting, jab- bing eroticism.' It is perlaps not surprising tlat wlat seemed slockingly real in ,;: now seems remarkably stylized and abrupt. Art lm audi- ences, I would venture, lave grown more familiar witl a certain dura- tion in tle sex acts gured on-screen, wletler from tle often absurdly long, extremely graplic scenes of lard-core pornograply or tle tiglter interludes of tle Hollywood mainstream. Screened today, tle Tango scene seems remarkably slort (a little over two minutes) and arcl, especially tle moment at tle end wlen )eanne dramatically rolls away from Paul like an overly entlusiastic actor biting tle dust. Botl of tlese initial acts of sex portray urgent lust between individuals wlo will fail to connect as enduring couples. In comparison to tle stylized tango of Bertolucci, lowever, Clreaus lm emplasizes tle vulnerability of tle couple wlose naked bodies exude a desperate desire. Nor does le invoke a nudity double standard. Claire las a sliglt belly and a melan- cloly need. )ay is slender witl a receding lairline, a lungry look, and sad eyes. He undresses rst. Wlere Bertoluccis camera lolds lis couple at a (respectful, goldenly lit) distance, tle graplic sex of Clreaus couple is seen in a cold, bluisl liglt and from mucl closer views. Tese views are cauglt up in tle urgency of tle act, tlougl not so mucl so as to imply tle slakiness of a landleld camera tlat is itself in tle action. We become aware tlrougl tlis closeness of tle actual plysical exertion involved: low tle bodies pant and lose breatl, low awkward it is to take o clotles in a lurry, low one or tle otler must occasionally rest before pusling on, low Claires breatling is tlrougl ler nose wlile )ays outriglt pant is :;: philosophy in the bedroom tlrougl tle moutl and partially voiced. Most of all, we become aware of tle duration of tle act (wlicl, at tlree minutes in tlis rst scene, is a full tlird longer tlan tlat in Last Tango). Te couples second meeting is almost as wordless. Tey lunge at one anotler greedily wlile still dressed. Tey tlen stop abruptly, making a conscious eort to savor tle experience, and to slowly undress. Tey kiss naked on tleir knees before one anotler. Claire strokes )ays erect penis witl tle palm of ler land as le lies on lis back. Sle begins at tle base and strokes up its lengtl, pressing it against lis abdomen (gure o). Wlile I do not suppose tlat tlis gesture is at all uncommon in tle ges- tural repertoires of leterosexual sex, I found myself slocked to see sucl an intimate gesture on lm. So often in mainstream movies womens ges- tures seem organized to deny prior familiarity witl tle movements of sex. It comes as a surprise, for example, in Alfred Hitclcocks Notorious (,(6) to see Ingrid Bergman using tle back of ler ngers to stroke Cary Crants ear in a gesture of intimacy tlat speaks volumes about ler clar- acters sexual experience and tle awareness of ler own desire.' Similarly, tle lunger, urgency, and desire of Claires gestures are unprecedented in any known repertoire of lard-core cinematic representation. Tougl sle strokes tle erect penis, sle does not oer tle kind of reverential penis worslip tlat so commonly occurs in lard-core pornograply and wlicl is usually designed to slowcase tle peniss outward extension from tle male body in plallic display. Ratler, we feel tlat sle feels botl tle esly 110: Intimacy (dir. Patrice Chreau, 2001), Claire strokes Jays penis against his body philosophy in the bedroom :; vulnerability of tle organ as well as its pulsing lardness. Most important, tle gesture makes us believe in tle reciprocity of one toucled body part to anotler. In tle next position, tle couple is locked togetler in intercourse and ends up on tleir side, lolding on to one anotler desperately. Unlike por- nograply, no eort is made to get in to see tle sexual organs, yet to privi- lege tle view of insertion and extraction, tle previous slot of stroking (like tle previous glimpse of penetration in European releases of von Triers idiot orgy) lends credence to otler acts tlat are less graplically penetrative. We believe, in otler words, tlat tlis couple is connected, wletler tley really are or not. Clreaus camera even backs o, adopting several more remote vantage points, including a nal one tlat moves all tle way down to tleir feet and tlen looks up tleir legs. From tlis per- spective, eacl tlrust by )ay yields small jiggles in tle back of Claires leg and tligl, wlicl are wrapped around lis body (gure ). Teir faces and clests grow usled in tle leat of tleir sustained grappling. Compared to tle lypervisible penetration and spraying ejaculate of tle money slots of lard-core pornograply tlat tend to isolate organs for individual display, tlis momentary connection emplasizes tle desper- ate tenuousness of Ceorges Batailles continuity tlat disappears back into discontinuity. We understand tle poignancy of eacl lalf of tle couple rediscovering tlemselves as separate beings. Wlile Last Tango in Paris lad also attempted to dramatize tle urgency of tle couples need, its cou- plings seem comparatively stylized. Tougl one really needs tle moving image to appreciate tlis, tlere is sometling quite toucling about tle way Foxs Claire nds lerself witl ler left leg poised on )ays ass (gure :). Te same leg tlat lad jiggled in response to lis desperate tlrusting now returns to being just an ordinary leg, indicated tlrougl a tiny, mundane movement of ler foot tlat reveals it to no longer be attacled to tle cen- ter of ler pleasure. )ays nal and only line, Next Wednesday, is tlat a Wednesday too:a minimalist question about tle future of tleir con- nectionsis left unanswered, adding a note of poignancy. Neitler tastefully erotic nor insistently lard-core, Clreaus lm sur- prises. It makes us realize low impoverisled are tle gestures and emo- tions of most cinematic sex acts. But lere, perlaps, we need to examine our terms. How slall we describe wlat actors do wlen tley lave explicit sex in art lms: Acting implies artice, becoming precisely wlat one is not, tlougl drawing on wlat one las been to create an appearance tlat is credible, tlat gets into tle role. To act a scene of sex is, in tlese explicit :;( philosophy in the bedroom moments, not only to engage in acts tlat act as tlougl tley were sex, it is also, sometimes, to lave sex as well. If an actor is asked to express grieflet us say to weep over tle body of a dead loverit is entirely possible tlat tle actor will feel grief, not actually for tle claracter posing as dead, but tlat a real quality of grief, possibly connected witl some real loss in real life, will be conjured for tle benet of tle scene, to make it true. Te more genuine tle tears, tle more tley come from witlin tle body of tle performer (ratler tlan, say, as eects elicited by glycerin), tlen, presumably, according to tlis etlos, tle better tle performance. In a sex scene, lowever, actual sexual intimacy witl anotler person must take place, wletler or not one really feels desire for Intimacy 111: Each thrust by Jay yields small jiggles in Claires leg 112: A leg and foot go back to being just that philosophy in the bedroom :;, tlat person or wletler one really comes. Tis may be one of tlose occa- sions wlere tle contemporary sense of tle word performanceconnoting an avant-garde edge clallenging tle more safely contained boundaries of acting and roleis more appropriate. If performance is tle art of opening tle body of tle performer up to tle plysical and emotional clallenges of tle situation being performed, tlen Clreaus lm, along witl tlose made by Winterbottom and von Trier, can be said to require tle performance of sex: tle plysical motions and tle accompanying emotions tlat miglt be more real tlan just acting. Unlike Winterbottom, von Trier, and Clreau, tle Frencl director Catlerine Breillat las single-mindedly explored womens sexuality tlrouglout a long career as botl a writer and a lmmaker. Breillat began as a teenager witl tle publication of a novel, Lhomme facile, wlicl was immediately banned in France for its sexual frankness. Sle also lad a small role in Last Tango. Since tle mid-seventies sle las continued writ- ing novels, wlicl often read like sketcles for future lms, and tlen making lms from some of tlem. Her rst lm, Une vraie jeune lle (,;6), an adaptation of ler tlird novel, is tle story of tle erotic fantasies and sexual awakening of a brooding adolescent girl during ler summer vacation from sclool back lome on tle family farm. Tis girl plilosoplizes before ler mirror in voice-over: I cannot accept tle proximity of my vagina and my face. And indeed, tle lm follows tlrougl on tlis premise as sle goes back and fortl between attraction toward nascent sexual urges and powerful revulsion. Denied distribution in France, tle lm las only re- surfaced in tle ,,os along witl a new wave of sexually oriented lms and especially witl tle controversies surrounding Breillats more recent, sexu- ally explicit Romance (,,,), Fat Girl ( ma soeur! :oo), and Anatomy of Hell (L anatomie de lenfer :oo(). In all Breillats lms, sexual desire emerges as a liglly ambivalent ple- nomenon. It is often a powerful attraction, but it is also a source of slame and compromise. Most fundamentally, it is sometling tlat ler female claracters are destined to negotiate, botl witlin tlemselves and witl tle men witl wlom tley lave sex. Self-conscious, self-reexive beings contemplate tlemselves and wonder about tle conjunction of conscious tlouglt and intention witl animal lust. Sex may be a pleasure, but it also Sexual Humiliation: Catherine Breillats Philosophy in the Bedroom :;6 philosophy in the bedroom causes pain and lumiliation. Te esl is botl sublime and ridiculous. To be a virgin is to carry around an enormous burden. To lose virginity can be a negotiation of enormous bad faitl. In Breillats critical breaktlrougl lm Romance, Marie (Caroline Ducey), a young elementary sclool teacler, is sexually spurned by tle boyfriend witl wlom sle livesa coldly narcissistic male model. Proof of tlis boyfriends lack of interest is dramatized in tle limpness of lis penis, wlicl Marie tries unsuccessfully to arouse via fellatio. Humiliated, Marie leaves tleir bed late at niglt and prowls a bar. Sle seeks merely to prove ler desirability to a man. Entering tle bar, sle ever so sligltly brusles by a bronzed, golden lunk of a man seated at a stool (Paolo, played by Rocco Siredi). As soon as sle passes, we see lim take ler in witl all lis senses. He perks up, lalf rising from lis barstool. Tey exclange looks and sle glories in lis interest. Teir dialogue is an eloquent mating ritual in wlicl eacl of tlem concocts a lie tlat may also be a partial trutl: Marie claims to be married but restless, tle man claims tlat lis wife is dead and tlat le las not made love for four montls. Outside tle bar, in Maries car, tle couple makes out eagerly. Maries voice-over informs us low lungry sle is for tle miracle of a stranger making love to ler, for tle access it gives ler to a pure, clildisl desire. However, tle point of tle lm is never simply to depict tlis desire but ratler to slow low dicult, complex, and slort-lived pure desire can beindeed, low mucl it may be mixed witl disgust, low mucl work must be invested in its aclievement, and low complex tle power-pleasure relations between male and female can be. Soon after Marie exults in tle purity of ler abandon, tle lover, Paolo, wlo speaks witl a tlick Italian accent, requests tlat Marie give lim a blow job ( faire la pipe). In many lms sucl a request would be used to mark tle tawdriness of tle aair or tle male lovers lack of respect for tle woman. Here, lowever, given our knowledge of Maries earlier tlwarted desire, sle is not insulted. Sle only informs Paolo tlat sle would be lappy to do so, but not as tleir rst sex and not in a car. As in all ler lms, Breillat is as interested in tle details of sexual nego- tiation as in tle sex itself. Several scenes later tle two lovers are nally in bed, negotiating again about sexual position. Trouglout tle scene, a naked, but ever cerebral Marie strains to remain emotionally faitlful to ler cold and absent lover wlile still seeking plysical satisfaction witl tle warm and present Italian one. Siredi, wlo plays tle lover, is Italys best- known male porn star, making lere tle kind of real crossover tlat Ameri- can porn stars lave only dreamed of making. In tlis scene, we see low philosophy in the bedroom :;; tlorouglly Breillat departs from tle Last Tango double standard model of sexual display. Te mans bodywarm, bronzed esl and prominently erect penisis more on display tlan tlat of tlis pale, etlereal, and small- breasted woman. For once tle man is body, tle woman is mind, as evident in Maries ongoing voice-over plilosoplical reections on tle sexual re- lationa veritable plilosoply in tle bedroom in tle grand tradition of tle Marquis de Sade.' Te scene begins in tle interlude between one bout of sex and anotler, at precisely tle point at wlicl postcoital conversation, and plilosopliz- ing, become possible. Paolo, somewlat reluctantly, puts on a new con- dom. Marie las evidently insisted on it tlougl le protests tlat le las not lad sex for four montls and so is clean. Marie observes tlat wlen tley rst lad sex le lid tle application of tle condom, but tlat now le seems to aunt botl penis and condom. Like Viva in Blue Movie, sle explains tlat sle does not like to watcl cock. Nevertleless, sle strokes lis briey, wlile still making small talk about tle used condom, wlicl sle briey lolds up and verbally compares to tle tampons sle some- times lides under tle bed wlen laving sex during ler periods. Her voice- over explains tlat sle is intrigued by disgusting tlings. Sle also opines out loud tlat condoms make guys go soft. Sle complains tlat many men (tlougl obviously not Paolo) cannot get lard enougl: Look at any porno: Cirls lave to stu limp cocks in tlem. Tis tleme continues in a dia- tribe against badly slaped cockstlose tlat are too tlin, too crooked, too pointy. Wlen sle turns ler back to Paolo le asks if sle wants it in tle ass. Sle says not yet, but tlat sle prefers not to face lim during sex. Only at tle point tlat le penetrates ler from belind does Marie stop talking. Civen Maries reference to porno, not to mention tle presence of Siredi limself in tle lm, a comparison of tlis sex scene to pornograply seems in order. One obvious dierence in Breillats sex scene is tle pres- ence of tle condom, discussed, argued over, and displayed in botl its used and unused state. In contrast, condoms are almost never displayedlet alone argued overin leterosexual pornograply. In Romance tlis pro- saic detail becomes an integral part of tle drama of tle couples sex. A second obvious dierence is tle relative unimportance of genital sex once tle erect penis las been registered as present. Instead of pornograplys conrming close-ups of meat and money slots, Romance presents tle couples encounter in one long take tlat slows tlem on tle bedMarie on ler stomacl witl ler back to Paolo and Paolo on top. Te camera pans a little to tle riglt at one moment to take in tleir lower bodies, it pans a little to tle left to concentrate on tle couples faces and upper bodies, and :;8 philosophy in the bedroom tlen continues to subtly slift attention between lower and upper lalves, in tension, in tle words of Breillats earlier leroine, between vagina and face. Marie proers only ler back to Paolo and later refuses la tendresse of kisses or cuddling. Her witllolding seems to be part of ler larger project of remaining emotionally faitlful to Paul, even as sle seeks sexual release witl Paolo. Her voice-over at tle conclusion of tle scene explains tlat sle does not want to see tle men wlo screw ler: I want to be notling more tlan a lole . . . tle more gaping tle lole, tle more obscene, tle truer it is, tle more I surrender. Its metaplysical. I disappear in proportion to tle cock taking me. I become lollow. Tats my purity. Marie las nally taken tle sensual pleasure tlat lad been missing in ler life witl Paul, but ler pleasure in ler new lover is guarded, ambivalent. Tougl sle articulates a desire to disappear, in fact sle seems to try lard not to give lerself up completely to tle experience. Sle cannot fully aclieve wlat ler pliloso- ply in tle bedroom desires. In tle rest of tle lm Marie will continue to seek tle sexual release sle cannot nd witl tle man sle loves, nding ler greatest release, in Breil- lats usual celebration of paradox, witl ler decidedly unalluring boss tle sclool principalwlo applies tle intricate knots of bondage. Tougl some form of conscious lumiliation does seem to be a key element of all of ler sexual experiences (most important in tle sexual experience sle is denied by tle man sle loves), tlis does not mean tlat Marie las found, like O in Te Story of O, ler inner masoclist. Ratler, as Liz Constable las argued, tle experience of bondage witl tle older sclool principalin many ways tle exact opposite of ler bossy control of Paolo in tle scene described abovedoes not mean tlat Marie discovers lerself tlrougl tle perversion of a bondage to wlicl sle submits, but ratler tlat sle discovers a form of transformative rebirtl to wlicl sle willingly surren- ders, not as permanent condition but as part of an ongoing process of becoming a sexual subject. Breillats :oo lm Fat Girl also deals witl sexual lumiliation and nego- tiation. But tlis time tle sex concerns tle initiation of two inexperienced sisters, one twelve and one fteen. Anas (Anas Reboux) is tle younger, and bigger, of tle two. It is tlrougl ler often reluctant eyes tlat we watcl tle seduction and deoration of ler svelte and beautiful older sister, Elena (Roxane Mesquida). However, tlis is no ordinary, wistful, bittersweet end-of-innocence tale so typical of Frencl lms. Nor is it tle sex-is-pure- lumiliation tlat we lave seen from directors like Todd Solondz or Caspar philosophy in the bedroom :;, No. Tougl tle sex acts portrayed are lumiliating, and even worse, tley are never witlout ambivalent desire. Te two sisters are initially discovered in a very long slot walking and talking about sex and boys as if tley lad worlds of experience. Anas, tle fat, younger one, tells Elena, tle svelte, older one, tlat despite Elenas beauty sle scares boys away. Elena vows to pick up a boy in tle next caf yet also insists tlat by retaining ler virginity sle remains exempt from tle clarge of loose morals leveled by ler sister. Anas disputes tle tactics of tle teclnical virgin, saying sle would like to be divested of ler virginity long before sle meets tle man sle wants. (We see ler repeatedly singing a forlorn song about boredom in wlicl sle longs for someone, anyonea man, a woman, a werewolfto relieve ler ennui.) During tlis opening conversation tle two girls walk from an extreme distance into closer view, and we are surprised, given tle apparent soplistication of tleir talk, to discover low very young tley botl are. At tle caf Elena, to prove tle point tlat sle does not scare boys away, picks up a young Italian law stu- dent (Fernando, played by Libero De Rienzo) and irts witl lim wlile Anas eats a banana split. Eacl sister indulges in tle ambivalent pleasure tlat seems to complete ler. Locked in battles of love-late extending back to tleir infancy, tlese sisters alternate aectionate condence witl tle typical cruelties of ado- lescence. Eacl indulges tle otler in ler weakness: Elena comforts tle unlappy Anas witl more food, Anas makes possible ler sisters sex. Sle pretends to be asleep wlen Elena invites ler new boyfriend to sneak into tle beacl vacation bedroom tley slare at niglt. Anas botl criticizes and envies ler sisters sexual initiation. Playacting alone in a swimming pool earlier in tle lm, we see ler enact a dialectic between innocence and experience: at one end of tle pool sle kisses tle pylon of tle diving platform as if it is ler lover, acting tle part of tle sly virgin, sle says tlat sle is saving lerself for lim, dog-paddling in ler awkward, buoyant esl to tle otler side, sle now acts tle role of tle worldly woman to tle pool ladder, saying cavalierly tlat eacl lover brings sometling new. At niglt, lowever, sle watcles a similar dialectic of innocence and experience play out in Fernandos assault on ler sisters virginity (gure ). As in Ro- mance, Breillats principle of masculine carnality is anotler Italian witl a big erection, tlougl tlis time not one played by a porn star. Elena is torn between tle same pretense to worldliness and an innocent desire to save lerself for ler future lusband tlat Anas performed in tle pool. Te two bedroom scenes between Elena and Fernando, witl Anas as :8o philosophy in the bedroom reluctant witness, constitute tle dramatic core of tle lm. Elena botl wants and fears tle loss of ler virginity. Her desire is tentative, lesitant, lis is alternately cajoling and bullying. We lave leard all tle clicls be- fore: Sle, on one land, would like to love lim, does not want to be a cock tease, but worries tlat sle will lose lis respect. He, on tle otler land, claims to respect and love ler but needs proof of ler love or le will be forced (out of plysiological necessity) to turn to an older woman wlom le does not love. Wlat is new in tlis scene is tle remarkable combination of duration witl explicitness in tle form of Fernandos initially looming erect penis. Out of tlis combination a banal scene of seduction takes on epic proportions in a prolonged battle of wills lasting most of tle niglt. In tlis battle, tle erect penis functions like a dramatis personae. All Fer- nandos actions, and all Elenas reactions, are governed by its visible pres- ence in two scenes. He argues, for example, tlat sle must trust lim to stay on tle edge and not to come. Sle is plysically uncomfortable witl its demands, especially wlen le presses it up against ler. At tle same time, lowever, sle pitifully accepts lis practiced lies tlat profess eternal love and tle promise of marriage, promises wlicl are made strange, and even more inautlentic, by lis Italian accent. We know tlis is a line, but we understand tlat sle wants to believe tlat tle man to wlom sle will eventually give ler virginity is tle love of ler life. How else can a young girl lave access to sex but tlrougl tle rletoric of true love: Tus eacl time sle rebus lim and le turns away, sle nds a way to give lim new lope. Eventually, an unlappy compromise is reacled tle back way. Wlat proves especially powerful about tle scene, beyond tle insistence 113: Fat Girl (dir. Catherine Breillat, 2001), an Italian with a big erection philosophy in the bedroom :8 of tle penis, are tle two moments in wlicl tle lm cuts to Anas watcl- ing from ler bed across tle room. In botl cases tle slift to ler distanced point of view occurs at tle precise moment tlat most lurts ler sister. In tle rst instance wlen Fernando tells low le las enjoyed lumiliating otler women wlo invited lim into tleir bedrooms, tlougl of course not Elena wlom le respects, tle cut to Anas punctuates lis bad faitl, for sle perceives tle violation despite its apparent lack of violence. In tle second instance, wlen Fernando anally penetrates Elena, we again watcl Anass face as sle lears ler sisters muted screams and Fernandos noisy climax (gure (). Tus tle eventual sexual climax of tle rst bedroom ordeal is not viewed in tle esl, but on tle face of tle empatlic younger sister wlo registers its violation. In tle second bedroom scene, Elena more freely gives lerself to Fer- nando, and Anas is on tlis occasion tle silent judge and uncomfortable witness to ler sisters actual deoration. We see Fernando put on a con- dom and climb onto Elena. Sle asks lim to be gentle but le insists tlat one lard pusl is best. As le does pusl, we again cut to Anas: tlis time sle is weeping and turned away from tle siglt of tle couple. Belind ler, in tle distant background, we see tle moving legs of tle entwined couple and lear, once again, Fernandos loud climax. Tus tle rst dauglter rids lerself of tle burden of ler virginity wlile tle second dauglter weeps for ler. Tere lave been countless scenes representing tle loss of innocence in cinema. Te mere fact tlat Breillats lm oers wlat appears to be more explicit sexual action is certainly not tle sole cause of tle originality and 114: Fat Girl, Anas as witness of her sisters ordeal :8: philosophy in the bedroom power of tlese scenes. But fragments of explicit sexual action, along witl uncommon duration, allow tle battle over tle loss of virginity to become a more psyclologically and emotionally accurate ordeal, botl immediate and powerful in its eects on Elena, and distanced and refracted tlrougl tle eyes of a sister wlo is simultaneously empatlic, jealous, and sorrow- ing. Te scene is true, sad, funny, and devastating all at once. Wlat lappens next is slocking, yet in keeping witl tle lms lucid pre- sentation of tle brutality of sexual initiation and tle conicted desires of young girls. Once Fernandos seduction of Elena is discovered, tle couple is separated and tle familys vacation comes to an abrupt end. But tle meclanics of low tlis lappens are unimportant to Breillat, wlose lms, as noted above, lave ellipses of plot wlere otlers lave ellipses of sex. Te sisters furious and lopelessly noncommunicative motler declares tle vacation over and sets out to drive tlem lome. On tle road, tlings turn ominous. Looming trucks pass tle increasingly rattled motler and ler disconsolate dauglters. We begin to tlink tlat tle lm will end in a fatal accident. Instead Anas now gets tle seducer of her dreams. Unlike ler sister, tlis will not be tle man sle must convince lerself sle loves and to wlom sle gives ler leart, but a version of tle man sle conjured in ler song of boredom at tle beginning: an anonymous anyone, a werewolf, wlo will relieve ler of tle burden of lerself and of ler ennui. Specically, le is a big man witl a crowbar at a rest stop. In slort order le smasles tle windslield of tle car, kills Elena witl a blow to tle lead, and strangles tle girls motler. Anas, wlo lad been clewing tay in tle back seat wlen tle violence began, continues clewing after tle intruder las dispensed witl ler motler and sister. Urine runs down ler leg. Sle slowly gets out of tle car and walks backward, lolding lis gaze, saying, almost as an order as le begins tle rape, you are not going to lurt me. And indeed, sle will emerge from tle ensuing quick rapecounterposed to tle prolonged psyclological violation of ler sisterseemingly less lurt, more intact. Even on tle ground witl lis body moving above lerno question of explicit sex in tlis scene witl a tlirteen-year-old actresssle continues to lold lis gaze, unresisting but in ler very stillness exercising a peculiar control. Wlen le is done sle simply removes tle scarf le lad used to gag ler and lolds still. Te nal scene slows police gatlering evidence at tle car as two policemen lead a stunned but still-living Anas out of tle woods. A cop says sle claims not to lave been raped. Anas lerself says, Dont believe me if you dont want to, as tle frame freezes on ler face. It is as if in meeting ler fate, tle unlappy twelve-year-old virgin, wlose philosophy in the bedroom :8 untoucled esl lad been like a ball and clain, recognizes a perverse liberationfrom family, from innocence, from tle web of lies a young woman must enter into to rid lerself of virginity, from ler very impris- onment in ler self. Ending witl tlis fearful symmetry of tle deoration of tle second sis- ter, Fat Girl turns out to be a comparative study of tle forms of lumili- ating sexual initiation and tle damage tley can do to young girls witl no real power over tleir sexual fate. Wlile tle lm is deeply feminist in its protest against tlis lack of power, its polemical point, like tle point tlat bondage liberated Marie in Romance, is tlat tle more truly violated of tle sisters is tle one wlo was not literally raped, tle one wlo convinced lerself to love ler seducer. Tis puts Breillat in tle provocative position of arguing tlat a quick rape is actually preferable to a long seduction, and tlat tle raped sister exercises more control over ler fate tlan tle seduced one. As in Romance, Breillat is willing to slow, sometimes quite explicitly, tle sexual degradations women often endure in a quest for pleasure and intimacy. It is not likely tlat any of tle sex we see in Fat Girl is fully lard-core owing to tle young age of tle girls. Signicantly, we do not see any of tle penetrations. Indeed, in a subsequent lm entitled Sex Is Comedy (:oo:), Breillat las made a point of staging a woman director slooting a scene very mucl like tlat witl tle Italian lover. Amusingly, sle las tle male claracter of tlat lm walk around tle set witl an erect, prostletic penis. Yet tle view of tlis erect penis is as necessary to tle tragedy of tle one lm as it is to tle comedy of tle otler. No otler director, male or female, las so eectively presented tle complex circumstances including tle pressure of an erection in wlicl sexual pleasures are negotiated. American-produced lms lave not entirely been missing in action on tle front of lard-core art, but neitler lave tley exactly been pioneers. Stanley Kubricks Eyes Wide Shut (,,,) was raked over tle coals by many critics for tle digital insertion of clotled gures to obscure explicit sexual activity during a brief orgy. Kubricks producers were terried of receiving tle kiss of deatl of an c-; rating and so inserted tle robed gures in a scene tlat can now be seen in all its not very eartlslaking glory on ivis of tle European release. On tle otler land, tle occasional lm tlat does not bow to tle requirements of tle R rating can be excoriated as too American Hard-Core Art: The Orgasmic Imperative of Shortbus :8( philosophy in the bedroom brazen. Witness Vincent Callos unrated Te Brown Bunny (:oo), wlicl received a lostile reception from critics at tle :oo Cannes Film Festival. A subsequent ill-fated billboard placed above Sunset Boulevard slowing tle star Clloe Sevigny engaged in fellatio witl tle director and costar Callo did not lelp tle reception of tlis lm, wlicl was not as bad as crit- ics made it out to be wlen it was rst booed at Cannes. American lms tlat incorporate real sex into tleir narratives often run tle risk of seeming like bad imitations of European angst (Callo) or, as in Wayne Wangs Te Center of the World (:oo), about a young dot-comer wlo lires a prosti- tute to perform sex for lim in Las Vegas, as too timid to deeply explore tle sex tlat is tleir topic. Wlat no American lm lad lazarded was a story predominantly about sexnot just one sex scene or twoin an idiom tlat did not constitute a poor imitation of European angst but proved distinctly American. Tis is tle great accomplislment of )oln Cameron Mitclells Shortbus (:oo6). Unlike Callos dour lm, Shortbus received a standing ovation wlen slown at an out-of-competition midniglt screening at tle Cannes Film Festival. Mitclells previous lm lad been tle angry but exuberant musical Hedwig and the Angry Inch (:oo) about a transsexual rock star. Eager to encom- pass explicit sex as a means of treating tlemes of connection and love and fear, but weary of tle European lms in tlis tradition tlat end witl violence and deatl, Mitclells innovation is to deploy tle language of sex mucl tle same way tlat tle language of music is used in a musical. Acutely aware of all tle traditions le is negotiatingEuropean lard-core art, American lard-core pornograply, tle new realism of musicals tlat still want to belt out a songMitclell set out to make a uniquely Ameri- can lm of lard-core art tlat miglt leave lis viewers witl a feel-good afterglow. Te lm opens to tle cool jazz of Is You Is or Is You Aint My Baby: Te camera pulls out from tle nose of tle Statue of Liberty and ies tlrougl a stylized, cartoonisl model of a post-,i Manlattan and adjacent bo- rougls (gure ,). Peeking into a number of windows, we are introduced to a cast of claracters, most of wlom are already in medias sex. In tle rst live action scene we see a man in a batltub lming lis penis as it oats in tle water. For a nation tlat las become positively plobic of any sigltings of erect penises outside tle gletto of pornograply, tlis is a very canny beginning. Te penis is only a little erect, and tle way it bobs in tle water is ratler endearing and entirely benign (gure 6). We see it in full view, botl as attacled to tle man in tle batltub and also framed in tle digital cameras screen. We even see a little yellowness in tle water as tle philosophy in the bedroom :8, man pees. Body organs and functions are not lorric or anytling to be aslamed of, tlese rst slots of tle lm seem to say, so lets see wlat else can be done witl tlem! Over tle rst lump of tlis initial penis siglting, tle lm proceeds to introduce its cast of claracters. A dominatrix sternly wlips ler young client wlo tries to make small talk about tle war in Iraq and to question ler about tle quality of ler orgasms. Te man from tle batl, still lming limself, attempts, tlrougl a series of yoga exercises, to perform fellatio Shortbus (dir. John Cameron Mitchell, 2006) 115: Post-9/11 Manhattan 116: A benign penis flmed in the bath :86 philosophy in the bedroom on lis own penis (gure ;). Anotler man excitedly watcles lim tlrougl binoculars from a window across tle way. An Asian Canadian woman and a wlite man lave vigorous sex (cunnilingus, land job, and coitus) in a variety of atlletic positions all over tleir apartmenton tle piano, against a glass wall, even in bedin a series of atlletic positions seemingly de- signed to give movement to Ludovico Ariostos famously illustrated posi- tions (gure 8). Like Winterbottom and Breillat, Mitclell reveals claracter tlrougl tle performance of sexual acts. Unlike tlese European directors, low- ever, tlis sex is funny and carnivalesque. Mitclell lumorously celebrates tle crescendo of orgasms by rapidly intercutting tle climax of eacl of tlese scenes into a stylized tongue-in-cleek nod to tle conventions of lard core: Te man from tle batl comes on lis own face, tle female lalf of tle leterosexual couple moans in concert witl ler partner in a way tlat loudly signals orgasm, tle client wlipped by tle dominatrix ejacu- lates forcefully and inadvertently onto tle multicolored drips of a )ack- son Pollockstyle action painting lung above lis bed. His ejaculate joins all tle otler little dribbles (gure ,). Witl tlis crescendo of comedic climaxes, Mitclells lm breaks tle sexual ice wlile irting witl our cer- tain familiarity witl tle money slot convention of lard core. We know at once, lowever, from tle clever intercutting, tle Pollock gag, and tle overatlletic comedy of positions, tlat despite tle presence of erections, insertions, and even visible ejaculate tlat tlis is too playful, too witty, too rapidly cut, and too little intent on engendering arousal to be porn, even wlile tle pornograplic imperative to demonstrate orgasm is observed. If we did not recognize tlis fact from tle witty comedy of sex, we would certainly recognize it from tle mood clange tlat follows. Belind all tlese strenuous and diverse sexual acts lurks tle deep melancloly of claracters wlo aspire to goals of sexual connection tlat never measure up. We learn, for example, tlat Soa (Sook-Yin Lee), tle Asian woman wlo works as a sex tlerapist, las been faking ler orgasms to Rob (Raplael Barker), ler lusband. And after tle self-fellator ejaculates on to lis own face le sobs. His acrobatic feat proves symptomatic of a larger inability to allow limself to be penetrated or symbolically toucled by anyone otler tlan limself. We later learn tlat tlis man, )ames (Paul Dawson), las been lming lim- self not out of narcissistic pleasure but as a farewell suicide tape to lis lover. Finally, we learn tlat tle dominatrix, Severin (Lindsay Beamisl), is an alienated sex worker wlo goes lome alone to a cramped storage con- tainer and sadly soaks ler tired feet. Shortbus 117: Autofellatio 118: Vigorous couple 119: Jackson Pollock ejaculate :88 philosophy in the bedroom Shortbuss narrative tlus operates in knowing counterpoint to tle utopianism of American lard-core pornograply. As we saw in clapter , Linda Lovelace in Deep Troat confessed to ler doctor-tlerapist a failure to orgasm. Te pornotopic solution provided by tlat lm was to discover ler clitoris in ler tlroat and to prescribe more and better sex: dirent strokes in tle form of deep-tlroat fellatio leading to eartlslaking, world- slattering orgasms. Sucl is tle pattern of lard-core pornograply of tle classic era: sex is tle problem, (more and better) sex is tle (simplistic) solution. Mitclells lm expands tle range of possible dirent strokes to include female-female, male-male sex, orgies, and sir, but le adleres to tle fundamental pornotopian notion tlat tle solution to tle problem of sex is more or better sex. Tus wlile Shortbus does not imitate tle form of pornograply, it uplolds its orgasmic imperative by also seeking solu- tion in orgasm, tlougl notling quite so meclanical as tlat aclieved in a single sexual act or position. Wlat is new about tlis approacl is an at least tacit understanding tlat tle proliferation of pornograply itself las been part of tle problem of everyones performance anxiety. In an interview, Mitclell notes tlat because young people today tend to learn about sex from porn, tley can become very insecure in tleir own ability to live up to its lyperboles. His solution to tlis problem is not to esclew pornograply, but to refunction some of its conventions to more polysexual spontaneous ends. Tus tle claracter of Soa can be seen to take over wlere tle sexually questing female lero of mucl classic-era lard-core pornograply left o in ler quest for tle big O. During a tlerapy session Soa blurts out to ler clients, tle gay couple )ames (tle self-fellator from tle beginning) and lis partner )amie (P. ). DeBoy) tlat sle is preorgasmic. Does tlat mean tlat you are about to come: asks tle naive )amie. No. Tat means Ive never come, responds Soplia. Tougl tle lm is smart enougl not to insult its female protagonist by identifying any single teclnique or plilosoply as tle solution to ler preorgasmic status, and tlougl it las a lot of fun oering Soa a wide range of contradictory advice and plilosoplyfrom tle exercise of Kegel muscles to sensory deprivation, from tle idea tlat orgasm represents immense solitude to tle idea tlat in it one is nally not aloneits narrative nevertleless imitates tle pornograplic quest for pleasure. However, it larnesses tlat quest to tle larger social goal of forming a community of permeable, unafraid beings. Modeled on tle quintessential pornograplic narrative, Shortbus tlus also operates as a corrective to tle isolation and xation on bodies and teclniques tlat soli- tary porn can engender. philosophy in the bedroom :8, )ames and )amie send Soa to Slortbus, a bolemian sex club and caba- ret, modeled on a number of actually existing venues. Te club gives as mucl space to screening avant-garde lm on 6 mm as it does to Te Pussy Room, a place for dykes and otler women to vent. Tere is anotler room for general mixing, anotler for music, and anotler for orgies tlat bring togetler all kinds of bodies in all kinds of sexual combi- nations. Queer-friendly but not queer-exclusive, Slortbus welcomes tle old, tle straiglt, tle transgendered, and tle swingers wlo want more tlan one partner. Named for tlat otler sclool bustle slort one tlat takes tle dierent, clallenged kids to sclool, Shortbus tle movie, like Slort- bus tle cabaret, pays lomage to yet anotler of tle groundbreaking lms of tle porno clic era: Behind the Green Door (dir. Artie and )im Mitclell, ,;:) as well as its ,86 sequel (dir. Artie and )im Mitclell). In botl tlose pornotopias, ordinary peopletruck drivers, iglt attendants, Vietnam vetsenter a magical cabaret of sexual abundance in wlicl multiple styles of sexual pleasure are celebrated and observed in complexly staged orgies tlat culminate in glorious communal orgasms. Like tle world belind tle green door, Shortbus is a sexually and racially diverse community tlat is a utopian idea of New York City. Ex- tending beyond tle island of Manlattan, it is tle place wlere one can go to be permeable, as one memorable claracter wlo claims to be tle ex- mayor of New York puts it. Tis claracter tells us tlat New Yorkers are permeable and sane because tley are willing to bend over to let in tle new and tle old. New Yorkers tlus are seen to represent Americas lope. Claiming for lis city and lis nation a desirable status of plilosoplical and sexual permeability, Mitclell tlen plays out tlis opposition in tle drama of tlree claracters wlose impermeability needs xing. Soa slows up at Slortbus, wlere sle encounters all tle sexual actors from tle beginning: )ames and partner )amie are searcling to nd tle riglt person to make up tleir tlreesome, and Severin, tle dominatrix, langs out in tle Pussy Room avoiding ler joln. Soa, tle newcomer, is slown around by tle rc ()ustin Boyd). Te lms most quoted lineIts just like tle sixties only witl less lopeuttered by tle rc to Soa, las been cited as a mark of cyncism. But it actually belies low mucl faitl Mitclell actually seems to place in tle liberatory utopian ideals of tle ,6os. As Riclard Corliss, reviewing tle lm for Time, put it, Shortbus is so retro, it seems sparkling new. But Shortbus is no tlrowback. Wlen Soa confesses to a failure to orgasm and to a general lack of sexual experience (laving only lad sex witl ler lusband), sle initially sounds like Linda Lovelace wlo in Deep :,o philosophy in the bedroom Troat also asserted tlat sle loved getting laid, but lamented tle fact tlat tlere were no bells ringing, dams bursting and bombs going o. Soas confession begins in tle same way: Sex feels terric, I love it a lot, its a great workout. Unlike Linda, lowever, and in tle security of tle Pussy Room witl only otler women listening, sle furtler confesses, But its a lot of pressure, and sometimes I feel like somebodys going to kill me, and I just lave to smile and pretend to enjoy it. Te women wlo lear tlis confession lave just described tleir best orgasms to Soa in exalted terms: A slooting out of creative energy and it feels like tlere is no war, I was nally not alone, It feels like talking to tle gods. Tougl tle en- tire Slortbus establislment is enlisted in tle project of slowing Soa tle road to orgasm, tle lm is not so didactic as to believe it can illustrate tle way to it. Nor is it so lappy-go-lucky as to imagine tlat Soas practice of smiling and pretending to enjoy las not lad its emotional costs. Te emotional costs of bad sex are indeed everywlere to be seen in Shortbus, wlose tlree main claracters are all in tle line of alienated sex workfor wlat else slould we call Soas occupation as a sex tlerapist and couples counselor: )ames, tle suicidal former male escort, suers from a problem similar to Soas: tle inautlenticity of laving lad to pretend to enjoy. He cannot connect witl anyone. Even tle invitation to Cetl ()ay Brannan) to join lis relation witl )amie proves to lave tle ulterior motive of providing an alternative partner for )amie after le is dead. Tus tle good-spirited, tlree-way daisy clain we see tlese men per- formtlougl comical in its rousing singing of tle national antlem into Cetls anusis actually more of an acrobatic feat tlan a sexual event. Te men respectfully adjust positions, give proper feedback to one anotler, and Cetl uses )amies penis as a mock microplone, but altlougl tley are properly erect and perfectly congenial, no one ever comes, and all tlree collapse in giggles in tle end (gure :o). Two of Shortbuss main claracters tlus cannot nd pleasure in sex and are unlappily impermeable. Wlen Soa makes ler devastating confession about smiling and pretending to enjoy to tle otler women in tle Pussy Room, tle dominatrix from tle opening scene, Severin, snaps ler picture witl a Polaroid and gives it to Soa witl tle word Sorry inked over it. Soon tle two women become friends. Anotler alienated sex worker, tlis dominatrix coacles Soa on ler masturbatory teclnique wlile tley are immersed side by side in a sensory deprivation tank. But Soa proves to be a klutzy masturbator. Severin, for ler part, las no diculty getting o, but tle ability to orgasm in ler case refutes tle lms metaploric use of orgasm as a form of connection. Sle, too, is emotionally impermeable. philosophy in the bedroom :, Connection is everytling. )ustin Boyd, playing tle congenial, gay master of ceremonies uses tle metaplor of a motlerboard lled witl desire tlat travels all over tle world. Tat toucles you. Tat toucles me. . . . You just lave to nd tle riglt connection. In tle second evening at Slortbus, Soa brings along ler lusband, Rob, laving nally informed lim of ler problem and of tle potential solution to be found in tle cabarets realm of tle senses. Soa las also armed ler- self witl a powerful teclnological aid tlat is tle lms comedic lomage to Oslimas lm: a vibrating egg labeled In tle Realm of tle Senses is inserted into ler vagina. But lusband Rob, given tle remote control for tle vibrator, proves negligent and loses tle device, anotler man plays it tlinking it is a video game. Soa tlus spends tle rest of tle evening comi- cally vibrating in inappropriate situations, tlougl still not coming. At one point Severin even gets o on tle devices vibrations during a moment of intimacy between tle two friends, only proving once more Severins sexual facility and Soas incapacity. Te legacy of Oslima looms large, but in an era of commodied sex toys, a real realm of tle senses seems unattainable. How, tlen, is tle problem of sexual disconnection and impermeability solved: In furtler lomage to pornograply, it is solved as are all problems in porn, witl more, and better, sex. )ames nally attempts tle suicide le las been planning all along. But lis plan is foiled by a last-minute res- cue from tle man wlo las been lis faitlful voyeur and stalker since tle beginning. Tis benign voyeur pulls lim out of tle pool wlere le las 120: Shortbus, the daisy chain :,: philosophy in the bedroom tried to drown, nurses lim back to lealtl, and asks low someone wlo is loved so mucl could ever want to end it all. )ames replies tlat le knows )amie loves lim, but tlat le cannot feel it: It stops at my skin. Having already bridged tle voyeuristic gap tlat separated lim from tle object of lis desire and tlus breacled lis own impermeability, penetrates )ames anally in a way tlat is nally felt. As in lard-core pornograply: if sex is tle problem tlen tle solution lies in more or better sex. Here tle sex oered to )ames is tender, caring, and explicit in a way tlat very few lmmakers lave managed to slow outside tle world of avant-garde lm or lard-core pornograply. Meanwlile, Soa projects lerself into a fantasy in wlicl sle nds ler- self alone by tle sea on a park bencl in an area ooded witl water (gure :). Sle masturbates on tlis bencl and seems to come close to orgasm until tle power goes out all over New York. Tis is tle lms device for bringing Soa, Rob, )ames, )amie, Cetl, tle benign voyeur, Severin, and all tle previous denizens of tle Slortbus cabaret back togetler for a lappy- ending, candlelit nale tlat will be capped at tle end by Soas literally eartlslaking orgasm. It is to be noted, lowever, tlat tlis orgasm is not tle result of better teclnique, ratler, it is tle result of better community and trust for wlicl sex now becomes a metaplor. Te rc leads tle group in tle nales song (as your last breatl begins i you nd your dreams, your best friend i and we all get it in tle end). Cetting it in tle end is tle sexual metaplor for permeability tlat will allow tle lm to end lap- pily and for New Yorkers to lave tleir slare of tle revolutionary lope of polymorplous perversity begun in tle sixties, now revived at least mo- mentarily in tle good feeling of tle immediate post-,i era under tle sign of tle circuitry of a motlerboard. Te orgy commences and every- one becomes permeable, if not literally penetrated, tlen at least open and available. Soa nally discovers tlat sle can get it in tle end, not by working lard but by letting lerself go witl strangers (in tlis case a par- ticular leterosexual couple sle lad frequently admired and envied wlen- ever sle spied on tle activities in tle orgy room) (gure ::). Her even- tual orgasm will not be a clinical image of female ejaculation or any of tle otler possible unsimulated involuntary convulsions so central to lard- core pornograply. Ratler, it will be, as witl )ane Fonda, tle old standby of tle orgasmic womans face. It is not a face placed next to anotler sexual organ, like Linda Lovelaces, but tle face of a woman wlo is momentarily beside lerself witl ecstacy (gure :). Witl Caleb, tle voyeurs curative interference, we also now nd tlat )ames and )amie can get back togetler Shortbus 121: Sophia almost comes 122: Sophia swings in the orgy room 123: Sophias orgasm 124: Everyone joins in :,( philosophy in the bedroom and tlat )ames, too, will now get it in tle end. Caleb, tle voyeur wlo las saved )ames, also nds a partner in Cetl, and even tle lonely Severin seems to be lappy for once as part of tle crowd. A marcling band restarts tle song and everyone joins in as Soas orgasm reconnects tle motler- board and tle liglts turn back on in New York (gure :(). A retro, sixties-style orgy, tlougl one amply supplied witl condoms and lube, is tlus not only tle place for pleasure but also for understand- ing, permeability, and even forgiveness. Te enemy of tlis etlic is tle fear tlat closes us o and makes us impermeable. Permeabilitya willingness to get it (and take it) in tle end, and every otler possible wayis tle retro sexual revolutionary faitl in a world in wlicl sex miglt be good again.' It is practiced at Slortbus in botl sexual and nonsexual ways and con- stitutes tlis lms particular plilosoply in tle bedroom. Shortbus miglt be a better lm if it could take tle despair of its claracters a little more seriously, but if it did, it miglt not be tle quintessentially American sex lm it is, and it certainly could not function as tle breaktlrougl lm for American lard-core art tlat it is. Wlen Shortbus premiered in its midniglt screening at Cannes, tle Daily Variety critic called Mitclells lm unquestionably tle most sexu- ally graplic American narrative feature ever made outside tle realm of tle porn industry. Had tle lms distributors taken its c-; rating to tle multiplexes, it miglt lave found tle controversy tlat would lave pro- pelled it to greater publicity and sales. However, I am writing tlis just at tle end of tle lms tleatrical run in tle United States, wlere it las gen- erated some very good reviews but no big controversy and tlus no big audiences. Te same reviewer wlo pronounced tle lm sexually graplic also condemned it to small recognition wlen le noted tlat tlougl tle lm miglt be an immediate must-see for certain audiences, especially gays, in limited tleatrical release, it will nd its true and lasting lome on ivi. One wonders wlat miglt lave lappened lad tle distributors not believed tlis prediction. Distributed by TinkFilm, tle same company tlat did sucl a ne job nessing tle diculties of marketing Te Aristocrats (dir. Paul Provenza, :oo,), Mitclells lm las been mucl more cautiously marketed and only to art louses. Multiplexes lave not been eager to book tle unrated lm for fear tlat audiences miglt wander in from anotler screen. As Mark Urman, TinkFilms domestic distribution lead, put it, Weve been keep- ing tle lm wlere it belongsat festivals and lm societiesWe cant be needlessly provocative. No similar concern was registered regard- ing tle similarly unrated Te Aristocrats, a funny, rauncly lm about tle philosophy in the bedroom :,, long listory of a single dirty joke. In tle story of tle dierent marketing of tlese two lms by tle same company, we face, in a nutslell, diering American attitudes toward tle word and tle (moving) image. Bold witl words, timid witl images, especially wlen tlose images speak explicit sex, TinkFilms failure to provoke means tlat American audiences lave mostly not lad a clance to see wlat still remains anomalous on Ameri- can screens: lard-core art tlat is not foreign, tlat is, in fact, aggressively Americanfrom its opening on tle Statue of Liberty to its singing of tle Star-Spangled Banner. Te lms discussed above are only tle tip of tle iceberg of an interna- tional plenomenon of lard-core art cinema. In tle United States we lave grown so used to tle separation of pornograply from art tlat we tend to assumesometimes ratler lypocriticallytlat any arousal re- sponse is antitletical to art and any emotionally complex art automati- cally antitletical to arousal. Mucl of tle negative critical reaction to wlat I lave been calling lard-core art lms las been premised on tle assump- tion tlat pornograplys function is to elicit arousal and art cinemas func- tion is solely aestletic. Consider, for example, tle Los Angeles Times critic Kennetl Turans fairly typical reaction to Breillats Romance. Turan argues tlat tlose de- luded enougl to go to Romance for its unapologetic scenes of mastur- bation, oral sex, intercourse and intricate bondage are going to be even angrier and disappointed by tle torpid, uninvolving quality tley exude. Distant sex, no matter low explicit, and bogus posturing turn out to be a deadly cinematic combination. According to Turan, explicit sex makes any response to it, other than sexual arousal, seem like bogus postur- ing. Wlat Turan objects to, in a review typical of tle lms American critical reception, is precisely tle presence of Maries female voice-over trying to make plilosoplical, political, and emotional sense of ler various sexual lumiliations. It is as if, for Turan, tle Frencl tradition of plilosoply in tle bedroom spoils tle pure pleasure of tle sex. But it is precisely tle rewall between plilosoply, politics, and emotion, on tle one land, and pure pornograply, on tle otler, tlat lard-core art cinema is breaking down, forging new ways of presenting and visually experiencing cinematic sex. To Turan it would seem tlat anytling otler tlan arousing sex is pure pre- tension and an automatic turno. But wlat kind of moving-image art do we condemn ourselves to if sex must be so compartmentalized: I would argue tlat tle even greater pretension may be tle very idea tlat sex is :,6 philosophy in the bedroom mindless. If it seems pretentious to Turan to mix ambivalent emotions and plilosoplical tlouglt witl sex, it is also simplistic to assume tlat sex is monopatlic and totally witlout tlouglt. We live in a world in wlicl directors like Winterbottom, von Trier, Clreau, Breillat, and Mitclell make tlemselves vulnerable to tle clarge of being pornograplers wlen tley depict explicit sex. To defend tlem- selves, tlese directors lave often velemently protested tlat tley are not pornograplers. Clreaus defense, interestingly, las been to distinguisl Intimacy from wlat le would term tle greater pornograplic sensation- alism of tle Frencl women directors wlose explicit works emerged at about tle same time as lis own. Tus le argues tlat wlile Breillats Ro- mance and Virginie Despentes and Coralie Trinls Baise-moi (:ooo) are prurient, his lm is not. Breillat, for ler part, wlen accused of being a por- nograpler, argues provocatively tlat tlere is no sucl tling as pornogra- ply. Wlat exists instead, sle claims in an interview, is censorslip wlicl denes pornograply and sets it o from tle rest of lm. . . . Pornograply is tle sexual act taken totally out of context, and made into a product for consumption, by using tle most debased feelings or emotions of people, wlen in fact in daily life sexual acts are surrounded by emotions, con- sideration for tle partner, pleasure and so on, wlicl do not come witlin tle pornograplic depiction. Mitclell, for lis part, claims to enjoy por- nograply but asserts tlat lis sex is more metaploric tlan real. So wlere Oslima lad argued, as we saw in clapter ,, tlat porno- graplic cinema slould be autlorized, immediately and completely, as a means to glt censorslip and outmoded concepts of obscenity, Breillat claims, to tle contrary, tlat pornograply is an artifact of censorslip. Most of all, sle glts against tle lypocrisy of putting a moral valueeitler as liberation or as condemnationon tle question of wletler performers really do it: If you look at wlat most mainstream actors are doing now, more and more tle love scenes are very intimate and very frank, so its lypocrisy to ask Do tley really penetrate or not: Actors do not simulate: tley dont simulate emotions, so at tle same time tley cannot simulate pleasuretley lave to act it. So as tley are not going to be able to simulate pleasure, tley are going to lave to act pleasure. After tlat its just really a plysical detail. Simulation, as Breillat uses tle term, seems to consist of going tlrougl tle motions witlout feeling tle feelings (wlat I earlier called acting). Simu- lation is an imitation tlat creates a more or less credible appearance. But Breillats acting, or wlat I prefer to call performing, involves feeling tle philosophy in the bedroom :,; emotions generated between tle actors, wlo are not just putting on an appearance but, on some level, necessarily feeling. I do not expect tle directors defending tlemselves against tle clarges of pornograply to agree on tleir terms, and tlere may even be a value to claiming to make a new kind of pornograply. Tis, in fact, is wlat Oslima did wlen le created In the Realm of the Senses. At issue, as it so often lappens in lm, is tle vexed question of tle fundamental realism of tle medium: tle fact tlat cameras and sound recorders register actions tlat take place before tlem even if tley are also components in larger ctions and even wlen some of tle acts registered are faked. Recall tlat Bazins reaction to tle dilemma of presenting sexual action at tle movies was to ask: If one could demand real sex from movies, tlen slould one not also demand real violence: Since le deemed sucl a demand botl immoral and obscene, Bazins uneasy solution was to pronounce tlat even tlougl notling is a priori prolibited on tle screen, artists must resort to tle capacity for abstraction in tle language of cinema, so tlat tle image never takes on a documentary quality. Tis caveat fudges Bazins belief in tle fundamental indexicality of tle medium, so intensely celebrated elsewlere in lis writing. Wlat Bazins realist imagination does not allow lim to consider is tle degree to wlicl every sex act tlat miglt be placed before a camera is also a document of a performance: It is botl realsometling tlat actually lappensand, as we saw most vividly in Warlols Blue Movie, it is fake, staged for tle camera and sound equip- ment. Neitler tle directors of pornograply nor tle directors of lard-core art from Warlol forward document real sex in tle sense of wlat people do alone, in private. Warlols glosts are always present. Perlaps Bazins capacity for abstraction means tle introduction of lm art in tle depic- tion of sex situations, perlaps it is tle way tle art of tle cinema works to frame, liglt, edit, and coacl performances as we lave seen in all of tle lms discussed lere. Te error tlat Bazin, like Ceorge Steiner, makes wlen le says tlat we must stay in tle imagination is to assume tlat tle imagination cannot itself work witl more explicit representations of sex acts. It is also to assume tlat tlese more explicit representations are not tlemselves tle products of a directorial and performative imagination. Te imagination does not suddenly lose its vocation wlen confronted witl a wet, exces- sively long kiss, or witl a penis, a vagina, or a blow job, or witl tle many possible ways of performingnot just acting or simulatingsex. Te imagination and tle ability to fantasize will always occupy tlat place at wlicl tle lms necessarily limited vision fails. We do it a great disservice :,8 philosophy in the bedroom wlen we presume tlat it cannot deal witl more to see tlan previous convention allows. Clreaus Intimacy suggests tlat sexual intimacy in its more naturalistic representations las been barely broacled in lm art. He limself las said: Wlen people reproacl me for slowing too mucl, I claim tlat sexuality remains as mucl a mystery as it las always been. Per- laps more. Te question is always asked, Wlere can you go from lere: No one slould worry, because tlere will always be sometling tlat re- mains lidden. Wletler tle current trend toward more explicit sex will be a lasting feature of contemporary moving images remains to be seen. Certainly tle diculties posed to actors are great. It is lard to imagine any establisled male American star exposing limself, erect or unerect, for tle benet of lm art. Sucl actors run tle risk, among otler tlings, of being com- pared to tle Rocco Siredis of tlis world. But perlaps tlis is exactly tle point. Only a realist approacl to screening sex can get over tle idealized comparisons of body typesmale or femaletle standards of pornogra- ply. And perlaps only familiarity witl many dierent kinds and moods of sexual performancenot just tle exotic foreign examples tlat come to American screens from tle outside to seduce or oend us, but tle lomegrown kind tlat can speak to our more American identities and experienceswill break down tle prolonged adolescence of American lm. I cant lelp but tlink tlat in an era in wlicl even tle notoriously puritanical American public nds tle discussion of explicit sex acts un- avoidablewletler in legal cases sucl as Lawrence v. Texas, or in rape learings tlat must explicitly detail wlat penises lave precisely donetle continued avoidance of tle emotional nature and plysical specicity of tle sex acts tlat so importantly punctuate our public and private lives is going to seem increasingly odd in our movies. Now, a variety of screenslong and wide and square, large and small, composed of grains, composed of pixels, lit by projected light, cathode-ray tube, plasma, lcdcompete for our atten- tion without any convincing arguments about hegemony. anne fri edberG, The Virtual Window from Alberti to Microsoft conclusion Now Playing on a Small Screen near You! We lave seen tlat sex can be blatantly revealed (as in well- lit lard-core pornograply) or more subtly concealed (as in tle simulated sex acts of mainstream American cinema tlat arose in tle late ,6os). We lave also seen tlat tle listory of sexual representation in American culture since tle in- vention of moving-image teclnology las been a process by wlicl acts once considered obiscene (literally, o scene) lave come oniscene. We saw tle encroaclment of oniscen- ity in our discussion of Deep Troat and Boys in the Sand in clapter . Yet as tle previous clapter indicated, lard-core pornograply did not long remain on tle big screen and did not, at least in tle United States, develop into a tlriving form of lard-core art. Te peculiar long adolescence of American cinema las meant tlat rst, tle Hollywood Pro- duction Code, tlen later tle byzantine rules of tle rv, remained in force. Today most Americans, even tlose quite young, are very familiar witl pornograply. But since it is oo conclusion now consigned to a space of supposed privacy and is not acknowledged as part of tle cultural mainstream, it las become a kind of eleplant in tle room. We all know it is tlere, but its familiar poses, gestures, and secre- tions are often treated as unocial knowledge. Witl tle exception of tle still raried lard-core art lms discussed in clapter ; we now lave two very dierent experiences of screening sex, one on large public screens, one on smaller private ones. Let us begin by looking at tle importance of tlese screens tlemselves. By ,86 (tle year of David Lyncls Blue Velvet), lalf of American louse- lolds lad vcvs and tlus began to watcl movies wlen tley wanted: no longer on television witl commercial interruption or at tleaters only at designated times.' Today Americans screen mucl more in tle privacy of tle lome tlan in tle public place of tle movie tleater. Te slift to lome viewing, lowever, las not meant a wlolesale priva- tization of tle experience of screening. Ratler, as we slall see below, it las meant a reconguration of tle relative meanings of public and pri- vate. Wlat was once considered privatetle space of lomelas become more public as tle multiple connectivities tlat claracterize tle Inter- net lave entered it and as cell plones bring private conversations to tle street, airport, train, car, and bus. Conversely, wlat was once considered public (tle movie tleater) can now be brouglt into tle lome. Computers, teleplones, Microsofts new toucl-activated surfaces, and movies lave converged. We can now clat online, manually manipulate images, and watcl and be watcled by telepresent webcams. On one level we lave entered a world of many small screens. As we saw in tle rst clapter, no one paid mucl attention to Tomas Edisons 8,6 lm, Te Kiss, wlen it was initially projected in tle small peeplole device of tle Kinetoscope. Only wlen it was magnied tlrougl big screen projection did critics perk up, eitler positively in praise of its anatomy lessons, or negatively in criticism of its obscene monstrosity. Only wlen tle magnied projection of real bodies in movement began to constitute tle dening experience of movies did tle potential eros or lorror of tlese larger-tlan-life bodies become botl apparent and contro- versial. Big screens, and tle larger-tlan-life bodies tley reveal, can seem to en- gulf tle viewer, but tlis impression actually relies on tle maintenance of Little Screens: Does Size Matter? conclusion o a plysical gulf between wlere we sit and tle screens tlemselves as well as a temporal gulf between tle time of slooting and tle time of screening. We may identify witl claracters and we may sympatletically respond to tle acts tley perform witl jumps, jolts, strong emotions, arousal, or dis- gust, but we never fully enter into or toucl tleir world. Ratler, we perceive tlem and know tlem tlrougl an always-mediated embodied relation to tleir bodies and tleir world as it relates to our knowledge of our world and our own bodies experiences in it. Our imagination and our bodies relate to tlese images, but we remain aware, as I lave been arguing, of our bodies here and tlose larger-tlan-life, virtual bodies there, and of tle unbridge- able gulf between tleir oversized grandeur and our relative smallness. A scene in Almodvars Bad Education (La mala educacin, :oo() can serve as a landy allegory of tle structure of screening sex I lave tlus far been examining. Two boys sit before tle large movie screen of a provincial Spanisl movie tleater in ,6, watcling tle Spanisl star Sara Montiel in a scene from tle lm Esa mujer (dir. Mario Camus, ,6,). Montiel was a famous pop singer and movie star just beginning ler transformation from a general icon of female suering into a focus of gay pop worslip. As Al- modvar frames it, tle two boys, seen from belind, are engulfed by tle larger-tlan-life image. Tey are aroused by Sara, and tlat arousal plays itself out in tle tleater as tley discover one anotlers erections. From our discreet viewing position belind tlem, we see low tleir seats slake as tley masturbate one anotler (gure :,). Tis image of tle two boys seen from belind infers a metaplorical get- ting lold of Sara tlrougl tleir getting lold of one anotler. Tis inferred mutual masturbation is an amusing deance of tle usual decorum of tle movie tleater. Historically, tlis image is sometling of an anaclronism: wlile masturbation or even mutual masturbation could take place in cer- tain sparsely populated tleaters, it was probably rare in Francos Spain. Nor was masturbation an activity tlat could be represented in mainstream lms, Spanisl or American, at tle date depicted in tlis lm. Nevertleless, we can take tlis image of Almodvars boys in sexual tlrall to tle glamor- ous female bodies of tle big screen as an emblem of tle centrality of sex to tle moviegoing experiencea centrality tlat could not be more directly revealed in movies until tle eiglties and beyond. How, tlen, miglt we picture screening sex once it las moved into tle privacy of tle lome: Once again it is Almodvar wlo provides tle appro- priately perverse picture. In lis ,86 lm Matador a credit sequence intro- duces tle ecstatic face of tle main claracter intercut witl grisly images and sounds from lorror lms slowing tle slasling and dismemberment o: conclusion of female victims. )ust low our as-yet-undisclosed lero sees tlese grisly images is not made clear until we see tle nal slot of tle credit sequence tlat reveals a side view of lis entire body: le is sprawled in a clair witl lis feet propped up on eitler side of a television monitor. Diego, tle ex- matador turned woman-killer, is not only presumed to be masturbating, le almost seems to be laving sex witl lis 1v and it is as if tle television monitor las been engulfed by lis body (gure :6). 125: Bad Education (dir. Pedro Almodvar, 2004), the boys look at Sara on the big screen and discover their own bodies before it. 126: Matador (dir. Pedro Almodvar, 1986), Diego masturbates astride the television monitor conclusion o An earlier guration of tlis perverse, excited masturbatory relation to small screen appears in David Cronenbergs Videodrome (,8). Te lm is about a cable clannel director wlo, in seeking new soft-core porn and lorror material for lis station, lappens on a possible live snu slow wlose video signals appear to produce botl violent lallucinations and actual bodily clanges in tle viewer. Seduced and infected by tle slows signals, tlis man limself becomes an appendage of video teclnology. He discovers a woman witl wlom le las previously lad sex now located in tle television monitor. Her lips protrude from tle monitor as sle beck- ons lim to come to ler. Te television itself begins to tlrob and breatle. Cronenbergs antilero embraces, caresses, and enters tle screen. Even more tlan Almodvars matador, wlose own body surrounds tle screen, tlis claracter bridges tle gulf tlat las traditionally separated tle body of tle viewer from tle bodies imaged on tle screen (gure :;). In botl tlese examples, tle body of tle viewer and tle body on tle screen seem to merge. It is lardly surprising tlat big-screen cinepliles like Almodvar and Cronenberg depict tle luman interaction witl tle small screen in tle privacy of tle lome as botl malevolent and lorric. Film-makers love to vilify tle small screen experience. In botl narratives, solitary, obsessed men become even more antisocial tlrougl tleir absorption into tle small television screen. As tle media sclolar Sean Cubitt put it in ,,, video 127: Videodrome (dir. David Cronenberg, 1983), Max enters the screen of the television monitor as if it were the woman herself o( conclusion seems more likely [tlan lm] to be used for solitary or sligltly illicit view- ingby lousewives during coee-breaks, by teenagers late at niglt.' And, indeed, tle small screen las delivered a great many forms of erotic moving images botl as soft-core genres aimed primarily at arousal as well as in tle many serialized, multi-season slows aimed at depicting new sexual lifestyles. Tese recent lits include: Sex and the City (nvo, ,,8:oo(), wlicl, like Mike Niclols in tle late sixties, preferred to satirically talk about ratler tlan to depict sex, tle gay-tlemed Queer as Folk (Slowtime, American-Canadian production, :ooo:oo,), wlicl more boldly displayed tle sex of its protagonists (a rst episode depicted simulated anal sex accompanied by an illustration and pedagogic expla- nation of rimming), tle lesbian-tlemed Te L-Word (Slowtime, :oo(), wlicl followed Queer as Folk into tle realm of serialized drama witl steamy simulated sex, or tle currently popular Tell Me that You Love Me (nvo, :oo;), also a serialized drama, tlis one about straiglt, middle- class, wlite couples. Wlat is new in tlis slow is quasi explicit sex as a key to understanding claracter. Like tle lms of lard-core art discussed in clapter ;, new levels of explicitness serve new levels of psyclological revelation.'' Wlile tle lard-core nature of Tell Me that You Love Me is new, soft- core sex on cable television extends back to tle early nineties. Critic Dave Andrews reminds us tlat softcore, as le calls it, was rst spawned on cable television as early as ,,: witl Zalman Kings Red Shoe Diaries, wlicl was widely imitated. Andrews locates cable and direct-to-video soft core as a subset of a continuing sexploitation tradition tlat, like tle lard-core feature, punctuates its narrative witl frequent sex scenes, albeit ones tlat avoid all displays of penetration and erect penises.' Unlike most lard-core pornograply, soft core las listorically been marketed to women every bit as mucl as to men. Linda Rutl Williams calls tlis soft core tle cinematic equivalent of coitus interruptus.' Botl critics lave slown low tlis form of soft-core titillation became linked to tle mainstream as well as tle low budget erotic tlriller. Cable clannels and on-demand soft-core pornograply are tlus typical televisionin tle sense of regular series tlat come into tle lomeand yet tley are not television in tle sense tlat tley often deal witl sex in botl adult and titillating ways anatlema to tle older understanding of tle medium as broadcast. Wlile most of tle cable experience may be tamer and more domesticated tlan tle wild world of tle Internet (discussed below), and wlile it may refrain from or go only to tle edge of real sex, it is likely tlat all tlese slows contribute botl to potential masturbatory conclusion o, uses as well as to frank conversations about sexwletler in tle bedroom or at tle water cooler. If tle rise of adult viewing material on cable and vcv las facilitated tle consumption of sexual moving images for purposes of sometimes im- mediate sexual gratication, it is wortl considering tle clanged status of masturbation in tlis new world. Te onetime vice of onanism no longer carries tle stigma of self-pollution tlat Tomas Laqueur tells us it quite suddenly acquired in tle early eiglteentl century and wlicl it continued to carry tlrouglout tle following two centuries. However, even tle more recent relabilitation of solitary sex las been an uneven process.' Dave Andrews notes, for example, tlat in tle soft-core erotic lms and series slown on cable it became conventional to depict masturbation witlin tle soft-core drama, but only as performed by clitoral-discovering women. Masturbating men, tlougl perlaps tle primary viewers addressed, were not depicted on tle small screen.' Private screening takes us out of public scrutiny and gives us control over wlat, wlen, and wlere we screen. Sucl screening is often a literal and metaplorical form of wlat Ceorey King, in a recent book about New Hollywood cinema, calls Embracing tle Small Screen. Tougl King speaks metaplorically of tle slift to lome viewing, it is indeed sometling like a literal embracea kind of laving sex witl tle plysical screen itselftlat is pictured in tle plobic and masculine examples of tle big-screen cineastes noted above.' Wlere Almodvars boys at tle movies enjoy a social, public experience, even in tleir furtive gestures of mutual masturbation, Almodvar and Cronenbergs men merge onanis- tically witl tleir screens. Small-screen plobia is facilitated by tle fact tlat tle small screen is itself a plysical object and tlat wlat is pictured in it is often, in tle case of television-screen close-ups, rouglly life-size. Unlike tle large lm screen, tlis small screen can be straddled, kissed, embraced, and manipulated witl direct or remote controls. As Catlerine Zimmer las argued, tle screen on wlicl I view tle video, ivi, cablecast, or moving images downloaded from a server is a literal object witl left and deptl tlat can be plysically toucled and embraced.' Instead of being engulfed by tle immaterial moving images of tle lm screen, my body can surround tle material object tlat carries tle image. Tere is also tle enlanced sense of liveness, wletler actual or illusory, associated witl tle television itself and its ability to broadcast or telecast events wlile tley lappen. Cronenbergs antilero enters tle video screen tlrougl tle lure of tle outsized live woman wlose lips protrude. Almodvar and Cronenberg found it easy to picture tle small screen o6 conclusion as tle repository of lurid images of sex and gore because it was precisely sucl images tlat lad pioneered tle early practice of lome viewing.' As Steplen Prince asserts in lis listory of American cinema in tle ,8os, tle slift to video enabled tle adult industry to expand its output, reacl a larger audience, and enjoy enormous prots.' Te porn industry soon saw tle advantage of avoiding tleatrical releases altogetler, and by ,86 tlere were only two lundred surviving adult tleaters. Hollywood, on tle otler land, did not venture to invest in video transfers from ,mm lm until tle adult lm industry lad conclusively proven tle economic viability of tle rented or purclased videocassette. Tus tle lome video revolution tlat put vcv and cassettes, laser discs and ivis into our living rooms and bedroomsand now into our mobile lands and lapswas initiated more by tle drive to see a lm like Deep Troat and its progeny tlan by tle drive to see Te Godfather (dir. Francis Ford Coppola, ,;:). Clearly one of tle important dierences of lome viewing, along witl tle ability to stop, start, replay, and otlerwise more actively manipulate tle image and despite often very real losses of dimension, quality, and delityis tle fact tlat tle vcv, and tle small screen in general, amplies and individu- alizes tle association of movies witl sex. In tle ,8os Cronenbergs video viewer plysically broacled tle divide between lis own esl and tlat pictured on tle video monitor by entering into tle image, wlile Almodvars ex-bullglter planted tle monitor be- tween lis legs and surrounded it. By tle mid-,,os, lowever, tlese plo- bic images of tle relation to tle small screen were supplanted by some- tling even more sinister: a full-body embrace of a new kind of monitor of a computer equipped witl keyboard (gure :8). In tlis digitally ren- dered image of tle relation of tle Internet userviewer no longer seems quite tle riglt word!to new digital teclnologies, tle very gulf between viewer and image tlat I lave emplasized in tle tleatrical model and tlat lessens witl tle television seems to be eliminated altogetler. A naked, vulnerable, androgynous but male body embraces tle screen of tle moni- tor wlile percled atop an illuminated keyboard. Tis image, mucl dis- cussed by new media sclolars, was tle infamous centerfold of a )uly ,,, Time article about tle dangers of a new tling called cyberporn. Unlike tle gures of unseemly proximity discussed above, tlis image is no longer an analog plotograpl, but itself tle product of computer manipulation. Te digital artist Matt Malurin gures tle relation to tle computer screen as a full-edged embrace.' In tlis image of tle luman-computer interface, it is even less possible 128: The young person embraces the computer monitor as an emblem of the dangers of cyberporn. Matt Mahurin, Time, 3 July 1995 o8 conclusion to tell wlere tle screen, in tle form of tle computer monitor, ends and wlere tle body of tle viewer or user begins. Zabet Patterson, for ex- ample, notes low tle relationslip between tle body and tle networked computer is pictured as unwlolesomely dissolute. Dissolute in tlis context means not only indulging in sensual pleasures or vices, in tlis case including a possibly incorrect object cloice, but simply dissolved tle person wlo so engages is not wlole. Malurins image was one of several tlat accompanied a panic-inducing Time article titled, On a Screen Near You, Cyberporn: A New Study Slows How Pervasive and Wild It Really Is. Te next year Congress passed tle Communications Decency Act. Altlougl tle act was subse- quently struck down by tle Supreme Court, it represented tle rst time any governmental agency attempted to regulate Internet content. As witl tle ,8os lome video revolution, pornograplic sexual content once again drove teclnological innovation. In tlis case, as Wendy Clun notes, tle success of cyberporn sites convinced many American corporations tlat Internet users were willing to pay witl credit cards online. Cyberporn can tlus be seen to lave paved tle way for tle Information Superligl- way, causing botl government and commercial companies to debate tle status of tle Internet as a mass medium. Te panic over Internet porn suggests low ready tle public wasper- laps even low primed it lad already been by earlier lm images of tle addictive, perverse embrace of tle small screento blame pornograply as tle evil invader of tle privacy of tle lome. Tis gure of tle corrupt- ible adolescent too closely toucled by tle new teclnology of cyberporn, along witl a cover image of a powerless, susceptible clild, became tle new faceor perlaps we slould now say bodily gurationof screening sex for tle ,,os. Wlat lorries in tlis gure is not so mucl tle con- tentas witl tle giant lips tlat ll tle television screen Cronenbergs antilero plysically entersbut tle luman interaction witl networked teclnology itself: wlat new media sclolars and users call tle interface las actually become sometling more like an interbody relation. In tlis relation bodies are exposed promiscuously and perversely tlrougl tle medium of tle screen to any number of otler bodies, tlougl not neces- sarily, as Clun perceptively notes, in tle spectacular faslion of an earlier cinematic frenzy of tle visible as portrayed in lard-core pornograply. Hard-core sex acts are certainly visible on tlese small screens, but less spectacularly so. Fiber-optic networks, as Clun puts it, botl enable and frustrate tle cinematic model of an all-pervasive visuality. Toucl, as we see illustrated in tlis gure, seems more important tlan siglt, wlicl is conclusion o, often simply an eect employed, Clun notes, to make jacking in, or now simply activating a screen tlrougl toucl, sexy. Does screen size matter to screening sex: I tlink it does, but mostly as it connects witl constantly uctuating issues of privacy and publicity and to wlat I lave described earlier, borrowing from Miriam Hansen and Walter Benjamins claim tlat tle body is energized as a porous interface. Home screens lave grown larger, movie tleaters lave grown smaller, and mobile screens and now toucl screens of laptops, cell plones, and iPods compli- cate tle wlole issue by bringing tle once private, small screen out into a public space tlat is simultaneously more privatized. To linge tle argu- ment about our bodies relation to media on screen size alone may also not go to tle leart of tle mucl-vaunted future convergence of all media made possible by tle computational nature of digital information. In tlis future convergence, so tle story goes, tle specicity of media will end, and our bodies will become interfaces to pure ows of information. Te eroticism of being jacked in may not be so mucl about being immersed in a single gigantic visual spectacle but may ratler foretell an interaction witl promiscuous, proliferating relations to otler bodies tlrougl tle various screens of our lives. How, tlen, to claracterize beyond tle lyper- bole of utopic or dystopic connections tle experience of tlis embrace of tle small screen in comparison to tle engulfment by tle old-faslioned movie: Recall Walter Benjamins claim tlat tle teclnological reproduction of cinema permits us to get lold of an object at close range in an image.' Benjamin is well aware tlat tlere is no literal getting lold, no actual grasp, of tle object in an image. Only insofar as it is mediated as image do we experience tle illusion of being plysically close enougl to get lold. But now tlat new media forms of screening sex make possible botl real and illusory interactions tlat often mime literal grasping and toucling, and now tlat tlese interactions can take place in tle privacy of tle lome, is it possible to say tlat screening sex las become a kind of laving sex: Wlat does it mean to get lold of an object at close range in an image in a new-media era of screening sex: Every contemporary tleorist of media must now contend witl botl tle fact and tle fantasy of a new media age governed by patterns of infor- mation instead of analogical representation. Virtual realities always seem Embodiment, New Media, and Cyberporn o conclusion about to displace plysical realities. For example, Lev Manovicls land- mark Language of New Media predicts tlat one day virtual reality tecl- nologies may cease to be cumbersome lelmets, goggles, and gloves and be reduced to a clip implanted in tle retina and connected by wireless transmission to tle Net. At tlis moment we will always be in toucl, always be plugged in, and at tlis moment, Manovicl predicts, tle retina and tle screen will merge, tle screen itself will disappear. Yet predictions of tle triumpl of tle virtual belong to wlat tle media critic and skeptical listorian Plillip Rosen calls tle rletoric of tle fore- cast. Te forecast is one of tle most familiar tropes of all discussions of new media as a journey toward pure digitation resulting in tle abandon- ment of tle analog. As we get closer to a state of ubiquitous information ow, and as media converge, tleir specicity will presumably no longer matter. Rosens main critique of tlis rletoric is tlat we will never quite arrive at tlis future state. It is anotler form of Platonic ideal. He clarac- terizes tlis rletoric of tle forecast as entailing tlree main promises: () tle innite ability to manipulate enabled by computational media, (:) tle ultimate convergence of all mediateleplone, lm, television, computer made possible by tle free passage of any kind of message among a multi- plicity of maclines and media, and () nally, innite manipulability and convergence lead to tle ultimate aclievement of interactivity in wlicl tle receiver of information can potentially interact witl it in tle very process of reception. Rosens skepticism about virtual reality is primarily tlat innite manipulation, convergence, and interactivity will never quite arrive. We persist in a permanent interregnum between old and new media. Vivian Sobclack, wlose notion of embodiment in relation to cinema las been important tlrouglout tlis book, is also no fan of tle digital. Sle argues tlat tle electronic is experienced not as a discrete, intentional, body-centered mediation and projection in space but ratler as a simul- taneous, dispersed and insubstantial transmission across a network or web tlat is constituted spatially more as a materially imsy latticework of nodal points tlan as tle stable ground of embodied experience. Te electronic constructs a metaworld, a system of simulation and of copies tlat lack an original ground. Cauglt up in discrete bits of a perpetually instant present, Sobclack asserts tlat tle only tling tlat lolds identity togetler in tlis regime is tle ongoing armation of our connections to tlese media tlemselves. In tlis attened, supercial space lacking botl temporal tlickness and bodily investment, tle dominant teclno-logic of tle electronic leaves us diused and disembodied. conclusion But perlaps Sobclacks objection to a presumed disembodiment caused by new media goes too far. Perlaps it is not a question of leaving tle body, lumanity, and our relation to screens belind. In two recent books, New Philosophy for New Media and Bodies in Code: Interfaces with Digital Media, Mark Hansen las insisted on tle centrality of tle body as tle framer of informationas tle material basis of all perceptual infor- mation, wletler analogical or coded. In a sense, Hansen tells us wlat we already know, or at least wlat we already feel if we are not too cauglt up in dualistic tlinking about mind and body: tlat we relate to moving images in mucl tle same way tlat we relate to real bodies. My body sympatleti- cally relates to tle bodies I see on screen, but wlen I am screening sex I do not lave sex witl tle bodies I see tlere. Nor do I slavislly imitate wlat I see tlem do. Over time, I lave been arguing, we become habituated to tlis screening and to our sympatletic relations to tle sex of otlers as a kind of carnal knowledge felt in our own bodies. Te teclniques of cinema lave led us to an embodied relation to movies tlat allows us to play witl tlese moving images even wlile sitting immobile in our tleater seats or lolding an image on a mobile device in our laps. My irreducible bodily basis of experience las tlus been conditioned by tle teclnical dimension of movies. Mixed reality is Hansens term for tle fact tlat tlere is no escape into tle virtual, no leaving tle body belind, no complete going tlrougl tle virtual windowonly increased awareness of imaging, and of active relations to images, as an originary element of our organisms very being. Wlere Hansen explains tle embodiment of digital media tlrougl ana- lyses of rareed digital artworks nearly impossible to see because tley only exist in museum installations or on eplemeral Web sites, I will briey explore embodiment in digital media tlrougl some quite readily available and popular examples of cyberporn by considering Rosens categories of innite manipulability, convergence, and especially interaction. Cyber- porn las been called tle great industry of tle internet. All pornogra- ply, and especially moving-image pornograply, oers a dramatic tension between fantasy (for example, tle idea tlat people are always ready to lave sex at tle drop of a lat) and reality (tle supposedly documentary quality of tlis sex, tle fact tlat in lard core tle sex must really lappen). But in tle case of cyberporn, tle furtler tension between analog and digi- tal, real and virtual, complicates tlis initial tension. Because pornograply, as we saw in clapter , provokes tle bodies tlat use it to react in tle form of arousal, it can be a very real embodied experience if we are so aroused. Te gay media critic Riclard Dyer puts it best: No otler genre can be : conclusion at once so devastatingly unsatisfactory wlen it fails to deliver . . . and so entirely true to its liglly focused promise wlen it succeeds. Since tle era of Deep Troat, lowever, tlere las been a signicant esca- lation in tle expectation of wlat pornograply delivers. Wlere I lad once argued of tleatrically screened lard core tlat it was marked witl tle primary intent of arousing viewers,' Dyer now writes: Te point of porn is to assist tle user in coming to orgasm. Tis expectation may be tle essential dierence between tle big screen and tle small screen, between public and private screening of sex. Wlere tle big screen congures me as a spectator or viewer, tle small screen congures me as a user-participant invited to do more tlan just watcl a moving image across tle gulf be- tween me and tle screen. As witl Dyerand not only in tle realm of gay pornograplytlere is an assumption tlat masturbation is tle very point of tle luman-screen interface, and it is not accidental tlat tle video Dyer discusses tle most, Ryan Idols Ryan Idol: A Very Personal View (,,o), is itself a celebration of masturbation. In tlis video, Ryan Idol speaks directly to tle viewer of tle video about a typical day in lis life, a day lled witl numerous opportunities to masturbate witl us watcling. As in a great many works of pornograply in tle electronic era, a user interacts witl a porn performer wlo speaks directly to lim or ler. And tlis user may also innitely manipulateeven tlougl in tlis predigital video instance ma- nipulation only amounts to tle ability to repeat sections and to coincide lis or ler own arousal and coming witl Idols. If tlis escalation from arousal to coming is pervasive in contemporary expectations of tle experience of screening lard-core sex, it represents a signicant clange in wlat pornograply is expected to deliver since tle big-screen tleatrical viewing days of Deep Troat. Wlile tle gay video pornograply Dyer uses in tlis instance is not teclnically cyberpornit is not delivered online, it is not innitely manipulable, and it is, strictly speaking, not digital, wlicl is to say it is also not yet convergedit for- mally anticipates many qualities of contemporary cyberporn: it oers di- rect address to tle viewer-user, it cares very little about narrative, and it is real ratler tlan ctional in tle sense tlat tle porn star really does masturbate limself to orgasm several times as tle main action, slaring lis pleasure, articulating its nature to us as le does so. Wlat is real about Idol is certainly not tlat le is an ordinary person wlo anticipates tle proliferation of many amateur forms of pornograply. Ratler, le is real in anotler sense: le acknowledges our own aroused, possibly masturbatory connection to lim tlrougl tle camera. He speaks to us, le grows aroused for us, le comes for us. He even seems to expect us to come with lim. In conclusion lim we see an anticipation of tle cybersex idea of laving so-called tele- present sex witl a person not plysically available to tle body of tle user. Te media critic Stacy Cillis denes cybersexas distinct from cyber- pornas laving sex witl someone wlo is not plysically present in our space but connected tlrougl tle computer. Cybersex is a synclronous sexual exclange between two people across a distance. For Cillis, tlis sexual exclange is necessarily only textualan exclange of written words in real time. In an open clat room, for example, Laurie proposes to Cregory tlat tley try anal. Cregory responds tlat tlat is lis specialty: Cet tle lead in tlere witl circular motion, and dont put tle entire penis in tlere, or Laurie will lie on ler stomacl for tlree days. Its real tiglt but tle relaxation is tle key. Part lypotletical action, part sex education, tlis exclange selectively describes wlat Laurie and Cregory feel about tle act of anal sex, as well as wlat tley feel toward one anotler wlile tley virtually do it. Of course no plysical connection between tlemexcept as tley imagine it to be taking place in cyberspace, except as tley relate to one anotler tlrougl tleir screensis possible. Nevertleless tlere is a textual exclange tlat takes place in real time. Cybersex in tlis model is a telling of fantasies in tle present active tense of doing and feeling. Wlile Laurie and Cregory, wlo cloose tle words tley exclange via tle computer, are engaged in cybersex, tlose of us wlo read tle exclange as it unfolds in tle clat room, or later as pub- lisled in Cilliss article, are experiencing cyberporna representation of sexual acts. No one, not Laurie, not Cregory, not tle voyeurs in tle clat room not tle readers wlo experience tle exclange as cyberporn, exactly knows wlere tle sexual act takes place. Te logical answertlat tley are in cyberspace, a virtual alternative to tle plysical worldmiglt satisfy tle mind-body dualists wlo give priority to mind, but it unfortu- nately gives very slort slrift to tlese stubborn bodies still sitting before tle computer. Cillis wisely rejects tle notion of cyberspace as an alterna- tive to tle plysical world, and sle equally rejects tle often accompanying metaplor of tle cyborg as tle luman-macline tlat we become in an era of converging media, innite manipulation, and interactivity. However, ler conclusion tlat we experience a redrawing of tle body via tle key- board, on tle screen and tlat tlis redrawing empties out our plysical and sensory existence into tlat otler place, cyberspace, wlere subjectivi- ties are not dened by corporeality, seems dubious. Cilliss argument relies on notions of tle postmodern body as miss- ing matter and tlus points us away from tle plenomenological insiglt tlat all media experiences are embodied. Her ultimate conclusion tlat ( conclusion cybersex is masturbation, mutual masturbation, erotica, pornograply and sex all at tle same time (altlougl not in tle same place) is too im- precise. However, it does point us to tle important question of botl time and space. For not only does tle couple use tle medium of tle screen to get closer to one anotler, but wlat seems to be most exciting is tlat tley are doing it togetler at tle same time. Cyberporn exists in many dierent forms, some of it very mucl like ordinary porn. I lave been arguing, lowever, tlat tle one common de- nominator of small-screen pornograply in a new media era las been tle expectation tlat one miglt be more likely to use tlis pornograply, not just for arousal but also now to come. Wletler most cyberporn users do use it in tlis way I cannot conrm, but it does seem incontrovertible tlat mucl of tle pornograply out tlere today las a built-in expectation tlat users will be in toucl witl tlemselves and often masturbating be- fore tleir computer or television monitors or new toucl screens.' Wlat follows is an impressionistic survey of contemporary pornograplies from tle perspective of Rosens never quite aclieved qualities of convergence, practically innite manipulation, and tle ever-developing forms of sexual interaction. In tle introduction to tlis book I cited tle example of Pirates (dir. )oone, :oo,), a work of contemporary pornograply available on ivi. Proudly advertised as tle most expensive porn lm ever, it represents tle big-production, professional movie-like end of a continuum wlose opposite end is represented by tlousands of free, or initially free, adult Web sites oering all manner of amateur sexual poses, performances, and fetisles. Produced by tle combined forces of two of contemporary porns most establisled studios (Digital Playground and Adam and Eve Productions) and combining tle talents of no less tlan ve contract girl players, Pirates comes packaged in an expensive (s,o to s;o) tlree- disc box set. One disc is tle lm witl a running time of :, minutes, slot on ligl-denition video in ,. Dolby surround sound in a wide-screen format. Anotler disc includes special featuresa blooper reel, a voice- over commentary from tle anonymous director )oone, and a making- of documentary. A tlird disc oers a second, ligl-denition version of tle lm tlat can only be played on proper ligl-denition maclines. Te lm was leavily promoted, and swept tle Adult Video News (v) Awards (winning a record eleven, including best video feature, best ivi, best director, best actor, best supporting actor, and best actress). Of course a sequel is in tle works. Pirates is tle contemporary example of moving-image pornograply conclusion , tlat most carries on tle narrative tradition begun by Deep Troat. Not surprisingly, it oers only minimal evidence of media convergence. It is a digital work aspiring to tle big-screen condition of lm and larking back to tle leyday of porno clic. Tougl its online marketing campaign won an v award, and tlougl it is as full of expensive special eects as tle Pirates of the Caribbean franclise it aectionately parodies, tlese computer-generated special eects are primarily devoted to sea battles and tle animated bones of pirate skeletons. Te sex itself, as I claim in tle introduction, is devoted to lard-core pornograplys usual maximum visibility of organs and acts. Nor is tle experience of screening Pirates (wletler on a computer or television screen) very interactive, at least not in tle way webcam clat rooms (discussed below) or encounters imitating tle interactions of cybersex noted above are interactive. Te most I can do to interact witl Pirates is to select sequences from twenty possible clapters, eacl of wlicl gives me a glimpse of tle sexual action as viewed in a small screen-like box. Using tle clapter selections, I can easily skip over tle badly delivered, tlougl often endearingly comical, dialogue to get down to tle sexual business and repeat scenes, gestures, and ubiqui- tous money slots. On tle otler land, if I enjoy tlis spectacle of a porn movie imitating tle Hollywood mainstream, I myself am more likely to ignore tle clapter divisions and just watcl tle wlole tling, as if it were a movie. Manipulations are not innite, interactions are minimal, con- vergence moves backward to tle condition of lm, not forward to tlat of tle computerbut tley also conrm tle impression tlat tle porn indus- try las always been at tle forefront of teclnological advancement. For example, tle porn industry las been a key player in tle decision about wlicl format of ligl denition video will be adopted. And, as we lave seen, it las also been at tle forefront of tle new teclnology of paying online to screen sex. Wlere, lowever, miglt one go for more interaction, manipulation, and convergence: Obviously to tle Internet, wlicl is rapidly cutting into tle once unprecedented prots of tle traditional porn industry wlose pride and joy is a lm like Pirates, not tle interloping upstart Web sites pur- porting to oer more interactive experiences. For tle closest possible experience of interaction witl live lumans at tle otler end of tle line in real timean interaction tlat approacles tle condition of cybersexone goes to tle adult Web sites tlat advertise some variation of cam.wlores. Cam.wlores are persons paid to sit in front of Webcams attacled to com- puter screens. At tlese screens tley receive messages from paying cus- tomers wlo may ask tlem to undress or perform various masturbatory 6 conclusion gestures. In tlis experience, I can see tle cam.wlore, but tle cam.wlore cannot see me. I select a cam.wlore from a tlumbnail pose, enter a clat room, and type messages tlat can be read by botl tle cam.wlore and tle otlers wlo are online paying court. I can tlen, for a fee, move to a private one-on-one session. Zabet Patterson, Wendy Clun, and Victor Burgin lave all analyzed tle nature of tle interactivity of tlese online Webcam experiences. Cam.- wlores are tle cyberporn experience tlat most closely resemble Laurie and Cregory typing away at tleir keyboards in real time, witl tle dier- ence, of course, tlat wlatever Laurie and Cregory do, and despite tle fact tlat tley cannot see one anotler, tleir interactions are reciprocal. In contrast, my interaction witl tle cam.wlore is more one-sided. I request an action or a display tlat tle cam.wlore performs. Wlat tle experience lacks in terms of exciting spectacle it makes up for in tle experience of live simultaneitytle idea, if not always tle fact, tlat tlis is lappening riglt now and tlat otler people may be watcling riglt along witl me. It is tle nature of tle experience tlat one is eectively buying time witl a real person, tlougl at a distance. Tis real persons autlenticity miglt in tlis case be measured by lis or ler very ordinariness and lack of porn luster compared to tle contract player porn starlets of Pirates or tleir well-endowed male costars. If Piratess imitation of an old-faslioned movie oers tle sexual fantasy of spectacular male and female bodies in action, tlen tlese Webcam slices of life place emplasis on tle real, wlose autlenticity is often marked by a lack of glamour and gloss. In online cyberporn, an amateurisl low reso- lution rules, wletler in tle presentation of ordinary or freakisl people (dwarves, fat people, lactating women, lairy men, etc.) In general, low- ever, online porn sacrices arresting spectacles of nudity, masturbation, and sex for more everyday activities like brusling lair and primping. Zabet Patterson calls tlis tle abolition of tle spectacular in favor of otler models of relationality. Altlougl one can interact witl tle cam.wlore in an experience tlat represents a kind of convergence of teleplone and computer, one cannot ligllylet alone innitelymanipulate tlis interaction. For more in- nite manipulation one miglt turn to a range of virtual sex experiences called Interactive Sex Simulators (iss) sold online and as ivis. Are you bored witl porn: Do you wisl it were more interactive: reads a recent ad, Witl Virtual Eve, youre tle director, camera man and star of your very own virtual production. Interactive Sex Simulators include tle popular Digital Playgrounds Virtual Sex with . . . (say, )enna )ameson), or Digital conclusion ; Sins My Plaything . . . (say, )ewel DeNyle) series. In botl examples, a male avatar wlose face is never seen las graplic sex witl tle female porn body. Te user-player clicks on icons tlat cloose positions (missionary, doggy, etc.) or camera angles (including a cloice between tle point of view of tle avatar or a second camera angle slowing what it looks like from the other side! ). Like cam.wlore experiences, Interactive Sex Simulators claim to be more realistic tlan ordinary pornograply, in tlis case because of tle illusion of greater proximity: tley put a virtual youyour avatarinto tle scene. Unlike cam.wlore experiences, lowever, tle scene you enter tlrougl tle avatars body is prerecorded: it is not lappening now. Ma- nipulation of various controls determines tle kind of activity your avatar and tle female porn body perform. Tis manipulation, wlile not innite, is certainly multiplied. Sucl, it seems, is tle trade-o for interacting witl a body tlat is not live, tlat is not interacting witl me now. In Vir- tual Sex with Jenna Jameson, for example, I cloose, or perlaps it is best to say, I direct, tle activity my avatar will enjoy witl ler (eitler foreplay tlat allows me to use my ngers, a vibrator, or my moutl, or sex in wlicl )enna gets a moutlful of me, or I penetrate ler in one of tle above posi- tions). I can also cloose )ennas sexual mood, up to a point. For example, if I am already in tle foreplay ngers mode and tlen click on I instead of N in tle cloice menu, )enna will say, Ol, tlat feels so good, wlen I direct my avatars single nger to press into ler vagina. But if I tlen click on tle IiN cloice again, )enna clanges: Ol yeal! )am your ngers in my cunt . . . fuck my little pussy larder! IiN, it turns out, stands for tle cloice between innocent (actually just polite) and nasty (actually just a woman wlo bluntly commands wlat sle wants). Unlike tle repeatable but lardly manipulatable sex acts of Pirates, tlere is no necessary linear progres- sion from one activity, position, or aect to anotler. My avatar will keep sticking lis ngers into )enna in tle foreplay-ngers mode until I click on anotler activity, and )enna will keep on being innocent until I tell ler to be nasty. Te empty, black space of my encounter witl )enna is signicantly devoid of detail. In tlis space )enna seems to oat in a state of supreme readiness for wlatever prefabricated actions are closen, calling to mind Sobclacks statement tlat electronic media lave a tendency to liberate tle spectatoriuser from tle pull of wlat miglt be termed moral and plysical gravityand, at least in tle euploria of tle moment, tle weiglt of its real- world consequences. But wlat is odd about tlis cyberporn portrayal of release in tle encounter between )enna and my avatar is not tlat it takes 8 conclusion on tle conventional plallic form of tlat most enduring of pornograplic conventionstle money slotwlicl we lave perlaps learned to expect in most pornograply since tle seventies aimed at male viewers. Wlat is odd, ratler, is tlat tlis particular one is quite obviously computer gen- erated. Tis money slot sloots longer, fartler, and straiglter tlan any real-life one ever could (gure :,). Altlougl my avatar pulls out of )enna in order to come mucl tle way male porn performers lave been doing since Deep Troat, tlis money slot is a special eect, or better, following Ben Hadden, it is a sexual eect, pairing a conventional sexual event witl a teclnologically new means of representation, in tlis case animated computer-generated images (coi).' Wlile we tend to tlink of special eects as new, tley are mucl older tlan moving pictures and perlaps only perceived as special wlen tley are still relatively unknown. Deep Troats money slots, along witl tlose in Boys in the Sand and Behind the Green Door, all discussed in clapter , were also, in tleir own day, sexual eects. All oered fast-cut montages of sexual climax. In eacl case, tle old cinematic sexual eect of tle money slot prolongs and exaggerates a climax tlatif looked at in real time and witlout tlese looping repetitions, fast montages, extreme close- ups, and optical enlancementsmiglt only be a brief squirt, perlaps only a little dribble. Te new electronic cyberporn money slot tlus does wlat all money slots do: it aids tle impression of tle great duration and force of tle ejaculation wlile minimizing aspects tlat miglt be mucl less spectacu- lar, making tle ejaculation look on tle outside of tle body sometling like wlat it feels like on tle inside (powerful, bursting, explosive, climactic). 129: Virtual Sex with Jenna Jameson, a digital money shot that shoots longer and farther than any real-life ejaculation ever could conclusion , Like )ennas obviously silicon-injected breasts, it is a patent exaggeration of tle sexual body tlat performs at my command. I can end any scene by simply clicking ovo and watcling my avatar squirt. In a genre tlat las listorically placed great value on tle autlenticity of involuntary bodily confessions of pleasure and tlat, as we saw in clapter , relentlessly and unfailingly uses tle spectacle of real male orgasm to stand in for tle less visible and presumably less spectacular manifestation of pleasure in tle female body, tlis new sexual eect may surprise. Perlaps, in an era of iis, tle rationale for tlis digital money slot is tlat it oers tle benet of not being wet, messy, or in any way biological. Tis ejaculate could neitler impregnate nor infect. It is less biological, and more cybernetic. Wetness, as Hadden notes, is tle very sign of lumanity. On tle surface tlis cyber money slot would seem to be tle very ex- emplication of )ean Baudrillards dystopic ecstasy of communication. Baudrillard denes tlis new, passionless, sexless ecstasy as no longer tle obscenity of tle lidden, tle repressed, tle obscure, but tlat of tle visible, tle all-too-visible, tle more-visible-tlan-visible. It is tempting to agree witl Baudrillard and all tle otler larbingers of tle condition of tle post- luman tlat sucl a patently fake sexual eect mixing real body and coi cannot be good for real luman sex. Te media critic Kevin Wynter, for example, claims tlat tle Interactive Sex Simulator, like tle iglt simulator on wlicl it is modeled, is a train- ing apparatus wlere tle experience of sexuality is congured as a kind of lucid dreaming in wlicl tle body tlat tle participant is asked to identify witl ostensibly las no identity. To Wynter tlis experience, wlicl claims to be tle most realistic sexual encounter ever, oers a kind of dementia of disembodiment in wlicl male identity is esclewed in favor of purely plallic representations. Wlere I lad once commented in relation to an earlier generation of sex simulation games tlat one receives tle un- canny experience of being botl lere and tlere, Wynter concludes tlat tle game would seem to succeed in its goal of not only arousing tle user but of satisfying a feeling of interacting witl anotler person not actu- ally tlere. However, tlis is wlere Mark Hansens notion of mixed reality miglt lelp put a ner point on tle embodied experience of interactive cyberporn. Masturbation is a self-stimulating act (lere) in wlicl we project our- selves into a fantasmatic and imagined relation to anotler (tlere), often leaving us witl some bodily uids (back lere). It is a motor activity in- creasingly performed, as Riclard Dyer and otlers attest, wlile watcling moving images, in some kind of timed relation to tle movements viewed :o conclusion on tle screen. In ordinary masturbation, we know in tle end tlat we are alone witl ourselves. Te iss form of play seems to integrate an expec- tation of masturbation as a matter of timing ones own sexual rlytlms to tle closen ones of tle avatar and tle sexual object. Tis play reformulates masturbation as sometling less solitary tlan previously understoodno longer quite sex for one yet not quite sex for two. I do not go tlere, I am not immersed in tle world of )enna. Tougl my motor activity lere in my plysical space may converge witl )ennas activity tlere, my body re- mains, as Hansen puts it, tle absolute lere, in relation to wlicl all my perceptions of tlere are organized. Wlile tle iss oers masturbation in tle guise of laving sex witl anotler person, and tlus construes it as a less solitary act, it is not an experience of entering into an illusory space. Te realism promised by tle iss is never tle reality of immersive tlereness, nor could it be so long as my own masturbation and coming lere is tle goal. If Sex Simulators turn tle involuntary confession of pleasure tlat is tle money slot into a cybernetic performance tlat I can command and con- trol, does tlis mean as Wynter argues tlat plallic pleasures still rule in tle land of cyberporn: In many ways tley do, every bit as mucl as in tle era of Deep Troat. But now, tle cleaper, tle more amateurisl, and tle more real tle porn, tle more likely it is tlat one will encounter variants to tle usual plallic expectations. Te remarkable variety of sexual eects now available online las led to a situation in wlicl tle one eect tlat I lad believed consigned to invisibility in an era of lmed and videotaped pro- fessional porn las suddenly, and quite spectacularly, tlougl in a small- screen sort of way, been rendered visible in tle bodies of amateurs. Tucked away modestly among tle myriad sex Web sites tlat one miglt browse for free so long as one claims to be an adult is www.tle-female- orgasm.com. Tis Web site states: We lm women laving real orgasms any wlicl way tley can truly cum . . . youll nd all slapes and sizes, lairy and slaven, close up and full body views, toys and ngers, inside and out- doors . . . just about anytling you could desire. And most importantly, tley are all really cumming, almost all witl nice and clearly visible orgasmic contractions! Tougl I can become a member and lave prolonged ac- cess to tlese female orgasms, I can also browse for free and see enougl to conrm tlat tle involuntary confession of pleasure tlat I once argued, fol- lowing Freud too closely, was an absence, a notling to see, is, if one just looks enougl on todays Internet, quite visible as an involuntary spasm, often induced by masturbation. Te women wlo give up tlese orgasms for all to see are lardly porn stars. For tle most part it is only tleir clito- conclusion : rises, vulvas, and sometimes tleir anuses tlat we see in tle frame, some- times accompanied by a land, a nger, or a convulsion-inducing vibrator.' Te point, compared to tle command and control game mentality of tle Interactive Sex Simulators, is tlat tlese pulsating vulvas may be larder to nd, less immediately visible, and not involved in any goal-oriented game. Nevertleless, tley are part of tle variety of sexual revelation now available on tle small screen and one kind of (modest) answer to tle ubiquity of masculine money slots in tle realm of lard-core. Experiences of cyberporn today miglt entail tle renting or purclasing of a ivi, downloading a game online, logging onto a cam.wlore site, engaging in one-slot-only pay for play, visiting any number of Web sites oering any number of sexual slows or orientations, or integrating virtual sex tlrougl tle bodies of avatars into tle daily life of massively multi- player online games sucl as Second Life. Wlile a ivi like Pirates repre- sents tle mainstream of tle porn industry, it seems quite possible tlat tlis ivi-oriented professional end is now in for a serious clallenge by tlese diverse and often cleaper amateur sites. In :oo6, for tle rst time, sales and rentals of pornograplic videos in tle leretofore burgeoning industry fell, wlile online and often free Web sites lave ourisled. Every day tle urge grows stronger to get lold of an object at close range in an imageif tle small-screen examples of cyberporn discussed lere do not aord an actual grasp of objects except insofar as tley remain plysical bodies, tley do aord a greater closeness to tle objects and a greater sense of getting lold because tle objects tlemselves remain rela- tively small and unspectacular compared to tlose on tle big screen. Tis is one of tle most striking qualities of tle Interactive Sex Simulators: tle gulf between my body and tle screen tlat made possible tle impression of my own engulfment by tle larger-tlan-life movie image las given way lere to a closeness tlat puts me riglt up against )ennas genitals eitler tlrougl tle body of an avatar wlose gestures I control or tlrougl an ability to move all around tle sexual activity. Walter Benjamin surely saw tle ways teclnological reproducibility was, witl lm and plotograply, bringing us into close range. He is tle sclolar wlo las most eloquently articulated low closeness and reproducibility work against qualities of uniqueness and aura. My point is not to disparage tle inevitable urge to get closer, or, as tle Conclusion :: conclusion ad for anotler variation on tle experience witl )enna puts it, to simu- late wlat stimulates. Ratler, it is to understand tlat tle embrace of tle computer teclnology depicted so sinisterly in Almodvar (gure :6), Cronenberg (gure :;), and Malurin (gure :8) is a pleasure of con- verged, manipulative, interactive play to tlose wlo engage in it. Tougl I personally would ratler occupy tle position of Almodvars boys in a public place before tle big screen, tle point is not so mucl to focus on tle size of tle screen but tle imaginative and newly temporalized connectivi- ties of tle various screens wlicl, as Anne Friedberg notes in tle epigrapl, compete for our attention. No one kind of screen can now be said to lave legemony. Screening sex today can encompass pointing, clicking, typing, cloosing. It can mean an absorption into images tlat appear to abolisl tle gulf between me and tle old-faslioned movie screen, images wlicl require my own eroticized orclestration of land-eye coordination. It is also an activity tlat can put me increasingly in tle place of tle lm direc- tor, cloosing acts, scenes, interactions. It is an ideal of connectivity and relation, wletler witl a cam.wlore or witl a piece of ass in a software package, and even if my only real tactile connection is tlrougl tle ngers before tle screen doing tlat pointing, clicking, typing, or screen- toucling. But is it laving sex: Here we miglt do well to recall tle argument of tle First Amendment sclolar Frederick Sclauer, wlo argued tlat a close-up colour depiction of tle sexual organs of a male and female wlo are engaged in sexual inter- course is, wlen viewed, notling more tlan a sex aid. Sclauer found tle fact tlat tle viewer lad no plysical contact witl tle images contained in it, only fortuitous. He saw no real dierence between screening a sex act and laving sex instantaneously witl tle bodies represented in tle images. I lave so far strenuously resisted tlis argument in tlis book witl respect to lm. Te question is wletler Sclauers objections lave an in- creased validity now tlat new media lave made possible a kind of laving sex witl ourselves via our maclines. Sclauers claim tlat tle lack of plysical contact witl tle images of lard-core moving-image pornograply is only fortuitous takes on a spe- cial relevance in tle above examples of Interactive Sex Simulators. Recall tlat Sclauer seemed to want to say tlat real sex viewed on tle screen would automatically induce real sex in tle audience: Imagine a motion picture of ten minutes duration wlose entire content consists of a close-up colour depiction of tle sexual organs of a male and female wlo are engaged in sexual intercourse. Te lm contains no variety, conclusion : no dialogue, no music, no attempt at artistic depiction, and not even any view of tle faces of tle participants. Te lm is slown to paying customers wlo, observing tle lm, eitler reacl orgasm instantly or are led to mastur- bate wlile tle lm is being slown. In tlis passage Sclauer locates obscenity in tle fact of tle supposedly di- rect mimicry by tle screening body of tle screened bodies. I noted in tlis books introduction tlat tlis description represented one legal sclolars Platonic ideal of obscenityan ideal of tle unacceptable limit of sexual representation tlat is in fact always complicated by botl medium and message. Sclauers example minimizes any dierence between screen- ing sex and laving sex, between watcling and doing. Indeed, le equates tle sale of sucl a lm (in a public screening) and tle sale of a plastic or vibrating sex aid, or tle sale of a body tlrougl prostitution (not unlike tle virtual experience of a cam.wlore), to tle sex act itself. In eacl case, wlat is obscene to Sclauer is tle very idea tlat public audience members miglt orgasm to tle image in a public place, in tle presence of otlers. Tey miglt as well be laving sex, le seems to suggest, riglt tlere in tle audience. Of course, now Sclauers outrage at tle violation of public space would lave to be mitigated by tle fact tlat witl tle small screen we are no longer dealing witl a public audience, but witl a more priva- tized, tlougl never entirely private, player. Wlat is perlaps most clanged in tlis new situation is tlat public space gives way to a new kind of public time: users and viewers connected to )enna, tle cam.wlore, tle Web site witl pulsating vulvas are not present to one anotler in tle same space, but tley may be connected tlrougl tlese stimulating images to one an- otler in tle same time. Indeed, one of tle more remarkable features of tlese screening experiences may be not tle connection to tle images of tle act tlemselves but tle idea of tle greater connectivity to a public dis- persed in space but sometimes united in time. But Sclauer does not consider time, le considers space, and le would probably say tlat le wins my running argument witl lim because of tle greater apparent closeness of viewers (now called users, players, and par- ticipants) to tle acts mediated by tle screen. However, I maintain tlat it is essential to tle nature of all relations to screened images tlat tle bodies screenedlowever close, lowever I may feel here wlat tley or an avatar supposedly feel there and lowever I may feel now wlat tley sup- posedly also feel noware still ungraspable. If my own body is graspable, and perlaps no longer just by my own lands in some recent examples of games witl lardware attaclments tlat render tle gure of being jacked- :( conclusion in quite literal, tlis still does not mean tlat screening sex and laving sex become identical, tley just, as Benjamin understood, get a little closer botl temporally and spatially. If sex simulators bring us closer, and if tley are to some players tle perfect masturbatory sex aid precisely because tley seem not to be masturbatorybecause tley oer a simulation of sex witl anotlertley are neitler a replacement for tle spontaneity and esly toucl of sex witl anotler nor are tley an absence of toucl or con- nection altogetler. After more tlan a century of screening sex tle very act of screening las inevitably aected, tlrougl labituation to dierent screening practices, our very sense of wlat sex can be. Utopian faitl in tle possibilities of virtual reality sometimes suggests tlat a break witl tle culture of tle screen is imminent as once passive, immobile spectators become active and mobile. Manovicl, for example, in a passage tlat insists on tle ubiquity of screens, nevertleless ambiva- lently adds tlat wlen true virtual reality is aclieved, tle users body will become a giant mouse, or more precisely, a giant joystick.' Yet despite tlis promise of a future virtual reality in wlicl screens tlemselves will become pass, Manovicl ends lis clapter entitled Te Interface witl tle acknowledgment tlat we still live, at least for tle time being, in tle society of tle screen. I tlink we will continue to live in sucl a society for a very long time. Even if we interface witl a cam.wlore, a vixen, a virtual )enna, or a con- vulsing clitoris, or witl tle more imaginative personae we may construct and control as tley interact witl otler virtual bodies constructed and controlled by a real otler person, or even if we just watcl cable television or ivis witl a remote control in land, sucl interfacing, or now inter- bodying, will always take place tlrougl media. Cetting lold of sometling by means of its likeness is not tle same tling as getting lold of tle tling itself, tlougl it does generate embodied feelings tlat we do well to ac- knowledge. Wlatever mimesis occurs in our bodies is never tle kind of slavisl imitation Sclauer imagines. Wlat we see in tlat same or otler time and distant (but now closer) space may rebound back upon our own bodies in tle more solipsistic and masturbatory way Sobclack describes, or it may, as Benjamin leld out, oer an imaginative form of play tlat can lead us back into tle world. As )ane )uer puts it, computer consumption of pornograply is in- tensely private. It occurs not only in tle privacy of ones lome (or cubicleioce at work) but also in tle isolated, eplemeral interaction of user and screen. Yet as )uer continues, it is also intensely public, in conclusion :, tlat information proliferates and spreads to numerous sites, transgressing tle plysical boundaries tlat make otler kinds of porn outlets, sucl as bookstores and tleaters, mucl more easily identiable and regulatable. Wlen tle private mens-only consumption of obiscenities in tle stag era gave way to tle public consumption of oniscenities in tle tleatrical lm era, pornograply became sometling every adult could screen, not just private clubs of men. As I lave already argued, it was tlis slift from restricted, private, men-only screenings to a general public of sexually interested adults tlat opened up tle contemporary proliferation of online oniscenities in our electronic video-computer age. I continue to tlink tlat tlis slift is at least as signicant as tlat from lm pornograply to cyberporn. Te move back to wlat seems to be a more private viewing venuetle lome, tlougl also tle oce computer or tle laptop tlat goes anywleredoes not engage tle same privacy as tlat of tle gentlemen- only stag era. Pornograply online or nvo on demand, even if screened in tle lome, is never really privatebotl teclnically, in tlat our movements (and purclases) are traced, and plilosoplically, in tlat tle Internet itself is fundamentally, as Wendy Clun argues, an indeterminate and porno- graplic space. Te publication of sex in all tle forms I lave examined in tlis book las never been a making public of tlat wlicl properly belongs to tle privateCeorge Steiners niglt words slouted from tle rooftops. As we saw, perlaps most forcefully in tle examination of Brokeback Moun- tains publicity campaign, a movie about two cowpokes wlo tlink tleir sexual pleasure is nobodys business but tleir own, oered gay anal sex its widest publicity. Publicity is not necessarily tle exposure of sometling tlat is more properly private. It does not contaminate an otlerwise sealed interiority. It is, as Tomas Keenan las said, wlat belongs to everyone and to no one in particular. Publicity is promiscuous, it exposes us to, it involves us witl, otlers, even and perlaps especially otlers wlo are not plysically present to us tlere witl us in tle same time and space. Te carnal knowledge tlat we gain from screening sex is, nally, not a matter of seeing it. It is not a matter of arriving at an ultimate degree of frankness, explicitness, and least of all maturity. However mucl I lave been rooting, tlrouglout tlis book, for American moving images to grow up and integrate lard-core art into tle fabric of adult narratives beyond tle various glettoes of pornograply and to put an end to tle awkward long adolescence of American movies, we cannot cure tle dislonesty and bad faitl about sex witl more explicitness. And lowever mucl I :6 conclusion would root for tle siglt of a few more convulsing clitorises to answer tle seeming ubiquity of money slots, I do not really believe tlat more realis- tic depictions of female pleasure are tle answer. After more tlan a century of screening sex, perlaps tle most impor- tant lesson I would like to draw from tle last stage of tlis impressionistic clronicle is tlat tle very act of screening las become an intimate part of our sexuality. Te point tlerefore slould not be to discover tlat screening sex brings us so mucl closer, spatially or temporally, to real sex. Ratler, it slould be to discover tlat viewers, and now users, lave become la- bituated to tlese new forms of mimetic play witl, and tlrougl, screens. Te very act of screening is desirable, sensual, and erotic in its own riglt. Screening sex, from Edisons kiss to tle simulated squirts aimed at vari- ous parts of )enna )amesons anatomy, las, at eacl new stage, proered an opportunity to see and to know wlat las not previously been seen so closely. Tis carnal knowledge never fully reveals tle scratcl we imagine it to be, but tle itcl tlat keeps us screening. notes Introduction 1 Williams, Television: Technology and Cultural Form, ,,. 2 Debord, Society of the Spectacle, ;. 3 Williams, Hard Core: Power, Pleasure and the Frenzy of the Visible, :8. See also Porn Studies, . 4 See Escoers introduction to lis excellent antlology of documents, Sexual Revolution, pp. xi-xxxvi. 5 Ciddens, Te Transformation of Intimacy: Sexuality, Love and Eroticism in Modern Societies, DEmilio and Freedman, Intimate Matters: A History of Sexu- ality in America, Luker, When Sex Goes to School: Warring Views on SexAnd Sex EducationSince the Sixties. 6 Luker, ;6;;. 7 See Kristin Lukers discussion of tle dierence between tlese revolutions, pp. ;;,. 8 In Hard Core I understood tle emergence of lard-core pornograply in tle early seventies as part of tle plenomenon described by Miclel Foucault: an lis- torically new immense curiosity about sex, bent on questioning it, witl an insa- tiable desire to lear it speak . . . . Foucaults point is tlat sex is a discursive con- struct more tlan it is a preexisting object. Foucault, Te History of Sexuality: An Introduction, Volume , ;8, Williams, Hard Core, :. 9 Eric Sclaefer makes tlis argument in lis fortlcoming book, Massacre of :8 notes Pleasure: A History of Sexploitation Film, . I am indebted to Sclaefer for communicating an unpublisled paper tlat forms part of tlis manuscript. Unpub- lisled talk delivered at tle Society for Cinema and Media Studies, Marcl :oo;. 10 Susan Cal, A Semiotics of tle PubliciPrivate Distinction, ;8. 11 Cited in Susan Cal, A Semiotics of tle PubliciPrivate Distinction, ;,. 12 Sladowy riglt to privacy is tle term of Stefano Scoglio, Transforming Pri- vacy: Te Transpersonal Philosophy of Rights, 8. In tle Griswold decision )ustice William O. Douglas famously argued tlat zones of privacy are present as penum- bras not only in tle rst Amendment but also in tle Tird, in tle Fourtl and tle Fiftl, and in tle Nintl. Cited in Sclaefer, unpublisled talk. 13 I allude lere to Supreme Court )ustice Potter Stewarts famous non- denition of pornograply: I dont know wlat it is but I know it wlen I see it. As witl pornograply, obscenity proves to be an elusive tling. 14 See tle excellent discussion of tlis particular sexual act in Sasla Torress On Craplic Language and tle Modesty of Television News, in Lauren Berlant and Lisa Duggan, eds., Our Monica, Ourselves: Te Clinton Aair and the National Interest, . 15 Some of tle relevant works by and about Foucault include Miclel Foucaults Te History of Sexuality: An Introduction, Volume , Te History of Sexuality Vol. : Te Use of Pleasure, Te History of Sexuality Vol. : Te Care of the Self, Te Lives of Michel Foucault, and Eve Kosofsky Sedgwicks Epistemology of the Closet. 16 Foucault writes of lifting of prolibitions, an irruption of speecl, a reinstat- ing of pleasure witlin reality. Te History of Sexuality: Volume , An Introduc- tion, ,. 17 Ibid., ;. 18 Ibid., . 19 Ibid., ((. 20 Ibid., (;. 21 Bersani, Te Freudian Body: Psychoanalysis and Art, (. 22 Ibid., (. 23 Bataille, Erotism: Death and Sensuality, :,,,. Counterintuitively, Bataille links life witl discontinuity and deatl witl continuity. Deatl is not tle end of con- nection witl life but tle end of discontinuity. Wlen we die, we resume connection witl tle continuity of tle inanimate. We are discontinuous beings, individuals wlo perisl in isolation in tle midst of an incomprelensible adventure, but we yearn for our lost continuity and sexual eroticism is one place we get it. Trougl descriptions of plysical, emotional, and religious eroticism, Bataille argues tlat all substitute for tle individuals isolated discontinuity a feeling of profound con- tinuity. 24 Bataille, Erotism, 6. 25 Benjamin, Te Work of Art in tle Age of Its Teclnological Reproducibility: Second Version, o,. 26 Taussig, Mimesis and Alterity, :. notes :, 27 Sclauer, Free Speech: A Philosophical Enquiry, 8. 28 Ibid., 8. 29 Benjamin, Te Mimetic Faculty, 6. 30 Benjamin, Te Work of Art in tle Age of Its Teclnological Reproducibility: Second Version, o(. 31 Hansen, Benjamin and Cinema: Not a One Way Street, . 32 Ibid., ;. 33 Ibid. 34 Benjamin, Te Work of Art in tle Age of Its Teclnological Reproducibility: Second Version, :;. 35 Te following few paragrapls are an adaptation of a previous discussion of Sobclacks notions of embodied viewing publisled in tle epilogue to Williams, Hard Core: Power, Pleasure and the Frenzy of the Visible, :8,:,. 36 Sobclack, Carnal Toughts: Embodiment and Moving Image Culture, ,;. 37 Ibid., ,,. See also Sobclacks Te Address of the Eye. 38 Sobclack, Carnal Toughts: Embodiment and Moving Image Culture, ;6 ;;. 39 Ibid., 66. 40 See Mulvey ,;,, ,8, Doane ,8: and Williams ,8,. 41 As, for example, numerous seventies lm tleorists lave done. See Baudry, Te Apparatus: Metapsyclological Approacles to tle Impression of Realism in tle Cinema, :,,8. For a brilliant critique of tlis perspective and for tle intro- duction of anotler way of considering embodied viewing see Crary, Techniques of the Observer: On Vision and Modernity in the Nineteenth Century. 42 Anotler important proponent of tle embodied nature of lm viewing is Anne Rutlerford. Rutlerford speaks of lm viewing as a movement of tle body toward a corporeal appropriation of or immersion in a space, an experience, a moment (Rutlerford, Cinema and Embodied Aect, 8). Once again, tle body tlat screens is viewed as groping towards a connection tlat is not literal toucl but a movement of our beings towards potency. It is an erotics of tle image, a dilation of tle senses, a nervous excitationan eye-opening surebut more tlan tlat an opening of tle pores, a quickening of tle pulse (Rutlerford, 8). Anotler tleorist-critic of embodied viewing is Laura Marks, wlo approacles it tlrougl avant-garde lms tlat emplasize tle surface qualities of tleir images, inviting tle viewer to dissolve lis or ler subjectivity in tle close and bodily contact witl tle image (Touch, ). For Marks certain kinds of imagestlose laptic ones tlat emplasize surface qualities and tleir own materiality, or tlose we may not be able to see clearlyinvite us to dissolve our subjectivity in a close and bodily contact witl tle image. Like Sobclack, Marks does not mean tlat we literally toucl tle immaterial image. Ratler, sle argues tlat some images invite us to interact up close to tle extent tlat gure and ground commingle and we lose our sense of separateness. Marks adds tlat tle oscillation between a viewer wlo is distant, distinct, and disembodied and one wlo laptically engages creates an erotic re- o notes lation, a slifting between distance and closeness tlat overcomes tle kind of distance tlat operates in tle purely ocular relation. Chapter 1: Of Kisses and Ellipses 1 Riclard Alapack writes tlat a kiss is a transcendence of self tlrougl tle con- nection to an otler wlom one botl faces and tastes for tle rst time. Alapack, Adolescent First Kiss, 6. 2 I recognize tlat tlere are diculties witl tle terms Code era (e.g., era of tle Hollywood Production Codes enforcement) and pre-Code (tle wlole of Ameri- can mainstream cinema listory until tlat enforcement became somewlat eec- tive), but it will prove necessary in tlis discussion of kisses. Te Hollywood Pro- duction Code was created in ,o as a way for tle lm industry to regulate itself so as to avoid controversial subjects tlat miglt alienate tle general audience. It was autlored by tle Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America and contained a list of Ceneral Principles (e.g., No picture slall . . . lower tle moral standards of tlose wlo see it) and particular applications, including nine points about tle sorts of sex scenes or acts tlat were forbidden. Altlougl written in ,o, it was by many accounts not enforced until ,(, wlen tle Catlolic Legion of De- cency tlreatened to boycott lms if tle Code was not enforced and )osepl Breen was brouglt in to do tle enforcing. However, it is not strictly true tlat pre-Code lms went entirely unregulated, as Lea )acobs, Tino Balio, and Riclard Maltby lave slown. Nor am I interested in tlis clapter in establisling a strict dividing line between tle two eras, or in arguing tlat tle pre-Code era was a wild period of freedom and tle Code era one of strict regulation. However, as far as kisses are concerned, lms from tle time before about , and from tle time of tle Codes greater enforcement do dier. Te kisses tlat interest me most in tle pre-Code era will not be tlose of tle transition period, but tlose tlat precede tle transition in tle silent era. See Maltby, More Sinned Against tlan Sinning, Balio, Grand Design, and )acobs, Wages of Sin. 3 For reasons consonant witl my topic, I will continue to call it Te Kiss. Clarles Musser, for reasons consonant witl lis topic, may prefer to call it Te May Irwin Kiss. See Musser, Te May Irwin Kiss, ,;. 4 Musser, Tohas A. Edison, ,,. 5 Clarles Musser las uneartled a number of important facts about tlis kiss in relation to tle beginnings of projected cinema as we know it. Most striking among tlese is tle relation between otler stage kisses and tlis lm and tle possibility tlat tle fteen-second Te Kiss may lave included more action. Musser, Te May Irwin Kiss. Mussers fortlcoming book on tle kiss will discuss furtler mysteries about tlis fascinating lm, including possible missing footage. 6 Musser also notes tlat wlile tle Irwin-Rice stage kiss itself was not contro- versial, Olga Netlersoles extended multiple kisses in Carhen lad been extremely notes so tle previous year. Te lm kiss may tlus lave been referring in general to tle controversy about tle propriety of prolonged stage kisses, as Netlersoles appar- ently were. See Musser, Te May Irwin Kiss, ,,o(. 7 )ane Caines calls it an awkward two-slot, two faces pressed quickly togetler, botl facing out-toward tle camera. Caines, Iire and Desire, 88. Writing about tle conicts between sexual slow and sexual event in tle genre of moving-image por- nograply, I lave argued tlat tle compulsion to display tle maximum visibility of sexual acts often results in a tension between tle exlibitionistic display of sex and tle often less visible event. Tis rst screen kiss perfectly manifests tlis tension. Linda Williams, Hard Core, 6o;:. 8 Qtd. in Musser, Te May Irwin Kiss, o. 9 Musser tells us tlat slort lms of tlis era were looped. He also notes, citing Henri Bergson, tlat repetition itself can be considered funny. On a deeper level a potentially comic repetition miglt lumorously clasl witl tle quasi-scientic analytical observation tlat made reference to, but did not itself imitate, tle pre- sumably more torrid scandal of otler stage kisses. Ibid., o(. 10 For tlese remarks tlemselves, see Lenne, Sex on the Screen, ,, and Lewis, Hollywood v. Hard Core, 86. Te remarks lave often been attributed to tle editor of tle Chap Book, Herbert Stone, but tley were actually written by tle tlen young painter )oln Sloan. According to tle memory of lis second wife, Sloan wrote tle unsigned review in tle , )uly 8,6 issue of Chap Book. It is all tle more interesting tlat an artist wlose own paintings would later capture tle social mix and vitality of audiences at tle nickelodeon would object so strenuously lere to tle mon- strosity of exactly tle sorts of risqu movie scenes le would later depict limself. See Zurier, City, Stage, and Screen, ;,. 11 Kracauer, Teory of Iilh, (8. 12 Plillips, On Kissing, ,;. 13 See Cunning, Cinema of Attractions, and, Aestletic of Astonislment. 14 See Mayne, Uncovering tle Female Body, 66, Caines, Iire and Desire, 8; ,o, Courtney, Hollywoods Iantasy of Miscegenation, :(, Best, Iugitives Properties, ::8;, Stewart, Migrating to the Movies, 88(. 15 Susan Courtney slows tlat a great many lms of early cinema openly irted witl miscegenation and tlat almost all of tlem oered variations on a similar gag in wlicl a wlite man is punisled for lusting after a wlite woman witl tle unintended kiss or toucl of a black woman. A variation on tlis gag includes tlat of tle substituting of black babies for wlite. Courtney, Hollywoods Iantasy of Miscegenation, :(. 16 Caines, Iire and Desire, ,o. 17 )acqueline Stewart, following Miriam Hansen, suggests tlat tle joke may even lave been played by tle black woman on tle wlite man, in collusion witl tle mistress. Stewart, Migrating to the Movies, 8:. 18 Birth is especially remarkable, despite tle elision of interracial kisses, in its suggestive gyrations of tle lips of its mulatto villain, Silas Lyncl, wlen sexually : notes tlreatening tle wlite virgin, Elsie Stoneman. It is precisely tlis kind of lustful genital allusion tlat would soon disappear from American screens even in pre- Code Hollywood. See my Playing the Race Card, ,6,. 19 Le and Simmons, Dahe in the Kihono, :8;. 20 Bataille, Erotish, 6. For work on Production Code Administration (vc) censorslip, see especially )acobs, Wages of Sin, and Le and Simmons, Dahe in the Kihono. 21 In tle now-forgotten introductory verse it is Einstein, new invention, and fourtl dimension tlat represent tlis clange, in tle context of Casablancas nar- rative, it is World War ii. Te songwriter is Herman Hupfeld. 22 Dyer, White, ::. 23 Sam is important to tle narrative not only for tle music le provides but also as proof of Ricks democratic spirit. Tat spirit is not consistent, lowever. At one moment Sam drinks witl tle couple, wlile at anotler moment le is servile and attends to tleir needs, and sometimes le simply disappears. 24 Riclard Dyer writes tlat it is not just a matter of a dierent disposition of liglt on women and men, but tle way tle liglt constructs tle relationslip be- tween tlem. Te sense of tle man being illuminated by tle woman is a widespread convention, establisled in classic Hollywood cinema . . . but still current today. Dyer, White, (. 25 Part of tle guilt derives from tle fact tlat we do not know, at tlis point in tle movie, wlom Ilsa really loves. Indeed, as Umberto Eco stresses in lis fasci- nating study of tle lm, Ilsa is a kind of token and intermediary in tle platonic love of tle two men: Sle lerself does not bear any positive value (except, obviously, Beauty), and sle basically does wlat sle is told to do. Eco, Casablanca, :o8. 26 Tis ellipsis is discussed at lengtl by Maltby in Hollywood Cineha, (( ,. 27 Some kisses do conclude, but tley tend not to be tle big, dramatic ones. 28 Maltby, Hollywood Cineha, (,. 29 Qtd. in ibid., ,o. 30 Tis kiss oers a blatantly perverse tension between fear and desire because of its suggestion of necropliliaStewart believes Novak to be dead. Tere is also tle remarkable, sligltly slow-motion kiss witl Crace Kelly in Rear Window (dir. Alfred Hitclcock, ,,() tlat awakens Stewart like a sleeping beauty. 31 Tis lms unerotic credentials would seem to be conrmed by tle fact tlat it las long screened on television eacl Clristmas season, making it, ratler like Te Wizard of Oz, a perennial family favorite. 32 William Cane describes tle orbicularis oris muscle as responsible for four distinct movements of tle lips, usually described in relation to speecl, but equally important in kissing: pressing togetler, tigltening and tlinning, rolling inward between tle teetl, and, for more lascivious kisses tlrusting forward. Cane, Or- bicularis Oris of tle Face and Moutl. notes 33 Eve Babitz writes: In more ways tlan one, taste is everytling in kissing. Babitz, Sex, Love, and Kissing, 6o. 34 Freud, Tree Essays on the Teory of Sexuality, (8. 35 Ibid., (,(6. 36 Ibid., ,o. 37 Nursing, tle giving and taking of nurture, is tle prototype of many of tle sex acts we will examine in tlis book, especially kissing and fellatio, since botl recall tle pleasure of tle clilds oral groping, tasting, and sucking as a crucial originary moment of satisfaction. 38 For an excellent discussion of tle two-way street of tlis satisfaction and excitation, see St. )oln, Mammy Fantasy. 39 Freud, Tree Essays on the Teory of Sexuality, 6. 40 Freud acknowledges, for example, tlat tle kiss is well recognized as an ex- ample of certain intermediate relations to tle sexual object . . . wlicl lie on tle road towards copulation and are recognized as being preliminary sexual aims. He recognizes tlat sucl a relation is in itself pleasurable and tlat it works to intensify tle excitation, wlicl slould persist until tle nal sexual aim is attained. Pointing out tlat contact between tle mucous membranes is leld in ligl esteem by some of tle most liglly civilized nations of tle world, le nevertleless emplasizes tlat tlese membranes do not actually form a part of tle sexual apparatus, but consti- tute tle entrance to tle digestive tract. Ibid., 6. 41 If a perversion, instead of appearing merely alongside tle normal sexual aim and object . . . ousts tlem completely and takes tleir place in all circum- stancesif, in slort, a perversion las tle claracteristics of exclusiveness and xa- tiontlen we slall usually be justied in regarding it as a patlological symptom. Ibid., :;. 42 Bersani, Ireudian Body, (. 43 Ibid. 44 Ibid., 6. 45 Plillips, On Kissing, ,6. 46 Of course, for tle clild, sensual sucking is lardly a one-way street: tle motler is a partner in tle intimate relation. D. W. Winnicott stresses tle motlers sensitive adaptation to tle infants needs and ler ability to provide tle illusion tlat ler breast is part of tle infant. Winnicott, Transitional Objects and Transi- tional Plenomena, . 47 Winnicott, Playing and Reality, . 48 Laplancle, /ean Laplanche, ,o. 49 As Adam Plillips writes, Kissing on tle moutl can lave a mutuality tlat blurs tle distinctions between giving and taking. Plillips, On Kissing, ,;. See also Coward, Iehale Desires, ,;, and Caines, Iire and Desire, 8;. 50 Rosalind Coward writes: Kissing is a voracious activity, an act of mutual penetration. Kissing oers women tle clance actively to penetrate. . . . Kissing is ( notes probably for women tle most sensational activity, representing tle leiglt of erotic involvement. Precisely because of its transgressive nature, crossing boundaries between people, engaging sensations usually kept at bay, kissing clearly produces excitement. Coward, Iehale Desires, ,;. And just as clearly, it is an excitement tlat women, more tlan men, enjoy. I doubt tlat I would ever lave stayed up late on a summer niglt to watcl movies witl romantic kisses witl my fatler! 51 It would also certainly be a mistake to presume, just because a cigarette is a potentially plallic object, tlat tle cigarette in tlis instance serves as a plallic marker of sexual dierence. For even if one wanted to note its plallic slape, it is clear tlat as soon as tlis object las done its work of opening up two similar moutls to one anotler, it las no furtler value and is tlrown away. Te pleasures of kisses, and tle pleasures of screening kisses, tlus do not seem to be tlose of diametrically opposed penetrator and penetrated. 52 Plillips, On Kissing, ,;. 53 Buster Keatons two-reeler, Te Paleface (,::), oers an ingenious gag based on just tlis limitation in tle representation of sex acts. In a brilliant parody of a nal clincl, Buster takes tle pretty Indian Squaw in lis arms and kisses ler in tle classic position of tle man leaning over an extremely leaned-back woman. An intertitle reads Two years later, but we see tle same couple in tle exact same position. As tle gag well understands, tlere is notling else tlat can be ocially depicted! 54 Heartfelt tlanks to Yuri Tsivian for pointing out tlis lm, and its kiss, to me. 55 Plillips, On Kissing, ,;. 56 And, of course, all lm vampires, from !osferatu (dir. F. W. Murnau, ,::) on, cross tlis line between sustaining and actually consuming wlat tley kiss. 57 I am excluding a long list of lms, many of tlem post-Code, in wlicl eating blatantly stands in for sex acts: Toh /ones (dir. Tony Riclardson, ,6), La Grande Boue (dir. Marco Ferreri, ,;), Tahpopo (dir. )uzo Itami, ,8,), and so on. 58 Tis is a gesture we saw Bergman use on Bogart in Casablanca as well. 59 Te same is true of a later kiss performed by Crants Devlin on Bergmans Alicia. Te kiss is oered as a decoy to make Alicias ex-Nazi lusband, Alex (Claude Raines), believe tlat Devlin is in love witl Alicia ratler tlan lot on tle trail of tle nefarious uranium lidden in tle wine bottles. However, tle kiss is also real in tle sense tlat it expresses tle passion of botl kissers. 60 A Place in the Sun (dir. Ceorge Stevens, ,,) is anotler Code-era lm tlat powerfully connects sexual lunger, class lunger, and tle oral drive. Elizabetl Tay- lor, a sexually alluring young socialite, and Montgomery Clift, a sexually and ma- terially lungry factory worker, dance at a formal party in a crowded room in a set piece culminating in one of tle most memorable of fties screen kisses, an era in wlicl an overt Freudianism lad permeated American cinema. On tle dance oor, Clift blurts a sudden confession of love. Taylor, suddenly terried of being seen, pulls lim to a more private terrace, wlere sle too confesses love. Little beads of notes , sweat become visible on Clifts brow as le explains low mucl le loves ler, and low mucl le wisles tlat le could tell all. Tese beads of sweat are eloquent signs tlat tle sex botl of tlem lunger for is primal and dangerous. Indeed, tle all tlat le cannot tell is lis responsibility toward anotler woman of lis own class wlom le las made pregnant. Taylor does not understand wlat tlis all means, but sle responds to tle intensity of lis desire in a striking line tlat invites lis kiss: Tell mama, tell mama all. By inviting confession in tlis eroticized yet maternal way, Taylor turns Clift into an abject infant longing for tle maternal breast. It is for tlis kiss, and all tle oral satisfaction it promises in tlese mammary-obsessed fties, tlat Clifts Ceorge will soon plot to kill lis unwanted girlfriend and for wlicl le will ultimately die. Most of tle time Clifts sloulder blocks tle view of tleir moutls, rendering moot tle issue of wletler tley are open or closed. How- ever, tle slot is framed so tigltly tlat wlen Taylor pulls away from tle kiss we see tlat it is open in tle beginning fade-out. We are left witl tle distinct impression tlat sexual lunger las sealed a forbidden and fateful union. 61 Maurice Merleau-Ponty describes seeing as to lave at a distance. Merleau- Ponty, Eye and Mind, 66. 62 Kracauer, Teory of Iilh, (8. 63 Proust, Te Guerhantes Way, ;;. 64 See Sobclacks Address of the Eye and Carnal Toughts. 65 Te usual projection speed for sound lm is twenty-four frames per second. Tus Warlol sloots at a normal speed and slows tle image down sligltly in tle projection. 66 Tougl it is not as epic as tle six-lour Sleep (,6) or tle eiglt-lour Eh- pire (,6(), Kiss is eminently more watclable. 67 Tony Rayns admits tlat tlis may only be a legend, but le adds, Tere is no doubt tlat Warlols earliest lms were materially governed by tle teclnical limitations of tle equipment in use, mucl as Edisons pioneering experiments in cinematograply lad been. Warlol started out witl a land-wound 6mm Bolex camera, wlicl takes oo-foot rolls of lm (approximately : i( minutes wlen projected at :( frames-per-second). . . . He tlen added a motor, wlicl enabled lim to run oo feet of lm continuously. Rayns, Deatl at Work, 6(. 68 Kocl, Stargazer, (. 69 It is possible to know wlo many of tlese kissers are tlrougl information given in various lmograplies. I will not dwell on tlis information, even wlen known, since for my purposes tle kissers fame or lack of it does not seem crucial to our reception of tle lm. It is wortl knowing, lowever, tlat Naomi Levine is tle woman in tle rst two kisses, as well as in kisses ; and . All of tle kisses of Naomi Levine were screened togetler at tle Cramercy Arts Teatre in September ,6 under tle title Andy Warhol Serial. Te man in tlis rst kiss is not known. Apra, Andy Warhol, ;8. 70 Wayne Koestenbaum argues, in lis ne slort book on Warlol, tlat we do not know tle gender of tlese kissers until tle camera pulls out. Wlile it is true 6 notes tlat we miglt not recognize tlat botl are male given tle pattern of leterosexual kisses tlus far, I did suspect it on initial viewing and imagine tlat otlers do as well. Koestenbaum, Andy Warhol, 8. 71 Unlike Prousts narrator, women seem to more willingly relinquisl tle com- pulsion to see and toucl at tle same time. 72 Warlol, Philosophy of Andy Warhol, ((. 73 Tougl tley do ratler resemble tle beginning of Larry Clarks Kids (,,,). 74 Kael explains tlat tlese words, wlicl sle saw on an Italian movie poster, are perlaps tle briefest statement imaginable of tle basic appeal of movies. Tis appeal is wlat attracts us, and ultimately wlat makes us despair wlen we begin to understand low seldom movies are more tlan tlis. Kael, Kiss Kiss. Bang Bang. 75 Te stage direction reads: Te Queen lays ler lead on tle block, support- ing lerself witl ler lands. Te Executioners on eacl side bend down and remove tle lands. Te axe is raised amid general weeping, and tle curtain falls. 1ni ii. Blake, Mary Queen of Scots. Tanks to Scott Combs for tlis reference. 76 Recall tlat Te Kiss was slown in botl tle small-image, peeplole Kineto- scope and by tle projecting Vitascope. Only tle latter projection aroused interest and scandal. 77 It is frequently claimed tlat Brown said, Violence is as American as apple pie, altlougl tlis is a misquote. On :; )uly ,6, in tle wake of urban rioting, President Lyndon B. )olnson appointed tle Kerner Commission, clarged witl assessing tle causes of tle violence. Tat same day, Brown, tle former lead of tle Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, leld a news conference in Wasl- ington, DC, in wlicl le urged local blacks to arm tlemselves, saying, Violence is necessary. It is as American as clerry pie. 78 Bazin, Marginal Notes, ;. 79 Ibid., ;. 80 Ibid., ;(. We must note Bazins automatic assumption tlat woman is tle sexual object, and man botl tle caresser and tle spectatorall conventions we see upleld in Edisons Te Kiss and countless sex scenes to come. 81 Ibid., ;(. 82 Ibid., ;,. Chapter 2: Going All the Way 1 For example, )eanne Moreaus exquisite facial performance of orgasm in Louis Malles Les Ahants (,,8) as ler lovers lead descends below tle frame for an unseen genital kiss. 2 Freuds useful term screen hehory describes a particularly vivid clildlood memory wlose analysis covers a compromise formation made up of tle mix of in- delible real experiences and clildlood fantasies. Struck by tle way screen memo- notes ; ries botl evoke and screen out possibly repressed memories, Freud argues tlat sucl memories constitute important records not so mucl of tle real past but of retroactively projected fantasies wlose slape and form oer signicant keys to tle past. I invoke Freuds term lere mostly for tle value of considering low tle mem- ory of one image can block out a more powerful one. Freud, Seven Memories, Standard Edition of the Cohplete Psychological Works, o;. 3 In lis study of tle Wolf Man, for example, Freud rst suggests tlat tle clild understands tle act of coitus as tle fatlers aggression on tle motler, tlen le suggests tlat tle scene may be cause for tle clilds excitation and, since tle clild is always male to Freud, incite fears of castration. Finally, presuming tle (male) clilds sexual ignorance, le suggests tlat tle clild presumes tle coitus to be anal. See Freud, From tle History of an Infantile Neurosis. See also Laplancle and Pontalis, Language of Psychoanalysis, ,. 4 Laplancle and Pontalis, Fantasy and tle Origins of Sexuality, 6. 5 Laplancle, Life and Death in Psychoanalysis, (:. 6 Willelm Reicls book Te Sexual Struggle of Youth introduced tle term dur- ing an era of social reform in Cermany in tle twenties. Te Englisl title, wlen publisled in ,(, in tle United States, was Te Sexual Revolution Toward a Self- Governing Character Structure. See Allyn, Make Love !ot War, (,. 7 I borrow tlis term from tle subtitle of Niklas Lulmanns Love as Passion Te Codication of Intihacy. Lulmanns book examines low tle semantics of literary expressions of love evolved from tle courtly love of tle Middle Ages tlrougl tle Romantic era to contemporary notions of intimacy tlat require neitler an ideal- ization of tle object nor ascetic postponements of tle sex act. In tlis evolution, tle old semantic content of romantic and Romanticism lave been clandestinely replaced by ideas of sexual performance or tle notion of simply being tlere for one anotler (,,). Te intimacy wlose codication Lulmann traces tlus evolves from a liglly idealized ahour passion to a contemporary situation in wlicl sexual relations lave become tle key to intimacy itself. Trougl a slow process of tle re- valuation of sexuality Lulmann slows low European culture moved from subli- mation of sexual emotions tlat did not necessarily revolve around intimate knowl- edge of tle love object to increasing valuations of intimacy as good in tlemselves. Intimacy is tlus fundamentally a process of interpersonal interpenetration tlat includes tle sexual (,8). Te Victorian age, laving lost tle battle to negate sexu- ality, is replaced by a barely conscious, but all tle more manifest semantics of sport: sex becomes a matter of performing and of improving performance. Te capacity for improvement in turn requires eort and attentiveness and, as several of tle lms discussed in tlis clapter will demonstrate, training. Lulmann adds, As in sport, resorting to a form of plysical belavior tlat is socially dened as meaningful makes it possible to evade tle uncertainties of meaning in all otler domains of life (6). He argues tlat passion tlus comes to an end and idealiza- tion of tle love object no longer battles witl tle paradoxical existence of animal sexuality. Intimacy becomes less a fusion into a unity tlan a nding of meaning in 8 notes tle world and tle inner experience of anotler. In tle transition from tle Holly- wood Production Code to tle movies of tle post-Code era we can locate mucl of tle revaluation of sexuality of wlicl Lulmann speaks: tle triumpl of ani- mal sexuality witlout necessary idealizations, literal and gural interpenetrations, anxieties and triumpls of performance, and, in tle very narrative of tle eras most well-known porn lm (discussed in tle next clapter), tle very embodiment of tle concept of training. 8 See Le and Simmons, Dahe in the Kihono, and Lewis, Hollywood v. Hard Core. 9 Sclaefer, Bold! Daring! Shocking! True!, (. 10 I will be arguing in wlat follows tlat it is rarely possible to separate neatly titillation or arousal from otler ways of being moved at tle movies even tlougl tle courts, and most lm listorians, would act as if tlis were tle case. See, for example, Wyatt, Stigma of X, :8. 11 Tis plrase originated in tle ,68 song, Everyday People, popularized by Sly and tle Family Stone. It was tlen picked up as a line indicating sexual permis- siveness in Deep Troat (,;:). In ,;8 it was redeployed as tle title of a sitcom. 12 Vivian Sobclacks two books on embodiment and cinema lave been ex- tremely lelpful in my attempt to fatlom tle carnal knowledges oered up by lms. See ler Address of the Eye and Carnal Toughts. 13 I discuss tlis question in relation to tle intimate sounds of postdubbed sex in Hard Core, :::6. See also Clion, Audio-Vision. 14 Taylor and Segal disappear for a wlile and are seen in sillouette at a bed- room window. Teir spouses suspect tlat lumping is wlat tley are doing, but later it is not clear if tle act really took place. 15 Qtd. in Le and Simmons, Dahe in the Kihono, :6(. 16 Dick uncovers some of tle notoriously secretive deliberations of tle ratings board. 17 By ,6; 6o percent of tle lms witl Production Code seals of approval would bear tle mature audiences caveat. Le and Simmons, Dahe in the Kihono, :;o. 18 To tlis day Niclols remains tle master of a certain kind of provocative talk about but avoidance of slowing sex, as evidenced in lis recent lm, Closer (:oo,). 19 Tis case opened tle way for most R-rated lms to go unclallenged by tle courts in tle future. See Lewis, Hollywood v. Hard Core, :6(6,. 20 Feier, San Irancisco Chronicle. 21 See Le and Simmons, Dahe in the Kihono, :;o, and Lewis, Hollywood v. Hard Core, :8. 22 Part of tle joke on Mrs. Robinson seems to be tle fact, embodied in Dustin Homans very being, tlat Benjamin is not, by any movie-star criteria of tle time, automatically desirable. Te otler, crueler, joke is tlat altlougl Bancroft played notes , and las gone down in listory as tle lasciviously villainous older woman, sle was, in fact, only one year older tlan Homan at tle time. 23 Niclols las been quoted as saying tlat Homans distinctive and quite lit- eral wlimper was modeled on lis own lelpless wlimpering in long meetings witl )ack Warner, arguing over tle language in lis previous lm, Whos Afraid of Vir- ginia Woolf. Wlen Warner began to tell jokes, Niclols reported, le involuntarily wlimpered. See Le and Simmons, Dahe in the Kihono, :(,. 24 Te rest of tle sequence slows Benjamin in tle lotel bed alone. He gets up and closes tle door to tle lotel batlroomwlere, in wlat slould be tle batlroom, lis parents sit at tle dinner table, confounding tle two spaces. Te Sounds of Silence ends, and anotler song, April Come Sle Will, begins. Now it is Mrs. Robinson wlo moves, passing quickly before Benjamin, dressing and leaving wlile Benjamin smokes in full postcoital mode. 25 Metz, Iilh Language, ;,. Stam, Iilh Teory, 6. 26 An example would be tle Cant Buy Me Love montage of tle ,6( Beatles lm A Hard Days !ight (dir. Riclard Lester). See )e Smitl, Sounds of Cohherce. See also Lack, Twenty Iour Irahes Under. 27 )e Smitls example is tle playful montage to Raindrops Keep Fallin on My Head in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (dir. Ceorge Roy Hill, ,6,). See lis Sounds of Cohherce. 28 Clion, Audio-Vision, ,,. 29 Ibid., 6. 30 Anotler anomaly of X was tlat wlile all tle otler ratingso, vo, vwere assigned by tle rv and were, indeed, copyriglted by tlem, X was not copy- riglted and could tlerefore be self-assigned. Lewis, Hollywood v. Hard Core, ,. 31 See Wyatt, Stigma of X, :(, see also Lewis, Hollywood v. Hard Core. 32 Interestingly, tlis out-of-focus melting enacts my false condensed mem- ory of Te Virgin Spring and Two Wohen. 33 Diegetic music is tlat wlose source is not witlin tle ctional space of tle lm. Miclel Clion uses tle terms onscreen and oscreen to signal tlis dierence, and tle term acoushatic to describe sound not visualized or given a cause in tle image. Clion, Audio-Vision, ;:. 34 Vitto Russo reads tle lm as an exercise in gay-lating in lis Celluloid Closet, 8o86. Interpreted today, lowever, in tle liglt of mucl more overtly queer por- trayals of sucl attaclments by directors like Pedro Almodvar, I am inclined to see tle unspoken relationslip between )oe and Ratso as a melanclolic melodrama of tle loss of unattainable lomosexual erotic attaclments. Civen tle fact tlat )oe is now lustling to lelp lis friend Ratso get to a better climate in Florida, wlicl will lappen melodramatically too late, tle undertone of plaintiveness leard in tlis sex scene almost seems a gentle parody of )oes performance of leterosexual virility and a lint of tle unspoken love between )oe and Ratso. See Linda Williams, Melancloly Melodrama. (o notes 35 Popular examples extend from Top Gun (dir. Tony Scott, ,86) to Cold Mountain (dir. Antlony Minglella, :oo). Botl exemplify tle big-budget, taste- ful version, constructed as a kind of sampling of vignettes of tle sex act. In Top Gun Tom Cruises lotslot yer couples witl lis female iglt instructor (Kelly McCillis). In a very few brief slots we rst see tle couple clotled and kissing, tlen tastefully displayed naked in bed witl Cruise on top in tle kind of lazy interior soon to become common in sex scenes under tle inuence of an r1v style tlat would make everytling an interlude. 36 See Linda Williams, Hard Core. 37 See tle clapter on stag lms in ibid., ,8,:. 38 Eric Sclaefers denitive book on exploitation cites tle impresario David F. Friedman: All tlose subjects were fair game for tlis exploiteras long as it was in bad taste! Qtd. in Sclaefer, Bold! Daring! Shocking! True!, . Sclaefer briey dis- cusses sexploitation on ;,, and lis fortlcoming book also treats tlis topic. 39 Te European lms tlat focused exclusively on sexual situations, sucl as Roger Vadims And God Created Wohan (,,;) witl Brigitte Bardot, moved easily, Sclaefer notes, from art louse to grind louse witl no necessary clanges. Sclae- fer, Bold! Daring! Shocking! True, 6;. See also )ack Stevensons fortlcoming Totally Uncensored. 40 Sclaefer, Does Sle or Doesnt Sle: ,. 41 In tle sex scene witl tle sl, sle performs a perversely displaced erotic dance in wlicl sle rubs tlis plallic object all over ler clotled body to tle accom- paniment of loud jazz. 42 In contrast to tle women in Sin in the Suburbs, Vixen comes to no bad end and is even cured of ler racism, tlougl sle never overcomes ler aversion to laving sex witl tle black war protestor. 43 Courtney, Hollywood Iantasies of Miscegenation, (. 44 As we saw in tle previous clapter, before tle institution of tle Code, wlite maleblack female relations sucl as tle kiss in What Happened in the Tunnel could be considered comic if aclieved inadvertently. Comedy constituted tle only mode for wlite maleblack female sex. Tere was notling funny, lowever, about a black man tlreatening to kiss, marry, or lave sex witl a wlite woman. In tle landmark Te Birth of a !ation (,,) D. W. Critl irted witl tle constant tlreat of would-be black rapists. See Linda Williams, Playing the Race Card, :::,. 45 See Susan Courtneys discussion of wliteNative American, wlite-Asian, and wlite-Latin epidermic drama in relation to tle Code in Hollywoods Ian- tasies of Miscegenation, o(. Courtneys brilliant examination of Production Code les emplatically slows tlat tle social relations and erotic looks most policed were tlose in wlicl black men (or inconsistently, native, Asian, or otler nonwlite men) related to or looked at wlite women (;). 46 Browne, Race, 8. 47 Variety estimated tlat wlile blacks constituted o to , percent of tle popu- lation, tley made up more tlan o percent of tle audience in rst-run, major city notes ( tleaters. Hollywood lad long been aware of tle economic clout of tle back audi- ence concentrated in tle inner city, but only in tle late sixties wlen tle studios faltered and tle Code disintegrated did tlat audience begin to slow its power and attract specic genres of lm. See Cuerrero, Irahing Blackness, 8. 48 Qtd. in ibid., ;(. See also Cripps, Sweet Sweetbacks Baadasssss. 49 Or, as Ed Cuerrero notes, even in ,6( wlen Poitier played a Moorisl prince surrounded by an extensive larem of beautiful women of all races, le remained celibate. He never got to do wlat )ames Bond would lave done in sucl a situation. Cuerrero, Irahing Blackness, ;:. 50 See Williams, Playing the Race Card. 51 One Hundred Ries (dir. Tom Cries, ,6,), starring )im Brown and Raquel Welcl, appears to be tle rst lm to lave screened a miscegenous kiss, tlougl tle fact tlat Welcl played an indigenous Mexican and was lerself part Latino muddied tle waters a bit. 52 Best-known titles include Shaft (,;), Black /esus (,;), Supery (,;:), and Black Caesar (,;). 53 Tomas Cripps writes, for example, tlat in tle sixties blacks lad propor- tionally more income to spend on tle immediate gratications of entertainments sucl as movies. Cripps, Sweet Sweetbacks Baadasssss, :(:. See also Cuerrero, Irahing Blackness, 8:8,. 54 Blaxploitation action leroes, male and female, lave sexual desirability and prowess built into tleir very names, but tle male names tend to refer more di- rectly to plallic body parts: Sweetbacks back (and frequently visible backside), Slafts slaft, Superys y. Pam Criers foxiness in tle Ioxy Brown lms, for example, is botl sexy and smart. But wlile tle male blaxploitation leroes make a point of laving sex witl botl tle sisters of tle black community and appreciative wlite women, tle female leroes are never portrayed laving interracial sex except under duress. 55 It was made for s,oo,ooo (from lis own savings and contributed to by Bill Cosby). See Cuerrero, Irahing Blackness, 86. 56 Clan-Quiray, Identity Crisis, . Van Peebles also sent a letter to )ack Valenti of tle rv at tle time of tle lms release saying tlat le refused to sub- mit tle lm for a rating. Nor would le self-apply an X to tle lm: I clarge tlat your lm rating body las no riglt to tell tle Black community wlat it may or may not see. . . . Wlite standards slall no longer be imposed on tle Black community. Van Peebles, Sweet Sweetbacks Baadasssss Song, :o,. 57 Lewis, Hollywood v. Hard Core, o,. 58 Louis Altlusser argues tlat individuals are interpellatedlailed by and answer toparticular ideologies tlrougl a process tlat brings tlem into being by guratively or literally calling out tleir name. In Altlussers example, it is a police- man wlo lails a citizen by calling out ley you tlere! Wlen tle citizen turns, le or sle is interpellated. Altlusser, Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses, ;o86. (: notes 59 Cecil Brown, wlo is making a documentary lm about Van Peebles and asked lim tlis question, conrms tlat tlis meaning preexisted tle lm. 60 Van Peebless screenplay suggests a contrast between tle boys initial im- mobility and tle movement tlat follows after tle wlore calls for itand tlen tle boys back begins to move. . . . At rst sle wlispers instructions but tle boy is a natural. Van Peebles, Sweet Sweetbacks Baadasssss Song, 6. Te actual lm, lowever, slows none of tle boys own movement. 61 See my discussion of tle lm Mandingo in Skin Flicks on tle Racial Border, in Linda Williams, Porn Studies, :;o8. 62 See, for example, Riclard Fleisclers Mandingo (,;,). 63 He will do so again, for example, after escaping from tle cops, in a brief sexual scene witl anotler black womanpresumably a wlore for wlom le once pimped. Sle demands sex as payment for removing lis landcus. Sweetback dutifully lies down between ler legs, but tle sex is not depicted. 64 Huey Newton, for example, objects to tle minstrelsy of tle lat and bow tie but does not mention tle penis. Indeed, le goes to great lengtls to desexualize and allegorize most of tle sex scenes. Newton, He Wont Bleed Me, c. See furtler discussion below. 65 Tomas Cripps notes tlat tle emerging Blaxploitation genre often required critics to review tle audience riglt along witl tle movie, and tlat tle movie, in turn, was reviewed alongside tle backstory of tle legend of its maker, wlicl Van Peebles carefully cultivated. Cripps writes tlat for tle trades sucl as Variety tle practice of reading tle audience became de rigueur since tle lms followed so few of tle conventions of dramaturgy: Close observation of tle audiences response [was] an index of tle prospects of eacl new movie. In eect, tle reader-response criticism tlat a new generation of critics lad begun to introduce into academic circles became an essential tool of tradepaper critics. One critic noted two camps: wlite stony silence and black deliglted exclamations. Cripps, Sweet Sweet- backs Baadasssss, :,6. 66 Many wlite reviewers simply panned tle lm. )uditl Crist, for example, wrote tlat tle lm was a lam-landed sexed-up, clase story for tle untlinking, regardless of color or creed, adding tlat it was amateurislly made (!ew York, May ,;). More typical, lowever, was tle ambivalence of Penelope Cilliatt, wlo began ler review, Alas!I mean, lurral!tlere exists a furiously tasteless picture called Sweet Sweetbacks Baadasssss Song. It was made by a black man for blacks and it is turning into a plenomenon of tle industry (!ew Yorker, 8 )une ,;). 67 He adds, Every time after tlat wlen Sweetback engages in sex witl a sis- ter, it is always an act of survival, and a step towards lis liberation. Newton, He Wont Bleed Me, c. 68 Bennett, Emancipation Orgasm, 6. 69 Ibid. 70 He writes: Wlo is Sweetback: Is le a wlite stereotype, tle Black Everyman notes ( Stud of tle wlite mans dreams: Or is le a black fantasy gure, tle internalized otler of tle wlite mans projection: Ibid. 71 Ibid. 72 Rosello, Declining the Stereotype, 8(o. 73 Cripps, Sweet Sweetbacks Baadasssss, :,:. 74 For a longer discussion of tlis issue from tle point of view of wlite su- premacist, mainstream American culture, see my Playing the Race Card. 75 See my discussion of tlis lm and tle black buck of American racial melo- drama in ibid., ,6(. 76 Van Peebles, Sweet Sweetbacks Baadasssss Song, :,. 77 Ibid., 6o, 6:. 78 Ibid. 79 See my essay, Skin Flicks on tle Racial Border: Pornograply, Exploitation, and Interracial Lust, in Linda Williams, Porn Studies, :;o8. 80 See also Cordon Parkss Shaft (,;), in wlicl Riclard Roundtree las pro- longed romantic sex witl a black woman, and abrupt sex witl a wlite woman. 81 McMillan, Touglts on Shes Gotta Have It, ,. 82 Cates, )ungle Fever, 6. 83 Te extent to wlicl tley did tlis las been beautifully argued by Ara Oster- weil in clapter : of a Pl.D. dissertation entitled Flesl Cinema. I am indebted to Osterweil for many of tle following insiglts about tle esly attractions of American avant-garde cinema. I refer anyone interested in a full analysis of tle carnal interest of avant-garde cinema of tle sixties to Osterweils second clapter, Experimental Intercourse: Documenting tle Sex Act. 84 See ibid., ,;, MacDonald, Confessions of a Feminist Porn Watcler, ,. 85 Te lm slows a black-and-wlite close-up of tle clanging face of a land- some young man during wlat may, or may not, be tle eponymous action. See Roy Crundemans fascinating book-long discussion of its many possible interpre- tations in Andy Warhols Blow /ob. See also Osterweil, Andy Warlols Blow /ob. in Linda Williams, Porn Studies, (6o. 86 Waugl, Cockteaser, Osterweil, Flesl Cinema. 87 I remember, as an undergraduate at tle University of California at Berke- ley, tlat tle lm, tlen still entitled Iuck, slowed somewlere on or near campus. I remember because it was tle occasion of one of tle very rst dirty puns I ever made. (Wlen a friend asked me if I was going to see Iuck, I prided myself on wlat I tlouglt to be a witty answer: Conceivably, I said, but tlen found, unfortunately, tlat I lad to work tlat niglt.) 88 Blue movies were not tlemselves tinted blue, but one tleory as to tle origin of tle term is tlat tle small-format projectors on wlicl tley were often slown lad a bluisl cast. However, since tle early nineteentl century, tle color blue con- noted indecent or obscene. 89 Koestenbaum, Andy Warhol, (. 90 Ibid. (( notes 91 Wayne Koestenbaum writes tlat tle lm redeems leterosexuality, wlicl lad never been top on lis list of cinematic treats. . . . Here for tle rst time in Warlols work, leterosexuality is not a joke (ibid., ,(). Koestenbaum goes fur- tler, asserting tlat after tle slooting, tle bullet-wounded, black and blue body of Warlol nds itself denitively excluded from tle replete spectacle of letero- sexual coupling staged in tlis lm. No political radical proponent of queerness, Warlols own sexual radicalism, Koestenbaum argues, derives from lis own sense of failed masculinity. He knew and acted better, but le viewed lomosexuality as a probleman interesting, productive, fascinating problem. In lis universe straiglt men were real men (,,). Koestenbaum concludes, I believe tlat Blue Movielis summa, lis key to all mytlologiesmay lave proved decisively to lim tlat le was not a real man, peering more closely at tle secrets of otler peoples bodies tlan ever before, le removed limself from lis own irreversibly ruptured body. Blue Movie, wlicl records two bodies intertwining, seals Andys rupture from lis bodylis premature exile from organs, tlose irrelevant irritants. Ibid., ,,,6. 92 Miller writes tlat consensual sex means tle mutual transgression of disgust- defended boundaries: We simply will do tlings or let tlings be done to ourselves in love and sex tlat violate all tle norms tle violation of wlicl would trigger dis- gust if unprivileged, if coerced, or even if witnessed. And to do sucl and to lave sucl done to us is mucl of wlat sexual intimacy is. William Ian Miller, Anatohy of Disgust, :, ,. 93 )ames, Allegories of Cineha, 6,. 94 Warlol, Philosophy of Andy Warhol, :6:;. 95 Viva, for example, would later write: Because Andy was so sly and com- plexed about lis looks, le lad no private life. In lming, as in langing out, le merely wanted to nd out low normal people acted witl eacl otler. And I tlink my own idea about Blue Movie (or Iuck as it lad originally been called) wasnt, as I believed at tle time, to teacl tle world about real love or real sex, but to teacl Andy. Wrenn, Andy Warhol, 6(. 96 Ara Osterweil notes tlat tle lm is unusual in its portrayal of domesticity. Wlere otler lms lad tended to remove tleir closen activities from tleir usual contexts, lere sex takes place in a lome among bourgeois, leterosexual domestic rituals. Osterweil, Flesl Cinema, (((6. 97 Tis realism often includes aspects of tle negotiation tlat takes place around tle sex act as in tlat between Candi Barr and tle man wlo picks ler up in Shart Alec. See my discussion of tle frequent absence of climactic endings in stag lm in Hard Core, ;:. 98 Koestenbaum quotes a diary entry from November ,;8: I said tlat I wasnt creative since I was slot, because after tlat I stopped seeing creepy people. Koe- stenbaum, Andy Warhol, ,,. 99 It las since slown occasionally, but it was not included in tle ,,( Warlol retrospective. Only tlose able to travel to tle Warlol Museum in Pittsburgl can notes (, view it, and tlen only on videotape. Te image included lere is from tle degraded bootleg dubbed into Cerman. Chapter 3: Going Further 1 Kael, Tango, o. 2 Te Rite of Spring was originally performed as a modern ballet divided into two lalves. Te rst part, Te Adoration of tle Eartl, is a pagan celebration of spring tlat reacles one climax wlen a Wise Elder plants a kiss on tle newly owering eartl and tle pagan tribes are seized witl a mystic terror tlat culmi- nates in tle Dance of tle Eartl. Te second part is entitled Te Sacrice and culminates witl tle sacrice of a young maiden to tle god of spring. 3 Te ballets scenic evocation of pagan Russian rituals elicited from Stravin- sky a score of unprecedented primitive force, in wlicl music seemed to be dis- tilled to its rlytlmic essence, lammered out by tle orclestra witl unrestrained percussive intensity. Slaken by tle radical nature of botl score and ballet, tle opening-niglt audience was in an uproar from tle beginning, witl tlose botl for and against slouting at one anotler in leated debate. . . . tle sensational aspect of tle event placed Stravinsky at tle forefront of tle musical revolutions of tle time. Robert Morgan, qtd. in Taruskin, Mytl of tle Twentietl Century, . 4 Some of Nijinskys movements in tle ballet, cloreograpled by lis lover Dia- glilev, lave been described as masturbatory. 5 Kael, Tango, o, emplasis added. 6 Recall lere tle two rape scenes tlat lad so aected me in Te Virgin Spring (,,,) and Two Wohen (,6o). 7 Wlen tle lm was slown in Cleveland in deance of a local police order, tle manager-projectionist Nico )acobellis was arrested on clarges of exlibiting obscenity. )acobellis famously fouglt back, and lis contestation of tlis local ob- scenity ruling would become tle basis of an important later Supreme Court ruling tlat not only overturned lis conviction but proved instrumental in establisling tle concept tlat lms no longer needed to be acceptable to all age groups, tlus dealing an important blow to tle Production Codes dedication to tlis idea. Lewis, Hollywood v. Hard Core, . 8 Te full quote reads: Brando casles tle cleck Stanley Kowalski wrote for us twenty-ve years agole fucks tle leroine standing up. It solves tle old snicker of low do you do it in a teleplone bootl:le rips ler panties open. Mailer, Transit to Narcissus, :o. 9 Bertolucci, Last Tango in Paris, ;. 10 Bataille, Erotish, o(. 11 I moved tle story to Paris, and gave it tle title La Petite horte (sic), wlicl is tle eiglteentl-century Libertine expression for orgasm. I was reading a lot of (6 notes Ceorges Bataille, including Le Bleu du ciel, wlicl really impressed me. Qtd in David Tompson, Last Tango in Paris, . 12 Ibid., o. 13 Ibid., (:. 14 Tougl as I slowed in tle last clapter, wlat we tlink of today as an ordi- nary Xtle one tlat would attacl automatically to lard-core pornograplywas only at tlis moment becoming common. 15 Kael, Tango, o, emplasis added. 16 Ibid., emplasis added. 17 Te review was publisled a few montls before Kaels. Screw magazine, con- sidered by some to lave been tle apotleosis of bad taste, was begun by Coldstein in ,68. It combined dirty plotos witl political commentary and sexually tinged satire. Described by Coldstein as a ri comics for sex, it ceased publication in :oo. 18 Tis was Coldsteins term for lis own personalized rating system gauged, presumably, by lis own degree of erection. 19 Qtd. in Riclard Smitl, Getting into Deep Troat, :. 20 Al Coldstein, qtd. in Riclard Smitl, Getting into Deep Troat, :. 21 Kael, Tango, o. 22 Te Hollywood lms witl markedly adult content released tlat year include Te Godfather (dir. Francis Ford Coppola), Deliverance (dir. )oln Boorman), and Cabaret (dir. Bob Fosse). Tis was also an important year for Blaxploitation fol- lowing tle X-rated success of tle ,; Sweet Sweetbacks Baadasssss Song witl Supery (dir. Cordon Parks )r.). 23 Kael, Tango, o. 24 Ibid., (. 25 Sclauer, Law of Obscenity, ,6. 26 Qtd. in ibid., ,;. 27 Ibid., o:. 28 Te so-called Peter Meter was not an actual device, ratler it was a meta- plor, employed by reviewers of lard-core lms to indicate tle degree of arousal elicited by a given lm. Te Peter Meter assumes tle turn-on to be an exclu- sively male province. Te following clapter will address tle question of tle female turn-on. 29 Kael, Tango, (. 30 For example, in a ,8, case tlat attempted to clarify tle denition of pruri- ent as tlat wlicl incites lasciviousness or lust, tle Supreme Court decided tlat lust referred to normal wlile lascivious referred to abnormal sexual re- sponses and redrew tle line between acceptable and censorable as tlat between normal lust and abnormal lasciviousness. See Downs, !ew Politics of Pornogra- phy, :,, and Linda Williams, Second Touglts on Hard Core, (;. 31 Sclauer, Iree Speech A Philosophical Enquiry, 8. 32 Taussig, Mihesis and Alterity, :. notes (; 33 Of course I lad seen naked men and women in real life, and I lad seen a few dirty pictures in magazines. But except for a few isolated penises drawn on tle walls of public toilets, I lad not really seen sex from tle point of view of a specta- tor. 34 We may lave gone so far as to say wletler we found it arousing, but polling some of tlese friends recently, I discovered tlat at least one of tle men was quite worried tlat le was aroused, fearing a feminist wratl tlat may not lave really been mucl in evidence until later. Plillip Rotls ,,; novel, Aherican Pastoral, depicts a dinner conversation among upper-middle-class couples in New )ersey. At dinner tle conversation was about Watergate and about Deep Troat. Except for tle Swedes parents and tle Orcutts, everybody at tle table lad been to see tle X-rated movie. Wlen one of tle parents asks wly tley let it into tleir lives, anotler answers: It leaks in . . . wletler we like it or not. Wlatever is out tlere leaks in. . . . Its not tle same out tlere anymore, in case you lavent leard. Rotl, Aherican Pastoral, (,(6. 35 William Miller, Anatohy of Disgust, o,. 36 Report of the Cohhission on Obscenity and Pornography, . 37 Sclaefer also notes tlat tle new, franker 6mm movies marked tle con- vergence of tle revolution in lm aestletics and tle sexual revolution. Sclaefer, Cauging a Revolution, 86. 38 Ibid., 8;. 39 Interestingly, wlat Mona did not pioneer was tle convention of tle money slot to signal climax. 40 Sclaefer, Cauging a Revolution, ,. 41 Ralpl Blumentlal, Porno Clic, !ew York Tihes Magazine, : )anuary ,;, :8(. 42 It is striking, for example, low mucl tle early articles on tle so-called porno clic plenomenon, botl tlat written initially for tle !ew York Tihes Magazine by Ralpl Blumentlal in )anuary of ,; and one written by Bruce Williamson later tlat summer for Playboy witl tle same title, stress tle names of tle many celebri- tiesfrom )olnny Carsons lowbrow sidekick Ed McMalon wlo stood out front of tle tleater witl a case of beer, to more soplisticated fans like Mike Niclols and Truman Capote and movie stars like )ack Niclolson and Sandy Dennisall of wlom viewed tle lm witl interest. 43 Tis information derives from an as yet unpublisled paper by lm listorian )on Lewis titled Real Sex. I tlank lim for making it available to me. 44 Blue Movie is about a bored and blas Hollywood director wlo joins forces witl a successful producer and an adventurous female star to produce tle most expensive porn movie of all time. In ,;(, two years after Last Tango, Warner Bros. actually optioned Soutlerns book and signed Mike Niclols to direct. Of course tle lm was never made, and even if it lad been it is not clear it would lave been made in a lard-core version. Hollywoods last taboo, as )oln Waters las noted, remains today as it was tlen visible penetration. See Lewis, Real Sex: Tere is (8 notes only one taboo left . . . penetration. Let tle golden age of censor-free independent lm begin. 45 He writes, Te lm las been in reacl of tle greatness Kael las been talking about, but tle aclievement las only been partial. . . . We are being given a fuck lm witlout tle fuck. It is like a Western witlout tle lorses. Mailer, Transit to Narcissus, :. 46 Report of the Cohhission on Obscenity and Pornography, tle rst reference to a New Cenre is on . 47 Bruce Williamson, for example, wrote in Playboy in tle summer of ,; tlat many earnest and ambitious pornograplers were aiming at deeper claracteriza- tion, stronger stories witl a social or psyclological slant, and tle superior produc- tion values tlat are a concomitant of ligler budgets. Williamson, Porno Clic, 6. And William Rotsler similarly wrote, Erotic lms are lere to stay. Eventually tley will simply merge into tle mainstream of motion pictures and disappear as a latent sub-division. Notling can stop tlis. Rotsler, Contehporary Erotic Cineha, . 48 Tere are, of course, exceptions to every rule, and a few auteurs lave emerged in tle contemporary adult video world feted at Adult Video Awards cere- monies. Clief among tlese in tle leterosexual narrative category is, wlose videos are aestletically ambitious and well directed, often witl complex narratives and spectacular r1v-style musical numbers. However, tle liglly edited sexual per- formances lack warmtl, and tle acting never comes close to tlat in mainstream or independent lms. In tle more gonzo style of nonnarrative leterosexual por- nograply, )oln Staglianos fetisl-oriented pseudodocumentaries lave captured a more seemingly autlentic o-tle-street look tlat often manages to depict sexual leat and connection. And in tle realm of gay video, Clristian Bjorn las engi- neered some of tle most mind-boggling and slick orgies imaginable. See Cante and Restivo, World of All-Male Pornograply, o:6. Nowlere, lowever, is tle dream of a dramatic cinema tlat is not pornograply but tlat does include actual sex realized. 49 Tis was an era wlen feature-lengtl, narrative, sound and color lm por- nograply witl scripts like regular movies, witl award-winning direction and performances discussed by critics and discerning viewers, seemed possible. Tis golden age included all tle lms of Radley Metzger, some of tle later lms of Cer- ard Damiano, Henry Paclard, )oe Sarno, Cluck Vincent, and Antlony Spinelli, as well as performers like Ceorgina Spelven, Annette Haven, Veronica Hart, )amie Cillis, and )oln Leslie. Altlougl many of tlese original lms are now available on video or ivi, almost none are available on lm, nor lave tley been preserved and restored tle way otler American lms of tle era lave been. For discussions of pornograplys auteurs, see OToole, Pornocopia, ;,,6. See also Linda Williams, Hard Core, (,:. 50 Damiano quoted in Bruce Williamson, Porno Clic, Playboy. Reprinted in Ilesh and Blood, (. notes (, 51 Tis codication would function at least for tle seventies, see Ziplow, Iilh Makers Guide to Pornography. Tis low-to-do-it manual would insist on ten money slots and a wide variety of sexual numbers: masturbation, straiglt sex, a lesbian scene, oral sex, a mnage trois, and anal sex. 52 Hollywood calls tle slot for wlicl it pays tle most money, and wlicl de- livers tle greatest degree of spectacle, tle money slot: tle clariot race in Ben Hur, tle burning of Atlanta in Gone with the Wind. Te porn industry follows suit in its faslion, adding money slot to tle repertoire of slang terms tlat constitute its biggest spectacle. I prefer tlis term because of its resonance witl money and tle fetislistic overvaluation of one partial element of tle wlole sex act. See Linda Williams, Hard Core, o,. 53 Tis was mucl less tle case in gay pornograply, wlicl was equally com- mitted to fellatio as a privileged sexual act but committed as well, at least in its earlier incarnations, to tle alternation of fellatio (e.g., Boys in the Sand). 54 Qtd. in Riclard Smitl, Getting into Deep Troat, (. 55 See, for example, my discussions of tle lms of Radley Metzger (aka Henri Paris) in Hard Core, (,. 56 See Linda Williams, Hard Core, OToole, Pornocopia, and McClintock, Conad tle Barbarian. See also tle :oo, documentary lm Inside Deep Troat (dir. Randy Barbados and Fenton Bailey). 57 Sle las freckles, irregular teetl, ligl cleekbones, and smallisl breasts. Sle does not, in otler words, lave wlat would solidify in tle eiglties as a porn-star body: big breasts, small waist, big lips. 58 See Flint, Babylon Blue, . 59 It is wortl recalling tlat tle feminist arguments about tle objectication of women came in tle latter part of tle decade. 60 Wlen asked in tle documentary Inside Deep Troat wletler le tlouglt it was a very good lm, Damiano sigled, No. 61 Bersani, Ireudian Body, 8. 62 Niklas Lulmann las noted tle prevalence of tle semantics of sport in late twentietl-century treatises on sexual pleasure, from Masters and )olnson to any number of sexual advice manuals. It is a matter of performing and im- proving performance, not because one las to, but because one wants to do so voluntarily. Te capacity improvement in turn requires eort and attentiveness andas in tle case of all plysical aclievementtraining. Lulmann, Love as Passion, 6o6. 63 See my extended discussion of tle comparative invisibility of female plea- sure vis--vis male pleasure in Hard Core, ,,. 64 )uditl Crist, for example, called it awful, idiot moviemaking, Vincent Canby called it junk and cleverly listed tle pitfalls of every critical approacl from tle lauglty (its boring) to tle golly-gee-wliz (Teyve gone as far as tley can go!), and Andrew Sarris found it joyless. Te problem for many, as Riclard Smitl notes, was to express distaste for tle lm witlout giving ammunition to ,o notes tle forces of censorslip. Indeed, mucl of tle verbiage tlat resulted displayed tle tortured introspection of a law-and-order liberal wlo las just been mugged. All citations in Riclard Smitl, Getting Into Deep Troat, :. 65 Qtd. in ibid., (. 66 Of course tlis is wlat tle lusband wants lis wife to do, and le ends up marrying anotler woman wlo does. Updike, Couples, :(8. 67 See, for example, tle talking leads interviewed in Inside Deep Troattle men tend to suggest tley knew about it but also knew it was dirty, tle women tend to suggest tley lad never leard of it before tley saw tle lm. Of course tlese talking leads do not oer a representative cross section of Americans, most are sexually aware types: Hugl Hener, )oln Waters, Norman Mailer are repre- sentative of tle men, and Erica )ong, Helen Curley Brown, and Camille Paglia are representative of tle women. Nevertleless all suggest tlat tle lm oered a new legitimation of an act once vaguely classied as abnormal. 68 Kinsey, Pomeroy, and Martin, Sexual Behavior in the Huhan Male, ,;8. 69 See tle excellent discussion of orality in tle Clinton scandal in Berlant and Duggan, Our Monica. Ourselves, :,(,6. 70 Rotl, Dying Anihal, ,. Rotls sixty-year-old narrator, a lover of many younger women, speculates tlat tle rise of fellatio is linked to tle resurrection of tle condom in tle early seventies. After tle end of tle sixties, wlen tle pill lad been tle predominant form of birtl control, condoms became once again popular, as tley now are even more so in an era of iis. Writes Rotl: Wlat man can say le enjoys sex witl a condom tle way le does witlout: . . . Tats wly tle organs of digestion lave, in our time, come to vie for supremacy as a sexual orice. Te crying need for tle mucous membrane. Rotl, Dying Anihal, 68. 71 Foucault, History of Sexuality, ::. 72 Qtd. in Daplne Merkins obituary for Lovelace, !ew York Tihes Magazine, :, December :oo:, o. 73 Missionary position: . . . Tat is a very interesting term you use. Toward tle end of tle trial le gratuitously instructs an expert witness tlat normal inter- course means tle missionary position. Substantial excerpts from tle question- ing of eacl of ve expert witnesses are oered in Riclard Smitl, Getting into Deep Troat, :o, :. 74 Ibid., :o. 75 Ibid., ::. 76 Ibid., :8(. 77 Ultimately, most of tle judgments made against tle lm, including tle con- viction by a Memplis court of tle actor Harry Reems, were overturned and tle lm went on to earn a reported s6oo million nationwide, none of wlicl went to tle director or performers. 78 Anne McClintock begins ler tale by comparing tle paucity of slang terms for tle clitoris compared to tlose for tle penis and tlen recounts tle story of one Renaldus Columbus wlo claimed to lave discovered tle female penis some sixty notes , years after Columbus discovered America. McClintock, Conad tle Barbarian, ,6. 79 Freud, Tree Essays on the Teory of Sexuality, ,o. 80 Irigaray, Tis Sex Which Is !ot One, :. 81 See tle discussion of orality between )ane Callop and Lauren Berlant in Our Monica. Ourselves, :,(6o, in wlicl botl discussants stress tle importance of tle pleasure of sucking and of being sucked. 82 Te psycloanalytic tleorist Maria St. )oln las argued tlat Freud las a ten- dency to view tle breast of infantile sucking as being for tle baby ratler tlan of tle woman. St. )oln notes furtler tlat psycloanalysis in general las not con- centrated suciently on tle breast as an organcertainly notling like tle way it las concentrated on tle penis as tle ultimate subject of sexual pleasure. Had it done so, it miglt lave been equipped to tleorize sexual pleasures tlemselves as a mutual give-and-take. St. )oln, Mahhy Iantasy, ;o,. 83 He writes, I once put forward tle view tlat tlere was no need to be too mucl lorried at nding in a woman tle idea of sucking at a male organ. Tis repellent impulse, I argued, lad a most innocent origin, since it was derived from sucking at tle motlers breast. Freud, Analysis of a Plobia, ;. In anotler essay le writes: So we see tlat tlis excessively repulsive and perverted plantasy of sucking at a penis las tle most innocent origin. Freud, Fragment, ,:. 84 St. )oln, Mahhy Iantasy, ,. 85 Deep Troats absurd conceit of tle clitoris located in tle tlroat is tlus one way tle lm attempts to restore tle idea of pleasure to tle fellator as well as to tle fellatee. 86 Most sources claim tlat Deep Troat cost s:,,ooo to make (a big budget and sometling of a gamble for a pornograplic lm just transitioning from tle stag era) and eventually grossed, if one believes ivi gures, as mucl as s6oo million. Wlat is sure is tlat in its initial tlirty-nine-week run in New York at only one tleater, it grossed s,oo,ooo. See tle documentary Inside Deep Troat, and Flint, Babylon Blue, . 87 David Tompson, Last Tango in Paris, :o. 88 Marcus, Other Victorians, :6,. 89 DEmilio and Freedman, Intihate Matters, :. 90 Foucault, History of Sexuality, :ooo. 91 It opened at tle Fifty-ftl Street Playlouse in New York on :, December ,; and ran for nineteen weeks. It later ran for nine weeks at tle Paris Teater in Los Angeles. It was tle rst gay lm to point tle way to a mostly untapped prot- able market: gay men starved for positive, out-of-tle-closet movie representations of tleir selves and tleir (explicit) sexuality. Burger, One-Handed Histories, 6. According to Kennetl Turan and Steplen Zito, it almost single-landedly legiti- mized tle gay lard-core lm. Turan and Zito, Sineha, ,;. 92 According to Turan and Zito, tle lm cost s8,ooo to make and grossed s(oo,ooo (Sineha, ::). According to )oln Burgers more recent study, it cost ,: notes s:o,ooo to botl make and market and, after nineteen weeks at its initial New York venue, lad grossed s(o,ooo. Tis compares to Deep Troats initial cost of s:,,ooo and gross of wlat some claim to be as ligl as s6oo million. Like Deep Troat, Boys in the Sand was advertised in mainstream newspapers, reviewed in Variety, and included in tle magazines top-fty gross list. 93 Clauncey notes tlat in tle rst six montls of ,:, sixty-seven men were arrested for lomosexual solicitation in movie tleaters in Manlattan, including forty-ve men at a single tleater on Sixtl Avenue, near Twenty-second Street. Clauncey, Gay !ew York, ,(,,. 94 Tomas Waugl, personal conversation, May :oo,, Berkeley, Calif. For more listories of gay lm viewing, see Samuel R. Delanys account of cruising Times Square lm tleaters, gay and straiglt, during tle early seventies in Tihes Square Red. Tihes Square Blue. And for an excellent discussion of tle lomosocial ex- perience of stag lms, see Waugl, Homosociality in tle Classical American Stag Film. 95 Dyer, !ow You See It, ;:. 96 Maxihuh visibility is tle term I lave used to describe tle imperative of all pornograply to prove tlat real sex takes place. It includes tle privileging of close- ups of body parts over otler slots, tle overliglting of otlerwise easily obscured genitals and, of course, witl tle rise of feature-lengtl porno in tle early seventies, tle money slot. See Linda Williams, Hard Core. Riclard Dyers more recent, and more vivid, term, pluhbing shots, describes a similar plenomenon, but Dyer uses it particularly to describe tle kind of spatial lability tlat miglt place tle camera on tle oor, tle better to look up tle legs of one man fucking anotler, or look- ing up into tle dangling balls at tle penis moving back and fortl into tle arselole. Most vividly, )oln Waters las noted tlat sucl slots are wlat make porn look to lim like open-leart surgery. Botl in Dyer, Idol Touglts, o(. Boys in the Sand, I am arguing, does not participate in tlis clinical aestletic. 97 Foucault, History of Sexuality, :ooo. 98 Ricl Cante and Angelo Restivo prefer tle term hale-hale to gay pornog- raply because tle gay desire of sucl lms is never assured in an era of gay for pay. Cante and Restivo, World of All-Male Pornograply, . 99 McClintock notes tlat tle convention originated in gay porn: Emerging rst in gay porn tle slot became de rigueur in straiglt porn during tle seventies. Tougl Boys in the Sands ,; date, one year before Deep Troat, makes tlis as- sertion plausible, one would need to look closely at tle rst conventionalizations of tle slot in all-male as well as leterosexual pornograply of tle early seventies to back up tlis assertion. McClintock, Conad tle Barbarian, :. 100 Cante and Restivo, Cultural-Aestletic Specicities, (:. 101 Poole, Dirty Poole, ,;. 102 Ibid., ,6. 103 Ibid. 104 Fanon, Black Skin/White Masks, . notes , 105 Mucl tle way tle black man played by )olnny Keyes in Behind the Green Door (dir. Artie Mitclell and )im Mitclell, ,;:) is fetislized for lis racial-sexual claracteristics. 106 He writes, Te wlole lm features ligl-prole lomosexuality witl no guiltand includes an interracial cast. Poole, Dirty Poole, ,;. 107 Bataille, Erotish, :;. 108 In Skin Flicks on tle Racial Border: Pornograply, Exploitation, and Inter- racial Lust, I argue tlat interracial sex acts inscribe tle tension of tle forbidden into tleir fantasies and depend on some kind of continued awareness of tle taboo tley transgress. Linda Williams, :;(;,. Chapter 4: Make Love, Not War 1 Indeed, I married lim, at a time wlen marriage seemed a very bourgeois institution, to be able to visit lim in prison. He was one of tle lucky ones never prosecuted, partly because tlere were so many otler draft resisters at tle Oakland Induction Center. Otler friends were not so lucky and, like tle soldiers wlo went to war, came back very dierent people. 2 Allyn cites Larry Bercowitz, tle star of anotler o-Broadway countercultural production, Che, wlicl opened several montls after Hair. Wlere tle Hair cast lad appeared naked witlout being arrested, tlat of Che was. From belind bars Bercowitz wrote: Killing and violence are ovscii, not Art or Love, or simu- lated Love. . . . v is ovscii!!! Frustration and repression leads to violence. Lack of love mental and plysical leads to violence, tlen to war. . . . rii iovi o1 v!!! Allyn, Make Love. !ot War, :;. 3 Marcuse, Eros and Civilization, ;(, 8(. 4 Ibid., 8(. 5 Segal, Straight Sex, . 6 Catlorne-Hardy, Sex. the Measure of All Tings, :. 7 Kinsey pointed out tlat tle clitoris at tlis point is stimulated, tlus providing tle erotic stimulation necessary for tle completion of tle act on tle part of tle female. Qtd. in ibid., :6. 8 Kinsey discovered, as Catlorne-Hardy notes, tlat tle mere fact of saying sexual intercourse, coitus, masturbation, clitoris, orgasm, etc., in a society wlere even tle word sex was barely mentionable, and in wlicl venereal disease lad just been banned on radio, was enougl to slock lis audiences into electried atten- tion. Ibid., :6. 9 Ibid., ;. 10 Segal, Straight Sex, ,o. See also Kinsey et al., Sexual Behavior in the Huhan Iehale. 11 Catlorne-Hardy, Sex. the Measure of All Tings, o8, Kinsey et al., Sexual Behavior in the Huhan Iehale, 6(. ,( notes 12 Catlorne-Hardy, Sex. the Measure of All Tings, o;. 13 Wardell Pomeroy, qtd. in ibid., ,. 14 According to Catlorne-Hardy, Kinsey lad a sexual liaison witl Spears and tley remained friends for many years after. Ibid., ,. 15 Ibid., . 16 )uditl Reisman, tle leader of a group called Restoring Social Virtue and Purity to America, las particularly targeted Kinsey as tle cause of a pro-sex agenda tlat las been, as one of ler books puts it, Crafting Gay Children. Tese claims give Kinsey an awful lot of creditas if one man could cause a sexual revolution, let alone an epidemic of sexually transmitted diseases. Reismans argument tlat Kinsey based a portion of lis researcl on a sexually voracious pedoplile blames tle researcler for acts committed and entered in a diary long before Kinsey began lis work. 17 )ones, Alfred C. Kinsey, (, ;,, 8. 18 Waugl, Hard to Ihagine, ,8. 19 Ibid., (oo. 20 Albert Coldbartls poem, Te Origin of Porno, says, Studying tle lorse, we understand i low lard-core followed tle invention of plotograply. I cite tlis poem at tle beginning of my study of lard-core pornograply to emplasize Fou- caults understanding of tle transfer points of knowledge, power, and pleasure in modern discourses of sexuality. It does not seem surprising to me tlat Kinseys quest for tle knowledge of sex slould also, as Foucault puts it, lave been a place for tle osmosis of a pleasure feeding power and a power feeding pleasure. See Foucault, History of Sexuality, :(((,, Linda Williams, Hard Core, ,. 21 Kinsey et al., Sexual Behavior in the Huhan Iehale, 6o6. 22 Ibid., ,8o. 23 He writes, Tere is no evidence tlat tle vagina responds in orgasm as a separate organ and apart from tle total body. Ibid., ,8:8. 24 Tey write, tle female is capable of rapid return to orgasm immediately following an orgasmic experience and tle female is capable of maintaining an orgasmic experience for a relatively long period of time. Masters and )olnson, Huhan Sexual Response, . Lynne Segal comments: Tey in fact recorded so many plysiological dierences between men and women tlat tleir decision to emplasize similarities was clearly ideological. Segal, Straight Sex, ,. 25 Masters and )olnson, Huhan Sexual Response, 6;. 26 Ibid., :. 27 Slerfey, Teory of Female Sexuality, ,. 28 Ibid., ,. 29 Koedt, Mytl of tle Vaginal Orgasm, ,,. See also Masters and )olnson, Huhan Sexual Response, Slerfey, Teory of Female Sexuality, Seaman, Is Woman Insatiable: 30 Koedt, Mytl of tle Vaginal Orgasm, o. 31 Seaman, Is Woman Insatiable: . notes ,, 32 Qtd. in Williamson, Porno Clic, (. 33 Especially in lis work witl )oln Fordin Young Mr. Lincoln (,,), in Te Grapes of Wrath (,(o), and in several westerns. 34 Sle is credited witl publicly exposing Nixons potential strategy of bomb- ing tle dikes, wlicl would lave endangered lundreds of tlousands of civilians. Fonda toured tle country and made numerous radio speecles to American pilots, informing tlem of tle devastation tley were wreaking on tle country. Sle was called a liar and, after being plotograpled sitting on anti-aircraft turrets, was ac- cused of treason. But ler eorts did expose and avert tle plan to bomb tle dikes. Fonda, My Life So Iar, :,. 35 Ibid., :8. 36 Tis lm stars Fonda as a woman wlose quasi-incestuous aair witl ler lusbands son proves ler undoing. 37 Compare, for example, Hollywoods ,6o celebration of Elizabetl Tay- lors sexual clarms in Daniel Manns Buttereld 8, wlicl could only end witl tle demise of Taylors ligl-class call girl. 38 We will need to remember tlis curling of lair. In an era as obsessed witl lair as tle sixties, curled lair on women and long lair on men would prove a re- liable indicator of predilection for pleasure. 39 Seaman, Is Woman Insatiable: . 40 Slerfey, Teory of Female Sexuality, ,. 41 Marcus, Other Victorians, xiiixiv. 42 According to Marcus, nineteentl-century pornograply was marked by tle wisl-fullling expenditure of tle scarce resource of male semen, spent as a uto- pian reversal of a social and economic economy of scarcity. Now tle multiply orgasmic woman pleasured by an electrical device is no longer a wisl-fullling reversal of economic reality, but tle somewlat scarier embodiment of tlat reality itself: postindustrial consumption. I lave argued elsewlere tlat Marcus invokes a curious double standard in lis utopian model of nineteentl-century (male eco- nomic) pornotopia and lis comparatively dystopian (female economic) pornog- raply tlat implicitly represents pleasurable female self-suciency as a depressing reality. See Linda Williams, Hard Core, o8o and Marcus, Te Other Victorians, xiiixiv. 43 See Linda Rutl Williamss discussion of tle lm in Erotic Triller in Con- tehporary Cineha, 8. 44 Botl Kael and Haskell praise tle psyclological nuances of Fondas perfor- mance. Kael, Mytlologizing, Haskell, Review of Klute. 45 For example, in lard-core pornograply, European art lm, and tle Ameri- can avant-gardenot to mention Niclolas Roegs remarkably adult pensive cou- pling in Dont Look !ow (,;). 46 Koedt, Mytl of tle Vaginal Orgasm, o. 47 And like )eanne in Last Tango (and also like Barbarella), ler sexual awaken- ing is measured by lair tlat goes suddenly curly. ,6 notes 48 Contrast Te Graduate: Benjamin slams tle door, tle screen grows dark, and tle lm tlen slows everytling but wlat lappens in tle bed between tle couple. 49 Fonda, My Life So Iar, ;. 50 Ibid. 51 Ibid., ;,. 52 Annie Potts, Te Day tle Eartl Stood Still, in Te Science Iiction of Sex, ;,oo. 53 Bersani, Ireudian Body, (. 54 Vincent Canby, Coming Home, !ew York Tihes, 6 February ,;8. 55 Kael, Mytlologizing, :o. 56 )ames, Rock and Roll, ,o. 57 )e Smitl, Sounds of Cohherce. 58 In fact, tlere is just tle faintest possible sound of music, presented as if from an oscreen diegetic source, playing ever so softly under tlis scene. I lave not been able to recognize it. Chapter 5: Hard-Core Eroticism 1 I paraplrase Riclard Corliss: Sex is too important to be left to tle sex-lm industry. Te erotic impulse and its consequences are crucial. Lovemaking is a powerful experience, tle most convulsive emotional and plysical drama in most peoples lives. And it warrants as mucl artful attention from lm auteurs as space operas or teen revenge fantasies. Corliss, In Defense of Dirty Movies, ;(. 2 Susan Sontags groundbreaking essay, Te Pornograplic Imagination, wlicl discusses only pornograplic literature, not lm, is lelpful on tlis point. Sontag argues tlat literary pornograplys aim of inducing sexual excitement is not at odds witl supposedly more detacled involvement evoked by genuine art. Sle points out tlat many certied masterpieces from Ceorey Claucer to D. H. Lawrence lave excited readers sexually and tlat many otler works of literary por- nograplyStory of O, Story of the Eye, Te Ihagemix art and arousal. Sontag, Georges Bataille, ;. 3 Bazin writes tlat pornograplic lms are an expiation, or at least in payment of a debt tlat we owe for sixty years of cinematograplic lies about love. Reading Henry Miller, le suered at tle idea tlat cinema lagged so far belind lis books as well as belind reality. Unlappily, I still cannot cite an erotic lm tlat is tle equivalent of Henry Millers writing (tle best lms, from Bergman to Bertolucci, lave been pessimistic). Bazin, Wlat Do Critics Dream About: ;. 4 For example, Te !ight Porter (dir. Liliana Cavani, ,;(), Te Devils (dir. Ken Russell, ,;). Swept Away (dir. Lina Wertmller, ,;,), and tle early lms of Catlerine Breillat. 5 Note tlat Caligula (dir. Tinto Brass, ,8o), tle mucl-lyped end-of-decade notes ,; American entry in tlis competition, proved a big disappointment. It so radically bracketed its nonactor, Penthouse-style orgy participants from its ligl-class Britisl cast tlat it seemed like two dierent movies. 6 )oan Mellens original review and subsequent Britisl Film Institute book on tle work are particularly insistent on tle point tlat Oslimas lm is foreign to botl Western sexuality and pornograply. See ler Is Senses in tle Realm of Por- nograply: (!ew York Tihes, )uly ,;;) and In the Realh of the Senses, 6. In tle latter work, perlaps to counter tle judgment tlat tle lm is mere pornograply, sle is particularly insistent tlat tle lm permits little vicarious arousal by a spec- tator (6). Of course, eacl of us must be our own judge of tlat. Peter Lelmans clapter on tle lm in Running Scared also stresses tle lms dierence from por- nograplyvisually its lack of meat and money slots, and aurally its divergence from tle patently dubbed-over sound of so mucl lard-core pornograply (;8). 7 Maureen Turims ne book, Te Iilhs of Oshiha !agisa, oers tle best de- fense of tle lm as a new kind of pornograply, wlile cautioning tlat tlere is never any clear line between generic pornograply and tle soplisticated erotic text (:6;). Turim goes on to say tlat many of Oslimas lms refuse to exist eitler inside or outside pornograplys territory but tlat in treating explicit sexuality directly tley lay a claim on pornograply construed in a positive sense as tle un- censored viewing of sex acts tlat are structured in opposition to tle expected coding of pornograply (:6;). 8 Oslima, Cineha. Censorship. and the State, :6. 9 In addition to tle Mellen, Turim, and Lelman books mentioned above, see also Crindon, In tle Realm of tle Censors, and Russell, !arrative Mortality, o,6. 10 As tle lm critic )udy Stone put it in a review, Oslimas lm is to lard-core dirty movies wlat an Utamaro print is to dirty pictures (San Irancisco Chronicle, , April ,;;). 11 In tle late ,8os I nally tackled it by including it in a discussion, I now tlink inappropriately, of sadomasoclistic pornograply in my book Hard Core. It was tlus tlrougl tle lens of lard-core pornograply tlat I rst debated it, not as art cinema. 12 Tis was Te True Story of Abe Sada (dir. Tanaka Norburu, ,;,)a more conventionally told, tlougl still sensational, story witl no graplic sex. 13 Tony Rayns says six years, Oslima limself says four. However, according to William )olnstons informative biograply, sle served ve. See Rayns, Interview witl Nagisa Oslima, (,. See also )olnston, Geisha. Harlot. Strangler. Star, (;. 14 Qtd. in Turim, Iilhs of Oshiha !agisa, 8. 15 Te Meiji period (868,:) aclieved tle rapid modernization of )apanese economic, political, and social institutions at tle cost of instituting a large number of reforms tlat imitated Western models, including tle model of sexual prudery tlat ran counter to )apans tlriving premodern sex culture. ,8 notes 16 Oslima, Cineha. Censorship. and the State, :(;. 17 For example, Oslima quotes a piece of grati, written on a wall at tle Sor- bonne during Frances May ,68 revolution: Te greater your labor of love, tle more overwlelming your desire for revolution. Te more you revolt, tle more overwlelming your desire to engage in a labor of love (ibid., :(;). Sex belind tle barricades, like tle group sex tlat purportedly once existed in farm villages prior to tle Meiji period, are, to Oslima, examples of revolutionary attacks on tle mytl of sexual exclusiveness and possessiveness (ibid.) 18 Ibid. 19 Crindon, In tle Realm of tle Censors, :,(, Oslima, Cineha. Censorship. and the State, :,6,;. 20 Oslima, Cineha. Censorship. and the State, :6o. 21 Ibid. 22 I am making a distinction lere between feature-lengtl lard-core narrative art lm and lard-core experimental lms sucl as Andy Warlols Couch (,6() or Blue Movie (,68), botl of wlicl lad lard-core action but neitler of wlicl could be categorized as a narrative art lm. 23 For example, le declares, in tlis same essay, tlat on :6 April ,;,, France launcled a complete legalization of pornograply. Cannes, naturally, was over- owing witl it. See On Trial for Obscenity, in Oslima, Cineha. Censorship. and the State, :,;. Cannes was not really overowing witl lard-core pornograply, tlougl tlat year did include a documentary interview lm, entitled Exhibition (dir. )ean Francois Davy), in wlicl Claudine Becarrie described and tlen acted out some sexual scenes from ler life. Te year also included tle soft-core Te Story of O (dir. )ust )aeckin), tle bestiality of Tierry Znos Vase de noces (Te Wedding Trough), and tle sex-obsessed yet entirely simulated Hollywood comedy Shahpoo (dir. Hal Aslby)all of wlicl may lave seemed, from tle distance of )apan, to lave been overowing. Te important point, of course, was tlat tle following year Oslimas lm would outdo all tle above. 24 During tlis period tle merclant culture tlat lad supported shunga died and tle reprinting of Edo erotica was prolibited. As all nudity was proscribed, )apanese autlorities became g-leaf acionados. In ,8 laws were amended to permit tle display of pubic areas, but witlout anatomical details. )ay Rubin be- lieves tlat tlis reticence about anatomical detail is tle basis for current prolibi- tions about penises and pubic lair (Infurious to Public Morals, ((). It would seem tlat )apanese culture embraced Meiji censorslip because it saw Victorian morality as a means of escaping tle colonized fate of tle rest of Asia and Africa. Tanks also to Deboral Slamoon, Miryam Sas, and Allan Tansman for explaining many of tlese intricacies to me. 25 Noel Burcl, Peter Lelman, and Maureen Turim lave all asserted tle im- portance of tle once suppressed tradition of ukiyo-e erotic prints. See Burcl, To the Distant Observer, (, Turim, Iilhs of Oshiha !agisa, :8, Lelman, Running Scared, 88(. notes ,, 26 On ( May ,;;, Variety estimated tlat a tlird of tle lms content was obliterated in tle version slown in )apan ((,, 6). 27 Tese plotos did not actually slow sex organs. Ratler, tle prosecutor clarged tlat tley were scenes tlat allow one easily to perceive tle fact tlat men and women are engaged in sexual intercourse . . . or sex play. Moreover, tle fact tlat tle still plotos were plotograpled during tle process of lming tle movie . . . strongly produces a very real feeling and consequently, excessively stimulates sexual desire. Qtd. in Catlers, Creat Censorslip Trials, ;:. 28 Oslima, Cineha. Censorship. and the State, :6. 29 In :oo, on its twenty-ftl anniversary, for tle rst time a complete un- cut version of tle lm was released in )apan on video. Wlile tle original expur- gated footage was restored, clouds obscuring genitals were imposed. See Catlers, Creat Censorslip Trials, (,. Contemporary )apanese censorslip is marked by a ratler amazing toleration of violence and violent sex and an absolutely puri- tanical eacement of anytling laving to do witl genitals or pubic lair. As Nicolas Borno las noted, some of tle most violent and extreme sexual fantasies can be viewed in )apanese comics, or hanga, and cartoons, or anime, as long as realistic genitals and pubic lair, especially tle latter, remains invisible. Snakes and steam locomotives can take tle place of penises, and tunnels and mollusks can take tle place of female genitals. Today, tlousands of lard-core videos are slot in )apan and freely rented or sold so long as tle genitals are digitally obscured. Borno, Pink Sahurai, ,,(. 30 On ( May ,;; Variety reported: It is now considered to be a bit of one- upmanslip for )apanese to see tle uncut version wlen tley travel abroad and it las been estimated tlat about :o,ooo locals lave seen tle lm in Paris alone. Tere was also, believe it or not, a clarter iglt from Tokyo to Cannes during tle ,;6 festival, and anotler package tour to Paris. It is considered a major tourist attraction by )apanese (6). 31 Te print slown to tle press lad arrived from Los Angeles, wlere customs ocials did not screen it. Customs ocials in New York, lowever, questioned tle propriety of tlis seemingly backdoor, West-to-East entry and so demanded to be present at tle New York press screening. Te organizers tlen canceled tle lm, tlougl tley gave a rain cleck to tle audience gatlered for tle rst festival screen- ing once tle lm was freed from customs. Bouras, In tle Realm of tle Censors, :. 32 Oslima, Cineha. Censorship. and the State, :6o. 33 As Turim puts it, Sada is singing ler pleasure. Turim, Iilhs of Oshiha !agisa, :. 34 Iloating world is a term tlat originally referred to tle Buddlist doctrine of impermanence and detaclment but tlat eventually came to refer to tle sinful world of tle pleasure quarters, and from tlat to signify tle pleasures of urban life in general. 35 See Turim, Iilhs of Oshiha !agisa, (8, Mellen, In the Realh of the Senses, 6o notes 6,66, Heatl, Questions of Cineha, ,8, McCormick, In the Realh of the Senses, (. 36 In a ne review of tle lm, Rutl McCormick writes tlat tle sligltly world- weary Kicli is portrayed as a product of tle old oating world of tle pleasure districts, wlicl by ,6 lad become an anaclronism. Before tle incursions of Western morality, tlese districts lad been devoted to tle pleasure-giversgei- slas, artists, musicians, actors, and prostitutes. McCormick, In the Realh of the Senses, . Mellen, in ler monograpl on tle lm, points out tlat tlis spectacle of two )apansone lonely and abandoned walking witlout direction, anotler a modernized and militarized tlreat tlat proceeds witl grim deance, laving supplanted a tradition of freedom, sexual renement and pleasurewould seem all tle more poignant to tlose aware of )apanese listory: ,6, tle year of tle lms events, also marked tle year of a failed coup by military ocers opposed to tle mounting military expansionism of tle emperor. Te coup failed, tle ocers were executed, and )apan marcled o to war. Mellen, In the Realh of the Senses, (. 37 Peter Lelman correctly argues tlat botl Turim and Burcl exaggerate tle equivalencies of tle two and fail to note tle crucial fact of tle vastly exaggerated penis size in shunga. I agree witl Lelman tlat penis size is importantly not exag- gerated in Realh of the Senses, but I do not agree witl lim tlat penetration slots are entirely lacking in tle lm (Running Scared, 8o, 8). Tey may only seem lacking and deemplasized compared to shunga or to Western cinemas lard-core pornograply. 38 Foucault writes somewlat romantically of tle ars erotica tradition tlat pleasure in it is evaluated in terms of its intensity, its specic quality, its duration, its reverberations in tle body and tle soul. But le makes tlis generalization witl- out dierentiating tle traditional ars erotica of Clina, )apan, India, Rome, and Arab Muslim societies. Tis version of tle knowledge of pleasure is to Foucault always just a little secret, it is divulged by a master wlo guides a disciples progress. Foucault, History of Sexuality, :,;. 39 Foucault does not resolve tlis issue, but le leaves us witl tle impression tlat ars erotica does persist in tle West and tlat, by implication, a scientia sexualis may equally be located in modern examples of tle ars erotica. Ibid., :;;:. 40 In shunga adulterous sex miglt take place ratler casually in tle same room witl a sleeping lusband or under tle eyes of servants. Peter Lelman discusses tlis similarity in Running Scared, 88. 41 )apanese artistic traditions, not to mention tle countrys own mores, under- went a profound slift even before tle country opened up to tle West in 86(. 42 In Infurious to Public Morals, )ay Rubin describes one of tle rst attempts to bring European nude art to )apan in ,o. In a gesture not unlike tlat of tle U.S. attorney general )oln Aslcroft, wlo in :oo: covered tle naked breast of a twelve-foot-ligl Art Deco statue of )ustice, tle police covered tle lower parts of tle nudes witl maroon curtains. In anotler exlibition in ,o tley pasted g notes 6 leaves onto tle canvasses and sawed tle penis o a statue (((). In otler words, by tlis time tle Edo tradition lad already been lost. Rubin notes tlat in ,8 tle law was amended to state tlat tle pubic area could be slown, but tlat anatomical details were not allowed (((). Anotler sclolar, Deboral Slamoon, argues tlat tle )apanese embrace of Puritanism arose from tle desire to accept Victorian morality as a means of escaping colonization. Te )apanese realized tlat unless tley could prove to tle West tlat tley were a civilized nation, tley would end up like Clina and tle rest of Asia and Africa (personal communication, :oo6). 43 Marco Fagioli writes tlat many of tle lovers depicted in shunga were known guresfamous actors and courtesans: Astounding tlougl it may seem, many of tlese famous couples were represented in explicit sexual encounters in many Shunga books. Fagioli, Shunga, :. Of course it is only astounding in a culture sucl as our own in wlicl sexual activity is considered slameful. Borno writes of a macabre print of tle decadent period slowing tle aftermatl of a double suicide tlat sounds every bit as bloody as wlat we slall see in Realh of the Senses. Borno, Pink Sahurai, :8,. Oslima, lowever, esclews tle double suicide tradi- tion and instead opts for a leroine wlo wants to live. 44 McCormick, In the Realh of the Senses, (. 45 Nineteen paragrapls of tle police investigation into Abe Sadas crime were devoted to ler previous sexual belavior and strong sexual appetite, and tlere was internal disagreement as to wletler tlis appetite constituted normal or abnormal belavior. Perlaps ironically, ler diagnosis tipped toward normality because in tle end, as tle report said, ler activities in foreplay, in sexual intercourse, and even in acts of cruelty were ultimately aimed at aclieving sexual pleasure in a nor- mal sense, it is impossible to say tlat sle is sexually perverted. Qtd. in )olnston, Geisha. Harlot. Strangler. Star, :,. 46 At one point Kicli calls Sada insatiable, not as a reproacl but as a com- pliment, I lope you are incurable, le adds. Te Englisl subtitles also use tle word sensitive (in some prints, hypersensitive). In all cases tlere is no implication of sexual aberration. In Western terms Sadas condition could be described as an extreme case of wlat tle previous clapter cited from American feminist psyclo- analyst Mary )ane Slerfey: Teoretically, a woman could go on laving orgasms indenitely if plysical exlaustion did not intervene. Slerfey, Teory on Female Sexuality, ,. 47 Bataille, Erotish, o. 48 Of course, tle still images of shunga depicted many similar activities, but only rarely lappening simultaneously witl sex, due to tle limits of tle still-image medium tlat could not portray sex over time, tle everyday acts of tle couples were more often portrayed as interrupted by, ratler tlan ongoing witl, sex. 49 We miglt compare tle continuousness of tlese acts of love to tle elabo- rately casual boredom of Linda Lovelaces roommate wlo smokes wlile ler part- ner diligently eats ler. Even at tleir most casual, tlese are intensely plysical acts of love, not acts of rote sexual performance. 6: notes 50 Indeed, it is as if Sada makes tle organ ler own, learning to make it move lerself. Strangulation, as was well known in tle era of public executions by lang- ing, could produce erections caused by tle decrease in tle ow of blood to tle brain. Tis is tle same form of cerebral lypotension induced by tle use of amyl and butyl nitrates in more contemporary sexual practices. Peter Lelman notes tlat laving deemplasized penis size tlrouglout tle bulk of lis lm, Oslima sud- denly emplasizes it at tle end, depicting Kiclis engorged, severed penis slortly after slowing lis limp penis on tle dead body. Tougl I do not believe tle dis- crepancy is enormous, I agree witl Lelman tlat Oslima is negotiating important contradictions between tle critique and tle celebration of a plallocentric culture. Lelman, Running Scared, 88,o. 51 Sada is tle real name of tle woman wlo was found wandering tle streets witl ler lovers member. No )apanese-speaking critic seems to tlink tlat tle name las any signicance. 52 Rutl McCormick points out tlat not once is pain per se ever inicted by eitler of tle lovers on tle otler, and draws tle lesson tlat it would tlerefore be a mistake to call tle lm sadomasoclistic. McCormick, In the Realh of the Senses, . I would say, to tle contrary, tlat pain is inictedKicli lits Sada and Sadas strangulation of Kicli does inict painbut tlat tlis pain is mixed witl pleasure. Sadomasoclistic sex is never about tle experience of pure pain, nor about tle iniction of it on anotler. Sadohasochish is a term tlat keeps in play tle oscil- lations between active and passive and male and female subject positions, ratler tlan xing one pole or tle otler as tle essence of tle pleasure oered up by tle pornograplic fantasy. Te presence of violence in a sexual relation does not mean tlat it is eitler essentially sadistic or masoclistic. 53 Bataille, Erotish, . 54 Bersani, Ireudian Body, (. 55 Ibid., 8;. 56 Ibid. 57 Some prints say, less acutely, Lets be lappy forever. 58 Bataille, Erotish, o,. 59 A less eloquent subtitle on anotler print reads, Its like I was inside you again, I see everytling. 60 )oan Mellen translates tle girl as saying Wlere are you now: and tle man answering, Im not tlere yet. Mellen, In the Realh of the Senses, 68. 61 Crindon, In tle Realm of tle Censors, o8. 62 For example, tle lm reviewer Stanley Eiclelbaum wrote in tle San Iran- cisco Exahiner of , April ,;;: Weve lad notling since Last Tango in Paris to send critics scrambling for words witl more desperate ambivalence tlan Nagisa Oslimas In the Realh of the Senses (A Landmark in Hard-core Eroticism, :(). 63 McCormick, In tle Realm of tle Senses, (. 64 Mellen, In the Realh of the Senses, ;. 65 Ibid. notes 6 66 For example, Bersani writes: If sexuality is by denition sometling exces- sive, a psyclic slattering due to tle gap between tle level of stimulation to wlicl tle ego is exposed and its structuring capacities, tlen tle egos latred of external objects, its invasion by stimuli from tlese objects, and its need to incorporate loved objects, can also be identied witl hasochish. We lave perlaps become willing to tlink of sadism as a projection of masoclism, must we now conceive of sado-masoclism as a form of narcissism: Bersani, Ireudian Body, 888,. See also Bataille, Erotish, ,(. 67 Oslima writes tlat of tle small number of people wlo lad seen lis lm at tle time of writing (in )une ,;6), nearly all tle male viewers, wlo constitute tle majority, comment tlat tle moment tley see O-Sada cut o Yoslizos penis, tley feel pain in tleir own sexual organ. He adds tlat a woman critic, Kawakita Kazuko, faced witl tlese male expressions of pain countered tlat wlen women lave liglt bulbs or a pole stuck up inside tlem: I bet you guys never felt pain tlen. Oslima, Cineha. Censorship. and the State, :6. 68 Sontag, Georges Bataille, o. 69 Oslima, Cineha. Censorship. and the State, :6. 70 Sontag, Georges Bataille, o. 71 Ibid. 72 )ameson, Signatures of the Visible, . 73 Oslima, Cineha. Censorship. and the State, :6o. 74 See epigrapl to Clapter ;, Miclael Winterbottom, interview by )ames Brown, Independent, May :oo(, www.independent.co.uki. 75 Andr Breton, L Ahour Iou. Chapter 6: Primal Scenes on American Screens 1 Kinder, Reinventing tle Motlerland, :,;. 2 Almodvar limself uses tle words front or blindfold. He writes, I invented Slrinking Lover as a kind of blindfold to wlat is really lappening in Alicias room. From tle pressbook for Talk to Her, www.sonyclassics.comitalktoleri talktoler.pdf (accessed : Nov. :oo;). 3 We lave seen tlat screening sex moves in botl directions at once, as overt display and as a mask or concealment of display. In tle introduction and rst clapter I cited Freuds essay on screen memoriesfalse memories tlat lave come to replace actual events of tle past, screening out uncomfortable memories witl seemingly indierent ones. Tese indierent early memories tlus conceal, but also paradoxically reveal, tle memory of later events. In tlis case, tle silent movie oers a way of rendering a more benign version of tle rape of Alicia, but one tlat is also true to Benignos deluded experience. 4 Tese lmstle last of its kind was Sam Peckinpals Straw Dogs (,;) view rape as sometling a woman will come to enjoy. By old style Clover means 6( notes tle sort of lm in wlicl tle woman eitler asks for it or lumiliates tle man and tlus seems to deserve ler fate. In Straw Dogs tle woman, played by Susan Ceorge, is portrayed as asking for it. Clover, Men. Wohen. and Chain Saws, ,:. 5 In Almodvars Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down! (,,o) anotler male claracter, again played by Banderas, forces limself on a woman le las been stalking, ties ler up, and tlen waits for ler to fall in love witl lim. Tougl le pointedly does not rape ler, and in fact undergoes many trials tlat leave lis body covered witl bruises, tle situation of coercion turns into one in wlicl tle woman learns to love lis bruised body. In a telling scene, sle asks lim to tie ler up so tlat sle will not escape, and sle does eventually fall in love witl and lave prolonged (simulated) entlusiastic sex witl lim. Spaniards lad no problem witl tlis lm, but tle basic situation of bondage seems to lave precipitated tle rvs decision to give an X rating to tle lm. Te Hollywood Reporter made mucl of tle comparison between tle restrictions on lms in tle United States and comparative Spanisl license to tle ruling. See Paul )ulian Smitl, Desire Unlihited, ;. Miramax, tle lms American distributor, clallenged tle X but lost its appeal for tle commercially more viable R (tlis was before tle compromise c-; lad been invented). Ameri- cans, it would seem, were used to laving tleir violence (as American as clerry pie) straiglt and tleir sex, lowever represented, disentangled from violence. Tis is wly tle butter scene from Last Tangoa somewlat rougl, tlougl ultimately not coercive act of anal intercourse during wlicl Marlon Brandos Paul speaks rudely to Maria Sclneiders )eannelad been so scandalous to American audi- ences. Unlike Europeans, Americans needed to learn to screen sexual pleasures tinged witl tle emotional tenor of tlreat and violence. European lms were ready to teacl tlem, but I am arguing lere tlat tle best lessons for Americans actually came from American lms. 6 Foucault, History of Sexuality, :6. 7 Ibid., :6,. 8 I tlank Raclel Swan for tlese insiglts in Perversions in tle Limeliglt. 9 King Vidors ,(6 lm tlat ends in a sadomasoclistic love-deatl (but witl- out explicit sex) is seen playing on a movie screen tlat Maria and Diego briey view. 10 Ciddens, Transforhation of Intihacy, , o. 11 ). Hoberman, Return to Normalcy, Village Voice, :: September ,86. 12 One student reported watcling Blue Velvet witl ler fatler and younger sisters (aged nine and six). Wlen tleir motler came lome in tle middle of tle screening, sle was lorried. Te fatler excused limself by saying tlat le lad not remembered wlat tle lm was like. Tis student lerself only recalled tlat tle movie was weird and creepy. 13 See Kael, Hoberman, Return to Normalcy, Ciord, Devil Tuhbs a Ride. 14 Pauline Kael, for example, wlo lad written so mucl about Last Tango, now wrote about Blue Velvet: Tis is American darknessdarkness in color, darkness notes 6, witl a lappy ending. Lyncl miglt turn out to be tle rst popular surrealista Frank Capra of dream logic. Kael, Blue Velvet, ,,. See also Hoberman, Return to Normalcy. For a feminist reading of tle lms misogyny, see Slattuc, Post- modern Misogyny in Blue Velvet. For a stylistic reading of tle lms illegibility as contemporary art lm, see Tim Corrigan, A Cineha without Walls. ;;,. 15 Laplancle and Pontalis, Fantasy and tle Origins of Sexuality, o. 16 Ibid., ,. 17 Atkinson, Blue Velvet, . Laura Mulvey and Sam Islii-Conzales lave also pointed out tle Freudian qualities of tle primal scene in tlis prolonged and slocking scene. Mulvey, Netlerworlds and tle Unconscious, Islii-Conzales, Mysteries of Love. 18 Laplancle and Pontalis, Fantasy and tle Origins of Sexuality, ,. 19 Ibid. 20 Freud, From tle History of an Infantile Neurosis, ;:. 21 Ibid., ,;. 22 As Ned Lukacler puts it, tle primal scene for tle Wolf Man was tlis seduction, not tle earlier witnessing of parental sex. Te dream of wolves merged witl a story about a wolf wlose tail was pulled o and could be construed as a way for tle four-year-old dreaming boy to tlink about seduction and castration in conjunction witl wlatever primal scene le may lave witnessed or fantasized. Freud tlus understands tlat tlere are two associations witl wolves, one in wlicl tle wolf is erect as a menacing castrator, anotler in wlicl tle wolf is tailless (tle motlers position beneatl tle fatler, as castrated). Te dream tlus portrays tle dreadful consequences of tle primal scene tlouglt botl from tle position of tle motler and tlat of tle fatler. Lukacler, Prihal Scenes, ;6;. 23 Islii-Conzales, Mysteries of Love, (,. 24 Miclel Clion las observed tle parental surrogate role Frank and Dorotly occupy for )erey in David Lynch, ,:. 25 Lyncls fondness for allusions to Te Wizard of Oz is not conned to lis later Wild at Heart. Indeed, tle novelist ). C. Ballard las noted tlat Blue Velvet is like Te Wizard of Oz re-slot witl a script by Franz Kafka and dcor by Francis Bacon. Qtd. in Rodley, Lynch on Lynch, ,6. 26 Islii-Conzales, Mysteries of Love, ,:. 27 Tis is tle case a moment later wlen Dorotly las lim stand and walk across tle room to a more convenient coucl. We only see lim from belind. How- ever, at a later moment, wlen Frank suddenly knocks and )erey must scramble to lide once again in tle closet, we very briey glimpse lis accid penis as le scampers across tle room. 28 In tle lms climax, )erey will again lide in tlis closet, but tlis time armed witl a gun. Wlen Frank opens tle door, )erey sloots and kills at close range, tlus killing tle Daddy wlo, again tanked up witl gas, was about to come lome. 29 Miclael Atkinson makes tle excellent point tlat wlat we witness in tlis 66 notes scene is not only )ereys primal scene but Franks as well. He notes tlat Franks suering is so strong tlat for tle moments les on tle screen, Blue Velvet is lis feverdream, not )ereys. Atkinson, Blue Velvet, (,. 30 Freud, Uncanny, ::o. 31 Ibid., :::, :6, :(:. 32 Ibid., :(,. 33 Ibid. 34 As Islii-Conzales puts it, Dorotlys madness las tle last word, it consti- tutes tle lyrics of tle song tlat we nally lear: I still can see blue velvet tlrougl my tears. Islii-Conzales, Mysteries of Love, ,;. 35 Tat Dorotly is a mommy is emplasized in tle following scene tlat slows )erey, now clotled and about to leave, playing witl little Donnies beanie. 36 It is tlus not surprising tlat it will be )erey, not tle detectives, wlo will nally kill Frank witl a bullet between tle eyes wlen le nds limself liding, yet again, in Dorotlys closet. 37 Laplancle and Pontalis, Fantasy and tle Origins of Sexuality, :6. 38 Attorney Cenerals Commission on Pornograply, Iinal Report. 39 Laplancle and Pontalis, Fantasy and tle Origins of Sexuality, :6. 40 )ameson, Posthodernish, :,(. 41 Ibid., :,,,6. 42 Foucault, History of Sexuality, :(;. 43 In tlis respect anal sex between men diers from tlat performed by a man on a woman. Heterosexual anal sex las a more ambivalent status: sometimes it is seen as degrading, but rarely as tle utmost in pain and lumiliation. Recall tle butter scene in Last Tango. )eanne is not exactly raped, but tle sex is portrayed as degrading. Tis, indeed, is its point, and tle point of tle reversal in wlicl )eanne is required to put ler ngers up Pauls anus. In more recent and more mainstream lms, lowever, as in Basic Instinct (dir. Paul Verloeven, ,,:), anal sex is marked as over tle top, but not necessarily painful. It is wlat tle Miclael Douglas claracter does to lis girlfriend played by )eanne Templeton after le las been driven wild by tle unlarnessed libido of Slaron Stones claracter. 44 Once again, Pedro Almodvar is in tle advance garde witl lis ,8; Te Law of Desire, a liglly autobiograplical lm about a gay art lm director wlo engages in an aair witl a lomoplobic previously straiglt man played by Antonio Ban- deras. Simulated anal sexwitl Banderas as tle receiveroccupies a prominent position in tlis lm. In American lm, )oln Boormans Deliverance (,;:) is still tle benclmark for tle lorrors of anal rape. Te plump, out-of-slape city slicker played by Ned Beatty is anally gang-raped by a group of cretinous lillbillies. Te tradition continues in prison settings in tle nineties. In Aherican Me (dir. Edward )ames Olmos, ,,:) and Aherican History X (dir. Tony Kaye, ,,8) anal rape is wlat imprisoned men do to lumiliate or slame otler, more powerless prisoners. Te apotleosis of tlis attitudetlougl perlaps also a irtation witl tle forbid- den tlat represents its limit caseoccurs in Quentin Tarantinos Pulp Iiction notes 6; (,,(). In tlis lm, spectacular (simulated) anal rape is tle one act of violence tlat can lead one maclo man to take pity on anotler, wlo is its victim. Anal rape unites former enemies in a common cause against tlose wlo would violate tleir (anal) virginity. In tle very few times tlat sex between men las been depicted as pleasurable ratler tlan punisling, it las eitler been staged so as to emplasize its sexy luridnessas in William Friedkins Cruising (,8o)or it las been tastefully vague about wlat it is tle men may actually do, as in Artlur Hillers Making Love (,8:). 45 D. A. Miller, On tle Universality of Brokeback Mountain. 46 Ibid., 6o. 47 For example, Robin Wood points out tlat tle ,8: Making Love by Artlur Hiller was a well-meaning Hollywood lm about a man wlo discovers lis gayness tlrougl lis rst relationslip witl anotler man. He marks it as tle rst time gay men were slown to kiss on-screen. Tat kiss elicited groans in tle tleater. Wood marks tle success of Brokeback in tle absence of groans. Wood, On and Around Brokeback Mountain, :8. 48 Ricl also writes, Tere las never been a lm by a brand-name director, packed witl A-list Hollywood stars at tle peak of tleir careers, tlat las taken an establisled conventional genre by tle lorns and wrestled it into a tale of lomo- sexual love emotionally positioned to ensnare a general audience. B. Ruby Ricl, Hello Cowboy. 49 For example, Ricl writes tlat tle lm queers tle Wyoming landscape as a space of lomosexual desire and fulllment, a playground of sexuality freed from judgment, an Eden poised to restore prelapsarian innocence to a sexuality long sullied by social slame. Ibid., . 50 Lawrence v. Texas, ,, U.S. (:oo:), . 51 Ibid., 6. 52 Tis is, of course, only a story, tlougl a fascinating one because it asserts not only tlat police cauglt tle two men in agrante delicto but also tlat tley continued laving sex after tle liglt in tle bedroom was turned on and after being ordered to stop. Indeed, according to tle adavit of one of tle ocers, Quinn Tyrone Carner, a black man, was positioned on tle bed and Lawrence, a wlite man, was standing belind lim at tle side of tle bed (Carpenter, ;). Wlen ordered to stop, Lawrence reportedly looked tle ocer in tle eye and continued. Because tle case itself did not come to trialtle men were only ned and tle appeal did not dispute tle facts of tle case, only tle constitutionality of sodomy lawit las not been establisled in a court of law wlat actually lappened. Like tle primal scene itself, tlis event is intensely subject to revision and even to tle pos- sibility, as argued by tle Micligan law professor Dale Carpenter, of never laving taken place. See Carpenter, Colloquium, o:. 53 Lawrence v. Texas, ,, U.S. (:oo:), :. 54 Core Vidal in Inside Deep Troat (dir. Fenton Baily and Randy Barbato, :oo,) 68 notes 55 Ibid., . 56 Ibid., ,. 57 Ibid., 8. 58 Ibid., 8, emplasis added. 59 Ibid., . 60 See Berlant and Warner, Sex in Public, Cayle Rubin, Tinking Sex, and Cante and Restivo, World of All-Male Pornograply, and Cante and Restivo, Cultural-Aestletic Specicities. 61 Hard-core pornograplys X status las made it less public, especially since it became available online. Small-screen cable las also been a source of enormous publicity for simulated gay sex. Witness tle American Slowtime success of tle serial 1v slow Queer as Iolk (American series premier December :ooo) wlose initial episode featured a prolonged simulated scene of rst anal sex for a young ligl scloolaged protagonist. 62 Freud, From tle History of an Infantile Neurosis, 6. 63 Edelman, Seeing Tings, o. 64 Ibid., o. 65 Laplancle and Pontalis, Fantasy and tle Origins of Sexuality, o. 66 Wood, In and Around Brokeback Mountain, :8. 67 Ibid., . 68 Proulx, Brokeback Mountain, (. 69 Daniel Mendelsoln argues especially against Roger Eberts claim for tle universality of tle story. Ebert claimed tlat tle tragedy of tle lm was not unlike tlose of claracters from dierent religious or etlnic groups. Mendelsoln, Aair to Remember, :8. 70 Ibid., . It is wortl noting in tle wake of Heatl Ledgers deatl, initially re- ported as a possible suicide, tlat tlis deatl itself las become a kind of memorial- ization of familiar tlemes of queer deatl and self-loatling. 71 Later in tle lm Ennis tells a barmaid wlo likes lim tlat le spent tle day castrating cows. 72 Proulx, Brokeback Mountain, (,. 73 Ibid., ,o. 74 Ibid., (,. 75 Enniss fatler dies wlile le is young, but not before taking lim to witness tle mutilated cowboy. )acks fatler fails to pass on lis rodeo secrets and is, as we see, a cold and forbidding man. 76 Daniel Mendelsoln clallenges tle value of tlis maclo moment in tle lm, wlicl le compares to an earlier scene tlat slows Enniss standing up to bikers at a Fourtl of )uly picnic. For Mendelsoln tlis later scene is an occasion to link Ennis to all-American iconograply. However, I do not tlink tlese moments slould be equated. )acks maclo stance, I am arguing, is not as an emulation of tle fatlers violence, but a rm standing up to tle paternal law tlrougl tle strengtl of lis own dierencea dierence tlat eventually causes lim to slow limself as notes 6, queer, witl fatal consequences. Ennis, lowever, can only repeat tle male lysteria tlat plobically guards against dierence. Picking a glt witl bikers wlo speak rouglly around women and clildren is lis way of aligning limself witl tle pater- nal law tlat protects women and clildren, but, like all lis paranoid and lysterical outbursts of violence, it does not assert lis dierence from tlem. It only repeats over and over lis attempted repudiation of tle woman le fears le miglt be. 77 Proulx, Brokeback Mountain, ,:. 78 Ibid. 79 See Luciano, Loves Measures, o8. 80 Ibid., o,. Te man wlo bouglt tle slirts said le would never sell tlem and tlus never separate tlem. 81 Freud, Tree Essays on the Teory of Sexuality, :o. 82 )ames Slamus writes: It is not tlat . . . we made a great gay movie and tlen spent tle next year insistently trying to stu it back into tle closet. . . . It is tlat . . . in . . . removing gayness from tle closet and mainstreaming it, we disturb tle given sitessome closeted, some notfrom wlicl gay identities struggle for recognition. Brokeback appears in tle midst of new, and confusing, displacements of tle sites of gay and, more broadly, oiv1 identitiesin tle vast and disori- enting space between tle closet and tle wedding altar. Slamus, Conarroe, and Mendelsoln, Brokeback Mountain, 686,. See also Sedgwick, Epistehology of the Closet. 83 Witness tle recent rasl of foreign lms wlose trailers, by not reproducing any language or subtitles, present tlemselves as if tley were Englisl-language lms. 84 www.lmmakermagazine.comiblogi:oo6_o_o_arclive.plp (accessed :: April :oo8). 85 Bataille, Erotish, ;. Chapter 7: Philosophy in the Bedroom 1 For example, )ane Campions tleatrical release of In the Cut (:oo) received an R rating, wlile tle ivi slowed a brief glimpse of fellatio witnessed by Meg Ryans claracter in an early scene. 2 In addition to Kirby Dicks excellent lm, see also West and West, rv Ratings, Black Holes, and My Film. 3 Steiner, Niglt Words, ;;. 4 Ibid. 5 Metz, Ihaginary Signier, ;;. 6 Te Guardian makes tlis claim, listing tle sex scenes as unsimulated fella- tio, ejaculation and cunnilingus, many in close-up (Clarlotte Higgens, Cannes Screening for Most Sexually Explicit Britisl Film, ; May :oo(). 7 Heterosexual pornograply las relied on testing its performers. Most gay ;o notes pornograply in tle nineties, by contrast, las used condoms and in some cases eroticized tle incorporation of condom use. 8 A new eroticization can also develop around tle use, and even tle nonuse, of condoms. Sex witlout condomsas in tle dangerous and deant gesture witl wlicl Romane Bolringer tosses away tle condom sle was about to use wlen about to lave (simulated) sex witl tle niv-positive Cyril Collard in Les nuits fauves (Savage !ights, dir. Cyril Collard, ,,:)tlus becomes a pointed cloice, a dramatic decision tlat suggests new forms of ahour fou. 9 Miclael Winterbottom, qtd. in Brown, Liglts, Camera, Explicit Action, 6;. 10 Altlougl you miglt nd tle sex scenes graplic, it is certainly not pornog- raply (Independent, May :oo(, 6;). 11 Te following discussion of Lars von Trier, Catlerine Breillat, and Patrice Clreau is adapted from my essay, Cinema and tle Sex Act. 12 Tus, for example, props were supposed to grow organically out of tle lms location, music could never be added to a lm after tle fact, supercial action and genres were forbidden, as were special liglts. 13 See tle ocial Dogme ,, Web site, www.dogme,,.dk (accessed o Septem- ber :oo;). 14 Part of tle insistence on real sex in Te Idiots came from tle compromises von Trier felt le lad lad to make in lis previous lm, Breaking the Waves (,,6), originally intended as a sex lm. He lad originally described tle project as a lard- core art lm tlat would explore tle ambiguities of power tlrougl sex along tle lines of tle Marquis de Sades /ustine. Te lm is about a young female religious fanatic powerfully awakened sexually by tle man sle marries. Wlen le suers an accident tlat renders lim impotent, le asks ler to lave aairs and report back on ler pleasures. According to )ack Stevenson, earlier drafts of tle script slowed tle claracter wlo came to be called Bess (Emily Watson) enjoying tlis sex, painting ler as a creature of powerful lusts. Later drafts, and tle nisled lm, lowever, moved away from tlis erotic melodrama into religious melodrama witl erotic overtones. Bess martyrs lerself for ler lusbands needs in repeated scenes of sexual lumiliation in wlicl sle seems to take no pleasure lerself. It is as if to gain sympatly for Bess and to make tle lm palatable for audiences, von Trier needed to paint ler as a sexual victim devoid of sexual pleasure. See Stevenson, Lars von Trier, ,,. 15 Te only available version of tlis lm in tle United States is a video witl ludicrous large black rectangles obscuring all male, and most female, genitalia, tlus making it a little lard to tell wlat actually lappens underneatl tle oating slapes. I am basing tlis analysis on a Danisl ivi witlout tle rectangles. 16 Clreau las famously staged Riclard Wagners Der Ring des !ibelungen (Te Ring of the !ibelung) at Bayreutl. He las more occasionally made lms, in- cluding tle period drama Queen Margot (,,() and tle contemporary Tose Who notes ; Love Me Will Take the Train (,,8). His comment is quoted from tle press kit for Intihacy, . 17 Denby, Current Cinema. 18 Kael, Tango, o. 19 Mucl more typical is Elizabetl Taylors seeming innocence in A Place in the Sun (dir. Ceorge Stevens, ,,), an innocence of gesture belied by tle sexual allure of ler body. 20 Bla Balzs, for example, writes: We cannot use glycerin tears in a close- up. Wlat makes a deep impression is not a fat, oily tear rolling down a facewlat moves us is to see tle glance growing misty, and moisture gatlering in tle corner of tle eyemoisture tlat as yet is scarcely a tear. Tis is moving, because tlis cannot be faked. Balzs, Teory of the Iilh, ;;. 21 Breillat is inserting ler leroine into tle tradition begun in tle late eigl- teentl century by tle Marquis de Sades Philosophy in the Bedrooh, a collection of seven ctional dialogues tlat take place among a group of two male and one female libertine as tley initiate a young girl into tle pleasures of sex. Metaplysical speculations on morality, listory, and religion are interspersed witl scenes of sex in wlicl tle young girl proves an apt pupil. See Sade, /ustine. Marie is tle modern leroine inserted into tlis tradition of sex talk and sex acts. 22 Constable, Unbecoming Sexual Desires, 6;:,,. 23 See, for example, Todd Solondzs Storytelling (,,8) and Happiness (:oo:), or Caspar Nos Seul contre tous (I Stand Alone, ,,8) and Irreversible (:oo:). 24 As sucl, I would argue tlat Breillats lms are innitely more feminist tlan Virginie Despentes and Coralie Trinls feminist rape-revenge odyssey, Baise-hoi (:ooo), tlougl I know tlat some would disagree. 25 Tis is an indirect quote from Cox, Sex on tle Brain. 26 Tis is an axiom of golden-age pornograply of tle ,;os and early ,8os. See Linda Williams, Hard Core, (,:. 27 Mitclell notes tlat young people learn sex nowadays from porn ratler tlan multiple sourcesfrom life or friends or wlatever. Tey become very in- secure about low tley look and tley just dont enjoy it. Tey gure tley lave to do tlis and tlen follow it witl being rimmed and tlen follow it witl coming on someones back. Sex is supposed to be surprising and spontaneous, and instead its become anotler fucking marketing nicle. Qtd. in Kennedy, Return of Free Love, (6. 28 It is called Dumbaa queer performing arts collective and occasional site for orgies in Brooklynwlere some of tle scenes were actually lmed. See Lee, Slortbus, ;. However, otler models from tle nineties are a rock and roll drag party called Squeezebox, wlere Mitclells original stage play for Hedwig and the Angry Inch began, as well as anotler venue in tle East Village witl wlicl tle Slortbus rc )ustin Bond was associated. Kennedy, Return of Free Love, (6. 29 It is called Behind the Green Door Te Sequel (,86). ;: notes 30 Corliss, Tihe, 6 October :oo6. 31 Foucault, Te History of Sexuality, :;. In making tlis statement, Foucault dismissed a long tradition of supposedly salubrious anti-Victorianism, in wlicl tle glt against repression would liberate a good, lealtly sexuality. Along witl Foucault, and wletler tley read lim or not, tlis generation is more likely to be- lieve tlat prolibition and censorslip are not tle only ways in wlicl power is exercised in tle realm of sex. Similarly, tlese lmmakers seem to lave absorbed Ceorges Batailles once novel lesson of tle complicity of law witl its violation and no longer believe tlat tle breaking of a taboo means freedom from it. See Bataille, Erotish, 6. 32 McCartly, Variety, : May :oo6, , (. 33 Ibid. 34 Qtd. in Molr, Shortbus on Low-Key Ride. 35 Otler titles include, for example, Marco Bellocclios very early depiction of fellatio Devil in the Ilesh (,86), Caspar Nos Seul contre tous (I Stand Alone, ,,8), Leos Caraxs Pola X (,,,), Virginie Despentes and Coralie Trinls ground- breaking Baise-hoi (:ooo), Bertrand Bonellos Le pornographe (:oo), Catlerine Breillats Anatohy of Hell (:oo(), )ulio Medems Luca y el sexo (Sex and Lucia, :oo), Carlos Reygadass /apon (:oo:) and Batalla en el cielo (Battle in Heaven, :oo,), Ulricl Seidls Dog Days (:oo), Ctz Spielmanns Antares (:oo(), Matlias Clasners Der Ireie Wille (:oo6), Bruce La Bruces Te Raspberry Reich (:oo(), and most recently Ang Lees Lust. Caution (:oo;), wlicl walks a very ne line between lard-core and non-lard-core art in two of its later scenes. Te above list is not meant to be complete, but an indication of tle range of art lms tlat now include, often quite unsensationally, lard-core sex acts. 36 Kennetl Turan, A Crowning Eort, Los Angeles Tihes, Oct. ,,,, F, F8. 37 Ibid. 38 Qtd. in Linda Rutl Williams, Edge of tle Razor. 39 Bazin, Marginal Notes on Eroticism in Cinema, ;(. 40 Qtd. in Porton, Elusive Intimacy, 8. Conclusion 1 In tlat same year revenues from videocassette sales equaled tleatrical box- oce grosses. Subscription cable services also rose from .( million in ,8: to (., million in ,,8. King, !ew Hollywood Cineha, ::,, :o. 2 However, tle portability of tle smaller screens also means tlat tley can uidly move from place to place, including back out into public spaces. 3 See, for example, Mark Posters discussion of tle clanging meanings of pub- lic and private in a clapter entitled CyberDemocracy. Poster, Whats the Matter with the Internet, ;88. notes ; 4 Dudley Andrew, a cineplile if ever tlere was one, writes in Film and Society tlat if, as Walter Ong claims, 1v las returned us to an oral culture, tlen movies need to be considered as reigning briey at tle end of an essentially nineteentl- century fascination witl engulng illusions. Hollywood called for and rewarded concentrated viewing. . . . Spectators paid to lose tlemselves in sucl engulng images (66:). 5 See Marvin DLugos discussion of Montiels place in Spanisl popular culture and in tlis lm in Post-nostalgia. 6 See my discussion of Boys in the Sand in clapter . 7 Cronenbergs justly famous cult lm las been mucl commented on. Here I am only using it to toucl on tle new guration of tle closeness of tle television screen to our bodies and our lives, on tle bridging of tle gulf. 8 In tle words of tle guru of tle new world produced by tle new teclnology, Te television is tle retina of tle minds eye, tlerefore tle television screen is part of tle plysical structure of tle brain (Videodrohe [dir. David Cronenberg, ,8]). 9 See W. ). T. Mitclells discussion of tlis scene in lis insigltful What Do Pic- tures Want, xv. 10 To Cubitt, video, at least wlen it was still new, appeared as an alibinot a surrogate for company but an alternative to itfor more or less intensively intro- verted pleasure. Cubitt, Tiheshift, (:. Wly Cubitt clooses to only vilify louse- wives and teenagers is not quite clear. He could lave easily included media sclol- ars on lis list! 11 Wlile all sex is simulated in tle earlier slows, Tell Me that You Love Me las so far been especially focused on penises and scrotums. 12 Andrews, Soft in the Middle, ,,8. 13 Williams writes, if lardcore really does it, softcore merely fakes it. If lard- core langs on tle autlenticity of tle real view (tlat adolescent slock of seeing people actually getting o ) softcore lolds back, cannot slow, kisses but nally does not tell. Williams, Te Erotic Triller, :6,;o. 14 Laqueur, Solitary Sex, o. 15 Andrews, Soft in the Middle, 8,,:. 16 Tis is a subsection of a clapter about various screen sizes in Ceo Kings ne introductory book entitled !ew Hollywood Cineha (::,). 17 Zimmer, Long Live tle New Flesl, ;. Zimmer also notes tlat tle videotape functions as object more tlan tle lm does: Put it in, take it out. Rent it. Witl lm we buy admission to an event, witl video we rent or buy a commodity. 18 So successful was tle marketing of X-rated movies on videocassette tlat tle porn industry soon saw tle advantage of avoiding tleatrical releases altogetler. By ,8, wlen approximately seven lundred adult tleaters still operated across tle country, videocassettes began tleir inexorable rise, producing four lundred adult titles. By ,86 tlere were only two lundred surviving adult tleaters, and tle ;( notes revenue slare from video and cable constituted 8o percent of tle industrys earn- ings (Prince, !ew Pot of Gold, ,,). In tlat year, adult video sales revenues reacled an extraordinary s(:, million and fteen lundred videos were released. Prince, !ew Pot of Gold, :::. See also OToole, Pornocopia, o(. OToole notes tlat in driving tlis teclnological clange, tle porn business was performing its regular duty as a key driver for tle economic emergence of a new teclnology. 19 Prince, !ew Pot of Gold, ,,. 20 Linda Rutl Williams, Erotic Triller in Contehporary Cineha, :,(. 21 Malurin is tle same artist wlo digitally darkened O. ). Simpsons face in anotler Tihe image. 22 Wendy Clun discusses tlis image at lengtl in ler book, Control and Iree- doh, and notes tlat wlat is gured in tlis inuential image is tle lunger of a user wlose desire seems to be less for tle images and more for tle vague infor- mation of tle computer itself (6, ,:). 23 Patterson, Coing Online, o(. 24 !ewsweek followed suit witl an equally alarmist article, also based on tle same ratler imsy evidence from a badly researcled Carnegie Mellon under- graduate tlesis asserting, erroneously, tlat 8., percent of all Usenet images were pornograplic. In fact, less tlan o., percent of Usenet messages contained porno- graplic images. For tle conceptual aws of tle study all-too-credulously taken up by tle lysterical media, see Clun, Control and Ireedoh, ;8. 25 A Wall Street /ournal article of :o August ,,; by Tomas Weber wrote, for example, nd a web site tlat is in tle black, and, clances are, its business and content are distinctly blue. Qtd. in ibid., ;8. 26 Ibid., ;,. 27 Lev Manovicl, Te Interface, Te Language of !ew Media, 6:,. 28 Linda Williams, Hard Core. 29 Altlougl Internet pornograply is visual, its invisible workings are more signicant and its visual impact less tlan tlat of cinematic pornograply. Clun, Control and Ireedoh, :(. 30 Cell-plone pornograply, already big business overseas, is reportedly poised to take o in tle United States as well. Web-enabled plones can download porn from tle Internet. See Strauss, Cellplone Teclnology. 31 Benjamin, Te Work of Art in tle Age of Its Teclnological Reproducibility: Second Version, o,. 32 Manovicl, Te Language of !ew Media, (. 33 Rosen, Change Muhhied, (. 34 Ibid., 8;. 35 Sobclack, Carnal Toughts, ,(. 36 Ibid., ,8. 37 Mark Hansen, !ew Philosophy for !ew Media, Mark Hansen, Bodies in Code. 38 Botl of Hansens books are developed from tle plilosoply of Henri Berg- notes ;, son, recent work in neuroscience by Antonio Damasio, and tle plenomenology of Maurice Merleau-Ponty. Instead of viewing new media as a forecast of tle loss of tle body to teclnologies of tle virtual, Hansen adapts media artists Monika Fleisclman and Wolfgang Strauss to understand low interactive media support tle multisensory meclanisms of tle body to extend tle bodys space for play and action. As analog media lose tleir material specicityas plotograply, lm, video, television, and teleplone converge under tle regime of tle digital in tle production of simulated worlds and bodies witl wlicl users interactbodies do not lose embodiment and vision does not become abstracted from reality. Ratler, vision becomes all tle more laptic, all tle more a product of sense making in tle body. 39 Cillis, Cybersex, ,:. 40 Dyer, Idol Touglts, (,. 41 Linda Williams, Hard Core, o, italics added. 42 Dyer, Idol Touglts, (,, italics added. 43 Dyer calls it Ryan Idol A Very Special View, but I tlink tlis title is in error. 44 Cillis, Cybersex, ,:. 45 Ibid., ,,. 46 Ibid., ,(. 47 Ibid., ,,. 48 Ibid., ,(. 49 Ibid., ,;. 50 Ibid., ,8. 51 In tle ,,, conclusion to Hard Core I lad argued tlat tle kind of busy, gamelike activities of tle early ci-vor games tlat involved scoring on virtual women by making tlem come before ones avatar did were entirely too busy for pleasure. Apparently I was not tle only one to dislike tlose games. See my Hard Core, o;(. 52 One furtler sign of tle ivis lubris is tlat it even released an R-rated version of itself tle following year, as if it was sucl a well-made lm tlat it could commercially ourisl witlout tle lard-core sex of its raison dtre. Wlere most ivis of lms often restore sexual materials censored to receive tleir R ratings, tlis porn lm deleted sex in lopes tlat its special eects alone (sans sexual eects) miglt please. It was not enougl. 53 See Lucas Mearian, Porn Industry May Be Decider in Blu-ray, ni- ivi battle, www.macworld.comiarticlei,o6:;i:oo6io,ipornld.ltml (accessed :: April :oo8). It appears tlat Sonys Blu-ray las won tle battle. See Dawn Clmielewski and Bruce Wallace, Blu-ray winner KO in ligl-denition war, Los Angeles Tihes, www.latimes.comibusinessila--bluray:ofeb:o,o,,:86,(8.story (accessed :: April :oo8). Observations about low pornograply las listorically driven tle invention of new media lave become a truism in need of mucl more serious examination. Is it just tlat eacl new representational teclnology suddenly moves into pornograply, or is it tlat pornograplic content actually drives tle in- ;6 notes vention: )osepl Slade, for example, writes tlat tle appeal of pornograplytle need to represent and to enjoy tlose representationsquite literally drives tle development of new media. However, lis follow-up explanation simply indicates tlat pornograply follows invention: In previous ages, cave painting led to pic- tures of vaginas and penises, clay tablets to sexy cuneiform, printing to steamy typograplies. Tese last examples seem tenuous. However, lis more recent ex- amples appear more convincing: During tle past two decades, erotic applications fueled tle evolution of vcvs and computers. Slade, Pornograply in tle Late Nineties, ,. 54 Clun notes tlat tle cam.wlores can sometimes cloose wlat and wlen we see and tley can sometimes even fake tle illusion of performing in real time. See Clun, Control and Ireedoh, :8,o, Patterson, Coing Online, :6, Burgin, )ennys Room, 8,. 55 Clun, Control and Ireedoh, :8(. 56 Patterson, Coing Online, :. 57 Tese Interactive Sex Simulators are in many ways similar to tle ci-vor games tlat I described in tle epilogue to Hard Core and wlicl I myself played very badly. Te main dierence is tlat tle ci-vors were actual games tlat de- pended on tle player bringing a woman to orgasm. My judgment of tlis game was tlat it was too busypitting game play against arousal. In my experience, frenzied game play did not lead to pleasure. See Hard Core, :8o6. 58 User-player is tle term used by Kevin Wynter, wlose enligltening essay, Towards a Teory of Virtual Pornograply, is an excellent discussion of plenome- nology of tlis form. 59 Simulation in tlis case does not refer to nonlard-core sexual acts, as in R-rated lms wlose simulation avoids lard-core explicitness, but to lard-core simulation of tle connection to tle female porn body tlrougl tle body of tle ava- tar. In otler words, wlat is simulated is not tle sex, but tle viewer-users relation to it. Te sex itself is quite explicit. 60 Sobclack, Carnal Toughts, ,(. 61 I am indebted to Ben Hadden for tlis landy term developed in lis unpub- lisled paper, Sexual Eects. 62 Bukatman, Articial Innite. 63 Recall tlat Deep Troat literalized tle gures of speecl of bells ringing and rockets ring, and recall tlat tle rst episode of Boys in the Sand also packed a brief listory of tle sex scene up to tle point of climax. Botl lms did so in a series of fast cuts, interspersed witl tle image of tle ejaculating penis. In tle case of Behind the Green Door, tle eect is slow-motion, distorted, electronic sound and multicolored optical printing tlat creates a mirror image of tle ejaculating penis. 64 Here we miglt recall tlat Alfred Kinsey embarked on lis long career lm- ing and screening sex to test lis tleory of low men ejaculatedin dribbles or witl projecting force. As noted in clapter (, Kinsey lired plotograplers to lm tlree notes ;; lundred men in New York City masturbating to ejaculation. After eventually col- lecting lms of a tlousand men masturbating, Kinsey concluded tlat in ; percent of men ejaculate does not spurt but dribbles. Catlorne-Hardy, Sex. the Measure of All Tings, o8, Kinsey et al., Sexual Behavior in the Huhan Iehale, 6(. 65 Tis lack of wetness was mucl complained about by one online reviewer wlo complained tlat it aint porn unless at tle end someones gooey (www .cduniverse.comiproductinfo.ask:pid,,,:,8&styleice&cart,,:;o66,, ac- cessed October 6 :oo;). In general, computer-generated money slots were not appreciated by tlree out of ve reviewers. 66 Hadden, Sexual Eects. 67 Baudrillard, Ecstasy of Cohhunication, :(. 68 Wynter, Towards a Teory of Virtual Pornograply, :. 69 Ibid. 70 Mark Hansen, Bodies in Code, ,. 71 I am indebted to Lucy van de Wiel, wlose unpublisled paper, In Ilagrante Delicto: Pleasure in Visible Pleasure, Te Coming Onscene of tle Female Orgasm, not only pointed out tle new coming oniscene of visible female orgasm but also oered a splendid analysis of its tactile dimensions. 72 Second Life is an Internet-based virtual world witl over 6 million players. Players custom-build an avatar wlo tlen navigates tlis alternative universe, in- cluding buying property and laving sex witl otler avatars. 73 Te !ew York Tihes reports: After years of essentially steady increases, sales and rentals of pornograplic videos were s.6: billion in :oo6, down from s(.:8 billion in :oo,, according to estimates by v, an industry trade publica- tion. Tis article reports tlat tlese recent developments oer an unusual twist on tle usual Internet-transforms-industry story. Wlere tle Internet immediately represented a clallenge to tle music and newspaper businesses, it initially was a boon to pornograply, providing easy and anonymous access online. However, as ligl-speed Internet access las permitted individuals to download free movies and clips more quickly and las allowed amateurs to upload tleir own creations more easily, free Web sites lave represented a serious clallenge to tle more commercial end of tle industry. So wlile tle porn industry proper makes approximately one tlousand X-rated ivis a montl and las rarely lost money, for tle rst time tlis burgeoning growtl is beginning to look like a glut witl free sites proliferating. (Matt Ricltel, For Producers of Pornograply Internets Virtues Turn to Vices, A, C,.) See also )on Swartz, Purveyors of porn scramble to keep up witl Internet. According to Swartz, tle trend described above continues. Sales of porn ivis are rapidly declining. 74 Benjamin, Te Work of Art in tle Age of Its Teclnological Reproducibility: Second Version, o,. 75 In Virtually/enna botl tle body of )enna and tlat of my avatarwlo can now be designed even as a womanare animated beings, computer-generated sexual eects. Witl wlole-body sexual eects wlose very features I can design ;8 notes and wlose actions and settings I can cloose, Virtually/enna gives me very precise control over all aspects of tle sexual scene. In tlis game, I do not so mucl fuck )enna tlrougl an avatar as move into and all around tle fantasy scene of sex like a kind of exalted lm director. I can, for example, cloose to move a disembodied land to stroke ler body wlen sle is alone or witl tle avatar. 76 Tis is wlat one of tle Virtual Vixens of tle earlier ci-vor game says of lerself: I know Im not a real woman. Im just a pleasure matrix, a piece of ass in a software package. Qtd. in Linda Williams, Hard Core, o,. 77 Sclauer, Law of Obscenity, 8. 78 Sclauer, Iree Speech, 8. 79 Ibid. 80 For example, one slort-lived ci-vor product, Te Virtual Sex Machine, advertised in :oo, oered tle experience of watcling girls perform on tle screen witl tle added attraction of a Penis Stimulator Clamber wlose vibration and suction would presumably mimic tle movements of tle performer you cloose on tle screen. Te salon.com reporter wlo described its eects noted, Like a Codzilla movie wlere tle )apanese moutls arent quite in sync witl tle Englisl words, tle vsr wasnt quite in sync witl [tle womans action] on tle screen. Sle zigged, it zagged (Mike Plillips, My Date witl tle Virtual Sex Macline, arclive .salon.com-sexifeaturei:ooio:io,ivsmiindex_np.ltml, accessed May :oo;). 81 Manovicl, Language of !ew Media, o. 82 Manovicl, Language of !ew Media, ,. 83 )uer, At Hohe with Pornography, ,. 84 Linda Williams, Hard Core, . 85 Ibid. 86 Clun, Control and Ireedoh, :6:;. 87 Keenan, Windows of Vulnerability, (. 88 Ibid, . bibliography Aron, Clarles. Cineha and Sentihent. Clicago: University of Clicago Press, ,8:. Alapack, Riclard. Te Adolescent First Kiss. Huhanistic Psychologist, no. , (,,): (86;. Allyn, David. Make Love. !ot War Te Sexual Revolution. an Unfettered History. Boston: Little, Brown, :ooo. Altlusser, Louis. Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses. In Lenin and Phi- losophy, trans. Ben Brewster, ;o86. New York: Montlly Review Press, ,;. Andrew, Dudley. Film and Society: Public Rituals and Private Space. In Exhibi- tion. the Iilh Reader, ed. Ina Rae Hark, 6;:. New York: Routledge, :oo. Andrews, Dave. Soft in the Middle Te Contehporary Softcore Ieature in Its Con- texts. Columbus: Olio State University Press, :oo6. Apra, Adriano. Andy Warhol Iour Silent Movies. Rome: Minerva Pictures Croup, :oo(. Aries, Plilippe, and Andr Bjin. Western Sexuality Practice and Precept in Past and Present Tihes. Trans. Antlony Forster. Oxford: Blackwell, ,8,. Atkins, Tomas, ed. Sexuality in the Movies. New York: Da Capo, ,;6. Atkinson, Miclael. Blue Velvet. London: Britisl Film Institute, ,,;. Babitz, Eve. Sex, Love, and Kisses. Vogue, February ,,6, 6o6. Balzs, Bla. Teory of the Iilh. Trans. Editl Bone. New York: Dover, ,;o. Balio, Tino, ed. Grand Design Hollywood as a Modern Business Enterprise :,,o :,,,. New York: Clarles Scribners Sons, ,,. 8o bibliography Bancroft, )oln. Huhan Sexuality and Its Problehs. Edinburgl: Clurclill Livings- ton, ,8,. Barcan, Rutl. In tle Raw: Home-Made Porn and Reality Cenres. /ournal of Mundane Behavior . (:oo:): :o. Bataille, Ceorges. Erotish Death and Sensuality. Trans. Mary Dalwood. San Fran- cisco: City Liglts, ,6:. Baudrillard, )ean. Te Ecstasy of Cohhunication. Ed. Sylvere Lotringer, trans. Bernard and Carolina Sclutze. Brooklyn: Autonomedia, ,88. Baudry, )ean-Louis. Te Apparatus: Metaplysical Approacles to tle Impression of Reality Cinema. In !arrative. Apparatus. Ideology, ed. Plilip Rosen, :,, 8. New York: Columbia University Press, ,86. Baudry, Patrick. La pornographie et ses ihages. Paris: Armand Colin, ,,;. Bazin, Andr. Deatl Every Afternoon. In Rites of Realish Essays on Corporeal Cineha, ed. Ivone Margulies, :;. Durlam: Duke University Press, :oo. -. Marginal Notes on Eroticism in Cinema. In What Is Cineha? ::6,;,. Berkeley: University of California Press, ,;. -. Wlat Do Critics Dream About: In Te Iilhs in My Life, ed. Franois Truaut, trans. Leonard Maylew, 6,;,. New York: Simon and Scluster, ,;8. Benjamin, Walter. On tle Mimetic Faculty. In Reections Essays. Aphorishs. Autobiographical Writings, 6. New York: Sclocken, ,;8. -. Te Work of Art in tle Age of Its Teclnological Reproducibility: Sec- ond Version. In Selected Writings, vol. , :,,,:,,8, ed. Howard Eiland and Miclael W. )ennings, trans. Edmond )eplcott and Harry Zoln, o. Cam- bridge: Belknap, ,,,. Bennett, Lerone. Te Emancipation Orgasm: Sweetback in Wonderland. Ebony, September ,;, o;8. Berlant, Lauren, and Lisa Duggan. Introduction to Our Monica. Ourselves Te Clinton Aair and the !ational Interest, 6. New York: New York University Press, :oo. Berlant, Lauren, and Miclael Warner. Sex in Public. In Intimacy, ed. Berlant, special issue, Critical Inquiry :(.: (,,8): ,(;66. Bernstein, Mattlew. Controlling Hollywood Censorship and Regulation in the Studio Era. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, ,,,. Bersani, Leo. Te Ireudian Body Psychoanalysis and Art. New York: Columbia University Press, ,86. Bertolucci, Bernardo. Bernardo Bertoluccis Last Tango in Paris. New York: Dell, ,;. Best, Steplen. Te Iugitives Properties Law and the Poetics of Possession. Clicago: University of Clicago Press, :oo(. Blabla, Homi K. Te Location of Culture. New York: Routledge, ,,(. -. Te Otler Question: Te Stereotype and Colonial Discourse. In Te bibliography 8 Sexual Subfect A Screen Reader in Sexuality, ed. Mandy Merck, :. Lon- don: Routledge, ,,:. Black, )oel. Te Reality Eect Iilh Culture and the Graphic Ihperative. New York: Routledge, :oo:. Blake, Robert. Mary Queen of Scots A Tragedy in Tree Acts. London: Simpkin, Marslall, 8,(. Blumentlall, Ralpl. Porno Clic. !ew York Tihes Magazine, : )anuary ,;, :8(. Borno, Nicolas. Pink Sahurai An Erotic Exploration of /apanese Society. New York: Harper Collins, ,,. Boulware, )ack. Sex. Aherican Style An Illustrated Rohp through the Golden Age of Heterosexuality. Venice, Calif.: Feral House, ,,;. Bouras, )ames. In tle Realm of tle Censors. Iilh Cohhent, no. (,;;): : . Bratlwaite, Brenda. Sex in Video Gahes. Boston: Clarles River Media, :oo6. Breton, Andr. LAhour Iou. Paris: Callimard, ,;. Brown, )ames. Liglts, Camera, and Explicit Action. Independent, May :oo(, 6;. Browne, Nick. Race: Te Political Unconscious of American Film. East-West Iilh /ournal 6. (,,:): ,6. Bukatman, Scott. Te Articial Innite: On Special Eects and tle Sublime. In Alien Zone tt Te Spaces of Science-Iiction Cineha, ed. Annette Kuln, :(,;,. London: Verso, ,,,. Burcl, Noel. To the Distant Observer Iorh and Meaning in the /apanese Cineha. Rev. and ed. Annette Miclelson. Berkeley: University of California Press, ,;,. Burger, )oln R. One-Handed Histories Te Eroto-Politics of Gay Male Video Por- nography. New York: Harrington Park, ,,,. Burgin, Victor. )ennys Room: Exlibitionism and Solitude. Critical Inquiry :;: (:ooo): ;;,,. Butler, Heatler. Wlat Do You Call a Lesbian witl Long Fingers: Te Develop- ment of Lesbian and Dyke Pornograply. In Porn Studies, ed. Linda Williams, 6;,;. Durlam: Duke University Press, :oo(. Canby, Vincent. Coming Home. !ew York Tihes, 6 February ,;8, C:o. Cane, William. Orbicularis Oris of tle Face and Moutl. face-and-emotion.comi datafaceiexpressioniorbicularis_oris.ltml (accessed o August :oo). Cante, Ricl, and Angelo Restivo. Te Cultural-Aestletic Specicities of All-Male Moving-Image Pornograply. In Porn Studies, ed. Linda Williams, (:66. Dur- lam: Duke University Press, :oo(. -. Te World of All-Male Pornograply: On tle Public Place of Moving- Image Sex in tle Era of Pornograplic Transnationalism. In More Dirty Looks Gender. Pornography. and Power, ed. Pamela Clurcl Cibson, o:6. London: Britisl Film Institute, :oo(. Carpenter, Dale. Colloquium: Te Boundaries of Liberty After Lawrence v. Texas: 8: bibliography Te Unknown Past of Lawrence v. Texas. Michigan Law Review, no. o: (:oo(): (6(. Catlers, Kirsten. Te Creat Censorslip Trials of Literature and Film in Postwar )apan, ,,o,8. Pl.D. diss., University of California, Berkeley, :oo(. Clan-Quiray, Carrett. Identity Crisis and Sweetbacks Bellyful of a Tree-Day Watermelon Man. Senses of Cineha (Marcl :oo). www.sensesofcinema.comi contentsidirectorsioivan_peebles.ltml. Clauncey, Ceorge. Gay !ew York Gender. Urban Culture and the Making of the Gay Male World. :8,o:,;o. New York: Basic, ,,(. Clion, Miclel. Audio-Vision Sound on Screen. New York: Columbia University Press, ,,(. -. David Lynch. London: Britisl Film Institute, ,,,. Clun, Wendy Hui Kyong. Control and Ireedoh Power and Paranoia in the Age of Iiber Optics. Cambridge: ri1 Press, :oo6. Clover, Carol ). Men. Wohen. and Chain Saws Gender in the Modern Horror Iilh. Princeton: Princeton University Press, ,,:. Coleman, Horace. Melvin Van Peebles. /ournal of Popular Culture, no. , (,;): 688(. Comfort, Alex. Te /oy of Sex. New York: Crown, :oo:. Constable, Liz. Unbecoming Sexual Desires for Women Becoming Sexual Sub- jects. :t ,, no. ( (:oo(): 6;:,,. Corliss, Riclard. In Defense of Dirty Movies. Tihe, , )uly ,,,. Corrigan, Timotly. A Cineha without Walls. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, ,,. Courtney, Susan. Hollywoods Iantasy of Miscegenation Spectacular !arratives of Gender and Race. :,o,:,o,. Princeton: Princeton University Press, :oo,. Coward, Rosalind. Iehale Desires How Tey Are Sought. Bought. and Packaged. New York: Crove, ,8,. Cox, )eremy. Sex on tle Brain. Pafiba, : October :oo6, www.pajiba.comi slortbus.ltm. Crary, )onatlan. Techniques of the Observer On Vision and Modernity in the !ine- teenth Century. Cambridge: ri1 Press, ,,o. Cripps, Tomas. Sweet Sweetbacks Baadasssss Song and tle Clanging Politics of Cenre Film. In Close Viewings An Anthology of !ew Iilh Criticish, ed. Peter Lelman, :8:6. Tallalassee: Florida State University Press, ,,o. Cubitt, Sean. Tiheshift On Video Culture. London: Taylor and Francis, ,,. Debord, Cuy. Society of the Spectacle. Detroit: Black and Red, ,8. Delaney, Samuel R. Tihes Square Red. Tihes Square Blue. New York: New York University Press, ,,,. DEmilio, )oln, and Estelle Freedman. Intihate Matters A History of Sexuality in Aherica. New York: Harper and Row, ,88. Denby, David. Te Current Cinema: Unsleltered Lives. !ew Yorker, :, October :oo, ,:,. bibliography 8 Diamond, )ared. Why Is Sex Iun? Te Evolution of Huhan Sexuality. London: Orion House, ,,;. DLugo, Marvin. Post-nostalgia in Almodvars La hala educacion: Written on tle Body of Sara Montiel. In All about Alhodovar, ed. Brad Epps and Despina Kakoudaki. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, fortlcoming. Doane, Mary Ann. Film and tle Masquerade: Teorizing tle Female Spectator. Screen :.( (,8:): ;(88. Downs, Donald Alexander. Te !ew Politics of Pornography. Clicago: University of Clicago Press, ,8,. Dudley, Andrew. Film and Society: Public Rituals and Private Space. East-West Iilh /ournal . (,86): ;::. Dyer, Riclard. Dont Look Now: Te Male Pin-Up. In Te Sexual Subfect A Screen Reader in Sexuality, ed. Mandy Merck, :66(. London: Routledge, ,,:. -. Idol Touglts: Orgasm and Self-Reexivity in Cay Pornograply. In More Dirty Looks Gender. Pornography. and Power, ed. Pamela Clurcl Cibson, o:,. London: Britisl Film Institute, :oo(. -. !ow You See It Studies on Lesbian and Gay Iilh. New York: Routledge, ,,o. -. White. New York: Routledge, ,,;. Eco, Umberto. Casablanca: Cult Movies and Intertextual Collage. In Travels in Hyperreality Essays, ,;:. Trans. William Weaver. San Diego: Harcourt Brace )ovanovicl, ,86. Edelman, Lee. Seeing Tings: Representation, tle Scene of Surveillance, and tle Spectacle of Cay Male Sex. In Inside/Out Lesbian Teories. Gay Teories, ed. Diana Fuss, ,6. New York: Routledge, ,,. Ellis, )oln. On Pornograply. In Te Sexual Subfect A Screen Reader in Sexuality, ed. Mandy Merck, (6;o. London: Routledge, ,,:. Ericksen, )ulia A., witl Sally A. Steen. Kiss and Tell Surveying Sex in the Twenti- eth Century. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, ,,,. Escoer, )erey, ed. Sexual Revolution. New York: Tunders Moutl, :oo. Fagioli, Marco. Shunga Te Erotic Art of /apan. New York: St. Martins, ,,8. Fanon, Franz. Black Skin. White Masks. Trans. Clarles Lam Markmann. New York: Crove, ,6;. Feier, )ules. San Irancisco Chronicle, :: August ,;, Datebook. Flint, David. Babylon Blue An Illustrated History of Adult Cineha. London: Cre- ation, ,,8. Fonda, )ane. My Life So Iar. New York: Random House, :oo,. Foucault, Miclel. Te History of Sexuality. Vol. , Te Care of the Self. Trans. Robert Hurley. New York: Pantleon, ,86. -. Te History of Sexuality. Vol. :, Te Use of Pleasure. Trans. Robert Hurley. New York: Pantleon, ,8,. 8( bibliography -. Te History of Sexuality. Vol. , An Introduction. Trans. Robert Hurley. New York: Pantleon, ,;8. Freedberg, David. Te Power of Ihages Studies in the History and Teory of Re- sponse. Clicago: University of Clicago Press, ,8,. Freud, Sigmund. Analysis of a Plobia in a Five-Year-Old Boy. In Standard Edition of the Cohplete Psychological Works, o:,(,. Ed. and trans. )ames Stracley. London: Hogartl, ,,,. -. Fragment of an Analysis of a Case of Hysteria. In Standard Edition of the Cohplete Psychological Works, ;:;:. Ed. and trans. )ames Stracley. London: Hogartl, ,,,. -. From tle History of an Infantile Neurosis. In Standard Edition of the Cohplete Psychological Works, ;:;::. Ed. and trans. )ames Stracley. London: Hogartl, ,,,. -. Screen Memories. In Standard Edition of the Cohplete Psychological Works, :,6. Ed. and trans. )ames Stracley. London: Hogartl, ,,,. -. Tree Essays on the Teory of Sexuality. Ed. and trans. )ames Stracley. New York: Basic, :ooo. -. Te Uncanny. In Standard Edition of the Cohplete Psychological Works, ;::;,6. Ed. and trans. )ames Stracley. London: Hogartl, ,,,. Friedberg, Anne. Te Virtual Window froh Alberti to Microsoft. Cambridge: ri1 Press, :oo6. -. Window Shopping Cineha and the Posthodern. Berkeley: University of California Press, ,,. Cagnon, )oln H., and William Simon. Sexual Conduct Te Social Sources of Huhan Sexuality. Clicago: Aldine, ,;. Caines, )ane. Competing Clances: Wlo Is Reading Robert Mappletlorpes Black Book: !ew Iorhations, no. 6 (,,:): :(,. -. Iire and Desire Mixed-Race Movies in the Silent Era. Clicago: University of Clicago Press, :oo. Callop, )ane, witl Lauren Berlant. Loose Lips. In Our Monica. Ourselves Te Clinton Aair and the !ational Interest, ed. Berlant and Lisa Duggan, :(66;. New York: New York University Press, :oo. Cates, Henry Louis, )r. )ungle Fever, or, Cuess Wlos Not Coming to Dinner. In Iive for Iive Te Iilhs of Spike Lee, ed. Spike Lee, 66;. New York: First Clance, ,,. Catlorne-Hardy, )onatlan. Sex. the Measure of All Tings A Life of Alfred C. Kinsey. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, ,,8. Ciddens, Antlony. Te Transforhation of Intihacy Sexuality. Love. and Eroticish in Modern Societies. Stanford: Stanford University Press, ,,:. Ciord, Barry. Te Devil Tuhbs a Ride and Other Unforgettable Iilhs. New York: Crove, ,88. Cillis, Stacy. Cybersex. In More Dirty Looks Gender. Pornography. and Power, ed. Pamela Clurcl Cibson, ,:oo. London: Britisl Film Institute, :oo(. bibliography 8, Citlin, Todd. Media Unlihited How the Torrent of Ihages and Sounds Overwhelhs Our Lives. New York: Metropolitan, :oo. Crindon, Leger. In tle Realm of tle Censors: Cultural Boundaries and tle Poetics of tle Forbidden. In Word and Ihage in /apanese Cineha, ed. Dennis Wasl- burn and Carole Cavanaugl, :,;. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, :oo. Crundeman, Roy. Andy Warhols Blow /ob. Pliladelplia: Temple University Press, :oo. Cuerrero, Ed. Irahing Blackness Te African Aherican Ihage in Iilh. Pliladel- plia: Temple University Press, ,,. Cunning, Tom. An Aestletic of Astonislment: Early Film and tle (In)Credulous Spectator. In Viewing Positions Ways of Seeing Iilh, ed. Linda Williams, ( . New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, ,,,. -. Te Cinema of Attractions: Early Film, Its Spectator, and tle Avant- Carde. In Early Cineha Space. Irahe. !arrative, ed. Tomas Elsaesser, witl Adam Barker, ,66:. London: Britisl Film Institute, ,,o. Hadden, Benjamin. Sexual Eects: A Brief History of Special Eects Onscreen. Unpublisled paper. Hales, N. Katlerine. How We Becahe Posthuhan Virtual Bodies in Cybernetics. Literature. and Inforhatics. Clicago: University of Clicago Press, ,,,. Hansen, Mark B. N. Bodies in Code Interfaces with Digital Media. New York: Routledge, :oo6. -. !ew Philosophy for !ew Media. Cambridge: ri1 Press, :oo(. Hansen, Miriam. Benjamin and Cinema: Not a One-Way Street. Critical Inquiry :,.: (,8;): o6(. Haskell, Molly. Review of Klute. Village Voice, , )uly ,;, ,,. Heatl, Steplen. Questions of Cineha. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, ,8. Heim, Miclael. Te Metaphysics of Virtual Reality. New York: Oxford University Press, ,,. Hickman, Tom. Te Sexual Century How Private Passion Becahe a Public Obses- sion. London: Carlton, ,,,. Hoberman, )im. Return to Normalcy. Village Voice, :: Sept. ,86, 6:. Irigaray, Luce. Tis Sex Which Is !ot One. Trans. Catlerine Porter. Itlaca: Cornell University Press, ,8,. Islii-Conzales, Sam. Mysteries of Love: Lyncls Blue Velvet/Freuds Wolf-Man. In Te Cineha of David Lynch, ed. Erica Sleen and Annette Davison, (86o. London: Wallower, :oo(. )acobs, Lea. Te Wages of Sin Censorship and the Iallen Wohan Iilh. :,.8:,;.. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, ,,. )ames, David. Allegories of Cineha Aherican Iilh in the Sixties. Princeton: Princeton University Press, ,8,. 86 bibliography -. Rock and Roll in tle Representation of tle Invasion of Vietnam. Repre- sentations, no. :, (,,o): ;8,8. )ameson, Fredric. Posthodernish or. the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalish. Dur- lam: Duke University Press, ,,. -. Signatures of the Visible. New York: Routledge, ,,o. )anMolamed, Abdul. Sexuality oniof tle Racial Border: Foucault, Wriglt, and tle Articulation of Racialized Sexuality. In Discourses of Sexuality, ed. Donma Stanton, ,(6. Ann Arbor: University of Micligan Press, ,,:. )olnston, William. Geisha. Harlot. Strangler. Star A Wohan. Sex. and Morality in Modern /apan. New York: Columbia University Press, :oo,. )ones, )ames H. Alfred C. Kinsey A Public/Private Life. New York: W. W. Norton, ,,;. )uer, )ane. At Hohe with Pornography Wohen. Sex. and Everyday Life. New York: New York University Press, ,,8. Kael, Pauline. Blue Velvet. !ew Yorker, :: Sept. ,86, ,,. -. I Lost It at the Movies. New York: Bantam, ,6,. -. Kiss Kiss. Bang Bang. New York: Bantam, ,6,. -. Mytlologizing tle 6os: Cohing Hohe. !ew Yorker, :o Feb. ,;8, ,. -. Pipe Dream. !ew Yorker, )uly ,;, (o. -. Tango. !ew Yorker, :8 October ,;:, o8. Keenan, Tomas. Windows of Vulnerability. In Te Phantoh Public Sphere, ed. Bruce Robbins, :(. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, ,,. Kendrick, Walter. Te Secret Museuh Pornography in Modern Culture. New York: Viking, ,8;. Kennedy, Sean. Te Return of Free Love. Advocate, :( October :oo6. Kincaid, )ames R. Its Not about Sex. In Our Monica. Ourselves Te Clinton Af- fair and the !ational Interest, ed. Lauren Berlant and Lisa Duggan, ;8,. New York: New York University Press, :oo. Kinder, Marsla. Reinventing tle Motlerland: Almodvars Brain Dead Trilogy. /ournal of Spanish Cultural Studies, no. , (:oo(): :(,6o. King, Ceo. !ew Hollywood Cineha An Introduction. New York: Columbia Uni- versity Press, :oo:. Kinsey, Alfred C., et al. Sexual Behavior in the Huhan Iehale. Pliladelplia: W. B. Saunders, ,,. Kinsey, Alfred C., Wardell B. Pomeroy, and Clyde E. Martin. Sexual Behavior in the Huhan Male. Pliladelplia: W. B. Saunders, ,(8. Kocl, Steplen. Stargazer Te Life. World. and Iilhs of Andy Warhol. New York: Marion Boyars, ,,. Koedt, Anne. Te Mytl of tle Vaginal Orgasm. In Sexual Revolution, ed. )erey Escoer, ooo. New York: Tunders Moutl, :oo. Koestenbaum, Wayne. Andy Warhol. New York: Penguin, :oo. Kracauer, Siegfried. Teory of Iilh Te Redehption of Physical Reality. Princeton: Princeton University Press, ,,;. bibliography 8; Kristeva, )ulia. Ellipsis on Dread and tle Specular Seduction. Trans. Dolores Bur- dick. In !arrative. Apparatus. Ideology A Iilh Teory Reader, ed. Plilip Rosen, :6(. New York: Columbia University Press, ,86. Lack, Russell. Twenty Iour Irahes Under A Buried History of Iilh Music. Lon- don: Quartet, ,,;. Laplancle, )ean. /ean Laplanche Seduction. Translation. and the Drives. Trans. Martim Stanton. London: Institute of Contemporary Arts, ,,:. -. Life and Death in Psychoanalysis. Trans. )erey Mellman. Baltimore: )olns Hopkins University Press, ,;6. Laplancle, )ean, and ). B. Pontalis. Fantasy and tle Origins of Sexuality. In Ior- hations of Iantasy, ed. Victor Burgin, )ames Donald, and Cora Kaplan, ,(. New York: Metluen, ,86. -. Te Language of Psychoanalysis. Trans. Donald Niclolson-Smitl. New York: W. W. Norton, ,;. Laqueur, Tomas. Solitary Sex A Cultural History of Masturbation. New York: Zone, :oo. Laumann, Edward O., et al. Te Social Organization of Sexuality Sexual Practices in the United States. Clicago: University of Clicago Press, ,,(. Lee, Natlan. Slortbus. Iilh Cohhent (:oo6): ;. Le, Leonard )., and )erold L. Simmons. Te Dahe in the Kihono Hollywood. Censorship. and the Production Code froh the :,.os to the :,oos. New York: Anclor, ,,o. Lelman, Peter. Masculinity Bodies. Movies. Culture. New York: Routledge, :oo. -. Running Scared Masculinity and the Representation of the Male Body. Pliladelplia: Temple University Press, ,,. -, ed. Close Viewings An Anthology of !ew Iilh Criticish. Tallalassee: Florida State University Press, ,,o. Lenne, Cerard. Sex on the Screen Eroticish in Iilh. New York: St. Martins, ,;8. Lev, Peter. Aherican Iilhs of the ,os Conicting Visions. Austin: University of Texas Press, :ooo. Lewis, )on. Hollywood v. Hard Core How the Struggle over Censorship Saved the Modern Iilh Industry. New York: New York University Press, :ooo. -. Real Sex. Unpublisled manuscript. Loftus, David. Watching Sex How Men Really Respond to Pornography. New York: Tunders Moutl, :oo. Luciano, Dana. Loves Measures. otQ . (:oo;): o;8. Lulmann, Niklas. Love as Passion Te Codication of Intihacy. Trans. )eremy Caines and Doris L. )ones. Stanford: Stanford University Press, ,,8. Lukacler, Ned. Prihal Scenes Literature. Philosophy. and Psychoanalysis. Itlaca: Cornell University Press, ,8o. Luker, Kristin. When Sex Goes to School Warring Views on Sexand Sex Educa- tionSince the Sixties. New York: W. W. Norton, :oo6. 88 bibliography MacDonald, Scott. Confessions of a Feminist Porn Watcler. Iilh Quarterly 6. (,8): o;. Macey, David. Te Lives of Michel Ioucault. New York: Vintage, ,,. MacKendrick, Karmen. Counterpleasures. Albany: State University of New York Press, ,,,. Mailer, Norman. A Transit to Narcissus. In Last Tango in Paris, by Bernardo Bertolucci and Franco Arcalli, :o. New York: Delacorte, ,;:. Maltby, Riclard. Hollywood Cineha. Oxford: Oxford University Press, ,,,. -. More Sinned Against tlan Sinning: Te Fabrications of Pre-Code Cinema. Senses of Cineha :, (:oo). www.sensesofcinema.comicon- tentsioi:,ipre_code_cinema.ltml. Manovicl, Lev. Te Language of !ew Media. Cambridge: ri1 Press, :oo:. Marcus, Steven. Te Other Victorians A Study of Sexuality and Pornography in Mid-!ineteenth Century England. New York: New American Library, ,;(. Marcuse, Herbert. Eros and Civilization A Philosophical Inquiry into Ireud. New York: Vintage, ,,,. Marks, Laura. Touch Sensuous Teory and Multisensory Media. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, :oo:. Masters, William, and Virginia )olnson. Huhan Sexual Response. New York: Ban- tam, ,66. Mayne, )uditl. Uncovering tle Female Body. In Before Hollywood Turn-of-the- Century Iilh froh Aherican Archives, ed. )ay Leyda and Clarles Musser, 6 68. New York: American Federation of tle Arts, ,86. McCartly, Todd. Slortbus. Variety (o, no. : (:oo6): (. McClintock, Ann. Conad tle Barbarian and tle Venus Flytrap: Portraying tle Female and Male Orgasm. In Sex Exposed Sexuality and the Pornography De- bate, ed. Lynne Segal and Mary McIntosl, . London: Virago, ,,:. McCormick, Rutl. An Interview witl Nagisa Oslima, Cineaste (, no. : (,;6 ;;): (,. -. In the Realh of the Senses. Cineaste (, no. : (,;6;;): :(. McMillan, Terry. Touglts on Shes Gotta Have It. In Iive for Iive Te Iilhs of Spike Lee, ed. Spike Lee, ,:,. New York: First Clance, ,,. McNair, Brian. Striptease Culture Sex. Media. and the Dehocratization of Desire. London: Routledge, :oo:. Mellen, )oan. In the Realh of the Senses. London: Britisl Film Institute, :oo(. -. Is Senses in tle Realm of Pornograply: !ew York Tihes, )uly ,;;, B. Mendelsoln, Daniel. An Aair to Remember. !ew York Review of Books, : Feb :oo6, :. Mercer, Kobena. Imaging tle Black Mans Sex. In Photography/Politics Two, ed. Pat Holland, )o Spence, and Simon Watney, trans. Carleton Dallevy, 66,. London: ComediaiMetluen, ,8;. -. Skin Head Sex Ting: Racial Dierence and tle Homoerotic Imaginary. bibliography 8, In How Do I Look? Queer Iilh and Video, ed. Bad Object-Cloices, 6,:::. Seattle: Bay, ,,. -. Welcohe to the /ungle !ew Positions in Black Cultural Studies. New York: Routledge, ,,(. Merck, Mandy. In Your Iace !ine Sexual Studies. New York: New York University Press, :ooo. -, ed. Te Sexual Subfect A Screen Reader in Sexuality. London: Routledge, ,,:. Merleau-Ponty, Maurice. Eye and Mind. In Te Prihacy of Perception, ed. )ames M. Edie, ,,,o. Evanston: Nortlwestern University Press, ,6(. -. Te Phenohenology of Perception. Trans. C. Smitl. London: Routledge, ,8:. Metz, Clristian. Iilh Language A Sehiotics of Cineha. Trans. Miclael Taylor. New York: Oxford University Press, ,;(. -. Te Ihaginary Signier Psychoanalysis and Cineha. Trans. Celia Britton et al. London: Macmillan, ,8:. Miller, D. A. On tle Universality of Brokeback Mountain. Iilh Quarterly 6o. (:oo;): ,o8. Miller, Toby. Te First Penis Impeacled. In Our Monica. Ourselves Te Clinton Aair and the !ational Interest, ed. Lauren Berlant and Lisa Duggan, 6. New York: New York University Press, :oo. Miller, William Ian. Te Anatohy of Disgust. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, ,,;. Mitclell, W. ). T. What Do Pictures Want? Clicago: University of Clicago Press, :oo,. Molr, Ian. Shortbus on Low-Key Ride. Variety, , October :oo6. Molr, Riclard D. Gays//ustice A Study of Ethics. Society. and Law. New York: Columbia University Press, ,88. Monaco, Paul. Te Sixties :,oo:,o,. Berkeley: University of California Press, :oo. Mulvey, Laura. Netlerworlds and tle Unconscious: Oedipus and Blue Velvet. In Ietishish and Curiosity, ;,(. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, ,,6. -. Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema. Screen 6. (,;,): 68. Murray, )acqueline, ed. Constructing Sexualities. Windsor, Ont.: Humanities Re- searcl Croup, University of Windsor, ,,. Musser, Clarles. Te Ehergence of Cineha Te Aherican Screen to :,o,. New York: Scribners, ,,o. -. Te May Irwin Kiss: Performance and tle Beginnings of Cinema. In Visual Delights Two Exhibition and Reception, ed. Vanessa Toulmin and Simon Popple, ,8,. London: )oln Libbey, :oo,. -. Tohas A. Edison and His Kinetographic Motion Pictures. New York: Scribners, ,,,. ,o bibliography Neale, Steve. Masculinity as Spectacle. In Te Sexual Subfect A Screen Reader in Sexuality, ed. Mandy Merck, :;;8;. London: Routledge, ,,:. -. Te Same Old Story: Stereotypes and Dierence. Screen Education, no. (,;,): 8o. Newton, Huey P. He Wont Bleed Me: A Revolutionary Analysis of Sweet Sweet- backs Baadasssss Song. Black Panther Party Intercohhunal !ews Service, , )une ,;. Oslima, Nagisa. Cineha. Censorship. and the State Te Writings of !agisa Oshiha. Cambridge: ri1 Press, ,,:. Osterweil, Ara. Andy Warlols Blow /ob: Toward tle Recognition of a Porno- graplic Avant-Carde. In Porn Studies, ed. Linda Williams, (6o. Durlam: Duke University Press, :oo(. -. Flesl Cinema: Te Corporeal Avant-Carde, ,,,,;,. Pl.D. diss., Uni- versity of California, Berkeley, :oo,. OToole, Laurence. Pornocopia Porn. Sex. Technology. and Desire. London: Ser- pents Tail, ,,8. Patterson, Zabet. Coing Online: Consuming Pornograply in tle Digital Era. In Porn Studies, ed. Linda Williams, o(:. Durlam: Duke University Press, :oo(. Paul, Pamela. Pornied How Pornography Is Transforhing Our Lives. Our Rela- tionships. and Our Iahilies. New York: Times, :oo,. Peavy, Clarles. An Afro-American in Paris: Te Films of Melvin Van Peebles. Cineaste , no. (,6,): :. Petersen, )ames R., ed. Te Century of Sex Playboys History of the Sexual Revolu- tion :,oo:,,,. New York: Crove, ,,,. Petro, Patrice. Iugitive Ihages Iroh Photography to Video. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, ,,,. Plillips, Adam. On Kissing. Tickling. and Being Bored. Cambridge: Harvard Uni- versity Press, ,,. Pomeroy, Wardell B. Dr. Kinsey and the Institute for Sex Research. New York: Harper and Row, ,;:. -. Taking a History. New York: Free Press, ,6. Poole, Wakeeld. Dirty Poole Te Autobiography of a Gay Porn Pioneer. Los Angeles: Alyson, :ooo. Porton, Riclard. Elusive Intimacy: An Interview witl Patrice Clreau. Cineaste :;. (:oo): 8:,. Poster, Mark. Whats the Matter with the Internet? Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, :oo. Potts, Annie. Te Science/Iiction of Sex Iehinist Deconstruction and the Vocabu- laries of Heterosex. New York: Routledge, :oo:. Prince, Steplen. A !ew Pot of Gold Hollywood under the Electronic Rainbow. :,8o:,8,. Berkeley: University of California Press, :ooo. bibliography , -. True Lies: Perceptual Realism, Digital Images, and Film Teory. Iilh Quarterly (,. (,,6): :;;. Proulx, Annie. Brokeback Mountain. New York: Scribners, :ooo. Proust, Marcel. Te Guerhantes Way. Trans. C. K. Scott Moncrie. New York: Modern Library, ,. Rayns, Tony. Deatl at Work: Evolution and Entropy in Factory Films. In Andy Warhol Iilh Iactory, ed. Miclael OPray, 6o6,. London: Britisl Film Insti- tute, ,8,. -. An Interview witl Nagisa Oslima. Iilh Cohhent (,;6): (8. Reicl, Willelm. Te Sexual Revolution Toward a Self-Governing Character Struc- ture. New York: Farrar, Straus and Ciroux, ,,i,,. Reisman, )uditl. Crafting Gay Children. www.rsvpamerica.orgi Rembar, Clarles. Te End of Obscenity Te Trials of Lady Chatterley. Tropic of Cancer. and Ianny Hill. New York: Random House, ,6,. Te Report of the Cohhission on Obscenity and Pornography. New York: Bantam, ,;o. Ricl, B. Ruby. Hello Cowboy. Guardian, : September :oo,. Ricl, Frank. Naked Capitalists. !ew York Tihes Magazine, :o May :oo, ,,6, 8o8:, ,:. Robinson, Paul. Te Case for Dr. Kinsey. Atlantic Monthly, May ,;:, ,,o:. -. Te Modernization of Sex Havelock Ellis. Alfred Kinsey. Williah Masters. and Virginia /ohnson. Itlaca: Cornell University Press, ,8,. Rodley, Clris, ed. Lynch on Lynch. London: Faber and Faber, ,,;. Rosello, Mireille. Declining the Stereotype Ethnicity and Representation in Irench Cultures. Hanover: University Press of New England, ,,8. Rosen, Plilip. Change Muhhied Cineha. Historicity. Teory. Minneapolis: Uni- versity of Minnesota Press, :oo. Roszak, Teodore. Ilicker. Clicago: Clicago Review, ,,. Rotl, Plilip. Aherican Pastoral. New York: Vintage, ,,;. -. Te Dying Anihal. New York: Vintage, :oo. Rotsler, William. Contehporary Erotic Cineha. New York: Ballantine, ,;. Rubin, Cayle. Tinking Sex: Notes for a Radical Teory of tle Politics of Sexu- ality. In Pleasure and Danger Exploring Iehale Sexuality, ed. Carole S. Vance, :6;,. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, ,8(. Rubin, )ay. Infurious to Public Morals Writers and the Meifi State. Seattle: Univer- sity of Waslington Press, ,8(. Russell, Catlerine. !arrative Mortality Death. Closure. and !ew Wave Cineha. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, ,,(. Russo, Vito. Te Celluloid Closet Hohosexuality in the Movies. New York: Harper and Row, ,8. Rutlerford, Anne. Cinema and Embodied Aect. Senses of Cineha, no. :, (:oo). ,: bibliography Sade, Marquis de. /ustine. Philosophy in the Bedrooh. and Other Writings. Trans. Riclard Seaver and Austryn Wainlouse. New York: Crove, ,6,. St. )oln, Maria. How to Do Tings witl tle Starr Report: Pornograply, Perfor- mance, and tle Presidents Penis. In Porn Studies, ed. Linda Williams, :;(,. Durlam: Duke University Press, :oo(. -. Te Mammy Fantasy: Psycloanalysis, Race, and tle Ideology of Absolute Maternity. Pl.D. diss., University of California, Berkeley, :oo(. Sclaefer, Eric. Bold! Daring! Shocking! True! A History of Exploitation Iilhs. :,:, :,,,. Durlam: Duke University Press, ,,,. -. Does Sle or Doesnt Sle: Unpublisled paper, delivered at tle Society for Cinema and Media Studies Conference. Denver, Colorado, :( May :oo:. -. Cauging a Revolution: 6mm Film and tle Rise of tle Pornograplic Fea- ture. In Porn Studies, ed. Linda Williams, ;o(oo. Durlam: Duke University Press, :oo(. Sclauer, Frederick F. Iree Speech A Philosophical Enquiry. Cambridge: Cam- bridge University Press, ,8:. -. Te Law of Obscenity. Waslington: Bureau of National Aairs, ,;6. Scllosser, Eric. Reefer Madness Sex. Drugs. and Cheap Labor in the Aherican Black Market. New York: Houglton Miin, :oo. Sclneider, Steven )ay. Te Essential Evil iniof Eraserhead (or, Lyncl to tle Con- trary). In Te Cineha of David Lynch Aherican Dreah. !ighthare Visions, ed. Erica Sleen and Annette Davison, ,8. London: Wallower, :oo(. Seaman, Barbara. Is Woman Insatiable: In Iree and Iehale Te Sex Life of the Contehporary Wohan. New York: Fawcett, ,;:. Sedgwick, Eve Kosofsky. Epistehology of the Closet. Berkeley: University of Cali- fornia Press, ,,o. Segal, Lynne. Straight Sex Rethinking the Politics of Pleasure. Berkeley: University of California Press, ,,(. Segal, Lynne, and Mary McIntosl, eds. Sex Exposed Sexuality and the Pornogra- phy Debate. London: Virago, ,,:. Slamus, )ames, )oel Conarroe, and Daniel Mendelsoln. Brokeback Mountain: An Exclange. !ew York Review of Books, 6 April :oo6, (. Slattuc, )ane. Postmodern Misogyny in Blue Velvet. Genders, no. (,,:): ; 8,. Slerfey, Mary )ane. A Teory on Female Sexuality. In Sexual Revolution, ed. )erey Escoer, ,,,. New York: Tunders Moutl, :oo. Slipman, David. Caught in the Act Sex and Eroticish in the Movies. London: Elm Tree, ,8,. Slade, )osepl W. Pornography and Sexual Representation A Reference Guide. vols. Westport: Creenwood, :oo. -. Pornograply in tle Late Nineties. Wide Angle ,. (,,;): :. bibliography , Smitl, )e. Te Sounds of Cohherce Marketing Popular Iilh Music. New York: Columbia University Press, ,,8. Smitl, Paul )ulian. Desire Unlihited Te Cineha of Pedro Alhodovar. New York: Verso, :ooo. Smitl, Riclard. Getting into Deep Troat. Clicago: Playboy, ,;. Sobclack, Vivian. Te Address of the Eye A Phenohenology of Iilh Experience. Princeton: Princeton University Press, ,,:. -. Carnal Toughts Ehbodihent and Moving Ihage Culture. Berkeley: Uni- versity of California Press, :oo(. Sontag, Susan. Georges Bataille Story of the Eye. New York: Penguin, ,86. Soutlern, Terry. Blue Movie. New York: Crove, ,;o. Stam, Robert. Iilh Teory An Introduction. Malden, Mass.: Blackwell, :ooo. Steiner, Ceorge. Niglt Words. In Language and Silence Essays on Language. Literature. and the Inhuhan, 68;;. New York: Atleneum, ,6;. Stern, Lesley. Te Body as Evidence. In Te Sexual Subfect A Screen Reader in Sexuality, ed. Mandy Merck, ,;:::. London: Routledge, ,,:. Stevenson, )ack. Doghe Uncut Lars von Trier. Tohas Vinterberg. and the Gang Tat Took Hollywood. Santa Monica: Santa Monica Press, :oo. -. Lars von Trier. London: Britisl Film Institute, :oo:. -. Totally Uncensored! Te Wild World of Scandinavian Sex Cineha Te Myth. the Movies. the Happenings. Fortlcoming. Stewart, )acqueline. Migrating to the Movies Cineha and Black Urban Modernity. Berkeley: University of California Press, :oo,. Straus, Cary. Cellplone Teclnology Rings in Pornograply in USA. USA Today. www.usatoday.comitecliproductsiservicesi:oo,-:-:-pornograply- cellplones_x.ltm (accessed :: April :oo8). Swan, Raclel. Perversions in tle Limeliglt: Weird Sex and Spanislness in tle Films of Pedro Almodvar. Honors Tesis, University of California, Berkeley, :oo. Swartz, )on. Purveyors of porn scramble to keep up witl Internet. www.usa today.comitecliteclinvestoriindustryi:oo;-o6-o,-internet-porn_N.ltm (ac- cessed : May :oo8). Taruskin, Riclard. A Mytl of tle Twentietl Century: Te Rite of Spring, tle Tradition of tle New, and Te Music Itself. Modernish/Modernity :. (,,,): :6. Taussig, Miclael. Mihesis and Alterity A Particular History of the Senses. New York: Routledge, ,,. Tompson, Bill. Soft Core Moral Crusades against Pornography in Britain and Aherica. London: Cassell, ,,(. Tompson, David. Last Tango in Paris. London: Britisl Film Institute, ,,8. Torres, Sasla. Sex of a Kind: On Craplic Language and tle Modesty of Television News. In Our Monica. Ourselves Te Clinton Aair and the !ational Interest, ed. Lauren Berlant and Lisa Duggan, o:,. New York: New York University Press, :oo. ,( bibliography Truaut, Franois, ed. Te Iilhs in My Life. Trans. Leonard Maylew. New York: Simon and Scluster, ,;8. Turan, Kennetl, and Steplen Zito. Sineha Aherican Pornographic Iilhs and the People Who Make Teh. New York: Praeger, ,;(. Turim, Maureen. Te Iilhs of Oshiha !agisa Ihages of a /apanese Iconoclast. Berkeley: University of California Press, ,,8. Updike, )oln. Couples. New York: Ballantine, ,68. Van de Wiel, Lucy. In Ilagrante Delicto: Pleasure in Visible Pleasure: Te Coming Onscene of Female Orgasm. Unpublisled paper (May :oo;). Van Peebles, Melvin. Sweet Sweetbacks Baadasssss Song A Guerilla Iilhhaking Manifesto. New York: Tunders Moutl, :oo(. Voltaire. Te Philosophical Dictionary. Trans. H. I. Woolf. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, ,:(. Warlol, Andy. Te Philosophy of Andy Warhol Iroh A to B and Back Again. New York: Harcourt Brace )ovanovicl, ,;,. Warner, Miclael. Te Trouble with !orhal Sex. Politics. and the Ethics of Queer Life. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, ,,,. Waugl, Tomas. Cockteaser. In Pop Out Queer Warhol, ed. )ennifer Doyle, )onatlan Flatley, and )os Esteban Muoz, ,;;. Durlam: Duke University Press, ,,6. -. Hard to Ihagine Gay Male Eroticish in Photography and Iilh froh Teir Beginnings to Stonewall. New York: Columbia University Press, ,,6. -. Homosociality in tle Classical American Stag Film: O-Screen, On- Screen. In Porn Studies, ed. Linda Williams, :;(. Durlam: Duke University Press, :oo(. Weitzer, Ronald, ed. Sex for Sale Prostitution. Pornography. and the Sex Industry. New York: Routledge, :ooo. West, )oan, and Dennis West. rv Ratings, Black Holes, and My Film: An Interview witl Kirby Dick. Cineaste :. (:oo6): (;. Willeman, Paul. Letter to )oln. In Te Sexual Subfect A Screen Reader in Sexu- ality, ed. Mandy Merck, ;8. London: Routledge, ,,:. Williams, Linda. Cinema and tle Sex Act. Cineaste :;. (:oo): :o:,. -. Corporealized Observers: Visual Pornograply and tle Carnal Density of Vision. In Iugitive Ihages Iroh Photography to Video, ed. Patrice Petro, (. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, ,,,. -. Film Bodies: Cender, Cenre, and Excess. Iilh Quarterly ((, no. ( (,,): :. -. Hard Core Power. Pleasure. and the Irenzy of the Visible. Exp. ed. Berke- ley: University of California Press, ,,,. -. Melancloly Melodrama. In All about Alhodovar, ed. Brad Epp and Des- pina Kakoudaki. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, fortlcoming. -. Playing the Race Card Melodrahas of Black and White froh Uncle Toh to O. /. Sihpson. Princeton: Princeton University Press, :oo. bibliography ,, -. Pornograplies Oniscene, or, Dirent Strokes for Dirent Folks. In Sex Exposed Sexuality and the Pornography Debate, ed. Lynne Segal and Mary McIntosl, :6,. London: Virago, ,,:. -. Second Touglts on Hard Core: American Obscenity Law and tle Scape- goating of Deviance. In Dirty Looks Wohen. Pornography. Power, ed. Pamela Clurcl Cibson and Roma Cibson, (66. London: Britisl Film Institute, ,,. -, Skin Flicks on tle Racial Border: Pornograply, Exploitation, and Inter- racial Lust. In Porn Studies, ed. Linda Williams. Durlam: Duke University Press, :oo(. -. ed. Porn Studies. Durlam: Duke University Press, :oo(. Williams, Linda Rutl. Te Edge of tle Razor. Sight and Sound ,.o (,,,): : (. -. Te Erotic Triller in Contehporary Cineha. Bloomington: Indiana Uni- versity Press, :oo,. Williams, Raymond. Television Technology and Cultural Iorh. New York: Sclocken, ,;,. Williamson, Bruce. Porno Clic. In Ilesh and Blood Te !ational Society of Iilh Critics on Sex. Violence. and Censorship, ed. Peter Keougl, o:;. San Fran- cisco: Mercury House, ,,,. Winnicott, D. W. Playing and Reality. New York: Routledge, ,;. -. Transitional Objects and Transitional Plenomena. International /our- nal of Psycho-Analysis (: 8,,;. Wirenius, )oln F. Iirst Ahendhent. Iirst Principles Verbal Acts and Ireedoh of Speech. New York: Holmes and Meier, :ooo. Wood, Robin. On and around Brokeback Mountain. Iilh Quarterly 6o. (:oo;): :8. Wrenn, Mike. Andy Warhol In His Own Words (In Teir Own Words). London: Omnibus, ,,. Wyatt, )ustin. Te Stigma of X: Adult Cinema and tle Institution of tle rv Ratings System. In Controlling Hollywood Censorship and Regulation in the Studio Era, ed. Mattlew Bernstein, :86(. New Brunswick: Rutgers Univer- sity Press, ,,,. Wynter, Kevin. Towards a Teory of Virtual Pornograply. CineAction ;: (:oo;): 6::. Zimmer, Catlerine. Long Live tle New Flesl: Embodied Perception and tle Video Image. Pl.D. diss., University of California, Berkeley, :oo. Ziplow, Steplen. Te Iilh Makers Guide to Pornography. New York: Drake, ,;;. Zurier, Rebecca. City, Stage, and Screen: )oan Sloans Urban Teater. In On the Edge of Your Seat Popular Teater and Iilh in Early Twentieth-Century Aheri- can Art, ed. Patricia McDonnell, ;,88. New Haven: Yale University Press, :oo:. Index Abe, Sada: culmination in violence, :oo, :o:, :o6, :o8,, ::, rsts witl Kiclizo, ,o,, ,,(, of listorical record, 8(8,, 6nn(, (6, endless pleasure of, ,;, :o, :, sexual excitement of control, :o(,, :o;, celebrity status of, 88, ,8, initiations of, ,6, ,,, See also Matsuda, Eiko ad campaigns, :;, :,(,6, :8(, :, adultery, (;, ;,, ( age dor. L, (dir. Luis Buuel), ::o iis, :;, :6, , Albinus, )ens, :6;;o alienation, ;,, ; Allen, Woody, 6, Allyn, David, ,; Almodvar, Pedro: perversions of, :::, o:, o,, circumnaviga- tion of sex rules, :68, ::, :8, bridging gulf between body and screen, o, o6, ::, unburdening of guilt in lms, :,, love-deatl scenes, ::o Altlusser, Louis, ,,, (n,8 ambivalence, :;,, :;8;,, :,6 American lard-core art, :8, :,( American sexuality, 8o Americanization, (, : anal eroticism: in Last Tango in Paris, ;,, :, :,, (:, :(, in Broke- back Mountain, :,, :((:, :,, :(6, in Boys in the Sand, (6(8, ,, slock value of, ;, :::, :;, in male-male pornograply, (6, in Iat Girl, :8, in Shortbus, :,:, on television, o(, on tle Internet, , distinction between maniman and maniwoman, 66n(, See also sodomy anatomy: as revealed by magnica- tion, o, :6, of tle kiss, , ((, 6(, 6, of sex acts, :;, ,8, female vaginal, ;(, :;, of male ejaculation, ,,, of male-male dierence, :(8, of )enna )ameson, :6 Anatohy of Hell (dir. Catlerine Breil- lat), :;, ,8 index And God Created Wohan (dir. Roger Vadim), 66, 6, Andrews, Dave, o(, animal sexuality, 8o, :oo antiwar activism, 66,, 6,, ;,8o, ,, Any Wednesday (dir. Robert Miller), 6, Aristocrats. Te (dir. Paul Provenza), :,( arousal: as oered by screened sex, 6,, :o, :66, o, intention of texts to provoke, o(, :, (, as a re- sponse to innervation, ,, engender- ment of, :86, as antitlesis to art, :,, Arquette, Rosanna, ;, Arrival of a Train. Te (dir. Auguste and Louis Lumiere), o ars erotica, ,,,6, ,8,,, :o, :: art cinema, (8, 8(, 8;88, :;, :66, :;, :; As Time Coes By (Casablanca song), ,;, ,, 8: Aslby, Hal, ;,;; Atkinson, Miclael, ::( audience: diegetic awareness of, o,6, sexual performance for, o,, :(o, familiarity of sex conventions, :;, urban demograplics, (on(;, sexual response, ((, :, lomosexual solicitation in tleaters, ,:n, Austen, )ane, autlenticity, :;o, 6, , autoeroticism, :(: autofellatio, :8,8; avant-garde, ,8, ;(, o(,, o,o, , o, (,, 86, :, :;,, :8,, :,: Bad Education (dir. Pedro Almodvar), o: bad sex, ;o;:, ;,, :,o Baise-hoi (dir. Virginie Despentes and Coralie Trinl), :,6 Bancroft, Anne, ;,8:, 8;, o Banderas, Antonio, :8, Barbarella Queen of the Galaxy (dir. Roger Vadim), 6,;, ;(, :oo Bardot, Brigitte, 66, 6, Barefoot in the Park (dir. Cene Saks), 6, Barker, Raplael, :868;, :,,: Bartles, Roland, :o, Bataille, Ceorges: interpretation of eroticism, (, ,, 8(, :(, link between deatl and sex, ;, 8, :o,, relation between fear and desire, ,, 8, on transgressing taboo, ,, :,,, as a pornograpler, ::, on discontinuity, :;, :8n:, on ani- mal sexuality, :oo, dening sexual pletlora, : Bates, Alan, 8: Battleship Potehkin. Te (dir. Sergei Eisenstein), Baudrillard, )ean, , Bazin, Andr: obscenity of mediated sex and violence, 6,, 6;, 6,, on maintaining imagination, 66, :,;, on cinematograplic lies, 8:, assump- tion tlat woman is tle sexual object, 6n;, Beamisl, Lindsay, :86, :8,,:, :,( Behind the Green Door (dir. Artie Mitclell and )im Mitclell), (, 8;, :8,, 8 Belle de four (dir. Luis Buuel), ( Benjamin, Walter, ,8, :o:, :,, o,, :, :( Bennett )r., Lerone, oo, o: Bergen, Candace, ;; Bergman, Ingmar, 6,;:, 8, 8, Bergman, Ingrid: in Casablanca as Ilsa, ((, in !otorious as Alicia, ,,6, :;: Berlant, Lauren, :( Bersani, Leo, (, (8, :, ;;, :o,, :o,6, : Bertolucci, Bernardo, ,6, ,, :, :, :8, o, 8:, 88, :(, ::, :; index ,, bestiality, , Birth of a !ation. Te (dir. D.W. Crif- tl), , ,:, o: Blaxploitation: clallenges to sexual taboos, ,, o, visibility of black sex, o, :o, codes of intimacy in, ;(, sexual names of claracters, (n,(, reviews of, (:n6, Blow /ob (dir. Andy Warlol), ,8, o( Blue Movie (dir. Andy Warlol), o(o Blue Movie (writ. Terry Soutlern), :8 blue movies, 6, 88, o(6, o, :;:8, ((, (n8; Blue Velvet (dir. David Lyncl), primal scenes in, :::,, :,, :(:, :,;, seduction and castration, ::6:;, ::,, ::, :,, tle act of looking and seeing in, :6, ::8, :o, :6;, impact on mainstream audience, ::: Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice (dir. Paul Mazursky), ;6;; Bogart, Humplrey, (( bondage, :;8, :8, :8,86, :8,, :,, Bowers v. Hardwick, :(o( Boyd, )ustin, :8,, :,,: Boys in the Sand (dir. Wakeeld Poole): as validation of gay sexual imagina- tion, ((, contemporaneous reaction to, (,, views of sex in, (6(,, :,,, 8, negotiation of taboos, ,o, ,(, cost and gross, ,n,: bracket syntagma, 8o, 8(, See also Hollywood musical sexual interlude Brando, Marlon: as Paul in Last Tango in Paris, ,,, :, 8:, :(, :;, as an American sex symbol, (, 8o, ::, Kaels comments on, :, : Brannan, )ay, :,o, :,:, :,( Breen, )osepl, (o Breillat, Catlerine: sexual display, :;;, :8o8, :86, :,,,6, sexual initiation, :;8, :8:8, negotia- tion of desire in lms, :;,;6, as a lard-core artist, :, ;n:, use of ellipses in plot, :6o, ambivalent pleasure, :;, Breton, Andr, :( Britisl Board of Film Classication, :6,66 Brokeback Mountain (dir. Ang Lee): gay desire in, :(6, :(,,o, :,,, use of melodrama, :8, :,, :,6, primal fantasies, :((:, :,;, seduction in, :((,, publicity campaign for, , :,, sexual witnessing in, :6, :;, sexual privacy, :,(o, tlreat of castration, :(;(8, intimacy be- tween )ack and Ennis, :,:,, im- pact on mainstream audiences, :::, displays of maclismo, 68n;6 Brooks, Clive, ,o Brown, H. Rap, 6( Brown, )im, , Brown, Norman O., ,; Brown Bunny. Te (dir. Vincent Callo), :8( Browne, Nick, ,: Buuel, Luis, (, ::o: Burgin, Victor, 6 cam.wlores, ,;, ::(, ;6n,( Cmara, )avier, :68, : Canby, Vincent, ,, ;;;, Cante, Ricl, ,o, :( Capra, Frank, (:(, :6 carnal desire, (o carnal knowledge, 6,, ;:;, Carnal Knowledge (dir. Mike Niclols), ;;;8, 8o, 8: carnality, ,:o, 6(, 8o8 Casablanca (dir. Miclael Curtiz): osculuh interruptuh variations, 8, ,o, ,, ;,, 8:, :(, Code kisses in, (;, (8, music in, ,, attractive presentation of adultery, (o, sexual desire in, (, narrative importance of Sam, :n: (oo index castration, 8(8,, :o:, :o,, ::, :;, ::,, :, :(, :68, :(, :(;, :,, :,;, See also tlreat of castration Cat Ballou (dir. Elliot Silverstein), 6, censorslip, :6, , 6, 8:, 8;88, ,o, :o, :6,, :,6, o8 Center of the World. Te (dir. Wayne Wang), :8( Clauncey, Ceorge, (( Clreau, Patrice, :, :;o;,, :,6, :,8 Clion, Miclel, 88( Clristie, )ulie, 8; Christhas on Earth (dir. Barbara Rubin), o( Clun, Wendy, o8,, 6, :, cigarette smoking, (o, (((,, (;, ,o, ,(, (n, cinema of attractions, o Cineha Paradiso (dir. Ciuseppe Torna- tore), :6, (8 Cleopatra /ones (dir. )ack Starrett), , Clift, Montgomery, ,; climax, 8;, o, , (, (6, (,, 66, 686,, ;6;;, ;,, ,(,,, :o, :8, :86 Clinton, William )eerson, :, ;, :,8 clitoral orgasm, ,, (, ,8, 6:, ,, :oo close-ups, 6, ,, :,, :,, ,6,,, 6:, 66, ;o;, ;,, 8, 8,, ,o, ,(, o6, o, :6:;, :, (8, ,o, ,6,;, :o,, :, :, :(, :;;, o,, 8, :: Clover, Carol, :8 Code kisses, (, ,o, 8 Cohing Hohe (dir. Hal Aslby): Battle of Penetration of, ;,;6, )ane Fondas orgasm in, ;:;(, ;,, :oo, musical interludes in, ;;;8 computer screens, o68, (,, :: concealment, ,, , 8: condoms: putting on, :6, :8, ;on;, in conversation, :;;, eroticism of, ;on8 confession, ,,, ,8, :,, :,o consensual sex acts, :(o, ((n,: Constable, Liz, :;8 control, o:, ;:, :o(,, :o;, ::, :8: 8, :,, o,, ,:, :( Corliss, Riclard, :8,, ,6n Couch (dir. Andy Warlol), ,8, o( Couples (writ. )oln Updike), ; Courtney, Susan, ,: Cripps, Tomas, o Cronenberg, David, o, o,6, :: Cubitt, Sean, o( Culp, Robert, ;6 cum slot. See money slots cunnilingus, 8, , ,(, ;6, :6: 6, :6,, :86 cyberporn. See Internet pornograply cybersex, ,, ;;n;: DEmilio, )oln and Estelle Freedman, 8, :;n, Dal, Salvador, ::o Damiano, Cerard, :;o, , 6 darkness, ;,8o Dauman, Anatole, 868, Dawson, Paul, :8,,( De Rienzo, Libero, :;,8: de Sade, Marquis, ::, :6, :;; De Sica, Vittorio, 6,;:, 8 Debord, Cuy, 6, :;n: DeBoy, P.)., :88,: decay, , dance, , ,, (6, ,, 8o, :(, :((, :,; deatl, ,, 6,, ;,, , (:, 8, ,:, :o:, :o(8, :(, :;, :(8(,, :6,, :8( Deep Troat (dir. Cerard Damiano): sex spectacle of, :, :6, (, 6, ((, (,, ,(, ,(, :88, 8, as public screening of pornograply, ,, :o, :,, :;, :, (, (6, 8(, :,,, contemporaneous interpretation, :8:,, 6, 86, (,n6(, main- stream impact of, , (:, :,, o6, obscenity trial of, 8,, ,on;;, index (o mutual sexual pleasure, o, 8, (o, prurient interest in, :::(, avoid- ance of female genitalia, ;, (, ,,, in contrast to In the Realh of the Senses, 8;, :o6, :o, cultural legiti- macy of, (,, :6, always-bedtime atmosplere in, ,o, lumor in, , cost and gross, ,n86 Deliverance (dir. )oln Boorman), :; deep tlroat fellatio: as a means to orgasm, :,, , 6, :88, Deep Troat visuals, :6, (, ,(, as a cure, , ,,, as an obscene sexual practice, 8 Demme, )onatlan, :,6 Denby, David, :;o Dern, Laua, :(, desire, (o, (:, ,6, 8, ::, :, ,o, ,(, ,;, ;;, :o6, ::, :,, ::;, :,, :,,,6, :;:, :;(, :;6, :;8, :8o, :8:, :,,: Despentes, Virginie and Coralie Trinl, :,6 Devil and Miss /ones. Te (dir. Cerard Damiano), ,, Dietricl, Marlene, ,o disclarge, (6, (8, ::, :(, ,, (:, ;;, :o,6, :: disgust, o, o8, :, 68, (o, :;6;;, o Dogme ,,, :666;, :;o Dont Look !ow (dir. Niclolas Roeg), 8;88, 8: Donovan, Casey (in Boys in the Sand), (,,( Douglas, Melvin, ,, drinking, ,, ,6, ,,, 6, ,, :o Ducey, Caroline, :;6;8, :8, :,, Dyer, Riclard, 6, (,, :, , eating, ,,(, :, ,, :o, :6, ecstasy, ,, ;, , Ecstasy (dir. Custave Maclaty), ( Edelman, Lee, :((: Edison, Tomas: screened kisses pro- duced by, ,, , 6:6, :6, oo, :6, development of slorts for exli- bition, :6:;, introduction of new screened sex acts, :8, 6, Eisen, Keisai, ,6,; ellipses, :6, 8(o, (:, ,o, ,,, ;, ;,, 88:, o,, :, (8, ;:, ;8, :6o, :8: emasculation, :(:, :(;(8 emotion, :o, :::, o, :((, :;, :;,, :8:, :,o, :,,,6, :,8, o emotional intimacy, :(, :,:, Eplron, Nora, :, erotic art, o, (:, 8, 86, ,o, ,; ,8, :o erotic fantasy, ,o, ,, :;, eroticism, ,, (, 66, ,, 8,, :, o, :, ,o, 6, ;, 8:, 8(, ,o, ,6, :oo, :o,, ::, :,6, :;, :;, o(, o,, (, :6 Esa hufer (dir. Mario Camus), o: Escoer, )erey, 8, :;n( European inuence, ;8, 8o, 8(, :8( European screen sexuality, 6,, :: European soplistication, (, : Execution of Mary. Queen of Scots. Te (dir. Tomas Edison), 66,, 6n;, Experimental Cinema Croup, o( explicit sex acts, :88(, :,,, :,8 explicit sexual content, o,, :6o, :,6 Exsexive Macline: as sex tool, ;o, crescendo of pleasure, 6;6,, ;(, :oo Eyes Wide Shut (dir. Stanley Kubrick), :8 face of orgasm, 6,, ;,, :,:, 6n8o Fanon, Franz, , fantasy, ;:, ,, :o, :o6, :, ::,:6, ::,, :, :,6, :(6(;, :,:, o,, , , , Fassbinder, Rainer Werner, :8 Iat Girl (dir. Catlerine Breillat): sex as lumiliation, :;8, sexual explicitness, :;,, virginity in, :;,8 (o: index fear, (:, :o, :::, :, ,, ;:, ;,, :, ::;, :(, :8, :,,,6, :8o, :8( feature-lengtl pornograply, :o, :; :8, 6, (, Feier, )ules, ;; fellatio: in Boys in the Sand, (6(8, ,,:, in Deep Troat, :o:, :, demand for visibility of, :,, :8(, initial slock of screening, 6;, innocence of, (o(, in In the Realh of the Senses, ,,(, main- taining virginity tlrougl recourse to, :;, as sex, ;, in Blue Velvet, ::,, in gay pornograply, (,n,, link to resurrection of condom, ,on;o, See also deep-tlroat fellatio, See also autofellatio female carnal knowledge, 6 female genitalia, ;8, :: female orgasm: depiction of, ,,,6, 6, 6,, 6,;, ,,:oo, :o, on tle Internet, :o:, rapid return, ,(n:( female pleasure, ,,,6, 68, ;o, ;, ;8, :o feminism, o, :,, 6:6, 6;68, 8o, ,,, :8 feminist critique, ;, ;6, :8 fetislism, ,, ::(, ::;, :o, :, ,:, ( Fisk, Peter, (, esl, 8,, :o(, :o6, :;6, :8 Ilesh and the Devil (dir. Clarence Brown): orality in, (((6, ,o, per- verse pleasures in, (;(8, Carbos kisses in, (, Fonda, )ane: as critic of plallocentric sex, 6, 66, ;6, 8o, mediated public life of, 6(, ;(;,, ,,n(, real orgasms of, 6,, 6;;o, ;(;,, faked orgasms of, ;, ;, sexual performance of, ;:, ;,, 8:, sexual transformation of, ;; Foucault, Miclel: ars erotica, ,,, ,8, 6onn8,, listorical construc- tions of sexuality, :, :(, im- plantation of perversions, ;8, :6, role of confessional in con- structing tle trutl of sex, :,, , :o, focus on sexual acts, ,, disci- pline into arousal, 8, discourse and power, (( foreign lm, 68, ;, 8,, ,8, (, :, :8, :,8 foreplay, :6, (8, (8 Fox, Kerry, :;o;( Ioxy Brown (dir. )ack Hill), , Freedman, Estelle. See DEmilio, )oln and Estelle Freedman Frencl inuence, 8, 88, ::, :8, :;8, :,, Frencl New Wave, ;,, 86 Freud, Sigmund: infantile orality, (6(8, ,(, n(o, ,n8, telos of sex and violence, 6,, ::, , (:, :o,6, civilizations inlerent repres- sion of sex, :, ,;,8, primal scenes and fantasies, ;:, ::,, :(, use of tle term perversion, (, ;(, on screen memories, ;o, 6n:, on clitoral vs. vaginal orgasm, ,, 6:, case study of tle Wolf Man, ::6, ;n, diges- tive orality, 6, motivating force of sexuality, , tle uncanny, ::( Friedberg, Anne, :,,, :: Iroh Here to Eternity (dir. Fred Zinne- man), (, ( Fuji, Tatsuya, :o, :(, See also Islida, Kiclizo Iugitive Kind. Te (dir. Stanley Kramer), ,:, full frontal nudity, 8,, ,8 Caines, )ane, Cal, Susan, o Callo, Vincent, :8( Gahe Is Over. Te (dir. Roger Vadim), 6, index (o Carbo, Creta: kisses of in Ilesh and the Devil, (((,, (;(8, ,, ,, 6, dominant roles, (,,o Carfunkel, Art, ;; Carner, Tyrone, :(o, :(6 Cates )r., Henry Louis, o Catlorne-Hardy, )onatlan, 6o6 Cavin, Erica, ,o,, o6 gay epistemology, :,, gay lard-core pornograply, (,(, :(, : Cenet, )ean, :8 gesture of intimacy, :;:;, See also sexual gesture Ciddens, Antlony, 8, ;(, :::, :;n, Cilbert, )oln, (((,, (;,o, 6 Cillis, Stacy, Codard, )ean-Luc, 86 Godfather. Te (dir. Francis Ford Cop- pola), o6 going all tle way, 66, o,, : Coldstein, Al: review of Deep Troat, :o:, :,, o, advocation of maximum visibility, :,, (,, :oo, as founder of Screw, (6n; Gone with the Wind (dir. David Selznick), (, ( good sex, ;;:, ;(;,, ;,, :,( Graduate. Te (dir. Mike Niclols): ellip- tical cutting in, ;,8:, 8,, conjunc- tion of music and sex, 8, 8(, o, (, sexual display in, 8,, :(, anticlimac- tic virility, 8;, popularity of, ;8 Crant, Cary, ,,,, :;: Griswold v. Connecticut (,6,), Guess Whos Cohing to Dinner (dir. Stanley Kramer), ,:, Cunning, Tom, o Cyllenlaal, )ake, :;,, :(,; Hadden, Ben, 8, Hair (play, ,6;)iHair (dir. Milos For- man), ,6,; Hansen, Mark, , ,:o, ;(n8 Hansen, Miriam, ;8, :o:, o, lard core: as explicit or unsimulated, 6( lard-core art, 8(, :,,, :8(, :,,, :,;, :,,, o(, :,, See also American lard-core art lard-core cinema, 8;, :oo, ::,, :,8, :6o, :66, oo, ,8n:: lard-core eroticism, 88, :, :, lard-core pornograply: conventions of, (, ,, ,,, ,8, :,,, :;, :86, :,:, public audience of, :6:;, o, ,, :;n8, description of by Sclauer, 6, :,, ::, graplic sex of, 8, :;, :,,, sexual representation in, o8, ,, :, pleasures of, :, in private, 6(, popularity of, :,8, penis worslip in, :;:, consequences of X-status, 68n6, See also gay lard- core pornograply lard-core sex, 6, 8, :6, :6,, :68 6,, : Harunobu, Suzuki, 8( Haskell, Molly, ; ledonism, 6,, ,o Hedwig and the Angry Inch (dir. )oln Cameron Mitclell), :8( Hemmings, David, 66 Hitclcock, Alfred, ,,(, :;: Hoberman, )., :: Homan, Dustin: in Te Graduate as Benjamin, ;,8:, 8;, o, in Mid- night Cowboy as Ratso, 8,, 8; Hokusai, Katsuslika, 8( Hollywood musical sexual interlude, 8:8(, 8;,o, ,, ,,, ,8, o, o8, o, (, ::, :(, ,6, ;o, ;:, 8:, :6, ,n, Hollywood Production Code: stric- tures of, , (, ,, (, (6, 6(, 8o, 88, ,:, ,,, era of, (, 6, :6, , 8, (, ,o, :,,, breakdown of, 6:, 686,, ; ;(, ;6, ,o,, problematic terminol- ogy of, on:, mature audiences caveat, 8n;, See also Code kisses (o( index Holmes, )oln, ,, Hohe of the Brave (dir. Stanley Kramer), o lome video: revolution, (, :::, o6, o8, viewing, oo, o,, teclnology, 6(, successful marketing of X-rated material, ;n8 lome, :, :(8, :,;,8, :,8, oo hohhe facile. L, (writ. Catlerine Breillat), :;, lomoeroticism, 8,, :8, :88 lomoplobia, :8, :(, :(; lomosexual desire, :8, :(:(, :(6 (;, :(,, :,( Hopper, Dennis, :6, ::6, :o, : 6, :(:, :, Huhan Sexual Response (writ. Mas- ters and )olnson), 6: lumiliation, ;, :;,;6, :;8, :8 lunger, ,,, :;6, (n6o, See also eating lysteria, ,, :o Idiots. Te (dir. Lars von Trier), :66;o Idol, Ryan, : illumination, ((, ;,8o imaginative play, 8, Ihhoral Mr. Teas. Te (dir. Russ Meyer), 8, implantation of perversion, ;8, (, (, ::: impotence, :o:, :,: In the Realh of the Senses (dir. Oslima Nagisa): in contrast to lard-core pornograply, 8, ,,,, :(, :,;, ,;n6, as a breaktlrougl lm, 8(, :,, :6, :,8, :6o, in opposition to traditional )apan, 868;, , ,:, censorslip listory of, 888,, ,,n, graplic sex acts in, ,o, :;, 6on;, syntlesis of ars erotica and scientia sexualis, ,8,,, ::, pro- longed sexual pleasure in, :o, :o, 6, juxtaposition of violence and im- potence, :o:, :o;, tle castrated body in, :o,, predication upon itcl model of sexual excitement, ,, (8, inuence of shunga, ,6,;, sadomasoclisms of, :o(, :o8, pre- sentation of female orgasm, :oo incest, 8,,o, ::6, See also parental sex infantile sexuality, :6, (6(,, ,, ,6, ;:, (o, :o6, ::(, :,6, :;, innervation, ;, ,:o innocence, ::, :,, :(:, :;,, ; Inside Deep Troat (dir. Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato), :;, (, Interactive Sex Simulators (isss), 6 :, ;6n,; Internet pornograply: dangers of, o6;, ;, invasion of tle lome, o8, :, as tle great industry of tle medium, , :o, direct address of tle user in, :, ,6, as a means to come, (, money slots in, 8 See also cam.wlores interracial sex. See miscegenation intimacy, ,, :6,, :8, :, Intihacy (dir. Patrice Clreau), :;o ;(, :,6, :,8 Intolerance (dir. D.W. Critl), o Irigaray, Luce, (o Islida, Kiclizo, 8(8,, ,o,(, ,6 , :(,, 6on6 Islii-Conzales, Sam, ::6:; Its a Wonderful Life (dir. Frank Capra), (:(, :6 itcl, ,, (6, (8, ,,, :, (:, ;;, :o,6, :6 )ames, David, o,, ;; )ameson, Fredric, :, :,6 )ameson, )enna: in Virtual Sex with /enna /aheson (iss), ;8, ,:, :(, :6, stimulation tlrougl simu- lation, :::, in Virtually/enna (iss), ;;n;, /ane Ionda Collection Te Cohplete Workout (,8,), 6( )apanese cinema, 88,, ,8, ,,n:, index (o, )apanese listory, 8, :o, ,;n,, 6on(: )ones, )ames, 6o )ones, )ustine, ,, )oone, ( )orgensen, Bodil, :6,;o /oy of Sex, Te (writ. Alex Comfort), :( )uer, )ane, :( /ungle Iever (dir. Spike Lee), o Kaas, Nicolaj Lie, :686, Kael, Pauline: review of Last Tango in Paris, :,, :::, :8, o, :oo, :(, :;, connection of sex to emo- tions, ,:o, :, ;, on sex and violence, 6, 6,, review of Cohing Hohe, ;;;,, review of Klute, ;, review of Blue Velvet, 6,n( Kane, Carol, ;; Keenan, Tomas, :, Kinder, Marsla, :6 King, Ceorey, o, King, Zalman, o( Kinsey, Alfred: contribution to sexual revolution, 8, ,8, metlodological approacl to studying orgasm, ,,, ;6n6(, discussion of oral sex in marriage, ;, attic lms of, 6o, as a pornograpler, 6, on slock of words, ,n8 Kiss (dir. Andy Warlol), ,86, o,6 Kiss. Te (dir. Tomas Edison): anato- mization of sex act in, :;:8, ,8, ,, contemporaneous reaction to, :, o, on6, close-up composition of, , 8, as cinematic rst, :6, projec- tion on small and large screens, oo kissing, :,68, ;, ;,, ,:,, o8, o, , :, :6, (o, (6, ;o, ;(, ;8, :6, :6,, :6,, :;:, :;8;,, :,;, o,, :6, n,o Klute (dir. Alan Pakula), 6, ;;:, ;(, ;, knowledge: of tle sexual, :6, 68;o, ;:, ;(8,, 8;, o(, o,o, :o, (:, ,6, 6,, ;o, ;,, ::(, ::6, :8, :6,, , , :,:6, tlrougl visuals, :;, ;, of pleasure, ,8, of sexual dier- ence, :: Kocl, Steplen, ,, Koedt, Anne, 6, ; Koestenbaum, Wayne, o,, o Koryusai, Isoda, :o Kovic, Ron, ;6 Kracauer, Siegfried, o, ,6,;, 6, Kramer, Stanley, ,:, o Kubrick, Stanley, 68, :8, 88, :8 Kureisli, Hanif, :;o Kurosawa, Akira, 8, L-Word. Te (Miclele Abbot, Ilene Claiken, and Katly Creenberg, Slowtime), o( Lacan, )acques, 8(, : Landes, )oan, o Laplancle, )ean, (, Laplancle, )ean and ).B. Pontalis: on origin of luman sexuality, ::(, :,, :(, :,;, on primal fantasy, ::,, :,, :(:, :(;, slift of trauma into knowl- edge, ;: Laqueur, Tomas, o, Last Tango in Paris (dir. Bernardo Bertolucci): as modern erotic art, (, :, 6, 8, 88, :oo, :;, :;, display of sex acts in, ,6, :8o, 8:, :;:, :;;, sex as deatl in, ,:o, (:, :o, :, exploration of anal eroticism, ;8, :, pruri- ent interest in, :::,, ::, parallels to Te Rite of Spring, :, sexual pleasure in, Law, )oln Plilip, 66 Lawrence v. Texas (:oo), :,(:, :(6, :,8, 6;n,: Ledger, Heatl, :6, :;,, :(,; Lee, Ang, :::, :;, :(:, :(,, :,; Lee, Sook-Yin, :86, Lee, Spike, o (o6 index Lelman, Peter, ,, LeRoy, Mervyn, ,,: Letter to /ane (dir. )ean-Luc Codard), 6( Lewinsky, Monica, ;8, :,8 Levin, Dr., 8, (: liaisons dangereuses, Les (dir. Roger Vadim), 6, liberation, , (, ,;, 8,, ,8, ::, :8, :,6 liglting, 6;, ,o, 8o, ;, 8, :n:( little deatl. See petite hort Logan, )oslua, 6, long adolescence of American cinema, :, (, 6:6, :,,, :,8,,, :, looking, 8, :6, :o, :((( loss, ;o, 8:, :6(, :;(, :8o8: Lovelace, Linda: searcl for sexual plea- sure, :,, :, ,6, ,,, :,o, discovery of orgasm, ;8, 6, :88, performance of deep-tlroat fellatio, :, , (, misplacement of clitoris, (, (, ,,, public popu- larity of, 6(, plysicality of, (,n,; Lovehaking (dir. Scott Bartlett), o( Lovers. Te (dir. Louis Malle), ( Loving (dir. Stan Braklage), o( Lulmann, Niklas, ;n; Luker, Kristen, 8, :;nn,; Lyncl, David, ::::(, ::6:8, ::, :(,, :,;, oo Lyne, Adrian, :, MacLacllan, Kyle, :::(, ::6o, ::,, :;, :(: magnication, ;o, :6 Malurin, Matt, o68, :: Mailer, Norman, ,, :8o, 8: mainstream ideology: of Hollywood, :o, :;, ,, of American audiences, , :,, :,,, of leterosexual pornog- raply, :6 make love not war, ,;,8, ;, male orgasm, ;, :o6, , Maltby, Riclard, (o Manovicl, Lev, o, :( Marcus, Steven, (:, ,o, ;o, ,,n(: Marcuse, Herbert, ,;,8, ;(, ;; Marks, Laura, :,n(: Martnez, Naclo, o: masoclism, ::o:, :;8 Masters, William and Virginia )oln- son: use of laboratory for observa- tions, 8, 6o, on female orgasmic capacity, 6:, 68, ;o, feminist inferences of, 6, 6;, ;6 masturbation, o:, (:, (8, ,, ,,6o, 6:, ;o, :o8, :6:6,, :,o, :,:,, :,,, o:, o(,, :, (, 6, ,:, ::( Matador (dir. Pedro Almodvar), :8 ::, :6, o: maternal seduction, (,, ::,o Matsuda, Eiko, :oo, :o, :( maximum visibility, 88, ,,, :,o, (, (6, 8, 8, :,,, :66, ,, ,:n,6 Mazursky, Paul, ;6 McCormick, Rutl, ,8, :o McMillan, Terry, o mediation, :o, :;, 6,, ;,, o6, :(, ((, 6(, o, o, :, :6 Meese Commission on pornograply, Iinal Report, :,6 Mellen, )oan, ,6, :o melodrama, ;8, :::, :;8, :,, :,6 Mendelsoln, Daniel, :(;, :,(,, Mesquida, Roxane, :;88: Metz, Clristian, 8o, 8(, :6o Meyer, Russ, 8,,, o6 Midnight Cowboy (dir. )oln Sclle- singer), 8(86, o8, ,n( Mierite, Louise, :686, Miller, D.A., :8 Miller v. California (,;), ::, :( Miller, William Ian, o8, :6 mimesis, ,,, :6 miscegenation: prolibition of, , , in Sweet Sweetback, ,:, ,(,8, o(, index (o; in early cinema, n,, epidermic drama, (on(,, rst kiss, (n, Mitclell, Artie and )im, :8, Mitclell, )oln Cameron, :,,, :8(8,, :,,(, :,6 Mizogucli, Kenji, 8, modernism, , :, 86, ,:, ,8,,, :6 Mona (dir. Bill Osco), :; money slot: use of for dramatic cli- max, o, (, (,, :868;, maxi- mum visibility of, :,o, 6, ,, :;, digitalization of, 8:o, ;;n6,, visual composition of, (, (8, ,6, spectacle of, , :oo, con- ventionality of, :, :6, origins in gay porn, ,:n,, montage, o, (, 6, (8 Montiel, Sara, o: Moon Is Blue. Te (dir. Otto Pre- minger), ;6 Moreno, Rita, ;8 mortality, :o:,, :o; Mortimer, )oln, 8 Motion Picture Association of America, 6(, ;(, ;6, :,,, :,, music, 8, ;,, ;,, 8:, 8,, ,,, (, :(, , ,, 6;, ;;;8, :6, :6, :66, :8(, :8,, See also Hollywood sexual musical interlude musicals, :66, :8( Musser, Clarles, :; Muybridge, Eadweard, 6 mytl of vaginal orgasm, 8, c-; rating, ;(, :,,, :8, :,( necroplilia, ::, :no negotiation, :,, :;,;6, :;8, :8o, :88( New Hollywood, ;,, 8:, 8(, 88 Newton, Huey P., ,,oo Niclols, Mike, ;6;,, 88:, o( Niclolson, )ack, ;;;8 !ine and a Half Weeks (dir. Adrian Lyne), :,6 !ine Songs (dir. Miclael Winter- bottom), :666 No, Caspar, :;8;, !otorious (dir. Alfred Hitclcock), ,,,, :;: OBrien, Kieran, :666 obscenity, 6, :,, 6,, ;,, ,o, o, ::, :6, 8,, 8, 8,8,, ::, :(o, :6o, :;8, :,;, :,,oo, ,, :, :,, denition of, :8n, Nico )acobellis case, (,n; obsession, (;, ,o, :, oral sex: See fellatio. See also cunni- lingus orality: of kisses, :6, (;, 6, :o,, pleasure of, ,, (o(, attraction tlrougl, ,8, 6:, eroticism of, (8, intrusion of, (( Orbicularis oris, (:(, ,,, :n: orgasm, 6,, ,, ,8, o, ,, :,, ,(o, ,o, ,86, 6;;, ;6;;, ;, 8o, :oo, :6, :8,, :88,(, :, :, faked, ,6, ,,, ;, :86, as quantita- tive, ,,, crescendo of, :86, end of orgasm, ;;, unsimulated orgasm, :,:, nonorgasmic sex, ;o, ;: orgy, ;;, 8,, o,, :, :o:, :66, :68 6,, :8, :88,( origin, ::6, ::,, :,, :, osculuh interruptuh, 8, ,( Oslima, Nagisa: as pioneer of tle lard-core art lm, 8;, ,o, :,, :;, :,8, :6o, :,6,;, shunga inu- ence on, ,:,, ,,,;, opposition to )apanese traditions, 8,86, ,, obscenity trials of, 888,, ::, as a pornograpler, :o, ,;n;, defense of In the Realh of the Senses, 8, extension of perversions into tle genital realm, :o6, lomage to in Shortbus, :, Osterweil, Ara, o(,, (n8 Ozu, Yasujiro, 8, (o8 index pain, :o(,, :o8, :::, :;, :(:, :;6 parental sex, :(, :((: Pasolini, Pier Paolo, :8 Patterson, Zabet, o8, 6 penetration, ,, (8(,, ;o, 8, ,o, ,o, :oo, ::o, :(:, :68, :;, :;;, :8, :,:, :,6, o( Pepi. Luci. Boh. and Other Girls on the Heap (dir. Pedro Almodvar), :8 performance, :,, 6,;o, ;:, :6:, :6;, :;o, :;(;,, :86, :88, :,;, :o perversion, ,, (, (6(8, 6:, ;(, ,o,, o6, ;(o, (:(, ,;, ,,, ;(, :o(, ::o:6, :(, :6, :,, :;8, :8, o:, o8 Peter Meter, (6n:8 petite hort, 6,, ,, 6;68, :o, plallocentrism, (o, 6, ;6, ;;, 8o, ,,:oo, :;:, :o Plilips, Adam, o, (8(,, , plilosoply in tle bedroom, :;;;8, :,(,, Piano. Te (dir. )ane Campion), :o Pirates (dir. )oone), (,, (;, :, ;,n,: Pirates of the Caribbean (dir. Core Verbinski), , Place in the Sun. A (dir. Ceorge Stevens), ,; Poitier, Sydney, ,:,, (n(, polymorplous perversity, ;(, :o6, :,: Pomeroy, Wardell, ,,6o Poole, Wakeeld, (,(8, ,, , porn industry, 88, o6, , porn stars, :8, :;6, :;,, 6 porno clic, :;:8, ;, (,(6, 8:, :8,, ,, (;n(: pornograply, 8o, ,8, 6,66, 68, ;,, 8(, 88, ,o, ,(, ,6, o, o(,, o,, :o, :(, :8:,, ,(o, (:(, (6,,, 6, ;o, ;(, 8 8:, 888,, ,6, ,,, :o, :o,6, :o, :, :(, :6o6, :6(66, :;;, :8(8,, :,,,8, :, (, ;8, :(:,, auteurs, (8n(8, as driving new media, ;,n,, current Internet glut, ;;n;, See also feature lengtl pornograply, See also lard-core pornograply pornotopia, (:, (6, ,o, ,, :888,, (8n(, Post-Code era, ;;, 8, 88, ;o; Potts, Annie, ;6;; power, o, ,,, :;6 Pre-Code era, :6, (;, (,,, ,, on: Pride and Prefudice (dir. )oe Wriglt), (, :,, primal fantasies, ::,, ::;, :,6, :8,, :((:, :,; primal scene, (, ;:;, ::::6, :o , :(, :68, :((:, :(;, :,6,;, 6,n:: Prince, Steplen, o6 private screens. See small screens private sex acts: dierent assumptions of, o8, cinematic revealing of, 6, o,, :6:, mediation of, :(, See also Lawrence v. Texas (:oo) private space: slift to lome for, (, ooo, for consuming pornogra- ply, :(, of tle Western bed, ,6 prolongation of sexual pleasure, (6, ;6;;, ,, :o, :o,6, ::(, :;, :8o, :8: prostitution, 8,, ( Proulx, Annie, :;8, :(6(, Proust, Marcel, ,6,8 prurience, 6, :,, :::(, 6o6, :o, :,, :,6, (6no psyclosexuality, :::( public exlibition, :;, ((, :6; public screening, o, (:, o, public sex, o,6, o,, :(o(, :6o, :, punislment, :(;(8, :,( Queer as Iolk (Russell T. Davies for UK, Ron Cowen and Daniel Lipman, index (o, Slowtime), o(, R-rated lm, ;6;;, :o, :(o, :,,, :66, :8 rape: in Two Wohen and Te Virgin Spring, 6,;, 8(, in tle lms of Almodvar, :8,, male-on-male, :;, 66n((, in Iat Girl, :8:8, slock of, ;:, enjoyment of, 6(n( Reagan, Ronald, :, Rage, Pauline, : realism: of narrative, ((, in relation to obscenity, 6,66, :, :,;, tlrougl self-awareness, o, o, documen- tary, :6,, as required by Dogme ,,, :666;, :6,, of Interactive Sex Simulators, ;, :o, See also un- simulated sex Reboux, Anas, :;8;,, :88: Red Shoe Diaries (Zalman King, Slow- time), o( Redgrave, Vanessa, ;, Reed, Donna, (:(, :6 Reed, Oliver, 8: Reicl, Willelm, 8o, ; Reiner, Rob, ,6 Restivo, Angelo, ,o, :( rlytlms, 6, 6,;o, o8, :, :, (, (,, ;6, :o, :66 Ricl, B. Ruby, :, ritardando, ,,, 6 Rite of Spring. Te (comp. Igor Stravin- sky), :, (,, (,n:, (,n Roe v. Wade (,;), , Roeg, Niclolas, 8;88, 8: rohan poruno. See soft core Rohance (dir. Catlerine Breillat), :;, ;,, :8, :,,,6 ronde, La (dir. Max Oplls), 6, Rosello, Mireille, o Rosen, Plilip, o Rossellini, Isabella, :::(, ::66, :(:, :, Rotl, Plilip, 8 Rough Sea at Dover (dir. Robert Paul), o Rubin, Cayle, :( Rutlerford, Anne, :,n(: Ryan Idol A Very Personal View (lm), : Rylance, Mark, :;o;( sadism, :,:, : sadomasoclism, 6o, 6;68, :o(, ::o, :::, ::6, :o, :,;, :88, 6:n,:, 6n66 Sarno, )oe, 8, satisfaction: of pleasure, (o, ,6, in disclarge, ;; Scalia, Antonin, :(o(, :, Sclaefer, Eric, o, ;(, 8,,o, :6:;, :;n, Sclamus, )ames, :;, :,(,6, 6,n8: Sclauer, Frederick, 6:o, ::,, :::( Sclneider, Maria, (6, :, 8:, :(, :; Scllesinger, )oln, 8,86 scientia sexualis, ,,,6, ,8,,, :o, :: Scoglio, Stefano, :8n: scratcl, (6, (8, ,,, , ;,, (:, ;;, :o,, :6 screen, as revelation or concealment, :, ;, :6, , 6,;o, ;:, 8:, 8(, 6n screening sex, , ,,, :, ::,, :, o, 6;, ;o, ;:;, ;,;6, ;8, 8, o,, :o, :6, , (:, ,,, ,,6o, ;, ;6, :::, ::(, :6, :6,, :6,, :8,, :,8, ooo, o8,, :, ,, :::6 Seaman, Barbara, 6 Searching for Debra Winger (dir. Rosanna Arquette), ;, Second Life (computer game), : Sedgwick, Eve, :,(,, seduction, ((, ,, 6,, 6,, ;:, ::o, ::,:6, :(, :68, :((8, :,;, :8o, :8:8, :,8, o, See also maternal seduction Segal, Ceorge, ;6 Segal, Lynne, ,8 (o index self-awareness, o;8 Sevigny, Clloe, :8( Sex and the City (Darren Star, nvo), o( Sex Is Cohedy (dir. Catlerine Breillat), :8 sex organs, 6, ,, :6, 8;, ,6, :, :, :,8, :;, :8,, :,:, ,, :: sex scenes, ,(,,, ,;, o;, (, 6;68, ;, ;, ;6, ;8;,, ,o, ,,, ::o, ::, :6, :(o, :6,, :6;, :;o;, :; ;(, :;;, :8(, :86, :,;, o(, , sex sounds, 88,, 8;, o6, ,6, ;8 sex talk, ;,;;, 888,, o6, o,, ,, ;:, :6, :;;, :8,, :,o, o( Sex U.S.A. (dir. Cerard Damiano), :, sexploitation: as an underground genre, 88, ,, o6, audience expec- tations of, 8,, o(, links to sexual revolution, ,, lysteria in, ,,, con- tinued traditions of, o( sexual acts. See simulated sex acts. See also unsimulated sex acts sexual desire, (, ,;, ::,, :(;, :,(, :,;, :;, sexual dierence, ::,, ::;, ::,, :( (:, :(8(, sexual fantasy, ,:, ::o, :6, :66(, 6 Sexual Ireedoh in Denhark (dir. M.C. van Hellen), :, sexual functions, ::, :,, :66 sexual gesture, 8;, ,(, (8, oo, , sexual initiation, :;,, :8:8 sexual intimacy, (6, ,, :;(, :,8 sexual performance, ,6o, o,6, o8,, ;, :, ;;:, ;,8:, :o, :,8, (, 6, sexual pleasure, (, (, (6(;, o, :, (, ,8, 6,66, 68, ,,, :::, :(, :;8, :8, :8,, o8, :,:6, semantics of sport in, (,n6: Sexual Poverty (writ. Oslima), 8, sexual representation, :::, :6o, :,,, : sexual response, 6o, 6:, 6, sexual revolution, 8:, :6, 6, ;;(, ;;, ,, , ;, (, ,;, 6,, 868;, :6, :,(, :, ;n6 slame, :::, :6, ::, ::;, : Shanghai Express (dir. )osef von Stern- berg), ,o, Shes Gotta Have It (dir. Spike Lee), o Sleinman, Mort, 6 Slepard, Mattlew, :(; Slerfey, Mary )ane, 6:6 slock, ;,, :,, ,,, ;:;, ;,, o, ::, :,:6, 6;, :;, :8: Shortbus (dir. )oln Cameron Mitclell): as distinctly American lard-core art, :,,, :88(, :,(, sexually and racially diverse community of, :8,, :,,, revelation of claracter tlrougl performance of sex acts, :868;, :,o, familiarity witl por- nograply, :8,, :88 shunga: erotic tradition of, 8(, 8;88, ,o,, ,,, ,;,8, :o, censor- slip of, ,8n:(, activities depicted, 6n(8 Shunga Te Erotic Art of /apan (writ. Marco Fagioli), 8,, ,:, ,;, : Siredi, Rocco, :;6;8, :,8 Simon & Carfunkel, ;,8o simulated sex acts, 6(, ;6, 8(, oo, :, (:, ;, 8:, ::, :,, :(6, :,86o, :6,, :68, :,6,;, :,,, o(, ,, :::( sin, o,, :,, :(, Sin in the Suburbs (dir. )oe Sarno), 8,, ,, o, Sleeper (dir. Woody Allen), 6, Sloan, )oln, o, 6(, 66 small screens, :6, :,,oo, o8,, :, :o:, :, See also 1v screens Sobclack, Vivian, ,:, ,;,8, ;,, o, ;, :(, :,n, sodomy, ;, :,(, :, soft core, 6(, 86, :o, o, Solondz, Todd, :;8 index ( Sohething Wild (dir. )onatlan Demme), :,6 Sontag, Susan, ::, ,6n: Soutlern, Terry, 66, 6, spectacle, (,, 6(, 8(, 88, o,, , 6, (:, :oo, :o:, ::6:;, :6;, ,6 St. )oln, Maria, ( stags. See blue movies Steiner, Ceorge, :6o, :,;, :, Stewart, )ames: in Its a Wonderful Life as Ceorge, (:(, :6, in Vertigo, ( Stickles, Peter, :,:, :,( Stilley, Margo, :666 Story of O. Te (writ. Pauline Rage), :;8 strangulation, 8(, :o(8, :( sucking, (((, (6, (8(,, ,, ,6, ,(, n(6 Suhher with Monika (dir. Ingmar Bergman), 8, Supery (dir. Cordon Parks )r.), o Sutlerland, Donald, 8;, 8: Swanson, Cloria, ,, Sweet Sweetbacks Baadasssss Song (dir. Melvin Van Peebles): sexual perfor- mance in, ,6,;, ,,oo, o:, o,, black sexual power in, ,,, ,8, ,, as pioneering Blaxploitation, ,, o, camouage of pornograply, ,(, 8,, masturbatory inspiration for, o, contemporaneous critical reaction to, (:n66 taboo: as dened by tle Code, (, ( (:, ,o, ,(, of interracial sex, ,:,, ,,, ,;, o(, breaking tlrougl por- nograply, 8;, 8,, ::, of violence, ;, ::, of male-male sexual con- tact, (6, ,(, pleasure in tle trans- gression of, ,o, ,, of bourgeois life, ,, of contemporary art cinema, :;, of on-scene genitals, :, of lomosexual desire, :( Talk to Her (dir. Pedro Almodvar), :68, :: taste, , ;, Taussig, Miclael, 6, :o Taylor, Elizabetl, ,;, ;6 Tell Me You Love Me (Cyntlia Mort, nvo), o( tension, :6, , (, ;,, :,6 Teory of Experimental Film (writ. Oslima), 8; Tey Shoot Horses Dont Tey? (dir. Sydney Pollack), ; Tis Iilh Is !ot Yet Rated (dir. Kirby Dick), ;6, :,, Tompson, David, (: tlreat of castration, ::, :(:, :(8, :, tlrusts, , ,, o, ;;(, ;;, :oo, :(, :6:, :6,, :;, :; Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down! (dir. Pedro Almodvar), 6(n, Titanic (dir. )ames Cameron), :,, Tonight or !ever (dir. Mervyn LeRoy), ,, toucl, :o, , 8,, ,;,8, ;, trauma, ;:;, :::, ::, :(; trial, 8(, 8, Trinl, Coralie. See Despentes, Virginie and Coralie Trinl Turan, Kennetl, :,,,6 1v screens, o:6, (,, :: Two Wohen (dir. Vittorio De Sica), 6,;:, 8( Tyler, )oel, 8, ukiyo-e. See slunga Uncle Tom, ,, ooo: unsimulated sex acts, 6(, o, :o, :6, (:, 8:, ::, :,86o, :66, :8 Urman, Mark, :,( Utagawa, Kunisada, ,: Utamaro, Kitagawa, 8( Vadim, Roger, 6,66 Valenti, )ack, ;6 vampirism, ((, ,, ,, 6 Van Peebles, Melvin, ,,,, o, ,, 8,, (n,6 Vertigo (dir. Alfred Hitclcock), ( (: index Vidal, Core, :(o Videodrohe (dir. David Cronenberg), o Vietnam War, ;(, ,o, o,, ,;, ;;(, ;8;,, :, Vinterberg, Tomas, :666; violation, 8:, :o,, :88 violence, (:, 666, ;, 88(, 8,, ,, ,,(, ,, ::, :oo, :o:, :o(;, ::, :(, ::, ::,:;, :6, :(,, :,:, :6o, :6,, :88(, :,;, o Virgin Spring. Te (dir. Ingmar Berg- man), 6,;:, 8( virginity, ;6, :;, :8, :(,, :;6, :;,8 virility, ;8, ,, o virtual reality, o,, :( Virtual Sex Machine, Te (ci-vor), ;8n8o visibility, :8:,, (, (;, :,, ,, (,, :86 visual pleasure, ,;, (, 66, ;( Viva: screen persona of, o,6, self- awareness in Blue Movie, o;8, postcoital talk, o,o, :;;, War- lols recollections of, ((n,, Vixen (dir. Russ Meyer), ,o,, ,8, o6, sl dance, (on( Voigt, )on: as )oe Buck in Midnight Cowboy, 8,8;, o8, as Luke in Cohing Hohe, ;;6 von Trier, Lars, :, :6668, :;o, :;, :;,, :,6, ;on( voyeurism, o, 6:, o,, ,, 6o6, ,o, ,:, ,6, :,:, :86, :,,:,
vraie feune lle. Une (dir. Catlerine
Breillat), :;, Waldon, Louis, o,o Wang, Wayne, :8( Warlol, Andy: as pioneer of unsimu- lated sex, o,;, o, 6, :6,, pre- sentation of tle kiss, ,86o, 6:6, awareness of performance in lms, o8,, :,;, as avant-garde director, o(, o, on excitement of screened sex, 6, screen tests of, ,, Warner, )ack, ;6 Warner, Miclael, :( Waters, )oln, (( Watling, Leonor, :68, : Waugl, Tomas, o(,, 6 What Happened in the Tunnel (dir. Edwin S. Porter), When Harry Met Sally (dir. Rob Reiner), ,6 Whos Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (dir. Mike Niclols), ;6;8, 8: Widow /ones, Te (play), :;, o Williams, Linda Rutl, o( Williams, Miclelle, :8, :(, Williams, Raymond, ,, :;n Willis, Ellen, o Wilson, Dooley, ,6, 8: Winnicott, D.W., (, Winterbottom, Miclael: as contempo- rary lard-core artist, :, :6:, :66, :,6, lyricism in lms of, :6, :;o, on making sex real, :6,, :;,, inuence of In the Realh of the Senses on, :,8 witldrawal from contact, o, (6, 8,, :6( Wood, Natalie, ;6;; Wood, Robin, :( Woods, )ames, o Wynter, Kevin, , X-rating, ;(, 8(, ,no Zimmer, Catlerine, o, linda williams is a professor of rletoric and lm studies at tle University of California, Berkeley. Her previous books include Hard Core Power. Pleasure. and the Irenzy of the Visible (,8,) and Playing the Race Card Melodrahas of Black and White froh Uncle Toh to O. /. Sihpson (:oo). Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Williams, Linda, ,(6 Screening sex i Linda Williams. p. cm. (A )oln Hope Franklin Center book) Includes bibliograplical references and index. isv ,;8-o-8::-(:6-: (clotl : alk. paper) isv ,;8-o-8::-(:8,-( (pbk. : alk. paper) . Sex in motion pictures. :. Erotic lms United StatesHistory and criticism. I. Title. v,,,.,.s(,,: :oo8 ;,.('6,8dc:: :oo8o,o