Is This About You? Part I

Editor’s Note: The following article written by Eric Francis is part of the Planet Waves archives, only available to subscribers of Planet Waves Astrology News. The searchable, seven-year archive contains thousands of articles and horoscopes written by Eric and the Planet Waves team. –RA

EARLIER THIS WEEK, I saw the film 9 Songs [originally titled 9 Songs (Not About You), at least in the British press], directed by Michael Winterbottom. When it came out last spring, premiering at the same Cannes Film Festival where Fahrenheit 9/11 got so much attention, it was portrayed in the English tabloid newspapers as deserving extremely close scrutiny, the most lewd film ever, and as something potentially threatening to the foundations of society. Translation: it was a movie with a lot of sex — by all accounts, good sex.

As a lover of erotic culture, this got my attention. I trusted that it would be excellent. Many Google searches, eight months and four countries later, 9 Songs finally arrived in Paris, and I went to the premier showing here.

I literally bought the last ticket in a rather large cinema, walked into the theater and was handed a Durex condom (part of a safe sex promotion, I imagine; I don’t think the theater’s owners were expecting an orgy to break out, but if one did, we were all prepared) and squeezed into 10th row.

There, I entertained myself taking pictures of the blank movie screen waiting for this long-hoped-for experience of what I knew would be an actual erotic film.

The story is that of a couple having a monogamous relationship. They are in love. The story is set in London. They meet at a concert, they go home, they have sex. Their relationship develops. She spends a lot of time at his apartment. They cook food and eat it; they talk; they go out to more really good concerts; she smokes a few cigarettes; they dabble in recreational drugs a couple of times; they drink coffee and tea. They get into the occasional argument; they have their differences. But mostly they have sex and enjoy it, which occupies perhaps a quarter of the film’s time. (Not, as has been implied, the entire movie.)

He’s a scientist studying the ice in Antarctica and really likes his job; you learn something about that mysterious place, and there are some stunning landscape scenes, as well as scenes inside the ice laboratory in London. She works in a bar, which does not factor into the story.

The sex they have is loving, interesting and passionate. They are beautiful and conscious, though in many ways, reasonably average urban people — however, and this detail takes them out of average category — they are quite sexually compatible.Yet nothing they do in bed, or sometimes in the kitchen, is what you would remotely call kinky (this is perhaps a matter of taste — they do experiment with light bondage, which I figure everyone but actual missionaries has tried, and even some of them). They are of legal age, consenting, affectionate, tender and honest with one another. The sex that’s depicted is far less physically explicit than what you would see in any porn film you can get for three clicks and five bucks, or flip to on a cable channel. There is no violence. Nobody dies. There is not one gun, gunshot, knife (except for cutting up vegetables), or drop of blood. No money is exchanged; it’s just two consenting adults doing their thing. They use condoms every time.

It’s starting to sound boring.

So why was 9 Songs made into such a big deal? Why did the British tabloids, themselves so full of derision for women, and so exploitative of the female body, and so intrigued by the sex lives of others, generally treat the film like the monarchy would collapse if it made it past the eager scissors of the English film censors? (I have no idea what coverage it got in the American press and I would not be surprised if it was boycotted entirely.)

Let’s pretend it’s not just because the current version of Western society is high as a satellite on its “sex as the only moral outrage” trip, which is just a drug that covers for the real moral outrage — endless incessant warfare. Feigned offense around sex also covers for the effects of constant psychic violence inflicted by television, film and games, with which our children (and we) are pounded into the concrete every day. Let’s also pretend it was not merely the newspapers capitalizing on the very sex they were pretending to be stunned at the depiction of.

And finally, let’s not pretend it’s because depiction of healthy sex hurts kids, who can’t get into the cinema for this film anyway. Any kid who can use a mouse can see sex far more intense than this in an Internet cafe, or just by clicking the links in spam that comes into their home AOL inbox. Young people need healthy sexual examples, and they don’t usually get them in Western society.

I think 9 Songs is a big deal because the film depicts something more taboo than sex: it explores the sexual psyche of a young woman. Indeed, to do so, it must first concede that she has one. She experiences sex as pleasure, and takes the lead in getting that pleasure. Not once does her lover so much as ask, or attempt to seduce her. She is in charge, which works fine for both of them; he just goes with the flow, so to say.

She also experiences sex as something that pushes her, and helps her open up and find out who she is. Over time, her experience of her sexuality shifts from desire to curiosity, that deeper emotion one layer down. While she is, at times, fairly self-centered, her encounter with this particular lover provides an opportunity for her to sense that self more deeply, and to really go in. She feels sex, and as a result, feels the passion and reality of her own existence — and she’s ashamed of neither. Sex changes her, like it changes all of us. And in the process, she becomes increasingly curious about herself, the spectrum of her desires, feelings and needs.

Am I saying the film was controversial because it’s about a woman who wants, likes and asks for sex? Am I saying the controversy is because that sex is depicted as something other than meaningless? Am I saying the film is controversial because it depicts sex in a wholly life-affirming way?

Yep. I think our society is that sick; worse, even. But I am also saying that the film handles her sexuality in a complex way. She is not his sexual object; if anything, he is hers, but in truth, he’s a respecting and responsive companion, a man who is a little older and with more experience, who’s patient and can handle her intensity well — and willing to hold a space for them both to explore. This is a space that she holds as well, with her willingness and need. For sure, he likes her, he cares about her, and he gets into the experience and benefits directly from her desire; she’s not exactly on charity; not like she would need it. But what she needs is loving attention and a space to let go, which is not always as easy to find in this world as one would hope.

He’s a good sexual match for her, at this point in her life: genuinely confident, open minded and friendly. His time in Antarctica seems to have given him a deep sense of himself; he works alone for long periods of time. He knows just where to go with her; just how to treat her; and he gently endures her youthful banalities and eruptions of narcissism. He does not get attached or glom onto her; he doesn’t try to control her like many men with a hot young girlfriend would undoubtedly do. He experiences her. He enjoys her, emotionally, erotically and as a social companion.

He really likes to go down on her. She enjoys it but is more interested in penetration. So you see this all happen, you’re right there, and it’s not a big deal. The depiction of their sex is magnificent, always shot in low light with a grainy effect, but clear enough that you can see and feel what is happening.

(Continued Tomorrow)