Login
Forgot Password?

OR

Login with Google Login with Twitter Login with Facebook
  • Join
  • Profiles
  • Groups
  • SuicideGirls
  • Photos
  • Videos
  • Shop
Vital Stats

cmaxwell

Antarctica

Member Since 2004

Followers 35 Following 54

  • Everything
  • Photos
  • Video
  • Blogs
  • Groups
  • From Others

Monday Jan 03, 2005

Jan 3, 2005
0
  • Facebook
  • Tweet
  • Email
In the movie Kinsey, the famous sex researcher falters in his effort to raise questions that stem from the data he has amassed. His research has shown that a huge number of people are having both premarital and extramarital sexual encounters both heterosexual and homosexual in nature. Shown giving a lecture to a dwindling audience of appalled listeners, he posits a "problem of marriage"--that the institution of matrimony fails utterly to accommodate or even acknowledge many human beings' desire for varied sexual activity with multiple partners. In the film, Kinsey swoons and collapses, apparently overcome by vertigo at even broaching such a taboo subject.
Later in the film, two of his male associates have a fist fight because one of them is sleeping with the other's wife and they've fallen in love. It's clear that Kinsey has encouraged the sexual exploration, but his chief lieutenant, who has been cuckolded, castigates Kinsey for not recognizing that fucking can lead to romantic entanglement.
Because the film is as square as Kinsey himself is portrayed to be, everything works out--the assistant gets his wife back, and Kinsey's wife accepts Kinsey's own sexual explorations and even one-ups him, and the marriages stay intact.
More than a half-century after Kinsey shocked the nation with his expose of sexual behavior, the movie Closer presents postmodern characters who are struggling with the bad fit between their rampant sexual and romantic desires and the institution of marriage, or its postmodern equivalent, "living together," or committed non-married monogamy. Like some, they seem incapable of more than short serial monogamous relationships, yet they still hew emotionally to the ideal of exclusivity. They treat each other badly, unable to restrain their impulses and struggling to reconcile their emotions with their behaviors.
Unlike Kinsey, which is a movie that doesn't have the courage to follow through on the issues it raises and tries to impose a happy Hollywood ending, Closer is bold, brave, and sad. It's an updated Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolff. And it illustrates how little distance we've traveled since the Kinsey report.
There are still prudes and religious fanatics trying to put the lid on polymorphous perversity -- any kind of sex except fucking in a straight marriage. Why, they're even organizing to protest the movie Kinsey.
There are still rebels who are trying to figure out how to be honest with their partners and still leave their relationships open. All hail these brave innovators and their unabashed proclamation of their right to be loving, human free beings.
Then there's the rest of us, mired in the contradictions. In a book I wrote years ago, I suggested that the institution of marriage artificially makes sexual pleasure scarcer in order to sustain civilization against the radical assault of free love. I suggested an alternative that I know now doesn't work any better. What does work? Polyamory and honesty? With the right people only--and those are rare. The Slick Willie solution? Look where that got him. More of the same? What else is there?
In Europe and other places around the globe, the mistress is tolerated or acceptable; in a few cultures, it's even possible for married women to take lovers without threatening to blow up their marriage. Here, though, we insist on the same approach that made Kinsey fall over: Despite all the data, we still want to pretend the problem doesn't exist. We just absorb the casualties and march forward, like soldiers in the Civil War.
What do you think? Why are sexual liaisons such a threat to committed love partnerships? How would you design an institution that works better than marriage?
VIEW 8 of 8 COMMENTS
julie:
Thanks! im fine! smile
Jan 5, 2005
maxi:
hmm Ok
Jan 6, 2005

More Blogs

  • 09.12.05
    5

    Tuesday Sep 13, 2005

    There's nothing like an ardent blow job from an unexpected source to …
  • 09.10.05
    6

    Saturday Sep 10, 2005

    Bush must be glad Sept. 11 is here. It might take some minds off Aug.…
  • 09.07.05
    1

    Thursday Sep 08, 2005

    PLETHORA OF PULCHRITUDE Too Much--four sets a day! I can't keep u…
  • 09.06.05
    1

    Tuesday Sep 06, 2005

    Maynard G. Krebs is gone.
  • 09.04.05
    3

    Monday Sep 05, 2005

    Labor Day I'm finishing up my screenplay. I'm ready to play. Wor…
  • 09.04.05
    0

    Sunday Sep 04, 2005

    Wish me luck. I'm off to join the cirque.
  • 09.02.05
    2

    Friday Sep 02, 2005

    MY SPACE is sucking the life out of everything else...I can feel it …
  • 08.30.05
    1

    Tuesday Aug 30, 2005

    BUSH FIDDLES WHILE NEW ORLEANS SINKS We can send troops around the…
  • 08.29.05
    6

    Tuesday Aug 30, 2005

    End of summer. Stomach churning. Changes and departures. Cool morn…
  • 08.28.05
    3

    Sunday Aug 28, 2005

    I had my first meeting with Southern Comfort last night. I had an enj…

We at SuicideGirls have been celebrating alternative pin-up girls for:

23
years
10
months
20
days
  • 5,509,826 fans
  • 41,393 fans
  • 10,327,617 followers
  • 4,599 SuicideGirls
  • 1,114,613 followers
  • 14,946,853 photos
  • 321,315 followers
  • 61,458,366 comments
  • Join
  • Profiles
  • Groups
  • Photos
  • Videos
  • Shop
  • Help
  • About
  • Press
  • LIVE

Legal/Tos | DMCA | Privacy Policy | 18 U.S.C. 2257 Record-Keeping Requirements Compliance Statement | Contact Us | Vendo Payment Support
©SuicideGirls 2001-2025

Press enter to search
Fast Hi-res

Click here to join & see it all...

Crop your photo