Intimacy: Dangers and Longings

By Ruth Martin

The Sexy International Film Festival showcases local and international movies focused on love, relationships and sexuality. In September, a week's worth of movies were screened in Melbourne, and now the Festival is set to hit Perth, London, Paris, New York and San Francisco. Two of the movies that will be shown in Perth are Lap of Death and Caroco No Dente.

Lap of Death is a dark and frantic tale of pleasure, pain and death. The scene is set with a male character watching a female lap dancer. As she works her art, he becomes more agitated, more aware of the consequences of his rapidly increasing arousal. His heart beats faster as she works him into a erotic frenzy . . . .

Whilst is this a very short piece, I found it to be packed with many issues we have in society with sexuality. Although sex is a natural part of ourselves, and indeed, is all around us and constantly "in our faces", the film pinpoints our discomfort with actually expressing it personally, associating it as we often do with 'danger' and leading us to feel that we must keep it at a distance. Yet for this film's voyeur, keeping it at a distance doesn't reduce the danger.

Another important concept explored by this film is the consumption of sex. When one keeps sexuality at arm's length, the sexual act is likely to have a certain lack of intimacy. (Hence the "look but don't touch" titillation found in Western cultures.) Sexual acts can be bought and sold for the right price; but the same cannot be said for sexual intimacy. Intimacy means opening up to being hurt, to allowing another to experience and gain some of our essence.

This is particularly poignant when considering male sexuality. Masculinity in Western culture is about disconnection from the emotional, about not letting anyone in, so as to appear tough and invincible to others. Yet this makes many men vunerable and afraid deep down, as they are not allowed to express themselves in a way that can foster intimacy, particularly during the sexual act, and which open men up to the possiblity that someone - anyone - can break down the façade, enter the realms of intimacy and touch feelings that are very raw. I often ask myself - as have many that study masculity in Western culture - "At what cost do men shut themselves off emotionally from the world?" For many men, this can be a place of confusion as well as loneliness.

This point brings me to the other film: Caroco No Dente, or With a Seed Between the Teeth. This film is about the seemingly ordinary day of a young man in Brazil. Whilst he superficially seems to be happy, attractive and sexually satisfied, he is, in reality, very far away from this ideal. He is someone that has to purchase "pussy in a can", longing for something different. In his particular case, he lusts after his female colleague, apparently finding it difficult to express to her that he likes her. He thus instead resorts to visiting a fruit section of a local supermarket to buy a watermelon, which he proceeds to take home to use sexually.

Although this film seems fairly humourous, there is a sad undertone to the protagonist's quest to find sex. For this man, sex is commodified and packaged. It is something fleeting, an instantaneous gratification. He initially finds this to be satisfying, but after what seems to be many 'cans', he yearns for something else. He thus begins lusting after his workmate, seeing her as a watermelon; perhaps suggesting that the woman is a 'fresh' and 'juicy' sex object because she can't be bought. On the other hand, he seems to be awkward in his interactions with her, suggesting that he may be afraid of opening himself up to her, consequently attempting to get satifaction and nourishment via pentrative sex with a watermelon, whilst thinking of his workmate. Despite seeming to "have it all", he also seems terribly alone; and the final scene of him on the street emphasises that he could be any guy that we pass on a daily basis.

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