How To Lose Your Virginity
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May 21 2010, 12:05 PM
Okay this won't actually tell all you Geek Girls and Boys out there how to lose it. That's right. I used sex to lure you. This is a shorter version of the full interview I did with Therese Shechter, the filmmaker behind How To Lose Your Virginity, a documentary about virginity culture and why we are so obsessed with virgins (and slutting them up then judging them.) She's in Istanbul right now because she's fancy, and so we did a virtual interview. The full interview can be found here.
Beth: I'm diving right in with this one, because as someone who had no business wearing white at my wedding (and didn't) I'm wondering how much of the virgin-ey stuff did you have at your wedding?
Therese: The 'white wedding' construct disturbed me but, I decided that I would try on some white gowns with an open heart and see if I really did feel like a 'princess.' And of course I also filmed it for the documentary, with the amusing results you see in the trailer. It turned out I was excruciatingly uncomfortable being in those dresses, and I ended up wearing a gorgeous long lime green and black dress for my wedding.
Beth: And is virginity being redefined or are we just talking about it more?
Pre-marital sex is nothing new, I just think we're talking about it a lot more, and we're more open about sex in general which is a good thing. It's allowing people to see that their own feelings about sexuality are shared by many others, and that there's no one-size-fits-all when it comes to our intimate lives.
Beth: Have you thought about what you will say to your kids? And what happened to Our Bodies Ourselves being the go-to guide for teen girls? I loved that book.
Therese: I don't have kids, but I can see how it might be uncomfortable to discuss it, and my parents didn't really talk to me about sex. I learned everything I know from Judy Blume, The Joy of Sex and Letters to Penthouse Forum! When I got to college, I bought my first copy of OBOS and I still refer to it today.
Beth: Talk to me about The Sasha Grey phenomenon - porn, intelligent porn, all the 3rd and 4th wave stuff.
Therese: Conversations about porn are complex. I'll just say that it's not going away, and everyone likes different flavors of it. I think the most important thing is to help people understand that it's fantasy. We get into trouble when we start believing that it's the how-to guide for having sex in your real life. Also, sometimes people lose sight of the fact that the reason the actors look like they love everything they're doing is because they're being *paid* to.
I spent an eye-opening day on the set of the virgin-fetish porn outfit Barely Legal, shooting what I think is one of the most interesting parts of my doc. Everyone was fun and nice, and in a lot of ways, it was like any other well-run film set I've been on. Except that people were having sex on the hood of a car. And no, no one actually lost their virginity. They're professional actors.
Beth: And one for the cheap seats: favorite/least favorite cherry popping moments in film/tv/literature
Therese: I have a few favorites:
A classic for me is "Buffy The Vampire Slayer," where Buffy has sex with Angel for the first time. The pleasure it gives him breaks an ancient curse that's been placed on him and he becomes a vicious vampire again - which Buffy cruelly finds out the morning after. It speaks to that classic fear that once you have sex with a guy, he'll treat you totally differently. Joss Whedon was great at reflecting the everyday pains of high school into the world of demons, and this scene is a great example.
(a promo from Season 2 where Buffy and Angel have sex and he reverts to his demon self.)
In "Real Women Have Curves," I love that America Ferrara's character has non-melodramatic sex with her boyfriend, enjoys it, doesn't get pregnant or die, and when her mother finds out, she stands up the her. Then she gets into a great university and moves on with her life. Sex is just one part of her coming-of-age-story.
(it won't embed but this is one of my favorites too. http://www.youtube.com/watch#!v=lf5apkxo1Sw)
In "The Wackness," the teenage male protagonist is your typical horndog chasing after the girl of his dreams. When they do finally hook up, his total awkwardness in bed leads to his confession that he's a virgin. Her reaction is to say she's had sex lots of times and can show him how it's done. He reacts to the news with great joy. There's never any commentary about her sexual experience defining her in any way that's shameful or judgmental.
I think it's telling that the best examples come from indy films, not mainstream Hollywood ones.
I loved Therese's answers so much, but there are a lot more great de-virginizing scenes (Lloyd Dobler in Say Anything shaking comes to mind.) Tweet them to me at @bethshax and we'll come up with a full cherry popping list.
Want to be part of the movie making process? Yes, yes you do. Go to Kickstarter right now and help Therese out with her movie. Skip two drinks tonight. You don't need Red Dead Redemption AND Super Mario Galaxy 2. Choose one and then take that $20 and put it towards a movie getting made.
Okay this won't actually tell all you Geek Girls and Boys out there how to lose it. That's right. I used sex to lure you. This is a shorter version of the full interview I did with Therese Shechter, the filmmaker behind How To Lose Your Virginity, a documentary about virginity culture and why we are so obsessed with virgins (and slutting them up then judging them.) She's in Istanbul right now because she's fancy, and so we did a virtual interview. The full interview can be found here.
Beth: I'm diving right in with this one, because as someone who had no business wearing white at my wedding (and didn't) I'm wondering how much of the virgin-ey stuff did you have at your wedding?
Therese: The 'white wedding' construct disturbed me but, I decided that I would try on some white gowns with an open heart and see if I really did feel like a 'princess.' And of course I also filmed it for the documentary, with the amusing results you see in the trailer. It turned out I was excruciatingly uncomfortable being in those dresses, and I ended up wearing a gorgeous long lime green and black dress for my wedding.
Beth: And is virginity being redefined or are we just talking about it more?
Pre-marital sex is nothing new, I just think we're talking about it a lot more, and we're more open about sex in general which is a good thing. It's allowing people to see that their own feelings about sexuality are shared by many others, and that there's no one-size-fits-all when it comes to our intimate lives.
Beth: Have you thought about what you will say to your kids? And what happened to Our Bodies Ourselves being the go-to guide for teen girls? I loved that book.
Therese: I don't have kids, but I can see how it might be uncomfortable to discuss it, and my parents didn't really talk to me about sex. I learned everything I know from Judy Blume, The Joy of Sex and Letters to Penthouse Forum! When I got to college, I bought my first copy of OBOS and I still refer to it today.
Beth: Talk to me about The Sasha Grey phenomenon - porn, intelligent porn, all the 3rd and 4th wave stuff.
Therese: Conversations about porn are complex. I'll just say that it's not going away, and everyone likes different flavors of it. I think the most important thing is to help people understand that it's fantasy. We get into trouble when we start believing that it's the how-to guide for having sex in your real life. Also, sometimes people lose sight of the fact that the reason the actors look like they love everything they're doing is because they're being *paid* to.
I spent an eye-opening day on the set of the virgin-fetish porn outfit Barely Legal, shooting what I think is one of the most interesting parts of my doc. Everyone was fun and nice, and in a lot of ways, it was like any other well-run film set I've been on. Except that people were having sex on the hood of a car. And no, no one actually lost their virginity. They're professional actors.
Beth: And one for the cheap seats: favorite/least favorite cherry popping moments in film/tv/literature
Therese: I have a few favorites:
A classic for me is "Buffy The Vampire Slayer," where Buffy has sex with Angel for the first time. The pleasure it gives him breaks an ancient curse that's been placed on him and he becomes a vicious vampire again - which Buffy cruelly finds out the morning after. It speaks to that classic fear that once you have sex with a guy, he'll treat you totally differently. Joss Whedon was great at reflecting the everyday pains of high school into the world of demons, and this scene is a great example.
(a promo from Season 2 where Buffy and Angel have sex and he reverts to his demon self.)
In "Real Women Have Curves," I love that America Ferrara's character has non-melodramatic sex with her boyfriend, enjoys it, doesn't get pregnant or die, and when her mother finds out, she stands up the her. Then she gets into a great university and moves on with her life. Sex is just one part of her coming-of-age-story.
(it won't embed but this is one of my favorites too. http://www.youtube.com/watch#!v=lf5apkxo1Sw)
In "The Wackness," the teenage male protagonist is your typical horndog chasing after the girl of his dreams. When they do finally hook up, his total awkwardness in bed leads to his confession that he's a virgin. Her reaction is to say she's had sex lots of times and can show him how it's done. He reacts to the news with great joy. There's never any commentary about her sexual experience defining her in any way that's shameful or judgmental.
I think it's telling that the best examples come from indy films, not mainstream Hollywood ones.
I loved Therese's answers so much, but there are a lot more great de-virginizing scenes (Lloyd Dobler in Say Anything shaking comes to mind.) Tweet them to me at @bethshax and we'll come up with a full cherry popping list.
Want to be part of the movie making process? Yes, yes you do. Go to Kickstarter right now and help Therese out with her movie. Skip two drinks tonight. You don't need Red Dead Redemption AND Super Mario Galaxy 2. Choose one and then take that $20 and put it towards a movie getting made.
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