Lesbian sex scenes have never done it for me. They possess an appeal that misses my radar entirely. For a sex scene to work for me, there needs to be a character involved that I can put myself in the place of. Hence, when two girls are going at it, I’m always left on the sidelines. It’s the same reason I can’t stand UFC. Neither the lesbian world nor the Octagon are places I can envision myself in. Other, more daring, people can enjoy them.
The lesbian sex scene in the movie “Black Swan” turned me off for an entirely different reason. If you haven’t seen the movie, there’s a scene about an hour into the movie where Natalie Portman and Mila Kunis get down like they’ve just come home from an Ani DiFranco concert. The scene, despite its glaring lack of nudity (the ’70s would be ashamed), is really pretty graphic. As it played, though, I couldn’t help but feel uncomfortable. This was because the two actresses involved didn’t look like women to me; they looked more like girls who carry fake IDs.
Afterwards, I got to thinking about it. I remembered how I hit puberty back in the days of Red Shoe Diaries and the “erotic thriller.” The early nineties were dominated by the likes of Pamela Anderson, Joan Severance, Sharon Stone, and the amazing duo of knockout Shannons (Tweed and Whirry). It was such a different time from today…a time when the women looked like women. Thinking hard on the subject matter, I determined that I couldn’t remember anyone from that period who was quite as girlish as Natalie Portman or Mila Kunis. Yes, we had Drew Barrymore playing “Poison Ivy.” However, when Drew stripped down, it wasn’t all rib cage and hip bone. There were actual breasts and hips to disguise those things. And, if I’m not mistaken, “Poison Ivy” didn’t win any Golden Globe awards.
Taking this train of thought perhaps a bit too seriously, I began to do some research. First, there was the Maxim Hot 100. I wanted to know if we really have seen a tectonic shift in taste – if a new Baywatch would be cast with girls in training bras. The Hot 100 wasn’t too bad, although it certainly had its share of nymphs: Blake Lively, Emma Stone, Hayden Panettiere, and Amanda Bynes to name a few. The answer came to me, though, when I switched my research into the realm of porn. There it was, clear as day. Of the top 12 most popular porn stars in 2010 (measured by Internet searches and hits), a large number looked very, very young (Sasha Grey, Ashlynn Brooke, etc). Then I found the 30 most circulated porn mags and read the titles – Barely Legal, Just 18, Finally Legal, Girls Gone Wild the Magazine, etc. It’s not that Hollywood has gone all Humpert Humpert. Porn has. Hollywood is just catching up.
To be fair, there were also a few MILF magazines. Maybe that’s the problem. It’s not a MILF – it’s a WOMAN. It’s only a MILF if you’re a teenager. I have a feeling it isn’t teenagers buying the MILF magazines, or Barely Legal for that matter. It’s men whose sexual fantasies peaked at age 17 and have been repeating since then. Let them download “Black Swan” and get all giddy off it.
Then again, I’m equally as bad, aren’t I? The only difference is that I grew up in an era where girls hadn’t gone wild yet and, for better or for worse, to see a hot lesbian scene you had to watch Cinemax after 11:00. And it wouldn’t star an Oscar favorite. Just a grown woman, possibly named Shannon.
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