In anticipation of Valentine's Day, the most godawful of holidays (except maybe Thanksgiving--and Christmas is really a "season"), I've been watching HBO's Tell Me You Love Me. I knew that there wouldn't be any personal identification going on, that it'd be the exact opposite: pleasurable disidentification: l love feeling smug and self-satisfied that I'm not one of "those people." (I doubt this show is very high on anyone's Netflix queue, so don't worry about spoilers. The show is lame. Read on.)
So who are "those people," anyway. Well, first of all they are 30-somethings, most of them. Late 30s or early 40s trying to appear in their 30s. Yes, I'm aware of my own age, but 30-somethings belong to a culture, one to which I don't belong at all. These people have pretty much given up on all their "childish" hobbies and taken up child-rearing only or simply become ultra-serious. There's no joy left, no playfulness in their personalities. They are Uber-adults.
Okay, so there's one youngish couple so far, but they're the "immature" couple who uses sex as a way to cover up their real issues. What issues are they?
That leads me to Smugness # 1: I Am So Glad I Will Never Have The Conversation About...what the mother-in-law's power trips are doing to the relationship. Bride-to-be wants no cake; groom wants his mom to be happy and have her way--to be thrown a bone and allowed SOME decision-making; they argue; they fight; they don't resolve it; they fuck instead. Ah yes, I can sit back and relax knowing that I would never marry anyone who allowed their parents to control shit about us. Period. Have fun with THAT tug of war.
Smugness # 2: I'll Never Have to Worry About Jealousy Over The Other One's Masturbation. Indeed, what has increasingly a primal scene in Hollywood is the straight female's wanting sex, the male's rolling over and feigning sleep, her leaving, the guy secretly masturbating under the covers, and the girl accidentally walking in on that--usually without being seen by him. Classic! And hilarious, too, because it suggest that for the years and years that they've been married, they've actually held to some kind of contract that each person's entire sexuality is funneled into the other --or perhaps, they've believed masturbation is resorted to when the other is absent for a long time (supporting fantasies, of course, feature the other as the main attraction, right?).
Smugness # 3: I ALready Had the Whole, "Do You Think I'll Be The Last Person You're Ever Attracted To?" conversation at like, 19 years old. How can any adult 30-something human being pretend that they don't have an unconscious? And yet on Feb 14 of this year alone, thousands and thousands of couples around the world will break up precisely over this sticking point. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! Jealousy is so fucked anyway, but that kind of jealousy is just petty.
Smugness # 4: I get to make fun of Coupledom in general. The show loves close ups of faces and all the "little things" that couples do that also say "I Love You"--without the actual words. Words are so...trite. Like this is a lesson people STILL need to learn!!!!! Cue "More Than Words" by Exxxxtreme. Got it folks? Body language says so much more! Except that yet ANOTHER 10,000 couples will, on Feb 14, break up precisely because one of them didn't use those exact words. Or include a Pooh bear with a Valentine sewed on to its nappy fur. That's right folks, I've actually been there AND received such a gift, which was then bitterly snatched from me when I dared to debate the semantics of that trite and meaningless phrase. Looks like I'm actually allowing the show to make a good point...
Smugness # 5 (by now simply an extension of # 4): I will never stare nonchalantly at my wife's peeing upon a pregnancy testing stick. HBO is heralded for showing the "frank" and "mundane" aspects of couples' lives. But before you accuse me of being squeamish about bodily functions--I'm not--at least consider that if you've gotten to the point at which the sight of your partner taking down her underwear, peeing (while possibly yawning and talking about the weather) and then pulling it back up is somehow boring, you've definitely left the initial passionate phase far behind. And this can be a good thing, I suppose. But I'm willing to bank that this couple's sex life is as vanilla as the Febreeze that they spray when they're done. There so damn domestic. BTW, she had a airline runway pube-doo. What's with these people who are boring in every way but that way, who try to "spice it up" with a hip pussy-shave? Another episode will probably feature the V or the Hitler, which one of them looks at but totally doesn't say anything about because he's chewing on a ham sandwich. Oh Brenda of Six Feet Under, where are you? I need you "Tell me Your Not Serious With Your Shaved Balls" running commentary during these moments. That show was so fucking awesome, HBO. You totally blew it going in this new direction.
The show has one good thing going for it: the queerest couple in it is... old. Not to old. Post retirement age. They aren't too lusty or too domestic, just perfectly attuned to each other in a way that you don't see much on TV, either because it really IS rare or because the U.S. can't handle senior citizens' sexuality. Yes, as love objects they are hetero, but as characters, and in the context of all these other cringe-worth straight couples, they practice a queer lifestyle indeed! And NO Viagra necessary.
#6: I'm Not a strict Monogamist. The drama of the show is built around Compulsory Monogamy and the problems that monogamists face because they have to spend so much extra time structuring themselves around the always already structuring demands of monogamy. They can't get too involved in something because they have to do one of the thrice daily "check in" phone calls; they can't share too many perverse desires because someone will be left out and have to experience a temporary shattering of self-esteem; even intimacy itself becomes equated with monogamy, endlessly mirroring, mirroring, mirroring..... I wonder how many other Eager To Be Normal viewers watch intently at how one couple manages to have sex without ever ceasing to passionately kiss each other. No other physicality takes place but the kissing and the penetrative copulation.
# 7: (extension of 6) So far, the show has depicted not a single queer act of love: no untraditional erogenous zones touched (say, an elbow), no fingering as its own means and end, no oral sex for a woman that is its own means to and end, no means without an end, no blurred lines between talk and sex or music and sex, no discussion of the politics of what their doing--no 'meta' talk, that is. Oh wait, one couple sneaks away during dinner and has sex without the dinner guests even knowing!!!! Okay, that's slightly perverse. It was unplanned, didn't occur in their own bed, and involved more laughter than serious eye-gazing. But ultimately there's nothing yet queer about the show except that one senior couple. And of course no gay sex occurs at all, vanilla or queer. HBO wouldn't want to step on Showtime's toes!
# 8 The dad whose TEN year old daughter got her period finds himself STILL reading bedtime stories to her. Glancing from the book to the Kotex on her dresser, he swallows nervously. Ha! Even I, the non-breeder, wouldn't lose a wink of sleep over the whole "daddy's little girl ain't a little girl no more" bullshit. I wouldn't be able to wait until my kid was older because then we'd finally be able to talk like adults--precisely the point of me not liking kids so much, I guess.
# 9 I'll never experience the fear surrounding that oldest of dictums: No Matter What, You Always Sleep in The Same Bed. Even if you're flu-like, or simply need some space, or just "want to." These monogamists steel themselves at bedtime! The awkwardness, the monotony, the dressing ritual in silence--all because they can't break habit or simply sleep away from each other for a while so that, you know, absence makes the heart grow fonder. It's unthinkable!
# 10 I laugh and cringe as the 30-somethings take a lesson from the Baby Boomers and decide that they can perhaps patch up their relationship by either sailing or gardening together, even though only one of them is good at either at any given time. Throw that trowel down in a huff! Aw, go inside and find out what's wrong, dude! She's never had an orgasm and her therapist found out before you did! And all this right before your twilight years start to come around the bend!
#11 Ah hell, I'll save the rest of the bashing for Valentine's Day. More to come kiddie-winkies!
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