Mediated Eros | Sternadori PETER LANG (Ph.D., MIGLENA M

Mediated Eros | Sternadori PETER LANG (Ph.D., MIGLENA M. STERNADORI University of Missouri) is an associate professor in the Department of Journalism and Electronic Media She has University. Tech at Texas published in Feminist Media Stud- ies, Journal of Media Psychology, Communica- in Studies Women’s This book makes a unique contribution to the field of me- of field the to contribution unique a makes book This scripts perpetuation of sexual by analyzing the dia studies magazines, TV shows, lifestyle articles, films, through news culture. of popular mediated and other forms advertisements, and between North America cultural differences Focusing on sex- contextualizes common book catalogues and Europe, the or do in which people have by looking at the ways ual scripts bodies, penetrate each each other’s not have sex, eroticize to all these activities. bodies, and give meaning other’s why and when, whether, explored have analyses such Other - sex, and so on. This book instead fo people decide to have - interaction itself is culturally script cuses on how the sexual a sequence of events takes place after ed to occur—what to have sex. couple have decided sexual scripts in a While the first half of the book catalogues sexual orientation, the based on geography and general way, associated second half is framed around sexual discourses stigmatization. The with some degree of shame and social perpetuation of me- book ends by addressing the hegemonic the role of sexuality diated sexual scripts across cultures and in fourth-wave feminism. text Mediated Eros is suitable as the primary or secondary and would also in seminars on media, culture, and sexuality, writers whose work be of interest to journalists and freelance of sex and the sexual explores the sociocultural construction self. & Broadcasting of Journal Journal, Research Newspaper tion, Electronic Media, Atlantic Journal of Communication, Forum: , and Qualitative Social Research, Media Report to Women Journal of Media Education. www.peterlang.com Mediated Eros | Sternadori PETER LANG MIGLENA M. STERNADORI (Ph.D., University of Missouri) is an associate professor in the Department of Journalism and Electronic Media She has University. Tech at Texas published in Feminist Media Stud- ies, Journal of Media Psychology, Communica- in Studies Women’s - me of field the to contribution unique a makes book This scripts perpetuation of sexual by analyzing the dia studies magazines, TV shows, lifestyle articles, films, through news culture. of popular mediated and other forms advertisements, and between North America cultural differences Focusing on sex- contextualizes common book catalogues and Europe, the or do people have by looking at the ways in which ual scripts bodies, penetrate each each other’s not have sex, eroticize to all these activities. bodies, and give meaning other’s why and when, whether, explored have analyses such Other - sex, and so on. This book instead fo people decide to have - interaction itself is culturally script cuses on how the sexual a sequence of events takes place after ed to occur—what to have sex. couple have decided sexual scripts in a While the first half of the book catalogues sexual orientation, the based on geography and general way, associated second half is framed around sexual discourses stigmatization. The with some degree of shame and social perpetuation of me- book ends by addressing the hegemonic the role of sexuality diated sexual scripts across cultures and in fourth-wave feminism. text Mediated Eros is suitable as the primary or secondary and would also in seminars on media, culture, and sexuality, writers whose work be of interest to journalists and freelance of sex and the sexual explores the sociocultural construction self. & Broadcasting of Journal Journal, Research Newspaper tion, Electronic Media, Atlantic Journal of Communication, Forum: , and Qualitative Social Research, Media Report to Women Journal of Media Education. www.peterlang.com Mediated Eros

This book is part of the Peter Lang Media and Communication list. Every volume is peer reviewed and meets the highest quality standards for content and production.

PETER LANG New York  Bern  Frankfurt  Berlin Brussels  Vienna  Oxford  Warsaw

Miglena M. Sternadori

Mediated Eros

Sexual Scripts Within and Across Cultures

PETER LANG New York  Bern  Frankfurt  Berlin Brussels  Vienna  Oxford  Warsaw

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Sternadori, Miglena M. Mediated eros: Sexual scripts within and across cultures / Miglena M. Sternadori. pages cm Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Sex—Cross-cultural studies. 2. Sex in mass media—Cross-cultural studies. 3. Sex customs—Cross-cultural studies. I. Title. HQ21.S64325 306.7—dc23 2015018820 ISBN 978-1-4331-2923-0 (hardcover) ISBN 978-1-4331-2922-3 (paperback) ISBN 978-1-4539-1665-0 (e-book)

Bibliographic information published by Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek. Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the “Deutsche Nationalbibliografie”; detailed bibliographic data are available on the Internet at http://dnb.d-nb.de/.

All rights reserved. Reprint or reproduction, even partially, in all forms such as microfilm, xerography, microfiche, microcard, and offset strictly prohibited. To my sons, Raphael and Alexandre With gratitude to my partner, historian Matthew Pehl

contents

Introduction: What’s “Okay” in Bed? Identifying and Comparing Sexual Scripts in Media Content 1

Chapter 1. Constructivist Theoretical Underpinnings: Sexual Scripts and Media Frames 17 Chapter 2. Look-Sees, Lysol, and Baseball: Heterosexual Scripts in American Popular Culture 47 Chapter 3. Sex as an Existential Journey: Heterosexual Scripts in European Popular Culture 75 Chapter 4. What’s Same-Sex Sex Like? Popular Imagination of Gay and Lesbian Sexuality 101 Chapter 5. Not Loud Enough, Too Loud: Gender and Heterosexuality Construction in Sex Advice 123 Chapter 6. Kinksters, Swingers, and Other Weirdos: Media Depictions of Alternative Sexualities 145 Chapter 7. Just What the Doctor Ordered: The Scientification of Sex and Sexual Dysfunction 169 Chapter 8. Too Young, Too Old: The Procreative-Age Confinement of Socially Tolerable Sexuality 195 viii mediated eros

Conclusion: The Implicit Perpetuation of Sexual Scripts 219 References 235 Index 273 introduction

What’s “Okay” in Bed? Identifying and Comparing Sexual Scripts in Media Content

A ghost is haunting the world—the ghost of sexual (un)fulfillment. It always has, but it is now more omnipresent than ever. It manifests itself through desirable images on portable screens, television, magazine pages, and billboards. It whispers, suggests, and titillates between story lines. And it reveals itself in ubiquitous guilt-free narratives from media outlets that are so much more rep- utable than online porn, pay-per-view channels, or the old-fashioned “smut” surreptitiously sold at gas stations. The erotic pagan tales once told within the confines of a village have found a worldwide equivalent in music videos, sitcoms, news stories, and movies. Thanks to contemporary communication technology, they not only cross borders in milliseconds, but also encourage mass conformity in the once deeply private sphere of sexuality. The mainstream availability of sexual narratives creates expectations and pressures that can be difficult to meet in real life. “I can’t get no satisfaction,” sang the Rolling Stones in 1965. “And that man comes on the radio, and he’s tellin’ me more and more about some useless information supposed to fire my imagination” (Jagger & Richards, 1965). A song banned by many radio stations for its suggestive lyrics (Kalis & Neuendorf, 1989), “I Can’t Get No Satisfaction” makes a rarely discussed association between media content and sexual frustra- tion. Is the band’s lead Mick Jagger singing about a radio-mediated sexual script 2 mediated eros that failed to excite his imagination? What about “When I’m watchin’ my TV and that man comes on to tell me how white my shirts can be, but he can’t be a man ’cause he doesn’t smoke the same cigarettes as me”? (Jagger & Richards). Perhaps the bisexual Jagger, whose own sexual experiences afford him a richer and more critical perspective, is expressing sarcasm over the restrictive social construction of masculinity, which in turn limits the subjectivities of sexual desire and pleasure. In any case, kudos to the Rolling Stones for recognizing, half a century ago, the power of media to transform one’s subjective experiences of life and also sexually frustrate (a subject that will be discussed at length throughout this analysis). Sexuality—diverse, multifaceted, and regulated throughout the world— can be viewed as a protean collection of social scripts that vary across time and space. It has long been attributed a great importance. In the words of French philosopher Michel Foucault (1984/1986), sexuality was a central element of the “arts of existence” (p. 10) and “practices of the self” (p. 13) in antiquity, and in later times came to be seen as the very core of existential evil. The mostly discursive construction of sexuality (Foucault, 1976/1990) means that it can never be a constant; it also makes silencing it difficult or even impossible. Sexuality’s amorphous body fluctuates from century to century and from continent to continent despite any social attempts at control.

Media and Popular Sex Pedagogy

A time-tested way to contain the transgressive power of sexuality is to surround it with silence. Shereen El Feki, a Cambridge-educated biologist-turned-writer who studies sexual culture in the Middle East, says a doctor in Cairo told her: “Here, sex is the opposite of sport. Football, everybody talks about it, but hardly anyone plays. But sex, everybody is doing it, but nobody wants to talk about it” (El Feki, 2013, np). This insightful statement, sadly, applies not only to the Middle East. In the U.S., in this day and age, it is much more acceptable to talk about hemorrhoids than about sex—not counting locker-room male braggadocio, of course. As Jerry Seinfeld puts it in The Mango, an episode of the show Seinfeld (David, Levy, & Cherones, 1993, np), nobody knows what to do “below the equator … you just close your eyes and hope for the best.” The silence about sexual activities often produces “a severe sense of discontinuity between experiencing the self in nonsexual circumstances and in sexual circumstances” (Gagnon & Simon, 1973, p. 105). Sexuality still introduction 3 remains a sphere of “pluralistic ignorance” (Gagnon & Simon, p. 81), even at a time when the ubiquity of sex in the Western world has demystified and, for many, turned it into an unexciting, rational—and frankly—boring choice. “[A]t the moment,” writes Eder (1999), “we can hardly be affected by erotic and sexual stimulation” (p. 168). Despite the hushed nature of sexual discourse, sexual activities are some of the most expectation-laden in all of contemporary social life. “Think of it as a performance,” a pimp advises a gigolo in the comedy Fading Gigolo (Block, Hanson, Kusama-Hinte, & Turturro, 2013). But sex is a performance not only in the context of prostitution. Even when blinded by passion, having transcended the here and now (which—let’s admit—does not happen often), most people tend to engage in sexual behaviors they believe to be appropriate by their culture’s or subculture’s standards and for which they already have the kinesthetic memory of performing before in a similar fashion. The notion that culture shapes intimate acts that occur in the privacy of one’s bedroom represents a significant departure from earlier beliefs (perhaps still shared by many outside the social sciences) that making love is just something that naturally happens—always the same way, everywhere around the world. When sexuality began to be understood as “patterned narratives” of desire and pleasure divorced from reproduction, “sexual identity appeared as a script on which individuals modeled their life histories” (Oosterhuis, 1999b, pp. 238–239). But how does one learn sexual scripts to model and identify with? Before the onset of mass mediated communication and widespread lit- eracy, it was perhaps through veiled sexual advice dispensed by elders and peers. Throughout the early to mid-20th century, marriage manuals (such as a particularly popular one by the famous Dutch gynecologist Theodore van de Velde) were translated in multiple languages, and influenced the sexual scripts of much of the Western world. The same influence could be ascribed to the later manifestos of the sexual revolution, such as The Joy of Sex (Comfort, 1972), which reflected the more libertine and diverse scripts of the then- young postwar generation. But in this day and age, sex manuals are not a very cool way to learn begin- ner-level sexuality. Specialized titles exist, of course, for the enthusiasts who want to learn better techniques of oral sex or the secrets of female ejaculation. And there is the online world, which offers a wealth of information, advice, and a treasure chest of free pornography. But these niche how-to resources— no matter how profound and detailed—cannot reflect the incredible complexity of sexual emotions, fantasies, and behaviors. Considering the lack of 4 mediated eros an official public discourse on sexuality as a performance—such as a widely accepted reference like the Kama Sutra (which, as a sacred text, addressed more than sexual positions)—and the limited, reproductive focus of sexuality education (especially in the U.S.), peers and media content seem to be the most obvious sources of sexual scripts. What is desirable? What is pleasurable? What is sexual? What is consensual? Look no further than the mediated public space for implicit and explicit answers to such questions, which trickle into our vision of sexuality both directly, from media content, and indirectly, through interactions with lovers, friends, and schoolmates. The significance of media as a source of sexual scripting is the case especially for the youngest generation, dubbed Millennials or Generation Y, notes a Guardian article titled “Sex in Real Life Isn’t Like Sex on Screen—and That’s a Good Thing”:

When you’ve been brought up with pop culture as your unofficial guardian, it’s easy to assume that you’ve been lumbered with the world’s dullest sex life. You’re forever comparing your experiences with those you see on screen, and you beat yourself up when you inevitably fall short … Sleeping with someone for the first time can be nerve-racking, but you’d never know that from watching films, where everyone seems to automatically know exactly what the other person wants without having to embark upon a long and unfulfilling period of trial and error, usually with the aid of a corresponding checklist on a clipboard. Hair on screen always remains perfectly in place, and never gets trapped under anyone’s arm. And bras remain firmly on. On the rare occasion that they do get removed, it happens in silence. To my knowledge, no movie character has ever shouted “Jesus, that’s better, that wire has been cutting into my tit for hours” as they undress, for example, which seems like a preposterous oversight. (Heritage, 2014)

This cloak of invisibility surrounding real-life sexuality may be lifting slightly due to social media sites, such as FetLife, the kink community’s version of Face- book, where members post sexually explicit pictures and discuss their sex lives on their walls and in forums—in details to which the “vanilla” population may be unaccustomed. Indirect information about individual sexual prowess can also be gathered from certain apps, such as the women-only man-rating system Lulu, onlulu.com, which allows for hashtags such as the negative #Porn- Educated and #WanderingEye, as well as #KinkyInTheRightWay—positive, assuming everyone agrees on the “right” way to be kinky (Schoeneman, 2013). Regardless, knowledge of others’ sexual scripts remains relatively difficult to acquire. This means that mass-mediated content depicting or implying sexual scripts must be a primary source of information in such an investigation. And this applies not only to the sexuality of others from our own communities introduction 5 and cultures, but also to the sexuality of the Other—a concept that, for the purposes of this book, encompasses the imagined identities of people who have been born or reside in societies different from one’s own.

The Perception of the Overly Sexual Foreigner

Consider this paradox: In 1969, Robert Welch, founder of the conservative John Birch Society, warned his fellow Americans that sex education in U.S. schools was a “filthy Communist plot,” intended to corrupt the morals of the otherwise apparently chaste U.S. youth (Associated Press, 1969). Ironically, at the same time, communist governments in Eastern Europe were framing political dissidents with fake charges of perversion and pornography distribution. Having “systematically and ruthlessly eradicated everything related to sexuality,” the USSR condemned the Western sexual revolution—leading a Russian woman to declare during one of the first televised American-Soviet debates in 1986 that, “we have no sex here” (Kon, 1995, p. 1). Even in the ’90s, attempts to introduce sex education in Russian schools were seen as a “western ideological subversion” (Kon, 1999, p. 215). Sex education still has “foreign” connotations in the U.S. as well, as illustrated by a Saturday Night Live skit portraying a provocatively dressed, sultry teacher with a Spanish accent (Sofia Vergara), who draws a picture of her vagina on the board and explains the changes of puberty to a mix of bored and horny students (Pell & Wiig, 2012). Grumbles about foreign influences on sex typically rely on targeted scape- goating of communists, Jews, Americans, or any other marginalized groups, including outsiders in generals. This is wittily depicted in the filmPreaching to the Perverted (Unger & Urban, 1997), in which, ironically, it is an American woman who opens a sadomasochistic club in London and is accused of corrupting public morals—in a country stereotyped for its alleged kinky obsession with corporal punishment. In further support of the worldwide notion of foreigners’ loose morals, Hall (1999) notes that “all nations seem to ascribe venereal diseases to foreigners” (p. 29) and that human traffickers are often “demonised as sinister alien figures” (p. 31). Russian nationalists claim that “ancient, ‘primordial’ Russia was a realm of utter spirituality in which ‘dirty sex’ did not exist until, like drunkenness, it was imported by wicked foreigners, especially the Jews” (Kon, 1995, p. 11). In 19th-century Germany, well before the Nazi regime, “Jews and blacks … were deemed figures of pathological and deviant sexuality” (Szobar, 2002, p. 131). In Italy, “the so-called 6 mediated eros modern girl was accused of following the American example of birth control and sexual freedom” during the interwar period (Wanrooij, 1999, p. 125). And in America, in the 21st century, “revealing men’s swim garments [such as Speedos] are, for the U.S. consumer, irrevocably associated with ‘foreigners’ and … the persistent fear of being mistaken for a bisexual Serbian cruise-ship croupier” (Doonan, 2014). This interest in the foreign person as a sexual object is illustrated, for example, by drug company Pfizer’s hiring of a British actress, Linette Beau- mont, for its 2014 Viagra commercials because of her sexy accent (Nathan, 2014), as well as by the gratuitous use (and abuse) of the body and accent of Italian-born actress Isabella Rossellini in the thriller Blue Velvet (Caruso, Roth, & Lynch, 1986). The higher trophy value placed on foreign (especially European) women is also evident in a Cosmopolitan magazine confession by a woman who faked a French accent to date a “foxy” man, perpetuating the stereotype of the foreign woman as a more valuable catch (“The Naughtiest Thing I’ve Ever Done,” 2012, p. 56), and in Maxim’s regular rubric “Women of the World.” Foreign accents even lend more credibility to sex advice. For example, The New York Times reports that sex educator Esther Perel, a Belgian, “has a French-sounding accent that implicitly seems to bolster her authority” (Dominus, 2014). Let’s also recall the many songs that have been sung partly in French by English-speaking artists, just for added sexiness—for example, “Michelle” (1965) by the Beatles and “Denis” (1977) by Blondie. Perhaps the most prominent example is the 1975 hit “Voulez-Vouz Coucher Avec Moi Ce Soir?” (Do You Want to Go to Bed with Me Tonight?), sung by an American woman, Patti Labelle, from New Orleans. Needless to say, the French lines in the song have been associated not with Louisiana culture but with Euro romance. Such is the erotic obsession with France that Paris has become one of the most popular honeymoon locations for well-to-do couples from around the world. Its iconic status is celebrated throughout popular culture, such as in the post-Depression movie Paris Honeymoon (Thompson & Tuttle, 1939) featuring a speedy cross-cultural (and highly unlikely) romance involving a Texas millionaire torn between two gorgeous European women, a countess and a peasant girl. The trophyist sexual “attraction” toward foreigners is but one manifestation of what English writer and feminist Julie Bindel (2014) calls “the eroticization of otherness” (np). She illustrates it with the attraction that hundreds of women throughout the world have been known to develop for death-row inmates. The erotic interest in the foreign is a form of objectification that is introduction 7 also illustrated by the many culturally inaccurate adaptations of foreign novels, such as Zorba the Greek by Nikos Kazantzakis, with its existential sexuality and passion for life, into a more vapid film version for Western audiences. Cumberland (1999) argues, for example, that all three American versions of the filmBlood and Sand based on the Spanish novel Sangre y arena exem- plify “the erotic possibilities of the North American fascination with Spanish stereotypes,” and displace the original “theme of class conflict onto a safely diffused locus of erotic desire” (p. 43). Who needs dull and complex class relations from the Old World when the foreigners can instead be imagined as sex objects? This pattern of “erotic other” objectification is hardly unique to men or limited to grown-up cinema. In the animated film Cars 2 (Ream, Lasseter, & Lewis, 2011), Sally, the girlfriend of the protagonist Lightning McQueen, is hankering after an Italian Formula 1 racer, Francesco, because “he’s so good- looking, what, with those big, open wheels” (by comparison, American race cars’ wheels are covered by fenders). The sex appeal of British men to North American women, attributed to their allegedly irresistible accents, is yet another trope with proven comedic value. This is illustrated in “The Third Wheel” episode of the show How I Met Your Mother, in which a young Canadian, Robin Sherbatsky, decides to stop shaving her legs so she can avoid the temptation of having sex on a first date. But she changes her mind after a dinner with a British surgeon, and calls an American friend to bring her a razor because “he is really cute, and I really like him, and he’s got a British accent!” (Hemingson & Fryman, 2007). The friend is immediately persuaded of the worthiness of this exception, and rushes to help. The Brits themselves derive much discursive pleasure from the effects of their accents on Americans. Barbara Ellen, a columnist for The Observer, sarcastically suggests: “American women should try to calm down about the British accent—take mood enhancers, if nothing else helps” (2009). And, recall also the unrealistic scene from Love Actually (Kenworthy, Bevan, Fellner, Hayward, Chasin, & Curtis, 2003) in which an average British man lands in the U.S., goes to a bar, and meets three model-like young women who adore his accent and want him for a four- some! The Brits do not hanker after American accents; they have a thing for the French, as portrayed in “The End of the Line”, an episode of the UK show Coupling. In it, a stranger hits on one of the female protagonists, Susan Walker, (“I really like French women”) because she is having a business conversation in French on the phone; she, on the other hand, confesses to a girlfriend that she is fascinated with Australian men (Moffat & Dennis, 2001d). 8 mediated eros

Oh, the trope of the mysterious foreigner! Note that s/he must be different, but not too different. Only white foreigners are usually seen as “erotic others.” Travelers from Asian or African countries might be considered exotic more because of their racial “otherness” rather than some uniquely sexy “for- eignness.” My own observations of various attitudes about the sexualized foreigner are behind this project, as described in the following paragraphs.

Project Conception and Background

The idea for this work arose from my personal background as a bilingual and bicultural scholar. As such, I am what has been called in the sociological literature the “outsider within” in two different worlds, and thus in a unique position to begin to notice patterns that may not be immediately evident to the members of the dominant culture(s) (e.g., Collins, 1986; Thurlow, 2001). I was born, raised, and college-educated in Bulgaria, a country in Eastern Europe, which was part of the communist bloc until 1989. My young adult years coincided with a time of profound cultural and social changes. I was 14 when the Berlin Wall fell. In the months that followed, sudden and shocking changes engulfed Bulgarian society. Among them was a turning of the tide in the public discourse about sexuality. Newfangled pornographic publications (with stories ineptly translated from foreign magazines) began to be sold openly at news kiosks. Cheesy U.S. romcoms and portrayals of sexuality intertwined with violence—such as Basic Instinct (Marshall, Kassar, & Verhoeven, 1992) invaded the film scene, along with steamy French erotica, such as the phallocentric Emmanuelle (Rousset-Rouard & Jaeckin, 1974), which one could see freely in movie theaters at any age without showing an ID. Our eighth-grade English teacher took us to see Hair, which I found cap- tivating and empowering (what with the cunnilingus/fellatio song and the girl-power objectification of “white boys” and “black boys”!?). About the same time, American sitcoms such as Cheers and Alf began appearing on Bulgarian TV. Needless to say, it was hard to reconcile the notion of sexuality in Hair with that in Cheers. Nationalist sex superiority jokes of unclear origin also started spreading, or perhaps I learned them in the early 1990s simply because I was in high school at the time. I remember, for example, the one in which three men from different nationalities share their sexual experiences from the night before, and how their partners acknowledged their virility. “Nobody before has made love to me introduction 9 five times in one night,” the German man brags about his girlfriend’s reaction. “That’s nothing,” says the French man. “Mine said nobody had made love to her before 10 times in one night.” They look at the Bulgarian, who shrugs his shoulders and says, “Mine said, ‘Don’t stop.’” It is only now that I realize how surprisingly female-centered this joke was, even though it involves men bragging about their own virility, with the punch line being the alleged superiority of the Bulgarian man. And yes—in case you are wondering—in my post-communist high school, these kinds of jokes were freely shared and laughed at in mixed company. (By contrast, in the U.S. there are boy-jokes and girl-jokes). I could sense at the time that all of these narratives bombarding my peers and me represented very different sexual scripts, some coming from local and some from “imported” cultures. They were shaping our expectations about sexuality, but I was uncertain how to reconcile them with each other and with my own pre-existing schemas. Since my mother had refused to explain why one needs a man to have a baby, my technical knowledge of sex was based mostly on a textbook-like marriage manual by East German authors, which I read at the age of 9, learning words such as “libido,” “plateau” (from the Masters and Johnson’s four stages of intercourse), and “erogenous zones.” The book was also very helpful in outlining a list of “perverted” sexual behaviors, including homosexuality, sadomasochism, and various fetishes. Although I can find a lot of shortcomings in this resource’s content from the perspective of my current knowledge and life experience, I am grate- ful that it shielded me from the influence of crass representations of sexual behaviors—the awkward drawings of penises and doggy-style intercourses on school desks and bathroom walls, which began to appear as early as in fourth grade. The book also provided me with knowledge appropriate for my status as the class nerd. In seventh grade, two boys came to me to resolve an argument: Do women have two or three “holes” down there? Mind you, they did not ask me because I was a girl (probably not all girls in seventh grade can accurately answer this question), but because they expected that I would have a nerdy and accurate answer. And I did not disappoint them. However, all of my technical understanding of sex and human genitalia at that age did not prepare me for the onslaught of sexual narratives that flooded Eastern Europe after the fall of communism. Virtually overnight, newspapers started publishing articles about prostitution, rape, and murder. Many adopted the equivalent of the British tabloid Sun’s “Page Three,” featuring a topless model—only not on an inside page but on the back cover! While waiting for the public bus on my way to high school every morning, I chastely flirted 10 mediated eros with a classmate while peeking from the corner of my eye at the pornographic spreads displayed at a nearby kiosk. We tried to pretend that the awfully translated porn, printed on cheap paper with the cheapest ink possible, was not at all unusual or novel. We were, like, totally cool with it. We even found it awe- some because it represented a 360-degree break from the pre-1989 repression of sexual discourse. But hidden beneath the unflappable teenage façade were discomfort and confusion. These bewildering changes in our understanding of sexuality were not unique to Bulgaria. Here is how Lara Vapnyar (2014), a Russian woman living in New York, describes in The New York Times her experiences during the Soviet perestroika in the 1980s:

The burgeoning yellow press was filled with stories of incest, bestiality, necrophilia and rape, rape, rape, rape. My friends and I were consumed by dreams of pure romantic love, and simultaneously drowning in all that violent sexual imagery. We felt even more hapless and clueless than when we were kids.

Bulgarian adults seemed just as confused by the conflicting and ambivalent narratives about sexuality. I recall arguing with my mother during the 1990s that people in developed countries no longer save their virginity for the wedding night. She informed me that the sexual revolution in the West was over and that abstinence was the new vogue. I scoffed. We continued the debate for many years, long after I had lost my virginity. I recall how pleased I was at last to offer her the shocking case of Britney Spears’s 55-hour marriage because the rising pop star was one of my mother’s favorite examples of cool- headed “Western” abstinence. When I arrived in the U.S. on a professional development program for Eastern European journalists in 2000, after a dizzyingly cold flight from Paris to Washington, D.C., I was flattered to be mistaken by some airport official for a French woman. The “mistake” probably contained a sexual connotation that my untrained ear failed to catch. I have since become better at recognizing innuendo, but remain surprised by the somewhat contradictory nature of sexual scripts in the U.S. One the one hand, my “bridge” cultural status has been helpful to this analysis because uncovering any aspect of a culture requires stepping outside to begin to notice its socially constructed nature. As the Dutch sociologist Geert Hofstede has noted (2001), culture only exists by comparison, and any comparison is grounded in collective subjectivities. On the other hand, however, perhaps because of all the comparisons I have been making for the last 15 years, I am more confused than ever about how sexuality is performed and experienced across and within cultures. As a introduction 11 white, heterosexual woman who learned to perform gender and sexuality in Eastern Europe, I have often felt that my sexual scripts fall short of expectations. Or perhaps exceed expectations through no effort on my part. For example, my accent has been described as “sexy” many times, even in circumstances I have considered entirely asexual and even strictly professional. In performing heterosexuality as a first-generation immigrant, I believe my experience has been similar to that of international students from African countries, who come to the U.S. being expected to “do” race in certain stereotypical ways just because of their skin color, without taking into account that the social scripts of their upbringing might be profoundly different from those of any American subculture. Here is how a Nigerian describes the experience: “When I came to the U.S. I found myself taking on a new identity, or rather I found a new identity thrust on me … I became black. I hadn’t thought of myself as black” (Graham, 2014). In my case, I did not become black, but I suddenly became exotic, in a sort of inferior and unpleasant way. To resolve these “outsider” feelings, I have long tried to discern some of the patterns of “European” and “American” sexuality without plunging into casual experimentation. Have I succeeded? Per- haps this project will tell. The following section outlines the topics covered in this book and problematizes the construction of global sexual identities.

Scope and Structure of This Book

Because of the unique importance media ascribe to sexuality and the powerful ways in which they can channel culture and ideology, this book aims to analyze the perpetuation of sexual scripts through movies, TV shows, lifestyle magazines, advertisements, news articles, and other forms of popular mediated culture. And such global perpetuation—of mostly Western scripts—clearly exists, even though the accounts are anecdotal due to the almost non-existing scholarship in this area. For example, Perkins (2012) reports on the line “Oh daddy, that’s my G-spot” (p. 137) in one of the songs of the Jamaican DJ Lady Saw. This line appears to have imported at least two sexual scripts (the male lover as a “daddy” and the importance of vaginal orgasm) from outside of traditional Caribbean culture. Although the ways in which media shape the social construction of sexual desire and sexual pleasure in a cross-cultural context are difficult to quantify and measure, numerous scholars have made general statements suggesting 12 mediated eros a belief in such influences. For example: “… [D]omains of sexuality such as eroticism, sexual behavior, social power, and gender roles in one culture may have certain degrees of impact on the worldview of the audience in the other culture (Malikhao, 2012, p. 234). Elliott and Lemert (2005) have, in fact, coined the term “discursive sexuality” (p 114) to account for the interaction between “widespread availability of information about sexuality and entertainment enacting the spectacle of sex” (p. 116) and already existing, local cultural norms in the sexual milieu. In this exchange, mediated illusions of sex often hold more power than the imperfect realities of people’s own sexual experiences. Elliott and Lemert further argue that such awareness of mediated sexual scripts and standards can result in reflexivity and self-consciousness, which have the potential to “constrict and counterfeit intimacy” (p. 121). In the construction of sexual identities on a global scale, the influence of mediated sexuality-related narratives occurs in the context of their abun- dance and resulting cumulative effects. The 20th-century explosion in mass communication thanks to revolutionary new media (radio, television, the Internet) is related to the emergence of what Bashford and Strange (2004) call “mass” sexual pedagogy (p. 73). Writes Muhlensen (2007): “Sexuality, previously confined to the private sphere or to low culture—with pornography as its extreme point and limit—has gradually entered into all quarters of the public sphere” (p. 47). This trend of pluralization, Muhlensen believes, has at least partially freed sexuality from the hegemonic structures that confine it. It is unclear, however, how this observation translates at the individual level. Now that in most of the Western world premarital sex is considered acceptable and most people have multiple sexual partners during their lifetime, are we having better sex and liking it more? Oosterhuis (1999a), writing about one of the most sexually libertine countries, the Netherlands, suggests that sexuality is still in a cage— just a different one: “New norms concerning erotic attractiveness and sexual achievement could make people feel as unfree and unhappy as under the old taboos” (p. 86). Instead of taking an alarmist perspective, which most research of media effects on sexuality takes, this analysis will aim to explore mediated sexual scripts and their likely effects on audiences only from the point of view of subjective sexual experiences. The reason this book does not focus extensively on the alleged negative effects of sexual content on adolescents, families, and sex offenders is because such research tends to reflect the view of sex within a “binary system: licit and illicit, permitted and forbidden” (Foucault, introduction 13

1976/1990, p. 83). To study sex within this power-ordained binary system is to reinforce the status quo. Instead, the goal of this book is to forgo judgment, and begin to catalogue and analyze some common sexual narratives in mediated content, with a specific focus on cultural differences and the cross-pollination of sexual scripts across and within cultures. Pornography is not a central subject of this analysis, but it will be discussed tangentially, mainly in the context of its influence on mainstream media content in the form of “porno-chic” (McNair, 1996; Sorensen, 2007), which refers to articles about pornographic topics and the use of signs and symbols referring to pornography without being pornographic themselves. Writes Sorensen (2007): “When the mass media handle pornographic material, they operate— often unconsciously—in a schismatic field between ‘shy modesty’ and ‘liberated matter of course’” (p. 23). But truly explicit pornographic scripts are finding their way into popular culture as well. For example, Harvey and Gill (2013) report that the so-called “money shot” (orgasm, often portrayed as close-up of a man’s ejaculation) from pornography has entered reality television, as in the case of the British sex makeover show The Sex Inspectors. As the previous paragraphs have already suggested, this work will not be content to focus only on sociological abstractions, such as identities and discourses. Rather, it will attempt to face what Plummer (2007) has called the “lustily erotic” (p. 24)—the ways in which people across and within cultures have or do not have sex, eroticize each other’s bodies, penetrate each other’s bodies, and give meaning to all these activities—from the perspective of mediated communication. Other such analyses have explored whether, when, and why people decide to have sex, with or without a condom, and so on. These elements are not central to this book, which instead focuses on how the sexual interaction itself is culturally scripted to occur—what sequence of events takes place after a couple have decided to have sex—and regardless of the reproductive or health consequences of the action. It is not because these are not significant; rather, it is because such studies already exist. By contrast, very few studies focus on the purely sexual aspect of sex as a relational and/or simply enjoyable activity. In the next paragraphs, I outline the overall structure of this investigation. The first half of this book catalogues sexual scripts in a general way, based on geography and sexual orientation. The first chapter lays the theoretical foundation for this analysis by explaining sexual scripts, which are people’s interactional patterns during sex initiation and performance, and mass media frames, which refer to the selective salience of some narrative elements over 14 mediated eros others in news, televised entertainment, and cinema (referred to collectively as “media” throughout this book). The first chapter also outlines the appli- cability of these two concepts in conducting this analysis. The following two chapters outline the mainstream sexuality scripts perpetuated through media content in the U.S. and Europe. The fourth chapter explores the depictions of same-sex sexuality as similar or different to heterosexual relations. The second half of the book is framed around sexual discourses associated with some degree of shame and social stigmatization. Chapter 5 focuses on how sexual scripts, sometimes less-than-mainstream, are negotiated by readers and self-professed experts through the genre of advice columns and sex- related features in international magazines such as Maxim and Cosmopolitan. Chapter 6 explores news and entertainment depictions of BDSM (bondage, discipline, sadism, masochism) and polyamorous or polygamous individuals. Chapter 7 analyzes the discourses surrounding sexual science in its use for sexual self-improvement, including through treatment of sexual dysfunctions. Chapter 8 focuses on media’s depictions of sexuality that is by default socially unacceptable, regardless of the type of scripts employed—including pedophilia and the lacking, limited, or sarcastic portrayals of aging adults engaging in erotic activities. Finally, the conclusion addresses the hegemonic perpetuation of mediated sexual scripts across cultures and the role of sexuality in fourth-wave feminism, which is more anti-rape and more sexuality-focused than any of the previous incarnations of the movement. As noted above, cross-cultural comparisons and diffusions are the major foci of this work, which by no means can be exhaustive of the complexity of the subject. This analysis recognizes that, over time and over the world, sexual scripts, styles, or narratives emerge, disappear, and intertwine. This is true, of course, for virtually all social or interpersonal actions. Most travelers have noticed and described, for example, that Europeans and Americans have different “forking” styles (pun intended). Europeans using a knife in the right hand and a fork in the left, while American employ the “zigzag” or “cut-and-switch” method of moving the fork between the left and the right hand (Vanhoenacker, 2013, np). The “cut-and-switch” was originally the standard in Europe—“a French norm swallowed whole by Americans who reflexively equated France with classiness”; however, by the mid- 19th century, Europe was abandoning fork-switching, while “America never got the telegram” (Vanhoenacker, 2013, np). Baldrige (2009) suggests that now the U.S. is the only country in the world in which it is acceptable to shift the fork from the left to the right hand after cutting. It is easy to observe introduction 15 these differences in “forking” styles via public interpersonal contact or, for non-travelers, in foreign movies. “Forking” jokes aside, cross-cultural analyses of sexuality are important because they can offer insights into the socially transformative potential of changing sexual identities and practices. There is much anthropological research on sexual customs (especially in remote locations such as Samoa— Margaret Mead’s chosen land). However, little research seems to focus on the big “exporters” of sexuality—the U.S. and Western Europe. Are their sexual scripts fully identical? Doubtful. I have found this topic rarely approached in the literature, perhaps because of the assumption that sex is sex—all the same, everywhere. Speaking from both a theoretical and practical perspective, this cannot be true. Yet, I have not come across any studies on the sexual experiences of American students studying abroad (short of the salacious media coverage of murder suspect Amanda Knox’s sexual relationship with her Italian boyfriend). I have not seen any in-depth interviews with first-generation immigrants about their sexual experiences in the U.S. I have not found any content analyses comparing the types of sexual videos on MTV and MTV Europe (aside from comparisons focused on information about the negative consequences of sex). The few cross-cultural comparisons I was able to unearth generally noted that American sexuality tends to be more violent and male-centric than European sexualities. Here are some examples from this literature:

Affective representation between sexual role-identities differs in German and American culture. Emotions associated with sexual-erotic role-identities have a deviant and violent quality for Americans. The same role-identities associate with emotions of impres- sion and passion for German subjects. (Schneider, 1996, p. 123)

Compared to American women … Swedish women reported higher frequencies of engaging in self-masturbation and lower frequencies of noncoital behavior such as fellatio. (Weingberg, Lottes, & Shaver, 1995, p. 413)

U.S. university students reported higher rates of both physical and nonphysical sexual coercion than did Swedish university students. (Lottes & Weinberg, 1997, p. 67)

For what it is worth, recent sex surveys suggest that French couples have a stronger preference for standard genital penetration and a higher disapproval of masturbation than do Americans, higher rates of sexual satisfaction, and most remarkably, avow- als for frequency of orgasm, and particularly simultaneous orgasm, far higher than Americans claim. (Nye, 1999, p. 104) 16 mediated eros

These comparisons, while interesting, are somewhat superficial and limited in that they are based on standardized questionnaires, which are not the best way to study something as complex as sexual scripts. This is where news and entertainment can be important sources of information; they offer clues to what is acceptable and what is important within a given society. Little wonder that intelligence gathering always includes monitoring a country’s media content. And what better place to identify dominant narratives about a private activity than mediated content, which by definition is intended for mass distribution? The limited research on the cross-cultural pollination of sexual scripts only supports the notion that sexuality, even in its very obvious depictions in the mediated public sphere, can be viewed as too embarrassing or perhaps too threatening to the status quo to be worthy of study. What is especially interesting is that, whatever comparisons exist, they rarely note that departures from earlier sexual traditions have almost invariably been framed as “loose” foreign influences rather than manifestations of the inevitable sociocultural evolution of norms and customs. Have the judgment- and lust-laden perceptions of the sexual “other” ame- liorated or disappeared in the contemporary mass-mediated world? Not quite yet, it seems. This will be illustrated by the chapters that follow. ·1· constructivist theoretical underpinnings

Sexual Scripts and Media Frames

A 12-year-old boy is miraculously turned into an adult and, thanks to a series of fluky events, is about to sleep with a woman for the first time. Sadly, the kid does not understand he is about to get lucky, and blurts out: “OK, but I get to be on top.” Being really 12, the protagonist is envisioning an innocuous sleepover in bunk beds. From an adult point of view, he is pathetically attempting to negotiate a sexual privilege that he, as a male, already has. Funny? Yes. This is the one of the many hilarious moments in the film Big (Brooks, Greenhut, & Marshall, 1988), which caused the audience to double with laughter when I first watched this film in a Bulgarian movie theater. The comical effect seemed to reflect a perceived violation of an implicit cross- cultural script regarding what constitutes a “normal” sexual initiation and resulting intercourse. This is the nature of scripts. They are so powerful that they can make many (although not all) international audiences laugh at the same script violation. In the case of the mainstream heterosexual script, the basic narrative unfolds like this: First we have a date, then we kiss, then we hug, then we remove some or all clothing, and then we have a penile-vaginal intercourse, typically with the man on top. This is “normal,” not-too-dirty lovemaking. We assume everyone knows the basic script, which is confirmed by the laughter-inducing effect of any displays of ignorance about it. 18 mediated eros

Scripts, however, are not usually easy to recognize and verbalize—and that holds especially true in the realm of sexuality. In part, the invisibility of sexual scripts reflects the assumption that sex is natural and based on desires that everyone has—in accordance with socially constructed gender roles, of course. Connell and Dawsett (1999) call this assumption “nativism” or— when made by scientists—“scientific nativism.” Here is how they explain the imagined nature of such allegedly pure sexuality: “Whether laid down by God, achieved by evolution, or settled by the hormones, the nativist assumption is that sexuality is fundamentally pre-social” (p. 179). However, as Gagnon and Simon (1973) point out, “how does one learn that the feelings and desires are sexual in the first place?” (p. 145). This is where peers and media come to the rescue by offering sequences of prescribed activities (from kissing to intercourse), which are “conceived to be exciting sexually and … this information eventually becomes linked to the capacity for orgasm” (Gagnon & Simon, 1973, p. 107). Meanwhile, parents and schools reluctantly furnish bits of information about reproductive biology, which are not at all helpful to the process of sexual socialization. It is unlikely that any parent or school tells young men to engage in sexual violence, for example. This question is simply not addressed. Did the men portrayed in the rape scene in The Accused (Jaffe, Lansing, & Kaplan, 1988) learn to act that way in a sex education class? Certainly not—because sex education classes focus on the mechanics and biological processes culminating in a sperm meeting an egg, not on the complex sociocultural dynamics of sexual behaviors. This analysis is interested precisely in these dynamics. It is mediated and socially constructed sexuality that is investigated here, not its presumed “naturalness” or its reproductive consequences.

Theorizing the Construction of Sexuality

This investigation’s theoretical foundation is interdisciplinary in that it draws on work from different fields to show that human sexuality is largely constructed by society and culture, often channeled through, re-narrated, recon- structed, and reinforced by mass media. At the core of the analysis are two concepts: sexual scripts and media frames, which will be defined and contextualized later in this chapter. Both draw on Berger and Luckmann’s social construction of reality theory (1966), which views people as social actors creating mental images of each other’s actions over time and performing accordingly. constructivist theoretical underpinnings 19

According to Berger and Luckmann, our dominant imagery and resulting social performances are constantly reinforced through our interpersonal interactions and exposure to media. Applying the theory of social construction of reality to human sexuality means embracing the view that sexuality is not entirely innate; rather, it is enormously reflective of complex social structures and ideologies. Sociolo- gists have viewed sexuality as negotiated and reinforced in the context of social interactions (e.g., Laws & Schwartz, 1977) or as the “erotic and genital responses by the cultural scripts of a society” (Reiss, 1986, p. 37). However, it would be more accurate to define sexuality as a sociocultural rather than a purely social construction. This is because sexual thinking and sexual performances are influenced (although not necessarily determined) both by one’s immediate social environment (family, peers, and social institutions) and by the surrounding culture, which is packaged, re-packaged, and delivered through media. According to Jensen (2004), “there is no pure, natural sexuality that is not mediated by culture” (p. 256). People infer and interpret the meaning of “sexual” from a wide and diverse range of narratives, both interpersonal and mediated (such as books, news, entertainment, online social networks, etc.). To account for this complexity, for the purposes of this study sexuality is defined as “all erotically significant aspects of life—for example, desires, practices, relationships, and identities” (Jackson, 2007, p. 6). We all know, at least intuitively if not based on scholarly information, that human sexual behavior is more complex than the sex play of highly evolved apes. As sex educator Esther Perel says in a TED talk, unlike animals, people have an erotic life, which can be defined as “sexuality transformed by the human imagination” (2013, np). This complexity is the reason why the scholar behind sexual scripting theory, John Gagnon, who co-authored the fourth volume of the Kinsey sexual behavior study (after the death of zoologist-turned-sex-scholar Alfred Kinsey), eventually grew uncomfortable “with Kinsey’s model of understanding sexual behavior as just another type of mammalian behavior” (Kimmel, 2007, p. vii). The film Kinsey (Mutrux & Condon, 2004) portrays the researcher arguing that biological diversity is “life’s one irreducible fact” and that “society has interfered with what should be a normal biological development, causing a scandalous delay of sexual activity.” Upon discovering the virtual ubiquity of masturbation (believed at the time to lead to insanity and blindness) and the frequency of homosexual experiences (utterly stigmatizing in the 1940s and ’50s), Kinsey induced that biology 20 mediated eros is more powerful than social influences. As far as society had any effects on people’s sexual behaviors, Kinsey saw them only as restraining rather than creative. As a natural scientist, even though he was trained to account for alternative explanations in his theorizing, Kinsey was unable to imagine the complexity of social life and account for all the variables it introduced into his research. Writing almost 30 years later, Foucault (1976/1990) poked holes in Kinsey’s conceptions of sexuality by convincingly depicting it not as a biologically driven act of defiance against the status quo (although many see it this way, especially during adolescence), but as a sociocultural construct that usually reflects and reinforces various forms of oppression:

Sexuality must not be described as a stubborn drive, by nature alien and of necessity disobedient to a power which exhausts itself trying to subdue it and often fails to control it entirely. It appears rather as an especially dense transfer point for relations of power. (p. 103)

This can be somewhat difficult to imagine from a practical and individual perspective. Is all sexual activity really reflective of sociocultural power dynamics—even masturbation? Indeed, yes. Few people are aroused by thinking only about their own amazing sexiness (and even so, that sexiness would represent a socially constructed self-evaluation). As Laumann and Gagnon (1995) contend, masturbation usually requires an interaction between the individual and his or her erotic fantasies, and such interactions constitute intrapsychic sexual scripts (socially constructed, of course). Indeed, could we imagine new frontiers on our own, without any cultural input on what erotic fantasy characters do, wear, or say? Doubtful! Even the most creative among us would need to borrow major sociocultural constructs—such as language, dress, and norms of appearance—for such imaginary performances. The sociocultural construction of sexuality is illustrated by anthropological evidence of vastly different sexual customs across time and space (e.g., Caplan, 1987). Even before such information entered the public discourse, Sigmund Freud and several 19th-century European psychiatrists had sought to identify the effects of an individual’s environment on his or her sexual “neuro- ses.” However, they focused only on the influence of small networks (families) rather than on larger symbolic environments. Because of that, the culturally influenced diversity of sexual norms did not become a hotly debated topic in 1928, the year when anthropologist Margaret Mead published the results of her now-much-embattled study of adolescent sexuality in Samoa. constructivist theoretical underpinnings 21

For whatever reason, however, evidence of human sexual variations (whether anthropological or historical) is not usually welcome in popular discourse. Perhaps it tends be perceived as an implicit threat to the status quo, and this concern is amplified by the assumption that sex is “natural” rather than socially constructed. Reflective of the threatening nature of global sexual variation is the fact that social elites habitually declare “right” and “wrong” ways to be sexual (frequently with organized religion’s help) and condemn foreign mores. For example, an 1872 editorial in The New York Times described “the great perversion of the sexual relation in the old Pagan civilization” (“The New Orders,” p. 4). There is little doubt that ancient Greeks would have been just as shocked if they could get a glimpse of the sexual norms of 19th-century America.

A Post-Positive Approach to Sexuality’s Construction

This work attempts to stake a cautious and nuanced middle ground in the nature-nurture debate about sexuality. My intent is to bridge traditional social constructivism with the notion that there are at least some material aspects of human sexuality, especially because it is enacted by human bodies and their fantasizing brains. Even Foucault (1976/1990), seen by many as the ultimate cultural historian, suggests that it is impossible to sideline all considerations of physiological elements in the study of sex:

… [D]oes the analysis of sexuality necessarily imply the elision of the body, anatomy, biological, the functional? To this question, I think we can rely in the negative … I do not envisage a “history of mentalities” that would take account of bodies only through the manner in which they have been perceived and given meaning and value; but a “history of bodies” and the manner in which what is most material and most vital in them has been invested. (pp. 151–152)

At the core of most scholarly disagreements is whether and to what degree expressions of individual sexuality are influenced by genetic and hormonal (in utero) variations. It seems that the most appropriate way to address this debate is to agree with Laumann and Gagnon that bio-social interactions exist, but that “no biological factor finds its way into the behavior of an individual except through socio-cultural mediation” (p. 212). Current developments in genetics, showing evidence of genes switching on or off depending 22 mediated eros on environmental and cultural inputs (i.e., food intake), align with this view. This perspective acknowledges that it is possible that certain genes or com- binations of genes underlie certain patterns of sexual behaviors, but it also argues that any genetic influences would manifest themselves differently in different societies and at different times in human history. In the nature-nurture debate about sexuality, it is also very important to pay due respect to people’s self-reports, especially accounts of one’s sexual orientation discovery or insight. This includes the hundreds of narratives appearing in media content in the last few years (often in the context of legalizing gay marriage), in which sexual minorities ubiquitously declare that their sexuality is not a matter of choice. Most, in fact, perceive their sexual orientation, interests, and preferences as entirely inborn, reflecting their own unique individuality and not being subject to cultural influences (Wilcox, 2003). The near-cliché story told by almost all gay men (but not all lesbian women) is that they became aware of their minority sexual status in comparison to other children at a very early age (e.g., Stein, 2007). The same appears to be true about some polyamorous individuals, as illustrated by an Atlantic Monthly article about two lovers within a polyamorous triad: “Both of them say they knew from a young age that there was something different about their sexuality” (Khazan, 2014). It would be arrogant to dismiss these narratives as entirely self-deluded, which is why this analysis will avoid any statements of certainty (especially given the limited evidence) that sexual orientation and sexual preferences have or do not have any genetic or biological determinants. It is surprising how few scholars have pursued such a middle ground, succumbing instead to the false duality of culture versus physiology. Sociologist Ken Plummer (2007), who openly writes about his own same-sex orientation, is one of very few scholars who embrace the theory of sexual scripts but not the body- versus-society duality. Writes Plummer: “… [M]ainstream sexual research focuses on the sexual but gives it no meaning while much constructionist thought overwhelms the sexual with meanings and gives little focus to the sexed body and its desires” (p. 21). Some scholars hold fast to a literal interpretation of the theory of social construction. They argue that individuals have no way of realizing the true (and allegedly absolute) extent of cultural influences on their behaviors. Within this line of thinking, suggestions that sexual interests might be genet- ically or hormonally influenced have been critiqued, for example, as “sexual essentialism” (e.g., Herdt, 2007, p. 214). constructivist theoretical underpinnings 23

Yet, even though many studies exploring only the biological aspects of sexuality may border on naïveté, it is unclear how social scientists could dismiss all evidence from disciplines in which they lack the scholarly expertise to evaluate published research. It is equally myopic for scientists who view sexuality as an exclusively biological force to assume that their own hypotheses and findings are in no way influenced by culture and society. Although arrogant certainty has never been conducive to furthering knowledge, such assumptions persist. A middle road is possible, however. Like Plummer, some scholars acknowledge the role of social influence, including through media exposure. They try to reconcile it with the notion of the sexed body as well as Kinsey’s notion of natural variance. For example, psychiatrist Norman Doidge (2007), in his book The Brain That Changes Itself, explains his view in the following way: “Human beings exhibit an extraordinary degree of sexual plasticity compared with other creatures. We vary in what we like to do with our partners in a sexual act. We vary where in our bodies we experience sexual excitement and satisfaction” (p. 94). Sociologist Ira Reiss (1986) embraces a similar perspective. He argues that physical pleasure is dependent both on nerve endings in erogenous zones and on what culture regards as erotic body parts. For example, “nerve endings always existed in the oral and anal body parts, but our culture in the past had not encouraged their use as an erotic zone” (pp. 31–32). To put this metaphorically, sexuality on some level employs the body’s hardware, but cannot operate it without socially constructed procedures, programs, and “apps”—the software of sexual scripts. Within this search-for-the-middle-ground context, it is important to note that this work rests firmly on the scholarly foundations of post-positivism and critical realism. This distinction matters because social constructivists sometimes focus almost exclusively on the relativity of labels and symbols, decrying the existence of objective reality. Laumann and Gagnon (1995), for example, suggest that labels such as “horny” and “sex drive” are only “names that individuals give to states that have been acquired and enacted in socio-cultural circumstances” (p. 189). Does that mean that the state of male sexual arousal in the form of an erection, for example, is invented by society? Obviously, this cannot be the case. Erections have been observed among male babies even before birth (e.g., Roach, 2009). Similar arguments have been employed by philosophers and historians in discussing the allegedly relative nature of “facts.” For example, 24 mediated eros after Pluto lost its planet status, media historian Kathy Roberts Forde (2012) wrote: “Facts are sometimes contested, discarded, and replaced with new facts. When I was a child, I learned … that Pluto was one of nine planets … [M]y nine-year-old daughter learned … there are eight planets” (p. 2). But although planetary status or the definition of “sex drive” may be fickle and variable, the ways in which scholars like to categorize things at any moment in time does not change the basic characteristics of Pluto (mass, orbit, distance from the Sun, etc.) or of the physiological arousal necessary (at least for males) to engage in penile-vaginal intercourse. Because of the post-positivist nature of this analysis, the sexual scripts theory is a useful framework, especially in its more contemporary iterations, distancing it from the negative baggage associated with certain earlier views of sexuality as influenced solely by one’s childhood environment. The assumption that one’s upbringing shapes sexual orientation, for example, has led to many an accusation of terrible parenting in attempts to explain sexual “devi- ations” such as homosexuality, sadomasochism, polyamory, and so on. Here is how a 1969 Time essay offers such an explanation from a psychoanalytic perspective: “… [P]arents with emotional problems can be a powerful cause, leaving their child without identification with the parent of the same sex and with deeply divided feelings for the parent of the opposite sex” (“The Homo- sexual,” 1969, pp. 64–65). Unlike theories of psychoanalysis, the concept of “sexual scripts,” coined by Chicago-School sociologists William Simon and John Gagnon, is useful in explaining the fluid scenarios that people employ in relating to sexual partners and in the management of their desires (Gagnon & Simon, 1973; Simon & Gagnon, 1986, 2003; Gagnon, 1990; Irvine, 2003). This theoretical framework has been expanded and updated many times (e.g., Gagnon, 2004; Gagnon & Simon, 2011; Parker & Gagnon, 2013). Definitions, examples, and implications follow.

Conceptualizing Sexual Scripts

Sexual activity is not entirely improvised in the moment, contrary to most people’s perceptions. Thoughts and emotions occurring during sex reflect decades of various social inputs. As the British band Frankie Goes to Holly- wood sang in their hit Relax, a song clearly about orgasm, “live those dreams, scheme those schemes … when you want to come” (Johnson, O’Toole, & constructivist theoretical underpinnings 25

Gill, 1984). Indeed, dreams and schemes are good lay terms for sexual scripts. In the scholarly literature, scripts, including sexual ones, have been defined as “stereotyped interactional patterns that are expected in social situations” (Hynie, Lyndon, Cote, Sylvana, & Wiener, 1998, p. 370); “mutually shared conventions that guide actors to enact a sexual situation interdependently” (Dworkin & O’Sullivan, 2005, p. 150); and “normative cultural contexts that give sex its meaning” (Kimmel, 2007, p. xi). At the psychological (rather than social) level, a sexual script can also be viewed as a “knowledge representation” or “event schema” related to sexual behavior (Lenton & Bryan, 2005, p. 484). As indicated by the above definitions, sexual scripts are experienced and enacted by individuals, but they do not exist in a vacuum. Reiss argues that scripts develop within the framework of a sexual ideology, which is defined by: (a) gender equality (referring to the distribution of power between men and women within a society); (b) sexual equality (referring to the presence or absence of a double standard of sexual permissiveness for men and women); and (c) potential for addiction and fear associated with sexuality—referring to the presumed power of sex to ruin lives and lead people astray, as portrayed, for instance, in the British filmShame (Canning & McQueen, 2011). This is not to say that there is a single sexual ideology within a given society—rather, there may be conflicting ideologies espoused by different groups and subcultures at the same time. (For example, the sexual ideology of those who attended the 1969 Woodstock festival was very different from the sexual ideology of the Nixon administration.) Reiss further argues that certain ideologies—such as the view that homosexuality is a matter of human rights rather than a sinful choice of lifestyle—can remain latent for decades and blossom when social conditions become favorable. Sexual ideologies may also continue to exist by inertia, even when they no longer support a power group within a given society. For example, the male-as-hunter sexual ideology is no longer in many men’s best interest because paying for dates is expensive (Pinsker, 2014), and so is buying diamond rings, which no longer serve their historical function as “virginity insurance” (O’Brien, 2012, np). Within the framework of an ideology, scripts function as patterns of sequenced events, which people perform within certain fairly narrow, scripted roles (for a review, see Abelson, 1981). Script theory is rooted in Piaget’s (1926) notion of schema, and argues that scripts can be imagined as complex reenactments of cultural narratives, uniquely improvised to fit each sexual situation. Whittier and Melendez (2007) note: “Elements of the theatre, such as 26 mediated eros the stage, scene, props, script, audience response, and the actors’ performances are important to the vibrant construction of sexual activity” (p. 191). Gagnon and Simon’s (1973) sexual scripting theory, which has remained unchanged as a general framework to all of their scholarly works, introduces more complexity by breaking scripts down to three levels. Cultural scenarios are viewed as only the outermost level of sexual scripts, which influence the other two levels. These include interpersonal scripts (referring to how we construct sexuality discursively in our interpersonal conduct, such as conversations with others) and intrapsychic scripts (what we tell ourselves in reflecting on our sexuality, including erotic plans and fantasies). Laumann and Gagnon (1995) contend that the middle layer of sexual scripts—interpersonal, which reflect the actual, social performance of sexuality—remains especially understudied. Most researchers have focused either on the larger symbolic environment within which sexuality exists or on individual mental pictures that represent sexual fantasies and desires. Focusing on this understudied middle level is one of the ways in which this study of mediated sexual scripts makes a scholarly contribution. Why are mediated sexual narratives important? They typically model interpersonal scripts by portraying, for example, a couple negotiating specific sexual actions in a film or a television show. These are sequenced events that individuals may, in turn, choose to emulate or expect in their own lives. That people learn from observing, imitating, and modeling what others do—including characters in mediated narratives—is the very premise of the highly influential social learning theory by Albert Bandura (1971). This theory has been applied most extensively in research on the effects of mediated aggression, starting with a prominent publication by Bandura himself (1978). From the standpoint of both individual happiness and overall social well-being, a very problematic aspect of emulating or expecting sexual scripts learned by any observation—whether interpersonal or mediated—is that they can be limiting. Here is how Vernacchio (2012) describes their confines through the popular American metaphor of baseball:

… [W]hen you show up to play baseball, nobody needs to talk about what we’re going to do or how this baseball game might be good for us. Everybody knows the rules. You just take your position and play the game … [Y]ou’re just supposed to round the bases in the proper order one at a time. You can’t hit the ball and run to right field. That doesn’t work. And you also can’t get to second base and say, “I like it here. I’m going to stay here.” No. constructivist theoretical underpinnings 27

This admittedly juvenile view of sexual relations is not easy to dismiss; we know from peers and media that it is practiced by adults of all ages. This does not have to be the case, however. As with all aspects of identity, sexual scripts are expected to change and develop over one’s lifetime. Whether it does, to what degree, and how this happens depend on many social and individual factors. The implications of changing sexual scripts are outlined and illustrated with examples in the following section.

Fluidity

The notion of sexuality as constructed entails a view of social and cultural influences as creative forces—“producing sexuality rather than negatively molding or modifying inborn drives” (Jackson, 2007, p. 4). The ability of sexual scripts to evolve, sometimes for purely hedonistic purposes, has increasingly become a part of the Western public discourse. This has been the case especially since the 1960s, as illustrated by the proliferation of self-help books and sex-improvement advice in men’s and women’s magazines. Even though most people experience their sexuality as stable, “there appears to be a widespread preoccupation with the pursuit of sexual self-improvement” (Jackson, 2007, p. 5). This focus, however, ignores how sexuality is constructed, as evidenced by the fact that most sexual “self-improvement” advice suggests mechanistic approaches, such as the use of sex toys, longer foreplay, experimenting with different erogenous zones, etc. While all of these could be considered elements of sexual scripts, they do not necessarily change which relationships and feelings one sees as “sexually meaningful” (Jackson, p. 9). Regardless of whether one reads Cosmopolitan and Maxim magazines, and with or without one’s conscious input, sexual scripts evolve over the course of an individual’s life (Simon & Gagnon, 1986). The changes are complex— sometimes subtle and sometimes profound—and vary based on one’s experiences, context, and circumstances (Mitchell, Wellings, Nazareth, King, Mercer, & Johnson, 2011). Weeks (1995) puts it this way: “Sexual identity involves a perpetual invention and reinvention, but on ground fought over by many histories” (p. 40). Both our perceptions of which people and actions are sexually desirable and our subjective experiences of sexual pleasure may fluctuate—sometimes significantly—from adolescence to old age. This change is by no means linear or predictable by some way of extrap- olation. Rather, individual sexuality generally reflects (or occasionally rejects) social and cultural changes, becoming “a contested site of reflexive 28 mediated eros self-construction” (Jackson, 2007, p. 3). Laumann and Gagnon (1995) suggest that people, “as they get older, make individual adaptations to what is originally provided by the culture. In complex and contradictory cultures, such individual adaptations will be very diverse” (p. 188). Sometimes, even elements we (usually in our youth) assume to be completely immutable—such as heterosexuality or standards of sex appeal—are, in fact, not at all stable. This is the case especially within a sociocultural environment that supports and encourages sexual fluidity. The effects of such an environment are beautifully illustrated in the Swedish filmTogether (2000), portraying a 1970s commune in which an adamantly heterosexual man finally succumbs to the pleas of a gay roommate who has fallen in love with him:

Just to show you how free and wonderful I am … we’ll do like this. Go on, help yourself. You can do what you like. Do what you want. If you get it erect, you’ve won. Otherwise, I’m a normal man. You’ve got one minute. (Jonsson & Moodysson, 2000)

Surprisingly, this man who has defined himself as straight throughout his life, discovers that he can experience sexual pleasure with someone of the same sex. A few scenes later, the two men are shown in bed together, hiding from the straight man’s ex-wife—herself a newly minted lesbian for political reasons—who is temporarily seeking the company of her ex-husband. Such 180-degree sexual changes make for excellent movie material, and they also sometimes happen in real life. This has been noted by Schwartz (2007), who offers examples of women who fell in love with other women, without having ever had a homosexual fantasy, or became lesbians because of disappointments in relationships with men. Although such sexual fluidity is possible, Plummer (2007) argues that it is rare because “patterns of sexual desire … seem subject to deep routinization” (p. 23). One of such routinized patterns is the gendered performance of heterosexuality, which is the subject of the following subsection.

Gendering

Foucault (1976/1990) has argued that power (including patriarchal) is not external to sexual relations; rather, it is immanent in them. This is illustrated by the rigid gendering of heterosexual scripts. Yes, sexual scripts are malleable by social changes, movements, and policies (i.e., Parker, 2010), but they have been stable in reflecting norms of male dominance and female submission. Referring to the United States, Jensen (2004) argues that most “heterosexual constructivist theoretical underpinnings 29 men’s sexuality in this culture is constructed around the domination of women” (p. 254). By contrast, most women’s sexuality is focused on maintaining “their traditional roles as sex objects for men” (Inness, 2004, p. 124). This script is reflected as far back as in interwar marriage manuals, intended to “teach men how to teach their wives … how to participate actively and enthusiastically in their own sexual slavery” (Jackson, 1987, p. 60). Sexu- ality is, in fact, used toward the construction of gender itself: men construct masculinity by having sex with women, and women construct femininity by being attractive to men (Jackson, 2007). This has not changed in the 21st century. Otherwise, why would a magazine like Cosmopolitan, which brands itself as targeting the “fun, fearless female,” advise its readers not to text a man to thank him for a date because “men like to take the lead” (Q&A, 2012, p. 54)? The gendering of sexual scripts is not universal, however. Lease and colleagues (2013) report that although American and Turkish men show similar levels of adherence to traditional male roles, Norwegian men report much lower scores. Unsurprisingly, given these results, in both the U.S. and Turkey, men have traditionally been expected to be sexually active and conquering; by contrast, American and Turkish women are expected to be passive and resisting sexual activity. There is also much variance within any given society. Some individuals employ exception-finding or transforming approaches to gendered sexual scripts (Masters, Casey, Wells, & Morrison, 2012). Still, social norms tend to prove stronger even among those who seek egalitarianism. Dworkin and O’Sullivan (2005) suggest that many men desire balance, shared initiation, and sexual parity within their relationships, but most still apply male- dominated patterns of sexual initiation because these are the norm. Similarly, Epstein, Calzo, Smiler, and Ward (2009) report that few men are truly devoid of emotion or open to the no-strings-attached script; yet, compulsive promiscuity remains the norm for heterosexual men (Elder, Brooks, & Morrow, 2012). Add to this what traditional moralists have claimed for a long time—that “conquering” numerous women is neither a joyful nor a fulfilling lifestyle, as illustrated by the much narrated tribulations of Casanova, a real-life 18th-century Italian adventurer, and Don Juan, a fictional Spanish womanizer—and it becomes clear that people’s sexual identities are shaped by forces beyond individual choice and their own (allegedly) free will. The gendering of sexual scripts, influenced and reinforced by media content, is evident in three major ways: (a) relational scripts; (b) masturbatory 30 mediated eros fantasies; and (c) the double standard for male and female sexuality. Each of these elements is reviewed in the following subsections.

Relational Scripts

Men and women employ distinctly different behaviors to initiate and maintain a sexually intimate encounter (McCormick, 1987; Wiederman, 2005). Here is how sex educator Al Vernacchio (2012) wittily describes the gendering of these behaviors in the U.S.:

… [W]hen you get together to play baseball, immediately you’re with two opposing teams, one playing offense, one playing defense, somebody’s trying to move deeper into the field. That’s usually assigned to the boy. Somebody’s trying to defend people moving into the field. That’s often given to the girl.

This script reflects the expectation that girls show “a commitment to socio- sexuality that precedes a commitment to the gratifications of the sexual performance itself” (Gagnon & Simon, 1973, p. 37). American women’s and men’s motives for engaging in sexual intercourse are different, research suggests. Most men are looking to experience pleasure, have fun, and satisfy a physical urge; by contrast, most women are using sex as a way to express feelings of love, commitment, and emotional attachment (Carroll, Volk, & Hyde, 1985; Hynie et al., 1998; Lenton & Bryan, 2005). As Schwartz (2007) puts it, “love is supposed to be the motor of women’s sexual emotions” (p. 88). That this is a sociocultural construction becomes obvious when we consider that just a few centuries ago, in 17th-century New England, it was women who were viewed as “naturally passionate and incapable of sex regulation” (Foster, 1999, p. 742). It is unclear to what degree these relational scripts hold up in the current hook-up culture. They have already been challenged in media content for several decades. Recall, for example, how Sharon Stone’s character in Basic Instinct matter-of-factly says: “I wasn’t dating him, I was fucking him” (Marshall, Kassar, & Verhoeven, 1992). The viewer is surprised and perhaps shocked, but also invited to take this non-relational statement at face value and to suspend judgment. Jackson (2007) contends that, for women, “new sexual scripts are on offer, replacing the older goals of romance and marriage with aspirations towards sexual autonomy and experimentation” (p. 11). Yet, the old relational scripts have by no means disappeared, making the terrain of most Western sexuality fraught with uncertainty and disappointments. constructivist theoretical underpinnings 31

Masturbatory Fantasies

The gendering of sexual scripts is also evident in the ways men and women construct their own private pleasure narratives, reflecting sexual scripts at the so-called intrapsychic level. Gagnon and Simon (1973) suggest that American girls and women usually fantasize about sexual things that they have already done, such as kissing. These fantasies are contextualized within attachment to a suitable partner (an eligible bachelor); given women’s submissive role in gendered sexual scripts, their masturbatory fantasies also often entail mild forms of masochism. If any girls and women are lacking ideas, popular culture is there to help. “When I think about you, I touch myself … I’d get down on my knees, I’d do anything for you,” sang the Divinyls, an Australian rock band, in their 1990 single “I Touch Myself”, which became an international hit. Cyndi Lauper’s song “She Bop” (1984) also implied masturbating to images of handsome men in “tight blue jeans” in the pages of Blueboy, a no-longer-published gay magazine. Of course, the song was scandalous at the time, but according to feminist columnist Amanda Marcotte, the fuss was only because “Lauper outed the dirty secret of many straight women!” (2014). By contrast, according to Gagnon and Simon (1973), most boys’ and men’s masturbatory fantasies have traditionally included not only isolated images, but also specific sequences of dominant sexual acts. These often include enjoying a harem, initiating and forcing sexual intercourse, receiving oral sex, etc. (Gagnon & Simon). Once again, popular culture has offered suggestions, although these are no longer necessary in the current era of online porn. Here is, for example, what the heavy metal band Judas Priest recommends in its 1984 hit “Eat Me Alive”: “I’m gonna force you at gun point to eat me alive … squealing impassioned as the rod of steel injects” (Tipton, Halford, & Downing, 1984). For a more contemporary version, try rapper 50 Cent’s song “Candy Shop”: “I’ll let you lick the lollipop … Keep going ’til you hit the spot (woah)” (Jackson, 2005).

The Double Standard

The gendering of sexual scripts is especially evident in the notorious, undying view of promiscuous men as “studs” and promiscuous women as “sluts” (e.g., Lyons, Giordano, Manning, & Longmore, 2011). It is not unusual for male characters in U.S. entertainment content to be portrayed as keeping score. 32 mediated eros

For example, the character Barney Stinson in the show How I Met Your Mother spends the first four seasons trying to reach his goal of 200 women; by the sixth season he has “scored” 236. It is very rare for a female TV or movie character to keep an official record or disclose the number of her sex partners. Going back in time, it is even more excruciating to see the double standard in classic hits such as Dion DiMucci’s slut-accusatory “Runaround Sue” (“She took my love then ran around with every single guy in town”) and the stud-praising “The Wanderer” (“Where pretty girls are well, you know that I’m around, I kiss ’em and I love ’em ’cause to me they’re all the same”)—both appearing on the same 1961 album! It would be easy to dismiss 1961 songs as irrelevant. History, however, suggests that implicit gender expectations do not go topsy-turvy in only a few decades. Recent news content has re-illuminated the double standard in the United States, and highlighted the resulting social problems, such as the culture of sexual violence and the prioritization of male pleasure. For instance, an Atlantic Monthly article about female sex workers suggests that “police still use possession of condoms as evidence of prostitution” (Berlatsky, 2014, np). A man searched and found to be carrying condoms (for whatever reason) is unlikely to get arrested because American men (as well as men in most other Western societies) are implicitly encouraged to have condoms on hand, just in case they “get lucky.” It is no coincidence that condom ads are designed almost exclusively for men, and filled with images of testosterone heroes (e.g., Katz, 2003). By contrast, “any woman carrying condoms is a slut,” writes student journalist Brionna Lewis in the Sundial, the student newspaper of California State University Northridge. “You can find condom dispensers in the men’s restroom of nightclubs, but I’d be surprised if you found anything but tampons in the women’s restroom” (Lewis, 2014, np). These are not subjects people usually discuss at the dinner table. Many, however, have seen through the illusion that sex and love are purely personal experiences. Not only are they political as well, but they also offer an enormous trove of data and interpretive potential to social scientists and cultural historians. “Even our most private intimate experience is infused with meaning and significance of which we are not the sole authors,” writes Martinez (2011, p. 1). She further argues that sexualities are plural and communicative. In even more concrete terms, Kimmel (2007) suggests: “Pretty much anyone can have an orgasm … but to have a ‘good’ orgasm—now that requires culture” (emphasis in original, p. viii). constructivist theoretical underpinnings 33

And how do we learn about culture? Much research suggests that sexual scripts are influenced, modified, or reinforced by media content, including TV shows, such as Sex and the City (Markle, 2008), popular magazines (Clarke, 2010), and sexually explicit films (Mosher & MacIan, 1994), among others. The following section outlines some of the mechanisms through which this interaction occurs.

Media: Bridging the Sociocultural Milieu and the Self

As someone who, at the age of 5, fell madly in love with a heroic TV character and announced unflinching plans to marry him, I can personally attest that media content represents and affects all three levels of sexual scripts. These include the larger cultural narratives about sexuality; what we tell others about sex; and, finally, what we tell ourselves about our own sexual desires and fantasies. When media enter the picture, the script levels become blurred. This is especially the case when media content includes meta-interpretations of previously mediated sexual scenarios. For example, we hear Sex and the City referenced and re-interpreted on other shows (i.e., How I Met Your Mother). We also form interpretive communities around such shows. Recall, for example, all the personality quizzes to determine which Sex and the City character you “are” (I “am” Miranda). We read previews and news analyses about the latest sexual debauchery in the award-winning show Mad Men, and we post and read online comments agreeing or disagreeing about the nature of these fictional and mediated occurrences. Although living in a media-saturated world has intensified mass communication’s role in the shaping of Western sexuality, sex has been a favored topic of news and entertainment content since the dawn of mass media. Hall (1999) writes that even in mid-Victorian Britain “respectable newspapers published a good deal of sensational and salacious material”—and much of this coverage contained obvious frames, such as the “alleged contribution [of high-class prostitution] to the delayed marriages of middle- and upper-class men” (p. 35). Later, the homosexuality trial of playwright Oscar Wilde generated a “media circus” and news coverage that framed same-sex relations as essentially “unspeakable” (p. 41). During the interwar period, the British press “condemned as obscene” a novel on lesbianism, The Well of Loneliness (p. 46). 34 mediated eros

It is difficult to theorize about media’s effects on sexuality in a culture where mediated content and audience responses are so deeply intertwined. Laumann and Gagnon (1995) contend that mass media have the power to not only stimulate sexual desires, but also to represent, reproduce, and transform sexual life in a society. Attwood (2013) further notes that sex and media are literally inseparable because “media of all kinds have become central in the ways that sexual identities and lifestyles are understood and maintained” (p. 459). Indeed, sexual scripts are no longer found only in pornography. They permeate non-sexually-explicit media content, which features women in revealing clothing, sexualized poses or scenarios, and subordinate roles (Collins, 2011). And this is true not only in the West. Kon (1999), for example, writes: “In the Russian mass media there is a lot of soft porn and cheap erotica” (p. 213). Should all this be a source of alarm? According to much scholarly literature about media portrayals of sexuality, the answer is an emphatic yes. There are two main motifs within this alarmist perspective, and they are outlined in the following sections.

Desire to Preserve the Innocence

Much scholarly literature implicitly assumes that media affect mostly the sexual socialization of virgins and sexually inexperienced people. For some, this is a positive thing. For example, Martinez (2011) argues that, for sexual novices, “media representations of sexuality allow a certain amount of knowledge about our body’s sexuality to the degree that we recognize our own sexual responsiveness” (p. 35). Others have been less optimistic. Take sex education out of media’s hands, pleaded Gagnon and Simon as early as 1973: “It is left to the mass media, whose representation of the sexual experience is least trustworthy, to provide the young with an imagery that is at all correlated with how they will experience their own sexual selves—that is, in terms of fear, passion, pleasure, and pain” (p. 124). Reflecting similar concerns, Brown (2002) has called for urgent research on how mediated sexual content affects sexual awareness, beliefs, and behaviors, specifically among adolescents and young adults, presumed to have the least amount of sexual experience. But, considering that sexual scripts evolve throughout the lifetime, it is perhaps more accurate to suggest that mediated sexual narrative could have some effects on everyone, from children to sexually active adults of any age. Research suggests that many young adults believe sexuality-related media constructivist theoretical underpinnings 35 content to be accurate and view it as a source of informal sexual education (Smith, Maitland, Wilson, Menn, & Larsen, 2012). But is there any evidence that older adults are not susceptible to influences—even if they self-report employing a more critical lens? Even when people do not acquire new sexual scripts from media, Wright (2011) argues that media content may activate existing scripts and make them more accessible to memory. This means that such scripts become more likely to be enacted in reality. In a reflection on the far-reaching and difficult-to-measure influences from entertainment and news, Harvey and Gill (2013) suggest that the ubiquity of mediated sexual scripts represents an across-the-board “neoliberal regulation of intimate lives” (p. 497). What is concerning about this trend is not that virgins might or might not be more affected by silver-screen sexual enactments than old ladies. Rather, what is problematic is that Western media narratives about sexuality are so detached from many people’s reality, especially in cultures that favor prudishness in sex education and sexual discourses. This is certainly the case in the United States. As Jackson (2007) puts it: “Our sexual climate is one where … ordinary people’s intimate sexual secrets are revealed in detail on television and radio and in the ‘problem pages’ …, yet where most young people remain unable to discuss sexuality freely with their parents” (pp. 11–12). This negative attitude toward sexuality is outlined in more detail in the following section.

Sex Is Bad (Unless You Are Male)

Second, much U.S. research on media effects on sexuality has been preoccu- pied with concerns about the encouragement of sexually irresponsible behaviors. Some scholars have offered criticism that border on absurdity—such that entertainment content does not always portray explicitly responsible sex. For instance, the argument goes, if characters on screen do not appear to be using a condom or talking about using it, then viewers would not be likely to use condoms either (e.g., Kunkel, Farrar, Eyal, Biely, Donnerstein, & Rideout, 2007). Yet, it is unrealistic to expect entertainment producers to behave as though they are in the business of making public service announcements. What this perspective also fails to recognize is that, even though condoms do not usually get unrolled on Western European television either, the rates of teenage pregnancies and STDs there are already significantly lower than they are in the United States. 36 mediated eros

Much research has also focused on whether one’s frequency of exposure to mediated sexual narratives predicts certain sex-related attitudes and behaviors. These are presumed to be negative and dangerous by default. In some ways, such studies contain presumptions reminiscent of those in strict religious schools (mostly of the past), depicted in many novels and movies, such as The Lover (Berri & Annaud, 1992). In this narrative, girls hide under their blankets at night, read forbidden literature, and discuss it with close friends. Why is the literature forbidden? Because it may encourage them to do forbidden things. But, could it be that girls who already intend to do these forbidden things are just trying to gather some basic information in advance? For example, adolescents and young adults’ level of individual exposure to mediated sexual content has been found to correlate with their sexual activity and/or future intentions to be sexually active (e.g., Pardun, L’Engle, & Brown, 2005). Many correlations have also been discerned between specific media and exposure to specific sexual stereotypes and attitudes toward sexuality. For instance, Kim and Ward (2004) found that college women who frequently read adult- focused magazines were less likely to support male sexual stereotypes and view sex as risky, but those who read women’s magazines for sex advice supported both traditional male sexual stereotypes and a sexually assertive female role. While these studies are interesting and important, correlations like the ones described above are no more informative than, say, findings that viewers of Fox News are likely to support conservative viewpoints. Does this represent a media effect or a self-selection bias? It has been difficult for most scholars to establish causality and show that mediated sexual content causes one to engage in sexual activity. One longitudinal study (Bleakley, Hennessy, Fishbein, & Jordan, 2008) supports the hypothesized causal relationship between exposure to sexually explicit media content and resulting sexual behavior, but it also shows that sexual behavior itself is a predictor of subsequent exposure to sexual media content. Interestingly but unsurprisingly, media effects research on men’s sexuality has been less focused on negative consequences and much more on actual sex. For example, based on a sample of about 800 heterosexual men, Ward, Epstein, Caruthers, and Merriwether (2011) inferred causality between exposure to movies and men’s magazines and the participants’ sexual behavior. Further, Schooler and Ward (2006) found correlations between men’s media use and men’s discomfort with bodily aspects or functions, such as hair and sweat. The more uncomfortable participants felt about their bodies, the less constructivist theoretical underpinnings 37 sexually assertive and less interested in risk-reduction sexual behaviors they were; participants’ discomfort with similar aspects of their female partners’ bodies correlated with lesser intimacy in sexual relationships. The literature reviewed so far suggests some overlap between the presence and content of sexual narratives in media content and the sexual scripts of individuals in a given society. A useful concept to explain this phenomenon is media framing, which is discussed below, in the last section of this chapter.

Media Frames as Overarching Scripts

Gamson (1998), in his analysis of TV talk shows, makes the insightful observation that “discourse and institutional practice are not separable phenomena” (p. 22). Production routines in various creative fields, such as news and entertainment, have received plenty of scholarly attention as limiting and biasing the world around us. The so-called “Hollywood formula” of three acts presented in a linear fashion—character introduction, conflict, and resolution— has been extensively analyzed and critiqued (e.g., Smith, 1999; Dancyger & Rush, 2013). Even though linear plots are increasingly being replaced by multiple story lines within the same feature film (Smith), these subplots remain logical and chronological in most U.S.-made cinema. In a reflection of the need for clar- ity that American viewers demand, movie plots are built upon black-and- white statements of good versus evil. The Hollywood formula, with its strong emphasis on uncomplicated plots, requires that the story lines make value judgments about characters’ actions, including their sexual behaviors. As The New York Times’ film critic A. O. Scott notes, “plot is the enemy of truth” (2014b). And what is a plot if not a frame? Much of the analysis in the following chapters will (directly or indirectly) reference media framing as a theory and also employ media framing as a methodology. For that reason, it is important to outline how and why media framing is an appropriate foundation for this work, in addition to scripting theory, which was covered in the earlier parts of this chapter. To summarize, framing generally refers to media’s artificial order imposed on chaotic and complex reality (Entman, 1993). This section offers an explanation and examples of how the inclusion or omission of certain statements, perspectives, characters, and sources in media content leads to depictions that do not fully reflect the complexity of reality. 38 mediated eros

Defining Media Frames

Like most intangible concepts—love, patriarchy, and quantum particles, among others—media frames are difficult to imagine. How can we recognize them? Why do they exist? Can enough criticism rid us of media framing? Outside the world of media scholars, the word “framing” implies conscious and malicious intent on the part of a message creator or sender—as when someone is “framed” for a crime s/he did not commit. But the reality is that journalists, advertising executives, and screenwriters do not usually sit around laughing evilly like Mr. Burns in The Simpsons, contemplating whom and what to “frame.” Media frames simply reflect the culturally and politically acceptable ways to tell specific stories (within a certain culture or subculture) under certain production pressures (limited time, space, budgets). Every writer or producer must make choices about what to emphasize and what to ignore when telling a story—and these choices are bound to reflect cultural influences because writers and producers do not live in a vacuum. From a storytelling perspective, framing is impossible to avoid. The ability to “frame” creatively within certain cultural and production boundaries constitutes much of media professionals’ acquired expertise. In practice, media framing often presents itself as “problem definitions, causal interpretations, moral evaluations, and treatment recommendations” (Weaver, 2007, p. 143)—elements that can be seen in just about any television show, commercial, or magazine article. Complex phenomena are framed by highlighting only certain aspects, often consistent with gender, race, and class stereotypes (Entman, 1993). Framing’s focus on salience relates to Goffman’s (1974) idea that people filter their perceptions of the world, and simplify them in whatever ways are convenient and comprehensible. A cartoon by Christophe Vorlet in The Chronicle of Higher Education, accompanying a story about the use of current events in teaching (Rooks, 2014), offers a wonderful visual metaphor for media framing. The cartoon portrays a flurry of chaotic and irregular shapes—lopsided stars, lightning strikes, question marks, and exclamation points—entering a crank. The handle is being turned—a metaphor for the factory-like process of news production— and a colorful jigsaw puzzle emerges on the other side of the crank. The chaotic reality entering the news machine is transformed into arbitrary and still incomprehensible orderliness. The pieces of the jigsaw puzzle—the result of the previously chaotic reality—are badly mismatched. No image can be discerned in the resulting puzzle. Only the puzzle’s oddly shaped individual pieces constructivist theoretical underpinnings 39 stand out. This image offers a powerful allegory for the lack of context and big-picture perspective in most news stories. Although frames are always present, in any text (because it is ontologi- cally impossible to represent every aspect of reality), they are especially easy to discern in content intended to be processed quickly and easily. Such content is produced to grab audiences’ attention without creating any danger of cognitive overload (which means thinking too hard and losing interest). A safe and likable frame is typically one that dovetails with audiences’ pre-existing knowledge, and values. For instance, it would be unwise to show a Michael Moore documentary at a Tea Party rally because the content would not match the viewers’ pre-existing assumptions. This dovetailing, if successful, allows the producers of media messages to engage in limited or no explanation for certain statements. For example, if one were to write a news story about American health insurance outside the United States, much explanation would be needed for terms such as “deductible” and “copay.” However, no such explanations are needed for American audiences who routinely come across these concepts and terms in their daily lives. In entertainment content, skillful framing reduces the need to construct multi-dimensional characters; time is saved if the characters are shallow and constructed to fit certain pre-established categories in viewers’ minds. Further, challenging audiences’ pre-existing knowledge by offering multi-dimensional characters who violate many stereotypes can be a risky and often unprofitable endeavor. It can be accomplished in a seven-season show such as Mad Men, but it is not usually easy to do within the confines of limited space and time. It is precisely brevity and fast pace that are the hallmarks of contemporary mass media—and the stricter these confines, the more indispensable skillful framing becomes. The problem with media frames, of course, is that they are typically built around stereotypes, serving our cognitive need to simplify intricate phenomena. In most cases, media frames do not reflect a clear and written top-down editorial policy. Rather, they represent the cumulative sociocultural knowledge of journalists, writers, bloggers, and other media producers, who serve as conduits between the larger symbolic environment and the audiences. This is why scholars study mediated content to discern specific sociocultural norms or normative changes over time. These shifts can sometimes be pretty striking. For example, when in 1854 The New York Times ran an article titled “Fishing for a Nigger” (reprinted from the New-Orleans Crescent), the writer’s light-hearted story of “piscatory exercises” described how a U.S. 40 mediated eros

Customs officer’s finger was bitten by a runaway slave “as rabidly as a catfish would at the entrails of a turkey buzzard” (p. 3). This story’s frame reflects the social treatment of blacks as animal-like property, which in more recent terms is reminiscent of the Nazi regime’s framing of Jews as “cockroaches.” The symbolic environment since 1854 has evolved and expanded significantly, imposing different sociocultural norms, and such a frame would be unthinkable in contemporary news, even if it were presented in the form of satire. This reflects the fact that the group identity defining the audience of any American news outlet with online presence is no longer that of a white, male, and perhaps slave-owning elite, but—in theory at least—of all Americans and the international English-speaking community. Just imagine the global Twitter shaming that could result from such a story! Exceptions occur in that sometimes media frame controversial issues— especially ones involving outgroup members—in ways that challenge group identity. These framings can be either stifled by the group or can usher in changes to the group’s values. For example, when the St. Paul Pioneer Press ran a series called “AIDS in the Heartland” (Banaszynski, 1987), sympathetically and tolerantly chronicling the last months of two gay farmers dying of AIDS, many cancelled their subscriptions in protest against the compassionate framing. Regardless, the series won a Pulitzer Prize, earning national attention, and likely changed at least some of the negative perceptions of gay people in the community served by the Pioneer Press. Virtually any text can be found to contain assumptions of pre-existing knowledge, but historically speaking, media professionals did not always try so hard to simplify reality for their audiences (Vickers, 2008). Although 150 years ago journalists used words like “nigger,” reflecting terrible assumptions of inferiority and perceived as racial slurs today, the brand-like construction of public figures and celebrities was not always the norm. It was likely because of complex socioeconomic factors such as competition that media began to not only favor, but also actively create simplifications and stereotypes in the postwar years. Here is how Vickers describes journalists’ efforts at the time to construct immutable mental images:

The public, they reasoned, wanted cartoonish representatives of complex things. Accordingly, in the popular imagination wild-haired Albert Einstein became the Wacky European Scientist, surly Marlon Brando the Mumbling Ambassador of Inar- ticulate Youth, pneumatic Marilyn Monroe the paradigmatic Hollywood Pinup, mad- eyed bald man Pablo Picasso the Famous Modern Artist, and so on. It was a kind of visual shorthand, and it was often accompanied by editorial to match. (p. 7) constructivist theoretical underpinnings 41

There is a certain element of cognitive pleasure in thinking about Einstein and being able to retrieve from memory his wild-haired look, or thinking about Marilyn Monroe and almost seeing her, busty and smiling sumptuously while pressing down a skirt hiked up by the wind. “Do you recall a particular picture of me, say, wearing a beret?” asks former White House intern Monica Lewinsky in a TED talk in which she says she “was seen by many but known by few” (2015, np). Most people would probably answer affirmatively. Yes, we remember the beret. And the cigar. But the disclosure that Lewinsky had sex with her boss, then-President Bill Clinton, because she was in love with him comes as news to most of us. Who is served by the ease of such iconic image retrieval? Literally nobody, except those who profit from the sale of mediated narratives. Scholars of framing often invoke Walter Lippmann’s notion of “pictures in our heads” (from his influential 1922 essay on public opinion) in arguing that by simplifying, frames can also severely limit and bias audiences’ mental representations of certain aspects of reality—especially ones with which they have little or no personal experiences (e.g., Slater, 1990). In that sense, media framing is not only a theory of cultural analysis, but also a theory of media effects. Although media frames should be distinguished from the audiences’ pre-existing knowledge structures, the two interact greatly thanks to a vault of common cultural knowledge. As Van Gorp (2007) points out, a “shared repertoire of frames in culture” (p. 61) links the production of media content and its audience reception. Mediated representations of reality have been shown to affect audiences’ internal representations of the portrayed realities (e.g., Scheufele, 1999). These influences are stronger if they align with pre-existing attitudes and culturally shared myths (Igartua & Cheng, 2009; Pan & Kosicki, 1993). A frame is a “cultural motive … made by the reader in interaction with his or her own perception of the text” (Van Gorp, 2005, p. 487). Media frames can also lead readers and viewers to question the validity of their own experiences, if these deviate from dominant narratives. In the end, although media frames are shaped by the larger symbolic environment, they in turn have the capacity to strengthen or reinvent certain aspects of this environment over time.

Theoretical Roots

Media framing fits well with the social constructivist framework of this book, in that its focus is on the inclusion or exclusion of certain details. It is through 42 mediated eros that process that media content is molded according to mainstream cultural narratives. McQuail (1994) suggests that media participate in the social construction of reality by framing it in “a predictable and patterned way” (p. 331). The constructivist nature of media framing is also evident in the theory’s focus on what information is selected and made salient versus what is left unsaid (Entman, 1993). The salience versus silence aspects of framing are especially important in the study of sexual narratives, which often use euphemisms or tiptoe around information that would have been presented much more directly and explicitly had it concerned any other matter. Lutzen (1995) suggests than silences often contain just as much—if not more—interpretive potential than explicit discourses about sex. For the reasons outlined above, framing is arguably a theoretical sibling of script theory, including sexual scripting. Connell and Dowsett (1999) offer a convincing argument that both Simon and Gagnon’s theory of socially constructed sexuality and Foucault’s theorizing on the cultural history of sexuality should fall under the broad umbrella of “social framing theories” (p. 186). As suggested by the name and also by its conceptual essence, media framing is just another social framing theory. It investigates the culturally influenced, narrowly defined, and greatly simplified media narratives about sequenced events. In indirect support of this view, Gamson and Modigliani (1987) argue that a media frame can be an organizing idea, but it can also be a “story line that provides meaning to an unfolding strip of events” (p. 143). In that sense, a frame is not unlike a sexual script, an eating script, or even a job interview script. Media framing is also a distant cousin of theoretical frameworks that address the creation and maintenance of social or group identities (e.g., Tajfel, 1970). The ways in which media construct reality have to reflect (and often end up reinforcing) the cultural boundaries of the specific groups they serve. The type or size of the groups does not matter. They can be nation-states, political parties, or high schools. The relation of media frames to a certain group’s identity (such as liberal or conservative ideology) is easy to notice, for example, by comparing the content of the politically opposite Washington Post and Washington Times. The favoring of certain media frames over others is inherent in journalistic standards of newsworthiness. They emphasize novelty, and novelty is defined by journalists’ own social and cultural knowledge about what is normal or usual. The determination of what is out of the ordinary is dependent on social and cultural realities. It is further shaped by certain elite subcultures; constructivist theoretical underpinnings 43 for example, media frames tend to reflect the views of white male elites. The normalcy of in-group members and their routine happenings is thus confirmed by the framing of outgroup people and events as unusual. In that sense, one of the functions of media frames is to provide us with easy-to-digest symbolic inversion—a cultural analysis term that refers to the “use of stereotypes about others as reflections of self-images” (Lofgren, 1987, p. 46). Given the predictability of most media frames, little wonder that Gans (1979) has compared journalistic work to an “assembly line” (p. 165). This notion is similar to the visual metaphor of the crank, described in an earlier section of this chapter. The automation of news work reflects routine expectations about what is newsworthy and about how a news story should be constructed. Known story forms, such as “the fire” or “the lost child,” prompt predictable patterns of reporting and writing (Tuchman, 1978, p. 103). The news factory process is learned through newsroom socialization over time. Breed (1955) observed how newly hired staffers learn their colleagues’ norms “by osmosis” (p. 328). Subtle preferences become ingrained in a journalist’s psyche. The focus is on the scandal, the conflict, the unusual, the latest, and the closest—not on the vast complexity of reality as experienced by an infinite number of diverse individuals. Thanks to their knowledge of these patterns, veteran reporters accomplish a high level of automation, produce more news stories at a higher speed, and face fewer hassles or questions from editors. The previous paragraphs demonstrated the all-encompassing nature and explanatory and predictive potential offered by framing theory. Such complexity aside, how does one identify a media frame? The practical aspects of this approach are the subject of the following section.

Framing as a Methodology

Media framing is often viewed as not only a theory, but also as a cultural analysis tool. Framing analysis begins by identifying the themes and main ideas of media messages. However, it also seeks to identify any explicit or implicit causal statements intended to support the writers’ “hypotheses” (Pan & Kosicki, 1993, p. 61). Word choices or labels are considered as well because they reveal “cognitive categorizations” (p. 62)—as illustrated, for example, by the use of the animal metaphors in the 1854 “Fishing for a Nigger” article, mentioned earlier. Word choices signify underlying frames, especially when they identify either strongly flattering or unflattering attributes. 44 mediated eros

The recognition and identification of frames is influenced by a scholar’s own pre-existing knowledge and scripts. For example, a 19th-century scholar, knowing nothing of 20th-century wartime and anti-Semitic propaganda, would probably not consider animal metaphors to be oppressive or of any significance. Thus, unlike content analysis, framing analysis is not simply counting and categorizing aspects of a given text, although some content analysis scholars have coded for frames. Framing analysis per se, however, does not typically employ formal and quantified coding because it does not rest on “objectively identifiable meanings” (Pan & Kosicki, 1993 p. 58). A media frame has a lot of aspects: It is “a cognitive device used in information encoding, interpreting, and retrieving; it is communicable; and it is related to journalistic professional routines and conventions” (p. 57). The word “cognitive,” present in the above definition, usually refers to individual and biologically inherent thinking processes. This could inaccu- rately suggest that framing theory and analysis fit the realm of quantifiable social science. It is important to remember, however, that cognitive processes are influenced by one’s sociocultural and symbolic environments. “Cognition” and “culture,” concepts employed by two very different scholarly communities, should not be understood as mutually exclusive. Their complementary nature is reflected, for example, in Lofgren’s (1987) definition of culture as “a superordinate form of a cognitive system into which an individual is more or less unconsciously programmed” (p. 30). In this sense, media frames can be viewed as one of the programming tools of cultural-cognitive interchange. They are the hidden messages we uncover in news and entertainment. We all engage in automatic and unconscious framing analysis every time we read or watch any media content. Carrie, Samantha, Charlotte, and Miranda, you have already been deconstructed and analyzed many times by every single Sex and the City viewer in the world.

Conclusion

References to sex and sexuality are present in much media content because they are literally sexy (read: sensational and profitable). However, their ubiquity rarely translates into in-depth coverage. In entertainment, this reflects certain rigid obscenity standards, the violation of which can threaten media companies’ profits. In news, in-depth coverage of sexuality is avoided because it does not fit well with the notions of objectivity, common sense, and community constructivist theoretical underpinnings 45 standards that are central to newsroom routines (e.g., Tuchman, 1978). The dearth of serious and honest media discourse about sex is reflected in the scholarly literature. Some journalism and communication scholars have investigated how media frame aspects of sexuality (e.g., Wilcox, 2003; Kim, Lynn Sorsoli, Collins, Zylbergold, Schooler, & Tolman, 2007), and some have presented evidence of biased coverage of sexual minorities (e.g., Castañeda & Campbell, 2006). Still, very little or even no research exists on how media frame sexual desires, practices, and pleasures—without and beyond the negative consequences ascribed to them. This work aims to make a scholarly contribution by addressing this gap in the literature. Scripting and framing, two closely related theoretical offspring of social constructivism, offer both a stable foundation and the analytical flexibility needed to investigate the interplay between individual and sociocultural sexual narratives. Conceived as synonymous by some (e.g., Entman, 2004), these concepts bridge individual cognition with sociocultural collective consciousness. Both also recognize the fragmented and subjective nature of human experiences, and emphasize the relativity of human perceptions, beliefs, and sequences of actions, without denying reality’s existence. With these two frameworks in mind, let’s begin the journey of investigating one of the most private aspects of human life—sexuality.

·2· look-sees, lysol, and baseball

Heterosexual Scripts in American Popular Culture

On November 20, 1969, a Swedish import, a film titledThe Language of Love, arrived in New York, only to be seized by the Commissioner of Customs two weeks later for alleged obscenity. Intended as a documentary and a marriage manual, the film contained interviews with four sexologists, including the Secretary General of the Swedish Royal Commission for Sex Education. However, some viewers had become disturbed by “scenes of oral-genital contact and other heterosexual activity that no actor or actress would ever have confessed knowledge of in bygone days of the silver screen,” according to the case summary (np). In September 1970, Judge Leonard Moore of the U.S. Court of Appeals briefly verbalized his fantasy of how easy it would be to create a ban on any depiction of a real or simulated intercourse. It occurred to him, however, that such a ban might place the U.S. in “an isolationist position amongst the nations,” as he noted in his decision. Finally, after much consternation, the judge released The Language of Love for public viewing. No major media outlets covered the case, United States of America v. 35 Mm. Motion Picture Film Entitled “Language of Love,” judging by the complete lack of news articles about it in the Lexis Nexis database. The only blurb about the release of the controversial Swedish film appeared in a specialized newsletter titled Sex News (Houdek, 1970). It summarized the judge’s words in the following 48 mediated eros manner: “Americans who can endure the film are entitled to do so. He found no predominate prurience that treats human intercourse with all the passion of an agriculture school lecture on animal husbandry” (p. 1). But the grapes were sour. The judge was, in fact, irritated with foreign sexual influences. He noted in his decision on the case: “We may observe that all Scandinavian filmmakers appear bent on exploding our myths and taboos as at least a minor premise of their endeavors.” It is precisely these uniquely American “myths and taboos,” which Judge Moore was so concerned with protecting, that are the subject of this chapter. Anyone who has watched both optimistic Hollywood flicks and darkly deca- dent European films recognizes the different assumptions these genres make about sexuality. These divergent assumptions are evident not only in cinema, but also in virtually all other media content originating in either Europe or the United States. American news and entertainment culture presents a particular challenge to analyze because it combines overtly sexualized performances with narratives of purity, shame, and sexual restriction. In this chapter, frames/scripts are identified across media content, including news, televised entertainment, and film, for two reasons. First, these channels of mass communication exist within the same symbolic environment, so it is reasonable to expect that all of them will reflect aspects of it. Second, triangulating as much evidence as possible is important in investigations of complex phenomena. A few more clarifications are warranted at the start of this chapter. First, Americans are frequently proclaimed “puritanical” in their attitude toward sexuality. However, this statement does not fairly represent the Puritans’ complex sexual legacy, as noted by Merskin (2014). Historian Thomas Foster (1999) argues that Puritans who settled in New England “put a coordinate premium on sexual pleasure in marriage” because it reinforced the family bonds (p. 723). Not only did they encourage sexual satisfaction for both men and women, but 17th-century Puritan medical manuals were also sophisticated enough to highlight the significance of the clitoris to women’s sexual pleasure. It seems historically inaccurate to blame the Puritans for the current state of American sexuality, and for this reason, I will avoid using the term “puritanical” as synonymous with “repressive” or “prudish.” Second, although American sexual scripts have historically been more restrictive than in other parts of the world, the United States deserves credit for fostering certain public discourses on sexuality, even when their content challenged the prevailing social norms. This is illustrated, for example, by the look-sees, lysol, and baseball 49 publication and distribution of newspapers by the Free Lovers, a movement that championed women’s right to sexual pleasure and freedom from sexual violence, as early as in the 1870s (Battan, 2004). The Free Love press, which was not concerned about alienating advertisers, made bold statements supporting the choice to have out-of-wedlock children, women’s sexual autonomy, and the importance of love to marriage—without which such a union was considered to be the equivalent of legal prostitution (Battan). In contemporary America, attitudes toward sex remain polarized, and in the spirit of free speech, they are also frequently debated. This ambivalence toward sexuality is the subject of the following section.

Purity and Aggression

Both trivialized and endowed with undue importance, sex in America is at the heart of many culture wars. References to sex are crassly displayed in many public spaces, including mediated ones. Yet, many Americans still prioritize purity over sexual desire and pleasure. A cross-cultural study of mate preferences shows that, on average, people in the U.S. place a higher value on sexual inexperience than on sexual experience. This preference is reversed among Russians, even though they emerged from the era of oppressive Soviet sexlessness only a few decades ago (Pearce, Chuikova, Ramsey, & Galyautdi- nova, 2010). This idealization of sexual purity (real or professed) in the U.S. could be explained in part by the higher average church attendance and religiosity among Americans than among citizens of other Western countries. The resistance to sexual desire and pleasure also reflects the American work ethic, given the incompatibility of sex “with a general and intensive work imperative” (Foucault, 1976/1990, p. 6). According to the 2013 Better Life Index by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the U.S. ranks fourth from the bottom among 36 advanced nations in “time devoted to leisure and personal care” (np). It is strange, given these facts, to consider Schur’s (1988) argument, in his book The Americanization of Sex, that America has “sexual leadership” in the world (p. 10). Undoubtedly, this is more reflective of the strength of American media exports and the resulting mediated cultural diffusion than of the limited breadth and depth of sexual knowledge or sophistication in the United States. Despite the country’s sexual leadership, Schur argues, 50 mediated eros

American sexuality remains different from other sexual cultures in three distinctive ways: It is depersonalized, commoditized, and coercive. Even though Schur’s analysis was published decades ago, these three traits continue to be easily identifiable in news and popular culture. An analysis of 25 television programs found that the most frequently portrayed sexual script is the one of American men “actively and aggressively pursuing sex” (Kim, Lynn Sorsoli, Collins, Zylbergold, Schooler, & Tolman, 2007, p. 145). What better indicator could we imagine of sexual attitudes like depersonalization and coercion? Many American music videos also feature “sex-driven males competing with one another for females who are viewed as sexual objects,” along with degrading lyrics referring to women as deserving of male aggression and contempt (Martino, Collins, Elliott, Strachman, Kanouse, & Berry, 2006, p. e432). In this discourse, women are seen as sexual commodities, to be “bought” with gifts and dinners in an auction-like process against other competing men. The sociocultural construction of American male aggression is especially evident if we invoke comparisons with other cultures. Studies show that U.S. men and women disagree greatly on what constitutes sexual harassment, and that men are more likely to minimize and victim-blame. By contrast, no such gender differences have been observed in Germany and Australia; in Brazil— a highly eroticized society—the gender differences are actually reversed, with men being more likely than women to interpret an ambivalent scenario as sexual harassment (Pryor et al., 1997). Aggression has been viewed as central to American sexuality both by American scholars and many outside the U.S. Zippel (2004) writes that after Anita Hill officially accused Clarence Thomas of sexual harassment in Senate hearings in 1991, Europeans began to see sexual harassment as a typically American problem, reflecting an immature sexual culture where a man is always the aggressor and a woman the gatekeeper. Writes Zippel: “… [T]he mainstream European media have obsessed over ‘American excesses,’ portraying Americans as puritans constantly on their guard against sexual expression and Europeans as sexually liberated individuals” (p. 72). Al Vernacchio (2012), a sexuality educator, has a more memorable way of defining the aggressive American heterosexual script: baseball. Here is how he describes it in a TED talk seen by more than 1.2 million people:

… [B]aseball is the dominant cultural metaphor that Americans use to think about and talk about sexual activity … you can be a pitcher or a catcher, and that corresponds to look-sees, lysol, and baseball 51

whether you perform a sexual act or receive a sexual act. Of course, there are the bases, which refer to specific sexual activities that happen in a very specific order, ultimately resulting in scoring a run or hitting a home run, which is usually having vaginal intercourse to the point of orgasm, at least for the guy. (Laughter) … And then there’s this one: “if there’s grass on the field, play ball.” And that usually refers to if a young person, specifically often a young woman, is old enough to have pubic hair, she’s old enough to have sex with. This baseball model is incredibly problematic. It’s sexist. It’s heterosex- ist. It’s competitive. It’s goal-directed.

Little wonder that baseball (or sometimes golf) is the code to many cryptic sex conversations on TV. These seem to be intended for the trained ear of adult Americans who have learned the cipher in high school. The sports jargon code to sex, however, cannot be understood by most children or foreigners. For example, in How I Met Your Mother Robin Scherbatsky shares how she has stopped shaving her legs to limit the temptation of having sex on first dates. Her ex responds: “It doesn’t matter, baby. Guys just want to get on the green. They don’t mind going through the rough” (Hemingson & Fryman, 2007). In a later episode, when a couple who has broken up ends up having sex, the male protagonist blames the incident on his ex-girlfriend by using a baseball metaphor: “You’re like the crappy kid in little league who knows he’s not going to make contact, so he just … ‘Oops, I got hit by the pitch. Better take my base’” (Kuhn & Fryman, 2007). All these baseball metaphors suggest a sequential rigidity (first base, second base, etc.), which can and does encourage non-consensual actions. For example, in the film Carnal Knowledge (Nichols, 1971), a couple is making out in the woods, and the man places his hand on the woman’s left breast. She begs him to remove his hand, and asks how he can enjoy it when he knows she does not want this. “I didn’t say it was fun,” he answers. “… [T]he way we are going, by this time I should be feeling you up.” No doubt, this approach seems unimaginative, and it is precisely this rigidity that seems to be one of American sexuality’s defining characteristics. This strict sequential approach is outlined in more detail in the following section.

Dude, Keep It Simple

It has been said that procreative sex is now replaced by recreative sex, but Schur (1989) has argued that there is nothing particularly enjoyable or relaxed about American sex. He describes it as mechanistic, formulaic, instrumental, and ultimately “reductionistic” (p. 50). Often uncomplicated 52 mediated eros and purely physical, sex in the U.S. is a thing that someone “has” or “gets” (p. 11). Demystified, it leaves no room for transcendence. It can be “done” without cognitive or emotional complications. (Nike’s “Just do it” motto fittingly defines American sexuality.) American sex can be “quantified and evaluated and above all avidly consumed” (Schur, p. 3). The materiality of sex in U.S. culture is what defines it, limits it, and distinguishes it from the more existential and obscure Western European sexual script. Madonna’s song “Material Girl” (which makes it clear that she is living in a material world) is arguably not only a prototypical gold digger’s hymn, but also the anthem of the North American, concrete bodily sexuality enacted through the objectifying (male) gaze and overreliance on pleasure moans. In the words of philosopher Slavoj Žižek (1992), “instead of the sublime Thing, we are stuck with vulgar, groaning fornication” (p. 110). Examples abound. Sex in the U.S. is frequently portrayed as a mechanical exchange—a penile-vaginal intercourse, for which people do not even need to remove their clothes. This is illustrated in the “Sex Talk” episode of the ’90s show Everybody Loves Raymond, which presents an attempted-intercourse scene in which the female protagonist, Debra, wearing a gown, goes to bed, where her fully clothed husband, Raymond, is watching TV (Himmel, Nelson, & Mackenzie, 1999). The narrative borrows from a 1998 episode of The Simpsons, “Grampa vs. Sexual Inadequacy,” in which Marge attempts to awaken Homer’s sexual interest while he is watching TV (Oakley, Weinstein, & Archer, 1994). Just like Marge, Debra tries to get Raymond’s attention, but to no avail. She then complains that they hardly have sex anymore. This prompts the following odd response from her husband: “I am still a sex machine.” A machine has no emotions, can experience neither desire nor pleasure, and performs only repetitive pre-programmed actions. Why would a human being see himself as a machine? This is because in Everybody Loves Raymond the quality of one’s sex life (or one’s masculinity) is judged only on the basis of the frequency with which sexual intercourse is performed. As it turns out in this episode, Raymond’s parents have sex twice a week, which makes their two sons feel sexually inadequate because they cannot live up to that frequency. Thankfully for their male egos, this “failure” to be as sexual as their aging dad is quickly explained away with their busy lives as parents and working adults. Sex frequency, of course, both on TV and in real life, reflects only the frequency of ejaculation, the ultimate mechanistic outcome of a sexual act. Consider Reiss’s (1986) take: look-sees, lysol, and baseball 53

Think about two different sexual scenarios. Suppose we have a couple who engage in coitus for one hour. During that time the female has orgasms three times, but the male has only one orgasm at the end of the hour. If that couple were asked how many times they made love that day, they would likely answer once—basing the answer on the male’s final orgasm, which is the symbol of the end of the coital act. (pp. 131–132)

This traditional, man-centered coital ending sometimes appears to be sub- verted, but such subversions are illusory and reinforce the primacy of male sexual pleasure. In the beginning of the film Basic Instinct, which portrays the investigation of the murder a man brutally stabbed by his girlfriend after he ejaculated, the victim’s manliness is posthumously congratulated by the detec- tives who show up to investigate the death. “Impressive,” one remarks in regard to the amount of sperm on the sheets. “He got off before he got off,” chuck- les another. Even though Dutch director Paul Verhoeven challenges the male dominance of the American script during Basic Instinct’s opening sex scene— the woman on top and in control, similar to the main sex scene in his Dutch filmThe 4th Man (Houwer & Verhoeven, 1983)—this exception only comes to reinforce the notion that it is the man’s orgasm that counts. It is his ejaculatory reflex that other men will high-five, even after the ejaculator is dead. More evidence supporting the notion of the reductionist nature of American sex can be found in the media’s glorification of drunken sex. Descrip- tions of being completely wasted precede many stories about bold (albeit difficult to remember) sexual experiences. The cliché narrative of waking up next to a disrobed stranger has been reenacted in both dramas and comedies. In an example from How I Met Your Mother, the protagonist, Ted Mosby, discovers that, following some heavy drinking, he has somehow managed to have intercourse with a woman he met in a bar’s bathroom (Bays, Thomas, & Fryman, 2005b). This combination of drunkenness and unproblematic sex appears throughout popular culture. A major example is the Emmy-award-winning show Mad Men (Weiner, Hornbacher, Jacquemetton, Jacquemetton, & Leahy, 2007), in which advertising executive Don Draper constantly drinks; so much that, physiologically speaking, his robust erections are as improbable as a UFO landing. The same conundrum can be found in most of the James Bond movies, where the masculine hero drinks and gets women in bed like a champion, suggesting that this is perhaps an Anglo-American and not only a U.S. script. A British Medical Journal content analysis of Bond movies suggests that the famous spy’s alcohol intake would be utterly inconsistent with high sexual functioning in real life (Johnson, Guha, & Davies, 2013). Bond is at least depicted as retaining 54 mediated eros the memory of how he bedded his latest score. By contrast, totally amnesic drunken sex is frequently portrayed and sometimes even openly celebrated in U.S. entertainment content. The mediated visions of sex as rigidly sequenced, mechanistic, and unemotional set the stage for what is perhaps the most significant difference of American sexuality from other sexual cultures—its exclusively visual focus. This is the subject of the next section.

Just Picture It!

American sexuality is one endless “obsession with visual stimulation,” writes Gary Brooks, author of The Centerfold Syndrome (1995, p. 3). This is illustrated by the proliferation of “visual fetishes,” such as “Big-Breasted Mamas,” “Black Beauties,” “Oriental Cuties,” and “Biker Babes” (p. 4). Little wonder that the feminist “male gaze” theory (1975) was coined by an American scholar, Laura Mulvey. Her analysis was spurred by Alfred Hitchkok’s filmRear Window, in which a photographer is forced to stay home for several weeks with a broken leg. The man spends many hours observing the lives of his neighbors. He watches, for instance, the comings and goings of a busty and scarcely dressed dancer, whose apartment’s window is across from his. In this narcissistic and self-referential tale, the plot unfolds through the eyes of the male protagonist, who tries to watch the lives of others while remaining unseen. Although the film has been interpreted as a metaphor for the experience of going to the movies, its central element is not only the experience of watching other people’s lives, but also their intimate moments and partially nude bodies. Arguably, men across many cultures objectify women through the male gaze. But the visual script in the U.S. reflects the objectification and self- objectification of both sexes. This is illustrated by Mae West’s famous line “Is this a gun in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?” and the latest obsession over Jon Hamm’s crotch, which led the actor to complain that “when people feel the freedom to create Tumblr accounts about my cock, I feel like that wasn’t part of the deal” (“Jon Hamm Tired,” 2013). Placing visual barriers in a fashion of self-objectification is part of the American masculinity culture, judging by the decrease of nudity in men’s locker rooms since the 1990s (Short, 2007). Although male frontal nudity is occasionally shown on screen in the U.S. (i.e., Peter Sarsgaard in Kinsey) and less likely to be appropriated for commercial purposed than women’s bodies, look-sees, lysol, and baseball 55 in everyday life American men go to great lengths to hide the shape of their genitals and buttocks. Tight “metrosexual” men’s jeans are not considered appropriate, and neither are tight Speedo swimsuits, which are common in the rest of the world because baggy shorts are unsafe for swimming and surfing. Here is how UK-born Simon Doonan (2014) humorously describes this odd American swimsuit fashion trend:

This past weekend I spotted two burly figures walking toward me wearing what I assumed were large peasant skirts. “What made these two beefy, short-haired possibly lesbians decide to go topless?” I asked myself. Upon closer inspection, they turned out to be a couple of dudes with man boobs in garishly printed board shorts, prompting the question: Why do American men insist on concealing their willies ’neath yards of fabric? If only Freud could have lived long enough to dissect the semiotics of Speedos. What would he have made of the U.S. male’s horror of being caught in a tiny swimsuit?

Because of the importance of the visual script, it is no coincidence that Amer- ican sexual references and jokes employ mostly similes, linguistic tools that liken one thing to another. For example, “eating at the Y” refers to cunnilingus because of the letter’s resemblance to a person with legs apart. And it is no coincidence that Hollywood movies have staged eruptions that visually resemble ejaculations to symbolize male sexual desire. In The Girl Can’t Help It (Tashlin, 1956), a milkman’s bottle bubbles over with explosive white foam as he stares at a bombshell blonde (Jayne Mansfield). In the same film, a prepubescent newspaper boy whistles behind Mansfield’s back, sending the message that American boys learn visual objectification from an early age. The exclusively visual aspect of sexuality is endorsed by various religious factions that clamor for preservation of traditional family structures, even when they are oppressive to women. Many American evangelicals view sexuality as “a form of witnessing” (Green, 2014), suggesting a detached, calculating, and observing attitude toward sex. Christian marriage manuals, such as The Total Woman (Morgan, 1973), have encouraged women to dress for the male gaze, including by greeting their husbands at the door in a sexualized outfit. The Stepford Wives Organization (www.stepfordwives.org), whose religious affiliation is unstated but whose website contains numerous Bible quotes, recommends that women dress like “Daddy’s little girl.” A more recent Christian manual, The Real Marriage, by a Seattle pastor and his wife, encourages marital sex as a way of religious communion, and especially emphasizes the visual elements of sexuality: “Make love with the lights on, 56 mediated eros or by candlelight … Undress in front of your spouse. Bathe in front of your spouse. “Flash” your spouse around the house … Have a mirror hung near your bed” (quoted in Clark-Flory, 2012). Little wonder that the visual stimulation of the opposite sex is seen, by young U.S. women especially, as central to finding and keeping a partner. This can offer an explanation for U.S. teenagers’ obsession with sexting—the sending of naked selfies, full or partial, to current or potential dating partners. Rosin (2014), in an article analyzing why a third of U.S. teenagers sext, quotes a high school girl whose adherence to the visual as sexual would be unlikely to satisfy most European teenagers:

… [W]e didn’t have any alone time. Our only way of being alone was to do it over the phone. It was a way of kind of dating without getting in trouble. A way of being sexual without being sexual, you know? And it was his way of showing he liked me a lot and my way of saying I trusted him.

Given the visual focus of American sexuality, little wonder also that the U.S. has a worldwide leadership role in both the production and consumption of pornography. In an indirect reflection of the cultural significance of porn in the U.S., American sexologists determine sexual orientation solely on the basis of physiological responses to pornography, not the gender of the people with whom one falls in love (Denizet-Lewis, 2014). For laughs, porn is shown to be so central to American culture that it can be equated to American pride. This is exactly the case in one of the episodes of How I Met Your Mother: “Lily: Are you telling me they actually have conventions for porn? Barney: Affirma- tive. Or to put it another way, God bless America” (Groff & Fryman, 2007). The London Independent even sees pornography as defining of American culture:

Here is an industry, which, if you include films viewed via the internet, generates between $10 and $12bn a year in the United States alone, never mind exports to Britain and beyond. That is more than is spent by Americans annually on tickets for Hollywood movies at the cinema and almost three times the annual revenue of the Major Baseball League. In other words, sex—especially solitary, vicarious and, by its nature, safe sex—might more accurately be described as this country’s national pas- time than baseball. (Usborne, 2005)

But if the eyes are considered the ultimate sex organ, their feast must be controlled because that is the way to also control sexuality. This is reflected in the restrictive attitudes toward full or partial nudity in the U.S., which are discussed in the following section. look-sees, lysol, and baseball 57

The Naked (and Unspeakable) Truth

Even though prominent music artists, such as Christina Aguilera, Madonna, and Miley Cyrus, have partially or completely stripped and produced intercourse-simulating videos, most ordinary American women lock themselves into bathroom stalls to change their clothes. Writer Charity Robey (2014) is likely speaking for the majority of Americans when she describes in The New York Times the depressing experience of having an all-expenses-paid vacation at a French nude resort: “… I was anxious, lumpy, not the least groovy. The sight of my mother’s bare body made me as dizzy as the sight of my own blood. It was too much truth.” Blurred nudity offers good commercial entertainment, judging by the popularity of the reality show Buying Naked, which portrays nudist couples looking at real estate. However, toddler girls in the U.S. invariably wear two-piece swimsuits to cover their flat chests, and female pre-teens express the belief that “it is gross to be naked in public”—even in a locker room (Moore, 2001, p. 844). These attitudes undoubtedly are both reflected in and influenced by depictions of naked bodies in visual media. Nudity was occasionally present in American films in the first years of the 20th century, but not for long, writes Pennington (2007). The filmThe Hypocrites (1915), for example, depicted a nude actress as “The Naked Truth” during the same year when the Supreme Court green-lighted censorship in Mutual Film Corporation v. Industrial Commission of Ohio. The court ruled that film censorship did not violate the First Amendment due to concerns over cinema’s alleged power to shape social mores—a notion that remains the subject of much uncertainty 100 years later. This decision paved the way for the 1930 Motion Picture Production Code, enforced from 1934 to 1968, which banned nudity, screen kisses lasting more than 3 seconds, and anything suggestive of sex “perversions” (homosexuality, pedophilia, sadomasochism, fetishism, bestiality, etc.). Also banned were depictions of prostitution, of a man and a woman together in bed (one foot had to be on the floor), and scenes of actual child birth (Schlossberg & Forsher, 1987). “Pictures shall not infer that low forms of sex relationship are the accepted or common thing,” read the Code, lending its overarching normative frame to all portrayals of sexuality in film (Greene, 2011). Enforced by a pious Catholic, Joseph Breen, the Production Code indirectly ushered influences from Catholic theology into the American public discourse (Brook, 2001). 58 mediated eros

The Code’s strictness did not mean, however, that depictions of nudity were completely absent from American movies. Rather, it meant that most such scenes did not reach American audiences. Nude scenes were left in the European releases of U.S. films as a form of market segmentation (Pennington, 2007). Even though the Code is now history, its influences persist in the current system of film rating, limiting producers and directors by encouraging them to seek the highly profitable G, PG, PG-13 (to a lesser degree R), and try to avoid the poorly performing NC-17 and U ratings (Simonoff & Sparrow, 2000). The desire to profit from images of women’s bodies is also at the core of a devious double standard that encourages commercial uses of female nudity but criminalizes such uses as part of activist movements. This was demonstrated, for example, by a 1971 Iowa Supreme Court case, in which the court ruled that the actions of eight young women, Grinnell College students who stripped naked to protest Playboy’s objectification of women, constituted public indecency rather than a First-Amendment-protected form of speech (Houdek, 1971). In other words, the court ruled, it is okay for women to be naked in a magazine for men’s pleasure, but it is not okay for them to be naked as a way of challenging the pleasure men get from objectifying their bodies. This contradiction persists. Commercial nudity invariably trumps strip- ping as a form of self-expression, activism, or plain comfort with one’s naked body. For example, nude pictures of celebrities, stolen from private and pass- word-protected online storage, can end up on a public site, benefitting its owners. Further, rumors about nude photos of celebrities can be used to not only sell media content, but also undermine their credibility as activists for women’s rights. This was the case with the hoax that followed actress Emma Watson’s feminist speech at the United Nations (Holpuch & Woolf, 2014). The photos were fake. Had Watson stripped for Playboy for pay, however, her nudity would have never made front-page news. The notoriously prudish U.S. sexual culture fears not only depictions of nudity, but also any detailed descriptions of human bodies or sexual acts. In the late 19th century, an American translator refused to translate from Russian to English Leo Tolstoy’s The Kreutzer Sonata, which was censored but widely circulating in Russia (Kon, 1999). The novel does not describe intercourse, but includes many sensuous references to the female body as a means of male pleasure and to certain body parts (bare shoulders, arms, neck). The U.S. Post Office forbade the novella’s “transmission through the mails” in the form look-sees, lysol, and baseball 59 of installments printed in newspapers—a decision that, The New York Times reported, was soon overturned by the courts (“Count Tolstoi Not Obscene,” 1890). The ultimate irony in this controversy is that the central argument of The Kreutzer Sonata, in spite of its sensuous descriptions, is the value of chastity and abstinence. This attitude is still alive and well in the avoidance and censorship of words referring to sexual orifices. Could they be too easily imagined if named? Oh, shame! Let’s consider the news coverage of the notorious 2010 fraternity event at Yale, which culminated in the offensive chant, “No means yes, yes means anal.” CNN covered the scandal, but bleeped out the word “anal.” The anchor, Kyra Phillips, encouraged viewers to look online to find what the bleeped word was “because I am not saying it.” This is despite the fact that “anal” is an actual medical term. However, the anchor had no qualms about saying the derogatory word “slut” just a few seconds later (Phillips, 2010). Journalistically speaking, a full and accurate representation of the offensive chant would have contributed to informed public opinion about the sexually violent culture of college campuses. Not to mention that censoring words such as “anal” or “vaginal” indirectly encourages sexual violence by reducing the likelihood that the crime would be reported. If a woman has been anally raped and she knows that this is a word CNN bleeps out, how likely is she to put down what happened in an official document such as a police report? Kinsey Institute researcher Debby Herbenick explains it this way:

… [I]n societies where they don’t talk about sex and sexuality, it can give power to those who commit assault and rape. Reporting assault and rape involves a lot of discussion about the genitals and sex and very specific things. Victims who are not comfortable talking about those things are less likely to report. Those who commit these crimes benefit from this silence. (Wood, 2014)

Not only words referring to orifices can be sexualized and deleted from one’s vocabulary. A student once shared with me her discomfort with saying the word “breasts,” and decided she preferred to replace it in class discussions with “chest.” I supported her decision in spite of my surprise—it had never occurred to me that the word “breast” could be obscene or vulgar. Upon further thought, I came to realize that in the U.S. any body part ascribed an erotic potential can enter the realm of the unspeakable. This erotic potential is undeniable in the case of breasts, whose perceived attractiveness is charted in the following paragraphs. 60 mediated eros

The Sex Appeal of Mammary Glands

Brooks (1995) writes that “[i]n many cultures, women’s bare breasts are considered erotically insignificant; but in U.S. culture, they are the focus of enormous erotic imagery” (p. 115). The script does not necessarily extend to the rest of the English-speaking word. Consider this statement from How I Met Your Mother: “Canadian porn! Trust me when I tell you that their universal health care system doesn’t cover breast implants. If I have to sit through one more flat-chested Nova Scotian …, I’ll go *oot* of my mind (Kang & Fryman, 2006). And although the U.S. has influenced the UK in the sexual worship of breasts, this seems to be dissipating now that British celebrity Katie Price opted for a breast reduction, marking the “end of an era” (Adewunmi, 2014). But what has been described as the breast-centric ’90s in the UK remains current reality in the U.S. In a study of American waitresses, Lynn (2009) found that breast size (but not shape) was associated with higher tips. Surpris- ingly, waist-to-hip ratio, a cross-cultural and evolutionary criterion for female attractiveness as an indirect indicator of health and fertility, was not associated with the amount of tips the waitresses received. In other words, the study indicated, in the U.S. a waitress with large breasts and a large waist would be likely to be tipped more than a waitress with a healthy and fertile (0.7) waist- to-hip ratio but small breasts. This seems to be one example in which social construction clearly trumps the science of evolutionary psychology. Media content is also strikingly clear in suggesting that American men evaluate not only waitresses, but also virtually all women based on their breast size. When Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg is portrayed breaking up with a girlfriend in The Social Network (Brunetti, Chaffin, De Luca, Rudin, Spacey, & Fincher, 2010), he posts on his blog that she is only pretending to be 34C but is, in fact, 34B. In a comedic exaggeration, liking a woman’s breasts is a prerequisite—even a guarantee—for sexual and romantic attraction. For example: “Tom liked my breasts in tenth grade; why doesn’t he like them now?” bleats a woman in a low-cut dress at a gay wedding in How I Met Your Mother (Newman & Fryman, 2006). Another telling example appears in the filmAn American Affair (Leydon & Olsson, 2008), a coming-of-age story, in which a 13-year-old boy lies that the girl with the biggest breasts in the class told him she would let him touch them for a dollar. In a later act of schoolyard bullying, the male protagonist is called a “fag” because he allegedly offered to fellate another boy for 25 cents. Notice the difference in ascribed value—the alleged price for look-sees, lysol, and baseball 61 touching breasts is four times the price of a homosexual fellatio. The film makes it clear that the children (students at a Catholic school) are not actually engaging in any such acts. Rather, they make these statements to tease and bully as part of a power game that could be viewed as a children’s version of hegemonic masculinity. The poignancy of this example is evident only against the backdrop of European films. InBilly Elliot (Brenman, Finn, & Daldry, 2000), a British coming-of-age story, boys never discuss girls’ breasts. A girl with a crush on the prepubescent protagonist, an aspiring ballet dancer, takes the sexual initia- tive. “If you want, I’ll show you me fanny,” she offers one day—and it never occurs to either of them to assign a value to this gesture and turn it into a sordid transaction. It is difficult to pinpoint an explanation for the American obsession with breasts outside the realm of sociocultural construction. The British documentary Are All Men Pedophiles (Breure, 2013) speculates that the visual media focus on large-breasted women because of concerns that small breasts may be associated with pubescence and pedophilia. But why, then, does American and most Western pornography portray almost exclusively women without pubic hair—which occurs naturally only in prepubescent girls? It has also been suggested that women with larger breasts are inherently more attractive because they have the potential to provide better nutrition to an infant. However, many large-breasted women face difficulties with breast- feeding; scholars have noted that “larger breasts are not necessarily the most functional … given that babies of large breasted women have some difficulty in latching on to the nipple because they have such a tiny mouth in comparison to the areola” (Wade, Zhu, & Martin, 2010). A more likely explanation for this obsession lies in earlier breast- related censorship. The Motion Picture Production Code of 1930 forbade any showing of cleavage on screen, and to avoid losing audiences, film studios began using heavily padded (bullet) bras. “You could extend yourself across the room,” says actress Sheree North in the documentary Hol- lywood Uncensored (Schlossberg & Forsher, 1987). “We used to laugh and say, ‘Look, look, we all measure the same, and when we lie down, nothing moves.’” Mamie van Doren, another popular actress in the 1950s, who starred as an incredibly busty mom in the film High School Confidential (Zugsmith & Arnold, 1958), adds: “I think guys those days probably thought all women had breasts like pyramids, and they were very discouraged when they found out otherwise.” 62 mediated eros

Or, perhaps breasts have earned a safely sexual status in American culture because, unlike legs, buttocks, and genitalia, they are not in any proximity to urination and defecation orifices? This potential explanation can be understood only in the context of the American hygiene obsession, which is the subject of the next section.

Sterile Sex: Snipping, Douching, and Lysoling

In the “Sex Talk” episode of Everybody Loves Raymond, one of the ways in which Debra attempts to seduce her husband is by—in her own words— kissing him “in an impure manner.” This description suggests a distinction between pure (sisterly) and impure (sexual) kisses, and implies that sex is dirty. But who did not know this? The word “dirty” is a mainstream synonym for “sexual” in the U.S.—as in “dirty talk” and “dirty dancing.” The 1956 film Baby Doll, which includes an artful seduction scene with no nudity and no kissing was characterized as the “dirtiest American-made motion picture that had ever been legally exhibited” (“Cinema: New Picture,” 1956). And even a cursory looks at sex-related articles in women’s magazines reveals that the use of adjectives such as “naughty,” bad,” and “dirty” is extremely common. Sex is depicted in a way as something one wants to avoid getting caught doing, lest he or she be ashamed. For example, when Cosmopolitan wants to make a reference to sexual desire and pleasure, the code is “naughty”—as in “a naughty new technique” (Miller, 2012, p. 112) or “naughty extras” (p. 115). “Juicy” confessions of “dirty details” (no scatology implied) are further encouraged at cosmopolitan.com/confess. These adjectives probably help sell magazines, but it is odd that they cannot be replaced by more accurate words, such as “erotic,” “pleasant,” “ecstatic,” “euphoric,” or “rapturous.” Even in these supposedly libertine times, in bawdy media outlets that pretend not to bat an eyelash at anything sexual, the view of sexual dirtiness persists. For example, in a GQ article about anal sex, Julieanne Smolinski (who introduces herself as a “TV writer who tweets under the wildly mature name @BoobsRadley”) argues: “… let’s be real: All sex is a little disgusting” (2014). Well, if someone with such a bold and raunchy Twit- ter handle, suggesting she is anything but a prude, says that sex is disgusting, who could possibly doubt her? Historically speaking, the association between sexuality and dirtiness likely reflects the Christian view of all bodily functions as unclean. In a look-sees, lysol, and baseball 63 contemporary context, however, the association also reflects the advertising power of American cleaning product manufactures. In the U.S., Lysol is not only a brand but also a verb, as in “I lysoled the bed.” Lysoling has gone so far that immunologists now point to excessive cleanliness as an immunity risk, illustrated by the finding that foreign-born children with two foreign-born parents are the ones least likely to have allergies in the U.S.—but the longer they live in America, the more allergies they eventually develop (Bakalar, 2013). Still, if we could only lysol human genitalia … Oh yes, we can! This was possible as far back as 1933, according to an article describing a Lysol feminine hygiene ad (a contraceptive douche) in McCall magazine as a solution to all marital problems (Tone, 1996). Decades later, douching continues to be practiced by U.S. women—not for contraception or medical reasons—but as part of regular “hygiene.” This practice has led doctors to sound the alarm that douching can lead to pelvic inflammatory disease and other vaginal infections (e.g., Wølner-Hanssen et al., 1990). But not even the risk of infection is likely to end the widespread practice of douching; the bigger problem seems to be that American science has not yet discovered a way to make sex smell like Lysol. Write Gagnon and Simon (1973) about many young Americans’ hesitant entry into the sexual: “We move from the relatively clean deodorized state to the sweaty, odoriferous state, the odors and fluids now defining the sexual state of the individuals” (p. 80). The obsession with sexual cleanliness (against the backdrop of its necessary opposite, filth) is also reflected in the fact that “many men experience unbearable shame around their own bodies, particularly their penises, which are inevitably fleshy, animalistic, and seemingly possessed of a will of their own, producing what is perceived as smelly, sticky (feminine) gunk!” (Caputi, 2003, p. 9). An especially negative stigma is attached to uncircumcised penises and their untouched foreskin, a reminder perhaps of the fleshy layers of female genitalia. Further, the practice of circumcision reflects the importance given to fellatio (a male dominance symbol), which is easier to perform and “cleaner” when a man is circumcised. This prejudice against uncircumcised penises is uniquely American, considering that in Europe only boys in religious Jewish and Muslim families are circumcised as a way to imprint their religious identity. Cosmopolitan reports that, although circumcision rates in the U.S. are decreasing, there is still a stigma attached to the uncircumcised penis, and some women refuse to perform fellatio on men who are not circumcised (Hills, 2014). One of the interviewees in the article sees the double standard: “The weird thing is, it’s very comparable to the female vagina, but 64 mediated eros yet I have never heard of that comparison.” Another interviewee argues that the presence of a foreskin, as in the natural state of the penis, makes women coitally orgasmic without any effort:

… [W]hile I have had circumcised men be able to get me off from vaginal intercourse alone, it’s only been after plenty of getting to know each other sexually. The uncircumcised men have been the only ones who I orgasm from vaginal intercourse alone easily, even during casual encounters. The gliding sensation from the foreskin just does it for me (Hills).

Could the lower frequency of coital orgasm among North American women be explained by the prevalent norm of male circumcision? At least one study (much disliked by circumcision proponents) published in a urology journal has suggested that uncircumcised men’s female partners are more likely to have a coital orgasm “brought about by your partner’s penis and pelvic movements and body contact, along with your own body’s pelvic movements, with no simultaneous stimulation of the clitoris by the hands” (O’Hara & O’Hara, 1999, p. 80). The findings were based on a survey of 138 women. Yet, despite the evidence, three of the five interviewees in theCosmopolitan article declare that they would circumcise their sons for “hygienic” reasons or because it looks better. In that sense, penile appearance and lack of smell are prioritized over the intensity of sexual experience for both partners. The official medical view in the U.S. has now swung from a previously neutral stance to again favoring male circumcision. Doctors are encouraging uncircumcised teenagers to consider the procedure as a way to lower their likelihood of contracting HIV and sexually transmitted infections—even though, according to a critic, the U.S. has always had higher STIs rates than Europe in spite of its high circumcision rates (Rabin, 2014). Male circumcision, promoted in the 19th century as a way to “cure” masturbation, has not achieved that goal either, given that, on average, adult Americans masturbate significantly more than Europeans—even when they already are in committed romantic and sexual relationships. Why so? The following section dissects the priority placed on masturbation in American society.

DIY Is Good, and Everybody Should!

In her regular column in The Guardian, feminist writer Jessica Valenti once congratulated Americans for their lead in nationwide acceptance look-sees, lysol, and baseball 65 of masturbation, and noted that, by comparison, the French see solo jobs as a sign of sexual failure. According to French GQ sex columnist Maia Mazaurette, “[w]e tend to think that porn and masturbation are things you do when you don’t have any other choice. It means you failed in your relationship or your love life” (Valenti, 2014). Little wonder that this quote appeared in a London-based international newspaper. The American public discourse would have been unlikely to be forgiving of such a statement, even coming from a French sex columnist, because in the U.S., speaking of masturbation is like speaking of the dead— nothing unless good. For example, a 2014 Brigham Young University video warning against porn addiction was dubbed “war on masturbation” and widely ridiculed by many bloggers and even comedian Jay Leno (Connely, 2014). The video, no longer available on the university’s YouTube channel, was justly criticized for likening porn addiction to the deathly experience of war on a real battlefield, but it ended in a way Maia Mazaurette would have likely approved—with the young porn addict leaving his room to play pool with attractive women. Could some of the zeal in ridiculing the BYU video have signified excessive defensiveness? Shakespeare’s line in Hamlet, “the lady doth protest too much, me thinks,” seems applicable here. Indeed, according to a 2013 convenience-sample study conducted by Morningside Recovery, an addiction center, 20% of Americans between the ages of 21 and 35 masturbate three or more times a day. According to a psychologist quoted in the news release, “that amount of masturbation could cause serious problems in a relationship, especially if it interferes with either person’s ability to experience pleasure with a partner” (“Morningside Recovery Conducts,” 2013). This concern appears to be supported by earlier research showing correlations between frequency of masturbatory fantasies and erectile dysfunction, and between frequency of masturbation and men’s inhibited sex drive (Nutter & Condron, 1985). Although correlation cannot usually be interpreted to mean causality, in this case the alternative explanations seem absurd. Could low sex interest, for example, coincide with frequent masturbation by sheer chance? Doubtful. Lexis-Nexis and Google searches suggest that Cosmopolitan and Maxim, two sex-centered magazines, were the only media outlets in the U.S. to cover Morningside Center’s masturbation news release. Cosmopolitan specifically offered tips on “how to masturbate responsibly,” along with the following quote from a sex therapist: “A lot of times, when men masturbate, they tend 66 mediated eros to look at visual stimulation … This resets men’s arousal patterns to the point that that they need more and more visual stimulation, so they’re not as responsive during sex” (Burton, 2013). Again, this is supported by earlier research. Brooks (1995) has argued that the majority of American men fit the clinical definition of sexual fetishism because they have more intense sexual relations with “nonliving objects” (such as porn images) than with their actual, living partners: “Some use these pictures to masturbate instead of having sex with their loved ones; some have sex with the fantasized women during sex with their loved ones” (p. 114). References to masturbation are a successful humor strategy in the U.S., and they usually occur in a context suggesting that masturbation is expected and even encouraged. In How I Met Your Mother, Robin brings a vibrator as a gift to her friend Lily’s wedding shower (Bays, Thomas, & Fryman, 2007). She is embarrassed when she discovers that most of the guests are older relatives, but when the gift is opened, nobody seems scandalized. Instead, the old ladies burst into a discussion of where to buy a vibrator, along with recollections of a Sex and the City episode about a vibrator gift. The common practice of masturbation is also illustrated in an SNL parody of a commercial for the “Kemper-Pedic Me Time Bed,” so firm that it does not “transfer motion even inches away.” It is implicitly promoted as the perfect choice for a man who wants to masturbate without disturbing his partner’s sleep. “With the Me Time mattress, I get a deep sleep, without any of that weird squeaking that used to wake me up,” says the happy wife. And the husband conducts his Italian dinner test, putting a glass of wine on one side of the bed while “pounding” pizza dough in his lap on the other side, without spilling the wine: “I can pound that dough for six to eight minutes until I can’t take it anymore and I … am … spent! (Meyers, 2011b). Masturbation’s widespread acceptance—even when one has a sexually available and interested partner—may be a consequence of the shift to greater sexual conservatism after the sexual revolution. An Australian newspaper in the 1980s quoted sex therapist Mark Elliott, then-director of research at the Masters and Johnson Institute in Missouri, saying that “where it’s not okay to try things, people’s guilt increases. And increased guilt is associated with increased compulsive behavior” (Crimeen, 1987, np). The Australian news story described a U.S. man who masturbates in his car on the way to and from work, and another who disappears into the office bathrooms five or six times a day to calm his nerves through an orgasmic release. A similar scene is portrayed in the British filmShame , in which a New York professional living look-sees, lysol, and baseball 67 in a grim corporate reality masturbates many times a day and keeps a stash of hardcore porn on his office computer. What is interesting about many critiques of frequent and habitual masturbation is that they tend to be generated outside the U.S., and describe what seems like a problematic sexual dynamic only to those outside of American culture. Two such studies have been conducted in the sexually liberal Finland and Sweden (Santilla et al., 2007; Långström & Hanson, 2006). The Swedish study, which defined “high rate of masturbation” as 15 times a month for adult men and 5 for adult women, suggested that such frequency correlates not only with relationship instability but also with general life dissatisfaction. The researchers found that, in a sample of about 2,400 Swedish adults, only 11.4% of men and 10.6% of women in Sweden engage in such “high rate” of masturbation. On average, Swedish men masturbated 4.9 times and women 1.9 times in the last month (Långström & Hanson). Why have such studies not been conducted in the U.S.? First, probably because masturbating 5–15 times a month would not be considered a “high rate” by American standards. A 1974 study of 17- to 30-year-old college students in the U.S. found that among those who reported experience with masturbation approximately half masturbated at least a few times a week, and up to a few times a day (Arafat & Cotton, 1974). Further, the Hite Report on Male Sexuality (Hite, 1981) showed that 40% of men without a partner and between 16% and 31% of men with a sexual partner report masturbating at least 4–6 times a week, up to daily. In addition, Brooks (1995) suggests that certain research questions never occur to American sexologists, simply because mechanistic sex is business as usual in the U.S.:

There has been virtually no research into matters of possible harmful effects of sexual preoccupation and sexual fixation innormal men, because the scientific community assumes that it’s natural for men to want lots of sex, to fixate on visual sexuality, to objectify women’s bodies … and to substitute sex for emotional intimacy. (emphasis in original, p. 110)

Hardly any U.S. media content has seriously investigated and problematized adult habitual masturbation—without, of course, dismissing the joys of discovering one’s body. Blanket warnings against masturbation, along the lines of the Victorian notion of masturbation as dangerous “self-abuse,” remain frequent on American websites and religiously affiliated blogs. Perhaps it is precisely this association between religiosity and masturbation concerns that has compromised the credibility of the topic for the mainstream U.S. media. 68 mediated eros

French Tongue—Freedom Tongue

Although oral sex is still occasionally referred to as “speaking French,” it has been appropriated into the U.S. symbolic environment like the ubiquitous French fries offered in every all-American burger joint. There was a time, about half a century ago, when the words “fellatio” and “cunnilingus” were paired with “sodomy” and “pederasty” in the musical Hair (first performed in 1967). But judging by contemporary popular culture, oral sex is nowhere near comparisons to sex with young boys. It has been mainstreamed. Consider how many Saturday Night Live sketches have referenced oral sex. In “NPR Delicious Dish: Dusty Muffin,” a baker in her 80s, Florence Dusty, shares a gigantic muffin with the two hosts, and tells the story of how she used to say to her husband: “What’re you waiting for, stupid? Eat it!” (Gasteyer, 2010). In “NPR Delicious Dish: Schweddy Balls,” baker Pete Schweddy (Alec Baldwin) declares, “No one can resist my Schweddy balls,” as the hosts praise his treats for their tenderness and smell (Gasteyer, 1998). In “Pretty Living: Raunchy Aerobics,” the host unveils an exercise video called “Giving Good Head Stands” by a guest who specializes in an aerobics style called GymNasty (Fey, 2000a). And in an appearance of a mock Anna Nicole Smith on SNL’s Weekend Update, the busty former model and millionaire widow announces she plans to redesign a university’s curriculum to include a course for young women on how to fellate old men (Fey, 2000b). Although fellatio is central to the North American male-dominated sexuality, cunnilingus has found its place as a tool to please a woman so that the male partner can then engage in a brief intercourse aimed at his own orgasm. Post-coital cunnilingus is rare because of “anxieties about the excremental and the homosexual” (Gagnon & Simon, 1973, p. 90). But if the prevalence of cunnilingus appears as a sign of gender equality in the sexual realm, this is misleading. Write Gagnon and Simon: “The male, who often experiences fellatio through the metaphors of dominance tends to experience cunnilingus through the identical modalities, seeing it as control rather than submission” (p. 90). (Little wonder that many U.S. “dirty” jokes are about cunnilingus, and they tend to be offensive not because of the sex content but because they invariably demean women.) This is also illustrated in the filmShame , in which the male protagonist attempts to hook up with a woman in a New York bar, discovers she has a boyfriend, and throws cunnilingus into the conversation to display his dominance and competitive drive: “Does he go down on you? I do … That’s what I like to do” (Canning & McQueen, 2011). look-sees, lysol, and baseball 69

This subtle use of cunnilingus as a tool of male sexual dominance is also illustrated by an SNL skit titled “Colonel Angus comes home” (Fey, 2003). The skit uses the Southern accent of the inhabitants of a 19th-century plantation (the Shady Thicket) to create a comedic double entendre by making “Colonel Angus” sound like “cunnilingus,” and offers pearls of sarcastic sexual wisdom, such as “Once a woman is introduced to Colonel Angus, she’ll settle for nothing less” and “they say all the womenfolk just love Colonel Angus!” But he is not always a desired guest, as illustrated by this clever dialogue:

Colonel Angus: Well, my dear, don’t believe everything you hear about ol’ Colonel Angus. Colonel Angus might be rough. Colonel Angus might not smell like a bed of roses, but, deep down, Colonel Angus is very sweet. Miss Anabelle: Well, we hope you’ll spend the night with us. Colonel Angus: Well, thank you, Miss Anabelle. And if I overstay my welcome … just tap me on the head. (laughter)

Many rough aspects of the male-dominated sexual culture appear to have overstayed their welcome, but they are unlikely to go away with a tap on the head. Such elements, which are typically part of highly gendered scripts, are the subject of the next and final part of this chapter.

And Finally … The Double Standard

It is common knowledge that promiscuous men are “studs,” promiscuous women are “sluts,” and that many American men like to brag about their (alleged) promiscuity. This double standard is often interpreted as an innocuous example of “boys will be boys,” but its cultural relativity becomes apparent when we learn that it does not apply to all boys in the world. In a survey of American and Swedish college men, Weinberg, Lottes, and Shaver (1995) found that, despite Sweden’s more permissive sexual norms, American men reported significantly higher numbers of sex partners both over the past year and over their lifetime than did Swedes (p. 409). It is impossible to know whether these self-reported numbers were accurate or reflected an attempt to overestimate one’s sexual prowess (which in the U.S. is measured, in part, by a man’s “score”). But one thing is clear: American men’s greater self-reported sexual experience does not translate in sexual satisfaction for American women, who in the same study reported being significantly less happy with their sex lives than Swedish women. Unsurprisingly, this is also the case in 70 mediated eros comparison to French women—in one study, 75% reported having an orgasm during their last intercourse; by contrast, only 29% of U.S. women reported always having an orgasm with their primary partner (Nye, 1999). Are most American men promiscuous studs and most American women frigid? Unlikely. A possible explanation for these differences can be found in the use of sex toward the construction of appropriate masculinity and femininity. This is illustrated, for example, by the vastly different intercourse frequency estimates offered by Marie and Frank, the aging couple in the “Sex Talk” episode of Everybody Loves Raymond when they are pushed into discussing their sex life—once a year (according to the wife) vs. twice a week (according to the husband). This implies that, socially, a woman earns points by having less sex, and is further illustrated by Marie’s final monologue: “Forgive me, but in my day, a woman didn’t discuss these things. Sex is a wifely duty …” By contrast, a man’s reputation is improved by having as much sex as possible—and bragging about it. Little wonder that in Redbook’s 1980 survey of 6,000 self- selected respondents, 52% of American men and only 36% of women reported that sex is very important to them (Sarrel & Sarrel, 1980). Gendered sexual scripts in the U.S. have been outlined most clearly in the so-called Centerfold Syndrome (Brooks, 1995), to which Elder, Brooks, and Morrow (2012) refer as “the only fully developed articulation of heterosexual men’s sexual self-schemas” (p. 167). No such framework has been developed for heterosexual women’s sexual schemas, which are likely to be shaped in response to men’s sexual schemas, reflecting society’s power structures (Foucault, 1976/1990). The framework outlines five basic scripts— voyeurism, objectification, need for validation, trophyism, and fear of true emotional intimacy. A more recent analysis using interviews with heterosexual U.S. men identifies eight themes, mostly overlapping with the original five, but including some new elements as well—such as men’s increasing objectification of their own bodies and the practice of the validation schema not by being an exceptional lover but by having sex with many women through a “game” based around aloofness and dishonesty (Elder, Brooks, & Morrow, 2012). The prevalence of voyeurism (not as a paraphilia but as a sociocultural norm) was already illustrated in the earlier section about pornography. How- ever, objectification requires more explication because it is a central aspect of American sexuality. This schema refers to constructing women purely as sexual bodies, not as individuals. This is effectively demonstrated in the first scenes of the movie Good Morning, Vietnam (Brezner, Johnson, & Levinson, look-sees, lysol, and baseball 71

1987), in which Robin Williams’s character, newly arrived to Saigon, immediately notices the attractive figure of a local woman on the way to the base; then confuses her with another woman with a similarly attractive figure, not realizing the two are separate individuals. And let’s also return for a moment to the earlier example from Everybody Loves Raymond. Here is how Debra snaps after she fails to entice her husband: “Ten years ago, all I had to do is be awake. Sometimes not even that!” These two sentences effectively summarize how many heterosexual American men treat their partners as replaceable objects who do not even need to be awake to consent—and thus, of course, cannot be expected to demand any pleasure! (This smacks of marital rape, which makes the background laughter during this sitcom exchange quite disturbing.) The depersonalization of sex is further illustrated in a conversation in which Raymond inquires about his brother’s frequency of sexual intercourse, and—to supposedly avoid embarrassment— suggests that he invent a woman’s name so he does not have to use his wife’s name when discussing the “action.” Misogyny is even more deeply inherent in the need-for-validation aspect of the Centerfold Syndrome, which refers to the idea that women have the “power” (one of their very few) to validate men as sexual performers. This is effectively portrayed by Dustin Hoffman’s character in The Graduate (Turman & Nichols, 1967), who almost bails out of sex with the notorious Mrs. Robinson— until she asks whether it is his first time and whether he might feel “inadequate.” Now he has something to prove, and—predictably—he takes the bait! The intercourse that follows (implied by Hollywood’s typical elliptical editing, with the scene fading out and then back in to a new scene) does not appear to have been an act of passion or pleasure. Rather, it offers validation to both lovers, satisfying Mrs. Robinson’s desire to prove that she is attractive to a young man (central to her worth as a woman) and Benjamin’s ambition to prove that he is sexually experienced and adequate as a lover (central to his worth as a man). In response to men’s constant desire for sexual validation, many heterosexual North American women have learned to prioritize their partners’ pleasure. The tide may be turning, at last, considering that one of the teasers on the cover of Cosmopolitan’s November 2014 issue invites women to “make him better in bed” rather than “drive him crazy” with sex tricks designed only for his divine masculine pleasure. Still, many North American women have routinely agreed to and even initiated sexual encounters that have the partner’s pleasure as their primary purpose. Levine (2001) reports that many Canadian 72 mediated eros women engage in sex only to please their men; adolescent girls in particular often feel “considerable pain,” but engage anyway to validate and retain their partners (p. 109). For example, one informant reported that the position of her uterus made rear-entry painful, but this did not stop her partner: “Her boyfriend knew this position hurt her but usually opted for it because rear-entry was the easiest route to orgasm for him” (p. 109). The prioritization of male sexual pleasure is a script that can be found in virtually any mainstream media content, even when sex is of tangential importance to the story line. For example, The Social Network (Brunetti, Chaffin, De Luca, Rudin, Spacey, & Fincher, 2010), a film about how Harvard dropout Mark Zuckerberg started Facebook, portrays a double date in which two young women have sex with Zuckerberg and his friend Eduardo Saverin in two separate stalls in a men’s bathroom. The scene does not directly show Zuckerberg’s experience, but in one shot Saverin appears leaning against the wall of the bathroom stall, as his date unbuckles his pants and moves down to fellate him. The scene cuts off, so it is unclear how the script proceeds, but it seems unlikely that either of the women is pursuing her own pleasure in this hookup in a men’s bathroom. They are readily subordinating themselves for the sake of their dates’ pleasure, especially because the “act of fellatio is symbolically constructed in terms of male dominance and female submission” (Gagnon & Simon, 1973, p. 87). Another major aspect of prioritizing a man’s pleasure is the practice of faking orgasms. Levine (2001), in the context of her research on Canadian women’s sexualities, argues that their awareness and participation in the widespread practice of simulating orgasms reflects their preoccupation with pleasing men, physically, and reassuring them, psychologically. The script is commonly used for laughs in popular culture. Elaine in Seinfeld admits to faking orgasms “all the time,” and the exchange is accompanied by much canned laughter. “What about the breathing, the panting, the moaning, the screaming?” asks Jerry, her former lover. Even though she admits all of these elements were fake, Elaine still attempts to preserve the man’s dignity: “Jerry, listen, it wasn’t you. I just didn’t have them back then” (David, Levy, & Cherones, 1993). In How I Met Your Mother, Robin hints to her two ex-boyfriends (while they are arguing over who should push a button to explode a building) that she was faking orgasms with both of them: “Guys, I dated you both, and neither of you is good at pressing or even finding the button. After some awkward pawing around, that building’s going to fake an implosion, say, ‘Baby, that was great’ and go to sleep” (Bays, Thomas, & Fryman, 2011). look-sees, lysol, and baseball 73

These sexual double standards have a common cause and effect: lack of true intimacy. Emotionality is interpreted as feminine because the U.S. emphasizes much stricter gender roles than most other developed countries. In Geert Hofstede’s (2001) investigation of cultural differences, the U.S. scores as one of the top countries in the world in masculinity, a measure indi- cating the degree to which a given society has clearly defined, separate roles for men and women. In masculine societies like the U.S., women who seek success beyond the roles of wives and mothers have to enact masculine patterns of behavior. In this environment, Brooks notes that American men are implicitly “encouraged not only to have sex without feelings, but to have sex in spite of feelings … with women they fear, dislike, disrespect, or even detest” (emphasis in original, p. 100). This statement, unfortunately, implicitly sum- marizes the nature of some of the most prevalent American sexual scripts.

Conclusion

The U.S. is frequently perceived by outsiders as a sexualized (if somewhat prudish) culture due to the ubiquitous references to sexual activities in most American media content. But sexual bliss is hard to find in the native land of Playboy, Cosmo, and Maxim. The higher rates of reported coital anorgasmia among American women—30% (Berman & McLean, 2007) than among Iranian women—26% (Najafabady, Salmani, & Abedi, 2011) suggest that the prevalence of flashy sexual elements in media content does not necessarily correlate with sexual satisfaction. Rather, it may coincide with false expectations and rigid sexual scripting, leading to mechanistic sexual performances and—ultimately—a disappointing lack of intimacy.

·3· sex as an existential journey

Heterosexual Scripts in European Popular Culture

A young woman decides to have a baby. She goes with her mother to the city, where, by another woman’s recommendation, they find an eligible man: a handsome lad in a leather jacket, defined solely by his motorcycle ownership. The young woman sits on his bike until he appears, then smiles silently. In the next scene, the two are on the motorcycle, arriving in front of a castle-like hotel. Classical music plays in the background. They enter a room, and the young woman bounces on the bed to test it. Cut: They are in bed, having sex. The motorcycle man moves deliberately, like a tantric god, on top of the young woman, gently stroking her hair. Cut: He is asleep, and she is tapping him on the shoulder. A second sensual encounter follows, culminating with a shot of the nude, athletic heroine doing a handstand to improve her chances of conceiving. Her pubic hair (the so-called “European bush”) is visible, her body is strong but average, and her body language suggests complete comfort with her nudity. This sequence of scenes, from the Dutch filmAntonia’s Line (Cornelisse, De Weers, de Wolf, & Gorris, 1995), is in many ways emblematic of some the most important European sexual scripts. No word is spoken. The graceful sexual movements imply passion, combined with self-knowledge. The woman chooses her mate and initiates sex, but is treated by him with respect and 76 mediated eros gentleness. Finally, the intricately beautiful soundtrack (by Ilona Sekacz, a British film composer) suggests the presence of complex emotions and thoughts in the characters’ minds. These scenes, of course, are not meant to characterize the way all Dutch or Europeans engage in sexual intercourse; nor are they representative of all portrayals of sexuality in European media. Rather, they are emblematic in that they have a symbolic and even a subversive meaning—or at least they do for European art cinema audiences, who know they are expected to read between the lines and who also are not immediately aroused, terrified, or offended by the images of nude bodies. As Peter Bradshaw, a film critic for The Guardian contends, “[n]o self-respecting liberal sophisticate can ever profess himself either shocked or aroused by explicit sex on screen: these are the two unbreak- able taboos” (1999b). That Western Europe is more sexually progressive—or at least more sexually outspoken—than North America has long been accepted on both sides of the Atlantic. As journalist and writer Mark Twain observed in his 1867 travel memoir The Innocents Abroad, “I suppose French morality is not of that strait- laced description which is shocked at trifles” (1869/2013, p. 58). Contempo- rary writers and scholars have also noted the more honest, bold, and explicit nature of sexual scripts in European news, film, and television. For example, Wolf (1999) argues that “British television is famous for being unbuttoned about sex,” and Hoggard (2005) describes the French film5x2 as containing all the “trademark motifs of violence, jealousy and perverse sexuality … but it will be a difficult sell outside France.” Schneider (1996) recalls being advised by American university officials to refrain from showing sexuality- related images from German print materials, such as the well-respected German news magazine Der Spiegel or the German teen magazine BRAVO, to American undergraduates because they might find them “emotionally disturbing” (p. 137). Let’s not forget that it was British-born doctor Alex Comfort who delivered to the world the international bestseller The Joy of Sex (1972), known for its “sexually liberal message” and illustrations featuring models “too hairy” to appear in Playboy (Hebblethwaite, 2011). Finally, the most recent sex-related bestseller, Fifty Shades of Grey (2012), also has a British author— former TV producer E. L. James. What is it that makes Europe so distinctly nonchalant about sexuality, especially by comparison with the U.S.? To answer this question, this chapter distills some of the more prominent European sexual scripts in media content—such as the portrayal of sex as a subversive or existential exploration that involves seduction, sensuality, sex as an existential journey 77 mystery, and nudity (sometimes sexualized and sometimes not, but generally shame-free). To illustrate certain cultural distinctions, this analysis at times puts side by side European and U.S. media portrayals of sex, following Hofstede’s (2001) notion that culture exists only by comparison. The use of the label “European” throughout this chapter is by no means intended to imply that Europe is a sexual monolith. Rather, as the following section suggests, diversity has historically characterized the sexual mores of the old continent, but in contemporary media portrayals, there are certain overlapping “European” elements that become evident only in contrast with American mediated sexuality.

The Many Faces of European Sexuality

Sexual ideologies in Europe have historically been diverse. France, for example,“the object of the erotic fantasies of foreigners” (Nye, 1999, p. 91), is known for its libertine sexual culture and “a rather traditional heterosexual ‘amour’” (p. 109). Because French was the language of European pornography for more than 150 years, French sexual scripts have influenced all European sexualities (Nye). Other stereotypically “passionate” nations sport complex sexual histories that defy stereotypes. Italy, for example, has long been perceived (inac- curately) as “a sunny paradise of guilt-free sexuality” (Eder, Hall, & Hekma, 1999, p. 21). And despite the stereotypical virility ascribed to Irish men, Ireland practiced sexual repression well into the 20th century (Fahey, 1999). This is evidenced, for example, by the Irish government banning Tampax in 1944 at the request of Catholic bishops, for fear that tampons “could harmfully stimulate girls at an impressionable age” (O Grada, 1997, p. 195). The Nether- lands, once relatively sexually conservative, has seen great change and is now at the opposite end of Europe’s sexual permissiveness spectrum. It is known for offering full health insurance coverage for contraception since 1971 and for its rich gay culture and Amsterdam’s Red District (Oosterhuis, 1999a). Differences exist not only in the actual sexual cultures and histories, but also in the way European nations are sexually stereotyped throughout the world. For example, the British are believed to “have hot-water bottles instead of a sex life,” while Brits themselves believe the French are oversexed, and associate sodomy with “Italians, Turks, or ‘less specific Orientals’” (Hall, 1999, p. 21). Popular erotica and pornographic productions ascribe unique sexual fantasies and preferences to individual European societies. Milter and Slade 78 mediated eros

(2005) note the following clichéd attributions: “oral sex to the French”; “flag- ellation to the English”; “big breasts and big penises to Americans,” “homosexuality to the Greeks and Italians,” “enormous dildos to the Germans,” and “sacrilege to the Spanish” (pp. 187–188). Although these culturally specific pornographic fantasies are just that— fantasies—Lottes and Alkula (2011) have noted several clusters of European countries that have similar sexual cultures based on attitudes toward divorce, adultery, casual sex, abortion, and homosexuality. Specifically, the clusters comprise: (a) Nordic countries with highest sexual self-expressive values (Denmark, Sweden, Iceland, and the Netherlands); (b) Western/Central European countries with second-highest self-expressive sexual values (Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Finland, France, Germany, Great Britain, Greece, Italy, Luxembourg, Slovakia, Slovenia, and Spain); (c) ex-communist countries with mid-range self-expressive values (Belarus, Bulgaria, Estonia, and Russia); (d) ex-communist countries with low self-expressive sexual values (Croatia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, and Ukraine); and (e) Ireland and Northern Ireland, which have mid-range self-expressive sexual values, but are in a separate cluster because of the continued influence of religion on attitudes toward abortion and divorce. The above clusters are influenced by religious beliefs and church attendance frequency throughout Europe, but it is important to note that religion does not always translate into negative attitudes toward sexuality. Not unlike in the U.S.—as pointed out in the previous chapter—sometimes organized religion in Europe has meddled in sex life with the intent to encourage it. Italy is a case in point: “Catholic marriage counselors … tried to convince husbands to pay more attention to their wives’ reactions, to show more affection and tenderness, to be more patient, and to dedicate more time to foreplay” (Wanrooij, 1999, p. 131). Europe’s religious and sexual histories are also rich with secret hereti- cal movements that “went through and beyond sexuality, rejecting a path of suppression” (p. 60). For example, the Bogomils (meaning “dear to God”), a powerful Gnostic sect that originated in the First Bulgarian Empire in the 10th century and spread throughout medieval Europe (influencing the Cathars, for example), likely “practiced a discipline of encratic sexual intercourse— that is, of sexual union without ejaculation—akin to the earlier and well- documented Christian practice of syneisaktism” (Versluis, 2008, p. 60). Such an understanding of sexuality can be traced to earlier Eastern philoso- phies, such as Taoism and Tantra, which emphasize both the sexual energy’s sex as an existential journey 79 potential to be transformed into an artistic, creative force and its power to transform an individual life into something greater and more interconnected. In these spiritual frameworks, self-contained sexuality has been seen as the “fuel for ascension of consciousness” (Taylor, 2009, p. 3). The related practice of “ritualized syneisaktism” (Versluis, 2008, p. 61) in early Christianity—meaning chaste marriage—has been recognized as the root of Europe’s various arts that reflect “the practice of adoring the beloved from afar into a kind of literary religion that combined celibacy with powerful sexual tension and longing” (Versluis, p. 61). It was usually men who engaged in this practice, but some pining women have been part of the discourse as well, as exemplified by the existence of female troubadours in the Middle Ages (Bogin, 2013) and more recent literary characters, such as Tatiana in Pushkin’s Eugene Onegin (1833/2015). Little wonder that portrayals of sexuality in contemporary European media have preserved some of this mystical and spiritual flair. This is the subject of the next section.

Sexuality as Path to Wisdom

Sex in European media representations often displays qualities of sophistication and class. Even a film as explicit asNymphomaniac (Vesth & von Trier, 2013), known for its bold sex scenes including vaginal and anal penetration and genital close-ups—once considered the realm only of pornography— intertwines a nymphomaniac’s life story with mystical elements. In the first part of the film, discussions of promiscuity are metaphorically connected to concepts from music and mathematics. These include the Fibonacci number sequence and Bach’s mastery of polyphony, which is described in the film as “an entirely European phenomenon … distinguished by the idea that every voice is its own melody but together in harmony.” It is the search for such wholeness and harmony that supposedly underlies European sexual experimentation. Note how the film’s protagonist, Joe, explains her promiscuity through the metaphor of polyphony:

Well, if I should compare this with my story, it’s reminiscent of a quality of nympho- mania, which is normally ignored but nonetheless essential, and namely the relationship between the various intercourses … As for example, the handshake, which for all people is the sum of all the different handshakes that together form our view of what a handshake is—the good, the bad handshake, the firm, the limp … Normally, 80 mediated eros

a nymphomaniac is seen as someone who can’t get enough and therefore has sex with many different people. Well, that of course is true, but if I am to be honest, I see it precisely as the sum of all these different sexual experiences. So in that way, I have only one lover.

In the second volume of Nymphomaniac, Western religious elements emerge to add to this somewhat Eastern search for oneness. When Joe is 10, she has a spontaneous orgasm (her first orgasm, in spite of much previous masturbation) while on a field trip in a mountain. She hallucinates that she is levitating in the air, and sees a vision of two women, one on each of her sides. From Joe’s description, the man to whom she is telling her story, Seligman, an asexual erudite, identifies one of the women in the vision as Valeria Messalina, wife of the emperor Claudius and the most notorious nymphomaniac in history, and the other as the Whore of Babylon. Seligman sees the story as “a blasphemous retelling” of the Transfiguration of Jesus on the Mount, considered one of the most important biblical stories for the Eastern Orthodox Church, which he identifies as the church of happiness in juxtaposition to Roman Catholicism’s (the Western Church) obsession with suffering and death. Thanks to these elements, Nymphomaniac is a cinematic creation that titillates the intellectual curiosity of erudite audiences even more than the frequent pornographic shots may titillate their sexual desire. The film’s director, Lars von Trier, con- veniently accomplishes such a profound stimulation by highlighting ancient connections between sexuality and religious mysticism. There are more elements of European religious history that further com- plicate this association between the sexual and the spiritual. While some European heretics attributed mystical power to sexuality, Catholicism (the dominant religion in Central and Western Europe) condemned it—but in a way that still bridged sexuality with existential concerns. Foucault (1976/1990), in his historical investigation of European sexuality, writes that in the 17th century, sex began to be seen as something that had to be put into words, to the most minute detail, and confessed to a priest—a Catholic ritual practiced in large swaths of the old continent. Sex was a discourse reserved for the darkness of the confessional booth, in the context of life and death, heaven and hell. Writes Foucault:

The confession was … the general standard governing the production of the true discourse on sex … It is no longer a question of saying what was done—the sexual act—and how it was done; but of reconstructing, in and around the act, the thoughts that recapitulated it, the obsessions that accompanied it, the images, desires, modu- lations, and quality of the pleasure that animated it. (p. 63) sex as an existential journey 81

Thus, not only were sexual actions and fantasies visualized and detailed in this confessional context, which made arousal inappropriate and unthinkable, but they were also implicitly linked to abstract existential concepts. Foucault further writes that sexuality in the European imagination was of an intangible quality—deeper and more complex than the mechanistic joining of bodies that can be observed by the naked eye: “… the ways of sex were obscure; it was elusive by nature; its energy and its mechanisms escaped observation, and its causal power was partly clandestine” (p. 66). Judging by media content, the overarching contemporary European sexual script by no means espouses abstinence, but it is historically grounded in that it attributes a great significance to sexuality as an expression of human consciousness and a stepping stone to self-understanding. In that sense, the script also follows in the steps of the ancient Greek view of sexuality as an art of achieving freedom from oneself (Foucault). The Hellenistic journey to artful living required perseverance and willingness to make mistakes. Foucault describes it with the following quote from Antiphon the Sophist: “He is not wise who has not tried the ugly and the bad; for then there is nothing he has conquered and nothing that would enable him to assert that he is virtuous” (p. 66). In ancient Greece, sexual virility was contingent on ethical virility: “The relation of the soul to truth is … what founds Eros in its movement, its force, and its intensity” (p. 88). Even the term “platonic,” which in Western culture is used as synonymous with “non-sexual,” was originally meant to reflect the same notion of Eros: “For Plato, it is not exclusion of the body that characterizes true love in a fundamental way; it is rather that, beyond the appearances of the object, love is a relation to truth” (p. 239). Establish- ing this relation to Eros as truth in ancient Greece depended on moderating one’s appetites. Inability to resist pleasures signified a failure of masculinity. (Contrast this to the drinking and rape culture within which many young men in the U.S. strive to prove their masculinity). Writes Foucault: “… a man who was not sufficiently in control of his pleasures—whatever his choice of object—was regarded as ‘feminine’” (p. 85). European understanding of sexuality as a key to the mysteries of one’s existence is not moralistic, but it does call for great courage and caution. Like in the Hellenistic sexual script, there is no “codification” of specific sexual acts (Foucault, 1984/1986, p. 92). The contemporary script, if such can be generalized, offers a healthy disregard for living up to social expectations, whether real or perceived. This is illustrated in an exchange between two teenage girls in the French film Water Lilies (Couvreur, Dopffer, & 82 mediated eros

Sciamma, 2007): “Who cares about being normal?” In a review, critic Michael Joshua Rowin observes that this is the film’s most important question because it is not “merely rhetorical but a lead-in to the more important question: ‘What lies beyond it?’” (2008) Other vestiges of the Hellenistic script in European media context include the emphasis on a search for truth through moral mastery and Platonic erotic arts. It is not by pretending that sexuality does not exist, shaming it, or suppressing it that one is supposed to accomplish this, but rather by understanding and controlling it—sometimes at a great psychological cost. For that reason, in European cinema and other media content, existential exploration through sex is not usually depicted as “partying” (a word that, in American English, frequently refers to the supposedly fun experience of drinking, yelling, destroying property, and engaging in sexual activities with mere acquaintances, sometimes unwilling or unconscious). Contemporary Hollywood movies often portray protagonists who emerge from “partying” with great stories to tell and psychologically unscathed, despite almost ruin- ing their lives and having numerous run-ins with police—as in, for example, The Hangover (Goldberg & Phillips, 2009) and Bridesmaids (Apatow, Mendel, Townsend, & Feig, 2011). By contrast, in European films, sexual experiences are not bragging rights, nor are they punished by external factors (as they used to be in the once- moralistic Hollywood films, per the requirements of the Production Code from 1934 to 1968), but they are not without serious psychological consequences. Writes Tanya Krzywinska (2006) about the French filmLa Ronde (Baum, Gordine, & Ophüls, 1950), which was banned in the U.S. because it depicts a cycle of casual sexual experiences in a non-judgmental fashion: “The encounters are not cost-free, however; sometimes they are painful for the participants. A creeping despondency comes with watching this transitory cycle of sexual dalliance” (p. 58). Sometimes, European film protagonists yearn to achieve authenticity through sex—but often fail, uncovering only the “real and knotty complexities of desire” (p. 45). In line also with the ancient Greek script of “spiritual combat” (Foucault, 1984/1986, p. 67), existential exploration through sex is often depicted in European cinema as frightening, painful, and requiring intense effort. In some cases, it can even end in death—unsurprisingly, since sexual activity in the Greek script was a reminder that the body wants to procreate because it is “bound to perish” (p. 133). In carrying out this association between sex and death, some European films follow a “black widow” misogynistic script, with sex as an existential journey 83 a woman killing—or suspected of killing—a male lover, as in The 4th Man (Houwer & Verhoeven, 1983), Last Tango in Paris (Grimaldi & Bertolucci, 1972), and Romance (Jacques, Lepetit, & Breillat, 1999). In Jules and Jim (Berbert & Truffaut, 1962), the female protagonist has two lovers and eventually kills one of them and herself by driving a car off a bridge. In the more recent Scottish film Under the Skin (Wechsler, Wilson, & Glazer, 2013), the female protagonist (played by the sultry American Scarlett Johansson) is a highly seductive alien who lures men for sex and then kills them by immers- ing them in a mysterious black liquid that sucks out their bodies, leaving only their skin, like a deflated balloon. When she actually attempts to have sex by her own choice and desire, she discovers that she has no vagina. It is thus implied that the very meaning of her existence is not to enjoy her own sexuality, but to employ it as a gateway to death. Stories of women killing their lovers have sometimes been interpreted as symbolizing the death of patriarchy through female sexual liberation (i.e., Krzywinska, 2006), but they also represent a misogynistic, mythological script, in which highly sexual women are associated with danger, witchcraft, and death. For example, in the case of Jules and Jim, Catherine’s violence is perceived by her surviving lover as “both ancestral and atavistic … and, it seems, typical of all womankind” (Heathcote, 2002, p. 339)—and even more so the sexually liberated womankind! This misogynistic and essentialist view of sexually active and sexually attractive women is hardly surprising, considering that many thousands of women were burned at the stake in Europe between the years 1400 and 1700 on charges of being sexually insatiable, having demonic lovers, or being demonic lovers themselves (Stephens, 2002). The script of the dangerously sexual (or sexually dangerous) woman has now been exported to the U.S., as exemplified by films such asBasic Instinct (1992)—unsurprisingly, since it was directed by the director of The 4th Man, the Dutch filmmaker Paul Verhoeven—and Teeth (Pierpoline & Lichtenstein, 2007), which is a remake of the cross-cultural legend that some women have vaginal teeth—a misogynistic reminder of sexuality’s existential threat and promise (Elwin, 1943). In many cases, the sexual exploration in European cinema is also arche- typally similar to the hero journey described by Joseph Campbell (1968): The hero or heroine leaves his or her home or comfort zone, gains strength and knowledge, achieves victories, and returns triumphant. For example, Krzywinska (2006) argues that female sexual-initiation films, such asEmman - uelle (Rousset-Rouard & Jaeckin, 1974) and The Story of O (Lorin & Jaeckin, 1975)—both adaptations of French novels, both by female authors—have a 84 mediated eros

“quasi-mystical transcendental aspect” (p. 64). Both heroines literally leave their homes (Emmanuelle goes to Bangkok, O to a secret castle), and both have semi-spiritual experiences (Emmanuelle learns a bit of tantric sexuality, while O lives in a resemblance of a religious order, where silence and obe- dience are mandatory). Further, suggests Krzywinska, “components of traditional fairytales, which in themselves often carried sexual initiation elements, are tailored to fit the sexual sex-discovery narrative format” (p. 65). This artistic, existential, and mystical view of sexuality is still evident in a vast array of contemporary European mediated discourses. The use of sex, sexual images, and sexual portrayals in European cinema and art has often been a strategy not to titillate or arouse audiences, but rather to pose deeper questions about life’s meaning and people’s subjective experiences of love. Little wonder that sex-focused films that have been identified as fitting the art cinema genre—such as Summer with Monika (1953), Betty Blue (1986), and Virgin (1988)—are all European productions (Krzywinska, 2006). Other existential explorations in that genre, such as Romance (Jacques, Lepetit, & Breillat, 1999) and Last Tango in Paris (Grimaldi & Bertolucci, 1972), include hardcore pornography elements, such as depictions of sexual penetrations and bodily fluids, but their artful execution affords them a “certain status that enables them to circumvent the censorship that their authentically coded sexual content might solicit” (p. 47). Two 1999 sex dramas are especially useful to illustrate European sexual scripts by contrasting them to American sexual scripts. One is the French Romance (Jacques, Lepetit, & Breillat, 1999), the other the American Eyes Wide Shut (Harlan & Kubrick, 1999). Romance features graphic sexual images, such as a rape, sadomasochism, a gynecological exam, and a very explicit child- birth scene. However, the film is obviously not intended to arouse because, for one thing, the protagonist, Marie, does not appear to particularly enjoy her sexual exploits. As The Guardian’s Bradshaw notes, “the notion of simple pleasure is sacrificed to this brow-furrowing pursuit of a meaning which infinitely recedes” (1999b). After Romance’s release, the late U.S. film critic Roger Ebert reported that most (American) men did not like the film—proving its lack of pornographic appeal—but noted with interest the unusual first-person structure showing a young woman constantly thinking and seeking meaning while engaging in seemingly lowbrow sexual exploits. Is that supposed to mean that it is unusual for women to think while they have sex? Perhaps so, at least in the mainstream American sexual script. Wrote Ebert: “Romance is so sex as an existential journey 85 analytical that you sometimes get the feeling Marie is putting herself through her sexual encounters simply to get material for her journal. These poor guys aren’t lovers, they’re case studies” (1999b). The heroine eventually seems to find meaning not in sexual experimentation, but in killing a man and birth- ing a baby. This is also implied in the film’s motto, “Love is desolate, romance is temporary, sex is forever,” which seemingly emphasizes the reproductive function of sex or—on a more abstract level—uses it as shorthand to refer to life and death. Who would have expected a somewhat chaste and spiritual ending from a French movie with so much sex and nudity? Contrast the deeply existential journey in Romance to Eyes Wide Shut (Harlan & Kubrick, 1999), which features a secret orgy and some nudity in a highbrow setting, where participants enjoy substantial wealth and status (although not necessarily high education or culture). In spite of its air of suspense and mystery (and perceived danger, typical of American thrillers), Eyes Wide Shut offers little to no search for any deep meaning or philosophy of life. Its main focus is hedonistic sex—elaborate, with people wearing masks and with elements of implied violence and sadomasochism, but ultimately just sex. An orgy scene had to be digitally altered in the Eyes Wide Shut version released in the U.S. (reflecting the visual emphasis of the American script and the resulting censorship), elsewhere the film faced no cuts. The critics on the two sides of the Atlantic crossed rapiers again. Roger Ebert, an American, was strongly positive in his review, arguing that the film “creates a mesmerizing daydream of sexual fantasy” (1999a). Peter Bradshaw, a Brit, saw it as “a Manhattan porn gothic … radioactive with suppressed pornographic creepiness”—adding that “as an essay on the nature of sexuality it is vulgar and pretentious, but taken as a bizarre, hallucinatory black comic fable about married life, it is plausible and enjoyable” (1999a). And therein, in these two white male critics’ different takes on the same film—“sexual fantasy” versus “gothic porn,” “mesmerizing” versus “vulgar,”—the abyss between American and European sexual scripts becomes especially clear. Even though Ebert and Bradshaw share an Anglo-American culture, they ultimately disagree on what represents a meaningful erotic fantasy—and even on what is erotic per se. The existential script has been vanishing from European popular culture due to its lack of entertainment quality. It is refreshing, however, to see many elements of it present in Nymphomaniac (2013). For example, the protagonist Joe remarks shortly after mentioning that she discovered masturbation at the age of 2: “Perhaps the only difference between me and other people 86 mediated eros was that I have always demanded more from the sunset—more spectacular colors when the sun hit the horizon” (Vesth & von Trier, 2013). Mentioning the sunset, a symbol of life’s beauty and impermanence, elevates the heroine’s insatiable lust to the level of some haughty abstract concepts. By contrast, the existential script is difficult to find in U.S. media content. (How could the fuck-buddy system operate if anyone took sex that seriously?) The abandonment of the existential in favor of the recreational script in European media (and the already long-standing dominance of the recreational script in the U.S.) resembles Foucault’s (1976/1990) notion of the replacement of ars erotica (erotic art) by scientia sexualis (sexual science). This idea suggests that elusive, polysemic sexuality is being pushed out of the public discourse thanks to the increasing focus on medically categorized, “by nature” patterns of arousal and orgasm (Foucault, p. 68). The distinction between art and science is that the former reflects an artist’s emotional state and elicits audience emotion, while the latter is cognitive, allegedly objective, and devoid of emotion. But even in the cognitive dimension, European sexuality has a somewhat transcendent quality. This is because, as described in the following section, sex in Europe has a social and political significance; it is the stuff of revolutions.

Sexuality as a Subversion

Portrayals of sexuality and even of sexually transgressive acts (increasingly common in European cinema and art) reflect the old continent’s political history of at least occasional anti-capitalist, ideology-challenging mini- rebellions. Writes McNair (2002): “[C]ontemporary … artists, working in a range of media, employ the aesthetics of sexual transgression to subvert, not merely bourgeois society (whatever that term means anymore) but the hierar- chies, inequalities and injustices associated with patriarchy” (p. 174). Europe’s long history of producing subversive art cinema, exploring both ideology and sexuality, is evident in the provocative filmEcstasy (Grunhut, Horký, & Machatý, 1933), by a Czech director, which featured 15 minutes of nudity, adultery, and a graphic scene of a female orgasm. (The version released in the U.S. was modified.) This early portrayal of female sexual liberation reflected, in part, the Soviet Union’s ideological influence, writes Thomas (2005). For example, he argues, in the scene in which the film’s star (later to become Hollywood’s darling Hedy Lamarr) is nude, “female nudity is equated with sex as an existential journey 87 nature and in this spirit is celebrated as an integral feature of the film’s socialist message” (p. 30). By contrast, “the virile hero … becomes the embodiment not simply of a masculine ideal but also of a political vision: the realization of a new socialist society” (p. 29). One has to wonder whether the film has alarmed some viewers precisely because of its ideological subtext rather than its graphic depictions of sexual activities. Sexuality is also an important aspect of the European conception of bourgeois versus working-class mentality. The European middle class has historically viewed the lower classes as “uncontrolled, undisciplined, hedonistic, irresponsible, irrational, loud-mouthed, vulgar, careless, dirty, physical …” (Lofgren & Frykman, 1987/2003, p. 270). This could be, in part, the reason that popular culture originating in the U.S.—such as certain vulgar music videos—has found a strong market in Europe. Many European audiences may take such content not at its face value, as a source of sexual titillation, but rather perceive it as having an intrinsically political and subversive quality. This anti-bourgeois mentality is implicit in Nymphomaniac (Vesth & von Trier, 2013), even though its protagonist comes from an upper-middle-class family, with a stay-at-home mother and a doctor for a father. Yet, the teenage Joe and several of her female friends embrace a subversive challenge to the status quo. They form a secret club in which they share experiences about how many men they have seduced each week. “We were committed to combat the love-fixated society,” says the nymphomaniac heroine. This is nothing but a class rebellion; Joe and her friends correctly sense that the social construction of love—commercialized and reinforced through Valentine’s Day merchandise and obscenely expensive weddings—is at the core of bourgeois, middle-class life. In her later years, Joe continues to rebel against bourgeois morality; because of her insatiable sexual desire, she is labeled a “sex addict” and required to attend group therapy for sex addicts in order to keep her job. However, she rebels against the socially constructed, psychiatric label, which she feels is intended to repress her true nature as a nymphomaniac. And when it becomes clear that she can never fit the social structures woven around middle-class orderliness and decency, Joe enters the underground crime world. But this does not mean that sex is intrinsically anti-bourgeois. Sexuality in literary and artistic expressions is Europe’s shorthand for symbolic rebellion of any sort—including against non-bourgeois regimes, such as the former communist dictatorships in Eastern Europe. It is no coincidence that the film The Unbearable Lightness of Being (Ohlsson, Zaentz, & Kaufman, 1988), U.S.-produced but based on Milan Kundera’s homonymous 1984 dissident 88 mediated eros novel, contains several intensely sexual narratives that presented a direct challenge to the sexless Eastern European communist regimes. Even Victo- rian morality was insidiously undermined by sexual rebellions much more non-conformist and explicit (though steeped in upper-class aesthetics) than is typically assumed for that era, according to cultural historian Fern Riddell:

From the erotic life of courtesan Cora Pearl, to the romantic female relationships of Mary Benson, wife of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Victorian female sexuality was just as expressive and expansive as it is today … From sex toys to sex chairs, condoms and contraceptives, the Victorians had many of the things we see today. They used rubber, wood, ivory, and leather; some are delicately crafted from silver, others decorated in enamel flowers and hidden inside everyday objects, like a walking cane. (2014)

One of the ways in which this very European sexual subversion of social order manifests itself is through nudity, albeit not necessarily in a sexual context. The Swedish film Together (Jonsson & Moodysson, 2000), portraying a 1970s hippie commune, contains a scene in which a man and a woman, naked from the waist down, employ their genitals as a non-verbal challenge to each other. And as anyone who has watched the highly sexual films of Spanish director Pedro Almodovar knows, subversive portrayals of nudity are not at all limited to Scandinavian cinema. The next section elaborates on this omnipresence of nudity in European media content, both on and off screen, and explores the meanings ascribed to the human body.

The Naked Body: Polysemic and Wholesome

European sexual scripts reflect the continent’s long history of portraying nudity in and as art (high culture) rather than as a cheap source of sexual titillation. This is not dissimilar to views of the human body as a multifaceted and polysemic symbol in another old culture, Japan: “Sentiment, particularly that evoked by the family and motherhood, and nonsexual humor, are other responses that nudity is intended to elicit” (Downs, 1990, p. 583). These deep-rooted, historically grounded perceptions of nudity are especially evident when analyzed in contrast to the more recent and somewhat less thoughtful portrayals of the naked human body in American popular discourse. It can be said that attitudes toward nudity on the two sides of the Atlantic are as different as Botticelli’s Venus is different from Miley Cyrus. One implicit concern in North America, reflective of the visual sexual script, sex as an existential journey 89 is that seeing a woman’s breasts or seeing a man’s genitalia through a tight swimsuit would lead to uncontrollable or embarrassing arousal. The lesser emphasis on the visual in the European sexual script means no (Western) European man can reasonably justify sexual arousal at the sight of a topless woman at the beach. This different erotic focus could explain Europe’s relative permissiveness in regard to nudity and revealing clothing as compared to the United States. Writes Petzanova (2010): “Pornography is defined more narrowly than in North America because the naked human form is depicted without much restriction in the European media. Images portraying the naked human form in European fashion magazines and television ads are abundant …” (p. 19). Because of this acceptance of nudity and the limited (if any) association between sexuality and filth, references to genitalia are not uncommon in European media content—not only through sexual innuendo but also in direct references to genitalia. This is illustrated, for example, in the filmThe Hunt (Jørgensen, Kaufmann, & Vinterberg, 2012), in which a kindergart- ner utters the word “penis” without any hesitation. (Contrast this to most American elementary schools, where saying “vagina” or “penis” would be seen as an offense to decency). The same cultural distinction can be seen in the news coverage of Rep. Lisa Brown, banned from speaking in the Michigan House of Representatives in June 2012 because she used the word “vagina” in the context of reproductive rights. The Guardian found the story highly newsworthy, dubbed it “Vaginagate,” and ran several highly prominent articles about it on its web- page. The first two appeared on June 15 (Jones, 2012), immediately following the event. The Guardian’s coverage was scathing:

Delicate little flower, representative Mike Callton, reacted to Brown’s quim quip with: “It was so offensive, I don’t even want to say it in front of women.” Well thank you, Mike, the last thing I want is an informed political debate about my genitalia that involves the correct anatomical words. (McAuliffe, 2012)

By contrast, The New York Times never covered the Lisa Brown “Vagina- gate.” The event was mentioned in The Times in passing only, three months later, in the context of a story about Naomi Wolf’s new book Vagina (Sandler, 2012). The Washington Post covered the Brown story several days late—not as political news but in the OnFaith section, and only after the censored legislator performed The Vagina Monologues to protest her treatment (Thistlethwaite, 2012). 90 mediated eros

Why did it take an international newspaper based in London to provide in-depth coverage of a regional American political scandal? The answer seems obvious. It is not that “Vaginagate” is not newsworthy. It is not that American journalists and intellectuals do not understand the damage done by genitalia- related linguistic taboos of American culture, as evidenced by a piece titled “The Vagina (and Penis) Dialogues” in The New York Times (Buni, 2012). It is simply that they feel obligated to play by the cultural script of sexual prudishness and thus continue to reinforce it. Historically speaking, many American writers have demonstrated a Eurocentric perspective in regard to nudity and the human body, but few have dared to explicitly challenge the norms of their own culture. For example, a 1913 article in The New York Times poked fun at earlier fears that public exhibition of a nude art statue in the U.S. could introduce “foreign indelicacy” (“Greek Slave,” p. 66). Yet, “unadorned” representations of known models continued to be rejected, as illustrated by a 1910 New York Times completely non-ironic story about Washington, D.C., policemen covering (while averting their gazes—and under the cheers of housewives!) a nude statue allegedly modeled after a rich heiress (“Police Drape Nude,” p. 1). European media are distinct not only in their nonchalant attitude toward nudity but also in their radical acceptance (in some countries more than others) of aging and overweight bodies. Portrayals of nude or partially nude bodies are not uncommon in mainstream European media content, as exemplified by the frequent coverage of sexual art photography by The Guardian (e.g., Fidler, 2014) and its extensive reporting, with pictures and videos, on the annual World Naked Bike Race held in June. Similar media attention to nudity in a positive and wholesome context is evident the German press. Schneider (1996) notes: “The positive attitude of Germans toward sexual-erotic concepts is reflected even in print media, where nudity and sexual expressivity is not unusual” (p. 137). The European acceptance of nudity has a long history, possibly dating back to the Hellenistic sexual script and various folk traditions. Until the 1870s, in Germany and Austria, “nakedness, for example during bathing or even in the factory, seemed to cause no moral outrage” (Eder, 1999, p. 148). In much of Europe, children still play naked on the beach until they are pre- pubescents, and men in tight Speedo swimsuits are not the least self-conscious about their bulges. Topless sunbathing has been acceptable throughout the last few decades, although some Europeans are concerned that this freedom is waning. Changing attitudes could be discerned in the international scandal over Kate Middleton’s topless sunbathing photos (Cockerton, 2013). More recent news suggests that the U.S.-influenced pop-pornification of breasts and sex as an existential journey 91 the proliferation of topless activism have led some French women to cover up (Ferrier, 2014). Yet, even if there is a conservative shift in attitudes toward nudity, the very fact that the downward trend in topless sunbathing is a topic of discussion in European news contrasts starkly against the prudishness of U.S. media—illustrated, for example, by the recent controversy over The New York Times’ photo of a woman’s naked breast accompanying a story about cancer prevention (Sullivan, 2013). Germans—not the French—are currently the world’s guidepost in positive attitudes toward nudity, judging by recent news reports. A third of German and Austrian women sunbathe topless (Ferrier, 2014). Slate reports that nude bathing, extremely common at all German beaches (not just segre- gated, nudist ones) is “less about sex or exhibitionism and more about convenience and freedom” (Schuman, 2014). The author adds that “Germans also shake their heads at the quintessentially American aversion to the Speedo and to public nudity in general,” and suggests that Americans should relax at least a little bit about revealing their bodies. But it appears impossible in U.S. culture to not associate nudity with sex. Even at the peak of the sexual revolution, a 1969 Psychology Today article contentiously described nudists as “undersexed liars,” referring to the “lie” that removing one’s clothes is enough to simplify social relations (cited in Houdek, 1969, p. 4). Little wonder that in the 21st century, Americans still poke fun at German nudist culture, as illustrated by the hilarious ex-boyfriend character Klaus in How I Met Your Mother (Newman & Fryman, 2006), who is always naked at home, to the chagrin of his American roommates. And more recently, the feminist blog Jezebel ended its article about the enlightened German beach culture with a reverse sexist objectification joke: “If anybody sees the German World Cup team, tell them Jezebel says hi!” (Faircloth, 2014). The appreciation of the human body as wholesome in its natural state is also reflected in the continent’s norms of attractiveness. European women have traditionally not removed their pubic and underarm hair, although this is changing under American influence. This is illustrated in the French film Amelie (Deschamps, Ossard, & Jeunet, 2001), where the protagonist dials a porn studio by mistake and hangs up when asked whether she is shaved. Here is how Milter and Slade (2006) describe the trans-Atlantic transfer of some body appearance standards and the resistance to others:

American women are ‘overengineered,’ say Europeans, while Hungarians are ‘natural,’ that is, free of silicone, tattoos, and piercings … Moreover, natural clearly no longer refers to the presence of pubic hair. The visual shorthand of global media has led to genital synechdoches, a process that mandates shaving or depilating 92 mediated eros

labia—and penises—and for that matter, removing underarm hair, which used to be a European body marker. In any event, promoters of the Magyar look reject imperi- alistic American standards of beauty, turning away from both the scrubbed, nubile cheerleader image so beloved of Playboy readers and the torpedo-blasted blonde parodies who populate American porn videos. The intent is to enlarge the domain of eroticism to include the striking and the interesting rather than the predictably pretty, a campaign applauded in Europe. (p. 186)

Acceptance of non-sexualized nudity in Europe coincides with lower production and consumption of pornography, especially after the U.S. conquered France’s erotica market in the 1970s by introducing more explicit films, such as Deep Throat (Peraino & Damiano, 1972). As of the early 2000s, the U.S. produced 11,000 new hardcore pornography titles per year, while European nations produced about only 1,200 (Milter & Slade, 2005). Because arousal is not kindled exclusively by naked bodies, another important aspect of the continent’s sexual script is the reliance on artful sexual innuendo through metaphors and suggestive priming. This European approach to sexual seduction is outlined in the following section.

Magic, Suspense, and Love

Prolonged flirting, often nonverbal, appears in much European media content as the source of strong emotions and unbridled sexual desires. (By contrast, flirting in American media content emphasizes the male gaze, extroverted chatter, bragging, and direct “asking out”; examples of all of these elements of courtship abound in U.S. sitcoms). Cues such as touch and smell—as illustrated by the complex history and continued success of the European perfume industry—are central to the seduction scenario. In sexually conservative parts of Europe, such as Italy, seduction has historically been viewed as a man’s job; Italians defined seduction as “sexual relations obtained after a false promise of marriage” (Wanrooij, 1999, p. 116). But in most variations of the European sexual script, either gender could be performing the seduction. Nye (1999) argues that French sexual narratives routinely include a so-called femme fatale—the sexual vamp who cannot be resisted and whose manipulative skill is such that she can influence political events through the men at her feet. (By contrast, American women have historically been more likely to be viewed as objects than as powerful, if purely sexual, subjects.) Seduction, goes the European script, is good for sex because it employs mystery and suspense. These elements often lead to a strong romantic sex as an existential journey 93 attraction, which in turn amplifies the sexual attraction. This is portrayed in Amelie (Deschamps, Ossard, & Jeunet, 2001), in which a witty and idealistic 20-something Parisian café waitress tries sex with men to whom she has no romantic attraction. One scene shows Amelie on her back, a mysterious Mona Lisa smile on her face, waiting for a man on top of her to finish his pumping. Not that Amelie is prudish or uninterested in sex. The opposite is true, as illustrated by a scene in which she is standing on the balcony, trying to imagine how many couples in Paris are having an orgasm at that moment (15, she concludes). The copulating couples are of all ages and shapes; the only unrealistic part is that they all appear to be having simultaneous orgasms. After an elaborate courtship process employing elements of mystery and numerous misunderstandings, Amelie begins a relationship with a good-hearted intro- vert. The extraordinary quality of the resulting sex, although not depicted, is implied through a foreplay scene in Amelie’s candle-lit bedroom. Both the creative seduction process and the resulting romantic moments offer a nod to Foucault’s notion of ars erotica (erotic arts). Amelie’s lesson seems to be that sex without love is totally socially acceptable—just very, very boring. A similar message is offered in the film Nymphomaniac: “The secret ingredient to sex is love” (Vesth & von Trier, 2013). Glances and silences, not gregariousness, are the most powerful sexual kindlers in the European conception of desire. In the British filmShame (Canning & McQueen, 2011), the male protagonist (played by German-born Irish-raised actor Michael Fassbender) establishes an eye contact with an attractive woman on the New York subway. Clad in a dress, nylons, and boots, she glances back and subtly moves, revealing more of her leg. The scene lingers, with the camera moving from her eyes to his and back again. That evening, the protagonist’s eyes meet those of a woman being courted by his talkative boss—and it is that silent connection that eventually leads to sex. In more humorous media content, sexual seduction is often described through a double entendre. A case in point are the suggestive lyrics of the 2009 UK-airing commercial “Mow the Lawn,” which advertises a women’s razor brand: “Some bushes are really big, some gardens are mighty small, whatever shape your topiary, it’s easy to trim them all.” Add the parade of women in skirts or shorts, portrayed winking and smiling while doing yard work with pink lawnmowers (and even a pink leaf blower), and it becomes clear that “mow the lawn” refers to shaving one’s genital area (Maguire, 2009). While unfortunate racial overtones erode the humor (the line about the big bush is sung by a Black woman, and the line about the small garden by an Asian), the 94 mediated eros commercial demonstrates European audiences’ willingness to accept creative sexual metaphors and banter. These elements are also at the center of Cou- pling (Vertue, Perkins, Clarke-Jervoise, & Moffat, 2000), viewed by some as the British equivalent of the much sexually tamer U.S. show Friends (Bright, Crane, Kauffman, Knoller, & Stevens, 1994).

Powerful Women vs. (Sometimes) Passive Men

Another important distinction of the European sexual script is its focus on women’s sexuality. Media content appears to portray European women as more interested in sex and less likely to be judged for such an interest than American women. Take, for example, this exchange from the first episode of Coupling, “Flushed” (Dennis & Moffat, 2000), in which a couple discuss breaking up:

Susan: It’s not like we’ve been faithful or anything. Patrick: (silence and horrified look) Susan: Oops. I am so sorry. I had no idea. Patrick: It’s fine. Susan: We were only seeing each other once a week. That’s not exactly a sex life … You must’ve been doing a lot of, hm, solo flights. Patrick: No, I wasn’t. Susan: Oh, c’mon. Patrick: I certainly was not. I was saving it all up for you. Susan: Oh, really? (puts her hand in front of her mouth to hide her laugh) Oops. Look, I am not saying it wasn’t good. I am just saying it didn’t look like a week’s worth … No, don’t look like that. Not everyone has my level of sex drive.

Other mediated accounts underscore European women’s high and unabashed sexual expectations. These are especially evident when contrasted with the gendered sexual status quo in the U.S. Here is how feminist writer Jessica Valenti outlines the perceptions of Maia Mazaurette, a sex columnist for the French edition of GQ magazine, in regard to European versus American sexuality:

Mazaurette seems genuinely baffled by the curious coupling of American prudishness and male-centric sex: she worries that any American man she might date would think she was a “slut” based on French norms, and she doesn’t understand why Amer- ican women give unreciprocated blow jobs. “I don’t pleasure in my mouth. It’s very mysterious to me, why an American woman would do that.” (Valenti, 2014) sex as an existential journey 95

The European sexual script, in fact, specifically caters to female sexuality by focusing on the complexities of desire and much less on intercourse mechanics and visual stimuli (such as Hollywood’s favorites: youthfulness and large breasts). British columnist Janice Turner argues that “[w]hat turns women on … is desire itself. Whilst masturbating to porn, women’s eyes scanned images for evidence of real lust—eye contact, yearning—which may explain their lack of interest in cold, mechanistic mainstream porn” (2013b, p. 12). The visual is not completely absent, but the tables are often turned. In European media content, men seem more likely to be objectified by women and to see themselves as objects of female desire. At times, men may even see themselves as passive sexual subjects, which is unthinkable from the rigid perspective of American masculinity. For example, it is not entirely unusual for European women to sometimes objectify men’s buttocks, as illustrated in an episode of Coupling (“Faithless”), in which a female employee gazes intently at a man’s “wiggling ass” while his head is trapped in a copier (Moffat & Dennis, 2002). Another case in point is For Women, a British pornographic magazine for heterosexual female audiences, which includes images of naked men that emphasize strength and masculinity, but also “illustrations of passivity, masculine fragility and emotion” (Smith, 2003, pp. 138–139). And many more examples from mainstream media content suggest that women do not hesitate to take the lead when men feel insecure. A scene from the first episode of Coupling (Vertue, Perkins, Clarke-Jervoise, & Moffat, 2000) portrays just such a case:

Susan: Didn’t he tell you? He fainted. Jeff: Yeah, but I was only faking it so I wouldn’t have to have sex with you … That wasn’t a great defense, was it? Look, sex can be very stressful for men. You judge us on technique, sensitivity, stamina. We are just happy if you are naked. Half-naked.

A later episode of Coupling, titled “Nightlines” (Moffat & Dennis, 2004), portrays an intercourse between two of the protagonists, Patrick and Sally, presumably ending in orgasm for both. Sally is on top, while Patrick is fantasizing about being in a car wash, surrounded by powerful women in police uniforms (including Sally) and a group of nurses—also powerful because of their unspoken privilege to touch and investigate every part of the male body. Patrick’s fantasy scene contains zero nudity, but it offers numerous interpretive possibilities along the “kinky” spectrum. Its focus on male passivity makes it unlikely to appear in a mainstream U.S. sitcom. 96 mediated eros

Male sexual dominance is not entirely absent in the European script, but it is somewhat limited. This is evident in the Dutch filmThe 4th Man (Houwer & Verhoeven, 1983), in which what is perhaps the boldest sex scene portrays a couple about to have heterosexual intercourse. A brief attempt at penetration follows, but the man’s penis slips out, and he makes a remark about being awkward, even though sex “is like skating—you never forget how.” It would be unlikely in the U.S. to see portrayals of men stumble during sex and grace- fully recover. Yet, in spite of their adorable vulnerabilities, European boys are still boys who occasionally objectify their sex partners and identify with strong masculinity models. Coupling’s protagonist Steve defines the “four pillars of the male heterosexual psyche—we like naked women, stockings, lesbians, and Sean Connery best as James Bond” (Moffat & Dennis, 2000b).

The Kinesthetic Nature of European Sensuality

One of the most subtle elements of the European sexual script is its emphasis on touch and movement, which is also explained best in contrast to the visual nature of American sexuality. Consider how The New York Times characterized Roman Polanski’s most recent filmVenus in Fur (2013): “It’s about acting and the voyeuristic delight, sensual and cerebral in equal measure that comes from watching it happen” (Scott, 2014a). But is it, really? The Times’ gaze-based description deeply misses the sensuous nature of the film, including the significance ascribed to feeling the thickness and softness of fur, the experience of pain as pleasure, and the kinesthetic practice of performing gender and class. The difference truly stands out when The Times’ review is put side by side with what European critics have said about the film. The Guardian described Venus in Fur as “a story of transformation” (Bradshaw, 2013), in line with the existential script, and the French Le Monde offers an even more insightful view of Polanski’s film as an exploration of the illusionary boundary between reality and acting (Nouchi, 2014). Venus in Fur does not portray the appearance of two sexual beings. Rather, in a predictable alignment with the European sexual script, it embodies their performances of sexual fluidity. The characters’ sensuous bodies and movements become the common denominator between acting and reality. Similar differences between the European and the American script can be observed in the two versions of Lolita, one produced in 1962 for American audiences (Harris & Kubrick, 1962) and the other in 1997 (Kassar, Michaels, sex as an existential journey 97

& Lyne, 1997), for mostly international audiences. The American version focuses on looks and appearances. It portrays Lolita as glamorous, blond, and well-developed, but hardly sensuous at all. When Lolita explains why she could not stay with her seducer, playwright Clare Quilty (who took her away from her step-father Humbert Humbert), she says it is because Quilty wanted her to make an “art film.” (American viewers are evidently supposed to associate the phrase “art film” with pornography.) By contrast, the 1997 version is more reflective of the European sexual script—intensely emotional and sensuous, with little emphasis on glamour. In it, the flat-chested Lolita appears to be an average pre-teen, not a stunning made-up beauty with a padded bra, but she is intensely sensuous. She and Humbert are depicted at different times quietly arousing each other through subtle touches and movements, which are completely missing from the earlier Kubrick version. The “European” Lolita is also a romantic. She leaves Quilty not because he wanted to film her naked, but because of the sexual actions he forced her to perform outside of the context of her love for him—like threesomes, foursomes, full-fledged orgies, and blowing some “beastly boys.” Both a manifestation and a corollary of the kinesthetic nature of the Euro- pean script is the fact that the continent rarely produces anything fitting the genre of “sex comedy,” which is an almost exclusively American phenomenon. It is easy to laugh at scenarios experienced through sight and hearing. Touch and ambience are much less likely to elicit laughter, even though Cou- pling has occasionally succeeded in finding humor in sexual touch. A case in point is BBC’s description of the most embarrassing moment in the episode “Gotcha”: “Susan manipulates Steve’s genitals with her toes while the waitress reads out the specials … Steve appears to be very enthusiastic about the duck” (Episode Index, 2001). A U.S. sitcom would likely spurn this scene. Not only is the female partner in charge, contradicting the rigidity of gender roles in the U.S., but the scene also implies that touch is sufficient to arouse a man, which might be considered unusual or unlikely by American audiences. Another European distinction appears to be the continent’s less pronounced interest in the fantasy of the sexual cornucopia or orgy—an experience that involves seeing many naked bodies but not necessarily evocative of pleasure through interpersonal touch or dyadic suspense. Examples of the American script involving ogling more than one potential sexual object include the film Eyes Wide Shut (Harlan & Kubrick, 1999), the “curious ménage à quatre that is the American double date” (Gagnon & Simon, 1973, p. 78), and the incredibly mainstream ménage à trois (threesome) sexual fantasy, referred to as “riding the 98 mediated eros tricycle” in How I Met Your Mother (Newman & Fryman, 2006). These scenarios are less common in European media content because ogling multiple sex partners lacks the emotional and transformative intimacy of the sexual dyad. In the European context, the sexual dyad embodies and emanates an unspoken, eerie power. This power is not necessarily beholden to romantic love—unlike in the U.S. notion of dyadic intimacy, in which romantic love is often tackily present, simplistic, and leading to marriage (Gross, 2005). The European focus on sexual touch and sensuality also attributes greater importance to the penile foreskin. For this reason, circumcision has negative connotations in the European sexual script. How otherwise could one interpret the following statement by Joe, the heroine of Nymphomaniac (Vesth & von Trier, 2013): “I battled my way through an untold number of circumcised cocks. By the way, did you know that if you combine all the foreskin cut off through history, it would reach to Mars and back again?” It was for the prevention of “lustfulness” that male circumcision began to be practiced secularly in Victorian England (Bennett, 2012), and a recent study of men circumcised as adults shows the Victorians had a point. The participants reported that after circumcision, they experienced less pleasure from masturbation; about 20% also experienced decreased pleasure during sex with a partner (Kim & Pang, 2006). Little wonder that male circumcision is seen in parts of Europe as a human rights issue. It can even be an insult, as illustrated by Russian president Vladimir Putin telling a French reporter in 2002 to get circumcised if he is going to defend the Islamist rebels in Chechnya (Traynor, 2002). Many European doctors “regard the practice as harmful and even barbaric” (Ewing, 2012). In 2012, a German court even outlawed any circumcision of children because it saw it as a threat to bodily integrity (Connolly, 2012). German lawmakers, however, overturned the court’s decision to avoid appearing intolerant to Muslim and Jewish minorities practicing ritual circumcision (Eddy, 2012). A somewhat surprising aspect of the European sexual script is that oral sex has limited significance, despite its supposedly French origin. It was the American film Deep Throat (Peraino & Damiano, 1972)—the imaginary story of a woman with a clitoris in her throat—that began to mainstream fellatio in Europe. (The film’s popularity in the U.S. was already huge, as illustrated by Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein nicknaming their anonymous source in the Watergate scandal “Deep Throat). In most European films portraying sexual relations, fellatio is a relatively unknown and tangential script—an “act that plays a very small role,” writes Tanya Krzywinska sex as an existential journey 99

(2006, p. 67). In the rare occasions when fellatio has been portrayed in Euro- pean cinema, it has been in the context of homosexuality, as in, for example, The 4th Man (Houwer & Verhoeven, 1983), in which a younger man fellates an older one. This trend appears to have shifted in Nymphomaniac (Vesth & von Trier, 2013), which portrays oral sex—both cunnilingus and fellatio—on several occasions. However, these occurrences are relatively few compared to the sheer number of the film’s penetrative scenes. Perhaps the infrequent focus on, or references to, oral sex in European media content (especially when contrasted to American media content) reflects a sexual socialization that is more whole-body oriented and less interested in isolated sexual touch. Of course, this is only a speculation that should be investigated more thoroughly in future cross-cultural comparisons of sexual scripts.

Conclusion

European sexuality has typically been constructed by media as complex, liberated, and distinctly different from North American sexuality. Nude bodies parade unabashedly in many European visual representations. Sensual touch and movement are ascribed a great significance, and, most importantly, sex tends to be depicted as much more than a stand-alone recreational activity. Sexual expressions routinely symbolize social and political subversions and rebellions, and European sexuality carries many existential and mystical connotations, a source of many a philosophical analysis and self-examination. As the asexual erudite in the film Nymphomaniac (Vesth & von Trier, 2013) intuitively senses, his immense body of knowledge remains de-contextualized because of his virginity. And as he also discovers, in this distinctively European film, sexuality is a dangerous road. Like opening Pandora’s Box, it often leads to self-destruction. For many, however, the hope of understanding the meaning of being human through sexual exploration is worth the cost.

·4· what’s same-sex sex like?

Popular Imagination of Gay and Lesbian Sexuality

Two men have just had sex, voracious and insatiable, and a romance between them is beginning to blossom. They walk, shoulder to shoulder, in a San Francisco park, sharing the stories of their first homosexual experiences. One of them was 14 when he developed a crush on a handsome Mormon missionary, always clad in a crisp white shirts and with perfect hair, who visited weekly to try to convert his family: “I wanted to have sex with him so bad. I gave him a blowjob in my bedroom, while my mother was cooking dinner downstairs … He’d come over every week until my mom caught on.” The other man was 15—a chubby geek with a girlfriend—returning from a computer camp with a classmate who was “a real stud” with a “hairy chest.” Then, it just happened: “We’re sitting on the bus, talking about computer stuff. There’s a big blanket over us, and at one point, he takes my hand and puts it on his enormous penis.” The story ends with the “stud” ejaculating in his classmate’s hand. Both the narrator and the listener agree that this is hot. These stories of first sex come from the fifth episode (Haigh, 2014) of the television show Looking (Grant, Condon, Haigh, & Landsberg, 2014), which has been hailed by critics as one of the first serials to not simply represent gay characters but to also delve into their romantic and sexual relationships with an unprecedented level of detail and explicitness. What is remarkable about 102 mediated eros the above narratives is that they have much stronger emotional than sexual connotations, and for that reason strongly contradict the stereotype of gay men as hypersexualized. Also remarkable is that neither story mentions penetrative sex, which is what most heterosexual people would consider “the first time.” The experiences are cherished by the characters in Looking not because they gave them any bragging rights (unlike the ones afforded to heterosexual boys who “score” for the first time), but because through these emotionally charged events, they realized and ultimately embraced their secret desires as an essential part of their identities. Throughout the Western world, (hetero)sexuality remains normative in that it is expected and assumed as part of one’s development as a person, especially during adolescence (Tolman & McCleland, 2011). For that reason, heterosexual audiences have long had difficulty imagining sexual relations between people of the same sex. These limitations in the popular imagination of same-sex sexuality are unsurprising, considering the uproar over visual representations of same-sex sexual behaviors, even if they are as innocuous as kissing. This was illustrated, for example, when in 2011 Facebook removed a picture of two kissing men intended to promote a Spanish art project, leading to protests from the LGBT community (Moran, 2012). Screen foreplay scenes between men date back almost half a century. As part of the trans-Atlantic sexual revolution, director John Schlesinger’s two famous films—the U.S.-made Midnight Cowboy (Hellman & Schlesinger, 1969), in which one scene implied a gay fellatio, and the British production Sunday Bloody Sunday (Janni & Schlesinger, 1971), the first feature to portray two men kissing—boldly pushed the limits of acceptance. However, media portrayals of same-sex sexuality have remained exceedingly rare compared to depictions of heterosexual sex. Only in recent years, thanks to the successful movements to legalize gay marriage in Western Europe and North America and the resulting intense coverage of gays and lesbians, the silence is beginning to lift. Popular culture registered this seismic shift and responded. Heterosexual sex symbol Britney Spears recently sang about being sexually desired by both men and women in her hit “If U Seek Amy” (Martin, Kotecha, Schuster, & Kronlund, 2008), whose title spelled “F-U-C-K me”; the meaning became obvious in the line “All of the boys and all of the girls are begging to if you seek Amy.” Stories about male rape—happening not only in power-based institutions, such as prisons and churches, but also in same-sex dating—began to appear in mainstream media content. A ground-breaking Washington Post opinion piece by a male rape survivor suggested that gay men’s sexual scripts what’s same-sex sex like? 103 are much more intimacy-based than many heterosexual readers had assumed (Morgan, 2014). The mainstreaming of gay and lesbian sexualities reached another zenith when the traditionally heteronormative Cosmopolitan magazine ran a guide to sexual positions for lesbians—for the first time ever!—in its November 2014 collection of LGBT life-and-love tips (“Seven Totally Hot,” 2014). But these positive developments do not mean that everyone fully under- stands same-sex attraction. This chapter analyzes the vagueness, uncertainty, and ignorance surrounding same-sex scripts in popular discourse, and the explosion of such portrayals in mainstream content in North America and Europe. When filmmakers and journalists are invited to imagine homosexual encounters, the sociocultural scripts discussed in the previous two chapters remain in full swing. We witness the somewhat anxious and aggressive urgency of American sexuality, as in Brokeback Mountain (Ossana, Schamus, & Lee, 2005), versus the nude, nonchalant, and uninhibited eroticism of Western Europeans, as in the French film Strangers by the Lake (Pialat & Guiraudie, 2013). Even in Schlesinger’s two cinematic productions, American and European sexual cultures have left their distinctive marks. Slant Magazine describes the differences in the following way:

[In Sunday Bloody Sunday] the sex act itself is continually viewed as a compro- mise between two passive bodies; here director John Schlesinger foregoes the carnal thrusting that forced an X rating upon his previous film, Midnight Cow- boy, instead showing blemished layers of flesh curled delicately and forgivingly up to one another. This calmness is never titillating, and thus never exploitative. (Lanthier, 2012)

While following the sociocultural scripts of the intended audience is understandable, media depictions of same-sex relationships also contain abundant misconceptions about the nature of gay and lesbian sexuality. These include assumptions of loveless and promiscuous lusting, equating drag with gayness, and the objectification of same-sex experiences (i.e., depictions of lesbian sex being viewed as porn targeting straight men). More often, media narratives or analyses of sexuality simply exclude same-sex couples. For example, a New York Times article about Google searches related to sex presupposes heterosexuality, assuming that searches about “boyfriend won’t have sex” are made by women and “girlfriend won’t have sex” are made by men; the author asserts that 95 percent of men are heterosexual, but offers no estimate for women (Stephens-Davidowitz, 2015). 104 mediated eros

When portrayals of same-sex sexuality appear in media content, they are often inaccurate, exaggerated, or offensively stereotypical. Absurd performances of “gayness” abound in films in which straight male characters try to “pass” as gay to avoid military service, act as an undercover officer, or get closer to a woman (Kramer, 2014). Crossdressers, even when straight, are expected to put on an act by becoming “walking gender contradictions” and not being “too” normal, writes Joshua Gamson in Freaks Talk Back (1998, p. 144). Journalists and entertainers have even coined terms such as “lipstick lesbian” to distinguish the “exceptions” from the stereotype of the regular (unfeminine) lesbians (p. 147). What are the origins of these perceptions? The following section outlines the history of homosexuality in public opinion.

Uranus’s (Mostly) Unmediated Past

There was a time, in ancient Greece, when imagining how homosexual relations might be different from heterosexual ones was of little interest. “The Greeks did not see love for one’s own sex and love for the other sex as opposites, as two exclusive choices, two radically different types of behavior. The dividing lines did not follow that kind of boundary,” writes Foucault (1984/1986, p. 187). Since the emergence of mass media in Western Europe, mediated accounts of homosexuality have offered scarce details about what actions can be considered sexual between two same-sex partners. Unlike in the case of ancient Greece, this is motivated by views of homosexuality as a sin, not beliefs that it cannot be distinguished from heterosexual relations. But let’s explore what is known. Homosexuality entered the public discourse in the 19th century, although accounts differ on who was the first to describe it. According to German historian Florian Mildenberger (2007), it was mentioned in the writings of jurist Karl Heinrich Ulrichs, who referred to those attracted to the same sex as “urnings,” after the ancient Greek god Uranus, father of the Titans. Uranus was castrated by his youngest son Cronos (Saturn in Roman mythology), and his testicles fell into the sea, giving birth to the celestial goddess of love and sexuality, Aphrodite. “Uranian” or same- sex love (which was often not consummated in the heterosexual understanding of sex) was, in that sense, referred to as “heavenly” love; the term appears to have originally been mentioned by Plato, who suggested that same-sex love creates immortal “children” in the form of art and poetry (Kaufman, 2007). Is it only a coincidence that Uranus has been at the center of many anus jokes what’s same-sex sex like? 105 since the comedy Wayne’s World (Michaels & Spheeris, 1992) and “its sequel, grade school” (Halberstam, 2004, p. 308)? Mildenberger (2007) contends that the term homosexuality was coined by writer Karl Maria Kertbeny in 1869. According to Foucault, however, homosexuality entered the public discourse with the publication of an article by German psychiatrist Carl Westphal, also in 1869. Conflating gender and sexuality to emphasize the otherness of “inverts” and “uranians,” Westphal (1869/2006) hypothesized about an innate “contrary sexual feeling.” He believed this was illustrated by the case of a woman who felt masculine and was interested in masturbating with other women, and another case of a crossdressing man, whose sexual orientation was only vaguely implied. The “contrary sexual feeling” concept and corresponding label picked up steam, and a few years later appeared as “contrary sexual instinct” in German psychiatrist Richard Krafft-Ebing’s famous catalog of sexual deviance, Psychopathia Sexualis (1893). Soon, sporadic newspaper articles began educating the public about what sort of acts qualified as sexual between people of the same sex. Lutzen (1995) outlines how, in the early years of the 20th century, Danish legislator Peter Sabroe used his Social Democratic party newspaper to decry the actions of a headmistress of a girls’ reformatory. She had once whipped 12 girls on the naked buttocks and then taken one of the prettiest among them to her room for kisses and caresses overnight. To contemporary readers, this sounds like a cliché pornographic script, courtesy of Kink.com. But in Northern Europe a century ago, the notion that such behavior qualified as sexual was puzzling, to say the least. Cruel punishment of children was not too unusual, and, “[i]n the Danish countryside, kisses and caresses between women … were quite common and even as late as 1907 they were not at all suspicious” (Lutzen, p. 30). For most of the 20th century, homosexuality remained a hushed and mis- understood matter, only implied or, in turn, pathologized and ridiculed in media accounts. In the 1940s and ’50s, for instance, articles on homosexuality were typically relegated to the medical section of newspapers and magazines, describing same-sex attraction as a mental affliction (de Jong, 2006). Although the public medicalization of homosexuality is a thing of the past and although gay marriage has gained significant acceptance, about half of Americans continue to consider gayness itself—specifically, sexual relations between gays and lesbians—sinful (Green, 2014). It is intrinsically discriminatory, however, to think of same-sex couples only as romantic and spiritual unions. As Bert Henningson, one of the two 106 mediated eros partners in the gay couple portrayed dying of AIDS in a Pulitzer-prize-winning series published by The St. Paul Pioneer Press, says in the final chapter of the story, “As much as the homophobes try, they can’t deny what we have is also a physical relationship” (Banaszynski, 1987, p. 15). Almost three decades later, the Western world is more accepting and many gay people have come out, but gay sex itself has barely cracked open the metaphorical closet’s door. The Motion Picture Association of America lifted its ban on homosexuality depictions in 1961, allowing it and “other sexual aberrations” to be “treated with care, discretion and restraint” (Pennigton, 2007, p. 13). Hol- lywood did not exactly rush to do so. Even the most salacious media outlets routinely tiptoed around same-sex. As Michelangelo Signorelli, a gay blogger and radio show host, contends in the documentary Outrage (Ziering & Dick, 2009), gossip and celebrity-focused publications cast a cloak of invisibility on same-sex orientation:

… I saw how the gossip world would glamorize heterosexuality but anything about any celebrity who was secretly gay, we would help them cover. It was the one area where they did not demand the truth. Everywhere else they wanted to know who was dating whom, but when it came to gay celebrities, it was accepted and understood that you covered for them, and you actually put out lies.

When homosexual relations were not medicalized or made invisible, they were portrayed and perceived mostly negatively. In the book The Celluloid Closet, Russo (1987) lists many examples of cinematic depictions of same-sex relations, and describes them in the negative terms reflecting earlier audiences’ perceptions. For example, Russo writes that Stanley Kubrick’s 1975 UK-produced filmBarry Lyndon contained “a gratuitous and offensive scene” with “two gay soldiers bathing in a river” (p. 328). By contemporary standards, however, the scene in Barry Lyndon (Harlan & Kubrick, 1975) is more likely to be perceived as romantic, intimate, and sad—not gratuitous or offensive. Only the soldiers’ upper bodies are visible above the water, and they are neither sexually touching nor hugging each other; rather, they are chastely hold- ing hands and talking about the meaning of their relationship. With the same awareness of negative public perceptions at the time, Russo writes that The Iliac Passion, a 1967 film by Gregory Markopoulos, showed “once shocking homosexual passion,” and that Irreconcilable Differences, a 1984 film directed by Charles Shyer, portrayed a “gratuitous faggot secretary” (p. 334). Portrayals of same-sex sexuality have frequently contained an element of “otherness,” not only because of the partners’ a typical sexual orientation, but what’s same-sex sex like? 107 also because of the aspect of pervasive deviance. For example, in The Killing of Sister George (Aldrich, 1968), elements of kink, fetishism, and pedophilia are depicted as elements of the sexual relation between the two lesbian protagonists. Alice, the younger and submissive partner, enjoys imagining that she is a little girl; she also sucks her thumb and loves her dolls. George, the older, more masculine and more dominant partner, enjoys humiliation play—for example, by forcing Alice to kneel and eat her cigarette butt. Russo (1987) offers more examples of portrayals that emphasize deviance beyond characters’ non-conformist sexual orientation: The Servant, a 1963 film by Joseph Losey, portrays a slave-and-master relationship between two gay men, and Salo, a 1975 film by Pier Paolo Pasolini, portrays “fascist sexual degradation” (p. 340). Of course, various forms of BDSM (bondage, discipline, sadism, and masochism) are practiced by both straight and gay partners, but cinematic depictions of gayness seem to have been much more inviting to other non-conformist sexual behaviors. The history of almost uniformly negative and inaccurate portrayals of homosexuality reflects the status of gays and lesbians as sexual “outsiders.” As such, they have been categorized into predetermined and simplistic categories, which will be detailed in the following section.

Stereotyping Gayness

Misconceptions about what constitutes gay sexuality—and what makes one gay—have been and remain common. First, because so many laws and proc- lamations have focused on condemning specific sexual actions (i.e., sodomy), the discourse has ignored the emotional similarities between heterosexual and homosexual people in forming and experiencing relationships. Portrayals of how gay people draw the lines between sex and intimacy, between dating and love, and between romance and commitment, have consistently been absent from media content. It is precisely these distinctions the gay characters in the first season of Looking (Grant, Condon, Haigh, & Landsberg, 2014) repeatedly struggle with. In the fourth episode (Heinberg & Fleck, 2014), one of the protagonists says: “I don’t think jerking off some random guy on a sofa has much to do with intimacy … Intimacy is me in that bathroom, smelling your shit” (a reference to taking his vegetarian friend, who has just eaten some meat, to his workplace bathroom). In the second episode, we hear that “sex is getting your 108 mediated eros cock sucked or getting your ass licked, but intimacy is something else.” The show characters disagree on whether analingus is a purely sexual or an intimate experience—and that disagreement is a sign of a new level of complexity being introduced in the public discourse. Such a level of complexity in a major HBO show represents much improvement over earlier, one-dimensional portrayals of same-sex sexuality, which included (a) conflating the performances of gender and sexuality; (b) assuming dominance and submission in gay relationships; and (c) presupposing that people can be only straight or gay but never both or in-between the ends of the spectrum. These stereotypical depictions are outlined as follows.

Conflating Sexuality and Gender

Russo (1987) suggests that male gay characters in films have historically been portrayed as “sissies”—feminine men whose gender performance and sexual orientation merge in the public imagination. This is very much the case, for example, in Midnight Cowboy (Hellman & Schlesinger, 1969), one of the first bold American films after the demise of the Motion Picture Pro- duction Code. In it, the two characters implied to be gay appear neurotic and physically weak; by coincidence or by some unspoken stereotype, both are also bespectacled. In such portrayals, the problem is that gay people are defined solely by their sexual orientation, which is presumed to be stable, clear, unambiguous, and all-encompassing. Write Gagnon and Simon (1973): “The homosexual, like most significantly labeled persons (whether the label is positive or negative), has all of his acts interpreted through the framework of homosexuality” (p. 133). Much has changed in contemporary portrayals, in which gay men appear as regular guys, ambitious and assertive both in their work and their personal lives. When one of the male characters in How to Get Away with Murder questions whether his insatiable lover might be a sex addict, the other gay man responds: “We’re young, red-blooded, American males. Let’s not turn sex into a bad thing” (Swafford & Innes, 2014). How far we have come in such an affirmative, sexual expression of gay masculinity from even just a few decades ago! Add to this the prolific and international news coverage of regular, masculine-looking guys getting married as various cities and states have legalized gay marriage—as in a New York Times article (Preston, 2013) illustrated by the black-and-white photo of two strong, bearded men in a hug—and it is clear that media accounts have finally established the long overdue separation of what’s same-sex sex like? 109 gender performance and sexual orientation. Media portrayals of gay men also increasingly hint of the complex distinction between sex and intimacy. But that does not mean that the “sissy” (or any other stereotype) of gayness is entirely a thing of the past. In contrast, some sex scenes between men have been constructed to remind audiences that boys will be boys and that some (perhaps inborn) aggression is always leaking into their sexual performances. Violent and “manly” sports, such as football and wrestling, have long been associated with covert homoeroticism—masked, of course, by overt homophobia (e.g., Oates, 2007; Fair, 2011). Little wonder that the main sex scene between the two cowboy characters in Brokeback Mountain seems intended to elicit associations with masculine aggression. And there are many more examples of this mediated association between masculine aggression and gay sexuality. Russo (1987) writes, for example, that Women in Love, a 1969 film by Ken Russell, depicts “nude wrestling” between two men (p. 345); Deliverance, a 1972 film by John Boorman, shows how “a male rape spoils the fun on a buddy holiday” (p. 331); and Lawrence of Arabia, a 1962 film directed by David Lean, in its original uncut version portrays both Lawrence’s homosexuality and a rape scene. Holmberg and Blair (2009) argue that, “abetted by the media, some individuals’ conceptions of gay and lesbian sexuality might be shaped by particularly dramatic examples (e.g., cruising culture, polyamorous relationships), leading to a belief that sexuality is enacted in very different ways …” (p. 58). Certain 19th-century misconceptions, such as the assumption that crossdressing (a gender performance) always signifies same-sex sexual interest or that gays and lesbians have certain anatomical differences (more feminine, more masculine) that distinguish them from straight people still exist, albeit to a lesser degree. But although journalists, entertainment writers, and their audiences may no longer imagine all gay men in drag and all lesbian women with buzz-cut hair, other misconceptions (often in a comedic form) appear in popular culture, suggesting that the sexual experiences of those with same-sex orientation are profoundly different from those of heterosexuals. For example, in an episode of the British show Coupling titled “Size Matters” (Moffat & Dennis, 2000a), one of the heterosexual male characters, Jeff, describes his view of gay sex as an essentially autoerotic experience, with masturbation as practice for gay sex: “It’s different when you are a straight bloke … Gays, they have their own practice kit. But you don’t get any practice women. We are supposed to fly these babies the first time we get in them.” This statement is intended to 110 mediated eros elicit laughter—no doubt!—but it also implies and satirizes a limited vision of gay sex as a somewhat narcissistic experience (getting pleasure from a body that presumably looks exactly like one’s own).

Who Wears the Pants In This Relationship?

Although reality is complex, the imagination and performance of same-sex relations has frequently reflected a crude script of mainstream (very vanilla) dominance and submission, which here refers to the symbolic roles of a (masculine) hunter and/or a (feminine) prey. The presumed lack of sexual fluidity and constant inhabitance of limiting roles is much less evident in contemporary portrayals of gayness, but it was taken for granted only a few decades ago. Here is how a 1969 article in Medical World News describes gay men’s transgressive behaviors—perceived by outsiders as exotic, risky, and promiscuous—yet still united by their perceived “deviance” within a heterosexual frame of mind that does not imagine fluidity of one’s sexual identity between and within roles:

There are many kinds of homosexuals … There are homosexual prostitutes, closet queens, the black leather and chain sadomasochists. There are those who congregate in the “swish Alps” regions of cities seeking continual encounter at gay clubs and bars, in steam baths, public lavatories, or simply in the streets. (“The Homosexual Patient,” 1969, np)

The masculine-feminine (seducer-seduced) roles in the queer sexual sphere have a history of being uncritically accepted “both by the homosexual world and heterosexual outsiders” (Gagnon & Simon, 1973, p. 198). Gagnon and Simon suggested, for example, that even though many lesbians prefer reci- procity and egalitarian relationships, they tend to engage in the performance of becoming either “butch” (masculine, dominant) or “fem” (feminine, submissive), similar to the artificial “top” vs. “bottom” distinction for gay men. In contrast to these dichotomies, another sexual minority, the kink community, allows significantly more shades of grey (pun intended). For example, a common identification in BDSM is that of the “switch,” meaning that one acknowledges the capacity for fluidity in moving between dominant and submissive, masculine and feminine roles. Perhaps because this sexual sphere is both more transgressive and (sometimes) easier to hide for those who are heterosexual, it has remained less visible and thus less susceptible to the influences of “normal” sexual rigidity. what’s same-sex sex like? 111

In the role-dichotomy script, one partner always performs as though s/he were a heterosexual man and the other as though s/he were a heterosexual woman. Just like with depictions of sexual actions between gay men, mediated lesbian sexuality often follows a predictable heteronormative script, in which one partner plays the dominant, decisive “husband” and the other is the submissive, follower-type “wife.” Such is the case, for example, in the U.S. film The Killing of Sister George (Aldrich, 1968), in which implied foreplay or masturbation scenes portray the submissive lesbian partner displaying her body and breasts through revealing clothing. In one of the most explicit scenes, the submissive young woman is on her back, being kissed, petted, and ultimately masturbated to orgasm by an older seducer. One could easily imagine the dominant partner as an almost-man in a mainstream heterosexual scenario, gazing at a young woman’s body, undressing her, and kissing her breasts or lips. Sexuality in such portrayals is clearly attached very closely to traditional gender performances, and the “male gaze” is employed in the portrayal of one woman lustily staring down another in a display of (presumably) masculine and aggressive desire. Considering that the film is based on a play written by a man (Frank Marcus) and has a male director (Robert Aldrich), a male screenwriter (Lukas Heller), and an almost exclusively male production crew, it likely reflects the only version of lesbian sexuality the men behind the film could imagine. And by pairing sexual orientation with a gender identity performance (socially constructed, of course), we are back to “normal” sex! The construction of dominance and submission roles in mediated gay sexuality reflects the rigid presumptions of the heterosexual, vanilla world, in which manly men have traditionally been encouraged to dominate feminine women. Little wonder that bisexuals are so stigmatized, disliked, and alienated from both gay and straight people (Denizet-Lewis, 2014). This rejection and stigmatization of sexual fluidity is explored in the following subsection.

Either/Or

More than one misconception about human sexuality can be discerned in the near-silence surrounding bisexuality in popular discourse. When an individual is bisexual, in most media content s/he is likely to be viewed and referred to as gay; research suggests that especially American media still stereotype bisexual men as gays who are afraid to come out (e.g., Bryant, 2000). For example, in the show How to Get Away with Murder (Rhimes, Beers, Nowalk, & Kindberg, 2014), it is revealed that the fiancé of one of the female protagonists had sex 112 mediated eros in boarding school with a man, one of her fellow law firm interns. Upon learning this, the young woman becomes furious, and demands to know whether her fiancé is gay; not coincidentally, the two have previously been portrayed having passionate heterosexual sex. Of course, he vehemently denies, and attributes his homosexual relationship to teenage experimentation. What is remarkable is that both the question “Are you gay?” and the fervently negative answer imply a crystal-clear demarcation between a homosexual and a heterosexual preference, as though the two are 100% mutually exclusive. The earlier film Brokeback Mountain (Ossana, Schamus, & Lee, 2005) was groundbreaking in that it depicted complexity and nuances that were lacking in many previous portrayals of homosexuality. In depicting the lifelong love between two cowboys—characters traditionally associated with the rugged masculinity of the American frontier—the text powerfully showed that sexual orientation is neither obvious nor diminished to specific sexual acts. Yet, the film reinforced a somewhat black-and-white view of sexual orientation. This is illustrated by the fact that the more masculine protagonist, Ennis Del Mar, appears to be bisexual, but this possibility is not at all explored or even mentioned. Ennis is portrayed forcing his wife to have what is presumably vaginal intercourse from the rear, and the cuts and edits in that scene imply that he is likely fantasizing about anally penetrating his male lover. Had a straight man been shown forcing his wife into intercourse from the rear, viewers would have simply inferred that he was seeking some sexual variety, albeit in an abusive fashion. Further, it seems to be a stereotype that gay men routinely have penetrative sex in that fashion. In recent depictions of sex between gay men, such as the newest TV shows Looking (Grant, Condon, Haigh, & Landsberg, 2014) and How to Get Away with Murder (Rhimes, Beers, Nowalk, & Kindberg, 2014), anal penetration is implied much more often when the characters are facing each other, in what would be described as “the missionary” in heterosexual lingo, than when one is behind the other. Very few nuanced portrayals of bisexuality exist, and they seem to be more easily found in European cinema. One is evident in the Dutch film The 4th Man, which shows the protagonist gazing at and lusting after both men and women. But even in that complexity rests the implicit notion that he is really more on the gay side. When he is about to have sex with an attractive woman, he remarks: “You resemble a very beautiful boy—so slim and delicate” (Houwer & Verhoeven, 1983). A rare portrayal of bisexuality also appears in the British filmSunday Bloody Sunday (Janni & Schlesinger, 1971), which what’s same-sex sex like? 113 depicts a love triangle of sorts, involving a bisexual man in an affair with both a male doctor and a female civil servant. A desired sexual subject whose two lovers are always pining for him, his masculinity is not significantly eroded by the fluidity of his sexual orientation. But this is hardly the case for men who accept penetration instead of being the penetrators—a boundary that is porous and fluid in real life but appears impermeable, immovable, and unduly significant in many depictions of homosexuality.

Bottom Shaming

Even though TV shows such as How to Get Away with Murder (Rhimes, Beers, Nowalk, & Kindberg, 2014) and Looking (Grant, Condon, Haigh, & Landsberg, 2014) are, at last, depicting complex and non-stereotypical emotional and sexual experiences between same-sex partners, it is important to shed light on what is perhaps the main assumption about gay sex: anal penetration. As Patrick, one of the protagonists in Looking, tells his boyfriend, “You’re like ‘I’m gay,’ and they’re like ‘Oh, so you’re butt-fucking now?’ (Haigh, 2014). Anal sex (and perhaps to a lesser degree fellatio) is the most frequent way in which gay sexual relations used to be portrayed even a decade ago. Con- sider this supposedly funny but, in fact, quite offensive exchange between two of the secondary male characters in the 40-Year-Old Virgin (Apatow, Carell, Poll, Robertson, & Townsend, 2005), one of the top movies of the year:

David: You know how I know you’re gay? Cal: How? David: Your dick tastes like shit.

Patrick is the character in Looking (Grant, Condon, Haigh, & Landsberg, 2014) who struggles the most with the shame attached to anal sex, which is why he has never introduced a boyfriend to his parents. “Even if they are meeting a boyfriend, they’re just imagining that dick up your ass,” he tells his boyfriend Richie. This reflects what sexuality scholars have criticized as the “genitality” view of sexuality (e.g. Wolf & Kielwasser, 1991), which focuses on any type of penetration involving sexual organs rather than on the larger context of sexual desire, pleasure, and romantic affection. Patrick and Richie then engage in an interesting exchange that ultimately emphasizes that being gay is about attraction to and desire for the same sex—not about assuming 114 mediated eros certain stereotypical roles such as “top” (penetrating) and “bottom” (partner being anally penetrated):

Richie: You don’t have to be ashamed. Patrick: I’m not ashamed. Richie: Whatever. It’s totally fine if you’re not into it. Patrick: No, it’s not that I’m not into it. I’m not sure I like it very much. I mean, it feels kind of weird. Richie: Weird how? Patrick: Well I can get it in, but pretty much as soon as it’s in, I’m like “Take it out, take it out, take it out, take it out, take it out.” Richie: You think you’d be embarrassed if your parents thought you were a bottom? Patrick: No. Mmm … no. Richie: Okay. Patrick: Okay, maybe a little bit. Richie: I thought so. You have bottom shame. Patrick: Oh my God, I think you’re right. Richie: I think so. Patrick: Why? What are you? Richie: Those terms are for people on websites. How do you know what you’re into with a guy sexually until you’re with them? Patrick: Really? Richie: Yeah. I mean, you gotta be adaptable. Otherwise, you’re gonna miss out. Patrick: I do hate to miss out.

The show How to Get Away with Murder (Rhimes, Beers, Nowalk, & Kindberg, 2014) has been similarly revolutionary in presenting a complex view of gay sex, including by portraying an interaction in which two characters negotiate who will penetrate whom, suggesting that “bottom” and “top” are not necessarily permanent sexual identities. Yet, critics have argued that the show perpetuates condescending “bottom shaming” and the belief that only the “top” is the real sexual agent (Lowder, 2014). This suggests that bottom shaming and the stigma attached to anal penetration continue to be very prominent. Not only do juvenile Uranus jokes remain part of the U.S. popular discourse (e.g., Halberstam, 2004), but widely respected satirists and comedians also continue to rely on various anal-play narratives to raise political or social issues. For instance, one of the cartoons of Muhammad published by the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo under the caption “Muhammed: a star is born,” featured the prophet naked, on all fours (a ubiquitous pose for gay porn models), with a yellow star on his anus. what’s same-sex sex like? 115

“Whatever way you look at it, how is this funny?” asks writer Tariq Ali, a con- tributor to the London Review of Books (2015, p. 12). Little wonder that the controversial French magazine, whose editor and other staff members were shot by Muslim terrorists in 2015, has been perceived by some as homophobic. U.S. mainstream media content is also rife with comedic narratives that emphasize the non-mainstream status of any anal exposure or stimulation. One example was Saturday Night Live’s mock campaign ad for Pat Finger (played by heterosexual sex symbol Jon Hamm) running for mayor of Butts, New York, which ends with the line “Let’s put a Finger in Butts” (Meyers, 2008). SNL also made fun of the former president of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who had denied the existence of gay people in his country, with a serenade implying that he is a bottom: “You can be the port that I park my vessel in. So I try to mute the TV but you can still see me, with your sleepy brown eyes, butter pecan thighs, and your hairy butt … Yeah” (Samberg, 2007). Another SNL sketch—about the mock Civil War hero Colonel Angus, pronounced with a Southern drawl to sound like “cunnilingus” ridicules analingus (Fey, 2003). In the sketch, Colonel Angus arrives at a Southern plantation, announces that he is heading for the Deep South (an obvious genital reference), and complains he has been stripped by his rank after an incident at Big Beaver (yet another reference to female genitalia), in which he injured his jaw. Because of that, he asks everyone to call him by his first name, Anal. The skit concludes with this order to a farm boy: “Ride into town and tell the Postmaster that if anyone is looking for Anal Angus (pronounced analingus) to come knockin’ at the rear entrance of Shady Thicket.” To this, the farm boy responds with “euuugh”—implying that while cunnilingus may be a mainstream sexual script, this is certainly not the case for analingus. The anal penetration narrative as emblematic of gay sex is so dominant that many self-declared heterosexual American men avoid digital rectal exams and colonoscopies because “penetration with a finger was associated with a gay sexual act” and “associated any penetration as an affront to their masculinity” (Winterich, Quandt, Grzywacz, Clark, Miller, Acuña, & Arcury, 2009, p. 300). The only specific reason cited is the concern about potentially getting stimulated in a way that could suggest homosexual tendencies. For example, a man interviewed by researchers described how a friend of his had a rectal exam (in which a gloved finger is inserted into the rectum for about 15 seconds), and “he got an erection, and it embarrassed him to death in front of the doctor when … he got hard” (p. 306). 116 mediated eros

The main reason for the fear and shame involving anal penetration, even in a medical context, is that most people are used to labeling such penetration “sodomy”—a word loaded with negative connotations due to its association with sin. Foucault (1976/1990) writes that sodomy was “once ‘the’ great sin against nature,” punished by fire until the 18th century but also widely toler- ated (p. 101). The word “sodomy” is associated with the name of Sodom, a city mentioned in the Bible in the story of Sodom and Gomorrah. Its residents, the story goes, behaved in immoral way, which presumably included same-sex relationships—so God destroyed the cities, allowing only the innocent (heterosexuals?) to escape the fiery hell. Sodomy is used in different contexts to refer to either anal sex or rape (as in being “sodomized”) or any sexual activity between men (Gilbert, 1981). Many countries in the world still have sodomy statutes, and enforce them. In the U.S., the Supreme Court declared anti-sodomy laws unconstitutional in 2003, in the case Lawrence v. Texas, overturning an earlier decision reinforcing these laws in a 1986 case, Bowers v. Hardwick, which involved a man arrested in his bedroom for having sex with another man (Allison, 2003). This decision arrived more than two decades after the European Court on Human Rights decided in 1981 that anti-sodomy statutes were invalid. The legality and increasing acceptance of any consensual sexual behavior have opened the doors to a new phenomenon—the mainstreaming of sexual practices that were once associated almost exclusively with homosexuality. This is the subject of the following section.

The Queering of Straight Sex?

Not long ago, the word “queer” was a derogatory label or a theoretical term reserved for academics espousing queer theory (e.g., Butler, 1990). It has now entered the popular discourse thanks to a multitude of articles about the “queering” or various aspects of social reality. David Colman in The New York Times defines queering as “a mockery or repositioning of some practice or aesthetic that has been dominated by the straight white male bloc” (2010). The notion of “queering” has been brought forth in various aspects of heterosexual family lives—such as the queering of straight relationships, including expectations of men to be more nurturing and egalitarian (Mundy, 2013), the queering of Halloween (Ambrosino, 2014), and even the queering of Disney children’s movies, with Frozen being the prime example due to its homosexual subtext (Nikolas, 2014). what’s same-sex sex like? 117

Not surprisingly, a supposed “queering” of straight sex has been added to the list of gay and lesbian influences on society. For example, heterosexual men are now being encouraged to at least consider the pleasures that anal play can bring to anyone, regardless of sexual orientation. Here is how GQ magazine rebuffs the myth that such interest is “gay”:

The only thing that makes you gay is being attracted to men. The male asshole is a biological source of sensation regardless of your sexual preference. If a woman thinks you’re gay for indulging in that pleasure, dump her and move on. (Smolinski, 2014)

It is especially trendy to discuss the queering of heterosexuals in the context of the rising popularity of analingus, considered until recently a “gay” type of foreplay even between heterosexual people. The gossip blog Gawker reported that analingus (also known as “rimming” or, more cryptically, “salad tossing”) is increasingly in vogue in popular culture, from magazine articles to popular music, such as Nicki Minaj’s song “Anaconda”: “Straight people seem to have finally discovered that they too have assholes that can be explored for sexual pleasure; that gay men don’t have a monopoly on anuses” (Palmer, 2014). It is however, still “gay” for men to be receiving analingus, regardless of the sex of their partner. Writes Palmer: “While ass eating seems to be becoming less taboo, being the male receptive partner of analingus is a line too far to cross …” However, a short historical look at popular culture suggests that analingus is not so new in a heterosexual context. For example, the rap hit “Me So Horny” by 2 Live Crew included the following line, in the context of a man speaking to woman: “Put your lips on my dick, and suck my asshole too …” (Campbell, Hobbs, Ross, Williams, & Won, 1989). These culture wars, however, do not reflect the scholarship showing that the influence of the culturally and socially dominant heterosexual scripts on same-sex relations is much greater than the other way around. Schur (1988) has argued, for example, “the sociocultural patternings of sexuality … tran- scend sexual orientation” (p. 17)—but these sociocultural patternings reflect heterosexuality at their very core. Heterosexuality is often the backdrop against which “deviance” is defined and various sexual taboos are encroached in gay and lesbian sexual relations. Gagnon and Simon (1973) suggest that the predominant script for gay men who have sex with heterosexual male prostitutes is to pay for their hired partners’ orgasm rather than their own; this allows the clients to entertain the fantasy of seducing a straight man, and reinforce their belief that nobody is fully heterosexual. This “seduction” script is also evident in the filmThe 4th Man (Houwer & Verhoeven, 1983), in 118 mediated eros which the bisexual protagonist dreams—and eventually succeeds—in seducing a man who presents a strong heterosexual façade to the world.

Transposing Straightness onto Queerness

Many heterosexual scripts have found their way into portrayals of gay sexual relations. Even what is considered “average” and “typical” in gay sexuality is based on heterosexual data and norms. Critics have invented and journalists have embraced, for example, the term “lesbian bed death” to describe an alleged lack of interest in sex in lesbian couples (e.g., Loh, 2007). But that stereotype clearly reflects heterosexual male standards, and recent studies have criticized it as a myth (e.g., Iasenza, 2002; Nichols, 2004). Refreshingly, so have mass media, which pounced and widely publicized the findings of a 2014 study showing that “lesbians have more orgasms than literally everybody else, be they man or woman, straight or queer” (Keating, 2014). A prominent example of the influence of mediated heterosexual scripts is the presence of the kiss on the lips as a common Western expression of affection and an element of foreplay in most depictions of same-sex scenes. This transposition clearly shows how certain cultural narratives about what is sexual and which body parts are considered erogenous influence both heterosexual and homosexual encounters. The first same-sex kiss portrayed in film was between two women in the 1930s film Morocco (Turnbull & von Sternberg, 1930), which brought a twinge of notoriety to the fame of movie star Marlene Dietrich. Later, changes in Hollywood’s production code made it impossible to show anything that could be considered “sexual perversion,” such as erotic moments or innuendo between characters of the same sex (Menken, 2006, p. 28). But even when the ban was lifted, same-sex kisses did not begin to appear in most mainstream media until the 1990s. The first lesbian kiss on American TV, for instance, according to Gibson (2006), was in a 1991 episode of the show L.A. Law, between a bisexual lawyer and a female colleague. More recent shows, such as Glee (DiLoreto, Brennan, Murphy, & Falchuk, 2009), The L Word (Chaiken, Golin, & Kennar, 2003), and the British Peep Show (O’Connor, Armstrong, & Bain, 2003), have included scenes with lesbian kisses, which appear to have been normalized in mediated content. Looking (Grant, Condon, Haigh, & Landsberg, 2014) and How to Get Away with Murder (Rhimes, Beers, Nowalk, & Kindberg, 2014) are following in the steps of these earlier productions with frequent depictions of same-sex kisses between men. what’s same-sex sex like? 119

However, the fact that some degree of same-sex affection has been depicted in some media content does not at all correspond to the rigid norms of non-mediated reality, especially in the U.S. For example, a recent Slate video suggested that many heterosexuals are uncomfortable with witnessing lesbian kissing in real life. The video, titled Ask a Homo: A Lesbian PDA FAQ (2014), featured a waiter complaining that “lesbians who come to the restaurant are often all over each other; so much so that it makes me uncomfortable.” June Thomas, the editor of Outward, responds with support for public displays of affection, regardless of those involved, but adds regretfully that such scenes can still lead to hate crimes: “Some of the things that people consider cute or hot when lesbians do it could result in threats or even attacks if gay men were involved.” Even a show like How to Get Away with Murder (Rhimes, Beers, Nowalk, & Kindberg, 2014), which has been praised for its bold inclusion of numerous same-sex scenes, implies that kissing in places where they can be potentially seen is okay for heterosexuals (even if they are cheating on long- term partners), but that gay men do it only behind closed doors. Heterosexual scripts have also found their way into gay sexuality in the context of popular culture, especially as a way to achieve commercial success. For example, the Bulgarian pop-folk singer Azis “normalizes homosexuality through the techniques of heterosexual display” in his music videos, including by wearing drag and engaging in various degrees of physical contact with muscular men (Kourtova, 2012, p. 63). However, in line with European and even with some more narrow Balkan sexual scripts, his lyrics emphasize the sensuality of one’s eyes and skin, and his pelvic movements are significantly slower and more winding and elegant than the angular, forceful thrusting, and small-amplitude sexual movements displayed by most American music performers—from Elvis Presley to Christina Aguilera. Azis’s performance of a heterosexual script (including through the occasional use of female models, with whom he appears to identify) is a successful commercial strategy in a relatively repressive post-communist society, where public displays of homoerotic intimacy remain novel and continue to be viewed as a source of shame—both personal and national. Heterosexual scripts can also be discerned in mediated portrayals of anal penetration involving gay men. In some cases, audiences have challenged the veracity and credibility of such scenes, expressing a concern that straight people do not fully understand anal penetration involving men. Connell and Dowsett (1999), for example, suggest that, although Masters and Johnson described the technicalities of anal intercourse across sexual orientation, they 120 mediated eros failed to acknowledge that “anal intercourse, for one, is relationally quite a different matter for heterosexual and homosexual couples in American culture” (p. 182). The comments underneath the main sex scene in Brokeback Mountain (the first time Jack and Ennis act on their attraction, in a tent in the mountain where they herd cattle), which has been posted on YouTube (lilo kim, 2009), suggest audience members’ perceive that the implied anal sex is depicted unrealistically—by straight people, for straight people.

Wee Peng: this is way too far from reality of gay anal sex. Missy Kaleidoscopeify: i think this adequately sums up how men with no knowledge on anal sex think it works … “should i use a couple fingers and lube you up first?” … “Nah just shove it in” shylildude: it looks like they’re hurting each other and he didn’t even use lube Tiny Raspberry: where’s the prep!? Yanzi Garcia: Well he did spit on his hand

The controversy over accurate and sensible portrayals of gay sexuality is further complicated by the fact that, in our current popular culture, sexual play between two women is commonly perceived as arousing to heterosexual males. In these circumstances, heterosexual scripts are not simply transposed but rather forced onto queer performances because in straight men’s fantasies, “lesbians … are bisexuals, and bisexuals are heterosexuals-in-waiting” (Schwartz, 2007, p. 87). Here is how Schwartz describes “lesbianism as a heterosexual porno fantasy”:

Madonna, for example, gave a well-publicized passionate kiss on the lips to Britney Spears which, while it got headlines, did not hurt Madonna’s draw as a performer or her perception by fans as an outrageous heterosexual woman … Women can have sex with women as performers—or as the hors d’oeuvre in a meal that will be consummated in a heterosexual intercourse … situational bisexuality is sexy, but real lesbianism is an affront. (p. 86)

The lesbian porn fantasy also has a huge comedic potential. This is fully explored in the British show Coupling (Vertue, Perkins, Clarke-Jervoise, & Moffat, 2000), in which one of the male protagonists, Steve, gets uncontrollable erections every time he thinks of the possibility of being with two women—a weakness that his ex-girlfriend regularly exploits, once forcing him to hide behind the coffin at a funeral. (To his great embarrassment, he also gets caught owning a porn video titled Lesbian Spank Inferno). Another of the what’s same-sex sex like? 121 show’s male protagonists, Jeff, wishes he could be a lesbian because “every time you have sex, there’s four breasts—two guest breasts and two you can take home afterwards” (Moffat & Dennis, 2000b). The lesbian sex/threesome scenario performed for a man’s pleasure is portrayed in a more serious light, as part of the sexual and cultural revolution of the 60s, in “The Runaways” episode of the show Mad Men (Iserson, Weiner, & Manley, 2014). Protagonist Megan Draper, newly indoctrinated into Los Angeles sexual culture, brings a female friend into the bedroom to spice up her married sex life, much to the (pleasant) surprise of her husband, Don Draper, whose sexual experiences hail from the less-experimental New York. Which party is the most empowered (if anyone) in this threesome is up to the viewer to decide, but the cultural significance of the scenario—with its implied air of erotic refinement, especially when compared to earlier seasons featuring haphazard quickies—is unmistakable. The transposition of heterosexual scripts onto same-sex relations is further illustrated by the recent controversy, extensively covered by The Guard- ian, over a male heterosexual director’s construction of lesbian sex scenes in the award-winning French film Blue Is the Warmest Color (Chioua, Marival, & Kechiche, 2013), which featured two heterosexual actresses (Child, 2013). The drawn-out sexual encounters between them displayed many of the camera close-ups that have leaked from the world of pornography into mainstream film-making. The author of the graphic novel that served as the basis for the film later stated that the cinematic version represented “a straight person’s fantasy of gay love,” and the two main actresses complained about performing in an extended sex scene under the “oppressive, intrusive, and even tyranni- cal” demands of the director (Bradshaw, 2013). But The Guardian’s film critic liked it anyway: “The sequence certainly strikes me as uncompromising and less exploitative than any smug softcore romcom or mainstream thriller in which women’s implied sexual availability is casually served up as part of the entertainment” (Bradshaw, np). Last but not least, the transposition of heterosexual scripts onto gay and lesbian lives in many cases may reflect reality because same-sex couples themselves might script their interactions under the influence of dominant heterosexual scripts. Reiss (1986) suggests that “homosexuals are socialized into the same standards of sexual attraction as are heterosexuals” (p. 32), meaning that, for example, a woman who by popular opinion embodies beauty within a certain culture (e.g., Angelina Jolie) would be considered attractive by both heterosexual men and lesbians. It has also been suggested that heterosexual 122 mediated eros scripts tend to be espoused by same-sex couples in committed long-term relationships because “[m]onogamy … ties into the romantic discourses prevalent in the environing heterosexual culture that provide widely esteemed models about how relationships are ‘supposed’ to happen” (Adam, 2007, p. 126).

Conclusion

The recent “opening” of the imagined boundaries between straight and gay sexuality, illustrated most prominently by the increasing acceptance of gay marriage, has ushered into the public sphere many of those dark-movie-theater scripts that were once only whispered about. At the same time, the increasing tolerance toward gay couples has steered them into the cultural mainstream in many urban environments, and thus made them more susceptible than ever to various heterosexual scripts, including romance and monogamy. Although vast swaths of Western media audiences still remain uninformed and highly prejudiced about gay sexuality, their explicitly rationalized biases are unlikely to stop the long-term, gradual erosion of the once-insurmountable wall that used to divide homosexual and heterosexual intimacy. The first few bricks have fallen. This is nowhere more obvious than in current media and popular culture, where gay men and lesbian women are more and more frequently shown kissing, undressing, and pleasuring each other in ways just as diverse— and yet culturally constructed—as the sexual practices of heterosexuals. ·5· not loud enough, too loud

Gender and Heterosexuality Construction in Sex Advice

I have fantastic sex with a new partner and I have orgasms every time, but he says I make too much noise. He says I sound like I’m being murdered and it’s “distract- ing” … I have been using a pillow over my head, but I find it suffocating. Is there any underlying psychological issue that might affect the level of noise one makes? (Connolly, 2012a)

My boyfriend is always telling me he wants me to make more noise when we’re having sex, but I’m not that comfortable with it. I keep telling him how amazing he is in bed, so why does he care so much? (“Why does my boyfriend,” 2007)

In spite—or perhaps because—of the increased acceptance of casual sex in the West, widespread uncertainty prevails about what performances are “normal” and expected in the sexual realm. The above two questions from anonymous readers sent to sex-advice columnists, the first appearing inThe Guardian and the second in the U.S. edition of Cosmopolitan magazine, are a testimony to the sexual insecurities experienced by many, especially heterosexual women who often find themselves questioning their sexual “normalcy” as a result of comments or demands made by their partners. Doubts about what constitutes appropriate sexual behavior are in part reflective of the long-standing invisibility and private nature of sexuality, which—literature tells us—has been a source of anxiety for centuries. Once 124 mediated eros upon a time, maidens were given vague hints about the mechanics of reproduction on their wedding eves, and young men were dragged to brothels by male relatives to get schooled in what goes where. Advice about facilitating sexual intercourse has also been dispensed for centuries, especially after Gutenberg’s invention allowed for the mass printing of books. The helpful information that “cold feet are a powerful hindrance to coition” was shared via the printed word, for example, as far back as 1658 (Naish, 2005, p. 14), and rediscovered in a recent study that found wearing socks during sex helps women achieve an orgasm (Dahl, 2014). Contemporary ambivalences about sex, however, are much more complex due to the presence of contradictory messages in media content about “good” and “bad” sexuality and sexual performances. In the UK, for example, teen magazines such as Cosmo Girl, Sugar, Nuts, and Zoo, have been found to be a more likely source of sex information for teenagers than parents (Hayes, 2007). In part, this is because parents and peers can be unwilling or inadequate sources of sexual information. But also, in competitive and individu- alistic Western cultures, how is one to evaluate sexual performance if not by comparing it to that of the mediated, anonymous other? In sexual activity, no audiences are cheering, no coach is yelling from the sidelines, and nobody is handing out certificates of outstanding accomplishment. Luckily, media are there to help. Mediated content plays a unique role in self-evaluation of sexual prowess, both fueling and quelling sexual anxieties: “… [T]he extraordinary level of media attention to sex exists because sex has very little intrinsic re-enforcement and requires constant elicitation of support” (Laumann & Gagnon, 1995, p. 204). In the process of offering such support, mediated sex advice often implies unrealistically high expectations. This is illustrated, for example, by South Africa Times’ sex columnist’s pseudonym “Ecstasy aunt.” Is sex always synonymous with ecstasy? Perhaps only in the minds of virgins! But just in case ecstasy is unachievable, you have per- mission to fake it. Writes Cosmopolitan magazine: “Almost everyone fakes it sometimes. Even guys. And there’s really nothing terribly wrong with faking it now and again” (Hill, 2015). Audiences are not, of course, simply the passive recipients of mediated sex advice. They seek it, sometimes directly—as in the case of callers on sex-related talk shows—and more often implicitly, as in watching R-rated movies to compare one’s own performances to those on screen. In response to this hushed but common interest among readers and viewers, media will- ingly dispense sex advice in all shapes and forms. Sometimes this is done not loud enough, too loud 125 explicitly, as in sex-advice columns, and sometimes indirectly, as in unrealistic dialogues about sexual performance between characters in teen sex comedies. Because of the sheer amount of freely available sex-related media messages—including online pornography—in this day and age, even “teenagers are under pressure … to perform like sex-industry veterans,” writes British journalist Mariella Frostrup (2014). This chapter analyzes the gendered and heteronormative nature of most sex advice, both direct and implied, in mainstream media content. The focus is specifically on advice targeting performative anxieties that have not been medicalized, unlike erectile dysfunction. These non-medicalized fears can include, for example, noise-making during intercourse, having a stronger or faster orgasm, and coming to terms with unorthodox fantasies. Although such analysis cannot be all-inclusive, identifying the main lines running through mediated sex advice is made easier by its performance-oriented nature. Most sex advice, especially in Anglo-American cultures, focuses on the technicalities and mishaps of sexual performance—“everything from coital flatulence to the pitfalls involved in performing fellatio with a tongue ring” (Wolfson, 2008, p. 37)—and much less on the subjectivities of what the French newspaper Le Monde calls “the divine gift” of desire (Angelier, 2014). To begin this analysis, the following section offers a brief history of mediated sex advice and the concurrent (often gendered and comedic) celebritization of the “sexperts” responsible for its production.

Mass-Mediated “Sexpertise”: Past and Present

The advice genre originated with feminist journalist Elizabeth Meriwether Gilmer (under the pseudonym Dorothy Dix), who began writing the first newspaper advice column in the New Orleans Picayune in the 1890s, later transferring to Hearst’s New York Magazine and eventually joining a series of syndicates allowing for her column to be printed in hundreds of newspapers across the country (Kane & Arthur, 1952). Advice columns at the time often dealt with relationships and etiquette. Traditionally, the likes of Dear Prudie and Dear Abby rarely—if ever—breached the subject of sexuality. Sex advice was reserved for marriage manuals, focusing on basic mechanics in the first half of the 20th century, the importance of “sex as work” in the 1950s, and finally proclaiming a new era of “sex as play” in the 1970s (Lewis & Brissett, 1986). 126 mediated eros

The mediated sex advice genre has since entered the mediated public space and become common on both sides of the Atlantic, serving as a tool of popular sex education for decades. Bashford and Strange (2004) suggest that sex advice columns, often written by medical experts doubling as journalists, have long flown under the radar of both censors and scholars: “While historians of gender have frequently analyzed both the genre and the content of women’s magazines, historians of sexuality have usually looked elsewhere, not expecting to find purposeful sex education among domestic and romantic writings” (p. 74). Indeed, advice columns and shows are important gauges of cultural trends. As Kramer (1997) notes, “[their] purpose is less to lend a hand in the individual circumstances than to spread news about modern standards” (p. 35). This is why many find such advice interesting—even if it does not pertain directly to them—as explained in the following paragraphs.

Sex Advice Uses and Gratifications

The success of the sex-advice genre can be linked not so much to the service provided to a few select inquirers but to its value to mass audiences as (a) an unobtrusive surveillance tool; (b) a resource that sparks audiences’ curiosities and leaves them desiring more; and (c) an unofficial reference. First, because sex is such a private phenomenon, what better way to gain insight into other people’s sexual problems if not from the questions others have sent to sex columnists and talk shows? These questions are likely to offer many people a more accurate snapshot of common sexual problems than most self-reported experiences in small groups (such as locker-room braggadocio among men). Second, much sex advice encourages readers to feel they are lacking in some respect and thus leaves them hungry for even more advice. Sex columns in magazines such as GQ, Men’s Health, Maxim, Women’s Health, and Cos- mopolitan, among others, often contain an air of contemptuous coolness that seems to invite readers to feel a bit inadequate. For example: “Maybe you’ve heard that everyone’s skipping the front door these days and going around back … It’s 2014; most women aren’t going to clutch their bonnets and run screaming if you ask for something (politely!) in bed” (Smolinski, 2014). Third, advice columns offer an “expert” opinion—something one can refer to in a told-you-so exchange or try to surreptitiously recall during a particularly futile hike to Peak Orgasm. “It is indeed a great irony if we can only appreciate and enjoy sex through expert assistance,” wrote Schur in 1988 (p. 48), and his statement still stands a quarter of a century later. The “sexperts,” who may not loud enough, too loud 127 or may not have research-based expertise in the area of sexuality, thus often appropriate a certain power in facilitating the public discourse about sexuality. As a result, they are granted the status of public figures, with all accompanying privileges and loss of privacy.

Celebritizating Sex Advisers

Media routinely scrutinize, ridicule, parody, and objectify sex-advice columnists or talk-show hosts—a treatment that implies that sexuality is a frivolous and inconsequential topic. Following gender lines, male “sexperts” are interesting to the media because of their financial success, and female “sexperts” because of their sexual attractiveness. For example, nationally syndicated sex columnist Dan Savage was recently reported to have been paid $24,000 for delivering a presentation and meeting with students and media at the University of Oregon (Wihtol, 2013). Although many other speakers (i.e., Gloria Steinem) charge in the same neighborhood for a single presentation, their contracts are unlikely to be reported as an outrage because their expertise is assumed to be in “serious” subjects. Female sex-advice columnists, on the other hand, are blatantly stereotyped based on their appearance. Victoria Zdrok, Penthouse’s sex-advice columnist, who has a law degree and a doctorate in psychology, was reported by The New York Post to be “a woman with really big, um, credentials,” who once posed naked playing chess in a centerfold captioned “From Russia, with brains” (Kane, 2008, p. 39). This stereotypical presentation discourages readers from taking seriously any of Zdrok’s statements—such as that people are aroused by vastly diverse stimuli or that her columns aim to educate, not arouse. In the same vein, The Post also mentions the “impressive bosom” of Shanda Freeman, who with her husband Fatman Scoop has been the star of MTV’s sex-advice show “Man and Wife” (Wolfson, 2008, p. 37). Some media personalities have taken the risk of being stereotyped and parodied, and have built their careers on sex advice. In the U.S., these have included above-mentioned Savage; Drew Pinsky, or “Dr. Drew,” host of the show Loveline; Ruth Westheimer or “Dr. Ruth,” who had her own late-night show and was once “a star discourse in popular culture” (Buxton, 1991, p. 142); and Sue Johanson, a Canadian nurse whose talk show made an appearance on U.S. cable television in the early 2000s, only to discover that “many Ameri- cans lack basic knowledge” about sex (Navarro, 2004, p. E1). It is up to these public advisers to dispel various myths and fill in the huge gaps in sexual 128 mediated eros understanding left by most reproduction-focused sex ed courses. And what is it that these advisers usually talk about in this age when just about anything can be googled, blogged about, and discussed in anonymous forums?

Content Patterns

Celebrity columnist Savage believes that people already know all about sexual technicalities from the Internet, so nowadays, the focus has shifted:

“When I started … a lot of the questions were, ‘I’ve heard of this—how do I do it?’ And I don’t get those anymore. There’s a wiki page for anything now. What I get are a lot of questions about relationships.” (Larsen, 2012, p. K)

In spite of Savage’s claim that people already know where to find answers to questions about sexual mechanics, recent media coverage of sexual abuse suggests a widespread lack of knowledge about sexual matters. For example, The New York Times recently reported that a rape investigator at Columbia University doubted a rape victim’s story because she did not know that anal rape without lubrication was possible (Perez-Rena & Taylor, 2014). Further, judging by the sex advice offered through the websites of elite Ivy League universities, such as Brown and Columbia, there are still many sex-related questions to which it is difficult to find answers from parents, peers, or mainstream media and popular culture—even from sexually adventurous magazines such as Cosmopolitan and Maxim. Why is that? Mainstream publications typically address mainstream sexual difficulties, especially ones that align with gender roles (i.e., a young man’s disappointment that his girlfriend is taking “too long” to orgasm). But mainstream publications are not usually known to answer questions from outgroup members (such an international student who wants to know what “muff diving” is or how the American sexual “bases” are defined) or from sexual minorities (such as a woman who wants to breastfeed her partner). These are examples of actual questions addressed by Columbia University’s online sex column, Go Ask Alice (goaskalice.columbia.edu). Alice, perhaps the most un-squeamish and non-judgmental sex advisor in the world, has also answered questions like “Is consuming (eating) your partner’s feces safe?” (in the context of coprophilia; Alice’s answer is “no”) and “What to do with a mouth full of semen?” (Alice says you don’t have to swallow, but desperate spitting and hacking sounds are not appropriate). not loud enough, too loud 129

It is true, however, as Savage states, that sexuality is nowadays most frequently addressed (especially in the U.S.) through the foci of relationships and, to some degree, genital health, even though these hardly exhaust all there is to say about sex and sexuality. For example, The New York Times’ 2012 advice series on female sexuality answered questions only tangentially related to sexual behavior—dating, decreased sex drive, vaginal dryness, and the interference of health problems with intercourse (“Answers About Female Sexuality,” 2012). The series’ direction was determined by the editors’ choice of “sexpert” (Susan Kellogg, a Drexel University professor of obstetrics and gynecology) and medical questions such as “I’m approaching 40. What can I do to stay in good sexual health?” and “Does masturbation lead to acne?” To follow up, in 2013 the Times presented a series on male “sexuality,” which absurdly included questions about the effects of extramarital affairs on marriage, how a man should tell his wife to get in shape, or—best of all—“How can an ‘older’ single man find his way in the dating world of 2013?” (“Advice from Expert,” 2013). The “expert,” University of Akron psychology professor Ronald F. Levant, appeared more interested in couples’ counseling than sexuality per se. In European media, by contrast, the sex-advice genre appears more focused on sexual desire and pleasure than relationships per se. For example, The Guardian’s erotic advice column, written by U.S.-based therapist Pamela Stephenson Connolly, offers many extraordinary and rare examples of real people’s real questions about sex—questions that are not in any way addressed in most media content: What fantasies are common? Whose fantasies are “normal”? What is play and what is reality? British-style sex advice also has a bit more sensational and titillating bend, which is why the recent show Sex Box (with Mariella Frostrup, Phillip Hodson, Tracey Cox, and Dan Savage) was denounced as boring, even though producers made it clear that “the aim was to resolve couples’ sex problems, not to provide pleasurable fornication content for viewers” (Dong-hwan, 2013). However, the earlier British sex makeover show The Sex Inspectors (Goodwin, Harris, Hobday, & Weatherhill, 2005) was considered a success, perhaps because of its explicit nature. It does not have an American equivalent yet, although U.S. viewers can see it via HBO as a (presumably extra sexy) “British import.” The Sex Inspectors is notable not only because it offered access to real people’s sex lives but also because it clearly stated in its title what has long been implied by virtually all sex advice: Most people’s sex life is a fixer-upper, with leaky faucets and crumbling paint. Like responsible homeowners, sexually 130 mediated eros active adults are expected to spend their nights and weekends sprucing up the exterior and replacing a few old screws—never mind that the foundation might be sinking and the house might not be salvageable. This major sex-advice script is outlined in the following section.

The Do-It-Yourself Premise

Consistent with the self-improvement ethic of Anglo-American culture, with “its greater general prominence of a discourse of sexual fulfillment” (Krzywinska, 2006, p. 65), media content suggests that it is simply inexcus- able to fail to consistently better one’s sex life. Even if media content does not directly tell us how to have sex, it often reminds us that it is something to be accomplished and ever-improved. “Media suggest to us that optimal sexual functioning is an imperative for personal growth” (Oosterhuis, 1999a, p. 88). Relationships are work, and so should be sex—at least according to the mono- maniacal work ethic of, most of the Western world. But the “sex is work” discourse of the 1950s has now cross-pollinated the “sex is play” discourse of the 1970s to create the notion of work-hard-play-hard sex—a brightly colored fantasy world that looks impossibly like the Googleplex, with flowering mead- ows, food sculptures, swings, slides, disco lights, and polka dots—and also the expectation for a 24/7 extraordinary creative output. The improve-your-sex-life call is gendered because it disproportionately targets women (although this seems to be changing in the last decade). If women are not interested in sex, easily aroused, or able to orgasm through coital intercourse, perhaps it is because they have not worked on it! Ladies, your partner might be sexually incompetent, unwilling to change, utterly incapable of bringing you to orgasm, or just not that into you. If so, take the matters in your own hands, sex advisors say. In Cosmopolitan and Cleo, for example, Farvid and Braun (2006) found frames emphasizing women’s responsibility to develop excellent sexual techniques to keep men from finding other partners and to stroke their ego by praising their sexual performance. Because of the women-focused nature of much sex advice, Laumann and Gagnon (1995) suggest that women’s magazines are “perhaps the most important stakeholders in sexual pleasure in the United States” (p. 203). Yet, they add, women’s alleged power in regard to sex improvement is only illusory:

There is considerable advice about getting and keeping a man through skilled sexual practice, though in practical terms it is unclear how women will be able to introduce not loud enough, too loud 131

such skills into a relationship in which the man is socially defined bearer of sexual high technology. Giving the less powerful (women) instructions on how to introduce novel conduct, which will attract the moral suspicions of the more powerful (men), is probably ineffective. While it may be appropriate for men to request (by gesture or word) fellatio in a relationship, women do not have a similar right to request cunnilingus. (p. 203)

The central role of women in the DIY script is implied not only in magazines, but also on television screens. This is the case, for example, in the portrayal of researcher Virginia Johnson in the show Masters of Sex (Ashford, Maier, & Sheen, 2013). In the episode “Thank You for Coming,” Bill Masters, the lead sex researcher, secretly interviews Johnson’s ex-husband. At one point during the interview, the ex leans forward, looks at Masters, and says: “This woman is special. She knows herself. She knows what feels good. She’ll tell you, and she wants you to tell her what you want her to do to you” (Lippman & Getzinger, 2013). It is implied that Johnson has done a lot of masturbating, has a lot of coital experience, or both, which has allowed her to gain an insight into her arousal and orgasm. Good for her, but especially good for her male partner! So what is a good heterosexual woman to do, according to the DIY sex-advice script? First, she must arouse her partner by whatever means necessary without embarrassing him, and lubricate effortlessly to ensure a smooth entrance. Although an illusory power is awarded to women in their role as seductresses, this construction serves mostly purposes of men’s pleasure, align- ing with Gadsden’s (2000) point that male dominance over female sexuality is reinforced through media. Second, she must have a coital orgasm—preferably vaginal and as quickly as possible. Better yet is the “wegasm” (simultaneous orgasm), which is the responsibility of the female partner, according to Wom- en’s Health (Kennedy, 2011). Third, she must put on an Oscar-winning performance (even if she failed at Step No. 2) to boost her male partner’s sexual self-esteem. The following subsections detail each of these elements.

Arouse Your Man—But Don’t Embarrass Him!

Heterosexual women are encouraged to learn to kindle men’s desires and, increasingly in Anglo-American cultures, to deal with the phenomenon of porn-induced erectile dysfunction due to what has been described as “a higher need for external stimulation of the reward system” (Kühn & Gallinat, 2014, p. E7). This may require female partners to look like porn stars or to script and play out porn-like scenarios (Rowney & James, 2014). Even men’s magazines 132 mediated eros expect women to solve their erectile dysfunction problems by being “supportive” (e.g., Worth, 2012, p. 94). If women accomplish that, the next step is to acquire good sexual technique. Gill’s (2010) analysis of sex and relationship advice in Glamour in the UK found that the magazine encouraged women to learn to please men, change themselves, and approach the management of relationships from a scientific perspective, ultimately reinforcing a pattern of prioritizing men’s pleasure. In Australia, Moran and Lee (2011) found that women’s magazines present sex as men-pleasing work “on his terms,” in which women need instruction, while ignoring any reference to women’s sexual agency or sexual desires. The emphasis on sexual technique requires women to engage in any activity that is perceived as boosting and not even remotely challenging their partners’ masculinity—such as get down on their knees and fellate skillfully. For example, a Women’s Health advice column describes techniques that women should use to increase the intensity of oral sex (Jurick, 2012, p. 101). Fellatio is emphasized in the U.S., where sex advice regarding oral sex usually implies that all men like and want oral sex. In the process of arousing and pleasuring one’s man, some gender-bending play may be encouraged by European media—for example, the French edition of Marie Claire suggests in its sex tips section that a “man is a woman like the others” and recommends biting his nipples (Maillart, 2015)—but implicitly discouraged in Anglo-American cultures. For example, the practice of “milking,” in which a female partner inserts a finger into the man’s rectum and “milks” the prostate falls within the special-interest “kink” culture, even though the anus is a known erogenous zone for most people. Writes Stafford (2014) on the pages of The Guardian about anal play: “… [B]y destigmatising the pleasure that all of us can gain from it—especially men, who seem to face the most difficulty accepting their own—maybe then we can begin to dream of a world that is truly equal.” In the process of attending to their men’s precarious erections and egos, heterosexual women often must forgo their own desires. While some sex advice encourages them to communicate their needs, much of it also implies that it is sort of “normal” to prioritize one’s partner’s pleasure and self-esteem because this is what most women do. Cosmopolitan magazine suggests never criticizing a man who is performing oral sex because of his ego’s fragility:

Don’t say, “Screw this, I’ll do it myself.” Guys don’t recover from hearing things like that. Ever. You know those friends who just throw their stuff in a van one day and head out west to “find themselves”? Those people were bad at oral sex. (Kobola, 2015) not loud enough, too loud 133

What woman would even want cunnilingus, given the risk of forever damaging her partner’s psyche if she happens to not like it? Women’s Health in the U.S. reports that women often forgo sexual pleasure to avoid pressuring their partners, as is to be expected in a culture of male-dominated sexuality; specifically, 49% of the magazine’s female readers reported feeling too shy to ask for oral sex, even though they wished their lovers performed it more often (Benjamin, 2012). The male-dominated sexual culture is even more evident in the 1980 Redbook report on sexuality, in which two sexologists concluded that women do not need orgasms to be happy with their sex lives: “… clearly, sexual satisfaction is not just a matter of five or ten seconds of physiologic response” (Sarrel & Sarrel, 1980, p. 76). Just smile and look pretty as he finishes!

Have a Coital Orgasm!

Obviously, though, having a coital (not foreplay) orgasm is better—for the man’s sake. Women’s sexual satisfaction, whenever it is of any priority, must involve an erect penis, sex-advice discourse suggests. Welcome to “the medi- atized ideal of the coitally orgasmic woman” (Levine, 2001, p. 164). The script has been, for the most part, cross-cultural. In a survey of English- and French-language women’s magazines in Canada, the U.S., the UK, and France from 1998 to 2001, Levine found implicit sexual recommendations and suggestions that prioritized intercourse-driven orgasm. Hardly any such advice ever mentions, however, that most men’s exposure to pornography has conditioned them to seek sexual positions that do not provide sufficient clitoral and/or vaginal stimulation for a sufficient length of time. Research confirms that men who use porn are bad in bed. A survey of 617 couples established that “male pornography use was negatively associated with both male and female sexual quality” (Poulsen, Busby, Galovan, 2013, p. 72). Cindy Gallop (2011), founder of the popular website www.makelovenotporn. com, explains why: “When filming porn, the actors are told to ‘open up’ for the camera, in order to provide as much visibility for close-up of the actual point of entry as possible” (loc. 72, Kindle edition). Further, according to the documentary the Price of Pleasure (Picker, Sun, & Wosnitzer, 2008), the current trend in porn favors almost exclusively anal sex—even though very few women are capable of anal orgasm, according to the French edition of Marie Claire. Gallop adds: “It would be easy for any really dedicated porn viewer to get the impres- sion that anal is the norm and vaginal sex the relative rarity” (loc. 101). Hats off to the rare women who can have a fast coital orgasm under these circumstances! 134 mediated eros

In case the unfortunate woman seeking sex advice from media is beginning to reach a conclusion that she alone is responsible for her orgasm, she is wrong. Turns out, some men do contribute, but not through foreplay or sexual responsiveness. Rather, they do so by having big biceps and square jaws, according to Cosmopolitan, which proclaims: “the more masculine-looking a guy is, the more times you’ll orgasm” (Azodi, 2012b, p. 162). This offers empirical support to the notion that a heterosexual woman’s orgasm is a proof of her partner’s masculinity (Monaghan, Risher, & Carlson, 2012). The unaddressed question, of course, is who defines masculinity—and would men considered masculine in North America have the same orgasmic effect on, say, French women? Women have also been found to climax more easily with a partner who has a longer penis, reports Women’s Health, reinforcing the stereotype that sufficient vaginal pounding is all that a sexually adequate woman needs (Duron, 2012). Mediated advice aimed to help heterosexual women achieve coital orgasms has been not only incomplete but also wildly misleading in establishing an artificial separation between so-called “clitoral” and “vaginal” orgasms. Of the 80 magazine articles Levine (2001) analyzed, half discussed the clitoris, the G-spot (an alleged pleasure area on the vaginal wall), or both—often containing contradictory or inaccurate messages. In some, the G-spot was defined as separate from the clitoris and competing with it for the orgasmic response, with one article denying any “anatomical link”—a distinction meant to support “the construction of a separate clitoral and vaginal discourse” (p. 135). The perpetuation of vaginal versus clitoral scripts has continued in more recent years as well, frequently offering how-to guidelines for women who are not quite sexually “adequate” to work toward achieving coital orgasms. For example, one Cosmopolitan article advises women how to transition from climaxing through isolated and vaguely defined “wacky” maneuvers (clitoral finger play? “pocket-rocket” vibrators?) to orgasm during a heterosexual intercourse (Gueren, 2012, p. 167). Research on the female orgasm, however, indicates that it is what it is— regardless of whether one gets it spontaneously without any stimulation (not an uncommon phenomenon) or via “wacky” or socially prescribed ways. One of the latest studies published in the journal Nature, suggests that no separation of vaginal versus clitoral stimulation is really possible: “[T]he anatomical relationships and dynamic interactions between the clitoris, urethra, and anterior vaginal wall have led to the concept of a clitourethrovaginal (CUV) complex” (Jannini, Buisson, & Alberto Rubio-Casillas, 2014, p. 531). Earlier studies have also suggested that clitoral and vaginal responses are inseparable not loud enough, too loud 135 because the clitoris connects to the pubic bone; thus, many women may not even realize that intercourse indirectly stimulates the clitoris, depending on the position (Levine, 2001). It will likely take a long time to dispel the myths of clitoral versus vaginal stimulation in popular discourse. In the meantime, the inaccurate construction of separate clitoral/vaginal frames will continue to mislead women because media exposure can affect “the cognitive mapping of one’s own body” (Štulhofer, Buško, & Landripet, 2010, p. 170). Indeed, is it possible not to form a purely penetrative, vaginal sexual script if one ever heard Madonna sing “feels so good inside” in “Like a Virgin” (Steinberg & Kelly, 1984) or Sheena Easton sing “temperatures rise inside my sugar walls” in “Sugar Walls” (Nelson, 1985)? Or, for younger generations, is it possible not to embrace the clitoral script that permeates contemporary hip-hop—as illustrated by David Banner’s refrain “work that clit” in “Play” (Banner, 2005), Kelis’s line “just wait til you taste my clit” in “Wait (Whisper Song Girl Version)” (Rogers, 2006), and Eminem’s complaint that society expects children “not to know what a woman’s clitoris is” in “The Real Slim Shady” (Young, Mathers, Coster, & Elizondo, 2000)? Given that the clitoral focus in contemporary music implies a woman does not need a man’s penis in order to orgasm, it is little wonder that this script has been associated with misogynistic aggression. This is illustrated, for example, by Portland’s now defunct metal band Clit Ripper’s torture song “Rip Your Clit and Watch You Die” (Kashani, Brinkerhoff, Hell, & Wrath, 2007), one of numerous contemporary musical discourses threatening injury or humiliation involving a woman’s clitoris.

Perform Your Orgasm!

The orgasmic moan or shriek has long been an important element of hardcore pornography. In 1985, a concerned mom complained in a Newsweek column about “pornographic rock” songs’ lyrics that are frequently “augmented by orgasmic moans and howls” (Stroud, 1985, p. 14). “She does have the fake orgasm noises down,” says one of the protagonists in the show How I Met Your Mother about a friend suspected of having a pornographic past (Kang & Fryman, 2006). But what was once a performance reserved for porn stars and especially prostitutes—as portrayed in the pilot episode of the show Masters of Sex (Ashford et al., 2013)—has trickled into the mainstream and become one of the most common topics in sex-advice discourse. In the British reality show The Sex Inspectors, one of the female participants is portrayed climaxing “loudly, 136 mediated eros moaning with pleasure” (Harvey & Gill, 2013, p. 496). “Twists that will make you shout,” reads the title of a recent article in Women’s Health (Jurick, 2012), implying that readers who happen not to shout during sex really should. Media content has long satirized the orgasmic vocalization script. One prominent example is Meg Ryan’s public performance of a fake orgasm in When Harry Met Sally (Scheinman & Reiner, 1989). This is the case also, for example, in the French film Amelie (Deschamps, Ossard, & Jeunet, 2001), which includes a comedic bathroom sex scene between the neurotic characters Georgette and Joseph, in which Joseph thrusts so vigorously that the cof- fee cups in café almost fall off the shelves, while Georgette screams so loudly that Amelie has to turn on the espresso machine to mask the sound. The script is also ubiquitous in U.S. teen sex comedies. In one of the first scenes of Easy A (Devine & Gluck, 2010), one high school girl tells another: “George is not a sexy name. And George is like what you name your teddy bear, not the name you want to scream out during climax.” The film, which revolves around one girl’s invented story about having lost her virginity, includes a fake sex scene between her and a gay boy who is trying to stop being bullied by pretending to be straight. The encounter, choreographed carefully by the girl to be believable to their peers listening behind the closed door, involves the boy grunting and the girl shouting in high-pitched tones. Similarly, in American Pie (Moore, Perry, Weitz, Zide, & Weitz, 1999), a girl shouts “I’m coming” while a boy is performing cunnilingus on her. Even though comedies are meant to elicit laughter rather than deep reflection, when they are aimed at coming-of-age audiences with little or no sexual experience, the line between satire and reality may appear blurred. Are all high school girls, some of whom may have never even masturbated, really that talented at vocalizing at the moment of climax? Doubtful. It is more likely that the all-male producers and directors of American Pie enjoyed imagining this because “the state of a woman’s body may come to be viewed as a masculinity barometer, with its natural fluctuations mistaken as irrefutable evidence of either a man’s sexual competence or his shameful inadequacy” (Brooks, 1995, p. 6). The depiction of coherent speaking (or yelling) during sex establishes an impossible performative norm for young women who have not yet had intercourse or who do not find their early sexual experiences all that mind-blowingly pleasurable. What is problematic is not that orgasmic vocalization never happens naturally (it does), but that it is being established as performaitve norm offering “dramatic evidence of partner ecstasy” (Brooks, 1995, p. 123). This is because not loud enough, too loud 137 part of the sexual work women are expected to do is boost the men’s sexual self-esteem, in line with the validation script described by Brooks. A Cosmo- politan section on pillow talk encourages women to boost men’s ego after sex (“101 Things about Men,” 2012), while another article suggests placing one’s hand on a man’s chest when he needs an ego boost (Azodi, 2012a). And the smaller a man’s penis is, the more vocalization he can expect. For example, a Q&A column in Cosmopolitan magazine features the following question: “I know guys love hearing how huge their penis is, but my guy isn’t so big. Should I lie to make him feel better?” (Henderson, 2012, p. 60). The male columnist offers advice clearly in line with the validation script: Instead of lying about size, which would be too obvious, the inquiring woman could compensate by moaning more and telling the man how good the penis feels inside her. Here is how Columbia University’s health columnist Alice exposes the artificiality of this expectation:

Movies, television, and music present us with idealized sex scenes or lyrics of people moaning and panting at the height of passion. In reality, while some people are vocal and may moan and groan until the sun comes up, some folks may muffle any sounds with a pillow, while others do not make a single peep. Some express themselves by twitching or moving their bodies rhythmically as a response to sexual pleasure. (“Moaning During Sex,” 2000)

An interesting contrast can be found in a French coming-of-age film,Water Lilies, by female director Céline Sciamma (Couvreur, Dopffer, & Sciamma, 2007), in which—just like in Easy A—a virgin teenager attempts to live up to her “slutty” reputation. But unlike in Easy A, nobody puts on a crazy screaming show. The girl loses her virginity to a female friend who is in love with her and whom she asks to “deflower” her so a boy she intends to sleep with would not doubt her “sluttiness.” Strangely, The New York Times has described the Water Lilies defloration scene as “violent” (Dupont, 2008)—illustrating perhaps cultural differences in defining violence—even though the event is fully consensual, forceless, and silent. In fact, throughout Water Lilies, four teenagers have their first sexual experiences—whether a passionate kiss or an intercourse—in complete, honest, and deeply emotional silence. When not used in a comedic context, mediated orgasmic vocalization is a potentially toxic script due to its misunderstanding of sexual arousal processes. Gagnon and Simon (1973) note that, for most people, “with increasing sexual excitement and increase in general sensory thresholds, there is a declining capacity for speech” (p. 105). The expectation to make noise 138 mediated eros can thus potentially dampen arousal and pleasure; little wonder that many women fake their orgasms when they vocalize. A study of 71 sexually active British women showed that two-thirds reported using noises “to speed up their partner’s ejaculation … to relieve discomfort/pain, boredom, and fatigue in equal proportion, as well as because of time limitations” (Brewer & Hendrie, 2011, p. 562). More than 9 in 10 thought vocalizations boosted the man’s self-esteem, and 8 in 10 made noises when they knew that they themselves were unlikely to orgasm. In the words of Susan in the British show Coupling: “Sometimes, I just start a little early, just to guide them to the right spot. It’s not so much faking as turning on the landing lights. Talking them down with a few encouraging sound effects” (Moffat & Dennis, 2000c). The mainstreaming of the orgasmic performance norm—along with many others—is especially insidious when it is presented as grounded in science and objectivity, thus concealing the obvious reinforcement of cultural narratives that prioritize men’s sexual pleasure and satisfaction. For example, Cosmopoli- tan’s blatant encouragement of women’s quest to improve their attractiveness to men has been frequently supported by sociobiological statements about the underlying reproductive value of the most objectified elements of women’s bodies (Hasinoff, 2009). In the same vein, sociobiological explanations have also sprung to support the alleged naturalness of orgasmic noises. Psychologist Christopher Ryan believes female copulatory vocalization is a phenomenon shared by humans and many primates. Although he implicitly acknowledges the performance aspect in referring to actress Meg Ryan as “the world’s most famous female copulatory vocalizer” in a 2013 TED talk (Ryan, 2013), he argues—on the basis of a study on primates—that vocalization serves an evolutionary purpose by attracting more males to a sexual scene with an available female (Ryan & Jethá, 2010). One must, of course, ask: How realistic is it to extrapolate the sexual behavior of primates (a group including both monogamous gibbons and promiscuous chimpanzees) to humans? As the next session will demonstrate, media are more than willing to swallow and regurgitate speculative sociobiological explanations in the sex-advice genre, thus cementing and perpetuating divergent sexual norms for men and women.

Preserving the Sexual Status Quo

Much media content, especially in leisure and lifestyle publications— from Cosmopolitan and Maxim (both with many international editions) to not loud enough, too loud 139 wholesome health and fitness magazines—deals with how to have sex in ways appropriate to one’s gender and in accordance with current cultural norms (e.g., Kim & Ward, 2004). Not only textual, but also visual messages in Cosmopolitan and Playboy, for instance, promote the idea that women’s role is that of attracting men and sexually satisfying them (Krassas, Blauwkamp, & Wesselink, 2001). Women’s magazines push forth the same expectations, objectifying women’s bodies (Berlatsky, 2013), and sometimes link “glamorous, aestheticised lifestyles with sexual sophistication” (Krzywinska, 2006, p. 66). Further, media content about sexual health reinforces gender stereotypes of men as instigators of sexual activity and women as the gatekeepers (Hust, Brown & L’Engle, 2008). Even events that do not necessarily involve intercourse, such as a first date, are sexually scripted in most content, with women being encouraged to focus on their sexual appearance combined with sexual gatekeeping, while men orchestrate the date (Rose & Frieze, 1989). The male-desire-versus-female-subjugation frames appearing in popular magazines are surprisingly cross-cultural, which reflects in part the spread of global media franchises, sometimes tempered by regional cultures. For example, Song and Lee (2010) report that the Chinese version of For Him magazine “epitomizes heterosexual soft-core pornography”; yet, the scripting is not entirely centered around male dominance, considering the 2007 portrayal of a Chinese singer as a dominatrix bending over a submissive man. In the South African edition of Men’s Health, the focus is not only on traditional male sexual dominance, but also “the anxieties and insecurities that may result from sexual failure” (Schneider, Cockcroft, & Hook, 2008, p. 136). In Portugal, an analysis of popular magazines reveals that double sexual standards continue to exist, with promiscuity encouraged for male adolescents and discouraged for girls, who are expected to give a special consideration to the loss of their virginity and accept both “social and internalized control” of their sexuality (Dias, Machado, & Gonçalves, 2012, p. 11).

Gentlemen First!

Media around the world also work hard to privilege male sexual needs to the detriment of women’s, including through direct and implied sex advice. Harvey and Gill (2013), in their analysis of the first series ofThe Sex Inspectors, insightfully critiqued the show’s crushing pursuit of heterosexual, frequent, penis-in-vagina intercourse that celebrates male dominance and is viewed as the glue necessary to keep couples together. In what is essentially a sex 140 mediated eros makeover reality show led by “sexperts” Tracey Cox and Michael Alvear, penetrative sex toys are disallowed, lest phallic centrality is threatened. The couples who have agreed to undergo this sex makeover are required to not only engage in, but also “perform the experience of enjoyment” (p. 494) of sexual activities for which they have clearly stated that they have no interest or desire. This audiovisual experience of sex advice in action “facilitates a potentially powerful affective reaction in the audience that is quite different from merely reading a self-help sex text” (p. 496); “careful editing … involves the audience in the drama, pain, and pleasure of the participants, positioning the viewer as both participant and expert” (p. 488). Viewers are encouraged to compare their own sexual performances, and likely find them lacking. It is little wonder that The Sex Inspectors is so shallowly theatrical, given the long history of sex advice catering exclusively to heterosexual, vanilla, and deeply gendered norms. These are occasionally masqueraded as new and progressive, but—as the proverb goes—the wolf changes his coat but not his disposition. Sexual discourse has always been framed in ways that endorse gender stereotypes, impose narrow sexual scripts on readers, and present contradictory messages (e.g., Menard & Kleinplatz, 2008). For example, in a content analysis of Seventeen from 1974 to 1994, Carpenter (1998) found that—despite covering a larger variety of new and progressive gender-related topics—the magazine generally reinforced dominant sexual norms. Audience members (usually women) exposed to such self-proclaimed progressive content may, as a result, feel even more sexually constrained and inadequate. In addition, bad, heteronormative, phallocentric, and physiologically inaccurate advice—enough to make sex scholars like Kinsey, Masters, and Johnson turn inside their graves—remains rampant. Levine (2001) offers a disturbing example of such a stereotypical (and factually incorrect response) on the part of a sex counselor on TV show. In July 2000, a man called the Sunday Night Sex Show on the Canadian Women’s Television Network to complain that his wife was lying to him about enjoying clitoral stimulation, even though her clitoris retracted when he caressed it. The sex counselor, Sue Johanson, sympathized and said things would improve only when the wife improved her “communication skills” (p. 167). Predictably, the male partner’s narrative is prioritized and taken at face value, while the wife is blamed due to presumed dishonesty. Unfortunately, Johanson was unaware that the clitoris retracts when stimulated due to swelling of the labia, especially during the plateau and orgasm phases, so the wife was not lying. A gynecology textbook dating as far back as 1974 would have offered much more appropriate advice: not loud enough, too loud 141

“If female orgasm is delayed, it may be elicited by digital stimulation, but the partner should remember that the clitoris retracts during the plateau phase” (Beller, Knörr, Lauritzen, & Wynn, 1974, p. 79).

Sex-Advising the Masculine Pride

Sex-related articles in mainstream media targeting male audiences frequently offer machismo manifestos re-packaged as vapid sex advice—and this is even without considering the most sexist blogs in the so-called “manosphere,” which typically encourage promiscuous pick-up artistry. For example, Rogers (2005) argues that men’s magazines construct a masculinity of intimacy, consistent with traditional male dominance, and offer “a shared sense of direction” (p. 175) in imposing a rhetorical control on the allegedly confusing relationships with women. In lifestyle magazines targeting young men, frequently referred to as “lad” magazines, Taylor (2005) outlines a pattern of sex articles that essentialize women (including by normalizing pornography); explain unorthodox sexual behaviors and positions; and offer general advice on improving one’s sex life. A similar pattern of male sexual entitlement and objectification of women has been identified in Maxim and Stuff (Krassas, Blauwkamp, & Wesselink, 2003), and British lad magazines, such as FHM and Loaded, have been criticized for trying to excuse extreme sexist statements and sexual objectification of women by claiming irony (Mooney, 2008). How do men’s magazines construct objectifying sexual advice? Let’s consider this quote from an article in Maxim: “Doesn’t every guy want to see a girl on her knees scrubbing the bathroom floor with a toothbrush while wearing lingerie?” (Hilton, 2009, p. 62). The implicit suggestion is that, yes, every guy likes that (or should!)—and if he does not, then he must be in the minority. Second, the reference to “a girl” rather than “a woman,” along with the imagery of humiliation (scrubbing the floor with a toothbrush), enforces the notion of women as passive and submissive sexual objects for the male gaze. (Note that lack of emphasis on consensual role-play, with a focus instead on every man’s pleasure in observing a kneeling, half-naked woman performing an unpleasant chore with an inadequate tool.) A similarly troubling message of disrespect toward women implies that stalking is a flattering gesture show- casing male unrestrained sexual desire, as in the following quote by actress Kayla Ewell in Maxim: “Who doesn’t want a million guys following you all the time?” (Will, 2009, p. 82). Little wonder that men so often misinterpret women’s sexual cues and take “no” for “yes”! 142 mediated eros

Fitting the machismo pattern of sex advice are also articles focusing on how to encourage female partners to engage in pornographic scenarios or sexual activities that they dislike, such as anal sex. An example is evident in one of Maxim’s “Sex” sections (Wilson, 2009, p. 48), which asks: “What bedroom taboos should you encourage your girl to break? Why, all of them, of course.” The article features “Girl-on-Girl,” “Sex on Camera,” “Role Play,” “Light BDSM,” and “Backdoor Entry” as possible taboo categories, and suggests that men are inherently more sexually adventurous, while women need to be encouraged to realize their full sexual potential. All of the ideas position men as dominant; not one deals with other “taboo” sexual possibilities that could put women in a dominant position over men. The article also has a “Read between the Signs” chart that “reveals which experiments your girl is ready to attempt in bed” (p. 49). The get-her-to-do-anything-in-bed angle encourages the readers to negate any interest in building a relationship with a woman by respecting her sexual boundaries. Instead, the focus is exclusively on exploiting a woman’s body in order to obtain the maximum amount of sexual pleasure as well as (possibly) bragging material to discuss with male friends. A very important element of sex advice for men focuses on “scoring” (also called “gaming”), which refers to the practice of persuading—usually through lies and misrepresentation—as many women as possible to have sex. The character Barney Stinson in the show How I Met Your Mother (Bays, Fryman, Thomas, & Mamann-Greenberg, 2005) is a satirized example of such uneth- ical behavior, which nevertheless remains cherished and admired by many men. Maxim frequently offers pickup tips to its readers, such as advice on “how to score” with waitresses (David, 2009, p. 59) or clothing to “score more this year” (“Garb Gone Wild,” 2010, p. 94). Another element of this script is the focus on female pleasure as a form of sexual performance validation for men. Both elements are frequently depicted in a hegemonic masculinity context of male bragging and bonding over stories of sexual victories. For example, Maxim features advice on “how to be her best ever,” and encourages men to “kick off the New Year with tales of white-hot encounters that’ll inspire you to step up your bedroom game” (Leu, 2010, p. 42). But as part of the same trophy script, men should avoid getting duped: “The Girl Next Door” rubric in Men’s Health offers advice on how to find out whether one’s girlfriend is faking orgasms (answer: watch for body language and contractions instead of being satisfied with loud moans) (Piercey, 2013, p. 48). Just like in the case of sex advice targeting women, sometimes media content for male audiences masquerades traditional sexual scripts behind not loud enough, too loud 143 allegedly progressive ones. For example, tough and independent women are afforded extra sexual value in a form of “patriarchal feminism” (Beggan & Allison, 2005, p. 816); greater pleasure lies in winning sexually over not just any woman but one who is also autonomous, adventurous, and strong. This is evident in interviews with more than 200 Playboy Playmates (Beggan & Allison, 2005), who are almost invariably portrayed as tough and self- serving, and in the popularity of highly sexualized female heroes, such as Wonder Woman and Buffy the Vampire Slayer (Inness, 1999). Regardless of the superficially progressive streak of this narrative, the implied advice to men is to “score” and sexually dominate such precious trophies, not bond with them or treat them as equals.

In Search of Sexual Equity

It is rare but increasingly possible to see sex advice premised on sexual equity and respect for the complexity of human sexuality. Columbia and Brown universities’ sex-advice pages are refreshing in their pursuit of these values. For example, Brown University’s sex advice page debunks the myth that women naturally take much longer to orgasm: “During masturbation, … [o]n average, women reach orgasm in a little less than four minutes. For men the average time is between two and three minutes” (“Female Orgasm,” nd). This claim of relative sexual equality, including in orgasm speed, is not likely to feature prominently in mainstream magazines because it contradicts the gendered notion that men and women are very different in their experiences of sexual desire and pleasure. This feeds into such publications’ practices of guiding audiences through the “landmines” or heterosexual interaction, in which potential sexual partners are analyzed as difficult-to-understand and polar opposites. More gender-equal frames in sex advice have also been noted in Scandi- navian countries, which have built the reputation of being sexually progressive and libertine since the 1970s. For example, in a comparison of sex-related stories published between 2006 and 2008 in magazines in the Netherland and the U.S., Joshi, Peter, and Valkenburg (2011) found that U.S. magazines gave more coverage to boys’ sexual desire, while in the Dutch magazines boys’ and girls’ sexual desires received equal coverage. In both countries, sexual risks and the negative consequences of sex were associated with coverage more frequently aimed at girls, but these negative aspects of sex were more frequently depicted in the U.S. than in the Dutch magazines. 144 mediated eros

Conclusion

Mediated sex advice normalizes and mainstreams an imaginary, hypermascu- line, and deeply gendered sexuality built around male dominance and female submission. It has traditionally sanctioned men’s voyeurism, trophyism, and need for sexual validation, while encouraging women to be supportive of men’s sexual needs and appreciative of the male gaze. Potentially guilt- and inferiority-inducing for both men and women, many messages presented as sex advice appear to implicitly encourage insecurities about one’s sexual performance, which can result in dysfunctional sexual behaviors, such as sexual coercion and assault. ·6· kinksters, swingers, and other weirdos

Media Depictions of Alternative Sexualities

“Hushed snickering … Gasps, giggles, and the occasional jaw drop … Looks of secret acknowledgment and endearing shock” (Johnson, 2015). This is opening night for the kinkily erotic filmFifty Shades of Grey in America’s most conservative city—Mesa, Arizona—where The Guardian’s correspondent Katie Johnson is on assignment to observe the audience reactions. What she finds in the dark theater is a typical mix of Western machismo and sexual insecurities—and a show of lights that offers a fictional promise to resolve them! Mainstream audiences have tacitly been looking up to the movie screen for sexual help for at least a hundred years. But this time, it is different. The portrayed sexual acts are ones that have long been stigmatized and associated with outcast sexual minorities. Yet, nobody has condemned Fifty Shades, boy- cotted the showings, and picketed outside movie theaters. Audiences are all in—entranced by the sights of handcuffs and whips, and the sounds of fake moans. Writes Johnson about her observation in Arizona: “They were completely absorbed by acts that are never discussed in casual conversation, or not in Mesa anyway” (2015). Welcome to the Era of Fashionable Kink, in which a movie about a billionaire (male, of course) with an obsessively controlling disposition and a submissive virgin (female, of course) premiered during the 2015 Valentine’s 146 mediated eros

Day weekend. The movie production followed years of mass hysteria over a poorly written trilogy, published in 2011, by a British television producer. Long before Fifty Shades appeared on screen, the sexually adventurous nature of the trilogy’s narrative had inspired endless media coverage of “kinky” sexual moves, referring to themes of domination, submission, and role-playing— always with women as the submissive partners. Such supposedly erotic “kink” advice suddenly became a staple of much of the mediated discourse aimed at women (e.g., Knoll, 2013, p. 158). Even relatively tame media outlets, such as Women’s Health magazine, attempted to normalize “kink” (e.g., Brennan, 2013, p. 116). Sadly, most of the ink spilled over kink neither defined the term nor offered any information about the conventions of actual “kink” communities practicing fetishism and BDSM (which stands for bondage, domination, sadism, and masochism). The message between the lines in our mediated Era of Fashionable Kink is the following: Dear insecure female reader, get your boyfriend to spank you. Try to like it because everyone does, and you really should, too. Unlike some of its more famous predecessors in the kink erotica genre, such as Marquis de Sade’s 18th-century novel Justine (2013) or Anne Cécile Desclos’s 20th-century award-winning novel The Story of O, written under a pseudonym (Reage, 2013), Fifty Shades is hardly a literary gem. Neverthe- less, its extensive media coverage and the suddenly mainstreamed interest in kink pose some important questions. Do these portrayals accurately represent and normalize the sexual ethos of people who practice alternative heterosexual behaviors—or do they only reinforce their outcast status as the sexual “other”? As this chapter will show, much more virtual ink needs to be spilled before such media coverage can even begin to compensate for the stereotypes and stigmas that have shaped the lens of the public discourse on non-mainstream sexualities for a long time. Some of the topics explored in the following pages include: patterns in media representations of non-mainstream sexual behaviors (i.e., BDSM and fetishism); the continued shaming surrounding poly lifestyles; and the stubborn misunderstanding of and even contempt for asexuality. Of special interest to this chapter are the possible reasons behind the trickling of niche sexual interests—such as humiliation, corporal punishment, and crossdressing—into popular culture, often through limiting and shaming portrayals. Such depictions are not a new phenomenon. They can be found in the choreographed and eroticized content of wrestling shows, which tend to emphasize sexual degradation (i.e., World Wrestling Entertainment), and the kinksters, swingers, and other weirdos 147 many comedic uses of crossdressing in content as diverse and far-reaching as children’s cartoons (i.e., Bugs Bunny). To begin this exploration, it is important to spend some time untangling the norms that guide popular discourses about unorthodox sexualities. What’s so interesting about kinky sex? What’s so scandalous? So funny? And why should we care?

Transgressions’ News and Entertainment Value

Pervasively simplified in contemporary popular culture, kink has long been on the minds of many. A sharp twist or curve in something that is otherwise straight (according to Oxford Dictionaries), “kink” is clearly a word intended to signify perversion—unusual, unstraight, knotty, and difficult to untangle. In Anglo-American slang, kink most frequently refers to BDSM, and less often to fetishism, role-playing, and crossdressing. For convenience, however, this chapter will use the term “kink” to encompass any and all of these aspects of unorthodox sexualities. Kink is newsworthy and entertainment-worthy in part because so many people tend to (secretly) declare at least a tangential interest in it. In the U.S. (which traditionally lags in sexual adventurousness compared to the rest of the developed world), only 14% of American men and 11% of women had participated in “kink” in the early 1990s (Janus & Janus, 1993). But non- participation should not be interpreted as lack of interest. A recent survey of 1,516 adults found that 65% of women and 53% of men had fantasized about sexual submission; further, at least half of the respondents had fantasized about dominance, bondage, group sex, and anal sex (Joyal, Cossette, & Lapierre, 2014). A survey of porn users indicated that 28% of women and 31% of men prefer so-called non-mainstream genres, defined as bondage, sadomasochism, fetish, bestiality, or violent/coercive sex (Stulhofer, Landripet, Momcilovic, Matko, Kladaric, & Busko, 2007). In more sexually libertine countries, more people appear to have acted on these “kink” interests. For example, in the UK, a Durex survey found that 37% of surveyed adults owned handcuffs, 23% had tried bondage, and 41% had tried spanking (Durex, 2009). In Canada, 62–65% of the college student respondents in one survey reported having bondage fantasies (Renaud & Byers, 1999). Given these statistics on sexual fantasies and activities in the Western world, it is little wonder that Fifty Shades—initially dismissed as “mommy 148 mediated eros porn”—became the talk of the town even for the most sober and serious of news outlets. Online searches showed that, as of February 2015, the trilogy or the resulting homonymous film had been mentioned more than 500 times by The New York Times, more than 250 times by The Washington Post, more than 70 times by The Financial Times, and more than 40 times by The Wall Street Journal. It is clear that what started as the book’s word-of-mouth popularity has spilled onto mainstream discourse. This, of course, is also not new. Since at least the era of yellow journalism, Western media have known the vast potential for profits that lies in the dramatization of sex, violence, or the combination of both. Interestingly, audiences never clamor for more sex and violence in media content. In fact, the opposite is true! But they have consistently voted for violence and sex with their purchasing behaviors. Especially in entertainment contexts, depictions of unorthodox sexual behaviors and violence represent some of the fastest ways to profits and fame. This is illustrated by countless music videos over the last few decades that hint at dominance-submission dynamics and simulate the allegedly resulting orgiastic experiences. Madonna, for example, “is credited with the invention of a variety of fictional personae that reference sexual preferences such as bisexuality and SM fetishes” (Kourtova, 2012, p. 55). Christina Aguilera’s music video “Dirrty” (LaChapelle, 2002) contains numerous references to many non-mainstream sexual practices, such as caging, use of masks, humiliation, and the objectification of mud-covered bodies. Kink can also be discerned in Miley Cyrus’s performance in “Wrecking Ball” (Richardson, 2013), which portrayed her alternating between submission and dominance, and referencing bondage by images of a chain against her skin. (For those with more traditional sexual tastes—especially heterosexual men—the video also invoked the American fellatio script by showing Cyrus licking a huge hammer and appearing to enjoy it). How much has changed since the 1985 U.S. Senate hearing in which Dee Snider of the heavy-metal band Twisted Sister tried to assure legisla- tors that his songs did not promote “bondage, rape and sado-masochism” (Reuters, 1985). Three decades later, these themes in popular culture have become so routine that no Senate committee would touch them with a ten- foot pole, lest it appeared out of touch with the times. In some ways, this is progress. The everyday sensationalizing of what is sexually odd and unusual has sometimes provided a venue for minority voices (Örnebring & Jönsson, 2004). On the other hand, however, the tacit acceptance of sexualized media kinksters, swingers, and other weirdos 149 content combined with an avoidance of any conversations about it suggests a new, more insidious type of silence in public discourses about sex. The international obsession with Fifty Shades, which started as fan fiction, on the surface seems to represent just that—the next frontier of the sexual revolution through the mainstreaming of the practices of fetishism and BDSM. But this interpretation may be a bit overly optimistic. As Harvey and Gill (2013) observe in their analysis of the British makeover show The Sex Inspectors—where one adventurous couple is told that “kink is a spice, it can’t be the main meal”—participants “must self-discipline themselves within the boundaries of a very particular heteronormative sexual script in the context of a narrow definition of normative bodies, desires, and abilities” (p. 495). In other words, media tell us, being a little kinky is okay. It is even cute and desirable. Most importantly, it sells. Yet, judging by the limited news and entertainment coverage of the BDSM community, being openly and exclusively kinky is not acceptable. Many politicians have come out as gay—with much media fanfare—but how many have declared practicing BDSM or polyamory? There have been no exclusively kink pride parades yet; the so-called Leather Pride activism emerged within gay culture and is still associated with it, even though kink culture includes heterosexual and bisexual practitioners. “We are all surely aware that our society does not offer us a full range of acceptable choices in the sexual sphere or any other,” argued sociologist Ira Reiss in 1986 (p. 115). Three decades after his writing, in a time when same-sex couples are depicted kissing on the front pages (both web and print) of newspapers all over the Western world, practitioners of alternative sexualities remain out of the picture. Yes, the use of sexual orientation as the sole basis for being considered a sexual minority has been challenged by scholars who believe that “sexual selfhood … is not reducible to the gender of those we desire” (Jackson, 2007, p. 6) and that “it is not only gay people who have to come out of the closet” (Ryan, 2013). But there is very little that can be learned at this time about these other “closets” from mainstream media content. Media cannot be fully blamed for the silence because, by journalistic standards, nothing too newsworthy has happened yet to bring practitioners of alternative sexualities to the forefront. Unlike gay couples, heterosexual kinksters do not need publicity. They can already get married and, most of the time, they can easily hide their sexual minority status from the neighbors. But if and when kinksters begin independent activism of the magnitude of the LGBT movement, there is little doubt that the media will pounce on the news, offering abundant coverage and overly salacious news frames. 150 mediated eros

Examples of such journalistic behaviors are wittily portrayed in the British film Preaching to the Perverted (Unger & Urban, 1997), which depicts the political and media uproar caused by the opening of an underground sadomasochistic club in London. The film focuses on a member of parliament, Henry Harding, who uses the media to turn public opinion against the club. He argues that such establishments are the source of “porn, wife swapping, paedophilia” and that “Britain must not allow even consenting adults to harm each other”—excluding, of course, “manly pursuits” like boxing. Journalists unfailingly descend on the story like vultures (Harding’s secretary reports that “the Press Association has been ringing constantly”). But what was at first considered newsworthy because it was out of the ordinary (BDSM), no longer fits the bill by the film’s end because all the protagonists turn out to be secretly kinky. Harding is a former headmaster who whipped boys on the bare buttocks. His secretary, who used to listen at the door, now wears kinky seamed stockings and no underwear, and likes kinky porn. Finally, the virginal young man who infiltrates the sexual under- world of BDSM to collect evidence for the prosecution (“the kind of affi- davits jurors read with one hand when they get home,” according to the script) discovers that he enjoys kink. Upon all these revelations, the status quo shockingly does not collapse. Instead, just like in Fifty Shades, it gets symbolically strengthened through family formation. Harding and his secretary decide to get married upon discovering each other’s kinky interests, and the young man chasing the dominatrix to get evidence for his boss falls in love and accidentally impregnates her. The two end up raising a baby in a castle of decidedly safe, sane, and consensual bondage, pain, and (sometimes literally) electric stage performances. Moral lesson of Preaching to the Perverted: Kink may elicit sensational coverage, but it also helps preserve family values. This frame has also emerged in much of the media coverage of Fifty Shades (Connolly 2012b). In part, it accounts for the film’s pre-existing grassroots popularity and status as a romantic, Disney-like fairytale. Fifty Shades begins as BDSM soft porn, and culminates in a wedding, a passionate honeymoon, and a baby. What could be less threatening than a transgression-driven reaffirmation of the good ol’ status quo? But let’s not get too excited. Actual sexual minorities, such as dedicated BDSM practitioners, do not always see their desires as a path to family values. They remain in media’s shadows because they continue to implicitly threaten social norms. Unless they fall in the category of enlightened tra- ditionalists—who practice just a touch of kink to enliven their otherwise kinksters, swingers, and other weirdos 151 tired, hetero-mono-normative sex lives—they know they will be ridiculed as the sexual “other” because they always have. This pervasive pattern of media stigmatization is outlined in the section that follows.

Charting the Stigma of “Deviance”

“Peripheral sexualities” (Foucault, 1976/1990, p. 39) first appeared in the public discourse in the 18th century, and began to dominate the sexual-scientific conversation in the 19th century. The labeling and “othering” of sexual behaviors that fell outside of the mainstream sexual scripts became especially prominent in the 19th century, when French and German doctors “discovered” various sexual “perversions,” including sadism, masochism, fetishism, and exhibitionism (Oosterhuis, 1999b). Different species of “deviants” were categorized, classified, and prototyped by these Western European scholars, who laid the groundwork for much of Freud’s later theory of sexuality as a repressed force. As part of this groundwork, salacious case studies were written and published. A case in point is the story of a man who managed to cut off 65 women’s pigtails (for use as masturbation aids) until he was finally arrested (Lutzen, 1995). And there were many more “deviant” cases, describing men who secretly urinated on women, stole their handkerchiefs, or simply touched their silk dresses when they thought nobody was watching (Lutzen). Those whose sexual interests were considered “contrary to nature,” had finally entered the spotlight: “It was time for all these figures, scarcely noticed in the past, to step forward and speak, to make the difficult confession of what they were. No doubt they were condemned all the same, but they were listened to …” (Foucault, p. 39). Sadomasochists and fetishists have since been routinely stigmatized, not only because of society’s disapproval of their unorthodox sexual practices, but also because of the intrinsically transgressive nature of kink, according to Foucault (1976/1990). Gagnon and Simon (1973) disagree. Considering that what “the collectivity defines as non- or even anti-erotic may become part of the private sexual culture of a given individual; for example, various kinds of full and partial fetishisms,” they see the prevalence of alternative, unique, and creative sexual scripts as a proof that mainstream sexual culture is not all-powerful (Gagnon & Simon, p. 25). Yet, history suggests that fetishes are very much aligned with social and cultural norms. In the 21st century, would anyone cut off women’s pigtails to use as masturbation aids? Very unlikely! 152 mediated eros

Kink not only serves as a backdrop demonstrating the limited nature of mainstream sociocultural scripts, but it also directly challenges them. It is hardly a coincidence that Keanu Reeves’s character in American filmThe Matrix (Silver, Wachowski, & Wachowski, 1999) wears black leather, the staple of kink culture. This signifies his status as a social rebel, who figures out that the world is an illusion—mechanically constructed for the movie’s sake, but as a concept referencing social constructivist theories. Kink is subversive, especially in an American context, because it entails an honest expression of sexuality, just like most passionate and anti-taboo sex is subversive in the European context, as discussed in Chapter 3. In Foucault’s view, sadomasochism especially has the potential to erode power structures. The reason is that, according to Foucault, sadomasochism combines the essences of the old culture of blood (defined by war, torture, death, and brute power) and the new culture of analytics (life, meaning, norms, and regulations). This combination can invite lawlessness: “In Sade, sex is without any norm or intrinsic rule that might be formulated in its own nature …” (Foucault, 1976/1990, pp. 148–149). Krzywinska (2006) further speculates that the reason BDSM poses a perceived threat to society is because “it invokes psychoanalytic notions that sexual desire is a force that exceeds conscious control,” and also “foregrounds the performative, role-playing aspects of sexual relations” (p. 186). There is, in other words, a lingering and vague suspicion that if social actors can assume a variety of intense roles in a sexual context—and especially if these roles represent their desires more accurately than the socially imposed sexual norm— they could also break free of society’s “matrix” altogether. Media, who play the role of status quo defenders more often than not, tend to respond to this perceived threat by discrediting alternative sexualities. This is accomplished by, for instance, pigeonholing such sexualities within psychiatric and pop-psychology discourses, associating them with negative concepts (crime, poverty), and mentioning them in contexts that make people laugh. Each of these aspects of the invisible kink stigma that pervades popular discourse is discussed in the subsections that follow.

Stigmatization by Mental Illness

The current (fifth) edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM), a reference guide used by psychologists and psychiatrists in diagnosing mental disorders, still stigmatizes (albeit discreetly) alternative sexualities such as BDSM. It defines sexually “unusual” behaviors or arousal by “unusual” kinksters, swingers, and other weirdos 153 objects or situations as “paraphilia,” but it does not equate them to mental disorders. The DSM-V chapter on paraphilic disorders mentions eight: exhibitionism, fetishism, frotteurism (arousal from groping or rubbing against a non-consenting person), pedophilia, sexual masochism, sexual sadism, transvestism (crossdressing), and voyeurism (American Psychological Asso- ciation, 2013). (Interestingly, necrophilia and bestiality are not on the list). All of these behaviors can be considered psychiatric disorders, but only if they cause personal distress or distress to non-consenting individuals. Under this enlightened definition, fraternity members who chant “No means yes, yes means anal” may be more mentally disordered (if they also explicitly admit to being sexual sadists) than consensual BDSM practitioners. Regardless, in the psychiatric manual, BDSM and fetishism are defined as “atypical human behavior,” while everyday sexual violence, apparently, is not (APA). This is not to say that sexual assaults never occur in the BDSM world; 30 percent of participants report having had their negotiated boundaries violated by a partner at some point in their lives (Morris, 2015). The point, however, is that a BDSM sexual preference carries a burden of stigma as “atypical,” while interest in popular culture’s narratives of sexual violence is seen as typical. Most young American men are more likely to admit publicly to playing the ridiculously violent game Grand Theft Auto (in which sex workers are brutally killed) than to attending or wanting to attend a BDSM club. Of course, “atypical” means nothing more than “socially unacceptable.” Given some of the earlier-cited studies showing that more than half of adults in various countries report some variation of BDSM fantasies, how could such sexual interests be rendered “atypical”? A likely explanation is that Western psychiatric science still reflects influences from centuries-old religious norms forbidding non-procreative sexual activities, which have become culturally ingrained. Reiss (1986) has argued that, given the variety of sexual customs around the world—including polyamorous relationships and sanctioned sexuality for children under 10—what is normal versus abnormal is clearly based on social norms, not on some sort of profound abnormality that would prevent an individual from functioning in any and all human societies. Further, Reiss (1986) suggests (and the DSM has now recognized) that in most cases “paraphiliacs” who practice consensual sexual relations are neither abuse survivors nor mentally disturbed individuals, only sexual non-conform- ists (p. 136). Recent scholarship supports this view, offering no evidence that BDSM fantasies result from a psychological trauma or a mental disorder (e.g., Bezreh, Weinberg, & Edgar, 2012). Kinksters’ general pattern of life stability 154 mediated eros is also illustrated in the filmPreaching to the Perverted, where the protagonist, a dominatrix, shares her story of a happy childhood and a traditional adolescence: “I used to do straight sex, go shopping, wear loose clothes” (Unger & Urban, 1997). But it does not matter how much or how often kinksters protest the stereotype of mental illness as the root of their “atypical” sexual preferences. It does not even matter that modern psychiatry has (reluctantly) dismissed this stereotype as well. One of the common frames in the popular discourse about BDSM remains the focus on the supposed pre-existing traumas or mental health abnormalities of kink practitioners. Much like psychoanalysts had long attempted to explain homosexuality with “mommy issues” or “daddy issues” (depending on the gender of the afflicted sufferer), popular culture perpetuates the belief that BDSM is a sexual preference espoused by the mentally ill. For example, the film Secretary (Fierberg, Hobby, & Schainberg, 2002), about a young woman who routinely cuts herself to deal with anxiety and emotional pain, portrays her miraculous recovery when she starts getting spanked by her boss. She stops self-cutting and forgets her earlier emotional pain, suggesting that BDSM can cure a mental disorder. In a very Freudian fashion, releasing the repressed desires is portrayed as a path to mental stability. A similar association between a damaged psyche and BDSM interests is espoused in Fifty Shades, which portrays the kinky protagonist Christian Grey as a prostitute’s son and the survivor of severe abuse and neglect during his childhood. Interestingly, in both Secretary and Fifty Shades of Grey, the male protagonist’s last name is Grey, symbolizing his inherent “shadowy” quality. This script of sexual arousal stemming from childhood abuse is also evident in A Danger- ous Method (Thomas & Cronenberg, 2011), a film depicting the life of the very man who coined the term “shadow” to describe everyone’s hidden dark side: Carl Jung. The feature’s focus is on Jung’s work with a hysteric patient, Sabina Spielrein; he soon uncovers that her severe mental distress (including epilep- sy-like seizures) is due to having been spanked naked by her father as a child and feeling both sexually aroused and very ashamed. All is well once her Jung- ian shadow leaves the BDSM closet. Thanks to the disclosures made in therapy and the opportunity to begin her own study of psychoanalysis, Spielrein’s mental condition improves greatly. Not only does she embrace her “shadow,” but she also begins an affair with Jung—who appears in the film to get quite a bit of pleasure himself from spanking her as part of their sex play. This psychoanalytic line of thinking has severely restricted the visibility and openness of the BDSM community. In the case of Spielrein, as kinksters, swingers, and other weirdos 155 portrayed in A Dangerous Method, it is the repression of her masochistic impulse and the associated stigma that are causing her mental suffering— not so much the kinky preference in itself. Her unorthodox sexuality is tied in with the cinematic traditions of European intellectualism and existen- tialism. In her dissertation, as highlighted by the film, Spielrein argues that sexuality is both a destructive and a creative force that is about losing oneself (the annihilation of the Ego, in Freudian terms, which she as a masochist personally experiences) rather than about the practice of egotistic lust. But can this important—for its time—scholarly wrinkle override the mass audience’s likely perception that craziness and masochism go hand in hand? Doubtful! In spite of all these pop-psychology discourses, alternative sexualities’ complexity, fluidity, and diversity—and especially their not-always-penetrative nature—remain hidden from mass audiences. Films such as Venus in Fur (Benmussa, Sarde, & Polanski, 2013) and Bitter Moon (Benmussa & Polanski, 1992), which explore such complexities from an intensely dramatic and (perhaps) satirical perspective—without depicting a single penetrative intercourse—remain rare. Perhaps this is why many BDSM practitioners and would-be practitioners have found validation of their desires not in mainstream media content (what with its endorsement of playful spanking for the sake of romance and baby making), but in pornography. Says Kink.com’s founder Peter Acworth, who recalls always feeling aroused from seeing a villain being tied up in the movies: “It was only when I found porn that I started to come to terms with my sexuality.” In that sense, pornographic portrayals of alternative sexualities represent a “huge public service,” adds one of Kink.com’s models (Conger, 2013). There are tangible consequences to the widespread “mentalizing” of kink. Many members of the BDSM and fetish communities perceive themselves as the “new gay,” and look forward to the day when they will be able to disclose what they perceive to be an important part of their identities without fearing repercussions (Bezreh, Weinberg, & Edgar, 2012). Not only do stigma and discrimination cause mental stress, but they also represent a potential career threat. Much like the gay character Salvatore Romano in the show Mad Men (Weiner, Hornbacher, Jacquemetton, Jacquemetton, & Leahy, 2007), shown being fired in the 1960s through no fault of his own, kinky public figures are not immune to injustices. One real-life example of a mover-and-shaker who almost lost his job was Jack McGeorge, a UN arms inspector in Iraq, who in 2002 was reported to 156 mediated eros be one of the founders of a BDSM club in Washington, DC. The Washington Post broke the story as part of an investigation of arms inspectors’ qualifi- cations to search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq (Grimaldi, 2002). The front-page story opened with the following sentence: “The United Nations launched perhaps its most important weapons inspections ever yesterday with a team that includes a 53-year-old Virginia man with no specialized scientific degree and a leadership role in sadomasochistic sex clubs” (p. A01). The presumption of wrongdoing is apparent in the phrasing of the sentence, and so is the implicit suggestion that McGeorge’s activities as a sexual freedom activist somehow make him unfit to be an arms inspector. The presumed journalistic objectivity is nowhere to be found, and the fact that the author, James Grimaldi, is a well-respected investigative journalist only shows how pervasive media frames are. They can be perpetuated even by respected journalists, well-practiced in questioning the status quo. Had the phrase “sadomasochistic sex clubs” been replaced by “homosexual sex clubs,” The Post might have witnessed an even larger storm. But the solid stigma against BDSM (unlike the decreasing stigma associated with LGBT) minimized the scandal, which even elicited tasteless kink jokes on a few talk shows (Weiss, 2006). When international media picked up the McGeorge story, it appeared under sensational headlines such as “Founder of sex network picked as UN monitor” in the London Times (Reid, 2002), “UN expert ran sex ring” in the Glasgow Sunday Mail (2002) and “UN appears to be a magnet for deviants” in the Australian (Blair, 2003). The last story went as far as to lump together McGeorge’s BDSM preference (which is legal) with the finding that another arms inspector, George Ritter, had solicited sex from an underage girl (which is illegal). The use of words such as “ring” or “network” lent a misleading air of illegality to McGeorge’s actions, as though he were in charge of organized crime. This salaciousness of the follow-up coverage led to further public criticism. At last, The Post’s ombudsman, Michael Getler, took issue with the original article, arguing that “the dominant focus on McGeorge, and the ques- tionable relevance of his sexual activities, seemed to me to distort what this story was about” (2002, p. B06). McGeorge offered his resignation, the UN did not accept it, and the coverage died out. Happy ending? Not exactly. It is difficult not to imagine the mental suffering caused by such public shaming. Journalists and entertainers still much prefer to speculate about the mental health roots of kink than explore the devastating effects of the stigma they perpetuate. kinksters, swingers, and other weirdos 157

Stigmatization by Other Stereotypes

Not only do popular discourses “mentalize alternative sexualities, but they also present them in false light by thrusting them into criminal and other unflattering contexts. In the daytime TV talk shows of the 1980s and ’90s, where sex and gender nonconformity became highly visible, non-mainstream sexualities were often lumped in with poverty and lack of education, writes Joshua Gamson (1998). Further, sexual “perversions,” such as bondage, bisexual attraction, sexualized torture, and gender bending of all sorts have been portrayed in the context of psychopathic violence in films such as Basic Instinct (Marshall, Kassar, & Verhoeven, 1992) and The Silence of the Lambs (Bozman, Saxon, Utt, & Demme, 1991). Even in early horror films, “sadistic villains” have typically engaged in gender bending, “with perversion of every kind being deployed to signify ‘evil’” (Krzywinska, 2006, p. 193). The supposedly blurry line between kink and crime has been used in real life as a cover for sexual violence, as in the recent case of Canadian broadcaster Jian Ghomeshi, accused of choking and assaulting multiple women. Ghomeshi tried to defend himself by claiming a sexual minority status due to his interest in BDSM practices, despite his obvious ignorance or disregard of the stringent consent practices of the kink community (Linkins & Bolen, 2014). The news is not all bad, however. As early as the 1990s, Dutch media were said to “devote much attention to all kinds of sexual variation, from homosexuality to sadomasochism, and from fetishism to exhibitionism” (Oosterhuis, 1999a, p. 88). The rest of the Western world is following in these steps, with some delay. Insightful articles about kink have recently appeared in publications such as The Atlantic and The Guardian, often with the intent to juxtapose the reality of BDSM to fictional stereotypes espoused byFifty Shades (e.g., Morgan, 2012; Green, 2015). In spite of occasional reporting on the consensual kink communities (Weiss, 2006), these portrayals still usually reflect the journalistic norm of pursuing the unusual (as in the newsroom wisdom that “dog bites man” is not news, but “man bites dog” is). A case in point is one 2001 story appearing in the Canadian newspaper Globe & Mail, which describes a kinky B&B as “cozy—except for the whip on the wall,” and populated by extravagant characters. Middle-aged male crossdressers sport kinky appearances and engage in unusual actions during the reporter’s very short observation (Wong, 2001). The article is likely to appeal to readers not because of the quality of its writing or reporting, but 158 mediated eros because it describes a deviant sexual lifestyle in which few people have ever had the courage to participate, even if they had the interest. In that sense, the Globe & Mail’s story’s news value can be considered similar to that of an article describing the surface of Mars—it is interesting only because no human has ever been on Mars. The least stigma-inducing but the most stereotypical media depictions of kink highlight practices that support and reinforce traditional gender roles. BDSM-related content in women’s magazines, for instance, frequently employs the Lolita trope, which encourages women to appear childish and immature as an element of submissiveness. This is evident, for example, in Cosmopolitan’s November 2012 fashion section, which offers suggestions about how to “rough up a pretty skirt” when a “girlie bottom goes bad” (p. 64). Sex is an activity for “bad girls,” as indicated by Cosmopolitan’s “Bad Girl Edition” and the “naughty” features of the “The Cosmo Kama Sutra” smartphone app (Kylstra, 2012, p. 166). Such miscreants, naturally, deserve punishment. This cliché porn script has somehow found its way onto the pages of a publication aimed at “fun, fearless females”! The same readers are encouraged to actively seek restraining by handcuffs (or panties, in lieu of handcuffs), spanking, and “light bondage” (p. 168), regardless of whether these practices actually arouse them. Kink—at least in the mediated expressions of the Era of Fashionable Kink—has nothing to do with respect for the depths, complexity, and diversity of human sexuality. Reporting on kink outside the context of crime and poverty no doubt represents progress, but gender stereotypes and the emphasis on alternative sexualities’ closeted status do not. Certain rare public discourses have also begun to challenge the stereotype of masculine dominance and female submission. However, in their own way, these discourses also further cement the sexual closet. For example, articles about dominatrices almost invariably use anonymous sources and emphasize submissive men’s fear of being exposed, as in a recent Atlantic Monthly story about “Miss Georgia” and her client “David, a professorial 48-year-old with salt-and-pepper hair” (Conti, 2013). Even an enlightening Salon.com first-person narrative, which chronicled one woman’s exciting journey in exploring and encouraging her boyfriend’s interest in crossdressing, appeared under a pseudonym, suggesting a potential for embarrassment to the author and her partner if it revealed her identity:

I never pictured myself dating a cross-dresser, but as a member of the Dan Savage generation I also never ruled anything out. Before this guy came along I thought I was pretty kinky. I’d been asking boyfriends to tie me up, hold me down and hit me kinksters, swingers, and other weirdos 159

harder since high school, and my tastes had escalated at a pretty steady pace. But when one of my best friends revealed to me that he had a hidden stash of makeup and panties, I was intrigued. When we started dating months later, I knew I wanted to see it for myself … Let me get this out of the way first—my boyfriend isn’t “girly.” (Birch, 2014)

The question remains whether such mediated accounts of alternative sexual lifestyles accomplish much in normalizing kink or whether they simply represent sensational and titillating material that generates more subscriptions, more eyes on screen, and more clicks. Weiss (2006) argues that the mainstreaming of sadomasochism in U.S. media may be a fact, but it is not a sign of increased support for sexual freedoms. These portrayals suggest that “SM is acceptable only when it falls under the rubric of normative American sexuality” and “SM is understandable only when it is the symptom of a deviant type of person with a sick, damaged core” (Weiss, p. 105). These frames do not really present kink as an acceptable sexual preference. Rather, they “reinforce boundaries between protected/privileged and policed/pathological sexualities” (Weiss, p. 103). Add to this the ubiquitous use of kink in comedic content—which is the subject of the following subsection—and it becomes clear why so few people are willing to disclose their so-called “atypical” interests.

Stigmatization by Humor

Sexual non-conformity appears to be almost encouraged by contemporary popular culture, but its use to induce laughter brings forth memories of the treatment of race in the era of blackface comedy. Little wonder that Kinki University in Japan was recently forced to change its name after facing many stigmatizing jokes from English speakers (DeSantis, 2014). We are in an era when such jokes are still politically correct. For example, both the American show Friends (Bright, Crane, Kauffman, Knoller, & Stevens, 1994) and the British show Coupling (Vertue & Vertue, 2000) each featured one (mildly) sexually non- conformist character whose “weird” interests spur many a comedic situation. In Friends, it is the kinky Phoebe. In Coupling, it is the unconventional Jane, who claims to be bisexual during most of the show, but eventually admits she is lying in order to (stereotypically) attract men interested in a ménage à trois with two women. No doubt intended to be simply funny, the characters of Phoebe and Jane, in fact, emphasize the stigma attached to alternative sexualities. Handcuff jokes in entertainment content also abound, as illustrated, for example, by two episodes of Friends. Such sketches safely reference the 160 mediated eros ridiculous sexual “other” without fear of repercussions due to lack of political correctness (in the current political climate, it would be considered much more unacceptable if a show contained dismissive same-sex jokes). The construction of kink as ridiculous is illustrated by a few excerpted lines from the protagonists in the Friends episode “The One with Rachel’s Going Away Party” (Reich, Cohen, & Halvorson, 2004) as they investigate the origins of a pair of furry black handcuffs, stashed away in a guest room’s closet and accidentally discovered when the resident couple is packing to move:

Joey: Didn’t know you guys had it in you. Chandler (referring to his wife): Why wouldn’t she use them with me? I am into kink. I once did a naked dance for her with scarves. Phoebe (the character presumed to be kinky): They are not mine. Look how flimsy they are. If you try to hang a guy from a water pipe with these, they’ll snap like a piece of liquorish.

Eventually, Chandler discovers pictures of the handcuffs being used, and shows them to the group but away from the camera. The nonverbal reactions to the presumably obscene pictures include raised eyebrows and open mouths. “Who is that dirty old lady?” asks Joey. “Monica’s grandmother,” answers Chandler. “They liked it rough,” exclaims Monica, looking at the pictures. What would be an extremely serious invasion of privacy in any other circumstances (showing sexual pictures of one’s grandmother to friends) appears acceptable in this episode because the person in question, the grandmother, is absent. She is “oth- ered” not only because of her unorthodox sexual interests, but also because of her continued sexuality at an age when she is no longer expected to be sexual. Spanking is another prominent thread in mediated humor. It appears, for instance, as part of a staged (fake) intercourse in the teen sex comedy Easy A (Devine & Gluck, 2010) and in multiple Saturday Night Live sketches, such as the 2011 “Technology Hump,” in which a curling iron is briefly shown “whipping” a GPS device (Meyers, 2011a). The spanking trope is used to pique audiences’ interest in a new show. The pilot episodes of both the U.S. and the UK versions of The Office include a scene in which the boss is asked to discipline an employee, to which he responds with a smirk, “Oh discipline … kinky!” (Gervais, Merchant, Daniels, & Kwapis, 2005). And the pilot episode of How I Met Your Mother shows one of the female characters complaining that her boyfriend is so non-aggressive that he would not even spank her hard when she begs him (Bays, Thomas, & Fryman, 2005a). kinksters, swingers, and other weirdos 161

Crossdressing is another item on the list of non-mainstream sexual indul- gences that are used and over-used in comedy. It is portrayed, for example, in a Doritos commercial titled Fashionista Daddy, in which a father and his bud- dies are persuaded by the young daughter to play “princess” and crossdress in exchange for Doritos chips (Scoggins, Freiburger, Trevino, & Daniels, 2013). The limited public awareness of the offensiveness of such portrayals becomes evident in this comment posted on Reddit’s SRS Microagressions forum in response to the commercial:

Hahaha. Isn’t crossdressing so funny … As someone who crossdresses pretty much constantly, I can’t stand how I am treated like a punchline by society. Crossdressing is always a joke. Crossdressers function as comedy relief. It really wears down on me. Just, ugh … (“This One Doritos Commercial,” 2014)

It is also very funny when gender roles are depicted as being bent by both male and female participants in kinky scenarios. Dozens of “kinky” commercials appear on YouTube, but there is a surprising prevalence of the dominatrix script, likely because it is more out of the ordinary (and thus funnier) than when the master is a man. For example, an ad for PartyPoker.com, an online gambling site, features a man who is about to be spanked by a professional dominatrix when his wife walks in and yells “pervert” (Smith, Partridge, & Stark, 2007). A similar scenario appears in a commercial for Vizelia Tech- nologies, in which a gagged and handcuffed man is being whipped by a dominatrix when he learns that his wife is on her way to his office; thanks to a miraculous new technology, he manages to set various obstacles on her way to slow her down (Vizelia, 2011). A commercial for IKEA features a middle-aged couple’s sex play, in which a woman, dressed in black lingerie and stockings, is chasing a grunting, pig-mask-wearing man with a large fork. Just as she tears off his underwear, the daughter walks in with (presumably) her boyfriend (Williamson, 2006). Embarrassment ensues, suggesting it is time for the daughter to make her own home with IKEA’s help. A Roomba commercial features a dominatrix about to whip a man, gagged and bound in a chair, when an automatic vacuum (presumably programmed in advance) appears nonchalantly and vacuums the area; then, the Roomba logo and the statement “Never too busy to clean” appear in the middle of the screen (serge ed, 2013). Hundreds more videos, many of which are commercials, appear under the category “dominatrix media” on YouTube. Strengthening the appropriation of BDSM for humorous purposes, Fifty Shades, with its cliché Red Room of Pain full of whips and butt plugs, has also 162 mediated eros provided much fodder for comedy. Just consider the 2012 Saturday Night Live mock Mother’s Day commercial, in which three men attempting to surprise the women in their lives (two wives, one mother) find them masturbating while reading Fifty Shades (Meyers, 2012). In 2013, SNL followed up with a second Fifty Shades parody, portraying auditions for the screen version, in which a mock Steve Harvey (paired with a fake Rebel Wilson) mispronounces “vaginal sex,” and says “Do people still do that? …we go straight for the butt.” In the same parody, a mock Christoph Waltz is portrayed extending thanks to a mock Scarlett Johansson for agreeing to “indulge” him in his “sexual perversions” (Jost, 2013). Media’s stigmatization of “atypical” sexual preferences does not end with BDSM and fetishism; other alternative sexualities receive similar treatment because they happen to violate the social norm of (serial) monogamy, either by having romantic relationships/marriages with more than one sexual partner or by having zero sexual partners. Even though poly lifestyles and asexuality are not on the list of DSM-recognized “paraphilias,” it is instructive to see how equally difficult it has been for these minorities to earn respect in the court of public opinion. No politicians or celebrities have come forward to reveal themselves as polyamorous or asexual, and very few people are public about their lifestyle; for example, only 200 people attended the 2011 PolyDay in London, a city of 8 million (Cohen, 2012). New York’s Poly Pride Weekend was canceled in 2012, and does not appear to have been scheduled since. Why is the poly closet so hard to leave? The following section attempts to answer this question by exploring the media stereotypes and stigma surrounding this sexual identity.

Poly Lifestyles

Until recently, news and (to a lesser degree) entertainment media rarely portrayed polyamorous and polygamous relationships. These have long been lumped in with other alternative sexualities, as illustrated by the recent reve- lation that the creator of Wonder Woman—William Moulton Marston—was part of a polyamorous family, “with love making for all” (Lepore, 2014). The headline of an article in The Atlantic (Pollitt, 2014) implies that Marston’s secret polyamory underlies Wonder Woman’s “kinky feminist roots”—as though the comic heroine’s frequent BDSM-ish appearance in chains and other types of bondage (from which she always escapes) must have been kinksters, swingers, and other weirdos 163 related to her creator’s unusual living arrangement. Polyamory, bondage … what’s the difference? Polyamory, usually defined as romantic attachment to more than one partner, might have been very much hidden in Morston’s time—until swing- ing and group marriage appeared in the context of the sexual revolution of the 1960s and ’70s. Journalists paid some attention then, continuing to emphasize the norm of monogamy. For example, Life magazine carried two stories about polyamory during the tumultuous year of 1969, both highlighting the view that sexual triangles (or squares, or pentagons) are fine in theory but not in practice. The first, about group marriages in Sweden and Denmark, focused on a commune that considered all members to be “spiritual” spouses. How- ever, reported Life, the commune forbade sexual relations with more than one partner because “an earlier sexual triangle” had resulted in “a nervous breakdown.” According to one quoted member of the commune, theoretically “it should be possible to have sex with several members of the group. But it isn’t” (Durham, 1969, p. 40). The second Life story, about American communes, focused only on monogamy-practicing groups, where “sexual behavior is often surprisingly pristine,” thus implying that polyamory is the opposite of pristine (Olson, 1969, p. 16B). Then, “from 1980 until around 2005 … media coverage disappeared” (Cohen, 2012). Polyamory did not re-enter the hipster realm until the 21st century. In the last decade, however, numerous writers have attempted to make up for the long silence, striving to dispel the negative connotations that accompany polyamory. A story from The Guardian, for example, argues that a poly identity is no excuse for “shitty treatment” of a monogamous partner, and introduces the word “compersion”—“poly-speak for happiness in your partner’s romantic happiness” (O’Toole, 2015, np). An Atlantic Monthly story profiles a romantic triad, with the full names of all three partners, two of whom also engage in casual hookups (Khazan, 2014). “What I love about polyamory is that everything is up for modification … You don’t have to draw a line between who is a lover and who is a friend,” says one of the sources in Khazan’s article (np). The very definition of polyamory is also up in the air. Some news stories have equated polyamory to “open relationships”; others see them as committed relationships among three or more partners. Differences have been noted between European and American poly lifestyles: “In the US, polyamory has a hip connotation, and suffers from an epidemic of promiscuous people hiding behind the word. In the UK, polyamorists tend to be more hidden,” writes 164 mediated eros the polyamorous Arianne Cohen (2013, np), in a first-person narrative in The Guardian. In it, she also describes the experiences of other polyamorous people in London. Unlike their American counterparts, Cohen’s sources do not allow the use of their last names, and make clear distinctions between friends and lovers. “Polyamory is not a euphemism for sleeping around,” adds feminist journalist Laurie Penny, also in The Guardian. “It’s just another way of organising life, love and who does the dishes” (2013, np). While polyamory may be understood and stigmatized in different ways, polygamy is universally disdained. There are two main reasons: first, polygamy is illegal throughout the Western world; second, it is frequently associated with cultures of oppression, which tend to force women and girls into inequitable marriages. At the same time, polygamy is surprisingly easily exploited for sexualized entertainment. Bennion (2012) writes that “polygamists who read the news begin to see their world as composed of dark, perverse villains” (p. 166), but adds that recent U.S. televisions shows such as Big Love, Love Times Three, and Sister Wives represent “a more progressive, sexy depiction of polygamy” (p. 166). Despite these shows’ intent to portray polygamous families as similar to other suburban families—raising children and paying bills—a titillating sexual undertone appears to have been scripted to attract attention to the shows. For example, in Big Love, the senior wife has to chastise the youngest (third) wife for making “too much noise when having an orgasm” (Bennion, p. 170). Not only does this fit with the mainstream American sexual script of female coital vocalization (oh yeah, baby!), but it also proves the stud status of the polygamous family’s patriarch. The ability to perform with all females who happen to be sexually available is required by Western normative masculinity. The patriarch fits the bill, even though he has to consume “large quantities of Viagra to keep up with his wives’ voracious sexual appetites” (Bennion, p. 173). Big Love’s writers are so carried away with the theme of perverse and overabundant sexuality, according to Bennion (2012), that they ignore the Mormon rule forbidding the family patriarch from having sex with more than one wife on the same night. In fact, the opposite is portrayed in one of the episodes and also implicitly throughout the show, with its “indulgence in soft porn” and “nonstop groping” (p. 173). In real Mormon life, Bennion suggests, “most polygamous wives are not that sexually obsessed with their husband,” and sexual experimentation in the form of “nasty sex” is highly unlikely (p. 172). It is perhaps because of these depictions that the wives on Sister Wives, a reality show about a real polygamist family, have felt obligated to mention that they are not into “kinky threesomes” (p. 187). kinksters, swingers, and other weirdos 165

To summarize, having multiple partners is not something that most poly practitioners are willing to share with the neighbors or the world via mediated discourses. It might be a long time (if this ever happens) before polyamorous triads begin kissing in front of city halls across the Western world and being sympathetically portrayed for their courageous coming out, like members of the LGBT community have been for approximately the last decade. Next, what about the news and entertainment depictions of people who have no interest in sex whatsoever? The leaders of such pristine lifestyles must be the media’s darlings because they fit the status quo so well. Alas, asexuals are just another kind of sexual “others,” as will be outlined in the following section.

Asexuality

A Lexis-Nexis search reveals that asexuality is a new source of sociosexual stigma. Unlike other unorthodox sexualities, it was neither medicalized as a disorder by 18th- and 19th-century European psychiatrists nor brought to the forefront during the sexual revolution. Beyond its mentions in science stories about asexual plants and animals, asexuality did not even enter the public discourse until the 1990s, when some began speculating that Michael Jackson might be an asexual. At the time, one of the first popular explanations of asexuality appeared in a story in the Palm Beach Post: “For the truly asexual man or woman, the social pressure to conform can be as cruel and destructive as the pressure some young gays and lesbians are under to feign an interest they just don’t feel” (Hayes, 1993, p. 1D). But there was no organized movement of asexuals in the 1990s, and no sexy news pegs provided by activists, so media’s interest waned. Occasional features profiled asexuals, depicting them not as sexual minorities but as people who choose not to have sex—right next to celibates. A case in point is one Daily Mirror story, which profiled an asexual writer based in Amsterdam right next to a celibate Buddhist and an unmarried Catholic woman (Sutcliffe, 2002). It was only after the Asexuality Visibility and Education Network (AVEN) was founded in 2001 and gathered steam over the following years that well- respected publications picked up on a few informational stories about asexuals. Outside the U.S., media almost uniformly depicted asexuality as a type of sexual orientation in its own right. This was illustrated by news stories in England (e.g., Brown, 2004), Scotland (e.g., Reynolds, 2004), Canada (e.g., Sokoloff, 2004), and Australia (e.g., Yapp, 2004). 166 mediated eros

However, asexuality received no accurate coverage by American media in the early 2000s. This is surprising for at least three reasons: AVEN is a U.S. organization; Americans pride themselves on respecting individual rights; and asexuality fits the culture of sexual conservatism in the U.S. Yet, the few American news stories about asexuals that appeared in the aughts were dismissive and insulting—not necessarily because of their content, but mostly because of their placement and headlines. For example, the St. Louis Post- Dispatch featured asexuals in its “news of the weird” rubric (Shepherd, 2004), while the New York Daily News ran a story about asexuals under the derisive headline “Sex poll sez 1% always have headache” (Lite, 2004). The next catalyst for coverage was the documentary Asexual (Chevigny, Davenport, Pinder, & Tucker, 2011), which depicted asexuality as a type of sexual orientation that is not a matter of individual choice and thus very different from celibacy. The film offered striking portrayals not only of the suffering of this previously voiceless minority, but also of the discrimination and ridicule asexuals face both from mainstream heterosexuals and from gay and leather activists. In one of the documentary’s most poignant scenes, asexuals are marching in a gay pride parade in San Francisco, while onlookers openly laugh at them. “They reproduce by budding, I suppose,” says one young man. But why would anyone at a gay pride parade judge another sexual minority by its lack of reproductive potential? This is a powerful reflection of how cultural narratives about the value of sex have become second nature even to those who explicitly challenge them—like gay activists. Further in the documentary, an older man in a rainbow hat says he avoided taking the asexuality flyer “like the plague” because “that’s scary.” A woman also declines the flyer: “No, no. You’re polluting my mind! You know what, I totally respect you, though. Just give us 20 feet, okay?!” Another man hollers belligerently: “I pity your poor soul because I don’t stand for what you stand for.” Much has changed in understanding asexuals and recognizing their rights since the documentary’s release. A 2014 New York Times review of the book The Invisible Orientation offers sensible answers to commonly asked questions about what is now being called the “fourth orientation” (Altman, 2014). For example: Do asexual people masturbate? (Answer: Some, but their libido is not directed at anyone in particular). Can asexual people fall in love? (Answer: Yes, although 16 percent are aromantic.) Do asexual people marry? (Answer: Some do, but they face marriage consummation laws in some states, the possibility that they will be considered ineligible to adopt a child, and the possibility of spousal rape.) kinksters, swingers, and other weirdos 167

The Times article also introduces new terms to describe sexual orientations—“allosexuals” (the majority of people) are those who are not asexual, “grey-asexuals” only rarely experience sexual attraction, and “demisexuals” experience sexual attraction only after establishing an emotional bond with a partner. Finally, the story reinforces the discourse about sexuality as inborn: “[We] are born this way. We didn’t choose to not have sexual attraction, it’s just how we’re wired” (Altman, 2014).

Conclusion

In spite of the phenomenal popularity of Fifty Shades of Grey, conventional, guy- or girl-next-door sadomasochists, fetishists, poly practitioners, and asexuals are yet to make their leap into popular imagination and acceptance—a move that, for the most part, has already been accomplished by many members of the gay community. Sophisticated and nonjudgmental portrayals of alternative sexualities have begun to appear, but they are rare and limited to specific publications, such asThe Atlantic and The Guardian. The wall of stigma facing sexual minorities (the largest of which are the BDSM and fetish communities) remains high for now. In part, this is because contemporary psychiatric science still defines kink as one of several “atypical” sexual behaviors, which can be considered mental disorders in some circumstances. It is also because even open-minded scholars of sexuality, who have defended or at least not opposed gay rights, have been less supportive of other sexual minorities. Schur (1988), for example, argued that sadomasochism is a reflection of Western sexuality’s depersonalization because kink prioritizes “standard” scenarios and illustrates “the ascendancy of fantasy over reality” (p. 68). But is a BDSM role-playing dungeon really more depersonalized than a routine intercourse between a man fantasizing about a busty “co-ed” and joylessly thrusting in the pursuit of a meek orgasm, and a bored, tired, or annoyed woman, faking a loud climax? By its self-transcendental theatrical nature, kink at least elicits the notion of what Foucault has called ars erotica (erotic arts); against that backdrop, Viagra-pumped normative hypocrisy appears arid, artless, and driven by categorical imperatives. It is only because of the influence of sociocultural sexual scripts that we judge the former to be somehow more perverse than the latter. And it is because of the same limiting influence that stigma has long surrounded those whose number of romantic and sexual partners is different from exactly one—be it zero (for asexuals) or two or more (for polysexuals).

·7· just what the doctor ordered

The Scientification of Sex and Sexual Dysfunction

When Alfred Kinsey published his first report,Sexual Behavior in the Human Male, in 1948, its findings became “the number one subject of after-dinner conversations and for jokes by radio comedians” (Bliven, 1948). A New York Times story compared its significance to that of Karl Marx’sDas Kapital, Darwin’s The Origin of Species, and Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations (Gumpert, 1948). Soon after the 800-page research report hit the market, it had sold 200,000 copies—a record number at the time (Goodman & Maggio, 2005). Popular culture took immediate notice. “According to the Kinsey report, ev’ry average man you know, much prefers to play his favorite sport when the temperature is low,” pronounced Cole Porter’s (1948) song “Too Darn Hot.” And Martha Raye, in a swing titled “Ooh, Dr. Kinsey”, sang: “I used to think my lover knew some fine, fancy tricks, but according to Kinsey’s data he’s strictly from the sticks.” The song was banned from radio stations for its suggestive lyrics, and as a result sold multiple records, prompting Raye to joke about writing the censors a thank-you note (“Dr. Kinsey Gets Free,” 1949). Since then, the effects of Kinsey’s work and that of the scholars who followed in his footsteps, William Masters and Virginia Johnson, has continued to ripple through popular culture. This is illustrated by the persistent patterns of news coverage that (a) overemphasize the biological aspects of sexuality over 170 mediated eros sociocultural ones; (b) obsess over statistics to which audiences can compare their own sexual performances; and (c) obfuscate the emotional complexity of sex in the quest for quantifiable self-improvement. Both editors and audiences routinely fail to see the irony in headlines such as “Pas De Deux of Sexuality is Written in the Genes” (Wade, 2007), which uses socially constructed sexiness (the French ballet term is a signifier for the erotic “other”) to announce a story about the biological roots of sexuality. Further, Kinsey’s notion that the only sexual dysfunctions are abstinence, celibacy, and delayed marriage (Goodman & Maggio, 2005) continues to influence the ways in which sexuality is viewed in the Western world. Sang George Michael in “I Want Your Sex”: “… [S]ex is natural, sex is good, not everybody does it, but everybody should” (1987). This chapter explores the media representations of what Foucault (1976/1990) has termed “scientia sexualis” (p. 68), or sexual science, to describe the ushering in of medically categorized, almost exclusively “by- nature” patterns or arousal and orgasm into public discourses on sex. The scientification and medicalization of sexuality, of course, are not an isolated phenomenon. A similar pattern is evident in regard to many other basic human activities—such as eating, sleeping, and speaking—even though their mechanisms remain shrouded in many a scientific mystery. Left to popular science, however, we are invited to see them as simple and predictable. We will be okay, media tell us, if we speak in full sentences by the age of 3, sleep eight hours a night, and eat 2,000 calories a day. Quantities and measurements have come to the forefront. As a result, something as pleasurable as food is no longer associated as much with appetite and taste as it is with concepts that carry negative connotations—calories, trans-fats, and eating disorders. In the realm of sex, popular scientification is a particularly multifaceted phenomenon. Although the current spotlight is on physiology and genetics, Freudian and Jungian interpretations of sexuality continue to influence representations of sexuality in popular discourses. This is especially evident in entertainment content. Many feature films, including relatively recent ones (i.e., Eyes Wide Shut), include psychoanalytic references to sexuality as a dark, demonic, and repressed force. Yet other films are constructed “around Lacan’s psychoanalytic observation of the impossibility of a ‘truly complementary’ sexual relation” (Krzywinska, 2006, p. 45). These seemingly profound but vague speculations about sex and the human psyche, based on scholarship that is more than a century old, coexist with sensationalist coverage of contemporary biomedical research, often presented without understanding of the scientific method or of any single study’s limitations. An important aspect of just what the doctor ordered 171 the current pattern of “scientia sexualis” discourses involves media depictions and suggested remedies for the various failures of human sexual performances. An applied aspect of scholarly research, the medicalization of sexual dysfunction directly affects audiences and thus receives more media attention than basic sexual science. How do such media frames reflect ingrained cultural narratives about sex? How do they benefit the public, if at all? This chapter explores these questions by analyzing both the basic and applied aspects of “scientia sexualis” in media content. The analysis begins by contextualizing the mass popularization of sexual science, which started in the last century. It was this contextualiza- tion of sex within popular science that set the stage for the endless pursuit of solutions to real and imagined sexual problems. Next, the chapter explores patterns in media discourses about sexual dysfunctions, both those accepting of and those challenging medicalized perspectives on sex and sexuality. Let us begin the investigation by unpacking the contentious relationship between sexual science (often underfunded and politically inconvenient) and its twisted-mirror reflections in public discourses. This is the subject of the following section.

The Forbidden Fruit

Sexology was invented in Europe in the 19th century, but has been an “American speciality” since after World War II (Eder, Hall, & Hekma, 1999, p. 16). But this does not reflect an intentional priority on the part of the U.S. As a research discipline, sexology has been and remains severely underfunded and under-appreciated. Attacks on sex research have been frequent and regular, as illustrated by the U.S. Senate’s withholding of funding for two sexuality surveys in 1992, and the later near-revocation of funding for four National Institutes of Health sexuality studies by the U.S. House of Representatives (Epstein, 2007). Studying sex is routinely treated as a frivolous endeavor that lacks credibility—not only by policy makers, but also by institutions of higher education. The resulting aura of danger and the “taboo” status of sex research only make it a more sensational topic, easily exploited by various forms of media. The thorny paths of sex research have been popularized through dramatic depictions of the firing of celebrity scholar Bill Masters by his employer Washing- ton University in the show Masters of Sex (Ashford, Maier, & Sheen, 2013) 172 mediated eros and of Kinsey’s career debacles in the film Kinsey (Mutrux & Condon, 2004). The following sub-sections discuss the social and cultural factors that underlie the difficult trajectories of individual scholars.

Studying “Sin”

One reason for the political and academic suppression of sex research in the U.S. is that it is often seen as “inconvenient” science that contradicts many people’s religious beliefs—not unlike other contentious topics, such as evolution, stem cell research, and climate change (Epstein, 2007). Journalists habitually cover inconvenient science through so-called “truth claims,” by giving equal space both to recognized scientific perspectives and to politically based and maverick points of view (Dunwoody, 2008). The consequences to individual academic careers can be devastating. This dynamic is illustrated in the film Kinsey (Mutrux & Condon, 2004), where Alfred Kinsey, after losing his funding from the Rockefeller Foundation following the inconvenient findings of his reports, complains: “My name has been dragged through the mud in every newspaper and magazine in the country” (np). Little wonder that “Long after Kinsey, Only the Brave Study Sex,” in the words of a headline in The New York Times (Carey, 2004). The article notes that “the nation that invented Viagra and ‘Sex and the City’ is still queasy about exploring sexual desire and arousal” (Carey, np). The reason, the news story continues, is because “many devout believers see any effort to catalog sexual behavior as akin to publishing a field guide to carnal sin, an invitation to deviancy” (Carey, np). Because money determines most priorities in U.S. politics and academia, disapproval for sex science is most commonly expressed through financial constraints—justified by the argument that American tax- payers should not have to pay for research on “sinful” behaviors. As one British columnist remarks, “funding studies of masturbating women comes up against American prudishness” (Turner, 2013b, p. 12). To a lesser degree, the political distaste for sex research also reflects the so-called function script (Tiefer, 2007). This script posits that sex is knowable: It involves fast and frequent penile-vaginal intercourse (preferably between married heterosexual people), which ends in an orgasm—for the male partner at least. This simplistic perspective of what counts as “sex” is humorously represented in a Saturday Night Live skit portraying a phone conversation between Monica Lewinsky and her confidante, Linda Tripp. In it, Lewinsky denies having had sex with President Bill Clinton because, “Linda, having just what the doctor ordered 173 sex is intercourse” (Herlihy & McKay, 1998). If sex is so simple, mull proponents of the function script, what is there to study? Heterosexual intercourse is instinctive, natural, and the prerequisite to the survival of the species, the argument goes—yet, this perspective ignores “a multitude of practices and a cacophony of competing discourses” (Epstein, 2007, p. 259). In-depth media coverage of sexology is also limited, often for fear that it may be considered distasteful or even offend audiences. For example, the script of Kinsey was rejected by 87 studios and film companies, and the production secured funding only in the last three months before filming (Dutka, 2005). Likely for the same reasons, media also rarely communicate the notion of “strong objectivity” (Harding, 1995, p. 331), which is the view that marginalized people can provide “less false” perspectives than the presumably neutral members of a dominant group (p. 346). This recognition has allowed self-identified gay and lesbian researchers to study homosexuality, which was once seen as a non-objective, ignoring the fact that heterosexual researchers could not be objective about homosexuality either (Gagnon & Parker, 1995). Lengthier and more detailed coverage of sexuality research has begun appearing, however, and it is often produced by journalists and freelancers who self-identify as sexual minorities. For example, Benoit Denizet-Lewis, a contributing writer to The New York Times, wrote a lengthy analysis titled “The Scientific Quest to Prove that Bisexuality Exists” (2014) from his explicitly identified perspective as a gay man. To understand contemporary research in bisexuality, he personally participated in studies of sexual orientation at two universities—one using penile circumference and the other pupil dilation to measure arousal in response to visual stimuli. The first study confirmed his gay identity, and the second challenged it, showing he was aroused by some pornography involving women and may be better classified as bisexual. Denizet-Lewis skillfully wove his own experiences into an explanation of the studies’ methodology and limitations, as well as the complexities of sexual versus romantic attraction (which can be completely divergent at times). Assum- ing his data were discarded (since his knowledge of the studies’ hypotheses could have influenced the results), such a first-person perspective is immensely useful in laying out the complexities of sexual orientation research.

Ideological Influences

In spite of the presence of some thoughtful narratives, current media coverage still uses traditional gender narratives as the essential prisms through which 174 mediated eros sex research is interpreted by journalists. For example, a news article about a study showing more maternally inherited DNA in human genes emphasized one of the possible interpretations of the data—the historical commonality of polygamy arrangements in which a few men have had multiple wives, allowing more women to reproduce (Feltman, 2014). This fits in with the contemporary view that men need more sexual variety, but fails to account for alternative explanations, such as higher historical mortality among men due to wars and hunting accidents. Indeed, if men are so sexual, could a large portion of the male population remain celibate over the course of many millennia, simply because of an inability to afford a wife? Occasionally newsworthy to the mainstream media because of ideological controversies, sex research is otherwise the darling of slow news days and of media outlets specializing in content aimed at creating or reinforcing audiences’ sexual insecurities. One of the functions of science journalism is to offer uncertainty reduction (Dunwoody, 2008), but media coverage of sex research can sometimes have the opposite effect. This is especially because stories about sex research tend to appear in media outlets that have neither sufficient space nor the staff time and expertise to report on it. It must be fascinating for Women’s Health magazine’s female readers, for example, to know that they are more likely to orgasm during sex with more masculine- looking men (Monaghan, Risher, & Carlson, 2012). But this information is also absurdly unhelpful, given the lack of a definition of “masculine” appearance and considering that—according to another piece of illuminating sex research covered by Cosmopolitan—men with more “conventionally masculine” faces are also more likely to be gay (Breslaw, 2013). Ladies, if you can persuade a masculine-looking man to have sex with you, even though he might not be into you, you would have the time of your life! Little wonder that sexologists are often uncomfortable interacting with journalists, in particular magazine writers and bloggers (McBride et al., 2007). Sex scholars especially dislike media’s tendency to oversimplify research or take it out of context in order “to sensationalize, titillate, or create controversy” (McBride et al., p. 351). Many have been selective in discussing their scholarship. For example, Gagnon and colleagues, whose work focused on sexual scripts, tried to avoid the bowdlerization of their work … by working with a skilled science journalist” (Kimmel, 2007, p. xiv). To add insult to the injury, the sexuality and lives of sex scholars may end up being interpreted through an old-fashioned psychoanalytical lens— precisely the one they have actively sought to discredit through their own just what the doctor ordered 175 research. This is especially evident in the recent entertainment-style depictions of Kinsey’s and Masters’ uses of their own sexuality in research. This is the subject of the following subsection.

Entertainment over Science

When sex scholars are fictionalized, it is often through a sensationalized and sexualized lens. The story plots tend to employ Campbell’s (1968) hero quest narrative, in which sexuality research leads to personal growth and self-discovery. A case in point is the film A Dangerous Method (Thomas & Cronenberg, 2011). The primary purpose of this storytelling approach, which glosses over the methodological challenges of studying human sexuality, is to entertain audiences. The show Masters of Sex, for instance, owes much of its popular appeal to the depictions of regular intercourses between Bill Masters and his collaborator Virginia Johnson (the two later marry, but not until Masters divorces his first wife). The Masters-Johnson sex measures end up in a large dataset, even though their knowledge of their own hypotheses has likely skewed their data. The show also frequently portrays Johnson sharing with study participants the hypotheses being tested (for example, that clitoral and vaginal orgasms are physiologically identical)—a disclosure that would be discouraged by contemporary research standards. All this makes for excellent entertainment, but what does it mean for the academic credibility of sexology? Other fictionalized accounts minimize the extent of sex scholars’ sexual experimentation because of fear of alienating mass audiences and losing the fairly mainstream “R” rating. For example, the filmKinsey (Mutrux & Condon, 2004) depicts Kinsey as having a single homosexual experience with one of his students and collaborators. In reality, the sex scholar had many more homosexual attractions and experiences, including sex with participants in his research interviews at gay clubs in Chicago (Goodman & Maggio, 2005). The extent of Kinsey’s homosexual experimentation appears to have been censored in the movie, even though—scientifically speaking—it is of great importance because it poses a crucial challenge to the validity of some of Kinsey’s data. The film offers a strong cautionary tale against sexual experimentation, not because it jeopardizes the research methodology and the credibility of one’s findings, but because it leads to emotional attachment. In line with audiences’ expectations, Clyde Martin, Kinsey’s student and lover, criticizes his mentor for treating sex as “nothing more than friction and harmless fun” instead of “the whole thing” (Mutrux & Condon, 2004). 176 mediated eros

Many more important questions also remain unaddressed. For example: How did Kinsey’s bisexuality influence the phrasing of his sex surveys? How did it color his exploration of straight-identified men’s homosexual activities? If Kinsey and company accidentally discovered that sex leads to emotional attachment for many people—a phenomenon explained by current neuroscience with the release of the bonding hormones oxytocin and vasopressin during and after orgasm (e.g., Blaicher, Gruber, Bieglmayer, Blaicher, Knogler, &, Huber, 1999; Kruger et al., 2003)—why did they never report this groundbreaking finding? Little wonder that sexology continues to be viewed as a semi-science, a frivolous discipline in which mavericks appear to study sex in whatever random ways they please. Entertainment portrayals also tend to suggest that sex scholars, such as Kinsey and Masters, often choose the subject of sex because of their own emotional baggage and/or unspeakable sexual urges, which—in a Freudian or Lacanian narrative tradition—they seem to have repressed! For example, both Masters of Sex and Kinsey emphasize father-attachment issues; both sex researchers’ fathers are portrayed as dogmatic, cruel, and cold. Both researchers also unconsciously struggle against aspects of their fathers’ personalities within their own characters. While these narrative elements enrich the stories, provide emotional context, and add to the entertainment value of each of the productions, they also strengthen the stereotype that sex researchers are emotionally and mentally unstable. Such depictions further challenge the credibility of sexuality research and jeopardize public support for it—unless, of course, it falls under the category of Research You Can Use. When it comes to cataloguing and understanding vastly diverse sexual behaviors, this qualifies as research on sin. But when it comes to the science of reliable erections and permanently aroused wives, sex research all of a sudden gels with the ideology of family values. We are only doing the missionary, after all! These media depictions of politically correct sexual science are the subject of the second part of this chapter, which follows below.

The Heteronormative Function Script

Scientific knowledge about sexuality—or, more accurately, sexual physiology— has found extensive use in the past decades as a “fix” for sexual behaviors that fall short of social norms and certain arbitrary, often unattainable standards of just what the doctor ordered 177 heterosexual masculinity and femininity. Schwartz (2007) suggests that sexual dysfunction, especially among men, is implicitly seen not as a concern for the emotional suffering of the afflicted or the loss of their sexual pleasure, but rather as a red flag representing a failure of the heterosexual and normative virility that underlies masculinity. Here is how Tiefer (2007) describes the consequences of such a view:

The result is a narrowing and freezing of acceptable sexual performance into a sexual function script of frequent sexual activity, regular erections “sufficient for intercourse,” no delayed or premature orgasm/ejaculation, regular vaginal lubrication, absence of pain, and reliable orgasm. Such a function script becomes the standardized norm for successful sexuality and is treated as if it were universal, built-in, involuntary, and necessary for health, like breathing or urination … Just as the alcohol industry needs heavy drinkers, a vigorous sexuopharmacology industry requires scripts promoting high levels of intercourse. (pp. 243–244)

It is for these reasons that sexual performance—not desire, not pleasure, and not meaning—is now part of the public discourse about health throughout the Western world. Oosterhuis (1999a) notes that, in the context of the Nether- lands, “[s]exual liberation not only invoked new sexual norms about optimal sexual functioning, but … problems in these areas also gained more prominence and were more intensely experienced at the individual level” (p. 86). Eder (1999) offers similar observations about Germany, pointing a finger at media’s obsession with sexual satisfaction. He argues that “the manifold practices presented in sex-talk shows on television” have no grounds in average people’s sexual lives, and that the intensely mediated conversation about sex has resulted in “a decline in sexual lust and a spread of erotic insensibility” (p. 165). Given the mechanistic nature of the function script, it is hardly surprising that medical professionals who are not experts on sexuality—such as urologists—have contributed the most to the recent scholarly research on sexual dysfunction in both men and women (Tiefer, 2007). Further, the heteronormative sociocultural patterns mentioned earlier both underlie sex-related research (or the obstacles placed before it) and motivate its goals. The current ideology of sex as a good to be consumed—as much as possible, with as little effort as possible—guarantees the drug industry that its efforts to develop pharmaceutical treatments of sexual dysfunction will remain highly profitable. It is fair to acknowledge, however, that the medicalization of sexual dysfunction is not an entirely contemporary phenomenon. The next subsection 178 mediated eros offers a brief historical context of the pharmaceutical management of sexual desire, pleasure, and performance.

Historical Context

Heteronormative ideologies are evident even in the earliest definitions and views on sexual dysfunction. Historically, the emphasis has been placed almost exclusively on male impotence, seen as a problem mostly in sexual cultures emphasizing “heterosexual penetration rather than non-insertive sex” (Hall, 1999, p. 32). Foster (1999) reports that in New England in the 17th century, male sexual incapacity (defined as lack of an erection sufficient for intercourse) was the reason cited in one in six divorce petitions filed by women at the time. Impotence was seen as problematic because it led to (a) infertility and (b) erosion of familial bonds. Similar concerns have been noted in 18th-century Britain, where “the rather dark vision of sex: imperative, phallic, and threatened in men, passive and victimized in women” resulted in “a flourishing quack industry in remedies for male sexual debility” (Hall, 1999, pp. 32–33). The reproductive role of sex greatly influenced this early construction of sexual dysfunction, considering the assumed need for both partners’ orgasm in order to conceive a child. (This 17th-century view about the centrality of female pleasure to conception still influences sexual discourses, as illustrated by the much criticized 2012 statement made by Missouri politician Todd Akin about how women cannot get pregnant from rape.) Male impotence had serious social consequences because men who were judged dysfunctional could not remarry (Foster, 1999). But women were not exactly empowered in this social context because, Foster argues, they “often bore the brunt of male insecurities about masculinity” (p. 739). For example, witches were often blamed for casting ED spells that would cause husbands to see their wives as “hideous and undesirable and thus disabled the intercourse” (p. 739). Substances capable of enhancing sexual desire and pleasure, including herbs and aphrodisiacs (such as yohimbe bark and Spanish fly), have been in use for millennia. Contemporary research confirms the effectiveness of some of these treatments. For example, yohimbine (contained in yohimbe bark) has been found to be effective in treating so-called “psychogenic impotence” (Reid et al., 1987). Yohimbine is also a so-called adrenergic receptor agonist, meaning that it is a substance known to improve emotional memory—possibly leading to bonding between sexual partners after even a single encounter (O’Carroll, Drysdale, Cahill, Shajahan, & Ebmeier, 1999). Cantharidin (Spanish fly) has just what the doctor ordered 179 an ionotropic effect, meaning that it makes the heart pump and muscles con- tract harder (Linck et al., 1996). Without a doubt, these effects can enhance sex, but, unfortunately, cantharidin also happens to be highly toxic. While early treatments for sexual dysfunction entail certain elements of shamanic mystery and magical thinking, the contemporary medicalization of sexual performance is a product of Western, post-Enlightenment culture. More concretely, it could be viewed as a vestige of the Victorian-era “scientific ordering of daily life” (Lofgren, 1987, p. 41), when science found use in all aspects of people’s existence, including their sex lives. The medical establishment began to claim its share of the sexual dysfunction treatment market early. For example, in 1856, one Dr. Heath, whose office was located at 850 Broadway in New York, advertised in the classifieds section of The New York Times his ability to cure “debility of the sexual system” (“Special Notices,” p. 5). The unique element of the contemporary medicalization of sexual performance, however, is that what was once a correction of some vague “debility” has been explicated into specific goals of sexual performance—how often, for how long, and to what result (preferably orgasm). The routine focus is on sexual mechanics (i.e., get it up, get it in), not on individuals’ or couples’ subjective sexual experiences. Because of this functionalist perspective, science has routinely tried to “help” people conform to sociocultural norms of sexual performance, including through various attempts to change gay people into heterosexuals, by using measures as extreme as electroshock therapy and the insertion of electrodes in the brain. A truly poster story for the function-at-any-cost script is the case of James C. Burt, an Ohio gynecologist, who from 1966 to 1987 routinely reshaped thousands of vaginas (often without his patients’ knowledge, while performing episiotomies after birth) to provide more clitoral contact during intercourse and help women accomplish the feat of coital orgasm. Burt lost his medical license after several women filed lawsuits because of surgery complications, including painful intercourse and bladder infections. According to a New York Times article, here is how Burt explained the surgery in a self-published article: “Women are structurally inadequate for intercourse. This is a pathological condition amenable to surgery’’ (Wilkerson, 1988). What is remarkable in the Burt case is that, for more than two decades, he was either ignored by the mainstream media or portrayed in a positive light. According to a People article (Brower & Breu, 1989), he appeared on the Phil Donahue Show and was featured in Playgirl for his supposedly groundbreaking 180 mediated eros surgery “helping” women. From a journalistic perspective, Burt became the Big Bad Wolf only after the lawsuits. These provided the “news peg,” which in journalistic jargon means an episodic occurrence that makes a long-drawn story suddenly newsworthy, to examine his activities. Until Burt’s vaginal reshaping was brought before the courts, it never occurred to journalists to inquire how it was possible for all women to have a pathological condition requiring surgery. Not only does Burt’s case offer a prime example of an “ideology altering anatomy” (Reiss, 1986, p. 145), but it is also an implicit reinforcement of the sexual script of the coitally orgasmic woman, discussed in earlier chapters. This is a central element of the heteronormative expectations faced by women. These are the subject of the following subsection.

The Function Script for Women

Media portrayals of female sexual dysfunction have been sparser than those of male impotence, although coverage of certain cherry-picked “problems” (mostly low sex drive and anorgasmia) is on the rise. The emphasis in such coverage is on biomedical rather than sociocultural discourses (Hartley & Tieffer, 2003). News about female sexual dysfunction cite, for example, neu- roimaging studies comparing the brains of women who have low desire versus women with “normal” desire. Yes, it is well-known that “for both men and women … drug companies often promote an unattainably high ideal of arousal” (e.g., Urist, 2014). But media are not likely to focus on studies that serve the public interest without providing an easy fix. For example, studies show that women who suffer domestic violence—even if it is “only” verbal and emotional abuse—often experience long-term trauma, which can manifest itself through sexual dysfunction (e.g., Roberts, Williams, Lawrence, & Raphael, 1999). Unfortunately, this is not information one would find in Cosmopolitan magazine’s stash of articles providing orgasmic advice. Reflecting the biomedical focus of contemporary sex science, lack of sexual interest is the most frequently mentioned female “dysfunction.” This is not surprising: It represents men’s complaints about not getting enough sex and the desire to solve it without any effort, by simply popping a pill. Welcome to the frenzy to find a “female Viagra,” a term that has been used in several hundred news articles worldwide, as indicated by a 2014 Lexis-Nexis search. Both well-meaning journalists and feminist groups like the National Organization of Women have publicly declared their hope for a “female Viagra.” just what the doctor ordered 181

The obstacle to such a miracle pill is that increased blood flow to women’s genitals does not necessarily translate into greater sexual desire (Komaroff, 2014). In 2013, the Food and Drug Administration rejected yet another proposal for a substance intended to boost female sexual desire. According to Fuqua (2012), the media coverage of “female Viagra” illustrates how “male masculinity has been culturally constructed as raw and natural, while female femininity is masquerade and artifice” (p. 127). Little wonder that it is so hard to find a medical (or magical) “solution” for these finicky women! There is, sadly, a transactional quality ascribed to sex in most news updates about the quest for a “female Viagra.” Male sexual pleasure and satisfaction are implicitly prioritized, as illustrated by the positive news coverage that one proposed version of a “female Viagra” received for allegedly being able to not only boost sex drive, but also help women lose weight (O’Donoghue, 2014). Give your sweetie a pill, and she will always be (a) horny and (b) skinny. It is, unfortunately, rare for media writers to criti- cally examine this long-espoused “need” for a female desire-enhancing “little pink pill” that would provide the proper gendered match to the “little blue pill” (Viagra’s pop-culture nickname). Most journalists hold back criticism, lest they appear non-objective. Because of media’s generally tacit endorsement of the medicalization of female desire, critiques have been left to advocates and experts. For example, sex educator Emily Nagoski (2015) questions why the proposed “female Viagra” treats hypoactive sexual desire, even though this definition has been removed from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, the official guide to psychiatric diagnoses. The reason is that many women “experience desire as responsive, emerging in response to, rather than in antici- pation of, erotic stimulation. Arousal first, then desire” (Nagoski, np). She adds: “What these women need is not medical treatment, but a thoughtful exploration of what creates desire between them and their partners … Feeling judged or broken for their sexuality is exactly what they don’t need” (Nagoski, np). Social changes, such as decisively ending the epidemic of violence against women, could be more effective ways of improving female sexual function than any pill. But large-scale, social-level changes would threaten the current medicalization of sex, which represents “the incursion of an individualized, evolution-derived, biologically based, disease and malfunction model” (Tiefer, 1996, p. 255). UK columnist Janice Turner offers a refreshing challenge to 182 mediated eros this, painting some women’s low desire as a reflection of the sexually coercive nature of patriarchy:

… I wondered how a man would feel, knowing that his partner could only bear to make sweet, sweet love with him after popping a pill. What a ghastly reminder of your lumpen undesirability. Wouldn’t you first rush to the gym, investigate a new haircut or a swot up on bedroom moves? Wouldn’t your own lust be dampened, knowing hers was just a pharmaceutical fraud? Men roar with laughter when I say this. What daft self-critical female thinking. Who cares if her ardour comes courtesy of a drug. (Besides, doesn’t a second cocktail have much the same effect?) (Turner, 2013a, p. 20)

Unlike the “problem” with women’s hypoactive desire, truly painful sexual dysfunctions—such as dyspareunia (painful discomfort during intercourse) and vaginismus (involuntary muscle spasm that precludes vaginal penetration)—have never been in the public spotlight. The New York Times’ online archive contains only 19 articles mentioning dyspareunia and only 14 mentioning vaginismus; all are either from the 1970s or from the 2000s (it appears the Times did not concern itself with vaginismus and dyspareunia at all during the 1980s and ’90s). By comparison, the Times’ archive contains more than 2,000 articles mentioning “erectile dysfunction.” It is not hard to imagine that if a sexual dysfunction associated with severe male pain during intercourse existed, it would have received much more extensive media coverage than dyspareunia and vaginismus. Media also virtually never illuminate the sociocultural diversity of female sexual dysfunctions. Perhaps such a focus would invite too much of an uncomfortable reminder that sociocultural factors matter to sexual desire and pleasure at least as much as biology. For example, vaginismus is prevalent in countries like Iran and Turkey, where much social emphasis is placed on women’s dramatic loss of virginity during their wedding night (Farnam, Janghorbani, Merghati-Khoei, & Raisi, 2014; Yasan & Gurgen, 2008). In these sociocultural contexts, vaginismus reflects women’s fear of pain; by contrast, in Western countries vaginismus is most often related to childhood sexual abuse or to homosexual orientation (Farnam et al.). Whether this divergence reflects actual differences (i.e., childhood abuse and same-sex preference are more common in the West) or self-censorship (i.e., women in Islamic cultures almost never report abuse and lesbianism for fear of losing their lives) remains unclear. In sum, for women the heteronormative function script delivers mostly guilt and shame. This is reflected in the framing of many media messages just what the doctor ordered 183 about female sexual dysfunction. For men, by contrast, the messages are frequently ones of encouragement and hope. The different emphasis in men’s script is detailed in the following paragraphs.

The Function Script for Men

The most important element of the heteronormative function script for men is to achieve an erection because no intercourse is possible without it. And not just any intercourse—heterosexual intercourse! Popular culture views men’s erections as “both a perk and prerequisite of heterosexuality— its absence, or the presence of ambivalence, is supposed to be instructive of malfunction” (Schwartz, 2007, p. 87). Indeed, straight rappers routinely sing about their erections, while openly gay and bisexual performers do not. Erec- tions are socially unimportant if they are not occurring due to the presence of a woman—or at least the fantasy about a woman who meets contemporary physical attractiveness norms (young, busty, long-legged, blond, etc.). But that does not mean that women have any significance in this script, beyond being sexual objects. It is also unimportant whether erections induced by sexuopharmaceuticals please the men’s partners. For example, some of the questions asked of male participants in erectile dysfunction (ED) drug trials could have been lifted from any cliché-bursting ’90s sitcom (i.e., Seinfeld and Everybody Loves Raymond): How often do you engage in sexual activity? Does it end with your orgasm? The focus on men’s pleasure is illustrated by the fact that female partners in heterosexual dyads are not invited to participate in ED drugs’ post-trial evaluations (Tiefer, 2007). It is the male ego that is being treated first and foremost, but at the same time “Viagra discourse makes available a certain way of recognizing the impermanence and fragility of what is usually defined as hegemonic male (hetero)sexuality” (Fuqua, 2012, p. 127). Apparently, many men need help dealing with such fragility. According to the director of the San Diego Sexual Medicine Center, quoted in a widely publicized Associated Press news story, more than half of men over 40 suffer from erectile dysfunction, “occasionally or always, yet only 10 percent take medicine regularly” (Johnson, 2014). These statistics are fairly striking, considering that most men remain sexually active well past the age of 40. Has a disorder been “invented” or perhaps exaggerated to sell more drugs? Such arguments may be far-stretched, but one thing is clear: Immediate pharmaceutical help has replaced the therapeutic script from a few decades ago, which entailed “systematic desensitization” of anxiety during sex (Kockott, 184 mediated eros

Dittmar, & Nusselt, 1975) or “forbidding intercourse in the treatment of erectile failure [which] makes it possible for the patients to enjoy mutual kissing, hugging, body massage, and manual or oral stimulation of the genitals without anxiety” (LoPiccolo, 1978, p. 5). This is a narrative of sexual work and intense self-exploration, which has now been replaced by a fantasy of miraculous and speedy sexual recovery. There also appears to be an interesting relationship between ED drug use and pornography (both its production and consumption). Viagra and other pharmaceuticals that treat impotence are convenient tools to performers in pornographic productions. These actors have been reported to use ED drugs—such as the penis-injectable Trimix, resulting in an immediate erection—to emulate sexual desire toward people and in situations they do not actually find arousing (Conger, 2013). Such “replacement” or “enhance- ment” of visible sexual desire is also mimicked by pornography users and other consumers whose sex lives are governed by a “characteristically American quantity-consciousness—a ‘more is better’ premise” (Schur, 1988, p. 53). Little wonder that ED drug use is not limited to aging men. In fact, 4% of U.S. male undergraduate students report having used such drugs for recreational purposes, often in the context of high-risk sexual encounters (Harte & Meston, 2011). Psychiatrist Norman Doidge (2007) argues that such recreational use reflects the omnipresent fashion in which the drug industry blinds men to the desensitizing effects of alcohol-driven hookups and pornographic images: “Today young men who surf porn are tremendously fearful of impotence … The penis works fine when they use pornography. It rarely occurs to them that there may be a relationship between the pornography … and their impotence” (p. 105). It takes drugs to make contemporary pornography, and it takes drugs to consume it—and under both scenarios, large corporations reap substantial profits from selling either pre-packaged sex or pre-packaged pills. The male version of the function script is especially evident in drug advertisements. From them, “ordinary individuals and couples learn new expectations of what sexuality is, and should be, all about” and “receive the market-driven message that lifelong sexual activity and sexiness are mandatory for personal and relationship happiness” (Tiefer, 2007, p. 240). But even though pharmaceutical marketing is a catalyst of the sexual dysfunction discourse, the conversation greatly exceeds the boundaries of promotional content. Professional and amateur parodies of ED drug commercials have been produced in the thousands, judging by YouTube content. Such productions just what the doctor ordered 185 suggest resistance and a multitude of oppositional readings to the dominant (profit-driven) discourse of medicalized sexual performance. The male function script is often presented humorously not only in the context of sexual failure, but also of sexual success. In the U.S., a middle-aged man’s ability to have more than one erection and ejaculation within a single hour is apparently so unusual that it is likely to be attributed to pharamaceu- tical help. For example, Woody Allen’s character in Fading Gigolo (Block, Hanson, Kusama-Hinte, & Turturro, 2013) is stunned when his friend says he had sex with a client more than once. “Really? I am very impressed. Viagra?” asks Allen, who plays a pimp. “Oh, no,” laconically responds the gigolo (John Turturro). It is clear from this exchange and from some of the earlier examples that the function-based, biomedical script of ED drugs often moderates or aids fantasies of ideal masculinity. The evolution of these advertising narratives is the subject of the following section, which applies exclusively to the U.S., where direct-to-consumer advertising (DTCA), containing the inevitable line “talk to your doctor about [drug name],” is legal. This is not the case in the European Union or Canada, where DTCA is prohibited due to ethical concerns (Gibson, 2014).

Framing Sexual Success and Ultimate Failure

Since the introduction of the birth control pill in 1960, nothing has influenced modern Western sexuality as much as the first erectile dysfunction drug (Viagra) released in 1998. It ushered in what has been described as “Viagra culture, unique in its capacity to both liberate and limit the possibilities of sexual pleasure for men and women” (Fuqua, 2012, p. 124). Former presidential candidate Bob Dole’s Viagra commercials are credited with the mainstreaming of erectile dysfunction as a physiological problem and distancing it from the shameful notion of impotence, perceived as a masculinity threat. Shown leaning back in a black leather chair or walking confidently around his office, in 1998 a somber Dole thrust Viagra into the public discourse with the following words:

Courage. Something shared by countless Americans. Those who risk their lives. Those who battle serious illness. When I was diagnosed with prostate cancer, I was primarily concerned with ridding myself of the cancer. But second, I was concerned about post-operative side effects. Like erectile dysfunction—ED, often called impotence. You know, it’s a little embarrassing to talk about ED, but it’s so important to millions of men and their partners. (NewsPoliticsInfo, 2012) 186 mediated eros

The strategy worked. The drug industry soon began to rely almost exclusively on the cryptic and scientific-sounding term “ED,” used by Bob Dole in those early Viagra ads. (The medical field has not fully abandoned the term “impotence,” however, considering the continued existence of the Journal of Impo- tence Research). Since Viagra’s launch in 1998, 50 million people worldwide have taken it (Johnson, 2014). Many more new ED drugs—Levitra, Cialis, and Stendra—have been introduced to the market. In this sense, Viagra’s appearance has served as the impetus for a uniquely modern (not yet postmodern) tide of medicalized sexuality, entirely devoid of the mysticism inherent in the herbal treatments of centuries past. As part of this pattern, the marketing messages for ED drugs have continually used “intertextual humor, sport, and play as discursive shields against shame and ridicule” (Fuqua, 2012, p. 122). But the spirit and the content of the messages has evolved in the last 15 years—from the sports-fueled power of the early Viagra NASCAR ads, through the mostly romantic Viva Viagra commercials and, finally, to an embrace of a sophisticated and cosmopolitan sexuality. This evolution is outlined below.

From Macho to Metro

Dole’s old-fashioned, masculine story is almost the diametrical opposite of Viagra’s 2014 commercial. It features British soap opera star Linette Beau- mont, who says in an erotically charged voice: “So guys, it’s just you and your honey. The setting is perfect. But then erectile dysfunction happens again. Plenty of guys have this issue—not just getting an erection, but keeping it.” The discourse that started with a white male presidential candidate coura- geously admitting to impotence after surgery has matured into a soft-pornish vision of a blond woman, lounging on a bed and nonchalantly saying “erection” in her sophisticated accent. As Ellen DeGeneres notes in her humorous commentary on Beaumont’s ad, “[S]he is very, very blunt … [but] she is Brit- ish, she can make anything sound classy” (TheEllenShow, 2014). These changes in the discourse are important because “Viagra, like the cultures of masculinity and sexuality within which it is both product and process, is a mutable text, changing and responding to different conceptions of manhood and virility” (Fuqus, 2012, p. 123). Further, it is in advertising’s “manipulation, the bending and repositioning of normative masculinity, that we can see the limits of what can be imagined as healthy male sexuality” (p. 123). The new promotional approach reflects the transition from Viagra’s early target audience, consisting of aging Baby Boomers (born between 1946 just what the doctor ordered 187 and 1964), to new recruits from the more cosmopolitan and educated Gen- eration X. What remains unchanged, however, is the simplistic sexual script of the “routine, rapid arousal and orgasm” (Tiefer, 2007, p. 246). Fuqua notes: “Viagra culture tends to take a Bob the Builder approach (‘Can we fix it? Yes we can!’) to erectile dysfunction” (p. 116). Most sexually active adults probably realize that Bob the Builder is no bedroom role model. Why, then, do they continue to respond to advertising messages that portray human sexual dynamics in cartoonish ways? These messages are intensely troubling, in ways more than one. The following subsection outlines the short-sighted, inaccurate, and generally sexist assumptions that underlie the advertisement of these pharmaceutical treatments.

Medicated Misogyny

Commercials for sexual dysfunction drugs are problematic first and foremost because they forge implicit associations between middle-aged masculinity and frequent penetrative sex with attractive, young-looking female partners. Women not as attractive and young-looking as Viagra models may face blame (or self-blame, reflecting internalized cultural values) for being the supposed catalysts of male dysfunction. For example, when the UK tabloid The Daily Mail covered the story of the first female Viagra spokesperson, the article included quotes from social media content, suggesting that many ED sufferers fail sexually only because of the unattractiveness of their current partners:

… Linette’s US debut has entranced American viewers, with one, Patrick Cox, tweeting: “Don’t need Viagra. Just need the hot blonde with the British accent …” While Joe Remi noted: “Ya know, Viagra could save a lot of money on pill production by just sending dudes a DVD of the British lady talking.” (Nathan, 2014)

The absurdity of this line of thinking should be immediately obvious— although it apparently was not to Daily Mail writers and editors. If lack of erection means one’s partner is unattractive, does premature ejaculation mean she is too attractive? (“I could have lasted longer if you just stopped being so hot!”) What is especially troubling about the scripting of ED in advertising messages is the identification of a pharmaceutical fix as the source of some vague relationship improvement. Even though promotional content emphasizes the physiology of sexual dysfunction, such dysfunction is no longer represented as “an abstraction, divorced from the immediacy and particularity of human relationships,” as Schur charged in 1988 (p. 49). In fact, commercials for Viagra, 188 mediated eros

Cialis, and Levitra rely on platitudes that emphasize heterosexual relationships. Images of couples’ smiling, playing sports together, dancing, swimming, hold- ing hands, gazing at the sunset, and engaging in other stereotypically romantic activities suggest that love and intimacy are not the source of satisfying sex. Rather, it is the other way around! A drug promises good sex, which results in a good (or better) relationship. Implicitly, such commercials also say: Women, make yourself sexually available if you want to improve your relationship. Is it fathomable that ED drugs could be promoted through commercials portraying men happily masturbating in the shower? Obviously, no! Most men do not need Viagra for pornography-fueled solitary sex (no problem with blood flow there). And lonely masturbation is not considered any sort of a sexual feat—just because an aging man ejaculates without any pharmaceutical help does not make him a sex god. Instead, typical ED drug ads show long- term couples rediscovering intimacy due to the man’s regained sexual function. Even Viagra’s sailing commercial (cordaroysoriginals, 2012), featuring a man alone in the sea on a boat, ends with the protagonist smiling cryptically as he is about to enter a single-family house, where he is presumably expected by a long-term partner. Tasteful and empowering, ED commercials also offer what Fuqua (2012) has called a “mediated agency” (p. 117). This is the notion that health, including sexual performance, is not only within reach, but also our own responsibility. The television screen in this case appears as a “doc in the box” (p. 117). Empowering on the surface, this approach can also have a so-called “boomerang effect,” undermining people’s self-efficacy by vesting power in an external product. For example, ads for diet pills have been charged with fueling obesity by implicitly encouraging people to eat unhealthy foods; “people see the drug as a sort of get-out-of-jail-free card” (Romm, 2014). In a similar fashion, Viagra ads may encourage many users to neglect foreplay, intimacy, and sexual exploration. In the end, couples whose sex lives have been chem- ically “fixed” might be even less likely to be gazing into each other’s eyes and walking into the sunset. And given Western individualism (especially the U.S.), they would blame only themselves for failing to achieve intimacy despite steel erections and robust penis-in-vagina action.

Popular Culture against Scientized Dysfunction

News and entertainment content has for a long time offered substantial resistance to the elaborate scripting of sexual dysfunction. Media often show that just what the doctor ordered 189 impotence can—and does—have social, cultural, and psychological roots. A case in point is what the young womanizer Dr. Austin Langham in the show Masters of Sex hears from sex scholar Bill Masters when he fails to get an erection several times during a sex study: “The problem is not in your pants, Austin, it’s in your head” (Bensinger & Fywell, 2013). This discourse reflects much earlier views of male impotence that predate the currently dominant narrative about “blood-flow” problems. For example, 17th-century Puritans in New England viewed impotence as resulting from “problems of imagination, desire, or failure to maintain attention or manage emotions” (Foster, 1999, p. 740). This narrative remains implicitly present as a tool of humor, judging by all the “erectile dysfunction” and Viagra jokes on T-shirts and in sitcoms. Is laughing about impotence more acceptable now that the problem is admittedly common and no longer shameful? This may indeed be the case. For example, in the British show Coupling, one of the protagonists remarks that “all of us, in our time, are visited by the melty man … Professor Moriarty in groin form, Darth Vader without the helmet” (Moffat & Dennis, 2001c). As explained in this episode, impotence has mostly psychological roots, even though the concept of insufficient blood flow is jokingly referred to as a potential side effect of blushing:

Jeff: You’re in bed with a woman. Everything’s going fine. That’s when the melty man strikes. Steve: Suddenly, you find yourself thinking: “Maybe she is really bored.” Jeff: Maybe you’re licking her neck too much—are you over-wetting her neck? Steve: Are you spending an equal amount of time on each breast? I mean, what happens if one breast gets ahead? Jeff: Should you be switching between them really quickly, or should you just squish them both together and do the wah-wah-wah? Steve: Or are you, like, to skip one breast completely, just to save times? Jeff: Is she wriggling about a bit? Is that a good sign, or is she just trying to dry her neck? Steve: Or, should you kiss her now, or does that mean you’ve got to start at the top again? Jeff: Is she making noises yet? Is it too soon to grunt? Steve: And then, the killer, out of nowhere, for no reason you can think of, you call her “baby.” Jeff: Never called her “baby” before. Steve: You never called anyone “baby” before. Jeff: So why did you just call her “baby.” Oh, suddenly you are starting to blush. Steve: Now you’re blushing, and you’ve got an erection. No one’s got enough blood! 190 mediated eros

Mediated scripts about erectile dysfunction can also encourage women to treat a partner’s impotence (typically portrayed as episodic or temporary) as a com- pliment and a sign of deep emotional involvement. When the stud Patrick in Coupling fails to achieve an erection, it is because he is in love and afraid to fail with the woman he loves! (Moffat & Dennis, 2001b) Although this script rejects the more mechanistic contemporary view of sex, it is still influenced by a scientific perspective, a much earlier one. Specifically, the script references Freud’s notion of the contradiction between love and desire: “Where they love, they do not desire and where they desire they cannot love” (Kramer, 1997, p. 288). At first, the object of Patrick’s romantic desire, Sally, feels like a “legendary man wilter,” but eventually regains her confidence when the two admit their feelings for each other, begin a relationship, and end up having spectacular sex (9 out of 10, according to Patrick). A similar love-flop script— minus the happy ending—is employed in the British filmShame (Canning & McQueen, 2011), in which the protagonist, a sex addict, fails to perform with the only woman he cares about. The romance-impotence script is (more logically) reversed in the American film Fading Gigolo (Block, Hanson, Kusama-Hinte, & Turturro, 2013). In it, a man who has sex with women for money fails to perform with two strikingly gorgeous, wealthy women (played by the sultry Sharon Stone and Sofia Vergara) because he has fallen in love with a chaste Jewish widow. The gigolo is unable to achieve an erection with two women he does not, in fact, love because he loves someone else. Since both women have enjoyed sex with him and marveled at his quick sexual recovery, they immediately recognize an emotional shift. “He is in love,” thoughtfully guesses Vergara’s character. “We are so happy for you,” exclaims Stone’s characters. While it is refreshing that many mediated discourses resist the advertising- driven script about the medical “fixability” of impotence, they unfortunately leave out other sexual dysfunctions in the shadows. One example is the increasingly common phenomenon of delayed ejaculation, which is discussed in the following subsection.

The “Inconvenient” Dysfunction

So much attention has been devoted to ED that it is almost shocking to discover how little is known about another, insidious but increasingly common, aspect of post-pubertal male sexual dysfunction—delayed ejaculation or inability to reach orgasm during intercourse. In part, media’s silence reflects just what the doctor ordered 191 the popular association between a strong, long-lasting erection and heterosexual manliness. For example, here is how the rapper Juvenile in his hit “Slow Motion” outlines why women should want to have sex with him: “She love the way the dick stay hard from 12 till early in the morn, fine bitches if you listening you heared me I’m strong …” (Gray & Tapp, 2004, np). In other words, erection equals male strength; pounding away for many hours is a masculine achievement; and priapism (long-lasting erection without ejaculation) is a great “problem” to have—or at least good enough to rap about! Research suggests that delayed ejaculation can result from a combination of psychological and biological factors, including: (a) conditioning one’s ejaculation on high-frequency, “idiosyncratic” masturbation, including excessive speed and pressure, along with preference for erotic fantasies that cannot be matched by the partner (Perelman, 2014); and (b) the use of modern anti- depressants, such as the 1987-introduced Prozac, which are selective serotonine reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) (e.g., Georgiadis, 2012). While the first factor is self- evident, the science behind the second is inconclusive. It has been suggested that anti-depressants gradually desensitize some receptors on oxytocin neurons, leaving chronic anti-depressant users handicapped in their ability to experience romantic feelings and form and maintain emotional attachments, for which oxytocin is a critical hormone (De Jong, Veening, Olivier, & Waldinger, 2007). Delayed ejaculation is almost never mentioned by U.S. science journalists and virtually never in any advertisements. It is also missing from comedy. Perhaps this is because it poses a substantial challenge to both Prozac and Viagra culture. There is no drug to treat it, no funny commercials to promote it, and no publicity to spur a discourse—omissions that illustrate the degree to which the ideology of capitalism influences public discourse. Although news coverage of SSRIs’ sexual side effects certainly exists, it has usually focused on diminished libido and anorgasmia in women (e.g., Lambert, 2014). Curi- ously, there has been little to no coverage of how anti-depressants affect male sexuality, especially in the U.S. This coincides with the lack of coverage of public discussion about delayed ejaculation. The absurdity of this journalistic oversight can be illustrated by the fact that the term “delayed ejaculation” has been mentioned in The New York Times only once, in 1975, in a story about methadone’s side effects (Brody, 1975). By contrast, news media in the UK, Australia, and Canada have not shied away from publishing extensive features about the perils and displea- sures of delayed ejaculation resulting from the use of anti-depressants. The London Evening Standard reported two decades ago that rock star Bernard 192 mediated eros

Sumner noticed how, five weeks after starting Prozac, “his orgasms were taking longer and longer” (p. 12)—while another man on the antidepres- sant Seroxat complained that he managed to have ejaculatory sex with his girlfriend only twice in five months (James, 1995). Further, the Globe & Mail in Canada has reported on the increasing frequency with which North American men are faking orgasms—due to “delayed ejaculation, a growing problem for men, experts say,” reflecting in part the effects of the widespread use of SSRI antidepressants (Bielski, 2010, p. L1). And the Southland Times in New Zealand quotes a Florida doctor saying that delayed or absent ejaculation during sex with a partner is “increasingly prevalent but poorly understood” (Edens, 2012, p. 3). The opposite of delayed ejaculation—premature ejaculation—is much more often recognized as a dysfunction because it is constructed around social and gendered expectations of heteronormativity. It reflects the assumption that sex is a penile-vaginal intercourse, which lasts only as long as a man can keep his erection (usually not possible after ejaculating). The main problem with premature ejaculation is that a man may fail to pleasure his partner through penetrative sex: “[T]he premature ejaculator is, of course, a male. The term for a female who reaches orgasm in a 20-second time period is quick or responsive” (emphasis in original, Reiss, 1986, p. 129). Considering that most women rarely orgasm so quickly during intercourse (if at all), standards of sexual masculine power require maintaining an erection for at least a couple of minutes or more in order to satisfy the female partner or at least give her a chance to appear satisfied. This cross-cultural masculinity standard is illustrated by the Dutch film The 4th Man (Houwer & Verhoeven, 1983), in which an attractive widow takes a lover, and then confides in him that she already has another lover—a younger man—who fails to satisfy her: “He just pounds away and he comes at once. There is nothing in it for me. Zilch!” The female protagonist is depicted as so attractive and universally desired that this statement could be a testimony to a young man’s inability to maintain ejaculation control in her presence. But later, the young lover fellates the older one (both appear to be bisexual). This occurrence suggests that a weakness of masculinity—as demonstrated by receiving another man’s sperm—is the real reason for the young lover’s failure to satisfy a woman during “normal” heterosexual intercourse. Absurd? Yes! The scientification of sexual discourse has many failings, as outlined throughout this chapter, but its influence has at least eroded the veracity of many bizarre psychoanalytic inferences. just what the doctor ordered 193

Conclusion

The rise of scientific and biomedical discourses in media content about sexuality reflects the state of an increasingly technology-driven society. Neuro- science offers amazing new tools of brain imaging, and infrared eye-tracking devices allow us to measure sexual arousal through pupil dilation, without asking people to drop their pants (e.g., Laeng & Falkenberg, 2007). A tiny pill or an injection can turn a penis into “steel,” regardless of the sexual stimulus. Little wonder that such mind-boggling developments, which sounded like science fiction a few decades ago, have come to be at the center of many public and mediated discourses. But although science moves forward quickly with new developments and discoveries, the sociocultural patterns that underlie its advances take much longer to change. Ideal men are still expected to be virile heterosexual lovers who frequently and readily dominate and satisfy their women. Ideal women are still expected to passively desire their male partners and effortlessly reach coital orgasms, no matter how coercive or drunken a partner’s performance may be. Audiences, however, rarely hear about these patterns. Media could serve the public so much better if they staked a middle ground between the clear-cut biomedical discourses and the less precise sociocultural investigations of human sexuality.

·8· too young, too old

The Procreative-Age Confinement of Socially Tolerable Sexuality

Sad-faced child brides, sleazy “cougars,” dirty old men, and wholesome Val- entine’s Day teddy bears. They all attract public attention, whether in the context of news coverage of heinous abuses or cheesy reality shows. What do they have in common? One very salacious thing: references to sexuality outside the limits of reproductive age. The rapes of a 5-year-old girl or an 88-year- old woman are undoubtedly more newsworthy than other atrocious sexual assaults. So are May-December romances, the skyrocketing sales of “babydoll” nightgowns in mid-February, and Medicare-funded penis pumps. Age is one of several so-called “master” statuses (along with gender, race, class, and political and religious affiliation) linked to attitudes, expectations, and self-expectations of appropriate sexual conduct (Laumann & Gagnon, 1995). Although the World Health Organization’s 2010 Standards for Sexu- ality Education in Europe define sexuality as “a central aspect of being human throughout life [that] encompasses sex, gender identities and roles, sexual orientation, eroticism, pleasure, intimacy and reproduction” (p. 17), social norms have traditionally restricted any sexual expressions in childhood and old age (Foucault (1976/1990). Breaking the mold remains difficult even in an era that claims to no longer repress sexuality, especially because age scripts are deeply intertwined with gender narratives. For example, media content is 196 mediated eros often dismissive in regard to so-called “lolitas” (girls seen as especially seductive but too young for sex) and “cougars” (middle-aged women who are older than their lovers)—and both tend to be assigned to the category of the sexual “other,” even if they are as heterosexual and vanilla as a Doris Day character. By contrast, little boys’ sexual awakenings and older men’s salacious interest in younger women are somewhat normalized under the unfortunate assumption that men are lustful by nature at all ages. This chapter explores the news and entertainment framing of three main aspects of age as a master status in the realm of sexuality, and challenges the widely held belief that children and older adults are (and should be) completely asexual. In the first section, the analysis focuses on media coverage of childhood sexuality, sexual encounters involving children under the legal age of consent in Western societies, and sexual desire for children and teenagers (pedophilia and hebephilia). Second, the chapter analyzes the portrayals of age-mismatched sexual relations (older man/younger woman or older woman/younger man). Third, the chapter explores the limited portrayals of sexual desire and pleasure experienced by older adults past retirement age, as well as gerontophilia, the sexual desire experienced by young people toward older adults. Some of the questions discussed include: What determines the culturally acceptable age boundaries for involvement in sexual intercourse in North America and Western Europe? What makes certain exceptions admirable in the public eye and others unacceptable? What, if anything, do mediated sexual scripts suggest about the existence of “appropriate” age limits? In following a somewhat chronological approach to this investigation of sexuality over the human life span, the next section begins by exploring the controversial topic of children and sexuality.

Children’s Desire, Desire for Children

Children are sexual beings, according to the WHO. “Precursors of later sexual perception, such as the ability to enjoy physical contact, are present from birth,” notes a WHO document titled 2010 Standards for Sexuality Education in Europe (p. 22). “At each different stage of life, sexuality shows different forms of expressions and acquires new significance” (p. 23). But media rarely acknowledge children’s sexuality; occasional news stories, such as the following one from the Canadian newspaper The Globe and Mail, are the exception rather than the rule: too young, too old 197

… [S]cience does know that the biological sexual urge is fundamental: Male fetuses have been observed through ultrasound technology with erections in utero. And infants have been known to rock themselves in such a way as to rub their genitals with increasing intensity, ultimately peaking and relaxing, as if achieving orgasm. (Foss, 1999)

As the same article states, however, the mechanisms behind such sexual behaviors are not well understood because studies of children’s sexuality hardly exist. The reason is that “the mere suggestion of it is offensive to some people”; further, the increased awareness of child abuse causes “confusion about what is normal sexual development” (Foss). This lack of research on children’s sexuality and the corresponding silence in media content seem to reflect a fear that, were children portrayed as having any sexual desires or thoughts, that could encourage child sexual abuse under the excuse that children might be “asking” for it. It appears much safer to treat children as asexual beings. Unfortunately, this perspective perspective involves transposing adult notions of sexuality onto children; it also fails to acknowledge that child abuse and child pornography are wrong not because children are asexual in every sense of the word, but because such actions represent a gross violation of consent and interfere with a child’s development. Thus, this section explicitly discerns differences between patterns in media content dealing with (a) childhood (a)sexuality, in which children themselves can be viewed as sexual subjects with their own sexual agency; (b) child sexual abuse, in which children are the suffering objects of adults’ sexual pleasure—whether legally or illegally; and (c) the strange coupling of the mainstream eroticization of childishness and the extreme condemnation of non-offending pedophiles. These distinct topics are outlined in the following three subsections.

Childhood Sexual Behaviors

Both the media and the public generally assume that prepubescent children are asexual and have no sexual agency, and that teenagers must suppress their budding sexuality until they are adults. As Sorainen (2007) argues, “the discourse on ‘protecting’ children from sexuality constructs them as persons without sexual rights” (p. 195). But can children have sexual rights? At this time they do not, even though adolescence is a stage of sexual development that includes the construction of masturbatory fantasies, romantic attractions, and (for some teens) sexual experimentation. Yet, there is no social agreement on whether and how children’s sexual development should be accommodated—if at all. 198 mediated eros

This subsection focuses on the extreme rarity of discourses that address sexual desires and feelings experienced by children. In beginning this discussion, it is useful to consider the following dialogue from the film Nyphomaniac (Vesth & von Trier, 2013) between the hypersexual Joe and her asexual, older confidante Seligman:

Joe: To begin with the bait, I discovered my cunt as a 2-year-old. Seligman: Cunt is a very strong word. Joe: Let’s call it “Pandora’s Box” then. Seligman: No, no, no. “Cunt” is better. Joe: So, I was a nymphomaniac. Seligman: Wait a moment. Nobody can be a nymphomaniac when they’re two years old. I don’t think even the strictest God would see anything else than a child’s normal behavior. What about fetuses? It’s common knowledge that fetuses often touch their genital organs. Can a fetus somehow be sinful? Joe: Why not? Seligman: Not according to any religion I know, unless it’s an original sin. Ancestral. … Joe: At an early age, I was mechanically inclined. Kinetic energy, for example, has always fascinated me. [Two little girls are shown sliding on their bellies on a wet bathroom floor.] When we had P.E., I’d climb up into the ropes and hang there for ages, with the rope between my legs. “The Sensation,” we called it. I remember very distinctly this word, “sensation.”

Infrequent news stories suggest many parents are puzzled to discover their children engaging in some sort of genital self-stimulation. Some even remember their own experiences with early masturbation; for example, Canadian journalist Michelle Melles writes: “I grew up thinking that I was the only child in the world who masturbated. I thought it was somehow harmful and felt it was my duty to rid myself of this ‘dirty’ habit” (2001, p. A18). However, the subject of childhood masturbation is still rarely addressed by media. When it is, it is typically in a first-person narrative or an advice column. For example: “My child rubs herself on the floor,” writes a concerned mother in a letter seeking advice to The Singapore Straits Times—to which a doctor responds with encouragement to view this as a “harmless habit that falls in the same category as thumb-sucking” (Marimuttu, 2014, np). Although it is laud- able that the expert recommends against punishment (in favor of distraction), the comparison of an intrinsically sexual, pleasurable action to a compulsive too young, too old 199 habit like thumb-sucking negates children’s sexual agency and leaves them with no information about what they are experiencing. The suppression of any meaningful conversation about children’s sexuality continues to be illustrated also by the rarity of portrayals of early masturbation in North American movies. An analysis of 44 films that included masturbation scenes found that only 7 percent of the characters appeared to be under the age of 15 (Madanikia, Bartholomew, & Cytrynbaum, 2013). When a child or an adolescent has been shown masturbating, this has typically happened in a frightening and utterly inappropriate context. This is the case, for example, with the 12-year-old Regan MacNeil in The Exorcist (Blatty & Friedkin, 1973), who is depicted masturbating with a cross while she is possessed by a demon. It is difficult to tell whether the trend is reversing, but it is worth noting what was perhaps one of the first non-horror depictions of childhood masturbation in North America—the portrayal of 10-year-old Sally, daughter of protagonist Don Draper in the show Mad Men. In the episode “The Chrysanthe- mum and the Sword,” Sally is shown masturbating and getting caught during a sleepover at a friend’s house (Levy & Glatter, 2010). The reactions to this depiction diverged greatly. For example, the feminist blog Jezebel described Sally’s masturbation experience as a “sexual revolution” (Hartmann, 2010), while a recap of the episode by the popular blog Gawker dismissively suggested that the “future lesbian” was “diddling her little Skittle” (Moylan, 2010). Undoubtedly, many more prepubescent girls around the world have been shamed and punished for masturbating, often without understanding the reason for adults’ anger. This is likely to continue to be the case in most countries, including the U.S. By contrast, the World Health Organization’s 2010 Stan- dards for Sexuality Education in Europe suggest that children 4 and younger should receive information about “enjoyment and pleasure when touching one’s own body, early childhood masturbation” (p. 38). Similar standards of sexual transparency are being adopted in Canada. The 2015 Ontario sex education curriculum emphasizes “the importance of pushing past Oprah Winfrey euphemisms with first-graders to the precise terminology of vulva and vagina, etc.” (Wells, 2015). In the U.S., however, such considerations would likely result in nothing less than a public scandal, as earlier examples have shown. In 1994, Surgeon General Jocelyn Elders was forced to resign after suggesting that young people should be taught about masturbation (Cannon, Gallman, & Thomma, 1994), and in 2002, the Minnesota legislature decided to investigate the University of Minnesota Press after the publication of a child sexuality book arguing “that 200 mediated eros young Americans, though bombarded with sexual images from the mass media, are often deprived of realistic advice about sex” (The Associated Press, 2002). The reason for this vast divide, according to the 2010 WHO Standards for Sexuality Education in Europe, is two-fold. First, sex education in Europe is well established in most countries’ curricula This trend started in Sweden, which mandated the subject in all schools as early as 1955 (WHO, Standards for Sexuality Education in Europe, p. 12). Second, in Western Europe, sexuality is seen “as a valuable source of personal enrichment”; for that reason, Euro- pean sex education is “personal-growth-oriented, whereas in the United States of America it is primarily problem-solving, or prevention-oriented” (p. 15). But in a self-fulfilling prophecy of sorts, problems with childhood expressions of sexuality arise more often in the U.S. than in Europe. For example, the FBI records hundreds of rape cases each year involving both a victim and an assail- ant under the age of 13, as in the case of a 9-year-old boy accused of fondling a 7-year-old girl and forcing a 5-year-old boy to perform oral sex (Barber, 1992). Disturbing hints of childhood sexuality have a long history of being omitted from popular culture. For example, here is how Truman Capote’s character Holly Golightly tallies up her sexual experience in Breakfast at Tiffa- ny’s (1958/1993): “… I’ve only had eleven lovers—not counting anything that happened before I was thirteen because, after all, that just doesn’t count” (emphasis in original, p. 82). This lover count and the suggestion that Holly was sexually active at an early age are—understandably for the time period— omitted from the 1961 filmBreakfast at Tiffany’s (Jurow, Shepherd, & Edwards). Arguably, another reason to maintain a mediated silence on the topic of young sexuality is that it violates a taboo that may stir suppressed, forbidden desires. For example, writes Tamir-Chez (1979) in describing the shock caused by the publication of Nabokov’s Lolita novel in 1958: “What enraged or at least disquieted most readers and critics was the fact that they found themselves unwittingly accepting, even sharing the feelings of Humbert Hum- bert …” (p. 65). Is it ever acceptable to view children as sexual beings, given how often they are sexually assaulted and how profoundly this affects their psychosocial development?

Eroticization of Children

Historically speaking, sex with—or at least the eroticization of—children and teenagers has been part of most sexual cultures. Certain infantile themes persist to this day, and are seen as sexually acceptable. Little-girl sexual perfor- too young, too old 201 mances can be found well outside the contemporary version of the film Lolita (Kassar, Michaels, & Lyne, 1997), which had difficulty finding a distributor in the U.S., in part because Lolita was portrayed as a pre-teen, in line with the novel. But imagining sex with children is perfectly acceptable in other media industries. Many music performers, for example, have hinted of fantasies involving a certain wordless, gagged childishness. “Put my dick in, take your thumb out,” sang the Ying Yang Twins in their 2005 hit “Wait (the Whisper Song)” (Crooms, Holmes, & Jackson, 2005). And Rod Stewart in “Tonight’s the Night” could have been channeling a psychopathic abuser: “Stay away from my window, stay away from my back door, too … Don’t say a word, my virgin child” (1976). The same theme appears in Depeche Mode’s 1990 hit “Enjoy the Silence”: “Oh my little girl, all I ever wanted, all I ever needed is here in my arms” (Gore, 1990). And, of course, the Beatles (and before them, the Top Notes) sang in “Twist and Shout” (1963): “You know you’re twisted, little girl, you know you twist so fine, c’mon and twist a little closer now, and let me know that you’re mine” (Medley & Burns, 1961). Lines such as “tortured little girl,” “twisted little girl,” and “funny little girl” also roll off the lips of Julian Casablancas in “Little Girl” (Burton & Linkous, 2010). And there are many more songs titled “Little Girl” or some variation of the phrase, which are not about children but about adult relationships and problems—sung, for example, by Green Day (“¡Viva la Gloria!,” Armstrong, 2009), and Enrique Iglesias (Iglesias, Barry, & Taylor, 2007). These songs— performed by adult men and enjoying popularity among mass, international audiences—have never been considered problematic. But there is a double standard in what discourse is interpreted as pedophilic. For example, U.S. feminist blogger Lena Dunham was painted as a sexual abuser because of a paragraph in her memoir describing how, when she was 7, she looked into her 1-year-old sister’s vagina (e.g., Williamson, 2014). Commercial culture has picked up on the notion that little girls are sexy, and clearly encourages pedophilic elements as a spice to adult heterosexual relations. This is nothing new, of course. “We are just two little girls from Little Rock,” sang sex-bombs Marilyn Monroe and Jane Russell in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (Siegel & Hawks, 1953). In Baby Doll (Kazan, 1956), the female protagonist is shown sleeping in a crib, sucking her thumb, and wearing a short revealing nightgown, which has become known as the babydoll. This pedophilic image was used in the posters promoting the film, and one of the marketing stints for it included wheeling around a model, dressed in a sexy short nightgown, in a baby carriage (Brook, 2001). More than 50 years after 202 mediated eros the release of the film, the undersized and sometimes transparent nightgown, ubiquitously referred to as “babydoll,” remains one of the staples of the lingerie industry. Film scholar Kristen Hatch (2002) suggests that 19-year-old Baby Doll’s “infantile eroticism” (p. 169) is a central case of the so-called “fille fatale,” meaning “fatal girl” in French—a play on the term “femme fatale,” or “fatal woman.” The sexual appeal of “little-girlness” has been exploited and appropriated for marketing purposes on numerous other occasions as well, such as the advertising campaign for Love’s Baby Soft in the 1970s, which featured a 5- or 6-year old girl, heavily made up, proclaiming that “innocence is sexier than you think” (Caputi, 2003, p. 8). Even after pedophilia and child sexual abuse had entered the public discourse (at least in the U.S.), a 12-year-old Brooke Shields appeared in Pretty Girl (Malle, 1978), whose French director had earlier directed the filmMurmur of the Heart (Malle, 1971), about an incestuous relationship between mother and son. A slew of inaccurate news stories reported that Shields had been photographed posing nude on a divan, although such a picture was never actually taken. “[O]ddly, it was the press that created an erotic image of Shields (albeit one that existed only within the imagination),” writes Hatch (2002, p 173). In a similar fashion, Lolita, Nabokov’s 12-year-old heroine, was irreversibly and forever sexualized by her rendering in the 1962 film adaptation and by media accounts that constructed her as a sexualized nymphet, which she never was in the novel—or perhaps only in the eyes of her step-father, Humbert Humbert. In this day and age, the appeal of the “little girl”—as long as it is in presumably adult context—is a major cross-cultural sexual script. Note the emphasis on “little”—not just any girl—which suggests the cuteness of a prepubescent child under the age of 10. It is important to distinguish this infantile eroticism from the sexualization of young adolescent girls, much criticized by contemporary feminists (e.g., Merskin, 2014; Durham, 2008)— although the latter trend is plenty concerning as well. It is instructive to note that the very reason filmmaker Roman Polanski knew the 13-year-old girl he had sex with was because Vogue Hommes magazine had asked him “to shoot photos of young girls from around the world” (Levy-Hinte, Yacoub, & Zenovich, 2008). The scholarship on the sexualization of early childhood remains surprisingly limited, although the evidence is all around us. For example, Hall (1999) notes the “recurrent strain of nursery tweeness in British erotic life which surfaces every year in the small ads on St Valentine’s Day (‘Pooh wuvs Piglet vewwy vewwy much’)” (p. 49). And what’s with all the heart-adorned too young, too old 203 stuffed toys, such as gigantic teddy bears, that fill department stores in the West (especially the U.S.) in preparation for Valentine’s Day? The most parsimonious explanation for the fetishization of girls and girlhood is a repulsive one: Little girls are sexy because “of the everyday association of sexual pleasure with conquest and defilement” (Caputi, 2003, p. 8). Innocence is exciting because it can be violated. Little wonder that women across the world are killed in honor killings as a way to restore “sexual purity” (Basch-Harod, Kweskin, Traiman, & Smith, 2013). The eroticization of children is thus inherent in the cross-cultural sexual expectations placed on women, who are routinely treated as non-adults and encouraged to retain their sexual purity throughout their entire lives. The cultural (and thus public and mediated) obsession with the defilement of purity manifested itself in the media frenzy that surrounded the unsolved murder of 6-year-old beauty-pageant winner JonBenet Ramsey— “the most famous little girl of our time” (Oates, 1999, np)—who was killed in Boulder, Colorado, in 1996. Speculations abounded that the girl had been molested (although not raped), and an undue amount of coverage focused on her habit of soiling herself. The public imagination was lit by this unusual combination of beauty, purity, and innocence—on the one hand—and death, illicit sexuality, and filth, on the other. For example, the New York Daily News reported that JonBenet was found wearing “white panties with printed rosebuds and the word ‘Wednesday’ on the elastic band beneath long white underwear. The panties were urine-stained and contained ‘red areas of staining’ in the crotch” (Moritz, 1997). No wonder her murder has been the subject of multiple books and news analyses, although she certainly is not the only child ever to be brutally murdered in the U.S. Blaine (1999) suggests the excessively speculative coverage of Ramsey’s murder (including publishing many half-naked photos of the girl) contained symptoms of both pedophilia and necrophilia, an obsession “with the very purity that makes its violation so heinous” (p. 57). Mainstream media, however, virtually never see the dark sociocultural patterns below the surface of “news.” Interest in prepubescent girls is more readily explained with evolutionary psychology than with a patriarchal desire for defilement. For example, writes Alice Robb in The New Republic in a story about the use of “baby” as a romantic pet name:

There may be evolutionary reasons that men infantilize female partners or even seek out women who subconsciously remind them of babies. In the mid-twentieth century, Austrian ethologist Konrad Lorenz proposed that babies’ cuteness is an evolutionarily advantageous adaptation without which they wouldn’t survive; adults need some sort 204 mediated eros

of incentive to provide them with constant care, and Lorenz thought that motive was admiring their cuteness. He believed men carry this preference into adulthood by looking for women who retain elements of babyish “cuteness.” (Robb, 2014)

It is striking that such an allegedly evolutionary perspective ignores the obvious argument—women birth babies, nurse them, and (usually) care for them. Wouldn’t it be logical if women were more attracted to baby-style cuteness? Yet, the story acknowledges that, historically, it was men who called women “baby” first, although it is now equally common for both sexes.

Pedophilia and Child Sexual Abuse

When it comes to full-fledged pedophilia, however—not the presumably cute fantasy role-play between consenting adults or legitimate news about a murdered little girl—media coverage is almost invariably in the context of fear and moral panic. This was evident in the show To Catch a Predator (Hansen, 2004), which routinely entrapped men who had been invited by volunteers posing as minors to a house equipped with cameras, with an NBC host waiting to expose the “monster.” As Jay (2009) suggests, “the patriarchal ideology must have an opposite that can be clearly used to demarcate the ‘self’” (p. 49). Further, writes Sorainen (2007):

The dominant narrative of the paedophile in the Western culture is typically the one about an adult man sexually abusing very little babies. This hegemonic narrative produces violent sexual fantasies about big male penises penetrating in indulging ways tiny little bodies. Media actively pursue this narrative by presenting images of deserted playgrounds, broken toys, lonely teddy bears, and shadowy adult figures walking away with little girls. (p. 191)

This simplistic portrayal, of course, misses many nuances. For example, media almost never depict female pedophiles, even though a confidential survey of users of child pornography has indicated that a third are women (Seigfried, Lovely, & Rogers, 2008). When an intergenerational relationship between an adult woman and a boy is represented in media content, it is often because the child is initiating it, as suggested in the film Birth, in which a 10-year-old conjures a complex narrative that he is the reincarnation of an adult woman’s dead husband (Gower, Morris, Piel, & Glazer, 2004). Sorainen (2007) suggests that the monstrosity of the pedophile has been constructed differently over time—currently as an Internet predator, and too young, too old 205 previously as “the white slaver” in 1880s, “the sexual psychopath” in the 1950s, and the “incestuous father” or “child pornographer” in the 1990s (p. 195). The realization, at least in Scandinavian countries, that these labels and the notions that surround them often do not accurately represent reality is skillfully presented in the Danish filmThe Hunt (Jørgensen, Kaufmann, & Vinterberg 2012), which portrays the ordeal of an elementary-school teacher who is wrongfully accused by a little girl, in a moment of childish revenge, of having touched her genitalia. Both the teacher and the young girl, who misses his friendship, undergo much emotional suffering (the alleged perpetrator is also beaten by men in the community) until the truth emerges and his name is cleared. But the film does not have exactly a happy ending—the teacher is still “hunted,” as illustrated by a stray bullet that almost kills him during a hunt, which suggests that the sexual monster is a pervasive script that is difficult to erase regardless of any evidence of innocence. Further, most media have completely missed the most recent development in the scholarship on pedophilia, which proposes a distinction between hebephilia, or interest in adolescents (11- to 14-year-olds), and pedophilia, or sexual interest in prepubescent children (under the age of 11). A 2014 Lexis-Nexis search for “hebephilia” returned fewer than two dozen news stories from around the world (compared to thousands for “pedophilia”). Ultimately, the American Psychological Association (APA) decided not to include “hebephilia” as a disorder in the newest edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-V). The London Sunday Telegraph quoted a professor of psychiatry at the University of Toronto stating that the omission of hebephilia from the new manual was “tantamount to stating that the APA’s official position is that the sexual preference for early pubertal children is normal” (Gilligan, 2014, p. 12). Indeed, this is precisely what many academics believe, although even a dedicated news junkie would be unlikely to know this without reading scholarly journals. The Telegraph story, for example, included a quote from a Japanese psychiatrist stating that the “majority of men are probably paedophiles and hebephiles” (Gilligan, p. 12). The DSM-V still defines any sexual behavior involving “persons unable to give legal consent” as a paraphilia (Wetzstein, 2013). However, the argument is over whether non-offenders who are sexually interested in adolescents (without acting on their interest) should be classified as having a mental disorder. In other words, if a man yells “Nice tits” at a 13-year-old girl as he drives by—an actual (and very common) experience described by comedian Tina Fey in her book Bossypants (2011)—is he a mentally ill pedophile/hebephile or just 206 mediated eros a “normal” creep? Unfortunately, the latter! By the current DSM definition, pedophilic disorder refers only to intense and recurrent sexual urges toward prepubescent children that cause personal distress. But if a girl has “nice tits” at 13, she is clearly a pubescent; thus, a man who voyeuristically and vocally objectifies her in an act of car creepery without touching her is (technically) a sane and law-abiding individual. Why the major omission of this debate by the media? The most likely explanation is that any conversation over the definition of pedophilia would contradict journalists’ role as keepers of the status quo, which calls for libertine attitudes toward the voyeuristic objectification of teenage girls. It is interesting to note that the notion of pedophilia as a crime did not even enter the mediated discourse until a few decades ago (Hatch, 2002). Until the mid- 1970s, in the U.S. at least, “the courts and the popular media had downplayed the adult’s role in the molestation of children, attributing such acts to feeble- mindedness and impotence”; then, “the child molester was redefined as the worst sort of criminal” (p. 171). This view seems to be evolving, however. Pedophilia is increasingly depicted by news media as an unfortunate circumstance, deserving neither social stigma nor jail time for self-aware non-offenders. This is illustrated, for example, by an article in The New York Times titled “Pedophilia: A Disorder, Not a Crime” (Kaplan, 2014) and by ambivalent or even openly empathetic portrayals of pedophiles in recent films such as Little Children (Berger, Yerxa, & Field, 2006). The new discourse emphasizes that pedophilia is not a choice (although research on the subject remains limited), which is similar to the discourse that changed the tide of public opinion in favor of LGBT acceptance and gay marriage. According to an earlier article in the Times, “[p]eople do not choose to become pedophiles, experts say, but usually discover as adults that they are afflicted with unusual desires, and many long resist the urge to act on them” (Carey, 2004). Similar points have been made in other elite publications, such as the New Yorker (Aviv, 2013) and the Atlantic Monthly. The latter ran a heart-wrenching first-person essay by Canadian journalist David Goldberg (2013), a convicted pedophile, who wrote: “We don’t choose our sexual orientations. If we could, believe me, no one would choose mine” (np). Adds James Cantor, an international expert of pedophilia, in an accompanying interview, “[w]e have not yet found ways to convert pedophiles into non-pedophiles that are any more effective than the many failed attempts to convert gay men and lesbians into heterosexuals” (Dreger, 2013). Historians of sexuality might argue that pedophilia is at least to some degree a socially constructed sexual deviance, considering that across time too young, too old 207 and space children have engaged in sexual activities that were normative and ritualistic rather than consensual—as in the case of Sambia, where boys as young as 7 have traditionally been expected to fellate mature men and ingest their sperm in order to develop their own (Reiss, 1986). Child brides still exist, although mostly outside the Western world, with the United Nations estimating that 5 million girls under the age of 15 are married annually—a point typically used by Western media and politicians to demonstrate the backwardness of certain regions needing help from the developed world (e.g., Vogelstein, 2013). UNICEF estimates that more than 60 million women (now aged 20–24) were married before 18, according to the documentary Honor Diaries (Basch-Harod, Kweskin, Traiman, & Smith, 2013). In the UK, 8,000 forced marriages happen every year—including of girls as young as 5—and in the U.S., approximately 1,500 cases of forced marriages take place every year. Such child marriages are generally consummated through rape. “During sex, I was crying and begging him to stop, but he didn’t listen,” says one prepubescent child bride featured in the documentary Honor Diaries. “Then he got his hand on my mouth like this, and I couldn’t breathe, and I was crying, but he used me anyway.” There is no universal, global definition of pedophilia because the age of consent varies from 9 to 20 years throughout the world; some countries such as Saudi Arabia and Oman do not even have a minimum age of consent, according to the documentary Are All Men Pedophiles (Breure, 2013). There is some variation in the age of consent within the U.S. as well, with the legal age of consent generally ranging from 16 to 18. Surprisingly, however, North America is much more permissive about child marriage than about unmarried sex involving minors. Olga Khazan remarks in The Atlantic that “when it comes to child-marriage laws, the United States and Canada have more in common with Niger and Bolivia than with other Western, industrialized nations” (2015). It is not unusual for American teens to marry older partners as a way to prevent imprisonment on charges of statutory rape. By contrast, in Europe the average age of consent is lower, ranging from 13 in Spain to 17 in Ireland. It is 14 in Italy, Croatia, Austria, Serbia, Albania, Bulgaria, Lithuania, Estonia, Hungary, Portugal, and Germany (Green, 2010). In Western Europe, debates about sex with children have occurred mostly in the context of child labor (including prostitution). In the 1800s, the age of consent in France was established first at 11 and later at 13 (it is currently 15); in the Netherlands about the same time, it was raised from 12 to 16 (Oosterhuis, 1999b); and in Britain, it was raised from 13 to 16 (Hall, 1999). 208 mediated eros

Little wonder that when Polish/French filmmaker Roman Polanski was arrested in Los Angeles for the statutory rape of a 13-year-old girl, he was shocked to learn that he had committed a crime. In the documentary Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired (Levy-Hinte, Yacoub, & Zenovich, 2008), Philip Vannatter, a retired officer who handled sex crimes for the Los Angeles Police Department, explains: “He did not perceive having an intercourse with a 13-year-old girl as against the law. That was not in his culture.” Polanski, who had previously done a photo shoot of Nastasia Kinski for the French Vogue, started an affair with the young star when she was 15, and was never charged with any crime in Europe. But Southern California offered a much different story. Richard Brenneman, a reporter for the Santa Monica Evening Outlook, notes the remarkable divergence in the coverage of Polanski’s statutory rape case on both sides of the Atlantic: “How could the same man be two different things to different sets of press?” The European press painted Polanski as a tragic figure, a Holocaust survivor who had maintained his cultural and artistic integrity while making movies in the U.S. and had grieved the gruesome murder of his pregnant wife Sharon Tate. By contrast, the American press viewed him as this “malignant, twisted dwarf with this dark vision,” Brenneman says. Polanski’s short stature and thick accent contributed to his “othering” in U.S. media content (Levy-Hinte, Yacoub, & Zenovich). Clearly, what is always seen as a crime in one sociocultural context can, in another context, be perceived as a somewhat understandable case of intergenerational sexual attraction—or even a legally sanctioned (albeit highly coercive) arrangement, as in the case of child marriages. Media depictions of intergenerational relationships are at the center of the discussion in the following section.

Intergenerational Romances

Relationships between people with a significant age gap (sometimes several decades) have always been the talk of the town in Western countries. Famous examples include Charlie Chaplin’s fourth marriage to Oona O’Neill, 36 years his junior (Stanley, 1991); the 40-year-long relationship between German filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl and her companion, Horst Kettner, who met when she was 60 and he was 20 (Corliss, 2002); Clint Eastwood’s second marriage to TV journalist Dina Ruiz, 35 years his junior (D’zurilla, 2014); and too young, too old 209 the short-lived engagement of 79-year-old Gina Lollobridgida to a man 34 years younger than her (BBC News, 2006). But the scripts that govern the media framing of such relationships depend on which partner is older and on the sexual and power dynamics involved. In some cases, the intergenerational relationships discussed in the following sections could just as easily be classified as child sexual abuse because one of the partners was under the age of consent when the relationship began (i.e., the Mary Kay Letourneau case). However, they are discussed as intergenerational romances because they have either evolved into such or because they emphasize a “love-of-my-life” fatal attraction, as in the case of Nabokov’s Lolita, which at least by European standards is more frequently perceived as a love story than a salacious pedophilic narrative. With that said, let us begin by outlining the framing of women who become involved with younger men.

Cougars, Pumas, and Cheetahs

Women in their 30s and 40s who seek sexual encounters or relationships with younger men have become the darlings of much media content, as illustrated by shows such as Cougar Town, Accidentally on Purpose, The Cougar, and Pumas. “Cougars” are typically women in their 40s who objectify and seduce men in their 20s, while “pumas” are in their 30s and as “cougars-in-waiting” are also interested in younger men (Harris & Asthana, 2009). By other accounts, “pumas” are more appropriately called “cheetahs” (Daily Mail Reporter, 2011). Regardless of the precise species of large feline predators, the labels emphasize a notion that older women involved with younger men deserve to be placed in their own special animal species category—which, of course, is not the case for older men having sex with younger women. Cindy Gallop (2011), the creator of MakeLoveNotPorn, who dates younger men, suggests that media portrayals of cougars have caused women like herself to be viewed as sexually desperate and unselectively hitting on young men, a portrait with which she strongly disagrees. But there is no stopping the tide of cougar-related stereotypes at this point. The so-called “cougar invasion” in American visual media has created a new interpretive lens for the intergenerational relationships of stars such as Madonna, Demi Moore, and Mariah Carey. Even “the Indian actress Freida Pinto, who is just 24, was given the label in some parts of the tabloid press when she started dating her co-star from Slumdog Millionaire Dev Patel, 19” (Harris & Asthana, 2011). 210 mediated eros

This sexualized and sometimes unflattering presentation of women who have sex with much younger men dates at least a few decades back, to the film The Graduate (Turman & Nichols, 1967), in which the 40-plus Mrs. Robinson seduces 21-year-old recent college graduate Ben. Unsurpris- ingly, as a mediated “punishment” for violating norms against intergenerational sex (especially when initiated by women), Mrs. Robinson is endowed by the film makers with various negative traits. For example, she is an alco- holic, a fact she discloses early in the film, encouraging judgment on the part of the audience. She is also the one who is sexually aggressive, inviting further judgment because she violates the cross-cultural script of sexually dominant men and sexually submissive women. Much like 21st-century cougars in their contemporary media portrayals, Mrs. Robinson is depicted as uninterested in love, romance, or even a remote emotional connection. The film illustrates this by showing her tortured facial expression as she holds in her cigarette smoke while Ben awkwardly initiates a first kiss. As soon as he is finished, she vigorously exhales, and offers to undress. The forced performance of the dominant script is not intended to suggest that this script itself is ridiculous—rather, it suggests that Mrs. Robinson is a callous and cold-hearted woman, looking only for sexual satisfaction. It is, of course, highly unrealistic that she could be sexually satisfied by lying passively on her back and engaging in zero communication with a virgin young male. But this is beyond the point. The viewer is invited to simply despise Mrs. Robinson rather than consider the (likely dismal) quality of sex between her and Ben. When women scripted as cougars violate the expectation that they are seeking only sex, and begin a novel-worthy love story, as teacher Mary Kay Letourneau did with a 12-year-old student in 1996, the only judgment left is of their alleged emotional instability. This is how a Sydney Morning Herald story described the attempts at diagnosis:

Psychiatrists and psychologists had a field day when they assessed Letourneau, although few agreed on what had caused the affair. She was variously labelled obses- sive, displaying feelings of self-importance that border on grandiosity, suffering cognitive distortions, suffering from a personality disorder characterised by histrionic, narcissistic and antisocial traits. At one stage, part of the explanation for her conduct centred on a report from a psychiatrist, Dr Julie Moore, who blamed the affair on bipolar disorder, or manic depression. (Graham, 1999, p. 6)

Letourneau and her former student, who had two daughters (the second while she served a prison sentence for statutory rape), married in 2005 and tried to (unsuccessfully) conceive a third child, according to an article that described too young, too old 211 the former teacher as a “famed cradle thief” (Caruso, 2006, p. 22). The news story’s headline was provocatively ambivalent—even though it was supposed to refer to the couple’s efforts to conceive, it also mentioned that Letourneau hoped to return to teaching and implied that she might get sexually involved with another student. A similar relationship between a female teacher and a male student is portrayed in the filmThat’s My Boy (Giarraputo, Parry, Sandler, & Anders, 2012). Once again, media content relied on some occasional irony to pass judgment on the characters in the movie. “Don’t panic: the teacher is hot so it doesn’t count as abuse,” suggested The Irish Times in its review of the film (Brady, 2012, p. 12). Surprisingly, however, media depictions of perceived seductresses are not more positive when they are significantly younger than their “objects.” This pattern of framing is outlined in the next few paragraphs.

Lolitas

The term “lolita” and the sexual script surrounding it are based on a novel by Russian writer Vladimir Nabokov, which portrays an aging university professor falling in love with a pre-teenage girl and marrying her mother in order to join the family. “Lolita” is the girl’s nickname. The two eventually begin an affair, and her mother dies in an accident after discovering that her husband married her only because he was sexually obsessed with her young daughter. There have been two screen adaptations, which have helped to popularize the novel—the American Lolita (Harris & Kubrick, 1962) with James Mason as Humbert Humbert and the European one (Kassar, Michaels, & Lyne, 1997) with Jeremy Irons in the male protagonist’s role. Although both Mason and Irons are British (and can portray the requisite and presumably sexy British accent), the two films differ significantly in their degree and manner of sexuality depiction. In part, this reflects the restrictive Motion Picture Production Code in the U.S., enforced from 1934 to 1968, along with many culturally different assumptions about sexuality. The posters for the 1962 film version ofLolita conspicuously displayed the question “How did they ever make a movie of Lolita?” The New York Times’ response: They didn’t. Film critic Bosley Crowther (1962) argued that the elimination of Lolita’s childish appearance (she is 12 when Humbert meets her) turned the film into just a regular romantic drama:

She looks to be a good 17 years old, possessed of a striking figure and a devilishly haughty teen-age air … Right away, this removes the factor of perverted desire that 212 mediated eros

is in the book and renders the passion of the hero more normal and understandable … Older men have often pined for younger females. This is nothing new on the screen.

Lolitas are often portrayed as seductive, selfishly trying to get older men into bed for their own amusement. This is indeed the original Lolita’s script (she asks Humbert Humbert to play a game she learned in summer camp, which is implied to be sex). But the narrative of the sexually aggressive little girl also seems to permeate popular culture, or at least the popular culture of the recent past. Consider, for example, the girl-blaming in the oldies hit “Young Girl” (1968), sung by Gary Puckett and The Union Gap: “Beneath your perfume and makeup, you’re just a baby in disguise. And though you know it’s wrong to be alone with me, that come-on look is in your eyes … So hurry home to your mama.” Writes Vickers (2008): “Lolita was to become the patron saint of fast little articles the world over, not because Nabokov … depicted her as such, but because, slowly and surely, the media following Humbert’s unreliable lead, cast her in that role” (p. 7). Goldman (2004) argues that there is nothing abnormal in Lolita’s development; rather, it is her misogynistic construction through Humbert’s eyes that makes her deviant:

Nabokov utilizes the sexology that was so controversial in the 1950s to suggest an alternative interpretation of Lolita, one which views her not as a special, nymph-like girl already perverted before Humbert exploits her, but rather as an ordinary, juvenile girl whose “normal” sexual development is warped by a maniacal, myth-making pedophile. By interrogating the boundary between sexual “deviance” and “normality,” Nabokov’s Lolita, like Alfred Kinsey’s studies, exposes cultural myths, like the Edenic one Humbert Humbert creates, that turn “normal” sexual behavior into “deviance.” (p. 88)

What about the likes of Humbert himself? As described below, sometimes they are maligned and other times implicitly praised for their virility.

The Dirty Old Man

Many famous men, such as Bill Clinton and Woody Allen, have been assigned the label “dirty old man,” which a New York Post opinion column has defined as “the term used for generations to describe men who, whether endowed by office, money, wiles, whatever, lured young women into their house, hotel, car, canoe, for sex” (Buckley, 1998, p. 37). Clinton earned the label because of his affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky; Allen was seen as a too young, too old 213

“creep” and a “dirty old man” because of his affair with his adopted daughter Soon-Yi Farrow Previn (Futterman, 1992, p. 1G). The term continues to be used to describe aging men who seduce or sexually harass significantly younger women—such as in the case of a 64-year-old male attorney in Hawaii who was found guilty of forcefully licking the ear of a 21-year-old female client (Bernardo, 2012). Although journalists typically refrain from passing value judgments, they can sometimes do so through their sources’ quotes—and the phrase “dirty old man” is newsworthy because of its salacious and negative connotations. But whenever a phenomenon is labeled, semantic disagreement inevitably arises as well. Long before the term “cougar” had entered the mainstream, activists argued that the expression “dirty old man” is unfair because “an older woman who desires sex is never called a ‘dirty old woman’,” according to Fred Hayward, founder of Men’s Rights Inc. (Brooks, 1986). But just like “cougar” in the contemporary media space, the term “dirty old man” can have a positive connotation. In fact, it has been used almost as a point of pride signifying a man’s continued virility. For example, a popular rest-stop adult store used to be named “The Dirty Old Man Shop” (Steelman, 2006, p. 7D), and the late X-films director Russ Meyer was a self-proclaimed “dirty old man”—what with “the elbow nudge and the wiggling eyebrow and the heh heh heh” (Hinson, 1995, p. B01). Older men and women can be not only subjects but also objects of sexual desire, often by much younger people who are aroused by the physical signs of aging. This sexual preference, known as gerontophilia (meaning “love of the old”) has been rarely discussed in media content, but coverage appears to be on the rise as part of the general trend of media’s seeking and providing more information about sexual variations.

Gerontophilia

“I’d never heard of gerontophilia until this week,” wrote controversial British journalist Carole Malone in 2011, in a column expressing outrage at the long overdue arrest of a serial rapist who had assaulted dozens of elderly people. “Even now I know what it is I can barely believe it’s possible. Apparently it’s a condition where younger people have a genuine sexual attraction to very old people” (Malone, 2011, p. 21). Malone is not alone. Few media personalities or members of the general public know much about gerontophilia, which—unlike pedophilia—was not 214 mediated eros mentioned by Kinsey in his reports on human sexuality and is not included in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, which classifies psychiatric disorders and deviant behaviors (Bering, 2011). Thus, when it is discussed at all, gerontophilia tends to be portrayed by the media in highly inaccurate ways. For example, the sexual attraction of young people to much older partners often invokes mentions of death, even though gerontophilia is strictly distinct from necrophilia. For example, according to an article in Slate, “in sheer chronological terms, gerontophiles are perhaps better thought of as being closer to necrophiles than cougar-hunters” (Bering, 2011). Further, romances involving old-age partners are not confined to the heterosexual realm. A reader writing to The New York Times in 1996 suggests that New York has many so-called “wrinkle rooms,” or gay bars for older men: “Somebody—actually, hordes of attractive young men—seems to love you when you are old and gay!” (Wykert, 1996, p. 16). It is also often assumed that gerontophilic sex is consumed through some form of coercion. For example, according to an article by a doctor published in The London Times, the term gerontophilia “tends to be used only to describe the rape or sexual assault of a woman over 50 by an appreciably younger man” (Stuttaford, 2006, p. 7). Typically, the author continues, it is a condition found in societies in which parents or grandparents are strict disciplinarians, and so raping an elderly person is more about “retributive violence” than sexual attraction; when the rape ends with a murder, “it is not unusual for it to be associated with necrophilia” (Stuttaford, p. 7). On the pages of the same newspaper, Stuttaford had defined gerontophilia just a year earlier in a much more forgiving—and also very inaccurate—fashion, as “sex between grandparents” (2005, p. 26). The reality, of course, is that violence and coercion are not the definitive features of one’s sexual interest in the elderly. Such preferences have long been recognized by the sex-for-sale industries, which have responded to the demand for sights of varicose veins and sagging flesh with a supply of “grandmother prostitutes” (Neuberger, 1991) and “granny porn” (Flam, 2006). Flam adds: “What’s interesting about this geriatric fetish … is not that it happens but that it’s considered so extraordinary” (p. D01). In spite of much real-life evidence supporting the existence of gerontophilia, some media content has suggested that such preferences are misguided or just a stage in someone’s sexual evolution. For example, a man in his 30s, writing to The London Times for advice about his attraction to women over 60, received the following warning: “Dating someone who is frequently mistaken for your Nan might hold too young, too old 215 some erotic allure for a time, but the day-to-day reality of a relationship with someone who keeps her teeth in a glass is a little more complicated” (Godson, 2007, p. 22). However, more recent media depictions—especially outside the Anglo- American cultural sphere—indicate that so-called May-December romances do not necessarily involve destructive power dynamics or violence. This is portrayed in the Canadian film Gerontophilia (Comeau, Farlinger, Jonas, & LaBruce, 2013), shot in French-speaking Quebec; it portrays a gay love affair between an 18-year-old man working in a nursing home and an 81-year-old patient. The Globe and Mail describes the film as a celebration of “benign kink” and a “grandpa fetish” (Lace, 2014, R1). According to the Toronto Star, director LaBruce is exploring one of his favorite themes, “unconventional love,” which in the case of gerontophilia is “a simple romance and a rather sweet one if you can get your head around a handsome young man and an old duffer swooning and spooning” (DeMara, 2014). What a departure from an earlier Toronto Star column, which defined gerontophilia as a “morbid sexual fascination with the elderly” (DiManno, 2007, p. A02)! Here is how the director Bruce LeBruce himself (who says he has known many gerontophiles) describes the unusual attraction in the Montreal Gazette:

The boy has a fetish for the elderly—sagging flesh, someone with stooped posture, and other signifiers of old age turn him on … I wanted to make it clear he wasn’t just falling in love with this person in spite of his age. He was falling in love with him because of his age. (Dunlevy, 2014, p. B1)

Finally, it is important to note that older people themselves are not devoid of sexual agency, whether they are having sex with younger people or with others of similar age. This is the subject of this chapter’s last section.

Sexuality in Old Age

Although most people have their first sexual intercourse in their teens and most do not stop having sex until they die or are seriously disabled at the end of life, media’s portrayals of sexuality are limited by assumptions that sex is reserved for young and middle-aged adults of childbearing age. Just consider the media uproar over the “discovery” that, over the course of six years, Medi- care, the federally funded health insurance for seniors over the age of 65, paid for 473,000 penis pumps. On many news sites, this resulted in “contemptuous 216 mediated eros references to ‘geezers’ and ‘old goats’”—reflecting “an ageist current here, a result of our deep discomfort with the idea of older people’s sexuality,” wrote Paula Span in The New York Times (2014a). The same discomfort has been reported in nursing homes, where aging couples engaging in sexual behavior are thought to be hilarious, if married, and discouraged, if unmarried (Span, 2014b). Psychologist Ira Rosofsky has further argued that nursing homes routinely violate patient rights by making it impossible to have sex or even to masturbate due to lack of privacy, even though “the law says you retain the right to a sex life wherever you reside” (2009). He adds:

I sometimes think of aging—particularly in nursing homes—as childhood in reverse: going from independence to dependence and paternalistic control. As my baby boomer generation starts to fill up these institutions over the next couple of decades, I hope we continue to insist on our cherished rights of self-expression. In the meantime, does it make sense that it’s easier to get a conjugal visit in a jail than in a nursing home? (Rosofsky)

When senior sex is mentioned in the news, it is most often in the context of its potentially negative consequences—just as is the case for teenage sexuality. For example, multiple media outlets have discussed the climbing rates of sexually transmitted diseases among Baby Boomers in the U.S., who are being increasingly cautioned to use condoms even though they no longer face any risk of pregnancy (e.g., Nagourney, 2013). And the trend, attributed by journalists to longer life spans, higher divorce rates, and the common use of drugs such as Viagra, is evident outside the U.S. as well. As a story in The Guardian sarcastically noted in regard to the sex lives of seniors, “[i]t could be something in the cocoa or too much titillation on Coronation Street: Britain’s pen- sioners are shedding their cardigans and getting down to it” (McVeigh, 2001). A safe-sex message was also promoted by the 2010 Middle-Aged Spread campaign in the UK, which featured posters showing people dressed in 1960s and ’70s garb, with the message “Remember wearing this? Then remember to wear this,” next to the picture of a condom. In that sense, the campaign explicitly invites sociocultural elements rarely acknowledged by the media in regard to senior sex—such as the fact that today’s seniors were young adults at the time of the sexual revolution (McVeigh). What better proof that the expression of one’s sexuality is more strongly influenced by sexual scripts than by purely physiological factors? The sexuality of old-aged people, however, is continually marginalized in much entertainment content, for either dramatic or comedic effect. For too young, too old 217 example, in the American show Masters of Sex, an elderly couple engages in loud sexual activity at a hotel in Miami, to the chagrin of sexologist Bill Masters and his first wife, Libby (Greene, Levine, & Davidson, 2013). In the HBO show Getting On, an elderly couple is portrayed for laughs as “happily having sex in the lounge, horrifying the staff but not their adult children” (Span, 2013). In the British show Coupling, the parents of one of the protagonists, Susan, are portrayed as very open about discussing sex. By mistake, Susan’s boyfriend Steve gives Susan’s mother a gigantic dildo (modeled after his friend Patrick’s penis), and the next day he gets flowers and a thank-you note. “Your mother really liked her present,” he tells Susan (Moffat & Dennis, 2001a). Perhaps these caricature-like depictions of old-age expressions of sexuality are nothing more than a logical continuation of the silence and shame with which many generations have surrounded the subject of sex. If children’s intrinsic sexuality and rights to information are continually denied under the pretext that they have not yet reached procreative age, is it any wonder that these children grow up into adults who ridicule and restrain the non-procreative sex lives of their aging parents? The tables have turned—but they wouldn’t have to if someday sexuality began to be viewed as intrinsic throughout the human lifespan.

Conclusion

As this and the previous chapters have shown, media depictions of non- procreative sexuality cast it as a hidden aspect of our lives, dirty and embarrassing, yet one which—for the sake of political correctness—we are supposed to accept without shame. Just as long as we do not discuss it in public! This culture of silence has been challenged, but in somewhat superficial ways. For example, the former U.S. Surgeon General Jocelyn Elders once suggested that “we must revolutionise our conversation … to a discussion of pleasure” (Henley, 2010). But is this really all that sexuality is about? If we accept this view, it is easy to also embrace the notion that pleasure is something we choose. One can get pleasure from eating chocolate and watching TV, after all. If sex is perceived as belonging to the same category of hedonistic pleasure, little wonder that many people believe sexuality can and should be kept under wraps. But the role for which sexuality truly and consistently fails to be recognized in media content is as a catalyst for personal growth (WHO Standards 218 mediated eros for Sexuality Education in Europe, 2010). Because such a view is neither widely known nor accepted by most journalists and entertainment producers, media depictions continue to implicitly encourage mostly heterosexual activity, confined to mostly procreative age limits (roughly from 18 to 50 years of age). Yes, it is rare in this day and age to come across arguments that all sex should be procreative (outside of religious discourse), but media’s emphasis on sexuality as biological and “natural” implicitly limits the notion of what it can or should be as an aspect of the subjective human experience. In addition, given the lofty (albeit rarely attainable) ideal of lifelong monogamy, there is also little wonder that sexual relationships tend to be discouraged between partners whose ages suggest one might die long before the other. Most media content dampens intergenerational sex by presenting it almost exclusively through the lens of coercion. And although coercion is often present (in all types of sexual relationships, not only intergenerational ones), the confinement of acceptable desire based on age disallows sexuality its status as an aspect of humanity throughout the lifespan. Sexuality is more about being than doing, and to deny its existence outside of procreative age makes us less able to embrace the complexity of being human. conclusion

The Implicit Perpetuation of Sexual Scripts

A mountainous town, houses clustered closely together, with red roofs and magic sunset colors. It could be in Italy, or Spain, or Southern France. Laun- dry flaps in the breeze, strewn between windows overlooking narrow streets. Dogs bark. A gray-haired man in a leopard-patterned robe rubs his eyes, while intense violin music plays in the background. Then, trouble comes. His wife, dressed in a wine-colored negligee and revealing her glowing legs, wags her finger inviting him to bed. “Amore,” she whispers in a hoarse voice, with the tone of a tigress stalking her prey. Nervously excited, the man runs to the bathroom, and opens a tiny box containing a blue hexagon pill. Throwing it into his mouth in an expansive gesture, the old man miscalculates, launching the pill out the window and onto the curvy, sunbaked European shingles. The pill pops into the gutter and continues its ricocheting journey, while a spotted cat sensuously walks across the roof and the old guy, hair disheveled, screams “Noooo!” in a most non-John-Wayne fashion. Symbols of European sexuality—both forbidden and sensual—flash across the screen as the little blue pill hits a church bell, attracting a stern monk’s attention; breaks a delicate pink flower; flops into a sun-kissed fountain; and clinks a glass on its ascent to a young woman’s full lips. Finally, the pill falls into the open gas tank of a shiny red Fiat. Suddenly, a mysterious force erupts 220 mediated eros into a bulge underneath the metal. The car’s Adonis-like owner—gas pump in hand—is at first fazed and then reassured as three women sensuously vocalize at the sight of the car’s bulge. Finally, the narrator’s voice tells us what we are supposed to be thinking: “The all new Fiat 500X crossover. Bigger, more powerful, and ready for action” (Fiat, 2014). This is the script of one of the 2015 Super Bowl car commercials. It is hardly unique in equating a car to male virility. “Devil wagons” that have facil- itated the sexual encounters of American teenagers since the early 20th century (McGovern, 1968, p. 324), cars have long served Western male sexuality as “chick magnets” (e.g., Mottin & Sarmento, 2011) and as backdrops for Viagra ads in NASCAR races. What is unique about the Fiat commercial, however, is its reliance on a truly cross-cultural sexual script. It combines the loud, in-your-face visual appeal of mechanistic American sexuality with the sensual, kinesthetic nature of European lovemaking. And it does so masterfully, for two reasons. First, the commercial is made to sell a car in a global context, and although sex may be scripted differently around the world, it seems to be universally used as a tool to sell. Second, the commercial reflects patterns of cultural diffusion that have been occurring for centuries and have only intensified in the age of the Internet. Both of these points are important and will be addressed in detail. However, the first one—the global promotional power of sex—seems to underlie much of the second one, the cross-pollination of sexual scripts as a part of global cultural diffusion. For this reason, let us begin by situating depictions of sex within an economic context. How and why is sex used as a tool to sell ideas and products, and what is at stake in giving it so much power within the context of global capitalism? These questions are explored in the following section.

A Global Platitude: Sex Sells

Advertising that relies on sexual appeals is a lucrative international business, but Reichert and Lambiase (2012a) suggest that “many scholars and consumers are still unable to describe ‘if’ and ‘how’ sex sells” (p. ix). The reasons are many. Research on sexual appeals is frowned upon in the academe, and most scholars work in isolation, using perspectives from different disciplines and methodologies (Reichert & Lambiase). It does not help that the use of sex as a selling tool is wide-reaching and employs diverse strategies—from conclusion 221 images of attractive people in revealing clothing to verbal double-entendres. Reichert (2012) distinguishes among six different types of sexual information used in persuasion: nudity/dress; sexual behavior (including flirting, posturing, and sexual touch); physical attractiveness; sexual referents (innuendo and double-entendres); and sexual embeds (subconscious references to sex, such as images of objects that resemble genitalia). In spite of these diverse tac- tics, relying on sexual appeals as a “spectacle” to sell products, however, has become increasingly difficult in a “post-desire economy,” whose marketplace has been hypersexualized to the point of saturation (Brooke, 2012, p. 134). From a cognitive and physiological perspective, sexual appeals may influence how we process information because they activate the so-called appetitive (approach) motivational system, which is the opposite of the aversive (withdraw) system (Lang, 2000; 2006). The appetitive system encourages us to approach things and want them—be it food, sexual partners, or red shiny cars. Lang’s research suggests that if a message activates audience members’ appetitive systems, more of their limited cognitive resources would be allo- cated to processing the message containing the appeal. This means (as advertisers hope, anyway) that audiences exposed to sexual appeals would be more likely to not only encode the information about a product, but also integrate it into their memories because of its motivational relevance. At the level of speculation, it has also been suggested that desire aroused by sexual information may transfer to the objects for sale depicted within the same message. For example, Reichert and Lambiase (2012b, p. 1) point to an example of an ad employing a double entendre to sell computer servers—a product that on its own is not likely to be desired as easily as one might desire a hamburger or shoes. But place servers in the context of oral sex (“Don’t feel bad, our servers won’t go down on you either”), and desire may be awakened. Lang, Wise, Lee, and Cai (2012), however, have demonstrated that although sexual appeals increase attention, arousal, and memory for an advertisement, they do not lead to a demonstrable intent to purchase a product (2012). Further, as Brooke (2012) argues, the notion that “‘false desire’ for the product is metonymically linked to an instinctive desire … has many problems, not the least of which is its tendency to treat the relationship between nature and culture as uncomplicated” (p. 135). Yet, can we assume that sex itself represents only nature and not culture? We have come full circle to the questions and critiques presented in the first chapter of this book. It is also important to note that the platitude “sex sells” may be applied not only to the use of sexual appeals in advertising that is labeled as such, but 222 mediated eros also to other self-serving promotional mechanisms. Sex sells music (thanks to videos that feature attractive people in tight clothing, dancing provocatively); movies, magazines, and books (through sexual information within their content); clothing, lingerie, and cosmetics (because their purpose is to enhance one’s sexual appeal); and, finally, sex literally sells itself, in the form of pornography, prostitution, and lucrative human trafficking. Sex is one of the main items on the modern “visual consumption” menu because it is a limited resource in the real world (at least for most people). Thus, referencing sex affords many goods a certain “symbolic quality” (Schroeder & Borgerson, 2012, p. 66). There is only one downside. As Jean Kilbourne (2012) eloquently states, in the process of selling itself and other things, sex also commits a virtual suicide:

The notion that sex and sex appeal come from without rather than within is one of advertising’s most damaging messages … [I]n a world in which beautiful people often look more dead than alive, it is the car ads that most promise an erotic experience. We live in a culture that is sex-crazed and sex-saturated, but strangely unerotic. (emphasis in original, p. 175)

It is precisely this idea of sex from without—grasped through money, consumer goods, pharmaceuticals, and social performances signifying access to such things—that is increasingly at the core of a global and consumption-focused sexual hegemony. It could be conceived of as a category of cultural hegemony. A term attributed to Gramsci, cultural hegemony refers to the notion that culture, in a process of “continuous creation,” cajoles people to actively and freely consent to their own oppression by capitalist elites by accepting certain norms and values (Lears, 2002, p. 328). Hegemony has many faces. Gramsci’s theory has been extended to con- ceptualize multiple hegemonies as “fantasmic references that only indirectly refer back to experience from whence they emerged,” reflecting the power dynamics of class, race, and gender, among others (Schürmann, 2003, p. 12). Some scholars have even conceptualized “scattered” hegemonies within a single category like gender (e.g., Grewal & Kaplan, 1994). When applied to our sexual lives, desires, and fantasies, the concept of hegemony spills beyond its applications to gender, which is most frequently illustrated by the concept of hegemonic masculinity (Carrigan, Connell, & Lee, 1985), and beyond heteronormativity, illustrated by the concept of heterosexual hegemony (Kinsman, 1991). Perhaps the concept that comes closest to describing the development of transnational sexual hegemony is “sexual conclusion 223 citizenship,” a term coined by David Evans (2013) to refer to a materially constructed sense of belonging, in which a citizen is first and foremost a consumer. Although Evans uses the term to unpack the specific predicaments of certain second-class sexual citizens (such as gay people and women), there is an underlying commodification of sexuality that can be seen as binding everyone within an overarching worldview. Media have traditionally been viewed as one of the apparatuses through which hegemony is delivered and reinforced. This is even more so the case in the age of social media, where interactivity adds to the illusion of volun- tary acceptance of prevailing norms and values, even while giving a pro forma voice to dissenting views. Further, English-language news and entertainment content originating in Western countries is increasingly accessible to elites around the world, thus inevitably influencing and shaping most transnational discourses. It is also important to recognize, however, that there is a continuous interaction and re-constructive interplay between transnational and local narratives. Machin and Van Leeuwen (2003, 2004) refer to this discursive interplay of media messages and the ideologies they carry as “glocalization”—a process that represents the mutual reinvention of cosmopolitan and traditional cultures, the manifestation of global schemas through local discourses, and the use of Western values to create global identities in local environments. This contested process, as it applies to sex and sexuality, is the subject of the following section.

The “Glocal” Fusion of Sexual Scripts

The Fiat ad, with which this conclusion began, can be viewed as a manifestation of Gramsci’s notion of universal intersubjectivity (1982) or Jung’s collective unconscious (1936). Among other things, the commercial’s mixing and matching of sexual scripts illustrates the long-standing pattern of cultural diffusion across the Atlantic. From the day the Mayflower laid anchor in New England, “there never was a moment when the Old World and the New were not politically and culturally intertwined, or at odds over what each meant to the other,” writes historian Richard Pells (1997, p. 2). The study of sexuality reflects this pattern of intertwining cultural assumptions from its start, with both Freud and Kinsey following “the great traditions of European individualism” (Laumann & Gagnon, 1995, p. 190). 224 mediated eros

This is the case even more so in contemporary times because of the presence of mass media. Michelle Wolf and Alfred Kielwasser, editors of the book Gay People, Sex, and the Media (1991), argue that “both mass communication and human sexuality are enormously complex and pervasive processes; both are relentlessly influential in the life cycle of the individual” (p. 8). They further note that:

It is not possible for the forces and processes of mass communication to have no effect on our lives. Naturally, then, it is not possible for these same processes to have no effect on the sexual aspects of our lives. The question is not whether mass communication and human sexuality processes interact, but, more properly, how and why such interactions occur. (p. 10)

Many examples of overlapping mass-mediated sexual scripts already exist across the West. It is difficult to know their exact origins, although it can be inferred that some date back many centuries and originate outside the U.S. and Europe. Tantric scripts, for example, have long been suspected of influencing Western sexuality and “advertising lovemaps” across borders (e.g., Gould, 2012). The lovemap, a concept coined by sex scholar John Money (1986), is similar to the notion of sexual scripts, which serve as the theoretical basis for this book, but limited in acknowledging the influence of sociocultural elements. By introducing the notion of “consumer lovemaps, Gould takes the lovemap concept to a new level (which has nothing Tantric about it), similar to the earlier-mentioned notion of “sexual citizenship” based on consumption (Evans, 2013). Consumer lovemaps, which tend to span across borders, refer to patterns of “purchase and use of products in attracting a mate, engaging in sexual activity, and developing and maintaining sexual-love relationships” (Gould, 1991, p. 381). One common cross-cultural (and quite hegemonic) overlap of sexual scripts is the association of sex with luxury and exclusivity. A case in point is the notion of a special and lavishly beautiful place where all sexual fantasies come true. Gould (2012) refers to these as “dream-world living spaces” (p. 152). Whether it is a heaven where male martyrs are met by 72 virgins, as in Islamic faith (Rustomji, 2007), or a large estate in a remote location (The Story of O, Eyes Wide Shut), or a stylish Red Room of Pain in a billionaire’s apartment (Fifty Shades of Grey), the script represents the strict separation between everyday life and a high-priced erotic fantasy (whether it costs a lot of money or one’s own life). In its contemporary version, the sex heaven may also contain a plethora of expensive or unique devices to push one beyond conclusion 225 the edge of known sexuality. For example, sang Prince in “Darling Nikki” (Nelson, 1984):

She took me to her castle And I just couldn’t believe my eyes She had so many devices Everything that money could buy She said sign your name on the dotted line The lights went out And Nikki started to grind.

Another major cross-cultural narrative is that of the connection between sex and death, reflecting a global folklore-based tradition of fear of death as the ultimate power. In its contemporary incarnation, this association often emerges in portrayals of the undead’s healthy sexual drives and unmatched power of seduction—whether it is zombies, as in the television show The Walking Dead (Darabont et al., 2010), or vampires, as in the film The Hunger (Shepherd & Scott, 1983). In contemporary popular culture, the association between sex and death also makes for great comedy. “I get confused about death and sex,” says Marshall Eriksen, one of the protagonists in the popular show How I Met Your Mother. “It’s gotten to the point that anytime I drive past the cemetery I’m sporting a partial” (Kuhn & Fryman, 2009). The phenomenon of “scary sexuality” (Merskin, 2014, p. 224) appears to be almost archetypal, in fact, as illustrated by Kali, the Hindu goddess of death and sexuality; the sexualization of Count Dracula; and the medieval stories of incubi and succubae, sexual demons who kill humans by draining the life force from them. The association of human sexual energy with life (including the borrowed life of the undead) and its loss with ill health and death is also illustrated in ancient Greece’s notion that athletes preparing for competition should abstain from intercourse (Foucault, 1984/1986) and the Taoist and Tantric traditions of withholding ejaculation to achieve longevity and usher in mystical experiences (Taylor, 2009). There is also at least one contemporary cross-cultural narrative that applies to sexuality in most of the Western world, but it is not, strictly speaking, a sexual script—rather, it is more of a sociocultural backdrop for the study of sexuality. This is the so-called “master narrative of progress” (e.g., Marx, 2010, p. 566), which assumes that things are “getting better all the time,” as the Beatles once sang. In the realm of sex, this narrative encourages us to imagine previous generations as ignorant, repressive, and less likely to experience sexual 226 mediated eros desire and pleasure. Adjectives such as “Victorian” and “puritanical” have been used as synonyms for sexual repressive societies and cultures, even though they are utterly inaccurate. The progress narrative is insidiously present in almost any public and mediated discourse. Journalists and entertainers do not ask questions about what constitutes progress—rather, they simply frame new developments within this dominant framework. But, is it progress that media depictions of sexuality from earlier decades and centuries are often more imaginative, creative, and polysemic than recent ones? Is it progress that American songs that qualify as “sexual” from the last two decades almost invariably refer to women as “bitches” or “hoes,” but offer little to think about in regard to erotic desire and pleasure? Is it progress that the bar for women’s sexual performances in the West has risen higher and higher—thanks to the introduction of various porn scripts (such as the loud, quick, and theatrical female orgasm) into mainstream popular culture? Many of these developments can and have been blamed on the worldwide influences of Western media, especially entertainment content. This represents the notion of mediated, cultural imperialism (Tomlinson, 1991). The role of media in setting—or re-setting—sociocultural standards is most easily demonstrated through longitudinal studies in international contexts, although such are rare and difficult to conduct. A case in point here can be one much cited study showing that after TV was introduced on the island of Fiji, TV viewing began to correlate with body dissatisfaction and many adolescent girls who had previously abided by their culture’s preferences for larger bodies began to diet (Becker, Burwell, Herzog, Hamburg, & Gilman, 2002). It would have been useful and interesting to know how the introduction of TV in Fiji changed people’s sex lives (if at all), but unfortunately, the researchers did not ask such questions. Western mass-mediated content—especially if originating from the recently cultivated (by European standards) American continent—has long been suspect in corrupting other cultures. The novel Lolita, written in English by Russian novelist Vladimir Nabokov and published for the first time in France, is an epitome of the cross-pollination of sexual narratives across borders. The book depicts the story of a sophisticated European man and a small-town American girl—a scenario in which the responsibility for a sexual relationship clearly falls on the adult—but it has been analyzed as “an allegory about Europe’s debauching by America” (Weinman, 2014). What is conclusion 227 so scary about American sexual influences? The following section attempts to answer this question.

The Americanization of Sex?

Critics charge that the influence of American media exports is catalyzing the “debauching” process first implied in Nabokov’sLolita (1955). For example, Schur (1988) argues that, beginning in the second half of the 20th century, there has been an Americanization of sex (the symptoms being depersonalization, commodification, and coerciveness) around the world due to cultural diffusion via mass media. Western European teenagers learn “more about sex, courtship, love, family relationships, fashions, codes of behavior, and the pre- requisites for economic and social success from American movies, television soap operas, popular music, and comic strips than from their parents or teachers” (Pells, 1997, p. 240). Europe has resisted Americanization in all areas of life, not just sexual scripts. From an Old-World perspective, this is an easily justified resistance to a culture that mandates artificial good looks, fake smiles that reveal perfect teeth, manicured lawns where nothing lives except perfect grass, spit- shined cars whose purpose is so much more than transportation, and beautiful bathrooms suitable enough as a location for a quickie. Beneath the mediated veneer of wealth and perfection, actual well-being in the U.S. as measured by life expectancy (79 years) is lower than in the entire rest of the developed world, including Canada, Western Europe, Australia, and Japan (>80 years) (The World Bank, 2012). In spite of Europe’s resistance, the transatlantic tradition of intellectual and cultural cross-pollination not only continues, but has also accelerated to a degree that often makes it impossible to ascertain the origins of certain scripts. It is fair to acknowledge, however, that the U.S. is not as isolated in its cultural exports as it is often perceived from the outside. American media exports sometime act as the prism that diffuses and magnifies Western European cultural scripts throughout the world. Many elements of contemporary mediated culture have been exported first from Western Europe to the U.S. (for example, reality television originated in the UK), and only then have gained a global foothold. As many Europeans might smirk in agreement, the highly visible American cultural dominance is not an obvious correlate of the originality and quality of American mass culture. Rather, its global media presence reflects the subsidized 228 mediated eros and flexible nature of U.S. media exports. A 1918 act of Congress allowed the Motion Picture Export Association to sell films outside the U.S. at variable prices—sometimes much lower than the ones offered to domestic distributors— ultimately winning and consistently keeping the lion’s share of the world media market (Machin & van Leeuwen, 2007). This early success in the exports of American media content allowed U.S. media industry to grow into a gigantic and profitable enterprise, which nowadays continues to reinforce its domination of foreign media markets. What does this mean for the sociocultural scripting of human sexuality? Foucault (1976/1990) has argued that the way sex is discursively constituted reflects the power relations that underlie it. This could not be any truer in regard to the worldwide cultural diffusion of sexual scripts through media. Power—economic, political, and military—guarantees visibility for mediated discourses that originate from the most influential players within a given society or in the world. As a result, although sexual anthropologists have reported a remarkable variety in sexual practices across time and space, the global presence of Western media content might soon be smoothing over such variations. For example, are girls in Samoa still going through untroubled adolescence (assuming Margaret Mead’s core findings in her 1928 book were at least somewhat accurate), or are they modeling the teenage crises of their Western counterparts? The latter is more likely because in Samoan society, “[a]ccess to Western media has increased at a rapid pace with movies, television, music and the Internet widely available and enthusiastically consumed” (Odden, 2012, p. 2). Such vulnerability to cultural influences is also present in many other economically weak or politically unstable areas of the world. Kon (1999) reports, for instance, that “[c]ontemporary Russian sexual culture is completely commercialized and Americanized, and this is highly frustrating for parents, teachers, and intellectuals” (p. 212). Around the world, “so much of how people see and feel themselves oozes into shape inside the sticky, narrow walls of commerce” (Gamson, 1998, p. 26). It would be sad and boring if the world’s cultures eventually reach a shared understanding of what constitutes “normal” sex life (twice a week penile- vaginal intercourse resulting in the man’s orgasm, as in the “Sex Talk” episode of Everybody Loves Raymond). Thankfully, history suggests that this is unlikely. Sexual scripts shift and vary greatly over long periods of time. For example, the contemporary West sees itself as a progressive sexual force now, but this was not the case 1,000 years ago, when the East held a lead in that area. This has been demonstrated by the 10th-century Arabic Encyclopedia of Pleasure, which “covers sex from aphrodisiacs to zoophilia and everything in-between … just conclusion 229 one in a long line of Arabic erotica, much of it written by religious scholars” (El Feki, 2013). Another little-known historical change concerns stereotypes about women’s sexual drive. Caplan (1987) suggests that European women were viewed as highly sexual in the Middle Ages, less lustful than men between the 17th and 19th century, and finally as practically asexual in the late 19th century. These views have been neither constant nor cross-cultural and universal at any given time. On the other hand, what lends some credibility to the imagined scenario of a worldwide cultural merger (including in the realm of our subjective experiences of sexuality) is the fact that global communication is no longer a fuzzy utopia but a lived reality. Ancient Greek hetaeras could not share their stories of artful seduction with the rest of the world because they had no reality shows or social media. The Kama Sutra was passed down from generation to generation as a sacred text, but until 2013, there was no special Cosmopolitan magazine issue (or an accompanying smartphone app) to help novices learn all the Kama Sutra sex positions. I harbor reservations about technological determinism, but it is probably accurate to say that greater mobility and connectivity have helped spread Western cultural narratives, including about sex. And dominant these narratives are. I recall that, as a Bulgarian youth, many of my friends and I wanted to revamp the country’s institutions and traditions to make them “normal,” like those in Western Europe or North America. Of course, we had no first- hand knowledge of this alleged normality, but for us, “Bulgarian” meant inferior in most contexts. In retrospect, I wish I could ask my younger self whether Sharon Stone portrayed “normal” behavior in Basic Instinct (Marshall, Kassar, & Verhoeven, 1992). When my high-school boyfriend and I left the movie theater, we were in agreement that sex had elements of inherent brutality and violence that were “natural.” Secretly, I also very much wished I could look like Sharon Stone, in part because she was able to use her sexuality as a source of power. Thankfully, since then I have since come to believe that there are better paths to women’s empowerment, including in the realm of sexuality. This is the subject of the next few paragraphs.

Feminism and Sexuality

Let’s return briefly to the story of the leopard-robed man, the blue pill, and the shiny red car. The 2015 Fiat commercial is just a fantasy, we might say— one intended to sell a car. But fantasies matter. They are not “just a private 230 mediated eros matter of individuals. Fantasies are the central stuff our ideologies are made of,” argues celebrity philosopher Slavoj Žižek in the documentary A Pervert’s Guide to Ideology (Holly, Rosenabaum, Wilson, & Fiennes, 2012). The Fiat fantasy demonstrates such ideology by combining divergent sexual scripts under the cross-cultural umbrella of male sexual power and prowess, achieved (supposedly) through the consumption of blue pills and red cars. This male dominance script is not only global, but also increasingly glob- ally challenged because of fourth-wave feminism’s focus on sexuality as identity. As far as back as 1988, Schur suggested that “1960s pronouncements about sexuality were often vague and poorly integrated into the overall agenda for social progress” (p. 41). He argued that second-wave activists did not grasp that true social and sexual freedom was not necessarily orgiastic, drug-induced, free of intense emotions, and equal-opportunity depersonalized. Rather, Schur’s view was that such freedom hinges on broader social changes that need to occur first (p. 41). And these changes are occurring, at last. According to Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett, co-founder of The Vagenda blog, “a woman’s right to express her own sexuality without apology … is an idea that lives on as central to the fourth wave of feminism that we are seeing now (“What Germaine Greer,” 2014). But to avoid falling into the trap of the progress narrative, it is also important to acknowledge that the feminist movement has long been linked to women’s desire to profess and enjoy diverse sexual pleasures without judgment. This is illustrated, for example, by recent revelations that Wonder Woman, a feminist icon, was modeled after birth-control and sexual-freedom advocate Margaret Sanders (Lepore, 2014). Not only that, but Wonder Woman’s image also includes prominent “kink” scripts, such as her famous bondage bracelets. Lepore reports that they have their origins in bracelets owned by Sanders’s niece Olive Byrne, the unofficial wife of Wonder Woman’s creator William Marston, who lived with him in a threesome arrangement and had once taken him to a pain-and-humiliation sorority pledge party. Another example of the link between feminism and sexual freedom is evident in the show Masters of Sex, portraying Virginia Johnson as a modern-day feminist: a working mother who not only successfully leans in, but also owes much of her empowerment to her ability to enjoy sex without attachment and without the shame typical to the period women. Feminism’s association with sexual freedom is further manifested by contemporary rebellious and non-sexualized extrications of the female body in conclusion 231 public performances. Eve Ensler’s play and book The Vagina Monologues were the early harbingers of the significance of women’s bodies as public feminist battlegrounds. Recent activist movements have taken these performances into newer, much bolder territories. This is illustrated by the “Free the Nipple” campaign in the U.S. (which aims to eliminate indecency charges for women going topless), the Ukrainian-born FEMEN (whose members organize topless marches to protest social issues), and the Iranian “My Stealthy Freedom” (which encourages Muslim women to post pictures of themselves without any head covering on Facebook). Even celebrities have joined in on the trend of baring flesh to declare and defend feminist allegiances. To protest media’s shaming of women’s real bodies, actress Keira Knightley recently contributed to this trend by making the bold move to bare her breasts in a photo shoot, “so long as you don’t make them any bigger or retouch” (Ferrier, 2014, np). The image of Knight- ley’s small, slightly asymmetrical breasts and her boyish figure appeared on the September 2014 cover of Interview, an international fashion magazine based in the U.S. The result was empowering for many women, and it directly challenged the consumption-based sexual hegemony. If a woman internationally recognized for her beauty like Keira Knightley does not have the perfect size C or D breasts, why would anyone want to get breasts implants? Another case in point is U.S. performer Amanda Palmer’s nude reading on the stage of London’s Roundhouse of an open letter to the UK tabloid The Daily Mail, subject of much feminist criticism for its salacious, profit-driven objectification of women’s bodies (Thorpe, 2013). The very existence of Palmer as both a feminist and an alternative-culture celebrity who routinely bares her body in performances and displays her pubic and armpit hair is a refreshing sign that sexual embodiment and women’s sexuality are beginning to be seen as important. Another example is the comeback of second-wave feminist Betty Dodson, whoes notion that “sex was a top-priority issue” for women lost favor with 1970s feminist leaders. But sex is back on the table. Dodson, who is in her 80s, has been running popular masturbation workshops in New York and educating post–Sex and The City women about the transformative power of sexuality” (Theobald, 2014). She attributes the limited success of earlier feminists to excessive alarm over sex: “They’re afraid of sex because they say it’s too controversial. But I feel it’s because they’re personally too conflicted. They don’t want to masturbate, they want Prince Charming. It’s Walt Disney. Puke. Barfarama” (Theobald). 232 mediated eros

And Prince Charming, even if he existed, would not be a natural sex god. His sexual performances would be pre-scripted, as would the sexual expectations of his partners. This brings us back to the notion of sociocultural construction of sexuality, the premise with which this book began and which makes the study of mediated sexual scripts urgent and important.

Final Words

Comparing sexual scripts across and within cultures is a powerful way to illustrate that sexuality is not all natural and biologically driven. In the U.S., for example, many men’s interest in women as nothing more than orgasmic, performing bodies and masculinity status symbols “is accepted as a relatively natural outgrowth of innate, gender-based biological differences,” writes Brooks (1995, p. 12). But although most heterosexual men across the world probably become sexually aroused by women’s bodies, subtle differences exist in how sexuality is experienced and enjoyed. Highlighting these differences through the helpful lens of mass media (in spite of increased standardization and globalization) is important in that it offers support for the theory of sexuality as a social construction. While the question of how much of sexuality is “biological” and how much is the product of socialization will always be a contentious theoretical point, it is important to also consider the significant practical implications to knowing how societies “frame” and “script” sex. Such awareness allows individuals to question and perhaps revise patterns of thought and behavior they might have always taken for granted. Many questions can and should be asked (but not necessarily answered) in follow-up investigations of mediated sexual scripts. Does exposure to certain types of entertainment content, such as violent films and video games, correlate with sexual satisfaction? Is watching Sex and the City bad for one’s sex life? Is watching erotic French movies good for one’s sex life? Any answers suggesting causality are likely to be speculations—that is, until it becomes possible to detail changes in the representation of sexual scripts within the brain’s memory networks (Hinton & Anderson, 2014) or until future media-effects scholarship begins to rely more on longitudinal studies and international set- tings. Lab-conducted experiments seem increasingly inadequate in investigating complex phenomena like media effects—especially given the so-called “replication crisis,” which refers to the infrequent replication of research results calculated via conventional statistical methods (Flam, 2014). conclusion 233

To make important scholarly contributions in the study of media effects, including on sexuality, we need to take our research on the road. Why not use brain-wave-measurement helmets on movie-going volunteers in Eastern Europe? Why not conduct flash surveys when people in Southeast Asia leave movie theaters after seeing the latest American blockbuster? Why not measure changes over time in people’s attitudes and beliefs after a country has first been exposed to Western cultural narratives? If North Korea ever becomes a democracy, it should be considered important research ground for scholars of media effects. Until the current practices of studying media effects are truly revolution- ized, the extent to which human sexuality is influenced by news and entertainment content is likely to remain a subject of endless speculation. Sexual thoughts, fantasies, and behaviors will continue to be publicly scripted, yet not publicly articulated—even though “we all know that a lack of articulation of norms doesn’t mean they don’t exist” (Schwartz, 2007, p. 81). While individuals tend to have their own internalized norms and sexual narratives, it is important to recognize the “collective nature of the cultural scripts that underlie individual stories” (Plante, 2007, p. 33). And it is especially crucial to remember that these cultural scripts are often learned, reactivated, and reinforced through exposure to media content (Wright, 2011).

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A B

The Accused, 18 Baby Doll, 201–2 advertising, 64, 93, 184–7, 190, 202, 220–2, Barry Lyndon, 106 224 baseball metaphor (in American sexual alcohol and drunken sex, 53, 184 scripting) 26, 30, 50–1, 56 Amelie, 91, 93, 136 “bases” (first, second, etc.) 26, 51, 128 An American Affair, 60 Basic Instinct, 8, 30, 53, 83, 157, 229 American Pie, 136 BDSM, 14, 107, 110, 142, 146–7, 149–50, Americanization of sex, 49, 227 152–8, 161–2, 167 analingus, 108, 115, 117 Betty Blue, 84 anal sex, 62, 113, 116, 120, 133, 142, 147 Billy Elliot, 61 ancient Greece, 21, 81–2, 104, 225, 229 Big, 17 antidepressants’ (SSRIs) effects on sexuality, bisexuality, 2, 111–3, 118, 120, 148–9, 157, 191–2 159, 173, 176, 192 Antonia’s Line, 75 Bitter Moon, 155 Are All Men Pedophiles, 61, 207 Blood and Sand, 7 ars erotica (erotic art) 86, 93, 167 Blue Is the Warmest Color, 121 asexuality, 165–6 Blue Velvet, 6 audiences, 170–1, 173–5, 186, 193, 201, 221 Bogomils, 78 274 mediated eros bondage, 147–8, 150, 155, 157–8, 162–3, 230 crossdressing, 104–5, 146–7, 153, 157–8, 161 bottom shaming, 113–4 cultural hegemony, 222 Bradshaw, Peter, 76, 84–5, 96, 122 cultural imperialism, 226 breasts, 59, 60–2, 78, 89–90, 95, 111, 121, 231 cunnilingus, 68–9, 99, 115, 133, 136 Breakfast at Tiffany’s, 200 Cyrus, Miley, 57, 88, 148 Bridesmaids, 82 Brokeback Mountain, 103, 109, 112, 120 Brooks, Gary, 54, 60, 66–7, 70, 73, 136–7, D 232 Butler, Judith, 116 A Dangerous Method, 154–5, 175 Buying Naked, 57 death-and-sex scripts, 80, 82–3, 85, 152, 203, 214, 225 delayed ejaculation, 177, 190–2 C depersonalization of sex, 50, 71, 167, 227 deviance, 5, 105, 107, 110, 117, 151, 156, casual sex, 64, 78, 82, 123, 163 158–9, 172, 207, 212, 214 centerfold syndrome, 54, 70–1 Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental “cheetahs” (also see “cougars” and “pumas”) Disorders (DSM) 152–3, 162, 181, 209 205–6, 214 childhood masturbation, 198–9 diffusion of scripts, 49, 220, 223, 227–8 Christianity (also see “religion”) 21, 55, 62, dildo scripts, 78, 217 78–9, 80 “dirty old man” scripts, 212–13 Cialis, 186, 188 discrimination (against sexual minorities) circumcision (male) 63–4, 98 105, 155–6, 166 clitoral orgasm, 134, 175 double entendre, 69, 93, 221 coercion/coercive sexuality, 15, 50, 144, double standard, 30–2, 58, 69, 73 147, 182, 193, 208, 214, 218, 227 douching, 62–3 coital orgasm script, 64, 131, 133–4, 179, 193 dyspareunia, 182 commodification of sex, 50, 223, 227 Communists (including communist countries) 5, 8, 87–8 E consent, 71, 150, 153, 157, 196, 204–5, 207, 209 Easy A, 136–7, 160 coprophilia, 128 Ebert, Roger, 84–5 Cosmopolitan magazine, 14, 29, 62–5, 71, 73, Ecstasy, 86 103, 123–4, 126, 128, 130, 132, 134, Emmanuelle, 8, 83 137–9, 158, 174, 180, 229 Entman, Robert, 37–8, 42, 45 “cougars” (also see “cheetahs” and “pumas”) Everybody Loves Raymond, 52, 62, 70, 183, 195–6, 209–10, 213–14 228 Coupling, 7, 94–6, 109, 120, 138, 159, Eyes Wide Shut, 84–5, 97, 170, 224 189–90, 217 erectile dysfunction (ED) 182–190 counting lovers (see “scoring” for men) 32, erections (including as heterosexual 200 masculinity symbol) 23, 53, 115, 120, cross-cultural scripts, 15, 60, 83, 133, 139, 132, 176–8, 183–6, 188–192 192, 202–3, 210, 220, 224–5, 230 eroticization of children, 200–204 index 275

“erotic other” scripts, 6–8, 16 G Eugene Onegin, 79 existential meaning of sexuality, 7, 52, 76, Gagnon, John, 2–3, 18–21, 23–4, 26–8, 80–86, 96, 99, 155 30–1, 34, 42, 63, 68, 72, 97, 108, 110, 117, 124, 130, 137, 151, 173–4, 195, 223 F gay masculinity, 108 Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, 201 Fading Gigolo, 3, 185, 190 gendering of sexual scripts, 28–33, 69–73, faking orgasms, 72, 124, 135–6, 138, 142, 93, 125–6, 130, 140, 143–4, 181, 167, 192 192 fellatio, 15, 61, 63, 68, 72, 98–9, 102, 113, gerontophilia, 196, 213–5 125, 131–2, 148 Gerontophilia, 215 female dominance, 94–6 The Girl Can’t Help It, 55 “female Viagra” 180–1 Glee, 118 feminism, 58, 125, 143, 162, 164, 180, 199, glocalization, 223 201–2, 220 Good Morning, Vietnam, 70–1 “femme fatale” script, 92, 202 GQ, 62, 65, 94, 117, 126 fetishes/fetishism, 54, 57, 66, 107, 146–149, The Graduate, 71, 210 151–3, 155, 157, 167, 214–15 Gramsci, Antonio, 222–3 FetLife, 4 G-spot scripts, 11, 134 Fifty Shades of Grey, 76, 145–7, 149–50, 154, 162, 167, 224 “fille fatale” script, 202 H flirting, 92, 221 fluidity/fluid sexuality, 24, 27–8, 96, 110–11, The Hangover, 82 113, 155 hardcore-pornography scripts, 84, 135 “foreigner” scripts (also see “erotic other” hebephilia, 196, 225 scripts) 5–8, 77 hegemonic masculinity, 61, 142, 222 foreplay, 27, 78, 93, 111, 117–18, 133–4, heteronormative script/heteronormativity, 184, 188 103, 111, 125, 140, 149, 176, 178, 180, The, 4th Man, 53, 83, 96, 99, 112, 117, 192 182–3, 192, 222 framing (also see media frames) 41–4 heterosexuality, 11, 28, 103, 106, 117, 183 Free Lovers movement, 49 hip-hop, 135 French (as in erotic associations with Hofstede, Geert, 10, 73, 77 French culture) 6–7, 77 homosexuality, 9, 24–5, 33, 57, 78, 99, Freud, Sigmund, 20, 55, 151, 154–5, 170, 101–22, 173 176, 190, 223 hookups, 72, 163, 184 Friends, 94, 159, 160 How I Met Your Mother, 7, 32–3, 51, 56, 60, frigidity (also known as anorgasmia) 70, 63, 66, 72, 91, 98, 135, 142, 160, 225 180, 191 How To Get Away with Murder, 108, 111, Foucault, Michel, 2, 12, 20–21, 28, 49, 70, 113–14, 118–19 80–82, 86, 93, 104–5, 116, 151–2, 167, The Hunt, 89, 205 170, 195, 225, 228 hygiene, 62–4 function script, 172–3, 176–7, 180, 182–5 hypoactive (low) desire, 180–2 276 mediated eros

I Lolita trope, 158, 196, 201–2, 211–12 Looking, 101–2, 107, 112–13, 118 The Iliac Passion, 106 Love Actually, 7 impotence scripts, 178, 184–6, 189–90, 206 “lovemaps” 224 Innocents Abroad, 76 The L Word, 118 innuendo, 89, 92, 118, 221 Lysol, 63 intergenerational relationships, 208–15 intimacy (or lack thereof) 12, 37, 67, 70, 73, 98, 103, 107–9, 122, 141, 188, 195 M Irreconcilable Differences, 106 macho (see also “manly” and “masculine”), 53, 73, 108–12, 134, 141, 144, 150, J 158, 174, 186, 191–2 Mad Men, 33, 39, 53, 121, 155, 199 Johnson, Virginia, 9, 66, 119, 131, 140, 169, Madonna, 52, 57, 120, 135, 148, 209 175, 230 magazines, 1, 6, 8, 11, 14, 27, 29, 31, 33, Jules and Jim, 83 36, 38, 58, 62–3, 65, 76, 89, 94–5, 103, Jung, Carl, 154, 170, 223 105, 114–15, 117, 123–6, 128, 130–4, Justine, 146 137, 139–41, 143, 146, 158, 163, 174, 180, 202, 222, 229, 231 male dominance, 28, 53, 63, 68–9, 72, 131, K 133, 139, 141, 144, 230 male gaze, 54–5, 92, 111, 141, 144 Kama Sutra, 4, 158, 229 marital rape, 71 Khazan, Olga, 22, 163, 207 masculinity construction, 2, 29, 50, 61, 70 The Killing of Sister George, 107, 111 Masters of Sex, 131, 135, 171, 175–6, 189, Kinsey, Alfred, 19–20, 23, 140, 169–170, 217, 230 172–3, 175–6, 212, 214, 223 Masters, William, 9, 66, 119, 131, 140, 169, Krzywinska, Tanya, 82–4, 98, 130, 139, 152, 171, 175–6, 189, 217 157, 170 masturbation (frequency) 65–7, 191 masturbatory (also “erotic”) fantasies, 29–31, 65, 191, 197, 201, 204, 224, 229–30, 233 L masochism (see also sadomasochism) 5, 9, 14, 24, 31, 57, 84–5, 107, 110, 146–8, Lacan, Jacques, 170, 176 150–3, 155–7, 159, 167 “lad mags” 141 Maxim magazine, 6, 14, 27, 65, 73, 126, 128, Last Tango in Paris, 83–4 138, 141–2 Leather Pride activism, 149, 166 May-December romances (also see lesbian “bed death” 118 intergenerational relationships) 195, 215 lesbian objectification by straight men, 103, media frames, 37–44 120–2 medicalization of sex, 86, 105, 110, 169–94 Lewinsky, Monica, 41, 172, 212 Men’s Health magazine, 126, 131, 139, 142 LGBT, 102–3, 149, 156, 165, 206 “metrosexual” appearance, 55, 186–7 Lolita (the novel and films) 96–7, 200–2, Midnight Cowboy, 102–3, 108 209, 211–12, 226–7 misogyny, 71, 187 index 277

Morocco, 118 135–6, 138, 140, 142, 144, 152, 170–1, Motion Picture Production Code, 57, 61, 177–9, 185, 188, 190, 210, 222, 226, 82, 109, 118, 211 231–2 Murmur of the Heart, 202 A Pervert’s Guide to Ideology, 230 physiological (including dysfunction) scripts, 21–2, 24, 53, 56, 133, 140, N 170–1, 175–6, 185, 188, 216, 221 Playboy, 58, 73, 76, 92, 139 nativism (including “scientific nativism”) 18 Plummer, Ken, 13, 22–3, 28 need for validation, 70–72, 137, 142, 144 Polanski, Roman, 96, 155, 202, 208 negative consequences of sex, 15, 36, 45, Polanski: Wanted and Desired, 208 143, 216 polyamory, 14, 22, 24, 109, 149, 153, 162–5 news routines, 37, 44–5 polygamy, 164, 174 nonverbal sexual communication, 92 popular culture, 6, 13, 31, 50, 53, 68, 72, 85, nudity, 54, 56–8, 62, 75, 77, 85–6, 88–9, 87, 102, 109, 117, 119–20, 122, 127–8, 90–2, 94, 221 146–8, 153–4, 159, 169, 183, 188, 200, nudism, 57, 91 212, 225–6 Nymphomaniac, 79, 80, 85, 87, 93, 98–99, 198 pornography, 1, 3, 5, 8, 10, 12–13, 31, 34, 56, 60–1, 65–7, 70, 77–80, 84–5, 89–92, 95, 97, 103, 105, 120–1, 125, 131, 133, 135, O 139, 141–2, 147–8, 150, 155, 158, 164, 173, 184, 188, 197, 204–5, 214, 222, 226 objectification, 6, 7, 54–5, 58, 70, 91, 103, post-communist countries, 9, 119 141, 148, 206 post-positivism, 21–4 old age, 195, 214–7 premature ejaculation, 177, 187, 192 oral sex, 31, 68, 78, 99, 132–3, 200, 221 Pretty Girl, 202 orgasmic vocalization, 135–7 prostitutes/prostitution, 3, 9, 32–3, 49, 57, orgy script, 85, 97 110, 117, 135, 207, 214, 222 Outrage, 106 pubic hair, 51, 61, 75, 91, 231 “pumas” (also see “cheetahs” and “cougars”) 209 P Puritans, 48, 189 purity script, 48–9, 203 Paris Honeymoon, 6 patriarchy, 83, 86, 182 pedophilia, 57, 61, 107, 153, 196, 202–7 Q Peep Show, 118 penile-vaginal intercourse, 17, 24, 52, 172, queering/queer scripts, 103, 116–18, 120 192, 228 penis pumps, 195, 215 penis size, 78, 134, 137 R performances/performativity of gender or sexuality, 3–4, 10–11, 13, 18–20, Ramsey, JonBenet, 203 25–6, 28, 30, 48, 52, 71, 92–3, 96, 104, rape culture (also see coercion/coercive 108–9, 110–11, 120–21, 123–5, 130–1, sexuality) 59, 153 278 mediated eros rap music/rappers, 31, 183, 191 sexual minorities, 22, 45, 110, 128, 145, Reiss, Ira, 19, 23, 25, 52, 121, 153, 192, 207 148–50, 157, 162, 165–7, 173 relational scripts, 13, 29–30 sexual orientation, 22, 24, 56, 105–9, reproductive focus, 13, 18, 85, 124, 128, 111–13, 117, 119, 149, 165–7, 173, 138, 166, 178, 195 182, 195, 206 role-dichotomy script, 111–13 sexual positions, 103, 133, 141, 229 Romance, 83–5 sexual revolution, 3, 5, 10, 66, 91, 102, 121, La Ronde, 82 149, 163, 165, 199, 216 romantic love scripts, 30, 49, 79, 81, 84–5, sexual scripting theory, 19, 24–33 87, 92–3, 97–8, 104, 107, 112, 137, sexual techniques, 62, 95, 130, 132 164, 166, 188, 190, 209–11, 215 similes (use of) 55 Simon, William, 2–3, 18, 24, 26–7, 30–1, 34, 42, 63, 69, 72, 97, 108, 110, 117, S 137, 151 The Simpsons, 38, 52 sacred sexuality, 78–9, 223 slut-shaming/“sluttiness” 31–2, 59, 69, 94, de Sade, Marquis, 146 137 sadism (including instruments of sadism) The Social Network, 60, 72 105, 145–6, 150, 153, 157, 160–1 social construction/constructivism (as Salo, 107 theoretical framework) 11, 19, 45, 232 same-sex kissing (on screen) 118 sociobiology, 138 Saturday Night Live (SNL) 5, 66, 68–9, 115, sociocultural construction of sexuality, 16, 160, 162, 172 18–20, 28, 30, 33, 39, 40, 44–5, 61, Savage, Dan, 127–9, 158 70, 103, 117, 152, 167, 170, 177, 179, Schlesinger, John, 102–3, 108, 112 180, 182, 193, 203, 208, 216, 224–6, Schur, Edwin, 49–52, 117, 126, 167, 184, 228, 232 187, 227, 230 sexuopharmaceuticals, 177, 183 scientia sexualis (sexual science) 86, 170–1 sodomy, 68, 77, 107, 116 scoring (with women) 31–2, 54, 69, 102, spanking/spanking trope, 147, 154–5, 158, 142–3 160 Secretary, 154 Spears, Britney, 10, 102, 120 seduction scripts, 62, 76, 92–4, 117, 229 Speedos, 6, 55, 90–1 Seinfeld, 2, 72, 183 status quo (including challenges against it) self-improvement script, 14, 27, 130, 170 13, 16, 20–1, 87, 94, 138–44, 150–2, The Servant, 107 156, 165, 206 Sex and the City, 33, 44, 66, 172, 231–2 stereotypes, 5–7, 11, 25, 36, 38–9, 40, 43, sex comedy genre, 97, 125, 136, 160 77, 102, 104, 107–9, 111–14, 118, 127, The Sex Inspectors, 139–140, 149 134, 139–40, 146, 154, 157–9, 162, sex education, 5, 18, 35, 47, 126, 200 176, 188, 209, 229 sexist scripts, 51, 91, 141, 187 The Story of O, 83, 146, 224 “sexperts” 125–7, 129, 140 stigma/stigmatization, 19, 63, 111, 114, 132, sexting, 56 145–6, 151–62, 164–5, 167, 206 sexology, 171–6, 212 Strangers by the Lake, 103 sexual ideology, 25 “strong objectivity” 173 index 279 subversion/subversiveness, 5, 52, 76, 86–88 virginity, 25, 99, 136–7, 139, 182 Summer with Monika, 84 visual scripts, 54–6, 66–7, 81, 85, 88–9, Sunday Bloody Sunday, 102–3, 112 95–6, 99, 139, 220, 222 swallowing (sperm) 128 von Trier, Lars, 80 syneisaktism, 78–9 voyeurism, 70, 96, 144, 153, 206

T W

Tantra/tantric scripts, 78, 84, 224–5 Water Lilies, 137 Taoism, 78, 225 Wayne’s World, 105 textual analysis (also see framing) 41–4 When Harry Met Sally, 136 Tiefer, Leonore, 172, 177, 181, 183–4, 187 witches, 83, 178 To Catch a Predator, 204 Wonder Woman, 143, 162, 230 Together, 28, 88 World Naked Bike Race, 90 topless sunbathing, 55, 89–91, 231 Women’s Health magazine, 126, 131–4, 136, touch/touching (in a sensual way) 60–1, 92, 146, 174 95–9 trophyism, 6, 70, 144 X

U xenophobia, 5–6

The Unbearable Lightness of Being, 87 “uranians”/“uranian” love, 104–5 Y urologists/urology, 64, 177 uses and gratifications, 126 youthfulness, 95, 203–4

V Z

Vaginagate, 89–90 “zigzag” method, 14 vaginal orgasm (also see coital orgasm) 11, Žižek, Slavoj, 52, 230 134, 175 Zorba the Greek, 7 vaginismus, 182 “vanilla” scripts, 4, 110–1, 140, 196 Venus in Fur, 96, 155 Verhoeven, Paul, 53, 83 Viagra, 6, 164, 167, 172, 180–1, 183–9, 191, 216, 220 vibrators, 66, 134 violent sexual culture (also see rape culture) 8, 32, 59, 81, 153, 157, 181, 200 Virgin, 84